lomonaaeren

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Chapter Thirty-Four—The Dark Lord’s Trust

“Tell me what you want with them. Please, tell me.”

“You already know perfectly well what I want with them, Sirius.”

Remus didn’t look up from the cauldron he was studying with abstracted interest. Sirius gritted his teeth and fought through the comforting temptation to drop back into the Imperius. Remus had relaxed it enough so that Sirius could speak with him. That had to indicate—something. Something that was important.

Maybe a chance for Sirius to change his mind.

“You know that none of us intended this.”

“I know that you didn’t intend to turn into a werewolf and nearly hunt Harry down. Which makes it all the more imperative that you should have thought of the consequences of your actions before you did it.” Remus shook his head and clucked his tongue as he dipped an enormous ladle into the cauldron and stirred the potion back and forth. “You should have noted how little research there was on drinking Polyjuice with werewolf hairs in it, and drawn some conclusions.”

He looked up. Sirius found himself standing helplessly in a way he thought would have happened even if Remus hadn’t snapped the Imperius tight in just that moment. Remus’s eyes shone with true gold, like the eyes of a hunting tiger in the darkness.

“I didn’t mean…that.”

“What did you mean?” Remus turned back to the potion and frowned at its shimmering surface, then picked up a handful of ingredients from the table nearby and cast them into the brew. The angle was wrong for Sirius to see what they were.

“I mean that we didn’t intend what happened to Harry!”

“Well, but it happened. And none of you heeded the warnings I gave you about things like Petunia Dursley being the wrong caretaker for him.” Remus beat the ladle against the side of the cauldron again, then hissed in what sounded like satisfaction as the potion gave a small, firework-like burst of color. “Yes, there we are.”

“What is that potion?”

“What you’re going to drink.” Remus picked up the silver flask that had been sitting on the table and dipped it into the potion, swirling it around as he stared at it. Then he turned around and walked toward Sirius, smiling. “Open wide.”

Sirius’s jaws immediately cracked open. He fought, horrified, but the fighting was only in his mind. Remus’s control of the Imperius was tight enough that Sirius swallowed obediently once the potion was in his mouth.

It ran down his throat, feeling like slimy ice, and Sirius managed to stumble back a step as Remus watched him with a fierce grin. “What was that?” he demanded, voice low and angry despite himself.

“That was the potion to give you what you wanted.”

“What are you talking about?”

Remus might have said something, but then pain rippled up through Sirius’s body from his stomach, and he fell to his knees, his arms wrapped around his abdomen. Remus cocked his head and watched, eyes flashing gold again.

“You did want to be me,” Remus whispered. “You obviously can’t transform into me with Polyjuice again, and I can’t have you running around as me if I want to make a life here, but the rest of it? Oh, yes, you can have that.”

“What—”

Sirius felt the pain piercing deeper and more strongly into him then, and he screamed. He raised a hand in front of his face, and stared at it as he saw fur sprouting across the knuckles.

“There’s not a potion to turn someone into a werewolf,” he said desperately, dropping his hand and raising the other one to his face. He could feel the shifting of his jaw, the way that his teeth were descending.

“There wasn’t. There is now.”

Sirius would have said something, but his mind fractured and began to slide the way his bones were. He howled in what he knew was misery, although the emotion seemed to come a long time after the sound. But another thought came, one so sharp that he was able to cling to it in the middle of the transformation.

There was a chance that Remus would lose control of the Imperius now that Sirius’s mind was a wolf’s mind. If Sirius attacked—

The thoughts bled away, and there was blood and darkness, and then Sirius opened his eyes to grey and scent and a figure in front of him. He knew the figure was full of delicious meat and an enemy. He lunged.

The figure snarled.

Sirius stopped. He didn’t want to. He wanted to urge his legs forwards, and kill the enemy, and claim the meat. But they wouldn’t move. He crouched there, shivering, and watched as the figure began to boil and change.

The new one paced towards him. It had four legs, like Sirius, and bright teeth, and brighter eyes, and—

Oh. That was why he wasn’t an enemy. He smelled like Sirius. He was a wolf like Sirius.

Sirius whined softly, and the other wolf licked at the corner of his jaw. Then he stepped away and stared sternly at Sirius. Sirius lowered his eyes to the floor and then rolled on his back, waving his paws gently in the air. The last thing he wanted to do was get the other wolf upset.

It was obvious that the other wolf was more powerful. And Sirius could even feel what seemed like the touch of whiskers in his mind, pulling on him and directing him as to what to do.

He whined his willingness and sidled up to the other wolf after standing. The commanding one stood still and let him do it, and then turned and bolted out of the huge hollow rock surrounding them in the direction of the forest beyond and the prey that was waiting there.

Sirius followed. He understood now, and the understanding was such a relief. He couldn’t do anything the other wolf didn’t want him to, because that was the way the other wolf wanted it. And when he changed—

(When he did what?)

Then he would continue doing what the commanding one wanted. That way, he wouldn’t get into trouble.

It was simpler this way.

*

“I told you it would be boring.”

Theo grunted a little as he leaned back on the couch in the common room and closed his eyes. The cold of the lake water that had splashed up several times during the Second Task seemed to have soaked into his bones, even though none of it had actually soaked him.

“Why did they set it up like that, I wonder?”

Draco’s voice was soft and almost sleepy. He leaned against Theo’s side. Theo thought about extending an arm to wrap around him. There were people watching in the common room, of course, who might be upset about what they saw as weakness on Theo’s part. Or, rather, ready to pounce on that weakness and send owls about it to people who weren’t here.

But I want to, Theo decided, and slid his arm around Draco’s shoulder. He opened his eyes just in time to catch Draco’s brilliant smile.

“I don’t know,” Theo said, because the way Draco looked at him made it clear he was still waiting for an answer. “Perhaps they thought that just the knowledge there was a race against time and the Champions were looking for people stolen from them would make it interesting for the audience.”

“But it wasn’t.”

Theo turned to Harry. He was bent over a scroll of problems from Arithmancy, a sharp frown carving its way across his forehead. Theo had noticed that Harry had had more problems with that class than he’d expected.

Then again, just because someone was brilliant at Potions didn’t mean he would be good at maths.

“Yes, yes, you’re very clever,” Theo said lazily. “Now, are you going to come over here and sit with us, or not?”

Harry glanced up and blinked when he saw them. Perhaps he’d thought they were still sitting separately. Although since he’d been concentrating so intently on his homework, Theo didn’t know how he would have noticed that.

“I should—finish this problem set.”

“Who’s more important, the Arithmancy or us?”

That was exactly the kind of declaration Draco could make and get away with, while it would have sounded stupid if Theo had said it. But Harry, although visibly wavering, smiled at that and walked over.

Theo had assumed, without thinking about it, that Harry would sit on Draco’s other side. But instead, Harry climbed up and leant against Theo’s right side, his eyes wide and fixed on the fire, but blinking more and more slowly as he sat there.

It was the first time Theo thought he had ever seen Harry this relaxed.

He wrapped his arms more tightly around the both of them, although Harry stiffened a little when Theo touched him at first. But he slid past that more easily than Theo had thought, and leaned more heavily on Theo’s leg and shoulder and side.

Someone else might watch them and snicker. Theo knew that his father would have shaken his head in disapproval, less about the gestures than about making them in public where anyone could have seen what Draco and Harry meant to him.

But this wasn’t his father’s courtship. Theo could do as he wished.

And more and more, he was coming to accept that Draco and Harry would walk beside him as he did those things.

*

Lord Voldemort blasted open the door of the pathetic shack in front of him.

It blew back and bounced off a tree, tearing the wards on it and revealing them for the shams they were. Lord Voldemort snarled under his breath and strode into the shack, casting more charms that would light even the darkest corners and reveal any intriguing secrets that the cup Horcrux might have left behind.

But there were none. The shack had a dirt floor and no furniture, a cracked window in one wall and gaps between the boards. And that was all.

Once again, Lord Voldemort had wasted time tracking down “Hugh Fawley” and preparing a careful ambush, only to find nothing left behind.

This time, there would be no more of it. Lord Voldemort had been reluctant to perform one of the spells that would tell him more about the other version of himself, because it would take his blood and leave him dazed for a few minutes. But now he had the time to set up powerful wards and send a Patronus to his apprentice, who would know to alert others if Lord Voldemort did not reappear within a certain amount of time.

He flicked his wand, conjuring the basilisk he took such pleasure in raising now that he could. He hadn’t been able to call a Patronus at all before his encounter with Longbottom, but it seemed that settling into a life and rethinking the mistakes of his youth had advantages. He had now disciplined his mind enough to overcome the lack of “happy memories.”

“Harry, if I do not send you another Patronus within half an hour, send an owl to the Master of Eileen’s.”

Lord Voldemort waited until the Patronus had disappeared, then raised the required wards with another slash of his wand. They rocked his magic. He closed his eyes and stood in stillness for a few minutes, until he was certain he’d recovered.

Then he raised his wand again and slit his throat.

The blood poured forth, fresh and thick and magically potent. Lord Voldemort stood there and counted the pulses of magic in the blood. When he’d reached seven, he sealed the cut again.

He felt dizzy and faint, but he still turned and cast the blood at the boards of the shack with a simple effort of his will, commanding the walls to reveal what had happened within them. Then he sat down and cast a healing spell that would accelerate the production of new blood.

He rested for long moments, his eyes half-closed. He could feel the dart and swirl of the magic that was building the images of the past, and it was functioning as it should. Of course it was. Lord Voldemort had never had any reason to doubt his own power.

When he was sure that enough time had passed he wouldn’t get dizzy, he stood and turned to face the images.

There was a picture of the cup Horcrux, but not as Lord Voldemort had last seen him. He looked half-melted, as though someone had taken Fiendfyre to his face and it had reacted like wax rather than flesh. He was speaking to a hooded figure who crouched before him and bowed and bowed again. Lord Voldemort stepped around to the side, but couldn’t see the figure’s face. And in a moment, it rose and flickered out of the shack, so it hadn’t stayed long.

The Horcrux brewed a potion and swallowed half the contents of the cauldron. He spoke to a large snake who appeared by his feet and disappeared. Lord Voldemort memorized the snake’s appearance. He ought to be able to cast a seeking spell that would find it without too much trouble.

And then the Horcrux turned and stared directly at him.

“I know what you want,” he said, not aloud, because the images couldn’t convey sound, but through the movement of his lips. It didn’t matter. Lord Voldemort knew what he had seen and saw what he had heard. “You’ll never catch me. I know where the others are, and I’ll make it my duty to find them.”

And then the image flickered and collapsed.

Lord Voldemort leaned his head back against the cottage wall and took a long moment to rest once more. Then he cast his personal time-keeping charm and noted that the half hour he had told Harry to wait was almost up.

He sent another Patronus, this time to tell Harry there was no need to owl anyone else, before he rose heavily to his feet. He didn’t know the potion, but Severus would. And he could find the snake. And he would secure the other Horcruxes.

But it disturbed him, that his other self had known him well enough to realize that Lord Voldemort would sacrifice his blood and embrace danger to reveal the images of the past.

It disturbed him very much.

*

“What was that?”

Harry turned around with a faint smile. There had been no way to prevent Theo and Draco from seeing the Patronus that had appeared in front of him the first time, and they’d stubbornly stayed with him to see the second. But Harry didn’t have to tell them the whole truth, the truth the Dark Lord had told to him.

“That’s a special messenger spell he sometimes uses,” Harry said, lowering his voice a little. They’d been going back to the common room when the Dark Lord’s first Patronus had appeared, and had diverted into a little-used section of the dungeons to wait for the second. There was still no reason to let out valuable information. “He wanted to let me know that I should alert other people, some of his followers, if he didn’t recover in time.”

“That was a Patronus, wasn’t it?”

Harry jumped despite himself. He might have expected Theo to know that, but not Draco. He glared at Draco a little. Draco just glared back, his hands on his hips.

“My father said that he couldn’t perform a Patronus,” Draco continued. “It was well-known among…his associates, and supposed to be a sign that he wasn’t all-powerful or all-knowing. Why could he do one now? And why send it to you?”

“I don’t know when he learned or how he began doing it,” Harry said, which was true enough. He might have his own speculations, but he’d hardly betray the Dark Lord by voicing them. “But he told me that he could do one, and demonstrated it for me last summer. As for why he sent one to me—”

“He knows that you won’t betray him.”

Harry tried not to look askance at Theo, who in this case had jumped to the right conclusion. He could trust Theo, he repeated to himself, the same way he could trust Draco. He looked at his suitor and friend and nodded a little. “Yes. He trusts me the way he doesn’t trust the others.”

“Because you’re his apprentice? Did you swear oaths?”

Draco sounded more than vaguely alarmed for him. Harry reached out and pressed Draco’s wrist for a moment. “Yes and no. We both signed a contract, and we both agreed to protect and respect each other. I don’t actually know why he trusted that guarantee more than he trusted the ones—other people swore, but he did.”

“It’s obvious, I think.”

“Is it, Theo?”

“Of course.” Theo took a step towards Harry. Harry didn’t reach for his wand, but part of him wanted to, at the intense look in Theo’s eyes. “The others are people who started associating with him in the first place for power. You didn’t do that.”

“How do you know that? I wanted to learn Dark Arts and Potions and other things to establish myself in the magical world—”

“Yes, but you didn’t want to climb the rungs to simple political power. And you never would have seen him as a pathway to that.”

“Of course not. Given who he is.”

“And maybe that’s why you’re different.” Theo’s voice was slow and thoughtful. “Because he met you when you were so much younger than he was that there was no danger you would be able to overpower him. And he decided to take the risk and trust you with oaths and contracts instead of—brands.”

Harry honestly wasn’t sure that he would ever want to wear the Dark Mark. He found it both ugly and too identifying. If someone one day saw him with his guard down or managed to worm their way into his trust, it could send him to Azkaban.

But the Dark Lord hadn’t proposed that Harry become a Death Eater. Harry shrugged and forced his mind back to the present conversation. “So now you know. And I trust that both of you will be appropriately discreet with the information.”

“Of course.” Theo looked a little offended.

“Yes.” Draco’s face, on the other hand, shone. Harry thought this was the kind of thing Draco had been raised to expect, to be in on secrets and the politics of the Dark Lord’s followers, and he must be excited to find some way to do that that wasn’t related to his family.

“Thank you.” Harry did allow himself a smug little smile then. “And of course I’m honored that he trusts me so completely, and I’ll be able to give you a few courtship gifts based on that.”

“I want to kiss that smile right off your face.” Draco was the one who spoke the words, but Theo had a similar look in his eyes.

Harry laughed softly. “Why don’t you?”

As kisses went, what followed was pretty excellent.