[Broken Glass Life]: Chapter Eighteen of 'Glassfall'- A Lord's Duty

[lomonaaeren]

“Sirius?”

Sirius cradles the communication mirror in his hands. Harry has been calling him now and then, since Sirius showed him the spell to repair his mirror. But he’s never sounded this upset, this—devastated.

“I’m here, Harry.”

Harry’s face in the glass is pale and tear-stained. Sirius feels his killing urge stirring. He wants to hunt down the enemy who caused Harry this level of distress and tear their throat out.

But he thinks Harry would have already told him if that would help. So instead he sits behind the locked door of his bedroom in Grimmauld Place, with wards all along the corridor to warn him if Dumbledore or someone else in the Order draws near, and says helplessly, “Kiddo, what happened?”

“We found Lucius Malfoy. Draco and I.”

“Where?” Why would you have been looking for him in the first place? Why would anyone want to find Lucius? But Sirius doesn’t say that, not when Harry is leaning back against his bed curtains and blinking as if he’s about to cry any minute.

“He’d been sent on some kind of mission from Voldemort. Draco got worried when he didn’t return. I used a bond through the Mark on Draco’s arm and then Draco’s blood to locate him—”

“That could have been dangerous,” Sirius can’t help interrupting. Harry gives him a mild glare. But Sirius watched this particular kid take his nappy off and run away naked like it was the most hilarious joke. He leans forwards insistently. “You could have ended up in the same situation that killed him.”

“I know. I don’t plan to do anything like it again, Sirius. It’s just—Draco needed to know.”

Harry looks as though he’s hunched in on himself, and Sirius doesn’t want to make him feel worse. He relaxes with a long sigh. “Okay. So you found him?”

“Yeah. And sort of the situation that killed him, but I suppose—the defenses didn’t trip for us for some reason.” Harry sounds like he has an idea what that reason is, but Sirius lets that go, too. “Draco was—devastated. And then something else happened.”

“Yeah?”

“I called Kreacher—I know you don’t like him, Sirius, but I had no idea where we were, and I had to get Draco and—the body back to Hogwarts. He showed up and started crying about how he’d been there before and it had something to do with Master Regulus.”

Sirius feels the name as an unpleasant jolt under his breastbone. “What kind of situation was this, exactly, Harry?”

“A cave with a lake. The lake was filled with Inferi. They—partially ate Lucius’s body.”

Sirius closes his eyes. He has some idea now how his brother died, and the thought makes him want to vomit.

But he keeps his voice soothing. “So Kreacher knew. And he was able to bring you back to Hogwarts?”

“Yeah. I—Sirius, what am I going to do?”

“It sounds like you did the best you could in a tough situation. I’ll handle Kreacher and figure out what happened with the cave and Reggie, if that’s what you’re worried about. I’d handle a lot more than that if you’d let me.”

Harry only shakes his head and shrinks into himself. “I didn’t mean that, Sirius. I meant—my father.”

“Ah. Because he sent one of his court on a suicide mission?”

“I don’t know if it was meant to be a suicide mission. But it ended up that way. And you don’t condemn your courtiers that way, Sirius. You just don’t.”

“I’ll take your word for it.”

The joke falls flat as Harry stares at him desperately from the mirror’s surface. “It’s impossible to just act on my own anymore without considering the effect it has on my courtiers through our bonds. And I know that the Dark Marks are more enslaving, and the Death Eaters have been bound to Voldemort for longer. How could he possibly ignore that? Why doesn’t he honor them?”

Sirius shakes his head. He doesn’t know anything about lords. He never once wanted to take a Mark or serve one. But he wants to comfort Harry’s obvious distress. “Are you going to talk to him about it?” he asks, barely avoiding a choke at the thought of Harry confronting Voldemort. “Maybe that would make you feel better.”

“I have to talk to him about it.”

“But?” Because Harry still looks depressed.

“I don’t know what he’s going to say. I don’t know what he could possibly say to justify something that was all but the murder of a courtier.”

“I’m sorry, Harry. I wish I could be there to hug you.”

Harry gives him a tremulous smile. “I know. I’m so sick of all the hiding and the secrecy. I hope that it’ll be done soon, and we can just walk side by side and out in the open like I want to do.”

“I swear we will.”

Sirius places his hand flat on the glass, despite the fact that doing that covers up most of Harry’s face. Harry reaches back, and Sirius pretends that he can feel a warm palm against his. At least Harry takes a breath and seems a little better for the gesture.

“I’m going to speak to him,” Harry says. “And I do want to introduce you to him, but I don’t think it should be at the same time.”

Sirius smiles in spite of himself. “No, I think we’d better wait.”

“Thanks, Sirius. I love you.”

Sirius barely has the time to murmur it back before a ward twinges, and then someone is pounding on his door. At once, he waves to Harry, covers up the mirror, and turns around, shaking himself as if roused out of sleep. “Whazzit?” he calls, scrubbing a hand through his hair and blinking and squinting. It’s more a convincing act to put that memory at the forefront of his mind in case Albus tries to read it with Legilimency than anything else.

“Sirius, we must talk at once.”

Yeah, it’s Albus, but at least he sounds more interested in his own affairs than possibly reading Sirius’s mind, or what Sirius was doing a short while ago. Sirius shambles over to the door and opens it. “Huh?” he asks.

“Ron and Hermione have vanished.”

Sirius blinks and blinks again. It helps that his performance can match the emotion he’s really feeling right now. He drags his hand over his eyes. “Vanished?” he asks. “How do you know?”

“Ginny contacted me by Floo. She seemed extremely upset.”

“Did she say how she knew?”

“They disappeared yesterday evening, and haven’t returned yet.” Albus gives him a chiding glance. “I know that you’re mostly focused on Harry, Sirius, but you have to remember that other Order members can be in danger.”

See, this is what happens when you let children be members of the Order.

Sirius really wants to say something like that, but he also isn’t interested in an argument right now. He pads after Albus into the kitchen, where other Order members are already arriving. Molly is first, naturally, looking agitated and waving her arms around. Sirius mutters soothing sounds and turns to watch as Kreacher pops in.

He starts making tea, but in a subdued fashion. Sirius watches him closely, and gets a hateful glare for his trouble.

All this time, Sirius never thought that Kreacher would know something about Regulus’s final end. Well, he was the one who reported Reggie dead, but Sirius didn’t think much about that. He only heard that secondhand, anyway, since it happened after he’d run away to the Potters’. Maybe it was wrong.

“What are we going to do, Albus?”

That’s Molly. Well, of course it would be. Her son is one of the Order members missing. Sirius turns around in time to see Albus offer Molly a gentle, sympathetic grimace.

“We mustn’t leap to any conclusions, Molly. We’ll have to track them down.” He turns to Ron’s sister, Ginny, who’s huddled at the table beside her mother. “Is there anything you can tell us, Miss Weasley? Any conversation that you might have overheard them have, or anyone who might have approached them, whether or not it seemed significant at the time?”

Ginny takes a deep breath. Her hands are shaking, her tears are glistening on her lips and eyelashes, and yet—

She’s lying about something, Sirius thinks, taking a deep whiff. It always irritated James how easily Sirius could sniff out deception once he mastered the Animagus transformation, and it’s only become clearer since he came back from death. But why? She can’t want her brother and friend to get into trouble.

“I don’t know,” Ginny whispers. “I know that they were spending a lot of time whispering in corners lately, but they’ve done that since—Harry betrayed us.” She glares at Sirius for a minute.

Sirius just sits still. This isn’t a situation where protesting will do any good, and he doesn’t think that Ginny Weasley is someone Harry’s particularly upset about losing.

Ginny sniffles and glances away from Sirius again a minute later. “I know they were really upset about Harry betraying us,” she repeats. “And I think—they might have—they might have wanted to do something that would—attract his attention? Attract his attention and expose the rottenness of the Death Eaters.”

Albus frowns a little. So does Sirius, wondering what truth she can be concealing and what she’ll gain by doing it.

Molly leans over and stares piercingly into her daughter’s eyes. “Ginny, do you know something?” she whispers. “You have to tell us if you know something. I know that Ron might have made you swear an oath or something of the kind, but we have to know.”

Ginny stares at her, then shudders abruptly and puts her hands over her face. From behind her hands comes the sound of quiet crying.

Well, that didn’t take long. Sirius is glad that he didn’t have to be the one to speak up.

“All right,” Ginny whispers. “They didn’t make me swear an oath, but they did want me to wait a while to tell people.”

“What did they do?”

Ginny shudders again at her mother’s tone, and lowers her hands. “They were going to attack a Death Eater stronghold,” she whispers. “They thought they would get captured or tortured, and they thought that would finally make Harry do something. Why is he sitting back and doing nothing? Doesn’t he know how bad You-Know-Who is? It shouldn’t matter that they share some blood!”

Sirius closes his eyes.

They’re dead. Well, either that, or they’re going to go through the kind of experience that means they’ll never be the same. Those stupid kids.

“Ginny! How could you go along with this—”

“Because no one is doing anything!” Ginny yells, rising to her feet with her fists clenched. “We’re just all going to sit back until, what, You-Know-Who murders every Muggleborn in Britain? Until he takes every Death Eater out of Azkaban? Until he lures Harry close enough to kill or turn him? Why is everyone just sitting around?”

Sirius can’t help shooting a glance at Albus, who looks stricken. Good. He deserves to. He’s the one who’s been endlessly encouraging these children to get involved and run around doing Order business. It’ll be his fault if two of them have managed to martyr themselves.

“Because You-Know-Who isn’t attacking right now.” Kingsley’s voice is deep and gentle. “We can’t make a move until we know for sure what his next one is.”

“Then the Order is just a reactive organization?”

“That’s what we’ve generally been, yes.”

“Then we need to go further!” Ginny steps forwards with her eyes burning. “We need to make sure that people understand us, and respect us, and stand up against You-Know-Who, especially if we’ve lost Harry. We need to recruit more people, and we need to drive them into stronger actions against the Death Eaters—”

“Young lady, we’re not going to forget about the fact that you hid your brother and your friend going off to sacrifice themselves.”

Ginny wilts the instant Molly turns her attention back to her. Sirius thinks it’s the right time to clear his throat and lean forwards. “What Death Eater stronghold were they going to assault? Do you know?”

“Lestrange Hall.”

Sirius blinks. He’s heard of Lestrange House, which was the place where Rodolphus and Rabastan’s mother lived until she died, but the name “Lestrange Hall” only tugs a faint thread of memory for him.

Albus, on the other hand, has an ashen face. “The site of our battle in the first war,” he whispers. “That battle where we broke their wards but ultimately had to retreat, because they unleashed a dragon against us.”

“A dragon?” Arthur whispers, looking ashen in turn.

“Not a true dragon. A construct of smoke and fire. But still extremely dangerous.” Albus turns to Ginny, every trace of kindness or hesitance vanished from his face. “How did they learn about this? Tell us the truth, Miss Weasley.”

“They went through Order records,” Ginny says. She has her arms folded now, and only the traces of the stubborn expression on her face. Sirius supposes that Albus being the one to ask the question overawes her. “They thought it was a place that—would get them noticed, but wouldn’t get them killed right away.”

“We must act at once,” Albus says. He’s still good at making his voice ring through the room and snap everyone to attention. Even Sirius has to fight the temptation to do so. “Arthur, if you would try to bring Tonks and Sturgis here? And Andromeda Tonks, if she will come. We need a Healer—”

“She might have questions about why I’m alive,” Sirius drawls.

Albus stares at him blankly for long enough that Sirius thinks he’s forgotten the little matter of him coming back from death. Then he shook his head. “Of course. I hope that you’ll be able to explain it to her, Sirius.”

Oh, this is better than Sirius hoped for. Yes, he’ll explain the matter, and he’ll see which way Andromeda wants to jump.

He’s been pretty good at predicting his cousins ever since they were little kids. Time to see if that skill will hold up.

And to see if she can help them rescue Ron and Hermione, for two reasons. First, Sirius doesn’t think that they deserve to be tortured to death, no matter what they’ve done.

And second, this way, there’s no chance that they can be used to manipulate Harry, the way that Sirius thinks the Lestranges might try no matter what Voldemort’s said about not using his son.

*

“You’ve been upset all day, my lord.”

“You know from Draco that we found his father.”

“Yes.”

Harry says nothing more for long moments. Theo leans on the walls and watches him. They’re in a corridor on the seventh floor, not far from the staircase that leads to Gryffindor Tower. Theo is watching to make sure that no one disturbs them as much as he’s watching his lord’s face.

The bond gives him a fantastic picture of what Harry’s feeling. At the same time, there are so many emotions twisting through it right now that Theo doesn’t know if he can separate or understand all of them.

“He got chewed on by Inferi before he died,” Harry whispers.

Theo brings his mind back from the task of trying to sort out the purple and red and deep blue in the bond. “Draco didn’t tell me that. I’m sorry you had to see it, my lord.”

“My feelings are nothing next to Draco’s.”

“When it comes to mourning Lucius Malfoy, of course not.” Theo takes a slow step forwards. He’s pretty sure that Harry’s familiar is around his neck, since he’s seen Harry’s hand rise to stroke the air now and then, but the last thing he needs to do if she isn’t is step on an invisible venomous snake on the floor. “But that doesn’t mean that what you feel isn’t important, or that we shouldn’t talk about it.”

“What is there to talk about?” Harry glances at him, his eyes bright and wide and hectic. “My father condemned a member of his court to death.”

“Well, my lord. We could talk about that.”

For long moments, he doesn’t know if Harry will. His eyes shut, and he stands there with his hands clenched in front of him. He looks as if he wants to reach out and wring someone’s neck. Theo wishes he could bring one of the people who deserve that within Harry’s reach.

“You were the one who told me about the bond between the lord and the courtiers,” Harry whispers. “Corban was the one who told me that my father doesn’t feel it the same way. So I knew that. I wasn’t surprised by it. But still—the way that Father just ordered one of his courtiers to his death, and doesn’t even care enough to investigate it?”

Theo sighs. He should have known it would be something like this. “I think it’s been a long time since your father felt a true lord bond with his courtiers.”

“What about your father?”

“What about him?”

“Does he feel that bond?”

Theo pauses. This is the kind of thing that he and Father only talked about indirectly, with circuitous words and plausible deniabilities, in all the years before the Dark Lord returned. And since then, the only information Theo received for a while was given him under the impression that it would be the Dark Lord who Marked him.

Father was very careful to say nothing that would discourage Theo from pursuing that course of action.

“I don’t know,” Theo says, when he becomes aware that Harry’s turned to frown at him. “Father’s a private man, and he also didn’t want to make me think that the Dark Lord was uncaring with the lives of his people.”

Harry’s face tightens. “So the bonds that tie him to those people might be broken. Or they might not be the kind that I have.”

Theo has to laugh a little. “My lord, the kinds of bonds that we have are nothing like any other lord’s in recorded history. Your ability to create groups of people who can use each other’s magic proves that.”

“But I thought it would be something like.”

Theo shrugs. “I don’t know for sure. I do know that my father and the Lestranges are valuable to your father. I would have said that Lucius was, as well, but perhaps his error in second year was too great.”

Theo doesn’t know all the details of that error, but he knows it was grave, and that Lucius was punished for it.

“Then he should loathe me, too.”

“Who? Your father?”

“Of course. I was involved in what happened then.”

“He would have known that you were young, and not in a responsible position the way he had trusted Lucius to be,” Theo murmurs. His thoughts race ahead to another conclusion he’s not sure he should speak: He would never give you the same status as Lucius. You’re his son.

“Say it, Theo.”

“My lord?”

“Say it, Theo. You’re wrinkling your nose, and you usually do that when you’re considering holding something back from me for my own good.”

Theo closes his eyes and shakes his head. Yes, never in his imagination could he have pictured himself having conversations with his future lord like this.

“Very well, my lord,” he says. He concentrates on the bond in his mind as he speaks, feeling it boil and stir and toss back and forth. Well, it can do that. The important thing is that he needs to calm Harry down and get him thinking instead of reacting. “Your father values you so much that I think you could try to kill him and he would forgive it. You should remember that. You can’t compare yourself to Death Eaters or other people. You’re the center of his world.”

“What?”

Theo opens his eyes and turns to face Harry. “You honestly didn’t know that?” he asks. “The rest of us have known it since we saw the way he looked at you when you were Marking us.”

“What way was that?”

Theo decides that he might as well test something he’s been curious about, and tries to send an image from his memory through the bond to Harry. Harry grunts a little and rocks in place on his heels as if shocked.

Then he says, “His face did not look like that.”

“What did it look like, then?”

“Terrifying.”

Theo cocks his head. “He can be terrifying and still proud of you. In fact, I think that’s probably the default way he looks.”

“But he—in that memory, it looks like he dotes on me.”

“He does, my lord.”

Harry stares at him in disbelief.

Theo feels his lips twitching. In truth, it’s not funny, not really. But at least he can correct a misapprehension Harry has before it goes further and maybe starts affecting the way he acts towards his father. “There’s no one else I know who could have got away with attempting to kill the Dark Lord, or at least so fiercely resisting him, and still be welcome inside his home. He bought a whole new house for you, when he’d been content to dwell in Malfoy Manor and be close to his court until then. He let one of his own Death Eaters go to serve you, when I know that he’s killed people for even suggesting that in the past. He hasn’t attacked anyone since you revealed yourself.”

“He killed my relatives.”

Theo struggles to hold back his instinctive response, which is that Muggles don’t count. From the way Harry’s eyes harden, he can hear, or feel, it. Theo finally sighs and says, “Because they tortured his son. He hasn’t done it to anyone else, though, has he?”

Harry frowns fiercely at him and doesn’t answer.

“He hasn’t,” Theo says. He lets his eyes cut towards Harry’s neck. “He even gave you a familiar, and that’s not the kind of thing that almost anyone else would do. He surrendered us to you, and he’d been talking about Marking his followers’ children for years. Especially because Draco and I are children of his courtiers, not just ordinary Death Eaters, he never would have done that for anyone else.”

“He gave you and Draco and Basilisk to me so that I would have people to care for, and he could use you as chains on me.”

“That was one part of his motivation. Not the whole.”

“How do you know?”

“Because of what I’ve seen on his face that you haven’t.”

Harry closes his eyes and stands still for a long moment. Theo waits. He can understand how much Harry must be struggling with this. He seems to have extended some trust and understanding to his father, and now he feels that the Dark Lord has betrayed him.

Theo, having been raised by his father and having some understanding of the delicate dance of family loyalties and service to a lord, knows better.

“You really think he loves me?” Harry whispers at last.

“I’m sure of it, Harry.”

Harry opens his eyes. His smile is a little watery, but real. “Then you think that I could go and ask him about what happened to Lucius, and why he did it to someone who had sworn an oath to him, and get an honest answer?”

“You could. Although you might have a more productive conversation if you put it in different terms.”

“What terms are those?”

Theo smiles.

*

“Welcome, my son.”

Voldemort sounds excited, striding towards Harry and clasping his shoulders while gazing earnestly into his eyes as if he’s been waiting for him. Harry shivers a little and stares up at his father.

I don’t want to have this conversation.

Harry realizes that with the force of the Hogwarts Express slamming into him. He really doesn’t. He wants to talk with his father and see the love that Theo spoke of shining out of his eyes and accept that he has a position in Voldemort’s life that no one else does.

But what he wants has no standing against the debt that he owes his courtiers, and even Lucius Malfoy, who wasn’t his but belonged to his father and deserves better than he received.

“What is it, Harry?”

“I have to talk to you about something.”

“Then by all means,” Voldemort says, releasing his shoulders and flowing away to the white chair that’s appeared on the other side of the dream room, “let us begin.”

His eyes have cooled and his hands are twitching as if he’d like to reach for a wand. Harry knows that these are bad signs.

But he didn’t come here for nothing.

He begins.