Posted originally on the Archive_of_Our_Own at https://archiveofourown.org/
works/106960.
  Rating:
      Explicit
  Archive Warning:
      Graphic_Depictions_Of_Violence, Major_Character_Death, Rape/Non-Con,
      Underage
  Category:
      F/M, M/M, Multi
  Fandom:
      Harry_Potter_-_Rowling
  Relationship:
      Snape/Harry, Harry/Various
  Additional Tags:
      AU, Darkfic, Slave_Harry, Voldemort_triumphant, Major_character_death_-
      Freeform, Torture, Sexual_Abuse, Suicide_Attempt, survivor's_guilt, No
      really_this_is_seriously_dark_shit, Black_Sisters'_Sibling_rivalry, Ghost
      Sex, Near_Drowning, nudity_in_illustrations
  Collections:
      The_Quidditch_Pitch
  Stats:
      Published: 2016-10-09 Chapters: 8/8 Words: 36540
****** Let All Mortal Flesh Keep Silence ******
by Cluegirl
Summary
     When the worst case scenario is just the beginning of the fall, when
     you can lose all you loved and still keep losing more, when all you
     thought you'd be has become a mockery, when you have hit the rocky
     bottom, that is where, sometimes, you can find the strength to
     triumph at last.
***** Chirascuro *****
Chapter Summary
     The amazing Lunulet created the cover for this story, and it deserved
     Pride of Place.
[http://kingsgrave.com/images/Fic%20Arts/mortalcover.jpg]
***** La Mort Par l’Empoisonnement *****
The key to getting through the evening, Harry reminded himself, was to drink as
much as he could, keep moving, and pretend he couldn't hear the whispers. It
was only a Midsummer Ball, after all, not a battle. Only a ball, only a little
gossip, only a few hundred stares taking in his elegant scarlet and gold robes
and his carefully blank expression. He would rather have faced the end of the
world again.
"Isn't that...?"
"Yes, of course. Who else would be allowed to wear those colors in the Great
Lord's court?"
"Ooh, he's grown so much..."
"Taller, I know. And all that hair!"
But I thought he was..."
Dead. Harry thought.
A giggle. "What, dead? Where have you been since the War ended, Tessa, under a
rock? He's Our Lord's advisor now -- goes with Him everywhere," the woman's
voice dropped to a conspiratorial whisper so un-subtle it might have been
shouted across the crowded ballroom, "there are even rumors that he's Our
Lord's own consort!"
Harry ground his teeth, clenched his fist hard under his flowing velvet
sleeves, and wished he could hex the giggling trio into silence. His wand
tapped against his side, mocking his ire, reminding him that it answered to
only one wizard these days, and that wizard was not Harry Potter. Consort, he
comforted himself,is a better word than Slave. Or Hostage. Or Trophy. Or
Executioner.
"But wasn't he... you know, on their side? Before? Surely Our Lord wouldn't
trust a turncoat?"
Wouldn't be the first time. Harry scowled, grabbing another flute of champagne
as a waiter drifted past. "Hey," he murmured to the man, "bring me a double
vodka. Tovtry, no ice. And something to eat." He'd need something to base the
drinking on if he wasn't to disgrace himself.
"Yes, Lord Executor," the waiter gulped, then darted away.
"And I suppose you know better than Lord Voldemort, do you?" The first woman's
voice dripped scorn, recapturing his attention, "Our Lord knows he's nothing to
fear from his enemies anymore, and keeping Harry Potter at his side proves it
in my opinion."
Which was, of course, the very reason Voldemort kept Harry at his side. The
Dark Lord knew how deeply Harry hated him, and how fiercely he longed for a
chance to kill the man who had destroyed everything he loved in the world. But
he had a taste for dangerous pets, did Lord Voldemort, and he took delight in
the subtle torments his victory afforded him. Harry's passionate hatred amused
him – he told Harry so one evening not long after the Northumberland Battle,
and the fall of England to his rule. Quite a civil conversation for deadly
enemies; a luxurious meal of chateaubriand and lobster thermidor, the trappings
of elegance wielded like manacle and chain against Harry's helpless rage.
"Go on hating me, Pet," Voldemort had seemed to smile with paternal warmth, but
his reptilian eyes couldn't bear up the lie, "go right on fighting inside your
head. It won't change anything, but by all means, do try and keep me from
getting bored with you." And then he dressed Harry in the finest clothes of
sable, scarlet and gold, created Harry an official and despised office in his
ruling cabinet, and paraded Harry proudly before the army of sycophants his
conquest of Britain had conjured like roaches from the walls. And he smiled to
Harry as if sharing a secret joke whenever he named him "my most trusted
servant." And the spells that bound Harry helpless against the Dark Lord's will
never so much as cracked.
"Sulking, Lord Executor? And here I thought tonight was to be a celebration!"
Harry stiffened at the snide, simpering voice behind him and slammed back his
champagne in one long pull. There wasn't enough alcohol in the whole palace to
help when Harry had to speak to Pansy, but since he wasn't allowed opium, Harry
knew he'd have to make the best of it.
Schooling his face into a condescending smirk – the one he'd learned from Snape
-- Harry turned smartly to face her. "Not at all, my dearMrs Malfoy. I was only
waiting for the dancing to begin so you could stress-test my new boots." He
smiled broader as Pansy glared, pressing her lips into a hard, ugly line. "And
look," he nodded up at the gallery as if noticing it for the first time, "here
are the musicians now." Harry gave a bow that was far too deep for her station
and offered his arm, delighting in the way her broad face went pink with barely
suppressed anger.
"As if I would lower myself to dance with a...a slave," she hissed, glancing
nervously about.
Harry grinned wider and did not withdraw his arm. He could see the three girls
who had been discussing him, all watching with rapt attention. "You either
dance with a slave, or you explain to your husband's powerful friends why
you're snubbing the Lord Executor. Your choice, you bloody great cow."
Pansy's nails dug fiercely into his wrist as she took his arm, and her eyes
seethed with rage. "Laugh now, slave," she grumbled as Harry led her toward the
middle of the ballroom, "rumor has it next week you'll be singing a different
tune."
"Rumor?" So Pansy hadn't been told about the trip to France. Interesting,
considering that the plans had been underway since Solstice, and in fact, they
were meant to apparate out as soon as the Midsummer Ball was over. Voldemort
would announce it soon, in fact. It almost made Harry wonder if Draco didn't
trust her, or if the younger Malfoy wasn't trusted himself. "And what rumor
would that be, Mrs. Malfoy?" Harry asked, borrowing Snapes condescending purr.
She trod on his foot -- hard, and not by accident. "The House Elves have been
preparing your old chambers at the Manor, my Lord slave," she smirked as Harry
stifled a wince, "you know the ones, the Downstairs Suite." A windowless room
in the dungeon, six feet square with a pile of straw to sleep on and an open
toilet hole in the corner. Yes, Harry remembered the place. "Could it be Our
Lord is getting tired of you at last, Potter?"
Harry replied by throwing the woman into a dip so deep and sudden she couldn't
help but flail gracelessly and cling to him until he set her back upright. His
back hated him for it, but it was worth it to see her face go florid and
blotchy. "You could be right," he allowed, poker-faced, "but it's much more
likely that you're taking the piss and don't know what the hell you're talking
about."
Her eyes flashed, and her cheeks stained with anger, but a white hand gripped
her shoulder before she could reply. "Pans, you've monopolized Potter for long
enough," Draco said, tugging his wife away, "come and dance with me now."
Pansy's outraged face as she stumbled into Draco's arms was priceless, but
Harry found himself distracted by a strange, smug glint in his silver eyes.
Something is going on. Harry thought, glancing through the swirling dancers to
the dais where Voldemort presided, something I'm going to hate. But as he
turned to leave the dance floor, Harry found himself face to face with the
Minister of Magic. Harry was too startled to resist when Lucius Malfoy caught
his right hand and pulled him dancing-close, and only his quidditch reflexes
saved him from a stumble when the man's hand found his hip through his robes.
Lucius steered Harry backwards into a waltz without so much as a word, but
Harry was up to the challenge – his dance tutors had been thorough, and made
sure the young Lord Executor could partner either side of any dance his Lord
might request. Harry kept his eyes locked to Lucius', knowing the older man
could feel confidence in the easy balance of Harry's body against his. You
don't scare me, Harry let the corner of his mouth say, not this easily.
The ice blue eyes hardened, and then Lucius Malfoy smiled too. "She's not, you
know," he offered as the music changed from waltz to minuet, "lying, that is. I
have received instructions regarding it." That made Harry stiffen, and that
made Lucius really smile. "Oh yes. You will be our guest at Malfoy Manor for at
least the next fortnight, young Mr. Potter."
"That's ridiculous. We're to meet with the French Ministry to negotiate-"
"Surely you don't imagine Our Lord would take his Most Trusted Servant out of
England? Why, rumour has it that France is simply crawling with Resistance curs
– like that werewolf, for instance, your little mudblood friend, and the half-
giant too, I believe." Harry kept a careful rein on his expression, but
couldn't help feeling that Malfoy could see the sick horror twisting in his
guts. "We couldn't possibly risk losing our Lord Executor to a kidnapping now,
could we?"
And Harry knew as surely as if he'd plucked the plan from Voldemort's mind, it
was a trap. Lupin, Hermione and Hagrid were meant to think Harry would be with
Voldemort when he came to the Continent. They were meant to try and rescue him.
They were meant to die. And there was nothing he could do this time – he had
nothing left with which to bargain for their lives or freedom, so Voldemort had
no reason to even let Harry see the end in person. After all, Harry could
hardly take a second Dark Mark. They didn't even need him for bait – just his
name, his clothes, and a bit of his hair for the polyjuice.
I hate you! He thought as loud as he could, glaring at the dais over Lucius'
shoulder. The Dark Lord looked up with a red-eyed, serpentine smirk and toasted
him for a reply.
"Your concern for my welfare," Harry heard himself say to Lucius, "is
overwhelming."
"Oh, there's no need to be coy, my Lord Executor," Malfoy leered, stepping
close under their upraised hands, close enough for his breath to tickle Harry's
cheek with the scent of brandy, "I know better. You see, I've noticed something
about you -- when you're frightened, you begin to sound just like the Traitor."
"I speak like Snape when I'm disgusted too," Harry snapped, snatching his hand
away as the dance ended and dropping his bow short and sharp. "Sorry if it
bothers your conscience!"
Lucius' eyes flashed dangerously bright as he lowered his own hand by slow
inches. "You forget your place, slave," he whispered, "but two weeks should
give me ample time to remind you of it I think," the man added with a smile
that was all things false and shallow.
Harry gave him only a curl of lip before turning to stalk off the crowded dance
floor. The revelers made haste to bail out of his path, giving Harry a scrap of
comfort; to Voldemort he might be a trophy and to Lucius a jumped-up fucktoy,
but to the Court at large he was still Harry Potter, Lord Executor, and the
bloodied blade in the Dark Lord's hand; feared, if not respected.
"My Lord?" Harry whirled at the tentative voice, startling the waiter so badly
he almost lost control of his tray. With an inward flinch, Harry swallowed down
his rage and gave the trembling man a nod. The tray held a plate of canapés and
a crystal bowl full of ice, in which nestled a tumbler half full of clear,
viscous liquor.
That, at least, was a relief. But as Harry reached for the glass, his hand
froze mid-air, shocked stiff as though hit with a Petrificus Artus. Shooting a
furious glance at the head of the room, Harry was unsurprised to find
Voldemort's eyes still on him. God damn you, it's just one drink! You're luring
my friends to their deaths, and you're giving me to that sadist while you do
it, the least you can do is give me decent alcohol tonight!
The reply was silky with amusement, cloyingly familiar as always. Now, Pet, you
know I dislike public drunkenness. Harry's hand moved to take the plate
instead, the fury restrained to a hairline tremble against the china. And don't
fret about missing the tour -- I'll be back in time to celebrate your birthday,
after all. We'll have a little party just for you and your friends. Harry's
neck reddened with fury, and Voldemort's tone carried laughter when he
continued. Come here to me now – you should meet the new Inquisitor of Wales.
I've just appointed him, and he's a fan of yours.
Harry nearly fumbled the plate as his arm was suddenly released. The waiter
looked at him oddly, still offering the vodka he'd requested, until Harry sent
him away with a reluctant shake of his head. Only then did he see the oysters.
Five of them, glistening in their shells, nestled between the caviar and the
foie gras. Five. More than enough. He cast a careful glance at the Dark Lord,
who had turned his attention elsewhere. Yes. Then Harry started across the
room, thinking about Wales with all his might while he slurped the oysters down
and tried not to gag.
He put everything he had into the ruse – every scrap of occlumency he'd learned
from Snape, every ounce of willpower and acting talent he possessed went into
pretending he was only distracted while he met and shook hands with the new
official. Nod. Thank you. No, haven't heard from any of them. Yes, very sad.
Glad to have you, sure you'll do the office proud. Blah, blah, fucking blah.
And all the while Harry could feel his throat constrict, hear the blood pound
in his ears, feel his fingers tingle toward numbness. Only when he judged his
reaction too far advanced to be stopped did Harry excuse himself to go to the
toilet.
He barely made it, staggering the last few feet to fumble at the doorknob. The
attendant screamed at the sight of his fierce smile and bluing lips, but the
sound was far away and muffled in water -- useless. It actually made Harry want
to laugh as his knees gave out and spilled him into the room. He thought
something jarred his head as he fell wheezing into the welcome darkness, but
couldn't bring himself to care.
                                      ~*~
The very last thing he expected was for his afterlife to resemble the Potions
classroom at Hogwarts. But there it was, every stone complete with its lichen
and soot, every table scarred, scorched and scrubbed clean, every cauldron,
bottle and jar gleaming as though a thousand hapless detentioneers had just
shuffled out. The room, even without its looming Master, made Harry's heart
twist in his breast – a pain that surprised him with its intensity now at the
end of his life even more than when it would swamp him in the silence of night
or the noise of day. A thousand times Harry had choked down bile and hysteria
at the sudden stab of memory, fiercely unwilling to allow Voldemort even so
much as a scrap of what remained to him of his mentor and his lover.
The Wheel, bound high on a pole overlooking the battlefield, crackling with
ward upon ward until the very air around it is alive with deadly magic. His
arms stretch wide and cramp with agony while the fierce Northumberland wind
scrapes his naked flesh raw. His guardian angels hover at his pinioned hands to
watch the coming slaughter. Clouded blue eyes on his right, devoid of sparkle
behind their half-moon glasses, lips white and slack, beard cut short by the
same axe-blow that had severed head from neck. And spiked over his left hand,
so fresh that the blood trickling over Harry's wrist is still tepid, the jaw
still clenched hard, the eyes still focused sharp and black on eternity...
"Severus." His voice echoed from the stone, startling him out of his reverie.
There was meant to be a tunnel of light, wasn't there? Something to lead him
far away from the hell his world had become? "Huh." Harry wiped the back of his
hand across his wet eyes. "Guess death doesn't make it hurt less."
"No, Harry." The voice. Thatvoice, like velvet against the back of his neck,
shocking him stiff with longing. "No, it does not."
"S Severus," he cursed his stammer, but had to be sure – he didn't think he
could bear a hallucination now, "you are dead, aren't you?"
"Ten points to Gryffindor for Mr. Potter's keen sense of the obvious." The hand
on his shoulder, just at the spot where Severus' lips touched his body for the
first time. Harry shivered. "I am indeed, quite dead. And you are dying."
Harry turned with a sob of relief, grabbing at his lover's arms. "Oh thank God
it's over!"
"Jumping the gun as usual, Potter." The black eyes were sad under the smirk. "I
said that you were dying, not that you were dead. Your instinctive magic is
even now keeping your body's allergic reaction at bay." Harry closed his eyes,
feeling his heart sink. The chill brush of fingers along his scar made him look
up to see Snape's ironic expression. "My compliments, however, for an admirable
attempt – even I did not know you were allergic to shellfish."
"I kind of forgot myself, till I saw them on the plate," Harry admitted, unable
to tear his eyes away from the face he had so sorely missed. "Oh God, Severus,
I can't go back there! I can't-"
"You must, Harry. They are on their way to revive you now. Voldemort is with
them." Snape offered a rueful smile, "I'm afraid he is not best pleased." Harry
gave a wild start, tore himself away with a curse through clenched teeth. Snape
let him go reluctantly. "Surely you did not believe suicide would be your means
to freedom, Harry."
"I'm out of other options!" Harry shouted, "He owns me, Severus – he's bound my
magic, he's bound my body, he's even bound that goddamned name to him – The Boy
Who Lived at the Dark Lord's Command. Death is the only way I will everget away
from him!"
Snape folded his arms across his chest and glowered. "And that answer is good
enough for you now? I remember a boy who fought off Death Eaters to rescue a
corpse for its family to bury. I remember a boy who killed a basilisk by
himself. I remember a boy who defied an army at my side."
"And I remember your head on a pike the day England fell! Des-despite
everything I could do." Harry tried to snarl, but the words were too sharp and
they snagged in this throat, pricked his eyes with tears. He stopped just to
breathe for a second. "All this is easy for you to say, Severus, he can't hurt
you anymore -- you're free."
"Free?" Irony streaked hot through that cool whisper, and then Harry felt the
hand on his cheek, raising it, drawing it toward that homely, beloved face. He
trembled at the hungry look in Severus' eyes, "No, lovely Harry. He can still
hurt me, and I am not free."
"What do you-" he stopped as a cool thumb stroked over his lower lip.
"Name the three types of haunting."
Dark Arts questions? Now? But Harry sighed against the brushing touch and
obeyed. "Ghosts may haunt either a place, an object or a pers-" His eyes flew
open, horrified, searching Severus' face for contradiction. "Or a person. Oh
no. You're not haunting me."
One nod, grave and slow. "I promised I would not leave you, Harry, and you know
I am a man of my word."
Harry shivered a moan as the hand moved, threading into his hair, loosening the
tie that held it off his face and kept his scar in the world's view. "But I can
feel your hands," he hissed the last word, eyes drifting closed, "must be this
place, or maybe because I'm so close to-"
The cool lips silenced his, and Harry was lost. The kiss smelled of nothing,
but Harry's mind filled in the familiar tastes of tobacco and tea and faintly
bitter potions fume. He opened to the ghostly tongue and moaned again to find
it solid against his own, stroking into his mouth, laving his teeth and lips as
though starving -- just as Harry had been. He clutched at the sable robes,
hands frantically mapping those familiar lines of hidden bone and sinew,
branding them back into his memory.
It all felt so real, from the rough, heavy wool under his fingers to the chill
of the stone floor seeping through his thin shoes. Severus had to be wrong.
Surely his heart was stopping, even now. Harry moaned as Snape's hands fisted
the thick waves of his loosened hair and clutched him even closer. Oh God let
him be wrong! Let me stay here with him-
Then Snape pulled away suddenly, looking over his shoulder with a glower that
crushed Harry's hopes. "Almost time to go," he said, smoothing his thumbs over
Harry's damp cheeks, "but you must listen to me, quickly: The door is opening,
and you are not so helpless as they have led you to believe-"
Ennervate.
The hated voice echoed through the room and Harry cried out as a terrific force
tugged like a portkey at his belly. He staggered, clutched at Snape's arms as
hard as he could. "No! Don't let me go!"
"Listen to me! Keep your mask firm, show none of the changes! His binding
weakens with distance -- when he leaves you, he will not be able to-"
Ennervate.
Harry screamed, knees going out as the pain twisted in his guts, then lanced to
his scarred forehead and the Dark Mark on his arm. And in a shattering eyeblink
it was all gone – the Potions classroom, his ghostly lover, his merciful
release. Harry found himself staring up at the bathroom's coffered ceiling,
half-obscured by the thoroughly pissed countenance of his Lord and Master.
Running away, Pet? Harry flinched from the thunderous voice in his head, but
made no reply as he was hauled to his feet. And here I thought I'd taught you
better – what is mine remains mine until I decide otherwise. Even your death
belongs to me!
"Poison." Harry heard himself replying to the anxious clamor, "Resistance
assassin. The waiter."
No! He raged silently as the guards were dispatched, Damn you, he didn't know!
It wasn't his fault!
Of course it wasn't, Pet, came the reply as Voldemort took his arm in an iron
grip and led him back to the dais through the bowing, murmuring crowd, it was
your fault entirely. Which makes it all the more regrettable that you will kill
him for it.
The trial was brief and pointless – everyone in the hall knew what the verdict
would be. Harry made himself stare at the waiter, whose only crime had been to
do his job. He refused to allow himself the comfort of looking away, made
himself watch the waiter's face while the man realized he would never see his
family again, and there was no reason for it. He had grey eyes that filled with
tears and confusion, but somehow no recrimination, as Harry pointed his wand
and cast the toneless spell.
A thud, a chorus of showy gasps from the crowd, then the grey eyes went dull
and far away and tears streaked down his cooling flesh. Relief, Harry told
himself; because for the waiter, it was over.
Lucius Malfoy's eyes glittered as he gave orders for the body to remain where
it had fallen, and that icy spark made a different promise to Harry. 'You've
angered him properly now,' the blue eyes crowed as Harry received the
Minister's mocking reverence, 'as long as I return you fair of face and sound
of body, I can do whatever I like to you, my pretty little slave. And I intend
to.'
In reply, Harry simply stared at the ivory-haired man until he went away. The
coming weeks would be plenty of time for power games – Harry'd had enough of
them for one evening.
                                      ~*~
"You've gotten blood on your robes, Sir."
Harry managed not to roll his eyes at his valet's accusing tone. "It's my
blood, Charles: I slipped and hit my head."
"Ah. This would explain your returning from the ball early and interrupting my
book, I suppose." Harry ignored the tacit accusation and held his arms akimbo,
staring straight ahead as the man began on his robe's fastenings, "I trust Sir
enjoyed himself nonetheless?"
"Deeply," Harry growled, flexing his shoulders as the weight of the robes came
away at last, "Please send those to be cleaned, Charles. I won't need them
anytime soon."
Another sniff. "And shall I send your shirt to be burned, Sir?"
Harry touched his collar and winced when his fingers came away bloody. Ruined,
of course. He stuck out his arms and let the valet take it off him. He didn't
see any reason to protest when Charles kept going with his trousers, boots, and
socks as well. Only when he felt the cool fingers brush the waistband of his
pants did Harry back away. "Stop that," he said, glaring down at the man, only
a little younger than himself, for all his constipated mannerisms, "just the
bath tonight."
Charles stared back without flinching. "I have my orders, Sir. They are quite
specific." And he reached for Harry again. The message was as clear as if
Voldemort had signed his name to it. You take all things when I give them to
you, my Pet; even this.
With the waiter's depthless grey eyes still fresh in his memory, Harry couldn't
bring himself to resist the unwanted attention. He just leaned against the
bedpost, closed his eyes and let Charles and his body negotiate the matter
without him. He thought about Severus, the forgotten feel of his lover's tongue
against his own, the desperate look in his eyes as Harry fell away from him,
those clutching, nimble fingers in his hair-
Harry came with a sigh, gripping the bedpost so hard his fingers went numb.
Only then did he notice tears prickling his eyelashes. Charles, wiping his
mouth fastidiously, looked up just as Harry dashed them away. For a moment,
their eyes met and held. The valet looked away first. "I...I'm sor-"
"No," Harry pushed off the bed, heading for the bathroom, "don't apologize;
it's just too fucking cruel."
                                      ~*~
***** Chapter 3 *****
Chapter Summary
     Illustration of Harry's dance with Lucius Malfoy. By me.
[http://kingsgrave.com/images/Fic%20Arts/dance-color-300.jpg]
***** La Mort Par Noyade *****
They explained the rules to him as soon as the bodyguards left. Harry already
knew what they amounted to: You have no rights, you have no name, and you have
no opinions. Our whims will define your time here, and your behavior will have
very little to do with anything. Telling him the rules was part of the game for
the Malfoys – which was ironic, considering how profoundly little respect any
of that family had for rules in the first place – so Harry he listened
impassively, nodding and murmuring where it seemed expected. Whip and knife
cuts to be healed once every three days, food and water to be earned by
compliance, clothing of any sort expressly forbidden, punishment to be expected
for doing just about anything. Nothing new, nothing imaginative – in his three
years with Voldemort, having been given into Malfoy's care whenever he became
difficult, stubborn, or the Dark Lord had a bad day, Harry'd had ample
opportunity to learn the steps of this dance.
But this time, Harry meant to steal the lead. The idea had come to him in the
carriage, with the memory of Severus' last words in his ear. The bindings
weakened with distance. And Voldemort was already in France – his entourage
apparated out at the end of the Midsummer Ball. Surely by now he would be far
enough to miss little, critical details. Distracted as well, laying his traps
and spinning his webs. And the Malfoy idea of sex-play was dangerous stuff.
Knives and garrotes, masks and whips and sloshing basins, and objects forced
choking-deep into one's mouth meant plenty of opportunities for things to go
quickly, drastically wrong. Harry was going to see Severus again, he decided,
and he was going to use the Malfoys to do it. So he watched the four of them
while the rules were read, gauged their reactions, planned his strategy.
Pansy listened to her father-in-law with eager glee, already flushed above her
ample periwinkle robes as she stared at Harry's body. He guessed she was
planning something tiresome and unimaginative, like forcing him down between
her legs at dinner, or demanding he put on one of her dresses and fuck her over
the billiard table. Useless, she was. Pansy didn't have the force of will to
take him where he wanted to go. The only way she would kill him would be if he
suffocated in her thighs.
Draco was more promising. He stood beside the window, peering out at the rain-
swept lawn and sullenly refusing to acknowledge Harry's presence at all. Not
that his classmate was disinterested. Harry noticed how the silver eyes fixed
on his reflection in the glass, read resentment and rage buried there. Draco
would avoid him for the first several days, but the blonde would be savagely
fucking Harry before long and cursing him all the while. Bites and bruises and
broken bones from him. No patience for binding more than just what it took to
keep Harry from fighting back. Harry never worked out exactly why the younger
Malfoy hated him so deeply, but for this visit, it suited his purposes just
fine. He could still feel the lump where his head had struck the bathroom sink
the night before, and it couldn't be too hard to arrange another hit just
there.
Lucius was, of course, the most likely choice. He had never made a secret of
his feelings where Harry was concerned: avarice, lust, contempt and covetous
cruelty for his Master's property. Harry stifled a shiver as he watched the
Minister, pale and elegant, prowling like a tiger about the room and all but
licking his chops in anticipation. It would be dominance games from him –
control more than pain, though there would be plenty of that as well. Bondage,
scare tactics, everything his cruelly creative mind could dream up to drive
home Harry's utter helplessness.
Harry never let on that it wasn't in Malfoy's power to do so. Voldemort defined
helplessness in Harry's life -- an ever-present spectre, unblinking and amused
in the corner of his mind. All Malfoy's most imaginative torments could do was
give Harry something tangible he could fight, which was actually something of a
relief. Still, the ivory-haired man had a way of twisting Harry's body into
complicity, tickling agony just onto the line of pleasure, and keeping Harry
teetering there until he thought he might shatter. Then he would give Harry the
tiniest crumb of unclouded sensuality – a velvet touch flicking against the
creaking fault. Ashes, ashes, and down he'd fall every damn time.
Shit. Don't get hard! Harry ground his fist closed against his naked thigh,
look at Pansy, Harry, look! She's forgotten that her tongue's poking out, and
her eyes are glazing over. Think of her kissing you.
Composure recovered, Harry returned cautiously to his mental plotting. Getting
Lucius to make a mistake would be tricky – the man took his control quite
seriously, of himself and of his possessions. But he had no less of a temper
than his son, and Harry had a gift for getting on the wrong side of it. It was
possible, if Harry kept his wits about him. He moved on before Lucius' pacing
glide could undermine his concentration again.
Narcissa reclined across her chaise, looking elegantly bored with the whole
process. Harry knew her distain would not last long, for Lady Malfoy was very
fond of the knife and the whip, the clamp and the candle. She fancied herself
an artiste when it came to dealing out pain, and she did it with a patience and
delicacy that put the others to pale. She had once confided in Harry that he
was her favorite canvas, for she had never seen skin with such a flawless
texture in all her years. Harry considered her a likely candidate, because it
is so easy to slip with a sharp knife, but then she was also the most careful
of the family. It would take a lot for her to be reckless with a blade. Harry
relegated her to a longshot, and refocused his attention on the Lord of the
Manor. Watching. Planning.
 
                                      ~*~
It took him only three days to crack Malfoy's temper wide open and land himself
in the Grotto. Harry was actually rather surprised at how easy it was, once he
abandoned the idea of avoiding punishment and pain, and began to deliberately
provoke it in subtle, infuriating ways. He waited a second too long to lower
his eyes, he smiled at the family members, he sat with too much ease, he failed
to hide a smirk when insulted.
He drove Narcissa nearly to tears on his second night at the Manor by humming
as she whipped him. (Not that it hadn't hurt – she'd already been at him with
the pins for an hour.) But Harry thought of Severus' lips against his, and
found the strength to turn his screams into endless repetitions of 'I'm Henry
the Eighth', in time with the slap of leather across his bloody skin. He'd had
to be carried back to his cell after, and Lucius cast a light healing charm on
him despite their rules.
The next day, Harry started on Pansy. He followed her with his eyes, stared her
down when the others weren't looking, fixed his face in a knowing smile. 'You
don't fool anyone,' he told her silently, 'I know what you really want from
me.' By lunchtime, she couldn't stand it anymore. But this time when she
dragged him off behind the stables, Harry twisted her hands behind her, jerked
her head back by the hair and hissed obscenities in her ear. "Whore. Slut. You
love this, don't you, you little-" The same sort of things they slung at him,
but their effect on young Mrs. Malfoy was far more dramatic. She came harder
than she ever had in her life, and when Harry let her up, she ran sobbing back
to the house without bothering to fix her robes. When Harry made his way across
the lawn ten minutes later, he saw Lucius watching him from an upstairs window.
Their eyes met across the distance, and a frisson of fear went through Harry.
He was close. Very close.
Lucius had Harry that night, and Harry behaved himself. Almost. He sucked when
told to suck, but was a little careless with his teeth. He begged when told to
beg, but was just a little less than convincing. He struggled against his
bonds, but not quite as hard as he could, and gave up moments too soon for
satisfaction. He spoiled the game by reminding Lucius at every turn that it was
only a game, and that no matter what Malfoy could do to Harry's body, his true
Master was elsewhere.
Soon the whip fell harder, cut deeper, and the chains pulled tearing-tight, as
if by pain Malfoy could melt down the man Harry had become, render him back to
the boy he had been at his capture. "Delusional child, don't you remember what
you are?" He hissed between blows that rocked Harry breathless, "Have you let
our Lord's indulgences fool you?" Lucius grunted, and the whip bit again, "Fine
robes! Elegant chambers! Laughable titles do not make you anything but a
slave!" The bullwhip slither-clattered to the floor. Shoes tapped through the
counterpoint of Harry's ragged breath. Cruel fingers knotted in his hair,
craned back his head. Lucius pressed close, and his silk robes felt like
burning ash against Harry's raw, bloodied back. "You will never-" Lucius' voice
in his ear, hard and hateful, "be anything-" Lucius' blunt prick nosing up
between his straining legs, "more than this!"
"Hng!" He couldn't hold it back, or the shiver that went with the terrible
pain. Harry's eyes flew open, greeted immediately with the mirror that had been
placed there just for that purpose. He could see the blood -- his blood -
- dripping down Malfoy's balls, and it almost made him scream. But after a
moment, the breathless quiver in his belly surprised him, escaping as a giggle.
"Doesn't that hurt?" Harry managed to whisper when Lucius shoved at him again.
"What was that?" Lucius froze, and his glittering eyes narrowed dangerously.
"For you, I mean – no lube. K-kind of binds, doesn't it?" Harry couldn't keep
the glint out of his eyes white hands closed around his throat and squeezed. He
thrashed, strained to keep his eyes focused through the wandering spots of
black, even allowed himself to acknowledge the aching thrill as his prostate
took blow after blow. He arched up, grimacing as the punishment wrenched an
orgasm out of him, spraying the floor with fat, hot splats of come. A second
later, he felt Lucius spend inside him – a stinging rush of heat against his
sore flesh.
Blood thundered in his ears, his animal brain howled for air, but Harry held
himself still as the hands came away and Lucius leaned almost wearily into his
ravaged back. Trembling with the effort, Harry counted slowly to three, opened
his eyes, turned his head to stare at his tormentor, and only then took a
single, shaking breath. Then he raised one eyebrow, as if to ask, 'Is that
all?'
Lucius froze mid-glower. Then he snarled and reared back, the sudden movement
dragging his cock free of Harry with a wet sound. Harry grunted, bore down
against the spasm, and so was not ready when the serpent-headed cane came
crashing down across his ribs. Harry arched back, wheezing a voiceless scream.
The cane came down again, laying welt after welt across his belly, chest, and
hips, making it impossible for him to recover the breath he'd been so carefully
controlling. All Harry could manage was to keep his teeth closed around his
cries. Then an ill-timed wriggle put his crotch under the slashing cane, and
Harry's world exploded suddenly through pain and into welcome darkness.
                                      ~*~
When Harry woke up again, he was chained in the Grotto – blind, masked, sore,
cold, and scared. Harry licked his lips, tasted spunk and blood there, and
quelled a shiver. He could hear the restless tide on the other side of the rock
wall, could feel the tug and nudge of the wind as it found its way through the
sea caves and rock chimneys. It moaned like a woman in grief as it stirred his
hair against his back. He hated the Grotto; really hated it. A whimper clawed
out of Harry's throat, but then he fought down the welling hysteria furiously –
he'd wanted this, damn it!
But that was cold comfort against the tremble in his belly, and the memory of
chill water all around him. His arms were single-sleeved behind him, laced
tightly from wrist to shoulder, leaving his fingers trailing through the sand.
He wondered, not for the first time, whether the hard things he felt were
pebbles or teeth. Steel manacles were like ice against his ankles, and the damp
sand ground in the whip cuts on his arse and legs as Harry tested the chains'
give. Loose enough to stand, but not to get his legs together. Not a good sign,
that; with his arms immobilized, he would have no way to resist the tide as it
filled the chamber – which it did, he recalled, very, very quickly. Oh, he
really hated the Grotto!
The cold draught and strained position made his whip-cuts throb and promise
agony at the sea water's touch. Salty air burned in the back of Harry's throat
as he fought another sob -- a phantom taste that his nose couldn't verify,
because the hoses taped in his nostrils brought his air from somewhere far
above. A leather half-hood bound tightly across his cheek and jaw, holding the
hoses in place. The hood had no eyeholes, and it left his mouth uncovered to
the air... soon to the water. Malfoy's idea of a joke, that hood; the wearer
had to remember to keep his mouth shut, and breathe only through the nose -
- hard to do with seawater swamping you, and the hoses didn't bring all that
much air, really... Another shiver. Harry took a deep breath while he still
could.
"Do you expect me to beg?" He called in a shaking voice. Because he was almost
ready to. Almost. No reply, but he knew Lucius was listening. Harry wondered
briefly if Voldemort were listening as well, from somewhere too far away to
stop the whole thing. That refocused his will; this was about escape. This was
about taking back control. This was about freedom. This is about Severus!
Carry the game, Potter. Harry gasped, shocked but centered at the ghost's
unexpected voice in his mind. Beg him. Plead. Keep up your act!
"Th-this is really stupid, Lucius!" Harry didn't have to fake the quaver or the
edge of panic. "I could drown down here!" Nothing. No reply. Harry could almost
imagine the Minister of Magic sipping at a brandy while he listened. And he
would be listening, watching Harry's torment through a visorb or mirror,
glowering and smirking, and -- "God damn it Lucius Malfoy, if you kill me,
you'll be sorry!"
"Perhaps," the silky voice said against his shrouded ear, still tickling with
the spell that sent it there, "but not nearly so sorry as you, Pet."
Then Harry heard it; the boom and thrash outside changed tone, got louder,
fiercer. The tide was coming in. He surged to his feet with a ragged cry,
scrambling backward across the sand until his chained ankles brought him up
sharp. "Carefully now," Lucius warned as Harry staggered, "wouldn't want to
pull out your air hoses so early in the game."
"They're unsecured?!" Harry shrilled in genuine panic as the first wave rushed
in around his ankles, "You fucker! This isn't a damned game anymore, this is
the ocean! You can't control it, Lucius!"
"Of course not," his voice was fading now, the spell disrupted by the
thrashing, rushing water, "but the point is, neither can you."
The next large wave swept Harry off his feet, hurling him against the ragged
wall before towing him under. Only fierce will kept him from wasting his air in
a scream. He had to keep his mouth closed -- couldn't give his intentions away
until the Grotto was flooded, and it was too late for anyone to save him. He
struggled upright just in time for another surge but managed to brace himself
against it, only getting a faceful of foam this time. The current floated him
now, tugging his ankles raw against the manacles, bobbing him like a fishing
float in the waves. Harry had to tilt his face upward to manage one last shout
before the waves filled the room. "Fuck you, Malfoy!"
When the last wave came, Harry ducked into it, squared his shoulders and let it
buffet him back again. He lost his air when he hit the wall, and as before, he
heard his skull give a sickening crack. Then –
God, God! His throat, his lungs burned like acid, like whirling shards of
glass, like a thousand knives! Harry coughed, screamed and thrashed, drawing in
more water, feeling it burn through his sinuses and out his nose, flooding his
breathing tubes as he flopped weakly against the chains. Back and forth the
current dragged him, bumping his flaccid cock against his thigh while grit and
sand and seawater tickled his skin. The last thing that occurred to Harry as
the terror faded into emptiness was that his scar ached terribly.
                                      ~*~
The Potions classroom. The icy stone floor under his feet. The dusty, stillroom
funk in his nostrils. Harry opened his eyes with a grin.
"I would congratulate you Harry," Snape said, coalescing out of the gloom,
"only you have never had much trouble nearly getting yourself killed." Then he
grunted and staggered as Harry grabbed him into a fierce hug. But the ghost's
arms clasped the young man just as strongly, held on just as tightly, as if
revering the solid beat of a heart against his own long-stilled breast. "How do
you feel?"
Harry sniffed, smiled to feel the lips moving against his hair. "Strange. I
mean, I should be terrified. I was terrified – off my nut just a minute ago,
but now..." he looked up into the ghost, his lover, his guardian's eyes, and
smiled, "now I just want to kiss you."
And he did, fiercely, thoroughly, winding his hands deep into the coarse hair
and plundering Severus' mouth with a heartfelt groan. Snape met and matched his
passion, crushing Harry close, his fingers clasping and urgent against his
back, his shoulders, his arse. Yes. This made the drowning worth it. This was
home, these arms, these lips.
"God, I missed you!" Harry gasped once he could make himself drag his mouth
away.
"I beg to differ," Severus' voice puffed against his ear, rich with laughter,
"You hit me pretty well square on, I think."
Harry pulled away, staring in open-mouthed outrage. "I do not believe it! I
knew you for ten years, lived with you for three of them, and I never once
heard you crack a joke! You finally got a sense of humor after you're DEAD?!"
Severus raised one sardonic eyebrow, as if to reassure Harry that nothing had
really changed. But then he spoiled the illusion with a grin the like of which
Harry had never thought possible. The angles would not bear it, the bones would
crack under such an expression, the moon reverse its orbit and the tide roll
backward, surely! But there it was, larger – much larger – than life. "I prefer
to think of it as a sense of perspective, Harry," Severus purred, "There is
nothing like dying to remind one of what is truly important." And then the
smile changed, grew deep roots of fire and need that sparked a fierce echo in
Harry's guts.
"OhGod!" He breathed, and threw himself back into the ghost's outstretched
arms.
"Merlin, yes!" Severus agreed, and caught him.
The dungeon floor was all they needed. Three years of loss and hunger consumed
them there in desperate lips, and clutching hands. Clothes disappeared
unremarked, fingers oiled smoothly without source or need of comment, and when
Harry at last begged Severus to take him, it was only pleasure that made him
scream. He surged against his lover's chest, torn between the need to thrust
and writhe against the welcome invader, and the desperate urge to simply clasp
his arms and legs around Severus' back and never, ever let himself be prised
loose.
But then Severus was moving inside him, black eyes locked onto his own, long
smooth fingers stroking his cock in time with the gentle, rocking thrusts.
Their rhythm. The one he tried to tell himself he'd forgotten, he didn't miss,
was nothing but bumping anyway, and no point mourning it (or him) because what
was gone was gone, (sweat dripping into his eyes, teeth working hard on his
shoulder, yes, ohGod yes, like that.) and if nothing ever burned him to the
ground this way again (yes, harder now, making that muscle in his back jump
with the effort of meeting thrust for thrust,) then he would just. Have to.
Live. Without. It!
Harry came with a scream, the passion ripping out of him like a whirlwind, like
a tidal wave, like dying. He clung to Severus' chest, startled and helpless as
sobs overwhelmed him. I don't cry! Why am I doing this? I never cry! But he
was; for the first time since the Northumberland Battle, Harry Potter was
crying so hard his bones felt loose: if Snape hadn't been holding him, he
suspected he might have fallen apart entirely. "I don't want to go back," he
sobbed, "oh God, I can't lose you! Not again!"
Severus said nothing, merely stroked Harry's heaving back until three years'
worth of grief and despair had torn itself loose. It took less time than either
expected.
"Why?" Harry hiccoughed at last, nuzzling his drying face under Snape's
collarbone, as if he was still a child.
"What do you mean?"
"Why did you let me see you?" He pulled away, "I know you couldn't haunt me
properly – the wards on me wouldn't allow it. But why the hell did you have to
remind me, Severus? Three years, I've been filling my life up with nothing so
that nothing would be all He could take from me. Three years, because without
you, emptiness was all I wanted!" Harry's voice quavered, but the tears were
through; it was time for answers now. "Why did you have to come to me when you
knew I couldn't really have you back?"
The question should have started a fight -- would have done if Snape had still
been alive. Now, it only made the ghost smile sadly and stroke Harry's face.
"Because you need me," he said, "for what is to come, Harry, you must have a
guide you trust."
Harry stared at him, at the unlovely face that he still loved so hopelessly,
feeling his mind whirl and skitter so deep there were no words for the
thoughts. He could see the line the axe had left across Snape's neck – a silver
seam roping over the strong, arcing cords of muscle and sinew. When he spoke,
tiny whisps of steam escaped the wound. "All right," Harry said at last, "tell
me then."
Snape told him, and Harry listened to it all; awed, alarmed, even a little
sickened in places.
"So the reason Voldemort was so powerful when he came back from the dead wasn't
because he used my blood-"
"It was that the proximity to death had changed him. Living cannot manifest any
soul in its entirety, only a fraction comes through, and the rest is bound out
behind barriers no mage can breach. Death, however, breaks down those barriers.
When Tom Riddle curse backfired on you, his soul prepared for its passing."
"Only he didn't pass," Harry mused, wrapping his hands about his knees to
think, "he came back to life and his barriers didn't go back where they had
been before, did they?"
"Exactly," Snape agreed, "just as your barriers are eroded each time you return
to life from this threshold. If Voldemort looked you in the eye today, he would
justly fear your power. Very soon he will not be able to bind you at all."
"So you're telling me that these near death experiences are my ticket to
freedom?" Harry frowned, got up to pace. "What would be the point of breaking
away from Him now? The Death Eaters run things in England. I should know, I sit
all the bloody council meetings; they are an army, Severus, thousands of them.
Even if I got loose, or killed-" Harry swallowed, made himself say the name,
"Voldemort somehow, I don't have an army of my own to fight them! And don't-
" he held up a hand as Snape opened his mouth to speak, "don't talk to me about
the Order, either, because the Order is shattered! Remus is all that's left,
and the best his pathetic Resistance can manage is to play Pimpernel once in
awhile, and raid English prisons. Nobody takes them seriously!"
"There is still you, Harry," Snape observed, leaning easily against one of the
stained tables when Harry turned to glare. He didn't look smug or snide, just
expectant. It made Harry want to scream.
"And that's not enough!" He knotted his fists, angry at being made to say the
words aloud. "The war is over, Severus; we lost!"
"No war is over," a familiar, scathing eyebrow, "while the men who began it
still live to draw breath; the fight is merely carried to a different
battlefield. You, Harry Potter, have a weapon more powerful than anything
Dumbledore, the Order, or the Ministry ever had at their disposal." Harry
blinked as Snape crossed the floor, reaching out to take his left hand in cool,
strong fingers. "A weapon more powerful than your bound wand, or even your
mother's life spell; you have a Dark Mark, Harry, one which you did not
willingly accept." He looked down as those pale fingers slid reverently over
the brand. Harry's arm seemed to be shaking under the touch, but he couldn't
work out why. "A tiny piece of Voldemort's soul branded into your skin. You
need only find the strength to use it."
"Use it," Harry gulped, "what do you mean his soul? How can I-"
But he stopped with a shiver as the ghost's cool breath gusted across his ear,
and a finger traced the ragged scar across his brow. "The binding works both
ways, Harry," he whispered, "both ways."
Revivo!
A woman with golden-blonde hair escaping in tendrils to spiral down toward his
face. Her eyes are wide and worried, creasing her brow in a way that seems
entirely strange. Her lips are moving fast and look pale in the strobing blue
light her wand emits as she waves it over his chest.
"Look, Harry," Snape whispered in his ear, pressing his body behind Harry's,
steadying him against the vision's force, "look carefully."
A pale-haired man, trembling with cold and fury. Soaked through. Coughing.
Terrified. His fists are clenched, and he looks as if he wants to break
something.
"Look deeper than that. It's there. Search for it."
Revivo!
Harry shuddered, clutched at Snape's hands. Then he gasped aloud. "Her eyes!
They're wide open! I could walk right in-"
"Yes," there was pride in that voice, rarer than diamonds. "but not to much
effect. Not yet. Do you understand?"
Revivo!
He did understand. He could see Narcissa's thoughts swimming like fish below
thin ice. He could almost taste Lucius' churning, raging mind from where he
lay, but he knew he needed more. Harry turned in Severus' arms for one last
kiss.
"I'll see you soon," Harry breathed once their lips parted, then he allowed
himself to fall backward into the cold, bruised flesh which awaited him.
                                      ~*~
 
A day passed in darkness, delirium, and absolute solitude. Sprawled on the cold
stones of his dungeon chamber – because he had just enough strength to crawl
clear of the vermin-riddled pile of straw before collapsing – Harry only
managed to track the passage of hours by the furtive, near-silent visits by the
House Elves. Rustling footfalls woke him from oblivion six times, and three of
those, there was food left behind. Not much; dry bread, broth and weak tea, but
food nonetheless. Harry ignored it, craving sleep far more, and knowing he had
to get it while he could. To heal. To be strong enough for the next time.
Halfway through the second day, sleep deserted Harry, and the pain set in. His
head throbbed counterpoint to the cuts on his back. He found he could only
steal breaths in tiny, pained slips, though he couldn't say whether that was
because of his waterlogged lungs or the hot swelling over his ribs. It took all
of Harry's focus to make himself crawl to the tray by the door and once there,
he almost couldn't eat any of it. The broth had long gone cold and a greasy
scrim floated across the top. The bread was rat-gnawed. He wouldn't put it past
them to have drugged it as well, just to keep him quiet. Not like he needed the
help there – not with his skull pounding out concussion in a constant tattoo.
Where was the mediwizard? Harry's head swam with the effort of sitting against
the wall, and he had to hang one arm straight out from the too-short chain. His
sore back flinched at first contact with the icy stones, but soon began to numb
a bit. And itch. Malfoy was playing a dangerous game here. Scars were
absolutely forbidden – Voldemort had made it crystal clear that the only marks
he would tolerate on Harry were the ones he himself had put there; the brand
and the scar, the arm and the face. If Malfoy didn't send a healer soon, no
amount of magic would keep those whip-cuts from becoming infected, suppurating,
and yes, scarring. Narcissa's first aid spells had been enough to draw him
back, but surely they would send a proper expert soon.
Wouldn't they?
Harry ate as much as he could force himself to do, then spent the rest of his
strength in an hours-long crawl to the toilet hole. He managed not to vomit,
and contented himself with being proud of that as he sought his clean spot and
more sleep. But this sleep was fractious with sweat and pain – so restless it
was almost an effort. He felt more exhausted every time his jolting twitches
woke him, and before long he found he simply did not have the energy to try
anymore. All he could do was lie still and stare into the darkness, waiting.
"I get it," he whispered, filling the silence as he could, keeping the memories
at bay with his own reedy voice, "they're looking for a healer who won't say
what happened. They have to keep it a secret, or He'll have their heads..." But
that wasn't right. His scar had flared just before the darkness whelmed him
last time, and Harry had felt a glancing blow from the Dark Lord's mind as he'd
gone under. Voldemort knew already – he had to. So what could the Malfoys be
playing at?
He gnawed the question over and over, well aware that the waiting was meant to
do wear him down in just that way. While he had something to strive against,
Harry could stay strong, resistant, sane. But in the void, without even the
hateful presence of the Dark Lord to focus on, Harry had no defenses – nothing
between him and the memories. And the memories were crueler by far. So Harry
worried about Malfoy's intent with a kind of desperate urgency, and prayed in a
barricaded corner of his mind that whatever that sadistic bastard was planning,
he'd get round to it before the dreams began.
But the second day passed away in silence as well.
Oliver Wood and Cho Chang break through the Death Eater's air defense line
together while the other fliers – most of Hogwarts' surviving quidditch players
-- draw the attack away. Dodging curses, the Alliance's two best fliers make
for Harry, arrowing out of the steely clouds with rescue in their eyes. He
screams warnings, desperate and horrified as he strains against the Wheel, but
the wind snatches his words with laughing scorn. They don't hear him at all
until just before the wards snap closed around them. Harry can only watch as
they break and fall like burning, flailing stars. Cho screams his name as she
dies.
Harry flinched awake with a gasp. The House Elf at the door squeaked and
disappeared with a ping, leaving another tray of food. He wrapped his arms
about himself, trembling at the nausea. A fatty, smoky reek undercut the
dungeon's normal stench, and it made Harry's stomach turn. He crawled to the
door, fetched the tray, and dumped the entire thing into the toilet hole.
Hermione stares at him, too stunned and horrified to even close her mouth as
tears course down her grimy cheeks. She reaches for him, he flinches back,
throws the cell door wider. "Go. Just go, and never come back," he makes his
voice icy and cruel, "You can't save me. Not ever."
"Oh Harry," she finds her tongue at last, "what have you done?"
He resists the urge to hide his bandaged arm more deeply in his sleeve, feeling
as if she can see the brand anyway. God knows he can still smell the burning
singe himself. "You'd better get started. I can promise you only a couple of
hours before you're missed."
"I won't. Not without Ron."
Harry shakes his head. "Ron's dead. I killed him." Hermione's face crumbles.
"You have to go!" He prods.
"You didn't!" She lunges forward, rips his sleeve and the bandage loose,
"You're lying, you're-" But the weeping, angry Mark glares her into silence.
Harry can feel her fingers going cold around his. 'I did it for Ron', he wants
to tell her, 'I had to, or they wouldn't have let him go.' But the words are
too sharp, and they cut his voice to silence.
When she slaps him, Harry stands still and takes it. What else can he do?
"Damn you, Harry Potter," she hisses, shaking as she backs away from him, "God
damn you to Hell!"
"Just-" he shakes his head, forces himself to breathe slow, steady, not to
shake, not to scream and beg her to understand. How could she? Why should she?
Why should anyone? He apparates away, back to his own rooms, where Voldemort
and his dinner wait for him. He only realizes later that night that he never
said he was sorry, never said he loved her. Now he will never get another
chance.
Harry's groan woke him enough to find his face wet and his chest twisted tight
in iron bands. He panted a few breaths, blinking hard, clutching at the stones
beneath him. But the Dreams swarmed up after him, and dragged him back down
despite the pain.
Lupin's arms close hard around him as he lunges for the veiled archway -- for
Sirius. He's just there – just on the other side! Harry just has to go through
and get him!
No. Stop this.
Severus' voice, cracking with rage as the Death Eaters force them apart.
"Harry! NO!" His wand goes flying, and then there is nothing but black robes
and white masks and spellfire and blood and spellfire and blood.
I mean it. Stop at once!
"I think... I think I'm scared," Harry says, wrapping his arms around himself,
"we've never attacked them before. We've never carried the offensive."
"You've never had time to think about it before risking your fool life, you
mean." The black eyes don't seem as sharp as he expected, just tired. And
worried. "Welcome, Mr Potter, to my world."
The potions jars stare at him with milky curiosity, and Harry glowers back.
"It's all going to be different after tomorrow," he whispers, "one way or
another."
"Any day is like that," Snape shrugs, lighting the fire, "try not to think
about it."
"Well, what should I think about instead?" Harry's angry now, or trying to be,
because the lead weight in his belly is so very alien to him, "How you're going
to be right there when we attack? How you'll have to fight back as hard as you
can 'cause if they catch you pulling punches, they'll slaughter you? How we
won't even have a way to guess who you are? How you might have to kill one of
us, or we might-"
"I am aware of it!" There is that familiar growl, patience at an end, "kindly
leave my concerns to me!"
"Fine," Harry snarls, folding his arms and turning away. The bottled things
stare at him. He stares back.
Snape sighs. "Potter, why are you in my dungeon, picking a fight at three in
the morning when we both need sleep before we risk our lives tomorrow?"
"I'm trying not to think about it," he admits, shakily. "Come on, Professor,
you're always good for a distraction; make me furious, scream at me, insult me
or my father, or Sirius. I still wouldn't sleep, but at least it'd be better
than-" a rustle behind him, a warmth. Arms slide over his, wrap him in warmth,
and pull him into the embrace. "What...what are you doing, Sir?" He manages to
breathe.
"I am holding you."
"Oh." He lets his hands rise, close timidly over the arms that cross his
breastbone. They relax by tiny increments, and he does as well. "Why are you
holding me, Sir?" Harry manages at last.
"Because you are scared," the answer gusts against his ear, unladen with sneer
or sarcasm, "and it's all going to be different after tomorrow." Then the lips
touch him, just a chaste kiss dropped gently at the curve of his shoulder, but
it makes Harry catch his breath and shiver uncontrollably. The arms are not
quite so soft then, and Harry can almost feel them intending to pull away.
Harry turns inside the fragile embrace before it can flee. "Any day is like
that, really," he whispers, snaking his arms around the Potions Master's back
and laying his cheek on his collarbone just beside the row of buttons, "just
try not to think about it."
 
The dream released Harry gently that time, let him bob to the surface like
driftwood in the current. The taste of that first night with Snape – with
Severus -- lingered in his mouth, the heat of it coiled in his belly and raised
its eager head from between his legs. He blinked to find his hand already
there, fingers gently stroking the hard flesh. He snatched his hand away,
cheeks flaming furiously, but the sudden bite of the chill air made his cock
jump and his balls tighten.
"Fuck," Harry swore, pressing both fists against the floor. Even without
touching himself, he could feel the orgasm tensing to spring. He was too far
gone already to stop it, and too lonely to work up the desperation he would
need to turn his impending release into a faceless fact of biology. His dreams
had betrayed him again. "No, please," he begged himself, "don't give Him this-"
But wait. Voldemort was gone to France, too far away tonight to get his fingers
into what was left of Harry's heart. He couldn't deny him this, couldn't
pervert it. Could he? Harry held his breath, hands trembling as his cock wept a
thread of sticky precome onto his belly.
Touch. The dream whispered in Severus' voice, Let me feel you again.
"Yessss..." the word had barely enough force to stir the dust from his lips –
no more strength than the feather-light brush of his fingers against his
straining glans. Carefully, so carefully he stroked along the underside,
tracing the vein, circling the ridged crown, fighting back the urge to lunge
after his own hand. He held his breath, wrapped his hand, finger by finger
around his cock – just held it, a tight, unmoving pressure while the blood
howled in his ears. Everything in Harry focused there in the span of his palm –
every shred of willpower, every speck of strength wrapped up in Not. Coming.
Yet.
Catspaws of magic crawled off his skin unnoticed, smoking and curling up the
walls of his prison. They slithered unseen and unfelt along the floor, as
smooth as Harry's breath was ragged. They nosed after the gaoler's wards,
tickling those spells out of hiding, teasing, seducing their meanings and
weaknesses from them. When he finally began to move his hand, there was hardly
a stone or bar that didn't show some glimmer of ancient, cruel magic. Verdant
tendrils wreathed each glyph, pulsing and brightening to the slow rhythm of his
fist.
"Nnnnng!" Harry whined, hearing/not hearing the chime and thrum of power behind
his wordless plea. Release...please! The magic heard though, and the misty,
lambent threads began to change, green bleeding to silver, eclipsing the
furtive glow of the older spells. His hips thrust up, rocking counterpoint to
his clutching, thumbing, sweatycold and desperate, God how long has it been,
anyway grip. Alone in his mind for the first time in three years, Harry was
lost, overwhelmed in his memories of Severus. The musky, acrid smell of his
skin, his hair bitter and heavy when it wanted washing. The taste of his tea,
secondhand and hungry on his invading tongue. The clever fingers that always
knew how to make him writhe. The desperate, reckless cries he taught Harry to
wring from him. "Severusss...." Hadn't said that name aloud since he died – not
since that horrible day on the Wheel. Now it lingered on Harry's lips like a
kiss in the dark.
The wards began to change, crumbling, reforming, shored up in some places by
the silver fire, undermined and sapped dead in others. Spells meant to
strengthen the iron bars began to decay them instead, the chains' cleaning
charms turned to rusting hexes, vermin invocations inverted and became repeller
spells. And what the magic could not find a way to subvert, it destroyed –
torment spells, nightmare spells, will-sappers and confusion hexes, all picked
apart and strangled in the silver light. The first wards destroyed were those
meant to ground any spectral energy and banish ghostly presences from the
blood-soaked dungeon. Those spells the light attacked so viciously as to
fracture the stones which bore them. Harry was so far gone, he didn't hear the
cracking.
Oh, he was close; teetering on the edge so brittle and bright he could taste
madness in it. He wanted more, wanted to wait, wanted more, wanted, wanted,
wanted long, cool hands against him, fingers wrapping silver and ghostly over
his own, cradling his tight, heavy, volatile balls. Wanted a glimpse of hooked
nose and slippery hair through his slitted eyes as he arched up breathless off
the floor. Wanted one single lick from an icy, not-quite-there tongue to grant
him orgasm and absolution.
Harry came harder than he'd thought possible, convulsing, scream-frozen,
breath-locked in the grip of magic and memory. He didn't notice his body
lifting away from the gritty floor on a cushion of power, didn't notice the
silver fire that licked up his flying seed midair and never let a drop touch
the stone. All that mattered was the bursting joy, so alien and huge Harry was
sure it would leave his heart cracked wide and empty as a dragonshell once it
passed. That, and those cold fingers threaded through his own, milking
earthquake echoes out of him as Harry tried to remember how to breathe.
"Severus," Harry whispered again, shuddering – a prayer, plea and reverence
offered up to the love of his life. The shadows sighed to hear it, stroked at
the tears creeping through Harry's begrimed cheeks – forgiving, adoring,
absolving the Boy Who Just Kept On Living. Rocked gently, exhausted and oddly
comforted, Harry relaxed into the darkness' coils, sighed, and let it carry him
away without complaint. He never noticed the changes in the cell's warding
spells, or that the shackles and chains binding his wrists had dissolved
completely.
                                      ~*~
"Get up."
Harry ignored the ridiculous order. Of course he wasn't getting up. Three days
on cold stone without blankets or decent food was insult added to the injury of
his cracked ribs, rattling lungs, aching head, and fever-hot whip cuts. It
would take much more than a command from Draco Malfoy to trump that kind of
damage.
"I said get up, Potter. Don't make me come in there and drag you out."
Harry rolled his head to the side, squinted against Draco's greenish lumos. The
man looked three days dead in that unkind light, eyes shadowed with purple,
lips pressed in a thin slash, nerves vibrating across his glare like a plucked
string. Even his hair looked limp and unwashed, and for someone with Draco's
vanity, that was as telling as it got. Something had broken, something put the
wind right up his arse. Harry bet his left arm he knew what.
He managed a smile, felt his dry lips crack. "Be my guest," he croaked.
"Damn it, Potter!" Rattle of keys, grind of the lock disengaging. The light
came closer, painful and dizzying in the way it made the shadows spiral around
the vaulted ceiling. Harry closed his eyes as his stomach clenched. "What the
hell are you playing at?" Draco snarled low, furious, scared.
Harry cracked one eye. "Do I look like I'm playing, Malfoy?"
Crouched like a pale cat on the stones, Draco merely stared. Harry wondered if
he'd gotten a good look at his father's handiwork before the House Elves had
sealed him away down here. The frustrated worry in his silver eyes seemed to
suggest Harry's injuries were news to him. He hadn't known how badly Lucius
fucked up.
"Move, slave!" Pansy's voice suddenly filled the cell. Harry winced, turned his
face away as she loomed behind her husband and trained a fierce light in his
face, "We know you're only faking!" God, how did Draco keep from throttling the
woman if she shrilled like that all the time?
As if in agreement with Harry's unvoiced thought, Draco hissed and whirled on
her. "Shut up, you damned harpy!"
She shocked back a step. "But Papa said-"
"I know what MY Father said, you ignorant cow, and I'm bloody well seeing to
it!" Harry watched, interested despite himself as Draco bodily herded his wife
out of the cell, "If you want to help, go find me a fucking House Elf! Morgause
knows you're useless enough yourself!" Pansy stared for a moment, red-faced at
her husband's cruelty, then she fled, sobs echoing down the hallway. "Don't
forget the House Elf!" Draco yelled after her.
"So," Harry wheezed, trying and failing to lever himself up onto his elbows,
"mail's come today, has it?" Draco didn't turn from the doorway, but his
shoulders went very still. "Was it a howler by cross-channel seagull, or did He
go straight to an intercontinental banshee courier?"
Draco lit a cigarette, and the flame on his wand-tip wavered as in a breeze.
"Worse," he admitted, blowing out a shaky fume, "he sent Aunt Bellatrix."
                                      ~*~
 
The room they moved him to was hardly more than a closet crammed up under the
manor's attic eaves. There was barely enough space to walk between the wall and
the bed, and the door could not be opened without moving the single ladderback
chair into the washstand corner. But the room had a tiny window to let in light
and the fresh sea air, and it had a proper door instead of an iron grate.
Heaven enough for the Malfoy estate, Harry generously allowed as the House
Elves finished washing him. He let himself hang, weak as a string-cut puppet
until they levitated him into the bed and drew the blankets over.
"Harry Potter is wanting anything else?"
The squeaky voice nearly startled him out of his skin. No Malfoy House Elf had
spoken to him since Dobby. Harry knew very well that Lucius had threatened the
servants with death by torture if they broke that silence. He flickered a
glance at the doorway, where Draco still hovered like a surly ghost in Italian
silk robes the colour of pewter. Yes, he was watching, and didn't seem inclined
to murder the creature. Harry, perhaps, but not the House Elf.
Then his brain registered the creature's words, and their meaning. Food. And
he'd get to choose it. Harry's mind reeled through a sudden orgy of
possibilities, from steak to trifle to bangers and mash. His stomach quickly
stilled that giddiness with a memory from the aftermath of his last starvation
punishment. "Milk, please," Harry decided, "a little bread, and honey." He
ignored Draco's snort from the doorway, and allowed himself to relax into the
pillow as the tiny creature disappeared. But the weight of that mercurial
glower on his face was more than Harry could ignore. "Sit," he sighed, opening
his eyes again.
"What?"
Harry pointed at the chair in the corner. "If you're going to hang around, you
might as well take a load off." He sighed as Draco made a point of ignoring him
and lit another cigarette. "What are we waiting for then?" The blonde gave him
an inscrutable sneer and answered with a smoky, disgusted snort through his
nose. Harry just knew he'd practiced that trick in front of a mirror, so as to
capitalize on his name. "Come on, Malfoy," he croaked, trying not to cough as
the acrid smoke filled the room, "you're sure as hell not hanging about here
for my bloody company. You've got 'waiting' branded all over your face, and I
want to know where the shoe's going to fall."
"It'll fall on your head if you don't belt up, Potter," Draco snarled, but
whatever else he might have added was cut off by the reappearance of the House
Elf.
"A visitor is come, Draco Malfoy Sir," the tiny creature squeaked as it settled
the tray of food in the air next to Harry's bed, "a visitor for Harry Potter."
Now that was interesting.
Draco uncrossed his arms and stood up straight. "At last! Where is he now? Tell
me you wretches haven't left him down in the parlour."
"Oh no, Draco Malfoy Sir, Mise is showing them up the back stairs now, just as
Sir commanded."
"Them? Damn it, he was to come alone-"
The House Elf squeaked in terror, wrung its hands and backed into Harry's bed,
trembling so hard he could feel it through the frame. But before it could
speak, a disapproving voice filled the doorway.
"I do not travel without my assistant, young Sir." A man who vaguely resembled
a brick wall in a mediwizard's white and red robes appeared at the head of the
stairs, all ruddy face and ginger hair, "And to judge by the tenor of your
esteemed father's note, you are in no position to complain about it. Now where
is my patient?"
Draco went red in the face. "Master Drennan, I believe my father's instructions
were specific-"
"And irrelevant," the mediwizard replied, crowding Draco out of the doorway,
"favors owed or no, the Minister knows the conditions of my work. If he wants
my skills and my silence, then he must accept my assistant as well. Now I'm
guessing from the grave-pallor of yon unfortunate that he's the matter at
hand?" Draco made a disgusted sound and backed out into the hall to light up
another cigarette as the man and the girl filled up the tiny room.
Harry finished his milk and shoved the goblet into the Elf's hands, which were
trembling almost too much for it to grip. It managed to tear its eyes away from
the giant visitor long enough to register Harry's small shooing motion, and
then it was gone with a sparkle and a look of pathetic gratitude. The
mediwizard gave only a faint smirk before fixing his attention wholly on Harry,
who had neither strength nor inclination to avoid the man's piercing,
colourless gaze. Harry did gasp when the man ripped the covers, which had just
begun to warm up, off him, but the assistant was there with a warming charm
almost immediately. Harry watched the master's inscrutable eyes following the
track of his wand down Harry's body, watched them map the bruises and welts
with no more show of emotion than a flickering shadow between his eyebrows.
Harry felt uncomfortably as though the man knew everything he'd gone through in
his life.
"Sit him up, Iris. I need to see his back." The girl moved forward, slid her
warm hands around Harry's shoulders and deftly levered him up against her.
Harry tried not to notice how soft she was, or the clean, un-perfumed scent of
her skin beneath his nose. The comfort of the simple, undemanding embrace was
offset by the eerie feeling of the mediwizard's pale eyes combing across his
inflamed back. Harry couldn't suppress a shiver when the girl reached around
him to lift his matted hair away from his neck. He hadn't felt so naked in
years.
"Well, young man," Master Drennan said at last, "I'd admit to some 'curiousity'
about the nature of your accident if I thought it would yield any relevant
information, but as it is…Young Malfoy!" Harry blinked and grinned to hear the
man summoned so imperiously. "You will realize, of course, that this patient
ought to be cared for in St Mungo's."
"Impossible."
"Unlikely, at any rate," the mediwizard agreed sourly, "now, if I am not
mistaken, the late Professor Snape used to keep a laboratory on these
premises?" Harry couldn't suppress a flinch to hear the name spoken aloud.
Severus Snape had become the He Who Must Not Be Named of the new generation.
The girl's hands tightened on his shoulders.
"Shh," she murmured, laying Harry back into the pillows, "it's alright."
Draco too seemed upset, both by the request, and the ease of the name on the
master's lips. "The Traitor used to visit here from time to time, yes, but he
never-"
"Oh, calm down, young sir, I'm not fomenting treachery! You've left things go
too long, and I'll need some very specified and somewhat illegal potions
supplies to put him to rights. And it's no good your grumbling, as you've only
yourselves to blame;" he cast a glance back at Harry, "if you will whip a man
like that, you ought at least to clean the blood off him before you throw him
in the dirt."
"He wasn't-"
"Yes, yes, of course he wasn't," Drennan waved Draco's protests away, "nor
raped, nor throttled neither, and Merlin forbid I should even suggest it."
Harry blinked, half-delighted at the man's candor, and half horrified. The girl
restored his blankets with a tiny frown, not meeting Harry's eyes. "Now I know
your father is too practical to have thrown away an entire potioning laboratory
just because of a bit of political grime," the mediwizard went on, "so off you
get, and show Iris where she can set about her brewing."
The girl got silently to her feet and stood waiting while Draco fumed around
his indecision, his narrow face pinched and white-lipped. He glared at Harry as
if he wished he would burst into flames. Harry stared back with his best blank
face. Finally, inevitably, Draco caved, whirling away in a flutter of silvery
robes to stalk down the stairs. Silent as a ghost, the dark-haired girl
followed him out of sight.
As the clomping footsteps receded, the mediwizard pulled the tiny chair out of
the corner and settled his bulk into it. The chair groaned in horror but held
together, to Harry's surprise. "Well now," Drennan said, "first things first;
Of course I know who you are, and I rather suspect I know why I find you in
such a state." Harry blinked, and Drennan smiled. "I have known the Malfoy
family for some time, and yours is not the first 'accident' I have been called
in to repair. The worst, so far, I'll grant you, but not the first. Now I know
what's expected of us both here – me to heal you, and you to recover. But
before we begin, you must tell me plain, Harry Potter: What do you want?"
Harry stilled, sensing a trap in the open-handed question. No matter the man's
disarming demeanor, it would not do to forget Drennan was Malfoy's choice of
healer. "I don't understand, sir," he managed not to cough around the bruised,
arid creaking in his throat.
The master gave him a withering look. "Young man, I know when I am being leaned
upon. You wanted to hear your wounds admitted aloud, and, I suspect, to watch
young Malfoy's face while he listened to the list. That is a rather reckless
desire for a man in your weakened state, but you all but shoved the words out
of my mouth just now. Were I a weaker occlumancer, you might have gotten me
hexed flat out before I knew what you were up to."
Shocked, Harry struggled to sit up. "I – I swear I didn't mean-" Drennan
pressed him back with one hand on his chest.
"Nice to hear, but it doesn't answer the question. What do you want? I can save
your life, and even your pretty looks if all goes well, but I smell death on
you, and I see it in your aura. I will not waste my time and skills on you if
you do not mean be saved." The unspoken addition hung in the air between them –
Neither will I allow my family to suffer for your death. Harry met the man's
pale eyes as steadily as he could, trying to think of a way to be honest and
still not betray his plans. His captors could still lock him in a padded,
warded room, and all his pains would have been for naught.
"You should leave," Harry said at last, imagining himself 'leaning' on
Drennan's thoughts, and hoping he was doing it correctly now that he meant to,
"I don't want any one else killed because of me."
Drennan shook his head, lips twitching. "Try again, boy."
"I don't know what you want me to say!" Harry cried, wishing for Draco, Lucius,
Narcissa, anyone to come and interrupt the interrogation, give him a reason to
go back to the silence of his own planning.
Master Drennan looked at him for a weighing moment, then pushed back both
sleeves and turned his forearms up to the light. Neither one bore any trace of
a brand or scar. He wasn't a Death Eater. "Then perhaps I shall ask a different
question:" Drennan said, drawing his wand from his pocket, and pointing the tip
directly at Harry's scarred forehead, "Do you want to live?"
Harry'd seen Avada Kedavracountless times in his life, had learned to read the
spell in the look of an angry eye, smell it on a tight-drawn gasp, and divine
it in the bloodless clench of knuckles around polished wood. Harry thought he
knew that Unforgivable more intimately than any other spell – inside out, back
of his hand, no fear left of it. But to see those acid shadows lurking in the
mediwizard's impassive, steady gaze put lie to that supposition. Harry's heart
raced and his breath hitched, rattled, and dissolved into a wracking cough that
filled his throat with bitter, salty phlegm. Drennan's wand never wavered, and
neither did his eyes. "Your answer, young man?" He asked once the coughing
subsided.
"I don't – I don't want to die," Harry managed, hoping it would be enough, "not
like that. Please." Not before I can set things right, he added silently.
Only then did the wand lower. Drennan's lips quirked into the flicker of a
smile as he reached for Harry's blankets. "Very well then, we shall begin."
                                      ~*~
Hands were turning him over, rolling him onto his face, exposing his back to
the air.
That was never, ever a good thing.
Harry lashed out, flailing with fist and elbow, scrambling against the fabric
swaddling his legs. He clipped something meaty and heavy with his fist, and
heard a grunt, but then his fist was caught, twisted, and pinned flat over his
head. A second later, someone slapped him hard across the face. It was that
incongruity which that shocked Harry's panic loose – no one had hit him with an
open hand in years.
Drennan was watching him, bemused and slightly reddened on one cheek when Harry
opened his eyes. "I shall take that as a sign you're feeling better," he
pronounced, releasing Harry's arm.
Harry swallowed heavily as his stomach rolled. "Ugh. Not especially," he
groaned, rubbing at his face. "Sorry I hit you. Didn't mean to fall asleep."
Drennan snorted. "I meant you to fall asleep, though, and that skull fracture
of yours agreed with me. Speaking of which," he nudged Harry's shoulder again,
"I cannot attend to that whilst you're lying on it. Over you go."
The sheets stuck to his back, and Harry winced to feel the scabs tear free. The
smell of the sheets and the mess he was making of them was stronger like this,
and it was all he could do to keep from gagging. His hair -- matted, filthy,
bloody and rank -- fell over his cheek and Harry couldn't suppress a shudder.
God I wish I could get away with cutting this off! He thought, scraping the
mess away from his nose as best he could.
Drennan caught his hand, moved it away again. "Patience, boy," came the
rumbling voice as his hair was gathered up off his neck, "I was getting round
to that." A moment later came the unmistakable sound of scissors, and a
methodical tug-and-release along his scalp.
Harry gasped. "Wait, you can't-"
"Can't see what the hell I'm doing with all this in the way, you're right." The
cutting continued.
"But they'll-"
"Be so happy I managed to save your life, and so grateful for my silence,
they'll pay me well and just dump a Hirsutaea potion over your head once I've
gone." Drennan laughed, tossing a hank of knots onto the floor, "Not very
clever, are you boy?"
Harry sighed. "Clever? No. That was Hermione. She was the clever one. Always
had the answers, or knew where to go look them up. Always knew what to do
next."
"Hermione...That would be the deadly terrorist Miss Granger the Daily Prophet
keeps going on about?" Drennan chuckled when Harry grunted assent, "Murderess,
kidnapper, and shameless wearer of Argyll socks, no doubt. Aye, such as her
would have to be clever to stay out of gaol this long."
"Master Drennan?" the assistant girl's voice floated softly into the room,
"I've brought the Aesepticus salve." Her following gasp drew Harry's eyes open.
She was staring open-mouthed at the floor, and the growing drift of black hair.
Her eyes flickered upward, almost outraged, it seemed. Then she met Harry's
gaze and shuttered her own with a snap.
"Ah. Well timed, Iris." The mediwizard dumped another clump over the edge, "You
may begin with the cuts on his back while I finish here."
Strange, Harry thought as the girl hovered in the doorway, why would her hands
be shaking?
"Well, stop dithering, girl," Drennan snapped, "it's not as if you've never
seen worse!" She flinched at his tone, but moved to obey. "Where have you gone
and left your escort, anyway?" He asked as she knelt beside the bed and
uncovered the jar.
"Arguing with the Widow Lestrange on the second floor landing," she said,
dragging two fingers wetly along Harry's shoulder. He hissed as the salve began
to burn, but didn't let himself move. "They were quite involved."
"Ah, and the subject of their contretemps?" Drennan turned Harry's face to the
wall to cut away the last of his filthy hair.
The girl continued mapping the welts across Harry's back. "Whether Ha...." her
touch faltered, then resumed, "whether he should remain here, or be taken to
the Lestrange estate for further treatment."
Jesus, no! Harry couldn't help the shudder that wrung through him at the
thought. Alone and wandless with Bellatrix the Mad! Give him to a hundred
Malfoys first!
"Easy, lad," Drennan rumbled, clipping away the final mats and leaving Harry's
scalp cold and vulnerable as an unshelled turtle. Harry reached up, and found
the hair that remained was only a couple of inches long -- shorter yet at the
back, where his head hurt too much to touch, "that concussion you've got will
keep you here for at least a week, and no amount of ranting will change that."
He paused as the faint echo of raised voices drifted into the room, then patted
Harry's hand. "Now then, you were telling me about this terrorist friend of
yours, I believe – Granger, wasn't it?"
The girl's hand jerked away from Harry's back as he whipped his head around to
stare at the mediwizard. "What?"
Drennan shrugged, standing to let the girl pull the covers from under him, and
expose Harry's legs. "I need you talking for this next spell, and you seemed
keen on her. So talk. Wasn't she the one blew up Azkaban last winter, freed all
those dangerous criminals?"
Harry hissed as the girl's hands, cold now, resumed their work. "Only part of
Azkaban, really, they're rebuilding it already. And Hermione was involved, yes,
but I think that job was more Neville's style. He always did have a gift for
explosives...just needed a keen mind like hers to work out how to make use of
it."
"Neville?"
"Longbottom, sir," the girl muttered.
"Ah. Another wanted felon, and you on a first name basis. Young man, I am
beginning to suspect you are not as wholesome as you seem!"
Harry laughed bitterly, and pulled his left arm out from under the pillow.
"What was your first clue?" He asked, flashing the brand on his forearm.
Master Drennan laughed loudly enough to make Harry and the girl both twitch in
surprise. "These days, that only marks you as a fine, upstanding pillar of
society."
Exactly, Harry thought, folding the arm to lay his head against the crook of
his elbow. The choppy, uneven hair tickled, oddly comforting as he settled. "I
doubt Hermione would agree," Harry sighed, "she'd sooner see me dead than
wearing the Dark Mark."
The assistant threw the blankets back over Harry's legs with a noisy flourish.
"This friend of yours sounds horrible," she observed in a tight voice.
Harry glanced at her as she knelt beside the bed to gather up his shorn hair.
"No. She has every right to hate me for what I've done."
"And what crime have you committed?" She snapped, her brown eyes fixed firmly
on her task, "Surviving?"
"Iris," Master Drennan lay one of his huge, freckled hands on her shoulder, "go
downstairs now, Iris. You need to inform the Malfoy's housekeeper we shall be
staying after all. Ask for the green suite, and have the House Elves bring up
the bags." The girl looked like she would argue, but then glanced at Harry and
nodded instead.
Harry watched her pale robes flicker through the door and down the stairs, then
he gave a sigh. "I've offended her," he mused, not entirely certain how.
"Aye," Drennan agreed, "but she'll forgive you. She's just that sort of girl,
I'm afraid."
                                      ~*~
 
"You must work faster, Alec."
"Lucius, you know better than that."
"I need him out of that bed by tonight, damn you!"
"Then you ought to have called me sooner." A scuffle, a thud against the wall.
Harry opened his eyes. "Unless you can heal him yourself, Malfoy, you'd best
unhand me."
"You're cosseting him," an edge of nerve made Lucius' voice bright, "I can
understand that, given your sensitive nature. It may look colourful now, but
let me assure you that brat is as strong as an ox. He always has been-"
"Even an ox takes a lie-down when it's got a hole in its skull, you fool!"
Another thud, and this time the door rattled. Harry imagined the massive healer
shrugging Lucius off like a child. "You may insist he rise for you to parade
him about, and it's possible he may manage to do so, but if you plan on it,
then expect Iris and me to be long gone before you so much as get him into his
trousers!"
A pause. "Merlin, you're serious."
"Deadly serious. Skull damage causes brain damage, you fool, can you at least
grasp that much? Dementia, hallucinations, bursts of wandless magic in reaction
to things that may not even be real, emotional instability, magical
volatility." Harry blinked, beginning to be a little alarmed himself. "Think
carefully about whether you want him sitting at your table while you and your
sister-in-law argue over who shall torture him next."
"Damn." Another pause, a long one. "If I cannot produce him within a couple of
days, Bellatrix will remove him by force."
"Then she will be the one to kill him." Harry could almost see Drennan shrug.
"Problem solved, for you."
"Now who is playing the fool, Alec? If his death mattered so little to our
Lord, he would not still be alive, no matter how prettily he suffers!"
"That prophecy nonsense again-"
"Not nonsense," Lucius' voice dropped, becoming tight, angry and smooth. "Our
Lord bound him in the Old Way."
"Yes, he showed me his Mark-"
"No, I mean the OLD Way. Trelawney's opiated babble is nothing less than pure
truth now, Alec. If that slave dies, all Hell will come looking to find out
why."
Well. Wasn't that interesting?
"Then your choice seems clear, Lucius," Drennan answered drily, "do everything
you can to keep the boy alive. Give me the time and the space I need to set him
to rights and keep that madwoman downstairs for as long as you can manage to do
it."
Harry heard Lucius take a deep, shaking breath, imagined him nodding his head.
"And the alternative?"
"Start packing."
He barked a laugh, Drennan chuckled and even Harry snickered into his pillow.
None could imagine Malfoy walking away from the manor and the elegant,
patrician life it represented. The Malfoy family name was a galleon filled with
gold and tradition, and if it was to sink, this Captain would go down with it,
flinging hexes all the way.
"All right then," Lucius said at last, "You'll have your time. Let me take a
look at him and I'll go."
"You've forgotten his face already?" Drennan asked, "Or shall I take this as a
vote of no confidence in my work?"
"You may take this," the warmth drained out of Lucius' voice, "as me inspecting
my resources. Lestrange may manage to bully her way up here before the night is
over. I want to know what she will see."
"Other than the back of my hand?"
"Open the door, Alec."
"He'll be asleep-"
"Open. The. Door."
Harry didn't bother to close his eyes as they came in. The candle burning in
the windowsill over his bed cast a dim glow that was comforting, but not
exactly illuminating. In the light, Lucius looked elegant but as cold and
immovable as winter itself. Only the glitter of alarm in his blue eyes gave him
away as he stared at Harry's raggedly-cropped hair. Harry kept his face blank
and stared back, trying to remember if Snape had ever mentioned whether Lucius
was an occlumancer or not.
"You little fool," he breathed at last. His house robes almost concealed the
knotted fist at his side.
"I warned you," Harry croaked in reply, "I told you you couldn't control it."
Lucius' hand flashed forward, startling a twitch from Harry and a nervous
rustle from the mediwizard. But then the hand froze, fingers outspread just
inches from Harry's face, the candlelight gleaming softly on supple leather
gloves. Harry glanced up to find that familiar quirk at the corner of Lucius'
mouth – the one he'd worn in Flourish and Blotts when he slipped Riddle's diary
into Ginny's cauldron, the one he always gave when his thoughts entertained him
and he wanted the world to know, but didn't intend to share.
"You rest now, Harry," he smiled, ghosting his hand over Harry's forehead and
the fringe above it, "we will discuss this when you have recovered your
strength."
 
                                      ~*~
It was easier to do it, Harry realized, when he was asleep. He didn't have to
think about what 'leaning' might mean – it just made sense, and he just did it.
It was a simple thing to pick up on the warring vortices in the dining room, to
divine the threads of selfishness and savageries buried in the dance of polite
dinner conversation, and tease them to the surface. Able to let his own aches
and worries drift for awhile, Harry was actually rather surprised how easily he
tracked the family's thoughts as they circled each other like sharks in a
bloody pool.
Lucius read as the most active force in the room; whirling, coaxing, spinning
his influence on all present. His thoughts resembled a lightning-fast juggler,
a manic octopus, or bloody Hindu God. Harry realized he was relying entirely on
his balance and adaptability to carry the evening. He nudged the man to choose
a stronger wine than he would have normally done, and to fill his glass more
often.
Draco sat at his Father's right side, a pulsing, sullen smudge of defensive
anxiety. He hardly knew where to apply himself, wanted to speak, knew he would
be shut down, hated it. A strong thread of envy glittered through the young
man's thoughts. Harry teased it to the surface, then pressed him to drink
deeply as well.
The sisters, he read as opposing swirls of light and colour, Narcissa
identifiable from Bellatrix only by the way she would occasionally slap out
tendrils of support to Lucius or demand the same from him. There was history
there, Harry realized -- a wealth of sisterly slights and unforgivables
simmering just below the surface. Added to the already heady brew of power and
politics simmering in the dining room -- well, Harry doubted Neville could've
outdone it for explosive effect.
Why couldn't I ever see this before? Harry mused, tickling up a strong current
of resentment and setting it echoing back and forth between the sisters, I bet
Severus always saw people like this. He could do it without thinking – all
those times in Potions class when he knew just what to say to make me crazy,
scare Neville witless, or spin R- Harry's sleeping mind managed to flinch away
from the name just in time to dodge the nightmare flash of guilty memory that
always came with it. Heart thudding just a bit louder, Harry distracted himself
with a rough dig at Bellatrix Lestrange's seething paranoia, and gave her
temper a hard twist.
A part of him, so long buried he'd thought it dead, whispered that he was being
cruel. These were the actions of a Slytherin, a dark wizard dishonouring the
name of Gryffindor. The thought did give Harry pause, but only long enough to
recall the look on Lestrange's face when she'd murdered Sirirus, and how it had
been Draco Malfoy who had lured Severus to his death with a show of false
contrition and a plea for clemency.
No, it's not honourable. They don't deserve honour. And while that thought was
a comfort, there was still that small, familiar voice in the back of his head
that wondered, But don't you deserve honourability?
 
The door creaked open. That tiny, timid noise yanked Harry forcibly back into
his skin, where he landed with a convulsive yelp. Master Drennan's assistant
gasped and nearly fumbled the loaded tray in her hands as Harry shot upright in
his bed. He gaped at her, gulped a breath, then pitched back down with a
nauseated groan and clutched his head in both hands.
"God!" He breathed, peeling the sweat-sticky sheet away from his chest,
"Couldn't you have knocked?"
She pursed her lips in a prim moue, and hooked the chair over by way of a
bedside table where she could set her tray. It was covered with dishes, some of
which smelled enticing, while others ... he swallowed again. "Sorry sir," the
girl said, "I'll remember in the future."
Great. So he'd offended her again already. Why could he never work out how to
talk to girls? Harry dragged himself back to a sitting position, carefully this
time, lest he dislodge his head entirely. The girl reached over him for the
candle in the window and Harry found himself decidedly not looking at her
breasts, which were only inches away from his nose.
"That's quite a row going on downstairs," he said by way of a distraction.
"Seems that way," the girl replied, checking his back in the candlelight, "I'll
need to reapply the Aesepticus again after you've eaten. And I've another two
doses I've brewed for you as well."
Harry, recalling Snape's doses, only just managed to avoid getting caught with
his nose wrinkled as the girl set the tray on his lap. More raised voices
sounded faintly from downstairs, and Harry smiled, picturing the Black sisters
rolling on the sitting room Aubusson, spitting like cats. He reached for the
soup bowl, but the girl twitched it out of his hands before he could get a
spoon into it. "Hey!"
"Sorry," she replied, climbing fully onto his bed and unlatching the window,
"but you don't want any of that."
Harry watched her throw the soup out over the roof tiles. "Why wouldn't I?" He
asked.
She smirked and set the empty bowl back on his tray. "Because I dosed it with
essence of scurvygrass, lovage and sneezewort while I was having my own dinner
in the kitchens," she replied, settling into the chair, "You'd be surprised how
easy it is to get things past the House Elves. All it takes is a few well
placed 'thank you's', and the poor things start weeping too hard to notice
anything at all."
"Scurvygrass, lovage, and-"
"Causes brash, aggressive behavior, and impairs certain judgmental capacities."
As if in answer, another smash echoed up the stairs, along with a decidedly
feminine screech. "Master Drennan and I felt it would be better to keep them
focused on each other tonight, so they'd leave you alone. Do try the coq au
vin. I had some earlier, and it's very nice."
Harry obediently picked at the chicken. "I don't know that I like the idea of
the Malfoys and Lestrange with impaired judgment," he admitted after a moment,
thinking of the pressure he'd put on all of them to drink deeply, "Say, how do
those potions react with alcohol?"
The girl smirked, and settled into the chair to watch him eat. "I wouldn't
worry. Master Drennan's down there in case things get too hot."
"He is?" Harry couldn't hide his surprise. He hadn't detected the mediwizard's
presence at all, but then he had claimed to be an occlumancer... Harry glanced
at the windowsill, and raised an eyebrow. "If you had to throw my soup away so
the House Elves wouldn't be suspicious, then how's he getting out of eating
it?"
"He's not," she replied, "I just made him an antidote to go along with it. You
really aren't very good at this, are you?"
"No," he admitted calmly, willing himself not to blush at her teasing tone, "I
was never much use at espionage." Your eyes conceal nothing, Potter, Snape had
mocked him once, for anyone who knows how to look... He shivered, wishing he
had a shirt to cover his bare shoulders now that his hair was gone.
"Oh, I forgot. You're the Dark Lord's Gryffindor hero, aren't you?" The girl
said waspishly, her arms folded across her breast. Harry, his mouth full of
potatoes, could only reply with a scowl, but the girl didn't wait for him.
"You're the one sacrificing yourself for the greater good, and taking one for
the team and all that rubbish."
Harry stared, furious to the point of shaking. How dare this chit judge him?
How could she know what he went through to save what mattered to him? He held
her eyes mercilessly while he slowly chewed and swallowed his mouthful of
ashes. "What I am," he said at last, "is the Dark Lord's Executor. What I am is
the only man in England with the legal right to use Unforgivable Curses without
Ministerial permission." Her eyes glittered with tears in the candlelight, but
Harry pressed on, as much for the twist in his own heart as to see the horror
unveiled in hers. "What I am is the man who kills Lord Voldemort's enemies. I
don't see that making me much of a hero to anyone."
"You..." she swallowed, then covered her nerves by fiddling with the potion
doses she'd brought, "You don't seem the type. For that kind of..."
"Murder," Harry supplied, finishing the haricots as if he didn't care. He did
care – he wanted to shut the girl's impossible questions up on one hand, and
wanted to tell her absolutely everything on the other. He wanted to drive her
away, but there was something cleansing about this agonizing conversation.
Perhaps nothing more than the fact that in the three years since the position
had been forced on him, this was the first time Harry had been able to speak to
his true feelings about it without Voldemort silencing him. It hurt to say
these things, but in a good way, like lancing a boil.
"Does he hold you under Imperius to make you do it?" He looked up as she
uncorked one of the phials and set it by his hand, "Does he force you to stay
here, where they do such-" her voice quavered, "such horrible things to you?"
It's not so bad. The words were actually on Harry's tongue before he tasted the
absurdity of them. It was that bad. It was bad enough that he considered the
hope of dying his only reason to live. But he didn't want to tell her that, so
he ate a bite of the too-sweet trifle, and changed the subject.
"You do know it's treason for me to even be talking about this with you, don't
you?"
She gave a watery laugh. "You've met Master Drennan, do you suppose either of
us is very concerned with treason against the Dark Lord?"
To which Harry had to smile and shake his head. "All the same, I'd rather not
have to kill you."
She put an open phial into Harry's hand. "Then don't. Drink that one first for
your lungs, then the blue one for the bones. After I've salved your back again,
then you'll inhale the white fume to make you sleep. Got it?"
He did as she asked, then handed her the tray and rolled onto his stomach. He
hissed when she laid the first streak of the cool stuff down, but this time the
burn only got worse as the salve settled in as if it had teeth. "Gah!" Harry
groaned after a while, "The whipping didn't hurt this much!"
Her fingers stilled for a moment, and Harry cursed himself for mentioning the
beating in front of the sensitive healer. "It can't be helped, I'm afraid," she
said, resuming her work, "The salve has to dissolve the infected tissue to
prevent necrosis. It feels as if it's burning because it is, after a fashion."
She squeaked as Harry scrambled to his knees and whirled on her. "Burns?" He
grabbed her shoulders, horrified, "You can't! Burns scar! I'm not allowed to
scar!" It wouldn't be Lucius who'd pay if the girl's salve left a mark on him,
no matter that his negligence had caused it. Harry's throat clenched at the
thought.
"No, I promise, it's just-" she blinked leaning against his hold, "the new
damage, it's easier to heal cleanly, and...."
Harry let her go, breathing a deep sigh of relief as he settled stiffly back
down onto the bed. But the girl didn't resume her work, and after a moment,
Harry heard the unmistakable sounds of stifled tears. Cursing himself again, he
half-rolled to face her again. "Hey..." what had her name been? He couldn't
recall, so he reached for her gooey hand instead, "I'm sorry I shouted at you.
I get what you're doing, okay? And I'm not mad or anything, it's just I have to
be careful."
She sniffed, nodding while he awkwardly patted her hand. "I know, it's just-
" then a smash and a shout from downstairs made them both jump in alarm. She
cast a nervous glance at the door, and sniffed. "You had better let me finish
this." Harry complied, making no further comment as the caustic salve burned
its way across his arse and legs. The silence downstairs had a menacing
quality, and Harry found himself wishing the girl would hurry up and go so he
could try and find out what was happening.
"There," she dropped the jar onto the chair and wiped her hands, "it should
stop hurting soon-"
But even as she twitched the sheets up over Harry's back, a clattering of shoes
filled the attic stairway. The girl hurried to open the door, only to have it
fly open and knock her sprawling into the washstand in the corner. Harry pushed
himself up at her strangled cry, but before he could turn, a shadowy figure
swooped through the door and snatched a handful of his cropped hair.
"Very well," Narcissa Malfoy hissed, wrenching him out of the bed and spilling
him at her feet, "if you are so very important to her, then let the bloody
harpy have you!" Harry wheezed as his inflamed back scraped across the gritty
boards, straining to keep from bashing his head again. "Get up!" She screamed,
kicking at him, "Get out of my house, and take that HellBitch with you!"
"Stop it!" Drennan's assistant bolted out of the corner, shoving Narcissa away
and dropping to her knees to shield Harry.
"No," he tried to wheeze, "don't-" But the girl ignored him, dragging him up
against her. She was totally unprepared for it when Narcissa landed a
resounding slap across her face. She fell sideways with a gasp, and Harry found
himself being hauled up by his scalp once again.
"Wait," he pleaded as the room gave a horrifying lurch, "wait please, let me-"
"Let him go!" Harry looked up, horrified as the slim, dark-haired girl leapt to
her feet, one cheek reddened and scored with nail-tracks, "Leave him alone!"
Narcissa's hand raised again, rings glittering in the candlelight, but before
the blow could land, the girl lunged forward and punched the blonde woman in
the face. She fell with a screech, tearing a handful of Harry's hair as she
did. He yelped and sagged dizzily, blood roaring in his ears. Concentrate! He
commanded himself, you spun her up, now calm her down before she kills someone!
But try as he might, Harry couldn't make the floor stop bucking underneath him.
He gasped to feel small, strong hands hauling him up from behind, steadying
him, and turning him. "Go," he pleaded with the girl as she tugged his arm
across her shoulders and wrapped hers around his waist, "run now, before-"
"Shut up! I'm not leaving you-"
"You little COW!" Narcissa's outraged voice startled them both around. She
crouched on the bed, golden hair spiraling out of its perfect coif, blood
dripping down her chin to spatter her diamonds. Her eyes were wide and dark and
icy cold as she stared down the length of her wand at the girl. "How DARE you?"
The girl fumbled for her wand, too late – Narcissa's was already beginning to
glow green. Harry gave her a shove toward the door. "GO!"
"Avada-"
"NO!"
"Stupefy!" Lucius Malfoy's voice thundered through the room. Harry flinched as
the spell sizzled past his ear and struck Narcissa full in the chest.
The blonde collapsed with a surprised chuff, the swirling green of the killing
curse sucked back into her wand with thin sort of wail. Harry couldn't help but
think it sounded disappointed, and for some reason that thought made him want
to giggle. That was shock, probably. He quelled the urge and let the girl
walked him back from the doorway, where he leaned against the wall to keep his
knees from giving out.
Lucius prowled to the bed, where he stared down at Narcissa for a long moment.
Harry watched the man, feeling himself go still inside -- so deeply still that
he could almost feel the echoes of his pulse dying down in his fingers and
toes. So still, as Malfoy turned his wife's face to the light, that even his
trembling knees steadied. He could feel the girl quaking against his side, and
gently disengaged her. He needed the stillness more than the support.
"Which one of you struck my wife?" Malfoy's voice was low, tightly controlled.
His fingers were bloodless marble clenched around the silver head of his cane.
The girl drew a trembling breath through her nose, but Harry cut her off. "It
doesn't matter," he said, willing Malfoy to turn, to meet his eyes. He felt a
slight jolt somewhere near the back of his throat when the Death Eater did so,
as though a current had opened between them. Harry pushed his stillness out
along that current with all his might. "She tried to kill me. You stopped her.
Take her downstairs now."
"You..." Malfoy blinked, and his arctic glare lost some of its intensity, "I
will not-"
Harry pushed harder. "Master Drennan needs to stop her nose bleeding. Take her
downstairs. Now." Malfoy's eyes glazed a little more. Harry gave the current
one final shove, holding to his stillness with every ounce of strength left in
him. "Go."
Somehow he held himself up, straight against the wall while the Dark Lord's
deadliest servant obediently levitated his wife out of the tiny room. Then the
quaking returned in delicate, cold-sweat tremors as the footsteps retreated
steadily down the stairs.
"Harry," the girl – Iris, he remembered suddenly – whispered, "wandless
Imperius... that was amazing!" He swallowed thickly, eyes closed as he sucked
breath after panting breath. The room was beginning to sag again, and drift to
the right. "I've never even heard of-"
He dropped away from the wall, trusted gravity take him to his knees. "Harry?"
He pitched forward, clawing under the edge of the bed for the chamberpot, and
hurling every bit of his dinner into it. She stroked his forehead as he heaved,
wiping the sweat away from his eyes, steadying him when his arms shook too much
to bear him. And when nothing more would come up, Harry let her haul him back
up into the bed and un-twist the sheets to cover him.
"You oughtn't to have done it," she murmured, layering the blankets on as Harry
began to shiver, "not with a concussion. God, Drennan will simply murder me for
letting you! Who knows what kind of damage you've done to yourself?" Harry
didn't reply. She sounded more upset with herself than with him, and anyway,
what could he say?
He groaned as another violent shiver wracked him, curled onto his side to bring
up his knees. He knew it wasn't as cold in the tiny room as he suddenly felt –
he'd been sweating like a pig not half an hour earlier, but now he felt as if
he were packed in snow. After a moment, he felt the bed dip and the girl settle
herself atop the blankets, up against his back. He sighed, grateful in spite of
himself as the weight of her small arm over his shoulder pressed him gently
down into sleep.
                                      ~*~
 
A hand curled gently under his neck, lifting his head away from the pillow, but
Harry was dreaming of weak Northern sun through green bedcurtains and a pale
chest breathing deeply under his ear, and couldn't be bothered wake. That
changed when a cold glass phial touched his lips, and a low voice murmured
"Drink this."
"Mht izzit?" Harry mumbled, turning his face. The acrid smell of the dose
crawled into his nose, shaking off the pleasant dream.
"Poison," came the reply.
Harry's eyes flew open, and he jerked away from the gentle hold. "What?!" He
demanded as the mediwizard hastily moved the phial clear of Harry's reach.
"Oh good, you are awake," the man smirked, his blue eyes twinkling in a way
that made Harry's stomach clench, "How do you feel?"
"Bit worried, actually," he scowled, knuckling sleep from his eyes as his pulse
slowed.
Drennan laughed. "Lad, if I wanted to kill you, I'd have done last night, and
not woken you for it." He lifted the phial to the weak sunlight from the
window, and Harry blinked as the liquid came alive with opaline light. "I
simply need you comatose for a few days so I can use deep-healing spells on you
without further trauma. Just drink it down for me, and next thing you know,
you'll be feeling better."
Harry did not take it. "What is it?" Drennan quirked an eyebrow at him, and
Harry set his jaw. "What's IN it? See, I have this personal policy about not
drinking unidentified potions from wizards I don't know. Especially when the
words 'poison' and 'coma' come up in the conversation."
"Prudent, I suppose," Drennan allowed, giving the potion a little slosh, "It's
Acromantula venom. Nothing more. At your weight, I estimate it'll clear out of
your system in around fifty eight hours." He offered the phial again.
"Satisfied?"
Harry took it, sloshed it, sniffed it again with his eyes closed. The sharp
odour did indeed dredge up memories of Aragog's grotto; lanky, hairy shapes
that filled up the darkness, Ron's voice crackling with fear as the giant
spiders closed in on them.
Ron... Blinded, broken, his every breath a rattling lungful of torment and
bloody foam. That ruined face turning at the sound of his voice, the remnant of
a hand struggling to rise, himself unable to take it, unable to release the
wand, unable to not cast the curse that lurked in the back of his throat.
"Harry?" He startled at the mediwizard's concerned voice, "Something wrong?"
He swallowed, took a deep breath. "I just. I," swallowed again, made himself
think. "Where did you get it?" He managed words at last, "The venom, I mean?
Who brought it to you" Drennan's eyes flinched and Harry knew he'd guessed
right. "Hagrid's here, isn't he? He's in England," he hissed, "And you never
meant to use this venom for healing me at all, just to get me out of the
Manor's wards!"
"Hold up, Boy," Drennan said, "You've forgotten that there's quite an extensive
potion laboratory downstairs. Iris found that-"
"Rubbish," Harry pressed, "Acromantula venom evaporates completely once it's
been outside the spider's body for sixty hours, and there is no containment or
spell on earth that can stop it."
"Suddenly you're a potions expert?"
"Shared rooms with one for three years, thank you," he replied, feeling the
certainty settling into his bones. He was right! He could feel it! "and
insomnia will drive a reader to desperate lengths when there's no Dreamless
draught to be had." He lifted the phial to the light again. "The only
Acromantulas in Europe are up north at the Hogwarts ruins. If you expect this
to work on me for fifty-eight hours, then it means someone apparated straight
here after procuring it. And I know of only one man in the world who would
still be able to apparate after milking a giant spider."
"Let me check that head, lad. You're worrying me."
Harry batted his hands away, still grinning. "Where's your assistant this
morning?"
Drennan scowled. "Iris is in the lab, brewing-"
"Wolfsbane potion," Harry cut him off, "I smelled it on her hands last night.
Didn't put it together till just now, but after living with the stink every
month for three years, I don't think I'll ever really forget it. So that's two
of the three. Hermione wouldn't let Hagrid and Lupin do something like this
without her, so I'm guessing you've been in contact with her as well, haven't
you?" He stared at the mediwizard, willing him to speak, to tell the truth –
reaching for that little shock of connection he'd had with Lucius the previous
night.
For a moment, he almost thought he had it. Then Drennan gave a growl, and Harry
found himself sagging dizzily against the wall, with his stomach knotting and
the blood pounding in his temples. "There will be no more of that, if you
please," Drennan said, steadying Harry by the shoulder, "If your brain were up
to that sort of a workout, I'd not need to drug you for the healing of it."
"Then tell me," Harry pleaded, grabbing the man's hand, "tell me the truth!"
Silence, then Drennan looked away. "It'd be a bit redundant now."
A frisson of joy and horror crawled across Harry's skin. They were here, not in
France – Voldemort's trap would not catch them, and that knowledge made his
bones feel loose with emotion. He had to take a deep breath before he could
trust himself to speak. "Tell them – You have to go back to them and tell them
they can't do this," he managed at last, "It's not safe. I'M not safe-"
"Hush, boy," Drennan patted his trembling hands, but Harry would not be
soothed.
"No, I mean it! Whatever it is they're planning, you can't let them take me-"
"I know, Harry," Drennan caught his chin, forced him still, "I know what you
have to do. He told me. I understand. Don't like it much, but I never could
argue logic against him."
Harry blinked, utterly derailed. A wash of cold nerve shocked him still and
whispering. "He told you?" Stomach clenching, dropping like a stone. "Who told
you?"
"Strange, isn't it," the man sighed, leaning back in the rickety chair and
ignoring its pained creak, "that such an old place, with such a bloody history
as this shouldn't have Ghost wards? You'd think the Malfoys would be hip deep
in vengeful shades, but there's really only the one."
"Severus." The name wobbled off his lips. Hearing it was a gut-punch, and a
part of him wanted to clap his hands over his traitorous mouth. The letters of
it should have burned on his tongue, poured out as a scream, not that white
little whisper, and never, ever where another soul could hear.
Drennan nodded sadly. "It seems my old colleague is not at rest even now. A
shame, really – if any man had earned his peace, it was him."
"Stop," Harry pleaded, squeezing his eyes shut, "Don't, please don't. I
can't...."
He started as the phial was plucked from his shaking hand. "Hush, boy, hush. He
knows."
That sound wasn't a sob. It just wasn't. Harry pressed his forehead against the
wall and remembered that he did not cry – not for anyone. Never for Snape. He
did not cry because if he began, he knew he would never stop.
"Sweet Merlin, child, how do you manage?" Harry blinked, stiffened at the
words, but Drennan went on before he could reply. "Just saying his name wrecks
you, and yet you spend your life tucked up cozily with the man who killed him.
You give interviews and pictures for the Daily Prophet, hold a Cabinet
position, all with a Snape-sized hole in your heart. You can't possibly walk
about bleeding like this day after day."
"I don't think about him," Harry replied, words precise and careful, "not
ever." He sighed at the mediwizard's dubious look, and tried to explain. "Have
you ever found a spider in your bath, Master Drennan? Just the little sort of
spider that always seems to wind up under the spout, scrambling about when you
turn the water on?" Drennan nodded. "Ever just sit and watch him? He'll race up
the tiles to get away from the rumbling water – like as not, he doesn't even
know what's going on, beyond that it's dangerous. But he's panicking, right?
And the tiles are slippery, even for him. So he slips, and he falls, and maybe
he catches himself, and keeps trying, keeps slipping, keeps falling, keeps
catching himself."
Harry swallowed, remembering his first weeks after the Northumberland Battle,
remembering his desperation, his fury, guilt, and terror, and how deftly they
were used against him before he learned to lock it up in the back of his heart.
Before he learned how to hide behind the shield of his resentment. "Soon he
starts to slow down though," he went on, "He's only a little spider, after all,
and he's getting tired. He can't keep running, and he realizes he's falling
closer and closer to the water. But he keeps trying to climb, just more
carefully now, feeling his way."
"He's not planning ahead, that spider, and he's not thinking of his little
spider family, or his dinner, or the last time he got shagged. He's thinking
about each foot, and just where it goes, and how best to hang on. And that
mostly works – he gets higher up. But he still falls, you know? Because it's
still so slippery, and he's still so very, very small."
"Why?" Drennan asked, and Harry did not look because he didn't want to see pity
in his eyes. "Why would he keep on?"
Harry breathed a laugh. "I don't reckon he knows, exactly. There's nothing up
there but more tile, really, and he's no reason to hope otherwise, does he? But
it is farther away from the water, and he knows spiders can't swim. I guess he
keeps on because he's hoping he'll find someplace where he can rest for awhile
– where he can just tuck in and maybe not have to wonder how long it would take
him to drown if he fell all the way."
"About eight minutes," Drennan supplied with a faint smirk, "give or take a
desperate rescue." Harry snickered in spite of himself, but the mediwizard's
smile faded. "You're not climbing anymore though, are you Mr. Potter?"
"No." Harry looked down at his fingers, and carefully un-knotted them from the
sheet. "At the moment, I'm just sort of clinging, and trying to catch my breath
for what's coming next."
"And what's coming next?"
Harry looked up, steadily meeting the healer's eyes. "Another fall."
A weighing silence, then Drennan leaned forward, holding out the phial of venom
once more. "Three days, Mr. Potter," he said, "unmolested, unbroken. Peace for
three days running. Will that be long enough to catch your breath?"
Harry touched the glass with a fingertip. It was unnaturally cold, steaming
minutes of oblivion away while he watched. "What happened to not wasting your
time on me if I wasn't going to survive?" He challenged.
The mediwizard shrugged. "It seems you've an important job to do, young man –
one the world has expected of you since your first birthday. Who am I to stand
in your way now that you're poised to actually do it? Iris will not understand,
poor girl, but I do." He put the phial into Harry's hand, wrapped his fingers
firmly around. "Three days. Just do one thing for me."
"What's that?"
"Do not fail."
                                      ~*~
***** Chapter 5 *****
Chapter Summary
     Harry in the grotto. Illustration.
[http://kingsgrave.com/images/Fic%20Arts/grotto.jpg]
***** La Mort Par Une Chute *****
Harry awoke to several sensations he'd not felt in a very long while. First
there was the late-morning sunlight across his face like a warm swath of silk.
Sunlight pouring like golden syrup through tall windows, gilding the elegant
massive, white draped four-poster bed in which he lay.
Huh. Not in the attic. He thought, slowly becoming aware of the delicious,
unfamiliar lassitude in his body – no tension, no worry, no pain. Harry
couldn't recall the last time wakefulness had found him without a sense of
foreboding, but this morning seemed to bring nothing but the comfort of a lie-
in and the linen-and-lavender-scent rising from the duvet. The warmth and
decadence almost dragged him back down into slumber.
But then a colder sensation sliced through his doze; Voldemort was hunting for
him. Harry's eyes opened, sharply focused, fully awake now. This wasn't the
pinned-down and stripped bare regard he had come to know in the last three
years. This was a creeping, neck-stiffening sensation, as though a dementor
sniffed blindly after him, its rotten fingers swiping through empty air just
inches from his face. That voice Harry had lived with so constantly now hissed
at the edge of his thoughts, calling after him in honeyed, summoning tones
which to Harry's surprise, found no echo in his waking mind.
The sound/thought washed over him and away while Harry lay still, confused,
bemused, and baffled to find himself so unmoved. That stillness welled up
inside him again, deeper than the one he had used to turn Lucius. It felt
utterly strange, like flying without a broomstick, or casting magic without his
wand. Which you already did. Harry blinked to remember. Then he recognized the
stillness; it was the absence of fear -- as if the furious, fighting part of
him was still envenomed and comatose, leaving the Dark Lord alone in the
darkness they used to share. Meanwhile, the rest of him slowly awoke to
sunlight and birdsong and the whisper of waves on the beach below the cliff.
And that thought in itself was intimidating, and Harry made himself consider it
carefully. "How much power have I given you just by fighting against you? By
fearing you?" He mused to the fading, frustrated parseltongue whispers, "How
much of myself have I lost?"
As if in reply, he felt the Dark Mark give an achey twinge, and the forehead
scar answer with a wriggling itch. Harry caught his breath, on the brink of
steeling himself against capture, invasion, subjugation, slavery. Severus said
the bindings would fade with distance, but what if he was wrong? What if He's
come back for me? What if he takes me before I'm ready for him?
Self fulfilling, Harry's glitter of panic drew the searching heat nearer. Fear.
He realized, and at the naming of it, the stillness inside him welled up like a
bubble of laughter, and smothered it dead. Both scars becalmed at once, and
Harry found himself awed, and more than a little apprehensive as Voldemort's
aura faded.
"It can't be that easy," Harry warned himself, trying to be stern. And yes, the
Mark was still on his arm when he checked, glaring angrily black against his
skin. It ought to have hurt terribly at that colour, ought to have had him
delirious with pain, but it was only a little hot, perhaps ticklish a bit.
Harry stared at the Morsmordre for a full minute before he realized what else
was missing -- the twist of guilt and revulsion the sight of his branded arm
had always triggered in him. Somehow the bright morning unmade the Dark Mark a
little -- it wasn't a failure, or a prison, or a betrayal – it was only a
gleaming twist of scar tissue on his forearm.
And Harry, he realized suddenly, was only a man whose bladder hadn't been
emptied in three days -- far more pressing a matter than shadowy specters in
the back of his haunted mind. So it with smugness unparalleled that Harry
turned a deaf ear to the Dark Lord, and went to have a piss.
They'd re-grown his hair while he slept, Harry discovered. Black spikes poked
every which way, falling in a fringe over his forehead, and just tickling the
bottom of his neck. His hair, Harry Potter's hair, not Lord Executor's mid-back
mass of waves. Harry stared, a goofy grin spreading across his face while the
sink filled with water. "All I need now's my glasses," he murmured.
His reflection sniffed. "Nothing wrong with those eyes, young man. There's no
call for Muggle affectations." Harry just shook his head at the inherent
snobbery of all things Malfoy, and ducked his head into the sink.
One shaving charm, one tooth-cleaning charm, and a drenched, and mightily
offended mirror later, Harry returned to the main room of the suite to find
that the House Elves had left food for him. Taking a cue from his last request
for food, they had kept the fare simple; bread, honey, soft cheese, tea, and
milk – all in such restrained portions as must have broken their generous
little hearts. His bed was made but turned down, and they had also left a red
velvet robe and a pair of pajamas draped over the chair that faced the massive
marble fireplace.
That proved how much had changed in the three days he'd been asleep. More than
the food, more than being moved to the guest suite, more than being allowed to
wake unattended, or given access to the bathroom's maintenance spells, the
clothing was tacit permission to cover himself, no longer to keep himself
available and vulnerable. A brief search revealed more clothing in the wardrobe
and trunk, all of which looked a likely fit for Harry. There were even shoes.
Things had changed indeed, he mused as he pulled the pajamas on. Now he needed
to work out how, and what the changes would mean to his plans.
Those concerns evaporated when a single, accidental brush of his fingers
against the Morsmordre flooded Harry's mind with a chilling awareness of
Voldemort – thought, plot, and feeling.
Horrified, Harry staggered, yanking his hand away from the Mark as he fell into
the wing-chair with a gasp. As though a switch had been flipped, the contact
winked out. Harry sat carefully still, willing his heart to slow, willing his
lungs to fill, empty, and fill again.
Nothing happened. No searing attention split his solitude open, no soul-deep
imperius jerked his leash to heel. Gradually it occurred to Harry that he had
been aware of Voldemort's thoughts, not the other way around.
The binding works both ways, Harry, Severus had said, Both ways.
Trembling, Harry's fingers crept back to the brand, hovered above it for a
moment, then descended. The connection poured over him again, rattled him with
its volume, intensity and strength, but Harry closed his eyes, held fast and
waited for the chaos to settle into sense. It wasn't like legillimency – this
came with no push, no dizzying rush of pictures, sounds and sensations. This
was just a sort of knowingof Voldemort's psyche that was at once simple, and
impossible to define. Things were real, proven fact to the Dark Lord's reality
which were totally alien, and ridiculous to Harry -- and not all grand things
like attitudes about muggles and halfbreeds, either. Little things, like what
trust meant, what pain meant, what to do with either. Subtle, pervasive things,
so tiny and sticky that Harry found himself almost getting used to them as he
mapped the spiraling threads around him. He quickly began to feel grey, as
though he swam through greasy smoke that would cling to his mind, and taint his
thoughts for the rest of his life.
No! Too deep! Harry broke the link again, sloshed tea all over the saucer as he
juggled the cup to his mouth and emptied it with a gulp. Breathing became very
important, requiring all his attention to keep it from turning into a thin,
nervy whine in his throat. Food. Eating would help. He reached blindly, stuck
his thumb in the butter, and shook his head back into focus.
"Slow. Take it slowly," Harry told himself aloud, taking up a slice of toast
with careful fingers, "slowly, like he did it with you." The Gryffindor in him
wanted to crash into his enemy's thoughts like a storm, kick the footings out
and crush the crystal underfoot, but Harry knew better. He couldn't hurt
Voldemort mind to mind – the Mark wouldn't allow it, even if the soul bond
would. "You don't need to see his soul," Harry murmured, soothing his rattled
nerves with the little rituals of breakfast, "just his plans, a bit of his
thinking – just enough to get around him." He chewed his toast, stirred sugar
into his tea with a trembling hand. "It'll be no worse than dodging Snape after
curfew back at school," Harry swallowed, not as convinced as he wanted to be,
but not ready to turn his back on this discovery either.
He finished his toast, had a second piece more for evasion's sake than because
he wanted it, and then, before he could come up with more reasons not to, Harry
rolled up his left sleeve, and let the Dark Mark lead him into the Serpent's
darkest lair.
                                      ~*~
"What are you doing?" A low voice intruded on his reverie, smoothly prying open
Harry's silence, and luring him back to the surface.
He took a deep breath, smelled Earl Grey tea, something sugary, and a warm,
resinous cologne. "Staring into the abyss," he told Lucius Malfoy without
opening his eyes or stopping his fingers' restless tracing.
A snort, gently amused. "A bit redundant, don't you think? It seems to me
you've done nothing else since you arrived here." A rustle of movement, and
then Harry felt gloved fingers close about his right hand and lift it away from
his left arm.
"Some abysses are deeper than others," he replied, opening his eyes as
Voldemort's restless thought-echoes faded away. Lucius released his hand, and
sat back in the facing wing chair, flipping back the swath of ivory hair that
had fallen over his shoulder. "What are you doing here?" Harry asked him.
"I do live here, Potter," Lucius smirked, "and even the guest suites are mine."
"Fine," Harry rolled his eyes and stifled the urge to stretch and yawn, "Then
what am I doing here?"
"Staring into the abyss, apparently," Lucius crossed his legs at the knee,
looking wholly at ease save for one bouncing foot, "The House Elves reported
that you awoke when expected, but have been sitting there all day, ignoring
every meal they've brought you. Hardly encouraging, given your recent
condition. However, seeing as how you were not incapacitated, but merely navel
gazing, perhaps you'd like to gratify their efforts by partaking of tea now?"
Harry followed his graceful gesture to find the table loaded with pastries,
half a dozen covered dishes, and tea service for two. He thought about
refusing, but a second later, a House Elf appeared to load the plates and pour
the tea. Apparently the question had been rhetorical.
"Where's Drennan?" Harry asked to cover his stomach's enthusiastic gurgle as
the smell of the food reached him, "I'd think you'd have sent him if you were
worried about me."
Malfoy sipped his tea. "Why should I send him when my own eyes work?" He
replied, "I have known you long enough to judge for myself whether you require
care or not."
That boy is as strong as an ox! Harry remembered him saying, and smirked. "Why
should you come yourself when you loathe the very sight of me, is the real
question, Malfoy." He ate a bite of steak pie, then answered his own question
when it became clear that Lucius didn't intend to. "You're here because you
want something from me. Something you can't get without asking for it."
Lucius didn't bother to deny it, merely gave Harry a weighty stare over the rim
of his teacup. "Very well then, let us be plain about it," he said at last,
"Severus Snape was one of the best occlumancers born in my lifetime." Harry
stiffened at the name on Malfoy's lips, but managed to close his teeth on a
biscuit before any growl escaped him. "You, as his student and…apprentice, must
have learned the art from him. Am I correct?"
"No," Harry heard the words escape through his clenched teeth, "I was not his
…'apprentice', I was his lover. And your SON, on your orders, lured my LOVER to
his death. If you wanted anything from me, Mr. Malfoy, reminding me of that was
NOT the way to go about getting it!"
"Calm down, boy," Lucius said, summoning the teapot to refill his cup, "this is
no time for sentimentality. He taught you occlumancy – yes, or no?" Breathing
hard through his nose, Harry merely glared until the blonde sighed. "Potter, I
am deft enough at legillimency to test you myself if you will not answer my
question."
"He taught me," Harry relented at last, "but I was never any good at it, and I
haven't been able to do it at all since…." He held out his left arm, displaying
the Dark Mark.
Lucius frowned. "But you have not attempted it against any save our Lord?"
"No one else has attacked me," Harry shrugged and took another biscuit.
Lucius sipped his tea, ate a finger sandwich, and thought. "I believe Bellatrix
Lestrange will do so when she sees you tonight," he admitted finally, "and you
must resist her at all costs. You must not allow her to examine your memories
of this past week."
Harry stared, then he laughed. Hard. "You're asking me to cover for you? After
you nearly killed me?"
"Do not try my patience, you insufferable brat," Lucius hissed, "not when your
complicity in those events is so obvious! You knew what was required of you,
you understood the consequences, and you made your own choices!"
"Oh yeah?" Harry leaned forward with a grin, "Then if your nose is so clean,
what are you trying to hide, Minister?" Malfoy stared at him, lips pressed thin
and white with anger. Harry stared back, then finally shook his head. "Damn,
he's got us well trained, hasn't he?" Lucius blinked, confused, and Harry
sighed. "Voldemort, I mean. He sets us up to hate each other, to fight each
other, and we never disappoint him. Hadn't you noticed? Any time one of us gets
too stable, he throws the other one in the way just to fuck things up."
Harry's words struck Malfoy like a lightning bolt. There was no hiding the
startled realization in his eyes, or the doubts and suspicions that came
boiling up behind the simple truth. "I just put it together today," Harry said,
resisting the urge to stroke his left arm again, to peer into the Dark Lord's
sticky thoughts, and be sure of what he's seen, "He's been using me to keep you
in check this past three years, and I didn't notice it until now."
Malfoy frowned. "Don't be ridiculous. Perhaps he uses me to keep you in check,
but my Lord has no reason to sabotage my endeavors. Time and again, I have
proven myself trustworthy-"
"No one is trustworthy to him," Harry cut in, "not even me, and you KNOW how
deeply he bound me – wand, word, and body. He's afraid of us both, that's why
he wants us fighting, focused on each other. You're what he uses to keep me
from breaking free of him, and I'm what he uses to keep you from turning
against him. All neat as you please, and we never see it coming."
Lucius finished his tea and set the cup aside. "This conversation is beginning
to sound like a proposal, Mr. Potter."
Harry smirked. "I thought it was a proposal all along, Mr. Malfoy. I'm just
throwing a few other things onto the table before we negotiate."
"I see no need for negotiation. Whatever you may think of your treatment here,
I promise that should you give Bellatrix Lestrange the leverage she needs to
remove you to her estate, you will find yourself much the worse for it."
"I know," Harry nodded, "I've heard what she does with those dogs of hers, and
yeah, it's disgusting, and no, I don't want any part of it. But if you give
Bellatrix Lestrange the leverage she needs to remove me from your estate,
she'll use that to wreck you. She'll never let anyone forget that you couldn't
be trusted with Voldemort's property. How long do you figure you'll hang onto
the Ministry after that?" Malfoy glowered, but Harry held up a hand. "There's
something else you should know about too. That little dance Voldemort's got you
and I in? Well Bellatrix is part of it now." He leaned forward as Lucius raised
one doubting eyebrow. "You think she's only here because of what happened to
me? Well you're wrong. She would have shown up anyway. She was under orders to
come while I was here, just to throw you off step, and to frighten me. He
wanted her here to keep us both busy while he was away."
"Prove it." That wasn't a challenge, but a demand.
Harry was ready for it. "Where's my wand?"
"If you think I will allow you-"
"No, I'm not asking for it, I'm just asking if you know where it is," Harry
interrupted, "My bodyguards always hand it over to you before they leave -- I'm
not supposed to see that, but I know the drill. This time they didn't."
Malfoy's brow furrowed as he remembered the same thing. "You won't find it in
my luggage either, because I watched my valet pack that bag, and my wand was
not in it. But if you were to search the Widow Lestrange's luggage, you would
find it, because she brought it with her. I felt it," Harry answered the
question unasked, "when she arrived. I know it's here, and I know she's got it.
She's got it, because she was meant to be the one to return it to me once
Voldemort is through with his Continental charade. Not you."
And there was that lightning-struck expression again. Lucius leaned back into
the wing chair, steepling his fingers while he thought.
Harry let the silence lie, wondering briefly if it would help to reveal any of
the long term plans the Dark Lord had for the pair of them. He decided against
it – he could never convince Malfoy that Voldemort meant to hand him over to
Harry as a bed slave, or that Harry himself would have been trained to like it
by then, his morals whittled away in long, grinding years of captivity and
degradation. It horrified Harry to know just how far into the future
Voldemort's plans sprawled and how plausible they all were when considered step
by step. If the Dark Lord had been an animagus, he would have been a spider.
"So that brings us back where we started," Harry said at last, wary of letting
the gravid thoughts whelm him again, "You need me to conceal what happened, and
I need you to keep me here until Voldemort returns."
Lucius looked up, his wintry eyes flashing something almost like gratitude for
Harry's interruption. "Yes, of course."
"But the information I've given you is valuable," Harry added, "I want
something in return for it."
Lucius rolled his eyes. "Let me guess; a truce – that no more harm should come
to you whilst you remain here?"
"Of course not," Harry said, "I know what's expected of you where I'm
concerned. You couldn't lay off me even if you wanted to."
"What then? Do you imagine I will join forces with you? Become your ally in
some valiant insurrection against the Darkness?"
Harry laughed out loud, as much at the tone of Malfoy's voice as at the
suggestion. "You kidding? I'd have to trust you then, and believe me, THAT will
never happen. I'd call you my one true love before I'd ever call you my ally!"
"Well what then?"
Harry smiled. "I just want you to think about something – to remember it
whenever you make a decision about me. I want to know that you remember who
your real Master is."
Lucius' brow darkened, and his eyes went steely with pride. "And whom do you
suppose that to be?"
"Lucius Malfoy," Harry replied, settling back into the wing chair smugly, "with
everything he represents."
Another silence descended, but this one ended in a bark of laughter from
Lucius. He unfolded gracefully from the chair, twitching his robes straight and
summoning his serpent-headed cane smartly to his hand. "Supper is at eight, Mr.
Potter. Clothing has been provided, and the House Elves will advise you if you
are uncertain as to your attire. Do, please, try to be prompt."
"I'll clear my schedule," Harry deadpanned, earning another laugh before Malfoy
swept from the room.
                                      ~*~
Things finally came to a head over the sorbet.
Narcissa flung her spoon down, cutting her sister's words off in the clatter.
"Bella, it may be your habit to discuss gross anatomy over dinner, but I do not
find it an appropriate topic!" Her frustrated glare took in Drennan as well. "I
do not wish to hear how much force it requires to crack a skull, or the ways it
can be achieved! Not whilst I am eating!"
The brunette's eyes flashed. "Then by all means, allow me to pose a more
fitting topic, sister dear," she hissed, glaring about the table like a
basilisk, "Such as what an insult it is to be shabbily lied to by a liar who
relies on idiocy in his listeners!"
Harry glanced at Lucius, who raised one eyebrow and shrugged. "Well, when one's
listeners are reliably idiotic…" he replied, returning his attention to his
dessert.
"Shut up," Draco hissed as Pansy tittered too loudly.
"Oh yes," Bellatrix rounded on the younger Malfoy with a hard glare, "There has
been rather a lot of that in this house lately. Quite a lot of shutting up,
quite a lot of conspicuous holes where the truth ought to be." Draco recoiled a
little at the manic gleam in her eyes, but managed a glower of his own in
reply. Bellatrix did not see it, however – her regard had moved on. "Do you
think me deceived by your clumsy games?" She demanded of Lucius.
He smirked. "What I think of you, Sister-by-law, is another topic unsuited to
dinner conversation." A twitch of his fingers sent a charmed dish across the
table to hover before her. "Nuts?" Malfoy offered.
With a snarl, the woman slashed her wand through the air, and the dish
exploded. Draco swore, Pansy squeaked, Drennan shoved back out of range as nuts
and shards of china flew wide. Harry snitch-grabbed an almond out of the air
before it hit him in the eye. Beside him, Narcissa shot to her feet, wand out
and furious. Bellatrix dropped into a dueling crouch at once, and Harry got
ready to dive for cover.
"Narcissa," Lucius' cold voice cut through the room, drawing all eyes to him as
he patted his mouth with his napkin and set it aside, "Sit down." She opened
her mouth to protest, but Lucius cut her off. "I will not tolerate you
scrapping like a sailor, Wife, no matter that your sister seems to lack better
manners. Now. Sit. Down."
White faced and trembling, she did so, leaving Bellatrix alone on her feet,
wand out, and nonplussed. Her face darkened as she realized the manipulation,
but Drennan stood up before her rant could begin. "Lucius, I believe my patient
has had enough for one evening. He should be resting now."
Lucius looked from the mediwizard to Harry. "Are you fatigued, Mr. Potter?" He
asked silkily, "Do you need rest?"
"Actually," Harry managed to deadpan, "I feel fine. Not tired at all." Drennan
gave him a hard look, which Harry returned with a grin. "What can I say? You do
good work."
Draco made a disgusted noise, and shoved back his chair. "I've had enough of
this," he began.
"I believe I'm finished as well," Lucius smoothly cut off his son's retreat
with a directing wave of his arm, "Let us retire to the lounge for Port."
Draco, not quite daring to make faces at his father, sighed and went to open
the doors.
"Very well," Bellatrix said as the rest got up from the table, "Go and enjoy
your Port. My servants shall collect Mr. Potter's things, and we will be on our
way without further delay."
"Hang on," Drennan began.
Lucius' most dangerous voice cut him off. "Careful, woman. Potter was entrusted
to my care-"
"Then you ought not to have betrayed that trust with carelessness," she
responded. Her face, worn at the best of times, settled into a ghoulishly
haggard expression of triumph that made Harry's stomach give a lurch. She had
looked just so when she murdered Sirius. "I have the truth of it despite you,
Lucius Malfoy," she went on, "I have the truth from other lips than yours."
Harry glanced to Drennan, and so did Lucius, but the ginger- haired giant
merely stared at Bellatrix as though she'd grown a second head. "What are you
wittering on about?" He asked her, "Who's been telling you what nonsense?"
Smug looked as unflattering on her as triumph did. "How readily you all forget
House Elves!" Bellatrix said. From the corner of his eye, Harry saw Narcissa go
white, and behind her, Pansy's hand creep up to cover her mouth.
"House Elves?" Harry asked, doubtful, "Maybe you haven't heard the story, Mrs.
Lestrange, but the Malfoy House Elves tend to be a bit…"
"Unreliable," Lucius said.
"Stupid," from Draco.
"Imaginative," Narcissa.
"Filthy little liars!" Pansy jumped in.
"…Excitable," Harry finished his own sentence, "If you're basing your
assumptions on what they think they saw, you're probably going to wind up
regretting it. And anyway," he twitched his robes straight and headed for the
Lounge, "I'd rather like some Port myself."
Bellatrix laughed, and caught his arm as he passed. "And Port you shall have,
Pet!" She oiled, winding both her hands around Harry's elbow and clinging like
a vine, "I have an excellent cellar, you'll find." Harry stiffened, but managed
not to jerk away from her as the Malfoys exchanged outraged looks around him.
"Best resign yourself, love," Bellatrix petted his hand and beamed at him,
"It's not as if you've any choice, after all."
This time Harry could not resist the anger that surged through him. He grabbed
her petting hand twisted, wringing a startled gasp from the woman. "Actually,"
he ground, feeling her wrist bones creak in his grip, "I do have a choice.
Voldemort may have bound me, but this Mark on my arm never meant I had to do
what you say, Bellatrix Lestrange!" Then he flung her away from him.
"Bella!" Narcissa cried as her sister slammed into the wall, "Wretch! How dare
you-"
"Shut up!" Harry snapped at the blonde, "Just shut up for once, will you?"
"Lucius!" She turned for support, found none.
"Yes, Narcissa, please do," her husband said, looking down the length of his
wand at Bellatrix, who had her own wand trained firmly on Harry's chest, "Your
sister seems to have a choice to make."
A flicker of white drew Harry's eye as Drennan added his wand to the balance.
Voldemort's pet madwoman didn't notice; the wand in her hand never wavered.
Harry gave it a second look, and almost smiled. Eleven inches. Holly. Phoenix
feather core.
"You're using my wand," He warned.
"It will serve me better than you, I'll wager," she replied, flicking her dark
eyes at Malfoy, once, then again.
The third time she did it, Harry lunged, reaching past the wand to bind her
hand in his own and wrench it backward. This time the wrist bones did more than
creak. Bellatrix went to her knees with a howl, and a moment later, Harry had
his wand pressed tightly under her ear, a handful of her scalp, and her full
attention.
"In case you're wondering," he growled as she cradled her shattered wrist to
her breast, "I've learned a lot about crucio since the last time I cast it on
you."
"LUCIUS!"
"That will do, Mr. Potter," Malfoy's tone made it clear which way his wand was
pointed now.
Harry took another long look at Bellatrix's waxy skin and pain-bright eyes, and
then stood upright with a smile. Narcissa looked fit to murder him, her fingers
clenched and bloodless at her sides. Lucius looked angry and no little wary, as
though he'd found a snake in his shoe and couldn't tell yet if it were
venomous. Drennan looked severe and worried. Pansy looked patently horrified,
both fists shoved against her mouth as she hung in Draco's shadow, and Draco
looked… strangely excited. His grey eyes were bright, and a flush stood high
across his cheekbones.
"So," Harry ventured, "No chance of any Port then?"
                                      ~*~
"What the fuck is wrong with you, Potter?" Draco waited until they reached the
second floor landing to explode, fisting Harry's borrowed robes and slinging
him sidelong into one of the sofas that lined the gallery, "If Aunt Bella
doesn't kill you, Mother sure as hell will! Why the fuck would you give up your
wand? Father couldn't have taken it, not with that Mediwizard there," Draco
loomed over him, pale and angry. "What stupid Gryffindor cock-up are you
planning?"
Harry, his forbearance all used up for the night, surged back to his feet, and
went nose to nose with the blonde. "What's wrong with me?" He snarled, "Good
question, Draco – what could possibly be wrong with me? Oh! I know! How about
'I've waited eight years for the chance to break something on that bitch, and
I'm just sorry it couldn't have been her neck!" Harry jabbed the Draco in the
chest, and though shorter, still managed to poke the Death Eater back a
startled step. "Or how about this one – I'm sick of taking SHIT from your
goddamn family! I don't have to be planning anything to decide I've had enough
of being your fucktoy!"
Draco sneered and shoved Harry in return. "Aww, is poor ickle Potty sad? Does
the Boy Hero need a big hug?" His cheeks stained fiercely red, face twisted
with contempt, "Tough! You backed the wrong side, didn't you Potter? You and
Dumblebore lost your little war, and lost it proper! You ought to be glad to
take whatever we give you!"
"Think so?" Harry showed his teeth, "Maybe you ought to reconsider the meaning
of 'glad' -- either that, or try a dose of this shit yourself, you spoiled
little prat!" He laughed, reckless at Draco's wide-eyed outrage, "I'm sure
you'd be glad of a couple weeks of getting chained up, cut up, beaten up, and
assraped whenever some tosspot's feeling politically insecure!"
Draco was going to hit him. Harry could see it as plain as if a wand were
writing it in fiery letters over the blonde's head. He was going to hit him,
and once he began, he wouldn't stop until someone pulled him off. And it
wouldn't even take a single mental nudge from Harry -- just words. It had never
taken more than that between them.
"Come on then, Draco," Harry brushed imaginary lint off the blonde's shoulder,
just to see him flinch, "you've always wanted to know what it's like to be me -
- now's your chance to find out."
"You're mad!"
"I'm right," he insisted, "you've been on about it since Hogwarts! All that
crap about the 'famous Harry Potter', those stupid buttons in the Tri-wizarding
tournament -- you even bought your way onto the Quidditch team just so I
wouldn't have something you didn't!"
Draco backed up, not quite hiding a furious tremble. "I've got plenty of things
you don't -- I always had!"
"I know. That's what makes it so utterly fucked up that you're still-" he poked
Draco's chest, "jealous of me!"
"You're still the Famous bloody Harry Potter, aren't you?" The blonde hissed,
his silver eyes fever-bright in the gloom, "You're a slave, and everyone still
knows your fucking name! I still have to look at your face in the paper, and
listen to bloody idiots wittering on about you at parties. 'Oh, you know Harry
Potter? What was he like at school?'"
"And I'll bet you give them gory details, don't you Draco?" Harry laughed,
shook his head, "If you really held me in contempt, one would think you'd have
forgotten all that nonsense by now."
"I can't, can I? Not allowed to, because everywhere I look there you bloody
well ARE!" Draco's voice echoed along the marble gallery, stirring a few of the
dozing portraits around them. Harry whispered a silencing charm as a door
opened below, but Draco didn't seem to notice. "You're a fucking piece of
property, and yet somehow, it's still all about YOU! You murder people in
public, and they swoon over your tragic image! You're a war trophy, but you
attend cabinet meetings even my Father can't get into!" He fisted Harry's
robes, shaking him roughly, "You are a goddamn slave, Potter, but you just
broke Bellatrix Lestrange's wrist and you GOT AWAY WITH IT! Anyone else in the
world wouldn't have walked out of that dining room alive -- not even me! My
mother should have cursed you dead on the spot, and my Father should have
bloody well applauded, but they didn't, and they're not going to, because it
was YOU!"
"Because they wish they'd the balls to have done it themselves, more like,"
Harry replied, sweeping his hands up between Draco's to break his hold, "But
this isn't about your mother, and it isn't about your father -- neither of them
are jealous of me. This is about Draco Malfoy's poor little under-fulfilled
ego."
That cracked it. Draco lunged, and Harry dodged away, grinning as the aubusson
carpet rutched up under his shoes. "So why don't you tell me, Draco, because
I've always wondered, just what is it that you DO do? Other than minioning,
that is? Did Papa buy you a meaningless deskjob at the Ministry, or just set
you up with a portfolio so you could just carry on being a spoiled little Rich
Boy?"
"SHUT UP!" Draco grabbed for Harry, trying to trap him against the sofa, but
Harry jumped over a low table, laughing as a crystal vase shattered in his
wake.
"Do you help Mummy and Pans out with their Witches' Auxiliary luncheons, or
just lie around sulking all day because nothing better's fallen into your lap?"
Harry swept his arm, knocking aside Draco's wild punch. The trailing end of his
sleeve whipped across the blonde's face, and sent him reeling back with a
curse. Harry laughed again. "That's what's got your Slytherin ambition in a
twist, isn't it? The fact that you don't have any! That's why it drives you mad
that I'm Harry Potter, and you're just a Malfoy!"
"Don't you dare say it like that, you filthy halfbreed!" Harry ducked as Draco
heaved a small bronze bust at him, "Your blood isn't fit to stain our dungeons-
"
"You're just a Malfoy," Harry went on, "like a hundred other Malfoys, only less
important. You aren't a patch on your Father, and you know it -- and what's
more, your father knows it, and your wife knows it, and Voldemort knows it
too." A book came flying this time, its illustrations shouting faintly as it
skimmed past Harry's ear, "You're never going to be what Lucius is -- your only
chance was to get away from him, to leave that Malfoy name behind and make one
for yourself, but when we offered you that chance, you used it to kill the most
brilliant man you ever met instead!"
"I was LOYAL!" Draco screamed, vaulting the table to charge at Harry again.
"And how's that working out for you, then; being Loyal and pointless and
pathetic?" Harry hooked a chair with one foot and kicked it at Draco as he
backed toward the open stairwell, "You had enough groupies in school; you
should remember that ass kissing never gets you anywhere unless you're really
valuable! You have no right to blame me for your wasted potential!"
"He valued me!" Now the voice was thick and choked, Draco's ice-blonde hair
curtaining his eyes as he flexed and clenched his hands in the empty air at his
sides. "I did things for him no one else could -- used my influence, got things
for him, information he needed! I gave him-"
"You gave him Snape," hatred put an edge to Harry's voice, and made the picture
frames tremble against the walls, "which he never would have gotten without
you. And what did Voldemort give you in return?" Harry rocked on the balls of
his feet, the gallery's fragile railing in the corner of his eye, and the
stairwell's echoing void at his back. Close now, very close to the breaking
point; just a matter of moments, really. "He gave you a mask to hide your face
under, and he gave you a Mark just like a thousand others."
Draco looked up again, his eyes blazing as Harry laughed in contempt. "You knew
what the bloody Death Eater uniform looked like when you signed on, you tosser
-- you knew, but you still jumped right in line first chance you had! You went
from Draco Malfoy to faceless minion, and it's entirely your own fault!" Harry
snared Draco's eyes with his own, pinned it down as fury flared his pupils
wide, eclipsed the silver with black. He did not glance at the attenuated
fingers curling around that heavy glass ashtray. "You got everything you asked
for, Draco -- it's not my fault if you feel cheated now."
And then he turned his back on the Death Eater, and reached for the banister,
just as if he meant to climb to the next floor alone.
There was a breath -- a tight-drawn hiss through the nose. There was a rustle,
and a footfall. There was a flash of green glass sparkling in the corner of
Harry's eye. Then there was an explosion of stars, a sickening crunch at the
side of his head, and the feeling of space lurching out from under him.
Stunned boneless, Harry could only grunt and wheeze as gravity rattled him down
along the sweeping marble staircase, shattering bone, wrenching muscle, tearing
skin. The darkness reclaimed him before he hit the bottom.
                                      ~*~
"You're-" a kiss interrupted, and he let it wind its way through his mouth a
good long while before he tried again. "You're different. Don't feel so – ah,
Godyes, just there – so cold as last time."
"Harry," Severus released his earlobe to speak, "the dead do not grow warmer.
It is you who have changed." He carded his long fingers into Harry's hair,
silent approval of the unkempt tumble of curls. "You have made a near thing of
it this time, my reckless Gryffindor."
Harry laughed and pressed his hips forward against Severus' answering tension.
"I thought that was the point – get as close to dying as I can manage-"
"And still manage to return to life," teeth grazed the side of Harry's neck,
taking the sting out of those harsh words.
"Ahh. Don't worry," he pushed away from the work table, and used a move his
dance tutor had despaired of his ever mastering to spin his lover back against
it, "Drennan's right there, and he knows his business. He'll make sure my
mortal coil doesn't get shuffled before I've-" he paused to kiss Severus'
mouth, "completed my-" the hinge of his jaw, "sacred-" ear, with a brief
exploration by the tongue, and a pause to appreciate the noise that drew,
"quest."
Severus gave a throaty growl, filled both hands with Harry's arse. Then in
something between a toss, a shove, and a backwards shimmy, he managed to get
them both up onto the table. Harry straddled his legs, grinning to find both
their erections unrepentantly tenting the piled clothing between them.
"Robe," Harry gasped as Severus thumbed his nipples through the heavy fabric,
"make them disappear. Like last time."
"You are no guest here," the ghost challenged, "do it yourself."
"What, just like that?"
"Unless you'd rather do it the long way," Severus gave a smug leer and rubbed
the back of his hand against Harry's shrouded cock.
Harry threw back his head, gasping. "Nice to know you're still an unbelievable-
" the robes shivered around them, ticklish and shimmering as they evaporated
like steam into the darkness, "bastard!"
There was that eyebrow quirk. "You know, I'd gotten rather used to 'greasy
git'." Harry laughed, kissed his lover's hooked nose, and gave a wriggle and
fidget to get Severus blunt hardness pressed firmly against his entrance. A
second fidget had the length breaching him -- slowly, breathlessly. "Ah,
Merlin! So you were paying attention," Severus gasped at the easy slickness of
Harry's body as it lowered tightly around him, "a miracle I thought this room
would never see."
"This is where you stop talking," Harry said, grabbing his lover's head in both
hands, holding him still for a plundering kiss. He seated his hips firmly with
a shudder, and Severus swallowed his groan as the action pressed his balls up
tight between the white stomach and his own aching erection.
Then they were moving, arching, lifting, thrusting and sliding together in
wordless sympathy. Each movement from one balanced by the other, seamless and
smooth, and still somehow frantic, grasping and greedy – all clutching fingers
and sucking tongues sliding against each other, breath gasped coldly into one's
lungs as the other exhaled it, and heat and friction and magic.
Magic?
Harry was too far gone to trace the random thought down; it was crawling up his
spine like a serpent, flicking sparks from his eyes and teeth and fingers,
jolting deep in his belly. Magic, and Severus, and Longing, and Hope all coiled
up around his brain as the world narrowed down to the cock in his arse and the
cock in his hand, and the climax shouting out of them both.
"What…what was that?" Harry gasped once he was able.
Severus collapsed back onto his elbows, and puffed his hair out of his face.
"Your next lesson-" Harry's enthusiastic kiss cut him off.
"You're the best teacher ever," the young man giggled, pressing his sweaty
forehead against Severus' shoulder, "what was I supposed to learn, other than
that you make me come like a volcano?"
"Mph, nothing important, clearly," Severus grumbled, "just a little matter of
who you really are once all the chains come off."
That caught Harry's attention. He sat upright, wincing a little as Severus'
cock slipped out of him. "You think I had forgotten?" Severus didn't speak the
answer, but Harry saw the truth of it in his solemn black eyes. He looked away,
and then clambered off the worktable with a sigh. "I could never forget this,
forget you."
Arms came around him, pulled him close against that familiar body, "Not me,
perhaps, but you could not bear to remember yourself with that parasite in your
mind." Harry let his head fall back against the shoulder, curled a little into
the warm hollow of Severus' throat with its steaming, ragged wound. "He has
taken up too much room in your soul, Harry – you must bring yourself back to
the nest before you can push the cuckoo out."
"What do you-" a sudden twist in his guts broke Harry's question off with a
gasp. He tried to curl around the pain, but Severus held him upright, strong
fingers curling under his arms, smooth voice against the back of his neck.
"The second phase of the lesson," he said, half pushing, half carrying Harry
toward the door to his office, "I'm afraid this will be difficult."
Harry staggered under another brutal spasm, "It makes my scar burn. The Mark
too," he groaned, "what is it?"
"You know what it is."
Then the door swung open, and Harry did know, because instead of the poignantly
familiar jumble of scrolls and books and glass and dust, the floor fell away
into a vast, echoing pit. Air pulled into it from behind them, lifting chilly
swirls of dust from the stones, and trailing them down into the blackness.
"Hell..."
"For some," Severus let him down to his knees at the threshold, settling one
long hand on Harry's shoulder while the other petted his unruly hair, "Welcome
oblivion for others. Neither one for you -- not today. How does it feel?"
"Hurts!" Harry wrapped both arms around his stomach, rocking on his knees as
sweat iced over his skin. "It's the Bond, isn't it? Ow, God!"
"You cannot bring it up all at once," Severus warned as Harry leaned over the
pit and gagged, "strong as you have become, that would still destroy you." He
knelt, a solid presence at Harry's back, stroking, soothing, "Small pieces,
single ingredients, tiny steps, Harry, concentrate. Unravel the knot one thread
at a time -- where did the bindings begin?"
And then it clicked into place. "My wand," he gasped, and no sooner had the
words left him than his throat was filling up with heat. He leaned out far,
heaved for all he was worth, despite the tearing pain. Something poured out of
his mouth, something which hurt to let go, but left a terrified sort of elation
in the wake of its passing. Harry managed one shaking breath before other
bindings began clawing up after the first; the title they called him, the hair
they'd made him grow, the robes of his office, his arm locking stiff two inches
from a drink, the Unforgivable curses, the vision spell that took away his
glasses, the voice -- the fuckingvoice inside his head!
"I hear him," he gasped, wiping his mouth with one shaking hand, "I can hear
him screaming."
"He could not fail to notice this," Severus agreed, urging Harry forward as he
shuddered deeply, "pay him no mind. Again now."
And again, Harry vomited for all he was worth. Dancing lessons, clingy
handshakes and shallow smiles, Charles on his knees with come on his lips and
contrition in his eyes, the Grotto, the mirror, the serpent-headed cane, and
still the howling went on! Harry clawed at his left arm, at the Mark which
ached like frozen wire under his skin.
Severus plucked his hand away. "No, Harry. Not yet." And then, when Harry dug
at the scar on his forehead, "Not that one either. You will need them both if
you intend to finish what you have begun."
"But I can hear him," Harry groaned, fingers hooked and bloody, "I can still
fucking hear him!"
"Because you hear, not because he speaks!" Severus hauled him around and caught
his chin. "You hear my voice, do you not?" Harry nodded, setting his teeth
against the sudden urge to chatter with cold. "Then follow it," the ghost said,
gathering Harry tightly against him, "I know where you belong -- let me lead
you home."
                                      ~*~
***** Lord Executor *****
Chapter Summary
     Harry's robes as Lord Executor.
[http://kingsgrave.com/images/Cattart/Sketches/Executor1.jpg]
***** La Mort Par le Sang *****
Harry woke to the creak of a hinge in the darkness. He lay still as the sleep
sheeted off him, listened to the door latch snick closed, a whispered silencing
spell, and then the approach of soft footfalls. Rustle. Click-slide. Clink.
Then Iris's weight settled onto the bed at his hip.
Harry opened his eyes, blinked as the girl failed to come into focus. No vision
spell, he remembered, and gave the girl a weak smile. "What time is it?" He
asked as she wiped the fringe off his forehead, "I've lost track."
She snorted. "That will happen when you spend so much time unconscious. Here,
sit up a bit and drink this." Achingly, he did. The potion tasted like toad
bile, and Harry didn't bother to hide his grimace. "I know," she smirked, "It
can't be helped. Now this one. It's not so bad, you'll see...and these two
together. That's good. Water?"
"Please," Harry choked. Her hand was soft on the back of his neck as she held
the glass to his lips, and her breath gusted soft against his cheek.
"There," Iris said as he finished, "you'll start to feel the effects in a few
minutes." She wiped a drip of water from Harry's chin with her fingers, then
sat back again. "I've brought some broth, if you think you-"
"No, thanks," Harry fidgeted under the girl's intense stare. He flexed his
right hand against the sling that bound it to his chest. "How bad was it this
time?"
"Bad enough," she said, folding her arms across her small breasts and regarding
him severely, "Not so showy as last time, to be sure, but you've a dislocated
shoulder, and some torn up muscles in your feet and legs still. And Drennan's
still not convinced you didn't crack a vertebra or two. He didn't mention your
head, so I'm guessing your skull was thick enough to take the fall this time.
You'll not be safe to move about on your own for a good while though, and I
don't care what those fools downstairs say!"
"Oh?" Harry wondered, sliding his suddenly hot feet in search of a cool spot in
the sheets, "Who's expecting me to tapdance after getting shoved down the
stairs?"
"Shoved?" Her dark eyes narrowed, "Draco said you fainted. That lying little
tosser!" She set the glass aside, and settled back onto the bed, bracing one
knee along his legs, while the other foot stayed on the floor. "You're to be
moved tomorrow, apparently -- by carriage since Drennan says you can't travel
by apparation or portkeys for at least three months."
"What?"
"Easy," Iris caught his shoulders and pressed him back into the pillows, "It's
not Lestrange, they want you at the Palace. Apparently," she made a bitter
face, "the Great Lord was attacked while on the road to Lille yesterday -- that
would have been the 30th, in case you want to know. Some terrible curse or
other, got right through his defensive spells, they say. Some are saying it was
a poison, others are thinking it was an inside assassination attempt by his
bodyguards." She shrugged and flipped her braid over her shoulder, and Harry
found himself staring at the curve of her neck, watching the muscles move, and
the skin gleam golden in the single candle's light.
"Whatever the cause, they say he is unconscious, and unresponsive to any spell
or potion they've thrown at him. He's been brought back to England, and the
Minister wants you moved to the Palace at once." Her quick fingers knotted
tightly in her sleeves, "I heard him telling Master Drennan about it. He made
it sound as if Vol -- the Dark Lord uses you as some obscene sort of battery!"
"You can say his name when he's not around," Harry sighed, sweating
uncomfortably now, and growing more than a little aware of the blood rushing
under his skin. "And as for the battery thing, that's pretty much right on. You
see, this scar," he swept his damp fringe from is forehead, "bound me to him
when I was just a -- hang on," Harry stared at her suspiciously, "You know what
a battery is? Were you Muggleborn?"
"Saw one once," she muttered, snatching a flannel from the bedside table, and
dipping it into a basin, "had a muggle explain it. Here, you've gone all red -
- let me put this behind your neck." Harry let her pull him into her, sighing
gratefully as the cool cloth draped across his shoulders and dripped icily over
his collarbones. The night air caressed his damp back, spreading gooseflesh
across his arms, making his nipples pull taut.
Self-conscious, he made to sit back, but Iris pulled him closer still, wrapping
one arm under his to drag the flannel down his spine and back up again. Harry
moaned, shivering at the sensation -- his skin glowing-hot, the cloth like an
icy brush painting his bones. And the smell of the girl; faintly bitter,
potionish, but warm and spicy and musky as well. It made him want to turn his
face into her neck, nuzzle the dark hair behind her ears to search out more of
the complex scent.
Again the cloth painted ice down his back, and this time Harry shivered away
from it. Her breasts gave under his braced arm, and she gasped, then pressed
against him with an appreciative moan. "Harry..."
The sound of his name shook his brain awake, and he tugged away, wincing at the
sudden barrage of aches. "I'm -- look, I'm sorry, I just-" he stared at the
candle, willing his erection away while fiercely hoping the duvet was fluffy
enough to hide it.
"Shh," Iris murmured, setting the flannel aside and slithering close again,
"it's alright, I promise, just let me.…" She trailed her tongue along his jaw
and up to his ear, where her breath set up a violent tremble that went all the
way down to Harry's balls. Her small hand fell onto his thigh, then sought
inward before Harry could work out what to do about it. She fisted the thick,
fluffy duvet around his cock, delving her pointed tongue into his ear. Harry
couldn't hold back a groan.
"Yes," she breathed, guiding his hand -- and hadn't he been pushing her away? -
- into her robes. Her nipple rolled like a pebble against his palm, "yes, like
that. It's good, isn't it? It's good. You're alright, Harry."
He rolled his hips upward, growling in search of more friction, tighter,
hotter, something! "What did you give me?" He demanded, then bit at the curve
of her throat, "What was in that potion?"
"This," she squeezed his cock fiercely through the blankets before tugging them
down, exposing his rampant, purpled erection to the air. Her calloused fingers
followed, "just this, and these," she slipped her other hand down cradle his
tight, heavy balls. "nothing that will hurt you, I promise. Trust me, Harry,"
she breathed, sliding down to plant a kiss on the smooth head, "please just
trust me."
"I can't-" he fell back as she pressed his shoulder, "you -- don't, please!"
But she was sliding across him, tugging her white apprentice's robe up over her
head, and shaking her dark hair loose of its braid. He reached to push her off,
and found himself groping at her breasts again, pulling her closer, tasting
those rock-hard nipples. "Why?" He mumbled into her soft skin, "why are you
doing this? AhhGOD!" Melting heat poured around his cock, drawing his hips up
from the mattress in a frantic lunge.
She whined deep in her throat, and a vise seemed to ripple along Harry's length
as she began to move, to writhe against him. "Shhh," she chanted as he grabbed
at her hip, her arm, her belly and breast in a frantic attempt to balance his
spinning world, "just let me, it's alright...." But the potion in his veins
demanded more. Harry dug his heels against the sheets, heaved upward into the
clasping wetness of this stranger's body, furious at himself, at her, at the
world for reducing him to this frantic rut.
Her smell was a drug unto itself, salty and heavy as the restless ocean
outside, but somehow solid, rich and musky in a way that made him growl and
heave harder into her, as if by going deeper, he could somehow unravel her
mysteries. She rocked against him, then fell into his chest, and captured his
mouth with her own while her hips pistoned hard and fast above him. Her thighs
slapped against his, and the blood roared in his ears.
Then a tremor raced through the lips he was devouring. A violent shiver, and
more, a twisting pull -- as though the mouth were changing shape under his. The
slick, straight black hair bunched up and twined about his fingers like fluffy
vines. Then the mass of curls went golden brown in the candle light.
She groaned and sat back, tilting her face away as the changes raced through
her body, limbs longer, breasts slightly larger, hips deeper, more angular,
tighter, and rippling around him.
"HERMIONE!" Harry screamed as he spent himself into her.
"Oh God, Harry," she sobbed, grinding herself against him, spasming around him
like a gripping fist, "Oh God, yes!" Then she was kissing him again, and he was
kissing her back, drowning any chance of explanation or apology in the frantic
tussle of lips and tongues.
"Couldn't tell you...couldn't be sure," she gasped through the assault, "not
till now...taking you; tomorrow...caravan, along the coast road.
We're...not...letting... that parasite...mph!" She pulled away, panting, "We're
not letting that parasite have you back! I don't care what sort of binding he's
placed on you, we're getting through it!" She clenched her fists against his
heaving chest, as if she would pound him for his expected argument. "He can't
keep you, Harry, we won't let him! We'll find a way to break the binding, and
we'll take you away from him, and-"
"Shh," Harry soothed, blinking and squinting, "it's okay, it's okay. Come
here." He spread his unbound arm, and a second later, she was curled tight
against him, her fluffy hair tickling his nose while her tears leaked hotly
along his chest.
"Trust you to pull this off, Hermione," he laughed weakly, stroking her
shoulder, "you've gone round the twist, coming in here after me like this!
You're the most hunted woman in England -- on the spot death sentence if any
Auror sees you, and here you are shagging me in the Minister of Magic's guest
suite!"
"Last place anyone'd look for me, isn't it?" She sniffed, then lifted her head
to search his gaze, "Oh, tell me I haven't ruined everything, Harry -- please
tell me you don't hate me."
He put a hand to her cheek, and thumbed away a tear. "Of all the people who've
drugged and molested me, Hermione, you've been my favorite by far." Her eyes
went wide in horror, and her lip trembled before Harry let her off the hook
with a chuckle.
"None of your cheek, Mr. Potter," she growled, thumping his shoulder, "I'll
have you know I'm several of the most wanted criminals in England,
and...and..." she bit her lip, then dove back to cuddle against his shoulder
again, "God, Harry. There were so many times I just knew I'd never see you
again. It was just awful knowing you were alive, reading those horrible stories
about you in the papers, and knowing -- knowing you couldn't get away on your
own!" she sniffed, hugged fiercely, "You understand, don't you? You see why we
had to come -- why we have to try?"
"I know," Harry's voice was thick, and he swallowed against it. "I would have
done the same. But you have to know-"
"Hush! No arguments, Harry," she sounded desperate in her certainty, "this is
happening, and no one can stop it! Tomorrow, on the coast road, we're taking
you, and even if you tell someone -- even if you turn me over to Lucius Malfoy
and let him curse me to death right in this room, it will still-"
He kissed her quiet and knew she would never let him tell her the truth.
Eventually she subsided, settling quiescent and soft along his right side. He
wrapped his arm around her, pressed her close to feel her heart fluttering like
a bird against his ribs. Harry wondered, as a shallow doze overtook him, what
his heart must feel like to her. False, he thought, stroking her shoulder,
Hollow. Broken.
                                      ~*~
The candle flickered, flared up high in the draughtless room, throwing a long,
slender shadow across one of the pair of wing chairs that faced each other in
front of the fireplace. With that, Harry was awake.
Even without his glasses or the vision spell to correct the blur, he could see
the chair was empty -- no scowling shade lingered against the chintz, but he
still felt... a chill, perhaps, or a watchfulness. Hermione stirred, mumbled
and sighed against him, her hand flexing and closing against his chest, just by
the sling. Harry smoothed his hand against the back of her head, wordlessly
pressing her deeper into sleep.
Around him, the big old house breathed, its dreams creaking in the walls and
itching out of the settling stones, its memories replayed in hues of moonlight,
splashing across the carpets and printed walls. Harry brushed the house's
dreams with a curious finger, but found them too cold, too proud and lonely to
linger over for long. He turned his seeking to the inhabitants instead.
The house elves nested tightly together in their low room, a close-cuddled pack
that dreamed in scent and taste and perfect unison. They noticed Harry, sniffed
curiously after him, but then became distracted by the flavor of moonlight in
his wake.
Draco, lay diagonally across his bed, fully clothed and armored in alcoholic
oblivion. Harry could taste the remnant of a severe talking-to from his father
on the brandy-fume of the blonde's breath. Three of his fingers were taped
together, and Harry could see the shadow of a serpent-headed cane across the
bindings as he passed on.
Pansy was nervy, restless in the big old house that had begun to frighten her
lately. She tossed fretfully, murmured as his mind brushed past hers -- he
didn't stop to hear whether it was a warding, or a plea.
Drennan was a still spot in the dreaming tide; quiet and too deep for Harry to
pierce at a casual glance. He remembered the mediwizard's occlumancy, and
passed on before he was spotted himself.
The sisters curled like mirror opposites across the house, identical in
intensity, pride, and resentment. Their thoughts, even in dreams circled each
other like a binary sun, each snared into the other's pull, and hating its twin
for all of its worth. With Lucius absent, they held the house, and all within
it in the fierce gravity between them. Harry left those sleeping dragons
untickled. For now.
He pulled his mind back to the dreamer in his arms, tasted her slumbering
thoughts like baby kisses. One in particular made him stop, eyebrows shooting
up in surprise. He ran his hand gently down Hermione's back, and found it true.
And then he couldn't stop a beatific, if rather stunned smile from settling
across his face.
"Oh, you clever girl," he murmured, "read your Tam Lin, haven't you?" She
grunted sleepily, and he ran a finger along her cheek, releasing his somnolent
pressure as he called her name. "Hermione, wake up."
Like any combat veteran, she came awake at once, still and wary and ready to
move. But then she blinked up into Harry's eyes, and the tension bled out of
her again. "Sorry," she said, knuckling one eye, "dozed off."
"I know, me too. But you have to go now." Harry pulled the covers away, let the
cooler air in. "You need more polyjuice."
"Damn, you're right," she scrambled after her robes, shaking them straight with
a vigorous flap, "And even Iris couldn't afford to get caught with you like
this -- Drennan would kill me!"
"Can't have that," Harry smiled, accepting a kiss from her, "you've a big day
tomorrow."
She cast him a suspicious glare. "Remember, it IS happening. You can't stop it,
and if you try-"
"I won't try," Harry promised, brushing a curl out of her face, "I don't want
any of you to get hurt. I never wanted that, Hermione, especially not you,
especially not now."
She blushed, pressed her hand over his for a moment, then snatched up the tray
and padded from the room. "Tomorrow," she whispered on the threshold, then she
was gone.
Harry stared after her for a long while.
"I know what you're going to say," he addressed the empty wing chair at last,
"You always did whatever you thought was best for me, even when it made me want
to choke you." Moving carefully, Harry pulled himself out of the bed and made
his way to the facing chair. The dressing gown still hung there, and he pulled
it around himself as best he could before sitting.
"I can't blame her, you know? It's bloody brilliant, really," he sighed, "She
must have been dosing herself with potions by the gallon to be certain it would
happen. But I know she didn't do it for me -- she did it for herself, in case
they should fail tomorrow. In case they should have to kill me. I think it's
great, but it doesn't change who I am," Harry's voice tightened, and he shook
his head to clear it. "and it doesn't change what I have to do."
"It could," he shivered at the low, smooth reply he hadn't expected, "if you
chose to allow it." More changing rules, more twisting in the middle of the
game. Why could nothing ever stick to the plan? Harry grit his teeth, but the
anger evaporated when a coolness like two ghostly fingers brushed across the
back of his hand. "No one ever doubted you had the courage to die for those you
love, Harry Potter. The question now, is do you have the courage to live for
them?"
Harry stared at the fire for a very long time, and did not answer.
                                      ~*~
Ever since Azkaban, Bellatrix Lestrange did not dream. Yes, she would allow
that images paraded before her sleeping eyes, but those were not dreams, they
were plans, prophecies. Those half-remembered images were her way of subtly
tugging at the web of reality into the shape she preferred. She knew this,
because so many of her dreams came to fruition.
She had dreamed her Red-Eyed Lord's return and triumph, and lo -- it had come
to pass. She had dreamed her escape from Azkaban, and now she walked free. She
had dreamed her revenge upon her traitorous cousin, and his dying look was her
most cherished memory. She had dreamed the dead-weight lump of a useless
husband succumbing at last to poisoned claret, and she was now the Widow
Lestrange. She had dreamed a special regard from the Master of her world -- a
particular spark, a trust, a confidence in her that he bore no other, and he
had spoken to her at the Midsummer Ball, over the pathetic corpse the Minister
had refused to clear away. "He grows too willful, Bella," her Lord had said, "I
must do something about him, don't you think?" Of course she had known just the
thing. And so, like a sapper in the night, she set about ridding her Lord of
his troubling, over-ambitious Minister.
Her dreams were above the common lot, Bellatrix knew; just as was she herself.
Thus, when her dreams warned her to have her carriage readied an hour before
dawn, she saw no reason to question the truth of it. Nor did she debate the
wisdom of kidnapping the Great One's toy out from under his bumbling
caretakers. Her Lord had bidden her to bring the boy to the Palace upon His
return -- he had bidden HER to do it, not Malfoy, and not that mudblood healer
either.
Her Lord was returned. Bellatrix's course seemed crystal clear.
She knew the plan -- had eavesdropped the firecall. The Toy Who Lived would be
moved by carriage at nine, the mudblood and his useless little servant riding
with him while Aurors guarded the road. A simple plan to thwart. Child's play.
A spell led her to the right suite, another bound the still form on the bed
into an unyielding cocoon of bedclothes. His green eyes stared at her levelly
when she levitated him upright, and she was a bit taken aback by the lack of
fear there. Well, perhaps the boy was fond of such immobility -- that could be
promising. Bellatrix had always wanted to try mummification.
Later. She promised herself with a smirk, There will be time for playing when
the rewards are given out.
"So you see, boy, I was right," she couldn't resist gloating, "you really don't
have any choice but to come with me."
"But I do," he said with an odd little smile.
Bellatrix laughed aloud at his bravado. But then as she turned to go, she found
her youngest sister glowering icily from the doorway, wand out and leveled
steadily at her breast.
                                      ~*~
Narcissa awoke with a cold dread and no urge whatsoever to second guess it.
Bella was planning something. The woman never let anything go, no matter how
much of a scene she made -- she never had done. No broken wrist was going to
keep her in her place.
She glimpsed the Lestrange carriage waiting in the courtyard as she hurried
past the gallery windows. Its lamps were unlit, and its wheels muffled in pale
cloth so as to make no noise on the cobbles. Like a thief in the night,
Narcissa thought, furious and shaking, No Black daughter creeps away in the
darkness -- not even a mad one!
She knew, what she would find, but hope still curdled in her stomach as she
came to West Suite's open door. Inside, by flickering candlelight, her sister
went about betraying Narcissa's trust, her kinship, and her hospitality, all
with a cunning smile on her ravaged face.
A tear rolled down Narcissa's face as she watched Bellatrix immobilize the boy,
and levitate him behind her. How could you, Bella? Narcissa allowed herself one
single moment of grief, then crushed it ruthlessly. No living soul toyed with
Narcissa's family thus -- no one! Bellatrix's envy at her better marriage, her
bitterness and petty theatrics were one matter, but such treachery was not to
be borne!
She did not challenge her sister -- it had gone too far beyond honour for that,
but she did at least wait until Bellatrix met her eyes to fire her curse.
                                      ~*~
Pansy awoke to a scream and a flare of light. Her first instinct was panic.
Where am I? Oh, Merlin, not sleepwalking again! She pressed a hand over her
pounding heart and tried to breathe deep. Haven't done that since I was little!
Another crash made her jump and squeak, whirling just in time to see a door
down the hall explode from its hinges and crash through the facing window. A
woman's triumphant shriek echoed through the hallway, but a shouted curse cut
it off with a flare.
"Oh no!" Pansy gasped, frozen with horror, "Oh, they can't be!" But it was -
- even warped in anger, Pansy knew the cursing voice for that of her Mother-in-
law, and the ragged scream which followed for the Widow Lestrange. And that
room -- that was where they'd put Potter, wasn't it?
"Oh no, oh no," she dithered. Lucius was gone from the house, Draco drunker
than Silenus upstairs, and who knew where that useless mediwizard had gotten
to? There was only her, without her wand or her nerve to try and break up the
row before someone got killed. She spied a glint of reflected moonlight a
little further down the hallway, and a second later secured herself a
reassuringly weighty knife from one of the collection displays. She would have
preferred her wand, but the steel looked sharp, and felt potently magical in
her shaking hand -- perhaps it would startle them enough to listen to reason.
Anyway, it was better than facing the maddened sisters empty-handed!
Steady on now, Pans, she told herself as something inside the room exploded
into flames, Remember what Papa Lucius says -- it's all about Presence!
"What is going on here?!" She demanded, striding into the room, knife held
before her. She had a second to take it in -- Bellatrix rising from behind the
overturned wardrobe, Narcissa turning from the shadow of the bedstead, Potter
lying across the hearthstones in a rigid twist of blankets.
"Expelliarmus!" Both sisters screamed the spell. Pansy could only squeak as the
blade wrenched out of her grip and went flying -- a glittering arc across the
darkened room, a whistling, air-cutting sound. Then a crack of apparation, and
Potter stood directly in the knife's path, arms out-stretched and green eyes
flashing.
It sank into his throat with a sickening, meaty thud. Potter gurgled,
staggering back as the blood sheeted down his naked chest. He met her eye in
the second before he collapsed -- he met her eye and his lips seemed to move.
To the end of her days, Pansy swore that he had thanked her.
                                      ~*~
"It's time," Harry said.
"Yes," Severus greeted him with a chaste kiss, stroked one finger sadly along
Harry's torn throat, "time at last."
The great black door stood wide open, and the pit beyond it drew a chill,
hungry draft around their knees. Harry looked at it with a shiver. "I hardly
know where to begin," he said.
Cold fingers curled around his left arm, raised it to the light. "As with any
potion," Snape said, "you must begin with the base."
"You said the Mark was a bit of Voldemort's soul," Harry mused, eyeing the
glistening keloid scar-pattern. It tickled near the serpent's blunted nose, and
he picked at it idly. "But he couldn't have done that with all the Morsmordre -
- there have been so many since the war. If it were me, I would only go to that
length with the really powerful followers, or maybe the ones I wasn't certain I
could trust."
"Both, I should think," Snape nodded, "Those on whom he relies in distress, he
never fully trusted. This will not be the death of thousands, but the Hydra
will not prosper after you're finished here."
"Just the worst ones," Harry agreed, cold inside but still resolved, "they'll
go first." Then, because he had learned that Laws of this place were fluid and
not very binding, really, Harry dug his fingernails into the Morsmordre,
scraping up skin and scar tissue until he found the solid, pulsing core of
magic hidden underneath. Gasping at the burn of it, he tugged and clawed until
he managed to get one finger underneath and look: a black thread, smoking
against his bloody finger, a sizzling little curse in his pinched grip.
Harry took a deep breath, hardened his fluttering belly, and began to pull. The
mark tore up like the roots of a weed through damp earth, leaving ragged
furrows in his skin. From time to time he would yank loose a blister in the
line, like a black gall, or a bead of solder. Most were withered and hollow,
but a few were solid; fleshy, hot, and pulsing with a heartbeat rhythm. Each
gave up its name as he pulled it free -- MacNair, Dolohov, three Malfoys -
- apparently Draco had been more valuable than he thought -- Jugson, DeRais,
Lestrange -- which he yanked out with a grim smile -- Augustin, Nott, Rookwood.
The list grew heavier as the twisting, struggling curse unspooled, and dragged
along the souls on which it had fed for years.
God, it goes on forever! Harry thought, swaying weakly as the pain washed over
him in clammy waves, I'll never get them all out!
"Hush," Severus urged, seizing Harry's shoulders from behind and pressing
close, "Just a little more now."
"It's too heavy." The pit at his feet drew a fierce, hungry gust, ruffling
Harry's fringe into his eyes and he shuddered. His scar was a punishing spike
of pain, and the curse tangled about his fingers like white-hot wire. The souls
bound up in its length rattled against each other like hollow bones. "There's
too many!"
"Hold fast, Harry," Severus' hand slid cool across his forehead, catching the
drop of blood that was creeping toward his eyes, "One more pull."
Sucking a deep breath, Harry pulled, though his arm spasmed with the pain and
his scar blinded him with white static. He pulled though the curse split his
fingertips to the bone. He pulled though it felt like he was drawing his own
soul out through his arm. He pulled, and his grinding roar bore down into a
scream as the massive, crushing weight tore free at last. Harry closed his
eyes, trembling against Severus' hold, and gasping like a landed fish, and sure
that if his ghostly lover weren't holding him up, he would topple into that
yawning blackness at his feet.
The Morsmordre slipped through his lax fingers, rattled to the floor like a
ton-weight of chain. Harry could hear the thing ticking as it cooled against
the stone. "Is it over?" He wondered at the sudden absence of pain in his head.
In answer, Snape turned them both. Voldemort lay sprawled on stones, pallid and
reptilian, his narrow chest fluttering weakly. Harry weathered a giggly urge to
say 'You're nothing but a pack of cards!'. But then the crimson eyes snapped
open, fixed directly, and balefully on Harry's face, and he lost all trace of
amusement. Harry didn't need to hear his mind voice to read the look -- every
variation of death threat imaginable lay in that baleful glare, but then the
unearthly eyes slid from Harry's face, and widened to recognize who stood
behind him.
"Severus," the Heir of Slytherin hissed, getting carefully to his feet, "has no
one thought to tell you you're dead?"
"I do not let it trouble me," the ghost smirked. His hands moved from Harry's
shoulders for a moment, and suddenly Severus' head came to rest beside Harry's
own, balanced in one clever, long-fingered hand. Harry managed not to jump, but
Voldemort didn't. "I had it by good example," Snape went on smugly, "that death
needn't necessarily alter one's long term plans. Especially where vengeance is
concerned."
Voldemort laughed, and managed not to sound shrill, but Harry didn't miss the
red eyes' flickering glance between the pit, and the headless spectre.
"Vengeance, Severus? What vengeance do you imagine you can visit upon me? I
have walked these shadows before, and I know what can be done with them. Your
little vengeance will leave me all the stronger, and when I bind your shade
into a mirror for my own amusement, I will teach you to redefine the word!"
"Oh, my GOD, will you shut up?" Harry snapped, ducking out of Snape's
admittedly creepy embrace, "You always do this! You prance and you threaten,
and then you send other people to carry it all out, so nobody guesses what a
pathetic old prune you are!" He kicked the mangled remnants of his Morsmordre
into the pit, and tried not to think of what it meant. The tumbling, fading
rattle filled the chamber with echoes, "Well this time, you're here on your
own. No Quirrel, no Pettigrew, no Crouch or Lestrange to do your dirty work,
and haul your arse out of the fire. You're dying for real this time, and
there's no one left to save you. So if you have some trick left to try, just
get on with it!"
"Oh, I am not so alone as that, Pet," Voldemort replied, waking Harry's
forehead scar to agony with a sudden outthrust hand, "You are still mine,"
Harry heard the serpentine rattle on the words as his vision blurred and bled
under the onslaught, "You are bound to me, and I command everything about you.
You will have no victory, and no vengeance, and no release save that which I
give you!"
"Bollocks!" Harry ground, wiping blood from his face as the scar wept hotly.
Snape's chuckle cut off Harry's reply. "You can own nothing of a cat but its
skin, Mr Riddle," he said, still tossing his head from hand to hand as he
circled to flank the Dark Lord, "and you ought to have considered that before
you chained this cat with his still on. He has outgrown your chains now."
Harry grunted as his scar gave a particularly violent pulse, and streaked his
vision with white. "Not that one," Voldemort pointed as Harry clapped a hand to
it, "that chain will always bind him to me!"
"No," he gasped, staggering against the doorway beside the pit, "It goes both
ways!"
As before, he knew what to do. There had always been magic in his scar -- now
he caught it by the tail and pulled it out. It came free like a raveling bolt
of hot, wet silk, and it clung weakly to his fingers as he dropped it into the
pit's hungry draught. Memories hid there too, and these came forth like pearls
on a string. They chimed like breaking crystal as they fell.
"What are you doing?" Voldemort cried, and it was Harry's turn to reply with a
laugh.
"You hid way too much of yourself in me, don't you think?" He glanced back with
a grin, "Bet I can peel you apart from here, and drop you in by pieces!" The
pit responded with a great, longing breath, and Harry had to catch himself
against it, "What do you think will come up next, Tom -- your soul hidden in a
duck's egg?"
That cracked it. Voldemort charged him, face twisted into a frantic rictus, his
hands hooked like talons. Harry turned, reaching out, ready to catch his enemy
close, and hurl them both over the edge, but strong, long-fingered hands seized
him, slung him out of the Dark Lord's path. Voldemort twisted, skittering,
teetering on the hungry pit's edge, reaching in a frantic grab for his link to
Harry. The wind rose to a howl through the doorway, dragging the pallid figure
deeper into the darkness. Hissing and nearly blinded with pain, Harry jerked
against Severus' hold, trying to reach out, or to fling himself after.
"Not this time, Tom," a calm, firm voice cut through the howling wind. Then a
flash of silver and scarlet blazed through the straining space between Harry
and the Dark Lord. The Sword of Gryffindor -- it had saved Harry's life too
often for him not to recognize even a glimpse of it.
The link pulled keening tight under the blade, and then snapped so hard it
rocked Harry's head on his neck. He staggered, still pinioned in Snape's iron
grip. A scream rattled echoes from the stones. Fading. Harry thought it might
be himself making the noise, but couldn't tell for certain.
And when the pain cleared as Harry could see again, there was Dumbledore,
smiling from the edge of the pit where Voldemort had been. "There now," the
Headmaster twinkled over his spectacles, "just the one thing left then, Harry."
The scar itched, feeling loose and dry as a shed scab. Harry's fingers shook as
he pulled the old, familiar mark off his face. It lay curled in his palm like a
dry leaf; heavy and somehow final.
"I won't be going back," he said, to the scar, which looked far too small, to
Dumbledore, who looked sad, to Snape, whose fingers tightened at the words,
"not this time."
"It is not too late, Harry," Dumbledore pressed gently, "You could still live
if you put your will to it. This chamber holds life-force in plenty for you to
heal your wounds, and return to those who love you."
The hands on his shoulders trembled. Harry knew they would release him the
instant he pulled away, so he leaned fiercely back into his lovers chest. "No,"
he said, "I'm not running away, and it's not that I'm afraid to live, it's
just…" He brandished the scrap of scar in his hand, "It's just that after all
I've gone through, after all I've done to finally destroy him, I can't run the
risk of bringing Voldemort back with me. I would live for Hermione, Lupin,
Hagrid," Harry stroked his temple against the ghostly chin behind him, "I would
even live for Severus if I could, but I will not live for Tom Riddle!"
"And if Riddle is truly gone?" Dumbledore prodded, "Will you refuse your chance
at a life free of his taint?"
"One thing Severus finally managed to teach me," Harry replied, tipping the
scar off his palm, and watching the pit's slipstream catch it up and pull it
in, "is that sometimes, the risk is just not worth it."
He sought his lover's eyes, half afraid to find the same disappointment there
as lurked in Dumbledore's gaze. "Will you forgive me for wanting to stay with
you?"
Snape wrapped him around, and held him close. "No," the voice purred in his
ear, "but just try and get away from me now, you insufferable brat!"
And Harry had to laugh, throwing his arms around the solid, beloved chest.
"It's over. It's really over!"
"Yes, dear boys," Dumbledore replied wistfully as the dark chamber began to
fill up with light, "I believe it is at last time for us to go."
                                      ~*~
She sat on her knees; stunned cold and numb. The blood was absolutely
everywhere -- so much she could hardly believe it had all come from him. It
soaked the Turkish carpet to a sticky black mess in the dawnlight, it painted
his still, pale chest, it wicked up the gauzy drapes behind him. So very much
blood...
She quelled a tremor of nausea, and made herself look at his face while the
stunned House Elves dithered over the other corpses. She could hear Pansy's
hysterics echoing up the staircase; Drennan's firecall to their Ministry
contact was a low murmur against her wailing. The Malfoy and Lestrange
dynasties were severed; leaving Pansy one of the richest widows in the
Wizarding world, and all the worthless debutante could manage to do was bawl at
the top of her lungs. A part of Hermione wanted to march downstairs and smack
the silly bint, but only a small part. The larger portion wanted only to kneel
there by Harry's side, watching the depthless green eyes stare into nothing.
Maybe keen a little herself.
I ought to say something, she thought, waving a fly away, A prayer.
Something.... But she didn't dare speak. Words hung heavy in her throat,
knocking bitterly against each other in their crowded prison. Hermione feared
them. 'Bad luck to curse the dead,' her father always told her, 'give them the
rest they've earned, and keep your passion for those who can answer back.'
She trailed her finger on Harry's cold, silent lips. No answers there -- never
again. If Harry knew what had afflicted Voldemort and his followers, he would
never say now. Her curiousity might be affronted by the mystery, but down deep,
Hermione knew she was more comfortable without that particular truth. Let him
take it to his grave. She had something more precious to take away with her.
"I've been thinking, about names" she managed at last, proud that her voice did
not shake, "Not Harry, of course, because that will always be you. But maybe
Ron, if it's a boy." Hermione sniffed, blinked hard, "And if it's a girl, I
think I'd rather like to call her Lily..." She traced his beatific smile again,
"Oh, Harry, why today?"
But footsteps on the marble stairs cut through the impending tears. Hermione
knew they had to slip away, and soon. Hagrid, Neville, and Lupin would need to
be warned, the raid aborted. And who knew when the Aurors would come to find
out why every Death Eater in Malfoy Manor had their own deaths crammed down
their throats?
But there was one thing she had to do first.
Trailing her finger in the blood, Hermione scrawled a crimson pattern on the
floor beside Harry's head. A short, squat cylinder. Brief lines hovering above
it, ticked with sanguine flame at each tip. Three words printed carefully
inside the oval top.
"Well, girl," Drennan's voice filled the room, unchecked by any reverence for
the corpses within, "it looks as if Voldemort wasn't the only one who died
inexplicably last night. Chernley says they haven't been able to find a single
Cabinet member still alive this morning." his shadow fell across Hermione's
work, and his words trailed off as she sat back and wiped her hands clean.
"So you did it after all," Hermione whispered, reading the dead man's odd smile
differently now, "You won, Love. You won."
"Here now," the mediwizard set their bags on the floor, "what've you done
there?" He leaned over to read quizzically aloud. "Happy Birthday Harry?"
"Happy Birthday," she agreed, and brushed his green eyes closed at last.
                                     ~Fin~
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