{HP AU: ‘Tea With The Enemy’, or ‘No, Mr. Harrowgate, I Expect You To Dine’}

[blairewhich]

~

Blaire, Harriett. ‘Tea With The Enemy’, or ‘No, Mr. Harrowgate, I Expect You To Dine’

There was a significant part of Blaire Harrowgate that had always hoped this would never happen.

Number 12 Grimmauld Place was usually busy, a hive of activity due to its status as the secret headquarters of the Scarlett Order, full of people coming and going or just taking a break to eat a warm meal or catch a few hours of sleep in a safe location. Rowan’s sisters Ruby and Rosemary had set up a radio station of sorts in one of the parlours, and used it to send out coded information at regular intervals; Valanthe and Varis were constantly bringing in magical items and other valuable things that they’d lifted from Death Eaters and the snobbish overly-wealthy, leaving them with Luck and Rhoda, another of Rowan’s sisters, to have them taken apart or fenced to provide some capital for the Order; and Garrett, Harriett, and a few others had turned some of the bedrooms into a medical clinic of sorts.

Blaire had only been there a handful of times so far, and had kept the hood of his cloak up due to the need for secrecy regarding his presence in the Order, though he had also felt deeply averse to meeting any of his old schoolmates under these strange circumstances. Still, he’d been there enough to have an idea of the general atmosphere...or so he’d thought. Because, despite the fairly high number of Order members and all the noise and liveliness they usually provided, today the house was almost eerily silent when Blaire let himself in through the kitchen door around 3 o’clock in the afternoon on a typical gloomy Thursday in late September.

The only sound was the burble of pots and the sizzle of pans on the stove, as well as the steady, even sound of someone chopping up vegetables on a cutting board...and the only person visible as he stepped into Number 12 was none other than Harriett Wiseacre. The lack of feet pounding up or down the stairways, the absence of the murmur of voices drifting in from any of the sitting rooms or echoing down the hallways, and the fact that the long table was empty was a good indicator that she really was here alone--until just now, when Blaire had appeared.

The Wiseacre matron turned a brief glance over her shoulder at him as he paused in the doorway, and although the look she gave him was considering, not threatening, Blaire still felt his heart give an uncomfortable, nervous squeeze, felt his blood run a little colder in his veins.

Dipping his head in a respectful nod, Blaire ducked down the hallway and headed for Luck’s study, though their “captain” wasn’t in, as the Slytherin spy had expected. All right, then, Blaire thought to himself, turning a subtly anxious glance around the room and back down the hallway towards the kitchen. Best leave the information he’d gathered and get out of here fast.

He wasn’t certain why, but Harriett Wiseacre made him feel decidedly uneasy. No, he did know why he felt so jumpy, so vaguely apprehensive around her, and it wasn’t how formidable Corrin had made her sound in some of his stories either. (Well, maybe it was a little bit of that.)

It was guilt, plain and simple.

He’d befriended her youngest son, made all sorts of wonderful, splendid promises, said all sorts of kind, heartfelt things...and then last year, he’d destroyed nearly every bit of good he’d done for the little Ravenclaw by pushing him away, crushing him down beneath his proverbial heel. He’d done it to protect Corrin--Blaire was a Death Eater after all, he’d been forced to become one the very first day of the nightmarishly endless-seeming summer holiday before his seventh and final year at Hogwarts, and the Wiseacres were infamous among the other pure-blood families for being blood traitors. Had they remained obviously close, Corrin and his entire family would’ve been in danger...and so Blaire had done his damnedest to prove to Corrin that not only were they no longer friends, but they never truly had been.

And honestly, it had been hell. Watching his best friend, the person he cared about most in the entire world, being bullied even more relentlessly than he had been before they’d grown so close was terrible enough to see; having to be one of the instigators, one of the primary orchestrators of Corrin’s suffering...that was nothing short of sickening. Blaire had hated every unkind word he’d said, every cruel act he’d allowed to happen, every moment of every day of that entire year, and the passage of a few months’ time had not dulled the revulsion he’d felt, only let it age and mature like an acidic wine growing increasingly more bitter and unpalatable.

And worst of all...worst of all had been the day in Dueling Club when he’d broken Corrin’s arm.

Even now, his stomach gave a queasy twist as he remembered the sound of it, and he had to lean sideways against the doorway of Luck’s office, close his eyes, and breathe deeply to get himself back under the usual careful control he always maintained regarding his actions, words, and emotions. It was rare for him to slip, and when he did, it was always when he thought about Corrin, and most often when he recalled the look on the younger wizard’s face when Blaire had betrayed him in such a shockingly blatant way.

Surely there could be no mistaking his intentions--his feelings about Corrin--after that.

It had been a calculated move, all of it, every single loathsome, ghastly fraction of a second; still, calculated or not, it had been utterly miserable for Blaire as well, albeit misery of a different sort.

At least he’d had the privilege of knowing why it was happening, that it was necessary. Corrin had no such comfort, arctic-cold as it was.

There was little enough chance that Harriett Wiseacre would know his reasons, much less understand them. Blaire wasn’t certain how much Corrin had told her about him, about their (by all appearances) former friendship; on his induction into the Order, Luck had introduced him to Ozzy, Harriett, and Garrett; the rest of the Wiseacres had been elsewhere, but just those three had been enough. Ozzy had given an uncomfortable smile but had shaken his hand politely, if a bit nervously; Garrett had been impassive, utterly closed and unreadable, his large, warm-but-dry hand fairly swallowing Blaire’s, holding on to it just a second too long in a way that left the Slytherin spy uncertain whether it was a threat or not. Harriett had smiled courteously as she’d briefly taken his hand as well, but her eyes had been sharp and piercing, and the fact that they were very nearly the same shade of blue as Corrin’s was more than a little unsettling for the Slytherin spy.

She knows. The thought had lanced through him like a javelin of ice, a flicker of fear in its frosty wake, though he just as swiftly put both down with equally cold reason. Corrin hadn’t told anyone about the details of their friendship--after what had happened when Blaire tried to send him a simple letter over the summer hols, that much was certain. But the real question was: had Corrin told anyone about what Blaire had done to him last year? Once again, the Slytherin spy was inclined to doubt it: if he had shared the full truth of his school experience over the last few months, Harriett likely would’ve come at Blaire with her wand drawn...and Blaire would’ve let it happen. Whatever curse she threw at him, whatever jinx she spat, whatever hex she slung at him...he deserved all of it and more. Ultimately, nothing and none of them could possibly hurt him even a fraction as much as doing everything he’d done--and seeing how much pain Corrin was in--had hurt him.

But she hadn’t. She hadn’t, and so Blaire had (rightly) believed that perhaps...perhaps she knew something of what her youngest child had been through, and perhaps she suspected that Blaire had been involved in some way, considering that summer-sent letter what felt like half a century ago, an entirely different time. The idea of that perhaps was unnerving enough that Blaire had resolved to do his utmost to never let himself get caught alone with Corrin’s all-too-sharp mother.

And yet. And yet here he was, having accidentally subjected himself to exactly that circumstance.

With more than a hint of desperation, he went over his options, but ultimately, and almost immediately, he realized that there was nothing for it. He would simply have to leave as quickly as possible, avoid eye contact or any exchange of social niceties however banal and harmless-seeming, get himself out the door and back into the distinct and much more easily decipherable danger of being a kneazle among krups back at Death Eater headquarters.

Of course, he could simply shift into his Animagus form and let himself out a window, but then it would be entirely too obvious that he was avoiding her, and that wouldn’t do either. Harriett Wiseacre already had enough reasons to dislike and mistrust him; he didn’t need to act suspicious or underhanded to give her any more.

And so after steeling himself, Blaire drew in and released a few deep breaths, pulled the hood up on his cloak, and marched himself resolutely into the proverbial lion’s den--or perhaps not so proverbial, she had been a Gryffindor back during her school days.

It was actually fairly impressive, how calm Blaire seemed, how unhurried and carefully-measured his pace was as he made his way through the kitchen and towards the door, moving behind Harriett, who was now seated at the table, sipping a steaming cup of tea. He didn’t creep or sneak, though if he was intentionally treading more lightly than usual, who could fault him for that? Even so, just as it had every time before, the very sight of Harriett Wiseacre shook him. She looked so much like Corrin--or rather, he looked like her--that Blaire was left feeling distinctly uncomfortable whenever he was in her presence, even in passing like this. Those blue eyes really were very nearly the same colour (Corrin’s were just a touch lighter, a bit more vibrantly cerulean), and though the face they were set in was older, with the faintest spiderweb of wrinkles at the corners of her eyes and mouth, the freckles, the curly brown hair, and the cute snub nose were all very much the same. Her frame was more matronly and less slight than her youngest son’s, of course, but the diminutive stature and their compact, self-possessed way of moving was alike as well.

As was the stubborn set of her jaw and the nearly defiant tilt of her chin as she called after him, “Wait.”

Blaire paused with his hand on the door handle, heart in his throat, and he had to fight to force down a wild, hysterical urge to ignore that single-word command and bolt out the door anyway, escaping as a raven into the churning grey skies of London. But no, if he was going to run, it would’ve been better to slip out a window; as was proving a common theme of late, he’d already made his decision. Now he had to live with it, and accept any and all consequences.

Silently his hand whispered away from the door, falling back to his side to hang there limply, and after another half-second spent biting his lip and drawing in a deep breath, the Slytherin spy turned his hooded head Harriett’s way, the rest of his body following after with visible reluctance and caution. He took in her dauntless expression, the tension in her jaw, the resolute angle of her chin, and fought to keep a visible shiver from wracking his whole body, though even Blaire himself couldn’t say whether it was from fear or something else.

Harriett Wiseacre was still seated at that humble, worn wooden table with a grace and dignity that would have paralleled that of even the most aristocratic of pureblood witches--which made sense, Blaire knew, since Harriett’s maiden name had been Greengrass. In fact, Blaire had learned after a bit of easy research two summers ago that Harriet’s grandmother had been a Harrowgate, the younger sister of Blaire’s great-grandfather, which meant that she--and Corrin, and all the rest of the Wiseacre siblings--was Blaire’s distant cousin.

They were closer than he’d known, at least at first. Perhaps that was why he hadn’t been able to simply walk past Corrin that day in the hallway; perhaps blood called to blood in ways deeper than they knew.

...Or perhaps it was something else that bound them together, trailing threads of fate, or strings of the Weave, or both.

Perhaps they were one and the same.

Those musing thoughts fell away as Harriett Wiseacre continued to regard him with a not quite imperious sort of steadiness. It wasn’t a cold expression, exactly, but it wasn’t a warm one either. It was analytical, measuring, clinical: she was studying him, weighing him. And as their eyes met and that gaze held, the near-constant use of Legilimency Blaire had been forced to employ over the last year and a half caught up with him; thanks to the fear vibrating through him, he couldn’t help reflexively reading the most surface-level of her thoughts for a few desperate, defensive seconds.

‒Looks so young, he’s still just a boy--younger than the twins by five years? Four years? Certainly only a few years older than my Cor. And a Death Eater already. A shame, terrible shame. And yet Dumbledore said we could trust him, though I don’t completely trust Dumbledore’s judgment, especially these days. But this boy has been helpful so far, and Dumbledore said--promised me--that Blaire Harrowgate would burn down the world to protect Corrin, if he had to. Seems rather drastic, but then again, Merlin knows I’d do the same‒

With a deft mental twist and a bit of effort, Blaire pulled back, reining himself in, though the contact had been so light, so brief, that he was quite secure in thinking Mrs. Wiseacre wouldn’t have noticed it at all. From the way she continued to simply scrutinize him, calm and careful, he was all but certain of it.

When she finally broke the miniature eternity contained in that silence and spoke, what she said wasn’t the last thing he’d expected, simply because he hadn’t expected it at all:

“It’s just turned time for tea, and I don’t fancy taking it alone today. Won’t you join me?”

Though phrased as a question, there was a subtle steel in her tone and a keen azure fire in her eyes that made it plain that she wasn’t really asking. Swallowing down another frigid, choking wave of rising panic, Blaire inclined his head, hesitating only a fraction of a moment before moving to take a seat at the long kitchen table, warily sitting across from the steaming cup of tea Harriett had just poured for herself.

Harriett had stepped back over to the stove, retrieving a second tea cup with an absent flick of her wand; another flick sent both it, a little pitcher of cream, and the sugar bowl darting over to the table, settling in front of Blaire with a neat clinking of dishware. A moment later she turned back from the stove, kettle in hand, and poured his tea for him before setting a plate of shortbread cookies on the table between them.

“...So, Harrowgate…‘Blaire’, isn’t it?” She wasn’t certain of his first name; she didn’t have any doubts about the second, that much was clear.

“Yes ma’am,” he murmured, hesitating a moment before drinking his tea black; despite the fact that it had been more than a year since he’d had any reason to do so, he still felt the strange urge to add cream and an unhealthy amount of sugar to his tea every time. Not so surprising, really, as deeply as he wished that the source of that odd impulse, the reason he’d developed a tolerance, if not a taste for that too-sweet flavour, was still at his side.

“ ‘Harriett’ will do. You’re an adult now, after all,” she said, even as she slid the plate of shortbread biscuits closer to him. “ ‘Mrs. Wiseacre’ works as well, if you’d rather.”

“Mrs. Wiseacre,” he agreed with faint relief and, under her watchful eye, took a cookie and hastily bit into it. They were simple but sweet, delightfully buttery and crumbly: in short, the perfect shortbread biscuit. Blaire chewed slowly, appreciatively, and his next bite was far more enthusiastic, as was the way he took another pair of cookies from the plate. It was his first taste of the famous Wiseacre Home Cooking he’d heard so much about, and it left him very much hungry for more, in more ways than one.

“So,” Harriett began after he’d eaten that second pair of biscuits, setting down her empty teacup with a resolute purposefulness and folding her hands together loosely as she looked across the table at Blaire, who was visibly trying to resist a powerful temptation to take more cookies. “Why would someone with as much to gain from von Cromwell’s schemes as a Harrowgate choose to side with the Order? If you don’t mind my asking,” she added, but that was an afterthought, only said to be polite, to provide him with a way out if he really didn’t want to talk about it. It would look fairly suspicious though, if someone with his background didn’t have a good reason for joining the Order that they were willing to share, and they both knew it.

“...This is where I’m supposed to say something like, ‘You sound more like a Ravenclaw than a Gryffindor’, right?” Blaire murmured, a weak attempt at humour while he decided what to tell the very sensible witch seated across from him. Harriett didn’t crack a smile though; she simply sat and waited for him to give a real answer. Careful to keep his hands from shaking, Blaire wet his suddenly-dry mouth with a sip of bitter black tea, then looked back up to meet her eyes, steady and intentional, ready to tell her the truth. “I joined because there’s someone I want to keep safe. I didn’t have a choice about this-” His hand hovered over the sleeve covering his left forearm, resting briefly atop that hidden, hateful Mark before fluttering away, back to his tea cup and the welcome warmth it provided his cold fingers. “But I did have a choice about how to make use of the position I’m in now. I...I have a lot to make up for, and I’m sure that will only become more and more true the longer there are Death Eaters freely roaming about in the streets at night.” Swallowing hard and wishing he could have another drink of tea, Blaire forced himself not to look away as he made a quiet, careful admission. “...There are already far too many things I’ve had to do that I never, ever would have chosen to do under normal circumstances...or if I’d thought that I had any other choice in the matter.”

They sat in an uneasy sort of silence for a few moments, the tension only breaking when one of the pots on the stove hissed as it frothed over and Harriett got up to give it a stir and check on how the contents were coming along. A heavenly aroma filled the air as she lifted the lid, and for the first time in months, Blaire felt suddenly, ravenously hungry as the rich scent of whatever it was she was cooking assailed his senses.

“When did you graduate from Hogwarts? Last year?”

Blaire wasn’t expecting the question, not least of all because she was turned away from him, and how casual and conversational it sounded after such a prolonged, awkward silence threw him off a bit as well. “Yes m--Mrs. Wiseacre,” he answered after only a moment’s pause, smoothly catching himself before he addressed her incorrectly.

“Three years, then...” Without looking back, she gave a flick of her wand, refilling Blaire’s teacup. “You’ve the build of a Quidditch player, so I’m certain you knew Cade and Reed. Did you know Corrin as well? He was in advanced Potions classes, though you are in different houses, so perhaps not?”

“Slytherin had double Potions with Ravenclaw during my fifth year. He was in my class, yes--we were Potions partners, actually.” He hesitated, uncertain about how to proceed, how to best explain what had happened between himself and Harriett’s youngest son, then decided to take a more Gryffindor stance, considering present company. “I liked him. We...we became good friends, actually.”

At that Harriett did look around at him, her expression impossible to read, a shifting mixture of too many emotions to fully label them all, though he caught a mingled hint of cautious warmth, curiosity, and guarded skepticism before she turned her face away again.

...I should just tell her. Tell her everything. It was a terrifying prospect, decidedly un-Slytherin in its reckless and injudicious nature, but...putting aside the very real fear that Harriett Wiseacre might hex him into the next century in the middle of his explanation, there was a part of Blaire that wanted to know if what he’d done was at all understandable, if not quite acceptable, to anyone else. She wouldn’t like what he’d chosen to do in order to protect Corrin, of that he was certain, but then again he himself hadn’t liked it, either.

...But also potentially relevant to all this was the fact that Harriett and her husband had both decided against telling Corrin anything about his prophecy, so they both might very well understand doing something unpleasant for the sake of protecting someone they cared about. Corrin likely didn’t even know that von Cromwell was after him, specifically, for his power to both see and touch the Weave--not that von Cromwell knew that Corrin was the one who possessed that power. Not yet. If Blaire had any say in the matter, the Dork Lord would never learn that particular piece of intel; but for all the muscle-bound, head-nodding sycophants swelling the ranks of the Death Eaters, there were still quite a few who were clever and cunning, and who knew how to get all sorts of information. There was a Rookwood in Corrin’s year, a Bainbridge one year below him, and a Montague in the year ahead of him, to name just a few of the possible pure-blood insider informants currently on the prowl at Hogwarts itself. That wasn’t to say that all the Slytherin students would side with the Dork Lord when the time came, but there were definitely a few with their eyes already focused on the glittering prospect of a little bit of well-rewarded social climbing.

The Slytherin spy picked up another shortbread biscuit as he tried to figure out the best way to begin his explanation, munching on it absently, but then Harriett spoke again, breaking in on his thoughts.

“...Corrin doesn’t tell me very much in his letters home these days.”

Her tone was mild and musing, and she gave the largest pot on the stove one final stir, tapping the spoon sharply against its rim before putting the lid back on, setting the spoon aside, and returning to her place at the table across from him. Calmly, she poured herself another cup of tea and helped herself to a biscuit as she went on:

“Oh, he writes plenty, but...none of it really tells me anything. About how he’s doing, what his school life is like.”

Blaire swallowed hard, the bite of cookie he’d just taken turning to ash and gravel in his mouth, burning and ripping at his throat on the way down. A timely drink of tea kept him from choking, but it was near thing, and he had to take a moment longer than he’d wanted to swallow again, and even then he couldn’t quite find his voice, nor even the nerve to look up from the dark amber depths of that warm, comforting cup of tea. He knew his body language--the tense shoulders, the lack of eye contact, the way he pressed his lips together in a thin line--spoke well enough for him.

“They’re not at all like his letters were during his second and third years at school. Then, I could tell that he was happy. That he’d found his place. That he had found at least one good friend to spend time with.” Harriett paused, and Blaire watched from beneath his eyelashes as she took a composed drink from her own cup of tea before continuing. “Last year was when they changed. When they went back to how they’d been during his first year. Plenty of talk of classwork and lessons and the like, the odd mention of time spent with Rowan...but nothing else.”

She was waiting for him to say something, he knew. To tell her that he was the reason for both changes, to admit to what he’d done. But though he drew in a slow, shaking breath in preparation of doing just that, when he went to speak, his voice wouldn’t come, his words wouldn’t form properly, shifting and melting away as completely as a message written in sand on a beach during high tide. Jaw clenching painfully tight, all Blaire could do was close his eyes and bow his head, letting the wisping warmth from his tea waft up over his face, a comforting caress that he knew he didn’t deserve.

That reaction, however slight, was more than enough to confirm things for Harriett Wiseacre. For a moment her eyes went even more sharp and piercing, her mouth going thin and tight as she reined in a protective motherly impulse to snap and snarl at the weary, guilty, haunted-looking boy seated across from her. But he was just a boy, regardless of how old his eyes looked, and the self-torment he was dealing with was plain to see, so instead-

“Have another biscuit, Blaire. You’re long finished with the ones you took before.”

Blaire’s head jerked up at both her easy use of his first name and that unexpectedly mundane offer, pale green eyes wide with disbelief and not entirely misplaced wariness. When he didn’t give any other response, Harriett gave a low huff that was caught somewhere between exasperation and amusement and scooped up three cookies, depositing them on the newly-summoned plate in front of him.

“Eat up, now. I can tell you’re the lean sort, but you’re verging on alarmingly thin, as far as I’m concerned.”

Another space of silence stretched between them as Blaire obediently munched away at the biscuits, washing them down with the last of his second cup of tea. He still had no idea where to begin, whether he should start with an apology or an explanation, and the conflict showed on his face, which was much more expressive and far less guarded than usual. Perceptive as she was, Harriett Wiseacre didn’t miss the mental struggle going on inside the young wizard, and she decided to try to help him along. For a moment her eyes lingered on his hair, which was a distinct russet brown, and a sudden suspicion struck her.

“...Corrin’s most recent letter was interesting--and unusual. This time, he mentioned something about a strangely intelligent raven that had visited him...”

Blaire’s eyes briefly widened again for a telling moment as Harriett took a bite out of a biscuit, chewing thoroughly and unhurriedly before she continued:

“He said that it had saved him from some very serious trouble, and that it kept calling him its friend. He wrote to ask if it belonged to anyone in the Order, and if so, he wanted to know who it was so that he could thank them properly.” Harriett’s smile was small but knowing, and held the tentative beginnings of warmth and acceptance as she looked over at Blaire. “I don’t suppose you’d know anything about that, now. Would you, Blaire?”

It was that burgeoning, nascent warmth that broke him.

After everything he’d done to her son, things that Harriett Wiseacre could have no idea about--things she definitely didn’t have any idea about, otherwise she would’ve turned him inside out and then put him together backwards with a hailstorm of curses and jinxes and hexes the instant she laid eyes on him, and rightly so--she was still sitting there smiling at him with a kindness that Blaire recognised, and that he only now realised had been passed down to Corrin from her, his mother.

A kindness that the Slytherin spy didn’t deserve.

She should hate him--she would hate him if she knew--because after all, Blaire spent most of his time hating himself and what he’d had to become over the last year and few months, so how could a righteous-minded, justice-seeking Gryffindor like Harriett Wiseacre ever do otherwise? He shouldn’t be receiving this sort of benevolence from her, hadn’t earned the beginnings or even the barest trace of something almost like affection from this brave, strong, compassionate woman who had brought the most wonderfully important person in Blaire’s life into the world. By all accounts, she should hate him. She should hate him, hate him, hate him-

“It wasn’t enough.” The words wrenched their way out of Blaire, his voice thick with emotion and unshed tears as they ripped their way up his throat, his face crumpling in unmasked anguish. “It isn’t enough to make up for—to make up—f-for-”

That was as far as he got before his throat closed up, and he had bury his face in his hands to hide the tears, had to clench his jaw so hard that his teeth ached to hold back the broken sob that was trying to work its way up from somewhere deep inside of him, an echo of the way his very soul had been screaming ever since that horrible Mark was seared into his left forearm more than a year ago now. A curtain of darkness seemed to fall around the Slytherin spy, closing him off from his present location in that musty, cozy London kitchen as he lost control for the first time in years. As panic and despair wrapped around him, he was plunged into the worst parts of his own memories, and all he could see was the way Corrin had frozen then sagged in place on being told that he couldn’t sit at the Slytherin table, the look of hurt and confusion angled up at him whenever he called him Wiseacre instead of using his given name, the panic and fear in Corrin’s eyes that day in Potions when he’d slapped him. All he could hear was the faint echo of sobs drifting out of the Hospital Wing, the horrible waver and hitch in Corrin’s voice whenever he said Harrowgate, the ghastly, hideous sound of breaking bones.

And then a firm hand was gripping his shoulder, the unexpected contact startling enough to tear Blaire out of the suffocating whirl of remembered thoughts, feelings, sights, and sounds, leaving him looking up into the worried face of Harriett Wiseacre. That worry faded and shifted into concern and sympathy, and the hand still resting on his shoulder gave a gentle squeeze.

–Really still is just a child, and now forced to be a soldier. As if surviving his family and the war itself wouldn’t be hard enough, Dumbledore, now you have to bring him on as a double agent? You’re going to get him killed. Him and so many others.

Her thoughts poured through his head unbidden and this time it was harder for Blaire to pull himself back from reading them; but as a point of hot anger glinting in her eyes for a brief moment faded, he finally managed to regain control of himself. Ducking his head, he hastily swiped at his eyes and cheeks, shame washing over him at looking so pitiable, so wretched, so weak in front of his best friend’s mother.

But Harriett didn’t recoil at the sight of his tears, didn’t frown down at him with disapproval or icy disappointment, didn’t snap at him and tell him to stop blubbering. Instead she seemed to soften even more, the hand on his shoulder shifting to rub across his back comfortingly as she made comforting little shushing noises.

“There there, now. Go on, little one, cry if you need to, but there’s no need to be afraid of me or anyone else in the Order. Right now you’re safe--nothing will harm you here, you have my word on that.”

That gentle hand began to pause every so often, giving him a few soft pats before resuming the previous soothing rubbing, and it was tender and genuinely caring enough that it almost made Blaire break down all over again. This time he managed to stay in control however, digging into his robes to pull out his pocket handkerchief and subtly turning his head away while he removed any and all traces of unwanted moisture. Before he knew it, he’d halfway slipped back into using his Legilimancy, and could feel Harriett’s amusement at his behaviour mingling with appreciation for his good manners, though there was a trace of something melancholy in that latter emotion.

For several long minutes, Harriett continued to fuss over him, pouring him another cup of tea, giving him a few more biscuits, humming and murmuring reassuring little nothings, and through it all, her hand stayed on his back. Blaire found himself staring at the dim, wavering reflection of her face in his newly-refilled tea cup, uncertain about what he was feeling, what he should be feeling, whether he should be allowing himself to be feeling anything at all.

But the truth of the matter was, being here like this with Harriett Wiseacre was...nice. No, it was more than just nice. It was wonderful, a welcome relief to have someone care about him again, to be shown some simple, honest affection.

No one aside from Corrin had ever really done that for him.

Little by little, Harriett’s hand slowed, until finally it was resting atop one of his shoulder blades. After a few seconds, Blaire chanced another swift look up at her, and found her expression resolute yet still kindly, with a hint of uncomfortably-knowing compassion.

“...No matter what you’ve done,” she murmured with a velvet-over-steel conviction, “that doesn’t change the fact that last week, you saved my boy’s life. I can tell that he means a lot to you--mother’s intuition is a real thing, you know--and I’d even hazard a guess that you’re the friend he wrote about in his letters so often a few years back.” She paused, and Blaire felt his stomach drop when she went on, “...I can also guess why he’d stop mentioning you last year. Harrowgates are known Death Eaters, the whole family’s been blood purists for generations, and your father doesn’t have a merciful bone in his body. He wouldn’t take kindly to his youngest child befriending a blood-traitor… especially not after von Cromwell escaped Azkaban. And you were afraid that Ulysses might do something...drastic in response, if he found out how close you were to Corrin.”

Blaire swallowed hard, trying to keep himself from shaking beneath Harriett’s hand and mostly succeeding. But only mostly.

“Am I close?” she asked after a moment, and Blaire let out an unsteady, humorless little laugh.

“Are you...quite certain that you shouldn’t have been a Ravenclaw? That’s a compliment, by the way. My…” His throat closed up again for a moment, but once again he swallowed hard, forcing a faint smile to his face as he went on, turning his face up towards her again as he said with unwavering pride despite the pain in his eyes, “My best friend is a Ravenclaw.”

He had to look away after just that brief moment of eye contact, but he heard Harriett draw in a soft, sharp breath, and felt her hand pressing against his back just a little harder for a fraction of a second. A moment later, that breath was escaping her in a quiet, half-snorted chuckle, and she gave his shoulder a few more pats before finally moving away, returning to her place across from him.

For a moment they were quiet, Harriett simply waiting while Blaire watched the faint curls of steam rising from his tea. Suddenly feeling extremely thirsty again, Blaire reached for that cup--then stopped, staring down into the clear liquid, considering. Then, drawing himself up decidedly, he reached for the sugar bowl, taking two heaping spoonfuls and stirring them into his tea before adding a generous splash of milk. Closing his eyes as he brought the cup to his lips, he breathed in the rich, delicious scent of it before taking a slow, careful mouthful. Even though he’d added less sugar that he would’ve for a certain someone else, it was still far sweeter than he generally liked, but...it was also how he’d gotten used to taking his tea during a happier time not so long ago. Taking it this way now, when his reason for growing accustomed to it was so far removed from his life, was painful, but in a bittersweet sort of way. It was a remembrance, a way of reminding himself of one small facet of his best friend’s character, a way to feel closer to Corrin despite the necessary distance he’d placed between them.

“...I haven’t been a very good friend lately,” Blaire confessed quietly, eyes still downcast as he lowered his tea cup back to its saucer with a quiet clink, guilt making everything in his chest and midriff give a painful twist. “I...I’ve been...cruel to him. I...pushed him away last year, and hurt him terribly, and not just psychologically either. Every good thing I did for him, every bit of confidence I’d helped to inspire...all of it was just...destroyed. It was for his own good, to keep him safe, but...still, I…I didn’t mean for...I never wanted that.”

Harriett stiffened slightly as the Slytherin spy made his admission--aside from what Professor Flitwick had told her and Ozzy in the letter he’d sent to them last week, she didn’t know much about what Corrin had been going through. The most recent incident with the fountain and the attempted drowning had been heavily detailed, but otherwise the Ravenclaw House Leader’s letter had only covered things in a general manner, without sharing any specifics (apparently at Corrin’s own request); but Blaire’s words, while also fairly unspecific, still painted a much more clear and cohesive picture of what her youngest son had endured. Motherly indignation was swelling inside her again now, just as it had on receiving that letter from Flitwick, but seeing how increasingly miserable Blaire had looked with every halting word stifled her temper somewhat, turning bright-hot anger into steely determination--the sort that she wanted to reinforce in the inwardly defeated, downtrodden child before her as well.

Drawing herself up, Harriett put her own tea cup down firmly--enough so that Blaire looked up on reflex, meeting her eyes and then freezing on realising what he’d done, the likely trap he’d fallen into. But Harriett wasn’t scowling at him, wasn’t glaring or anything of the sort; instead she simply looked stern, shades of her former Head of House showing in the set of her jaw and the sharpness of her eyes. “You’re here now, risking your life to protect him, aren’t you?” It was more of a challenge than a question, and she added with equal conviction, “I’d say that makes you a pretty decent friend.”

Blaire’s gaze skittered sideways and down, finally focusing on his hands, folded tightly around his tea cup. “But...the things I did to him...that I let other people do to him, while I just stood by and watched-”

“Sounds to me like you only did that because you had to, not because you wanted to. That might not make it good, and it certainly doesn’t make it easy, but I don’t think it makes it wrong.”

Startled, the Slytherin spy’s eyes flicked upwards again, searching Harriett’s face for any sort of lie. But for all her obvious intelligence, she was a Gryffindor through and through: bold, brazen, and forthright, without any hint of deception about her.

“No matter what you’ve done, you’ve never stopped caring about him, have you. Otherwise, why would you have even been at Hogwarts as an unregistered Animagus last week? Why were you there just when he happened to need someone most?” Harriett shook her head in bemusement, her eyes going distant. “He’s told us about it, the way he can see these ‘threads’ of magic or what-have-you, and while I’m fairly certain this isn’t at all what he meant or how they work...I’d say you still must be bound to him somehow. Divination is a great lot of rot by and large, but magic as a whole is a curious thing...and I don’t have to be able to see these thread-things of Cor’s to know that you’ve tied your fate to his.”

“...If it’ll keep him alive, I’ll do anything,” Blaire admitted quietly, absently picking at one of the biscuits on the plate in front of him. “No matter how terrible, no how much it costs me.”

“He won’t thank you for that, you know. He’s never liked to be coddled. He’ll be angry that you didn’t tell him anything.”

“...I know. I don’t expect forgiveness, much less gratitude. I know that…our friendship is likely ruined, forever, and that I did it by my own hand. But...even so...”

Harriett didn’t seem to have a ready response to that, and for a time the only sound was the quiet burble of the pots on the stove and the soft plink of raindrops on the windows.

“...You’re still so young,” she said at last. “Doing all this, playing the double agent, could very easily get you killed. Michelangelo von Cromwell is no fool, and I don’t have to tell you how cunning and clever a bunch Slytherins can be. You’ll be hard-pressed to stay a step ahead of them all.”

“I don’t care how difficult it is. I didn’t join the Order because I thought it would be easy. I can’t take back what I did, what I had to do. And I can’t make up for it, either. Not really. But...this is something that only I can do, and it’s important. If it helps keep Corrin safe, if it gives him a better chance to defeat von Cromwell, then I don’t care what happens to me.”

The cookie in Blaire’s hand crumbled into two very separate, very broken pieces, and he couldn’t keep the barest hint of a wry smirk off his face at how perfectly that represented both himself and his relationship with Corrin.

“Even if I do manage to live through it all, I’ll likely end up with a life sentence in Azkaban. Unless Dumbledore decides to testify for me for some reason, which I doubt.” Blaire crushed both halves of the biscuit as he thought about his last two meetings with the wily old Headmaster, letting the crumbs trickle out from between his fingers to form a little pile on the plate. “Dying wouldn’t be so bad, compared to that.” Compared to living out the rest of my life alone, with the only person I care about hating me for everything I did to keep him safe.

“You’re far too young to be talking like that.”

“What--truthfully, or realistically?”

Harriett exhaled a breathy snort through her nose, her mouth pulling to one side, and she looked very much like she wanted to swat at his shoulder. “That’s more like it. Smart-arse comments to older folk is much more in-line with your current age.”

It was Blaire’s turn to huff out a low chuckle, though his lopsided smile was much smaller than Harriett’s. “If you think I don’t act precisely the age that I should, you’ve never met my sister. And that’s a lucky thing, to be entirely honest. I hope it doesn’t ever change.”

Would that I’d never met her, either. I would believe it to be a happier world...

Harriett’s smile had faded at that, and once again she was studying him, those blue eyes shrewd and considering. Blaire felt oddly exposed beneath that gaze, as if his entire self was an open book that she could read freely, regardless of all his skill at Occlumency.

She looked very much as if there was something she wanted to say, but even as she drew breath to do so, the front door slammed open with a reverberating bang, followed by the sound of two pairs of booted feet scuffling their way inside. After (enthusiastically, by the sound of it) stomping off any lingering moisture from the streets on the entryway mat, two very nearly identical twenty-something wizards all but tumbled into the kitchen, one of them holding forth a plastic grocery bag triumphantly.

“Hey Mum, we brought the butter you wanted forrrrrrrrrWHAT is HE doing HERE-”

“Cade Everard Irwin Wiseacre, you put your hand down this instant.”

Flinching visibly at the snap in his mother’s voice, Cade did as he was told with an immediacy that indicated it was reflex for him to obey her when she used that tone. Harriett, meanwhile, merely scowled at him over the rim of her tea cup as she went on, each word falling like the sharp lash of a fresh-cut switch.

“I know I taught you better manners than that, for all that you still regularly behave as if you were born in a barn. Pointing at people is abysmally rude--as is pointing wands at our allies, Reed Balzac Esherick Wiseacre.”

“But Mum-”

“Don’t either of you ‘but Mum’ me-”

“But MUM, he’s a DEATH EATER-”

“Did he use the Imperius Curse on you-”

“Did he use the Imperius Curse on Dumbledore-”

“Did-”

“Oh, ENOUGH already!” Slamming her hands flat on the table, Harriett shot to her feet, turning a glare hot enough to heat metal on her two loudest and most boisterous children. “Blaire is a spy who works for the Order. Your father and Garrett and I have known that for weeks now. It’s on Dumbledore’s orders, which would ordinarily give me pause, but I’ve spoken with Blaire and in this one case, at least, I believe that Dumbledore was right. If we’re ever going to make any headway against the Death Eaters in general and von Cromwell in particular, we need good, detailed information regarding their plans, and having an inside man for certain things might prove useful, too.” Posting her fists on her ample hips, she turned an imperious gaze back and forth between her sons. “So unless the two of you honestly think that you’re more clever than Dumbledore, and smarter than both your father and myself, then stop shouting and pointing, and sit down and have some tea and biscuits. And put away that butter before it gets too warm, Reed.”

The twins exchanged glances, looked at Harriett, exchanged glances again, then looked over at Blaire, who was still sitting placidly at the table, drinking his tea and eating the last piece of shortbread on his plate. The Slytherin spy had remained calm and silent the whole time, not so much as twitching a hand towards his own wand despite having Reed’s aimed at him.

Still looking wary, both twins slowly moved to sit at the table, both of them rather pointedly sitting on Harriett’s side of the table. They were silent for a few moments as they tucked into the tea and biscuits, but their eyes never really left Blaire, watchful as a pair of suspicious guard dogs. Finally, after he’d finished his first cup of tea, Reed piped up to state the obvious:

“...You are aware, aren’t you Mum, that you’re having tea with a Harrowgate?”

“And feeding him our biscuits, too,” Cade grumbled around a cheek-swellingly large mouthful of buttery, crumbly cookie.

Harriett had gone to the stove to check on the pots again, but at that her eyebrows shot up, and she turned a cool look Cade’s way. “Your biscuits, are they? Well now, I didn’t realise that you’d baked this shortbread--or that you had to be the one who baked it in order to eat it. But, now that that’s been established-” With a flick of her wand, she snatched both Cade and Reed’s plates from in front of them, relocating them to the counter behind her, decidedly out of easy reach. “-I guess you’ll just have to settle for the tea, then. Unless you’re willing to behave like proper adults and share the biscuits that I made, that is?”

The twins just stared at her for a moment, speechless, startled by both the abrupt removal of their plates and the lingering shock of having a Harrowgate sitting at the table in the invisible, unplottable headquarters of their intentionally obscure secret society and taking tea with their mother, casual and composed as you please.

Harriett stopped scowling at her sons long enough to turn a smile Blaire’s way; and while it wasn’t a wide smile, it was a warm one, tentative but with the definite beginnings of trust--and what was more, something like the start of tenderness and affection.

“Oh don’t worry, Blaire dear, I’m not about to punish you for the blundering discourtesy of my children. Eat up, there’s plenty more where that shortbread came from--two more plates of it than I’d expected to have left, in fact.”

“But MUM-”

“How COULD you-”

“We were just CONCERNED-”

“Just trying to PROTECT you-”

“And who says I need protecting?” Harriett cut in, a hint of challenge and growing heat in her voice, “especially by my own children? Do you honestly think that after raising the two of you that I can’t handle a Death Eater or seven on my own?”

She definitely had a point, but even so the twins continued to yowl their protest, both at allowing a Death Eater to be part of the Order and at having their biscuits taken away, though the latter seemed to be the more sore point by far.

...And for the first time in well over a year, Blaire Harrowgate found himself smiling. It was small and thin, so slight as to be almost nonexistent, but it was real. He couldn’t seem to help it. The warmth he felt spreading through his chest as he watched Harriett mother them as they squabbled was unfamiliar, almost uncomfortable in its foreignness; and yet at the same time, he wouldn’t really say that it was bad. It was just strange, perhaps even slightly incomprehensible, especially when juxtaposed with his own family’s usual behaviour towards each other-

“Blaire, dear, would you like to stay for dinner?” Harriett’s sudden question mercifully broke in on his thoughts before they could take any darkly downwards turns. “You don’t have to worry about your cover--it should just be Ozzy, Garrett, and maybe Rosemary, if she can get away from the pub long enough to join us for the meal. All of us know about you already.”

Blaire was certain that, for once, his expression was simple to read: he’d given a small start of surprise, eyes going wide even as his shoulders tensed at the unexpected--and unexpectedly warm--offer. In his peripheral vision, he could see both the Wiseacre twins scowling at him (Cade more fiercely than Reed, whose frown was really more reflective than resentful now), but that wasn’t particularly important to him. They hadn’t liked him back in school, and he didn’t expect them to like him now, even if they were on the same side of things this time. He hadn’t particularly liked them during their school days either, and he wasn’t certain that would ever change, or if he even wanted it to...

...And judging by her expectant (and was it a little hopeful, or was that just wishful thinking on his part) stare and raised eyebrows, Harriett was waiting for him to give an answer.

But when Blaire opened his mouth to give his reply--acceptance, obviously--at first nothing came out, his voice getting thoroughly lost somewhere in the choking swell of emotion rising in his throat...because while he was certain that the food would be fantastic and the company not all that bad either, if he was entirely honest, he wished that Corrin could be there, too. The Wiseacre he most wanted to spend time with and eat a meal next to again wouldn’t be present, couldn’t be present--not without a great bloody row, in any case.

Still. This was a step closer to experiencing a full Wiseacre family meal than he’d ever hoped to get, at least after having that hateful Mark seared into him.

For now, and perhaps from now on, Blaire would take whatever he could get.

“...Yes. Thank you, Mrs. Wiseacre. I’d like that...very much.”