[Broken Glass Series]: Chapter Twenty-Four of 'Glassfall'- Mindwalking

[lomonaaeren]

“I’m sorry, my lord. I wish I brought better news.”

Harry closes his eyes and leans back for a long moment, letting his hands dangle by his sides. He slept mostly uninterrupted, but he did wake up early, partially because Theo’s bond was buzzing with something that he clearly wanted to tell Harry.

He wishes now that he were still back in the warmth of his bed.

“That is a weak wish,” Basilisk hisses to him, coiling around his throat and nudging the skin beneath his eye with the side of her head. “You’re awake now, and you have to deal with what your courtiers want of you.”

“True enough,” Harry hisses back at her, and then turns to Theo. “Thanks for telling me. What do you think the chances are that your father will seek refuge with me?”

“High. The Dark Lord’s told him that he’ll be handing over the Marks to you, and Father—will obey his lord.”

Theo’s voice is a little strangled. Harry regards him, frowning. “Is something wrong?”

“I was just thinking that I’d never do that in his place. Not without arguing with you. And I suppose that highlights the difference between us as well as between our lords.”

Harry gives a smile he thinks is probably humorless. “Well. Thanks for telling me,” he repeats. “It’s better to have warning than not. Although—I still have no idea what my father is doing.”

“My father doesn’t know, either.”

Harry nods. He supposes the best thing he can hope for is that he’ll find out before Voldemort hatches whatever his latest plan is.

“You could send me to spy on him.”

“We couldn’t get you there physically, and Nagini would sense you,” Harry points out. He turns back to Theo. “I’ll attempt contact with my father’s mind tonight. At least there’s the chance that he won’t reject me outright like he would someone else.”

“All right, my lord. Do you want me to stand watch while you do?”

“Yeah, better so.” Harry sighs. “I’ll never be able to meditate the way I need to in the Gryffindor dormitories.”

“Neville wouldn’t stand guard over you?”

“He’d try, but it would be a little obvious. And I wouldn’t get the right peace of mind with Ron there.”

“I thought Weasley had agreed to leave you alone and deal with Justin.”

“Of course, but he doesn’t like it. And he stares at me all the time like a kicked puppy.”

“I could take care of that.”

Harry rolls his eyes at Theo. “You know that I’m never going to accept Ron as one of mine again, but I’m not going to let you attack him, either.”

“If that changes…”

“Yes, of course. You’ll be the first to know, Theo.”

Theo looks viciously pleased. Harry shakes his head. At least it doesn’t take much to make some people happy, even if he thinks that he’ll never be able to do it with Ron and Hermione again, or perhaps with Voldemort.

But tonight, he’ll reach out and try to walk through his father’s mind, not summoning him into a shared dreamscape but investigating his plans.

If he’s able to.

*

“I can’t believe that you just gave in, Ron.”

Hermione bites her lip the moment she speaks. She doesn’t want to sound like a whiny, complaining child. But she does. Her voice is thick with tears, and she reaches up and dashes a hard hand across her face.

“Hermione, please listen to me.”

Hermione shakes her head and burrows further into the book in front of her, which is about defensive spells. Most of the books on wards she tried to read said they couldn’t be set around a Muggle home, but this one is more promising. If nothing else will help, Hermione at least intends to defend her parents and other Muggleborns’ parents and anyone else who wants her help.

“Hermione.”

It’s a huge temptation to slam the book on the table and yell at Ron, but Madam Pince will kick her out of the library if she does that. So Hermione makes herself put it down slowly, while still leaning forwards to glare at Ron. He flinches.”

“How could you, Ron? Was Professor Yaxley really that convincing that you had to become Harry’s slave?”

“Come on, Hermione, it’s not like that. I’m just dealing with someone from his—court while I figure out how to influence him.”

“Instead of fighting!”

“Fighting’s hopeless!” Ron’s voice rises, and a few Ravenclaws at the other table look over at them in irritation. Ron swallows and lowers it again. “We know that, Hermione. Harry’s not going to come back to our side no matter what we do. And the Order won’t help us, either. I haven’t even got a letter from my parents since we came back to Hogwarts. I think they’re incredibly disappointed in me.”

“So you’re surrendering.”

“What kind of fight are you planning to wage?”

“Why should I tell you, so that you can go and report it to your lord?”

Ron gives her a wounded look, but Hermione holds firm. She knows magical history along with the Muggle kind (no thanks to Binns). She’s read all the books, and in some cases, seen it on the telly. She knows that no one wins rights by waiting calmly and tamely for someone else to hand them over. They have to fight, to take them.

Maybe the only kind of fighting she can do right now is purely defensive and dependent on spells that she can cast alone, but that doesn’t matter. What does is that she’s looking into Ron’s eyes, calmly, evenly, and watching him turn away from her.

“You don’t know what you’re missing,” Ron whispers.

“No, I do. Harry’s probably pretty good at making you feel valued and like we never had a fight—”

Ron gives a sharp laugh. “It’s not like that, actually. He’s having me talk to that Muggleborn Hufflepuff who forms part of his court. Told me that he doesn’t want to talk to me about things like this and can’t see me as his best friend.”

Hermione pauses. It’s not the kind of attempting to get them on his side that she thought Harry would do.

But then, he’s proven pretty hard to predict since he found out that he’s Voldemort’s son.

“Fine. Go on, then, and beg for scraps.”

Ron stands up and scrapes back his chair with enough force to draw the attention of the Ravenclaws at the other table again. Then he walks away.

The Ravenclaws glare at Hermione. She glares back, and they decide they have better things to do. Hermione looks at the tome on wards again and tries to pretend that tears aren’t threatening to gather in her eyes.

First Harry, now Ron. I only had two friends, and now I have none. Why does this stupid war take so much from me?

She blinks away the tears and goes back to focusing on ways to protect her parents, the ones who were always there for her.

The only ones she has left, now.

*

“Mother wants to know if she did something wrong.”

“Of course not. Why would she think so?”

“She expected you to call on her before now.”

“Call on her,” Harry says blankly.

Draco doesn’t roll his eyes, because despite what some people think he doesn’t do that in front of his lord, but it’s difficult.

Harry stands in the middle of the ritual room, wearing a fine white linen robe that he didn’t have before—or at least that Draco never saw him wearing. Draco is pretty sure it’s a gift from either the Dark Lord or Pansy, and he isn’t about to pry. Although for all he knows, Corban gave it to his lord.

“Yes, she expected you to call on her to do something. Infiltrate the Death Eaters, perhaps, or pretend to be willing to let your father Mark her.”

Harry shakes his head, brow furrowed. “I wouldn’t ask her to do something like that. It’s too dangerous. And besides, my father is planning to—transfer all the Dark Marks to me, or something. She couldn’t infiltrate the Death Eaters if there are no more Death Eaters.”

Draco feels his breath catch in his throat. “How do you know that?”

“He told some of his courtiers, and Isidore Nott told Theo.” Harry studies Draco for a second with his head on one side. “Is something wrong?”

“Only that I never expected the Dark Lord to do something like this,” Draco whispers. He becomes aware that he’s wringing his hands only when Harry reaches out to still them. “Give away power and influence.”

“Yeah, I never expected it either.”

“And you’re going to go into his mind to figure out why?”

Harry gives him a look of respect that makes Draco’s chest puff out, even though, at the same time, he doesn’t think he really deserves it. “Yes. I need to see if I can spy on his thoughts and find out what he’s really thinking.”

“Legilimency from a distance is impossible, isn’t it?”

“Not for Father. And there’s a chance that I can use the connection between us that allows us to talk in dreams to my advantage.” Harry falls silent after that, his head inclining so that his dark hair sweeps across his face, and says nothing else.

“I’ll guard you while you’re meditating, my lord.”

“I appreciate that, but Theo already said he would do it.”

“Theo can share,” Draco snaps, and then flushes a little when he sees the way that Harry’s eyes widen. “My apologies, my lord. I never meant to sound as if I…can’t share.”

“Well, you and Theo can work that out between you.” Harry works his arms back and forth, as if his elbows hurt. “Now that you have a bond between you, I’m sure that you can talk to each other silently and work out—now what’s wrong?”

Draco flinches, aware that no one, including himself, will be at ease if his lord’s upset, but now he has to say it. “My bonds with the others don’t feel comforting the way that my bond with you does, my lord. With you, it’s as if it’s natural and right that I have a place in your mind. With the others, it feels prickly.”

“Prickly.”

“Like I’m trying to pick up a sea urchin without a glove. Yes, my lord.”

Harry’s mouth unexpectedly quirks, and he reaches out to clap Draco on the shoulder. “It’s all right. You can speak aloud for all I care. But you should make sure that you can work with each other to defend me in the future.”

Draco nods, and then turns and faces the door of the ritual room when it opens and Theo steps inside. Theo frowns when he sees Draco and glances at Harry as if to try and work out what their lord wants.

“Hi, Theo,” Draco says brightly.

“Hello, Draco. Why are you here?”

“Our lord wanted me to be.”

Theo turns to face Harry. “Do you not trust me to guard you, my lord?”

“I think the two of you need to work it out for yourselves, is what I think,” Harry mutters, and sinks down into a graceful crouch on the floor. Draco thinks he can make out a shimmer of movement near him as Basilisk slides off his neck and takes up what’s probably a patrol around him. “Meanwhile, I’m going to meditate. Don’t let anyone disturb me.”

His eyes slip closed, and Draco feels a sudden distance in the bond they share. He blinks and glances at Theo. There’s no need to ask if Theo feels the same thing; Draco can tell it from the bleak, grey discomfort curling through the bond they share.

Draco steps back, making sure to walk quietly, and gestures for Theo to walk with him. Theo does, although he takes several little glances back at Harry before he does so.

“Why did you want to guard him by yourself?” Draco asks, raising a Silencing Bubble behind them so that there’s no chance any noise slips out to disturb their lord. “Surely two wands are better than one if someone does disturb us.”

“One wand is better if it’s willing to cast anything.”

Draco pauses and waits, but Theo’s slammed his mouth closed and is just standing there. Great. Draco gropes for something that might change Theo’s mind and finally alights on, “I can cast Dark Arts just as well as you can.”

“Not the kind of Dark spells that Father taught me.”

“How do you know?”

Theo turns to face Draco, his eyes harsh. Draco shifts uneasily. Well, he supposes that he did sort of ask for unvarnished honesty from Theo.

“Because your parents coddled you,” Theo says. “Maybe not when they made you believe that you had to become a Death Eater, but at all other times. They wouldn’t have asked you to cast the spells that boil the blood, bend the bone, or bruise the inner organs. You’re too soft for that, Draco.”

“They did not coddle me. My father is dead!”

“One doesn’t have anything to do with the other.”

Draco opens his mouth to argue some more, and Theo’s eyes flash. The next second, Draco finds himself pinned to the wall of the ritual room by Theo’s wand digging into the base of his throat. He gasps and squirms indignantly.

“You’ve had a sheltered childhood,” Theo whispers to him. He’s leaning on his wand, and Draco is starting to choke. “And I’ll let you go now because I don’t want to interrupt our lord’s meditation, but it’s true. You’ve had all the treats and sweets and gentleness you wanted. You were able to put off ever casting a truly Dark spell. If it hadn’t been for the Dark Lord forcing your parents to make a choice about who you wanted to Mark you, you probably wouldn’t ever have been part of a court, either.” He steps back abruptly and turns to walk around the ritual room, his shoulders tight.

Draco rubs his throat and scowls, then casts a guilty look at Harry. Their lord is sitting with his head bowed. Eyes probably shut, although Draco can’t see from this angle. At least his breathing is soft and still. Draco doesn’t think they’ve disturbed him.

They still shouldn’t have done what they did, though.

“I love being part of the court,” he whispers.

“Harry’s court. Not the Dark Lord’s.”

“You wouldn’t have wanted to be part of the Dark Lord’s, either!”

“That’s true.” Theo turns around to look at him, his bond with Draco even more prickly than usual. Draco thinks he could actually get hurt if he tried to touch something with spines like that. “But I would have accepted my fate, and I would have been good at it. You’re too sheltered and spoiled to be a part of anyone’s court unless it’s someone like Harry.”

“So what are you saying?” Draco whispers back furiously.

“I’m saying that you should grow the fuck up, Draco.”

And Theo turns around and faces the door of the ritual room with his arms locked behind him, his body completely relaxed. Draco has to stare at his back and clench his hands and say nothing.

And he can’t even remember what the original argument was about—

Oh, right, that he wouldn’t be able to defend Harry as well as Theo can.

Draco scowls and faces the door of the ritual room again. He could so do that. But he doesn’t need to bring it up right now.

He’ll just explain to Harry later that expecting Draco to get used to his bond with Theo is like swallowing poison, even more than it is picking up a sea urchin.

*

Harry sinks into his mind, and down, and down, and down.

The bonds of his courtiers flare with bright, hot radiance throughout his mind, so much brighter than he thought they’d be. Well, all right, the one with Narcissa is dimmer than the others, and the one with Theo brighter, but they’re all there and turning around the center of his mind like blazing stars.

Then there’s his bond with Basilisk, which is more like a river, the way he thinks whenever she sends emotions down it. He touches it now, and she stretches and hisses in his mind, even though Harry doubts she’s stopped slithering around him on the floor.

I am with you, wherever you go.

Harry conceals the way he wants to nod, and instead sinks down and down and down.

And there it is.

The Horcrux.

It’s a knot of black-purple pain, like an enormous bruise on the inside of his soul. It eddies sluggishly back and forth, so in that way it resembles the water that he thinks of as forming his bond with Basilisk. But in everything else, it’s as different from his bonds as it’s possible for it to be.

Harry swallows. Then he reaches out and grasps it.

The shock of pain that travels through him is so enormous it nearly throws him out of his meditative state. Only clinging to Basilisk mentally helps him past it.

I am with you, wherever you go, she hisses to him again.

Harry swallows, and nods, and keeps flowing down the tunnel that has suddenly appeared in front of him.

It’s long, and dark, and dives down and down and twistingly down, until his head is spinning and he’s not sure that he’s managed to go anywhere at all. But then it dumps him into a shifting, reflecting hall of mirrors.

Harry stares around at his own reflection and decides, after a long moment, that this is his father’s Occlumency defense.

Basilisk?

She manifests next to him, her tongue darting out restlessly. For a long moment, she pauses as though taking in her reflection, although Harry doesn’t know what serpentine eyes would really see. Then she turns to him. You must find your way past these mirrors.

Occlumency?

Yes.

Harry nods and starts to make his way forwards.

For a long time, he’s not sure that he can do it. Every path he walks down seems to bend back on itself and guide him towards where he was before, which he can only recognize because Basilisk announces it. But then a new path seems to open, and he walks down it, his head high, his breathing deliberately shallow.

Here it is!

Harry sees it this time, instead of only feeling it, another blue-black-purple twist of Horcrux. He grimaces and reaches out to touch it.

This time, the sensation that rings through him isn’t pain, exactly. Just a giant shock, like touching an electric wire. And then he’s past, and down, and in.

Seeing through Voldemort’s eyes. Thinking through Voldemort’s thoughts.

*

Lord Voldemort steps back from the ritual pentagram in front of him. A brazier shimmers and twists through the flames above it at the farthest corner. A shallow pool of glittering water, almost frozen, at the nearest. And the other three points are blank, waiting for what he’ll put there.

“I don’t like this.”

Lord Voldemort bends down to gently touch his Nagini’s head. She’s sulky, barely shifting the coils of her huge body, wrapping around his legs and doing nothing else. She hardly moves as he touches her.

“I know that you don’t, dearest.”

“Then why do it?” She lifts her head this time, her golden eyes fixed on him. “Why not leave your heir to stand on his own or fall and die on his own? That is the way of nature and snakes.”

“But I am not quite a snake.” Lord Voldemort steps back from her and regards the pentagram once more. He will have to trace the lines again, this time in salt. One reason this ritual takes so long is the necessity of inscribing the pentagram again and again and again, in material after material.

“You could be. And your heir would stand or fall on his own.”

“You don’t like him, Nagini?”

“You treat him better than me.”

“I do not, Nagini.”

“You do.” Nagini lifts her head and winds the first third of her body around Lord Voldemort’s legs. It would hold him in place if he let it. She’s intently focused on him, more than Lord Voldemort has sometimes seen her when hunting prey, and her tongue darts out as if sampling scents from a dangerous enemy. “You have chosen him as the one to carry your Horcruxes forwards. It is disappointing.”

Lord Voldemort bends and smooths a hand down Nagini’s spine. “You know that I am my Horcruxes?”

“Yes.” They’ve had discussions before, when Nagini first began to become aware in the way that a snake cannot be. She knows that his soul is stretched across the Horcruxes, and she also knows that every part of him is himself. If he died and came back to life depending on the locket Horcrux, he would be the same person as if he had come back to life from the diary.

“Then you should understand that I will never die. Never fade, no matter what happens. You will be you, and I will be myself.”

“But if you take your Horcrux from me—”

“I intend to do no such thing.”

Nagini is silent for long enough that Lord Voldemort turns back to reviewing the pentagram. Yes, he thinks that he has the water and fire in the right places. It only remains to choose the three significant objects that represent him. And while he could use the locket—if he retrieved it—and the cup and the diadem for them, he doesn’t think he will. It doesn’t feel right.

“But you will transform,” Nagini says abruptly. “You will not be this man who bends over and pets me now.”

“I assure you that anyone else I might become will still pet you, Nagini.”

“I don’t like it.”

“You will have your Horcrux within you, and maintain your position as familiar to the man I become,” Lord Voldemort soothes her. “I shall still be immortal. But I will have removed the part of me that snaps and lashes out. And denies you food on a regular basis,” he adds, because he thinks she might want to hear that. Surely she will be comforted to know that he’s becoming a kinder, gentler version of himself.

“How can you do that?”

“I have found a way.”

“In this long ritual.”

Lord Voldemort laughs quietly and steps back from the pentagram. He can do nothing more right now, he thinks. It will take more meditation and silent decision-making to choose the objects that should go at the other points. “It is long, isn’t it? But I have a rabbit for you to eat.”

As always, it’s easy to distract Nagini with food.

She slithers away to eat the rabbit, and Lord Voldemort sits down next to the pentagram. Again he enters meditation, and for a moment, there’s a flickering shadow in the clear crystal of his mind. It seems to be darting away from him.

He chases it for a moment, but it vanishes, dancing tauntingly in front of him and then leaping straight up and fading. Lord Voldemort shrugs and turns towards the greater depths of his mind.

He envisions his thoughts as a grey river, and dives in.

*

Harry opens his eyes, gasping.

Basilisk is right beside him immediately, lifting her head and surrounding him with a wall of hisses. “What is it? What’s the matter? I am here. Tell me, and I will bite the threat!”

“This isn’t the kind of threat you can bite,” Harry says softly, and picks her up. His mind is throbbing with what he’s learned, and probably with the same kind of pain that happened when he touched the Horcrux. He staggers to his feet and towards the door of the ritual room.

“I can bite anything!”

“My father is about to try and change himself into a different person. Probably because he thinks that kind of person wouldn’t hurt me. And wouldn’t need the Death Eaters, which is why he’s sending them to me.”

“But you don’t want them.”

Basilisk’s bond is bright blue and green with hopeful confusion. That’s the only way Harry can describe it. He lets her touch his cheek with her tongue and then shakes his head and keeps walking.

“That doesn’t matter to him. He’s doing what he thinks best, and to hell with everyone else. And his being insane doesn’t help matters.”

Voldemort didn’t feel insane when Harry was in his head. But that’s partially, Harry’s certain, because Voldemort doesn’t doubt himself. He thinks of himself as “Lord Voldemort” even in the privacy of his head, for Merlin’s sake. That certainty is insane in all circumstances; people who don’t doubt themselves at least some of the time can’t be reasoned with.

“Then speak to him.”

“That won’t work this time,” Harry tells her, and opens the door of the ritual room.

Theo and Draco spin around, their mouths hanging open. They look like they were arguing, but they shut up the minute they see him.

“My lord?” Theo whispers.

“I know what my father is doing,” Harry tells him. His voice seems to echo weirdly, maybe because he’s speaking aloud for the first time in hours, but he doesn’t care. “And we have to stop it.”

“How?” Draco asks.

“We have to raid his house and prevent him from finishing his ritual.”