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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 Forty-Five--Of Limited Help
"Of course you can stay here, if that's what you need to do."
Neville gave Mrs. Weasley a tired smile and dropped the broom into the middle of the Weasleys' garden. He was still amazed that they had made it all the way to the Burrow without someone falling off in midair. His arms ached, and his legs ached, and even his tongue ached, as if he'd been lifting weights with it.
Hermione staggered in with Ron's arm around her waist. Mrs. Weasley turned to look at them, and Neville saw the way her face softened.
"Of course you can stay here," she repeated, and turned back to Neville. "Although I think this must all be a misunderstanding with Headmaster Dumbledore."
Neville swallowed and didn't try to respond to that. They only needed shelter for one night, he hoped. Then they could either be on their way to Harry, or he could find out what happened to his Gran and go to her.
"Thanks, Mum," Ron said, and flopped down at the table, looking around with tired eyes. "Where're Fred and George?" They had actually left the school last month, after a fairly dramatic confrontation with Umbridge.
"At that shop of theirs." Mrs. Weasley's voice was dark as she started to crack eggs into a pan. Neville smiled. It was almost ten-o'clock at night, but of course his best friend's mum thought that was the best time to have them eat. "I told them they need at least eleven OWLs each to make people take them seriously, but they don't want to listen." She cast a charm that began to whisk the eggs vigorously around.
"I'm probably not going to have eleven OWLS either, Mum."
"This is a misunderstanding that we'll get straightened out," said Mrs. Weasley hastily, and went on talking. "And they wanted to test one of those charms that supposedly gives someone chicken feathers on your father. They'll be lucky if I let them back in the house any time soon."
Neville relaxed for a while, a very little while, into the flow of sharp words and worried ones, and ate the excellent scrambled eggs, and then went upstairs to the Weasleys' little Owlery. They'd finally got two new owls last year, when Neville pretended that his Gran's didn't have room for some of the birds anymore.
The larger tawny owl, Horus, who had brilliant yellow eyes and black marks to the edge of his feathers, hooted in excitement when he saw Neville. Neville knew he hadn't minded being sent here to the Weasleys, but he'd also been at home in the Longbottom Owlery, and probably sorry to leave.
"I have a letter for you," Neville whispered. "Or I will in a minute, all right?"
Horus hooted again and twisted his head about importantly while Neville sat down to write the letter. The other owls ignored him. Poor Errol looked as if he might be doing it because he was dead.
Neville made sure the letter he wrote to Harry wasn't long. He explained the very basic outlines of the situation, and that Ron and Hermione had come with him, and that they were in hiding at the Weasleys' right now because they thought Gran and Longbottom Manor were both in danger. Then he asked Harry to let all three of them stay, and held out the letter. Horus snatched it eagerly and barely let Neville say it was for Harry Potter before he launched himself out the window.
Neville stood where he was, petting Errol, who didn't notice, and watching the shape of Horus fade. He wondered for a moment if Harry was doing what he, Neville, should have done, hiding in secret and working to end the war.
But for once, he found it pretty easy to get rid of the self-doubt and just say to himself that at least he was helping Harry now.
*
Harry ran his fingers over the letter, and sighed. He wondered for a moment if Neville and his friends really wanted to come into a house that was as tense and quiet as it had been since Harry had taken out Snape's eye.
Except for the potions and spells necessary to try and heal that eye as much as he could, Black hadn't come out of his room since. He hadn't spoken to Harry since. Harry was surprised by how much he missed him. On the other hand, it also proved that their connection was easily severed. Harry would have to do what he could and work alone.
Of course, he would write back and tell Neville he could come. He'd already discussed with Black that they would have to come here, Neville and his Gran and anyone else who fled with him. Black hadn't seemed to think he would come alone.
"Harry?"
Harry looked around in surprise. Think of the devil. Black stood with his arms folded in the doorway of the library, hunched as if he were cold. Harry tilted his head in welcome since he couldn't think of what else to do.
Black moved slowly in, slinking like Professor McGonagall in her cat form. He took a chair across from Harry and stared at him hard. Harry stared back. He honestly had no idea what to do or say, and he didn't think that was because of his differences from other people.
"Do you understand why I was so angry at you?"
"Yes. You think I'm better than that. Terry explained it to me," Harry added when Black started. "I didn't come up with it on my own."
"I see. I shouldn't have expected you to." Black sighed and leaned back to stare at the ceiling. "And do you agree?"
"That I'm morally better than Snape? Not really. And I don't understand why you think that I should be better, but you give him a pass. Is it because he's older, or you knew him as a Death Eater? I can explain what the Dursleys did to me, if you really want an excuse for the way I am."
Black turned slowly towards Harry again. "You're angry."
"Of course I bloody am. You abandoned me the instant I defended myself against someone attacking me."
"The scratch was a defense. The eye--"
"Long-term defense. The way you're always telling me I should think. You keep saying Snape is insane and dangerous. Then why is he still here? Why would we rely on any potion he brewed that you knew was for me in any way? Why do we coddle him and say that it's understandable for him to attack me?"
"I..."
"He had Wild around his fingers that could have killed me. That was what he planned to do, grab me and choke me until I died. Are you still sympathetic to him now? Do you still care more about my moral purity than my life?"
Harry hadn't realized he was shouting until he heard the way the words came out of his throat. Unnerved, he took a quiet step back. Black, meanwhile, was staring at Harry as if he had never seen him before.
"No. I never cared...more about your moral purity than your life."
"Good." Harry wasn't sure what he would have said if Black had decided the other way. He didn't want to stay here, though, not with Black staring at him as if his eyes could burn holes in Harry's body. He turned around to leave.
"Harry. Listen to me, please."
Shivering with reluctance, Harry turned back around. Black had sat in his chair again and held out one hand. As if he would soothe a wild animal, Harry thought, and this time the comparison irritated him in a way it normally didn't.
"I did think that you should be the better person and spare Severus." Black was talking low, rapidly, as if he needed to reach a certain point in his words before Harry decided against them. "But now that I think about it, I'm not sure why. If Severus hadn't tried to attack you, because you never visited him again, I think it would have been me. He's...gone. Before you took his eye, part of his mind was gone. Or his restraint. I think he started to go mad when you took away his Dark Mark."
"Yes, blame me for freeing him."
"I don't blame you. The seeds of madness were probably planted long before that." Black sighed and rubbed his face, and then gave Harry a look that was the most normal one Harry had seen on his face in a long time. "What I think you need to do is consider your best way forwards."
"My best way?"
"Can it be found in using Severus? Or freeing him?"
"I plan to do neither. Although, if you free him, then I'll have to consider you an enemy," Harry had to add, because he thought Black might be weary enough to do it. "I plan to ignore him. And what happens to him after the war is what happens."
"After the war? You think you're going to play a part in defeating the Dark Lord and not merely healing your parents?"
Harry snorted. "Of course. Lord Dudders is hardly going to forgive me for taking his snake and so many of his Death Eaters. I can't prevent every move he would make, but I can predict some of them. He'll probably come and hammer on the wards himself, soon."
Black visibly paled, even beneath the mask of pallor and grime that Harry thought he'd developed staying up nights to take care of Snape. "I'm not sure that my ancestors' wards could stand up to him. They were paranoid, yes, and they had years to construct them, but none of them anticipated a wizard as powerful as the Dark Lord existing."
Harry shrugged. He hadn't ever felt how strong Lord Dudders was, so he supposed he would have to wait until he did to really understand Black's fear. But he knew one thing right now. "I'm going to create a trap that can catch him."
"What's it going to use?"
"My animals."
Black immediately narrowed his eyes. "Your spiders and wasps were effective against the Death Eaters, Harry, but they're of much less power and cunning than the Dark Lord. and now that you've used them once, they're not such a surprise."
Harry curled his lip a little. "How is Lord Dudders going to know the exact specifics of that? It's not as though his Death Eaters can escape to report to him, and he knows that I can use Transfiguration, I'm sure, but not the whole. If anything, the reports Snape gave him would encourage him to underestimate me."
Black shook his head. "The Dark Lord has his ways of learning the truth."
Harry rolled his eyes. "I don't intend to let paranoia get in the way of trapping him and killing him." He cocked his head. "That reminds me. Neville wants to come to the house with Weasley and Granger. You're inclined to let them do that?"
"I...yes, of course they can. The Muggleborn girl will have to stay out of some areas of the house. They're primed to react to people like her."
Harry just nodded. "Then you can be the one in charge of telling her that. I need Neville to help me with the trap for Lord Dudders. And I need to know if you're going to cooperate and work with me, instead of just attacking me and whining about how I ought to be a morally better person than I am."
"I would never attack you."
"The doubt and scoldings that you've given me so far are pretty much the same thing."
Black closed his eyes. "I'm not Snape."
"Not a physical attack. If you find yourself thinking that you need to restrain me for my own good, however..."
Black kept his eyes shut, and for long moments, Harry thought that would be the last communication he would get from him. Finally, he murmured, "I always intended to stand with you, Harry. You matter more to me than you know, more than just my brother's godson would. You're..."
He didn't finish the sentence, which was probably just as well. Harry said briskly, "Then I'll write back to Neville and tell him that he and his friends are welcome here." He paused, weighing various words and the relief he felt that Black had agreed to work with him, which he knew was more than just the relief that the master of the house wouldn't be his enemy.
"Thank you, Regulus."
By the time Black had opened his eyes in what Harry was certain was astonishment, Harry had already slipped past him and left the room. He walked with his head bowed, his mind brewing with plans.
Plans that would only work if he was right about the snake, or semi-right about the snake. He wouldn't know that until Neville got there.
But at least thinking about it was a nice distraction from the prickling heat in his cheeks.
*
Neville flinched a little as he stepped into the house that Harry had invited him to. The magic in the air was so thick that he could feel it pushing against him, eddying around his body, and even looking at him with doubting eyes. The old ancestors who'd enchanted Longbottom Manor had nothing on the ones who'd set up the wards here.
"Neville?"
Of course, there was a reason I came, he thought, and held out a hand to Harry as he came down the stairs. There was a slim grey cat on his shoulder and a little rustle of movement by his feet that Neville decided not to think too much about. "Hi, Harry. Thank you so much for letting us come."
Harry nodded as he grasped Neville's hand, and for a second he smiled. "Thank you for saying you would help me with the snake," he said, and his eyes went to Hermione and Ron. "Granger, there are some areas of the house you'll have to stay out of since you're Muggleborn."
"What?"
"You're the soul of tact, Harry," said Black, appearing in the doorway behind Harry and nodding to them all. "I'm afraid that has to do with my ancestors' paranoia, Miss Granger. They always thought Muggleborns would storm the house someday and cost them their freedom, so they insisted on these ridiculous protections."
Neville could feel Hermione stiffen, but she must have read about something like this before, because the next second she cleared her throat and said, "Thank you for offering me sanctuary anyway, Mr. Black."
"I don't share my ancestors' prejudices. On the other hand, I can't dismantle their work without also changing some of the wards around the house that you came here for. I'll show you the places that are off limits."
While Black and Hermione talked, Neville moved in to study Harry. He hadn't seen him so thin and with such dark circles around his eyes at Hogwarts, he thought. Then again, Harry hadn't been under this kind of stress at Hogwarts.
"How are you?" he asked. Ron drifted like a shadow behind him, but he didn't try to interfere in the conversation, which Neville was grateful for.
"I may be closer to figuring out what's happening with that snake," said Harry, "and it would make me feel better if I can solve that problem." He paused. "Do you mind going now to look at her?"
"Harry," Black said, without looking away from Hermione. He started talking to her again a second later.
Harry grimaced and looked at Neville. "Of course we don't need to go look at her right now," he said, quickly and reluctantly, as though Black had forced him to consider something he would rather not think about. "I mean, you can always--"
"I don't mind going down now," Neville interrupted. It seemed Black was trying to teach Harry tact, but it was unnecessary in this case. "Can Ron come?"
"If he doesn't mind being around me and won't panic at the sight of the snake," Harry answered, already moving towards a set of stairs that presumably led towards the cellar.
"'Course not," Ron muttered, sounding embarrassed.
Neville tried not to mind the dark atmosphere of the house that seemed to press on them the more heavily the more stairs they descended. Black had said that a lot of it was just his ancestors' paranoia. Neville had lived behind heavy wards all his life. He just had to put up with it.
And it was brilliant of Harry to let them stay here, or get them invited here, and to want Neville's help with some of the brilliant magical projects he was always doing. That was the main reason Neville didn't mind helping.
*
Harry halted in front of the cage where Lord Dudders's snake coiled. For once, she wasn't flinging herself against the bars and hissing. She was wrapped around two of the bars and tugging silently on them.
She stopped the instant Neville stepped into the room, and focused on him. Her mouth opened. Neville swayed a little at the wave of hissing that came out. Harry watched, and envied Neville. It was the only thing Neville had that he might have wanted, the ability to speak to snakes.
"Her name's Nagini," Neville whispered. "And she thought I was her master until I entered the room." Light beads of sweat stood out along his forehead.
Harry stepped closer to the cage. For the first time, Nagini didn't pay any attention to him. She was slithering back and forth in front of the side of the bars closest to Neville, her tail hitting the bottom of the cage emphatically.
"Can you feel anything from her?" Harry asked, as he moved over to the side and deposited Spellmaker on the floor. If any of his animals could help him with this kind of magic, he thought it would be the cat he had formed from Bellatrix's wand.
"What should Neville be feeling?" Weasley had remained near the door, and he was glancing back and forth between Harry, Neville, and Nagini in a perplexed way.
"I don't know. That's what I want him to concentrate on," Harry said.
He knew what he expected Neville to feel from the snake; he knew what he wanted to do to capture Lord Dudders. The problem was that it would make no sense if he tried to explain it to anyone else, and he didn't want to waste the time with words right now.
He waited, instead, while Neville paced towards Nagini and hissed a question at her. She hissed back, but Harry had to admit he couldn't tell if there were any words in there. He sighed. Perhaps he could come up with a spell that would translate Parseltongue for him.
"That doesn't make much sense."
Harry shrugged at Weasley, but Neville frowned at him. That seemed to mean he was concentrating, and from the way he abruptly stepped forwards and knelt down next to the cage, Harry thought he really was feeling something. Neville would ordinarily have been too frightened to get that close to a venomous snake.
"What can you feel?" Harry tried to keep his voice low and encouraging, unlike Weasley's nerve-shattering whine.
"I can feel...she has an empty place in her."
Harry breathed out slowly. He'd been right.
"Like there was something in her that's missing now. She compares it to a tooth that grew in the wrong direction and someone removed it, but she misses it now that it's out." Neville hissed some more, and then one of his hands rose and traced a random pattern in the air. His eyes were sternly closed, Harry saw, listening to some silent communication from the snake. "She thinks she stopped moving."
Death, probably. If Harry's theory was right, Nagini would have died for at least a moment after Lucius hit her with the Killing Curse. The piece of soul in her would have attracted her own life force as it parted from her, and it would have taken time for that life force to return to her body.
"I don't understand, though," said Neville abruptly as he turned away from Nagini's cage and focused on Harry again. "Why does she think that I have something to do with whatever she's missing? I was only near her once before. Not when V-Voldemort did whatever he did to her."
Harry flicked his eyes to Weasley, assessing. Of course, he would have to tell Minerva and Regulus this in the end, but he wasn't sure if he should trust Neville's friends with secrets like this.
"You can trust Ron."
Of course Neville would say that. Then again, Harry thought of the wards on the Black house and the way that Regulus hadn't told Harry half of what he could do with them, and the effective way they'd stood up to the Death Eaters' attack. If he had to, then Harry knew that Regulus could slam down the wards and keep Weasley and Granger, or their owls, from leaving.
"Lord Dudders has to have some way to come back from the brink of death," he told Neville, ignoring the way Weasley snorted at Lord Dudders's nickname. "I've felt something strange about the Wild around this snake since I first captured her. It's similar to the Dark Marks, but not the same. It's a hole deeper than one in her life force or even a wizard's magic. It has to be the soul."
Neville turned pale and sick-looking. "You think she's--I'm--a Horcrux?"
Harry took a step forwards. He hadn't heard the word, but from the way Neville's face almost glowed in the darkness of the cellar, he was sure it mattered. "What's a Horcrux? How do you know what it is? I haven't even come across it in my reading in the Black library, and that has a lot of Dark Arts books."
"I know a lot of magical theory even if I can't do much practical magic," Neville said, and ignored Ron's faithful protest. "A Horcrux is a container for a piece of soul. Most people who make one are driven mad by the process. It's twisted, and evil, and it tears the soul." He looked near tears. "You think Voldemort made more than one?"
"I think that's what it has to be. The part of soul that was in Nagini probably died when she was hit with the Killing Curse--"
"The what?" Neville and Ron squawked simultaneously.
"Lucius Malfoy hit her with a Killing Curse," Harry repeated calmly. "She fell dead for an instant and then came back to life. I think there's no explanation for it that doesn't come back to a Horcrux."
"And that means I'm one, too."
Harry moved swiftly forwards and grasped Neville's arm before he could faint or start crying. "And because of that," he said, holding Neville and speaking the words firmly, "I have a way to actually defeat Lord Dudders forever."
Neville stared back at him forever before he chose to acknowledge Harry's words. Then he swallowed and nodded.
"If you say so," he muttered.
And Harry felt himself lifted by the waves of faith emanating from Neville, and managed a much broader smile than he'd thought he ever would when discussing something as hard to win against as Horcruxes.
"I can prove it," he said, and started to explain some of the details of his plan to trap Lord Dudders. He had the words now.
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The Art of Self-Fashioning