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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 Thirty-Eight--Bang
Honestly, even though he was miles away from the school, it was Harry who saved Terry when Umbridge's bullies found out he'd warned Longbottom.
Harry's letters had got more excited but also more vague. Terry scowled as he read the latest one, walking along one of the side corridors that would eventually get him to the DA's practice room, out of sight of Umbridge and her squad.
There's something I can do that might be enough to end the war. Well, not all of the war. I know only Neville can do that. But there's something I can do to Death Eaters if I can get close enough and have enough time that means Lord Dudders can't control them anymore. I'd love to be at Hogwarts right now and see what Slytherins there have the Dark Mark, so I could take care of them.
And I can't tell you more than that because Black is yelling at me to come practice dueling, and I know what would happen if this letter fell into the wrong hands.
Terry scowled as he folded the letter and put it away. He told Harry sensitive things that could really hurt him if Umbridge got hold of them, because he trusted his owl and took sensible precautions like only sending the letters with the morning post, in the middle of so much chaos no one could see which birds took off from which tables. Harry ought to be able to do the same thing, since he wasn't in the same house with an adult who would snatch his letters--
He was thinking about it, grumbling to himself, turning over all his precautions in his mind, and that was what let him catch the red light of a Stunner coming from the side and behind before it hit him.
Terry dived to the floor, the way Neville had shown them how to do in training, and the Stunner flew right past him. Then he leaped up and started running towards Ravenclaw Tower, which meant another side corridor to a side corridor to a set of stairs. No way was he leading them to the Room.
"Stop in the name of the Inquisitorial Squad!" yelled a voice that sounded awfully like Vincent Crabbe. Terry was impressed he could pronounce that many syllables.
Terry risked one look back as he leaped over another Stunner and before he turned a corner. Crabbe, Goyle, Malfoy, and a heavy-set Slytherin boy Terry didn't recognize were all behind him. Malfoy only waited until Terry locked eyes to flash him a sadistic smile.
"Capture him!" he shouted. "He's the one who tried to end Madam Umbridge's earlier attempt to clean up the school!"
That told Terry several things. He didn't waste his breath or time shouting things back at Malfoy, though. He lowered his head, and pumped his arms, and ran.
The corridors were deserted at this time of the evening, everyone else already at dinner or the meeting. Terry flew past shut doors, dusty alcoves, and silently flickering torches. He knew he wasn't going to find anyone to help him.
On the other hand...
Terry hesitated, and then spun into one of those alcoves and listened to the pounding footsteps. He had enough distance now to think about what he was going to do. And the chase couldn't go on forever.
He had tactics Longbottom had taught him at the DA. He had Transfiguration spells Harry had filled letters with, once he began to believe that Terry wasn't going to turn on him for existing.
Terry wasn't as good as Harry was at that particular art, but he'd been practicing in honor of his friend, and one thing stood out now. He concentrated as hard as he could, filling his imagination with the image he wanted the way Harry said he had to, and trying to feel the Wild. He couldn't, but he hoped his Transfiguration would be extra-strong anyway.
"Commuto spiritus fumum!"
In seconds, he heard hacking from down the corridor, and when he leaned out to peer cautiously around the wall, the Slytherins were on their knees with their mouths open, clutching at their throats. Here and there, a trail of thin grey puffs emerged. Terry grinned. He'd managed to change the air in their lungs to smoke.
Not the air around them, which was a charm and could be dissipated immediately, but the air in their lungs.
Terry thought he understood better now what Harry must feel every time he did a successful Transfiguration.
One of the Slytherins glared up at him with tears standing in his eyes, and made Terry remember what he was running for in the first place. He turned and sped away to Ravenclaw Tower, his mind made up.
None of the professors could stand against Umbridge. Dumbledore was keeping his head down and working on something else, something that made Longbottom come out of his office with trembling hands. Professor McGonagall tried, but she couldn't stop Umbridge from sitting in on her class or giving people detentions that left them with scars on their hands. Snape was gone. Hagrid was gone. Flitwick only shook his head gravely when someone came to talk to him and counseled them on the importance of discretion.
Terry was past the point of needing counsel. He had a cousin he could stay with for a few days; Damian was a bit wild and would think his running away from school was a grand adventure. Long enough for an owl to fly to Harry and Black, and hopefully persuade them that Terry, who had been a good friend to Harry, really needed refuge.
*
"I thought you wanted to concentrate on your research into the Dark Mark."
Harry paused. He'd carefully reviewed the letter from Terry before he asked Black if he could come, but he'd thought that was because he might need to examine his goals and make sure he could still achieve them with Terry there. He'd never realized Black might object.
"I do," Harry said finally. "But having one more person in the house shouldn't impede me."
Black sipped at his coffee, scowling. He'd taken to drinking that instead of tea in the mornings. Harry had asked him why, and he’d muttered that he needed "something strong with all the wonders flying around here." Harry had given up trying to understand him.
"One more person in the house might be one more person who decides this is illegal. One more person with prejudice against the Dark Arts." Black set his cup down and leaned forwards to stare so hard at Harry, Harry blinked. He hadn't seen Black look like that since he was first trying to convince Harry to reverse the Transfigurations on himself. "One more person who might decide that he has to stop you from experimenting on the Dark Mark for your own good."
Harry thoughtfully chewed a strip of bacon, and offered a piece to Cross, who was the lucky cat who got to ride his shoulder this morning. He hadn't thought of it that way. And given that Terry had been concerned about him in the past, moral concern now wasn't beyond the scope of possibility.
But Harry also thought that Terry understood that Harry was engaged in...call them Dark Arts. He'd told Harry over and over to stop being so cryptic in his letters, that he wouldn't judge him (or he would only judge him if he was doing something stupid). Terry was still angry that he'd been left out. Harry thought he would insist on being part of things and then not betray them.
He'd put up with Umbridge at the school, sneaking around under her nose and doing daring things. And she was someone who tortured students. Harry didn't think Terry would object to what he was doing with Death Eaters, given that Black also objected to torture and held Harry within certain boundaries.
"I think it'll be all right."
"You also thought turning yourself into a kangaroo was all right."
"Do kangaroos have claws the way I did?" But Harry rolled his eyes when he saw the stern look Black gave him. "I am going to invite him here unless you tell me that you won't allow me to at all."
A few heartbeats of silence. Black studied his coffee cup as if it held the secrets of the universe. Since Harry was fairly certain it didn't, he remained still, but also ready to interfere if this went on too long.
Finally, Black looked up with eyes haunted enough that Harry blinked. "I don't like this," he admitted in a low voice. "You have no idea how much I don't like this."
"It's still your house. You can still toss him out if he causes trouble."
"If he sends an owl to someone else implying that you're here, and they get ready to come after you..."
"Examine his post." Harry shrugged in the face of Black's incredulous stare. "Terry knows what he's agreeing to by coming here. I showed you that letter. He expects a Veritaserum interrogation and to have his post read. That's the least of it. He wants to be here, and he's willing to pay the price that he thinks is necessary."
"He must be devoted to you."
Harry snorted. "You read that letter, right? He blames me for distracting him and making him leave the school, because he said he wouldn't have cared about Umbridge or Neville at all if the mystery of me didn't irritate him into talking to Neville. He's still angry at me. He's a Ravenclaw. Terry wants to understand. I don't think he'll stop being my friend once he understands all of it, but he'll have to come pretty close. I'm a puzzle he can work out."
For some reason, Black just looked more brooding than before. Harry wondered if he would say that he didn't need Ravenclaws poking into his secrets. It was true there were libraries here that a real Ravenclaw, instead of a supposed-to-be-Slytherin like Harry, would probably want to dig into.
But then Black looked at Harry's face again, and sighed, and shook his head. "He can come. But he can't Apparate by himself yet, can he? That means I'll either have to tell the Apparition coordinates to someone else, or go and fetch him."
"You'll go and fetch him, won't you?"
"I take your safety seriously."
You take your paranoia seriously, Harry wanted to say, but he clenched his jaw shut and said nothing. Black was still the host, and for some reason, he had decided to act like Harry's guardian. And Harry knew he couldn't have kept the Death Eaters whose Marks he wanted to work on prisoners by himself.
That didn't mean he had to thank Black for treating him like a child, years after it was too late.
*
"You don't know where Boot went?"
"I am sorry to say I do not, Neville." Minerva sighed a little as she watched Neville deflate in front of her. She must have been his last hope. "I don't think Dolores captured him, though," she added.
Neville immediately straightened back up. "Really? That's what Hermione thought must have happened! She thought Umbridge took him and chopped him up into Potions ingredients like Snape was always threatening to do!"
That girl has a vivid imagination she would do well not to share with her classmates, Minerva thought in exasperation. Or at least this particular classmate. Neville had always had a genius for jumping to the worst conclusions, and still believed Severus's threats years after he should have stopped.
"I will look around and see what I can find out," Minerva reassured him. "But no, Dolores couldn't keep something like that to herself. You know the way she crows about detentions." Minerva did have to smile now as she thought about the hints she'd dropped, with the words "blood" and "lines" and "quill" in them, and how pale Dolores had turned when she heard them. She was still Head Inquisitor and passing all sorts of nasty Educational Decrees, but she no longer used the Blood Quills.
Even if the only reason she stopped is the notion of pure-blood parents coming down on her, rather than Muggleborn ones.
"Thanks, Professor." Neville hesitated instead of leaving, though, the way the tone in his voice had said he would. Minerva found herself leaning forwards. "Professor?"
"Yes, Neville?"
"I--there are some things Ron and Hermione are saying about Harry that make me wonder if I should share his letters with them anymore."
Minerva didn't have to think; in fact, she didn't have to think so much that she saw Neville's face turn pale and his shoulders shrink the way they used to all the time before this year. "If you feel at all uncomfortable, don't share anything with them, Neville. Harry isn't in as much danger from You-Know-Who as you are, but that doesn't mean he can't be in danger from other people."
"Like Malfoy. I heard him saying something about that, about revenge and how Harry was going to get it."
"I think some detention would do Mr. Malfoy good," said Minerva dryly. She had to be careful about the students in Umbridge's Squad she gave detention to, but Malfoy was growing more arrogant than ever with his elevated status. He was sure to do or say something in the next week that would let Minerva do as she desired with no reproach. "Thank you for sharing with me, Neville."
"Thanks, Professor. I would still say Ron and Hermione are my best friends, but Harry's my friend, too, and they don't seem to like him much."
Minerva sighed as she watched Neville slip out the door. He was correct, although Minerva hadn't yet determined the source of Weasley and Granger's animus to Harry. Perhaps it was simply that he was wild and strange, living outside the school and the usual structure there, and that he'd attacked Albus.
Speaking of which...
Minerva took out a sheet of parchment and began composing a careful letter to Harry that would wait until his owl next arrived. He deserved to know about Malfoy if he didn't already, and he deserved to know that Albus was now telling all the professors who remained, including Umbridge, that Harry supposedly had Lycaon's Syndrome.
*
Terry winced at his first sight of Regulus Black. He'd been prepared for some pompous arse like Lucius Malfoy, strutting around with his nose in the air. Harry's letters didn't describe him that way, but then, he barely touched on the topic of Black at all, and Terry did know that family by reputation.
But Regulus Black was more dangerous than that, a silent man who studied Terry for a full two minutes after Terry's cousin Damian had waved good-bye and Apparated out of the field where they'd arranged to meet.
"There's only reason I'm doing this," Black finally said, in a voice as heavy and dark as coal. "And that's because I think Harry needs a companion his own age."
"I--I'm his friend, too."
"I don't think you know for certain if you are or not. How much of this is because you want to understand what he's changed himself into and how much is because you're his friend and how much because you don't have anywhere else to go?"
Terry stood up as tall as he could, which unfortunately wasn't very tell compared to Black, although it would have been next to Harry. "I don't have anywhere else to go. But part of the problem is that I started paying attention to politics in the first place because of Harry."
"So you would have stood back and done nothing about this horrible Madam Umbridge if not for him?"
Terry hesitated. Then he said, "I wouldn't have done the same things."
Oddly enough, that made Black relax, as if he approved of the answer. "All right. Then you're not going to object when Harry uses his Transfiguration to change some of the magic that the Dark Lord is capable of casting?"
"Why would you think...is it on people?" That was the only thing Terry could think of that he would possibly object to. Of course You-Know-Who was his enemy, if only because he'd associated with Longbottom now and Terry didn't think You-Know-Who was good at making subtle distinctions.
"Yes. Some of the Death Eaters and their Dark Marks. That's what Harry's been practicing his Transfiguration on."
Terry swallowed. Then he said, "But you keep him from going too far."
"Why do you think that?"
"He mentioned in his letters that you wouldn't let him do some of the things he thinks are good ideas."
Black made a faint wheezing sound to himself, then nodded. "Yes. I do that. If only because some of those Death Eaters are my relatives and former...colleagues." With a flourish, he pulled back his sleeve and showed the Mark on his skin. Terry recoiled at the sight of it. Hearing about it all his life and seeing it at the Quidditch World Cup was one thing, but right in front of him like that, it was sickening.
"But I keep Harry from going too far," Black went on, letting his sleeve fall into place as though nothing strange had happened. "Of course you'll be undergoing a Vow of Silence and an interrogation with Veritaserum. But I wanted to know what you would say of your own free will. If you'll be tiresome, I can Obliviate you and tell your cousin to come pick you up."
"I can--I want to know what Harry is doing," Terry said in a rush. "But I also want to find some way to fight this war. We were training in Defense back at Hogwarts. Not offense. And I know I'll probably never have to be a target the way Longbottom and Harry are, and I know You-Know-Who doesn't give a damn about me, but the people who say that means you can just sit back and ignore the fighting are wrong. You have to do something. At least if you want to live with it and say that you did something good. Or great."
He hesitated again, then finished, "And it sounds like Harry has a way to fight it."
Black studied him for long enough that Terry thought, I’ve messed it up somehow. And then he nodded slowly. “As long as you don’t think that you’ve come just because Harry needs you,” he said. “Harry wouldn’t admit to it if he did.”
“But you said—”
“I think he needs someone his own age. I wasn’t thinking specifically of you. I thought he seemed closer to Longbottom.”
That made Terry glare, and forget for a moment that Black was both older than him and a former Death Eater. “I can help him research his Transfiguration and his way to fight, whatever it is. He told me that you don’t have the patience to do that. Or you just care more about him turning himself back to human.”
Black grinned at him, and Terry flushed. He would never have spoken that way to his own parents, or their friends, or, to be honest, most people Black’s age. But Black seemed to like it. “I don’t have the patience, no. I think you’ll fit in just fine at Grimmauld Place, once you’ve been given that Vow and that potion.” He held out his arm.
Terry still eyed him for a second before he came over to be Side-Along Apparated. Black gave him a wider version of that grin, which honestly didn’t reassure Terry at all.
In the end, it didn’t matter. What did was that Black had hold of him, and the next moment, they whirled away from the field and appeared in front of the ugliest houses Terry had ever seen. Stranger still, it appeared to be in Muggle London, one place he would have thought the House of Black would avoid at all costs.
“Welcome to Number Twelve Grimmauld Place.”
*
Harry looked up as the library door opened. He’d been a little nervous when Black had said that he was going to fetch Terry. But then he had, and he’d insisted on questioning Terry and explaining the “rules” to him by himself. Harry thought he’d already won more concessions than he’d expected by asking Black to go get Terry, so he didn’t push it.
Now Terry came in, and he wasn’t limping or bleeding. Harry allowed himself a smile of cautious relief, and Terry returned it. Then he came over and leaned so that he could see the book Harry held, which happened to be on ways to let someone cast spells with a magical focus other than a wand.
“Why do you need that? You told me you still had your wand!”
Harry had to smile a little. Terry sounded so indignant, and Harry knew it was because he thought he was being kept out of the loop again, not because he thought Harry shouldn’t be casting with something other than his wand.
“It’s for Bellatrix Lestrange,” he explained, and reached under the table, where Spellmaker was sleeping, to haul her up. She yowled at him in protest, but didn’t actually move, instead trying to snuggle down in his lap to resume her slumber. “I turned her wand into this cat during a battle. We need a way to have her cast spells so I can figure out her magic, and unwind it from my parents. We can’t give her a wand without having her win it, which we aren’t allowing her to do, because ours aren’t compatible. And Spellmaker won’t go near her.”
“And you won’t turn the cat back.”
Harry turned and stared.
“Yes, that was a stupid question,” said Terry, with a roll of his eyes, and then settled down in front of the table with a resigned expression. “Well, are you going to show me that book or not? I might be able to suggest other places we can look, but not until I know what you already have.”
Harry swallowed, and hesitated. Terry didn’t have to be involved in this. He had apparently got in trouble because he’d helped Neville and the DA too openly. So what would happen if he did this?
“I’m a Ravenclaw. I like books. And I wanted to know what’s going on, and I still do. And I’ve passed Black’s rigorous tests to be part of your life.” Terry held out his hand for one of the other books lying beside Harry.
Harry gave in to the odd kind of friendship he seemed to attract, and handed another book over.
*
phoenix_rob: Thank you!
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The Art of Self-Fashioning