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Other People's Choices	By : Lomonaaeren Category: Harry Potter > General > General Views: 24374 -:- Recommendations : 1 -:- Currently Reading : 5
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter. I am making no money from this story

Chapter List
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Chapter Eighteen—No
Harry does get to watch the Sorting and eat part of his dinner before Dumbledore calls him to his office, but only part. The Headmaster stands up and nods, saying something to McGonagall, before he walks down from the Head Table and comes to stand in front of Harry.
“If you’ll come with me so we can speak, Mr. Potter,” he says. His voice is heavy and sad. But Harry got used to sadness during the summer, from Hermione sounding worried for him and feeling it for Theo and Blaise and enduring disappointed looks from Tarquinius and Snape.
Everyone is staring at them. Harry hopes it’s just because he’s the Boy-Who-Lived and not because they think he’s going to start acting like a Slytherin now. He doesn’t want to spread the disappointment around.
“Yes, Headmaster,” he says, and follows him out of the Great Hall.
They make their way to the first staircase up to the Headmaster’s office in silence, but then Dumbledore stirs and asks, “So how was your summer, dear boy?”
“Interesting.”
“And did you want to tell me where you were staying, instead of with the Dursleys?”
“No.”
Dumbledore only sighs like he expected that. They come to a stop in front of the gargoyle, and he turns around and bends down so that he can look into Harry’s eyes. Harry looks at the gargoyle instead. He doesn’t want Dumbledore to read his mind. Although Snape doesn’t think Harry will ever be good at Occlumency, there’s no law saying he has to look into the eyes of a Legilimens.
“Harry,” Dumbledore whispers. “I am so sorry about the deaths of your relatives. I should have realized that grief would make you react this way. First you were stripped of your friends and your place in the Tower, and then your family died. You’ve had no one to rely on. I want to make that better. But I can’t if you aren’t honest with me.”
Harry wonders if he would have felt better responding to that when he was a Gryffindor. But then he shakes his head. No, the Dursleys weren’t dead then. A lot has changed.
“I don’t want to be honest with you,” he says. Dumbledore actually takes a step back as if Harry’s statement is a wind pushing him away. Harry makes a note to himself to look up wind spells. They sound like they could be useful. “Sir, you wanted me to live with the Dursleys instead of the Weasleys. You sound…” He hesitates, because he isn’t good at this. But he has to try. “You sound like you understand why it was hard for me to be in Slytherin, but you were going to send me back to the Dursleys anyway. Why?”
“It is the safest place for you, my boy—”
“Then it didn’t matter they called me a freak?” Harry asks. His hands are shaking, and he doesn’t want to talk about this, but it seems like it’s going to come bubbling out anyway, whether or not he wants it to. “It doesn’t matter that they made me sleep in a cupboard until I got my Hogwarts letter and told me my parents were drunks and all the rest of that rubbish? Everything was fine as long as I didn’t die?”
Dumbledore is watching him with wide eyes. Then he shakes his head and gives a glance down the corridor. Harry wonders if someone is trying to sneak up on them and listen. “I think my office is a better place to talk about this.”
“Not without me, Headmaster.”
Professor Snape is walking up to them, his lips compressed in a thin line. He stops and puts a hand on Harry’s shoulder. It feels as if it’s going to burn right through Harry’s robe, even though Harry is used to thinking of Professor Snape as cold and clammy. “I have a vested interest in learning what Mr. Potter has to say about his relatives.”
Harry hunches his shoulders. So Snape isn’t here to support him. He’s here because he wants Harry to “talk.” He kept trying to make him “talk” during the summer. Harry berates himself for his own stupidity in bringing up what the Dursleys did in the first place.
Then he reminds himself of what else he decided on the train, what he’s already kind of started by telling his friends that Draco was going to sit in the compartment with them. He’s going to do what’s best for him, and not what people think makes him a Slytherin or a Gryffindor or evil or a hero. He manages to stop feeling like an idiot and just stand there looking at Dumbledore as if he has no idea what comes next.
“My office, Harry,” Dumbledore repeats softly.
“All right, sir.”
*
Severus holds back a hiss of exasperation at the way Harry keeps his back to him all the way up to Albus’s office. What does the boy want? Does he think that the summer doesn’t matter here? Does he expect Severus to pretend that he never learned about him, never tutored him?
It will not happen. And now that Severus is the boy’s Head of House, he has the power to enforce that decision without being a bully.
Albus waves Severus and Harry to chairs in front of his desk, his eyes brightening as he glances between them. Probably hoping that Severus has “forgiven the sins of the father,” or something like that.
Severus muffles a snort. Albus has no idea who Harry has turned into. Then again, at the moment, neither does Severus. They both turn to look at him expectantly when Harry sits down.
His eyes are gleaming. His jaw is set. Severus raises an eyebrow, but Albus starts the questioning again.
“Don’t you want to be safe during the summers, Harry? The attack on your relatives proves that anything can happen to your protectors at any time. It would be best if we collected young Mr. Dursley, who I’m sure survived the attack, and established another set of blood-based protections as soon as possible.”
“But if the Dursleys died, sir, doesn’t that prove that the blood protections weren’t worth anything?”
“They can be renewed, and then they will be worth something,” Albus replies at once. “Please, Harry, tell me where young Mr. Dursley is. It won’t be needed for ten months, of course, but in that time, we can start work on a new home for you both.”
“No.”
Albus looks at Harry. Harry looks back. Severus, forgotten by both, leans back in his chair and thinks he has never seen such pure refusal in another human face before.
“I know that your relatives did not always treat you well.” Albus pitches his voice in what Severus has come to think of as his gentle wheedle. “But Harry, no one can expect perfection from all human beings. In your aunt’s case, she was jealous of your mother and perhaps it is to be expected that she would take that jealousy out on you—”
At that point, Severus intervenes, because the tide of poisonous black disgust rising from his belly is too strong to be contained. “That sounds perilously close to blaming the boy for his abuse, Albus.”
The man starts and turns to him. From the sharp gesture he makes, Severus knows that he does not want to make Harry think that. He is manipulative, yes, but at such a deep level that he can hide his manipulations even from himself, along with all the other things that he does not want to face straight on. “Never that, Severus. The things Harry describe sound hideous. But we need to remember that Muggles and wizards have a long history of misunderstanding each other, and—”
“You can fetishize blood family and Muggle-wizard interaction all you like, Albus.” Severus holds his voice low. Shouting would only attract more fascinated attention than that of the portraits on the walls of the office. “But you will not make a member of my House a recipient of your idolization.”
Harry glances sideways at him. Severus thinks he knows why, down to the words that Harry is probably putting his thoughts in. He only cares about me because I’m a Slytherin. He wouldn’t care about anyone else who wasn’t.
That is not true, but it is the safest role for Severus to play in front of the Headmaster. “You will not make someone else pay the price of your good intentions. Besides,” he adds, picking up on the thread that he thinks Albus has been trying to conceal, “even if Mr. Potter was foolish enough to agree to this, his cousin is his age. Who would keep watch over them both?”
“I believe the Dursleys had other Muggle relatives, Severus. I must admit I haven’t had good success in tracing them yet, but—”
“No.”
It rings out over the office, impregnated with enough magic to make the portraits and Fawkes’s perch rattle. The whispering Headmasters of years past and the phoenix go silent abruptly. Severus stares at Harry. His eyes are glowing with power this time.
“No,” he says flatly. “I only met one of Uncle Vernon’s relatives, and she hates me. She’s not going to take care of me. She probably ran away with Dudley, and good riddance. I’m never going back to them again.”
“Harry, you must agree—”
“No.”
“You must see that running away from the school and potentially staying with a Death Eater—”
“No.”
“I am only trying to help you, Harry, my boy.” Albus’s voice breaks with frustration. For the first time since Severus has met him, he thinks the man is close to running his hands through his hair. “You need a safe place to stay. Going to a Death Eater will not keep you safe from Voldemort!”
“No,” Harry says, but Albus would be a fool to mistake it for agreement.
Either a fool or hopeful, Severus thinks with a roll of his eyes, as Albus smiles a little. “Then you won’t stay in the same place next summer?”
“I want to stay with the Weasleys.”
“That may be difficult to impossible, though, Harry.” Albus picks up the serious tone that he uses to convince straying members of the Order of the Phoenix. “It could easily put them in danger. You wouldn’t want to do that, would you?”
“No.”
Severus holds back the headshake the same way that he’s holding back multiple attempts to shake sense into Albus. This time, the man is smiling as if he does think Harry is agreeing.
Harry, staring back like a wolf in a trap, has agreed to nothing. He doesn’t want to put his friends in danger; that doesn’t mean he will spend summers and other holidays where Albus places him. Severus seethes on the inside, while maintaining an expression on the far side of bland. The boy needs careful handling, delicate exploration of the damage the Muggles have done to him. But the chance is gone now.
“Good. Then we’ll discuss what should happen over the summer when the summer gets closer.” Albus clasps his hands and smiles at them both. “Good evening, Harry, Severus.”
*
Snape insists on escorting him back to the Slytherin common room, as if Harry could have forgotten where it was in two months. Harry keeps his mouth shut all the time. He doesn’t want to get angry in front of Snape, and he also doesn’t want to get into the matter of the Dursleys, which he thinks Snape will raise if he gets a chance.
They stop in front of the blank stretch of dungeon wall, and Snape delicately clears his throat. “You realize that you can talk to me when you—wish an adult confidant who will not try to shove you back into living with your relatives.”
Harry nods.
“Is there anything you wish to speak to me about right now?”
Harry doesn’t think Snape would try to read his mind, but he still keeps his eyes locked on the wall. “No, sir.” He knows he’s not acting like a Slytherin, any more than he did when he confronted the Headmaster in the corridor outside his office. But he’s not a Slytherin, not really. He’s himself.
Snape sighs as if that really bothers him. Harry doesn’t doubt it does. It’s not that he really thinks Snape would use the Dursleys against him, not now after keeping Harry’s secrets all summer.
It’s that he doesn’t want to talk about it.
“Very well.” Snape looks at the wall and adds, “Draconis rex.” The wall slides open, and Harry walks in, aware of Snape’s eyes on his back.
He didn’t expect to feel other eyes, though, except maybe Blaise’s and Theo’s. So it’s strange to see almost everyone in the common room looking at him. Harry comes to a stop, his hand on his wand. He’ll draw it if he needs to, but he doesn’t want to get accused of starting a fight and have everyone gang up on him.
“Took you long enough, Potter.” Marcus Flint stands up and nods briskly at him. “We’re discussing the role you’ll play on the team. I want to make sure that you know I expect you to try your very best, even when we’re opposite Gryffindor in the air.” He flashes a grin that makes Harry a little nauseous. “But we’ll try to keep you away from the Bludgers and make sure you never have to do anything but chase the Snitch. Meanwhile, Draco will be trying out—”
“No.”
Flint stares at him. Harry thinks it’s the only time he’s seen that expression. Flint usually looks either eager or homicidal. “What?”
“I’m not taking the Seeker’s position away from Draco.” Harry can feel Draco watching him from a few seats down. But he can’t tell without looking what Draco’s feeling right now, and he doesn’t think it’s a good idea to take his eyes off Flint.
“Malfoy’s already agreed,” Flint snaps. “Slytherin plays to win, Potter. We don’t give special privileges to people just because they might have been on the team last year.”
Then what was giving Malfoy a place on the team because his dad bought you brooms about? But Harry doesn’t say that. He only shakes his head. “Then you shouldn’t give me a place, either.”
“But everyone knows what you’re like, Potter. Do you see a single person in here who’s ever beat you to the Golden Snitch?”
“I won’t be the exception.” Actually, Harry doesn’t intend to play Quidditch at all. It would just be a horrible idea. A lot of Gryffindors would resent him, some Slytherins would—Draco most of all—and he doesn’t like the idea of cheating the way the Slytherin team always does.
No.
And plus, he wants to do other things. Practice more of the magic that Tarquinius taught him. Try to get up his Potions mark in a classroom instead of alone with Snape teaching him. Learn more about the magic that Tarquinius showed him with the Silver Hourglass.
Learn more about why I never got tested with it before, or maybe, if I was, where those records went.
Hell, just managing his Gryffindor and Slytherin collection of friends will take more time than he can spend on Quidditch practice.
“You’re making a mistake, Potter.” Flint steps towards him and lowers his voice, although Harry’s well-aware that everyone in the room can still hear every word. “You have to do something to prove that you’re of value to Slytherin House. You know, since you were Sorted here late.” His eyes flick up meaningfully to Harry’s lightning bolt scar, proving that he’s talking about that, too.
Harry smiles. It makes Draco flinch; he can see that much out of the corner of his eye. “You mean, Parseltongue isn’t valuable enough to Slytherin House?” he hisses.
Flint takes a wary step back. When Harry does nothing else, he says, “What good are you going to do with just that, though? It won’t earn Slytherin House points, or help us win the Quidditch Cup!”
“I was just proving that I have other things to offer,” Harry says, with a small shrug. “People can come and talk to me if they want a description of the Chamber of Secrets, or what it’s like being a Parselmouth,” he adds. It’s a thought he’s never had before, but honestly, talking about the Chamber of Secrets would be easier than talking about the bloody Dursleys or why he doesn’t want to play Quidditch.
Flint is scratching his head as if he doesn’t really know how to take this. Then again, Harry’s never thought he was the brightest of the lot.
“This isn’t over, Potter,” Flint finally settles for saying, before he stalks away dramatically. Harry shrugs and turns away before he rolls his eyes.
That brings him face-to-face with Draco, though. “Are you telling the truth about not wanting to play Seeker for Slytherin?” he demands.
“Yes.”
“But—” Draco looks a little lost. “Why?”
“I don’t want to cause hurt feelings, and there are things I would rather do instead,” Harry answers. “Like go to bed.” He marches up the stairs, ignoring Theo’s attempt to get his attention. He wants some privacy.
He only relaxes when he’s on the bed and staring up at the damn green curtains he’s pulled shut and locked with a charm Snape taught him.
If I have to be a Slytherin, it’s on my own terms.
*
Draco stares after Potter, and feels his heart pound with confusion. On the one hand, of course he’s glad that Potter isn’t going to challenge him for the Seeker spot.
On the other hand, he doesn’t like feeling grateful. And he can’t believe that someone would give up Quidditch. And part of him agrees with Flint—it’s important that the best players be on the team so the House can win. It doesn’t matter who they are, just what their skill level is.
In his heart of hearts, Draco Malfoy knows that Harry Potter is a better Seeker than he is.
He still hasn’t decided what to do by the time he goes to bed, and Theo and Blaise are muttering to themselves, too. There’s utter silence from Potter’s bed.
Draco falls asleep staring at the closed curtains and wondering what he should do.
*
Kain: No, Harry gave the impression of considering it because he wanted to get people off his back, and because he wondered if it would work for a bit. He has decided that it won't, hence his infuriating everybody in this chapter.
Tarquinius's legal arrrangements have to do with Harry's magical talents. And that's all I'm going to say about that.
Harry would go help Blaise in an instant. But he is aware enough now to know that that might not actually improve Blaise's position- at least until he has a guaranteed safe place to go to get away from his mother.
Sirius is not yet an escapee for reasons I will discuss later. But as for Tarquinius still being free, it's pretty simple: a combination of claiming to be under the Imperius Curse, bribes, and a few people who were stubborn about accusing him dead of snakebite or simple vanishing and never being heard from again.
SickPuppy: Well, you can see one of Harry's coping techniques here: "No." It's quite effective. :)
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