Title: Confusion Is Mine, Saith the Lord
Disclaimer: J. K. Rowling and associates own these characters. I am writing this story for fun and not profit.
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: Gen
Content Notes: AU after second year, canon-typical violence, mentions of past character deaths, pureblood bigotry, short scenes, discussions of child abuse (canonical and otherwise), angst, humor, present tense
Wordcount: This part 7200
Summary: Someone—and Harry might murder them if he ever finds out who—digs something up in old records proclaiming that Harry is not only the Heir of Slytherin as all Parselmouths are, but Lord Slytherin by Right of Conquest after killing the basilisk. Students start coming to Harry for protection and other gifts he can grant them as Lord Slytherin. Harry thinks this Lord business is the stupidest thing he's ever heard, but all he needs to do is offer them protection and so on without becoming too full of himself. So it's doable. Hopefully.
Author's Notes: This is one of my "Litha to Lammas" fics, short chaptered fics being posted between the summer solstice and the first of August. Wordwitch left a prompt for a fic with some students suing for [Harry's] protection of them as an element of his being Lord Slytherin By Right Of Conquest, and this become something that spreads randomly across Purebloods and Muggleborn alike. The title, of course, is a variation of the quote "Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord." This will have five chapters, and sequels to come.

Confusion Is Mine, Saith the Lord

"Harry! Harry!"

Harry jumps and looks up from his Defense textbook. At least Professor Lupin assigns interesting topics for essays. "Huh?"

Hermione flings herself into the chair across from him, her flailing leg nearly kicking the book out of Harry's hands. That makes Harry pay attention right away. He's never seen her treat a book like that. "Did you know that you're Lord Slytherin by Right of Conquest?" she demands, eyes huge.

"I'm what?"

"Please explain this to me more slowly," Harry says, his hands over his eyes. "And with smaller words."

"Of course Potter needs it explained like that," Malfoy mutters, and folds his arms.

Theodore Nott, who Harry has never spoken to before today and who Harry probably would have said only knew about his scar before this if someone asked him, turns around and stares at Malfoy with wide-open and kind of empty grey eyes. "If you're going to make fun of our potential Lord, go away, Malfoy."

Malfoy hisses between his teeth and keeps sitting at the library table. They're in the library because it's the only place large enough for the weird group of people who's gathered around Harry. This includes a number of Slytherins and Ravenclaws and Hufflepuffs from Harry's year, some of the older students from those Houses too, the Weasley twins, Ron and Hermione, Colin Creevey, and Oliver Wood. Oliver seems to be there because he thinks that this is a plot to disable Gryffindor's star Seeker. No one's been able to convince him otherwise.

"Now," says Nott, and turns back. Harry has the odd impression that he wants to smile pleasantly, but his mouth isn't to used bending that way. It makes his smile look like a compacted spiderweb. "It's down to Ravenclaw research. Of course, people suspected you of being the Heir of Slytherin last year—"

"And I wasn't!"

"You were, Potter."

"Oh, yeah? So why are all of you still alive instead of Petrified?"

"You were the Heir of Slytherin because all Parselmouths are," Nott says with iron patience. "It's a title given to Parselmouths in the British Isles simply because any born here are likely to have a connection with Slytherin's family line."

"I don't!" Not that Harry is going to tell everyone what Professor Dumbledore said were the source of his powers.

"You must, somewhere far back in history." Nott shrugs as if it doesn't matter much. "But the reason that the title has been Heir of Slytherin and not Lord Slytherin for a long time has been that simply speaking Parseltongue conveys no true sense of responsibility and the other things that one needs to hold the Lordship."

Harry snorts. "Let me guess, to be Lord Slytherin you have to hate Muggleborns, come up with a way to locate a giant basilisk somewhere under a school, create a really ugly statue of yourself—"

"No." Nott's hand slaps on the table.

"How ugly?" Fred asks.

"Can we use it as a test subject?" George asks.

Nott glares at them. Fred and George grin back at him.

"Really ugly," Harry tells him. "And I think Professor Dumbledore might object to me opening the way into the Chamber of Secrets again just so you can throw eggs at the statue or something.."

"Not eggs, we—"

"Have much better ideas—"

"Will you please listen?" Nott says loudly. "Lord Slytherin is a title that's gone dormant for so many centuries that you can basically make it what you want, Potter. You've won it by Right of Conquest because you've killed the beast that Slytherin left as guardian of his legacy."

"Not to mention defeating in extremis a previous Heir of Slytherin," mutters a blonde girl sitting at Nott's side. Harry squints at her. Right, something Greengrass.

"I didn't defeat him," Harry says. "He came back."

"Nothing in the records says the defeat must be permanent." Nott is wearing a thin smile now. "But regardless, you are Lord Slytherin by Right of Conquest."

"Right. Fine. I'll just hire Fred and George to walk around the school proclaiming that, shall I?" Amid Fred and George's loud declarations that they would be pleased to do this, Harry leans forwards. "It's meaningless," he says, as quiet and intense as he can get, and speaking to Nott because he's been the stupid spokesman for this stupid idea so far. "It doesn't matter what's technically true. I don't have to do anything."

Nott looks him dead in the eye. "So there's absolutely nothing you would want to do if people told you they needed protection?" he whispered. "Nothing you would change about the magical world? You surprise me, Potter."

Looking back later, Harry decides the real problem isn't the (stupid) person who found out these technical details in whatever obscure records there were. The real problem is that Nott asked this (stupid) question.

But when he finds out about the Time-Turner, it's much more than an hour later, so he unfortunately can't go back and cast a Silencing Charm on Nott.

"Harry, may I ask what you're doing?"

Harry sighs and lets the huge flap of basilisk skin that he's floating along fall to the ground with a flop. It was hard Levitating it up from the Chamber of Secrets and all the way to the dungeons. (A few people could have come up with him and helped, but Harry thought it best if he keeps the knowledge of the Chamber's location to just him and Ron and Hermione and Ginny for right now. And Myrtle. And Professor Dumbledore. At least this way the twins aren't plotting to explode Slytherin's statue or whatever they were going to do).

"I'm taking some basilisk skin to Professor Snape, Professor McGonagall."

Professor McGonagall opens her mouth. Nothing comes out. Her eyes go back and forth between Harry and the huge fold of skin, which is about four times his size. Harry just chopped off some of the skin in the tunnel rather than trying to do anything with the dead basilisk. First, he doesn't know how to skin a snake. Second, he doesn't even know if this is going to work.

"Why—are you—doing this?" Professor McGonagall asks at last, her mouth moving slowly around the words.

"I think basilisk skin might be an ingredient in some rare potions," Harry says. "I reckoned that Professor Snape could tell me."

"He does not like you enough to answer such a question, Mr. Potter."

"But if I give him this skin, and if I'm right about basilisk skin being an ingredient in some rare potions, then he might."

Professor McGonagall looks into the distance for a minute. Then she looks back at him. "You are bribing a professor, Mr. Potter?"

Harry rolls his shoulders. Holding the Levitation Charm was more tiring than he anticipated. Or the skin was just heavier than anything he's tried to Levitate before. "I'm getting him to answer a question, Professor."

"What—will you do if the answer is yes, Mr. Potter?"

"Get more basilisk skin and sell it to raise money so the school can buy new brooms for Quidditch and flying lessons."

Professor McGonagall's eyes go very wide. Harry watches her. Is she going to try and stop him? He didn't think she would, but she sometimes disbelieves or ignores him, like when he tried to tell her about the Philosopher's Stone in first year, so she might.

Professor McGonagall snaps her wand hard, suddenly, and the basilisk skin Levitates up from the floor and floats above her head.

"Professor?"

"We need to make sure of this right away, Mr. Potter," Professor McGonagall says firmly, and marches in front of him.

Harry follows her, smiling. Maybe she would be upset about him sort of bribing Snape, but she'll do anything for Quidditch.

"Harry."

Harry leans back on the grass, his hands behind his head, and grins at Hermione. She's standing nearby with a long scroll in her arms. "Yeah?"

"Why did you decide to spend the money first on that?" Hermione points to the brooms circling overhead, new Nimbus and Cleansweep brooms with members of all the House Quidditch teams as well as some excited firsties on them.

"Because that was the first issue people told me about," Harry says, shrugging. "And Quidditch is important. And maybe Neville wouldn't have been injured in first year if it wasn't for the fact that the school brooms were so old."

"But there were more important things to spend the money on."

"Right, I know. That's why the school was spending money on those things and not on brooms. It was a budget issue. But now I've fixed the budget issue."

Harry honestly doesn't see why people couldn't just explain to him that they wanted new brooms and ask him if they could use the basilisk skin for some money to buy them. Why does it have to be this "Lord Slytherin" thing? A title that's still meaningless, as far as he's concerned.

People can tell him about problems and he'll do his best to help, but there are tons of people who would do their best to help. Harry. Hermione. Percy. Professor Dumbledore. Oliver (if it involves Quidditch). Snape would probably help someone who wanted to poison Harry.

(Well, all right, because of the delivery of the basilisk skin, Snape might just give them a book on poisons instead of helping them directly).

But it's still—they could tell anybody. They chose to tell Harry, though, and he has the means to help.

"What's that?" Harry adds, as Hermione sits down next to him and unrolls the scroll.

"Some more important things we could spend the money on," Hermione says firmly. "And some more important things you can be doing as Lord Slytherin."

"Hermione—"

"If it's going to be treated as this important thing by so many people, Harry, you should be responsible about it."

Harry resigns himself to a more boring afternoon than he expected.

"What are you going to do about the fact that Divination is hogwash?"

Harry stares at Nott. Nott stares back at him. In fact, Harry was sitting at the table in the library where all this nonsense began, doing his Divination homework and peacefully explaining the many terrible omens that he found in the swirling "cloud" he totally saw inside the crystal ball.

"I, uh. Why should I do something about it?"

Nott sits down across from him. "Several reasons," he says, in a voice that fills Harry with more terror than the basilisk ever did. "First, Professor Trelawney traumatizes and hurts people every week in her class with her ridiculous predictions."

Harry thinks about Lavender crying over her rabbit, but he thought she was more upset about the fact that the rabbit had died than by Trelawney predicting it. "I—didn't know that. I mean, I know that my class isn't the only one she has, but she predicts my death every week and it's never bothered me."

Nott leans towards him. "Why not?"

"Because I have a deranged murderer stalking me right now and a Dark Lord out there who wants to kill me? Why would it?"

"Not everyone is you. Not everyone is that—" Nott obviously searches for a word. "Resistant."

Harry sighs. "Okay. And the other reasons?"

"No one is learning anything useful in her classes. She hasn't had a successful OWL score above Exceeds Expectations since she began teaching here—"

"How do you know that?"

"Older students with connections and exam records. And there are no students in the NEWT Divination classes, ever. They're a joke. She's a drunk with a record of saying horrible things to students when they meet her wandering the corridors. And she doesn't provide any useful feedback on essays, just says that 'Your Inner Eye is clouded' and the like."

Harry pauses. Again, he and Ron got those remarks on their essays, but he sort of reckoned that was just the price of turning in essays filled with utter ridiculousness of their own.

He knows Parvati and Lavender really try in that class, though. It's too bad if they're not getting anything in return.

"Okay. I'll talk to Professor Dumbledore."

"You don't have to."

"Um, what?"

Nott looks triumphant. "Lord Slytherin can command the classroom and her quarters to seal and lock her outside. He can commend the Great Hall to not admit her for meals, all the staircases to swing away from her so she can't get about the castle, and all the grounds to feel unwelcoming so she leaves."

Harry feels the expression on his face changing. Nott blinks at him. "First of all," Harry says, "that title is still a load of bollocks. And second, you want me to make her homeless?" He's heard too many threats from the Dursleys of throwing him out of the house and leaving him to survive on his own to want to do that to anyone. Not to mention the bit about keeping Trelawney from eating. Harry knows what that's like.

Nott stares at him.

"Yeah," Harry says, and shakes his head. "I'll talk to Professor Dumbledore."

He leaves the library with Nott still staring after him. It irritates Harry. Trelawney is annoying, yeah, but Nott is a berk if he thinks people should be thrown out of their homes for being annoying.

"Surely you cannot want me to remove Professor Trelawney from the castle, Harry."

"No, sir. That's why I refused when someone claimed I could. I don't want her to lose her home. But she's making people in classes cry and get really upset, and she doesn't have anyone in her NEWT classes, and she makes these silly comments on our essays and terrible ones when she's drunk. I don't even know how I would do well in Divination because she doesn't tell anybody."

"I do not generally interfere with the way my professors teach their classes, Harry."

Harry sighs. Yeah, he should have realized that, given that Snape just teaches whatever the hell he wants. "All right, sir. Thanks for talking to me." He refuses the lemon drop Professor Dumbledore offers and wanders out of the office and down the staircase, thinking hard.

What would make Trelawney leave? Of her own free will?

Harry's eyes widen suddenly. An opportunity elsewhere, of course. He remembers Uncle Vernon saying once that only the very best of jobs could tempt him to leave Grunnings.

Now Harry just has to arrange for someone to offer her a Divination job somewhere else.

It takes a while for Harry to come up with a strategy, but he manages it. He sits down next to Lavender Brown at breakfast a few weeks later with a concerned expression. "Have you heard about Professor Trelawney?" he whispers, darting glances over his shoulder as if he thinks someone is trying to sneak up behind him.

Lavender eats it up, the way Harry knew she would. "No!" she breathes, leaning forwards. "What about it?"

"Some people are trying to get her thrown out of the castle," Harry says, and sneaks another set of glances. This time, one goes to the Slytherin table, and another to the professors' table. The last one isn't really a lie. Harry's heard both Snape and Professor McGonagall muttering about Trelawney. "They want her to just leave and have nowhere to go."

Lavender gasps, tears starting into her eyes. "That's awful!"

Harry nods, because he does actually agree with that part of it. "Yeah. So I was trying to think, if they do get their way, where could she go? I want her to be happy, you know, and I don't think she actually is here. The way she talks about how all the people here overwhelm her Inner Eye?"

Lavender nods. "You're right. But she would need to teach Divination to be happy, wouldn't she?"

"I don't know. Teaching is kind of second-best to actually being a Seer, right? Or there wouldn't be so many Seers." Harry doesn't actually know that there are a lot of Seers. He's gambling, but Lavender doesn't tell he's wrong. "Maybe she would happier somewhere else, but she just took this job because…because…"

He's faltering, but Lavender is more than happy to carry both halves of the conversation. "Because she has such a strong sense of duty to the future!" She wipes at her eyes with a hand. "Of course. I should have thought of this myself, Harry."

"And I know that you said once your mother has a lot of connections to people who practice Divination, right? Even if they aren't real Seers like Professor Trelawney." Harry heard that one day when Lavender was defending Trelawney from Ron. Lavender wants to learn from Trelawney because she wants to be a diviner someday herself, if not a Seer. "Couldn't she find a place for Professor Trelawney somewhere where she would be happier? Where her talents would be respected?"

Lavender abruptly throws her arms around him and hugs him. Harry kind of freezes, but Lavender doesn't notice. "You're such a kind person, Harry," she says, pulling back and taking out a handkerchief to blow her nose. "I knew it couldn't be true, what people were saying about you!"

"Um, what were they saying?"

"That you're Lord Slytherin, and that means that you would be mean to everyone and try to kill Muggleborns."

Harry stifles a sigh. He told Hermione and other people that calling him that was a stupid idea. It doesn't matter if it he can technically accomplish some things because of it; they still should have chosen a different strategy.

"Thanks for not believing that nonsense, Lavender."

"Of course not," Lavender says, and pats his shoulder as she stands up. "I have to write to my mum right away!"

She runs off, and Harry sits back with a smile and a little shake of his head. Ron leans over to him.

"If you were trying to arrange a date with Lavender, I don't think it went that well, mate."

Harry laughs. He is getting some stares, and people might think that he's dating Lavender from now on, but it doesn't matter. He's had worse rumors circulating about him. Has worse ones right now, probably. "No, it's something else. About Trelawney. Trying to get her to be less awful in class." There, that's pretty much true without explaining everything.

"Oh. Huh. Well, good luck."

A fortnight later, when things have happened, Trelawney stands up in front of the class, her hands clasped and her eyes shining, and announces that she will be taking a job out of the country, and one where her Inner Eye can be focused on the "shining wave of the future that comes to all those who wait."

Harry catches Lavender's eye and smiles at her. She winks back.

But first, things happen.

First, Sirius Black got into the school and attacked the Gryffindor portrait. Everyone had to sleep in the Great Hall. And several people lost their minds.

Harry is proud that he's one of the people who didn't lose his mind. Of course he hates that Black got into the school and he doesn't like the fact that he has a mass murderer after him, but he accepted that everyone, even the Fat Lady, survived. And it's not like Black did find him and slash him up. And he hasn't been back into the school yet. At least not that anyone knows of, and Harry is pretty sure the grim-faced professors would have found a trace.

No, the people who have lost their minds are Nott, Bones, Padma Patil, and Oliver. They find him one morning in the library a few days after Black's attack and sit down next to him. Harry frowns as he watches Bones nudge aside Hermione's books. "Hermione will be back in a minute, Bones." She's just gone to find a book that she needed to complete the essay Professor Lupin's assigned on grindylows.

Bones utterly ignores him, and hisses, "Why aren't you taking more precautions?"

"Against what?"

"Black," Nott says. His face is pale and his eyes glitter weirdly, but he's always been a little weird. He sure gave Harry a weird look after he refused to throw Trelawney out of the castle. "He can get into the castle, obviously."

"Yes, I know. But I can't stay in the Tower all the time. I've always got someone with me when I'm somewhere other than there—"

Nott darts a pointed glance around the table.

"Hermione literally stepped away five minutes ago, Nott. And Madam Pince is right over there."

"You could have died," Nott says, disregarding this in a way that makes Harry wonder how he's never noticed this boy before when he's such a bloody drama queen. "We could have lost our Lord Slytherin just as we've found him."

Harry puts a hand over his face. "You know that title causes more harm than good, right? There are rumors going around that I want to kill all Muggleborns. I could have told you that would happen, but no—"

"It's just some idiots who are saying that," Padma says, and flicks her hair over her shoulder. "People on Crabbe and Goyle's level of intelligence. No, Potter, what matters is that you matter. A lot. You could change things. Make things better! And you almost died."

Harry leans forwards. "Anyone could change things if they wanted to, and anyone could do the things I've done. They just don't want to. It's too hard."

Padma looks uncomfortable. Oliver breaks into the silence. "I don't really agree with the Lord Slytherin thing unless it makes you better at Quidditch," he says. "But I agree that we can't have you die, Harry. It's clear to me what Black slashing up the portrait and the teachers not being able to find how he got in means."

Harry frowns. "What?"

"A student helped him.." Oliver leans forwards. "A student who wants to see Gryffindor's Seeker die a painful death."

Harry groans. "Oliver—"

"It makes absolute sense!" Oliver pounds a fist on the table. "The lack of proof! The fact that Black was a Quidditch player at one point, and a Death Eater! The fact that the professors are probably under extremely close surveillance, but the students can't be, because there's too many of them!"

"Sorry, did you just say the lack of proof is evidence someone let Black into the school over a Quidditch grudge?" Harry glances sideways at Nott and the others. They have to see that this is ridiculous, right?

Nott gives him a thin smile, while Bones nods and Padma looks a little relieved. Harry's eyes narrow. Oh, they think this is nonsense, too. It just doesn't matter to them, because Oliver is going to cooperate in—keeping Harry safe, or something, so it serves their goals.

"What did you have in mind?" Harry asks warily.

"No."

"Harry—"

"No."

"It's not like it's formal bodyguards or something," Hermione wheedles. They're in a classroom that's mostly used for dueling practice now not far from Myrtle's bathroom. No one but she and Harry and Ron are arguing there right now, though. And Harry's not sure Ron counts as arguing because he's laughing so hard at the thought of Harry having bodyguards that he literally can't speak.

"It's just a network of people to monitor me at literally all times," Harry snaps, pacing back and forth. He's not sure why Hermione of all people is endorsing this. What happened to her treating him like he's just an ordinary person, a friend, not this Lord bollocks? "I don't care if it's informal or they trade off! I don't want to be stared at!"

"Oh, Harry." Hermione softens and comes over to put a hand on his arm. "It's not going to be like that."

"Then what is it going to be like?"

"People running to tell professors when you're in trouble, instead of ignoring you. Stopping rumors about you instead of starting them, the way they did last year. Doing some things that other people should have done to keep you safe that no one's done so far."

"Don't think I don't notice how vague that last bit is, Hermione."

"Well, someone should do this!" Hermione fires back. "You don't have relatives who will write to the school, and Snape protected you when your life was in danger, but not otherwise! You should be as safe from bullying and taunting as anyone else!"

Harry calms down a little. If it's just that kind of thing, and people watching out for him because he could do something for them, that it's not what he was thinking, which is people jumping in the way of Sirius Black's knife, and it's not—a Lord thing. Not really. The title is still meaningless except for the meaning other people assign it.

People still get to be themselves, a bit selfish and hoping he helps them. They're not—

Harry doesn't even know the word for it.

"All right," he says. "I suppose we can try it for a few days and see how it works."

"How it works" the first time is Daphne Greengrass clearing her throat loudly when Snape starts to berate Harry for his awful potion a few days later.

"Yes, Miss Greengrass?" Snape says, and gives Harry a look that implies movement will be worthy of murder. Yeah, that basilisk skin didn't go far, really.

"I was wondering, sir," Greengrass says, in that prissy, uptight little voice that makes Harry think she's Madam Pince's long-lost daughter, "whether you think scolding a student is an essential prerequisite to the practice of teaching."

Snape stares at her. Harry is staring pretty hard, too. Especially when he sees Nott standing there with a smug look on his face. Smug looks on Nott's face are always bad news.

"What, Miss Greengrass?" Snape finally says.

Greengrass inclines her head. "I'm sorry, sir. I'll try to rephrase my question. Do you think that rebuking a student with intense and insulting words is likely to make them a better brewer? Or is it an attempt to offload an excess of frustration that is unlikely to affect the student's performance positively but will insulate your thoughts from some negativity of your own?"

Snape stares at her again, but Harry can see the darkening look on his face. Harry winces. It's one thing for Snape to criticize Harry, which he hates but can take. It's another thing for him to criticize Greengrass, who is kind of stuck-up but doesn't deserve to have him exploding at her. Harry clears his throat loudly, and the attention of everyone in the room, including Snape, lands on him again.

"I think that you're wrong, sir," Harry says, and grins at Snape. "I think my potion is actually five shades of orange off, not three."

That brings Snape back to the attack, and Harry ignores the glares he'd getting from Greengrass and Nott, and also Bulstrode and Zabini. Watching out for bullies, stopping rumors, running for help if Black breaks in again? Okay. All those things would benefit them, too, especially if they start looking like they're associated with Harry. But throwing themselves on the sword in front of Snape? Especially a Slytherin, when he's their Head of House?

No. Harry won't allow it.

"The whole point of your being a Lord," Nott says between gritted teeth, "is to allow us to protect you."

"Oh?" Harry asks. "I thought one of the main points of a Lord, the way you told it, was to have someone to protect you. The one who can do things with Hogwarts and money and prestige and so on that you can't do?"

"You are so fucking frustrating."

Greengrass turns her head and stares at Nott with huge eyes like an owl's. "I did not know you would express yourself with such crudities," she says.

Nott takes a huge breath. They're in the dueling classroom by themselves. Greengrass and Nott said they wanted to talk to him; the message passed easily through the informal network of people they've set up to kind of be Harry's bodyguards. And of course it was about the thing in Potions.

Harry waits to see how long it will take them to realize he means it, and he's not going to be doing things differently.

Greengrass is the one who gives a little cough and takes a step closer to Harry. Since they came into the classroom, they've been standing apart, with Greengrass and Nott on the side nearest the door and Harry standing near the far wall that has a big scorch mark on it. "Potter, what do you see as the purpose of this mutualistic endeavor?"

Harry stares at her.

"Theo," Greengrass says, and turns herself around with a little swish. "Someone must take his education in hand."

"Do you want to do it?" Nott hasn't looked away from Harry, and his mouth is firmly creased. "Because someone has to, and you've talked about wanting to be a professor."

"You already talk like one," Harry adds.

Greengrass inclines her head. "Thank you. But I will only attend to some elements of your education, Potter. Let me endeavor to express myself more plainly." She takes a deep breath. "What do you think is the purpose of this—alliance?"

"You get me to do things for you," Harry says. "You bring up things that you think are problems, and I work on solving them. Even if that's not always the way you prefer," Harry adds, with a pointed glance at Nott, since he hasn't forgotten the Trelawney thing.

Nott just gives him a weird look.

"Ah," Greengrass murmurs. "Much is now explained. The symbiotic manner in which we—" Harry makes a face at her. She sighs, thinks about it, and continues. "The way we work together is not only about our exploiting the advantage that your Lordship gives us, Potter. It is about…ensuring that we have the chance of continuing our alliance into the future. And that you take enough pleasure from the alliance to continue it."

"We need to protect you," Nott says, taking a step forwards, "because if you die, there is no Lord Slytherin."

"You could come up with other solutions to these problems," Harry points out. "Especially if you could find some other way into the Chamber of Secrets and sell some of the basilisk skin for—"

"It's not just about money!" Nott throws his hands up. "You have no idea how much power you have."

"If it's the power of kicking people out of their homes, I don't want it!"

"It is the power to convince people to listen to you and to wield influence in such a manner that the Boy-Who-Lived title will not enable you to until you are older," Greengrass says. She looks more than ever like an owl. Harry half-expects her to tilt her head upside-down. "In fact, the title Boy-Who-Lived itself acts as a vehicle for the problem, in that it forces those who hear it to think of you as an untutored youth, whereas—"

"You've lost him again, Daphne." Nott shakes his head and takes a step forwards. "Listen, Potter. We want you to survive."

"And we talked about protecting me against danger. I'm aware. But that's not what happened in Snape's class."

"You don't think that being tormented daily in Potions for no reason counts?"

"No," Harry says quietly, and at least Nott appears to shut up and pay attention. "I don't. Not in the way you mean. It's not the same as being hunted by a murderer, or stabbed through the arm by a basilisk fang, or taken hostage in front of a mirror and forced to find the Philosopher's Stone by the madman who killed your parents. Those kinds of dangers are separate from Snape. He's not even a danger, really. He's just a wanker."

Greengrass clucks her tongue, probably over the language. Nott stares at him for moments that feel endless. Harry glares back. He still thinks that Nott is just sore that the "Lordship" thing isn't working out the way he wanted. He probably thought he could manipulate Harry into doing anything and not have Harry ask questions because he didn't want to look ignorant. Well, joke's on him.

Harry wants to protect people. He just doesn't always think the way that Nott and other people come up with is the best way.

Nott sighs gustily, at last. "Let's work on the parameters of this, then. Oh, parameters are—"

"Shut up, Nott, I know that one."

Then there's the other thing, which is that Harry falls off his broom because of Dementors during the Gryffindor-Hufflepuff Quidditch match and his broom gets broken.

Harry is mostly upset about the broom. Other people are mostly upset about the Dementors. To a certain extent, Harry understands—understands Hermione and Ron, anyway. They're his best friends, and he could have got his soul eaten. And Oliver and Fred and George are all concerned about him as people on the Quidditch team.

He does not understand why he wakes up to a pile of cards and gifts on the table by his bed that include things from Justin Finch-Fletchley (who thought Harry was a terrible monster just last year), Theodore Nott (who continues to be weird, and whose card is more like an order to get better), Daphne Greengrass (Harry has to get Hermione to help him translate that one), Padma Patil (who still doesn't know him very well), Susan Bones (also a Hufflepuff who thought he was terrible), and Lavender Brown (all right, maybe that's the Trelawney thing).

"I don't know, mate," Ron says, sitting on the bed beside Harry's and picking through the boxes of chocolate, casting mild charms on them to find out if they're hexed before they open and share them. "The whole school is a little mental over this Heir of Slytherin thing."

"Yeah," Harry says, and sighs. He supposes he could use some of the basilisk money to buy himself a new broom, but that feels like cheating. He doesn't want to use it personally. Buying new brooms for the whole school is a different thing.

At least the school does have better brooms now, and that means Harry should be able to compete well enough in his next game. Maybe he can buy himself a new broom over the summer.

"You have to learn the Patronus Charm," Nott announces, strolling up to Harry and Ron and Hermione's table in the library and plopping himself down without even asking, in that annoying way he has.

"Why, yes, hello, Nott, how are you, I'm fine, thanks, why are you here," Harry says, and shakes his head when Hermione opens her mouth. She nods back, mouth a thin line. None of the Slytherins who spend the most time walking around and "guarding" Harry and doing the "Heir of Slytherin" thing have acted as though they hate Muggleborns, so she's content to let Harry handle them.

"You're not fine. Or you wouldn't faint every time a Dementor comes near."

Ron is gripping his wand under the table, suddenly. Harry reaches out and grabs his arm. Ron slowly takes a breath and releases his wand. Harry nods his thanks and says, "Well, yes, I don't like it, either. But the Patronus Charm is incredibly advanced magic, from what I've read." He snorts when Nott looks flummoxed. "Yes, I did look it up. I don't know anyone to teach me, and I don't think I could learn it anyway."

"Ask Professor Lupin. He cast a Patronus on the train, he likes you, and he knew your parents."

"He what?"

Madam Pince makes the kind of spitting, hissing sound that briefly convinced Harry she was a Parselmouth last year, although on reflection she sounds more like Crookshanks. Harry takes a deep breath and continues, "He what? How do you know that?"

Nott's arms are folded and his eyes dark. "Because rumors of the ones who were good friends with your parents spread through the other side, what do you think?"

Harry stares at Nott in silence. Then he decides that he understands. Besides wanting the power that he would have if "Lord Slytherin" ran around doing his bidding, Nott might have family members on the "other side" and want to escape from them. Harry isn't going to grant him the first, but the second is understandable. "Okay, but that just makes it weirder that he hasn't actually told me himself or tried to talk to me about it. Maybe he wouldn't be willing to teach me."

"Longbottom asked him."

"Neville?"

"Yes. Did you think he was completely incapable of intrigue?"

"I thought he didn't buy into the 'Lord Slytherin' bollocks."

"He's your friend." Nott gives him a disgusted glance. "So he asked for you. And Professor Lupin said that he would be willing to teach you. Go and ask him yourself. Drop hints about hearing things about him and your parents if you don't want to ask him outright. But you should learn."

"There's still the problem of it being a NEWT-level spell and me being a third-year."

"You're powerful. There is no problem."

"I killed the basilisk with a lot of luck, Nott. Not because of power. And no one knows how Voldemort was defeated the night he came to get me, but I think it has something to do with my mum. That's not powerful."

Nott stares back at him, unflinching. Harry sighs. He wonders what's going to happen when the Slytherins'—well, and some other people's—delusions catch up with them and they realize that, in their eagerness for Harry to be "Lord Slytherin," they're assigning him power and traits he never possessed.

"You need to learn it," Nott says. "For all our sakes."

Harry wonders if he's only talking about the Patronus Charm, or not.

Nott is weird, but at least Professor Lupin does agree to teach Harry the Patronus Charm after the Christmas holidays. And there's the Trelawney thing, with her announcement that she'll actually leave the school over Christmas after finishing out this one term. That seems to leave Professor Dumbledore looking flummoxed and scrambling to find a Divination professor, but that's not Harry's problem.

Things settle down. People look at him sometimes, but the rumors about him hating all Muggleborns seem to have died off. The "bodyguards" thing really is informal, just people paying him more attention in the corridors and asking after his health sometimes. Fred and George take to loudly asking him if he's eating all right at meals.

Harry thinks that's hilarious, but he doesn't like the look on Hannah Abbott's face when she overhears them. She hasn't been a proponent of the Slytherin business, and Harry doesn't know why she'd become one just because the twins are talking about meals, but he would just as soon that more people didn't join his "retinue," as George grandly calls it.

Thigs seem pretty normal, until Harry wakes up to a pile of presents for him so tall they look like they're going to fall over and crush him in bed.

"Shit," Harry mutters under his breath, and wakes Ron up quickly.

Ron stares at them for a bit, and then shakes his head. "I don't know, mate," he says, sounding slightly jealous. "I would kill for this many presents."

"It's not that," Harry hisses. "I didn't buy them anything!" He got presents for Ron and Hermione and the twins and Ginny, and he sent Neville a book on plants because he feels bad that Neville considers himself Harry's friend but Harry's never really done anything for him. But he didn't buy Nott or Greengrass anything, or anyone from Hufflepuff or Ravenclaw, and he thinks that he sees one silver-wrapped package that has Malfoy's name on it, which is just bizarre.

"Oh," Ron says. "They probably didn't expect it. You're Lord Slytherin and they're your followers, remember?" He snickers. Harry smiles. He's glad he has at least one person who agrees with him that these "followers" and "Lord Slytherin" are ridiculous. "But if not, you've got some basilisk money that you can buy them things from, right?"

"Right." Harry relaxes. Yes, that's okay. It won't really count as cheating or anything personal if he's using the money to buy gifts for other people.

And the gifts are pretty nice. Malfoy gets him a comb that's supposedly enchanted to comb his hair absolutely flat and makes Harry roll his eyes (and also doesn't work), but other people got him books that look interesting, and warm robes, and a cloak with fur around it that Harry thinks might be polar bear, and chocolates and other sweets, and—

Harry chokes when he makes out the broom-shaped package, and unwraps it immediately. "Ron! A Firebolt! Look, Ron!"

Ron immediately runs over, and they spend time examining it and exclaiming over it. Ron asks if he can ride it, sounding wistful, and Harry says of course he can, and any awkwardness between them disappears.

There's no note with the Firebolt, but Harry doesn't think that matters. Maybe someone who has to give him a gift did it slyly because their friends don't approve of the Lord Slytherin business, or something.

Harry only regrets that he can't easily send them a gift back. Maybe attaching something to Hedwig and asking her to find the Firebolt sender would work. Post-owls are pretty clever.

They go outside and ride the Firebolt until they're exhausted. The twins join them, and their whoops and hollers draw other people out of the school. What looks like half the Slytherin Quidditch team arrives and promptly drools with jealousy. Harry grins at them. A few of them have fallen into the "Lord Slytherin" thing, but Quidditch is Quidditch, and this "Lord" is going to kick their arses in the next game.

All in all, it's a great Christmas.