Tuesday February 10
"If you don't go to Flitwick then I'm getting Professor Snape." Theo was fuming. "Hermione I swear to Merlin, she can't get away with this shit."
"It's fine." Hermione was cuddled to his side on the sofa in the Slytherin common room, her injured hand cradled to her chest. "I'm not going to go complaining, that's what she wants!"
"I don't give a damn about what she wants," Theo hissed. "I care about you, and your safety, and this— babe this is sadistic!"
"It's just because she's Headmistress now," Hermione said with a roll of her eyes. "She thinks she can get away with absurd punishments for the most ridiculous reasons. Plus I think she holds me responsible for the beetles in her quarters, she's lost her sanity Theo."
"Having you carve 'know it all' if your hand is more than an 'absurd punishment', it's inhumane! I don't care if you spit in her face, she can't do this!" Theo had never been so disgusted and furious in his life. Umbridge was a sick person. Even his father had never used such a dark tool on him. Hell, even Harry would probably never use something like that on someone. Theo carefully pushed Hermione off him and got to his feet. "I'm getting Snape. He'll put a stop to this."
"Theo, don't!"
Theo loved Hermione more than anything in the world. He would do anything for her.
But she was being an idiot for refusing to get a teacher. She was stubbornly trying to prove a point that Theo didn't really care to prove right now. Not at her expense. He knew that Professor Snape wouldn't stand for any of the students in the castle to be tortured and abused. And Theo certainly wasn't going to let Hermione be permanently branded by some foul woman on a power trip, not if he could do something about it.
Hermione could be self-righteously stubborn some other time.
Before he could reach the portrait door, it slammed open and the common room went dead silent as Harry pulled Bailey in the room by his wrist.
Harry was absolutely enraged, that much was easy for every person in the common room to see. His eyes were flashing with the kind of cold anger that Theo didn't think he'd ever actually seen from him before. Even the temperature in the room lowered, a chill sweeping over everyone, just from Harry's fury alone.
The rumors that Harry was the next Dark Lord were never so validated as they were when even Harry's jet black hair seemed to be crackling with indignation and rage fueled power.
It was somehow both terribly interesting and absolutely terrifying.
Despite Harry's obvious fury as he stormed in the room, Theo could see that he had it wrong before. Harry wasn't pulling Bailey, he was leading the kid along by his wrist.
...his bloody wrist.
Bailey looked equal parts scared, upset, and completely in awe. Which was just the type of mad reaction that Theo expects from the kid that everyone had nicknamed 'Potter Junior'.
"Theo!" Harry took notice of Theo halfway to where he was, Hermione right behind him. "Here, take Trent to fix his hand. I've got something to do."
Harry gave Bailey a soft push towards Theo, and Theo was able to see that he'd been wrong in his initial analysis twice now— Bailey wasn't bleeding from the wrist. He was bleeding from the back of his hand.
Harry hissed something in Parsletongue, apparently too angry for English, and Theo flinched when he saw Harry's gun flying toward him from the boys dorm.
How had he not noticed that Harry brought that mad thing with him?!
"Mione, take Bailey to your common room, heal his hand up, and stay there," Theo murmured hastily. "Love you."
Hermione didn't ask any questions, she just grabbed Bailey's uninjured hand and gave Harry a wide berth on her way out the door.
"Harry— stop." Theo didn't grab Harry's arm, he wasn't stupid, but he did walk up close to him, which carried the potential to be just as stupid. Getting physically close to Harry when he was manipulating the magic in the air with just his emotions was potentially fatal. "What are you doing with that?"
"I'm going to fucking kill her," Harry snarled. "I'm done with the stupid little pranks and games. She cut his hand open Theo. CUT. HIS. HAND. OPEN."
Theo glanced around uneasily at the blatantly eavesdropping students and put up a quick privacy charm.
No need for everyone to listen to Harry plotting the murder of who he was sure was their Headmistress.
"Umbridge?"
"Yes, fuckin Umbridge," Harry spat.
Theo never really noticed it before now, but Harry's eyes were the exact same color as the killing curse that Moody-Crouch showed them last year.
"You can't just go shoot the damn Headmistress," he hissed at Harry, ignoring the way that literal death shone from his eyes. "Are you trying to get locked up?!"
"I DON'T CARE!" Harry yelled. "SHE CUT TRENT'S FUCKING HAND OPEN THEO! MADE HIM DO IT! TOLD HIM HE DESERVED IT! You know what he did wrong? What he had the fuckin audacity to do?"
It was a bad time to notice it, but Theo was relieved that Harry finally learned the proper use of the word 'audacity'. He'd once confused it with the word 'capacity' and Theo and Hermione nearly stroked out.
"Not sitting still in class, that's what," Harry said. "HE'S TWELVE! KIDS DON'T DESERVE TO BE HURT THEO! HE. DID. NOT. DESERVE. THAT!"
Theo could see through Harry's rage to notice his trembling hands and the shadows in the back of his eyes.
He wasn't sure if Harry was talking about Trent Bailey at all anymore.
"And killing Umbridge will help?" Theo asked, trying to force Harry to calm down by using a soothing tone. It really was no good arguing with Harry when he was like this, but he tried anyway. "Or will it just get you locked up? You aren't thinking straight, Harry. Are you- are you flying?" He doubted it even as he latched on to a possible excuse for Harry's impulsive decision to shoot the bloody Headmistress. Manic Harry was much more chatty, less clipped sentences and more nonsensical rants.
"Fuck you," Harry sneered, his features twisting in to something cold and unearthly. "I'm not flying. I'm not manic. I'm fine. And she's dying Theo. If there's one student, then there are more. And nobody deserves that. She's dying to-fucking-night."
Theo prayed to any magical deity that was listening that Harry was as honorable to his own codes as Theo always thought he was. "My favor!" he cried. "I'm using my favor you owe me on you not shooting Umbridge."
Harry twirled the gun in his hand and studied Theo with the coldest look he'd ever gotten from the guy that he considers to be his only brother.
Please Mother Magic, don't let him shoot me...
again.
Theo really had a lot to live for.
"She dies tonight," Harry finally said in a harsh hiss. He pocketed the gun (thank Merlin) and some of the overwhelming cold air in the room lightened. "If you wanna use your favor on me not shooting her, fine. But I'm going to go fuckin kill her. She cut Trent open Theo. Made him use a quill that carved 'I will sit still' on the back of his hand. He's going to have that scar forever. Every time he sees that scar, he's going to think about what she did to him. What kind of sick person fuckin does that?!"
"Someone disgusting," Theo agreed vehemently, subtly eyeing Harry's many scars.
He knew there were more hidden beneath his clothes as well too, bad ones. It was hard to share a room for as long as they had now without occasionally spotting each other partially dressed, much as Harry tried to prevent it.
"She dies now. I swear Harry, we'll kill her. But let's do it the right way. The smart and subtle way that doesn't send us to prison."
Harry cocked his head to the side, looking like a curious child now with his pursued lips and his eyes flashing brightly behind his glasses. He studied Theo for a long enough moment that Theo began sweating beneath his arms.
"'We'll kill her'? We?" Harry repeated softly.
Not softly like how he talks to Luna and Sevvie.
But softly like how a snake slithers across the grass quietly right before it sinks its venomous fangs in your neck.
Theo hadn't actually meant to say we.
Or maybe he had.
Theo knew Harry was deadly. Harry had actually killed people before then popped home and ate breakfast. Harry thought that murder was justifiable if it was for revenge or to protect himself.
Not Theo. Theo kept himself safe by making himself a lesser target.
He wasn't dark. He wasn't evil.
Not like his father.
But was Harry truly dark? Truly and irredeemably evil?
Was Theo a better person than Harry?
In his heart, in his soul, was he any better than Harry?
Or did he just make himself believe that because he would never have had the bravery before now to risk so much?
Harry risks everything, every day. He walks through Hogwarts knowing people fear him, hate him. Harry does what he wants even though he knows that he has powerful enemies who would do anything to see him dead. And Harry still keeps his head high, leads their gang through battles, stands alongside them as if they were on the same level as him.
Could Theo be like that?
Theo was standing on a precipitous edge of no turning back, no cleaning himself from the submergence in to the dark and murky waters that Harry happily drowns in.
No desire to keep himself from drowning alongside him.
Theo held Harry's gaze evenly, his hands in tight fists at his side as he came to a decision. Harry's eyes suddenly flashed with an entirely new level of anger—
Theo never wanted to see Harry so angry again. He didn't know how Dumbledore and Timmy decided to make Harry their enemy, but he was sure if they saw Harry right now that they would rethink it.
A girl screamed as a candelabra hanging on the wall behind Harry flared up in a huge flame before it exploded in a thousand pieces. The stone ceiling above their heads split and rained down pebbles and debris that Harry easily sent flying in a different direction with a twitch of his pinky.
"You or Mione?" Harry's jaw was clenched, the words he grit out nearly incomprehensible.
"Hermione," Theo admitted, his blood racing with anger, adrenaline, and not a little bit of fear. Harry killed a basilisk with a sword when it petrified Hermione a few years ago.
Dolores Umbridge shouldn't be too comfortable right now.
Harry's hand flinched towards his pocket, as if aching to go and put a metal bullet in the hateful witches head.
If Theo wasn't almost positive Harry would be arrested within a day for it, he would stand aside. But if Harry wasn't going to watch out for himself, then Theo had to do it.
It was fair. Harry watched out for Theo and the others all the time.
He just never watched out for himself.
Theo thought that Harry might have been busy surviving vicious muggles when the self-preservation part of his brain had been developing.
"What possible mother fucking reason could she have to punish Hermione?"
If Theo wasn't so furious, so filled with hate for Umbridge and all that she stood for, it would almost be amusing to share Hermione's sin.
"Hermione corrected her in class," he said. His legs were trembling as he considered it.
Hermione.
His sweet, beautiful, thoughtful, brilliant, lively girlfriend. The witch who accepted Theo despite who his father was, what his fathers beliefs were. The one who drug him from sinking in his depression with reminders of a future so bright and so happy that he couldn't even imagine. Hermione having her hand sadistically sliced open for the crime of correcting a teacher in an effort to help her peers.
Theo had thought he went temporarily blind with rage when Hermione first told him. He wanted to kill Umbridge himself then and he wasn't certain that desire was fully extinguished.
"You'll help me?" Harry asked, somehow sensing Theo's need for retribution.
Could he?
Would he?
Would he still be the same person tomorrow if he committed such an act today?
Would he still be just as deserving of his friends, his girlfriend, his brother, and his life if he took someone else's?
"Yes."
Harry put a steadying hand on Theo's shaking shoulder and suddenly had a fierce look of love, loyalty, and protection in his eyes.
Theo hoped he wasn't imagining that.
"Let's hear the plan then."
The first step of the plan was so easy it was nearly laughable.
They slipped beneath Harry's invisibility cloak and checked the Mauraders Map. They waited until the dot labeled 'Severus Snape' left his quarters and went to 'Minerva McGonagall's Office'.
"They have tea every Tuesday and Friday," Harry murmured. "Let's go."
The two of them silently slipped out in the corridor, and Theo waited outside with the map as Harry confidently said Snape's passcode and entered his quarters.
Theo ignored the voice in his head that whispered this was dangerous, this was a bad idea, this was taking a life as an act of revenge.
In his heart, Theo knew he had committed to it the moment he accidentally said 'we'll kill her'. If that made him a bad person, then, well, at least he'd have his brother as a companion.
Right?
It only took a few minutes before Harry returned, the book Theo requested in hand.
"Barty wasn't even home," he whispered once he was back beneath the cloak. "Where to now?"
Theo opened the book Harry retrieved from Spinner's End that he had only read once over the summer. It was an excellent book, straight from the darkest section of the Black Family Library.
"Greenhouse eight," Theo murmured. "We need nerium."
Harry peeked at the recipe over his shoulder and frowned. "You think Sprouts just going to hand over a bunch of poisonous flowers?"
Theo shut the book and slipped it in the empty bag he carried on his back. "I didn't plan on asking permission."
The two of them (partners in an actual crime) trekked their way through the dark carefully to greenhouse eight beneath the cloak. Greenhouse eight was where Sprout kept the plants that no student was allowed to touch; plants that were only to be utilized by herself, Madame Pomfrey, or Professor Snape.
"Open it," Theo told Harry. "But don't touch the handle, it's got an alarm charm on it."
Harry raised his brows up at that information. "How d'you know that?"
"Everyone knows that Harry," Theo sighed. "It's in Hogwarts a History."
Harry ducked from beneath the cloak and kneeled in front of the locked door, examining the handle carefully. "I've literally never even touched that book," he murmured.
"Of course you haven't," Theo rolled his eyes. Harry only read books that helped him in some immediate way, mostly thick volumes on the law and books with curses dark enough to get him arrested for even considering.
"Take the charm off," Harry hissed sharply, his hand hovering over the handle. The handle glowed red before flashing silver and then the light disappearing altogether.
"Are you sure it's off?" Theo asked.
"Can you hear the magic anymore?"
Theo didn't even know how he was meant to respond to that.
Harry spent too much time around Luna, a sentiment Theo would not be sharing. Better to say nothing than risk irritating Harry when his rage was so barely masked.
Theo trusted Harry, cared about him, loved him. But Theo also knew a bullet in the knee hurt like hell and Harry never put that gun back in their dorm.
"C'mon." Harry put a slow hand on the doorknob and let out a sigh when nothing obvious happened. "I think the gloves were overkill," he whispered as they entered the greenhouse together.
"Your plan involved shooting Umbridge in her office, you don't get to critique mine," Theo sneered lightly. His eyes flicked around the greenhouse, wary of additional alarms or traps for thieving students. "Plus we can't touch it with our bare skin. Can you summon it?"
"I want the nerium," Harry demanded from his magic. He held his gloved hand out expectantly and smirked when the innocent looking pink flowers sped directly to his hand. He carefully put them in Theo's bag. "That was easy, wasn't it? We should do this again if Dumbledore comes back."
"I thought you had pain and torture planned for Dumbledore," Theo said with heavy sarcasm.
Sarcasm that went right over Harry's head as he nodded sagely.
"You're right," he agreed. "Let's move before we get caught."
It was easy though. In fact, this whole plan was so outrageously simple that Theo was beginning to wonder if it was divine intervention (did Merlin or Morgana intervene when someone was worthy of death?) or just a Harry-fucking-Potter thing.
It was no wonder that Harry's first instinct was pain and death for his enemies. What obstacles stood in his path?
"How much longer?" Harry asked.
"I'm nearly done now." Theo was pouring sweat from both the heat of the cauldron and the complexity of the potion (which isn't really a potion. He knew it was a poison, a poison he was going to use on an actual person).
Theo glanced up at Harry and bit his lip nervously. "Are we... Do we need to make a vow? Like last time?"
The last time they were in this chamber, Harry had asked Theo about his boggart, his abuse. He had studied Theo with a single-minded ferocity that had been intimidating and terrifying at the time. Harry had also shared what Theo suspected was a small fragment of the abuses he himself had suffered. Harry showed him his scars, the ones he usually keeps hidden, the ones that said that at one point in his life, Harry wanted it all to be over. But Mother Magic cherished Harry so much, loved him so much, that she just healed him and gave him another chance at life.
Theo knew that a lot of people were terrified of Harry and his power. They thought he was the next Dark Lord, they thought he was a curse.
Theo knew when Harry told him that he cut his wrists open and woke up the next morning, fully healed, that Harry wasn't just blessed by Mother Magic, he was a gift from her to Wixen.
Theo and Harry had made an Unbreakable Vow then to never share what they discussed that day in their third year. A failsafe as Harry had offered to kill Theo's father and Theo accepted it.
"D'you want me to take a Vow?" Harry asked seriously, twirling his silver knife between his fingers.
"Do you not— do you not want me to?" Theo asked.
"Nope." Harry gave Theo a rare smile, one that diminished the presence of the silver scar down the right side of his face as his eyes crinkled at the corners and his white teeth shone brightly against his tanned skin. "I trust you," Harry shrugged. "We're brothers, aren't we?"
Theo swallowed harshly as he looked down to the potion and nodded. "Brothers," he agreed. "Go ahead and call for Mavis."
It was a mark of how intense the situation was that Harry didn't actually scream for Mavis, as Theo knew he loved to do.
"Mavis!"
Pop!
"Why is Master Harry and Mister Theo in the nasty snake chamber again?" Mavis immediately wailed, pulling on his ears in distress. "Mavis is not liking them being down here!"
"Because it's the best place to brew in secret," Theo murmured. He made the final two stirs and then pulled the ladle out. "I'm done."
Theo let out a long exhale of air, steadying himself as he stared down at the colorless potion.
Poison.
Odorless. Colorless. Impossible to detect and illegal to brew in every country.
An invention of Sirius Black's ancestors, apparently.
He could vanish it right now. Pretend he'd never even considered murdering a woman.
"People shouldn't abuse kids," Harry said calmly, guessing accurately at Theo's thoughts as Theo stared down in the cauldron.
He wished he could foresee his own fate in the bottom.
"People shouldn't kill others either," Theo said lightly, only a small quaver to his voice. Harry's words did the trick though, Theo would never allow someone to treat any kid, especially not his Hermione, like that.
To tell a child like the excitable and eager little Trent Bailey that he deserved the abuse?
To try and quench the passion for knowledge in a brilliant young woman with physical torture?
Umbridge's sins were much worse than the one they were about to commit.
Right?
Right?
Harry accepted the small vial with all the solemnity that the moment deserved. "Mavis, can you do me a favor? And— and I hate to say this, but just so you know, if you do this favor then I'll have to give you an order as well."
Mavis didn't look put out by that, if anything that seemed to perk him up from his worries about the two of them hiding in the Chamber of Secrets.
"Mavis will be loving to do Master a favor!" he squealed. "And Master Harry is giving Mavis an order as well? Mavis is being very ready to help his wonderful Master!"
"Here." Harry handed the vial to Mavis. "I need you to put this in Umbridge's drink at breakfast. And I need you to do it without the other elves seeing you, can you do that?"
"Yes Mavis can!"
"And this is the order part, I'm sorry Mavis, but I order you that if anyone ever asks you about this, even if it's me, you have to lie to them. You were never at Hogwarts today, do you understand?"
Mavis' eager smile slid right off his face and he looked down at the vial nervously. "Mavis is not wanting to be hurting anyone... Mavis is not wanting to be mean."
"Umbridge cut open Hermione's hand," Theo told him dispassionately. "She's a monster."
"Misses Mione?" Mavis gasped. "She is hurting my Misses Mione?"
"She did," Harry said. "Probably loads of others too, but I'd never make you be involved in something you don't want to be involved in."
Mavis shook his head, his typically round yellow eyes were narrowed and angry. "Nobody is hurting my kind Misses Mione and not being revenged on. Mavis will do it Master Harry. And Mavis will be saying 'Mavis was never here. On Tuesday? Mavis is thinking he was chasing Stevie the snake out of Mister Snoop's office that day.'"
"Brill." Harry smiled warmly at Mavis. "Mind popping us back up to our dorm then? I think Blaise is having a poker tournament tonight."
Theo didn't think he'd be able to eat a single bite of breakfast that next morning. Not when his stomach revolted with every bite when he saw Hermione's scarred hand. But he followed Harry's cue and forced food down while Harry kept up a stream of cheerful chatter with everyone else.
How did he do it?
Did he sleep last night?
Did Harry's food not stick to his throat like cardboard?
Did Harry not have a conscience?
Theo couldn't resist a quick glance up at the Head Table, just in time to see Umbridge in the Headmasters seat taking a deep drink out of her goblet.
His stomach lurched and he muttered a nonsensical excuse before bolting from the room to the nearest loo. He locked himself in a stall barely in time to start puking. Every bite he'd forced down, pointless now as he painfully expelled it.
Once he was done, he just sank to the floor, sobs working their way through his chest.
What had he done?
Was he better or worse than the monster he'd poisoned?
He'd saved her from a bullet to the head, only to end her life- send her soul for its final judgement- through a painful poison.
How would his soul be judged one day?
Theo should have been surprised when the stall door was slowly opened and Harry looked in on him, but he wasn't. He'd known he was going to come here really. Harry gave him a curious look as he twitched his pinky and a privacy bubble was erected.
"What did we do?" Theo croaked out. "We've killed her Harry."
"We did." Harry sat in the doorway of the stall, still looking at Theo like he was a particularly challenging bit of homework. "Why are you upset?"
"We could go to prison!" Theo cried (lied). "There are laws and consequences!"
"Theo, I thought of that already," Harry said calmly. "D'you think I'd let you go to prison?"
Truthfully? No.
Harry was a bit of a dick, he could be terribly selfish sometimes, he was impulsive and reckless and had more power than common sense.
But Harry was as loyal as they come.
Theo wasn't worried about imprisonment, if it even got that far then Harry would just break him out and hide him away on some foreign island.
"I thought of the worse case scenario when I was flooing to Spinners End," Harry went on despite the lack of an answer from Theo. "Absolute worst case scenario is they find out she was poisoned and someone figures out we did it. Then I'll admit to it, say I did it alone. I'll tell them she made me use that fuckin quill and I was so upset I wasn't thinking right. Plus, don't dark objects like that sometimes mess with your mind? Cause I've already got a messed up mind, Snape will tell them that. I'll use all my money and fame in court to cry about being tortured and the worst that'll happen is I'll be expelled."
"You don't have any scars from the quill," Theo pointed out, secretly quite touched that Harry would take a murder charge on his behalf, even if Harry didn't plan on actual imprisonment. As he said, Harry was truly as loyal as they come.
"The second that aurors appear in our school talking about poison I will. I'll go find that quill and cut myself with it," Harry swore. "What's really bothering you?"
What Harry lacked in detailed plans, he made up for in intuition.
"We've killed her Harry, she's going to die within a day," Theo whispered after a moment of silent contemplation. "What does that make us?"
"Heroes?" Harry suggested with a quirk of his lips.
"It isn't funny," Theo snarled. "What happens to us when we die Harry? Will we be banished to hell for this?"
Theo wasn't usually religious, that had been his fathers platform of hypocrisy. Theo relied on properly cited research, knowledge, facts. But it didn't mean that he didn't sometimes envision a day where he'd be with his mother again.
Had he lost that? Gave it up for an act of revenge?
"Theo," Harry's eyes were pitying once more, "if killing someone like her would send us to hell, then I don't want to go to heaven."
"I do," Theo admitted quietly. "I want to see my mother. I m-miss her so much." Theo didn't want to cry again, he hated crying, it was just proof of the weakness in him that his father desperately tried to remove, but his painful admission brought fresh tears down his face.
Harry didn't say anything, he just let himself be a silent presence as Theo shivered and shuddered and cried some more.
"I'm sorry I let you be involved," Harry eventually said when the occasional shudders were all that remained. "I didn't know you'd feel this way. I'm sorry Theo."
"Don't you feel anything??" Theo asked desperately. "Anything at all for taking her life? Risking your place in the afterlife?"
"No," Harry said flatly. "If heavens a real place then they don't want me anyway. They never wanted me."
"My father said anyone can repent and be accepted," Theo said softly. "He said you just have to feel true remorse for your sins."
Was he up there? Did he ever feel remorse for what he did?
Was taking away a childhood anywhere near the same level of a sin as murder?
"Theo do you think Umbridge is the first person I've killed?"
They knew it wasn't. He knew Harry killed Lockhart, Avery Senior, his father, and everyone knew he killed Quirrell and Pettigrew.
But what he didn't know was...
"I first killed a man when I was ten," Harry said bluntly. "And I'll never 'repent' it. I used to feel bad about it, all the time, I thought I was a monster. But you know what?"
"What?"
Harry looked to be nearly thrice his actual age when he responded. "Sometimes there are worse monsters out there."