Chapter Four of 'Forgive Those Who Trespass'- The First Pensieve

[lomonaaeren]

Thank you again for all the reviews!

I’ve had a few questions about how dark and gory the story will get. “Pretty damn dark and gory” is the answer. Please don’t read further if the content so far upsets you.

Chapter Four—The First Pensieve

Harry woke slowly, to the realization that Malfoy seemed to be having a nightmare. He was thrashing about in Harry’s hold, his mouth open like a screaming Muggle painting Harry had once seen and his head tilted back. But, of course, no sound emerged from his lips, only erratic puffs of air.

“Malfoy!” Harry snapped, trying not to shake him. Since so many of his ribs were gone, he had no idea what would happen if he did.

Nothing happened, however, except that Malfoy’s legs were moving faster and faster, his hands flailing wildly. His teeth champed down harshly on his tongue, and Harry recalled something Hermione had once told him about people swallowing their tongues during seizures. He shuddered. Quite apart from the fact that Malfoy might be the only person who could guide him through the labyrinth the Department of Mysteries had become, he didn’t want the git to die and leave him all alone down here.

He leaned in close to the other man’s head and said, “Malfoy,” again.

The harsh breathing grew more pronounced, and his elbow slammed into Harry’s ear. Harry ducked, cursing, and shoved at his shoulder. Still nothing; Harry wondered what kind of rough treatment it would take to wake Malfoy up, if his efforts so far weren’t doing anything.

Then he stilled. Maybe “rough treatment” was the problem. Given how much Malfoy had suffered already, Harry’s efforts were probably playing right into his nightmares and convincing him he was back with the people who had hurt him.

Swallowing, and fervently glad that Ron wasn’t with him at the moment to see and laugh at what he had to do, Harry leaned nearer to Malfoy and whispered into his ear, “Draco? Draco, you’re safe now, I promise. Well,” he amended, wondering what he would say if Malfoy woke up and accused him of lying, “you’re safer. I’ll try to protect you. I’ll try to make sure that nothing else happens to you, and that you get back to St. Mungo’s so they can restore your bones and your voice and your fingers, and let you go back to being the right annoying berk you always were. All right? Wake up, now. I promise, I’m not going to torture you. I wouldn’t do that. I won’t let anyone else do that.”

He wasn’t foolish enough to think his words did that much good; he was hardly an inspiring public speaker, as the Ministry had already found out to its embarrassment. But the soft, soothing tone they were spoken in helped. Malfoy shuddered all over, and abruptly went limp. Turning his head towards Harry, he breathed for some moments, and then opened his eyes and stared at him.

Harry bit his lip. They were uncomfortably close, just the kind of closeness to make his body react the wrong way and give Malfoy ideas about Harry trying to molest him, when nothing could be further from the truth. But he knew that moving away right now would come over as all stiff and distant to Malfoy, and make him distrust Harry even more. And they needed trust to survive right now. So Harry held his posture and his stare, though he felt more and more awkward by the passing second.

Malfoy shifted, and his hands came up to tangle in Harry’s hair. Harry held patiently still as those nubby fingers explored his scalp and the small hairs that paraded down the back of his neck. If Malfoy needed tactile contact to reassure himself he wasn’t back among his tormentors, Harry would let him have it.

Abruptly, those nubby fingers yanked. Harry jumped. Malfoy must have worked them into the curly underlayer of Harry’s hair.

“That hurt, Malfoy,” he informed the other man, moving warily backwards. Malfoy had a faint, self-satisfied smile on his face, and Harry felt like a fool. Of course he was fine, and Harry’s attempts to comfort him were to be rejected arrogantly the moment he was awake. Harry started to roll away.

Malfoy clasped one palm on his shoulder, holding him still. His face had changed, and he shook his head.

Harry wished for a moment that they hadn’t been too tired to finish assigning meanings to the glass sphere last night. “What? Don’t leave you? I’m not going to do that.” His voice came out a bit more gruffly than he had intended, but his neck still tingled and hurt from the sharp pull.

Another shake of the head, and then Malfoy withdrew his left hand to lay against his ribs. Harry lifted his eyebrows. “Yes, I know you don’t have many bones left.”

A third headshake, and a light, cautious thump. Harry narrowed his eyes in confusion. The motion was similar to the ones he’d made during those three weeks he’d lost his voice and he wanted to remind people that he was in the room. But since he was looking straight at Malfoy, the git could hardly suspect Harry had forgotten about him.

“You?” he asked cautiously, deciding they would have to dedicate one facet of the sphere exclusively to common words.

Another thump.

“Malfoy?”

A pained look, and a thump.

Harry sighed. It was now obvious what the prat wanted. He’d heard the words that Harry was speaking whilst he tried to wake him up after all.

Well. It was a small enough sacrifice. And if it would prevent Harry from getting his hair yanked in the future, he could put up with it.

“Draco,” he said.

Somehow, even with the shadows of starvation and sleeplessness in his face, the prat had retained a brilliant smile. He leaned closer to Harry, and his arms ended up around the middle of his back again. Harry shifted, cautious about how he held him.

“Have you had enough sleep?” he asked, because if they weren’t going to sleep, they might as well make conversation.

A nod, brushing Malfoy’s hair against his ear. Harry frowned past his head and wondered what in the world they were lying there for, then.

Hermione’s voice appeared on cue in his mind. Because he needs human contact, Harry. Tell me that you could survive being chained up and tortured in a dungeon for a year and then not be madly glad to see the first other human being who wasn’t trying to hurt you.

Harry sighed and closed his eyes. If they weren’t going to sleep, then he might as well feign sleep. He deepened his breathing and let the arms that he had wrapped around Malfoy relax slightly.

Malfoy made no objections. He just settled closer and began small exploratory motions of his hands over Harry’s back and shoulders, light touches that wouldn’t have been enough to wake a real sleeper, though they tickled slightly. Harry rolled his shut eyes. Malfoy was not only injured, voiceless, and presuming on a level of friendliness that Harry didn’t think would ever exist between them; he was also needy.

As long as it’s not more than this. I really don’t think that I could handle more than this. And he probably wouldn’t be able to, either, no matter what he tells himself.

He did relax by degrees, though. Annoying tendencies to yank on hair or not, Malfoy really seemed to have thrown away the animosity that had been between them for their six years in Hogwarts. Harry thought he probably could trust him, at least not to act against the one person who at the moment could best guarantee his survival.

Slytherins are self-protective, right? Surely he won’t betray me—unless someone else comes along who can rescue him. And that’s not likely down here.

*

Harry sighed in relief and sat back, flexing his fingers from around his wand. He had cast a long, complicated series of charms that morning, or what might be that morning, first to designate certain facets of the sphere as certain words, and then to bond the new knowledge into his mind and Malfoy’s via a modified language-learning spell, so they weren’t forever fumbling for which facets or colors should mean what. He thought Hermione would approve of the time he’d put into steady hard work.

Malfoy leaned towards him now and touched one of the light green facets on the globe that stood for a series of ordinary words. When the colors of the glass shifted again, he touched the facet that meant hungry and stared at Harry.

Harry nodded and pulled enough food from his satchel to make a few acceptable sandwiches. Privately, he was worried about how long his supplies would last; he’d packed for one person, after all, not two. But he could manage duplication charms if he really had to—though Ron always claimed that the food Harry duplicated tasted like sawdust—and there were more urgent things to worry about right now.

“Do you know what lies beyond that door?” he asked Malfoy, when he’d handed him a cheese sandwich and settled back to eat his own. He motioned with his head at the doorway opposite the one they’d come in by, which so far led unhelpfully into darkness.

Malfoy shook his head. His face was blissful by the light of Harry’s conjured globe, and he was visibly restricting himself to slow bites and swallows, when he wanted to ravenously tear into the meal. Harry felt a small stirring of pride as he watched, and then told himself to stop feeling that. He was neither a specialist in the care and feeding of pure-blood wizards or a trainee Healer.

“What about that room?” He turned his head towards the mass of flesh he and Malfoy had crawled over, though just the memory of it was enough to make him lose his appetite. “What would happen if I cast a spell at the flesh? Do you think I should, if only to try and free whoever those people are from their pain?”

Malfoy rapped his palm on the globe to change the color back to another series of common words, from which he selected danger and before, then stared at Harry expectantly. Harry winced when he remembered the human chain, and the shadow-wolf that had come bounding out on guard when he Transfigured it to back to corpse status.

“Disabling the traps they set along the way rouses guardians?” he asked.

Malfoy nodded, and then returned to his sandwich. It might have been caviar or skylarks’ tongues or whatever he had really eaten in the Manor before he was kidnapped, considering the way he closed his eyes as he chewed. Harry shook his head in bewilderment. He would once have thought that nothing could ever make a change in Draco Malfoy’s personality, for better or worse, but here he was, witnessing it.

“Did the entire Department change when they released this spell?” he asked. “Or don’t you know?”

Two shrugs. Harry cursed under his breath. Malfoy’s usefulness as a guide was going to be severely limited, then.

“Do you know what other traps they might have set up along the way? Do you think you’ll be able to warn me in time?”

Shrug. Shrug.

Well, damn. Harry set down his sandwich, then frowned when he saw Malfoy glancing at it. “Get your own. I’ll finish it in a minute.” Malfoy rolled his eyes, as much to say that Harry was a fool for not eating it all at once. “And pay attention, this is important. How much do you remember of what they did to you?”

Malfoy shook his head.

Harry exhaled hard. He really should have expected that. If Malfoy remembered with any clarity, he would probably have been in much worse shape, psychologically, than he was. And even if the Unspeakables’ designs, whatever they were, included keeping this one prisoner alive, they wouldn’t want to leave important memories in his head.

“Then we’ll have to do the best we can without that guidance,” Harry muttered, and sat back with a slight frown, closing his eyes.

He took a few moments to consult with himself and realized that nothing had changed, not really. He didn’t have much of a chance of rescuing Ron and Hermione, but when had he ever had much of a chance? He would make the best effort he could and use the help that he found along the way, exactly as he had destroyed the Horcruxes and battled the basilisk and survived the graveyard and—

And done everything worth mentioning in my life, he admitted to himself wryly, and opened his eyes again, only to see Malfoy glaring at him. He blinked. “What?” He had been sure that Malfoy would be too busy eating to care about his meditation.

Malfoy rapped the sphere, and it flared dazzling white, which represented common phrases. Malfoy selected the facets that meant, according to the spell that suddenly shone in Harry’s mind, I can’t talk and Look at me.

Harry raised an eyebrow. He had felt left out when Harry closed his eyes and couldn’t see him anymore to tell what he was communicating? That seemed strange. But, of course, he had to keep remembering that to Malfoy he wasn’t an enemy anymore. That was difficult enough without making it more difficult for himself. He’d try to keep his eyes open in the future, for both their sakes.

“I apologize, Draco,” he said, catching himself and substituting the name that Malfoy had shown himself to prefer just in time.

Malfoy beamed at him with so much happiness that Harry had to remind himself that there was a whole facet on the sphere for sarcastic phrases, but he couldn’t help smiling tentatively back.

*

The room beyond the eastern doorway turned out to be small, round, made of stone, and littered with more of the slowly rising blue flames that Harry remembered from the corridor where he’d first landed. He avoided them cautiously, and lent his arm to help Malfoy as needed. But Malfoy stepped past him with a silent snort and a shake of his head. Food and sleep had done wonders in bringing back his confidence and giving him an expression other than stupefied terror, Harry had to admit.

Not that there was any chance Malfoy was bent, and not that Harry had any business noticing how attractive another man was. He directed his gaze to the glass sphere floating between them on a permanent Levitation Charm instead, ready to catch it if something surged up from the floor and tried to shatter it.

Remarkably, they reached the other side of the room with no such accident. And Harry halted, because there had been nothing but darkness beyond the far doorway at first, but now there was a dazzling white light.

He glanced sideways at Malfoy, but received only another shrug.

Harry stepped in first, of course, body angled so as to offer as much protection to Malfoy as possible. The globe of light still bobbed behind him, and so did the sphere; Harry wasn’t ready to trust to the seeming safety and dismiss the one or set down the other just yet.

The room was empty, except for a single pillar in the center. Harry frowned and studied it. As far as he could tell from this distance, it appeared to be made of marble, or maybe ivory. On top of the pillar sat a stone bowl that he recognized right away. A Pensieve. And from the glitter near the lip, it was full. Harry licked dried lips and glanced sideways at Malfoy, who only shivered. If he was remembering something specific and dangerous, however, he didn’t seem to think it worth his while to reach for the sphere and tell Harry about it.

Harry nodded and cast his spells to detect traps and magical creatures. Nothing responded to them. At last he edged forwards, his wand lifted and several of the most dangerous spells that he knew poised on the edge of his tongue.

Nothing continued to happen. The Pensieve came closer and closer, and no shadow-wolf unfolded from the paving stones on the floor to leap at them; no wall of human flesh formed to fall on them; no Acromantula descended from the ceiling to snare them in its web. Harry remained on edge, though, and so he yelped and jumped when Malfoy suddenly seized his arm in a death grip.

“Warn a bloke next time, won’t you?” he snapped, turning around.

One look at Malfoy’s face silenced him. Malfoy was staring at the Pensieve, and he had turned so pale that Harry reached out and put his arms around him, fearing he would faint in the next moment. He stroked the other man’s hair, which embarrassed him now that he was thinking about it but which Malfoy seemed as if he needed. Harry murmured into his ear, the same soothing nonsense words he’d spoken when they lay in the same blankets together, making sure to call him Draco, and Malfoy gradually relaxed.

He still didn’t step away from Harry of his own free will, though. He waited until Harry stepped back and slipped his hand around one of the fingerless ones, shuddering absently as those rounded lumps brushed along his thumb and index finger. “Now,” Harry said softly. “Do you think that Pensieve holds some of your memories?”

Malfoy nodded, his eyes fixed and staring. Harry licked his lips, not sure what to make of the lack of response, and continued. “Is there anything you can remember about this? About this room? The Pensieve itself? The pillar?”

Malfoy shook his head three times, and then nodded on the fourth question. Harry leaned forwards, keenly interested. He’d just as soon not approach the pillar if it was a trap. “Yes? What is it?”

With a languid, slowness probably caused by fear and revulsion, Malfoy ran a hand up and down his torso. Harry followed the motion with his eyes three times before his knowledge caught up with it and he flinched, hissing between his teeth.

“The pillar’s made of your rib bones,” he said flatly.

Another terse nod.

Harry licked his lips and looked back at the pillar. Yes, the white material it was constructed of could have been bone, polished and shining. He concentrated hard, but couldn’t make out any graceful curves of rib in the thing. Of course, if the Unspeakables had altered what they stole with magic, that would be impossible.

He could make out something, though.

Harry leaned nearer. There were two letters, faint as shadows, carved in the pillar towards the base. With some squinting, which nearly caused him to fall down since he didn’t want to let go of Malfoy’s hand and also didn’t want to take a step nearer the pillar, he managed to make out that they were Cr.

No racking of his brains for any handy tips picked up during Auror training provided suggestions as to what that might mean. Harry shook his head, frustrated. “I’ve got to go into the Pensieve,” he told Malfoy.

Malfoy was clinging to him like a burr a moment later, his hold so tight and choking that Harry didn’t have to be told what he feared. He took a deep breath and played with Malfoy’s hair some more, then deliberately found the soft, empty flesh under his abbreviated ribcage again.

“I have to,” he said. “If there’s the slightest hint about what happened to change the Department into this, or about what they did to you, or about what happened to Ron and Hermione…I have to. I promise that I’ll return the memories to you when I’m done. You should have them.” He paused. “Do you want to go into the Pensieve with me?”

Malfoy turned his head away, and even though Harry could barely make out his expression from this angle, he read soul-deep shame in the angle of his neck. Impulsively, he cupped a hand around Malfoy’s chin and tilted his head gently back.

“Don’t feel bad,” he whispered. “That you’re still sane and not running away screaming at the prospect of getting these memories back says a lot. You have nothing to feel sorry for.” He tapped Malfoy’s cheek sharply with two fingers when Malfoy just blinked at him. “Do you hear me?”

Finally, Malfoy bowed his head and nodded. A few tears slipped down his cheeks. Harry smoothed them away and hesitated a moment, then held out his wand towards Malfoy.

“Here,” he said. “If something happens whilst I’m in the Pensieve, or if I don’t come back, then you should be able to defend yourself.”

Malfoy shook his head and gave him a disgusted look. Then he spread his hands wide and waved them up and down.

“Yes, I know you don’t have any fingers, it’s kind of hard to miss,” Harry snapped at him, wondering if this bizarre mix of irritation and sympathy would fill him for the rest of his life when he thought of Malfoy. He couldn’t wait until they were back on the surface, he really couldn’t, so that Malfoy would be sane and whole and Harry could start to hate him properly again. “But I still thought you could use the wand for—“ He stopped, not wanting to say reassurance. The last thing he needed was Malfoy’s stupid pride intervening in a matter of safety.

Malfoy shook his head again, and folded the wand back to Harry’s chest, using the flats of his wrists. Harry understood the gesture better now. Malfoy would prefer that he have the wand with him in case something happened in the Pensieve.

“All right. If you’re sure.”

Malfoy all but shoved him forwards now. Harry gave him a small smile and turned towards the Pensieve.

Nothing attacked him when he walked towards the pillar. Nothing attacked him when he cast a Sticking Charm on his feet, so that he could bend over the Pensieve without being afraid that he’d slip or having to touch the sides of the bowl. He stared at the silvery liquid for a moment, bracing himself to see horrors even worse than those he’d faced so far, and then plunged his head beneath the surface.

There came the same dizzying sensation that had engaged him when he watched Snape’s memories, and the memories Dumbledore had collected of Voldemort’s past. Then he was standing in a room with several gray-clad figures, all of them with hoods drawn about their heads except two. Harry glanced around quickly. The room itself was broad and covered with dark blue tiles that absorbed the light of the torches in the wall sconces. Even just in a memory, it thrummed with enough magical energy to raise his hair and his danger sense, both.

He turned back to the figures at the front of the room. One was a large, bearded man with brown eyes and an intent stare whom Harry didn’t recognize, though he somewhat resembled the Death Eater Walden Macnair. The other was Malfoy.

And he had no manacles, no glazed expression in his eyes reminiscent of someone under Imperius, and no restraining spells that Harry could see. He just stood and looked back at the bearded man with determination on his face.

“Do you understand what you have to do?” the stranger asked.

“I do.”

Harry almost jumped, Malfoy’s firm, steady voice sounded so strange to him.

“Good,” the stranger said. “There is no need to bind you by an Unbreakable Vow or any others, as long as you solemnly swear of your own free will to be loyal to the Department of Mysteries. And, in return, we will aid in you in achieving what you came for.” He glanced at Draco’s left arm. “The research we are doing in the art of body modification can rid you of the Dark Lord’s Mark, I’m certain, as it grows more advanced.”

Malfoy inclined his head and gave that smirk that Harry had known so well. “And I can help advance that research, at the moment, more than any other person you’ve recruited,” he murmured. “Isn’t that right?”

Harry closed his eyes. He felt as if he were falling again down the long shaft that had borne him to the room of squirming flesh, but this time, he had no assurance of a soft surface to catch him, or even of companionship.

Malfoy had participated in creating these horrors he and Harry had faced.

What a fool Harry had been.

Chapter 5.

Comments

[darkestnight12.livejournal.com]

*gasps* No! Harry! You're not a fool!

*throttles the pensieve* Show more! Show more! That can't be all there is to it!

Oh no...what will happen to Draco now?!

But wait. If Draco voluntarily did all those things, why's he the way he is now? Ooo~! Maybe the Unspeakables betrayed him!

*walks off still rambling about possible theories*

[lomonaaeren.livejournal.com]

Well, he at least thinks he's been for trusting so easily.

Oh, no, there are more memories in the thing, which are coming up in Chapter 5.

As to the theories, I'm afraid I can't confirm or deny anything yet.

[darkestnight12.livejournal.com]

Do I sense...that things are not what they seem? :D *clenches fist* I have absolute faith in Draco's innocence!

Memories, reveal all! *acts mystical*

*wails* The dreaded variation to the "no comment" answer!

[punkfaerie4242.livejournal.com]

Draco, why would you volunteer for this? You stupid fool. You have Harry trying to help you when you did this of your own free will. Oh, you fool.

[lomonaaeren.livejournal.com]

Well, to be fair, Harry doesn't know everything yet. And neither do the readers.

[firedraygon97.livejournal.com]

Oh my gosh, I hope Harry doesn't go and say something stupid like "what goes around, comes around" to Draco. Wonderful chapter. I love all the reassuring Harry has to do for Draco, and how Draco's slowly regaining his snarkiness. Great work with this. At the moment this this has got to be my favourite HP fic. I'm looking forward to the next update!

[lomonaaeren.livejournal.com]

Heh, well, he might not say that, but he might refuse to help.

And thank you! Draco is torn between reaching out for even more comfort and the uneasy knowledge that Harry probably is helping him against his own inclinations. He uses snark as a kind of defense against sinking too low.

And another update is coming up today.

[corvusdea.livejournal.com]

Oh yes, Harry, love. Draco willingly signed up for being made mute, being starved, having his hands and ribcage mutilated, being chained with a human body and who knows what the fuck else, all in order to get the Dark Mark off. That makes perfect sense doesn't it? Isn't it possible that people who could do such things to another human, might have lied about their intentions? Hmm?

If you can't tell, I'm very emotionally invested in this fic. And think Harry is being an arse. On a technical note, I think he is also very in-character and Gryffindor in his thought process. My nerves, however, need him to engage the Slytherin portion of his brain and think! There is one hell of a mindfuck going on here and I have no idea what it is! Fantastic job!

[lomonaaeren.livejournal.com]

Harry would probably say, "Sure, they could have lied, but I still want to know what Malfoy was doing here in the first place!"

And thank you! This Harry is probably the most IC Harry I've written so far, which frustrates me at times. On the other hand, what's going on here is complicated, and Harry really has no reason to trust Draco. He'll start spinning conspiracy theories in a moment, just you wait.

[mizelissa.livejournal.com]

more more more PLEASE!!!!

Please don't make us have to wait long for the next chapter.
I simply MUST know what happens next!!!!!!


“And I can help advance that research, at the moment, more than any other person you’ve recruited,” he murmured. “Isn’t that right?”

I can almost picture a nasty leer on the faces of the cloaked Unspeakables in the room with Draco when he says this. Clearly their idea of 'helping' with research is far different than his.

[lomonaaeren.livejournal.com]

Next chapter will be up today, I promise!

Harry, at the moment, really has no idea who betrayed whom. For all he knows, Draco could have tried to double-cross the Unspeakables and been caught when he did so.

[neji-chan.livejournal.com]

As much as I love igyawm, and as much as I anted to read your one-shot, this update is what I really was waiting for. It's horror, and it's good.

Great chapter! Harry better get used to the nightmares, because if Draco has them now, it'll be 100 times worst as he gets back his memories. I loved the way he tries to comfort Draco and how all the time is aware of his ribs and being careful. I love how Draco wants comfort, almost demands it, but at the same time he tries to keep some of his pride.

Hermione’s voice appeared on cue in his mind. Because he needs human contact, Harry. Tell me that you could survive being chained up and tortured in a dungeon for a year and then not be madly glad to see the first other human being who wasn’t trying to hurt you. What would Harry do without Hermione's voice? After 11 years with no human contact (that didn't hurt) when he was a child, Harry should know that. I understand the situation is different, so maybe he doesn't realized how Draco feels. I wonder what'll happen once Draco starts regaining his memories. He needs human contact now, but maybe that'll change a bit. even if he knows Harry wouldn't hurt him, it'll be difficult getting over his fears...

he was hardly an inspiring public speaker, as the Ministry had already found out to its embarrassment Oh God, what did he say? Apart from "Er.." ::lol::

there was a whole facet on the sphere for sarcastic phrases Of course there are! Harry would start thinking he's not really Draco if there weren't. It shows that Draco's still himself, even after all that happened. Harry should be relieved.

Malfoy had participated in creating these horrors he and Harry had faced Oh, Harry ::sighs:: Thinking the worst of someone he's always thought to be evil is very IC. So is jumping to conclusions without knowing all the facts. I want to slap Harry in the head and yell "Helloo, Professor Snape?" “Do you understand what you have to do?” Harry has no idea what Draco was asked. As if Draco would have voluntarily offered himself as a guinea pig for those experiments.

I can't wait for all the "Pretty damn dark and gory" stuff to start! Mainly with more Pensieves which by the way, what the hell are they doing there?

[lomonaaeren.livejournal.com]

Thank you! This is the first sustained horror story I've written- most of the time, it's just darker scenes in the middle of longer stories- so I'm very glad you like it.

Harry and Draco's relationship is unstable now, and about to become more so (no shit, right?). Harry keeps trying not to violate his own boundaries or Draco's, and in the process he keeps offering Draco not enough or too much.

I think canon Harry has adapted remarkably well to his time at the Dursleys- so well, that he probably imagines everyone else has the same resilience. He can decide otherwise, but he has to be reminded of it first.

I'm not sure if Harry's public speaking adventure will come up later on in the story or not. Suffice it to say that it was really embarrassing.

Harry literally has no idea what's going on right now. And he's wary to judge Draco innocent. After all, maybe he was the one who threw a spanner in the works at the last moment and caused the Department of Mysteries to become what it is now.

The Pensieves have a specific purpose, which is hinted at in the next chapter.

[shukuun.livejournal.com]

Ahhhh~ nooooo. T_T I hope Harry doesn't do something stupid in regards to Draco.

*anxious*

Guh, I love this story. ♥. =)

[lomonaaeren.livejournal.com]

Oh, he almost certainly will!

And thank you.

[gilith-ramaloce.livejournal.com]

XD That's Harry for you. I sure hope he continues to watch the memories and not leave at this point. XD Cause that's Harry as well.

[lomonaaeren.livejournal.com]

Well, the answer is in Chapter 5!

[thrnbrooke.livejournal.com]

Oh no!!! Draco you didn't!!! Soooo need more!

[lomonaaeren.livejournal.com]

Thanks! Next chapter will be up in a few hours, probably.

Different reaction than I thought

[annf.livejournal.com]

I pictured Harry's thoughts going to Hermione and Ron as new recruits as well, drawn in by ego...

Re: Different reaction than I thought

[lomonaaeren.livejournal.com]

You mean Harry would think Ron and Hermione would have done the same thing? He has more faith in his friends than that. Or do you mean that he would have thought about his friends because he is egotistical? In this case, he really doesn't believe that the Unspeakables set this trap just for him and his friends; he's grown up enough to decide that the entire world does not revolve around him.

Re: Different reaction than I thought

[annf.livejournal.com]

No. Draco was tortured and imprisoned by a group he thought he was going to work for. Even if he helped make horrors, he wasn't joining up to be imprisoned & tortured. I would think that Harry would be concerned that the people in charge of the DOM weren't accountable to anyone, apparently, and had already committed horrors to one of their own, especially as his friends had just taken the oaths to join.

Re: Different reaction than I thought

[sofiaottoman.livejournal.com]

I would think that Harry would be concerned that the people in charge of the DOM weren't accountable to anyone, apparently, and had already committed horrors to one of their own, especially as his friends had just taken the oaths to join.

That's a really good point actually.

Re: Different reaction than I thought

[lomonaaeren.livejournal.com]

Harry pretty much accepts that the DoM Unspeakables are up to something evil and acting irresponsibly; he's accepted it since Draco told him Unspeakables were responsible for his torture. But he hadn't suspected Draco had any willing part in it- hence his speculations that Draco must have been kidnapped- so that revelation hit him harder.

[ura-hd.livejournal.com]

The story gets better and better.

[lomonaaeren.livejournal.com]

Thank you!

[sofiaottoman.livejournal.com]

An interesting chapter. I think Harry is right to feel betrayed by the revelation that Draco seemingly willingly took part in creating the horrors he and Harry faced- but I think Harry is also assuming that Draco was fully aware of what he was agreeing to and I cannot see Draco willingly allowing himself to be as mute and helpless as he is. There is something more going on, of that I am sure.

[lomonaaeren.livejournal.com]

Thanks.

Harry is pretty frustrated, and by this point distrusting everything he thought he knew about Draco. For all he knew, Draco agreed to be mutilated for some secret evil purpose of his own.

[dysonrules.livejournal.com]

I love how Harry's "saving-people-thing" is sometimes at odds with his "they're-all-out-to-get-me-thing". Malfoy is both of those together, which is what makes this relationship so darned interesting!

Love the intensity of this!

[lomonaaeren.livejournal.com]

Yep. And he'll have reason to get more and more paranoid as this goes on.

Thank you!