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Chapter Thirteen—Any True Art Can Be Shared

Draco tended to hum under his breath and make small movements even when he was watching Harry tend Lucius. Harry had assumed he lacked the ability to be completely quiet and completely still.

But put him in front of the potions book that contained the purge for dreambane, and he was all earnest attention. Harry had never seen so pure an expression of concentration on any human face. Draco’s eyes ran back and forth as if absorbing columns of information—the information Harry couldn’t have processed if he had all day to study the same book—but his hands never moved, and his mouth never opened. When he turned a page, he did it with a swift flickering movement that interrupted his reading as little as possible.

And if his concentration is perfect, yours could stand improvement.

Harry kept his huff quiet, so it wouldn’t wake Draco from his trance, and faced his own book on Healing magic again. He had wanted to look up dreambane and make sure the herb actually behaved the way he said it did, both in the body and with the potion Harry hoped could be used to purge it. He wasn’t about to risk Lucius’s life on fragments of memories from years ago.

Dreambane is used mainly as relief from nightmares. It is known by other names…

Harry grumbled under his breath and skipped further down the page. He had never known why so many Healing books included so much extra information about herbs and spells, information not conducive to understanding pain or the easing of pain. Perhaps they imagined half the Healers who read such books were really failed botanists and abstract magical theorists. After all, as Xavier would say, who would choose Healing or mediwizardry as a first career?

Draco would understand, even if he wouldn’t choose it. That’s the main reason you’re finding it so hard to think about resisting him any longer.

Harry rolled his eyes. Yes, it was, but a large part of it also came from the intimacy they’d shared when they used the Malfoy blood magic to heal Lucius, and more from the honest confession of his feelings and tactics Draco had made to him. No one else Harry had dated seemed to think such sensitivity and honesty were possible or necessary.

And he was supposed to be thinking about dreambane, not boyfriends past or future. This tendency to let his mind wander was the reason he had failed his Potions exams. He leaned down and stared at the book until the marching letters filled his vision.

However, other uses for dreambane also exist. Dark magic rouses certain corrupting and pain-enlivening properties not known to persist in the herb otherwise. It is believed that most modern dreambane originates from the garden of a Dark wizard who carefully exaggerated the plant’s natural tendencies with selective breeding and then made sure to distribute the seeds to colleagues in other countries.

Though Harry didn’t think the history of dreambane’s growth and propagation had much use for curing Lucius, he grimly read it through anyway. The sum total of several long paragraphs was that the author of the book, along with other people, could propound theories all he liked, but no one really understood why dreambane was so soothing on its own but so dangerous paired with Dark magic. Harry nodded. In one way, that was satisfying. If no one knew the answer, their enemies were unlikely to be working with unique information that might make the curse on Lucius more dangerous still.

Dreambane imprints the memory of wounds on the body, making it particularly dangerous to feed to someone suffering from a pain curse. Of course, Dark wizards and other such disturbed individuals do exist, and sometimes achieve their despicable ends.

Harry rolled his eyes. He didn’t see why so many authors had to pretend to ignorance of their own world, as if Dark wizards were rare magical creatures instead of common enough to keep the Aurors in business.

Dreambane is widely used in cases where the individual casting the pain curse must assume that their victim could survive fairly easy, such as when a wealthy pure-blood retains a private Healer. It sinks deep enough to relax vigilance and may remain buried in the body as long as a year before erupting in bloody vengeance. So deep does it fall, into the very bone and flesh of the victim, that it evades such powerful healing spells as the Heart’s Blessing, which rely on the blood.

Harry grimaced. They might not be dealing with very clever people, at least if they were dealing with Death Eaters, but they were dealing with paranoid and persistent ones. They couldn’t have known ahead of time that Harry would cast the Heart’s Blessing to save Lucius; they had simply assumed someone might, and planned around it.

And that makes it more likely still that the attack on me at my home was Xavier, and not someone in on the plan to hurt Lucius. My casting the Heart’s Blessing didn’t matter to anyone who knew the details.

Harry sat back, rubbing his forehead. The lightning bolt scar still tingled sometimes when he was tired, or seemed to tingle. He was waiting absently for another headache to start, and grew more puzzled when it didn’t.

Then he remembered, and smiled wryly. Of course. Even the headaches he, Hermione, and Healer Pontiff had attributed to stress and fatigue must have been part of the curse Emptyweed, or someone else, had cast. Hermione had never looked closely enough to detect a curse once she had her attention fixed on a natural cause, and Healer Pontiff had had enough work that she concentrated on the obviously unnatural pain Harry suffered, and that only. And of course, Harry hadn’t noticed.

Why would you? You’re only a mediwizard.

Harry looked at the book of Healing magic unhappily. Yes, only a mediwizard. He really did need a second opinion on Lucius’s case, so he wouldn’t end up condemning the man to death by accident. He started to stand.

A pair of hands descended on his shoulders and a soft voice spoke into his ear. “Leaving so soon? And here I was just about to ask you if you wanted a massage. Your shoulders have been tempting me for the past half-hour.”

Harry opened his mouth to reply, but then the thumbs dug deep into the tensed muscles of his back and he groaned, dropping his head forwards. Draco pushed him into the chair with gentle insistence and went to work. He found spots Harry hadn’t known existed, tense knots that needed to be dissolved and little valleys between his shoulder blades that made Harry feel as if he could collapse when Draco pressed on them. Harry had to fight not to fold his arms on the table and simply drift into a profoundly relaxed state not far from sleep.

But he imagined the awkward posture Draco had to maintain to reach him at this angle, and stirred, forcing himself to sit upright. “You could have fooled me,” he said. “I thought you were concentrating absolutely on that potions book.”

“I have the ability to absorb information and think about something else both at once.” Draco’s voice had a tinge of bright laughter. “Amazing, I know.”

“It is,” said Harry, honestly. Draco’s left hand made a complicated circling motion in which it was joined a moment later by his right one, and Harry hissed and gasped and then sagged. “You’re amazing,” he added.

“So you say right now,” Draco said, still teasing, but with a tone of satisfaction under the words he couldn’t disguise. “I also want to make you scream it, whimper it, and whisper it into my ear when you’re so sated that you don’t think you can move again.” He bowed his head and licked the back of Harry’s neck. Harry shuddered. “I’m told that I’m a more than competent lover.”

Harry suffered a throb of dull disappointment that he had to keep his mind on work. He would have liked nothing better right now than to surrender and let Draco do whatever he liked, and to do whatever Draco liked. He couldn’t deny to himself how much Draco tempted him now. Someone who offered him respect, who didn’t laugh at his job, who could help him in the work Harry considered the center of his life, and who seemed to be attracted to him physically as well…Harry would have to be blind, stupid, or terminally ungrateful to have walked away from that, and he was none of those things.

But he was something else, and memories of the times when he had been that way made him sit up and speak in a calm, clear, authoritative voice. “Draco, stop now.”

Draco paused in the massage, but pressed another kiss to the back of his neck.

Harry shook his head, dislodging him. “I’m sorry,” he added, when he heard Draco mutter a curse and realized he must have bumped Draco’s nose with the back of his head. “But I want to speak to you face-to-face.”

Draco stepped away far enough so that Harry could pivot in the chair and face him. Harry leaned his arms on the back of the chair and took several deep breaths. The sensation of Draco’s fingers massaging him wasn’t forgotten so quickly, but he thought he could ignore it well enough to focus on the conversation instead.

Draco leaned against the table that had been between them before and gave him an injured look, gingerly rubbing his nose and cheek.

“I’m sorry,” Harry repeated. Then he took a deep breath and plunged forwards into the discussion they needed to have before he could lose his nerve. “Listen. Every other relationship I’ve had has ended because I couldn’t be what the people involved needed: a hero, or a caretaker, or flexible enough, or a passionate enough lover. It’s more than pleasant of you to offer me what I need, and to do it so well. But I don’t know if I can offer you the same thing. Have you considered whether I can really give you anything beyond companionship from someone who’s part of the same family? What tastes of yours do I fulfill? What do I do that attracts you? I don’t understand the same pure-blood customs or have the same ideals, you know that already. I can learn them, but that’s not the same thing as knowing them from birth. I haven’t even spent that much time on you, compared to the time I’ve spent trying to heal Lucius. Are you sure you want this? Are you sure that you wouldn’t rather have a hard shag from someone who understands you better and gives you more than a physical pull?”

Draco sat there and blinked. Harry tensed further, feeling a faint sorrowful tinge that he’d undone all the good work of the massage. He was sure he had raised an issue Draco hadn’t considered, and now Draco would need more time to retreat and think about it all. Which would be the end of any possible love affair. When Harry’s lovers really thought about what they wanted from him, rather than being blinded by the sex or their love of his fame, they realized he just wasn’t up to their standards.

And because Draco himself lived in such a different world than Harry did, the gulf between them had to be wider.

“If you were anyone else,” Draco said at last, “I would call you a manipulative brat fishing for compliments.”

Harry stared at him.

“But you really are stupidly noble enough to believe everything you just said to me,” Draco said in a contemplative tone, ignoring his gape. He folded his arms behind his head. “All right. I never thought I would have to bare my soul twice in confession inside a week—it’s rare enough that my mother and father get to hear about it—but you’re worth it.”

“Look, Draco.” Harry felt a sharp, undefined nervousness that made his arms shake as he folded them. For some reason, he could only imagine what Rogers would say if he were witnessing this scene. “You don’t have to justify yourself to me. I never meant to cause you pain. You can just—“

“Do shut up,” Draco said kindly. “I need to think about how to phrase this, and you aren’t helping with your chatter.” He closed his eyes and tilted his head back, as if he were staring at the ceiling through his eyelids. Harry watched him, absently scratching an itch on the back of his neck and trying not to think about how Draco’s lips could have soothed it better than the blunt edge of his fingernail could have.

“All right,” Draco said at last. He still didn’t open his eyes. “I told you that I thought your nobility was an act. And then I learned it wasn’t, because I was watching your face when you cast the Heart’s Blessing spell. You never hesitated. You reached out with your life force and your blood to protect someone you had every reason to hate.

“I had dreamed sometimes of finding a lover like that, but I knew I never would, because someone like that would have no reason to become my friend or my lover in the first place.” He grinned suddenly. “The few people I knew who had a chance of developing their self-sacrificing instincts had to drop them when they found out what being surrounded by former students of Slytherin House meant. But I wanted someone I could trust, as I could only trust my parents. That’s a simple desire, isn’t it? One that millions of people have every day, and can gratify whenever they want.

“I’ll not deny that I also wanted someone capable of standing next to me and protecting me—“

“So did Xavier,” Harry snapped, his uneasiness returning. “I want this too, Draco, but I’ve already seen what happened when someone needed me to be a hero, which I’m not anymore, and—“

“Shut up, I said.” Draco opened one eye and glared at him like a cat who had had its morning routine interrupted. “Yes, you’re capable of protecting me, just as I’m capable of protecting you. What I really didn’t want was some fainting flower or someone who assumed he needed to wait on me hand and foot and never let me do anything for myself. And unfortunately, I met many specimens of one sort or another in circles of society obsessed with power dynamics, which I often travel in. But you can gratify that desire, too. You have power, you wield it, but you’re not obsessed with it. You even have more than one kind of power, because you have a Healer’s hands as well as a fighter’s wand.

“And you’re part of my family now. I can relax around you as I can’t around others.” Draco smiled lazily at him. “Add to that that I find you physically attractive, stubborn enough to intrigue as well as infuriate me, and rather cleverer than I’d expected, and I’d say that yes, this will be more than a quick shag or a disappointing relationship that lasts a few months.”

Harry licked his lips. There were so many smaller statements in there he could have disputed, such as his own lack of physical attractiveness—he knew what he looked like—or whether Draco should date someone who shared his blood. But they were shadows before the glittering light of the core truth. He thought he could provide what Draco needed, and Draco believed the same thing.

“All right,” he said softly. “I’ll try.” He grinned at Draco suddenly. “And I think I’ve been rather remiss in an activity we’ve already shared.”

“What?” Draco’s breathing had sped up and his pupils had dilated again. Harry suffered a moment’s amusement that he was with a man he could affect so dramatically with so little effort. He only hoped Draco wasn’t disappointed when they did make love.

“Kissing,” Harry said, and stood up and cupped his hands behind Draco’s head to bring him in before he could respond.

Draco gave a little grunt of surprise as Harry’s tongue swept into his mouth, but reacted beautifully a moment later, grabbing his shoulders and drawing him in so powerfully that Harry stumbled on the way. And then Harry was joined at the mouth to someone who not only knew how to kiss, but dared him, challenged him, and lured him in to make him return the kiss. Draco wouldn’t have been content to lie back and accept a kiss passively; nor could Harry be, now that he knew what he wanted and wasn’t surprised himself.

He practically wrestled Draco backwards, and then they toppled over the library table and to the floor. Harry moved so that he was beneath Draco to cushion his fall. They both lay in silence for a few seconds after the fall, Draco stunned, Harry with the breath knocked out of him. Then Draco began to laugh.

“Anyone might think you liked being pinned beneath me,” he said, and stretched out so his weight lay more firmly on top of Harry.

“Anyone might think you talk far too much and imagine audiences watching you when you should be concerned with the judgment of someone far closer to you,” Harry retorted, and kissed Draco soundly to silence him. Draco stretched out again, and let his hands languidly spread over Harry’s shoulders, gripping and holding him. Harry wrapped his arms around Draco’s sides and gave as good as he got.

Any true art can be shared, Healer Pontiff had told him once, gently severe when Harry despaired of controlling a patient with a broken leg who wanted to get up and walk before the Skele-Gro finished its work. In this case, you can share the art of healing with your patient, and explain the technical terms that might make her understand the truth better.

At the moment, Draco was kissing him as if they could share more arts than healing together, and for more than a fleeting moment.

It was only when Draco nipped sharply at the side of his throat and slid one hand beneath his robes that Harry remembered he had been going to go to St. Mungo’s so that he could get Healer Pontiff’s opinion on the dreambane. He groaned and reluctantly pushed aside Draco’s reaching arm.

Draco gave him another persuasive nip and let his body settle more heavily. “Don’t tell me you’re about to run off just when things are getting interesting, Harry,” he whispered. Harry shivered. He’d never heard so much heat in anyone’s voice.

“I don’t like to,” Harry said, “but we need to talk more about what we’ll do to heal Lucius. Do you think you’ll be able to brew the potion?”

He received a long look then, heavy with an emotion that was not desire. “Of course,” Draco said. “I have most of the ingredients, and I’m certain I can purchase the others without our enemies knowing of them.”

Harry nodded, and made a conscious decision not to ask about how Draco would do that. “All right. Then that leaves my part of the task.”

“To study Healing magic?” Draco let his limbs weigh a little more again. “You can do that later.” He tilted Harry’s head to the side and nipped at the skin beneath his ear, where he had kissed before. Harry surprised himself with a swift groan. That was a sensitive area not even Francis Belfield, the one of his past lovers most interested in sex, had discovered.

“No,” Harry said, and made himself remember the wounds that had opened on Lucius, the line of red tracing his face and the invisible Sectumsempra flicking his chest. “I need a second opinion on the Mirror Maze, the way the spells connect, and unexpected ways the dreambane might influence them. That means going to Healer Pontiff.”

In an instant Draco was stiff on top of him, and not in the good way. Then he seized Harry’s shoulders and pressed them to the floor, but the wild look in his eyes told Harry that wasn’t meant to be in the good way, either. “No,” Draco snapped. “Are you mad? That would give our enemies a prime chance to strike at you.”

“They can’t expect me to come back to St. Mungo’s so randomly,” Harry pointed out. “They have no way of learning what happens inside these walls.” He paused for a moment, because the declaration of trust in Lucius, Narcissa, and Draco he’d just made was rather overwhelming, but he had to go on when Draco glared at him. “And they may try to watch and follow me, but so what? All I’d have to do is Apparate back to the Manor, and I’d be safe again. I can blast through anti-Apparition wards when I have to.”

“It doesn’t make sense,” Draco said with a growl. “When you’re in danger, you retreat into your fortress and pull the drawbridge up behind you. You don’t go prancing around inviting people to assassinate you.”

Another pure-blood mindset that I don’t quite understand, Harry decided, and shoved at Draco’s shoulders. “I need to consult with Healer Pontiff—“

“You could do that by owl!”

“And then there’s the chance of the owl getting intercepted,” Harry pointed out. “Not to mention that there’s more time for something to go wrong with Lucius whilst we wait for her reply. At least I’ll get an answer more quickly if I visit her.”

Draco shook his head, his mouth stubbornly set. “Rogers,” he said, and without looking up Harry knew the house-elf had entered the room. “Make sure that Harry stays within the house.”

“Yes, Master Draco.”

Harry threw Draco off him in an excess of fury, even though Draco was heavier and Harry wasn’t in a very good position for it. Draco grunted as his head hit the leg of the library table. “You have no right to do this to me,” Harry said, sitting up. “Protecting me when I’m being stupid is one thing—“

“Yes, that’s exactly what I’m doing.” Draco brushed dust off his robes, glaring.

“I am not.” Harry surged to his feet. “I was stupid to refuse sleep and food. I see that now. That’s why I gave in, because you made your point and I would have resisted out of sheer bloody-mindedness if I had continued to resist. But in this case, I can do something—“

“Not the right thing.”

“You can’t keep me a prisoner here!” Harry said, and his rage gripped the newborn passion he’d felt for Draco and squeeze it almost to death. Draco claimed he wanted someone not obsessed with power, but he certainly seemed obsessed with it himself, if he was trying to control Harry’s movements. “You’ll lose me if you try, and I thought that wasn’t what you wanted.”

Draco’s face was set and implacable. “I trust my ability to keep you alive,” he said, “and to persuade you to come round again after you’ve had your little tantrum. I don’t trust you to stay alive if you leave the Manor right now.”

Harry snarled at him and Apparated, throwing all his magic into the motion as he had thrown all his magic into the Heart’s Blessing spell at the moment when Lucius most needed it, as he had supported the Malfoys’ blood magic to keep the Dark curses temporarily at bay. If he had thought about it, he never would have accomplished it.

But he didn’t pause, and he had the very satisfying sight of Draco gaping at him in astonishment in the moments before he vanished and then reappeared in the entrance hall of Number Twelve Grimmauld Place.

*

“You’re certain?” Harry glanced at the diagram of the Mirror Maze one more time. “The connections between the spells really do work out the way I imagined them?”

“They do.” Healer Pontiff patted him on the cheek and then patted the diagram, as if it were also alive and needed the reassurance. “They were interlinked in the spiral pattern that you described, but the spiral reverses halfway through—also as you described. You’ll have to follow it carefully when you start casting the spells to undo the maze.” She paused and looked at him. “Of course, simply destroying the maze would be useless without using the potion that would purge dreambane from the body.”

“I have someone making that,” Harry said, all calmness. He was utterly sure that his Apparition from the Manor had destroyed his place in the Malfoy family. But he couldn’t imagine that Draco would refuse to brew the potion to help his father because he was angry at Harry.

“Good.” Healer Pontiff scanned the diagram again. “And from the way you’ve described Mr. Malfoy’s symptoms, the dreambane is the buried factor causing all the problems. Nothing else.”

Harry nodded tensely. He still wished there was a way Healer Pontiff could examine Lucius herself, but he doubted that the Malfoys would allow her in their home. And she had more experience than he did; she had asked several penetrating questions about the symptoms that forced Harry to recall more than he realized he knew. If she was willing to say a patient had no more wrong with him that Harry hadn’t discovered, Harry would accept her verdict.

“Are your hands weighted down with Malfoy gifts yet?” Healer Pontiff added softly.

Harry sighed. “They were too heavy for me,” he said. “Friendship I could have taken, and even the luxuries they wanted me to accept, but they want control over my life. I think that was the poison I sensed lurking behind every second word they spoke.” Not poison, his conscience whispered, but Harry was too tired and too irritated to speak the truth right now. “Poison” suited his mood better. “They’re obsessed with family, with loving and protecting anyone who has their blood. But the person who becomes part of that family has to put it first, too. I don’t think I can do that.”Or at least I can’t put myself, as part of the Malfoy family, before my friends and before my patients. He could have come to love Lucius and Narcissa and even Draco, and he thought part of him would always mourn it as a chance lost. But he was accustomed to surviving disappointments.

Healer Pontiff touched his shoulder in silent sympathy. “Without freedom, nothing else matters or can matter,” she said. Then she paused to consider her words, and added, “Assuming that health is unimpaired, of course.”

Harry grinned. “Always.”

*

It was late when he left Healer Pontiff’s office, walking along the familiar corridor to the Floo with the diagram of the Mirror Maze under his arm. He would use the Floo to speak to Narcissa and ask if she would permit him to return to the house. If not, then he would put his memories of the conversation with Healer Pontiff in a Pensieve and send them through the fireplace in his own home.

Don’t you want to go back? he asked himself. Because you had a row with Draco doesn’t mean you’re not Lucius’s personal mediwizard. And even if you plan to leave them altogether, the bargain was that you would receive enough Galleons to set up your private practice.

Harry shook his head briskly and began to walk faster. No, he would rather stay at a distance from the Malfoys than take the chance of returning and finding the chain fastened around his neck again. He simply couldn’t tolerate the suffocating intensity of the closeness anymore. He couldn’t regard his time in the Manor as wasted; he’d learned how a few different people thought, something that might help him in the future treatment of pure-blood patients, and he’d probably helped save Lucius’s life. But he couldn’t pay the price they wanted him to pay.

“Harry?”

Of course. Harry glanced to the side and then stopped in resignation. Standing in the doorway of a room on the Spell Damage ward was the last person he wanted to see, other than perhaps Xavier or one of the Malfoys. “Hello, Francis,” he said, trying to muster up enough enthusiasm to make his greeting sound halfway sincere.

Francis Belfield laughed and tilted his had back against the doorway. He was the most handsome man Harry had ever met, thin and whipcord like a sword blade, with thick curly dark hair and deep blue eyes that had flecks of gold in them in the right light. He was also one kinky bastard, and whilst Harry had been willing to experiment with bondage and blindfolds, he drew the line at bringing live animals into the bedroom. The problems between him and Francis had sprung out of a simple lack of sexual compatibility. Harry still wished Francis well and hoped he’d found someone who could meet his needs, but he had no desire ever to be in close quarters with him again.

“Why are you here?” Harry asked, trying to make conversation.

Francis stopped laughing at once. He’d always had the ability to switch between emotions like that, as if he were a child still. “My grandmother cursed her own foot off whilst she was aiming at a bug,” he said. “The Healers hope they can restore it, but it was a Dark destruction curse. Not much hope.”

“I’m sorry,” Harry said. He started to take a step towards the room. “Maybe I can—“

“What are you doing here?”

Harry turned around with a little hiss. Emptyweed was running towards him, his eyes standing out from his pale face as usual. “I’ll be gone in a moment, sir,” Harry said coldly, “so you don’t need to concern yourself.”

“You don’t understand,” Emptyweed said, and slid to a stop in front of him, panting so hard that he could say nothing else for a few moments. Harry waited with increasing impatience, and Francis regarded Emptyweed with dislike. His opinion, expressed many times to Harry whilst they were still dating, was that unattractive wizards should go and find themselves spells that would make them attractive; there was no point in ugliness in a world where magic existed.

“It’s dangerous for you to be here,” Emptyweed continued, staring at Harry. “They were satisfied when you retreated into Malfoy Manor, but if they realize you’re out again—you came here to speak with Emily, didn’t you? Dangerous, stupid and dangerous! And if they see you without your headache curse—“

“You put it on, then?” Harry couldn’t help himself; the accusation burst forth. At the very least, Emptyweed had recognized the presence of the curse and had never thought to tell Harry about it.

“Of course I did!” Emptyweed waved his arms madly through the air. “You’ve always had enemies here, Potter. If it seemed that you weren’t advancing quickly in your studies, they might be persuaded to ignore you and leave you alone. So I cast the headache curse to hold you back for a while and make you seem less talented. But then of course you had to study through it anyway. “ Emptyweed ground his teeth. “And then you just had to save that insufferable Malfoy’s life, and get them worried about you, and be more resistant to the Beetle’s Bite than they would have liked, and—“

“What are you talking about?” Harry asked loudly, taking a step towards him.

“Yes, I’d like to know that too,” said Francis.

A spell streaked past Harry’s shoulder and exploded against the wall. Looking up the corridor, Harry saw several people running towards him, wizards and witches in dark blue robes. He had no idea what the blue robes meant, but he knew they weren’t the uniforms of Healers.

Harry acted smoothly, without thinking. Lifting his wand, he concentrated on the memory of Draco’s smile in the moments before their argument had erupted and cried, “Expecto Patronum!”

The stag Patronus galloped out of his wand. It started to charge his enemies, but Harry said sharply, “No! Carry a message to Malfoy Manor instead. Tell them the attack on me in Grimmauld Place had something to do with the conspiracy against Lucius and it’s connected to the higher reaches of the hospital hierarchy.” That information should be enough to let them figure out what was happening even if he didn’t survive.

The stag bowed its antlers to him and then flitted through the wall. Harry sucked in his stomach to avoid another curse, then turned and ran down the corridor. He would have Apparated, but he doubted that he had the magical strength break through another set of anti-Apparition wards so soon. Besides, they might take out their frustration on the patients if he left suddenly.

And he was willing to bet he knew the hospital better than they did, whoever they were.

Harry grimaced—there were still so many unanswered questions. But for right now the most important one was whether he could survive.

He flung himself flat to avoid a curse aimed to hit him in the backs of his knees and then sprang up again, running like a stag for the staircase.

Chapter 14.