Chapter Seventeen of 'Bloody But Unbowed'- Work Produces The Best Results

[lomonaaeren]

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Chapter Seventeen—Work Produces the Best Results

Narcissa stood with her eyes closed when Harry had finished reciting the information he and Draco had learned from Emptyweed. Lucius sat up fully in bed, without the support of pillows, the way he had since Harry started speaking. He avoided Harry’s eyes, however.

“That would make sense,” Narcissa murmured. “After I removed your headache curse, I retrieved a Pensieve and cast my own immediate memories into it, to analyze them at leisure. I had thought it possible I would recognize the magical signature in the curse from the time we spent at hospital. And yes, though faint, it might have been your mentor’s.”

Harry stared at her. “Healer Pontiff’s?” he asked with a slight croak, though as far as he knew, Healer Pontiff had never even come into the same room as the Malfoys.

Narcissa opened her eyes then. “No,” she said. “Healer Emptyweed’s.” Then she smiled. “Ah, yes,” she said. “It would be fairer to refer to him as your tormentor than your mentor.”

Harry blinked. Narcissa Malfoy had just made a pun. He tried to ignore the sense that the world was collapsing and spoke to Lucius. “In truth, this reveals less than I thought. I still don’t know exactly who the conspirators are, though my house-elf is following a—potential one.” He swallowed around the hard lump of pain and disgust in his throat. He didn’t want to think about its being Healer Pontiff until he had absolutely no choice; he had done enough by setting Kreacher on her. “But I haven’t yet asked my friend Hermione Granger to investigate the hospital administrators. Should I do so?”

Lucius nodded decisively. “I remember having reason to admire her research skills,” he said. Harry looked at him, but he refused to elaborate, only adding, “I would suspect everyone on the list I gave you, but the names listed first are the ones who spoke to me sharply at the time of my revoking my donations to the hospital. And of course, we have to consider how much we should tell the Aurors working on the Smythe case. None of them have so far contacted me with definite proof or with a different motive than the one Smythe gave.”

Harry sighed. He suspected he knew a way to get truthful information out of one of the Aurors working on the Smythe case, but he doubted any of the Malfoys would like him to do it. Draco, especially, would have objections.

And even though he and Draco weren’t dating yet, Harry didn’t like the thought of his having objections. Harry felt as if they were slowly floating into alignment as he shed more and more of his uncertainties about whether Draco would suddenly revert to either his schoolboy insults or his recent smothering behavior. He had to lose the distrust slowly, or the resulting trust would be worth nothing. But he was doing that, and he was noticing more and more things about Draco that confirmed the quiet respect and admiration that had sprung up in him.

“Speak your thoughts,” Lucius said.

Harry would have liked it better if Narcissa had been the one to notice the dark thoughts on his face and to command him to speak—he was still annoyed at Lucius for his idiocy—but he reminded himself that Lucius was still sick and spoke evenly. “The Auror who intruded into your hospital room, Julius Adoranar? He’s still working on the Smythe case, from what I know, and he was once my lover. There are measures I could take to get the truth from him.”

Narcissa narrowed her eyes. Lucius stared at him for long moments as if he didn’t know what Harry meant. Harry was surprised. He would have suspected Lucius to leap at once to the worst inferences that could be taken from the words, not because he was a Malfoy but simply because he was intelligent.

Narcissa spoke a moment later, her voice tight. “You will not betray our pride or our dignity in that way, Harry.”

“Because it would look as if you were desperate to know?” Harry felt his lips twist in what was not really a smile. “You don’t need to worry about that. Julius is arrogant; I never knew how arrogant until after I stopped dating him. He’ll convince himself that I came back to him because he’s so handsome I was unable to stay away.”

“I mean,” said Narcissa, voice tighter still, “you will not betray your pride or dignity as a Malfoy.”

Harry blinked, caught without words. He had lived among people who thought they had some sort of family reputation to keep up, of course, but the Dursleys had never considered that Harry could add anything positive to that reputation. If he did something disgraceful, he was immediately considered as an individual, not a Dursley. Harry hadn’t considered that of course the situation would be different with a family who saw every member as responsible for sustaining it.

Narcissa said nothing else, but she had taken a step forwards and was staring at him with clear blue eyes, not so different at that moment from the piercing gray of Lucius’s or Draco’s. Harry nodded slowly. “I won’t go to Julius,” he added, when she made a small motion of her head that seemed to require a verbal answer.

“Good.” Narcissa turned back to Lucius. “Now. I do still have those connections among the mothers of some of Draco’s schoolmates, Lucius. I have not yet touched them because I did not want to betray family secrets. But I think the time has come. We need to find out who cursed you.” She raised an eyebrow and waited.

Lucius nodded. “Question them, Narcissa. If you can find out which of them might have an aged relative who could have visited Rodolphus in Azkaban—“

“Of course,” said Narcissa, with a small scornful glance at Lucius for daring to tell her her duty, and then she glided out of the room. Though her steps were necessarily short because she was walking in a gown, they reminded Harry of the stride of a predator, and he shivered.

“Where is Draco?” Lucius asked. “I thought it odd he did not attend this discussion with you, but perhaps he might have been in bed or have a need to think.”

Harry frowned at Lucius, wondering why Lucius had laid so much emphasis on the one word, but said, “He wanted to begin brewing the potion that would purge the dreambane from your body. He says you’ve been sick long enough.”

“And what do you think?” Lucius’s eyes were keener than they had been since his confession.

Harry clenched his hands into fists. “I think that I still don’t enough yet about how the spells in the Mirror Maze connect to each other,” he said. “I could dissipate half of them, but there’s no telling what might happen to the other half. I’ll need to research for at least a few more days before I feel confident to try anything, and there’s no Healer I can trust to consult on this.”

“I trust you.”

Harry glanced away from him, though he did have to wonder for a moment if Lucius was putting himself in Harry’s hands partly to distract Harry from the consequences of his earlier lying. Or maybe to make up for it? Harry was already starting to have more generous interpretations of the Malfoys’ motives, even though his common sense told him the manipulation probably went along with those motives at all times.

But if I choose to see them a certain way, who’s to say that that perspective isn’t also right? I shouldn’t let myself be taken advantage of, but that’s true in every relationship, even the one I have with Ron and Hermione.

“I am still only a mediwizard,” Harry forced himself to say. “That makes a difference in talent and skill.” Lucius started to say something; Harry rushed on, because he didn’t think he would have the courage to say this if he didn’t. “I know it doesn’t seem to, but I’ve been lucky as much as anything else. The Malfoy blood magic healed you when I would have been helpless to do anything but sacrifice my life. I simply don’t feel ready to dissipate the Mirror Maze yet. I would rather wait until I am.”

He looked back at last. Lucius nodded thoughtfully. “And the knowledge I did not give you can hardly have contributed to your confidence,” he said.

Harry frowned. He didn’t want to agree, but on the other hand, he didn’t want to lie and say he wasn’t still angry about Lucius’s omission, because he was. He hoped Narcissa had found out and scolded him already. Harry thought she could make a larger impression than he could.

“Let’s let Draco try the potion first,” he said. “When the dreambane is gone from your body, at least it’ll be easier to treat you.”

“And I will feel easier as well,” Lucius said.

Harry looked at him again and thought suddenly how hard it must have been, for such a proud man to spend days in bed and suffer other people not only to care for him but to do research for him and make decisions about his health. Harry had spent so many years now in uncomfortable situations that he simply accepted his patients’ incapacity to do some things as a matter of course. On the other hand, he hadn’t liked it when Draco tried to take care of him, had he, no matter how well-intentioned? And even though he could admit that he needed the care now?

“I’m sure you will,” he said, and gave a small bow to Lucius. Yes, he was still angry. Yes, he could forgive Lucius and carry on treating him anyway.

Lucius blinked, but a moment later, his face assumed a small smile.

*

“I promise.” Hermione snapped the list of names Harry had passed to her through the Floo and glared at it as if a mere scan with her eyes could mark the names of the guilty. “I’m going to find out something solid for you in the next day or so.”

Harry smiled. “Thank you, Hermione. I appreciate you doing this when you have no reason to like or trust the Malfoys.”

Hermione lifted her head and stared at him. “You mean you don’t know?” she said in wonder.

“Er.” Harry wondered if Narcissa had appeared on Hermione and Ron’s doorstep and apologized for any inconvenience from Death Eaters during the war. “What?”

Hermione leaned forwards, making it seem for a moment as if her green-tinted face would dip below the corner of the fireplace. “I can see well enough that they’re giving you what you need,” she said. “I haven’t seen you look so rested in several months. Being with Xavier certainly didn’t relax you.” Harry nodded ruefully; even during the time he and Xavier had got along, the relationship had been tense, strung to a constant high point of melodrama. “So somehow, the Malfoys have managed that. I don’t really need details.” She wrinkled her nose, as if she imagined that Harry would tell her exactly how he and Draco were fucking.

Harry began to protest. That had only ever happened when he was dating Julius, and then only because Hermione had teased him about his sex life when he was drunk.

Hermione hurried on. “I still don’t like them. I won’t without a lot more prompting.” She frowned, eyes distant, and Harry wondered if she was thinking of the insults that Draco had heaped on her during school, or the diary Lucius had passed Ginny, or something else.

Harry stayed quiet. He could hardly make apologies or excuses that rightfully belonged to the people involved, and he thought the Malfoys would probably be insulted if he tried. Besides, he understood that the Malfoys might tolerate his friends but not like them, and certainly wouldn’t extend the tenderness they displayed for Harry to include them. Nor would they want Harry explaining how they acted inside their own home in case it revealed a weakness. How could he convince Hermione by saying, “They’re different with me, really, but I can’t tell you about it?”

“But I can accept they’re good for you,” said Hermione, returning to the present. “Very good, if the way you’re looking is any indication. I’ve wanted that security for you for years. I have every confidence they’ll make sure you balance your job with the rest of your life, which is something I can’t coax you to do.” She smiled at him. “And so it’s for you that I’m doing this, not them. They have to stay alive and contented so that you can be content.”

She closed the Floo connection before Harry could say anything else. He sat back on his heels, thoughtful. Both Hermione and his new family seemed to have a skill in severing people from their past deeds and coexisting with aspects of their personalities that they didn’t like.

Harry needed to try that.

*

“Come in. You might learn something.”

Harry had only intended to put down a note outside Draco’s potions lab, so that he might know what his mother was doing and that they had decided to use the potion first, without waiting for Harry to master the spells that would dissipate the Mirror Maze. He paused, swallowing, one hand hovering above the doorknob, and then turned it and stepped inside, reminding himself that Draco wouldn’t have asked him to come in if he were at some delicate point.

On the other hand, every point in potions-brewing looked delicate to Harry, as he was forcibly reminded when he stepped into the neat stone room and saw several simmering cauldrons, glittering with pink and purple and green liquids. Bubbles rose and burst in the air; Harry flinched, but Draco didn’t seem alarmed. He was standing in front of the largest of the cauldrons, casting chopped roots of some kind into it, a faint smile on his face. He gestured for Harry to come closer without taking his eyes from the potion.

“The purge to clear dreambane from the body is potent,” he murmured, “and requires powerful ingredients.” He paused as if he expected Harry to add something. Evidently he’d forgotten that Harry was pants at Potions theory. Harry made a faint noise of assent.

“Surely you must know,” Draco said, with a faint tinge of exasperation to the words, “that ingredients with strength in them confer a greater strength on the potion in return?”

“It seems like it makes sense,” Harry said. Draco was stirring the potion with one hand now and scattering in flakes of some black powder—it looked like ordinary pepper—with the other. Harry felt a swell of envy that he had enough concentration to do that and hold a conversation at the same time. “But I’ve never been sure what strong ingredients were and how you differentiated them from weak ones.” He forced a grin. Of course Draco could do some things that Harry couldn’t, since he was in training for the Potions mastery, and feeling jealous of him was rather beside the point. “Of course, I don’t have much use for such knowledge.”

“So you would simply have given any potion to my father when you were treating him in hospital?” Draco’s voice was light and idle, as if he were discussing the color of the robes he intended to wear at some party a month in the future. He seized a vial of pink particles that might have been crushed horn or powdered flower petals or scrapings from a human heart, and sifted them into the potion. “Without testing it first?”

“Of course not.” Harry folded his arms, unsure why he felt half-defensive. Hadn’t he acknowledged his own incompetence a moment ago? “You were there. You could have identified it for me.”

“But most of the time I’m not there,” said Draco. “And I could very well have trained for some other profession than that of Potions master, and then what would you have done?” He snatched up a bit of something blue—a crystal, Harry thought—and removed his hand from the stirring rod for a moment to toss it from palm to palm. It spun and winked, but still not slowly enough for Harry to be sure of what it was, before it dropped into the cauldron with a small plop. Draco seized the stirring rod, which hadn’t even had time to fall still, and moved it through the liquid again.

“I find that hard to imagine,” said Harry. He felt as though he had just seen some unexpected and daring Quidditch move.

Draco darted him a glance. “What’s hard to imagine?”

“Both,” Harry said. “That you wouldn’t have trained for a Potions mastery, when you’re so clearly good at it, and that you wouldn’t be there. From now on, I mean,” he added, and then paused, fearful he might have said too much.

Draco brewed without answering for a long moment. Harry found himself glad—obviously that little unexpected declaration hadn’t broken Draco’s focus—and oddly bereft at the same time. Some acknowledgment would have been nice, not that he had a right to expect it. Maybe Draco’s subdued manner since Harry came back from St. Mungo’s was an indication he was rethinking his lust for Harry.

But then Harry remembered the little monologue he’d overheard last night before he fell asleep, and decided that that couldn’t be true. Draco wanted to concentrate on mingling powders and catalysts and all the other mysterious apparatus of the purge for right now, that was all. Harry leaned on the wall and tried to find some pattern in the swift movements of Draco’s hands, but it made no more sense now than it ever did.

Draco finally tapped the stirring rod on the edge of the cauldron, scattering a few stray drops back into the potion, and then bent down and closed his eyes as he inhaled the fumes. Harry could tell he was satisfied by the way he stepped gently back and laid the stirring rod down as if it were made of finest alabaster.

And when did I learn to read him that way?

Draco turned around then, and Harry’s tongue stuck to the roof of his mouth at both the passion and the uncertainty in the other man’s face. He stood with his hands at his sides, but twitching as if he would like to reach out. His words limped with difficulty.

“I—need to know what exactly you feel right now, Harry,” he said. “I was committed to friendship that might never build up to anything more after the warning you gave me, and now…” He shook his head and stared at the floor. His cheeks bore a delicate flush. “Now you’ve leaned against me for comfort when we confronted Emptyweed, and now you’re staring at me as you wouldn’t stare at a friend.”

Harry licked his lips. Draco had done most of the reaching out so far, though, granted, it hadn’t been reaching in a manner Harry was inclined to appreciate. And Harry might crush that pride Draco had apparently inherited from Lucius if he made the wrong move, or at least turn Draco accidentally away from him.

“I do like you as more than a friend,” he said, and took a step forwards. He wondered if telling someone else he liked them should be this much labor. Work produces the best results, Healer Pontiff’s voice sounded in his head, and her advice might be sound even if her loyalty was not. No matter how slow or ponderous it seems. You will never achieve by sitting back and waiting for inspiration alone. “I like the way you work, the way you care for your parents, and the way you can open your mind and home to someone like me, even if I don’t understand all the reasons why. You can even argue with me and not be mortally offended. I like all of that.”

Draco’s neck twitched as if he wanted to look up, but in the end he kept his eyes firmly fixed on the floor. “That’s not enough,” he said, voice thick. “You probably like all that about Weasley, and yet you don’t want to go to bed with him. Do you?” he added suddenly, and then bit his lip so hard he drew blood.

Harry found himself smiling. It was easier, now, to move the rest of the way forwards and clasp Draco’s wrist. “No, I don’t,” he whispered. “It takes a different combination of admiration and trust and liking for me to want to sleep with someone. My relationship with Ron has never been like that.”

Draco made a shuffling little step. Harry reckoned he was pleased at the news but still annoyed with himself for asking. “And your relationship with me?” he asked.

“I want it to be like that,” said Harry, and gathered up all the courage he used to want for his Potions exams and leaned in to kiss Draco on the lips.

Draco made a noise of startled delight and wrapped his arms desperately around Harry, kissing him back until his vision blurred and his head rang. Harry kept control of the kiss, though, enough to draw away when he grew in need of air and whisper, “I’m still going to make mistakes. But thank you for everything you’ve done for me so far. And I really do need to show more trust in you. I can’t even imagine how extraordinary it must be for you to reach out to someone like me and not have your hand accepted immediately.” Draco’s shoulders tensed a little, as if he were wondering which reaching out Harry meant, but Harry didn’t attempt to clarify. It could stand for all the occasions Draco had asked something of him and Harry had turned away. “But you kept trying anyway, and you’ve managed to overcome your biases towards me now. It would be silly if I couldn’t do the same, when you’ve shown the greater trust.”

“I’m not sure about that,” Draco said. He was still trembling slightly. Harry caressed the back of his head and kissed the side of his neck, surprised but pleased when Draco immediately went still in his arms and then groaned. Apparently he’d found a sensitive spot by accident. Draco caught his breath, though, and went on speaking with some effort. “You were the one who came and stayed in our house.”

“And you were the one who opened your house to me.” Harry was more content than he would have believed, standing there with Draco Malfoy in his arms. He might have believed it if someone had told him this was his future, but only in the same way he had believed evil of Julius and Xavier when he learned what they really wanted from him. Of course things like that would happen, because Harry’s life had taken strange turns that he would simply have to endure. But to be happy like this—Harry half-feared to move, as if doing so would shatter a dream in which he had another family and acceptance and a path towards love. “The one who took the burden of caring for me on yourself—“

“Via Rogers.”

Harry wondered for a moment if Draco was protesting in order to secure extra compliments for himself, and then chuckled. Of course he was. And Harry didn’t mind, because he was entering this relationship with his eyes open. He knew what Draco needed, and he was confident in his own ability to provide it. Even what Draco wanted might not be such a problem.

“That’s true,” he said. “But it was the impulse behind it that’s admirable. Even your trying to keep me in the Manor and away from the hospital was admirable in its way. Stupid, but shouldn’t everyone be allowed a little stupidity in his life?”

Draco shoved Harry away from him and stood there, eyes brilliant, face flushed and happy, lips slightly parted. He tried to speak, but ended up shaking his head and stealing another kiss from Harry.

“I have to finish the potion,” he said.

“You’ve already finished it,” Harry said, taking a glance over Draco’s shoulder at the potion, “or you wouldn’t have allowed yourself to become distracted by me.”

“You think all you are to me is a distraction?” Draco reached out for him, and Harry allowed his shoulders to be clasped, because he was short of breath.

That was so unlike what I expected him to say. I expected some remark about how I couldn’t possibly know if the potion was ready or not, and—

And really, was it so surprising when Draco had shown that he liked and respected and trusted Harry?

“No,” he said, and kissed the side of Draco’s neck again, so that he could pull the groan from him. Certainty swung through him like a pendulum and solidified. “Not anymore.”

*

“And what will happen once I drink this potion?” Lucius turned the vial back and forth with what Harry would have thought was scientific curiosity the week before. Now he concentrated and could see the way that Lucius’s small finger, folded against the glass of the vial instead of stuck out like all the rest, conveyed nervousness.

“The dreambane will stream from your body.” Draco stood at the foot of Lucius’s bed, close to Harry. Narcissa hovered not far away, her gaze passing back and forth between her husband and son.

“It doesn’t sound a pleasant process.” Lucius turned the vial upside-down, a procedure only possible because it was corked. Harry tensed anyway. From the sudden tight arch of Draco’s neck in front of him, he wasn’t too happy himself.

“It isn’t,” Draco said shortly. “Purges never are, and this one less so. The dreambane will seek out every orifice for emergence it can, and it will come out mingled with a stream of blood.”

Harry winced. Lucius merely snapped his fingers, and a house-elf appeared in the corner of the room. “We’ll have to change my sheets quite often, then,” he said, and uncorked the vial to pour the chalky potion inside down his throat.

Draco sucked in a harsh breath. Harry stepped up behind him and bent to whisper in his ear. “What’s the matter? Was he supposed to take only a few drops at first?”

Draco shook his head. “He startled me, that’s all,” he said. “Sometimes I forget how much he really trusts me.”

Harry was sure the answer was honest, and he permitted himself a moment’s smugness that only two other people in the other world would ever get to hear the like from Draco Malfoy.

Lucius coughed, and a small stream of milky blood escaped from the corner of his mouth. A moment later, bubbles of brilliant red emerged at his ears, and one burst on the side of his eye. Harry flinched instinctively. Narcissa watched with a pursed mouth, as if she were thinking of the sheets. Draco leaned closer, observing. Lucius himself examined his hand critically; perhaps he expected the dreambane to exit from beneath his nails, too.

Draco suddenly hissed.

“What?” Harry whispered.

“Something’s wrong,” Draco said. “The potion should have produced a heavier flow by now. It’s impossible that I brewed it incorrectly, but—“

Wounds burst out all over Lucius’s body, face and shoulders and chest and legs and hands. For a moment, Harry caught a glimpse of tooth and gums through the holes in his cheeks, and then Draco was screaming incoherently and trying to get to his father. Narcissa had taken a step away from the bed, hands folded in front of her, eyes fixed and staring.

Harry grabbed Draco’s shoulders, pulled him out of the way, and raised his wand. His voice didn’t shake as he spoke the incantation, “Congelo!” because he wouldn’t let it shake. The spell would freeze time for Lucius’s body and buy Harry extra hours to study what had gone wrong. Obviously, their enemies had used a trap that made the removal of the dreambane from Lucius’s body a trigger for the resumption of the Mirror Maze’s worst attacks; what Harry needed to know was how.

The spell flared around Lucius’s body in a brilliant white corona, and then vanished. The blood went on breaking out everywhere that it wasn’t supposed to, and from Lucius’s open mouth, he was screaming without sound.

Lucius was dying in front of Harry’s eyes, and he had no idea how to stop it.

Chapter 18.

Comments

[ablemouse.livejournal.com]

Way to give me a heart attack.

Dude---

"Harry caught a glimpse of tooth and gums through the holes in his cheeks."

THAT. That line gave me an intense bout of shivers. Bleh.

Poor Lucius.

[lomonaaeren.livejournal.com]

Thank you!

I find a certain detail, grotesque and carefully chosen, can convey a lot more than lines of blood and gore.