hapter 50: Riven Heart
A laugh found its way through Harry's lips when all he really wanted to do was cringe.
The past two dates with Alfie had grown progressively harder to subject himself to. The easy conversation of their initial encounter and first date had fizzled after nearly two weeks of the boy's company. When Harry made no objections to the boy's opinions on house-elves, Muggle-borns and Muggles, the other boy apparently took it as confirmation that he held the same opinions. Those opinions had only grown more vulgar. Alfie was proving himself to be the worst sort of Slytherin imaginable.
Harry was wondering how he or Hermione had not recognised the boy's name from some list of infamous Death Eaters, for that's clearly where the boy was heading in life.
Alfie finished the punchline of a joke no one in Gryffindor would have stood for, a vindictive glimmer in his eye as he laughed.
Harry shook his head, forced a smile onto his face and a chuckle from his mouth.
"Really, Harry," the older boy scolded. "I made half the common room wet themselves laughing with that one. You must not be a fan of Muggle jokes. How about this one: A werewolf walked into a pub—"
"No," Harry interrupted hastily. "My head's just not up for jokes today. Too much reading, I think."
Alfie nodded slowly, the glimmer in his eye shifting ever so slightly from malicious to hungry. "You and all those books," he said, his voice soft as a snake gliding over fallen leaves. "What I wouldn't give to have free access to the whole of the Restricted Section. The spells you must have encountered…" He slid closer to Harry, his hand coming to rest on the boy's knee. "The very idea gives me a little thrill."
"Uh, yeah, loads of spells in the, uh, spellbooks," Harry mumbled, his eyes and brain and every molecule focused on that hand. Pale skin, long fingers, veins pulsing ever so slightly with each beat of his heart, which at least proved that Alfie had a heart. He wanted nothing more than to slide out from under that hand, hex the boy within an inch of his life, force Veritaserum down his throat to make him give up the information and stop having to play these games.
That hand moved up his thigh, and Harry had to fight to keep from leaping from the seat.
That hand found its way beneath his jumper.
That hand danced across his stomach, up to his chest and down his side. It froze at the feeling of scarred skin. The fingers ghosting gingerly over it before moving back to the smooth, undamaged skin of his chest, pretending the burns weren't there.
He said nothing, but it was clear Alfie did not like ugly things. So different from Sirius who stared with slack-jawed awe at the adventures he had survived and offered to avenge him for the abuse suffered at the hands of his cousin. No, Alfie was the worst sort of pureblood, and Harry was clearly tainted by association and experience. Still that hand played across his skin with seeming affection despite his scars, despite his Muggle family, despite his house.
'He only dated them to get ahead, to get information or exam answers.' Sirius's voice whispered in his mind, warning him.
"How many of those books have you read, do you think?" the Slytherin hissed, his tongue flicking out to lick at the shell of his ear.
"Most of them," Harry said, his voice surprisingly steady.
"Fantastic," Alfie smiled. "Ha—"
"Merlin's pants, get a room!" a Hufflepuff girl Harry didn't recognised cried, covering her eyes as she hurried past their table. She was right. The library was hardly the place for Alfie to be feeling him up, but this had become 'their spot'. Harry had shrugged the oddity off, knowing that different people were comfortable in different places; he knew Hermione and Remus spent loads of time together at the library. But with Sirius's warning revolving around his brain, he reconsidered the idea of Alfie and his table, wondering why he always wanted to come here to sit together within sight of the metal gate of the Restricted Section.
'He only dated them to get ahead, to get information or exam answers.' Sirius's warning echoed in his head. To get information. To get ahead.
Harry glanced down the stacks to the room where he and Hermione had spent most of their waking hours in the 1970s. The Restricted Section. The books. So that's what he was after.
Turning his emerald eyes to the boy, he smiled. "Let's get out of here. I spend too much time here as it is."
"Oh, yeah," Alfie said, hurrying to put a smile back on his face.
"I feel bad taking up so much of your time," Harry said, putting an arm around Alfie as Sirius had always done to him. It felt like he was bringing the boy into his confidence, intimate but not obscene. "What would you have been doing if you weren't with me?"
Alfie offered a slight shrug. "Nothing much."
"Really? The best caster and inventor of new hexes at this school wouldn't be doing anything important?"
There it was. A glow of pride took over the boy's face at Harry's words. "I might have been researching a spell I wanted to make use of."
"Oh?" Harry said, pulling him closer and whispering his demand to know more.
Alfie smiled wickedly. "I heard of a spell that could tear someone apart. I wanted to see if it really existed."
"That sounds pretty nasty," he commented, training his voice to sound neither put off nor too eager.
This was it. This was what they needed to know.
"Like I said, they're like swear words. The nastier they are, the more you mean it." The rare glimmer of excitement lit in the boy's eyes. He rarely showed such interest, so Harry knew what this spell must mean to him.
A slight frown fell onto his face as he considered what the boy had said. He had 'heard of' the spell, but didn't know if it 'really existed'. "So you don't know the spell already?"
"Believe it or not, Harry, not every Slytherin is born with a catalogue of curses in our heads. Half my house is harmless as Hufflepuffs."
"And the other half?" questioned Harry, unable to keep the darkness from his voice.
"Get their spells from me, obviously." He grinned.
"I bet they do," he forced a laugh. "So what is this spell?"
His quarry hesitated for only a moment but leaned in to whisper against Harry's ear. "I've heard it called The Riven Heart or The Rent Heart. It hasn't been used in a century or more, but people remember. Mothers still use it to frighten their children into behaving."
"But if no one uses it, how can they know about it?" Harry muttered, more to himself than anyone. He was growing annoyed at wasting his effort of being nice to this boy; the spell sounded right but the name was all wrong, and Alfie didn't even know what it was. He had forced himself to associate with this git for nothing.
Oblivious to his companion's troubles, Alfie shrugged. "The great spells are never forgotten even after they fall out of fashion. Modern times hardly call for ripping enemies to shreds, but stories are shared over drinks, whispered in the dark. The idea is passed down until someone has the ambition to find it."
"And you've found it," Harry said, hoping he was right but no longer believing it.
"No. I haven't."
"But you're, best hex caster—"
"At Hogwarts, I know," he groaned as if tired of hearing the same old praise. "The professors know my talents, but they won't let me access the books, not like you. I've been here seven years, Harry, and I've never seen anyone granted free reign over the Restricted Section. You can walk in whenever you like and read any of those books, bring back to life any of the spells people only whisper about in terror. Merlin, I would kill for that privilege." It was the most earnest he had been to date, his eyes hungry as he looked at Harry.
Without warning the older boy shoved him against a wall. Harry thought it was an attack rooted in jealousy and anger because he had what Alfie wanted, but when the boy's mouth closed on him he knew it was an entirely different sort of attack.
Harry had gotten used to the idea of kissing another boy. He still didn't care for the idea of kissing Alfie, but that was easy enough to remedy with an active imagination and eyes shut tight. This kiss was harder and more desperate than any of the others they had shared. Alfie forced his mouth open and dominated it, taking everything as his own whether Harry offered it freely or not.
"The books, Harry," he said in a ragged whisper. "Can you borrow them?"
"Yes."
It must have been the right answer because his mouth was controlling Harry's again.
"Any book?"
"Yes."
He pushed him harder into the wall, pressing their hips together and making Harry's brain stutter to a stop. With a groan he realised he wasn't playing a role anymore. He wasn't pretending to enjoy Alfie's company, feigning interest or imagining someone else in his place. He had nothing to compare the feeling to. No girl had ever ground her hips against his. Sirius had never slid his hand down Harry's trousers.
"I want one," Alfie said, his voice hard even as his hand moved softly.
"W-what?"
"I want a book," he whispered fiercely, sliding his hand in time with each word. Harry could barely think for the overwhelming sensation.
"Which one?" Harry groaned.
"Egilhard's Opus. Can you find it?"
"Yes. Maybe. I can try." He would have agreed to anything at that moment so long as he kept doing what he was doing. Merlin, he had never felt anything like it.
"Good."
An embarrassing whine fell from his mouth when Alfie pulled away, leaving him wanting.
"We'll finish next time," he promised, kissing Harry softly. "When you bring me my book."
"Book," Harry repeated.
Alfie left him in the dark corridor, smug smile on his face and no outward signs of having been in the least bit affected by his actions. Harry, by contrast, was a rumpled mess, clothes askew, trousers suddenly far too tight. It was painful to stand, excruciating to walk, but by the time he reached Gryffindor Tower, all he really felt was humiliated.
"How was your date?" Tildy grinned. "Alfie behaving himself?"
"He stuck his hand down my trousers," Harry said numbly.
"Remember that list of things we're never to mention?" James said with a gag. "Can we move that one up to first spot?"
"Happily," Lily chimed.
"He doesn't fancy you, does he?" Hermione questioned, pink but not entirely put off. "I'd feel awful if he did."
Harry narrowed his eyes as he considered the boy, his demands and actions to force him into compliance. "No. He just wanted me to agree to get him a book from the Restricted Section."
"Which book?"
He flushed and his trousers grew a bit too tight as he remembered the actions attached to the words. "Egilhard's Opus."
"Egilhard's Opus," she repeated. "Egilhard's Opus." She kept on repeating it like a mantra, again and again, as she dug a long scroll of parchment from her bag. Again and again as she drew a finger down one column and up the next. Again and again, she said the title. "It's not here."
"How is that possible? We've read nearly every book in that place," Harry insisted.
"We must have missed it. Why did he want it?"
"To look up a spell, the Riven Heart. It tears people apart."
Her eyes were huge as she looked up at him, not in horror but with hope. It was their spell. She knew it just as he did. And now they knew which book would tell them about it, which book would help take them home to where things made sense and no boy would ever put his hand down Harry's trousers again.
"We've got to find that book," she declared. "First thing tomorrow."
"What about Alfie?"
Hermione considered the question before replying. "We might still need him. You said he's good at changing spells to create new ones. We might need him to alter whatever we find in that book."
He groaned. "If it's exactly what we need, can I please dump him?"
"Yes, but we have to make sure first. String him along," she ordered. "Pretend you can't find the book."
Harry wondered what would happen to a boy who toyed with the most promising hex caster Hogwarts had ever seen. Nothing good, he was certain. "He's not going to like it."
"Who can blame him?" Tildy swooned and fell into his lap. "So, did you like having his hand down your trousers?"
"Oh, shut up."
Ignoring Lily and James's protests to not mention that disturbing thing again, the girl grinned her incorrigible, toothy grin. "You did. I can tell."
He felt his ears burning and was sure everyone saw them turning a dazzling crimson, but he refused to offer Tildy any further encouragement.
"I bet if you asked nicely, Sirius would do that thing I'm not supposed to mention."
"He'd have to be in the same room as me first," Harry replied with a snort. "Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to go wash that filth off."
"Have fun," Tildy called. "Close your eyes and think of Sirius!"
"Shut it!"
He grumbled his way up to the boys' dormitories, cursed as he threw his clothes at the floor and flushed as the water hit his skin. Alfie's touch and Tildy's suggestion together had him in the shower far longer than he had planned. He had never been one for fantasising; life, generally, wasn't kind enough to let any of his dreams come true, so he tried very hard not to wish for more. But in the warmth of the shower, with his eyes shut, he imagined a far different boy making him groan and whine