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Children of the Sun	By : Lomonaaeren Category: Harry Potter > General > General Views: 12412 -:- Recommendations : 1 -:- Currently Reading : 2
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter. I am making no money from this story.

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Severus kept one hand on Shadowstriker. He had ever since he walked up the stairs into Albus’s office, and not because he thought his viper would lunge and try to devour Albus’s phoenix. It wasn’t Fawkes he had to worry about hitting.
“Then you intend to do nothing?”
Albus sighed a little and popped a lemon drop into his mouth, then tried to hand one to Fawkes. The phoenix, as Severus had seen him do every time he was present when this little ritual happened, refused it with a croon. “You’ve said yourself that you can’t see this sickness in Alanna that young Harry told you about. And there’s no guarantee that it’s anything to do with Voldemort.”
Severus flinched, hated it, and went on stroking Shadowstriker. “You don’t have the assurance that it isn’t, either.”
“Neither do I have the assurance that the way the oaks grow along the edge of the Forbidden Forest doesn’t have something to do with poor Tom. Really, my dear boy, you ought to know that you can’t prove a negative.”
Severus stood up. “That’s true, Albus. Well, if you’ll excuse me, then I’ll go and do some research in the library.”
“On the word of a child?”
“On the word of a child who’s also a Parselmouth, and has a golden familiar.” Severus paused as he walked towards the door, suddenly struck by a thought. But it wasn’t one he could voice to Albus, so he ended up nodding, saying, “Good night,” and riding down the stairs while his mind rioted.
Could it be that Albus wanted to disregard Potter’s word not because he was a Parselmouth or a child—the first theories Severus had come up with—but because he was the only other person in living memory to show up with a golden familiar? Out of jealousy?
It wasn’t a good hypothesis, but Severus had long since discarded the thought that Albus Dumbledore was purely a good man. He went to the library in a thoughtful mood, and took out all the books on Dark Arts in the Restricted Section in a thoughtful mood, and would have gone on thinking about it if he hadn’t got discouraged by finding nothing at all about magic like the Dark Mark in the books.
The Dark Lord had always been too clever for his own good.
*
“D’you think the stories are true and he can really control snakes because he’s a Parselmouth?”
Ron braced himself. He’d been hearing the rumors swirling around Gryffindor Tower all yesterday, and he’d ignored them because no one had actually come up to him and said anything. But now someone was saying something right next to him.
It took a lot more courage to stand up to his Housemates in defense of his friends than he’d ever thought he’d need when he was Sorted into Gryffindor.
Arctos put his paw on Ron’s knee and whuffled at him encouragingly. Ron reached out, stroked his ears back, nodded, and stood up.
“At least get the stories right, McLaggen,” he said as casually as he could, while Arctos leaned against his leg and Fred and George looked up from a game they were playing with Exploding Snap cards and no rules. “They say that a Parselmouth can control any reptilian familiar, not just snakes.”
McLaggen paled. At his feet, his copper lizard, Antonio, flickered out his tongue and then scrambled into McLaggen’s lap. McLaggen stroked his nose and seemed to get some confidence back. “You don’t actually know that. No one does, because there are no Parselmouths anymore.”
“There is now. Why don’t you go and ask Harry? I’m sure that he could tell you. And he’d be happy to tell you. He isn’t stuck-up, like some people I could name.”
McLaggen glared at him. Ron could feel sweat breaking out on the back of his neck. McLaggen was only one year above him, but he was pretty tall and hefty. And just because Fred and George could intervene didn’t mean they would. They’d told Ron on his first night that they thought he could fight his own battles.
“Go talk to a Hufflepuff? We don’t all have your lack of loyalty to our Houses, Weasley.”
“I’m plenty loyal to Gryffindor!”
McLaggen sneered and made his lizard scurry up to his shoulder as he leaned forwards. Arctos fixed his eyes on Antonio and growled. Antonio only flicked his tongue out again. “Then prove it. Talk to the people in Gryffindor and make friends here! Stop spending time in the library with that Ravenclaw girl and those two Hufflepuffs and that Slytherin.”
Ron answered before he even thought about it. “They’re my friends.”
“How can a Slytherin be anyone’s friend?”
“Because he just—is,” Ron muttered. He knew he didn’t sound convincing, and Arctos leaned harder against him as if he thought he could give Ron’s words more weight. Ron shook his head and decided to say, “Look, come along with me and meet Harry if you want, McLaggen. Then you can see the truth.”
“Which is?”
“That it doesn’t matter if he’s a Parselmouth and could control your lizard,” Ron said, folding his arms. “Because he’s not the kind of person who ever would. It just wouldn’t occur to him,” he added, when he saw the doubtful way McLaggen stared at him. “He doesn’t want his power. Or he only wants to use it to change things for the better.”
“People with golden familiars are always powerful and out for themselves.”
“You think Professor Dumbledore is, too?” Ron asked. It was the first time he’d ever heard someone say that kind of thing about Dumbledore. Most people respected him even if they didn’t like him much, and people like Mum and Dad almost worshiped him.
McLaggen looked uncomfortable. “I didn’t say that.”
“Is that just because Professor Dumbledore used to be a Gryffindor?” Ron snorted a little when McLaggen went red. “Come on, just meet Harry. You’ll forget he’s a Hufflepuff in a little while. He’s just Harry.”
“Maybe I will and maybe I won’t.”
“Unless you’re scared to,” Ron said. He knew he had it when McLaggen grabbed hold of his lizard and acted like he would surge out of the chair. “Scared that Harry’s going to control your familiar or something. I told you he wouldn’t, but you don’t believe me, do you? Or you’re too scared to believe me.”
“I’m not scared, Weasley! Take that back!”
“Why should I, when you’re acting scared?”
McLaggen glared at him for a little. Ron would have found the glare more impressive a fortnight ago, before he was Sorted into Gryffindor and he learned that he had his own courage, and that it didn’t matter so much that he had a bronze familiar in a family full of people with bronzes. Harry saw him for who he really was. It wasn’t the twins or Bill or Charlie that he wanted to be friends with.
“Fine,” McLaggen growled. “It looks like your little friend spends all his time with that Ravenclaw girl in the library. Tell him that I’ll meet him there tomorrow.” And he stalked off up the stairs with Antonio balanced on his shoulder and flicking his tongue at Ron and Arctos from under McLaggen’s hair.
Ron blinked, then grinned and sat back down. Most people were ignoring him again now that McLaggen was gone, but as he watched, Fabian, Fred’s bronze cockatoo familiar, flew over to the back of his chair. Ron watched him warily. Sometimes he could pet Gideon, George’s familiar, but Fabian liked to chew on Ron’s ears and crap in his hair.
Fabian just reached down and gently preened Ron’s hair, though. Then he flew back to Fred, and the twins nodded to Ron and kept playing their game.
It occurred to Ron that he should maybe have asked Harry if he wanted to meet McLaggen, but he shrugged a minute later and decided it didn’t matter. Harry was just Harry, and he accepted everybody. He’d probably forgive Ron if he showed up with Voldemort in tow, let alone another Gryffindor.
*
“What are you looking up?”
Harry smiled at McLaggen and pushed the book towards him. The boy had been loud and rude for the first few minutes when he and Draco and Hermione and Ron were all together in the library, and most of his animosity seemed to be directed at Draco. But in the end, he had got interested in the ways that Hermione and Harry were discussing the sickness of Quirrell’s familiar.
“The diseases that might cause a silver snake to appear inside a bronze rabbit.”
McLaggen leaned back and scoffed a little, but then he glanced at Golden, and his tone got a lot more respectful. “Familiars don’t get sick like that. There’s no such thing.”
“Well, something is making a silver snake appear inside Alanna,” Harry told him. McLaggen could scoff all he wanted, but Harry knew what he’d seen.
“And Professor Quirrell used a spell on Harry today that could have been lethal.” Hermione was practically bouncing in her seat, and Regina bobbed her head and chattered a little. She hadn’t looked away from McLaggen’s familiar since he sat down, but Harry trusted Hermione to stop her from doing something stupid. “It could have killed him! But Golden’s defensive runes were good.”
“Why are your runes so good? That good?” Draco said suddenly, leaning forwards.
Harry looked at him, and only saw friendly interest there. It made him hope that Draco wasn’t going to have a bad reaction or think Harry had had an especially hard life just because he had a golden familiar. So he answered. “They’re the runes from where Golden protected me against my Muggle relatives.”
McLaggen had been tilting back in his chair. Suddenly he let the legs fall forwards and nearly hit his knees on the table. “What?”
“What,” Draco said, in a flatter tone, at the same time. Kali reared up on his shoulder and hissed.
Even Ron looked upset, although he hadn’t said much since they’d come into the library, just reading books and taking notes. He petted Arctos’s head and said, “I think we all want to know more about that, Harry.”
“Well, I mean, they’re Muggles,” Harry said slowly. He wondered what he should say. They seemed a lot more upset than he thought they should be, but on the other hand, he didn’t want to get them more upset. “So they couldn’t see Golden, and they were always saying I was lying when I talked about him. I didn’t know anything about the wizarding world and how unusual it was to have a golden snake until Hagrid took me to Diagon Alley. Golden protected me when they pushed me down stairs or tried to grab my arm, and he kept them from holding food away from me as much as they wanted.”
McLaggen suddenly stood up and glanced at Ron. “You know what you’re talking about, Weasley. And it’s outrageous.” Then he stomped out of the library. Harry shook his head after him. If McLaggen wasn’t interested in helping them look for the source of Alanna’s sickness, he should have just said so in the first place.
Draco’s face was pale as he reached out and laid a hand on Harry’s sleeve. “Harry, promise me something.”
“What?” Harry patted Draco’s shoulder. He looked so upset that Harry was ready to promise him anything, except maybe to obey his mother, who just didn’t understand some of the things Harry wanted.
“You won’t go back to the Muggles. Not now.”
Harry frowned. “But where am I going to live if I don’t go back to them? They’re my only family.”
“I think McLaggen’s going to take care of that,” said Ron, smiling a little.
“Now what do you mean?” Harry said, and rolled his eyes when Ron’s smile only got bigger. “Anyway. It’s not important that we talk about the Dursleys or Golden’s runes. Hermione’s right that Professor Quirrell shot a spell at me, but I’m sure that’s connected to the way that his familiar looks. It’s like his actions aren’t really his.”
Draco sat up suddenly. “What if—what if someone else’s familiar is controlling his?”
Harry snapped his fingers. “You can do that?”
“Well—not really. I’ve never heard of it. But what you said about his actions not being his own…”
“Let me go look for books on possession,” said Hermione, and stood up so suddenly that Regina nearly fell from her shoulder, and ran off into the bookshelves. Golden stuck his head out from under the table to look after her, then returned to his nap.
“Thanks, Draco,” Harry said, and grinned at him. “We’ve got something to look for, now.”
“Lots of things,” said Draco darkly, and went back into the shelves. Harry couldn’t help noticing that he had different books from Hermione when he came back, ones on wizarding law and the treatment of children.
But for right now, he wasn’t going to say anything, only scowling and sometimes muttering to Ron, who muttered back. So Harry let it go, and discussed possession with Hermione.
The Dursleys were far away and a distant problem. Right now, they had to help Professor Quirrell.
*
Jan: It may be that Harry can convert Narcissa. He's pretty close to it with McLaggen.
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Children of the Sun