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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-Two—Longbottoms and Blacks

            “So you didn’t manage to slip in without someone finding you after all. I’m disappointed, Potter.”

            Harry looked at Mrs. Longbottom and then away. He had no idea what to say. Or if he could say anything that would make sense, with Black right behind him and one hand resting on Harry’s shoulder as if he was a puppet Black had played with as a child.

            “Augusta Longbottom?” Black sounded no worse than mildly surprised. “You shouldn’t blame him. He appeared to have no idea anyone was here.” He shrugged. “You probably didn’t, either, or you would have taken him somewhere else.” He nudged Harry in the back of the neck, and Harry stumbled a step forwards before he could catch himself. Black wrapped an arm around his shoulders and beamed at Mrs. Longbottom. “And he’s not a disappointment. He’s someone who can change the world.”

            Why does everyone who says things like that always think people want to change the world? Harry thought. Dumbledore had thought it, too, or at least he’d thought Harry was a danger to Hogwarts.

            Harry didn’t want to change the “rules,” or Hogwarts, or the world, or whatever they thought it was. He wanted to change two specific people’s brains back to healthy ones, and he wanted to change two or three other people into shapeless masses. Those were the only transformations that mattered to him.

            “I care about the ways he can help Neville,” said Mrs. Longbottom, and scowled at Black. “He can’t if you’re in tow.”

            “That seems strangely heartless.” Black shook Harry back and forth. “When he seems like a fine young man?”

            Mrs. Longbottom sniffed. “Mr. Potter knows exactly what I want and what my goals are.” She turned back to Harry as if Black didn’t exist. “Were you able to accomplish it?”

            Harry shook his head. He thought he should stay as silent as he could. He didn’t really understand the history between the two adults. They might hate each other, or Black could like her and be laughing madly the way he always did, or Mrs. Longbottom might only care about the war the way she said she did.

            Either way, Harry didn’t want to irritate one of them. Mrs. Longbottom was the one who had actually promised to help him, but Black had a hold on him and probably wouldn’t let Harry go easily.

            “Then we must go somewhere else,” said Mrs. Longbottom, with a frown. “Come here, Mr. Potter.” She held out her arm the way she had when she’d Side-Along Apparated him to London.

            Harry tried to move forwards, and found Black still clutching him. Black clicked his tongue and shook his head. “Did you think you were going to walk away from me? Careful, Harry, or I might start thinking you’re as much of a disappointment as Augusta here does.”

            Harry blinked, and still said nothing. He hadn’t been in a situation that puzzled him this much since Professor McGonagall had first come to deliver his Hogwarts letter. Waiting and watching, he thought, were the best things he could do.

            Black continued, in a faux cheerful voice, “I might be able to tell you exactly how to track Bellatrix down. We could use blood, which is the faster way and doesn’t require the tricky magic that resonances do. But of course, you would have to accept me as an ally for your journey.”

            Then he wrinkled his nose and looked away from Mrs. Longbottom to give Harry a slightly terrifying smile. “Well, she would have to accept me as an ally. You would have to accept me more as a mentor.”

            Harry stared at him, and still said nothing. He didn’t think Black was an expert in Transfiguration. And following Harry around and laughing at him wouldn’t make Black a mentor in anything, either. Why in the world did he want to come along?

            “Oh, you should know the reason for this,” Black scolded, kneeling down in front of Harry and putting his hands on Harry’s shoulders. He sounded soft and affectionate, but Harry could see his eyes gleaming. That would have made him stop believing in the pretense if he’d ever started. “You’re fascinating. I won’t let someone who interests me slip away when they’re so rare.”

            He paused. The laughter died in his eyes. Harry still waited, and still didn’t trust him. He was starting to think that nothing Black did or said could be trusted unless Harry could figure out the way it benefited him.

            “And it’s strange to say this,” Black mused, “because it’s more the kind of thing my brother would say. Or at least someone who had an interest in educating young people, which I’ve never had.

            “But I do think you have potential going untapped. It might be interesting to tap it.” Black stood up and smiled down at Harry. “At the very least, I’ve never tried teaching. I can try it until it bores me.”

            Harry again said nothing. He didn’t know what reaction Black wanted out of him. A proclamation that he was going to do something because he was bored didn’t make him sound much better than Snape, and Black had acted like he despised the Potions master. But Harry supposed someone mad enough to want to work with him when he had no stake in Harry’s success could change his mind about despising bored teachers, too.

            “Now.” Black turned to face Mrs. Longbottom. “What is the boy’s situation with regard to Hogwarts?’

            Mrs. Longbottom peered at Harry. “You can’t contrive some way to get rid of him?”

            “Not yet,” Harry said, when he realized her stare was going to continue until he said something.

            Mrs. Longbottom only nodded gloomily, not looking surprised. “Fine, then. The boy ran away. Dumbledore found out about his Transfiguration skills and wants to supervise him, or have him on his side of the war.” She glanced once at Harry, and then added, maybe because of something she’d found in his face, “He also fired spells at him when he was flying on his broom. Mr. Potter feels, rightly, that Dumbledore is too consumed in his side of the war to care much about whether a single student is a Death Eater, as long as they don’t force the issue by showing their skills in front of him.”

            Black had raised his eyebrows. “I’m surprised Albus’s thoughts turned in that direction. Wouldn’t he be prejudiced for a Gryffindor, and Lily and James Potter’s son?”

            “Mr. Potter is in Ravenclaw, not Gryffindor,” said Mrs. Longbottom. “And I suspect that Albus has forgotten about James and Lily. A lot of people do.”

            Black grinned at Harry. “You couldn’t fool the Hat that badly, then? It insisted on putting you somewhere else than the House most people would have thought you destined for?”

            Harry turned his head away. He had nothing to say to Black.

            “It just gets more and more interesting,” Black said cheerfully, and glanced at Mrs. Longbottom. “So Albus hasn’t raised that much of a protest against the disappearance of a single Ravenclaw. Does he think Harry’s going to come back to him of his own free will?”

            “I think he believes that,” said Mrs. Longbottom, and shrugged, and looked at Harry. “But you still want to find the Lestranges and punish them for what happened to your parents, right, Mr. Potter?”

            Harry nodded. Mrs. Longbottom understood him better than Black, he thought. Black could come up with all sorts of metaphors, but Mrs. Longbottom was the one who stuck close to the goals, the only adult who would help him with what he needed to do.

            “Then we should go,” said Mrs. Longbottom briskly. “Which of the other Black properties would have some of Bellatrix’s property we could take, Black?”

            Black only shook his head, in the slow, amazed way that some of the Muggles used to do whenever they compared Harry to Dudley. “Didn’t I tell you I would let Harry use my blood to track Bellatrix down? You aren’t going to need access to the other properties. Or the resonances.” He glanced suddenly at Harry. “Except one property. You are going to stay with me, Harry.”

            “No, I’m not,” Harry said. He still thought it would have been stronger to stay silent, but the protest was more or less forced from him. Black would probably think he agreed, otherwise.

            “Of course he is not,” said Mrs. Longbottom. “Whatever you think you’re doing, Black, you won’t let him fight the war from inside your house.”

            “You do make me sick,” said Black, in so casual a tone that it took Harry a second to realize what he’d said.

            Mrs. Longbottom only opened her mouth, and then paused. “You have a lot to learn about tact and diplomacy with your natural allies, Black,” she said.

            “I don’t think you’re my ally,” said Black. “I don’t even think you’re Harry’s ally. All you care about is bringing the Dark Lord down, and in a way that will spare your grandson’s life. Harry’s a convenient way to do that, isn’t he? He’ll at least destroy a few powerful Death Eaters for you. Never mind if he loses his own life in the process. Never mind that it shouldn’t be his duty. You’ll still help him destroy himself.”

            That isn’t the way it is, Harry thought, more than a little incredulous. He’d thought Black was intelligent, if annoying, but the way he had phrased things was stupid.

            “And I suppose you’ll help him out of the goodness of your heart, Black?”

            “I’ll help him because he was my brother’s godson,” said Black, and looked down at Harry with a soulful expression that Harry immediately distrusted. “I know Sirius would want me to keep him alive.”

            “I won’t kill him.” Mrs. Longbottom’s voice was clipped. “Once again, you forget your place, Black.”

            “I haven’t forgotten that since my brother died during the war and I found myself really in the role that my parents had designated me for,” Black replied, which made no sense to Harry. He turned and smiled at Harry. “You want to stay alive, don’t you, Harry? You don’t want Death Eaters to kill you—and they will target you if you kill my dear cousin and her in-laws—and you don’t want to die because you don’t understand how Transfiguration is affecting you.”

            “I would prefer not to die,” Harry conceded, in the face of one of those silences that made him feel he had to answer the question. “But there’s no reason for you to put yourself out, sir. I’ve been doing well enough on my own.”

            “Oh Harry, Harry, such a twisted definition,” Black said, and reached out. Harry would have dodged, except the hand was too high for Black to cast a curse at him or grab and hurt him. He was astonished when Black ruffled his hair.

            “There are too many other people who haven’t done right by this child,” Black explained earnestly to Mrs. Longbottom, who was watching them with no expression on her face. “I want to make sure that he at least survives. It would be a problem if he died too early, wouldn’t it?”

            Mrs. Longbottom didn’t say anything, either. Harry wasn’t sure if she was confused by Black, too, or just didn’t agree. He thought, for her, it would be okay if he died, as long as he spared Neville some of the work he had to do because of being the Boy-Who-Lived.

            “Maybe not for you, either,” said Black, with the same odd tone in his voice that he’d had when Harry spoke of destroying feral animals. He looked at Harry. “I can see that we’re going to have an uphill struggle, you and I.”

            “Can you help me destroy Bellatrix or not?” Harry asked. He thought maybe he could work with Black and put up with his odd notions, the way he’d put up with Professor McGonagall’s attempts to help him with the Dursleys. “If you can, then I’ll do some of what you want.”

            “Such a concession.” Black put his hand over his heart. “I feel honored to win it, though,” he added quickly.

            Harry turned back to Mrs. Longbottom. “You won’t tell Dumbledore or Professor McGonagall where I am, will you?”

            Mrs. Longbottom shook her head, although her eyes moved back and forth from Harry to Black. “Are you thinking of going with him, Mr. Potter? I don’t think he’ll help you. In the end, Bellatrix is still his cousin, and he won’t want you to kill her.”

            “If you knew what family means to a Black, then you would know how ridiculous that idea is,” Black said.

            Harry shrugged. “At the moment, I think it’s for the best, Mrs. Longbottom. I still get to do what I need to do this way, and I don’t think Black is going to let me walk away.”

            “No, I’m not,” Black agreed almost happily.

            Mrs. Longbottom spent a moment more tapping her fingers on her folded arms. Then she nodded and said to Harry, “I will write to you. I need to know more about your plans to determine how much I should tell Neville, if he asks. I’ll send your eagle and your possessions to you.” And she turned and Apparated away.

            “Your eagle?” Black already had a hand on Harry’s shoulder as if he thought he would Apparate away, even though Harry didn’t know how. “Is this another Ravenclaw you convinced to come along with you? Or do you have an eagle-owl?”

            Harry only stared at Black, wondering why in the world he was babbling like this. “Neither,” he said. “I have an eagle.”

            Black shot a swift glance at the mice that had climbed back onto Harry’s shoulders and hair once he released them from the blocks of white light. “Transfigured? That’s an interesting choice. Why an eagle? It would be less noticeable to have an owl.”

            “An eagle can help in battle, and I know the methods of training one.” Harry tried to shrug off Black’s hand. It tightened. It annoyed Harry that Black seemed to think he would run or turn and claw him. Harry already knew those things wouldn’t work, so why try them? “An owl can only deliver post, and I don’t know how to teach them to do that.”

            “You’re so interesting,” Black said, and then paused. Harry stared back, not having any idea what was the matter now.

            “And there are some things I need to teach you,” Black announced. “About living with a Black, and in a house like a proper person. Come on.” He turned and propelled Harry, without really squeezing his shoulder, up the stairs and back into Number Twelve.

            Harry grimaced as he went. He only hoped it would be actual training and not just more cryptic remarks and laughter.

            Although, he had to admit, it was Black’s sincere remarks and not his cryptic ones that made him cringe. They seemed to mean he wanted to improve Harry or something.

*

            Neville took a deep breath and reached up to stroke Dapple. Then he leaned against the wall and closed his eyes.

            He wanted to cry. He really wanted to. But that would mean Snape would see the memory the next time Neville had an Occlumency lesson, and…

            Neville couldn’t bear that.

            Dapple purred and wound back and forth around his neck, rubbing his fur against Neville’s cheeks. Neville kept quiet and stroked him. He knew, if he commanded Dapple to do it, the kitten would try to sneak up on Snape and kill him in his sleep.

            But Neville wasn’t that brave. Or that twisted, he supposed. That kind of thing was like something Harry would have done.

            Professor McGonagall had called Neville to her office after Harry had disappeared and explained a little of the situation to him. Neville was—shocked was putting it mildly. He thought Professor McGonagall had wanted to know if he had anything to reveal about Harry’s destination, from the way she kept looking at him over her glasses and mentioning his grandmother’s name.

            But Neville didn’t. He hadn’t known Harry would run. He still didn’t know exactly what had prompted it. Professor McGonagall talked about dangerous Transfigurations, but all Neville knew was that Harry had done that kind of thing for years and he didn’t seem to be any the worse for it. If she wanted to tell him something else, then maybe Neville would have believed her.

            On the other hand, maybe not. Harry was his friend. They were too rare and precious, especially now that three-quarters of the school thought he was lying about Voldemort, for Neville to just turn his back on.

            He stood up, slowly. He would get over this and go on. He would go up to Gryffindor Tower and study the books on Occlumency Hermione had found. Snape kept insisting that you couldn’t learn Occlumency out of a book, that you just “cleared your mind” and did it that way, but Hermione thought you could learn anything out of a book.

            Neville thought that, this time, he would rather believe Hermione.

            As he made his way up through the corridors to the Tower, with his head pounding and his scar burning like someone had plunged a brand into it, Neville thought again of the one person he would most like to hear from and believe right now.

            Where are you, Harry?

*

            “What is this I hear about a Transfiguration prodigy, Severus? One who fled from Dumbledore and has wrapped himself in secrecy?”

            Severus rose to his feet from his deep bow in front of the Dark Lord and wondered for a moment who the spy was. Then he dismissed the notion. There were several Marked, older Slytherin students, and the Dark Lord might have learned about Potter from any one of them. Dumbledore had kept the matter quiet enough that not all students knew about it, but plenty had seen something, whether or not they chose to come forwards.

            “His name is Harry Potter, my Lord,” Severus murmured. “The son of the man and woman the Lestranges—tortured.” He didn’t know how much nearer to approach the idea that the Dark Lord had been blasted into nothingness by Neville Longbottom at the same time. The Dark Lord’s rage over the mere mention of the Longbottom brat could make him torture anyone in the same room.

            “The Mudblood woman who was your friend.”

            Severus permitted himself a bitter smile. What he was about to say was nothing less than the absolute truth. “Was, my Lord. There’s nothing left of her, now. I did go to visit her in St. Mungo’s once. A drooling wreck…” He broke off and shook his head.

            He hated that he’d made that visit, and not because he’d thought the Dark Lord would return someday and perhaps discern some sympathy for Lily from it. It was because he had stared at James Potter, who couldn’t even return his gaze, and not felt the same satisfaction from it that he had always thought he would.

            An enemy who was not either dead while you were alive, or alive enough to appreciate your triumph, was a useless enemy.

            “And where did he become so proficient at Transfiguration?”

            “Apparently by practicing on his own.” Severus hesitated, but sooner or later, someone would probably tell the Dark Lord of this if Severus didn’t do it, and Severus was the only one who could properly soften the blow. “He also learned the Memory Charm. He Obliviated me after a battle we had in the rooms of the Defense Against the Dark Arts professor in his third year.”

            The Dark Lord leaned slowly forwards. The room of the house he stood in was dusty, the furniture broken, but that didn’t matter when he was the one who made his surroundings royal, instead of the other way around.

            “A battle? A duel?”

            “Of sorts,” Severus admitted. “He had spoiled some of my potions the previous year. I had brewed a potion to figure out who did it, and once I discovered it was the Potter brat, I went to confront him. He fought me with Transfigured animals, and then Obliviated me so I could tell no one.”

            “A weakness, that,” the Dark Lord said, and his mouth twitched in what was probably a smile, although Severus had never realized how hard it was to see that someone was smiling when you couldn’t see their lips. “If one hides one’s talents, one must always fear discovery.”

            Severus said nothing. He knew how opposite the situation had been for his Lord. Word of his talents had spread among many people before he openly revealed himself, and they had kept his secrets for the pleasure and privilege of being in the know.

            “And now the boy has discovery, if only from Dumbledore.” The Dark Lord laced his fingers together. “What do you think the chances are of our swaying the boy to our side, Severus?”

            “Negligible, my Lord,” Severus said, shaking his head. “He thinks constantly of his parents; whenever I read his mind, he was thinking of them. He will not make peace with people who destroyed them.”

            “And yet, you did, Severus.”

            Severus met the Dark Lord’s eyes fearlessly. He was confident in the strength of his shields, and besides, some days he was no longer certain what side he served. “I did, my Lord. But I had the advantage of knowing you as you rose to power, and you could offer me freedom and a chance for revenge.”

            “We can offer the boy nothing?”

            The Dark Lord’s voice had gone soft, and that was very dangerous. But Severus knew that backtracking and lying about what they could offer Potter would result in more suffering for him in the end. He stood his ground, and answered calmly, “I don’t think so, my Lord. He wants freedom from Dumbledore. He has that. He can study Transfiguration on his own. He was never a Slytherin and thus never received offers of recruitment from our House, or tales of your glory, either. I cannot see why we should invest any level of effort in him.”

            “Powerful wizards should be courted, Severus. And I understood that he was friends with my…nemesis, as well.”

            Severus nodded tightly as the Dark Mark burned a little. He hoped that Longbottom was at least writhing in pain, wherever he was. “Yes, my Lord. Closer to him than to most others, although that isn’t a huge statement, given that both Potter and Longbottom lack many close friends.”

            “He might have use as a hostage, then.” The Dark Lord waved one hand. “See what you can learn of him from Longbottom’s mind, Severus. In the meantime, listen for rumors. Track them if they come to you.”

            “My Lord,” Severus murmured, sinking into a crouch again, and then turned and left when the Dark Lord glanced his dismissal. His gut trembled as he stalked through the corridors towards the room set aside for Apparating.

            He did not wish to be in charge of drawing Potter to the Dark. His interest was even less than Potter’s in being part of such an enterprise.

            Nor did he think himself capable of finding where Potter had gone to ground, if Dumbledore with all his resources could not.

            But he would have to, because what the Dark Lord commanded, his Death Eaters did.

            Severus did feel a brief flicker of longing. If things had been different, if Lily had survived and James had not, if the Potter brat had died, even if the Potter brat had been a Slytherin and not obsessed with his parents and Transfiguration, then Severus’s life would be much easier.

            But he had his task, and he would succeed in it or die.

            If part of his own reluctance to find and face the Potter brat again was fear…

            That was not something a Death Eater admitted, either. Particularly not to himself. Severus buried it and Apparated back to Hogsmeade to give his report to Dumbledore.
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The Art of Self-Fashioning