Chapter Text
In retrospect, Harry should have expected something like this.
Given his ever-growing certainty that Dumbledore had orchestrated his confrontation with Voldemort over the Stone, he absolutely should have expected this to start now.
Now that he has proven to Dumbledore that he is no true Slytherin. Now that he has proven to the headmaster that he is brave and good. Now that he has passed whatever arbitrary test Dumbledore had set him in regard to the Mirror – had it been a test or had he been checking that Harry is still what he is supposed to be: a lonely child who longs for family? For acceptance and belonging? – it should not be a surprise for Dumbledore to start nudging him in the direction of the Stone.
It really, really shouldn’t.
It does.
Bugger.
What doesn’t surprise him is that it starts with Hagrid, just as it had before.
That doesn’t stop him from starting violently when Hagrid’s familiar voice booms out from behind him, both different and achingly familiar all at the same time – something closer to the few commands he barked during class and less the gentle exuberance of his first friend.
“Harry!”
Harry isn’t the only one who jumps. Draco practically takes flight and Mandy twists next to him, the bag of books slung over her shoulder nearly knocking Harry off his feet as she turns around to face the groundskeeper. Even Blaise flinches at the sudden noise.
“Harry!”
He blinks for a minute, frozen in place for just a second, the memory of Hagrid screaming at him as he walked out of the woods and into the clearing where Voldemort waited overlaid against the reality until he can feel his heartrate drop until it’s almost nothing, until it’s just a plodplodplod echoing in his veins.
The cool press of a hand between his shoulder blades is a shock and he sucks in air, Hagrid’s cries fading away until it is only the Hagrid of now striding towards them across the icy ground.
[Breathe, darling.]
Harry manages to catch himself on Draco’s shoulder and breathes.
They are not in the woods.
No one is dying.
And no matter how much he loves him, this Hagrid is not Harry’s friend. This Hagrid has not rescued Harry from the Dursleys. He has not brought him a birthday cake or taken him shopping or bought him an owl. This Hagrid has not said a word to Harry at all – the general call to first years to follow him down to the boats doesn’t count – which means that there is only one reason he is doing so now after months of inattention.
Dumbledore.
“Harry! There you are. I was worried I might not catch you before yer classes.”
Harry blinks. “Um. Hello?”
“Oh right. Rebeus Hagrid, Groundskeeper and Keeper of the Keys of Hogwarts at yer service.”
“Oh. Er.” Harry flounders a bit, mouth gaping like he’s trying to catch the snitch all over again. “Nice to meet you.”
“Suppose you don’t remember me then? No matter, last I saw you, you were just a little tyke.” Hagrid’s mouth wobbles like he’s both smiling and frowning at the same time and Harry knows that he’s remembering that night. “I was friends with yer parents. Great people, James and Lily Potter.”
“I’m sure they were,” Harry says diplomatically after biting back his first dozen responses.
“I was hopin’… that is, I was wonderin’ if you might want to join me for a spot of tea some afternoon? I could tell you about them if you’d like.”
“… what?” Draco butts in sharply and it’s those biting, imperious tones that bring Harry up short, that give him a moment to think.
He never thought he’d be grateful for Draco being a rude little shit but apparently today is the day.
Oh, Harry can’t help but think, that was well played because Harry’s knee jerk reaction had been to fall back on his default rule of when in doubt, do the exact opposite. He had even opened his mouth to offer a polite refusal. And if he had refused, he would have failed the little test that Dumbledore had set for him because the Harry that Dumbledore had been expecting, the Harry that the Headmaster needs would have jumped at even the smallest of chances to learn about the parents that he could not remember. The Harry that Dumbledore needs would do anything for that sense of belonging.
And while Harry still has days where he would love nothing more than the opportunity to punch Dumbledore right in his smug, condescending face he also knows that it is far too early to set himself against the Headmaster. He might be the Master of Death but in this game that Albus Dumbledore is playing he is still operating from a position of weakness. Eventually that will change but until he has a better idea of how and when it is best to play along. At least to a point.
Of course, it could also just be an invitation to tea utterly free of ulterior motives but Harry is feeling pretty skeptical these days.
Still.
“I would like that,” he says, interrupting whatever scathing comment had been about to come out of Draco’s mouth.
“…what?” the boy repeats, his voice at least half an octave higher.
Hagrid blinks, caught off guard by Harry’s positive response – or maybe just by Draco’s rudeness. It’s kind of hard to tell. “Well, a’right then. Three o’clock on Friday work alright for you?”
“Three is fine,” Harry agrees. “Can I bring my friends?”
This time Draco’s one word outcry is so highly pitched that Harry’s not entirely convinced that he actually heard it. Maybe he just saw the movement of the other boy’s mouth.
Draco isn’t the only one surprised. Hagrid blinks again and rubs at his bearded chin with a hand larger than a dinner plate. “Of course,” he says after a stunned moment or two. “The more the merrier.” He gives the group of them a long look, like he’s not entirely sure he believes this conversation is actually happening, and then gives a firm nod of his head. “Friday at three, then.”
“I won’t forget,” Harry promises and Hagrid gives him a big, bushy grin before turning around and heading back towards the school.
“What,” Draco asks once they’ve resumed their journey to the greenhouse, “was that?”
“Uh… an invitation to tea?”
“From the groundskeeper. That you accepted.” Draco sounds more scandalized than Harry has ever heard him.
“…yes.”
“At his house,” Draco continues as if Harry isn’t getting it. “Have you seen his house?” he cries and grabs Harry by the arm, pulling him around until Harry doesn’t have any choice but to stare the other boy in the face. “It’s not a house! It’s a – a shack! A hovel!”
“I think you broke him,” Mandy mutters after several seconds of charged silence. She pokes at the carefully slicked strands of Draco’s hair. Draco doesn’t even flinch. “Yeah. Definitely broken.”
Draco is still staring.
“He knew my parents,” Harry finally offers with a small shrug. “The stuff that Mrs. Greengrass sent me was amazing but it wasn’t… it wasn’t…”
“…personal,” Blaise offers and Harry nods.
“Yeah.”
Draco sighs heavily. “Fine. I can understand why you might want to hear about your parents. Even if you’re going to…to that.” He releases Harry and motions vaguely in the directions of Hagrid’s hut, where only the roof, chimney, and a curl of smoke are visible among the rise and fall of the grounds and the beginning brambles of the Forbidden Forest.
“You don’t have to go,” Harry points out calmly. He wants to be offended on Hagrid’s behalf but mostly he’s just… amused.
Draco, on the other hand, is definitely offended.
He sputters wordlessly for a moment before he manages, “Not go? Of course, I have to go! I’m not letting you go alone. You’re going to the groundkeeper’s hut!”
Harry casts a look at Blaise, who holds his hands up as they slide into the greenhouse. “Don’t look at me. I wouldn’t miss this for the world.”
Harry gets the distinct impression that Blaise is talking more about the inevitable spectacle of Draco Malfoy taking tea at Hagrid’s than about anything else but that’s fair. Harry is trying to picture Draco perched on the edge of a ratty, oversized chair with an oversized teacup and cutting his teeth on a rock cake the size of his fist and is utterly failing.
“And you don’t have to go either,” he adds to Mandy as he follows her into the greenhouse and the four of them take up their usual spot, parchment and quills and ink drawn from bags and strewn across the rough wooden surface. “I was just…”
“…You know,” she interrupts, “sometimes I wonder how you ever managed to not get sorted straight into Ravenclaw but then you do something like this and suddenly it all makes perfect sense.”
Harry blinks. “…wait. What?”
Mandy just pats him on the shoulder and all chances for immediate clarification lost as Professor Sprout starts her lecture.
In the end their entire group of seven stomps through the fresh layer of snow to have tea with Hagrid.
Not exactly what Harry had intended but when he’d protested that he hadn’t meant for all of them to come Hannah had told him to not be so ridiculous and Neville had gotten that tenseness around his mouth that said he was about to dig in his heels. He’d had that look on his face when, in a different life, he’d tried to stop Harry, Ron, and Hermione from going to protect the Sorcerer’s Stone. He’d had that look on his face when Harry had decided to go to the Ministry to save his godfather. Harry is familiar with that look.
“He did say the more the merrier,” Blaise points out as the familiar sight to of Hagrid’s hut comes into view: weathered wooden siding, grayed with age and edged with mossy greens set atop a seemingly haphazard stone foundation with cheery spirals of smoke drifting up into the monotonous gray of the sky. The last time he had seen it this close it had been on fire. It’s a relief to see it like this: unblemished and whole. “Unless you don’t want us all to come,” the other boy adds quietly. “That’s okay too.”
“No,” Harry retorts quickly. “No. I… I want you to come.” It isn’t until he says it that he realizes just how true it is. He wants them to come with him, wants to be surrounded by them and reminded that he is not alone. It feels selfish though to drag them all along to sit and have potentially awkward conversation and inedible rock cakes just because the idea of suddenly facing Hagrid, alone, after all this time makes him wonder just how he ever managed to get sorted into Gryffindor. “I just… if you have something else…” He shrugs awkwardly.
“Yes, because writing another essay for Binns is such a thrilling experience,” Blaise observes dryly. “It’s not like he actually reads them.”
Harry scrunches his nose at the thought. “He doesn’t?”
Blaise shakes his head. “Not unless the Ministry really used hummingbirds to defeat the goblin forces in the thirteenth century. Got an EE for that,” he adds, the corner of his mouth curling up in a satisfied smirk. “Also got an EE for simply turning in a length of parchment with my name written at the top and a transcription of Crabbe and Goyle’s supper discussion.”
“But Crabbe and Goyle hardly speak outside of the dormitory.”
Blaise raises his eyebrows and spreads his hands in a silent exactly. “Exceeds Expectations,” he repeats. “Every time.”
“Bollocks,” Harry mutters under his breath. He usually gets an EE in Binns’ class with the occasional O thrown in for variety but in his first life… well. The endless string of Acceptables and Poors, while technically deserved, feel a bit more insulting now.
They walk in silence for a moment, bits and pieces of the others’ conversation falling back from where the five of them have pulled ahead a bit as the wind down the hillside. “You can’t really think that we’d let you face this alone,” Blaise murmurs softly, nudging Harry with his shoulder. “You didn’t even know what your parents looked like until…” he trails off, shaking his head. “You’ve got us now.”
Harry blinks rapidly, trying to push back the sudden tears that burn at the corners of his eyes. “Yeah,” he manages to get out without sounding too pathetic. “I suppose I do.”
And it’s not exactly a novel feeling – he’s had people before. Ron and Hermione. Sirius and Remus. The rest of the Weasleys. Hagrid.
This feels different.
He’s not sure if it’s him. Or them. Or both.
(It’s almost definitely both.)
He doesn’t get a chance to do much more than raise his hand to rap on the door before Fang’s welcoming barks thunder through the meager barrier of wood. Harry knocks anyway: a quick one-two rap of his knuckles.
“Comin’!” Hagrid’s voice booms. “Back, Fang. Come on back now. I said back, you slobberin’ beast!”
Beside him Draco barely has a chance to pale and mouth, “Fang?” when the door is wrenched inward and only the quick snap of Hagrid’s hand latching onto the boarhound’s collar keeps him from barreling straight into the group gathered on the front step and knocking them straight on their arses.
Right, Harry thinks rather hysterically, I can do this.
And then he steps into Hagrid’s hut.
“Well,” Blaise remarks as they make their way back to the castle the better part of an hour later, “That was kind of weird.”
“I think it was sweet,” Hannah offers. “It was nice of him to give you those photos and the rock cakes weren’t completely awful.”
Draco scoffs. “I think I broke a tooth!”
“Your tooth is fine,” Blaise assures. Draco lets out a little huff of disagreement, his noise pointing straight up in the air. “If you’re really that worried just go have Madam Pomfrey take a look at it.”
“Maybe I will.”
“Do you want someone to go with you?” Mandy asks and Draco nearly causes everyone to trip as he pauses mid-step and then gives her a small, tight nod.
“I would not decline any offers.”
Mandy rolls her eyes. “Fine then. I’ll go with you.”
Harry, very carefully, does not smile.
“I still think it was weird that he said that the troll got free,” Susan says after a moment. “That implies that it was being contained somewhere, doesn’t it?”
“M-maybe that’s what’s on the-the third f-floor,” Neville muses and stumbles a little when everyone turns to look at him.
“Huh,” Mandy says after a long pause. “I’d actually forgotten about that.”
“But why would they keep a troll in a school full of children?” Draco asks. “Even for Dumbledore, that doesn’t make sense!”
Harry manages to bite back the vicious disagreement that wells up in his throat. Barely, but he manages.
“I’m going to write Aunt Millie,” Susan announces. “It sounds like something she should know - and you should probably write your dad,” she adds, nudging Draco.
“I will.” Draco gives a determined nod. He looks rather relieved to have a clear course of action.
His life, Harry reflects, is quite possibly even stranger the second time around.
“We might have a problem,” Harry announces as he barrels through the barely open door.
“G-good afternoon, P-potter,” Quirrell asks, the door closing with a deliberate click following a very pointed pause. “T-tea?”
“Yes, yes, I’m sorry,” he snaps back and Quirrell, unquestionably Quirrell with his rounded face, widens his eyes and fixes them on Harry. After a moment of unblinking silence, Harry shuts his eyes and forces himself to inhale slowly to the count of ten. Now is not the time to go rampaging about like an idiot. “I’m sorry,” he repeats more quietly and this time he actually means it. “Good afternoon, professor,” he greets again. “I would love some tea.”
And he would. He would absolutely love a bloody cup of tea. Maybe then he would stop feeling like he’s going to vibrate out of his skin.
The edges of Quirrell’s lips twitch and he nods, waving Harry in the direction of the chair that he practically thinks of as his own. He obligingly goes to it but doesn’t sit. He’s too wound up for that, restless to the point that he finds himself bouncing his leg as he stands, arms crossed over his chest and waiting, fingers tap tapping against his robes.
“I’m sorry,” Harry says for a third time, after he’s taken a moment to take a few more deep breaths and let Quirrell pick through the dozens of cannisters in the cupboard behind his desk. “I’m not trying to be rude. I’m just…worried,” he finally finishes, tongue reluctantly curling around the word in his mouth and propelling it outward.
He hadn’t been worried, at first. In fact, it hadn’t been until he was preparing for bed last night that it even occurred to him that there was something to be worried about. But then, somewhere between getting Inigo out of his habitat and climbing out of his trunk it had hit him: Draco and Susan are going to tell someone about their suspicions that the troll could have come from the third floor. The third floor corridor that students have been forbidden from entering on pain of death.
And it’s not even that they’re going to tell, not really, it’s that they’re going to tell and Lucius and Amelia will believe them.
Harry… Harry doesn’t know what to do about that.
Usually, his problem is the exact opposite: adults that don’t believe him.
But they’re going to tell. The others might as well – Blaise and Hannah and Mandy at least.
They’re going to tell and the adults in their lives are going to believe them.
They’re going to believe them and they’re going to do something about it.
Harry is suddenly, desperately regretting bringing them all to Hagrid’s.
If they lose their chance at the Sorcerer’s Stone because of this…
“W-worried?” Quirrell asks as he measures out whatever tea he has chosen. Harry barely resists the urge to put his head down between his knees and instead forces himself to inhale past the vice wrapped around his chest.
“Yeah. There might be a problem with the… thing.” He waves a hand vaguely in the direction of the Sorcerer’s Stone. “And I really need to talk to…” he waves his hand vaguely at Quirrell. Frankly, he doesn’t understand why Tom hasn’t taken control already – or at least made his presence known. These days he’s almost always lurking right there at the surface, present in the sharp slash of Quirrell’s mouth or in the faint sheen of burgundy that occasionally shines out of Quirrell’s eyes.
“In a moment, Potter,” Quirrell insists but it is Tom’s voice that comes out of his mouth, the crips exactness of someone who has taken great pains to fix their speech patterns a certain way.
Harry blinks. “Why?”
Quirrell’s mouth curls upwards in a small smile. “I m-make b-b-better t-tea.”
Harry blinks again.
Tea.
The Dark Lord is making him wait because he wants his tea fixed perfectly.
“Bloody hell.” Harry slumps down into the chair, the frantic edge of the nerves crowding his veins bleeding off with the exclamation. They’re simply unable to exist in the face of the sheer ridiculousness of the situation.
Quirrell’s smile is perhaps a little bigger when he finally pours Harry his cup and pushes it across the tabletop with a gentle, “It h-has h-hibiscus in it.”
Thank Merlin look on Harry’s face does all the asking for him because he’s not sure he could find the actual words.
“S-so don’t add m-milk,” the other man cautions. “It will c-curdle.”
The thoughtfulness of the comment, however small, is like a blow – something that simultaneously leaves him staggering and warm to the core. He still drinks his tea plain most of the time but he has, occasionally, been experimenting with varying levels of milk and sweetness. Thus far he’s learned that he’s not one for sweetening his tea but a splash of milk is quite acceptable.
“Thanks,” he manages to get out and quickly raises the cup to his mouth to hide just how much the fact that Quirrell or Tom or both have noticed means to him. And that the fact that it means so much for him kind of makes him want to slap himself.
The tea is shockingly bold and searingly bright in a way that is somehow both acidic and sour but also sweet. “Is that… berry?” Harry finds himself asking before he can stop himself, staring down into his cup of tea like it’s going to answer him itself.
Quirrell hums as he takes his own sip. “S-strawberry, raspberry, and blueberry,” he acknowledges. “There is also ap-p-ple and rosehips and a t-touch of…”
“…cinnamon,” Harry finishes that warmth is easy enough to pick out, a soothing sort of spicy finish to the sweet-tart-tang of the tea. “It’s good.” Complex, certainly, in a way that leaves Harry feeling a little overwhelmed, but good.
“Just w-wait until s-summer. It is even b-better c-cold brewed. Like drinking a b-berry crisp.”
“Cold brewed?” Harry feels like an idiot for asking because it probably means exactly what it sounds like.
“I’ll sh-show you,” Quirrell promises. “Now, you mentioned a problem.”
The sudden sibilant sounds of parseltongue leaves Harry blinking over the desk. He hadn’t even noticed the change. It had just happened. Quirrell had been Quirrell until he had not. He’s not sure if he should be terrified or impressed at the level of precision and control that that displays.
Or both.
“Er. Yeah,” he manages to get out after a moment. “Everyone came with me to tea at Hagrid’s yesterday.”
The Dark Lord doesn’t actually roll his eyes but Harry can tell that it’s a close thing. “I cannot believe he is still here.”
Harry glares at him across the desk. “Really?” he asks. “And where else is he supposed to go? You had him expelled when he was thirteen!”
“He was keeping an acromantula stashed in a cupboard!” Tom hisses back, face stretched to the very limits of incredulity. “Do you have any idea how many people it could have hurt, even killed, if it had gotten loose?”
Wow.
Harry can’t believe that just came out of the other man’s mouth and he hopes that his face is doing an adequate job of portraying that for him because he is literally speechless for at least two whole minutes.
“This,” he observes quite calmy, “from the man who was hunting students with a sixty foot basilisk.”
“Yes, hunting,” Tom emphasizes with a dismissive wave. “Sacha was completely under my control. Her eyes were veiled and she attacked only at my direction.”
“But that’s not entirely true, is it?” Harry presses, because he always presses and because he refuses to get sidetracked by the fact that the basilisk is apparently named Sacha. Merlin. “Myrtle’s death was an accident. You didn’t even know she was in the loo.”
The silence is deafening.
They stare at each other the desk, neither one moving, neither one folding.
And then Tom, very slightly, inclines his head.
Harry wants to push, wants to press on this point until it bleeds. His anger over Hagrid’s treatment by Voldemort, by the Wizarding World at large is a comfortable, familiar thing. Hagrid is gentle and loyal soul ill-suited for the games Dumbledore and Voldemort alike had used him in and Harry will never forget the kindness, the welcome that the half giant had extended to him in another life.
But Tom inclines his head.
It is not an apology. Lord Voldemort does not offer apologies. It is an acknowledgement, a concession of Harry’s point.
It is probably the only one he will ever get on this subject.
Harry lets out a slow breath and then another and then one more for good measure and finally takes another fortifying sip of his tea. His hands are shaking. Just a little.
“I suspect the whole point of the tea was to make me interested in why part of the third floor is off limits,” he finally says, deliberately returning to the original reason for his visit. Tom lets him.
“A test cannot be a test if the appropriate parties fail to participate.”
Harry grimaces. “Exactly. He kept stressing how safe Hogwarts was, how trusted Dumbledore is. He had a copy of the Prophet that talked about your break in at Gringotts.”
“The man always was heavy handed,” Tom mutters and Harry isn’t entirely sure if he’s speaking of Hagrid or Dumbledore. Or both. It could definitely be both.
Harry sighs. “He all but said that the troll had escaped from the third floor – a fact that Susan jumped on almost immediately.”
“Smart,” Tom hums and once again Harry is hit with the dizzying and slightly terrifying sensation of having the Dark Lord approve of his friends. This is going to bite him on the arse someday, he can just feel it.
“Yes,” he agrees. “But therein lies the problem because, unlike Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger, Susan and Draco’s first inclination is not to go on an adventure to investigate the potentially dangerous and illegal thing – or even to tell a teacher. They want to tell their parents. Given what happened on Halloween they probably already have.”
And, a little voice in the back of Harry’s head points out, they are right to do so.
Tom steeples his fingers over his half empty teacup and waits.
“Last time no one complained about the third floor. I don’t think anyone took it seriously. They all just thought that it was some eccentric Dumbledore…thing.” They share a knowing glance over the desk. Dumbledore’s seeming eccentricities are one of the most dangerous things about him. “Lucius and Amelia will take it seriously and they will do something. What if Dumbledore has to move the stone? What if he already has?”
“He hasn’t.”
“He… hasn’t.” Harry repeats dubiously. “How do you…?”
“I can still sense it. You probably can as well.” Harry thinks that the Dark Lord might be taking this equals thing probably a bit too literally if he honestly thinks Harry can do that. Hogwarts feels as it always does, so full of magic that it is like a pot boiling over. “The stone is still there. The old fool has done much to set up this test and is secure in the idea that I can’t get to the stone itself – not before he gets to me, anyway. He won’t move it.”
“Not even if Lucius and the Ministry start investigating?”
“Dumbledore believes he is untouchable and Hogwarts is full of magics beyond reckoning. The number of people that would be able to tell that there are two different magical objects tangled up in that mirror are few and far between. It would be easy enough to simply turn the mirror to the wall and tuck it into a corner.”
“And the rest of the obstacle course?”
“With the wards being repaired and reinforced, he has already removed the troll and the cerberus from the school in order to avoid uncomfortable questions.”
Harry blinks. Fluffy is gone? “He has? When?”
“Three weeks ago.”
Harry bristles a little, feels a bit like a cat pet in the wrong direction at the dark lord’s words – or, more accurately, at the fact that this is just coming up now. As if sensing the direction of his thoughts, Tom raises an eyebrow in silent question: when, exactly, was he supposed to have informed Harry? They have exchanged more words in the last twenty minutes than in all the time since their conversation at the top of the Astronomy tower.
“It coincided with the beginning of the work on the wards. Devil’s Snare or human sized chess board are easy enough to explain away and unlikely to be caught in the wards to begin with – same with Snape’s contribution.”
“Even the poison?”
Tom makes a dismissive gesture with his hand. “Severus could poison us all a thousand times over with what he has in the students’ supply closet, never mind his own stores. Besides, should he need an excuse, it would be entirely within his character to make his older students test their own potions via a logic puzzle.”
Harry can’t really argue with that. It definitely sounds like something that Snape would do.
“Okay.” He slumps down in his chair and nearly presses his face into his teacup, the last magenta edged dregs staring up at him. “I just… I worry about messing it up. I seem to do that a lot. It’s usually an accident but whether I meant it or not doesn’t change the outcome.” And he’s messed up a lot.
“Harry.”
The sound of his name, just his name, just the one that is his and nothing else, rings through the air like a struck tuning fork and Harry jerks his head up so quickly that his neck twinges in protest. There’s a look on Quirrell’s features that he can’t place, unreadable but open. Vulnerable, perhaps – or as vulnerable as Lord Voldemort gets.
“I appreciate your concern,” the words come out of Tom’s mouth oddly, stilted not with falsehood or discomfort but with a simple lack of practice. These are not words that other people have heard from the dark lord’s mouth. Not often, anyway. Perhaps not at all. It’s a little unsettling, if Harry is being honest.
Okay. More than a little.
“You have already done far more than I expected – even after we struck our agreement. The stone would prove immeasurably useful for no small number of reasons but I managed to regain my body without it before, did I not?”
“Yes,” Harry agrees slowly. “You did.”
For a certain definition, anyway. Walking around inside Quirrell’s skin might be the better option if the whole no nose, snake faced thing is the only body waiting for him.
Not that he’s going to say that.
Ever.
“Then, if necessary, I shall do so again. Your gift has merely expanded my options,” Tom reminds him, motioning at the body he and Quirrell currently share, and Harry can’t disagree. After more than a month of weekly doses of freely given unicorn blood, Quirrell is healthier and more vibrant than Harry has ever seen him. The youthful roundness of his face is beginning to fill out again, cheeks rosy even as the shadow of red stubble reappears along the line of his jaw.
Harry tries to imagine what Quirrell looks like with hair.
He can’t.
“Oh, Merlin’s saggy balls,” he mutters and all but throws his teacup on the desk. “You’re right. You’re right. I’m freaking out over nothing.” Again. Dragging his hands up across his temples and then down across his cheeks Harry can’t help but add, “I’m sorry.”
Tom cocks his head. “What for? You were concerned for our success. You perceived a problem and tried to get out in front of it. Such devotion is commendable.”
“Yes, but just bursting in here like that… you must think I’m crazy.” In truth, he’s beginning to feel like he had all during his sixth year: stuck with the knowledge that his godfather was dead because of him with Voldemort’s return revealed to the public in a way that they could not ignore while the Death Eaters circled the wizarding world like wolves testing a nervous flock of sheep. Each day had lasted forever and yet passed with such swiftness, winding him up and up and up until he could feel himself cracking, until he could feel himself shaking apart and breaking – just waiting for the axe to fall.
Voldemort spreads his hands in magnanimous acknowledgement. “We’re all mad here.”
Harry’s rather inclined to agree but there’s something about the way that the other man says it, a certain weight. “Are you quoting something?”
The Dark Lord stares. “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland?”
Harry blinks, caught completely off guard.
“Published in 1865,” Tom prods. “Written by Lewis Carroll, who is most well known for being a muggle who spent weeks wandering around the magical world before anyone realized he was there and then subsequently botched his memory modification? He is almost single handedly responsible for the laws governing magical and muggle interaction in Britain as they stand today?”
Harry blinks again. “Umm…”
“Unbelievable,” Tom mutters. “What in Salazar’s name are they actually teaching at this school?”
Harry thinks that it’s probably a rhetorical question and also a little unfair because Quirrell – and by extent, Tom, who has definitely been slithering into Quirrell’s lessons more and more since that first dose of unicorn blood – is an actual professor at this school. It’s not like Harry’s the one coming up with the lesson plans.
Of course, Harry’s ability to keep his mouth shut has never been well exercised.
“Goblin Wars, mostly.”
“Binns,” the Dark Lord hisses, eyes narrowing to gleaming red points. “I should have exorcised that repetitive little worm when I had the chance.”
At that, Harry perks right up. “He can be gotten rid of?”
“You would think dying would have taken care of him but he is as stubborn as he is pathetic,” the other man all but growls in disgust. “But yes, he can be removed. I will see to it before the start of the next school year,” he adds and Harry feels the weight of it as surely as any vow.
Lord Voldemort rewards those who are faithful, he can’t help but think and barely manages to stifle the slightly hysterical laugh that bubbles up in his chest like a cheering charm.
And maybe he says it out loud, or maybe he just thinks it too strongly but across the table Tom’s sharp smile softens into a quiet, blinding thing as Quirrell assures in a voice scarcely more than a whisper, “Always, Mr. P-p-potter. Always.”