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Other People's Choices	By : Lomonaaeren Category: Harry Potter > General > General Views: 24376 -:- Recommendations : 1 -:- Currently Reading : 5
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter. I am making no money from this story

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Chapter Twenty-Nine—Blaise and Theo Are Unimpressed
Harry wakes late. He did take a sleeping potion, after all, and it always makes his head feel fuzzy when he does that. Funny, he thinks he’s only done it in the hospital wing. He shakes his head, rubs his eyes, puts his glasses on, pushes the curtains back, and jumps in place.
Blaise and Theo are both standing outside his curtains, glaring at him with their arms folded. Draco hovers behind them, but he turns his head away when Harry almost catches his eye. Harry shakes his head again. “What?”
“Professor Snape told us about you sneaking away from us,” Theo says. His voice is flatter than some of the sheets of parchment Harry’s seen.
“He said that you were all right. But also that you went looking for Black.” Blaise sidles closer to Harry. He looks like he really, really wants to hit him. Harry knows that look from Dudley, and he almost gets his wand. But Blaise is his friend, so he holds still. And that lets Blaise reach out and grab his ear.
“What were you thinking?” Blaise snarls as he pinches Harry’s ear.
Harry pulls back with a scowl, and just when he thinks he might actually have to rip free of Blaise’s hold, Blaise snorts and lets him go. Harry rubs his stinging ear and thinks about taking up his wand again, this time to cast a Soothing Charm. But it would make him look stupid, so he doesn’t.
“I was fine.”
“But you might not have been.”
Harry scowls harder. He understands, mostly, what Professor Snape was on about when he got angry about Harry going outside to visit Black. Professor Snape is an adult who thinks adults ought to be in charge of children and protect them. But Blaise is just a child like him if Harry accepts Professor Snape’s argument that age makes him a child. He doesn’t have the right to get all upset.
“I am, though. Why are you wasting time thinking about what might have been?”
“Remember what you told me at the start of the year?”
“I told you lots of things at the start of the year—”
“One of them,” Blaise says, teeth gritted so hard that Harry thinks he might actually break one, “is that you would—help me if I wanted. You thought I was in a horrible situation, and you would help me if I wanted. Remember that?”
Harry does. Of course he does. He still thinks Blaise’s mum sounds like a horrible person, and like she probably abuses him. If only because she must tell Blaise about the murders she’s committed and make him wonder if he’s next. Harry knows exactly what it’s like to live in a constant state of fear.
“Of course I do! I meant it.”
“And I mean it when I say that I want to help you and keep you safe. All right? No more sneaking off at night to meet Death Eaters—potential Death Eaters,” Blaise corrects himself without a pause when Harry starts to open his mouth, which is proof that Snape told them more than Harry thought he would. “Because I don’t like it, and I want to help you.”
Harry glances at Theo. He never made the same offer to get Theo away from his father, in part because Tarquinius is kind of—he has rules.
Theo smiles at him. The flatness is still there in his eyes, but it’s got a little better than it was, at least. “Listen up, Harry Potter. I didn’t follow you around and spend a lot of time with Gryffindors just because Professor Snape told me to. I want you safe, too. Because you’re my bloody friend.”
“You don’t hate spending time with all the Gryffindors.”
“It’s also something that I never would have done if not for you. And your friends wouldn’t have spent time with Slytherins, either, so spare me the next argument I see coming out of your mouth.” Theo sighs and abruptly sits down next to Harry on the bed, as if he’s the one who was up half the night. “Come on, Harry. Stop acting stupid. Stop acting like you don’t understand why people care about you.”
“I don’t think you’re my friend because Snape told you to be. But I did think you were following me around wherever I went because he told you to.”
Theo pauses for a second, in that way he has when he’s thinking. It looks like he’s listening to distant music. “Oh. I think I understand it now. You’re used to people caring about you because you’re the bloody Boy-Who-Lived.”
“They do. If you didn’t see all the stares last year when they still thought I was the bloody Heir of Slytherin—”
“You mean you aren’t?” Draco interrupts, sounding totally shocked.
“Draco, try not to increase the volume of idiocy in the room if you can help it,” Theo says, voice as dry as Snape’s sense of humor, and turns intensely back to Harry, ignoring Draco as he splutters. “We don’t care about you because of that. I thought you knew that—”
“I know that.” Harry won’t let them go around thinking in mistakes like this. “It would probably be easier for you if I wasn’t, since you want to be my friend.”
“Exactly.” Theo prods him. “But we want to keep your life safe, and keep you from falling off your broom, and confronting Death Eaters and having to ram swords through giant basilisks, because you’re our friend. Friends can take risks together, sure. I know you’re used to that with Weasley and Granger. But they can also keep each other safe.”
“And spy on each other?”
“Is that what you call it when someone saves you from your own stupidity?” Harry hasn’t ever seen Theo this serious, even when he thought Theo was trying to warn him about trusting Tarquinius sometimes. It’s really unnerving. “I can call it that if you want. It’s not going to keep me from doing it. You take too many risks, Harry. You want me to play dirty to keep you from that? I can. If you want. Just say the word.”
Harry rubs his forehead. He’s too tired for this shit. He doesn’t say the words, because he knows Theo would just challenge him and insist that he make all these arguments he’s not really interested in.
“Fine. I take too many risks. But I don’t want you taking risks to follow me or make me safe or something.”
“Hear that, Blaise?” Theo stands without his eyes moving from Harry’s face. “The one who sneaked away from us is trying to dictate how we should act.”
“It’s adorable,” Blaise says. “What do you think we should do to him, Theo?”
“Probably point out that as Slytherins, we don’t take nearly as many risks?” Theo takes Harry’s arm and draws him towards the bathrooms. “And that we’re going to be late for breakfast if we don’t hurry up?”
“Those sound like excellent suggestions, Theo.”
Without really being sure how it happened, Harry finds himself under a shower of warm water that makes him splutter and throw up his hands to try and catch the drops trickling down his forehead. At least Theo has taken his glasses somewhere, and Harry trusts him—somewhat—not to break them. Then he finds himself scrubbing at his face with a washcloth, and groping for fresh robes that Theo ceremonially hands him.
“Now that you’re awake and your head is a little clearer,” Theo says, his voice gentler as Harry stumbles back into their bedroom and tries to do up his tie, “maybe you can think again about forbidding us to follow you?”
Harry lies back on his bed and stares up at the green canopy, in hopes that it will give him answers. It doesn’t. It just reminds him that he’s in Slytherin, still, and that apparently the rules are different here.
“Your Gryffindor friends follow you into danger,” Blaise says, leaning over Harry so that Harry has to practically look up his nostrils. Harry sits up hastily. “It seems to me that you’re trying to say we’re not your real friends after all, if you’re keeping us from joining you.”
“That is not what I mean.” Harry wants to bury his head in his hands and groan aloud, but he’s ragingly hungry, and he thinks they might as well have this argument on the way to the Great Hall. He snatches his bag, stuffs what he hopes are the right books inside, and sets off down the corridor. Blaise and Theo follow him. Draco is ghosting somewhere behind them, but Harry can’t worry about Draco right now. “I just mean—Ron and Hermione know what the risks are.”
“And we don’t?”
“Not most of the time,” Harry sighs, thinking about how much he still hasn’t told them, about the Philosopher’s Stone and the hunt for the Chamber of Secrets and how Black isn’t what they think he is.
“Then tell us. The real stories. Not the sanitized ones or the gossip that spreads around school.”
Harry hunches over a little, and says nothing. Theo walks beside him on the right. Blaise joins him on the left. And then Greengrass comes out of nowhere and walks behind him. Draco speeds up a little, looking offended, and matches Greengrass stride for stride. It’s utterly ridiculous, Harry’s very own Slytherin parade.
The ridiculousness is finally what pushes Harry to speak.
“It’s just—people don’t want to follow me around and know the details most of the time because they like me, okay?” he finally snaps under his breath when they’re almost to the Great Hall. “They want to know so they can taunt me. Or they follow me around so they can catch me doing evil or being the Heir of Slytherin or something. So this is bloody new.”
“Fine,” Theo says. “Let it be new. Think about it as new for a whole day if you want. And when you feel ready to talk with us, then we’ll be here. But in the meantime, don’t act as though we’re not fit to hear. And don’t even think of trying to sneak away without us.”
He abruptly peels away from Harry and goes to sit on the other side of the Slytherin table, the place where Harry thinks he remembers him sitting from last year. He leaves Harry blinking uncertainly after him. Draco hesitates, then follows Theo. Blaise walks away, too.
Greengrass stays next to Harry, and sits down next to Harry, and picks up scones when he does.
“Why aren’t you going away?” he asks her, feeling exhausted and battered in a way he never has before.
“Because I’m not really your friend, am I? I’m your ally. You keep saying that, and I do think of myself that way.” Greengrass butters her scone in what Harry supposes is a graceful, pure-blood maneuver, or something. “Someone might as well stay and keep an eye on you and make sure that you don’t slip into manly Gryffindor brooding.”
“I don’t brood.”
“Don’t worry,” Greengrass says gently. “Like I said, I’m sure it’s very manly Gryffindor brooding.”
“I don’t—”
Greengrass eats her scone, and ignores him.
Harry leans back in his seat, and rubs his forehead. Then he notices Theo watching him with a frown from the other side of the table, and stops. It’s not that his forehead hurts, not really. Not his scar. He just—has a headache.
Somehow, meeting Black and learning the truth about Pettigrew seems the simple part of the day.
*
Severus smiles a little as he glances down at the cat under his arm. He has “borrowed” Mrs. Norris to allay Pettigrew’s suspicions as well as provide a backup in cast the bloody rat runs under a piece of furniture or out of his sight. She was squirming and yowling when he picked her up and he had to protect himself against some swift scratches.
Now she is staring at the closed door of the Gryffindor boys’ bedroom with her nose twitching and her whiskers vibrating.
Severus opens the door and sets the cat free with a twist of his arm. She promptly streaks away from him and dives underneath a bed. Severus waits, looking around and now and then saying, “Bloody cat!”
He is mindful of the human ears that might be listening.
There’s a sudden grey streak past his boot towards the door, with a dust-colored streak behind it. Even prepared for that, Severus is so startled that he almost lets the rat escape. In the end, his wand snaps out, and he conjures a cage with no bottom, which falls on top of the rat. Mrs. Norris hisses and paces around the bars, striking in now and then with a pat. Scabbers—or Pettigrew—cowers against the far bars, his tail shaking with how hard he’s trembling.
Severus sighs and conjures a bottom for the cage with a practiced motion; it’s a spell he’s used more than once to trap Transfigured mice who have escaped from Minerva’s classroom. Then he holds up the cage to eye level. Pettigrew stops trembling when he sees Severus, but as much as Severus can make out emotion in a rodent’s beady eyes, he looks conflicted.
“This is the last time that I do Minerva a favor,” Severus mutters, to keep up the pretense, and uses a Sticking Charm to hold Mrs. Norris to the floor of the room when she won’t stop trying to climb his robes. Then he scoops up the cat with a leather-protected arm and carries the cage and the squirming cat out of the room.
He sets Mrs. Norris free in the corridor, but she follows him persistently to his office door. Luckily, Severus manages to close the door before she can come in. A Silencing Charm takes care of her scratching and yowls.
He puts the cage on a table and stares at it. Pettigrew is trembling harder now, perhaps fearing that he’ll be cut up for Potions ingredients.
Severus studies the rat in silence for a moment, as if he is pondering what a great potion he’ll make, and finally sees it. One of the paws is missing a toe.
All they ever found of Pettigrew was a finger.
Severus curls his lip. As much as he hates to admit it, Black’s story is looking likelier.
He steps back and spends a moment pulling the magic to himself. He will have to cast a few spells in quick succession.
Then he spins around and moves his wand through the motions so quickly there should be no chance for Pettigrew—if it is him—to escape. “Finite Incantatem! Corpus muto! Incarcerous!”
The spells slam into the cage, and it vanishes. A second later, the telltale blue glow that forces an Animagus to change back surrounds the rat, and he squeals in a high-pitched voice that becomes a scream. Then ropes bind him, and he stops squealing for a spot of pathetic struggling.
Severus paces towards him. Instantly Pettigrew freezes, his scraggly whiskers, even in human form, quivering hard as he stares at Severus.
And it is Pettigrew. Severus honestly wasn’t sure if it would be, or if he would recognize the man, but memories of ancient Order meetings come back more easily than he was aware they would. He recognizes the pitiful face, the eyes that dart around in search of help—or crumbs—and the clasped hands that curve like paws.
Really, I ought to have guessed that he was a rat Animagus long before this.
“Well, Pettigrew,” Severus says, and he lets himself smile. From the immediate and cowed reaction, the rat doesn’t know what to do next. Severus has spells on his quarters that prevent any Animagus from transforming here unless he forces them to—part of a long-ago protection against Minerva’s retaliation for Gryffindor’s fourth loss of the House Cup in a row. “What an interesting story you should have to tell.”
“It was Black!” Pettigrew abruptly cries. “I hid as a rat for twelve years because I’m so frightened of him!”
“And you cut off your finger to—what? Make him think you were dead?” Severus paces around the man.
Pettigrew nods eagerly. “Of course! Sirius is unstable! He was unstable even before Azkaban, you know that! I knew he would want to murder me the way he did poor James and Lily, and I couldn’t let that happen! The only way I could think of to protect myself was make him go to prison, and—”
“I only see one problem with that,” Severus interrupts.
“What’s that?” Pettigrew’s nose twitches.
Severus gestures with his wand, and Pettigrew’s left arm twitches, too, to the side. The Dark Mark glares on his skin.
“That,” Severus says softly.
Pettigrew stares at him with his mouth open. Severus waits, but for once, it honestly seems like the man has nothing to say.
Severus sighs. This will launch a lot of undesirable consequences. I shall have to explain the matter to Albus. I shall have to testify in a trial before the Ministry, undoubtedly. I shall have to go through months of preparation so that Potter can live with Black.
But none of that matters as much as the highest undesirable consequence.
I am going to have to apologize to Black.
*
SickPuppy: The capture of Pettigrew went well! Now we just need to see if the rest of it will.
Kain: Yes, I think it was. And Harry is probably more Slytherin than he thinks as far as personality traits, but yes, that's not the first thing that comes to mind when one thinks of Slytherin.
Dumbledore is so bound and determined to have Harry living with blood family that that might make him interfere with Sirius. As for the Ministry...well.
Harry just thinks it won't make any difference when the next crisis comes along, so he might as well do what he wants now. Not the most mature attitude, but understandable based on his experiences.
Tarquniius has already set plans in motion, remember. His hands are tied one way or the other. He can't iinterfere with what he's already set up.
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