[Broken Glass Life]: Chapter Sixteen of 'Glassfall'- We Are Seven

[lomonaaeren]

“You really can’t back out once this happens, Nev. Are you really sure?”

Neville’s mouth curves in a soft smile. Harry has the impression that he’s the calm one, and Harry is the only one here who’s jittery, even though he’s also the only one who knows what’s really going to happen.

“It’s going to be fine,” Neville says, reaching out to clap Harry’s shoulder, once. “I’ve made my decision, and I want to stand beside you. And if it means that I get to see Malfoy and Parkinson and the rest stare at me with wide eyes and stutter about it? Then I’ll take the chance.”

Harry laughs, and then thinks that Neville is probably making him laugh on purpose. That’s a little too close to how his courtiers “manage” him for Harry’s taste.

“I want you to know that you can be honest.”

“Of course. Yeah? I know that?”

“I mean that if you’re nervous or upset or something, I want you to tell me. Not just think that you need to skim past it because it might upset me or something. Once we’re bonded and you’re Marked, then I’ll be able to feel it anyway.”

Neville’s mouth curves up, although it isn’t really a smile. “I know. And although the bond sounds a little more overwhelming each time I think about it, it means that I’ll have someone who understands me, too. Someone who can tell me that I’m brave without me even needing to point out the fear.”

Harry wonders for a second why Neville needs someone like that, why his family didn’t do it for him. But all he really knows is that Neville was raised by his grandmother, and that she’s a terrifying woman.

And maybe she was too focused on the way that Neville’s parents got hurt to really make a good guardian.

“It is time, you know.”

It shames Harry, a little, that it’s Basilisk who has to say it. He nods to her, and to Neville, and then turns and walks quietly out of their bedroom. Neville accompanies him, moving protectively at his side, and Harry almost hopes that someone in the common room does try to challenge them, just to see what Nev would do.

But no one does. No one who would really care is present, and the only large group is of third-years involved in an Exploding Snap competition. Harry and Neville make their way out of the portrait and down towards the ritual room where Harry is going to do the Marking—where he did Pansy’s Marking—without incident.

When they enter, Draco is straightening out of a bow. He stops halfway through, his mouth hanging open, and his surprise surging down their bond like lightning. “Longbottom?” he squeaks.

Harry grins. He’s glad now that he didn’t tell them, although a few of them probably guessed.

“Oh, hello, Longbottom,” Justin says, standing up from a chair in the corner that he must have brought there. There was no furniture in the ritual room the last time Harry was here. “Did you think Harry needed someone to keep an eye on him, too?”

“Finch-Fletchley.” Harry has the impression that Draco doesn’t know what to do with Neville’s presence, so he’s focusing his ire on Justin instead.

“Yes? Did you need something, Malfoy?”

“Don’t disrespect our lord by speaking that way—”

“I haven’t shown him disrespect. I could try that if you want. It might teach you what the real thing is like.”

“Enough.”

It’s Corban who speaks, but his voice settles on the room like a smothering blanket. Harry sees Neville watching Corban intently. Harry nods reassuringly to him, catching Nev’s eye. He supposes that Neville has reason to be skeptical both of a professor and someone he probably suspects is—was—a Death Eater, if only because of his last name.

“I don’t think that we need to argue about disrespect and the like when our lord chose Mr. Longbottom.” Corban moves a step forwards and bows to Neville in a way that makes Pansy and Draco gasp. Harry wonders what it means, then decides he can ask about it later. “Welcome, Mr. Longbottom. I hope I can call you Neville?”

“Of course.” Neville’s voice is faint. “If—that’s fine, Professor Yaxley.”

“Corban, please, in private.” The man straightens and smiles at Neville. “We’re soon to be equals in our lord’s service.”

“Am I late?”

Theo strides into the ritual room, his eyebrows rising as he considers Neville. Harry thinks that Theo might have thought Neville wouldn’t actually show up, even though he probably knew that Harry was going to bring him here. Theo is the most observant of his courtiers.

“No, just on time,” Harry says, and smiles at Theo before he turns to Neville. “Last chance to change your mind.”

“Why do you keep asking me that, Harry? You know I’m not going to.”

Harry finally nods. He supposes that he’s still just used to people wanting to become his courtiers because they have something worse waiting for them if they don’t. Corban was fleeing Father, and so were Pansy, Theo, and Draco, in a way. Justin joined for different motives, but he’s the only one.

“I want to be here. I promise.”

Neville’s eyes are soft in the firelight of the torches on the walls, and Harry has to decide that he’s going to accept his friend’s sincerity, or send him away. And it will be nice to have a courtier who was a friend first.

“All right,” he says, and steps away. “The bond is kind of disconcerting once it starts happening, but you’ll get used to it quickly.”

“I know. I did read a few books to prepare for this, you know.”

“I want to read the books you did,” Justin mutters.

“So do I,” Harry says, and shrugs a little when Neville gapes at him. “Why do you think I keep asking you if you’re sure? I didn’t have a chance to learn how this works before I got thrown into deep water.”

Neville looks wistfully towards the door of the room, and Harry braces himself. But then Neville turns back, shaking his head. “You can’t get rid of me that easily. Besides, you need someone to help teach you about Marks and lords if you didn’t read about them.”

“The rest of us can do that!”

“But you haven’t yet, Malfoy.”

Draco looks as though he doesn’t know what to do, and feels the same way through their bond. Harry coughs to hide his laughter and steps forwards. “All right. So you’re prepared to go through with it?”

Neville drops to one knee. He looks powerful and graceful and confident, and he holds out his left arm with absolute trust, his eyes fixed on Harry. “Ready, my lord.”

Harry swallows a deep breath, and begins.

*

Everything is normal about Neville’s Marking until Harry finishes placing the chimera on his arm and their bond springs to life. And then—

A furious silver light flares from every corner of the ritual room at once. Harry flings up an arm across his eyes, while Theo shouts and everyone’s bond surges with alarm. Well, maybe Neville is more surprised than alarmed.

“My lord!”

“My lord!”

“My lord, down!”

Harry drops to the floor, supposing there must be some reason that Theo recommended he do that. But instead of hearing something pass with a whistle over his head or the shouted noise of spells, there’s just—silence. The fear is slowly fading from his bonds, the way that he doesn’t think it would if someone were attacking.

“You look silly lying on the floor. Get up.”

Harry stands up, automatically checking to make sure that Basilisk is still shielded by the Disillusionment Charm. He’s not quite ready to share her with everyone yet.

She’s fine, still invisible, so Harry turns back to his courtiers and tries to figure out what the hell happened.

Theo is on his feet, wand drawn. Pansy is sitting up, and her face and her bond both convey such perfect disgruntlement that Harry has to smile. Corban is crouched, wary; Draco looks stunned; and Justin and Neville both look as if they’re just waiting for something else to happen, maybe a clap of thunder to go with the light.

“I’m glad you’re all well,” Harry says, when no one moves or says anything. “Does anyone know what that was?”

“I think I may know, my lord.”

It’s Corban, his voice so deferential that Harry wants to squirm. But he knows that it makes Corban the most uncomfortable when he doesn’t act like a lord, so he just nods. “Go ahead, Corban.”

“You have a familiar, my lord, don’t you?”

“Yes,” Harry says, a little cautiously.

“Then, with your bond to the familiar plus your bonds to us, you have achieved seven deep, and deeply-felt, bonds.”

“So?”

“Seven is the most magical number in Arithmancy, and some other disciplines, as well,” Theo says. His smile is so bright that it’s a little hard to look at him, and his bond is surging with crystalline surprise and happiness. “I should have thought of this before. Of course things would change once you had seven bonds.”

“But—that can’t happen, or Father would have had the same thing, and he didn’t tell me about it.”

Justin rolls his eyes without saying anything. Harry frowns at him. He’s pretty sure that Voldemort would have said something about such a magical phenomenon just because Harry is his Horcrux and Voldemort wants to keep him safe.

Then again, it’s not like he can exactly explain that to Justin.

“The Dark Lord doesn’t have the same kinds of bonds to other Death Eaters,” Corban says with such care that Harry can feel the way he’s wavering on an internal tightrope, trying to speak the truth to someone he wants to please while also not speaking offensively about his father. “He was never interested in them. He would have had to permit Death Eaters access to his mind and emotions the way you have, my lord. He never did so.”

All right. Harry has to admit that that sounds pretty likely. But he has another question. “Does that mean that I can’t bond any more courtiers? Because I have at least one person who seems pretty interested in becoming one.” He shoots a glance at Draco, who nods at once. His mother must not have written to him to say that she was backing out of that offer.

“No, of course not.” Corban looks surprised. “It simply means that they will be part of a different faction than we are.”

“Faction?”

“You really do need to read the books on Lords and Marks that Neville has,” Corban mutters, and then freezes and looks mortified.

Harry sighs and pushes some more exasperation and gentleness down the bond with Corban. “You know that I don’t mind you criticizing me, Corban, or I would have done something about Justin by now.”

“You would have tried,” Justin corrects him, with a sweet smile and a gleam in his eyes that Harry doesn’t distrust only because they have a bond.

“Thank you, my lord.” Corban clears his throat. “As it is, you will form different groups among your courtiers, ones who can be bonded to each other and share each other’s magic as well as being bonded to you and adding to your protection or asking it of you. They are called factions only because of the terminology of the court. When you add another courtier, that will be the beginning of another group of seven.”

Draco is feeling soft and moldy like disgruntlement, probably at the thought of being part of a different group than his mother is. Theo, on the other hand, is blazing as brightly as the light that consumed them down the bond, so Harry turns to him and asks, “What?”

“This is something that I’ve only read about in legends, my lord.” Theo looks him straight in the eye. “What you’ve done here is something no other lord I’ve heard or known of could have done, not just something different than what the Dark Lord has. You were meant to hold a position like this.”

Harry shakes his head instinctively. “You don’t know what you’re saying, Theo.”

Theo drops to one knee, his head uplifted. There’s pride in every inch of him, Harry thinks, staring, and swallows a little. Theo keeps smiling at him, and he has one hand extended as if he wants to touch the air around Harry.

“I know exactly what I’m saying,” Theo breathes. “And I’m saying that we can use each other’s magic, and defend both each other and you. You’ve given us a gift, my lord. Such a gift.”

“Does that mean that I could have Professor Yaxley’s Transfiguration skill?” Neville asks abruptly. “Only it’s the kind of thing that my Gran thinks I should be good at, and I’m not.” His bond is tentative, and he’s touching the chimera on his arm as if he expects it to take flight and burn him any second.

“Corban. I told you.”

“We should test that right now!”

“I want to test it, too,” Pansy says, although she eyes Theo as if asking him to tone down the enthusiasm. If Theo sees it, he doesn’t bother responding to her. Pansy draws her wand and swishes it back and forth a little. “Shall we?”

“We shall.”

Harry watches in some bewilderment as Corban and Neville and Pansy all turn to face each other, forming a pattern that they seem to move into by instinct, their feet sliding across the floor until they stand in a triangle. Harry blinks, and blinks again, but he can’t feel anything down his bonds with them except excitement.

“What did you do?” Justin hisses under his breath as he comes to stand next to Harry. His bond is filled with spiky judgment, but that’s often the case.

“I didn’t anticipate this!”

Justin starts to answer, but just then, the air between Neville and Pansy and Corban ignites with that same white brilliance that startled Harry when he finished Marking Neville. He flings his hand up over his eyes and starts to stretch his magic towards his courtiers to cover them, but then the light dissolves.

And what’s left is shocked laughter.

Harry stares with an open mouth at the floor in the middle of their triangle. To his relief, Justin is staring as well, his own mouth open a little. There’s a baby goat standing on unsteady legs in the middle of the triangle—no, the duo. There’s no Corban.

“Corban? Is that you?”

The goat, who’s small and black and rather adorable, comes leaping over to Harry and butts him with his head.

“Uh. Change him back?” Corban’s bond doesn’t radiate any distress, but it’s not like they can go back upstairs until their Transfiguration professor is in the right shape.

“Of course.” Pansy’s eyes are shining, though, and she comes over to pet the goat’s head. Corban bleats and butts her, too. “Our apologies, my lord. We should have thought to set up something to Transfigure instead of just directing the energy at Corban. We’ll know better next time.”

“Next time?” Justin asks, his voice a little high.

Pansy rolls her eyes at him. “If you tell me that you’re not already thinking of ways to take advantage of this, Finch-Fletchley, I won’t believe you. You’re a Hufflepuff, not stupid.” And she swans back to Neville, with Corban following in little leaps. Neville looks shocked, but there’s also an expression in his eyes and emotions flowing down the bond that means Harry has to look away for a second.

Justin pokes him. Harry recoils, and Theo glances over, fierce as a falcon. Harry sends soothing coolness down the bond to Theo, and calms Basilisk before she can slither off his neck. “What was that for, Justin?”

“Being a pain in the arse. Do you realize how many people I’m going to have to keep an eye on now that you can share your magic with them?”

“I didn’t plan this!”

“Yeah, yeah. I bet you say that to all the potential Dark Lord followers.”

Harry stares at Justin. Then he asks slowly, “You were—teasing me?”

“Of course I was. Did you think I was serious?”

“You’re judgmental enough for it,” Theo says, who looks as though he’d like to go over and bite Justin himself instead of leaving it to Basilisk to do.

Justin sighs a little. “You have to relax. I’m glad that we have this new unexpected magic to explore on top of the other new unexpected magic Harry produces on a daily basis. I’m glad that I swore myself as his follower already, so that I get to turn people into goats. There, is that good enough for you?”

“Finch-Fletchley—”

Harry turns around as he sees another burst of light from behind him. Corban is climbing back to his feet, sweeping one hand down his robe a little gingerly, as if to test that he has all the buttons and cloth.

“Welcome back,” Pansy says. She’s still beaming. She turns to Draco before Corban or Harry can make any comments. “You have to try casting with someone else, Draco. It’s astonishing and uses just the right amount of power.”

Harry glances at Corban to make sure he’s all right. Corban nods with a small smile on his face. Maybe life as a goat wasn’t that bad.

Harry can think of things he would enjoy about it, actually. No one could make a goat be a lord.

“You are not to be a goat,” Basilisk says “reprovingly, and flicks her tail against his neck. “I would not have a familiar bond to you, and I would be tempted to eat you.”

Harry decides that he’s not going to explore whether she’s serious or not, and glances at Neville. “I do need to borrow those books you mentioned. Seriously. As soon as possible.”

“You got it, mate.”

The Slytherins all twitch a little, probably because Neville isn’t using a title. Justin smiles. Corban is too busy checking whether his wand works to bother with what Neville is saying, Harry thinks.

“Well, let’s get back to bed, then,” Harry says. “Merlin knows what the professors would think if they caught us out now.”

“I could say that I was supervising extra Transfiguration exercises.”

“Sorry, Corban, then they’ll just be suspicious of you, too.” Harry hasn’t missed the sharp looks that McGonagall gives him sometimes. He knows that she doesn’t know he had to anything to do with Snape’s death or driving Dumbledore out of the school, not really, but she looks as if she suspects.

They make their way out of the dungeons, pair by pair or one by one, carefully. Harry and Neville walk alone together to the Tower—except for Basilisk—the way they arrived. Neville keeps touching the Mark on his arm and smiling.

He does whisper, shortly before he and Harry enter the common room, “You said you would tell me how to hide it?”

Harry nearly hits himself in the forehead. That ought to have been the first thing he was thinking of after Neville was Marked, not now, so late in the game and where anyone could have come across them. “Right. Will it to hide, and it will.”

Neville concentrates on his Mark with a fierce expression, and it shimmers and fades. He laughs a little. “Cool. And, by the way, I don’t think you need to feel the way you do all the bloody time.”

“Huh?”

“Self-recrimination. Constant worry and blame. I think it’ll make you less effective at protecting all the people you want to protect in the end.”

And before Harry can say anything, Neville smiles at him, gives the password, climbs through the portrait, and heads up to bed. Harry barely climbs after him before the Fat Lady shuts.

“I don’t drown in self-recrimination all the time, do I?” he asks Basilisk, as he slips into bed and sets up the charms that will prevent anyone from opening his curtains. He has a number of secrets he can’t be surprised with having, especially given that Ron sleeps in the same room.

“Yes, you blame yourself all the time.” Basilisk is curling around his throat.

“I do not.”

“Yes, you do.”

“I do—” Harry cuts himself off, realizing how ridiculous it is to be having this argument with his familiar at one in the morning.

“You do,” Basilisk says, her voice tinged with sleep and self-satisfaction. “So now that you know and you agree, do something about it.”

She goes to sleep before Harry can protest that he doesn’t know what she means, or what he ought to do about it. He falls back with his arms folded behind his head, resting on the pillow, and scowls at the canopy of his bed.

He doesn’t blame himself all the time.

Does he?

*

“This really isn’t going to work,” Ron says, his breath puffing out of him in white clouds that make Hermione swear internally and put up a Privacy Charm around them. It will waver and blur and ought to make the clouds of his breath not visible to any Death Eaters who might be watching out for them.

At least, Hermione hopes so. The purpose of blurring in a Privacy Charm is really to prevent someone from reading your lips. She doesn’t know if it will work the same way with breath.

It rankles her. She ought to have planned for that, ought to have planned ahead. The Death Eater stronghold they’re about to attack is even further north than Hogwarts is.

Hermione takes a breath that floods her lungs with so much air she feels like she’s floating for a moment. Then she takes another. They’re here, and they’re committed. If anything will make Harry see what kind of monster his “father” is, this will. And she and Ron can’t back out now.

It’s about the entire world. Not just them.

“It’ll work,” Hermione says, when Ron starts to open his mouth again and she realizes that she never technically answered his question. “Trust me.”

Ron’s eyebrows go up.

Hermione turns to face the wall of the manor in front of them again. Lestrange Hall. It took some digging to find out where it was, but she and Ron are members of the Order of the Phoenix now, which means that those old records are open to them. And there are lots and lots of records scattered around Grimmauld Place.

It does mean that Hermione’s fallen behind on her regular homework for her NEWT classes while she read about the Order’s battle with the Lestranges that destroyed the Hall’s wards and left it visible. But she can’t worry about that anymore.

Either she’ll have the time to make it up—and Ron will, too—or this adventure will end in her death.

Schoolwork—she can’t believe she’s thinking this—is just unimportant right now.

“Why do you think it’ll work, Hermione?”

“Because you know that the Death Eaters will delight in the chance to take us captive. And you know that they’ll bring us in front of Voldemort the minute they figure out who we are. And he’ll show his true colors then.”

“So we might be tortured to death.”

Without taking her eyes from the dead black building in front of her, Hermione reaches out and squeezes Ron’s hand. He’s trembling, but he keeps standing there. A true Gryffindor. The one best friend she has left.

“We knew that already,” Hermione whispers, as softly as she can, so that fewer white clouds will fly up. “And we agreed that it was worth it. Just think about how many people will die if we lose Harry to the Death Eaters, Ron.”

Ron takes a long breath and then settles himself. “Yeah. You’re right. And we agreed.” Hermione hears him drawing his wand. “All right. Let’s go.”

Hermione turns and flashes him a quick smile. There are lots of words she would say if they had the time, words of care and compassion and gratitude for the way that Ron’s stood at her side these last few trying months.

Maybe words of love.

But there’s no time. She and Ron begin walking towards Lestrange Hall, hand in hand until the point when they need to aim their wands and start using Blasting Curses.

The Order’s records said that the Lestranges fought furiously to defend the hall, and did actually manage to drive the Order away even after their wards were broken. Something, Hermione thinks, is hidden here that they wanted to protect. The Order was planning another assault, but then they suffered a raid that killed or injured a lot of their members, and then, well, Harry killed Voldemort and the war ended. And during this war, the Order’s had too few members to contemplate an all-out assault anywhere.

The Lestranges who broke out of Azkaban might be hiding up here, Hermione thinks. It would make sense. Other than the Order, the magical world appears to have forgotten everything about this place.

Her wand hand twitches. She takes a deep breath. Part of her is screaming that this is an insanely stupid idea, and she needs to drop it and run.

But the rest of her is thinking about that conversation she and Ron had about sacrificing family members. What it would take, what kind of price they would be willing to pay. Ron’s family members are innocent, her parents are innocent, and none of them are as well-equipped to handle themselves in this war as she and Ron are.

Or Harry, if he would pick a side.

Then the black iron gates are before them, and the time to turn back is gone. Hermione swallows air, lifts her wand in time with Ron’s, and launches a Blasting Curse at the same moment he does.

Deep inside the black walls, something mighty stirs.