Chapter Twelve of 'Bloody But Unbowed'- Make Good Use of the Unexpected

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Chapter Twelve—Make Good Use of the Unexpected

“Master Harry Potter is dining with the family tonight.”

Harry, who had escaped from the monster loo earlier than usual—the shower seemed to think he had warranted less scrubbing today—found that the towel he held had dropped uselessly from his hands. The next moment, he hissed under his breath and picked it up again. Rogers watched with his arms folded and his head cocked to one side. Harry wondered for a moment why he hadn’t offered to help, and then decided that he was probably judging Harry’s worth as a Malfoy based on his reaction to the news.

“Who decided that?” Harry asked when he straightened again. He made sure to keep his movements slow, his voice calm, and his eyes untroubled as he toweled his hair dry and cast a few glances into the mirror Rogers had hung on the far wall of the bedroom, next to the door to the library. He hadn’t asked Harry’s permission before hanging it. Of course, Harry suspected that the general prohibition against anyone interfering in the decoration of his rooms didn’t apply to house-elves. After a few moments of staring, Harry determined that his wet hair was as tame as it would get, and threw the towel away, shaking his head irritably. “I hadn’t thought Lucius was well enough to dine outside of bed.”

“Master Lucius has had no attacks for a few days,” said Rogers. “He is very strong.”

“Yes, he must be,” Harry said. “I just don’t want him to overstrain himself.”

“The elves always are keeping a close watch.” Rogers’s chest inflated, and Harry thought for a moment that he would float off his toes. “And of course Master Harry Potter has helped, too. He has a true Healer’s hands.”

Harry paused in startlement. However true the compliment might be—and he didn’t think it was, very—he hadn’t expected to hear it from Rogers.

“Rogers was being doubtful at first, because Rogers is impertinent.” The elf stepped past Harry and smoothed out a nonexistent wrinkle in the bedsheets. “He was not thinking that Master Harry Potter could become a true part of the Malfoy family or be making a contribution. But Master Harry Potter is better even than the last adoption made two generations ago—and Miss Eliza Malfoy was a diplomat and a genius.”

Harry swallowed. It was hard, because his throat had gone dry. “That’s very generous of you to say,” he murmured. “But I’m not a Healer—“

“And Master Harry Potter would be fitting even better into the family if he were not constantly deprecating himself,” Rogers told the bed. He spun around and pointed a finger at Harry, making him feel uncomfortably like a butterfly on a pin. “He is a Healer and he is being good for Master Draco, who looks happier than potions make him.”

Harry opened his mouth, then reminded himself how useless it was to argue with a house-elf. And if Rogers had been Dobby’s father, he probably had given his son all his stubbornness and insistence on being right.

“Thank you for saying so,” he said instead, and moved on. “How formal is this dinner? I didn’t bring dress robes when I packed for the Manor.”

“Rogers and the lesser house-elves shall be modifying appropriate clothes of Master Draco’s,” said Rogers. “Master Harry Potter is not to be worrying himself. Master Harry Potter is to be eating a good breakfast instead, and to work on healing Master Lucius.” He paused significantly. “And he is to be studying.”

“Well, of course,” Harry said. “I always study.” He caught another glimpse of himself in the mirror as he reached for the robes he’d laid on the bed for that morning and looked away, scowling. Asking Rogers to take away the mirror would smack of ingratitude; Harry had no doubt it was a human member of the Malfoy family who had asked for it to be placed in his rooms in the first place, or rather, one specific human member of the Malfoy family. But he didn’t have to like it. Looking at himself had never been his favorite pastime.

“Master Harry Potter is concentrating on those things he did not study so well before,” Rogers said with iron inflexibility. “If Master Harry Potter was not passing his Potions exams, he concentrates on potions.”

Harry laughed, and then stopped. The laughter had a trace of bitterness. What happened to not arguing with house-elves? “That’s done with now,” he said. “I’ve accepted my natural limitations.”

Rogers stared at him so piercingly that Harry had to look at him at last. “Malfoys,” Rogers said in the same tone he’d used to tell Harry the laws of the family, “have no natural limitations.”

Harry rolled his eyes. No arguing, no arguing, he chanted to himself mentally. It would do no good anyway, and Harry tried to expend his energy on actions that would be of use to someone. “Good for them,” he said. He dragged the robe on over his head, not particularly caring that it made his hair spring up again like the quills of an offended peacock, and then stepped towards the library.

Rogers waved a hand, and Harry was sitting on the edge of the bed. A tray of finely cut ham in a richly-smelling gravy was on his lap the next moment. “Master Harry Potter is to be eating a good breakfast,” said Rogers. “Studying comes later.”

Harry picked up the fork that lay on the edge of the tray and started eating, because the food smelled delicious and he wasn’t going to argue.

And, he had to admit reluctantly, Draco had been right. The better the food he ate, the better Harry seemed to feel. He still held there was no inherent reason for that. Sure, some patients needed a strict diet, but they were recovering from spell damage, or poisoning, or a long bout of illness. Harry was young and healthy. He ought to be able to subsist on anything, including Chocolate Frogs, and still wake up on time and do the work well. But instead his body preferred this refined diet.

God, I hope sharing Malfoy blood didn’t change my tastes as well, Harry thought, and choked as he shuddered. Rogers was beside him in seconds, eyes anxious and hand poised to clap him on the back.

“Master Harry Potter is well?” he asked.

Harry stared at him, and suddenly understood why he found that behavior so very alien, almost suffocating. He had never had anyone to care when he choked before. The Dursleys were indifferent as long as he didn’t actually die on their kitchen floor or vomit on their good plates. Ron knew he would be all right, and pounded him on the back companionably, not because he fussed. Hermione would go off to find a book about choking, and Harry had the comfort of knowing that half the advice she gave him would be from a section of the book she had found interesting on its own. The people dearest to him had led lives connected with his own on the grand levels, like life and death, but not nearly as much on the small ones.

Maybe there is a different way to live. Harry licked his lips thoughtfully. The intense thinking seemed to have eased the passage of the food down his throat. He nodded to Rogers. “I am,” he said. “Thanks.”

Rogers at least didn’t have Dobby’s extreme reaction to being thanked. He stepped away with a small nod. “Master Harry Potter is being more at home now,” he said. “He will continue being at home.” His voice had the calm certainty that made the words more of a command or a prophecy than a simple statement.

Harry raised an eyebrow. Rogers smiled, a sight that nearly made Harry drop his plate. “Master Harry Potter is even learning Master Draco’s gestures,” he said happily. “Master Harry Potter will be happy here, and will make Master Draco more happy.” He practically bounced as he took the empty tray away from Harry.

Harry glanced over his shoulder a few times as he retreated into the library. Rogers whistled cheerfully for a full minute before he Apparated, and Harry knew how much the house-elf was against wasting time.

The thoughts pursued him into the library, and wouldn’t be left outside.

Is that true? Can I be more than the passive recipient of their charity, more than Lucius’s mediwizard? Can I make other people happy?

Rogers was probably mistaking Draco’s increased gentleness towards Harry, which he himself had admitted was partially a tactic to make Harry like him more, for increased happiness in general. But still Harry had to allow himself to turn over the possibilities in his mind for five minutes before he could push them and get down to serious studying of the connections between the spells in the Mirror Maze.

He didn’t understand when the possibilities had become so delicious.

*

Harry pulled at the collar of his robes. He was certain he looked like an idiot, and not even the knowledge that the house-elves had chosen this set of dress robes could content him. After all, the house-elves had also thought it was a good idea to hang the mirror in his rooms.

The robes were a soft, shadowy gray color that probably looked good on Draco, given his gray eyes and the pallor of his skin and hair. But Harry had given one disgusted glance at himself in the mirror and tried to take them off again. They made him look wasted and pasty and gaunt and altogether too much like a ghost. And whilst he might have welcomed that idea a week ago, now he didn’t want Draco to look at him and wrinkle his nose.

He also cared, though to a lesser degree, about what Lucius and Narcissa might think when seeing him. If they believed the house-elves had some reason to resent him, would they resent him too? Would they reconsider the idea of accepting him into the family?

Then Harry forced himself to stand still and draw in a breath so deep it made the robes balloon around him and fall back with a gentle rustle. He stood in the middle of the staircase that Narcissa had guided him up on the way to his rooms, in the section that looked like a forest.

You’re a Malfoy, but you don’t have to be paranoid like the rest of the family, he thought. If the elves made a mistake, Lucius or Narcissa will speak to them about it quietly. Probably Narcissa, since she seems to be in charge of guests’ comfort. And Draco might wrinkle his nose, but I doubt he’d give up on pursuing you, when he’s come this far.

There. He’d made good use of the unexpected, which was another of Healer Pontiff’s tenets. He smiled and resettled his shoulders, then restrained his hand when it would have risen to dash through his hair. The house-elves had done something to it that managed to make it behave for once. He’d only ruin it.

The dining room was the most sober room he’d seen in the Manor so far, and the most like what he would have expected the first time he stepped through the doors. A symphony of silver, white, and gray, it seemed to absorb the brilliant light of the chandelier in the middle of the ceiling and release only a quiet glow. Harry’s first thought was that he would have liked to study here. His second was that the soft light made the long oak table in the middle seem even more imposing. And for some reason, the plates clustered all together at one end of the table. Narcissa sat at the head, with Lucius on her left hand and Draco on her right.

Harry couldn’t see a place set for him. He lifted his chin. Well, if this was some sort of test to see what he would do, he intended to face up to it. He marched towards the table, and didn’t allow a flicker of uncertainty into his expression.

Draco rose to his feet when he saw Harry. Harry looked for some sign of revulsion or a raised eyebrow that would ask who he had allowed to dress him, but he looked deeply content. He smiled and drew out the chair beside his own, watching Harry carefully all the while. His reaction was an important part of what would happen next, Harry thought. Would he accept the small kindness, revolt against it, or reject it in some unexpected and ironic way?

The one choice Draco probably hadn’t expected Harry to make was to accept it in some unexpected and ironic way.

Harry smiled and reached out to clasp and shake Draco’s free hand. “Thank you,” he said clearly. “I’m not used to treatment like this, but in trying not to take it for granted, I think I went too far in the opposite direction.” He bowed his head, keeping his eyes fixed on Draco’s the entire time, and flicked his tongue lightly against the back of the hand he held.

Draco’s pupils dilated, and his excitement obviously increased until his hand on the back of Harry’s chair had a slight tremor. The one in Harry’s clasp remained steady, however, as if he thought a tremor would make Harry turn away from him again.

“You’re welcome,” he whispered, voice breathy.

Harry smiled at him again and sat down in the chair, which Draco promptly pushed in with just the right amount of speed. Then he sat down himself, face turned towards Harry. His hands automatically flicked among the confusing arrangement of forks and spoons next to his plate, which gave Harry the clue as to which of them he was supposed to pick up first when his own plate and cutlery appeared.

The first course was a thick yellow soup with small bits of herbs floating in it that Harry hadn’t tasted before, but which were sweet or lemony depending on how much soup he took in with them. Seeing how intently Lucius paid attention to his plate, and the surreptitious but noticeable eye Narcissa kept on her husband, Harry suspected the reason for the lack of conversation at the table during this course. Lucius didn’t yet trust his strength, and he would do almost anything rather than have his hand or voice shake and betray his weakness.

He should have stayed in bed, Harry thought, but he found the lapse from perfect observance of the Malfoy laws rather reassuring than otherwise. It would have been intimidating to try and fit into a perfect family, when Harry knew himself to be so flawed it was a wonder he hadn’t shattered into small pieces along the cracks long before this.

Next was a salad with strips of chicken wound like braids among the vegetables, and then pieces of bread that seemed to be more butter than anything else. Harry scowled as a string of gooey butter fell on the right sleeve of his robe and tried to mop it off without catching anyone’s attention.

Draco caught his hand and turned it over to expose the butter. “May I?” he whispered.

Harry flushed. Draco grinned suddenly, wickedly, with a careless ease that Harry found shocking when they were sitting at table with his parents. But Lucius and Narcissa still attended to each other and their meal. Maybe they wouldn’t interrupt the privacy of a courting couple any more than it would occur to Harry and Draco to interrupt theirs by speaking, Harry thought.

“Oh,” Draco said, voice softer than before, “I can’t do what I’d really like to, not in company. But that doesn’t matter.” He drew his wand and trailed it softly up the sleeve of Harry’s robe, as if he wanted to learn the shape of the bones and the veins through the cloth. Behind the tip of the wand, the butter vanished as neatly as if Draco really had licked it up. And Harry needed to stop thinking about that or he was going to burn a hole in his own clothes with his blush.

“There,” Draco said, and managed to tilt his head and brush the cloth with his cheek before he let Harry go. “All better.”

“You approve of the robes, then?” Harry murmured before he could stop himself. He had almost forgotten his nervousness when he saw the way his proximity affected Draco, but now Draco was paying attention to his clothes again instead of his face and his general presence.

Draco’s eyes flickered. “You have no idea how you look, either,” he said. “I’ll help cure that, don’t worry.”

He looked briefly to the side. Harry followed his gaze and saw Narcissa holding out her fork for Lucius to take a delicate sliver of fish from. Harry coughed and hastily looked back at his plate.

Draco bent down until their eyes and faces were close together, and flicked out his tongue, just brushing Harry’s lips. From the angle at which Lucius and Narcissa sat, Harry knew, it would have looked as if he were merely licking his own.

“I’m learning how you taste,” Draco whispered. “I hope you don’t mind my going slowly. I prefer to appreciate the flavors individually.”

Harry swallowed, and his blush grew fiercer. He concentrated exclusively on his food for a few minutes after that. He needed to get his mind in order for when the conversation began. Lucius hadn’t yet given him the information about the visitors to Azkaban or about what he remembered from the Death Eater refuges, which he had promised to produce quickly. That had to mean he would do it at this meal.

Fish and meat and another soup passed. Harry was amazed at his ability to eat most of it. Usually he grabbed a quick meal, swallowed it in a few snaps, and felt full enough to attend to his duties again. But something about the richness of the food here tempted him to take portions to taste, whilst not consuming enough to fill his stomach. By the time they reached glazed lumps of fruit that filled his mouth with crumbling sugar, he felt lazily content, and had to keep himself from stretching like a cat as he picked up a candied chunk of apple.

“Harry.”

He looked up at Lucius. He had once thought that Lucius’s voice sounded much like Draco’s, but whether it was getting to know Draco better in the past few days or the newfound resemblance he’d noticed between mother and son, he could tell the cool tones of the elder Malfoy at once now. “Sir,” he said, automatically. Lucius gave him an annoyed glance, perhaps the most emotional expression Harry had ever seen from him, and Harry smiled. “Lucius,” he amended. “You have the information you owled about?”

“Yes.” Lucius’s mouth grew tight as he clapped. A house-elf appeared beside Harry’s chair, bowed, and handed a series of letters to him ceremoniously. “And I must admit, what I learned disturbed me.”

Harry quickly discovered that the signatures on the letters meant nothing to him; he’d never been familiar with Azkaban’s guards in the way he would have become if he’d taken up Auror training. He ignored them and concentrated on the content instead.

Six visits to Rodolphus Lestrange in the past year, always from the same woman, a small one cloaked in a dirty gray cloak. The guards had assumed she was an aunt of the Lestrange family, a few members of whom hadn’t been Death Eaters. The next letter noted eleven visits by the same woman, spaced a month apart, but lasting several hours each. The next letter stated categorically that the woman had been visiting for more than a year, and that she’d bribed several of the guards to make sure she saw Lestrange regularly and to give him better food and clothing than normal. She wanted him alive to make use of his knowledge, Harry thought, and shivered convulsively. He didn’t like to think of even a Death Eater being used that way, though after listening to a long list of Rodolphus’s crimes during the post-war trials, he couldn’t deny Lestrange belonged in prison.

No one who had written Lucius had any idea who the woman really was, or if her claim of being related to the Lestranges was true. But they all agreed that the few conversations they’d overheard her having with the prisoner were technical, containing Healing terms as well as terms that they assumed referred to Dark magic. She might have been persuading him out of using it, though, so the guards hadn’t seen it as their place to interfere.

Harry swept a hand through his hair, annoyed. “I see the Ministry’s tradition of corruption marches on unchecked,” he muttered.

“Then all the better that we’ll bring justice where they’ve failed to,” said Draco.

Harry glanced at him. He was leaning back in his chair now, his hands folded behind his head and his eyes cold. Harry was half-amused and half-dismayed to find that he liked the sight of this calculating Draco quite as much as the one who watched him with warm eyes and crowded him with attentions.

“What specifically do you find disturbing?” Harry asked, glancing at Lucius. “Do you have any idea who the woman might have been?”

“No,” said Lucius. “And that is the first worrisome thing.” He leaned heavily back in his own chair, his brow bearing a faint sheen of sweat. Narcissa scrutinized him with a narrow expression that relieved Harry. Surely she would insist her husband go back to bed if he was really taxing his strength beyond bearing. “The second is that I never once thought about someone visiting Lestrange in prison, or about his having knowledge dangerous to me. Someone has outthought me. I do not like that.”

Harry shivered at the precision and the emphasis in those last words. He wondered for a moment if his conflict with the Malfoys would come over their sense of justice. Certainly, if they tried to hurt the person who had cursed Lucius or helped to curse Lucius instead of giving her a free trial, Harry would have to intervene.

“Do you have the information about the Death Eater refuges?” he asked.

Another elf appeared with another stack of parchment on Lucius’s nod. Harry suppressed the immediate irritated thought that it was wasteful to have two different elves doing the same task. Hermione must have rubbed off on him more than he realized. Of course, perhaps the best tactic was to insinuate himself further into the family and then start trying to change those habits of theirs he didn’t like.

Harry ran quickly down the lists. Occasionally the name of a weapon appeared, but beside almost every one Lucius had made a notation of “destroyed during the last flight” or “not dangerous.” Harry memorized the names of the few that didn’t bear those notes. The rest was fairly standard equipment, wands or the Dark magic books that Harry had already looked through. He also reminded himself to look up wands, though he had never heard that another wizard’s wand could offer a magical advantage when casting a curse that one’s own couldn’t. Perhaps he should owl Ollivander. The old wandmaker had remained fairly friendly to Harry after Harry had rescued him from the Malfoy dungeons during the war. Of course, it would be better not to tell him why he was making the request.

There had apparently been seven Death Eater emergency strongholds, two of them closer to Hogwarts than Harry liked to think about. Lucius had described the general location of each as well as the name that the Death Eaters used for it. So far, Harry hadn’t seen anything that made him think he would have to visit them—

And then he sat up, his heart banging so hard he couldn’t hear anything else for long moments. His eyes were fixed on an innocuous name second from the bottom on the last list Lucius had assembled. It was barely scribbled in, as though Lucius had hesitated to add it and then done so with a shrug.

Dreambane.

And that was all. No note next to it, no explanation of how much had been at the refuge. Lucius must be unfamiliar with its effect, or perhaps he had only seen it used beneficially. Harry was surprised Draco hadn’t realized the danger it could pose, though, since he was a Potions master.

“What is it, Harry?”

Lucius sounded as if he had been repeating the words for a few minutes. Harry looked up and realized that Draco’s hand was on his back and he was leaning near, as though he thought Harry would require support to keep from fainting. Harry swallowed and let himself lean against Draco’s shoulder for a moment. Surely it was all right to show weakness when the others did, as long as he didn’t do it for long.

Draco’s hand rose and combed through his hair, then tugged him in so that Harry’s forehead rested against his. “Tell us,” he murmured. “No burden is so terrible that the effect does not lessen when it is shared.”

Harry wanted to tell him about the oppressive effect of being expected to kill Voldemort and knowing that, because of the prophecy, you were the only one who could do it, but now wasn’t the moment. He looked at Lucius and said, “How much dreambane was at this refuge?”

“Which one?” Lucius frowned for a moment, no doubt trying to recall which list Harry had seen the name on. His eyes drilled at the parchment Harry held as if he could read it from that distance.

“Venom’s Reach,” said Harry.

“The Dark Lord came up with that name,” Lucius murmured, and Harry experienced a fleeting amusement that he could care enough about appearances to want Harry to know he hadn’t been responsible for that horrid thing. “And there were several bales of it. Perhaps also vats. They reached the ceiling in one case. Why?”

Harry closed his eyes.

“Harry.” Draco’s voice was sharp. “I know dreambane. It’s used as one of the ingredients in a powerful version of the Dreamless Sleep potion, one that banishes thoughts that might become dreams. How could it have hurt my father? He’s been dreaming.”

“It has another, little-known use,” Harry whispered. “When combined with a Cutting Curse, it strengthens the wounds and makes the body remember them. I don’t know how else to explain it. Even if the wounds seem to be cured, they burst forth again sooner or later. And they become the worse for the delay. It can also strengthen other spells, though I’m not sure of all of them, because they’re Dark magic and there was a limit to what St. Mungo’s wanted me to study.” He opened his eyes and stared at Lucius. “I’m afraid some of them might be spells that are part of the Mirror Maze, and so the dreambane would render it more subtle. When we think it’s gone, or even if we actually remove it, the wounds will come forth again and kill you.”

Lucius’s face grew pale. He gave a tight nod, however, accepting the news. “And what can be done about this dreambane? How can we be sure it has been introduced into my body? I am sure Smythe gave me no potion.”

“It could have happened before the curse was cast,” Harry said, “if he had an accomplice. Or—“ He paused, a part of the reading he had done years ago coming back to him. “Did he spit on you?”

“Yes, he did,” Lucius said quietly.

Harry nodded. “That’s probably how he intended to do it. Dreambane can ride within human body fluids and be absorbed by the skin.”

“And what are we to do?” Narcissa asked. She had her hands folded neatly in front of her, as if it would be against the Malfoy code to express any agitation.

Harry drew a deep, deep breath. There was the part where he confessed he had no idea. “There’s a potion that can purge dreambane from the body,” he said. “But I don’t know how to brew it, and I don’t think I would trust myself if I did. My potions skills have never been the best—“

Draco’s arm tightened around his shoulders. “And here I am, nearly a Potions master,” he said, “and devoted to helping the family. Isn’t that convenient?”

The reality he hadn’t even considered sank slowly into Harry’s head. I have someone here to help me. I won’t lose Lucius because of my own inadequate skills. I’m not alone.

Harry had to close his eyes again. He didn’t have to lean back against Draco, but he did it because he wanted to.

Draco’s kiss to the base of the skin beneath his ear, where he had kissed Harry once before, was as fierce as a promise.

Chapter 13.

Comments

[lomonaaeren.livejournal.com]

Thank you!

To be honest, I think most authors don't try for non-comedic house-elves. That's the role they mostly play in the books, even when they get a little nobility, like Kreacher.