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Other People's Choices	By : Lomonaaeren Category: Harry Potter > General > General Views: 24374 -:- 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 Thirty—Stories
Harry finally finds Blaise and Theo when a day is up and takes them over to sit on a couch next to the fireplace. Greengrass drifts up and settles herself on a chair at the side of the couch, and Draco follows her, although he takes a different chair. He’s almost bristling, as if daring someone to chase him away.
Harry gives them very blank looks. Greengrass does what is probably her best blank look back. Draco hunches.
Fine. They can stay. If one of them spreads the stories he’ll tell as gossip, then he’ll know it was them.
“Can you use that privacy spell that your father taught us this summer?” Harry asks Theo.
Theo blinks and then shrugs. With a flick of his wand, he raises the spell. It’s one Harry had a hard time mastering. As usual, he studies Theo’s wand movements as hard as he can, and as usual, he honestly can’t tell a difference between those ones and the ones he makes.
With a sigh, Harry faces Blaise and Theo again. “How much do you already know about what happened at the end of our first year?”
“We know Dumbledore was guarding something in the school.” Blaise’s face is intent, and his fingers twitch as if he wants to pick up his wand. “On the third floor, in that corridor we were all forbidden to approach. And you went down there and—saved it somehow.”
“There were rumors that the Dark Lord was involved.” Theo twirls his wand between his fingers, showing no intention of putting it away. “Is that true?”
Harry grimaced. “Yeah. Sort of. I mean, it was him, but not the way that you’re probably picturing. I really did destroy him somehow that night. Or my mum did,” he adds, remembering what Dumbledore told him about his mother’s love. “But he was on the back of Quirrell’s head.”
Blaise recoils. Theo just stares at him. Harry doesn’t bother looking to the side to get Greengrass and Draco’s reactions. They would probably only act superior, anyway.
“I think,” Theo says, his words so precise that Harry could imagine him writing on glass with just his voice, “that you had better tell us what you mean by that.”
“You know how Quirrell wore that turban? And constantly stuttered?” Harry waits until they nod. It takes a minute. He almost wonders if they’ve forgotten Quirrell, and wonders how, but then remembers that most of them didn’t burn him to death with their bare hands. “It turns out the stuttering was an act. He was really a Dark wizard. Or maybe he wasn’t at one point, but then Voldemort got to him—”
“Get to the point, Potter,” Greengrass says in a voice as precise as Theo’s.
Harry doesn’t turn and look at her. There would be no point. “Voldemort was a wraith at that point. He possessed Quirrell. It manifested as a second face on the back of Quirrell’s head. He took off his turban when we were facing off over the Philosopher’s Stone, and there it was. He was.”
Blaise looks as though he’s about to swallow his tongue. Theo is composed, gravely interested, and he even nods for Harry to go on as if this is no big deal. “I always thought something was strange about Quirrell,” is all he says.
Harry glares at him briefly. “You have no idea how strange.”
“No, I don’t. But you were there, and you saw it. I’d like you to tell me.”
Somehow, in the face of Theo’s calmness, it’s easier to calm down, too. Harry exhales hard and says slowly, “It was so gross and horrifying. But it’s not the thing I have nightmares about. When I dream about something, it’s about—look, I tried to stop Quirrell. He was going to kill me. I grabbed hold of him. I burnt him to death with my bare hands.”
There’s such a silence that Harry has to turn to look at Draco and Greengrass, as much as he doesn’t want to. Greengrass has lost her poise for once and is gaping at him like he’s really done the impossible. Harry supposes the rest of the story doesn’t count for her. As soon as she notices him meeting her eyes, of course, she draws herself up with a haughty sniff and folds her hands once more. But Harry can see they’re shaking.
Draco looks utterly sick and horrified when Harry glances at him.
“Do you have any idea what caused him to burn?” Blaise asks quietly.
“Something about my mother’s blood protection. I suppose Voldemort can’t touch me when I have that.” Harry stares down at his hands. He does have some nightmares sometimes about them, although right now he has more dreams about how his parents died at Pettigrew’s hands and the basilisk and what if he’d been too late to save Ginny.
“So it’s not a Gift?”
Blaise says that like it definitely has a capital letter. Harry looks up and shakes his head. “What’s that?”
“A Gift is a talent inherited down your bloodline.” Blaise is studying him so intently that Harry feels himself flush a little. “It means that your ancestors would have been able to burn someone to death with their hands, too.”
“Ugh,” says Greengrass.
“Don’t be silly, Blaise,” Draco says, although his voice is shaking a little. “If any of the Potters had a Gift like that, they would have used it against the Dark Lord and other people they fought.”
“Just because one member of a bloodline has a Gift doesn’t mean they all do—”
“No, I don’t believe it,” Theo says, in that decisive way that kind of makes him a voice of reason among the people around Harry. “Not really. The blood protection makes much more sense.” He looks at Harry, and his face has turned considering in the way that means Harry isn’t going to like what he says next. Harry tries to say something to stop it, but Theo speaks first. “It’s much more likely that Parseltongue is a Gift of the Potter line, and those who had it hid it, because it would have brought shame down on what people thought was a Gryffindor family.”
“That’s not true, either,” Harry snaps. Honestly, do they always have to try to make him into someone special? If Blaise and Theo meant what they said over the summer, then it should be enough just to be his friend. “Dumbledore told me last year. The Parseltongue power I have comes from Voldemort.”
“There’s no way that could happen, though,” Greengrass says in a voice that shows disgust for Harry’s ignorance. “People who fight each other don’t transfer Gifts.”
“Well, that’s what happened.” Harry folds his arms. He doesn’t trust a lot of what Dumbledore said anymore, but he does think that this is right. Because Parseltongue is so rare, and it really does seem more likely that he got it from the real Heir of Slytherin. “Professor Dumbledore said that Voldemort left a bit of his powers behind in me the night he tried to kill me. Those were pretty much his exact words.”
Blaise and Theo are staring at him. Harry tilts his chin back. “What? Going to abandon me now, because I’m not a real Parselmouth?”
He tries not to show how much he doesn’t want that. Because, in the end, if they abandon him over this, they were never his real friends anyway, just like all the people who whispered about him Petrifying people last year.
*
Theo tries to speak, but stops. He’s going to trip over his tongue.
Daphne is right. Fighting someone doesn’t work like that, or some wizards would have long ago transferred all possible Gifts to themselves, and their bloodlines would be far more powerful than any of the currently existing ones are. Theo knows that some of his Nott ancestors had the Gift of creating poison with a touch of their hand, but no one’s had it in generations. If there was a way to control who got it…
Of course it would have been discovered long before this. And his father would probably have done something about it.
Theo shakes his head again and again. Harry only glares at him challengingly. Theo finally manages to say, when it’s that or explode, “But that’s not the way it works. And Dumbledore would know that’s not the way it works.”
Harry’s hands tighten on the arms of his chair. He looks as if he wants to pick it up and throw it at them. Honestly, Theo would prefer that to the conversation he thinks they’re going to have.
“I can think of a few reasons he might have lied,” Theo says, carefully, picking his way through horrible options. “He doesn’t know how you’re a Parselmouth and why you have—that scar, and he doesn’t want to admit it. Or he was trying not to scare you with the truth.”
“What is the truth, then?”
“Um. I don’t know. But it’s not that.”
“It can’t be that,” Blaise chimes in, and Theo is grateful that someone else is going to help him carry the burden of this conversation. “That the Dark Lord gave you powers, I mean. Then he would have been doing that all over the place during the war, except he would have made other people give him their magic. And there are people mad enough to do it, too. Think of all the people who swore loyalty to him.”
“Your mother wouldn’t have,” Theo said, not sure why he says it, except it’s so true he has to.
Blaise darts him a narrow-eyed look. “No.” And that’s all it seems as if he has to say on that topic.
“I think maybe Dumbledore doesn’t know,” Harry says.
Theo sighs. “But he also wanted you to stay with abusive Muggles for no reason that he can articulate, Harry. He seems to have this—this prejudice against telling you the truth for fear that you’re going to do something he doesn’t want. Why would this be any different?”
Harry’s brows are furrowed. If he was any younger, Theo wouldn’t be surprised to see him biting his fist.
Draco is the one to break in, of all people. “I know how we can find out,” he says.
“Find out what? That Dumbledore is lying?” Theo doesn’t really want to go up against the Headmaster. He would do it if he had to, but Dumbledore is old and powerful and can use Legilimency. It’s not something he prefers.
“No. What the Dark Lord did to—Harry.” Draco pauses so long before saying Harry’s name that he obviously wants to draw attention to it, Theo thinks in irritation. “I think I can find out from the books in my father’s library.”
“And he lets you waltz into his library and pick up books like that?” Theo’s a little incredulous. There’s a lot in the Nott library that other children couldn’t see, but Father had carefully curated it before Theo was born. So there are no books left that could make Theo—or Harry, now that he’s been in there—dangerous or a challenge to his power.
Well. He thinks there aren’t. Theo keeps a smile from twitching at his lips, reflexively. There have been times when Father could have figured him out with a smile.
“He wants me to learn,” Draco says, and sneers at Theo the way he used to last year before Harry was re-Sorted. “Sorry that your parents don’t want you to learn.”
“My parent.”
Theo says it quietly, but Draco goes pale. He nods a second later. “Anyway,” he says, “if there’s anything about curse scars or anything, then it’s going to be in my father’s library. He did a lot of research years ago on ways to subdue his enemies. I’m sure that ways to transfer powers, if they actually exist—”
“They don’t.”
Draco ignores Daphne. “They’re in there. I know my father did a lot on the inheritance of Gifts. He wanted to see if I would inherit the Malfoy Gift,” he adds, when Harry peers at him inquiringly.
“What’s the Malfoy Gift?” Theo asks. He’s never been on such terms with Draco before that he could ask.
Draco grimaces. “Wandless, irresistible Imperius Curse. Why do you think Crabbe and Goyle follow me around everywhere?”
“But then your father—” Theo feels as if his wand arm’s turned to stone.
“No, no, some ancestor of mine who had the Gift cast the spell on Crabbe and Goyle’s ancestors,” Draco says irritably. “I tell you, it’s bloody boring at times. Can’t move a foot without them.” He tosses his head at where Vince and Gregory are staring at him from across the room. They only respect the privacy charm Theo put up because they have to.
“Oh.” Theo relaxes, staring at Draco. He’s not sure he believes him about his father not having that ability, but then again, he has just as much reason to think Draco’s lying about the Gift in general as he does to think Draco’s lying about his father not having it.
“I don’t actually want to control anyone like that.”
Theo blinks at Draco. His face is lowered and his hands clenched on the arms of his chair a lot like Harry’s. He glances up a second later and shakes his head, biting his lip. “It makes people boring.”
Oh, good. For a second I thought Draco was growing a conscience, Theo thinks, and sees by the amused way Harry’s gaze crosses with his that he feels the same.
“Anyway,” Draco says, “I can do research on that. I can convince my father to let me have the books.” He turns to Harry. “But I’ll have to let him believe that I’m planning on double-crossing you and going behind your back to find some weakness the Dark Lord can exploit.”
Harry just nods sharply without looking surprised. Theo wonders, gloomily, if Harry would be surprised by anything, including the knowledge that someone is planning to betray him. “Sounds good.”
“And what about the basilisk?” Blaise asks abruptly. Theo is grateful to Blaise for reminding him. Otherwise, they stood the chance of becoming distracted entirely by the side-conversation about how Harry became a Parselmouth, and forgetting the stories they want to hear from him. “Did you really kill it with the Sword of Gryffindor?”
“Yes,” says Harry, and his eyes turn stubborn again as if he doesn’t think they’ll believe him. “That Dumbledore’s phoenix flew in to me.”
“How could you kill a basilisk with a sword, though?” Daphne asks abruptly. Theo glances at her, then away. He’s not sure if he should mistrust her or not. “Even most curses would bounce off their scales.”
“I thrust it up through the mouth. I’m pretty sure I hurt the brain.”
Blaise is gaping, and a little grey. Theo only shakes his head and says, “But why didn’t it Petrify you?”
“Fawkes had already clawed out its eyes.” Harry hesitates as if he’s going to say something else, then firmly sets his mouth closed.
“Tell us what you were going to tell us.” Theo leans forwards and makes sure to show that his wand is near his hand. Harry gives him an utterly unimpressed look.
“No.”
“Harry,” Blaise says, in a heavy, disapproving voice.
“No.”
“Does it have something to do with that scar on your arm that you keep trying to hide?” Draco asks, in his best bright, innocent, trying-to-be-helpful voice. Theo has heard him using that more than once when he’s pointing out something a Gryffindor is doing wrong in Potions class. But this time, he could smile at him for it.
Harry promptly claps a hand to his right arm. Daphne is faster. She casts a spell that slides Harry’s sleeve up. Most of the time, it’s meant to bare someone’s skin so you can spill a potion on it, but Theo isn’t going to quibble over using it for this.
The scar is wrinkled and surrounded by thin, pale lines that make Theo shudder a little to look at. Then again, it isn’t that the scar is especially ugly. It’s just knowing that it was caused by a basilisk.
“Where did that come from?” Blaise asks casually, although all of them already know.
“The basilisk’s fang going through my arm,” Harry mutters. Then he looks at them as if he thinks they’re about to attack and adds, “Fawkes healed it.”
Theo breathes out slowly. He hasn’t spent much time studying phoenixes, since they’re Light creatures, but of course he knows their tears are a powerful healing substance. Harry is lucky to be alive.
“No more of that.”
Blaise is speaking. He stands up and stands in front of Harry, glaring at him. “No more rushing off on your own. We’ll come with you next time.”
“But that’s why you can’t!” Harry is glaring back. “It’s dangerous! And I didn’t go alone, anyway! It’s just that Ron and Hermione had to get left behind when I was facing Quirrell because of all the obstacles in the way, and then Ron got trapped on the other side of a rockfall in the Chamber of Secrets and Hermione was Petrified! I wasn’t alone!”
“And you won’t be again,” Blaise says, calm and unshakable. “We’ll be there.”
Theo isn’t sure that Blaise is including Draco and Daphne in those words, but he doesn’t need to be sure. He knows Blaise is including him. “We will be.”
“No.”
“You’re so arrogant, Potter,” Draco says in a drawl. “You really think you can handle everything by yourself?”
Harry whirls around without getting out of the chair. “That’s not it! I just don’t want any of you in danger, that’s all!”
“But we get to choose that,” Theo says. “We get to choose if we want to be in danger or not. You let your Gryffindor friends choose,” he adds when Harry opens his mouth again, and he doesn’t mind twisting the knife. “Are we less than them? Are our friendships with you less important than theirs are?”
“I—that’s not what I mean!”
“Then think about what you mean,” Theo says. “Just think about it.”
Harry can’t say anything else before the door to the common room opens and Professor Snape steps inside, looking pale.
“Come at once, Mr. Potter,” he says. “There is something you will—wish to see.” He grimaces so hard that it looks as if he’s going to crack his teeth, at least to Theo. “And then you will summon—someone I need to speak to.”
*
Kain: Draco gets a little of his own back in this chapter! Just a little.
Daphne will keep right on being there unless something happens to drive her away or make her think it's not worth her time.
Severus held himself firmly under control. He keeps thinking about how much the capture of Peter means, instead of his killing. And besides, it's one more means to distinguish himself from Black. :)
Albus will more than a little alarmed.
SickPuppy: McGonagall got in and coughed hairballs all over one of Snape's delicate Potions.
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