[From Samhain to the Solstice]: Like Clouded Endless Stars, gen, Like a Malfoy series, 6/7

[lomonaaeren]

Thank you again for all the reviews! This story will have one more part, as I couldn’t quite tie it all up in this chapter.

Part Six

Harry leaned his head back against the bathroom wall and closed his eyes. The warm water of the shower sluiced over him and puddled around his feet. He had it turned on so high that it didn’t even have time to drain away before more splashed down.

It didn’t really matter, though, he thought, running a hand through his damp hair and staring hazily at the pale strands. He was never going to feel clean.

“Henry?”

That was Draco’s voice. Harry sighed and reached up to turn the faucet off. His ears seemed to roar in the sudden quiet, and he tilted his head to the side and hit his forehead with his hand a few times, trying to get water out.

“Henry, I know you’re in here. I could hear the shower running.”

Harry stifled the temptation to snap that he hadn’t said anything about not being here or that Draco was a genius, and wrapped a towel around his waist. Then he shuffled out of the shower and into the bathroom.

There were magical devices embedded in the walls that could dry his hair instantly and clothe him. Harry didn’t usually use them because it felt like cheating, somehow. But now he thought he needed to, so he waved his hand vaguely in front of the abstract pattern of gold bricks, yelping a little as an overpowered Drying Charm focused on him.

“There you are.”

Draco sounded as if he was right outside the door and probably considering using Alohomora on it. Harry scowled towards it as his hair drained of wetness and the clothes robed him in a loose weaving that felt weird, like he was in the center of a spider’s web. “Don’t you dare open that, Draco.”

“You can’t just scrub the Horcrux away.”

“I wasn’t trying to do that!” Harry said, even though he’d been kind of doing that.

He opened the door and found Draco standing on the other side. He immediately straightened up when he saw Harry, his eyes narrowing for a second before he shook his head and banished whatever had been running through his mind.

“Come on,” he said, and held out his hand. “Let’s go sit on your bed and talk.”

Harry sighed and followed his brother, stifling the objection that being led around by the hand made him feel like he was about two years old. From the way his family was treating him since Andromeda’s announcement that the Horcrux had spread all through his soul, maybe they thought of him that way.

(It was maybe better than the way Harry thought of himself, which was sick and aching, with the temptation to vomit whenever he remembered what his aunt had said).

Draco sat down on his bed, and Harry scrambled up to sit beside him. And then they just stayed there awkwardly, with Harry bowing his head and Draco staring at him.

“Right,” Draco said. “Should I tell you why what you’re thinking is stupid, or are you smart enough to figure it out on your own, Henry?”

Harry glared at him. “I’m thinking that I’m sick and disgusting and dirty.”

“And you’re an idiot. Can’t forget that.”

Draco was sneering the way he’d used to back during first year, when all they were was rivals in different Houses. Harry was almost grateful that they’d sort of traveled back in time to a simpler year. He folded his arms. “Tell me why I’m an idiot, oh brother mine.”

“Yes, I am your brother. And you have parents, and an aunt and uncle and cousin, who aren’t just going to abandon you.”

“I never thought that.”

“Yes, you sound so convincing.”

Harry closed his eyes and slumped back against his pillow. Draco lay down beside him, shoulder pressed against his. It was unbearably close. Harry couldn’t look at him as he spoke, though.

“What if I’m not really me? What if I’m him?”

“That’s stupid.”

“Such a clever argument, Draco, I’m really impressed.”

“Then put it this way.” Harry opened his eyes and turned his head when he heard how serious his brother’s voice was. “You’re you, the way you are now. You haven’t had any violent changes in your behavior in the past few years—”

“Except the ones that come with finding out I’m a Malfoy,” Harry muttered.

Draco ignored him, although the lines around his eyes tightened. “You haven’t started talking strangely, or acting strangely. If you can’t distinguish the Dark Lord from yourself, then what is yourself? Some mystical thing that you aren’t? Don’t worry about that, Henry. We’re going to get it out of you.”

“Aunt Andromeda said it was going to hurt.”

Draco grabbed Harry’s hand and held on so tightly that that hurt, too. “I’ll be with you as far as I can. I don’t know if Mother and Father and Aunt Andromeda will let me watch every part of the healing, but I’ll tell them that I want to. I want to see what happens. I want to lend you my strength.”

Harry blinked. “What does that mean?”

“I’ve read about it.” Draco’s eyes were glittering with determination. “It’s a thing twins can do. Twins are special, you know? We share the same magic, or at least our magic is more similar to each other’s than it is to anyone else’s. And some people think we share the same soul. I’ll feed you part of my soul if I have to, Henry.”

Harry shuddered and slumped against his brother. Draco promptly wrapped an arm around him, murmuring into Harry’s ear.

“I love you. I’m always going to be here for you. I promise. No matter what, I’ll be there for you.”

Harry turned his head and grabbed onto Draco with all the strength he had. Draco held him back.

*

“Are you sure that this is the best idea, to do it so soon?”

Narcissa didn’t look up from where she was slowly pacing the length of the ritual circle that occupied the cavernous space in the Malfoy cellars. Andromeda had only been here once before, when she had begun preparing the space to take the shard—the cancer—out of Henry. “Henry wants it done before he goes back to Hogwarts. So we are going to do it.”

Andromeda shuddered and wrapped her arms around herself. The space was deep and cold and echoing. She could feel flickers of motion and strength and intelligence in the walls, up and down the carvings of dragons and lizards and bats with faces like a lizard’s.

Something was watching her. It thought of her as a stranger. It didn’t want her here.

Andromeda shook her head violently. This was the most well-protected space in the Manor, and the only one that was capable of containing the kind of concussive shock she expected to cause Henry once she started using the healing spells to hammer on his soul. Or, well, to contain the Horcrux once it realized it was being interfered with.

Andromeda had brought up that possibility to Narcissa and Lucius, to see if it would change what they said. But Narcissa had only given her an incredibly patient look, and Lucius had scoffed a little.

“You think that we would hold back on healing our son, freeing him from this, because of fear of the thing?”

That wasn’t exactly why Andromeda had brought it up in the first place, but she also knew that she wouldn’t get anywhere by saying that. So she held her peace, and walked around the outside of the ritual circle again.

It was a ring of pure silver, set into the stone floor and overlapping more carvings of dragons and lizards. Andromeda had been uneasy about that, worried about breaching the integrity of the circle, but Lucius had assured her that it would be all right. Apparently, dragons and lizards had some kind of ancestral connection with Malfoys, and having their representations here would ensure that everything would go right.

Or something to that effect.

The things Andromeda had added were sketches of stars and constellations all along the edges of the circle, in between the carvings of dragons and lizards. She would have liked to carve them, but then they would have competed with the other carvings and possibly drained their power. She would have nothing go wrong while she worked to save Henry.

“You realize that we may call on more than ourselves with this ritual,” Narcissa whispered. She had halted by the constellation of Ursa Major that Andromeda had sketched at the northernmost point of the circle.

Andromeda looked at her steadily. “Do you think Henry would be in danger from that? I promise, he will not be.”

“No. I simply wonder what the reaction will be.”

Andromeda shook her head. “I don’t care.”

After a moment, Narcissa inclined her head in acknowledgment.

*

Sirius flung himself back on the couch and stared at the ceiling of Grimmauld Place’s drawing room with a sigh. He didn’t even have Remus to complain to, since he was on a mission for Dumbledore.

Dumbledore.

Sirius scowled and took a swig of his Firewhisky so big that it made him cough and splutter. Maybe he shouldn’t have done that. Maybe he shouldn’t have confronted Harry, for that matter. Maybe he should have gone along with the bloody indirect plan where he wandered around the school and chatted to portraits and let Harry overhear and grow curious enough to come to him.

But he had thought…Harry had seemed so close, when Granger had talked to Sirius and mentioned her fears that their friendship was falling apart.

Sirius closed his eyes. He wanted to think that he was doing important work, cleaning Grimmauld Place of Dark objects and doxies and the like. A pity that he couldn’t get rid of Kreacher, but the place needed a house-elf to keep it up. And he was the only one who could cope with dear Mum’s portrait, anyway.

Albus had told him that the Order would probably need to use Number Twelve as a safehouse in the future, and for that, it really needed to be safe, with nothing that could ambush anyone and bite them in the arse or the soul. And since Sirius had grown up in the house, he was the best one to figure out all the traps and get rid of them.

Sirius could understand that. Really, he could. But he still lay there, stewing with resentment, and wondered if the battle for Harry’s soul was being won or lost, without him there to fight it.

He has to see that he’s a Potter, really, that he’s better off as a Potter, Sirius thought, taking another drink. Hell, I would have given anything to be a Potter. My soul, if I had to. I don’t know why he wants to be a Malfoy so badly.

Sirius opened his eyes, sighed, and turned to the side of the couch, reaching down to scoop the golden locket that he’d found earlier that afternoon off the floor. It’d been stuffed back in the corner of a cabinet, forgotten like so many of the other “treasures” that Sirius’s ancestors had squirreled away in Grimmauld Place.

Sirius had intended to leave it to rot there, but for some reason, it had called to him. Without quite recalling how it had happened, he’d found himself holding it, and he’d brought it downstairs with him.

He swung it back and forth now, staring at it, and feeling as though its golden surface reflected more than the light from the fire. There were points of light like…

Stars.

Sirius began to breathe hoarsely. He didn’t know what was going on. Suddenly, the solid walls around him seemed to waver, and he could smell the ocean. It was as if he was back in Azkaban again. He shuddered and drew back into the couch, but the ocean smell followed him, only to be suddenly replaced by the chill feel of stone.

Was he having a nightmare? Had he drunk so much that he’d blacked out?

If so, it was at once the most real and the most surreal dream he’d ever had.

Sirius dropped the Firewhisky bottle and the locket, and tried to stand, tried to fight free of the dream. But he stumbled over something on the floor, and rolled his ankle. He collapsed to the floor, swearing, clawing at the wooden boards with his nails.

Something is happening!

*

Nothing changed. Everything was the same. This was always going to be the case. There was stone around her, and pressed against her shoulders. There was the smell of the sea beyond the barred window.

Burning within her, there was the devotion to her Lord that no one else could match. Crouch might think he matched it. Rodolphus might think she was as devoted to him as she was to the Dark Lord. But no one—

Coolness and open air flooded into her cell.

Bellatrix lifted her head, blinking. She was crouching on the shore of the sea. No, not the sea. A vast dark space. It felt familiar. Bellatrix edged forwards, not caring that she was probably dreaming or having a vision. One grew used to such things, in Azkaban. One grew used to many things, in Azkaban.

Then she saw the stars revolving in front of her, and cackled.

Of course. This was the Astronomy room that their mother had created for them when they were little girls. Her, and Cissy, and…Andromeda. Bella’s mind snapped like a bowstring as she thought the hated name, but it was true.

They had all studied Astronomy with the devotion expected of Blacks, and Mother had created the Astronomy room for them. They could walk through the illusion of space and touch their namesake stars.

Bellatrix looked for hers out of habit, but instead, she kept seeing a different star. She focused on its cold glitter, struggling to understand. It took a surprisingly short time for her to dredge the name out of her memory, where it had gone but not vanished the way so many other things had.

Aldebaran.

That was the star. That was the star. That was the star.

The star was spinning in front of her. In fact, all the stars were spinning in front of her. Bellatrix’s eyes widened, and her breath came faster. Someone was calling on the ancient magic of the Blacks, and it reached out to all the Blacks alive.

It must be powerful magic. They were doing powerful magic, calling on the Blacks and their connection to the stars, calling and calling.

Bellatrix did not mind answering. They were Blacks, whoever they were. They deserved her help. She released all her hold on her memories and her sanity and her madness, and let her strength and her magic flood in to help.

*

Coldness. Darkness. There was coldness and darkness, and nothing else. There had never been anything else.

But now there was. A thin, faint, feral chant, soaring up to a height that he couldn’t touch and hadn’t dreamed of, and calling on him.

It was no hardship to give his strength. It wasn’t as if he were using it.

*

“Are you comfortable, Henry?”

Harry bit his lip and nodded. They had made him as comfortable as they could when he had to lie on the stone within the circle and touch it with his bare skin. Not even a robe could be between him and it.

So he lay on the stone, with light, symbolic silver chains linking his wrists together. Another one linked his ankles. The silver chains sang with charms in the shape of dragons, and stars and constellations in the shape of several Harry recognized and a lot he didn’t. Aunt Andromeda had said they were all the stars and constellations Blacks in the last few generations had been named for.

Aunt Andromeda stood in front of him, her wand drawn. Mother was standing on the other side of the circle, opposite her, and Draco at a point where Harry could just see him if he turned his head. Tonks was standing opposite Draco, her posture stiff and her hair a flat black. Harry had been warned not to turn his head too often, in case the motion disrupted the ritual.

From what Aunt Andromeda had said, she was going to cast a curse at him that was meant to shatter the soul. Then she was going to start picking through and removing the shards of the Horcrux. Since it was spread all over Harry’s soul, the spell should shatter it and not Harry’s.

Theoretically.

But just in case the theory was wrong, Aunt Andromeda was also using a ritual that would anchor Harry’s soul among the members of his family. There were many more Blacks than Malfoys, and Harry had been named for a star when he was born, so they were the ones anchoring him. Father was here, too, standing on a dragon carved into the floor and whispering his own chant, to anchor the part of Harry that was Malfoy. Uncle Ted was standing near the entrance, out of sight, somehow balancing Tonks, his daughter, but also not coming too close because he wasn’t related to Harry by blood.

That was how Harry understood it, anyway. He thought it was more complex than that, but his head was still spinning just from the revelation that he had a Horcrux spread all over him and growing like a cancer, and he hadn’t paid that much attention.

He knew what he was supposed to do, and not do. That was enough. He had to lie there, and not turn his head too much.

He could scream, though. Aunt Andromeda had given him permission to do that.

His aunt looked up now, her eyes liquid and dark. Harry took a deep breath and watched her. He didn’t trust her as much as his parents, but he trusted her enough to let her do this.

Which he thought was probably a lot of trust.

“Are you ready, Henry?” Aunt Andromeda asked.

Harry nodded. He didn’t think it was his imagination that echoes of other voices spoke along with Aunt Andromeda, murmuring words that were just on the edge of hearing, just on the edge of understanding. Mother had said the ritual would reach out to all other living Blacks. Harry wondered for a moment what Black—Sirius—would make of it, but then put the thought out of his mind. Maybe Sirius would be useful for once in Harry’s life.

“Good.” Aunt Andromeda raised her wand and closed her eyes.

Mother began to chant. When she started to repeat the same words—Latin words, not ones Harry knew, and not ones he’d cared to read the translation of—Draco started speaking. When Draco reached the beginning of the chant over again and Mother started speaking for the third time, Tonks joined in.

Harry could hear Father’s voice, distantly, but he could hear the echoing voices even more strongly. A wind had begun to move around the ritual chamber, and Aunt Andromeda nodded her head along in time to the chant. At first Harry thought she might get lost in it and forget to cast the soul-shattering spell, but she opened her eyes before Harry could wonder whether he should remind her.

“Confringo animam!”

The spell that coiled out of her wand was a deep, sickly blue, and it struck Harry in the chest. Harry shuddered. It hurt at a level deeper than his bones, as if he’d broken something in the center of his being. He threw his head back and howled.

Aunt Andromeda cast another spell. Harry didn’t hear what it was. He knew it would begin picking through the shards of his soul, picking out the shards of the Horcrux. He still ached and burned, and the fear he’d confessed to Draco darted through his head, that the Horcrux was his soul, and there was no difference between him and Voldemort—

The chanting voices surged up and around him. Harry felt the chains break. He had a moment of sheer panic, and then darkness and coolness descended on him, and he realized he was no longer in the ritual circle.

He opened his eyes and spun around.

He stood on what seemed to be a field of dark grass, under a field of stars. Harry gaped a little as he tilted his head back. He had never seen the stars so well, not even through a telescope during his Astronomy class at Hogwarts. They blazed and shimmered at him, and he recognized the constellations Draco and Andromeda, directly overhead. He turned his head, instinctively seeking the star Aldebaran.

“Hello, Henry.”

Harry’s attention snapped away from the sky, and he found himself facing a tall boy with a handsome, sculpted face. His eyes burned red, though, and he clutched a pale white wand that told Harry who he was.

“Tom Riddle,” Harry whispered.

“The most important one of that name,” Riddle agreed, and looked around the field with the air of someone staring at a painting in a museum. “An interesting battlefield your family has created for us.”

Harry said nothing, but he was sweating. This wasn’t supposed to happen. He hadn’t paid attention to all the details of the ritual, as overwhelmed as he was, but he knew that it was supposed to be just him lying there feeling pain, while Aunt Andromeda healed him and Draco and Mother and Tonks and Father chanted.

Riddle smiled at him. “I am not a Horcrux like other Horcruxes,” he said, as if using Legilimency on Harry. “And you are not one, either. It is almost a shame that there can be only one soul in this body. I would have enjoyed talking with you, perhaps working with you to see if we could both serve the cause of my immortality.”

“Fuck off.”

“Take your own advice, Henry Malfoy,” Riddle said, and laughed, and cast the Killing Curse at him.