Chapter 9
“You’re boring, Harry. You’re very boring these days,” Pansy sighs.
“Shut it, Parkinson,” Ron snaps. “Look, mate, what she means is, you’re hardly in a state to be making jokes these days or laughing with us or anything. You really need to take better care of yourself. I don’t think I can believe you anymore when you say you’ve been getting enough sleep.”
“I have been,” Harry says drowsily. “I have… Sleep… It’s fine. Ask Theo, he’ll tell you.”
“It’s true. Harry has been sleeping soundly every night,” Theo lies for him, as Harry knew he would. While Ron is always doing or saying things that show he genuinely cares for Harry, and Pansy is constantly doing a back and forth of being concerned and leaving Harry up to his own devices, Theo acts in accordance with Harry’s wishes, even if those wishes go against Harry’s well being sometimes. While Harry appreciates the worry that Ron and Pansy show, sometimes, Theo’s take on relationships is far more appreciated, like in cases such as this. Theo knows for a fact that Harry has been staying up most nights studying for their end-of-year exams, and yet he’s choosing not to say anything about it.
“Enough with your constant studying. We’re outside, it’s a sunny day. Enjoy it,” says Pansy, trying to make a grab for Harry’s Transfiguration notes, but he dodges her and keeps reading. He has to get perfect scores in everything. He has to make his dad proud. The only times he’ll ever surface from having his nose stuck in a book these days is when he wants to stare for a few moments into the fragment of the magic mirror. He hasn’t shown it to anyone yet, not even to Ron. It’s a silly reason, but Harry wants to keep the vision for himself and himself alone. At least until he’s done enough to bring it to life.
James feels no regret in what he did. No regret, none at all, in having asked Dora to let him into Grimmauld Place so he could dig through the Black Family library to come up with the cruellest form of mental torture imaginable. A Nightmare Curse of Sirius Black’s making- That being Sirius Black II, Sirius’s namesake. James would’ve tried to hold onto his morals by telling himself that his Sirius would have frowned upon James using Black family curses, but who is he kidding? Sirius absolutely would’ve approved of this shit if it meant using it on Snape.
James sends the Hogwarts Potions professor a cursed letter with a timed spell locked into it, with an added enchantment to make sure no one but Snape can open the thing. Snape will be replaying his worst memories and the mangled, bloody, disfigured versions of them over and over again in his head every time he sleeps, to the point where he’ll be driven so mad by them that he’ll forgo sleeping altogether and suffer extra pain from that. James has heard the occasional whisper of how Snape is a master Occlumens, and if that’s the case, he looks forward to finding out how Snape plans to defend himself against a mental attack specifically designed to bury deep and destroy all mind barriers that are put up in its path.
As for the other matters on James’s mind- With Dora now carving for herself a steady path in the Wizengamot, James has found the time to put politics aside for once and focus on other things instead. Namely, looking into whatever happened to the one and only Marauder whose fate is unknown. Yes, the general public consensus is that Remus is dead, and yes, it could only be that James is holding out on desperate hope, but there’s no denying even to the staunchest of rational minds that the circumstances surrounding Remus’s supposed death are suspicious. Back in 1981, Harry Potter had just been declared the Boy-Who-Lived, the nation’s hero and savior. The man the public believed responsible for orphaning the poor child savior would’ve been painted out to be the world sort of villain in society’s eyes. Surely, surely, the Ministry of Magic, being as opportunistic as it always has been, would’ve wanted to make a spectacle of Remus Lupin’s death, all the more so considering Remus’s status as a werewolf. So why is it that, instead of a very public execution being held, Remus simply disappeared without a trace?
James, for one, intends to get to the bottom of this. If his old friend is somewhere out there, refusing to show himself because of some twisted notion that James is better off without him, James plans to do what he’s always done when it comes to Remus: Face him head-on with an overwhelming amount of stubbornness until Remus gives in. James is going to find Remus and bring him home.
“Your grades, Theodore?”
“Second place in all subjects, Father, after Potter.”
“You’re averting your eyes. What aren’t you telling me?”
“I don’t know what you mean, Father.”
“Do not lie to me. Lying by omission is the same as the act itself.”
Theo swallows from where he stands in front of the fireplace, through which he has just Flooed over from King’s Cross. “There was another student who received the same marks as myself. We tied for second place. A Gryffindor student.”
“Theodore.”
“A Muggleborn student.”
Theo fully expects the strike to his face that comes, but that doesn’t lessen the blow by any means. He picks himself off the floor before Father can tell him to, shoulders trembling while a thin line of blood trickles out from the corner of his mouth.
“If you would place yourself on the same level as someone with Muggle blood, then it is fitting you receive punishment the Muggle way. Stop shaking,” Father says. “Second to Potter, you said. Was this deliberate?”
“Only for Transfiguration, Father.” And what an effort that took. Theo knew, with both the innate talent his future lord possessed and the work he was putting into his grades, that Harry would be outranking him in all subjects no matter how hard Theo tried. In all subjects but one, that was. Theo knew from hours of close observation that Potter had been struggling with Transfiguration since the beginning of the year. So Theo slipped up just very slightly, so that he wouldn’t surpass Harry in grades, as this whole creating-a-dark-lord business is a complicated process, and an essential step in the plan is ensuring that the future dark lord in question is not only competent, but confident, in all abilities. Of course, Theo also had to calculate everything to come in just after Harry, as he couldn’t have his future lord thinking him incompetent, either.
“You mentioned in your letters he considers you a friend. Tell me what that entails in this case.”
“He gets into mild conflicts with his other friends because they’ll disagree with him sometimes. Never with me.”
“You agree with him always and follow his word in all cases?”
“Yes, Father.”
“Like a malleable soldier? Is that what you wish to be to him, Theo? An expendable, mindless foot soldier? An especially amusing dog that only does its master’s bidding and never anything more?”
Theo freezes in place. Is that how it’s come off to Harry? Has Theo ruined everything for himself?
“Theodore.”
“No, Father,” Theo says quietly.
“If you wish to become his valued, then you will make yourself valuable. Is that understood?”
“Yes, Father.” And Theo means it. This is his only chance. He will make this work.
“Pass it to me, Fred!” says Ron.
“Catch it, George!”
“No, not him- Pass it to me!” Ron complains.
“Right back at you, Fred!”
Ron lets out a frustrated groan. They’re meant to be playing Chasers together, not playing a game of Keep-Away. He lights up when, from his viewpoint in the sky, he sees familiar figures approaching from the distance. Not giving a toss about the twins anymore, Ron hurries down, jumping off his broom in favor of dismounting properly to greet his best friend in the whole world.
“All right, Harry?”
“Good Ron, you?”
Ron leaves Mr Potter to talk with Mum and Dad, grabbing Harry by the hand and pulling him into his room. He shows Harry the used Cleansweep model Mum and Dad bought for him for having gotten above the year average score for his Hogwarts grades. “What did your dad get you? It must have been something super great. You got first place for all the subjects in our year!”
“Hm?” Harry hums absentmindedly. “Oh, yeah. Yeah, he was really proud of me and stuff. Told me I could get anything I wanted.”
“Cool! So what did you get, then?”
“A complete collection of Emeric Switch’s published journals.”
“Huh?”
“The acclaimed Transfiguration prodigy.”
“Harry,” Ron groans. “We’ve only just been let out for the summer holidays. Can’t you give studying a break for a bit?”
“Can’t,” Harry mutters, more to himself than to Ron. “It’s only by luck that I got the last two questions on our Transfigurations exams correct.”
“Harry, it’s okay not to be the best at everything. You do know that, don’t you?”
“Maybe,” Harry struggles for a bit. “Just… Just not when it comes to Transfigurations and Potions, alright? They were each my dad and mum’s best subjects. I can’t not be the best at those two. It would be an insult to him and her memory.”
That makes no sense. Ron’s willing to bet all the pocket money he’s got saved up- Which, granted, isn’t a lot- That Mr Potter’s got something directly to do with how Harry is feeling like he hasn’t done enough, even when he got the best scores in their entire year. Mr Potter probably said something about how Harry ought to work harder in Transfiguration, or brushed off Harry’s outstanding marks as something that’s not all that impressive.
“Want to play Exploding Snap with me?” Ron asks, in an effort to lift Harry’s spirits. Harry happily agrees, and they spend the rest of the day playing together.
For Harry’s twelfth birthday, Dad takes him and Ron and even Pansy on an overseas trip. Apparently, Lily Potter’s own dad was Korean, which makes Harry a quarter Korean, which isn’t something Aunt Petunia ever mentioned nor hinted at in the past, and therefore comes as quite the surprise to Harry. The four of them- Dad, Harry, and Harry’s best friends minus Theo because Theo’s dad wouldn’t let him come- Take an International Portkey to the very city Harry’s mum and dad were planning to spend their honeymoon in before the tides of war got worse and it was impossible for anyone to get out of Britain anymore.
For the first three days of their stay, they stick to the Wizarding side of the country, where Pansy buys a dozen bejeweled tops for her wand, a set of designer robes in the traditional Korean wizarding style, and a collection of enchanted jade jewelry pieces that Pansy’s aunt asked that Pansy buy for her. Dad warns Pansy that, while the jades do have the magical ability to grant youthful features to its wearer, they’re also very likely imbued with the kind of dark magic that will chip away at the years of the wearer’s life. Pansy shrugs this off, insisting that her aunt is fully aware of this, but it doesn’t really matter as the price of beauty is well worth paying. Ron buys himself a box of enchanted traditional sugar cookies that have him hovering a foot off the ground. Harry, for once, doesn’t ask Dad for anything academia related, and instead purchases a magically preserved lily flower that blossoms and closes up in his hand.
The Disaster happens on the fourth day of their trip, when they’ve ventured into the Muggle side of the country. They’ve visited a museum and a gourmet restaurant so far, the latter of which was very much up to Pansy’s tastes, enough to have her reluctantly admitting that not all Muggles might be as stupid as she thought, after all. They’re now on the grounds of a royal palace from centuries ago, with Harry, Ron, and Pansy having just finished posing for a picture that Dad insisted they take.
Dad and Harry have left Ron and Pansy to bicker about some trivial thing or another in the courtyard, choosing instead to wander over to a pretty pond a king ordered to be built for his queen centuries ago. There are fish in the water, as well as lily pads bobbing about. Harry is just about to make a remark about them, when the volume of Pansy’s screeching reaches an all-time high.
“Merlin, give me a break,” Dad complains. He tells Harry to stay right where he is before doubling back around to break up the fight between Ron and Pansy. Harry watches him go, then crouches down into the water, intent on finding what he thought he saw before… There. Harry grins down at the water snake coiled up on a bed of rock. She’s brown, with beautiful crimson scales scattered across her back. Harry reaches out and gives her head a little stroke with his finger.
“Hello,” he says, speaking to her as he did to all the garden snakes that ever came wandering into the Dursleys’ household. “Are you having a nice time down there?”
“A s-s-ssspeaker,” says the snake, and Harry thinks that if snakes could blink, she would be doing so very rapidly right now. “Who are you, hatchling, and why have you dissssturbed my ssssleep?”
“I’m sorry. I was only trying to make a friend.” Making friends with snakes was always so much easier than making friends with humans growing up. “I’ll leave you to sleep now, though, if that’s what you want.”
But she keeps talking anyway, and, though there’s a chance Harry might be wrong, he thinks she sort of appreciates the company. He gets all the way to learning about how she’s a red-banded snake before he becomes aware of the three shadows frozen over him.
And it’s Harry’s absolute worst fear come to life.
There his dad stands, mouth half open and trembling, words forming on his lips that won’t come out. That look in his eyes, that intense glint of anger and disgust and fear all rolled into one, it’s one that Harry knows well. One that Harry was subject to nearly all of his life. And it is because of this that he knows what word his dad would spit out were it not for the shock holding him back. Freak, he would say. Freak. Abomination. Unnatural. FREAK.
Tears are pouring into Harry’s eyes and so he bends his head, not wanting to let Dad see. He’s so ashamed. More than that, he’s confused. And above all else, Harry is angry, so, so angry with himself because somehow, his dad, the man who taught him that everything the Dursleys ever called Harry a freak for was really a blessing of the greatest kind… Even to James Potter, the kindest, most understanding person in the world, Harry is a freak. In a world of witches and wizards, Harry still stands out. The Dursleys were wrong about a lot of things, but in saying that Harry would always be an outcast, that he would never belong… They were only ever speaking the truth.
Harry flinches the moment he senses movement, so used to getting slapped or shoved following the screaming of the word. But it’s only Pansy’s enormous shopping bag slipping out of her hands in what is pure shock. Harry works up the nerve to look at Dad again, and immediately wishes he hadn’t done so. Harry wasn’t mistaken when he thought he saw anger in his dad’s eyes, only this time, there are tears in them, too. He shrinks into himself at the sight of his dad’s fists clenching, Harry knew this was bound to happen at some point, he’s so stupid, such a burden, a useless abomination, a freak freak freak freak freak freakfreakfreakfreak-
“Excuse me,” Dad rasps, and to whom his words are directed, Harry isn’t sure. All he knows is the sight of Dad turning his back on him as he stumbles over to the benches in the shade of the trees. Immediately after, Ron and Pansy are up in Harry’s face, Pansy shooting out questions at the speed of a hundred per minute, while Ron is offering Harry a crumpled up napkin for his tears, then patting the tears away himself when Harry won’t take it. “A parselmouth? You’re a parselmouth?” Pansy is shrieking away, and Harry doesn’t know what that word means, but the elated, ecstatic, reverent tone with which she says it seems unfit for the situation and- “Shut it, Parkinson!” Ron screeches right back, and the two are at it again, fighting like the worst pair of siblings known to man.
They end up returning to Britain a whole day earlier than planned. Dad has only been speaking in stilted, curt words to Harry the whole time. He drops Ron and Pansy at their respective houses. And then it’s just the two of them, Harry and his dad, entering Potter Manor through its double doors.
Harry wonders if his dad will finally let his true emotions show, now that Ron and Pansy aren’t around anymore. The Dursleys were very adamant about keeping their real treatment of Harry a secret. Harry was taught to tell teachers his bruises were from falling down because he was clumsy and stupid and things like that.
What happens instead is so much worse that Harry would prefer it if his dad did beat him up. The second they get back into the house, dad marches off into his study and locks himself in there. Harry thinks dad was meaning put a Muffling Charm up, but it didn’t end up taking hold. Or maybe dad wanted Harry to hear it, he wanted Harry to hear the crashing of furniture being knocked over and Dad screaming at the top of his lungs in rage, letting loose a series of expletives Harry hadn’t realized existed. Thud, thud, thud come the sounds of Dad ramming his fist into the wall. Harry rubs at his eyes furiously, he’s so scared and he wants somewhere he can feel safe and just like that, he’s in the cupboard under the winding staircase of the main foyer, because the Dursleys never laid a hand on him while he was in here so maybe-
“Harry?” comes Dad’s raspy voice. “H-Harry? Where…”
Harry pokes his head out from his hiding place and oh. Dad is crying. Tears are spilling freely from his dad’s eyes. And it’s all Harry’s fault.
Harry is an awful son.
“It’s okay, Harry,” Dad swallows, then tries for an encouraging smile. “It’s alright. Everything is going to be fine. I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you.” He lets out a shaky breath. “I’m going to have to run a few errands for a couple of days, alright? Would you be okay with staying with one of your friends for the next week or so?”
Dad leaves him with the Weasleys. The whole summer passes by, and he never returns.
Harry is a Parselmouth. James’s son can speak Parseltongue.
James was raised the sole pureblood heir to an ancient magical family. He knows the details of his entire family tree like the back of his hand. There has never been a Parselmouth in the Potter line. The same stands even going further back to the days of the Peverells. A daughter of the Peverell line did marry into the Slytherin line at one point, yes, but that blood never mixed with the lineage James is descended from. The other logical explanation to turn to would be that Lily had some sort of a dormant Parseltongue ability that was never explored, and though it’s true that if any Muggleborn in the world could achieve the impossible feat of being born with such an ancient gift, it would’ve been Lily… But no. No, terrible as it is, James just can’t convince himself it’s sheer coincidence that the only person in the world to have ever survived the Killing Curse just happens to have the exact inherent magical trait that his would-be murderer was known to have.
James really thought he’d gotten past the horrors of that Halloween night. He’d kept himself busy, he’d moved forward with life, he’d mourned all those he’d lost, yes, but he also hadn’t let their absence hold him back too much, in his desperation to be his very best self for Harry. But this… This, James doesn’t think he’ll be able to ever come back from. To know that his son has been tainted with a form of magic the entirety of the current generation of British wixen know to be Voldemort’s… Harry doesn’t yet seem to know what it means, that he can speak with snakes, but James can only imagine how devastated he’ll be, how disgusted with himself he’ll feel, when he learns that he shares this power with the man who took half his childhood from him.
There is nothing James wants more right now than to throttle Voldemort with his own two hands for what he has cost Harry. It’s unfair, it’s too unbearably unfair that Harry, only just twelve years old now, has to deal with so much shit in his life. He would’ve grown up the happiest little boy in the world, James would’ve made sure of it, only James wasn’t here to make sure of it and now, no matter what James does, it will never be enough. Never enough for what could have been.
He takes his frustration and despair and misery out on his innocent pieces of furniture, kicking them to the ground and punching every wall in sight and essentially acting like a deranged maniac. He cries, breaking down entirely because he doesn’t know what to do, or rather, how to accomplish it. He has to help Harry. Having the ability of a Parselmouth can’t possibly be healthy for him, not when it came to be by such unnatural means. James needs to find a way to expel that power from Harry. That’s his goal. That’s… How, though? How is he supposed to…
“I’m going to have to run a few errands for a couple of days, alright? Would you be okay with staying with one of your friends for the next week or so?”
He visits the Black family library first. Not the one in Grimmauld Place, but the one in the Black family property by the countryside, whose centuries-old library that is ever-expanding makes the one in Grimmauld look like a joke. The place has magical wards that allow in books and research papers from all over the world, gifts from scholars and collectors who wish to gain the favor of the Noble and Most Ancient House of Black. James sets up camp there and digs through the place for days, completely losing track of the concept of time as he digs in deeper and deeper. James sends a letter to Harry when the one-week mark is up, telling him his errands are going to be taking a bit longer than he thought.
Eventually, two whole weeks have gone by, and James still has nothing. Maybe it was a mistake, starting his search here. The Blacks weren’t exactly on friendly terms with the Gaunts, who were the last family in recorded history known to have the ability of Parseltongue. James wouldn’t put it past the Blacks to have thrown out anything and everything even remotely having to do with them. The two were rival families, each just as ancient and powerful as the other. It was the Blacks that came out victorious in the end, with them continuing on in prosperity while the Gaunts suffered a major financial blow and withered away into obscurity.
Just as James is packing up to leave, a faint chime sounds in the air, and a leather-bound book comes floating down. Naturally, James heads over to it and picks it up. Transfer of Magic, Indicator of Soul Arts, the title reads, by August C. Bellcurk.
It contains the near exact situation that James has found Harry to be in. A magical ability developing in a wizard to whose bloodline the power is unheard of. James has never heard of an August Bellcurk before, but that means nothing, as James has been absent for quite an extended period of time in recent years. A quick scan of the book tells James the man seems to know what he’s talking about, at any rate. Wondering what the author would say to a meeting with the father of the Boy-Who-Lived and close advisor to the current head of House Black, James starts penning a letter on the spot.