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Chapter Sixteen—Healing Is Its Own Heroism

“Rogers,” Harry called out as he stepped into his bedroom, not bothering to clap his hands. The house-elf appeared, as before, when he was halfway through his name. Harry turned around and nodded to him. “Could you follow someone if I asked you to? Even through wards that might keep other wizards and owls away?”

Rogers’s eyes widened, and his ears trembled and jerked once, though his head hadn’t moved at all that Harry could see. “Leave the Manor?” he asked, his voice higher and more squeaky than normal. “Rogers is to be leaving the Manor?”

Harry knelt down to elf-height. “Yes,” he said, staring into Rogers’s face and wondering if he was imagining the likeness to Dobby, “you would be. I would send my own house-elf, Kreacher—“

“Master Harry Potter has a bad house-elf who is not taking proper care of him,” said Rogers, and the familiar frown replaced his startled expression. “He has never been watching Master Harry Potter sleep, and—“

Harry shook his head. “He’s wanted to do things for me many times, but I didn’t let him,” he said. “I scolded him when he took any notice of my problems eating or sleeping, and at last he gave up noticing. He just made sure I had as much nourishing food as possible when I wanted to eat it and that I got unbroken sleep on those mornings when I didn’t have to be in hospital early.”

Rogers looked torn for a moment, then poked Harry in the chest with one long, spindly finger. “Master Harry Potter is a bad human.”

Harry grinned sharply. “Yes, I rather fear I am,” he said. “There were times as a child when I thought I was born to be a house-elf, anyway.” He shrugged and forced the thought away. Rogers was distracting him, perhaps on purpose, from the request Harry had tried to make. “I need you to leave the Manor and hunt down a Healer named Virgo Emptyweed.”

Rogers blinked. “His parents were being bad humans, too.”

Harry laughed this time. “And he may be as well,” he said. “But I need to be absolutely sure of his allegiances now, and of the information he can tell me. If my enemies are keeping him captive, then I can give him his freedom. If not, then at least I’ll make sense of the confusing things he tried to tell me before he ran away from the hospital.” He shifted his shoulders and tried not to think of what Emptyweed might say about Healer Pontiff. The problem was, Harry needed to know, no matter how much his cowardice might scream at him to leave himself some illusions about one of the only friends he had. “Kreacher will be following Healer Emily Pontiff and observing her. But you’ll bring Emptyweed here. It does mean leaving the Manor, though. Can you do that?”

Once again the strange expression returned to Rogers’s face. Harry braced himself for an outburst of scolding, but instead Rogers flung his arms around Harry and began to cry. Harry hesitantly patted his shoulder, wondering what on earth was the matter.

At least I can see the family resemblance between him and Dobby now.

“Master Harry Potter is—“ A large sob cut Rogers off, and this time he remained quiet, his fingers trembling on Harry’s sides, before he finally whispered, “Master Harry Potter is acting like a proper Malfoy, ordering Rogers around the way he should. From the tales Dobby was telling of Master Harry Potter, Rogers thought he was being wild and undisciplined and acting like a bad human at all times. But Master Harry Potter can also act like a proper Malfoy to house-elves.” He sniffled. “Rogers is believing Dobby now, that you were a good wizard.”

He gave Harry one wide-eyed look of adoration, and then vanished with a pop. Harry stared at the space where he had been for long moments before he stood up, shook himself, and began to debate writing a letter to Hermione. He trusted Lucius—though he had been an idiot—to provide him with the names of the hospital administrators now, but it was possible Hermione, closer to St. Mungo’s and possessed of a freedom of movement that none of the Malfoys had at the moment, might be able to hunt down extra information.

Draco stepped into the bedroom just then. Harry stared at him, and then at the vial of yellow potion he held.

“Time for another dose to heal your lungs,” Draco said. “I’ve read up on the Breath-Stealing Charm. You need it.” His voice held both wariness and a half-implied threat, as if he wanted Harry to see how important this was but knew what might happen if he pressed him.

Harry nodded, accepted the vial, and drank down the potion in one solid gulp, partially to see the expression that caused on Draco’s face. It still tasted like lemonade. Tossing the empty vial on the bed the way he imagined some people tossed expensive wineglasses into the fireplace, Harry said, “Do you know your father is an idiot?”

“That was the daily opinion of my teenage self,” Draco said gravely. “What has the idiot done now?”

“Kept important information from me!” Harry paced back and forth, waving his arms. It felt so good to have someone to complain to. “He didn’t tell me he already had enemies at St. Mungo’s, people who were prime candidates for casting the spell that destroyed my stabilization fields. The administrators were angry at him for stopping donations, maybe angry enough to put this conspiracy together or at least help with it when Lucius landed in hospital. And of course it would have been easier on me if I knew all that, but Lucius Bloody ‘Watch me faint rather than ask for help’ Malfoy isn’t about to make anyone’s life easier. So now I’m making preparations to gather information and actually try to help the stubborn wanker, and if he ever does anything like that again I swear that I’m going to subject him to one of my own potions!”

Draco made a small choked sound. Harry blinked at him, suddenly wondering if he had gone too far—Draco might be interested in him, but Lucius was still his father—and then saw that Draco was laughing.

Harry glared at him, “It’s not funny,” he said. “His silence could have resulted in someone being seriously hurt, the person who treated him if not himself.” He pointed an accusing finger at Draco, and tried not to think about how much he suddenly resembled Rogers. “And that’s the thing I don’t like about your devotion to family. It excludes devotion to or sympathy for anyone else. Lucius sounded as if he wouldn’t much care that a Healer or a mediwizard died attending him, as long as he wasn’t forced to reveal those secrets to someone who wasn’t family.”

“Why should he?” Draco stood straighter, and the glee had vanished from his voice. “They don’t deserve to know. Throughout time—“

Harry snorted at the pretentious wording. Draco scowled ferociously at him and finished speaking anyway. “Throughout time, people who weren’t Malfoys have tried to hurt the Malfoys. Had Lucius told the person attending him, then his enemies might have learned he suspected them all the faster. He had to have someone he could trust, and until you performed that spell, there was only me and my mother.”

“That spell is an arbitrary boundary,” Harry snarled, taking a step forwards. Finally he had the words to express what had most bothered him about the Malfoys’ reliance on the Heart’s Blessing spell. “What would happen if you made someone a Malfoy based on it and then found out they were a sadistic fucker?”

Draco’s nostrils quivered. “Blood is important.”

“Magically shared blood can happen by chance, and you would still consider yourself bound by your laws to accept the person who shared it?”

“It brought us you,” Draco said, mood shifting suddenly and face shining as he stared at Harry, “and that was not a mistake.”

“It’s still arbitrary,” Harry repeated. He would cling to the point he had to make if it killed him. “As arbitrary as dividing people up based on blood. My mother could do magic. She did magic that saved the world. You acknowledged as much yourself when we performed the blood magic that saved your father’s life. Does that mean she was inferior to your mother, simply because her parents weren’t magical?”

Draco closed his eyes. “Blood-based beliefs are not the same thing as blood,” he said. “One refers to a group of people who share a similar culture—“

“Then why do you speak as if you shared a similar heritage?”

“Culture is heritage, you uneducated—“

“And as if Hermione and my mother were inferior because of the way they were born, not what they knew and learned?” Harry continued remorselessly. “I’m sure Hermione knows more about pure-blood culture than you do, with the way she studies.”

Draco opened his eyes and glared. “Growing up in it give you an insight into the subtleties that you can never have if you’re coming to it later. It’s the difference between speaking a language natively and learning it when you’re an adult. We’re different.”

“And you have stupid customs, and your house is too big!” Harry yelled.

“Harry.” Draco said it so gently that Harry almost lost it in the echoes of his own shout. “Do you still feel out of place? Is that the reason for this?” He took a step closer. “Please understand. We don’t expect you to share our beliefs about blood. The Malfoys have adopted half-bloods and Muggleborns before, and we never expected that from them.” He hesitated, then added, apparently unable to help himself, “Although many of them chose to abandon their birth families in any case, once they saw the superior attractions we could offer them.”

“I’m never going to change my name to Malfoy,” Harry said. “I’m never going to stop seeing the Weasleys. And if you consider my aunt and my uncle my birth family, yes, I’d abandon them in a red-hot minute, but that doesn’t have anything to do with their being Muggles.”

Draco raised a doubtful eyebrow.

“They hated magic,” Harry said. “And they didn’t like me.” He suddenly stopped, choking against air, as he realized that, if the Malfoys still liked him after the shouting he’d done at both Lucius and Draco, then he would still like them back, objectionable beliefs and all. He scowled. Am I being reasonable or pathetic, snatching at every possible scrap of affection?

“What an irrational hatred,” Draco said, sounding shocked. “How could they dislike anyone who was born with magic?”

“How could you dislike anyone who wasn’t born to two magical parents?” Harry countered instantly.

Draco opened his mouth, then looked to the side, scowled, and shut it.

A moment later, he said quietly, “Harry, I know our beliefs still don’t make much sense to you. And some of them probably won’t ever do so. But you need to know that we won’t force you to give up your beliefs and adopt ours.” He looked up at Harry with a faint smile. “Real beliefs, ones that are going to stay in someone’s head, have to be accepted for what they are. Maybe in time you’ll come to see the Heart’s Blessing spell as enough of a test to pass. I don’t think you’ll ever give up your friends or your liking for Muggleborns, no. But you’re still a member of the family.” He took Harry’s hand and rubbed the back of it with two fingers, staring earnestly into his eyes in the meantime. “Do you understand that?”

Harry looked thoughtfully at him. The corollary to what Draco was saying, of course, and which he took care not to mention, was that Harry couldn’t force the Malfoys to give up their beliefs, either, no matter how repugnant and stupid they were.

But Harry was reminded that Draco hadn’t been able to answer a logical argument just now, and that that omission apparently bothered him—at least, it did if the way he had changed the subject immediately afterwards was any indication. So perhaps Harry might be able to work on the Malfoy subtly, demonstrating with logic and reason that some of what they believed about Muggleborns was wrong.

If he could do that, then he could remain within the family without feeling he had given up his principles.

“Yes, I do now,” he said. “Thank you for taking the time to explain it.” He hesitated, thinking of something he had noticed that morning but not paid much attention to in his eagerness to visit Lucius. “You weren’t in bed with me when I woke this morning.”

“Of course not,” Draco said, a faint tinge of shock in his voice. His fingers pressed down suddenly, heavily, on the back of Harry’s hand. “You said you didn’t want me there.”

Harry smiled helplessly. So this was the proof that Draco would do what he was asked, respecting Harry’s choice, even if he himself obviously had a different inclination. “Thank you,” he whispered.

Draco smiled at him, his eyes half-lidded with brilliant desire again, and Harry reflected that he wasn’t the only one who could use coaxing and subtle working within the will of the family to get what he wanted. But as Lucius had said, it was a double motive that hurt no one. Draco got what he wanted and showed sincere respect to Harry at the same time, just as Harry could respect the integrity of the Malfoys’ beliefs and still try to show them that some of those beliefs were simply false.

“I’m bringing Healer Emptyweed here,” he said casually as he turned away from Draco. “I hope you don’t mind.”

Draco choked. “He was the one who cast the headache curse on you!”

“Yes,” Harry said, “but he was also the one who first warned me of danger, and he claimed he had cast the curse to protect me. I want to find out what he meant. I sent Rogers after him.” He glanced over his shoulder at Draco, wondering if he would protest at bringing a non-Malfoy into Malfoy Manor.

Draco hesitated for a moment, then shrugged, “Oh, well,” he said. “We can always Obliviate him.”

“And now I’m about to summon Kreacher, my house-elf from Grimmauld Place, and give him the task of following another Healer who may be involved in this,” Harry finished. “What’s the etiquette for calling one’s house-elf into someone else’s house?”

“It’s unproblematic,” said Draco, “as long as you accept that we might call on him to perform tasks for us in the future as well. Crossing the boundaries between houses gives us a claim on him.”

Harry rolled his eyes. “I won’t ask. I’m sure it’s pure-blood logic even more convoluted than what’s behind the Heart’s Blessing spell.”

Draco smiled at him peacefully.

Harry turned to call Kreacher, aware now of Draco’s admiring gaze on his back, but no longer uncomfortable with it.

*

Rogers appeared with Healer Emptyweed in the middle of Harry’s bedroom. Harry had been sitting on the bed alone, waiting with his arms folded; Draco had retreated into the library to study the recipe for the potion that would purge the dreambane in Lucius’s body once more. Harry had promised to call him when Rogers arrived, and now he rose to his feet and shouted his name, once, not removing his eyes from Emptyweed.

The Healer slumped in Rogers’s arms, his head bowed and his eyes downcast. Harry found it hard to remember that he had once thought of him as threatening. Then he grimaced and reminded himself that at one point, he had been convinced the administrators of St. Mungo’s were all benevolent, simply unaware of the sometimes inferior Healers who worked in hospital. And now he had the proof, a long list of names in Lucius’s hand, to tell him it wasn’t so.

“Emptyweed is being a bad, bad Healer,” said Rogers, and sniffed. “Running when he saw me.” He gave Emptyweed a small shake, and Harry hid a grin. Hermione might be satisfied to know that Rogers was not entirely servile to all humans all the time.

“He’s been a bad Healer in many ways,” Harry agreed, and Emptyweed jerked, looking up for the first time. Harry supposed he must have thought himself captured by another of his enemies. He swallowed now and looked vaguely hopeful. As Draco came into the bedroom at a run, Harry said, staring Emptyweed in the eye, “You claimed that you cast the headache curse on me to protect me. Explain that.”

Draco stepped up behind Harry, saying nothing, simply lending his presence as silent strength at Harry’s shoulder. Harry resisted the urge to lean back and find comfort in his warmth and solidity. That might read as weak to Emptyweed, and Harry had had enough of stupid men who thought they were stronger than him concealing the truth.

“You’ve been watched since you came into mediwizard training,” Emptyweed whispered. “Everyone was relieved when they discovered that you wouldn’t have the Potions scores necessary to become a full Healer. If you had, then you would have come into contact with hospital administration, and you’re such a reforming hero that you probably would have pushed for reforms there, just the way you would have tried to clean the corruption out of the Ministry if you became an Auror. Healing is its own heroism, but being a mediwizard was the perfect compromise. You would stay on the lower levels and exhaust yourself in the service of people who wouldn’t give you the credit you deserved.”

Harry nodded, jaw tight. At least he was on familiar ground here. It sounded rather like the situation with the Dursleys and the people who had looked mindlessly to him for protection from Voldemort. They feared him and despised him, but they still wanted to use him. And if the administrators had gone on quietly in corruption at the upper levels for a long time, they needed all the help they could get on the lower ones. There was no telling how much they had hurt St. Mungo’s, how many patients had suffered or died unnecessarily.

Draco trembled for a moment at his back, as if he wished to reach out and wrap his arms around Harry’s waist in comfort, but knew what that would do to Harry’s standing in Emptyweed’s eyes.

“But then you showed more talent than they expected, and your marks on the second Potions exam you took, though not enough for full Healer responsibility, were closer to passing than they had hoped. So they started watching you more narrowly.” Emptyweed glared at him. “And of course, you never noticed. You’re oblivious to anything that doesn’t involve suffering people or the ones you like. Why someone like you, endowed with no shred of political sensibility, became a hero…” He shook his head in wonder. “I tried to warn you a few times, but you never noticed that, either. And so I did what I could to dull your senses and slow you down so the administrators would become convinced your performance on the Potions exam was just a fluke. I managed to persuade them that you struggled to keep your head above water on a daily basis, and your constant studying was necessary simply to keep you at a minimum level of competence as a mediwizard. You might,” he finished, with a touch of haughtiness in his voice, ignoring the fact that he sat on the floor of a strange house in the firm arms of an angry house-elf, “thank me.”

Harry felt a slight pulse of relief. It was nice to know his judgment of character hadn’t failed as badly with Emptyweed as with Snape, and that the man was still an arse even if he had protective instincts. His way of helping had been to cause Harry physical pain, after all, which Snape at least hadn’t done except in Occlumency lessons.

“Why didn’t you tell me the truth?” Harry asked. “That would have helped.”

“And you would have betrayed everything immediately with your lack of political instincts.” Emptyweed gave him a look that had a strong mixture of disgust in it. “You never took time to question what happened to you, even the sudden advent of those headaches. You had your eyes on the case in front of you, and the one beyond that, and the one beyond that. Your head was too full of Healing even for a Healer. The pain was probably good for you, as it forced you to care about yourself once in a while.” He shuddered delicately. “And I wasn’t going to give you the chance to hurt me.”

Draco made a sound. Harry couldn’t tell if it was meant as a laugh or a groan of disgust; it came out as a sharp bark. Harry reached back to place a hand on Draco’s waist in comfort and reassurance. Yes, Emptyweed was rather irritating, but Harry had dealt with people who behaved worse than he did.

“Is Healer Pontiff involved in this conspiracy to hurt Lucius Malfoy?” Harry asked. He had to make an effort to continue on after he spoke Lucius’s first name, and add the surname Emptyweed would expect.

“What? No!” Emptyweed stared at him. “I know no harm of Emily, and I won’t have you speaking evil of her when she was the only other person who took time to help your hopeless arse,” he finished fiercely.

Harry breathed a little easier. Draco shifted skeptically behind him. Harry ignored that for the moment. They would see what Kreacher found out as he followed her. “You said that my coming to visit her was stupid and dangerous.”

“Because it brought you back into hospital, when I thought you well-gone.” Emptyweed groaned at him. “I knew the administrators had a grudge of some sort against Malfoy, though I didn’t know how much they wanted him dead until they removed you from the case. And of course you went wandering into their trap. I had to take an unexpected holiday myself, to make sure no one connected my conversation with you to any warning you had of their attack.” He glared at Harry again.

“You still should have told me,” said Harry. Anger ached in his gut like splintered bones. “I would have been prepared, at least.”

“I’ve told you why that didn’t happen.” Emptyweed sounded half-bored.

“Did they have anyone to replace me on Malfoy’s case?” Harry demanded. This time, Draco was the one to slide a supportive, calming hand across the small of Harry’s back.

“No,” Emptyweed said. “The next news would have been that Lucius Malfoy had died peacefully in hospital. And before you can ask, I don’t know any of the details about the other people who wanted him dead. I only know the administrators were in agreement that he shouldn’t receive the best care, or any care at all, in hospital.”

“Someone attacked him and took away his stabilization fields.”

Emptyweed shook his head. “I’m as surprised about that now as I was when you first told me. It was too open a move for the administrators, though. It put you on alert, and they wanted to avoid that at all costs.”

“So we have another enemy,” Harry muttered. “Wonderful.” He sighed and once again stifled the temptation to lean back into Draco. He did shift his hip so it rested against the other man’s hip. “You’ll swear that you didn’t know anything about the Death Eaters who were involved in constructing the curse?”

Emptyweed’s face paled. “Death Eaters?” he squeaked.

Harry thought his fear was genuine. He had enough evidence from Emptyweed’s own mouth that the man was a coward, in any case. “Yes, Death Eaters,” he said. “This is more serious than you can imagine, and you should have told me about it from the first, from the moment you put me on Malfoy’s case.” Emptyweed must have had a smidgen of concern for Lucius if he had done that.

“I put you on the case because he had to have the appearance of care, at least, and you were the only one who would touch him,” said Emptyweed. “Think what it would have done to the hospital’s reputation if we turned him away.”

Harry stared at him. “He could have died.”

“So what?” Emptyweed shrugged. “I don’t like what the administrators were doing, but Malfoy has escaped punishment for his crimes during the war too long.”

Draco growled, though Harry only knew because he could feel the vibration in his body. Then he whispered into Harry’s ear, “Do you see? Do you see why the Malfoys have spent so much time focusing on blood, and trusting only those who showed they were willing to act for us first?”

Harry nodded absently. His head was still reeling. Emptyweed might be a good Healer, and vastly more talented than Harry in Potions—there were things that lived under rocks which were more talented than Harry in Potions—but he had a callousness that it hurt Harry to hear.

But Draco sounded as if he had expected it. If the Malfoys experienced so much of the world against them on a day-to-day basis, of course they would withdraw into their homes and distrust anyone who approached them and was not of the family. But likewise, they would prize those who offered help freely and didn’t have a hidden motive to hurt them.

That made much more sense to Harry than the simple fact of shared blood. He had built his friendships and his bond with his adopted family on shared help and fellowship. Why not build it that way with a second adopted family?

He touched Draco openly now, leaning against him and stroking the hand that had moved up to clasp his waist. “What do you think?” he asked. “Should we try him under Veritaserum?”

“That’s all I know!” Emptyweed bucked frantically in Rogers’s embrace for the first time. Rogers restrained him with a look of contempt and a mutter that Harry thought contained the words “bad human.” “Really. I can’t tell you exactly who wants Malfoy dead, and the headache curse was the only thing I cast on you to hold you back, the only thing I ever did to hurt you.”

“Tell me this,” Harry said, staring into his eyes. “Why did you hate me so much from the first day I appeared? You disliked me before I ever took that second Potions exam, I know.”

“You were arrogant,” Emptyweed said stiffly. “Most people who get such low scores on their NEWTS don’t even apply for mediwizard training. They know they belong in other areas. But you thought you had to be good at it simply because you were Harry Potter. You thought your fame could get you anywhere.”

Draco growled again. Harry shook his head. “Forget it,” he said. “It’s not worth arguing about. Obliviate him, and have done.” He stepped out of the way.

Emptyweed began to protest, but the next moment Draco had cast a Memory Charm and he slumped, eyes blank.

“You’ve been on a holiday in your own house for the last few days,” Draco murmured. “You probably did some drinking, had some pleasant company, because you’ll wake with a headache. You won’t remember much of what happened, but you’ll be satisfied with the tattered memories you do retain, and not seek more.”

Emptyweed nodded dreamily. Rogers bowed to both Draco and Harry, and vanished.

Harry smiled. Yes, Hermione had been wrong to worry about the Malfoys’ vengeful instincts, if the worst Draco was going to do to Emptyweed was a single headache.

“Should we start discussing what to do about the hospital administrators?” he asked. “Your parents should be included in that discussion, I think.”

Draco turned around. “No,” he said quietly. “I believe I’m ready to brew that potion, Harry. I want my father free from those bastards’ spell before this goes any further.”

His face was pale, and his hands shook as he put his wand back in his belt. Harry stepped forwards and embraced him for a long time, stroking his hair and murmuring soothing nonsense words.

It felt good to play the part of comforter again, for once.

Chapter 17.