Shadow Magic • Harry Potter X Theodore Nott •

(5) Shadows Black and Grey

Harry practices the spell on the small cage he's already secured to trap Pettigrew when they find him. There's a glow that settles into the bars. Harry puts a mouse he Transfigured from a teacup inside it and watches it run around, being bounced back from the bars every time it ventures near them, and unable to run out the door even when it's open.

He leans back and grins at Theodore. "Thanks. You're the best."

"Anything to be of service to my lord."

Harry sighs. He should have addressed this a long time ago, he thinks now, but it seemed like a harmless joke. Now, though, Theodore calls Harry his lord in front of the other Slytherins. It gets them some mutters and sidelong glances. Harry never wants his best friend to suffer from taking a joke too far. "Listen, Theodore. Can you please call me Harry?"

"Why?"

"It's making other Slytherins think you're weak, just like the Death Eaters who followed Voldemort were. I don't want them to think that about you."

Theodore looks long and intently into Harry's eyes. Harry just waits. He trusts Theodore to make the right decision, and in this case, the right one is to stop making other people think he's weak, when he's just—Theodore.

"It's not a joke," Theodore says finally, softly. "And following someone in and of itself doesn't make you weak. Only following someone unworthy does."

Harry narrows his eyes. "That's not true. I can't think of any way that following someone would make me strong."

"That's because you're a born leader, Harry, or a born loner. I suppose Thomas and Lovegood and I are the ones who make you a leader, since we won't leave you alone." Theodore leans back in his chair. "I won't call you that in front of the others anymore if it makes you uncomfortable. But I chose you as my lord years ago. I told you once that what I call people is the truth and speaks about their distance from me. That's true now, too."

Harry stares at him. Then he shakes his head and asks, "But what about Voldemort?" He does keep his voice low, since not even many of the Slytherins know Voldemort has returned; Theodore told him it's pretty much limited to Malfoy, Crabbe, Goyle, and an upper-year Avery cousin.

"What about him?"

"Well, your father serves him. What are they going to do when it turns out you're not going to serve him?"

"You'll protect me."

There's utter faith shining in Theodore's eyes. Harry stares back, overwhelmed, and then nods, because of course he will, just the way he protects Luna from being bullied. He never thought he'd see it like that on his best friend's face, is all.

It makes him a little breathless. And although he still isn't going to tell Theodore why, he gets out one of the massive tomes he's smuggled out of the library and says, "I'm also working on a way to destroy Dementors forever. Do you want in?"

Theodore's smile takes all his remaining breath away.

*

As it turns out, Black attacks Gryffindor Tower on Halloween, and scratches up the portrait. That narrows Harry's search considerably. And when he overhears the twin Weasleys talking about how sick their little brother's pet rat is, Harry smiles in victory.

He waits until Weasley is heading towards the infirmary with the rat to see if Madam Pomfrey can cure him, something he overheard would be happening by listening from the shadows. And then he steps smoothly out of a shadow behind Weasley, blinds him, and carries off his prize in triumph before Weasley can even let out a yell.

The rat is stiff with terror in Harry's hands for a second before he begins struggling. Harry turns him over and smiles when he sees the missing toe. Then he Stuns him and takes him the quick way back to Slytherin, leaping in and out of shadows that fall between doorways and then into one that stretches across the seemingly blank wall where the door of the common room is.