Facing Backwards

Without a doubt, that Wednesday was the bleakest day of his stay there. Not the hardest. Not the saddest. Just grindingly, devastatingly bleak. With two exceptions.

The class immediately before lunch was a double, Gryffindor and Slytherin second years. Theodore Nott had sat quietly in the back, smirking slightly when one of his Slytherins was able to work out the question trick almost immediately. Harry had praised the boy for his cleverness, asking him if he was sure he wasn't in the wrong class--shouldn't he be in Ravenclaw? The packed room broke out in giggles. Even Nott had smiled, shaking his grey head.

After the class was over, Nott had stayed in his student desk, the same bored look weighing down his fine, delicately lined features.

"Thanks for coming, Theodore," Harry said, not knowing what else to say, since Nott clearly wanted to talk with him. Again Harry was transported back to DA meetings, to memories of Nott standing there in the doorway while he cleaned up the Room of Requirement, never saying anything until Harry wished him goodnight.

"Thank you, Potter. It's..." Nott looked up at the dragon skeleton hanging above his head. "It's a pleasure to see you teach again."

If there was sarcasm there, it was buried far below Harry's ability to dig it out. "You're welcome." Harry looked up from his scrolls. "Theodore... Can I ask you a question?"

The Slytherin House Head shrugged and nodded.

"It's something I've wanted to ask you since the last battle. Since we were last at school." Nott's gaze was suddenly fixed on Harry's, all pretense of ennui melted away. "I would have, but I was, you know, a bit incapacitated for a while. And then we didn't see each other much, and I just felt... funny asking, you know?"

"You've piqued my interest. What is this question that has been burning in your brain for nearly a quarter century?"

Harry blew out a breath. He hadn't meant it to sound so melodramatic. But it was a question that had tickled at his mind and at his conscience for years. "What you did in the Death Room, fighting off the LeStrange brothers when they were about to kill Hermione--that was one of the bravest things I've ever seen. I know I thanked you, and I know she thanked you. But," Harry scratched his head, "why did you do that?"

Nott whistled softly and seemed to be looking up again, though this time he was looking past the dragon. "Do you really not know why?"

"Uh, no," said Harry.

Nott looked Harry in the eye. "Not a clue?"

"Not a one. I mean, I had an inkling..."

"Yes?" Nott said, intently.

"Well, I thought... It seemed to me that perhaps you had a crush on her."

"What, on Granger?" Nott said, and for only the third or possibly the fourth time in their whole acquaintance, Theodore Nott laughed.

"Um, yeah," said Harry.

"No," Nott said, a sardonic grin twisting his usually funereal face. "I was in love with you, you stupid plank."

"I... You?... What?"

Astonishingly, Nott laughed again. "You really had no idea?"

"What?"

"That I was a fairy boy? A nancy? A poufter? Merlin, I thought I was so obvious. Now I see what Severus meant when he said you lack subtlety."

Sputtering, Harry walked over to the back of the room and sat next to Nott. "I... I had no idea. None." Harry looked up at the potions master. "Theodore. I'm so sorry."

"Good lord, why?"

"I feel terrible. You had a crush on me?"

"Of course. From fifth year or so on. When I read your interview in Lovegood's fishwrap of a magazine. Potter, nobody in that school knew better than I what it meant to stand up to the Dark Lord. I'd been desperate to do it my whole life. And then I realized, here's this boy just my age, and Merlin's beard, he's actually doing it."

"I thought you wanted to kill me," Harry said.

"What, because I was lumped together with Draco and all the other Death Eaters' children?" Nott gave a derisive snort. "I hated them. All of them. Blaise was the only one in that whole house who truly knew me. When he saw me staring at you in the Great Hall one day during sixth year, obsessing on your eyes, or some such silliness, he just leaned over and said 'If we join Dumbledore's Army, you can look all you want.' It took until the end of sixth year to let him talk me into it."

"And it took me and Hermione until the beginning of seventh year to trust you enough to let you in." Harry shook his head, resorting all of the memories. "But I still don't understand..."

"What, why I saved Granger?"

Harry nodded and shrugged.

Theodore Nott folded his hands on the desktop, his index fingers steepled. "I watched you that whole year. At first I just wanted Granger to go away, and Weasley, too, since one or both of them was always at your side. And Weasley's sister, for that matter, and Longbottom and Lovegood. I used to mutter different ways that I'd like to dispose of them while I was practicing with Blaise at DA meetings. He thought it was hysterical."

"I always wondered what the two of you were giggling about," Harry mused.

"Yes, a barrel of laughs, those tame Slytherins."

"Theodore, that's not what I meant," said Harry.

Nott looked askance at Harry, pursed his lips for a moment and said, "Potter, may I tell you something?"

"Sure, what?"

"It's always rather touched me that you called me by my first name. You are one of only two people who have ever called me Theodore. Unfortunately, the other was my father. Would you mind not calling me that any more?"

"Of course," Harry stuttered. "What should I, um, call you?"

"Nott. It's what everyone calls me. Even Tom."

"Tom."

"You know, Studdiford. The Health and Healing professor." When Harry merely stared stupidly at Nott, he improbably laughed again. "He's my partner. What? You didn't think I was going to be waiting around, holding a silly schoolboy torch for a very straight boy with green eyes and black hair that I used to know? No, thank you very much."

"You, um, wouldn't have been the first, so I'm glad to hear it," Harry muttered.

"Oh?" Nott said. "Yes."

"So what would you like me to call you, then?" Harry asked.

"Nott will do," came the dry rejoinder. "As I said."

"Right." Harry ran his hand under his glasses, trying to clear his vision. "But. You were saying about Hermione. You used to watch us at the DA meetings."

Suddenly the potions master's face became sepulchral again. "I'd never been around people who loved each other like the whole lot of you did, you see. I knew loyalty, of a sort--I felt it to Professor Snape, and to Blaise, and even to my father, the spineless old blackguard. But love? You all glowed with it. Not just desire, either--though there was plenty of that on display at those meetings, to be sure. Did Weasley's sister ever tell you about the night that she and Blaise and I sat up in the Astronomy Tower after curfew, getting very silly on firewhiskey and some mushrooms that Blaise had nicked from Herbology?"

Harry shook his head.

"No, I would imagine she didn't. The spring before we left school, this would have been. Perhaps a month before we confronted the Dark Lord that last time. She started to get all weepy, and I thought, Oh, no. Here we go, Weasley's sister's going to go on about being dumped by the Boy Who Lived, poor dear. But do you know what she spluttered on about until the moon had set? How lucky she was to have you, and Granger, and her brother, and the rest of us in her life. How lucky she was!" Nott gave a snort of mixed bemusement and admiration. "Perhaps it was the mushrooms, or perhaps the whiskey--dangerous stuff, that..."

"I know," Harry muttered.

"I suddenly knew just what she meant. I knew that I was lucky to be with you, to know you, all of you. Even those annoying Creeveys. To be part of something that was larger than just getting high marks or showing my dad or shoving Malfoy's face in it. To have earned your trust, all of yours--or at least to have been granted it, because I realized, in that moment, I'd never done anything truly to earn it, aside from making the walk across the Great Hall that day in sixth year to ask you if Blaise and I could join." Nott touched the tips of his index fingers to his thin lips. "When we were fighting in front of the veil in the Death Room, and the LeStranges were trying to force Granger through the portal, I knew, as deeply as I had ever known anything, that it was all my life was worth simply to stop them, in any way I could." He looked up at Harry, as if waking from a vaguely disturbing dream. "And so I did."

"And so you did. You had already earned our trust, you know. Nott." Harry smiled, and was gratified to receive a slight smile in return. "I just don't know that we recognized it at the time."

"Yes, well, we were all young and stupid. As students are wont to be." He gestured at the desks around them.

"So," Harry said, staring around at the classroom as if for the first time, "do people, you know... know?"

"What? That Tom and I are gay?" Nott snorted again, this time derisively. "If they don't know, they're idiots. The only complaints I ever get are from Slytherin parents who aren't comfortable having their pimply little gargoyles in a house overseen by someone with my proclivities. I want to tell them that I've been in a happy relationship with a grown man for twelve years; what possible interest would their simpering prepubescent child hold for me? What I point out instead is that the only purebloods on staff who might take over as head of house in my stead are all Weasleys, by blood or marriage. That usually pulls them up short." Nott's eyes glinted, just a bit cruelly.

"I bet." Harry laughed, imagining Lucius Malfoy having to choose between what he would no doubt have perceived as the greater of two evils.

"Your wife knows, of course. She sent me a letter of commendation for starting the first club for gay and bisexual students here at the school."

"That sounds like Hermione," Harry said.

"Yes, always loved a cause, did Granger." Nott looked at Harry intently. "So, enjoying your return to the old alma mater?"

Harry grunted. "Enjoying doesn't exactly cover it. But it's been very interesting. Teaching. Seeing everyone."

The potions master nodded sagely. "Yes. I suppose it has." He leaned in. "You know, lunch is half over. It's most likely safe to go in--Weasley's sister is probably gone."

Harry gave a grunting laugh. "I guess I do lack subtelty."

"Yes, well, it wasn't you so much as her, I rather think. I'm rather fond of Our Ginevra, but she's about as subtle as one of her brothers' fireworks." Nott stood, walked past Harry, and then turned. "May I give you a piece of advice?"

"Of course," Harry said, still trying to digest everything Nott had told him already.

Nott placed a hand softly on Harry's cheek. "Old loves are like parents," he said with quiet force. "One must learn to forgive them before one can learn to love them again."

* * *

That thought worked at Harry's mind for the rest of the day, through two desultory classes and two dismal meals. Ginny actually stayed through dinner, though she sat on her husband's other side, discussing advanced uses of the Banishing Charm with Professor Flitwick.

Neville picked quietly at his peas.

Even Ron was muted, leaning over only to remind Harry that he had an appointment to work with Circe Taylor that evening.

At the Gryffindor table, Sidi was sitting by herself. Harry Weasley seemed to be eating rather quietly with a group of first-years.

Even one of Harry's favorite meals--prime rib of beef with Yorkshire pudding--held no interest. He picked at it unhappily.

Disgusted with himself, he stood. Rather than leave, however, he strode to the other side of the Head Table, purposefully not looking down at Ginny as he passed her.

When he got to the far end of the table, he greeted Nott and a short, blond wizard who had been a quiet participant at Harry's hazing two nights past. "Professor Studdiford," Harry said, extending his hand, "I didn't get the chance to meet you properly the other night."

The Healing professor gave Harry's hand a firm shake and smiled. "Yes, well, you were rather busy entertaining us from the tabletop," he said.

Professor Grubbly-Plank guffawed.

"Professor Nott told me that you're together." Harry winced inwardly--it sounded to his ears as if he were talking about a pair of infatuated students. How did one refer to grown men who lived together? "I didn't know."

Tom Studdiford smiled and quietly transferred his hand from Harry's to his partner's. "Actually, Nott and I were married five years back. Ministry doesn't recognize it, unfortunately--in spite of your wife trying to set things right. And the headmaster doesn't mind, but he's happiest if we keep it just inside the closet door. Aren't you, Severus?" Studdiford called down the table.

"In fact," hissed a clearly annoyed Professor Snape, "I would be just as happy if all of the students and faculty had their reproductive organs removed prior to coming to Hogwarts." The headmaster gave a long, disgusted look at the assembled throng, landing last on Harry. "Unfortunately, the school governors haven't seen fit to act on my proposal. Yet."

The whole table--and a few of the students--tittered. In the pause that followed, Professor Mundy, the elfin Muggle Studies teacher, muttered, "Thanks for small favors!" which set off laughter from one side of the hall to the other.

On his way back to his seat, Harry screwed up the little bit of Gryffindor courage he had left and stopped behind Ginny's chair. When she looked up, her gaze was cool. "Uh, Ginny, Minerva asked me to run a question by you."

"Oh."

"Yes. She's working on that animagus exercise you were teaching her last fall. She wants to know, at the third step, I think it is, whether she should decide what animal she should be thinking about, or whether to let it simply come to her."

Ginny pursed her lips, and Harry wasn't sure whether she was holding back a smile or holding in invective. Finally she said, very professionally, "Tell her that she shouldn't think about it beforehand, that the animal will just come to her."

Harry nodded. "Albie thinks it'll be a dragon."

"Then it's a good thing you've got a large house, isn't it?" And, in spite of her impassive face, Ginny's eyes glittered with a bit of her usual humor.

* * *

On his way back to his rooms, Harry was joined by his eldest child, who was clearly Not Happy. "Hullo, Sid."

Without a greeting, Siria spat, "Daddy, what did you say to Harry?"

"Say? Um. What has he said to you?"

Sidi sighed disgustedly. "Nothing. All day he's sat at the opposite side of whatever room we're in." She fixed her father with a glare that reminded him all too forcefully of her mother. "And when I tried to talk to him tonight at dinner, he just picked at his prime rib and looked up at you as if he expected you to swoop the length of the hall. What did you say to him?"

"Lord, Sid." Harry's stomach was churning around the small bits of beef that he had actually managed to swallow. Her green eyes pierced him, and the determined set of her jaw reminded him that this was, in fact, his child. "I caught him yesterday trying to sneak in to my classroom. I told him off--very mildly, I promise. And then... Isortofaskedhimwhathethoughtyourrelationshipwas."

Her mouth wide open, Sidi simply stared at him.

"Siria, I told him I'd never...

"YOU WHAT?" she bellowed.

"I... I'm sorry, Siria." Harry turned toward her, the better to weather the storm he knew was about to break over him.

"YOU ASKED HIM ABOUT OUR RELATIONSHIP? Daddy, how could you?" Her lower lip trembled as it had when Minnie had broken Siria's toy unicorn when she was six. Harry had to bite the inside of his cheeks to fight back a panicked laugh. "Harry is my best friend! We've done everything together here since the day we were sorted, AND NOW HE WON'T TALK TO ME! What fourteen-year-old boy do you know who wouldn't be humiliated if the father of one of their friends WHO JUST HAPPENED TO BE A GIRL walked up and asked about their RELATIONSHIP?"

"I'm sorry," Harry said, and said again, whenever Sidi paused for breath over the next twenty minutes.

By the time she had wound down enough actually to let him speak, her black hair was flying in every direction. Wild-eyed and panting, she stared at her father.

With what little calm and dignity he had managed to retain, Harry said, "May I say something, sweetie?"

Siria waved her hand violently and blew a strand of hair out of her face.

Harry took that for a yes. "When I was your age, there were girls I fancied--and girls who fancied me--and we never managed to talk about it. If your mother hadn't asked me to go to Hogsmeade one weekend, I would never have realized that she felt the same way about me that I felt about her."

Siria rolled her eyes.

"I know it seems as if it was all fated to you," Harry said, "but fate was only part of it. If there's one thing I would do differently if I were to be your age again, it would be to talk to people more, ask questions. Girls. And my other friends too. There were things--important things--about Ron and Neville and the rest that I didn't learn until years later. And teachers too, thank you very much. There were hundreds of times when my life and everyone else's would have been so much simpler if I had just opened my mouth. Asked the stupid question. Said the obvious thing that I thought everyone would laugh at or think less of me for."

Siria was looking fixedly at Harry's chest, her eyes overflowing, her chin still trembling.

"Look, Siria, love, I'm sorry if I was stupid with Harry. I'm sorry if I scared the hell out of him." Harry put his hand on her shoulder, and she looked as if she might bite it off. "I know I'm stupid sometimes. But it's only because I love you and care about you. And isn't that better than if I didn't care at all?" Siria leaned forward and cried loudly on his chest. "I promise," Harry said over her sobs, "he'll get over it eventually."

She sobbed even more loudly.

When the tears had gone the same way as the screaming, Harry said, "Look, I'm going to talk to your Mum on the Floo. Want to join me?"

Mutely, Sidi shook her head, threw her bag over her shoulder and walked dejectedly away.

Once Harry had unlocked the classroom--four tries and a curse that hadn't passed his lips in twenty years was all it took--and made his way inside, he, too, began to cry. "Damn it all to hell," he muttered, trying to compose himself as he knelt before the fireplace, a handful of Floo Powder in his fist. He looked up, saw the picture of Sirius, and began to cry again.

It was ten minutes later before Harry was able to stick his head into the fireplace and call out, "Twelve Grimmauld Place."

When his brain stopped twisting and the green flame stopped swirling, Harry was surprised to find, not his wife, but a rigid redheaded figure in a black pinstripe robe, reading the Daily Prophet with a ruler at Harry's kitchen table.

"Hullo, Percy," Harry called out.

The least Weasley-like of the Weasley brothers turned around and peered down at Harry. His brown eyes looked black in the green glare of the firelight. "Ah, Harry. How are you." Not a question, not a greeting, just a statement.

"Fine, fine, Percy. Ron tells me we're going to see you next week."

Percy pursed his lips and clucked with his tongue. "Yes. Yes. I suppose you would be in the know about that."

"Uh, yes, yes, Hermione... briefed me on that." Looking up at him, Harry felt the beginning of a dull headache coming on.

"I suppose that's only to be expected. But Harry, it's quite hush-hush, you know. Very much on the QT. Need-to-know basis and all of that."

"I won't spread it around. Ron assumed that I'd know." Again, Percy clucked softly, and nodded. "Listen, Percy, where's my wife?"

"Up bathing the kidlets, I think." He seemed eager to get back to the paper.

"Well," Harry said, "tell her I called, will you? I have to go work with a student, a classmate of Siria's."

"Ah. Good. I'll tell her." Percy began tapping the Daily Prophet with the ruler, quietly but rapidly.

Harry yanked himself out of the fireplace and was half way down the great staircase before it occurred to him to wonder what the hell Percy had been doing in his kitchen. And how was he reading without his glasses?

* * *

As Ron had said, Circe Taylor was a gifted flier. Even on a school broom, she moved with speed and grace though the air. But the minute Harry began to do two-person drills with her, she became hesitant, diffident. Fearful.

Harry began a drill where he placed himself between her and the snitch. Every time she tried to reach for it, he intervened, and she would back off.

"What are you afraid of, Circe? Professor Flitwick's not here!" Harry yelled as she cringed back from a sure grab of the snitch yet again. "What are you worried is going to happen?"

Circe was on the edge of sobbing, partially in humiliation, Harry was sure, but mostly in frustration at not being able to do something that was so well within her grasp. "I don't want to fall off!" she cried.

"I don't believe you!" Harry shouted as they sped along a hundred feet up in the darkening air. "You are as sure-seated on a broom as any student I've ever seen. You're not going to fall."

"I don't want to get hurt!" she yelled.

"Who's going to hurt you? I'm just keeping you away from the snitch! It's right here, Circe, just grab it!"

Tears streaming back into her hair, Circe screamed, "I DON'T WANT TO HURT YOU."

Harry stared at her dumbly, and then veered to follow the snitch. "You what?"

"I don't want to hurt you. I always feel like I'm going to knock you off..."

"Try it."

'What?"

"Try to knock me off this broom. I dare you."

"Professor..." Circe's eyes, still wet, were round and white. Then leaning timidly, she bumped her shoulder into Harry's.

"Is that it?" Harry said. "Harder!"

Annoyed, Circe slammed into Harry again, this time much more forcefully. "Oof!" Harry grunted, but he kept to his broom. "Again!"

This time she collided with him with all of the force that a skinny fourteen-year-old could develop. Her impetus knocked Harry's broom off-line, putting her between him and the snitch. Just as she was about to grab it, Harry chivied back in toward her. Circe, however, was ready--she executed a deft roll, and Harry's momentum carried him past her. Before he could recover, she reached out and grabbed the snitch.

"There you go!" Harry called. "Well done!"

They continued the dogfight, Circe whooping with delight and Harry cheering her on, until they both lost the snitch in the gathering darkness.