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The Art of Self-Fashioning	By : Lomonaaeren Category: Harry Potter > General > General Views: 26078 -:- Recommendations : 2 -:- Currently Reading : 3
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter. I am making no money from this story.

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Chapter Twenty—Black Blood

            It was early morning before Harry landed quietly to the side of Neville’s house, under a tree. He’d rested through most of the night, since it was too dark for flying. He’d let the mice look for food for him and they’d brought back a few nuts.

            As for the rest of the hunger, well, he was used to hunger.

            Standing behind a tall, unnaturally straight pine, Harry studied the protections around the house. They danced and flickered in the air, less threatening than he’d expected. Nothing like the fiery gates that Dumbledore had raised over Hogwarts’s real gates. These were so soft and silvery that if Harry hadn’t been looking directly at them, he would have missed them. They swirled into being sometimes, circles of light like Muggle searchlights.

            Harry wondered for a moment what he should do. He wanted to say he was a friend, but he couldn’t just walk up and knock on the door.

            Then he smiled a little. The house was in the middle of a thick, protected patch of forest with Anti-Muggle Charms all over it. Harry could probably gain attention with no danger by doing something simple.

            He held up his wand and fired a fountain of red and silver sparks that rose above the trees. Then he called, “I’m a friend of Neville’s!” as loudly as he could, and waited.

            It still took long minutes before someone stepped out of the front door and turned towards him. Harry saw she was wearing a huge dead vulture on her hat. He relaxed. Everyone had talked about how those were the clothes Neville had dressed his boggart in during third year.

            The woman stopped at the very edge of the protections, looking towards him fearlessly. Harry saw that she had small, bright eyes and a stubborn frown. He waited for her to find him, and she examined him from head to foot.

            “A friend?” she asked finally. “His only friends are the Weasley boy and Granger girl, and you don’t look much like them.”

            “And the Potter boy,” Harry said. “I’m Harry Potter.”

            The woman relaxed in a rush. “Ah, yes. The mysterious visitor he wanted me to fetch, and I would never consent without knowing why you didn’t want to come.” She reached out and touched her wand to one of the protective spells, tearing it back like a curtain. “Why are you here now, boy?”

            “Because the Headmaster found out about how good I am at Transfiguration, and he thinks that I should be under his supervision if I’m going to perform spells like that,” said Harry, knowing he would need to be at least a little honest if he wanted Mrs. Longbottom to stick up for him. He stood right next to the protective spells, since he thought that might let her see more about him.

            “Then you were the one who gave Neville his kitten,” said Mrs. Longbottom, and stood upright with a smack of her hands. She was taller than Harry had realized. “He told me that, but I didn’t think a student could be good enough. I’m glad you gave him Dapple. It’s helped him with his self-confidence.”

            She took a step forwards, scanning Harry. Harry blinked at her, and tried not to draw his wand. Using it when it had the Trace on it wasn’t smart anyway.

            Mrs. Longbottom was old, like Professor McGonagall, but otherwise nothing like her, Harry thought as he saw the sharp temper in the backs of her eyes. She examined him with sturdy concentration, and nodded when she was done. “That’s fine work,” she said, glancing at Cross, who had poked his head out of Harry’s deep pocket now that they were no longer flying. “What do you need, boy?”

            Harry relaxed a little. “A place to stay for a while, and something to eat,” he said. “For you not to tell Dumbledore about me, in case he asks. And for you to perform a few spells that I can’t do on my own.”

            “Of course, the Trace,” Mrs. Longbottom muttered. She appeared to think for another moment. Then she asked, “What’s your opinion on Voldemort, boy? Yes, I say his name,” she added. Harry’s eyes must have widened without his knowing it. “He took my son and nearly took my grandson, I can damn well say his name.”

            Harry smiled a little. “I hate him. He put my parents in St. Mungo’s and made me grow up with relatives who despised me.”

            “That’s sincere hatred in your voice,” said Mrs. Longbottom. “Come on, then.” She turned towards the stone house, seeming to assume Harry would follow.

            Harry did, with a little tingle and thrum of respect in his veins. He thought Mrs. Longbottom respected him, too. She gave him what he asked for after thinking how much it would cost her.

            This was the kind of adult he could get on with. If Professor McGonagall had only been a little less committed to asking questions about him, he thought he might have had the same kind of relationship with her.

            It’s too bad I couldn’t.

*

            Severus sat up with a gasp and a shaking hand. He knew before he touched his forehead that he would find sweat as sticky as honey, and hated himself for it.

            When he leaned back against his pillow, it was soaked with sweat, too. Cursing, Severus sat up and flicked his wand. The fire blazed up from its low smolder, and the torches in the walls came alight all at once.

            He had been forced to perfect that spell, which once he had neglected, since his memories of his confrontation with Harry Potter had returned. The nightmares always seemed to start out dark and go darker, narrowing to a single point of intense green light in the boy’s wild eyes as he stalked towards Severus.

            And unlike life, the nightmares ended with those claws poised above his eyes, and Potter murmuring orders to his animals to destroy him.

            How could the boy have grown so much in power without anyone being aware of it?

            Severus had thought, for some time, that Minerva knew about Potter’s strength and had kept it from everyone if only to enjoy a malicious chuckle at Albus’s and Severus’s expense. But the sight of her tears when Albus called the professors together to tell them what had happened had cooled those suspicions. He had to change his mind, too, when Minerva told them in a rasping voice that she wanted to offer Potter an apprenticeship with her in Transfiguration, but that she needed their help, because checking into all the places he might have gone hadn’t revealed him.

            Meanwhile, Albus thought the boy a Death Eater.

            Severus laughed at that now, although the sound was shaky and he shut himself up when he heard it. There was no way that feral thing he had seen in Lupin’s chambers was a Death Eater. For one thing, he had attacked Severus, and if the boy was trusted by the Dark Lord, he would have known about the Mark on Severus’s arm and at least hesitated.

            For another, Severus didn’t think the boy had a side, any more than a beast in the forest might. He had his goals, whatever they were, and he had learned Transfiguration in the service of those, not to serve someone else.

            He had told Albus that. Albus had nodded, looking doubtful, and told Severus that Minerva had made much the same arguments—that she thought “Harry” was looking for or wanting something else.

            “But it does make me wonder,” Albus said softly, “why he never asked for help with Transfiguration, if his purposes were entirely innocent. He could have gained so much more from a collaboration with Minerva.”

            Severus had stared at Albus, and finally asked the obvious question when Albus only blinked at him. “Because he didn’t want anyone else to know what he was doing?”

            “But why would he want to hide them if his purposes were innocent?”

            Severus had only shaken his head, and let the conversation go. Albus was far too invested in ideas of innocence, guilt, and other things he could understand to pay attention to what Severus thought was obvious about the situation.

            Now, Severus sat staring into the fire. He had to do something to rid himself of his nightmares. He had to do something to bring Potter back into a controllable situation so that his own reactions weren’t so clumsy, so ridden with obvious mistakes.

            And the only way he could think of to do that…

            Was to help Albus find Potter, and corral him to ask questions of him.

            At least that should help Albus see beyond the innocence of a child in this case.

*

            Mrs. Longbottom was the most accommodating adult Harry had ever been around.

            She asked him lots of questions about Transfiguration and his friendship with Neville and why he’d had to flee the school. Harry could answer them, though, without revealing that he wanted to learn Transfiguration to heal his parents.

            She just wasn’t that interested in his reasons, Harry thought. She wanted more facts.

            And that was what he most wanted and needed. If Professor McGonagall had just taught him instead of worrying about why he wanted to know, then she would have been perfect.

            But Harry shook the thoughts out of his head, and finally told Mrs. Longbottom something he hadn’t told anyone else: that he wanted revenge on the Lestranges who had tortured his parents. He told her one morning when they were sitting outside the large front doors of her house, in a clearing dotted with trees where songbirds flitted. Yar was in heaven, and Mrs. Longbottom didn’t object as long as she ate her kills out of sight.

            “I think it’s honorable to want to avenge your parents,” said Mrs. Longbottom. Her eyes were shrewd as she watched him over the top of her cup of tea. “But you know that it’ll be hard for you to find them. Especially if they are with You-Know-Who. He doesn’t want the Ministry to believe my Neville, so he isn’t taking open action right now.”

            “I know.” Harry ate his scone covered with clotted cream and watched Cross sleeping in the sunlight. “But I think I’ve come up with a way around that.”

            “What way?”

            “If I could get a bit of the blood of someone related to them. Neville told me once that almost all the pure-blood families are related to each other somehow. I know the spell wouldn’t be as strong if it was a distant relative, but is there someone still alive I could use for a closer match?” He looked at Mrs. Longbottom. Neville hadn’t been clear at all how the Lestranges or the Blacks were related to his family; Harry suspected he knew his genealogy, but he didn’t like reciting it.

            Mrs. Longbottom didn’t recoil in horror, which just made Harry more approving. She sat there sipping from her cup for a moment, eyes distant. Then she nodded decisively and turned to look at him.

            “There might be a better option. Instead of tracking with blood, you can track with resonances.”

            “What’s that?” Harry asked. He couldn’t remember hearing the word mentioned except in some speeches about politics, and they clearly weren’t talking about magical resonances there.



            “Resonances are the impressions left when someone has lived long enough in a place or touched an object for long enough.” Mrs. Longbottom reached into her robes around her neck and held out a locket towards Harry. It was shaped like a rising phoenix, and as Harry watched, she folded back one of the wings and showed him a photograph of a tall man with shining brown hair. “This is my son Frank. If he was still alive, someone could track him from it, because he carried it for a long time himself, beside one of my daughter-in-law Alice. And someone could track me from it or the locket.”

            “How long does it take for the impressions to fade? Why do they happen?” Harry was certain he didn’t remember hearing about this at Hogwarts.

            Of course, it might have been talked about in Defense or Charms or some other class he hadn’t paid much attention to. He had always meant to pay more attention to them, but, well, Transfiguration had kept him alive and running so far.

            “They happen because of the force of life that every magical creature carries around them,” said Mrs. Longbottom, with a sharp smile. “It’s what used to be called the Wild in old magical theories—”

            She paused. “You’ve heard of that, I see.”

            Harry wondered for a second if he should be alarmed that an adult could read him so well, but then flapped the suspicion away. Mrs. Longbottom showed no intention of stopping him, and that was the important thing. “Yes. I’m good with the Wild.”

            “With your success at Transfiguration, I’m not surprised.” Mrs. Longbottom took another sip. “So. The Wild leaves its imprints on objects that have been held and deeply cherished, or held for a long time. It wouldn’t include every quill or chair or stone that you’ve ever touched. But someone could track you from your clothes, or from your wand.”

            Another good reason not to use it, Harry thought. “Can you use the resonances without your wand?”

            “Yes. Or you could use them in a place where magic would be expected. A place where an adult wizard lives and whose magic the Ministry would expect to see, for instance.”

            Their eyes met and held, until Harry smiled. “So if I could find something that the Lestranges cherished…”

            “Yes.” Mrs. Longbottom nodded. “It would probably be easier to find something of Bellatrix’s, honestly. She was a Black, and the Black properties are still open and active. The Lestrange brothers are the last of their line, and their father died while they were both in prison. Their properties are shut up or not in the family anymore. Even if you could find one that was, it would be much more likely to host them than otherwise.”

            Harry nodded. He could sneak in and out of a house that was open, he thought, but he didn’t think he was good enough to face adult Death Eaters in open battle right now. He planned to capture and ambush the Lestranges.

            He did have one question to ask Mrs. Longbottom, though.

            “Why are you helping me so much?” he asked, leaning forwards until he caught her eye. “Is it just because I’m friends with Neville?”

            Mrs. Longbottom faced him like a general. “It’s because you’ve done your best to make Neville feel more confidence. Because you believe him about You-Know-Who returning—the first one who did. Because you made him that kitten. And because you’re carrying the war to your enemies. That’s the sort of thing we should be doing. Not the sort of thing that happens. But we should.”

            Harry relaxed. He had thought that maybe, at the end, she would mention something about children not being involved in war or him needing a special kind of help and care, the way he was sure Professor McGonagall would have. But as long as she didn’t, then he could trust her motivations.

            She might care about the war instead of him, but she was honest.

*

            Harry, where are you? Minerva thought as she Apparated away from Surrey. She hadn’t thought he would really return to the Dursleys, but it had been her last hope, and Albus had insisted she check on the house. Now Minerva collapsed before the fire in her own office and closed her eyes.

            She had checked the Forbidden Forest, every corner of the castle, St. Mungo’s, the graveyard where Sirius Black lay, and even the old Potter properties that were still there, held in abeyance while James languished in hospital and Harry was too young to own them, including the mostly-destroyed house in Godric’s Hollow. No sign that he had been anywhere near them. And while she had contacted the families of his friends, both the Boots and Augusta had reported no sign of him, not that Minerva had really expected him to claim sanctuary there when he had never wanted to visit them during the summer.

            She leaned back with closed eyes and thought in silence about what would probably happen next.

            Albus seemed to want to hunt Harry, but also to accept that they couldn’t find him for right now. Other than telling the Order of the Phoenix to watch out for him, he hadn’t mentioned Harry in several days.

            But Minerva could see the hole his going had left.

            Not a big one, and not as big a one as the disappearance of a more popular Ravenclaw like Patil or Goldstein would have left. But Boot kept looking around with a disquieted expression. Seamus Finnigan sometimes glanced at the Ravenclaw table and then away again. Filius was quieter and sadder whenever Minerva saw him. She knew that, at least, was because he felt like he hadn’t known Harry at all.

            And Neville…

            Minerva touched her forehead with one palm. It ached. Nothing like the headaches that poor Neville felt through his scar, she knew, but right now, she felt more empathy for him than she had ever done.

            Neville flinched from loud sounds again, something he hadn’t done since second year. He clung so tightly to Dapple that he had actually brought the kitten to Severus’s class, and ignored the demands to dismiss him. And he looked wistfully up at the sky, or the ceiling, whenever Minerva was training him in private. He seemed to think he might see Harry flying back any second, if he looked hard enough.

            Then again, Minerva was guilty of the same thing.

            She had one more tactic she hadn’t tried, at least. She could send an owl. As tired as she was, she took out ink and parchment and began to write.

            Dear Harry…

*

            You should know that I’m very worried about you. I won’t say the same thing is true of Headmaster Dumbledore. But we’re both worried about the cost that becoming so good at Transfiguration on your own might have exacted from you. I want you to know that you could have come to me, and no matter what the reason for such intensive study, I would have helped you.

            Harry held back a snort as he sat at breakfast with Mrs. Longbottom the morning the owl arrived. One of the mice stood on his shoulder and held the parchment steady, so Harry had a hand free for eating. Mrs. Longbottom was a stickler for manners, so Harry didn’t want to drip food on the table or actually snort.

            She wouldn’t have helped me. She would have been too worried about what it would cost me—she even says that!—instead of my parents. They lost everything. What have I lost in comparison?

            The letter continued, I want you to know that if you write to me, or come to me, I won’t report you to Albus or the Ministry. I won’t do anything without your permission. I only want to talk to you, and learn about your learning. What can I do to help? What can I do to make it safer for you?

            Yours sincerely,

            Minerva McGonagall.

            Harry sat back with a little sigh, of the kind that Mrs. Longbottom did permit. It was always about his safety. Never about rescuing his parents, or even worried about the safety of his animals.

            Why can’t she see that my life is a tool? Something I can do things with, not something that needs to be shut up in a glass case and protected?

            “Bad news?” Mrs. Longbottom asked casually, her eyes locked on his face.

            Harry shook his head and laid the letter down. “Not really. Professor McGonagall is worried about my safety and wants me to write to her. Maybe I will, later, when I’ve taken care of the Lestranges.”

            Mrs. Longbottom nodded, her eyes glittering. “I hope you don’t mind me saying it this way, Mr. Potter, but the more risks you take, the safer you make it for my Neville.”

            Harry smiled at her. “I don’t mind that. Neville’s my friend.”

            And more people need to be thinking about him, too. There was an article in the Daily Prophet this morning once again accusing Neville of lying about Lord Dudders and dismissing an attack on a Muggleborn Ministry worker as “a prank.”

            “You think you have everything you need to go to Number Twelve Grimmauld Place?”

            Harry looked up and nodded. “And you think that’s the easiest to access?”

            “In London. With so many other people that you’ll blend in more easily than you would in the isolated areas. And no one lives there properly anymore. It’s so dark and gloomy that the family only visits occasionally.” Mrs. Longbottom slowly sipped her tea. “Yes, I’m sure.”

            “Then I’ll start on my way tonight.”

*

            Harry moved slowly towards Number Twelve. Mrs. Longbottom had Apparated him into London and then to the street where the house was, Grimmauld Place. She had also cast a Disillusionment Charm on Harry. The house was one of those places like the Leaky Cauldron, not properly visible to Muggles, and Harry would appear suspicious simply walking into thin air, or looking around between the houses.

            Once Harry was inside, though, he was on his own.

            Harry’s skin prickled with excitement as he made his way slowly up the stairs. He had made more mice while he was in Mrs. Longbottom’s house—she didn’t mind that as long as they didn’t poop in the house or chew up the curtains—and they flowed around him and under the door and through a window that didn’t have everything properly shuttered up.

            It is a gloomy house, Harry thought, glancing at the sagging boards and the walls that were thick with dust even on the outside.

            The mice were to open the door. Harry hadn’t expected them to find a key, though if they did, they would know to bring it to the door, guided by one of the older ones who had been at the Dursleys’ and knew what a key looked like.

            But in the end, they did it the way he had suspected they would, using their sharp teeth on the wood around the lock until the door sagged and fell inwards. It didn’t take that many mice, all chewing in concert, long to do it. Harry smiled and caught the door as it swung, so it wouldn’t make noise that might alert the Muggle neighbors. Then he stepped inside.

            Instantly, a shimmering block of white light enclosed him, and a trembling, vibrating alarm began to ring.

            Harry cursed heavily as he reached forwards and found that his hand bounced off the inside of the block. However, his mice were still free, and he ordered them up the walls. Magical protections had to be attached to something, doors or windows or walls or torch sconces. They would find it, and bite through it or knock it down.

            And perhaps they would have managed it, but Harry heard heavy footsteps coming from the end of the corridor before they could. He stiffened and turned, knowing he could face a lot of pain. Perhaps Bellatrix was here, and that would be bad. But he owed it to his parents to suffer as bravely as he could.

            It wasn’t a woman who came into sight, though, but a man, tall and clad in black and moving in a leisurely way. Harry stared at him and realized he knew him. “You’re the man who was in the graveyard when Professor McGonagall took me to visit my godfather,” he whispered. “The first time.”

            “Yes.” The man folded his arms and raised his eyebrows a little. He had keen grey eyes, sharp enough to cut. “And you’re Harry Potter. My name is Regulus Black. Why are you breaking into my house?”
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The Art of Self-Fashioning