Two for One

Chapter 21: Rival Mentors

"So," Harry begins, arms crossed, crowding the Unspeakable into a corner of the large demonstration room. "Do you want to tell me how Albus Dumbledore got my information?"

The Unspeakable says nothing for a moment, the hood and disguise spells casting their face into a shadowed blur. "I know you can't see it, but I'm making a shocked face."

"Sometimes," Harry sighs like the breath was punched out of him. "Sometimes, you know, I just..."

"He got nothing on your precious boys that was truly secret," the Unspeakable reassures. "Just that they are very smart and very proactive."

"Which was apparently more than enough to catch his interest," Harry hisses.

"It was for a purpose," the Unspeakable soothes. "I spread different amounts of information to different people. I know who he has now and I'll...cull the herd, as it were."

"Do I look like I care?" Harry wonders. "Because I'm sorry, I didn't mean to give you that impression."

"My, you are being very rude today," they tsk. "I like it."

Harry leans forward. "You don't check. Those cookies and brownies and cupcakes I give you when you visit? You don't check for poison. You never do."

The Unspeakable throws back their head and laughs, loud and genuinely delighted. The boys and the other Unspeakables, they turn away from their floating city to look.

Harry gives everyone a sheepish smile and waves them off. He takes a step back from the Unspeakable and clears his throat. "He said the boys needed a mentor to be truly great."

The Unspeakable stops laughing. "That ginger bitch said what?"

"Does he know about you?" Harry asks. "Because it sounded like he did. So he knows what you're doing with the boys and just verbally pimp slapped you-"

"No, no. Harry, I'm winning here because I'm purging his followers. I set this up-"

"And he now has information on the boys," Harry grits out. "They are too young for this. They can't stand on their own, don't have the power to make their own choices, and you'll help them but you play games and I know I can't do shit about any of this."

"You can do a lot more than you think," the Unspeakable sighs. "Harry, I will take care of you and yours. I promise you that." They gesture Harry closer. "Come here. Before we really get into it, let me check for any spells on you."

"I think I would notice him putting spells on me," Harry huffs but obligingly goes along with it as the Unspeakable pulls out a wand. "He cornered me in the café you always treat me to lunch in, that place is pretty open-"

The Unspeakable tugs and Harry glows, the shifting, mixing lights washing over his skin now each gathering to a different point on his body and then seeping off into misty orbs.

Harry's mouth shuts, teeth clicking together.

"Interesting," the Unspeakable muses. "He actually didn't put any monitoring spells on you. I would have scared you and watched as you ran back to someone you trusted and spilled all your secrets."

"What?" Harry blurts out. "Then who-"

Tom hurries up and collects a bright pink orb with the end of his (Harry's) holly wand, dragging it back onto Harry. He does the same to a dark blue, and then a sunny yellow-

"Excuse me?" Harry says pointedly, bending down to Tom's height with hands on his hips. "Hello, yes, filial child whom I have raised."

Harry recognises half of the spells as ones parents use to inform them of where the children are and if the child gets injured. Harry recognises them because he has also put them on Tom and Gellert, except he asked for permission, a step which the boys apparently deemed unnecessary when they did it to Harry.