Chapter Text
Caelum isn’t sure how exactly his father finds out about the Potions Monthly article. Perhaps Master Whitaker had let it slip or perhaps Master Snape had been careless. His godfather Rookwood wasn’t even a bad guess, perhaps Rookwood was connected enough to get advance copies of Potions Monthly. It was possible Lord Riddle had found out somehow through his spy networks and confronted Lord Lestrange. It is irrelevant. The point is that his father knows. Soon his mother will know and then everyone in the Potions Community and quite possibly the Wizarding World will know. He’s on borrowed time.
Caelum had been waiting for something to happen for weeks and when it did it was almost anti-climactic. A non-descript owl arrives with a letter from his father inviting him to Dartmoor Castle for a “discussion about his behavior and how it reflects on his family and pureblood society at a time of political turmoil when pureblood values are under greater attack than ever before”. Caelum incinerates it. He supposes that his father hasn’t shared news of the article with his mother- the note isn’t cursed.
Caelum had long ago moved out of his father’s Diagon Alley property into his own apartment above Mulpeppers. He has no intention of telling his parents or anyone other than Pucey where he lives. His retroactive intern pay and equalization apprenticeship pay have gone into an assortment of protective devices including an invisibility cloak that should last a full year. He isn’t exactly looking forward to his mother seeing his Potions Monthly cover but he should at least survive the immediate aftermath of her rage. Hopefully anyway.
He’s not sleeping well. He finds himself waking up in the middle of the night cursing spiders and noises from the floor beneath him. He keeps turning around and looking for figures in the shadows. He’s tempted to just send the periodical to his mother and get the worst of her anger over with. Anything is better than simply waiting.
He wonders into Mulpeppers wearing his cloak and shrugs it off once inside. There’s a vaguely familiar face there and he can’t resist an insult. This is all her fault after all.
“If it isn’t little Miss Homeless,” he says.
“Somehow you’re even uglier than you were before, halfblood.”
It’s not true but he hopes it will provoke a rise out of her.
“Lestrange,” she said flatly “how did you even recognize me?”
Caelum stared at her. Had there ever been another teenaged girl at Mulpeppers? And one who looked like they dressed in cast offs from a bargain bin at that. He’d know her anywhere.
“Who else could you be?”
“What does that mean?”
She looked completely confused. It wasn’t a look he was used to seeing on her face. She was holding a package, clearly on her way out the door and he desperately wanted to know what was in it. He needed to get her to stay a bit longer until he got a bit of information out of her.
“I’ve heard you haven’t been in America all these years. They’re saying you slept on the streets of London to let your pureblood cousin lark it up across the pond in your place.”
“That’s ridiculous,” Harry said growling at him. Caelum was a bit surprised, usually this sort of banter wouldn’t get a rise out of her.
Caelum smiled sarcastically at her. “You know, you could have crashed with me if you were so desperate.”
It’s his way of saying, I’ve been here this last year and all summer and you haven’t bothered to write.
”Let’s not be utterly absurd.”
Caelum glares at her. How dare she scorn his help after all the work he has been doing to promote and perfect her technique.
"What’s absurd is the idea of you slumming it in the alleys for four years instead of attending school like a normal person. It’s no wonder you’ve come up with so many incongruously insane new potioneering methods – you had all the time in the world, and no idea what right even looked like, did you?"
Even Caelum is surprised by the rage boiling up inside him. No wonder she’s gotten so far ahead. She’s playing by different rules than everyone else.
Harry looks oddly defensive. She’s put a hand on her hip and looks surprisingly feminine. He wonders if she’s going to invite him out for some sort of meal. That’s usually her response when he is particularly rude to her.
“I’m sure there’s a compliment in there, but as usual it’s buried under two decades of prejudice and rubbish. Haven’t you heard, Lestrange? Different is the new normal.”
Lestrange is keenly aware of what the wizarding world looks like now. It’s in a state of complete chaos and there are rumblings of resolution and uprisings. But nothing has actually changed, the SOW Party has been prevented from moving its agenda forward but it’s only a matter of time before they regroup and redouble their efforts. He laughs without humor. “Don’t tell me you buy into that new wave trite? Nothing has changed, dummy. You’re still you and I’m still me. There will never be a world where you’re not a freak and I’m not in charge.”
“You’re really an arse sometimes,” Harry snarls at him. Caelum is surprised, she seems actually angry at him for once.
“The world is changing course whether you like it or not, Lestrange. You can adapt to it, or drown in it.”
Caelum has been through a lot in the past year between hiding from his family and accidentally aiding terrorists. It is miraculous that he hasn't been arrested. He hasn’t a clue how Harry managed to live by herself for four years without getting into any trouble. Somehow everything she touches turns to gold. “I think I understand the world better than you, street rat.”
Harry shakes her head at him. “I don’t have time to keep arguing with you, unfortunately. Fun as this is. I’m expected at home.”
Caelum is incensed. This is not how their interactions typically go. Insulting her doesn’t seem to be doing any good so he tries a different sensitive subject to keep her at Mulpeppers.
“I’m surprised your daddy let you out of his sight. I bet you, your cousin and that little blood thief you abetted set his career back twenty years.”
Harry glares at him and he knows he’s hit a nerve. She knows he’s right. She sideswipes his question and asks “What did you do with your dose of Libserespirare?”
Caelum freezes. He hadn’t expected that question. He feels like he’s betrayed her and he wonders why. Harry of all people should understand that potions are for using and selling. But if that is true why does he feel so guilty? Excuses, distractions, insults and lies rattle around his head and he finally settles on telling her the truth. “I… sold it.” It’s a strangely vulnerable moment for him.
She glares at him. “You who collect priceless ingredients for the pride of it sold a potion? I don’t think so.”
Caelum is incensed. He was telling her the truth.
“I suppose you’re angry about me helping your little friend’s opponent. If I’d known it was going to a mudblood, I wouldn’t have given it up.” He pauses, his heart racing. “By the way you may have everyone fooled, but I don’t believe for a moment you didn’t know that imposter was a halfblood. I bet you loved watching him win, making a fool of every pureblood there.”
Harry smiled defiantly at him. “He did do that, didn’t he?” She seems oddly proud.
“It wasn’t a real competition brat. How could it prove anything? There wasn’t even a pureblood in the finals.” He’s just parroting what he’s been reading in the editorials of the Daily Prophet now.
Harry shakes her head at him with an odd smile on her face. “Because the halfblood beat them both.”
And he knows she’s right. Just like Harriett beat him to an apprenticeship and a unique discovery, the Imposter beat every actual pureblood at the Triwizard Tournament.
There’s a pause and he wonders if she is about to calm down and drag him off to dinner against his half-hearted protests.
“Did you make the potion for the ritual?”
Again, not what he expected. His face goes white. He wonders what sort of person would ask such a question in a public place and struggles to reconcile Harriett Potter, the Auror’s daughter asking him this incriminating question with Harriett Potter, the girl who hid in plain sight for four years. “I don’t know what you’re rambling about,” he whispers.
“Teaching you was a mistake,” she says.
The words cut him like a knife. He grabs an empty shopping basket and storms past her, pulling his cloak back on.