Blood Magic

Relationships

Harry woke earlier than usual the next morning. He was too thirsty to get back to sleep, so he dressed quickly, with the intention of heading down to breakfast.

"Harry?" Ron said blearily from the next bed.

"Hi."

"You just get in?"

"No, I just woke up."

"Oh. Later, then." Ron yawned and fell back to sleep.

Ron had been asleep when he got back, Harry reflected, as he started down the stairs. Snape had noticed the time long past curfew, and insisted on accompanying Harry back to the tower, ostensibily to protect him from punishment. Harry could not decide if this was unexpectedly kind, or merely patronizing. Snape had made light of the matter.

"Knowing you," he had said mockingly, "you would stumble across some previously undetected manticore and arouse it from a thousand-year nap. After several student maulings, months of terror, and untold thousands of galleons of property damage, you would slay it gloriously, and Gryffindor would win the House Cup. I'd rather walk you back. I'm usually out terrorizing the careless at this hour, in any case. Near Gryffindor seems a good place to start."

Harry had a few handfuls of water from the tap, and went down to breakfast. He paused at the Gryffindor table, surveying the students present. It was an entirely different group from the one he usually ate breakfast with. This must be the early shift, he thought.

This group did not seem to be especially talkative. Harry found himself at Potions class early, again. Malfoy was already there, and seated. Harry felt a smile pulling at his face.

"Good morning, Draco," he said casually, in passing. Malfoy twitched. Harry grinned. Call me Harry, will he?

Malfoy came up beside Harry as Harry was unpacking needed items from his bag.

"Are you being impertinent, Potter?"

Harry blinked innocently at him. "You called me Harry on Monday, remember?" He grinned. "Caused me a lot of trouble, too. Ron's still mad at me."

Malfoy smirked. "I have to wonder about your behavior, Potter. Having regrets?"

Harry thought Malfoy probably meant regrets about choosing Ron over him. He set his quill, ink, and parchment on the table while he got his thoughts in order.

"I don't regret staying friends with Ron," he said seriously. "He's really a very good friend, most of the time. I'm sorry you and I ended up enemies. It wasn't really a necessary side-effect. If either of us had had the slightest bit of tact...." Harry let the sentence trail off. Malfoy snorted.

"We were eleven. What would we have been doing with tact?" He looked searchingly at Harry for a moment, then frowned. "However foolishly this may have started, Potter, you put my father in Azkaban. I don't precisely feel friendly towards you. Please return to using my surname."

With that rather formal request, he turned quickly and went back to his desk. For a moment, Harry was too indignant to do anything but stare after him. Suddenly, he found himself on his feet, and a moment later he was leaning forward over Malfoy's table whispering furiously:

"I did? I did? It was your father's master who put images in my head to lure me there and sent your father and his lot to ambush me. Is it my fault he underestimated my backup? Again? All I did was try to not die! I wasn't even there when your father was captured -- I was chasing LeStrange."

"It's easy for you to say," Malfoy spat back. His pale cheeks were spotted with pink. "Whatever you get into, you always get out of. Always."

"My godfather died in that fight, Draco! And that was my fault. And I loved him! There's no way to get him back, now -- no breakout, no deal, no pardon can bring him back to me!"

Harry stopped, panting. He'd said "Draco" again, he realized.

"Sorry, Malfoy."

Malfoy was staring at him, brows drawn.

"No one died in that fight."

"We were in the Department of Mysteries. There wasn't a body."

"Wouldn't someone have said something? Wouldn't he have been reported missing, at some point? This mysterious godfather of yours?"

"Sirius Black." Harry wished he felt well enough to appreciate the shock on Malfoy's face. "He'd been missing a long time."

"You were in touch with Black?" At Harry's small nod, Malfoy's eyes widened yet further. "A Muggle-killer? Who betrayed your parents?"

"He did not!" Harry stopped to steady his breathing. He wondered how best to explain Sirius to Malfoy. He couldn't say anything that would implicate Professor Dumbledore, or Remus.

He had barely registered the approaching footsteps before a mass of black swirled through the doorway and the Potions Master stalked past them.

"Mr. Potter," came his biting voice. "When I arrive, you are to be at your seat, not harassing better pupils. Ten points from Gryffindor."

Harry darted to his seat. Fortunately, his supplies were all ready, so Snape could not dock him more points for needing to set up. A minute later, he had no worry to spare for anything but the safe handling of Lobalug venom.

Malfoy caught Harry up on the way to Defense Against the Dark Arts.

"Hang back a bit, Potter."

Harry slowed down and let their classmates get ahead of him. Malfoy walked beside him.

"You knew Sirius Black?"

"A bit. We met the year he escaped. I stayed with him for a few weeks, last winter."

"Where?"

"Some family property. I don't know where -- we portkeyed, and he wouldn't let me leave. Safer all around."

"What makes you think he was innocent? I mean, other than that he didn't kill you. He could have other reasons not to."

"Ever heard of Wormtail?"

Malfoy was silent for a minute. Harry suspected he was trying to decide how much of an answer was prudent.

"I've heard of someone with that name."

"Yes -- that one. His real name is Peter Pettigrew. He's the wizard that Sirius supposedly killed. Peter caused the explosion and killed all those Muggles to escape Sirius, after he -- Peter -- betrayed my parents."

They were climbing slowly up the stairs. Harry looked over at Malfoy's uncertain expression and snorted. "Really -- don't your parents tell you anything? It was your father who realized Sirius was back, and your mother who figured out how to use him as bait for me." Harry felt a quick rise of hatred at the thought. He worked at holding it in its proper place. "To be honest," he said, as calmly as possible, "I hate both your parents. They've both messed up my life -- mine personally -- in big ways, and I could never forgive your father for what he did to Ginny."

Malfoy's jaw was clamped tight, but he hadn't started yelling, yet. Harry figured that was as good as he could expect.

"I'm willing to not hold them against you," he said, "and I can even accept that you care about them. They're your family, after all. But I could never be less than glad that your father got caught."

"Potter, give me any more of your opinion and I'll blast you into the wall."

"I'm finished."

"Good." Malfoy quickened his pace. Harry let him gain some distance before starting to move again. Today probably wasn't the day to try pairing with Malfoy in Defense Against the Dark Arts.

Hermione sighed and looked, again, at the note from Ron.

Hermione,

Walk after classes? I'll meet you in the trophy room.

Ron

They had taken advantage of Harry's absence the night before, as unwelcome as it was, to start on the map. It required a potion, but a very simple one that Hermione had made in forty minutes from ingredients in the student store cupboards. That was good, because they were going to need a lot of it.

The procedure, as Hermione deduced it from spells in the two of the three books, was simple, but time consuming. They needed to walk through all the areas they wanted to map, while carrying the potion, which, when a little common mugwort was crumbled into it, bubbled and gave off slightly fragrant fumes for several minutes. The fumes seemed to be important to determining the dimensions of the room -- Hermione suspected that large rooms would require them to walk back and forth a bit. The trophy room would be a good place to test that. While one person carried the potion, the other carried the parchment and, when each room or section of corridor was prepared, used a spell to capture the space onto the map. One person then needed to detect the name of the other, put that on the map, and set the map to continually renew the detection. Again, this needed to repeated, though not quite as frequently. It seemed to have a greater range than the mapping spell itself.

They had tested the potion and spell in the room where Hermione had brewed the potion and the corridor outside, and it had worked well. Conveniently, the rooms mapped seemed to arrange themselves on the parchment to allow room for additions. They had set aside a parchment for each floor. Later they would use a spell from the third book to combine them into one, and another spell from the same book to make the map invisible.

When they had returned to the tower, just at curfew, Harry had still been out. Nearly two hours later, they had given up on waiting and had decided to head up to their dormitories. Hermione had said that she should tell McGonagall, but Ron had tapped the parchment significantly.

"Better to handle it ourselves," he had said confidently.

It was a large family attitude, Hermione expected. Difficult as she found it to accept, sometimes, it was one of the things she liked about Ron. When he was handling a problem, he involved the necessary people, and no one else, and when he was angry at someone, he let them know directly. She thought they made a good team, as prefects, though Ron appeared lacksidasical. For the most part, he took care of it when someone needed a good private talking to, and she took care of it when McGonagall or the headmaster needed to be informed of someone's behavior. She had asked Ginny, who was desperately working on an Ancient Runes assignment that was due in the morning, to wake her if Harry did not return that evening, then she had gone to bed.

It was twenty minutes after the end of classes, and Hermione was wondering if Ron had forgotten his suggestion, or if there was, perhaps, a second trophy room, when Ron finally arrived.

"Sorry I'm late -- I wanted to give something to Andrew and I couldn't find him."

"Well, we have a couple hours. Should we start here?"

"I thought we should start with the main classrooms, the library, and Dumbledore's office, if there's some way to manage that."

"I've been thinking about that. They can't have got into everywhere. If we get the fumes into a room, can we map it from the outside?"

"We'll need to try. How about here?"

They discovered they could map the inside of a broom cupboard from outside it, if they magically pushed the fumes in. Further experimentation showed this only worked for a limited distance, and they could not map a second room deep, no matter how Hermione charmed the fumes into it.

"How did they manage to break into everywhere?" Hermione wondered. "Even with Harry, we couldn't do that."

"Peter!" Ron said suddenly. "That's why they needed Peter."

She frowned at him a moment, then her eyes widened. "Oh. As a rat!"

Now it was Ron's turn to look confused. "But that wouldn't work, would it? A rat couldn't cast the spell."

"So he probably dragged the parchment in, turned back, and then cast the spell. I bet there are areas the identification charm fails, because they couldn't get a second person close enough."

They walked in and out of each of the classrooms, even the unused ones, with Ron censing, and Hermione casting. It was tedious, but they enjoyed seeing the map grow. Ron cheered the first time someone else walked on to it.

"Look! Lupin's just come into his office!" His face fell. "How are we ever going to do his rooms?"

"I'm more worried about how to do the library. We can't just walk in with this smelly stuff."

"Maybe we can persuade Lavender it will improve the aura of the room, then sneak in after her."

Hermione giggled. "How about the cloak?"

"Not unless we bring Harry in. If he's away, he has the cloak with him, and if he's not, I can't lift it and disappear with you for hours."

"Could we bring him in?" Hermione asked. "I feel guilty doing this without him."

"No! If he knows we've made a map, he'll take it every time he leaves, and we'll never be able to use it to find him."

"But what are we going to tell him if he finds out?"

Ron shook his head and shrugged. "Beats me. Maybe we should ask Ginny. She's an expert at excuses -- better than the twins, even."

Harry was waiting for them at dinner. He glowered at them. Hermione was just about to tell him he had no right to feel snubbed when Harry finally spoke. "Ron," he snapped, "you missed practice."

"I...." Ron smacked himself in the forehead. "Damn! I forgot."

"Well, don't forget Friday evening. At least this was a short one, but I wanted it for people to get comfortable with each other." He frowned at Hermione. "Where were you two? Any time I'm around, you're gone."

"And any time we're around, you're gone," Ron retorted.

"I haven't been gone much! I've only missed curfew twice."

"Twice in a week and a half. Where were you, last night?"

"Oh... I was practicing in the Room of Requirement, and I knocked myself out with a reflected sleep spell. I shouldn't try that sort of thing alone." Harry smiled contritely at Hermione. "How about studying together, tonight? I have a few things I need to find in the library...."

"I'd like that," Hermione said immediately. "I have a Charms paper that could use a few more references."

"Well, you two are welcome to it," Ron said cheerfully. "I'll study in the common room, where I can have some fun as well, and I'll see you when you get back."

Hermione sent Ron a grateful smile. It wasn't the first time he had arranged his schedule to see that she got private time with Harry. Ron nodded back at her, biting his lip slightly. Have fun, he mouthed silently.

Studying in the library with Hermione might not be the most romantic way to spend an evening, Harry thought, but it was enjoyable, in a quiet way. Most of their attention was going to their studies, but he still found it pleasant to look up, now and then, and see her next to him, flipping frantically through a book, or chewing thoughtfully on her quill. It felt warm and nice to have her close. He settled an arm around her and went back to making notes on the 1981 laws restricting items "commonly associated" with Dark Arts.

"Harry?"

"Hm?" Harry answered.

"Am I your girlfriend?"

Harry looked up at that. He'd been trying to figure that out himself. Everyone else seemed sure, but he wasn't. The last week had not clarified his feelings at all. He pulled her closer. "Do you want to be?" he asked.

"Well, that depends," Hermione blushed, but her voice did not waver as she continued. "Who else are you spending time with, when you disappear?"

Harry was immediately annoyed. He let go of her. "Hermione ... When I go away... I'm not with a girl, okay?"

"Fine. Who else are you spending time with?"

"It is not romantic, and it's not really your business."

"Fine. That's okay." Hermione shrugged. "I guess I don't want to be your girlfriend, then."

Harry felt the same flush of desperate urgency that had prompted him to kiss her in Diagon Alley. "Hermione, really!" he pleaded. Madam Pince glared over at him, and he dropped his voice to a whisper. "It isn't. I swear."

"Look, you were right about not having veto power over the friends of someone you're seeing -- but you ought to at least know who those friends are. From the way you answered, I can tell you haven't been alone, and I don't want to go out with somebody who won't tell me who he spends his time with."

This is going all wrong. I should have stayed around more; I should have set up an alibi when I went out. I can do it better; I just wasn't expecting them to be so suspicious. "Hermione," he said intently, "Don't you think you're over-reacting to two evenings of --"

"Three. I don't believe that thing about last night."

"Why does it matter?"

"Because you obviously can't tell anybody when you're in trouble!"

Harry hid his face in his hands for a minute. Not the stupid Dursleys, again! "Hermione," he said seriously, "I love you."

A flash of anger crossed her face. "That is not what we are talking about."

"That may not be what you're talking about, but if you're going to ask me if we're you're my girlfriend, I think I can talk about it!"

"Because you're certainly not going to talk about what you do with your evenings, now, are you?"

"I CAN'T!" Harry yelled. He looked over at Madam Pince and gestured an apology. "Okay, you're right," he whispered. "I've met somebody a couple times. It's nothing bad. I'd like to tell you about it, but it's not safe for the other person. It's not my secret, I've promised, and I cannot tell you, okay? I can't."

"Harry -- If you can't tell me, I understand," Hermione soothed. "I'm not upset. I just can't be your girlfriend, if that's what it's going to be like."

"Fine!" Harry raged. He forced himself to repeat the word like he meant it. "Fine. You're not my girlfriend. I still love you."

Hermione's hand covered his briefly. Her own was unaccountably warm for the cool room.

"I love you too," she said, matter-of-factly, and went back to her reading. Harry stared at his book for a long time before remembering to resolve it into words.

They left the library when it closed. Hermione walked as close to Harry as possible without touching him. He badly wanted to put an arm around her, but thought that would probably be at odds with her current status as officially not his girlfriend.

"Harry?" she said seriously.

"What?" To Harry's dismay, his voice came out angry. He tried to calm himself.

"I'm worried about you."

"I'm fine."

"You look grim all the time. Well, not all the time. You look intense all the time and grim a lot of it. And you disappear."

"Look, I've had a really stressful summer, okay? And things aren't exactly back to normal."

"When aren't you under stress?" she shot back. "Harry, I know you said you couldn't tell me, but I ... You worry me."

"Why? What on earth could you be worried about?"

"Let's see... With your illegal potions, and your Dark Arts books, and your generally cold attitude --"

"I do not have any illegal potions, I have never done Dark Arts --" Harry stopped. "Except for a failed attempt to cast Cruciatus, last spring --"

"What!"

"On LeStrange. It didn't work. Apparently you need to enjoy causing pain to cast it. I'm just too nice, or something." Harry smiled slyly at her. "So there, see -- I can't run off and become a Death Eater."

Hermione snorted. Harry paused, distracted by his own words. "I wonder if that's what it's like," he murmured pensively. "I should ask ...."

Hermione looked sharply at him.

"Ask who? You know anyone who could tell you?"

Harry snorted. "Perhaps I should ask Professor Snape. 'Excuse me, professor; what was it like becoming a Death Eater? Did you have any friends you couldn't tell?'" He made his voice rather like Colin Creevey's -- excited and fast. "'Where did you tell them you were going? Did they ask why you'd started wearing long sleeves, all the time, or did everyone just know what that meant?'" He looked ingenuously at Hermione, who bit her lip. He thought it was in part to restrain a smile.

"Harry, please don't. He'd kill you. And Gryffindor would be so far into negative numbers that you couldn't make it up to us if you single-handedly defeated Voldemort in front of the entire school."

Harry grinned. "The Dark Lord would not be interested in facing me at Hogwarts. He doesn't like risks."

"What did you say?" Hermione stopped and whirled to face him. Harry glanced back at her in confusion.

"The Da-" Harry winced. "Er.... Tom doesn't like risks." Slowly, he turned to face Hermione. She had her hands on her hips and her brows drawn down, but still looked more horrified than angry.

"Since when do you give Voldemort a title, Harry?" she asked sharply. It was anger, as soon as the words started.

"I didn't ... I didn't mean anything by it." Damn it, where did that come from? Have I said that before?

"Say 'Voldemort.'"

Harry closed his eyes briefly. "I'm not allowed at the moment," he whispered. Nervously, he met her eyes.

"Not allowed?!"

"Snape went to Dumbledore and told him that until I was better at Occlumency, I shouldn't say that. It might give him a way in." Harry bit his lip. "Dumbledore agreed, and you know what he thinks of that! My Occlumency is lot better now, though. I should ask the headmaster if I can, now...."

"'But 'Lord?!'" Hermione fumed, "Why that, of everything he's called?!"

It's just what I'm used to hear---" Harry broke off in mid-word, feeling heat flood his face. Great job, Harry. That's reassuring.

"Who are your friends now?" she asked coldly.

"You and Ron, mostly."

"Who are you with when you go 'walking?'"

Harry was silent.

"Say 'Voldemort.'"

Harry bit his lip.

"Say it!"

"I'll ask if...."

"Good night, Harry." Hermione turned on her heel and hurried away. Harry watched her ascend the staircase, her pace fast and her back rigid. Of all the stupid...!

"Voldemort," he called out after her, loudly, but quickly, to get the name out before he changed his mind.

She turned. Her face looked pale and strained, even in the torchlight. "Thank you, Harry," she said. Her voice had softened, but she did not return. "Good night."

Hermione was in no mood to socialize. She went straight through the common room, past Ron, who looked like he wanted to ask her something, past Ginny, who was sketching her housemates, again, and up to her dormitory.

Harry had said "the Dark Lord." Harry did not call Voldemort the Dark Lord; Death Eaters called him that. Harry called Voldemort "Voldemort." But not tonight.

She did not, of course, need to worry about Harry becoming a Death Eater, as he had joked. She was quite sure both that he would never support Voldemort, and that Voldemort wouldn't have him as a servant. Still, Harry's deliberately cheeky "Tom" did not make up for him dignifying Voldemort with his self-proclaimed title.

She was still in a deep funk twenty minutes later, when the door opened, and Ginny came in, looking far worse.

Hermione was on her feet in an instant. "Ginny? What's wrong?"

She was terrified of the answer. Ginny looked like someone had died. Hermione found herself hoping that Dean had dumped her. As much as she did not want that, it could produced this look of glazed anguish with less lasting harm than any other cause she could imagine.

"That boy ...." Ginny choked.

Dean, then. Hermione took a deep breath and prepared to be sympathetic.

"That boy we've been treating as Harry. He's not."

Hermione tried to make some sense of this. Not what? Finally she gave up and asked, "What?"

"He's not Harry," Ginny said emphatically. "I've tried to sketch him four times, this week, and it kept coming out wrong. Finally, I decided to do him as a stranger, and I realized it was wrong because his facial structure is different. I used to sketch him all the time, third year, and when I thought I knew what his face was like, I got it wrong."

Hermione tried not to roll her eyes. "Ginny, he's grown up a bit, that's all."

"That wouldn't change his cheekbones, or the shape of his mouth."

"Ginny, you're imaging things. He's older, he's skinnier, and ..." Hermione hesitated, then steeled herself, "and you're not infatuated with him, anymore. You're a better artist than you used to be, especially after those games with Dean, last spring -- perhaps you see more accurately."

"I know what I see, and what I've seen. That is not Harry!"

"Ginny, please!" Hermione said desperately. "I cannot take this, right now! If you have some sort of real evidence -- not your subjective observations from now compared to your subjective observations from two years ago, let me know. Right now, I want to go to sleep."

Ginny's mouth hardened in the grim determination of a child who has learned to find her own way.

"All right," she said. "I'll get it." With that, she turned and marched out of Hermione's room.

Hermione dreamed she was alone with Harry, somewhere outside, perhaps in the Forbidden Forest, far away from anyone else. The summer sun filtered through the green leaves and lit the air about them as the kissed. His attention warmed her as deeply.

Harry pulled away, breathless and charmingly flushed, but then gave her one of those strange, mocking looks.

"Dear Hermione," he said coolly, and he pulled up his sleeve to show the Dark Mark there. His expression charged with cruel delight as she stared back in horror. He looked less like Harry, now, and more like a young Lucius Malfoy, but with black hair and green eyes. She tried to pull away, but his hand closed on her wrist. He pushed her down to her knees and surveyed her with satisfied arrogance.

"Don't worry, Hermione. You can still be my pet."

Hermione woke, gasping. It was the middle of the night. She had fallen asleep in her clothes, on top of her still-made bed. Her eyes itched and her teeth felt fuzzy. She could still picture the dream-Harry's mocking smile and the Dark Mark on his arm.

"Stupid," she muttered. "Stupid dream. All Ginny's fault."

But Ginny had not mentioned Death Eaters.

Hermione got up and went through her usual going to bed routine. When she was in soft pajamas, with her teeth clean, the dream seemed rather silly, though she didn't think she'd dare confess it to anyone. Her subconscious should not be so foolish. Perhaps I can dream about Voldemort joining S.P.E.W., she thought, as she went, yawning, to her bed. She lay down and slept soundly.

---

Chapter 38: Conspiracy Theory!