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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

Chapter List
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Chapter Forty-One—Richer Gifts
Harry pauses when they come into the dining room. It’s partially because the room is so completely overwhelming, white and gold flashing from snowy cloths on the table and the branches of glowing candelabras and a decoration overhead that looks like an enormous frozen crystal snowflake with glints of gold in it.
But it’s also because he just had an idea, and for all he knows, it’s going to work. He tilts his head a little.
“What is it?” asks Draco, who is the one right beside him. They’re spreading out to sit at different chairs at the table, and Harry watches where he’s supposed to go. He’s supposed to sit next to Draco, who’s next to Professor Snape. That will work. Theo is on his other side, but Theo will only watch and listen.
“I’m thinking about something,” Harry says. It doesn’t take a lot to put hesitation in his voice. He’s hesitant about this whole thing. “I want to tell you the truth, but I don’t know what to say without hurting your feelings.”
Draco bristles at once. “You can say anything you want,” he hisses at Harry as they sit down. His parents are talking with Tarquinius and it’s perfectly obvious they think children shouldn’t interrupt an adult conversation. “I’m not a Hufflepuff about things.”
Harry wants to remind him how they got two years of hatred out of Harry refusing to shake his hand on the Hogwarts Express, but that’s exactly what shouldn’t happen right now. He nods a little. “Okay. The etiquette books were kind of an insulting gift, Draco.”
Food has appeared on their plates. Theo is slow to pick up his fork, and Draco just gapes at him. “But why? You need them!”
“I’d like lessons from a friend in private if he really thinks I need them,” Harry says, and eyes the wobbly orange thing on the plate in front of him. He honestly has no idea what it is. He takes his fork and carves off a small slice, and it tastes like oranges, so he supposes it’s okay. “But books in public make me feel bad.”
“It wasn’t in public!”
“It was still in front of people who would know exactly what you think of me by giving me etiquette books.”
“He’s right, you know,” Theo says in a quiet voice, leaning around Harry so he can see Draco. “I don’t know if your parents thought they were a good gift and you were just going along with them, or—”
“I thought of them! All on my own! And they are a good gift.” Draco seems to be calming down, maybe because he doesn’t want to force his parents to pay attention to their conversation. “Anyway, I’m not taking them back. You need them.”
“But when someone feels insulted by a gift,” Theo prompts in a tone that makes Draco glare at him, “what should you do?”
This is evidently an etiquette lesson that the children of Death Eaters get taught. Draco is turning a pale pink color and looking away. “You apologize,” he murmurs. “And you get them another gift. Something they choose so that you can be sure they like it. And you pay the price no matter what it costs.”
“That’s right,” Theo says, with a patronizing nod.
Harry breathes out slowly. That’s what he thought. That’s what he hoped, because he really didn’t know. But it seemed likely given the other rules pure-bloods have to follow. That means he was right, and now he can go ahead with his risky plan and just hope that it’s not too risky when it comes to what Mr. Malfoy is going to think of Draco.
“All right,” Draco says, after a few minutes of waiting for Harry to bring it up. But Harry is going to be damned if he brings it up. He’s been eating his orange thing and drinking his glass of—something. It’s too pale and cold to be butterbeer. “So what do you want?”
Harry makes sure to keep his voice low. “Freedom for one of your house-elves.”
Draco almost knocks his drink over. Theo almost drops his fork. Tarquinius frowns down the table. “Is everything all right there?”
“It’s fine, Father,” Theo says, and smiles a little. “Draco and Harry are simply instructing each other on methods of etiquette.”
From the way the older Malfoys get chilly smiles on their faces, Harry is sure that they think Draco is the teacher. He ignores that. Ultimately, it’s not going to get in the way of what he wants from Draco, because he won’t let it.
Draco drinks some of his clear water and looks at the glass instead of Harry. “What makes you think I can even give you that?”
He’s not outright denying it. Harry meets his eyes, and Draco flushes and looks away again. “Because you’re one of the masters of the Malfoy house-elves, and I know they can be freed if you give them clothes,” he says, softly but definitely. “One of them helped me last year. I forgot about him, which was stupid of me, but now I want to free him.”
“Why would you want to?”
“I have a lot of empathy for him.”
Draco looks up again, and his eyes are so wide that Harry’s sure he’s making some connections he hasn’t before. “Your relatives—”
“We aren’t going to discuss it right now.”
Draco narrows his eyes from their wideness. “All right. But a house-elf is a really valuable gift, even if I’m not giving him directly to you. That means that it can’t be used just to make up for giving you the wrong gift like the etiquette books. So you’re going to talk to me and answer three questions truthfully. All right?”
“Agreed.” Harry would agree to a lot worse than that to free Dobby. And it sounds as if Draco is actually going to do it.
“After dinner.”
Harry nods, and then goes back to actually eating. He can feel Tarquinius and Professor Snape looking at them. He ignores that. They can’t interfere in what’s going to happen, because Draco has the power to free Dobby and they don’t. They might be able to spy on it, but Draco knows his own house the best. Harry hopes he can get them into a private room or corridor where he can do what he needs to do.
The stares don’t go away, but Harry’s a lot better about bearing things like that than he would have been a year ago.
*
Draco stretches the length of Slytherin tie around his hand and tries to ignore the feeling that his father is going to come around the corner any moment. He knows that’s not true. A debate about the Ministry’s likely next move to outlaw werewolf employment started during the last half of dinner, and his parents, Professor Snape, and Theo’s father are all engaged in the dining room still. Father won’t leave until he thinks he’s won, and the same is true of Mr. Nott.
Harry’s weight of expectation next to him is worrying enough.
“Dobby!” Draco calls, rolling his eyes a little as the house-elf pops up next to him. He should have known it would be Dobby even before Harry told him the name. He’s always been strange, and the one who gets punished the most out of the Malfoy elves because he’s so strange.
Dobby appears, and stares at Harry for a second before he turns back to Draco and screws his eyes almost shut, like that will prevent him from seeing Harry anymore. “Yes, Young Master Malfoy?”
Trying not to think of what his father is going to say when Dobby doesn’t appear anymore—even though Harry has a lie prepared for that, it might or might not be enough—Draco throws the tie at him. “Go on. Get out of here. You’re free.”
Dobby catches the tie and gapes at it for long enough that Draco starts to regret what he did. All they need now is for the weird elf to go and find Father and brag that Draco set him free or something.
But then Dobby looks up with watering eyes and flings his arms around Draco.
Theo starts snickering. Draco reaches down and pries at Dobby’s arms and tries to get him off, but there’s no sign Dobby notices. “Young Master Malfoy is being good!” he whispers in what sounds like ecstasy. “Dobby never dreamed Young Master Malfoy was being good!”
Draco swallows. Theo’s laughter is getting louder, and he doesn’t dare look up and see what Harry’s expression is. But right now, that seems less important than the fact that one of the Malfoy elves thought he was a bad person. “Er, it’s all right,” he says, and pats Dobby awkwardly on the back. “Can you go to Hogwarts now? I think there’s a place prepared for you there. I know that, um, Harry here is going to offer you a Galleon a week.”
“Young Master Harry Potter is—” Dobby starts wailing so loudly that he’s going to alert the whole house in a minute.
“Go on, please, Dobby.” Harry’s voice is gentle and just the right volume, somehow, to cut through the sound Dobby’s making. “I’ll be there soon, okay? I’m staying at Hogwarts for the holidays. I’ll give you your Galleon and get you settled into the kitchens.”
“Do you even know where the kitchens are?” Theo asks in an undertone.
“I’m sure Blaise can help me find them.”
Draco frowns, but Dobby nods eagerly and Disapparates before he can say anything. Draco blinks at where he was. “It’s strange to think I’ll never see him again,” he mutters. Dobby’s always been there, bringing him breakfast and hanging up his clothes and pausing regularly to bash his head on something or wring his ears.
“Of course you can.” Harry is giving him a look as if Draco is the strange one. “Just go down to the kitchens at Hogwarts.”
“Oh. Um. Right.” Draco can feel his face flushing, but there’s really nothing he can do about that. He’s just so far off-balance. The etiquette books weren’t a good gift, and then Harry asked for this, and then it happened. Draco certainly never thought, when he woke up this morning, that he would be freeing any house-elves at all, let alone like this.
Harry suddenly smiles. Draco stares at him. I wonder if he knows how powerful he is. “Thank you, Draco,” Harry whispers. “Really. It was my fault for forgetting about him for so long. Thank you for doing this.”
“You’re welcome,” Draco replies, still a little dazed. He’s seen his father smile at Ministry politicians and all sorts of people smile in the paper. They’re powerful.
None of them smile like Harry, like suddenly you’re the center of his whole world and he’s happy you are.
Theo and Harry start talking about Arithmancy as they go back towards the dining room. Draco trails silently after them.
*
“Now.”
Severus tries to make his voice as portentous as possible, the kind of voice he uses when someone has piled half a dozen shreds of dried lavender into one cauldron with powdered obsidian and is trying to start a fire underneath. He doesn’t know if he succeeds. He does keep his back turned to Harry as the boy comes into his office and halts.
“Is this about the gift you got me, sir?”
No hesitation in the boy’s voice. Good. Severus would not want him to start doubting now that Severus did get him a gift, even if the one he’s chosen ends up being a poor match for that remarkable scroll.
Severus finds the present under a drift of essays—of course he does, he has an excellent memory—and turns around with the heavy box in his hands. Harry flicks his eyes from Severus’s face to the way he holds it, and comes forwards slowly. Of course, all the staring in the world won’t show him more than the box’s outside, which is polished ebony with silver hinges clasping it near the top. Severus cast some particular charms that mean no one can turn the sides transparent or look inside without opening it.
“Is it dangerous, sir? I mean, the way you’re holding it—”
“Not dangerous, but fragile, and easily triggered.” Severus sighs and sets the box down on the desk where Harry writes lines during his detentions. “It will be less fragile after you’ve opened it. Do so now.”
He winces a second later. He didn’t mean to make it sound like he was ordering the boy.
Harry apparently finds nothing wrong with his tone, though, perhaps because it is a present. He reaches out and lets his hand drift to a stop on the box’s lid. There’s a quiet roll of sound, as deep as thunder but not as loud, and then a chime. Severus relaxes. The spells have worked as they were supposed to work, and disengaged the stronger protections on the box so Harry can reach inside.
(Not that he doubted they would work).
Harry gives him one more curious glance and then flips open the lid. It’s big enough to hide the expression on his face from Severus at first. Severus makes himself relax with a clench of his fingers into his palms, and watches the way Harry takes a slow step back from the box.
He hates it. He’s disgusted—
“What is it?’
Or perhaps he simply doesn’t know what it is. Severus can scoff at himself as well as he can at anyone else. He nods and steps forwards. “If you take it out and hold it up, then I can show you how to use it. You’re the only one who can touch it.”
Harry does remove the shining thing from the box. It resembles a pendant without a chain, a hovering silver shield wreathed with curlicues and with an amethyst gem in the center. Hovering around it, each one equidistant from the pendant, is a circle, or pentagon, of five shining silver points.
“It’s a protection for you,” Severus says quietly. “Armor that most people won’t think is there at all. Hold it so that the amethyst is aligned with your heart.”
His mouth is dry, but at least his voice sounds normal. Harry scrambles to obey. In seconds, the amethyst is right in front of his chest, which means that two of the points of silver light are hovering around his feet, two to the sides of his ribs, and the fifth one above his head.
“Invoco defendere,” Severus says, and reaches out to tap the amethyst with his wand.
The way the light swells in the middle of his gem warns Severus. He closes his eyes and relaxes as best he can, and the power swirls forwards and seizes him and throws him into the far corner of his office.
“Professor Snape!”
Severus cheated earlier, and placed Cushioning Charms there, which means that it doesn’t hurt nearly as much as hitting his head on stone should. He sits up, blinking, and runs his hand over the back of his head. Yes, he’s fine.
And when he glances at Harry, the presence of the armor has faded. There’s only a gleam of purple or silver here and there, and you have to be extremely quick-witted to catch it.
“Why did it do that to you? It has to know that you won’t be a threat to me!”
“It knows no such thing. It does not have a mind, as such. I did not want to buy you something that had a mind of its own, after the incident with the diary last year.”
Harry is helping him sit up, staring at him. “Thank you, but—I still don’t understand.”
“I fed some of my power into the gemstone,” Severus says. “It will now react like that to any wizard of my power or lesser—and although there are wizards more powerful than I am, Albus and the Dark Lord among them, I flatter myself that there are not many that you will interact with on a daily basis.”
Harry glances around as if trying to find the gem. “I don’t see it now.”
“It is invisible when fulfilling its purpose. And you need not fear. It will react only to curses and hostile intent. You can practice dueling with your friends and harmless spells in Defense without triggering it. The only time that should happen is if it turns out that you have enemies among the students.”
And I know that you have those.
Harry smiles gently. “Well, thank you. It’ll make it easier to keep myself safe the way I promised you I would.”
“That is not the only gift. Look in the box once more.”
Harry turns around to do so, although he does say over his shoulder, “You don’t need to do that, sir. I only got you one.”
Severus says nothing. It is not Harry’s prerogative to decide how many gifts he receives, only how many he gives.
Harry lifts out the book that lies there and opens it. Then he goes still. Severus finishes standing up and remains in the corner, not sure whether he might have breached some inviolable barrier with this gift.
“Thank you.”
Severus relaxes. That tone of voice was sincere. In truth, Harry does not often lie; he’s not good at it. He just doesn’t say what he’s thinking, or insists that he’s fine when someone asks how he is.
Harry is turning slowly through the book, savoring. Severus does not need to look at the pages. He knows well enough what is there: Lily’s letters to him that she wrote during the summer and sometimes during other holidays. He gave Harry the originals and made duplicates for himself. Now and then is a picture, again an original of something he copied for himself. He doesn’t have many of those, not nearly as many as letters, but Harry can see his mother’s face laughing above a book, and sometimes by the light of a fire, and in the Potions classroom when she and Severus sneaked in after Slughorn went to bed and experimented with ingredients they weren’t allowed to use during the day.
“Thank you,” Harry repeats, and puts the book carefully aside. Then he approaches Severus, looking as nervous as Severus ever could, and hugs him, as carefully as he treated the book.
Severus bows his head. He does not believe in the notion of a perfect moment, one that will compensate for everything that has gone wrong before.
But this moment comes as close as anything can in this world.
*
Kain; Harry will never forget what Lucius did to Ginny. Lucius being responsible for his own re-Sorting isn't something that occurs all that much to him, because it happened to him, not someone else.
I forgot about Dobby for a while, as well, but I like the way I solved the problem in this chapter.
Severus is having a heart attack over Tarquinius's gift. But hopefully his first gift to Harry is going to help with that. Sirius might have more of a problem with the connections that Harry is forging with Death Eaters and their children.
Moodysavage: Harry doesn't think he can change people unless they show a willingness to change (like Blaise and Theo already have, and Draco is getting there), so he's going to totally ignore Lucius and Narcissa until that happens, if it ever does.
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