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Chapter Ten—The Healer Is Not Always Right

Harry didn’t want to open his eyes. His body was utterly relaxed for the first time in what felt like years. He splayed his arms open and stretched, and still his hands didn’t bang into his headboard. He must have arranged himself just right so that he had what seemed like endless space.

But of course he would need to get up soon. He never slept that long on most mornings, given what strange hours the cases Emptyweed gave him had. He probably had a patient waiting for a stabilization field, or reinforcement of a binding spell on a limb, or a dose of Skele-Gro. He sighed and wrinkled his nose, opening his eyes.

The first sight that met them was Draco Malfoy, smiling. Harry stared for a long moment, then shook his head. “What kind of potion did I take last night?” he muttered. He’d occasionally done himself harm by grabbing what he assumed was a headache potion from his shelf and instead ending up with Dreamless Sleep or a potion intended to calm hallucinations.

“No potion, actually,” Malfoy said softly. Why was his voice so soft? Harry wondered, and nearly looked around for an audience. “That was the effect of natural sleep, the first you’ve allowed yourself in—months? I would say so, given some of the diagnostic spells the books have taught me to use on you. And it was only this morning, not last night. Though it’s evening now. I didn’t think you would wake up inside the day.”

Finally memory returned to Harry. He could feel his face flush so brilliantly he thought he would set the sheets on fire. And of course he was lying on the thick green covers of the bed he’d refused last night, with his back and legs cradled by softness like clouds. He cleared his throat and started to sit up.

Draco—Harry had no choice but to think of him like that after the closeness of their shared magic—stretched an arm across his chest to keep him from rising. Harry stared at him in confusion, then lowered his eyes a little and realized Draco wasn’t sitting in a chair next to the bed, as he’d first assumed. Instead, he was sprawled at his ease on the blankets beside Harry, his elbow holding him up.

Fury burned away the last of Harry’s embarrassment. “What did you think you were doing?” he snapped, and hurled the restraining arm away. “Sleeping with me without my consent?”

Draco’s smile widened. “It did you no harm,” he said, “and I wanted to.” Harry had no doubt which part of that sentence mattered more to the git. “In fact, several times during the past few hours you sighed and cuddled up to me. You’re used to sleeping with someone else in your bed, aren’t you? At least your body seems to have missed it.”

“You’re mistaking the source of my displeasure,” Harry said coolly, restraining his temper. Getting himself thrown out of the Manor for calling Draco names was not in the plan. Finding out what was wrong with Lucius and then leaving the Manor with dignity and Galleons intact was. “It’s not that someone was in my bed, it’s that someone I didn’t invite and in fact have explicitly refused several times was.”

Draco’s smile only widened. Harry had the feeling it was the smile he might have given a kitten trying earnestly to catch a moving light. “You want to row with me over something that’s not worth a row,” he said, and his voice was still soft, and so was his face, and his hair hung in a mussed soft tangle around it. Harry felt his body stirring in response to that look, and he promptly pictured Emptyweed finding him in such a state to calm it. “I didn’t take off my clothes, or yours. I didn’t hurt you. But I did want to see what kind of sleeper you were, for…future reference.”

Harry shook his head and swallowed more fury. “You’ve seen,” he said. “Now. If you’ll excuse me, I should eat something and start studying again. That those Dark spells were buried under the Mirror Maze implies either a conspiracy of casters or—something else. And I have to find out what the other thing is.”

There. He’d admitted he was uncertain about something. That ought to be enough to make Draco rant about what they were paying Harry for, if he didn’t know the first thing about what was actually wrong with Lucius.

But though Draco’s smile vanished and his eyes narrowed, he didn’t rise from the bed. “I’ve seen,” he said. “And I want to see more. Only then can I fully judge how much you’ve been neglecting yourself.”

“Neglecting myself?” Harry ran both hands through his hair, a common gesture of his when he was frustrated. This time it wasn’t enough, so he dug his fingers deep and yanked. “You don’t know the first thing about Healers, Malfoy—“

“Draco.” Draco reached up and put his hands on top of Harry’s as he spoke, lazily massaging them with his own. Harry took a long, long breath, and his fingers relaxed. He didn’t have much choice. “And I know a thing or two from studying your books. But as you keep telling me, you’re a mediwizard and not a Healer, so I feel freer to listen to my instincts and my observations.”

Harry tried to rear up. The hands on his head suddenly descended onto his shoulders and pulled him close, and Draco’s face had gone stern.

“And what my instincts and my observations tell me,” Draco murmured to him, “combined with what I learned of you when we mingled our power under the blood magic, is that you’re trying to compensate for what you see as your weaknesses or deficiencies by driving yourself to the edge of madness and exhaustion. Tell me, Harry. Who do you think is going to be impressed by that? Will you save one more person because you’re so tired you’re stumbling? Or will you be better able to brew a potion that will ease pain because you’ve missed a meal?”

“I don’t brew potions, as you know very well, Malfoy.” Harry bristled with irritation, but he thought the only way to make his point was to insult Draco and get him to back away. Hermione had given him similar lectures about the same subject, but she’d never done it in this quiet and serious tone, a tone that made Harry think Draco might actually win. Harry could turn aside most of Hermione’s concerns with a little reassurance and a joke. “I’m only a mediwizard, and that’s because my poor skills at Potions followed me from Hogwarts into my career. You ought to see it as justified revenge, if anything,” he added, when Draco just stared at him.

Draco shook his head, but not as if in denial of Harry’s words. This time, Harry thought, it was a helpless shake, as if Draco’s thoughts behind his face ran to the tune of What am I going to do with you?

And isn’t it worrying that I know him this well?

Then his hand rose and cupped the back of Harry’s head, fingers feathering lightly through his hair. Harry closed his eyes in pleasure, even though he knew it was only a prelude to some nonsensical statement that would probably involve blood.

“Harry,” Draco whispered, “when you became part of the family—“

See?

“I gave up laughing at such things. I might joke with you, I might think your foibles are funny, but I don’t despise you.” Again Draco touched the back of his head, but timidly, as if he thought Harry might throw his hand aside. “It’s a source of pain to me that you would drive yourself like that because you’re not good at Potions.”

“That’s not the only reason!” Harry opened his eyes and stared at him incredulously. Is his hobby attributing motivations to people? “I also can take more punishment than most people. I’m still young, whilst most of my patients are children or people at least as old as your father. I can miss some sleep and some meals now, and that means I’m doing better, faster work. Missing those meals and sleep is not going to kill me, but sometimes it would kill them if I delayed.”

Draco sighed deeply. “It’s perfectly clear now why you really refused this bed and stopped eating the moment I teased you. Sleep and food have never been sources of pleasure for you, have they?”

Harry opened his mouth to protest that he liked treacle tart, and then realized how ridiculous that was. Draco made it sound as if it were some sort of crime not to wallow in bed in the morning. Harry knew it wasn’t. “They’re necessities,” he said. “I can survive as well on porridge and orange juice as on the fruit you served me this morning. Why would I go out of my way to seek something richer?”

Draco pursed his lips. “I see,” he said.

“Do you?” Harry leaned forwards. “It’s not that I’m not grateful for what you’ve tried to do for me. It’s just that I don’t need these gifts, and I won’t appreciate them properly. Keep them for yourselves. At least that way you know they aren’t going to waste.”

“Going to—“ Draco closed his eyes.

“Would you really want to give someone a crystal pendant, for example, if you knew they didn’t value crystal pendants?” Harry wondered that something that seemed so simple to him would be a source of trouble for Draco. Of course, perhaps it would be a source of trouble for anyone raised like this. Draco probably not only appreciated crystal pendants, he could tell them apart at a hundred paces and give you a long, complicated story about where the crystal had come from. “It’s better if I have what I need to get the job done and nothing more. In this case it’s Healing books, and if you were keeping a book about that back from me I would be upset. But I don’t need books about magical creatures, no matter how beautiful the books are, because they’re not relevant to my job. Do you understand?” he added wistfully. It was a view of life that Ron agreed with, since he’d spent so much of his life with only the necessities.

“I understand you,” Draco said, and opened his eyes. Harry faltered a little before his look. Draco was glaring at him in what was almost disgust. “I understand that you aren’t thinking about the consequences of your own actions. What would happen if you didn’t treat a patient right, or missed a detail that would reveal their disease, because you hadn’t slept enough? What if you fainted from hunger in the middle of an important procedure?”

“That wouldn’t happen. I always get enough food and sleep to prevent that.”

“But someday you won’t, with as little attention as you pay to it.” Draco leaned forwards. “I had thought you would take care of yourself because you wanted to practice your job, but no, you don’t even do that, do you? Otherwise you would have slept in this bed last night and attempted to eat as full a breakfast as possible.”

Harry flushed, feeling cornered in a way he never had when Hermione or Healer Pontiff spoke to him about the same subject. The difference, he thought, was that Hermione knew how far she could push as his friend, and Healer Pontiff understood the determination to rescue his patients and sympathized with it. Draco looked as if such knowledge and sympathy were beyond him, which made Harry uneasy.

“Listen,” Harry said, “you can’t—you can’t set a bedtime for me, as if I were a little kid, or force food down my throat.”

“Why would I?” Draco asked calmly. “That would make you angry with me, be a time-consuming and disgusting task, and accomplish nothing. And besides, there’s a limit to how far family members can force each other.”

Harry relaxed.

“So I’ll have Rogers do it,” Draco said, and snapped his fingers. The house-elf appeared at the foot of the bed. Harry was silent with astonishment, and so Draco had the chance to say, uninterrupted, “Rogers, from this moment on and until we tell you otherwise, you’re Master Harry’s house-elf. You’re to make sure he balances his studying and his working with attending to the basic necessities of life. You’ll give him basic instruction in being a Malfoy, too. Obey his orders, but only within reason.”

Rogers turned his head with impressive, terrifying slowness and fixed Harry with his large eyes. The bow he gave was equally slow and full of dignity. “It shall be as you say, Master Draco Malfoy.”

“If I’m a Malfoy, too,” Harry said quickly, “I ought to be able to countermand those orders. Rogers, leave me alone.”

“That order is not being within reason,” Rogers said gravely. “Master Harry Potter will swiftly learn reason, with Rogers as his house-elf.”

Harry snarled and turned on Draco. “You can’t do this to me,” he said.

Draco raised his hands in mock fear, but his eyes were glittering. “I’m not doing anything to you,” he said. “Rogers is doing it.”

“You know very well what I mean, and this is ludicrous!” Harry snapped. “Do you want your father healed or not? I have to be free to work, and—“

Draco leaned in, using the same slowness as Rogers had, until his nose was touching Harry’s. Harry fell silent and swallowed. He told himself it wasn’t Draco’s closeness that did it, only his own sudden sense of having gone too far.

“Of course I want my father healed,” Draco whispered. “Never dare to ask me that again. And what’s ludicrous is your insistence on acting like a child. Any halfway sensible person can keep himself fed and rested, even if he doesn’t have all the advantages we have here.” He slid out of the bed in one swift movement, his eyes on Harry. “You’re part of the family,” he said, “and I want you rather badly. Neither of those means you can get away with everything.”

He strode to the door and started to open it, but by that time, Harry had managed to find his voice. He swallowed. “I’m sorry,” he said.

Draco didn’t need to ask which part of it he was sorry for. He glanced back with a faint smile. “I know you are,” he said. “And maybe when you’ve worked out why you ought to be sorry for everything, I’ll be ready to accept the apology.”

He shut the door. Harry closed his eyes and calmed his breathing.

The Healer is not always right, Healer Pontiff’s voice said in his head. Sometimes the patient can tell you information that you need to know and never would have thought to inquire after because the patient has unique allergies or reactions. Sometimes the relatives can tell you secrets the patient would prefer to have hidden but which cannot be because they affect treatment. And sometimes a certain case is beyond the skills of the greatest Healer and the best thing one can do is to acknowledge that and surrender.

Harry shrugged uneasily. None of those things applied just now, except perhaps the last. And as yet, he didn’t have any suspicion that he couldn’t help Lucius. In fact, Harry thought he could help him quite well, except that people would not get out of his way and let him work.

He started to go into the library.

The moment his foot touched the floor, he was Apparated back into the bed.

Harry stared. His first thought was that Draco had set up some kind of enchantment around the bed to produce this unusual response, but the second thought was the right one. Rogers had already said, “Master Harry Potter is not to be going anywhere until he eats something. Studying on an empty stomach makes the brain less absorbent.”

And a plate hovered in front of Harry. Harry glared at it. It was a fragrant meat covered with some sort of golden sauce that probably contained butter and certainly contained garlic. Arranged around the meat were small piles of orange and green vegetables, a cup of the sauce, and more of the red berries he’d eaten that morning, with an invisible magical barrier protecting them from brushing the other food and getting the sauce on them. A fork, knife, and spoon appeared not far from Harry’s hands, lying on the bedcovers.

“That’s not true,” Harry said.

“Alas,” said Rogers, and bowed to him, “Master Harry Potter is swiftly learning that truth is flexible.”

Harry edged around the plate, careful not to hit and spill it, and tried to get out of bed again. This time he was Apparated back into the middle with blankets tucked around his legs and the plate firmly on his lap. Rogers was staring at him mournfully and shaking his head so that his ears flopped against the sides of his face.

“Master Harry Potter should not be wasting good food,” he said. “His mother did not survive long enough to teach him that, so Rogers will. Many, many lessons await.”

Harry seized the sides of the plate, thinking that Rogers might be so busy cleaning it up if he threw it that he would let Harry escape from the bed.

His hands lost all strength the moment they came within a few inches of the plate. Rogers shook a finger at him. “Do not be touching the hot plate!” he said. “It is hot.”

Harry clenched his hands in frustration. He couldn’t believe Draco would condemn him to this, after what they’d shared and learned about one another under the blood magic.

Then he paused. It was possible Draco and Lucius had learned less about him than he’d learned about them. At least, it seemed so, from the way Draco had acted. Harry could understand, dimly, why some of his actions had exasperated Draco, but not why Draco expected Harry to understand and agree with all of his decisions.

So he might have an advantage, if he complied long enough for Draco to relax and forget about him. And then he could begin doing things his own way, and show Draco how much better his way worked than the way Draco had tried to impose on him.

He relaxed and began to eat.

“Master Harry Potter is learning sense without having sense beaten into him,” Rogers said approvingly. “Perhaps Master Harry Potter is not altogether stupid.”

Harry ground his teeth, only then remembering that he would need to cheat the vigilance of a house-elf as well as Draco Malfoy.

*

Harry balanced himself with a hand against the bookshelves of the Manor’s immense library and sighed in annoyance. He had slept so long and so deeply last night that he’d awoken with a headache. He needed to move about and awaken sometimes, or this always happened. But he suspected Rogers had enchanted the bed so that it would soothe him back to sleep whenever he started to stir.

He wasn’t going to tell anyone about the headache. Some things about his body should remain privately, frankly.

But it was inconvenient. When he squinted at the titles on the shelves, the pain intensified, pounding across his forehead and down his neck in a tight thorny crown.

“Harry,” Narcissa’s voice said from behind him, “why didn’t you tell me you wanted more Healing books? I would have had the house-elves bring them to you.”

Harry braced himself with one hand on a chair this time as he turned and bowed. His head pounded so badly when he straightened that he thought he could hear his brain uttering an audible wail of pain. But he’d dealt with worse when Voldemort was alive and his scar was active. He smiled at Narcissa, who stood in the arched doorway that led into the library and looked at him curiously. “I didn’t think of it,” he replied smoothly. “I’m not used to dealing with house-elves. And you’ve already done so much for me.” He produced a blush. “Besides, I’m afraid I wanted to see more of this house.”

The library was beautiful, of course. (Harry thought the Manor should contain a little ugliness just for contrast, but perhaps Lucius found enough in contemplating the deeds he’d performed as a Death Eater). Glowing blue stretched across one wall, reflecting the sky in Italy, as a small legend near the bottom of the wall in dancing letters explained. Another bore a common gray English sky, and the third a shimmering golden sunset above the Pacific Ocean, and the fourth a dawn in the Black Forest. The ceiling, of course, was not sky but enchanted grass; Harry hadn’t come close enough to see the legend explaining where it was. And the floor beneath his feet was glittering glass tiles that seemed to cover a fall into crystal infinity. That the cherry wood bookshelves managed to look normal in the middle of all that was the oddest thing, to Harry.

“No need to apologize,” said Narcissa. She took a few steps closer to Harry. This morning she wore a blue robe, a match for the Italian wall, that rustled behind her until she stepped from the carpet of the corridors to the tile, where it moved as soundlessly as an owl’s wing. “But I do wish you had felt free to call a house-elf for help. That would have found the Healing books for you more quickly than this search would have.”

Harry smiled tightly. Summoning a house-elf would inevitably have called Rogers. And after Harry had taken all the trouble of casting Disillusionment Charms on himself to sneak down the staircase, he didn’t want to attract the elf’s attention.

“I fear you are in pain.”

Harry immediately attempted to widen his eyes and smile, but when he shook his head, the pain flared up so badly that he nearly fainted. He caught himself from slumping just in time. He couldn’t catch the curse that escaped his lips.

“I’m so sorry, Mrs. Malfoy,” he began at once, mortified. A pop off to the side told him Rogers had appeared.

“I am more sorry, for not noticing the curse on you at once,” Narcissa said. “As the guardian of this house, I should have noticed anything on my guests that might cause them harm.” Her fingers rose and pressed against his temples, ten points of welcome coolness. Harry still winced. Hermione had tried a few times to make his headaches go away by massaging various places on his skull and forehead, and it never worked.

But this time Narcissa held her left hand steady and pressed down whilst her wand waved as she murmured something. The pain vanished so suddenly that Harry reeled again. This time, large slick hands grabbed his elbow and held him up, whilst Rogers muttered dolefully, “Master Harry Potter has not learned what sense is yet. Rogers did so hope he would have.”

“I—I don’t know what you did, but thank you.” Harry raised his head with a shaky smile. “No magic has ever affected them before. Even headache potions only help for a while.”

“I should think they do,” said Narcissa, and frowned at him so severely that Harry wanted to stammer another apology. “There was a curse on you, Harry, one that made you suffer devastating headaches at random intervals. I haven’t seen it often, which is the only excuse I can give for not banishing it the moment you stepped into our home.”

Harry stared at her. Then he swallowed. “Would a Healer have known that spell and how to apply it?” he asked.

“Oh, surely.” Narcissa twitched her head in a quick toss. Her eyes were shining like the eyes of a spirited horse who had just had someone attempt to climb on her back. “The reverse of that spell is a charm developed by Muggleborns to cure migraines. It would be easy enough to turn it back and use its opposite.”

Harry hissed between his teeth. He knew at once who had probably applied the spell to him: Emptyweed, who wanted to see Harry struggle even if he didn’t want to stop him working completely.

And of course, because Harry was only a mediwizard, he’d had no idea such a spell existed, much less how to cure it.

“Thank you,” he whispered again.

Perhaps it was a wise thing that I left St. Mungo’s when I did. What would Emptyweed have done when he realized I was learning to work through the headaches?

“You need not thank me,” said Narcissa. “As I said, I keep this house. I am in charge of making sure our guests are comfortable—in all ways. And my not noticing the curse at once, and letting you suffer through it for a day, is inexcusable.” Her foot beat a tattoo on the tiles, as soundless as the sweep of her robes had been, and then abruptly she sank into a curtsey. “Can you forgive me?”

Harry swallowed and closed his eyes. He couldn’t look at her stooping before him as if his forgiveness mattered. “Of course,” he whispered. “I had no idea it was there, how could you?”

“It has to do with the duties of a pure-blood family and a pure-blood hostess,” said Narcissa. “And a pure-blood lady of the family.” She reached out and laid her wrists on Harry’s shoulders, staring into his eyes. “There is so much you have been deprived of,” she murmured. “I bless your mother for dying for you, because she saved us all.”

Harry looked at her in wonder. He had not found many people who agreed with his insistence that it had been Lily’s sacrifice that defeated Voldemort, and not his actions.

“But I wish she had lived, to provide you with those things you had missed.” Narcissa’s cool fingers touched his cheek this time. “You are noble and self-sacrificing, we have seen that, but those virtues have overgrown the other virtues you might have developed. I hope that we can teach you to explore other possibilities than being a flawless hero at all times.” She smiled at him. “Now, tell me the Healing books you’re looking for.”

“Any that reference Dark magic,” Harry said, confused, as always, about how to refuse Narcissa those things he would have cheerfully denied to Lucius and Draco. “And any that might explain why the blood magic worked to heal your husband yesterday.”

Narcissa paused, then laughed fondly. “Ah, you should have asked me about that,” she said, and stroked Harry’s cheek again. “It works by the combined efforts of the family, a commitment of as much of themselves as they can safely give.”

Harry shook his head. “But how could it not have healed the curse Lucius was under? Why did you come to St. Mungo’s in the first place?”

“We can only heal damage we see and understand,” said Narcissa quietly. “We did not know the Mirror Maze existed, or even that the wounds opening on my husband’s body were the result of a combination of curses. And besides, we can only commit as much of ourselves as is safe. Our priority is the survival of the family. If it turned out that the wounds run so deep we might destroy two family members in healing one, we would pull back.”

Harry nodded slowly. Though he didn’t really agree with the reasoning, he understood now why Draco had prevented him from sacrificing his life for Lucius’s yesterday. He had been unable to bear the thought of a family member dying for Lucius, even if it would solve all his problems including the Mirror Maze, when there was a way to heal the immediately life-threatening wounds with only an expenditure of energy.

“You still have much to learn,” Narcissa continued gently. “We will not punish you for your ignorance. Come and speak with me if you cannot bear the thought of asking my husband or son.” Her face went remote and cool. “And now, if you will excuse me, I am going to seek out a Pensieve.”

She swept away, leaving Harry blinking after her. At last he turned to the library shelves, only to find an enormous stack of books hovering in front of Rogers.

“Here is being Master Harry Potter’s books,” the house-elf said proudly.

Harry opened his mouth to complain, then thought hard about what Narcissa had done for him, and how Draco had saved his life yesterday, and how good he had felt this morning—bar the headache—after eating a few full meals and sleeping most of the night.

He said, “Thank you, Rogers.”

The house-elf examined him for a moment, then nodded. “Master Harry Potter is very common,” he said. “But he will be learning that politeness never is common.”

Chapter 11.