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Children of the Sun	By : Lomonaaeren Category: Harry Potter > General > General Views: 12416 -:- Recommendations : 1 -:- Currently Reading : 2
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Part Fourteen
“Is it true that you were abused?”
Harry sighed and put his book down. He was working with Golden in the library, seeing how well they could communicate with each other when he looked at a page and then tried to see it through Golden’s eyes. But he could only do that some of the time, with how often people were coming up and asking him questions.
“I’m sorry.” The boy suddenly sounded embarrassed. “I suppose I shouldn’t be asking you this.”
“It’s okay.” Harry smiled at him. He was a boy in Ravenclaw colors, and somehow he managed to look even smaller than Harry. Harry had thought he was the smallest of the first-years himself. “What’s your name?”
“Derek Stebbins.” The boy shifted the tin sparrow on his shoulder. “And this is Singer.”
“He wouldn’t take any other name, right?”
“No, I named him when I was two, and he won’t stop.”
Harry laughed as he watched Singer nibble at Derek’s ear. “I know, my familiar’s like that, too. Anyway, this is Golden. Why don’t you sit down across from me and then I can tell you more about my relatives?”
“Um, okay.” Derek sat down, and swung his legs, and suddenly seemed a lot more interested in Harry’s book. “You don’t have to answer. If you don’t want to. My gran’s always telling me that I need to think before I speak.”
Harry looked at him thoughtfully. “You should, but you should ask questions, too. Anyway, my relatives didn’t want me. My aunt was jealous of my mum’s magic, I think. None of them could see Golden, so they didn’t know what kept them from hurting me, but they tried to. Hurt me, I mean.”
Derek looked up at him with wide eyes. “Why?”
“They didn’t like me.”
“I mean—that’s it? That doesn’t sound like a good reason for hurting someone.”
“I don’t think there’s a good reason for hurting someone unless you’re trying to protect someone else. Yourself would count.” Harry looked more closely at Derek. He was listening with his head tilted to one side like Singer. “What are some of the reasons that you think are good for hurting someone?” He was just making a guess, but he knew he was right when Derek jerked and turned pale.
“Wh-what?”
“You’re Muggleborn, right?” Harry asked quietly. “And you asked me if they had some other reason for hurting me. Who told you that hurting you was okay? What was the reason?”
Derek glanced away from him. Then he said, “You have to understand. My mum? She had me when she was really young. Like fourteen. Or fifteen. My gran never really said. But it was young.”
“Okay.” Harry didn’t know what that had to do with someone trying to hurt Derek, but he just wanted to listen and not judge.
“And my gran had my mum young. So my gran’s only like forty-five or something.” Derek ran his tongue around a tooth. “She’s upset that she has to raise me because my mum dumped me on her doorstep and ran off somewhere. She wants to be able to go out and have fun. And she doesn’t want me there when she brings her—her blokes around.”
Harry could see where this was going, but he just nodded.
“Some of the blokes don’t want a little kid around anywhere. They—they get rough, you know? I don’t think they want to hurt me. They’re just pissed.”
“I know.”
“So my gran doesn’t stop them, and then I hide in my room and they can go out and have fun. And Singer, he tries to stop them, sometimes, but he’s little. And I don’t have that much magic. I didn’t even know it was magic I was doing at first, but then I came here, and I found out what it means, ‘cause Singer is the color of tin. That means I’m weak.”
“It does not,” Harry said, and Derek looked at him with his eyes and mouth wide open. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you.”
“I’m not scared!”
“But I want to change that. Everyone thinks I’m so special and I can do anything because I have a golden familiar, but I want to do things because they’re right. The Dursleys thought they could hurt me because they thought they were stronger than me. They couldn’t see Golden. And if I didn’t have Golden, they would be stronger. Would that make it right for them to hurt me?”
“No, of course not,” said Derek after a minute that felt really uncomfortable, probably for both of them. “But—”
“Then it shouldn’t be right to hurt people in the wizarding world just because they have tin familiars, either. Or copper, or bronze, or whatever. I know that lots of people will do whatever I say because I have a golden one, but I have to change that, too. Someday they won’t, because they’re believe they’re just as good as me.”
Derek blinked, hard. Then he said, “Is this because you were abused?”
Harry stopped and thought about that. He knew what he would have said if Julian asked him that question, but Derek was another kid. Finally he said, “Part of it. But not the whole thing. Some of it is just right. Why do you think everyone wanted to do what Dumbledore said?”
“Because he was Dumbledore!”
“What do you mean?” Harry hadn’t expected that. He thought Derek would say because he had a gold phoenix, or because he was Headmaster.
“I read all about the things he did,” Derek said enthusiastically, and for the first time, he really sounded like a Ravenclaw. “Like defeating Grindelwald and discovering the twelve uses of dragon’s blood and standing up to the Ministry. He’s a hero. That’s why they want to follow him.” He looked up at the scar on Harry’s forehead. “Just like they want to follow you because you defeated You-Know-Who.”
“But people listen to me in the first place because of Golden. And a lot of people listened to Dumbledore because of Fawkes.”
“Oh. Yeah.” Derek hesitated. “But that makes you more powerful, right?”
“No,” said Harry. “Magically powerful, maybe. But remember what I said about people shouldn’t be able to treat you the way they want just because they’re more powerful?”
Derek nodded. “But isn’t that, like, tricking people? You get them to do what you say because they’ll follow someone with a golden familiar, and then you turn around and tell them that you don’t want them to do what you say because people shouldn’t just follow people with golden familiars.”
Harry grinned. “It is sort of tricking them. But at the moment, they won’t listen to anyone except someone with a gold. So I’ll talk until they realize there are other reasons to listen.”
“You’re all right, Potter.” Derek seemed relaxed now. “Granger said you were, but I wondered about your relatives. Can I study with you?”
“Yeah.” Harry held out his book. “Have your familiar read this. Then see if he can send it to you.” He was determined to see if it worked with familiars other than Golden, and keep going if it did. He knew that golden ones weren’t the only powerful ones. Julian’s familiar had been trained to hold onto memories and she’d kept him safe from Dumbledore’s spreading magic. And she was bronze, not silver. So probably there were things people never tried to get their familiars to do because they just assumed they weren’t strong enough, but they had the power all this time.
“Okay. But Singer doesn’t read very well.”
“Just have him try.”
Derek bent over the book, and Singer landed on the table and stared intently at the words. Harry reached down and stroked Golden’s head. Golden looked as contented as a cat, twisting his head to the side so that Harry could scratch the scales on his eye-ridges.
“This doesn’t get you out of practicing,” Harry muttered at him.
Golden looked innocent.
*
Severus felt stupid as he stood before the barrel-hidden door of the Hufflepuff common room, but he had no idea what to do except to see Harry. He waited until a fifth-year student came out, since they were less likely to quake in fear at the sight of him. This one’s eyes widened, but she nodded to him even while her copper hedgehog rolled into a ball. “Did you need something, sir?”
“I need to speak to Harry Potter.”
“I’ll bring him out, sir.”
She turned and went back into the common room. Severus stood with his hands folded in his sleeves and waited. Shadowstriker was silent around his throat, looking more at the barrels than around for danger. Severus couldn’t remember the last time he’d been—almost relaxed.
“Why do I feel this way?” he asked his familiar. “Numb. I would have thought I’d feel rage at Albus, or joy that he’s gone, but—not this.”
“Are you all right, sir?”
Somehow a small boy and a golden anaconda could still almost sneak up on him. Severus turned around and fought the sneer off his face. He no longer had to keep it there to appease Albus, at least not right now. “I want to know whether you’d like to pick up gathering the herbs and things for the ritual to free Professor Quirrell.”
“Yes, but sir, I only want you to use things that you can pick or gather yourself. Or that you have on hand. Let the Malfoys pay for the rest of it.”
“You know the Malfoys will no longer underestimate you? Now that you have succeeded in taking Albus down.”
“That wasn’t me, that was Madam Bones.”
Severus sighed. “Feigned naiveté does not become you. You know that many would think it was you even if was purely her. You need to think about claiming your power and not letting someone else do it for you.”
There was an odd look on Harry’s face. “I’m coming to terms with that, sir.”
“Then what are you going to do when the Malfoys no longer underestimate you?”
“I’m going to let them think they’re playing me. I’m going to keep being friends with Draco. I’m going to keep fighting my battles to keep people from thinking that people with golden familiars are all-important.”
“But they may do something else. Something dangerous to you. Demand a dangerous price for their aid, for example.”
“Then I’ll deal with that when it happens.”
Severus sighed again and said, “I am merely trying to make you realize that you do not want to be beholden to them.”
“No, I don’t particularly want to be beholden to them,” Harry agreed, surprisingly docile. “But sitting here at the moment and worrying about what they might do, when I don’t have any evidence yet, isn’t productive. I couldn’t just sit there and worry about the Dursleys either, sir. I had to cope with what they actually did.”
Severus paused. Then he lowered his head in a slow nod. That actually sounded reasonable. “If Narcissa or Lucius ask you for something more than you want to give, you will come and speak to me at once.”
“Yes, I will, sir. Thank you for helping me with this.”
Severus hesitated. Then he said, “Albus may return as well.”
“I know. But at least something’s going to happen. And now I know what his spreading magic is. And Golden can counter it. I’m going to work on resisting that, too, and making sure I don’t use it.”
Severus wished he could express what he was thinking to the boy in front of him—the hope, the wariness, the weariness, the joy. But he ended up saying, “Of all the people who could be born with the power of a golden familiar, I am glad it was you.”
Harry beamed at him and said, “And I’m glad you’re the one helping me with this ritual, sir.”
He went back into the Hufflepuff common room. Severus was again left alone with Shadowstriker, but this time, he was able to turn and walk slowly up the corridor with his heartbeat slowing in his chest.
If he had to someday call someone Lord again, he was also glad it would be Harry.
*
Silentxxdreamer: Without his spreading magic, Albus won't be able to influence the Wizengamot as much. And the Pensieve memories Julian has mean that he won't be able to contradict them or make them rely on his word alone.
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Children of the Sun