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Chapter Four—Maintaining Health Is a Matter of Balance

“And I want to see him immediately.” There was no mistaking Xavier Brandeis’s voice, even from up an entire staircase. “Do you have the slightest idea who I am, or what he did to me? I’ll tell you. He lied to me, betrayed me—“

Harry cursed under his breath, which made Healer Emptyweed stare at him indignantly, but he didn’t really care. He just wanted to prevent Xavier from telling all the secrets that should have remained private in front of half the sick people in London. He leaped over the last few steps and landed at the bottom, casting a wave of golden sparks that would attract Xavier’s eye at once.

He’d been leaning on the Welcome Witch’s desk, but he straightened up and smiled when he saw Harry. The face was handsome, undeniably; he’d caught Harry’s eye without trouble when Harry first met him at a party celebrating the launch of several new Weasleys’ Wizard Wheezes. He had pale gray hair even though he was in his early twenties, shoulder-length and almost silvery. His eyes were large and blue-green. Somewhere in his background, he’d told Harry, was an infusion of siren or merfolk blood. He held out a hand with lengthy, polished, granite-gray nails to Harry.

“I thought perhaps a threat would bring you more quickly than coaxing,” he said. “Never mind that it didn’t work once. We always deserve second chances, you and I.”

“I know as well as you do that it isn’t second chances that brought you here today,” Harry hissed at him. He still had his wand drawn, and he moved it now in a small jerk to remind Xavier of that. “Why are you here?”

Xavier pressed a hand dramatically over his heart. “Why, Harry, aren’t I allowed to try to help my lover advance in life?”

“I’m not your lover.”

“No,” said Xavier, and leaned towards him, dropping both the smile and his voice. “And I’m going to make you regret that for the rest of your life.”

Harry hissed at him, but inaudibly, because Xavier would surely make some remark about Parseltongue if he heard Harry. Unlike Julius, who still wanted Harry back because he didn’t understand his moral objections to adultery, Xavier disliked who Harry was, and he was extremely quick with comebacks. Harry didn’t want to get into a row that would expose all those secrets to St. Mungo’s.

He could try reason. Xavier had sometimes responded to it. “You know I’m perfectly happy being a mediwizard,” he said. “Surely someone with your intellect could have understood that.”

“But you should have been a hero,” said Xavier, and his smile returned, brittle. “No matter how poor your qualifications for it are.”

Harry concealed a groan, which Xavier would also have mocked. Xavier had decided that Harry’s deplorable lack of ambition must be cured, so he had arranged to have himself “kidnapped” by several of his friends and left evidence as fragmentary clues. His idea was that Harry would easily follow the clues, find him, and resume his supposedly natural place as a hero on the front pages of the papers. Instead, Harry had gone to the Aurors. Xavier had dumped him the next day, declaring that Harry had lied to him about being a hero.

Life with Xavier had never been boring, but it had also been utterly without relaxation, something Harry needed in his life at the moment.

“Tell me, Xavier,” Harry murmured as he leaned closer still, “have you ever killed a Dark Lord? Do you know what qualities it needs?”

“Yes,” Xavier said. “A sheep-like willingness to sacrifice yourself, as you’ve told me multiple times—“

“No,” Harry said, raising his voice to invite the rest of the raptly listening hospital into the conversation. One of Xavier’s flaws was that he lost track of single ideas very quickly and latched on to new ones. If Harry could make him re-argue an argument they’d had before, he might be able to distract Xavier from telling their secrets; Xavier would be determined to win this time. “It also took courage to walk to my death. No one else who was still alive knew I’d have to sacrifice myself to kill Voldemort.” And that name still made people flinch, even though it had been seven years since the war. “I could have run away and denied my destiny. I didn’t. And then I still faced Voldemort afterwards, when he had the Elder Wand and could probably have destroyed me.

“And it’s courage that leads to my going in among patients every day and facing diseases and curses, magic gone awry and poisons, that you’d never be able to stomach. You’re more comfortable with the idea of a hero who comes home with his own blood on him than you are with the idea that I’ve got the blood plunging my hands wrist-deep into someone else’s wound.”

Xavier had gone pale and stepped back from him. Another reason he’d wanted Harry to stop being a mediwizard was pure selfishness, Harry knew. He hated hospitals, hated sickness, and hated the thought that Harry thrived in that environment.

“I never was what you wanted, Xavier,” Harry said, and pasted a sickly sweet smile of sympathy across his face. “But maybe you’ll learn to appreciate me for what I am, if you come watch me perform surgery and—“

Xavier turned and stalked away with what dignity was left to him.

Harry sighed and stood up, only to find Emptyweed at his elbow.

“I’ve never seen someone who’s as much a disgrace to St. Mungo’s as you are, Potter,” he murmured, as he turned Harry with a steel grip on his elbow back towards the stairs. “Showing off like a child by jumping down those steps and casting that spell. Rowing with a lover whilst there are patients who need care. Bragging about yourself when the whole world has already honored you. You could be sacked tomorrow and the whole hospital would be calmer and more peaceful.”

Harry bore the lecture in silence. He’d had to bear worse, especially immediately after Xavier’s false kidnapping, when he’d come storming into hospital and interrupted Harry’s treatment of a woman with Runespoor venom in her veins.

As he began to mount the stairs, he saw Malfoy lurking in the shadows on the first floor, staring at him with folded arms and intense eyes. Harry was too tired to care what the idiot was thinking. Probably still trying to find some way to prove that Harry’s skill was “insufficient” to take care of his father. He raised an eyebrow at Malfoy in challenge.

Malfoy only nodded back, as if he and Harry had been the ones to share a secret, and then vanished. Harry’s windy sigh of relief began Emptyweed’s lecture again.

*

“But that doesn’t make any sense,” Harry muttered under his breath, leaning down until his nose almost touched the diagram of interwoven spells on the page. They formed a pattern the book called the Locus Maze, for reasons Harry hadn’t bothered to divine yet. But the spells were folding and bending back on each other in a way that Harry’s mediwizard training told him should be impossible. The slight shimmer of magic above the parchment showed that the illustrator had had to use a spell to make the maze come out right.

“Curses can’t tie into a knot like that,” he told no one. “What is this author—“

“Harry James Potter!”

Harry yelped and jerked back from the reading table in the library, dropping the book on his toe. Whilst he hopped on one foot, gripping it in his hands, he glared at Hermione, whose head had appeared in the fireplace. She and Ron were the only people who could Floo him at any time, even if he had a block up. Hermione abused the privilege shamelessly.

“I told you not to do that,” he said, scowling at her as he gingerly put his injured foot back down. “I think you’re the ghost of my mum when you do that.”

Hermione only grinned at him, a savage grin of the kind she’d used in Hogwarts when she came up with a new study plan. Harry surveyed her warily.

“Tell me how much you’ve had to eat today,” Hermione said, with an air of triumph.

“Um,” Harry said. “Two cups of coffee and a full dinner.”

“What did the dinner consist of?”

Harry scowled at her, unable to come up with a lie on the spot. It was eight-o’clock; he really didn’t think Hermione wouldn’t firecall this late.

“Um-hm,” Hermione said. “And how many hours of sleep have you got this week?”

“Why does that matter?” Harry knew he was whinging, and he didn’t care.

“Maintaining health is a matter of balance,” Hermione said sanctimoniously, quoting Healer Pontiff. Harry scowled harder. He never should have confessed to Hermione and Ron how much he relied on her advice. Hermione was prone to use it against him at the slightest excuse. “Your health as well as the patients’, Harry. What good can you be to them if you’re dropping of exhaustion?”

“It’s a long way between ‘dropping of exhaustion’ and just being a little tired, Hermione—“

“How many hours,” Hermione said, and he saw her put a hand on her hip, “this week?”

“Seventeen,” Harry muttered.

“And it’s Thursday.”

Harry folded his arms and looked away. His foot was still throbbing.

“I believe I win our bet, then,” Hermione said. “You have to come over and listen to stories from me and Ron that have absolutely nothing to do with mediwizard training. You have to eat a full meal with us. And you’ll need to sleep at least nine hours before you go in for work tomorrow.”

Harry cursed under his breath, which made Hermione look more smug, instead of scolding him as Emptyweed had. Each week, he and Hermione made a bet that was meant to keep them both from exhausting themselves—Harry with spending too much time on his patients’ health and not enough on his own, Hermione from spending too much time and energy on her Ministry work. If Harry got less than six hours’ sleep a night and didn’t have at least one full meal a day, he lost the bet, just as Hermione lost the bet if she spent any full night reading, and the loser had to perform whatever “punishment” the other deemed fitting. Hermione had lost two weeks ago, and Harry had made her go to her job in the morning with a sign on her back that said I’M WEARING THIS BECAUSE I STUDY TOO DAMN MUCH.

“This case is really important,” he tried. “I think several different spells are linked together in Lucius Malfoy’s mind, but I don’t know how many there are or what the pattern is, and I can’t cure him until I do—“

“Harry,” Hermione said softly. “At some point, you have to stop thinking about him and start thinking about yourself. And there’s to be no mention of Lucius Malfoy tonight, or Draco Malfoy, or why you need to spend five hours a night studying this in addition to all the extra learning you already put yourself through.”

Harry looked at the floor and nodded. In truth, he was longing to rest his brain and relax in the company of his friends, but guilt flared up every time he thought of it. What if he could discover the answer to Lucius’s problem if he read just a little more? The man was depending on him.

“But perhaps,” Hermione said, “there might be mentions of the theory behind linked mazes of spells at the dinner table. As a purely abstract concept, of course.”

Harry looked up with a smile. This was the reason he and Hermione had made their bet in the first place. They prevented each other from going too far, but they also took care of each other.

“Let me get dressed—“ Harry gestured at the slimy, singed mediwizard’s robe he wore.

“Come as you are,” said Hermione, and held her hand out of the fire to pull him through.

Harry took it and went, grateful beyond words to have such wonderful friends.

*

Harry was halfway up the corridor from Lucius’s room, still checking one of the diagrams of linked spells he’d made this morning and reluctantly admitting to himself that nine hours’ sleep had been good for him, when a scream of pain and panic broke out from ahead of him. Harry jerked up his head and, without thinking about it, Apparated, despite the anti-Apparition wards scattered along the corridor.

He reappeared at the foot of Lucius’s bed and took in the problem at a glance. Multiple shallow wounds were opening along Lucius’s arms and legs. A deeper cut was ripping and bubbling in the center of his chest, slow as yet, because it was fighting the especially thick stabilization fields Harry had cast above his internal organs.

But someone had dispelled the fields that had protected his limbs.

Harry didn’t pause to curse, though he would have liked to. He also didn’t let himself respond to Lucius’s screams with panic. He aimed his wand at the man’s limbs instead and chanted, “Defendo hostiam cum corde meo!”

Brilliant sheets of red light broke from his own chest and hands, assuming the forms of galloping riders. Harry braced himself against the spell’s drain, shivering as for a moment a cold hand closed around his heart and squeezed. But then the magic surged outwards, and he had the pleasure of seeing it wrap Lucius’s arms and legs in what looked like a shield of glittering crimson tinsel.

The cuts closed at once. Harry stood still, letting Lucius adjust to what he knew was the sudden and unsettling feeling of good health. Healer Pontiff had used this spell on Harry when he unwittingly channeled poison from a patient into his body instead of into the waiting vial. Lucius stopped screaming and lifted his head, staring at Harry. Then he looked down at his chest. The cut there had closed as well, though a thick knot of skin showed where it had been.

“What happened?” Lucius whispered.

“Someone took off the spells that protected you,” Harry said. He was so angry he was choking. Emptyweed had guaranteed a week of safety, and he couldn’t even keep that promise. “The curse immediately tried to return. I’d protected your chest better, and your enemy couldn’t have removed that magic without awakening you, so the curse wasn’t as severe there.”

“And the spell you used to defend me?” Lucius was propping himself up on the bed with one arm, though he looked so weak and shaky Harry thought he should have been lying down. “I thought I caught a phrase referring to ‘heart,’ but that was all.”

“Your education is not lacking in Latin, at least,” Harry murmured mockingly. Lucius caught his lower lip between his teeth, but said nothing, and Harry relented. It was perfectly clear that Lucius was not going to rest unless Harry told him the truth. “Defendo hostiam cum corde meo. ‘I defend the victim with my heart.’ Known as the Heart’s Blessing in some circles.”

“It sounds intolerably twee,” Lucius said coldly. “What does it mean?”

“I’m sharing my life force with you,” Harry said. “So long as my heart beats, you cannot die.”

Lucius went very still, his eyes freezing along with the rest of him. The next moment, he was staring at Harry as if Harry were not only a person but a kind of creature he’d never seen before. Harry shrugged. “I’m young and healthy, and I stand a better chance of recognizing the medical curses that someone in hospital would probably use. They’ll have to go through me to get to you from now on. I would have used this spell from the beginning, but it is risky and requires concentration and power I don’t usually have access to. Probably only the fear that you were going to die immediately could have pushed me to get it right.”

“I know what it means to share life force with someone,” Lucius said at last, his voice quiet and strangled.

Harry frowned. Some wizards and witches had extremely odd beliefs concerning the Heart’s Blessing spell, another reason it wasn’t used often. “You won’t be able to feel my thoughts or my bodily sensations, Mr. Malfoy, no matter what your friends might have told you when you were a teenager. When the connection can be cut with safety, I’ll do it. We won’t be bound for the rest of our lives—“

“My father means something else,” Draco Malfoy’s voice said from behind him, incredibly gentle. Harry hadn’t even realized he was in the room, so intense had his concentration on Lucius—by necessity—been. Now he turned and saw Malfoy stepping out of the corner of the room, his movements slow and exaggerated as though he were trying to reassure a wild beast. Harry scowled at him, not liking to be coddled, but Malfoy only smiled back. “When a wizard sacrifices part of his life force to save another, it creates a wizarding debt between them, just as saving someone from certain death does. My father’s simply shocked that you would do that for someone whom you barely know and have reason to hate.”

“I—it ‘s the right thing to do,” Harry muttered, flushing. He wasn’t sure if Lucius’s stare or Malfoy’s made him more uncomfortable. “Most other Healers in St. Mungo’s would have done the same. And—“

“Most others would not have done the same, given what has happened to him from the moment he arrived here.” Malfoy took another delicate step towards Harry. Harry was momentarily startled that Lucius was letting his son speak for him, but maybe he really was too overcome by the notion of his danger. “And you swore that you would protect him, and you’ve kept that promise, up to lending him your life force so he can survive. That’s not a light gift, Potter.”

His face was so odd, Harry thought uneasily. Softened, eyes bright and full, mouth trembling on the edge of a smile—

And then Harry wanted to groan. He knew what was happening. Malfoy might have given up the flirtation out of boredom, but now he would be grateful to Harry for saving Lucius’s life, and think he had to be nice to him because of that.

Harry gave Malfoy a quick, tense smile, then turned to face Lucius. “Our first priority must be finding out who removed the stabilization fields,” he said. “You were asleep?”

Lucius nodded. “I heard nothing. And our first priority must be making sure that you’re safe, Mr. Potter. You’re young and healthy, as you said, but even you could be killed by a curse or an accident.” He shifted his eyes to his son. “I think Draco should take over the duty of protecting you.”

From the corner of his eye, Harry saw Malfoy’s face brighten out of all proportion to the assignment. Really. He can’t be that desperate for company that he’s willing to solicit me. He’s handsome enough to catch whoever else he wants.

“No!” Harry said sharply. “There has to be someone here with you at all times—“

“My wife will come,” Lucius said quietly. “We did want to spare her, as she is not at her best with hospitals, but she would bear worse for me.” He said that with utter trust in Narcissa, Harry thought enviously. He couldn’t say he’d had the same kind of trust in anyone he’d dated or fallen in love with, even Ginny. Ron and Hermione were a different matter, a different kind of bond. “She also knows spells, thanks to several days of study now, that should help to protect me and still be undetectable by the wards of the hospital and by your Healer friend who dislikes me so much.”

“Mr. Malfoy—“ Harry didn’t know how the man could be so unconcerned about the unknown enemy who’d almost murdered him.

“It’s for the best anyway, Potter,” Malfoy said, stepping up beside him. “I was awake and alert, I must have been, when that spell to remove the fields was cast, but I didn’t know anything had happened until Father started screaming. Then all I could do was step back out of the way when you arrived and let you work. Mother is better at noticing small changes immediately. I’m better, I think, at keeping up with you.”

Harry shot him an irritated glance. Not even that melted the smile Malfoy was now wearing. The smile made Harry’s insides squirm. It was warm, gentle, respectful, and inquiring, as if Malfoy really wanted to know more of Harry than he’d seen so far. Harry hadn’t been looked at like that in—a long time.

Nonsense. Gene did, he told himself, and shoved the comparison out of his mind. Malfoy was not a potential romantic partner no matter what happened, and Harry couldn’t think of dating when he was in the middle of a mess like this. He looked doubtfully at Malfoy. “I’m afraid much of the day will be boring for you,” he said. “I’ve got other cases in hospital to attend to, and I never spend much time having fun.”

Malfoy laughed softly. “Then I’ll just have to teach you, won’t I?” he said complacently.

Harry stared at him, then at Lucius. He couldn’t believe Malfoy would flirt with him in front of his father. But Lucius was looking at the door, and Harry turned swiftly in case a threat had arrived. It was Narcissa Malfoy, however, who stepped into the room and spent a moment studying her husband before she turned to Harry.

“I recognize the Heart’s Blessing spell, Mr. Potter,” she said, and gave him a full curtsey that made Harry’s cheeks burn. “Thank you for saving my husband’s life.”

Harry licked his lips. He didn’t understand how Lucius or Malfoy could have summoned her so quickly, unless they’d decided to do it before the attack on Lucius—but why? He also suspected he wouldn’t get an answer if he did bother to ask.

“You’re, ah, welcome, Mrs. Malfoy,” he said, and had to look away for a moment as she stepped up to the bed and took Lucius’s hand. Lucius looked up at her with an expression that should be private. Harry hoped fervently no one else would interrupt them. He still had to say a few things before he could leave, however.

“I spent some time last night researching linked spells, Mr. Malfoy,” he said. “I’m afraid I still can’t tell what kind of maze may exist in your mind, or your body, or how to dispel it.”

“You’ve bought us time for you to do the research,” Lucius said, with a faint tone of warmth that Harry imagined his wife must bring out in him.

“And what happened today may have given you more clues.” Malfoy leaned towards him and nodded.

“I—yes,” Harry said, startled Malfoy could be so sensible. He looked suspiciously at the man for a moment, but Malfoy continued to regard him with that softened expression, and Harry reminded himself that he hadn’t directly saved Lucius’s life at this point in time yesterday. Not that he wanted any flirtation at all, much less flirtation that came directly out of some silly gratitude for a task Harry did because it was the right thing to do. “I’ll still have to do more research, of course.”

“Can you give me a room in your house?” Malfoy asked as they started towards the third floor. His voice was so innocent it prickled Harry like an ice cube pushed down his robes.

“It won’t be my room,” Harry said, turning and glaring at him full-on.

“Oh, I know that,” Malfoy said, and stepped past him as if he knew where Harry’s next patient was, brushing a hand against his shoulder on the way. “I’ll leave it up to you to change your mind on that.” He winked over his shoulder. “Not that I won’t try to give you a little help.”

Harry ground his teeth. A glance up and down the corridor showed no one coming towards them in either direction, so maybe they could have this out quickly. “Listen, Malfoy,” he said, striding up to him. “You don’t need to—act like this. I’m not going to abandon treating your father even if you are rude to me.”

Malfoy raised his eyebrows. “Is that so?”

“Yes,” Harry said, relived he appeared to be getting through to him. “I would have wanted you out of the room whilst I was there, but you showed today that you can get out of the way when a trained mediwizard or Healer needs to work. You didn’t try to distract me, unlike that bastard Julius.” He hissed between his teeth and shook his head, still unable to believe that Julius would have been so stupid as to interfere in the middle of such a difficult spell. “You even protected me from his interruption, and I’m grateful for that. So I won’t impose conditions on your presence from now on. You can sneer and insult me all you like. You probably need the release because of all the stress that Lucius being sick piles on you.”

“My father’s not sick, he’s cursed,” Malfoy said calmly. “You reminded me yesterday of the importance of specificity. And you’re right, I am stressed. So are you, obviously.” He ran his gaze up and down Harry’s body. “Do you think we might be able to help each other? I like being helpful.”

Harry laughed in spite of himself, and again Malfoy’s breath caught, as it had when he looked at Harry’s smile yesterday. Harry shook his head. “I don’t want a boyfriend at present, and I think it would be a distraction I could ill afford if I did have one.”

“You need someone to help you,” Malfoy said, speaking without a smile now. “That’s plain. You need someone who doesn’t get on your nerves like Adoranar and who accepts and celebrates your abilities, unlike that fool Xavier. You need someone who can give you what you need, as well as getting what he needs from you.” He took a step closer. “I can give you all that.”

“I don’t understand why.”

Malfoy shrugged. “Because I want to.”

Harry stared at him a moment longer, then laughed. Malfoy’s spine stiffened. Harry turned around, still chuckling. Malfoy couldn’t possibly be serious, not when he was under so much stress from his father nearly dying. He was choosing flirtation as a means to distract himself, but Harry couldn’t allow it to continue, not when it would distract him in turn. What he would have to do was handle Malfoy with the same kind of teasing insults that he did Lucius, offering him a way to release frustration without—well, offering him some other way of releasing frustration.

“You might regret your willingness to help when you’re handing me vials and asking incessant questions about healing that I won’t answer,” Harry said, and then began to stride down the corridor, forcing Malfoy to run to keep up with him. Harry glanced sideways at him when he was at Harry’s shoulder. His face bore a faint flush of irritation.

Good. It’s right that he, and I, both keep our minds where they belong.

Chapter Five.