Chapter Eighteen of 'Bloody But Unbowed'- One Strand in the Web Touches More

[lomonaaeren]

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Chapter Eighteen—One Strand in the Web Touches More

Harry felt his attention splitting into three. One part of him wanted to keep casting healing spells at Lucius until he revived, no matter what those healing spells were or what they cost Harry in terms of energy. Another part wanted to comfort Draco. Another part wanted to vomit and rush out of the room, just so that he would be too busy to notice the moment of Lucius’s actual death.

But the thought of losing a patient who had become family pressed against his throat like a knife.

He accepted you into his home, he listened to you when he had every reason not to, and you are not going to fail him by letting him die.

Harry seized Draco’s wrist in one hand and squeezed down, making Draco gasp at the sudden pain and focus dazed, tear-stained eyes on him. Staring at him, Harry pressed down again and snapped, “Invoke the Malfoy blood magic. Now.”

Draco opened his mouth as if he were going to protest or explain the risk that the magic would kill other members of the family was too great. Harry shook his head, and Draco swallowed and closed his eyes, seeming to fall down within himself.

Harry felt the swell of power passing across him, and wanted to lose himself within it as he had done when he and Draco helped heal Lucius of the Sectumsempra and Scalper’s curses. But he couldn’t. He had to take control and manage this.

Even though he knew little about the Malfoy blood magic. Even though the only clue he had that this technique would work was something Healer Pontiff had once mentioned, and then only in connection with a spell that allowed two experienced Healers to work together. Neither Harry nor Draco was a full Healer, and the spell was tricky and invasive.

But Harry simply didn’t have time to worry about either his lack of skill or Draco’s probable reaction later.

“Guberno carmen de Malfoy!” he said.

The magic ringing him and Draco froze for a moment, an odd sensation; Harry felt as if his lungs had become stone, so used had he become to breathing the power and existing within it. And then the magic reoriented and streamed through him again, making Harry feel as if he were shining like a star. It was an effort to keep his mind focused on the one thing he wanted the magic to do, instead of sending it off to accomplish anything he dreamed of.

“Congelo!” he said again, the time-stopping charm he had tried to use once before, and which hadn’t worked.

This time, he felt the shudder as the Malfoy blood magic slammed into the Dark magic wreaking havoc on Lucius’s body. Harry opened his eyes and took a step forwards, his fists clenched, his wand wavering. The force of power passing through the phoenix feather core might actually crack it, but that worry was distant, compared to the puddles of blood and torn edges of skin covering Lucius’s body.

And as it had done once before—Harry’s mind scrambled and leaped into an insight he couldn’t have had until now—the reluctance of Lucius’s enemies to let him simply die came to his rescue. They had wanted him to suffer, and therefore the combination of curses had been designed to cause a heavy, lingering death. Harry doubted now that even the randomly appearing wounds in his body that had been the first symptom of the curse would have killed him immediately. Instead, they would have gone on opening and then closing again until the people behind this felt he had endured enough pain.

Which could take a long time.

It was a sadistic motive, particularly repugnant to the Healer in Harry, but right now it was working for them. The curse hadn’t killed Lucius yet, and its power was split several different ways so that the Mirror Maze could bend, flex, and concentrate damage in many places on the body, as Harry had told Lucius once before. Had they been dealing with a straightforward Mirror Maze that focused pain like a lens focusing sunlight, Lucius would already have been dead.

As it was, Harry’s single-minded magic, trying to do only one thing, forced the other slowly backwards. Harry saw the Mirror Maze manifest above Lucius for a moment, a crystalline, surging web of light. It turned black and cracked into dust that sifted back down, vanishing as it touched the peeled skin.

And then those wounds stopped bleeding, as every life process in Lucius obediently locked itself into place, obeying the Congelo charm.

Harry sagged, panting, barely catching himself on the bed with one hand. But they couldn’t afford to lose time, so he raised his wand and cast a spell that would tell him if Lucius retained enough life-force to survive when the time-stopping charm was removed, or if he would need to be sent into a healing coma. That spell burst like a golden firework above the bed, then rushed back together and formed a corona above Harry’s eyes, presenting a reassuring vision of a slowly breathing man. Yes, he could survive. The time-stopping charm had succeeded, and Lucius would not have to spend months recovering.

Harry felt relief more powerful than the magic. He would have been grateful to fold his hands on the bed before him at the moment and collapse into a healing sleep of his own.

But he had done something wrong just now, even if it was in the service of a greater good, and he needed to face the consequences. He had seized control of the Malfoy blood magic from Draco, directing it so that it obeyed his will only. Two Healers might work together that way if one was more skilled in the types of spells that needed to be performed, or if one was knowledgeable and the other powerful, with the experienced one directing the other’s magic. But otherwise, it was a grossly inconsiderate thing to have done, and Harry knew Draco wouldn’t be happy about it.

He stood up and turned around.

Draco was watching him with startled eyes, as though he had just seen Harry slash a wound across Lucius’s chest himself. He cradled his wrist where Harry had squeezed him; Harry could see a bruise forming. It took an enormous effort not to look away, and to speak the words he had promised himself he would speak. “I could be charged and fined, if not placed in Azkaban, for taking control of your magic without your permission. If you want to do that, I won’t resist, but please wait until Lucius has been treated. I’ve studied the Mirror Maze deeply enough that I think I can find a solution and release him from the stasis spell in a few days.”

Draco put his head in his hands. Harry, not knowing what that meant, turned to Narcissa.

She held her hand out to him, and when he looked at her uncertainly, she took the extra step forwards to lay it on his arm. “I am amazed,” she murmured, “though perhaps I should not be, that you think Draco would drag you before the Wizengamot for this. Professional Healer ethics do not seem to sit well with Malfoy ethics, however. It is no wonder that you feel so out of your depth here.” Her hand moved, smoothing up and down his elbow.

Harry didn’t know what was going on, but he was pretty sure it wasn’t what was meant to happen. He turned away from Narcissa and looked at Draco.

“You just saved my father’s life,” Draco said. His voice was choked. “Again. If you had to use my magic to do it, who cares? That means I got to have some part in rescuing him, which I needed, after my potion caused him such pain.” His eyes shut, and Harry thought he was struggling against tears.

“Draco, no!” Harry reached out with his free arm to embrace Draco and drag him close, because Narcissa still showed no sign of letting him go. “That wasn’t your fault. It was completely the fault of whoever set up the spells so that giving him the dreambane purge would make the Maze react.”

“And the reason that you had to take control of Draco’s magic comes from the exact same source,” said Narcissa into his ear, her fingers tapping hard on the bone of his elbow. “Whatever it may have cost, Harry, the result is worth it.”

Draco nodded frantically against Harry’s shoulder. “You thought of a solution in the midst of all that—screaming,” he said, tilting his head cautiously towards the bed where Lucius was frozen, as if he might awaken and cry out again. “I couldn’t have. I was panicking, which is something I was taught never to do.”

“I was no better,” Narcissa said softly. “Under other crises, I have managed to retain my coolness of temper, but my husband has nearly died too often in the past fortnight. We owe you yet another debt, Harry, or we would, if it were reasonable to talk of members of the same family owing each other debts. For that reason, accept Draco’s forgiveness and think no more of it. You have my blessing to do whatever you must in the name of saving Lucius.”

“Mine as well,” Draco added.

Harry had a long moment when he thought he might break down. He had not expected to be given such latitude; he had not thought he deserved it. He had come to appreciate the gifts and the kindness that Draco, Lucius, and Narcissa offered him as individuals, but now he caught a dim sense of what it would mean to be absorbed into a family, where guilt was not unforgivable and mistakes didn’t mean the end of a relationship.

“Thank you,” he whispered. “Thank you.”

Draco lifted his head. Harry touched the back of his neck, thinking he might need more comfort, but found he was staring at his father with fixed eyes. Harry frowned.

“I’m trying to memorize the way he looks,” Draco said, as if Harry had asked the question of what he was doing aloud. “That way, I won’t be inclined towards mercy when we punish the ones who did this to him.”

Harry gritted his teeth. And here’s another reminder of how different we are, and the things family bonds can’t smooth over, he thought wryly. I’ll have to move fast to ensure that our enmies get a fair trial.

On the other hand, Draco had let Emptyweed go with only a headache. Maybe he would forget about violent vengeance if Harry could involve him in saving Lucius’s life.

“I know nothing about how potions might interact with spells like this,” he said. “I’ll need your help to figure that out.”

Draco turned back so that his forehead rested against Harry’s chin. “You’re hopeless at Potions, Potter,” he said, but his voice was soft.

Harry pressed a kiss into Draco’s hair, and only then remembered that Narcissa was watching. He flushed. She raised an eyebrow and gave him a faint smile that Harry could at least hope was approving.

*

“That’s it.”

Harry stared at the list Hermione had passed him through the Floo. For a moment, he thought it was the same as the parchment he had given her yesterday containing the names of the hospital administrators, and he was about to ask why she had given it back to him again. Then his tired eyes made out new words among the blurring letters, and he forced himself to read carefully.

Two of the administrators, Burne-Jones and Neverlong, had connections to Death Eater families, though carefully buried through aliases and spelling changes to the original names. Another, Foxe, had a nephew who had died in the war, suspected to have been killed with Lucius Malfoy’s wand.

“That’s why they wanted him to suffer,” said Hermione. “It really is the strangest alliance, Harry, between people who want to punish him for betraying Voldemort and the ones who want to punish him for what he did whilst he was in service to Voldemort.”

“You’re certain of this?” Harry blinked, and the letters on the page changed place yet again. He’d spent so much of the last sixteen hours reading books on the spells in the Mirror Maze and the possible threads by which they linked to each other that his brain was rebelling against absorbing more words.

“Yes,” Hermione said. “Several of the people they worked with were in the Ministry, and the Ministry even had records on the Death Eater connections and the Foxe connection. They were interviewed before the Malfoy trials, but the Aurors concluded there was no need to call them in as witnesses. From there, it was just a matter of—leaning on a few people.” Her mouth moved in an unpleasant smile. Harry was reminded that he knew very little of the seamier sides of Hermione’s job.

“It’s nothing that could hurt you, is it?”

Hermione snorted. “No. You’d be surprised how cooperative people become when you offer them the chance to talk about something they clearly disapprove of but were frightened to talk about before, as long as you promise them immunity from legal prosecution.” She looked unhappy for a moment, then shrugged. “I wasn’t happy to promise that, in a few cases, but I really don’t think any of the people I spoke to are guilty.” She stared at Harry. “And you’ll make sure to protect the people who are from Malfoy wrath, won’t you?”

“If I can,” said Harry, the snappish tone emerging in his voice before he could stop it. “At the moment, I’m more worried about curing Lucius than I am about what happens to the people who did this.”

Hermione smiled. “Of course you are.” Suddenly her gaze sharpened. “And when was the last time you rested, Harry?”

“I’m going to cure that now,” Harry said, standing, “as soon as I can drag Draco away from his books.”

Hermione nodded and shut down the Floo connection on her own. Harry braced himself with a hand against the mantle and shut his eyes. He needed to take the information Hermione had found down to Narcissa, because she would be better able to do something with it, given her own connections with Death Eaters’ wives, but he didn’t think he could manage the stairs between his room and Lucius’s.

And then he remembered, and nearly smiled. He called, and Rogers appeared with an eager bow, extending his hand for the parchment.

“Narcissa,” Harry murmured as he handed it over.

“Of course,” said Rogers, but he hovered for a moment instead of vanishing immediately. “And Master Harry will go to bed and get some food and take care of Master Draco.”

“Yes,” Harry said, “I will.”

“Master Harry will keep his word,” Rogers said with satisfaction, and popped out. Harry tied to ignore the sense that there was an invisible or else attached to that sentence, and stepped back into the library, where Draco had brought the relevant potions books from the lab as well as all the books on Healing magic in the house.

One glance at Draco roused all the mediwizard instincts Harry had ever had. His face was so pale it looked unnatural in comparison to his hair, and his hands were bloodless as they gripped the sides of a large book. He held his face close to the page, as if he could no longer read the words from a reasonable distance. Scattered around him were piles of crumpled parchment, puddles of spilled ink, and five broken quills.

Harry stepped up behind him and put his hand on Draco’s shoulder. “Come on,” he said quietly. “You need to rest.”

Draco flung his head back and stared up. His eyes were desperate, and Harry would have winced from the sadness in them, except that he had seen worse things in his life—including Lucius lying so still in the midst of a lake of blood. But the sadness still hurt him, enough that he put his arms around Draco and kissed him on the cheek.

“I know the solution is here,” Draco whispered. “I know it is. If I can just find it—“ His hands scrabbled over the sides of the table for a moment. “What if I go to bed, and that means I miss a discovery that could save his life?”

“That won’t happen.” Harry gently pulled him from the chair and towards the bedroom, murmuring Cleaning Charms as they went. He would have liked to take the time to enter the shower, with Draco in tow, but he didn’t think either of them would remain awake through it. “Lucius is under the Congelo charm. It won’t fade.”

“They might have put on some spell that could dissipate it.” Draco twisted restlessly in his arms, but didn’t actually try to pull away. “We don’t know enough about the Mirror Maze to say that they didn’t.”

“I know that much,” Harry said. “I’m absolutely sure they didn’t foresee this happening. In fact, the magic they used in the Maze might actually help the stasis spell endure, because they wanted him to remain alive as long as he could under the stress of such pain.”

Draco gave a low sob. Harry kissed his cheek, his ears, and his mouth before he laid him gently on the bed.

“Do you mind sleeping in your clothes?” he asked. “I’m afraid I don’t have enough strength myself to undress you.” He yawned. Nor interest, right now, he admitted to himself. He had always become less interested in sex when he was under intense stress, something Xavier had never understood.

“I mind sleeping alone,” Draco said, and extended his hand.

Harry smiled. The question itself was a risk, of a sort, given how powerfully Harry had rejected the idea of having Draco in his bed before. But Harry had a need for company himself, right now.

He climbed into the bed and wrapped his arms around Draco, who rolled so that his head was resting in the crook between Harry’s neck and his shoulder. He sighed and seemed to fall asleep at once.

Harry expected to remain awake, stroking his back and watching over him. Instead, his body relaxed as it absorbed the warmth of Draco’s beside him, and then he melted, slowly, away from the surface of wakefulness into a heavy slumber.

*

“Harry? Harry, wake up.”

Harry stretched luxuriously and opened his eyes. Draco’s face was hovering above him, and for long moments, Harry couldn’t work out how that had happened.

Then he realized he was flat on his back in his bed, with Draco leaning over him on his elbows.

He arched his neck, touching his lips to Draco’s in a kiss. It seemed natural to do that when he was in bed with someone as handsome as Draco.

Draco moaned once, and then wrapped his arms around Harry and buried his head back where it had been when he fell asleep, his cheek resting heavily on Harry’s collarbone. “How did you do that?” he murmured. “I feel more hopeful about my father already, even though we haven’t done anything yet.”

Harry laughed and embraced Draco, his fingers digging into his shoulders, massaging as Draco had massaged him when he was hunched over his books. “It’s not me, it’s the sleep.”

“But you still knew when I needed to go to bed,” said Draco.

“If you’re determined to give someone credit for that, it should be Hermione. She’s the one who reminded me that we both needed to rest.”

“Why did you rest with me?”

From the emphasis of the question, Harry knew he was talking about Harry’s presence in the bed, rather than his deciding to sleep at the same time. He answered in the same tone he’d been using so far, a mixture of gentleness and amusement. “Because I wanted to. And because you asked. And because you’ve shown that you can keep your more unreasonable demands under control.”

“Is that all it takes to get around a declaration you make?” Draco sounded both surprised and smug. “You’re easier to handle than I imagined.”

Harry swatted him on the shoulder. He was consciously refusing to let himself think about Lucius still lying in his bed, white and still, waiting for help. He might not feel like having sex right now, but there were other ways to have fun, and they were a necessary way of releasing stress. One strand in the web touches more, as Healer Pontiff would say. The amount of relaxation and fun you’ve allowed yourself will influence how well you can do your work and how much concentration you possess.

Kreacher still hadn’t returned with a report on her, Harry noted. He wondered if that meant Kreacher was finding it difficult to determine her allegiances or because he had nothing conclusive to report yet.

He pushed the thought away when Draco murmured, “I’m hungry.”

Rogers appeared at once, with a tray so heaped with dishes that Harry was amazed he could carry it. He saw the dark brown of chocolate and the pale color of ice cream among the red of fruit, the brown of toast and bacon, and the neutral color of porridge, and he raised an eyebrow at the house-elf.

“Master Harry and Master Draco are needing many different kinds of strength,” Rogers said, and set the tray on the table that pulled out of the end of the bed.

Harry sat up and moved to the end, where he was relieved to find two smaller plates on that enormous platter.

“Fetch me bacon,” Draco said, his voice prissy. “And some of the chocolate, and some of the ice cream. And then you can come here and feed me strawberries with your fingers.”

Harry snorted and placed the food Draco had requested on a plate, then handed it to him, forcing him to sit up. Draco gave him a disappointed stare. Harry shrugged. “What can I say? Kisses are one thing when a patient is sick, but sex is another.”

Draco ducked his head, so that his hair fell across his face, but Harry suspected he disagreed. Well, he could disagree all he liked, so long as he didn’t actually try to interfere with Harry’s treatment of Lucius. And Harry knew he wouldn’t.

Afterwards, however…

Harry smiled, licked bacon grease from his own fingers, and wondered ruefully if he was being too hopeful by deciding that there would be an afterwards, that Lucius would come out of this alive. But allowing too much pessimism tended to destroy his concentration far worse than too much optimism. That had certainly been the reason he’d failed his first Potions exam, if not his second.

When they had finished eating, Rogers produced a piece of parchment. “This is Mistress Narcissa’s response,” he said.

Harry took the letter from him with a hard stare, wondering why the elf hadn’t given it to him before the breakfast. Rogers returned a serene glance, and Harry knew the answer. He had wanted Harry and Draco to think about breakfast instead of work. Sometimes, Harry thought grumpily as he read the message, Rogers had the strangest sense of priorities.

My sons:

I have now been to visit the Burne-Jones and Neverlong houses. I made sure to choose female relatives I thought would not know about the plan, so they would have no reason to suspect me, but might betray incriminating answers from innocent ignorance. They have confirmed that their Death Eater relatives have spent much time by themselves lately; Angela Burne-Jones in particular complained about this, as she had wanted to show her new dress robes to her aunt and uncle.

More significantly, in each house was a new painting of a star-shaped pattern, which I have sketched below. Both the ladies seemed very proud of it, and mentioned that it was a recent purchase, a sign of some alliance pending between families. They thought it to be a marriage alliance. Might it have something to do with Lucius’s condition?

Harry sat up the moment he saw the pattern Narcissa had sketched. It did indeed form the rough shape of a five-pointed star if one only looked at the outer lines, but in the middle, the lines joined and darted through a web of astounding complexity. And in the middle of the bottom right-hand corner was the self-reversing spiral pattern Healer Pontiff had confirmed existed in the Mirror Maze.

The spiral pattern you suspected existed in the first place, his doubt hissed at him, and that a suspect Healer confirmed existed. What if you’re wrong? You’re only a mediwizard.

Harry gritted his teeth and shook his head. He had confirmation in the books and in the training that he had received at the hands of people other than Healer Pontiff, though none of that training had been as kindly and as freely given. He would trust the spiral pattern existed until he had proof otherwise.

“This is the pattern of the Mirror Maze in Lucius’s mind,” he said quietly, holding the parchment out to Draco. “I’m sure of it. How that would make the Maze interact with the dreambane purge, I don’t know, but—“

“No wonder the bloody potion didn’t work,” Draco said. His face looked as pale as it had yesterday, but his lips were thin with annoyance instead of with barely suppressed panic, and Harry noticed the change with a lightening of heart. “Nothing with dandelion seeds in it would work, laid against a star-pattern like this. There are variations of the purge that the books recommended, but I had no reason to think that the standard potion wouldn’t suffice.”

Harry laid a hand on his shoulder. “No, you didn’t.”

Draco looked at him with a fierce grin. “I can tell you how the potions I try next would work with this pattern, if you can tell me how you plan to undo the spells and in what order.”

Harry smiled back. “Let’s go, then,” he said, and as they rose to return to the library, he reflected that research really was more fun when done in such clever and congenial company.

*

No one said anything when they gathered in Lucius’s bedroom for the second time two days later. Narcissa had already read a message from Draco that seemed to explain as much as she wanted to know, and she stood out of the way with her hands folded in front of her and gaze passing grimly back and forth between Harry and Draco. Draco had uttered his last sound, a snarl of triumph, when the new potion, chalky with a light green tinge, worked successfully on a rat given dreambane a few hours before. And Harry was too full of hope and despair, wracking him in alternating waves.

He thought he was right. The book on Dark magic mazes the Malfoys had—a book Harry had never heard of before and suspected had been banned fifty years ago—gave several examples of a star-like maze combined with a spiral one, though not one utilizing the specific combination of spells that had been used to harm Lucius. Harry had read the directions new to him until he saw them blazing in his mind when he closed his eyes, and the rest was a standard procedure for undoing spell mazes.

But he still would have liked to consult with Healer Pontiff. He would have liked to consult with Emptyweed, for that matter. They were Healers, and they knew more than he did. Draco could reassure him about the potion, but Harry was the one who understood Healing magic and the one who had to put on a brave face when Draco asked if he would learn anything new if he studied any longer.

Harry knew he wouldn’t. But what if he had gone wrong from the beginning? What if he had missed something vital about the clues to the maze? What if Healer Pontiff had lied to him when he went to see her and the reverse spiral was not really part of the Mirror Maze at all?

Harry swallowed and focused on Lucius. He lay under a mass of blood still, because the stasis spell froze everything, and touching him to clean up the blood would have meant opening the wounds again. Harry’s hand shook as he lifted his wand.

Narcissa took a step towards him, so that Harry could feel her warm presence at his back, though he didn’t turn around. “I trust you,” she murmured.

Harry nodded once, and then began to chant the spells.

The Mirror Maze remained the fundamental pattern for the curses that had been cast on Lucius; that had not changed from the time Harry used the spells that revealed it. But the star-like pattern combined with the reversing spiral referred to the order in which he would have to undo the spells. If he went in the wrong direction, if he tried to take off one curse that needed another removed beforehand in order to become harmless, he could kill Lucius himself.

He edged out over a dark abyss as he cast, eyes fixed on Lucius’s legs rather than his face. He would see new wounds open there if he did something wrong. He thought he could stand to see Lucius’s foot severed better than further damage done to his face, which he already needed a harsh regimen of healing potions to recover from.

Slowly, they peeled away, the Dark spells meant to slow Lucius’s healing, to make him suffer more pain than he would have from an ordinary injury, to addle his mind so that he could not make clear decisions about what he should do to save himself. The more Harry pulled off, the more he hated the people who had done this to Lucius. No, he hadn’t been punished as much as he should have for deeds like giving the diary to Ginny, but the Wizengamot had declared him free to go. Taking the administration of justice into one’s own hands was neither possible nor clean.

Harry should know.

The Cutting Curse fell away, then Mansuefacio, then Hebeto. Harry found the twisted Sectumsempra buried at the uppermost point of the star and took great delight in destroying it. He flinched when he encountered the Flaying Curse and an intense pain spell that was a cousin to the Cruciatus.

His confidence grew as he persisted and no new wounds opened. He wasn’t a Healer, maybe, but he was a damn good mediwizard. And his wand, his hands, and his brain seemed to be linked in a flowing triangle of power now, passing back and forth, brimming with more magic instead of less even as he tired.

When he looked up at last, with only the Permanency Spell still to go, it was to see Draco pouring the last of the new dreambane purge down Lucius’s throat. He was looking at Harry now, and not his father. Harry held his eyes and whispered the final Finite.

The air above Lucius turned chill; Harry could feel the last of the Dark magic fighting for its right to exist. Narcissa took a step forwards as if she could shield her husband from the curse’s malice.

And then it was gone, so suddenly that it was like watching summer displace winter. Harry blinked and staggered a bit. Lucius lay with whole skin under the pelt of blood, and no new wounds opening.

Narcissa made a sound that Harry thought was as close to swearing as he would ever hear her come.

Draco smiled, and Harry felt himself flush from the combination of gratitude and promise it carried.

Chapter 19.

Comments

[lomonaaeren.livejournal.com]

Thank you! I was a little worried about that at first, because it's a concept that's clear in my head but difficult to convey in writing.