Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Harry took a deep breath and straightened his robes. Then he looked in the mirror and straightened them again.

“What is up with you, mate?” Ron asked around a huge yawn. He was throwing on his own Hogwarts robes any which way, hitting the wrinkles with a charm that made them settle once and then puff out gently. He paused and took a better look at Harry. “Where are your robes?”

“I’m wearing robes.”

“Not the uniform!”

Harry glared at Ron in the mirror, then shook his head. “I got a soul-mark last night,” he muttered, low enough that Neville and Dean and Seamus probably wouldn’t hear.

Ron undid that immediately by leaning towards him and saying, “You got a what?”

Someone made an indistinct sound of agony in the bedroom. Harry rolled his eyes at Ron and said, “You heard me well enough.”

“Those are rare, Harry! Wicked!” For a minute, Ron’s expression wavered back and forth between excitement and what was probably jealousy, and then he took a deep breath and got past it. Harry doubted Ron would have wanted anyone but Hermione, anyway, no matter what kind of soul-mark he might get. “Can I see it?”

“I want to show it to him first.”

“Him?”

Harry blinked, wondering if Ron was going to succumb to a prejudice he hadn’t thought he’d face here, and then smiled a little. “Yeah, it’s not Ginny. Sorry.”

“Oh.” Ron frowned, then shrugged. “She’ll be disappointed.”

“Too bad.”

Ron took a long step away from him. “Yeah, just tell me when you’re going to tell her that, so I can be on the other side of the planet.”

Harry laughed and left the bathroom. His face was tingling with excitement and heat, his hands shaking with nerves. He had read a book on soul-marks yesterday, after he’d woken up with it encircling his wrist, that said you were supposed to bring a gift to the first meeting with your soulmate to show you knew them.

The problem was, Harry didn’t know Theodore Nott, at all, other than as a Slytherin and someone who sometimes laughed along with Malfoy’s jokes.

No, Harry would just bring himself, and hope it worked out.

He didn’t care that Nott was a Slytherin. He didn’t care that his dad, or grandfather, was probably the Death Eater who had shown up when Voldemort called them in the graveyard in his fourth year.

This was a new beginning, a new adventure, and Harry couldn’t wait to dive into it.

*

Theo stared dully down at the mark around his wrist, written in bold, decisive, messy letters. Harry Potter.

He’d woken up yesterday planning nothing more than quiet hours of studying in the library, and instead, he was forced to deal with this.

And the worst thing was, no one else would really understand if he told them why he didn’t want this mark. Theo could imagine Blaise bathing in the limelight, and even Draco, who would be annoyed at first, valuing the connection between him and Potter that would let him reach his goals.

Theo, though, just wanted quiet. Wanted people to ignore him as much as possible. Wanted to be the sort of researcher who corresponded exclusively by owl and received the occasional polite note of admiration for his intellect.

Potter would never let him be that. Potter was loud and sought attention. Look at that speech he had given when he killed the Dark Lord. He couldn’t just—sort it out the way Theo would have if he were ever placed in that impossible position. He had to narrate it.

Potter wasn’t an intellectual, either, and he’d never been good at Potions, Theo’s favorite subject after pure Arithmantic research. He would either swagger up to Theo with disdain or assume he could change him.

Theo had no intention of being changed.

He heard footsteps heading towards him, and straightened up. Father hadn’t talked much about soul-marks, since they only appeared for one magical person in ten thousand, but he’d been thorough in the one lesson he did give Theo. Their marks would draw them together soon after they appeared and would ensure they met in private.

And there was Potter, coming around the corner into this dungeon corridor, practically prancing. In bright blue robes.

Theo blinked. He hadn’t even known Potter owned robes other than the Hogwarts ones and the dress set he’d worn to the long-ago Yule Ball.

“Hullo,” Potter said, his eyes bright as he looked at Theo. “I’m sorry I didn’t bring a gift the way I was supposed to, but I didn’t know what you would like.”

The words strengthened the resolve Theo had formed before he’d been caught off-guard in the last moment. Potter didn’t know him. Soul-marks might be more about potential, the way Father had lectured him, but it wasn’t potential Theo wanted.

“Actually, Potter, I don’t mind the lack of a gift.”

“Oh, good! Then can I get you something later?”

Potter was looking right at him with the kind of sparkling eyes and broad smile that probably worked for him most of the time when he wanted to charm people. But Theo wasn’t most people. He was himself. He strengthened his resolve.

“No,” he said softly.

Potter blinked at him, then nodded quickly. “You’re not a gift person? That’s fine. I can do something else for you. What would you like? I want to get to know you.”

Theo took a deep breath. It was harder than he had thought to resist Potter when he was focusing all that attention on Theo. It was like turning his back on a roaring fire to walk into a roaring winter storm.

But he was still himself, not Potter. Not Potter’s.

“I want a soulmate who’s more like me, someone who would already know what I’d like,” Theo said. Potter went very still, attentive. Theo couldn’t let himself think much about that, either. Otherwise, he might start thinking he could train Potter, and he couldn’t. That was the point. Potter was himself, too, loud and oblivious and brash and self-sacrificing. None of that applied to Theo. “Not someone who’s constantly in the papers and the public eye. I could never be at peace there. So I don’t want to be with you, Potter.”

Potter closed his eyes and then opened them again. “All right,” he whispered. “I—you won’t give me a chance to change your mind?”

“No. Don’t send me owls, Potter. Don’t tell anyone about this. Don’t speak to me unless we’re at some public function where it would be noticeable that we’re not doing so.”

Potter’s face was pale. “All right,” was all he said.

Theo turned around and walked away. He thought he could feel Potter’s eyes on his back, could feel the shock radiating from him. But, he reminded himself, that shock was simply because Potter wouldn’t be able to believe that someone didn’t want to be with him.

Theo didn’t need him. Theo didn’t want him. He had survived the war against all odds, and now he would go on to change the world through his Arithmancy.

He was free.

*

When he was sure Nott was gone and no one else would come back down the corridor, Harry slowly slid down the wall and put his arms around his head.

His pulse throbbed wildly behind his temples. His mouth was dry. The mark on his wrist seemed to burn and itch in a way it hadn’t when it had appeared yesterday.

The agony tore through him, and Harry sat there and let it.

He’d thought having a soulmate meant there was someone he could date who would care just for him. Just Harry. Not the limelight or the fame or the notoriety. Instead, all of that had driven away the person whose name he bore.

It seemed like it was hours before he heard footsteps and Ron’s worried voice asking, “Mate?”

Harry spent a long moment more indulging in the desire to just lean against the wall forever, and then he stood up and wiped his face. He hadn’t actually cried. Huh.

“Mate, are you all right?”

Harry could only imagine how his face looked when he turned around, because Ron made a little shocked noise and ran up to him, drawing his wand. Harry leaned on the wall and sighed. “I’m all right, Ron.”

“Where’s your soulmate? Did he not show up?”

“He rejected me.”

“What?”

Harry sighed. At least his best friend was indignant for him. “Yeah. He said—he couldn’t deal with being in the papers all the time. And he said he wanted someone who already knew what he was like. I didn’t.”

Ron stared at him, and then glared around the empty corridor. “Where did he go? I can go after him and drag him right back here and explain the errors of his ways, no problem.” He thumped his wand pointedly into his open palm.

Harry laughed a little and pushed himself back upright. “No, Ron. He asked me not to owl him or speak to him or ever contact him again. He also asked me not to talk about this, but I reckoned you deserved to know that I won’t be dating him, and so did Hermione.”

“Who is he?”

Harry shook his head. He wouldn’t put it past his friends to go harass Nott and try to drive him into being with Harry—the best of intentions, but the worst outcome. “I’m not going to say. That’s all I can do as far as honoring his request not to talk to anyone about this.”

“Well,” Ron said, and then wrapped his arms around Harry and pulled him into a hug. Harry relaxed against him. “Whoever he is, he’s a fool and doesn’t deserve you.”

Harry hummed vaguely. He didn’t think Nott was a fool. Just someone who knew very well what he wanted, and whose vision of life didn’t include Harry.

That didn’t make him a fool. It just made him determined, and someone who had decided against the potential between them. Harry would have to accept that and move on, as much as he regretted the loss of the potential.

He took in a breath, breathed out, and straightened up. He could survive this. He’d endured worse. “Come on, let’s get to breakfast.”

*

Theo stared at the Daily Prophet. It was no surprise that Potter was on the front page—they’d been hungrier for stories about him than ever since the war—but it was a surprise that he was saying Death Eaters deserved fair trials.

Frowning, Theo looked down at the story, looking for the quote by Potter.

“I’ve seen what happens when someone is denied a fair trial,” Potter says as he leans across the table in the Three Broomsticks, his eyes flashing. “They rot in Azkaban for twelve years for something they didn’t do. That was my godfather, Sirius Black, and everything might have been different if he’d got one.

“Do I like the majority of the Death Eaters who will be getting trials? No, of course not. Do I think they deserve to rot in Azkaban for something they didn’t do? No. They should be tried and put away because of what they did do, not just what people think they might have done. And it’ll mean less bitterness bubbling up later one because someone has a parent or other relative who didn’t receive a trial. Like my godfather didn’t.”

Theo put the paper on the table in front of him, where Blaise promptly stole it. Theo ignored that, staring across the Great Hall at the Gryffindor table, where Potter was rolling his eyes. Someone Theo only vaguely recognized, some younger Gryffindor, was waving the paper at Potter as they shouted.

Why talk about this? Does he think that he can score some kind of point with me by recommending that my father receive a fair trial?

Theo stabbed his eggs with his fork. If that was the case, Potter would learn quickly that it was not going to work. Theo wasn’t so weak as to yield and swoon about Potter’s sense of fairness and justice or whatever his motive was.

He stared at Potter again, but Potter didn’t glance at him and didn’t acknowledge him. Theo knew, logically, that that was what he had asked for. Potter wasn’t betraying to anyone who his soulmate was. Theo knew he would have found himself assaulted by at least two Gryffindors if he had talked.

But emotionally, Theo would have appreciated a hopeful glance, so he could curse it down.

“Theo, what did those eggs ever do to you?”

Blaise had noticed. Theo pulled his fork up and shook his head, checking out of the corner of his eye to make sure that the thick silver cuff bracelet that had been a present from his father for Theo’s seventeenth birthday was clasped over Potter’s name. Theo had never worn it before.

No. He was not going to allow Potter to have this amount of control over his life. He was going to ignore it, and continue on.

He was not defined by a name printed on his wrist.

“Nothing, of course,” Theo told Blaise when his friend kept looking at him expectantly. “I’m merely thinking about Father’s upcoming trial.”

“Ah.” Blaise’s face cleared, and he gripped Theo’s arm under the table, where no one would see. “Of course.”

Theo gave him a half smile. Subtle, restrained, discreet. The kind of thing that Potter would never be.

He had made the right choice. Just the thought of having people stare at him and ask what he thought of the situation, as Potter’s soulmate and the son of a Death Eater, made his soul shrivel.

*

“But we were going to be Aurors, mate!”

“I know, Ron.” Harry smiled at Ron, who looked about half a second away from stomping his foot. “But I’ve decided that I don’t really want to hunt down Dark wizards anymore.”

“Oh, Harry, did you look at those pamphlets I gave you about Healing?” Hermione leaned towards him, her eyes alight, from the other side of Ron’s bed. “I knew you would feel that career would suit you if you only thought about it!”

Harry shook his head. “I’m going to learn some Healing magic, but I want to do something else.”

“What?”

“Protect people.”

His friends exchanged baffled glances. Harry hid his smile behind his hand. The right hand, the one with Nott’s name on his wrist.

It doesn’t matter, it can’t matter, it won’t matter, Harry chanted to himself, and looked up in time to hear Hermione ask, “So what does that mean, exactly?”

“Our world is still a mess,” Harry said flatly. “All those people who are still blood purists, they’re just not saying it. All those Muggleborns who got their property and their wands taken away and never got reparations. All those repairs that aren’t getting made to Hogwarts because the Board of Governors claims they don’t have the money. All those Muggleborn children who didn’t get to go to Hogwarts the last two years.”

That last one in particular made Harry sick. Of course his “first” seventh year, the Muggleborns had mostly been in hiding, but then in his eighth year, the one just finished, no professors had been sent out with the letters. The Muggleborn children still in hiding, the ones who might have thought it was a joke, the ones whose families tore up their letters, well, they just didn’t have the professors to do it, Headmistress McGonagall had said.

And Harry did understand that. He didn’t think she was being malicious.

It was still wrong.

“So you’re going to heal abused children?” Hermione had a soft but complicated expression on her face that Harry couldn’t look at too long.

“I’m going to help people,” Harry said. “Make myself equal to the task, no matter what it is. Learn more defensive magic, Healing magic, the laws that surround donations and helping children and magical creatures, the kind of Transfigurations that would let me make the Hogwarts repairs myself.”

“That sounds—really ambitious, Harry.”

Harry rolled his eyes at her. “You know that ambition isn’t just a Slytherin thing, Hermione.”

“No, I mean. It sounds—I’d like to help you.”

Harry blinked. “But I thought you were going to work in the Magical Creatures Department—”

“I thought I could make the necessary changes from the inside,” Hermione said flatly, her eyes sparking. “But you’re right. The system is more corrupt than anything. It would be better to work from the outside, and we can raise the money that we need from all those interviews and speaking engagements people are so eager to pay us for.”

Ron looked back and forth between them.

“You don’t have to,” Harry told him gently. “You can still be an Auror.”

“Don’t want to, not without you, mate,” Ron said, and took a deep breath. “Yeah. That sounds like a continuation of what we were doing at Hogwarts when we were trying to protect people from Death Eaters or the monster in the Chamber of Secrets. Let’s do it.”

He leaned forwards and held out his hand. Hermione’s and Harry’s clasped it at the same time, and Harry smiled a little. Soulmate rejecting him or not, he would always have his friends.

Chapter Text

Theo slammed the paper on the dining room table with a noise of disgust.

“Theo?”

Theo took a deep breath and shook his head, turning to face his father. “I’m sorry, Father. I’m just upset that the Ministry is working to make Arithmancy a fourth-year subject instead of a third-year one. That will only make people less interested in it, not put off the damage students can do with it.”

“Interesting, considering that you were scowling at the front page and the story about the Ministry’s folly is on page four.”

Theo lowered his eyes.

“Why are you wearing the wrist cuff, Theo? You never did before.”

Theo looked up, assured that at least his father would understand Theo’s reservations about being Harry Potter’s bloody soulmate. “This name appeared on my wrist during my last term at Hogwarts…”

Father heard Theo out, with his usual silence, stirring sugar into his tea in the meantime. Theo could admit that he was almost ranting at the end, but, well, Father was the one who had taught Theo the value of silence and patience and intellectual work over flashy spells. He was the best audience for this.

Father did indeed listen. Then he put down his teacup and said, “That was stupid of you.”

Theo gaped at him. It took long moments before he could get back control of his face. “Excuse me?”

“That was stupid of you,” Father repeated, and picked up his cup again.

Theo glared at him. Demetrius Nott had been a respected and talented Death Eater, one of the Dark Lord’s chosen—in the first war. By the time the Dark Lord had returned, he’d decided that he’d had enough of the stupidity of the war and that he should be able to express whatever dissatisfactions with the Dark Lord’s plans that he desired. It hadn’t made him popular. It had ensured he hadn’t done much in that war and had only spent time in a holding cell instead of Azkaban, however.

Theo had always been assured that he was making the correct choices because of his father’s lack of criticism. To have him turn on Theo now was—

“Why?”

“Because the boy approached you with an open mind and eagerness to have you. You could have made sure that he would oppose the papers whenever they reported on you. You could have received unprecedented emotional support. You could have secured funding from the Ministry much more easily for your Arithmantic research, and successfully scuttled their ridiculous plans for Hogwarts. They would do much to oblige the Boy-Who-Lived’s soulmate.”

Father drank his tea.

“Father, didn’t you hear me say that I don’t want to be noticed? At all? And what is Potter doing?” Theo gestured at the story on the front page he had been scowling at. “Prancing around and getting noticed and making announcements! His soulmate would have been a huge announcement.”

“He could have protected you from that. I told you.”

“He wouldn’t want to protect me!”

Father put down his cup again, and Theo squirmed. He looked mostly like his father, except for his blue eyes, which he’d inherited from his mother. Father’s intense, piercing grey gaze was always sharper than Theo’s, always stronger, but he was rarely subjected to the full force of it.

“I don’t know the boy. I did not spend seven years in school with him. I did not sit in classes with him. And yet, I know enough about him from the papers to know that he is only seeking publicity to serve his goals. If you’d told him you wanted privacy, he would have moved the stars themselves to secure it for you.”

Father stood up. “But as I said,” he added, in the driest voice Theo had ever heard from him, “I am not his soulmate.”

He swept away. Theo sat there and stared at the front page until his eyes stung.

*

“Why is the Ministry trying to make it so only fourth-years can study Arithmancy?”

“They claim that some of the Death Eaters were using Arithmancy to predict their enemies’ movements. So obviously it’s evil and terrible and fourth-years will be so much more mature about it than third-years.”

Hermione was going to wear a hole in the carpet with her pacing, Harry thought—quite possibly literally. They had chosen, for their headquarters, a small building just off Diagon Alley that was being sold cheaply due to damage it had suffered in the war, and “make sure the floors and walls are stable” had been a higher priority than “get nice carpeting” so far.

“That’s stupid.”

“Yeah, tell me about it.” Hermione spun around to face him. A spark of magic leaped from her fingers and scorched the carpet. Hermione sighed and drew her wand to repair the hole with a silent charm. “This is ridiculous. The Ministry is getting more paranoid than they were during the war.”

“And with even less reason.”

Hermione nodded. “No one’s actually trying to cast the Imperius Curse on most of them this time.’

They lapsed into silence, Hermione still pacing, Harry sitting with his eyes on the Prophet article and trying to figure out what they could do about it. There had to be some way to fight this stupid thing. To convince people that their stupidity was more damaging than letting third-years practice Arithmancy in peace.

If we could convince them something else was a greater threat, without that other thing being something it would hurt to lose—

“You’ve thought of something.”

Harry glanced up with a faint smile. “Was it that obvious?”

“Yes. Give, Harry.”

“All right. So if they’re afraid of people using Arithmancy to predict people’s movements, then we should tell them all about the true threat that predicts movements, and that would give Dark wizards a terrible advantage. In fact, it almost lost us the war.”

Hermione’s eyes were wide by then. “What are you talking about?”

Harry leaned towards her. “Divination,” he said in a hoarse whisper.

Hermione burst out laughing.

Harry let her laugh until it was subsiding in giggles and snorts, and then winked at her. “Think about it, Hermione. There was a prophecy about me and Voldemort. He spent a lot of time and effort trying to know what it said. He did know enough of what it said to go after my parents and me. He almost killed me! Imagine what would have happened if he had.”

“But—then people could say that the prophecy was a good thing, because otherwise you might not have defeated him.”

“Sure, they could, but not if we drum up enough fear to concentrate them on the idea of a Dark Lord in the future getting hold of a prophecy. And imagine, Divination is taught at Hogwarts to impressionable third-years! And it’s a much more direct method of prediction than Arithmancy is, where you have to use all kinds of maths. With Divination, anyone can look in a teacup. Or someone might recite a prophecy and not even realize they did. We have to stop it!”

“Is this revenge on Trelawney?”

Harry smiled at her. “Would I do that?”

Hermione snorted. “Probably not. On the other hand, if you could help keep a magical discipline within reach of third-years while also incidentally making sure a much more useless class is removed from Hogwarts…”

“Precisely.”

*

“Did he do this for you, Theo?”

Theo blinked, still half-asleep. Staying up late the night before to read the new book that was essentially several Russian arithmancers arguing with each other had made his head fuzzy. “What are you talking about, Father?”

Father waved his wand and floated the Daily Prophet over in front of Theo.

Theo was glad that he’d put down his tea, as he otherwise would have choked at the headline.

MAN-WHO-WON SPEAKS UP AGAINST PLAN TO CHANGE ARITHMANCY TO A FOURTH-YEAR CLASS!

Theo stared at the headline in stunned silence, and looked down at the picture of Potter standing in what seemed to be the Ministry Atrium. He was glaring at the camera, eyes burning with righteousness and hair as tousled as usual.

Theo scanned down the page.

Divination is the greater threat…a Dark Lord could use a prophecy the way that He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named used the one that pointed to Harry Potter…Divination is broad and general and easy, Arithmancy beyond the reach of all but the skilled…

Theo skipped a paragraph and looked near the bottom of the article, where Potter was quoted.

“Yeah, honestly, Divination was a pretty useless class for me, because the professor just liked predicting my death,” Harry Potter told this reporter in a confidential conversation. “That’s why I dropped it after my OWL year. But for other people? They really learned something from Trelawney, I know they did. If you can just look into the bottom of a teacup and see most of the immediate future, then why ban Arithmancy? If you ask me, Divination should be either removed from the Hogwarts curriculum or restricted to NEWT students who show a special gift and are willing to swear one of a number of oaths.”

The article was inconclusive about what the Ministry was actually intending to do with third-year Arithmancy now, but Theo was sure he knew. They would back off and fawn all over Potter. Just the way they did with everything else.

Theo closed his eyes.

“I thought you said Potter didn’t take Arithmancy.”

“He didn’t,” Theo said faintly. He forced his eyes open after a moment, because sitting in front of Father with them closed made him feel vulnerable. “He took Divination.”

“Did he know you took it?”

“No, I doubt it, Father. I don’t think he knows anything about me.”

“Except that you rejected him.”

Theo snapped his eyes to his father’s face. “I have made my decision, Father. You know what I want out of life. Do you truly think I could get that, the quiet and solitude and peace, with Potter by my side?”

“Yes.”

Theo glanced away and picked up his teacup. He had a letter he wanted to write to Aliana Bar, a renowned Arithmancer who had attended Hogwarts in Dumbledore’s time, and he had to phrase it exactly right, so that she would agree to mentor him.

He had no time for Potter. He had no time for regrets. Those weren’t regrets, either. They were thoughts, and Theo had no time for wishing that things were different, because he had chosen this life.

That was better than being chosen, no matter whether magic or another person was doing the choosing.

*

“I’m sorry. I don’t think it’s going to work out.”

Ernie Macmillan gave a long, slow sigh and leaned back against the dark wooden wall of Harry’s flat. “I didn’t think it would,” he said. “Not after I saw that name on your wrist.”

Harry felt his face freeze for a second, but he forced his way past that. It wasn’t Ernie’s fault. “He actually asked that I leave him be. So it isn’t your fault, and it isn’t his, and it isn’t mine. I just think we want different things out of life.”

Ernie nodded, then grinned sharply. It made him look less refined and more focused and likely to bite someone. It made Harry like him better. “I did accept that after the third date you canceled because there was someone who needed your help.”

Harry smiled back. He’d Apparated in between a werewolf child and a bunch of Ministry people who wanted to “compel” her to register. After the tenth time they’d bounced off his dome-shaped shield, he had thought they’d got the point, and he’d torn them apart in the papers the next day. “Yeah. I hope you can find someone to date who’s for you.”

“I hope you can find him.”

Harry raised his eyebrows. “It might be a woman, you know.”

“I didn’t mean just anyone.”

“He rejected me.” Saying the words still stung a little, but no longer filled Harry with terrible, searing pain. It had been almost three years since then. “Thank you for the good wishes, but he’s shown no sign of changing his mind.”

“He’s a fool.”

“Please don’t tell anyone about him.”

Ernie gave him a freezing, haughty look, much more the kind of thing that showed up on his face often. “I wouldn’t invade your privacy like that, Harry.”

“I know. Sorry.” Harry ran his hand down his face. Nott hadn’t made Harry promise that he wouldn’t reveal the soul-mark to people he dated, but then, he doubted Nott had thought that far ahead. “I just—it’s a tender spot.”

Ernie leaned towards him to kiss his cheek, and then turned and picked up the small trunk of clothes that he’d had hanging in Harry’s wardrobe for a while. “If you ever do come together, then tell him that he’s a fool. From me.”

Harry laughed. “He’s actually a very respected Arithmancer, you know.”

“I am sure you know that climbing intellectual heights doesn’t prevent someone from also wallowing in the mud of stupidity.”

“Yeah. I seem to remember a really smart Hufflepuff who thought I was the Heir of Slytherin once upon a time.”

Ernie shot a Stinging Hex at him that Harry dodged, still laughing, and swept grandly out the door. Harry shut it, leaned against it, and tilted his head back for a moment while his fingers rubbed the words on his wrist.

He did sometimes wonder what Nott was doing from day to day. But the Prophet had published that review of his book a while ago, gushing about how brilliant the equations were and how Nott had somehow incorporated Transfiguration into them.

He’d written the book incredibly quickly. He’d advanced to respected Arithmancer status incredibly quickly, according to Hermione and other people Harry trusted to know what they were talking about.

Harry sighed a little. He’d wished he could owl Nott his congratulations, but he couldn’t, and dwelling on it wouldn’t make a difference.

He went to find the latest letter from Lucius Malfoy, the incredible pustule who was somehow back on the Hogwarts Board of Governors and fighting Harry and his friends, up, down, and sideways, about the changes they wanted to suggest to Hogwarts classes now that Divination was gone. Turning Malfoy’s face red was always a good time.

*

“You should tell him.”

Theo turned his head and glared at Blaise. “He knows. I rejected him.” He’d known that having a casual fling with Blaise would have its costs, but he hadn’t anticipated one of them being that Blaise would harass him about Potter’s name on his wrist.

Or intrude on his lab time, come to think of it.

Blaise leaned on the door and looked around the lab for a moment. Theo looked with him, wondering idly for a moment if Blaise was jealous that he didn’t have something like this setup at home. Then again, Blaise had never been as much into Arithmancy as Theo was, and he wouldn’t have a need for half the sparkling glassware or the crystalline globes connected to cauldrons.

“Ah,” Blaise said. “It turns out Arithmancy rots the sensible part of your brain. Who knew?”

“You and my father think that.”

“I am honored to agree with as sensible a man as your father.”

Theo snarled and went back to the equations in front of him. He was not going to get upset or think about Potter. He was thinking, instead, about the best counterarguments to the article that had appeared in the Daily Prophet whinging that his book wasn’t as original as he’d claimed.

“Theo.”

“What?”

Theo looked up in time for Blaise to bend down and seal his lips over Theo’s in a kiss. Theo sighed and relaxed, his hand coming up to rest on his best friend’s shoulder. Blaise was always and ever that, whether or not they decided to be lovers again.

“You should go to him,” Blaise said softly, drawing back.

“I made the choice, Blaise. No one controlled me. No one held a wand to my throat and demanded that I do it. I rejected Potter because he can’t give me the kind of life I want. Why would you urge me to reverse my decision?”

“Are you aware,” Blaise asked precisely, “that in the last twenty-four hours, you’ve ranted about Potter five times? First it was because the Prophet reported that he broke up with Susan Bones, and you decided to sneer about him dating her in the first place. Then it was because you fouled up that equation, and you made fun of the idea that you would have needed Potter to rescue you from the fallout. Then you muttered about how you have Potter to thank for Arithmancy remaining a third-year subject at Hogwarts. And then you said something about how no one would have been as critical of your book if Potter wrote it. And now this.”

“I wasn’t ranting.”

“Theo.”

Theo looked away.

“He didn’t do what you thought he would, did he?” Blaise asked, and there was a smile lurking in his voice, because Blaise was an arsehole. “He didn’t mope about it forever, and he also didn’t come crawling back to you and beg you to reconsider. He went on and lived his life, and he doesn’t ask for your approval of his decisions.”

Theo closed his eyes. “Why did magic make this choice, Blaise?” he whispered, and he hated the way his voice trembled. “Why would it—he doesn’t know anything about Arithmancy. He’s a public person, he has tons of friends and lovers already, he doesn’t need me. I didn’t particularly want a soul-mark, but I would have wanted to be chosen for someone who needed me.”

“Perhaps he would have. If you’d given him the chance.”

“Well, it’s done, now. It can’t be taken back.”

“You’re such a stubborn idiot,” Blaise sighed, but didn’t say anything else. He clapped Theo on the shoulder and strolled out the door. “You say that you don’t want a life outside your lab, but your actions say otherwise.”

Theo scowled at his book until his mind turned crystalline again and let him focus on his equations. He had made his choice. He wouldn’t change his mind. Couldn’t. Even if he could, he would probably regret it in a few days, and Potter would be spiteful enough about being rejected a second time to spread the news around, and then Theo’s life would be miserable.

He wouldn’t, sighed a voice in his head.

Theo threw the thought away.

Chapter Text

Harry wrinkled his nose at his reflection in the mirror. The dress robes looked all right, he thought. They were gold, and he didn’t think he looked terrible in them. He was just dreading the thought of interacting with Lucius Malfoy, and Gawain Robards, and some other people at the Ministry gala today.

“Hermione or I could go instead,” Ron offered from behind him. He was leaning against the wall of Harry’s bedroom and scowling.

Harry shook his head. “You took that gala the other day when I was meeting with the goblins. No. This is better. They’ll be clamoring for the Boy-Who-Lived otherwise, or accusing you and Hermione of something stupid like trying to keep me away from the Ministry.” He straightened his shoulders. “Let’s go.”

Ron kept a close eye on him as they took to the Floo to the Atrium, but hesitated when they came out of the fireplace. “Hermione and I do need to meet with that centaur representative today.”

“Of course you do.”

“You don’t need—”

Harry turned and clasped his friend’s arm, ignoring the curious glances of some of the other “important” guests arriving via the Floo. “No. Please don’t worry about it, Ron. I’ll talk to Malfoy the way I do at the Board of Governors meetings, and if I need to,” he lowered his voice, “I have a Puking Pastille with me.”

Ron laughed and finally seemed to relax. “George would love to hear about that.”

His face darkened a second later, at the reminder of Fred, as always. Harry hugged him a little, sideways, and stepped back. “Go, before I get tempted to skip it altogether or slap a glamour on you and go meet with the centaurs.”

“How come we didn’t think of—”

Harry shoved Ron back towards the Floo. Ron winked at him and left with a blast of powder and a cry of, “A Friend in Need!”

Harry sighed as he turned to walk towards the ballroom where the gala would be. He had meant what he’d said about the public needing to see their “savior,” and the way that they would react if he had a friend at his shoulder at all times.

But Ron and Hermione also needed some time by themselves. They often canceled dates to do the work for A Friend in Need, just like Harry did, and Harry knew Ron had been holding off on proposing to Hermione even though he really wanted to. Maybe he finally would today. Or at least relax a little and think about something other than shielding Harry.

Harry did wish he could find someone who was as close to him, as devoted, as Ron and Hermione were to each other. It was what the name on his wrist had seemed to promise.

But, well, he hadn’t. Harry banished the thought from his mind as he stepped into the ballroom and looked around to locate Lucius Malfoy. The man was resisting the introduction of compulsory Muggle Studies and Magical Studies classes for all the students at Hogwarts, because supposedly “Purebloods don’t need to know anything about their inferiors.” Harry wanted to see what he’d say if Harry surprised him in front of the cream of the Ministry.

*

Theo sipped from a glass of champagne, not caring that only a few people had come up to talk to him. He was here to see Blaise presented with an award for his charitable work (read: donations of large sums of money to St. Mungo’s). It was nothing to him if people shied away from him. That meant that he would only need to talk with his intellectual equals.

He briefly caught Lucius Malfoy’s eye across the room. The man nodded stiffly to Theo. Theo nodded stiffly back.

Then he saw Lucius’s expression change, and followed his gaze to see Harry Potter walking into the ballroom in swirling robes of gold and a bored expression.

Theo’s eyes widened despite himself. This was—Potter looked good. Formidable. Older than twenty-two, and as fit as an Auror for all that he’d decided not to pursue that path. His hair was tousled, but not more than always. He moved as if he had someplace to be and would cut down anyone in his path without slowing his stride.

He must have stared too long. Potter canted his head to the side and held Theo’s gaze, nodding briefly.

Theo snapped his attention away hard enough to hurt his neck. He supposed he looked ridiculous. Draco, who had followed his father, was watching him with a faint frown.

But when Theo chanced another look, Potter hadn’t lingered to look at him. He was baring his teeth at Lucius and saying something in a voice that made Lucius bare his teeth back. Then they started going at it in voices that Theo suspected he couldn’t hear only because someone had cast a Privacy Bubble around them.

He wasn’t hurt by seeing me. He wasn’t affected. He doesn’t want to look at me.

Of course, that was what Theo had wanted. He had gone on and lived his own life after finding out Potter was his soulmate—although, at Blaise’s suggestion, he had tried to stop complaining about Potter so much and following the progress of his Friend in Need organization in the papers. He shouldn’t want Potter to pay attention to him.

Why do I?

Theo stared into his glass and wished he knew a spell that would Transfigure champagne to Firewhisky.

*

“What you are demanding is impossible, Mr. Potter, simply impossible.”

“Oh? Purebloods are incapable of learning as much as Muggleborns and half-bloods?”

Malfoy looked like he’d drunk a Pepper-Up Potion. He was only missing the literal clouds of steam from his ears. “You know very well that I would not put my son in such a position.”

“Good thing that Draco’s not a Hogwarts student.”

Now Malfoy apparently wanted to murder him. Harry smiled at him and kept his hand near his wand. Malfoy had only attacked him once at a public gathering, but Harry still wanted to be ready.

Malfoy visibly forced his temper back under control. “You know that I am not the only pureblood who will object,” he said, voice chill with warning. “Other parents will. Other members of the Board of Governors. Even some professors. Why would you continue to push for these Muggle Studies classes, Potter?”

“Because I don’t want my children or grandchildren to have to fight another blood purity war,” Harry said. “And as long as purebloods are allowed to consider themselves above Muggles and not learn about them, that will happen.”

“And you really think a class will change their minds?”

“I think it’s a start. And something that will contradict the messages they might be getting from certain prejudiced arseholes.”

Malfoy reddened. Amazingly, Harry saw Draco standing behind his father, his expression agonized. He caught Harry’s eye and mouthed, Sorry about him.

Harry blinked. That was a surprise. Then again, Hermione had said something about running into Draco and a woman named Astoria Greengrass at one of the events A Friend in Need had attended, and apparently Greengrass came from a less prejudiced family.

If she can get Draco to change his mind, she must be some witch. I don’t think his father ever will, though.

Harry turned back to continue arguing with Malfoy. In the meantime, he accidentally looked at someone else.

Speaking of not changing one’s mind.

Harry gave Theodore Nott a meaningless smile and went back to the argument.

*

Theo found himself lurking on the outskirts of the dance, watching as Potter danced—and argued—with an Auror Theo vaguely recognized as Crystal Yaxley. They seemed to be enjoying their debate more than Potter or Lucius had enjoyed theirs.

You’re pathetic, looking at him. Looking after him.

Theo took a deep breath and leaned back against the pillar that sheltered him, closing his eyes. No one would see him in these shadows. He could think about what he pleased, and one of the things that was burrowing into his brain, in the way that only equations usually did, was the slowly-growing conviction that he had been wrong.

Potter’s not stupid. He doesn’t seek out publicity for any reason except to keep his little venture running.

Theo peeked around the pillar. Potter had swapped partners and was dancing with Neville Longbottom now. He looked more relaxed and was laughing openly at something Longbottom had said, his head tossed back.

He hasn’t told anyone who his soulmate is. Maybe that he has one. Or maybe someone knows but decided not to approach me.

He kept my secret. He honored my wishes.

Theo folded his arms and stared down at the drink floating near his elbow, which still hadn’t changed into Firewhisky despite all his wishing. When he had been eighteen, it had all seemed so clear. He had lived through a war, through a year of school where he was tortured or torturer. It had seemed like paradise to wake up the morning after the Dark Lord’s defeat and think no one would ever look at him again the way people had during that dreadful year, waiting for him to fulfill the Carrows’ orders or rebel against them.

So he had rejected Potter. He hadn’t wanted to thrust himself into prominence again, to have people looking at him with jealousy or dislike or even admiration. He had wanted to—well, go into his lab and never come out again, basically.

But it hadn’t worked out like that.

He still had friends, little as he thought he deserved Blaise and even Pansy sometimes. He still had a father who sometimes utilized the wards of Nott’s Eyrie specifically to lock Theo out of the lab so he had to go do something else. He still came to galas like this, as little as he enjoyed them.

He had thought once he would be content to live his life in books and the lab, but he hadn’t been content the last few years. He’d been frozen. Unhappy. Waiting.

In a holding pattern, like someone on a Merlin-be-damned broom.

Theo suspected, now, that he knew what direction he’d like his future to take.

But Potter’s dating other people. Why would he let me even approach him? He wouldn’t read a letter. He’d turn away if I came up to him.

Theo peeked back around the pillar again. Now Potter was dancing with Hannah Abbott, who was engaged to Longbottom or something like that if Theo remembered correctly, and his expression was pleasant but faintly bored.

Theo swallowed. He might turn away, unless I approached him in a situation where it would be seen as rude.

If he rejects me, in turn, then maybe I can finally move on. At least I’ll know.

*

“May I have this dance?”

Harry looked up sharply. Theodore Nott was standing in front of him, and he had cut in so that Hannah was on the other side of him. Hannah’s face was a study in a few things Harry didn’t want to think about.

Harry managed to plaster a smile on his face, but it was an effort. “I don’t believe that anyone here wants you to do that,” he said, eyes flickering to Hannah for a second. “Including you, if you really think about it.”

Nott flinched and then took a deep breath. “I’m sorry,” he murmured. He didn’t seem to care that some people had halted in their dancing to stare at them, even though Harry had thought it was the kind of thing that would matter to him a lot. “I made a mistake. I’d like to try again, if you’d let me.”

Harry raised his eyebrows. It was an apology he hadn’t thought would receive. Why would Nott reconsider when he hadn’t in three and a half years?

The name on Harry’s wrist seemed to tingle and burn, the way it had right after Nott’s rejection. He flexed his fingers and murmured, “Let’s dance so that we can talk about it a little. But you ought to know that I’m not going to give you the chance to reject me again.”

Nott’s pale cheeks flooded with color. He reached out and took Harry’s hand, and Harry whirled him into the dance.

Nott was a good dancer, moving with what seemed to be unconscious grace. Harry found himself watching the way that Nott’s dark blue robes fell around him, and looked to the side, annoyed.

Then again, he had done the same thing with Neville and Hannah, even though they were very engaged. It didn’t have to mean anything, Harry reminded himself.

“Are you going to start?” he added, when he realized Nott had been staring at him but not saying anything.

“I’m not sure how to.”

Harry held back the temptation to say something sharp. Nott’s voice had wavered, and he sounded younger than Harry knew he was. Maybe as young as Harry had been the day that he’d thought having a soulmate meant unconditional love.

But on the other hand… “You were the one who approached me,” Harry said, and watched Nott flinch as if he’d conjured a handful of poisoned darts and flung them at the other man. “You’re the one who has to start. I can walk away any time.”

Oddly enough, that made some of the wheeling chaos in his head calm down. He didn’t have to listen to anything. He was here because he was curious. It mattered more to Nott than it did to Harry.

It’s nice to be the one with the power this time.

*

Up close, Harry Potter was overwhelming. Of course Theo knew exactly what he looked like, from all those newspaper photographs if seven years in Hogwarts hadn’t been enough, but he hadn’t ever been this close.

Except during the moment when he’d rejected Potter, and then, Potter hadn’t learned how to wear power like a cloak.

“I rejected you because I thought it would make me happy,” Theo said, keeping his voice low enough that their closest neighbors glanced at them but couldn’t hear anything. “I was wrong. I’m terribly unhappy, and I was wrong about you, too.”

“Uh-huh.”

Potter’s face wore a politely uninterested mask. Theo plunged ahead, wishing he had thought to put together equations that would allow him to predict the outcome of a conversation with his soulmate.

“I thought I wanted to be detached from the world. I thought you were too alive for me.” Potter’s eyebrows rose. “Too involved in the world, too involved with your fame and publicity.”

“Yeah, you said that.”

“No, wait!” Theo nearly tugged them to a stop, which made them nearly crash into Crystal Yaxley and her current dance partner. Theo got them moving, turning redder than he could remember being. Father would flay him with a single look if he heard about that clumsiness. “I’m sorry. I—I was stupid, okay? I thought that you reveled in your fame, but you use it like a tool.”

“You say it like it’s a bad thing.”

“No, I admire you for it. If you want to put it in terms of school Houses, which I was doing at the time, it’s a very Slytherin thing to do, and I didn’t think that you would ever do that. I just thought you were being a Gryffindor all the time. Saying whatever you wanted and either not caring what the papers published about you or laughing about it.”

“I learned how to do that. I assure you that I didn’t revel in my fame during our last years at school.”

I have learned that.

*

“Yeah,” Nott said quietly. “I can see that.”

“But you didn’t at the time.”

“I don’t know how many people did see the truth, Potter. Your friends knew you, and knew the truth. But can you blame me for believing the papers when that was what most people thought? Even some of the professors?”

Harry inclined his head. “I can’t blame the boy you were. You’ve yet to prove why the man you are wants to be with me.”

“Because I can’t stop thinking about you.” Pale rose color had flooded Nott’s cheeks again. “I—it’s mental, how much I keep thinking about you. My best friend pointed out how much I complained about you.”

“Not persuasive.”

“I realized that you were so much more than I thought you were. That you cared about people because you just—care about them, not to make political points, the way the Malfoys do. That you were perfectly capable of intellectual work, but you didn’t make it the whole of your life, the way I did.” Nott shivered a little. “And I feel like half a person because of that.”

Harry continued to eye Nott skeptically as they swirled though the last phase of the dance and came to a stop near a pillar. Nott was gazing at him with wide-open eyes, and he at least seemed honest.

Harry wasn’t dating anyone at the moment. He had to admit dating Nott might not be terrible. He still sometimes thought about the potential the soul-mark had hinted at.

But Nott was on a lot thinner ice than anyone else he’d ever dated had been.

“I don’t know that I want to give you a chance to hurt me again.”

Nott flushed. “All right.”

“All right?”

“If you want to reject me in turn, that’s—fair.”

“You look like it was actually painful for you to say that word.”

“I’m used to thinking of fair as for Hufflepuffs.”

Harry smiled despite himself. Nott was a strange combination of the Hogwarts student he had been—not that Harry had really known him then—and a man who did seem to have realized he’d made a mistake and was trying to apologize.

“I can give you a chance to impress me,” Harry said, leaning a shoulder on the pillar. “But it’s one chance. Mess it up and you’re gone.”

Nott smiled in a way that broke open his mask for the first time that Harry had ever seen it.

Not that I ever really saw him. Not that I paid much attention to him when we were boys, and less in the years since.

Because of that, Harry was more inclined to give Nott a chance than he would have been someone like Seamus, who ought to have known him and yet had believed the rumors in fifth year.

“Oh,” Harry said, abruptly remembering. “Ernie Macmillan said to tell you that you’re a fool.”

“What?”

“I dated him for a while. He saw the mark. He said that you’re a fool.”

Nott blinked for a bit. Then he said, “That’s also fair.”

“No wincing this time, an improvement.” Harry nodded. “Okay. I meant it, Nott. One mistake and you’re gone, but I’ll give you the time to make that mistake.”

“Thank you,” Nott breathed. “What should we do for our first date?”

“You’re the one who had this idea. Come up with it yourself. Impress me.”

On an impulse, Harry purred the last words, and took a step closer to Nott. The way he seemed to stop breathing was fairly spectacular.

Harry turned and sauntered away, not displeased by the way that Nott’s eyes followed him.

*

He gave me the chance. He did.

And that was another thing Theodore Nott had never known about Harry Potter: that he could be fair, and forgiving.

He was going to do all he could to prove himself worth it.

Chapter Text

“So Nott is your soulmate? As in Theodore Nott?”

“It could be worse. It could be Demetrius.”

Ron fell back on the bed and stared at the ceiling. “I need a moment. Don’t mind me.”

His voice was faint. Harry snorted and went on dressing for his date. Nott had asked him to wear sturdy robes and dragonhide boots. Harry was a little intrigued. That at least suggested they wouldn’t be going to some fancy restaurant with more forks than food as their date.

On the other hand, maybe they were and Nott thought Harry would need the protection from everyone determined to cast curses at him.

Ron finally sat up and sighed as he watched Harry straighten the fall of his thick red robes, also lined with dragonhide. “Are you going to accept him?”

“I don’t know.” Harry met Ron’s eyes in the mirror. His friend looked unusually serious. “That rejection bloody hurt, you know? I really did want to do everything I could to get him to like me. I asked if I could bring him a gift. I asked to get to know him. And he ignored me and sneered about how he didn’t want to be in the public eye.”

“Do you think he’s actually changed for the better?”

“We’ll find out in a few minutes,” Harry said, and went off to stamp his feet into the new dragonhide boots.

*

Potter looked glorious.

Theo was well-aware that other people, like Blaise (whom he wouldn’t kiss again unless this thing with Potter didn’t work out) and Draco, would disagree with him. But he was entitled to his own opinion. It was difficult to keep his eyes away from Potter in his swirling flame-colored robes and the curious, intent expression on his face as they hiked up the twisting stone path Theo had Apparated them to the foot of.

That was its own kind of trust, letting Theo Apparate him. Theo was trying to show his appreciation in his quiet glances at Potter and his tentative smiles, willing to let Potter be the one who came to his own decisions about Theo.

“We couldn’t Apparate to the top?”

Theo cast a spell that gently pushed back the branches of the conifers ahead. They were coming to the part of the trail where those thinned out and only bare grey and white stone stretched ahead. “You feel the wards?”

Potter tilted his head, closing his eyes. “What—oh, yes! Those are subtle, aren’t they?”

“Bound to those who carry the magical signature of the Nott family, yes.”

Potter hesitated for the first time, turning to face Theo. The faint sunlight made his face look even more handsome, and painfully earnest. “I—I have to admit, if we’re going to a place that your father conducted Death Eater rituals or something like that, I don’t want to see it. No offense, Nott.”

There was brittleness in his voice on those last words. Theo ducked his head in recognition. “Nothing like that,” he said softly. “This is something else. Something special. Believe me, you’ll understand when you see it.’

Potter gave him a long, searching glance, but at last nodded and started walking in front of Theo on the trail. Theo ignored the temptation to stare at his arse. It was too early for that, frankly.

And if Potter knew it, he might not like it.

They scrambled up the last scree slope, and around a tree that had been planted there. The wards fed it and protected it, since the wind would otherwise have knocked it over long ago, or it would have died of thirst. Theo paused with his hand on the trunk as he watched Potter stare at the carved stone in front of them.

Alanna Nott, 1930-1984. From the wind into the fire.

Potter took what sounded like a complicated breath, and glanced back at Theo. “Your mother?”

“Yes.” Theo completed the climb and stood beside Potter, looking at Mother’s grave instead of him. The headstone was grey and white, like most of the stone on the mountain, carved from it. Other than he words, it was ornamented only with carved flames. “She was a pyromancer.”

“A—someone who sees the future in fire?”

“Mostly, but also someone who works with fire in all its forms.” Theo stared at the stone and spoke words he had never spoken to anyone, even Father. “I used to hope I’d inherited her talent. I wanted to do the same things she did. But she—she couldn’t control it, in the end. She invited too much fire into her body in the name of doing an experiment I’m not even sure she understood. She burned up from the inside.”

Silence. Aching silence. They stared at the stone and said nothing.

Then Potter’s hand found his.

Theo closed his eyes. It seemed he hadn’t made a mistake after all in deciding to trust Potter with his secrets. The silence and companionship beside him were all that he had wanted.

Potter said gently. “Thank you for trusting me with this.”

Theo didn’t sway sideways so their shoulders could brush, but he wanted to.

*

“He took you to his mother’s grave for a first date? That’s—Harry, honestly, it sounds like he might need a Mind-Healer.”

“I wouldn’t be surprised.” Harry kicked his legs up on the stool and sighed softly. Ron and Hermione’s flat always seemed warmer than his was, although they had fireplaces the same size and Harry was perfectly handy with a Warming Charm. It was probably just the impact of multiple people living here.

“You wouldn’t be surprised? And yet you want to date him?”

Hermione was leaning forwards, looking concerned. Harry sipped at his mulled wine—it was an unusually cold day for July—and shook his head. “Not that way, Hermione. I mean that I wouldn’t be surprised if he had trauma from the war that he really should go to a Mind-Healer about. But his showing me his mother’s grave wasn’t about that. It was about showing me something that I could have used to hurt him.”

“How? You said it was protected by wards, you couldn’t have told someone where it was or had them damage it—”

“With words, Hermione,” Harry said, slightly amused. She was smart about so many things, but she wasn’t seeing the truth about this.

Then again, she hasn’t spent nearly as much time thinking about Nott as I have.

“Nott hurt Harry with his rejection, so Nott gave Harry the power to hurt him in return,” said Ron, and pointed a finger at Hermione as she flushed. “Ha! Who has the emotional range of a teaspoon now?”

They started bickering. Harry leaned back in his chair and stared at the ceiling, smiling a little goofily. It was just as well that they didn’t see it.

Yes, their first date had been a little strange. But Harry would have probably politely refused a second date if they had gone to a fancy restaurant or to a dance like some of the other people he’d dated had invited him to.

Those were perfectly fine dates for people who were just starting out together and exploring a possible future between them. But not for people who were tangled together as heavily as he and Nott were.

Nott was acknowledging it. Admitting that he had hurt Harry.

Making peace.

Harry sipped his drink and was happy.

*

“I have to admit, I didn’t even know Diagon Alley had a botanical garden.”

Theo stood back and watched Potter turn slowly in the middle of the garden. This particular one was the Nightingale Court, which was permanently in either dusk or dawn, thanks to clever charms that Theo could barely sense. The grass around them whispered with a chorus of frogs, and a nightingale, true to its name, sang somewhere in the trees.

Potter paced forwards a step and fell on one knee beside a cluster of white flowers, bending his head over to sniff at them. Theo stared at the nape of his neck and then told himself, rudely, to snap out of it.

You have it bad. Or you’re starting to get it bad, and you know that he could still reject you.

Theo had thought, after they’d visited Mother’s grave, that he didn’t have to fear rejection so much, because if Potter did it, he would do it as kindly as he’d come on the walk. But now, Theo was starting to fear rejection simply because he didn’t want it.

Not from Potter.

“These smell—I thought they were moonflowers, but I’ve smelled those before, and these aren’t them.”

“They’re kin to moonflowers,” Theo said, and there must have been a pulse of some sort of emotion in his voice, because Potter turned to him with narrowed eyes. “Full moon flowers. They’re used in some potions that are meant to help werewolves weather the pain of the transformation.”

Potter’s eyes widened. “I knew about Wolfsbane, of course, but it sounds like you’re saying there are multiple potions?”

Theo nodded. “Most of them developed in the last few years, and outside magical Britain, because they need ingredients we don’t have here. And, well, the Ministry has largely declared them illegal.”

“Why?”

A delicious warmth spread through Theo. Potter was asking his opinion. Potter was listening to him, not doubting what Theo had to say out of hand just because it was Theo saying it.

I want to talk to him. I want to listen. I want him to listen.

For right now, he could answer the question. “Because the potions use blood, and the scales from Norwegian Ridgebacks. Trade in dragon parts is restricted. But most of the dealers on the Continent are honest, if you look closely enough.” Theo had, because Potions was his second favorite subject after Arithmancy, and he’d followed the development of the Wolf’s Helper with interest. “The Ministry got too suspicious after one unethical dealer was arrested in 1990.”

“I suppose there is a benefit to spending all your time immersed in intellectual circles,” Potter murmured.

And he was looking at Theo with admiration. At him.

Theo swallowed and told himself not to act the fool, or he would ruin the gift he’d brought Potter here to give him. He coughed and said, “One particular potion, the Wolf’s Helper, lets the werewolves who take it transform without pain as well as hold on to their minds in wolf form.”

“Shit, really? I reckon it’s ungodly expensive, though.”

Potter looked wistful. Theo stepped forwards and pulled out a vial and a twisted silk handkerchief from his robe pocket.

“For you.”

Potter took the gifts with a refreshing lack of suspicion, although he also looked bewildered. He held up the vial to the glamoured light of a full moon overhead and tilted it back and forth.

Then he looked sharply at Theo. “Norwegian Ridgeback scales?”

Theo smiled at him.

Potter opened the handkerchief. The full moon flowers inside expanded to their normal size and filled the air with their scent, like a combination of honey and animal musk.

“Add a little blood, and a few common ingredients, and you can brew your own.”

Potter let out a huge huff, staring at the ingredients with wide eyes. Theo shifted when a full minute had passed and he hadn’t said anything or looked up.

“It’s illegal to import the ingredients or the potion or sell it, but I didn’t think you would sell it. Just give it to the werewolves who depend on A Friend in Need—”

Potter looked up. Theo stopped talking at the look in his eyes. Potter moved forwards and raised a hand, moving delicately, as if he thought it was possible to startle Theo off. His hand came to rest on Theo’s cheek.

“Thank you,” Potter whispered. He was practically glowing.

Theo shivered. He knew what he wanted to do, but it was probably too soon for a kiss, as much as he would have liked one.

Potter seemed to think the same thing. He stepped back with a little smile that grew darker and deeper as Theo stared at it, enthralled.

“You’re doing pretty well, Nott. Keep it up.”

They left the Nightingale Court to visit different parts of the garden after Potter had tucked his gifts away. Theo kept sneaking little glances at Potter, and meeting his eyes accidentally because Potter was sneaking little glances at him. Theo shook with something that he wouldn’t call desire, exactly, but only because it was too sweet.

On his wrist, the name seemed to throb like a heart.

*

“Of course I agree that it was ridiculous to try and restrict Arithmancy to fourth-years, Mr. Potter, but why should we add more classes?”

Harry leaned back in his chair and smiled at Headmistress McGonagall. She had invited him to call her Minerva, but it was hard to get used to thinking of her that way—especially when she was sitting behind her wide desk, frowning at him.

“Because there are things that we don’t teach and children will want to learn,” Harry said simply. “Things like the Muggle and Magical Studies that I’ve already talked to the Board of Governors about. But also, something like a preparatory Potions class could help students who come from Muggle homes and have no experience with things like dicing ingredients. Learning to recognize ingredients would help, too. Flying classes that extend beyond first-year lessons. A specific Countercurses class, for those who want to become Aurors and the like. Classes in alchemy, music, specialties like glamours—”

“Who’s going to pay for all this, Mr. Potter? You do realize we have a budget?”

Harry grinned. He’d lost his temper with Lucius Malfoy last week, and although he’d regretted it at first, it had turned out that threatening to tell everyone about the business with the diary was good for something.

He took out a shrunken trunk from his robe pocket and resized it with a tap of his wand. McGonagall blinked at him, and again when Harry tilted the lid back and showed off the enormous pile of Galleons inside.

“I reckon this is enough to pay for class materials and professors’ salaries for, oh, about ten years.”

*

“Are you all right?”

“Why wouldn’t I be all right? I’m happy.”

“I’ve learned not to believe everything I see.”

Potter turned a dazzling smile on Theo. Theo caught his breath, and then realized that it was entirely unconscious on Potter’s part. To him, it really was just a smile.

I wonder if he ever realizes that people who come up to him all flustered really are doing it because of him and not his fame?

“I got one over on Lucius the other week,” Potter said.

“Do tell.”

Potter leaned back with a laugh. They were in one of the informal sitting rooms at Nott’s Eyrie, done in soft shades of grey and with actually comfortable furniture. The elves were keeping them supplied with food of all sorts, including marzipan, which Theo had never seen except at Christmas.

Potter had asked a few questions about how Theo and his father treated the elves, but had seemed satisfied with Theo’s answers. Father had given Potter a narrow-eyed look when he first came out of the Floo and then given Theo a swift nod of approval while Potter was gaping at some of their tapestries.

“I got angry at him because he’s still being a stubborn twat,” Potter began, and Theo laughed, just because the word was perfect.

He looked up to see that Potter had frozen and was staring at him.

“What?”

“You laughed.”

“Did you—not want me to?”

Theo asked the question as casually as he could, but his heartbeat had picked up speed. He kept remembering what Potter had said about “one mistake.”

“I just haven’t heard you do it like that. That’s all. As if you mean it.”

Potter had ducked his head so that his chin rested on his shoulder and was looking at Theo from beneath his eyelashes. Theo felt his mouth go dry.

“I like laughing around you.”

Potter’s cheeks turned pink, the way it always seemed Theo’s were doing around Potter. It was nice to know that Theo could make him feel like that. In fact, it spread through Theo as a pulse of dizzying power.

I’m doing this. I’m actually making him blush.

“So what did you do to get one over on Malfoy?” Theo asked, because at this rate he thought he might never find out.

Potter smiled at him. “I got angrier and angrier, because he’s so stubborn about blood prejudice, and finally yelled that I should just tell everyone that he’s always been like this and that he was the one who put the diary in the school our second year.”

“The what?”

“There was a diary with a shard of Voldemort’s soul in it that possessed a student and made them open the Chamber of Secrets. The basilisk that was inside came out and Petrified people. But Malfoy was the one who ultimately caused it.”

Theo sat staring at Potter and wondered if he would ever find words again.

Potter shrugged. “I’m not surprised that it’s not more widely known. Anyway, Malfoy went whiter than he usually is. I ended up blackmailing him almost accidentally, and got a nice donation for Hogwarts out of it.” He grinned.

“Thank you for telling me,” Theo whispered, aware that it was a gesture of trust, although part of his mind was still stuck on diaries and possession and shards of a soul. Also basilisks, couldn’t forget that.

“I wondered if I should.”

“Why? Because it’s a secret?”

“Because I thought you might disapprove.”

Theo gaped at him for a moment, and then shook his head. “I don’t know for sure what your other friends would feel, but I hope I can call myself your friend, and—and I don’t care, Potter. I think it’s brilliant.”

“That’s what I thought you would say.”

Theo blinked, his mind finally leaving the events of second year behind. Potter was leaning forwards from his chair, his eyes so bright that Theo thought he could use them to find his way on a moonless night. “What?”

“I thought you might disapprove, but I also thought you were likely to approve.” Potter shrugged and leaned back, grinning. “Mostly because you gave me the full moon flowers and the scales, and that says you have no problem with illegal things in a good cause.”

“I have no problem with illegal things if you’re doing them. Or if I’m doing them for you.”

Potter’s eyes widened. Theo looked back at him, thinking that statement was no more profound than others he’d said before, but it seemed that Potter saw it that way.

“Theo.”

Theo had to shut his eyes at the way Potter sighed his name. “Yes?”

“Call me Harry.”

Theo shivered and opened his eyes. Potter had risen from his seat and walked over to stand next to Theo’s chair. His eyes were still wide, and he bent down as though he were going to pluck full moon flowers.

He kissed Theo instead, and Theo arched up into it, feeling as though someone was plucking all the strings of his soul.

Chapter Text

“You want to go? It’ll make it bearable for me if you’re there.”

That was the main reason that Harry had shown up at the Ministry charity gala to attempt to raise money for Hogwarts students left orphaned by the war. Otherwise, Ron or Hermione would have been here instead to represent A Friend in Need.

But the prospect of seeing Theo was enough to make Harry bring out another set of dress robes, this set green, which seemed to keep accumulating in his wardrobe, and to spend longer on his hair than normal, to Ron’s endless amusement. Harry had rolled his eyes at him before he Flooed out, but Ron had only responded by cackling.

It seemed Harry had been earlier than Theo had expected him to be, however, because the only people in attendance right now looked to be Ministry flunkies. Harry smiled politely at a few people and lounged against the wall for right now.

“Harry?”

Harry blinked and looked over at a woman a few years younger than he was, who seemed familiar somehow. She blushed and giggled and ducked her head, and then he recognized her.

“Miss Vane,” he said, as politely as he could to the girl who had once given him a love potion. “How are you?”

“Very well, now that you’re here.”

“Were you assigned to liaise with me for the evening?” Harry couldn’t remember hearing anyone mention Romilda, or that he was supposed to work with her. Then again, if she was new to the job—she’d probably just finished Hogwarts—they might not have.

“Liaise with you. That’s funny.”

“Er, all right?” Harry couldn’t really imagine why she would have sought him out. They’d never been close, and Harry didn’t think they shared any cause in common that A Friend in Need would work for.

“It’s funny because I want to have a liaison with you.” Romilda took a step towards him and fluttered her eyelashes in what was almost a parody of flirtation. “Don’t you want to have one with me, Harry?”

“Fuck, no,” Harry blurted.

Romilda stepped back and stared up at him with round eyes and a rounder mouth. He supposed it was more for the crude language than anything. Although she probably would have heard worse in Gryffindor Tower on a daily basis.

“What?” she whispered.

“Why would I want to be with you?” Harry folded his arms, and ignored the way that the sleeve had slipped back from his wrist and the soul-mark on it. Everyone was going to know about it soon, one way or the other. If Theo rejected him again, Harry would let people know. “You tried to love potion me! Not to mention that I’m dating someone.”

“But I haven’t heard anything!”

“Amazingly, some people have discretion.”

Romilda bit her lip, looking at him, and then gave an unconvincing little laugh. “I think that you’re just joking. I know that sometimes the reporters hound you, and it’s understandable that you would want to—”

“Do I look like I’m joking?”

“Well, no, but I was so sure that you would see how much I loved you and you would want to be with me…”

“No response to the part where you love potioned me?”

“It was just a joke!” Romilda looked near to throwing up her hands. “It was something like—like the Weasley twins’ pranks! You were fine with them making sweets that turned people into canaries, why would you—”

“Harry.”

Harry looked up, smiling despite himself when he saw Theo standing there. Although he lost the smile a bit when he saw the murderous rage burning in Theo’s eyes.

But at the same time, a quickening pulse started somewhere near his belly, and his breath came shorter than he’d thought it would when he watched someone threatening another person’s life.

That rage is for me. He’s gone from wanting nothing to do with me to wanting to have everything for him.

Harry licked his lips. Theo had been carefully on his best behavior so far, thoughtful and controlled and vulnerable and revealing an interest in Harry’s life and activities that not everyone he’d dated did. And the whole time, Harry had been simultaneously enjoying their dates and worried that Theo would reveal his real self and it would be another mistake.

If this was part of Theo’s real self, though? Harry would welcome it.

*

Theo tried to hold back his jealousy, but it was a roaring, many-headed beast in the center of his belly, like a hydra trying to grow out through his body.

He and Blaise had never been exclusive. He hadn’t dated anyone in Hogwarts. He had vaguely contemplated getting married someday, but even then, he had never thought that he would marry the kind of person who would care about jealousy, who would want him to be jealous. They would probably have lovers of their own, on the side, and so would Theo.

But now, he saw Romilda Vane trying to get his Harry to date her, and the rage crashed through him as if it were a wave that had been waiting all his life to break.

Theo strode forwards. Vane turned around, saw him, and squeaked. Harry was watching him with wide, hot eyes, and Theo doesn’t think he was imagining the approval there.

“Hands off my boyfriend, Vane,” Theo said, and his voice was also deeper than he’d ever heard it, a growl that made Harry’s eyes light up.

“What? What are you talking about, Nott?”

“Harry and I are dating,” Theo said, and he reached out and caught Harry’s wrist, the one with the mark. Harry shivered. Theo burned to reveal the mark, but he didn’t know if Harry would want him to, and he still heard those words echoing in his ears.

One mistake.

“Go,” Theo said, turning and drawing Harry to his side instead of turning his arm to reveal the mark. “Go away and stare brainlessly at someone else.” He could feel Harry breathing quickly as he leaned against Theo, and Theo was suddenly sure that he liked this. “Go away.”

“If you were dating, I would have heard about it!”

“The kind of person who believes the Daily Prophet isn’t the kind I want to date,” Harry said, and Theo turned and rested his chin on the top of Harry’s head. He had been one of those people once, and Harry had given him another chance.

But Theo didn’t intend for Harry to ever give another person that kind of chance. He was here. He would occupy the lover-shaped hole in Harry’s life. His hold tightened on Harry, waiting for some objection.

Harry, though, was watching Vane, who continued to flutter and squeak. “But you’ve always dated good people, Harry! Not Death Eaters!”

“Theo doesn’t have to prove himself to you.”

Theo closed his eyes. He hoped that Harry didn’t want him to glare at Vane with any more murderous rage, because now there was sweetness throbbing through him instead. His hold on Harry tightened again.

“Is this still about the love potion, Harry? I told you, it was just a joke!”

Never mind, I’ll have absolutely no problem feeling murderous rage towards Vane for the next century.

Harry twisted himself a little to the right, which “incidentally” pinned Theo’s wand arm to his side. “Hold me, not her,” he breathed into Theo’s ear. “Words are one thing, but no curses. I don’t want you in the Ministry holding cells tonight.”

Damn, he knows how to talk, Theo thought.

He didn’t even see Vane leave, although he gathered that Harry had finally dismissed her. He was too busy staring dazedly at Harry, and Harry was looking back at him with heat quivering in his eyes and his smile.

“Would you like to dance?” Harry asked softly.

Theo looked at the dance floor. He hadn’t actually planned on it, and he knew that this hadn’t been a gala where dancing was the main attraction, but there was a floor, and there was music, a tune that he recognized as a waltz.

“Yes,” he said, and held out his hand.

Harry took it, and grinned.

*

Dancing with Theo was entirely different from the complicated dance-negotiation he’d had with Nott.

Harry was aware of every inch of air that separated them now, and how Theo breathed harshly when Harry swayed a little closer to him, and of the muscles shifting beneath the hand that he rested on Theo’s shoulder. He was aware of what it was like to be in his soulmate’s arms, and it was entirely superior to dancing with other Aurors and random Ministry flunkies.

And even with his friends. He enjoyed dancing with Neville and Hannah, but it was—they were—

They weren’t for me.

Now he had someone whose eyes watched him with hot desire, more than curiosity or the hope to see what would happen or friendly laughter, and Harry couldn’t help pressing himself closer, practically molding his body to Theo’s.

“Someone is going to call us indecent any moment now,” Theo breathed, his hands resting on Harry with a heavy weight of possession that made Harry want to purr.

“Let them. As long as they also call us happy.”

Theo seemed to glance around without taking his eyes off Harry, and then gave Harry an intensely private smile. “Do you want to announce that we’re soulmates tonight, or later?”

“Let them speculate, for now,” Harry said, and reached up to wind his hand around the back of Theo’s neck, dragging him down for a kiss.

A Ministry flunky approached them, probably to tell them off for “being indecent” in the middle of the dance floor, but Harry didn’t care. He kissed Theo, and he was happy.

*

“I see you have decided to stop being stupid, Theo. Well done.”

And that’s probably all Father will ever say about it.

*

“So, Nott’s un-rejected you?”

“I’ve accepted him. There’s a difference.”

“…As long as you’re happy, mate.”

*

Theo sat next to his bed, watching Harry lie asleep in a long strip of sunlight. Harry’s breathing was soft and even, and the sun made his black hair flare with unexpected hints of blue and red.

Theo looked down at the parchment in front of him. An equation waited there, unfinished.

On a whim, he did something that he hadn’t done in years, not since he was a child playing with Arithmancy. He picked up a crystal lens from a table nearby that was awaiting the purchase of lab equipment fine enough for it, and tossed it into the air.

It flipped end over end, shining in the sun like Harry’s hair, and then plunged down and landed in Theo’s hand. Theo held it out over the numbers on the parchment and looked down. Supposedly, looking through a lens tossed like a coin was a way to divine the future from an incomplete equation. The numbers would swim and rearrange themselves into a coherent, predictive picture.

Supposedly. A child’s superstition.

But Theo looked, and there was light all over the numbers, a light green haze the color of Harry’s eyes, surrounded by a black haze of numbers not actually there. A repeating pattern of sevens and threes, the most important magical numbers, and the most powerfully lucky ones when joined together.

A hand reached out and closed over Theo’s wrist. Theo dropped the lens back on the parchment and turned to look at Harry, who was smiling at him in an entirely self-satisfied way.

“Looking for your future?” Harry asked.

“He’s right beside me,” Theo murmured, and as Harry’s eyes brightened, leaned over to reclaim his soulmate in a kiss for luck and joy.

The End.