Shadow Magic • Harry Potter X Theodore Nott •

(5) Shadows Black and Grey

Harry first tries to deal with the problem of Black by looking up old newspaper articles. That's how he learns exactly how many Muggles Black killed—or supposedly killed—and of the death of Peter Pettigrew. All they found of him was a finger.

Once again, Harry has to put his head down on one of the tables in the library for a while. Why would anyone assume someone is dead if all they find is a finger? For that matter, why would you assume your enemy is dead without a body?

(Harry does have to pause here to acknowledge that most people would not be as paranoid as he is, or think of the whole world as enemies).

The newspapers are accurate about Black's lack of a trial. And with Voldemort's denial, Harry's suspicion turns inevitably towards Pettigrew. He sends Voldemort another letter, despite Theodore's wince, asking if Pettigrew was one of his Death Eaters and if there is the chance that the man could have hidden his death by cutting off a finger.

This time, the letter is more helpful.

Peter was indeed mine, although I assumed him long dead. He was an unregistered Animagus whose form was a rat. The fact that he never approached any of my Death Eaters over the years, even the ones who escaped Azkaban, suggests that he died.

No, it doesn't, Harry thinks as he crumples up this particular letter. It suggests that Pettigrew is a bloody coward who has some sense; Death Eaters like Theodore's father would probably turn him in to the Ministry to prove their "loyalty." But the idea of him being an unregistered Animagus and Black muttering about going to Hogwarts suggests he could be here.

Now Harry only has to find a rat in a gigantic castle. A rat that is probably missing a toe.

And Harry will have to study spells to keep an Animagus from transforming and to trap rodents, too. He doesn't currently have any way to restrain Pettigrew if he captures him. Perhaps then he can arrange to deliver him to Black and Black will leave him in peace.

*

Luna showed up missing shoes after the first fortnight. So Harry has to wait at the bottom of the stairs up to Ravenclaw Tower again, interrupting his busy schedule of homework, dreaming through Snape's class, ignoring Dumbledore and the pitying glances that people give him because of Black being his godfather, and studying rat-restraining traps. It's annoying.

More than annoying, when the spell that he cast to identify someone in contact with Luna's stolen belongings flashes on the same girls he terrified last year as they come down the stairs. For Ravenclaws, they aren't that bright. Harry is kind of glad he wasn't Sorted into that House now, for all he doesn't feel he fits in Slytherin either.

He calls up the shadows and breathes out. Once again, the girls go blind. Once again, they scream and claw at their faces. It's all so predictable.

But Harry does get to try out a new aspect of shadow magic this time, one that he didn't know about last time. That makes him smile as he holds up a hand and shadow pools in his palm.

"I told you to leave Luna alone," he says, and his voice booms from several directions, coming out of every point where there's a shadow. The girls stop screaming and cower. "If you can't do that, then I suppose I'll have to punish you."

"You—you can't—we didn't—"

"I know you touched something that belongs to her," Harry continues implacably. "You cooperated in hiding it, too," he adds, as another charm that tells him if the person was an active bully or just a passive one comes into play and highlights the girl who spoke with blue. "Such a pity. You probably had a life ahead of you where you did something other than bully little girls."