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The Art of Self-Fashioning	By : Lomonaaeren Category: Harry Potter > General > General Views: 26077 -:- 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-One—The Dark Half

            “You still haven’t given me an answer that satisfies me.”

            Harry stared at his hands and said nothing, as Black had accused him of. He was sitting now, still encased in that square of white light, on a dusty sofa in an even dustier room. The square bent a little, so he could be more comfortable. Black had said it was the least he could do.

            Harry didn’t trust Black. He didn’t trust Black’s smile. He didn’t trust the way that there was dust and neglect everywhere here, just like Mrs. Longbottom had said there would be, and yet Black threaded his way easily between the furniture and conjured a fire in a fireplace where lots of ashes told Harry they had burned recently.

            Most of all, though, he didn’t trust the other small blocks of white light that had landed and coagulated around his mice. There was one for every single mouse. Harry had never thought any house could have such formidable defenses.

            He studied Black intently as he leaned back on his own sofa and sipped a cup of tea that steamed and stank. He didn’t look much like the photographs of his dead brother that Harry had seen here and there in his parents’ hospital room. Sirius Black had laughed constantly in those photographs, and had bright grey eyes and wild dark hair. Sometimes the hair looked as if it was halfway down his back.

            Regulus Black looked more like the photographs of Lucius Malfoy that sometimes appeared in the Daily Prophet, except with dark hair. The way he smiled now made it seem like he was bored most of the time and happy Harry was here because it kept him from being bored.

            Harry didn’t trust that kind of smile, either. It was the kind Dudley would give on Saturdays before suggesting that they play Harry-Hunting.

            “I know you have no reason to like me,” Regulus said. “Perhaps I have neglected my duty to you.” He looked around, studying Harry’s mice. “But I can only say, if my neglect was what drove you to this level of magical achievement at fifteen, it has had benign results.”

            Harry only stared, and said nothing. He had no idea what Black would have expected him to say, in any case.

            “Or could it be that you don’t know my brother was your godfather and I could therefore be said to have owed you a duty?” Black shifted in place on the couch and observed him. “No, that’s not possible. I saw you at his grave that day.”

            “You had no duty to me,” said Harry. He had to speak now. “You weren’t his friend.”

            Black gave a blink as slow as the drift of steam from his tea. “That’s a large assumption to make, isn’t it? Since you don’t know me, and you didn’t know him.”

            Harry felt a weaker jolt of the same kind of grief he did when someone referred carelessly to his parents. But at least Sirius was dead and had no idea what his own brother was saying about him.

            “You wrote a strange thing on his gravestone, and I know he ran away from your family and lived with my dad’s family,” Harry said. “That means that you can’t have been close.”

            “I was under the age of majority when Sirius left,” said Black. “Much like you are now. There was nothing I could have done.”

            Harry only stared at him. He could do all kinds of things, and look at the things everyone expected Neville to do. That was silly, Harry thought, to dismiss someone’s abilities just based on them being a child.

            Black chuckled, for some reason. “I can feel the force of your doubt from here,” he said, and shook his head. “Well. Maybe I could have protested to my parents, but they forbade me to ever mention Sirius’s name again. I would only have got in trouble for my actions.” He hesitated. “I was a Slytherin, you know, not a Gryffindor. I had some sense of self-preservation.”

            Harry looked back at him and said nothing that time, either. Someone who thought it was a horrible thing to be a Gryffindor was not going to be any help to him.

            The problem was, Harry wasn’t sure how to get away from here if Black didn’t help, or at least relent. He couldn’t leave his mice behind, and the block of white light wouldn’t shift no matter what he did, including kicking, twitching the muscles in his legs, and whispering incantations in his mind.

            Well, to be fair, he hadn’t tried wandless Transfiguration yet. But he didn’t want to show he could do that in front of Black, either.

            “I wonder what I should do with you,” Black said. “These are the times I wish I was a Legilimens, so it would be easier to get information.” He sighed and drank some more of his tea. “Or kept up on the news from Hogwarts. I wonder if you’re a runaway or you left with their blessing.”

            Harry knew his expression changed. He hadn’t practiced enough lately at keeping it still. Black laughed like a delighted crow in response.

            “Should have known! Should have known!” He pointed his teacup at Harry. “Why did you run away, then? To break into my house, yes, I know that, but what else did you want to do?’

            Harry gritted his teeth. It seemed, as horrible as it was, he would have to say something to Black of his intentions. Maybe he disliked his Death Eater cousins, or was embarrassed by them. He might help Harry if only to get rid of the stain on his family.

            Or maybe he would help Harry because of this “duty” he’d talked about. If he was anything like Lupin, though, his guilt wouldn’t be worth much.

            “I want to destroy the people who destroyed my parents. Now that they’ve broken out of Azkaban, I think I might be able to reach them. I came here to see if Bellatrix left anything behind that I could use to track her through the resonances.”

            Black’s eyes widened. Harry didn’t know if it was just surprise or something else. He didn’t think he had much chance of finding out.

            Black put his teacup down on the table beside him with an emphatic little clink. He shook his head and touched his temple like there was water in his ear. Harry knew that kind of touch. He used to do it after Dudley held his head in the tub for a while.

            “You’re mad,” Black said at last. “I wouldn’t dare take Bellatrix on, even after the amount of years she spent in Azkaban. She’s a far better duelist than most of the Death Eaters. And Rabastan is no slouch. I never saw Rodolphus fight.” He peered at Harry. “And you thought you could walk in here and take something that used to belong to her?”

            “I thought I would try.”

            Black watched him in silence for a time. Then he stood up and walked out of the room. Harry closed his eyes against the impulse to call out after him. He wanted out of this white block of light, yes, but so far it was less painful than many of the things that had happened to him.

            Besides, he had one ally who wasn’t trapped in a block of light. Harry wasn’t entirely sure that he could call to her from here, but he had told Mrs. Longbottom to go back and get Yar if he hadn’t returned in an hour.

            And Yar had some training in crushing wand hands.

            Less than ten minutes had passed, though, when Black reappeared, carrying something in his hands that he frowned at. It was so dark and discolored on the back that Harry could only really see that it was round. Black came to a halt in front of Harry and considered first him and then the object, shaking his head.

            He finally turned it around. Harry stared at a dim reflection. Apparently it was an oval mirror, set in a bronze frame that made it seem as if Harry had ruffs and tendrils around his face that reminded him of a sea serpent’s.

            “I haven’t used this in a long time,” Black said. “Neither did my parents. But Sirius looked up what it did and wrote down the instructions, and if he was right, then I should be able to use it to reveal something about you. At least enough to know what kind of madness makes you think you can defeat my cousin.” He tapped his wand against the surface of the mirror, and Harry’s reflection suddenly grew brighter, like it was lit up.

            “This is the Mirror of Snoitnetni,” said Black. “And I call on it now, by ancient magic and the blood of my family, to reveal your true self. Harry Potter.”

            The mirror gave a sudden, heavy chime that made Harry’s breath taste sweet in his mouth. He jerked, thinking for a second that Black had released some potion fumes that might drug him.

            Instead, the mirror simply grew brighter and brighter, until Harry had to close his eyes. When he could open them again, Black was standing there with his eyebrows raised but his face otherwise maddeningly calm, the way it had been since Harry arrived.

            “Well, what do you know,” he muttered. “It worked.”

            He turned the mirror again. Harry could see that the carved frame had changed. Now, a small figure—who might have been him—with mice on its shoulders ran around with his wand aimed at twisted and tormented humans in front of him. A cat was bounding after them, too, and birds were flying from the other direction to claw at their eyes.

            His reflection had changed in some ways, given that it now looked as if the glass reflected a rippling pool of purple light around Harry’s face, but he didn’t know what that meant.

            “How in the world,” Black asked, “did Lily and James Potter’s child come to be someone who should have been Sorted into Slytherin? And can use Transfiguration like this? And wants to torture people? And cares about a few people and doesn’t give a damn about the rest—including himself?” He touched the outer edge of the reflected ring in the mirror. “There’s a special kind of light that appears here when someone’s just a sadistic bastard and will sacrifice everyone else, but it’s not present, not for you. You won’t sacrifice those few people, but your own life is a tool that you’ll give up if you think you need to. Who are you, Harry Potter?”

            Harry only looked back, and said nothing. There was a strange cadence to the heartbeat in his ears. Black had intuited some things about him, or read them from the mirror. It probably looked different to someone who wasn’t reflected in it.

            Neville had told him a few things about the Mirror of Erised in first year. If someone could make a mirror that showed different people all sorts of heart’s desires, then someone could make a mirror that only members of a certain family could read, Harry thought.

            “There shouldn’t have been any room for you to become this person, from what I know about you.” Black absently put the mirror on a nearby table and paced back and forth across the dim room a few times, his head bowed. “You had parents who weren’t any of those things. I mean, Sirius told me a few times before he ran away that his friend James was good at Transfiguration, but that’s not necessarily hereditary.” He turned around with enough speed that Harry jumped inside the block of light. “And you visited Sirius’s grave with McGonagall. And you must have learned a lot from her if you’re that good with Transfiguration. She’s not the sort of person, either.” He ran his hand absently down the side of his robe to the pocket Harry thought held his wand now. “Who taught you to be so ruthless?”

            Harry didn’t see the point in answering. He only had to wait the hour, and Mrs. Longbottom would go back and get Yar. And Yar would come and find Harry, if only because she was bored.

            “Oh, dear,” said Black abruptly, and his eyebrows pulled together in a way that Harry also remembered seeing in portraits of Sirius. “Do you think I’m going to disapprove? Or try to kill you, or something like that?” He shook his head. “No. I find you fascinating, instead. I want some answers to my questions, and I won’t let you go until I get them.”

            Harry sat. He wished he could see a clock or had cast some spell that would tell him how much time had passed, because he honestly wasn’t sure how much of a waiting period there might be.

            “I suppose adults have questions about you in general,” Black murmured, sitting back on the couch across from Harry and regarding him. “After all, someone probably found out about you, or you wouldn’t have left Hogwarts.”

            Harry once again couldn’t stop the reaction that jumped like a spark through him. It was stupid and he hated it, but there it was.

            “So.” Black folded his hands in front of him. “Are you chased? Have you been expelled? But no, then you wouldn’t have the wand. And I suspect someone brought you here by Apparating. You couldn’t have come this far, this fast, on your own.” Then he chuckled. “Although considering some of the other remarkable things that the mirror hinted you could do…”

            Harry only stared back. Did Black think flattering him was the right thing to do? Harry had never been susceptible to it.

            Black leaned forwards a few minutes later, tapping his fingers against his chin. “It would be easier if you would tell me on your own,” he admitted. “But I can learn a lot about you just from the way you remain silent.”

            Harry remained silent.

            “Most children wouldn’t have the patience to do that,” Black said. “They would have to do something. Wriggle around inside the block of light. Ask if they could go to the bathroom. Whine at me about when I was going to let them go. But you’re in control of your reactions. It is fascinating.”

            Harry sat.

            “Someone has formed you,” Black said softly. He might have been speaking to the mirror or a portrait out of sight instead of Harry. “Trained you, I would say, except I don’t think they knew what they were training you for.” He shook his head. “And not McGonagall, and not your parents, and I can’t think of any professor at Hogwarts who would produce this result.

            “Do you know Severus Snape?” Black added suddenly. “Quite an acquaintance of mine, at one time.” He smiled as if something was amusing.

            Harry knew he reacted to the sound of Snape’s name, too, but he tried to keep it down to a spurt of breathing or a tremor in his hands, nothing that would tell Black very much.

            “I see you do. But he wouldn’t have trained you this way, either.” Black shook his head slowly. “He sees potential in no discipline except Potions and Dark Arts. He never would learn how to use some of the simpler charms in battle, as if it was dishonor to do anything except the most elegant things. He couldn’t have shaped and honed you in Transfiguration.

            “And if he had sensed your power and managed to overcome his innate prejudices, he wouldn’t have let you go wandering like this. So. Not Severus.”

            Black suddenly snapped his fingers and stood up. “The papers! Kreacher saved all the old papers from around that time, the ones with news of Sirius’s death. I think he probably does some sort of ritual cursing of them when I’m not looking, but he does have them. I’ll be right back,” he added, as if Harry would have been worried, and strode out of the room.

            Harry tried once again to move his wand, or call his mice. But the blocks of white light remained frustratingly firm.

            Black was soon in the room again, sorting through a pile of old, yellowed Daily Prophets that made Harry sneeze. “Let’s see, let’s see,” Black murmured, running his finger down a front page. Harry could see the people in the photograph there scowling at the finger. “No, that’s only the mock trial held in absentia for Pettigrew.” He tossed it aside and started reading the next one.

            Harry remained calm. The papers would only tell the story of his life up to the time he was one and a half. The life he wished had stayed the same, of course he wished it had, but nothing Black could use against him now.

            “Here it is,” Black said suddenly. “Yes, I thought so. Huh. Leaving you with your mother’s Muggle relatives….” He shifted and stared at Harry over the top of them. “They taught you well, didn’t they? How?”

            “They didn’t teach me,” Harry said, unable to prevent himself. The quick coil of hatred in his belly at the thought that someone might think the Dursleys were responsible for his skills was too much. He tried to rein himself back again, because Black had smiled, and Harry wouldn’t give him what he wanted. “They let me learn.”

            “What kind of relatives would do that, I wonder?” Black’s voice was very soft now, and he took his hands away from the paper entirely and watched Harry with a gaze so intent that it was like being poked with a bunch of sharp little twigs. “Even my parents taught me. Some of what they taught me was revolting, but they never neglected my education.”

            “They were Muggles. They couldn’t teach me anything about magic.”

            “I didn’t say they were teaching you about magic. They might have taught you the same kind of lessons that my family imparted to me.”

            Harry stared at Black. Then he looked around the house. “But it’s too big,” he said, and Black blinked.

            “Another piece of the puzzle, then. How could they teach me about smallness or cold here? Or poverty? Did you grow up poor, Harry?” Harry tightened his fists at the sound of his name. “Or perhaps I should tell you that my mother was very good at cold, and it didn’t matter how many fires she had the house-elves light.”

            Harry only stared, and then shook his head a little. That could be true, he thought; he didn’t see why Black would lie about it. But why would that make him want to help Harry? People who were afraid of being cold or hungry weren’t sympathetic to other people.

            Harry should know.

            “Well, then. That makes me understand you much better.” Black stood and walked towards him. “Not why you wanted to master Transfiguration specifically, but why you are the way you are, this cold and feral.” He held up his wand. Harry bunched his muscles and watched. There was a chance—maybe not much of one, but it was there—that Harry would be faster than Black, because he’d had to be faster than Dudley.

            “But what does one do with a feral animal?” Black asked. Harry stayed silent, and Black added with a sigh, “That wasn’t a rhetorical question. Now do answer it, or I’ll start having a negative opinion of your intelligence.”

            “Destroy it,” Harry whispered.

            Black blinked hard. Then he said, “Good God, no.” He turned his wand in a sharp downwards spiral, and the white light around Harry vanished. “Tame it. Make it useful and interesting, to itself as well as to other people.”

            Harry tried to bolt off the couch. But in the moment before Black reached out and caught his arm, he saw it would be useless. There were still blocks of white light around every one of his mice, and even if Harry had been willing to abandon them, Black might have tortured them.

            Harry turned silently and quickly towards Black. He shot his claws and raked them hard across Black’s arm. Black shouted in surprise and wrung his fingers.

            But he didn’t let him go, which was the opposite experience Harry had had with everyone else who got a scratch, whether from him or Cross or his first kitten. He simply swung to the side and caught Harry against the arm of the couch, slamming him in the solar plexus and dazing him. Harry was still trying to catch his breath when he felt Black’s wand come to rest in the middle of his throat.

            Harry held still, and waited. He would regret dying now, because that meant he wouldn’t get the chance to heal his parents, but he wasn’t afraid.

            “I want to help you,” Black said. “Do call it a neglected duty if you’d like. That’s certainly the way I’ll present it. I thought my brother’s godson was growing up in a loving home. Why not? Most people do. And then I thought he was just intelligent, not involved in something dangerous. But now I’m willing to step in and make sure that he grows up.”

            Harry engaged in a bout of energetic but silent wriggling. If he could get his legs in the right position, he would still be able to kick, and with his extra muscles, there was the chance he could break Black’s kneecap. He just needed to get hold of a wand, either his or Black’s.

            “You’ve changed yourself a lot, haven’t you?” Black dodged the kicks, his eyes wide and burning with something Harry thought wasn’t anger. “Probably your legs as well as your claws. It’s remarkable.”

            He gave Harry a thoughtful glance. “And that’s dangerous,” he murmured. “Did no one tell you that? When you change yourself a lot, get yourself used to a number of different behaviors—although most people who experiment with human Transfiguration do it to others, not themselves—then you become more and more like an animal. Or the people you Transfigure do. Usually it’s only one kind of animal. If you did the claws and gave yourself a pair on both hands and feet, you’d become more like a cat. But you’re getting to be—what? Well, feral. The way you are.”

            Harry just waited. Black had some motive, and in a little while, he would figure out what it was. Because of course that story Black had spun about looking after Sirius’s godson wasn’t true, only what he would say to people who asked.



            “The way you keep quiet could be a legacy of abuse,” Black said. “Or it could be because animals don’t talk, either.” He shook his head. “You’re already pretty far gone. You barely think of yourself as human anymore, do you?”

            Harry didn’t say anything. Why should he? All of the animals he had known were better than most of the humans he had known.

            “You could achieve something, if you’ve done this much this young and you don’t vanish into being a beast before you reach seventeen,” said Black briskly. “So I’ll make sure that you make something of yourself—other than a creature. Whether or not you want to.”

            “That’s not why you’re doing this,” Harry said.

            Black grinned. “No. But it sounds good, doesn’t it? And as to the truth, I’m dreadfully bored. It’s not much fun being the head of the Black family when your only family members are either in prison, dead, tiresome Muggle-lovers, or so occupied in making themselves Malfoys that they have no time for the family they were born into. And the social repercussions against doing whatever I want would be even more boring, and I haven’t found any friends to entertain me in a while.” He shrugged, his eyes lingering on Harry. “You’ll be an amusing project, little cat. For a while.”

            Harry didn’t even think before he opened his mouth and hissed at Black. Black cast a spell that made Harry jerk back in surprise. It felt as if someone had flicked his nose, but Black’s hand hadn’t been anywhere near his face.

            “Tsk, tsk. A little too feisty for your own good.” Black smiled at him like a dog. “Now, why don’t you introduce me to the one who brought you here? Maybe they’ll want to help.”

*

            Jester: Sort of. Regulus is on the side of what will entertain him. On the other hand, recklessly using Dark magic will result in unpleasant social consequences, as he says here, that are even more boring.

            Sorcha: Thanks! They get more screentime in the future, too, although Regulus more than Augusta.
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The Art of Self-Fashioning