Chapter Forty of 'Leopard's Choice'- Spiral

[lomonaaeren]

Thank you again for all the reviews!

Chapter Forty—Spiral

“Fix him.”

Severus stares from the shuddering but otherwise motionless form of Theo Nott back to Harry’s wide, distressed eyes. He takes a deep breath. Harry told him about the curse and about what happened with Pettigrew (whose body Harry’s friends have already hidden). He takes another deep breath. “I do not know how.”

“Why not?” Harry is very close to shouting.

“What your friend Mr. Zabini said is correct,” Severus murmurs, absently reaching for a Calming Draught. He gave one to Mr. Nott at the beginning of Harry’s story, but he can do another one now. A side-effect of the Soul-Breaker Curse is that ordinary potions have very little effect on the victim and are consumed more quickly by their metabolism. “The potion would have to be brewed by the person who cast the curse.”

“He’s dead.”

There’s something ugly and desperate twisting Harry’s expression. Severus meets his glance with all the sincerity and gentleness he can. “I know. I am sorry, Harry. This is not something that we can change.”

“Why not?”

“You know why not,” Severus says. He wants to sound harsh, to tell Harry to stop acting childish, but this will be Harry’s second great loss in a year after Chaos, and he would not be heartless. “This is the way things are. I am sorry.”

Harry turns around to stare at Nott. Severus drops a hand on his shoulder, making sure the press of every finger can be felt.

“Can I be alone?” Harry whisper. “I’d like to be alone.”

Severus hesitates, then nods reluctantly. He does not know that Harry would do something stupid because Severus has left him alone. He takes a step back, not removing his eyes from Harry. “You realize that I would make my best faith effort if I thought it was something that could be changed?”

“Yes. Yes. Of course I know that.”

Harry sounds distracted. Severus sighs and steps through the door of his office, out to the other waiting students who deserve an answer.

*

The moment that Severus closes the office door behind himself, Lion hisses, “I know that you have a plan. You smell determined.”

“Of course I have a plan. I have two plans. I’m going to ask Lyassa for help and see if the Speakers have a cure they can share with me.”

Lion winds his neck back and forth in excitement. Harry strokes his scales for a moment. Lion always likes contacting the Speakers and approves of Harry spending time with them.

But then he goes on to ask, “And your first plan?”

Harry takes a deep breath and stares at Theo. He was still for a few minutes after Severus gave him the Calming Draught, but he’s already begun to shudder again. Harry can’t stand it. He will not stand it.

He whispers, “I am going to study the death magic that supposedly has something to do with the Potter family Gift. And I’ll resurrect Pettigrew if I have to, and force him to brew the potion that can restore Theo.”

Lion is still for a long moment. Harry wonders if he understands notions like “resurrect” and “death magic.”

But then Lion begins flapping his wings and hissing in immense agitation. “You cannot! You cannot! That is the kind of magic that brought your enemy back and took the fireborn away! You cannot do it!”

“I will do it to keep Theo from dying.”

Lion champs his fangs at Harry, so upset that Harry can feel the little snake’s body vibrating down to his bones. “You cannot! You cannot! I will tell Lyassa and the other Speakers and make them stop you!”

“You know they won’t listen to you,” Harry says as gently as he can. “You’re a small magical snake, and I’m much more valuable to them as an ally. You know that you can’t convince them, and they would only listen to me and try to make sure that I didn’t kill myself during the ritual, so that I can remain valuable to them.”

Lion’s wings and tail droop. Harry strokes down his back. Lion turns his head away and curls himself into a tiny ball that vibrates with hurt feelings.

Harry sighs, wishing there’s something he could do to change Lion’s mind and soothe him. But this is the course he’s settled on.

Theo was hurt because he has a connection to Harry and because Voldemort knows very well that the best way to hurt Harry is to go after his friends. If not for that, he would be peacefully sleeping upstairs in his bed right now.

If not for his connection to Harry, he never would have become a leopard Animagus. He might have gone on to poison his father and turn against him, but not the way he had to because he became Harry’s friend. He never would have been involved in this war, or he would have been so only as someone who had uncomplicated decisions.

But he didn’t. He made sacrifices to become Harry’s ally and then his friend.

Voldemort took Chaos away from Harry. He’s never going to take anyone else.

It’s that simple.

Harry lays his hand on Theo’s forehead and whispers in Parseltongue, “You called me your lord. I’ll protect you. That’s what lords do. That’s what they should always do, or what good are they?”

*

Theo opens his eyes slowly. The sensation of breaking and shattering has stopped, at least inside his head. He grimaces and rolls to the side, licking his lips. He clenches one hand and nearly grows claws and shoots them at the continued feeling of falling pieces in his body.

He knows what the curse did. He knows that he will probably not survive it, and more to the point, will become a danger to his friends.

It doesn’t matter. Theo has a plan to make sure that he is never that much of a danger.

He pauses when he realizes that he doesn’t recognize the place where he’s lying, on what appears to be a conjured or Transfigured bed of cloth and wood. But it smells like Snape, so it’s probably some part of his private quarters that Theo has never seen.

Harry is asleep in a chair beside him, Lion curled up on his shoulder. Somewhat to Theo’s surprise, the snake is staring at him.

“Hullo,” Theo whispers, and grimaces at the raspy sound of his throat.

Lion flutters his wings and hisses at Theo. Theo shakes his head. “Sorry. Becoming an Animagus didn’t make me a Parselmouth.”

The next instant, he closes his eyes and grimaces. He never would have rambled on like to that Lion before, even if no one appears to be present to hear him. It’s not—that’s not the way someone should act when they’re committed to defending their lord.

The spell is affecting him already.

Breathing harshly, Theo sits up. Lion turns and apparently hisses something to Harry, because he immediately opens his eyes. He doesn’t flinch when he meets Theo’s gaze, just leans forwards and clasps his hand.

“It’s going to be all right,” he says.

His voice is steady, and Theo might think Harry doesn’t know what the Soul-Breaker is doing to Theo, except that his eyes have a deep, manic glow that startles and worries Theo. He shakes his head, coughs, wishes he had water, and nearly starts when Harry reaches over to the sideboard beside the bed. A glass of water is already standing there, enchanted to keep the ice inside it from melting.

Theo didn’t notice it.

Another side-effect of the spell? he wonders as he swallows, and despairs. He won’t even be able to protect Harry from Voldemort if this continues.

“It won’t be all right,” Theo says. “We both have to face that.”

“No, it will.”

“What are you going to do?” Theo doesn’t really want to question Harry, doesn’t want to make him feel as though Theo is pressing him, but that glow in Harry’s eyes really worries him.

“I’m going to ask the Speakers for help.”

Theo just nods. He doesn’t think it’ll make any difference, which is good, in a way. It keeps his hopes from rising and then inevitably crashing when Harry figures out that the Speakers don’t know a way to get rid of this curse, either.

“You don’t believe me.”

“I believe that you’ll ask the Speakers for help,” Theo says, catching Harry’s gaze. “I can’t allow myself to believe that it’ll make any difference, though.” He shakes his head when Harry gives him a supremely disappointed glance. “Sorry, I can’t.”

Harry looks as if he might argue for a second, but then just shakes his head. “You’ll see.”

Theo clings to Harry’s hand, and tries to think of ways to do all he can before the spell kills him and Voldemort wins. But the plans keep cracking to pieces in his head and showering down as though falling to a floor far below.

He hates this. He hates everything except the feeling of Harry’s hand in his and the desperate, quiet conviction that he must do something, that there is nothing left for him if this disappears.

If he can’t help Harry before his soul cracks, then Voldemort has indeed won.

*

“Mr. Potter. This is a surprise.”

Shacklebolt’s voice is cautious. It doesn’t matter to Harry. He sits down in the chair in front of the man’s desk and says bluntly, “I need to know everything you know or Dumbledore figured out about the Potter family Gift.”

Shacklebolt exhales harshly. “Does this have something to do with what happened Thursday evening?”

Harry just stares at him. The Hogwarts professors know that Theo was cursed, but not who cursed him. Theo is spending time in the hospital wing instead of classes to “get used to the weight of the curse on his magic.” In truth, it’s so Severus can feed him an advanced course of potions to try and get some of the side-effects of the Soul-Beaker under control.

He hasn’t said anything about a cure. No one has. Harry has yet to call on Lyassa, but he thinks she will probably say the same thing.

That’s why he approached Shacklebolt in the first place, after all, since he’s avoided the man all term.

Shacklebolt apparently figures out that Harry isn’t willing to tell him in detail what happened, and sits up. “You should know that the connection with Death is tenuous, Mr. Potter. Even Albus wasn’t able to figure it out in detail.”

“But you do know something.”

Shacklebolt nods a little. “I told you about the Tale of the Three Brothers. Since Albus thought your Cloak was part of the Gift and your ancestor Ignotus Peverell was supposed to have accepted Death in the end, there’s a chance that the Gift is the acceptance of Death. An ease with it.”

“An ease with it,” Harry whispers. That sounds a little hopeful.

Not that it really matters if the Potter family Gift is necromancy or not. He is going to raise Pettigrew and make him brew the potion to cure Theo. It’s what he has committed to doing if the Speakers don’t help him.

“Yes.” Shacklebolt leans forwards. “I talked to you before about soul magic. You should know that soul magic has been forbidden by all civilized countries since the Necromancy Treaty of 1606, Mr. Potter. There’s no way that you would be allowed to practice it, no way that you could find a teacher.”

Harry narrows his eyes. “It sounds like you’re on your way to a ‘but.’”

“Albus left some books that he thought might help you. The kinds of theoretical tomes that could still be published under the Treaty, because they were pure theory. Or so the authors said. You might be able to…use them.”

“Why was Dumbledore so eager to see me use soul magic?”

“He thought—he thought it was the only way you might be able to defeat You-Know-Who.”

Harry wishes he could hunt down Dumbledore and shake the man until he’s said everything he knows about Horcruxes. If he did even suspect that Harry was a Horcrux and Voldemort didn’t do something else to make himself immortal. Harry exhales hard and scrubs a hand over his face. “You’re making it seem like I don’t have a choice.”

“I don’t know about that,” Shacklebolt replies quietly. “From what I’ve seen, you’ve been very lucky, rather than skilled, in the times that you’ve survived him and escaped from him. But I think that luck will run out, and so will the people who can make sacrifices for you like the one the saved you at the resurrection.”

Harry feels his belly cramp with pain and fear. Shacklebolt is right. Chaos made the sacrifice, and Theo has done the same.

It’s time for Harry to fight back in any way he can, because Voldemort won’t hesitate to use any tactics he can.

He thinks briefly of the stone that Dumbledore sent, but he doesn’t think he could sneak it out of Severus’s care, and Severus would notice that it was gone. Severus and Sirius both know about it and would expect him to take that path. This one, they don’t. Even with the knowledge of Horcruxes, they don’t know that Harry would pursue necromancy.

“I’d like to see those books.”

*

“What you ask is impossible.”

Harry closes his eyes. He thought that would be the case, but at least he’s kept the promise he half-made to Lion and asked the Speakers to make sure it was impossible. “Why is that?” he hisses.

They’re in the hospital wing, standing—or coiling, in Lyassa’s case—by Theo’s bed. Theo watches them with eyes that look like glass crazed with cracks. Lyassa reaches out and trails her hand gently down his side.

Theo just stares at her for a second, and then turns his head away.

“Because this is a curse that interferes on the level of the soul and the magic and the mind,” Lyassa murmurs, swaying back and forth harder, probably because she’s picking up on Harry’s distress. “Humans may call it the Soul-Breaker, but the only thing that means is that the effects begin there first. Speakers have different souls and magic than any other humans except Parselmouths. We cannot help him. I am sorry.”

Harry nods, feeling distant and ignoring the agitated way that Lion is writhing back and forth on his shoulder. He did think this. The disappointment is intense, but distant, like being stuck with a needle in a numb foot.

“You shall not do the other thing!” Lion says abruptly.

“What other thing?”

Harry grimaces. He didn’t think about the fact that Lion might try to tell the Speakers about Harry’s plan to resurrect Pettigrew. It’s not—it’s not that he thought Lion was stupid, exactly, but he obviously isn’t as smart as Chaos, and Harry has grown used to thinking of him as loyal.

“He will master the magic that dies!”

At least that’s what the Parseltongue sounds like to Harry, and he has a faint hope that Lyassa won’t understand what Lion is talking about, but she spins around and stares at Harry. “You plan to become a necromancer?”

Harry meets her eyes. “Only for long enough to bring the one who cursed Theo back. The curse can be broken by a potion brewed that person.”

“I forbid it!”

Harry says nothing.

Lyassa leans closer, her tail trembling. “You do not understand what that will do to your magic, or to our foothold in our world that depends on the presence of an uncorrupted Parselmouth,” she says, and her voice trembles, too. Harry is startled to hear her speak in English. This time, her hand comes to rest on his elbow. “Please do not do it.”

“I don’t think I have a choice,” Harry says. “You were my only other plan, and one of my friends, Blaise, said that humans had been researching for centuries to find a cure, and no one has found it. So I have to do it.”

“Would your friend want you to do it if he knew what you intended? What does he say?”

It’s a fair question, considering that Harry hasn’t asked Theo yet. Mostly, he’s been afraid that Theo wouldn’t be coherent enough, but if Theo would absolutely hate and forbid it, it’s better to know. He turns to the bed. “Theo?”

“Yes, my lord?” Theo’s voice is dull and distant, but his eyes fix on Harry.

“Would you hate me if I used necromancy to bring Pettigrew back and force him to brew the potion that would cure you?”

Theo’s eyes widen. It seems that Harry’s words have managed to reach him through the chaos happening inside his head. He chokes for a second, eyes wide and fixed on Harry, and then he shakes his head.

“I could never hate you,” he whispers, sounding more like himself. “No matter what, I could never hate you, Harry.”

“Good,” Harry says, and turns back towards Lyassa.

“You would still corrupt yourself.”

“Do you know that?”

“This is the kind of magic that Voldemort plays with!”

“No, he was doing something else, and you know it. I wouldn’t be breaking my soul or anyone else’s. I would just be forcing someone to come back from the dead.” Harry winces a little as he hears the words, but he lifts his head higher. “If the magic is that bad, then you should hate Theo, too, for being the victim of the Soul-Breaker Curse.”

Lyassa begins to curse. Harry thinks that’s what it is, anyway, since it’s a series of sharp hisses that he can’t understand, and it seems to make Lion more upset. He ends up coiling around Harry’s ears and wrapping himself almost completely around Harry’s head, as if to shield him rom hearing it.

In the end, Lyassa shakes her head and murmurs, “If you are determined to do this…”

“I am.”

“Then, as your ally, I must help you, and so must my people.” Lyassa shoots him a sharp glance. “To keep you from corrupting yourself. We do not believe this magic is right.”

Harry knows better than to argue. Besides, it’s not like the motivations of the Speakers matter that much to him, compared to their help. He inclines his head and pulls Lion away from his ears. “Thank you.”

He turns to the bed. “I’m going to cure you, Theo. I swear it.”

Theo gives him a slight smile and closes his eyes. It doesn’t matter. Harry has made the vow, and he intends to keep it.