Chapter Forty-Two of 'Winged Victory'- In the Maelstrom

[lomonaaeren]

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Chapter Forty-Two—In the Maelstrom

There’s red and black swirling everywhere, and Theo can still hear Harry screaming, and he knows that he has one task to complete, even if he can’t figure out how to do it at the moment.

Shield Harry. At all costs.

He wraps his arms more firmly around Harry, and he reaches out with his magic alone, since he can’t command his wand or his voice right now, to touch the Nott artifacts that he’s carried into the office, besides the ring on Harry’s finger.

He can feel something else tugging on his attention, urging his compliance, but Theo has to ignore it for right now. The Nott artifacts are answering him with surges of energy and magic. It’s like suddenly riding a wild wave that’s looking for a shore to crash on.

He gasps out his command to them mentally. Protect Harry!

Not all of the artifacts were designed for defensive purposes, but luckily, that just means they can contain the offensive magic attacking Harry, too. As one, all that wave turns and crashes against the wall of Dumbledore’s ritual circle.

Theo can see flickers of light and darkness when he opens his eyes. He seems to be holding a lightning storm in his arms and standing on that shore he thought about a minute ago, lashed with wave after wave of looming blue-black magic. He presses closer to Harry and thinks again, Protect him, because he can still hear Harry screaming.

That “something else” tugs on his awareness again.

And now Theo thinks he knows what it is. He turns his head a little, and the silvery fabric of the Invisibility Cloak slithers urgently past his eyes.

Yes, he thinks. You were made to protect the Potter line, weren’t you? Or at least you’ve done it for a long time. Protect him now!

There’s a long sound that seems to drill down into the base of Hogwarts and rumble the stones. Theo wouldn’t be surprised if it actually does. But no flying stones rise up around them. Instead, he and Harry seem to be cocooned in a constantly moving, deep grey world, with the grey descending like mist across their shoulders.

And Harry, finally, stops screaming.

Theo shudders and holds onto him, even as the mist settles further and a metallic voice asks in his head, What would you do to save him?

Anything. Everything.

Theo thinks he’ll have to define that “anything” and “everything,” but apparently he doesn’t. Instead, the mist settles further, and then he can’t see Harry or anything but his own arms stretching in front of him anymore.

He can still feel Harry, though, and there’s still silence instead of screams from Harry’s throat. He holds onto that as the mist presses in further on him, drifts down his mouth, and eddies back and forth in what seem to Theo to be meaningless streams of grey seeking meaning.

It ends before he can think too much about that. Instead, he and Harry are standing in the middle of a dead ritual circle and Dumbledore is bleeding on the floor in front of him, and there are streaks of blood on Harry’s face. He’s still crying. Theo reaches up, his arm clad in the Cloak, and tries to wipe the tears away.

“Theo?”

Harry’s voice is soft and shocked, and Theo pulls him close and rests his chin on Harry’s head. “I’m here,” he whispers. “I don’t know how much good I did, but I’m here.”

“You did…”

Harry trails off, staring at him. Theo feels a deep, uncomfortable squirm in his stomach. Of course he would do what he’s done and more for Harry, but what if Harry hates him for it? Blames him for Dumbledore’s death, if the man’s dead?

“Oh, Theo.” Harry’s voice is soft with concern right now. He reaches up and traces his fingers over Theo’s face. “Your forehead.”

“My what?”

“Theo,” Harry breathes. “You have a scar.”

*

After multiple bouts of charms designed to keep Dumbledore sleeping, multiple destructions of the ritual circle around the chairs to ensure it can’t leap back to life again, and multiple uses of the Horcrux-detecting spell, Theo has to admit that Harry’s right. The Horcrux has transferred to him.

The conjured mirror Theo’s using shows him that he has a lightning bolt scar exactly like Harry’s—or like Harry’s used to be. Harry’s face, reflected in the mirror behind him and twisted with a horrible combination of wonder and guilt, has a pale forehead with traces of dried blood and a red patch like someone was rubbing at it. No scar.

“I never would have asked this of you,” Harry breathes.

But someone did, Theo thinks, remembering the metallic voice in his head. He thinks it was probably the Cloak, or whatever power created the Cloak in the first place.

He shakes his head with a little smile, eyes locked on Harry’s. “You know I would do a lot more than this to spare you having to make a choice about walking to your death or uncovering some impossible way to remove the Horcrux. I love you.”

“And I love you, too. Which is why you shouldn’t have done this.”

To Theo’s deep thrill, Harry’s words still rattle on the edge of Parseltongue. Whether it’s a magical effect or simply because he carried the Horcrux for so many years, Harry can still speak it.

“Can you understand me?” Theo asks, concentrating as hard as he can on a picture of the carved snakes near the Slytherin common room’s doors.

“Theo.”

That word, at least, Theo knows, considering how often Harry’s spoken it into his ear during a lovemaking session. Theo turns and kisses Harry, winding his arms around his boyfriend’s waist for a second.

“We shouldn’t be doing this right here.”

Theo agrees with that, too. He steps back from Harry after a moment and turns to consider Dumbledore as the man lies next to his desk. He knows that his face has gone harsh and cold from the way that Harry leans against him.

“Is he alive?”

“Yes,” Theo says aloud, in English. Even if Dumbledore can understand Parseltongue, he’s unconscious right now. “But I think he might be in a coma.”

He takes a step closer to Dumbledore, Harry coming with him. They have every reason not to want to be separated right now. Theo casts a careful spell on the Headmaster and watches as the runes of the diagnostic crawl across the air. He’s still breathing, but the ring did something to his heart. Theo doesn’t know enough about healing magic to be sure what it is, beyond “damage.”

“He’ll remember what happened.”

“Yes. But we have to get him to Madam Pomfrey and make up a story about a ritual circle backfiring. Even if he wakes up, do you think he’s going to contradict us?”

“No.”

Theo nods, satisfied. Dumbledore could hardly admit that he used a ritual circle to try and kill Harry, or pull the Horcrux out of him, without telling more about Horcruxes and Harry’s connection to Voldemort than he wanted to, anyway.

My connection to Voldemort, now.

Theo grins. He knows exactly how he can use this kind of thing.

*

“And you just found him like this?”

“Once the mess of the ritual circle was cleaned up.”

Madam Pomfrey is hovering over Dumbledore, clucking her tongue as the diagnostic numbers and runes and even some ordinary letters in what look like Hebrew dance around the Headmaster’s bed. “I don’t suppose you can tell me what you saw during the…mess of a ritual?”

“Mostly a lot of colors,” Theo says, shrugging. It’s true, after all. “Red and black, and sometimes they looked like a lightning storm. And at one point I thought I heard a voice speak to me, but they might have just been the magic manifesting in a particular way.”

Harry scowls at him. Theo keeps a calm, innocent face, and Harry finally rolls his eyes and turns away, silently conceding that they can’t have this discussion in front of Madam Pomfrey.

"That doesn't sound like anything I’m familiar with.” The mediwitch ends the diagnostics with a sigh. “Thank you for bringing him here, boys. At least he’s breathing.”

“Of course, ma’am.”

Theo wraps his arm around Harry’s shoulders and turns towards the door of the hospital wing, but then Madam Pomfrey calls after them. “I don’t want to leave Albus yet. Could one of you inform Professor McGonagall that I’d like to see her, please?”

Because she has to take over as Headmistress.

Theo meets Harry’s eyes and decides that it’s a good thing their backs are to Madam Pomfrey, because the glee must be splashed all over their faces.

“Of course, Madam Pomfrey.”

*

“I don’t understand how this happened.”

Theo conceals a sigh. They’ve been back to the hospital wing again because McGonagall insisted on them walking with her and offering “a full report” on the “misguided ritual” that damaged Dumbledore. Now she stands next to the Headmaster’s hospital bed, staring down and tapping her fingers against the heel of her palm in a tell that Theo doesn’t think she realizes she has.

“I don’t think anyone does, Professor.”

Harry is taking over, thank Merlin. Theo steps back and happily fades from the two women’s notice as Harry steps forwards. Those green eyes are all bright and earnest, and of course Harry’s a Gryffindor, so McGonagall at least is prejudiced in his favor.

Merlin, his boyfriend is brilliant.

And the way he’s standing right now allows Theo to look at and admire his arse, which is great, too.

“Professor Dumbledore had a ritual circle on the floor in front of his desk,” Harry explains. “He seemed to think that it would do something to destroy my connection with Voldemort, but he just began the ritual without talking to me about it in detail. It hurt. A lot.” He pauses and shivers. Theo knows he’s swept his fringe forwards so no one else will immediately notice the absence of his scar. “I was screaming in pain, so I don’t know what happened other than seeing the colors Theo mentioned, but when we came back to ourselves, Professor Dumbledore was in a coma.”

“I’d like to see the ritual circle.”

“I imagine you’ll see what’s left of it when you go up to his office, Headmistress.”

McGonagall starts, as though she didn’t realize the implications of Pomfrey’s summons. Then her face crumples and she spends a long moment looking as if she’s about to cry. Theo gives serious thought to leaving the infirmary.

“Yes, I suppose I will,” McGonagall finally whispers, and clears her throat. “Thank you, boys.”

Harry waits to speak until they’re a good distance down the corridor and out of range of any possible eavesdropping spells cast around the hospital wing doors. “Think we should have done more to obscure the circle?” he murmurs into Theo’s ear.

Theo shakes his head. “It was practically destroyed already. And you know that one good thing about Dumbledore’s not trusting anyone else with his secrets is that he probably didn’t leave his ritual notes lying around anywhere for someone to find.”

“That’s true enough.”

Harry abruptly tugs on his arm and leads him sideways into a corridor running off the main one. Theo goes with him, smiling slightly. Harry doesn’t kiss him, though, instead leaning against him and burying his face in Theo’s chest.

Theo gently runs his hands up Harry’s shoulders. Harry is shaking, a fine tremor that spreads throughout his limbs and makes Theo want to curl around him protectively and hiss everyone away like a dragon protecting its hoard. “Harry,” he whispers.

“That shard of Voldemort’s soul is in you now.”

“Yes. It is.”

“I’m so, so sorry, Theo. I never meant for this to happen.”

“I would rather carry it than have you carry it.”

“But that’s not—”

“It’s not your fault, Harry. It’s one of the best results of Dumbledore’s mad ritual.” Theo kisses the top of Harry’s head, the only thing he can see at the moment. “I never want you to blame yourself for this, all right? We couldn’t have known what would happen, going in. And I made the decision to carry it. The situation isn’t any worse than it was when you carried it. We’ll still have to find a way to move a Horcrux out of a living vessel into another one. But we knew that.”

Harry makes a negative noise against Theo’s chest. “Don’t call yourself a vessel.”

“My apologies.”

At least Harry looks up after that, and his face is free of tears. And when he leans in to kiss Theo, it just feels like ordinary desperation, instead of horror and guilt.

Theo will take any emotion from Harry he can, but some are inevitably more pleasant than others.

*

“It went well.”

“You can say that when you also told me that the Headmaster is up in the hospital wing in a coma?”

“Yes. Because we’re not the ones in the coma.”

Professor Sinistra stands at the door of her office, ignoring the way that Harry’s slipped past her to join the other students sitting in the ring of chairs. Her attention is all for Theo, and it’s skeptical enough that Theo smiles and doesn’t try to add some of the joking details that he otherwise might have.

“What happened?”

“He had a ritual circle that I think was intended to guarantee Harry’s loyalty to him at all costs.” Theo isn’t about to mention the Horcruxes outside of an oath-bound situation, and a stronger one than merely using the stars might give them. “But he failed to account for the fact that I would be in the circle with Harry, shielding him, and that I was willing to give anything to save Harry from being affected by the circle. Not to mention the fact that we had Nott artifacts with us.”

“So the end result?”

“His coma, and Harry being free of any enforced loyalty to him or any other spells that the circle might have been intended to cast on him.”

Sinistra peers steadily at Theo. He widens his eyes back, in innocence that isn’t even feigned. He reckons that he can trust her with as much information as he’s given her, since she’s so against the Headmaster, but no more than that.

Sinistra finally sighs and steps into the office with Theo trailing her. “I hope someday you will trust me with more than this,” she says softly, just before they come close enough to the chairs that the other students can hear them.

“Someday, perhaps.”

Sinistra shakes her head and takes her place on one side of the circle. “Today, we’re going to talk about how to seize control of one of the castle’s portraits in a certain part of the castle and use it as a passage to another part,” she announces.

Theo smiles.

*

“Which one do you think we ought to start with first?”

“I don’t think they left any of Umbridge’s cat plates behind, or I would suggest starting with those.”

Harry laughs a little. “But would they count as castle portraits?”

“True enough.”

They’re walking along one of the upper castle floors, looking for a portrait that’s sufficiently out of the way for people not to notice that they’re altering it right away, but also close enough to the main corridors of the castle to transport them somewhere interesting. Sinistra’s emphasized several times that the distance of the portrait from others, or from secret passages, is the main deciding factor in what can be cast on what.

“Harry!”

Theo turns around, hand going to his wand, despite the fact that Weasley and Granger, who are pounding them towards them now, are oath-bound. He’s probably never going to trust them completely.

“Yeah?” Harry asks, raising his eyebrows a little.

“What Professor McGonagall announced at breakfast this morning!”

Theo conceals a grimace. So far, the only ones who knew about the Headmaster’s coma were Madam Pomfrey, McGonagall, Harry and Theo, and Sinistra. But McGonagall had to announce at breakfast that she was taking over as Headmistress and Dumbledore remains in a coma as a result of “unknown enemies.”

She did glance at the Slytherin table when she said that, but Theo doesn’t think she was looking at him specifically.

“Did something—happen?” Granger sounds uncertain, rather than just out of breath from running.

“Yes. It did.”

Theo twitches a little. Harry puts a hand on his arm without taking his eyes from his Gryffindor friends.

“What?” Weasley demands, after a moment or two has passed with the silent staring.

Harry sighs, shaking his head wearily. “Dumbledore decided that he’d lost too much control of me. He had a ritual circle waiting. But he didn’t count on the fact that Theo would be in the circle with me and give anything to shield me.” His eyes glow up at Theo for a moment, and Theo’s face heats up in an irritating way. He wouldn’t want to blush in front of Weasley and Granger if he had a choice. “So the circle didn’t manage to break through Theo’s protection, and the backlash put the Headmaster in a coma.”

“Lost too much control of you?” Granger echoes. She looks a little sick. “He was going to make you into a puppet?”

Harry glances at Theo again. Theo nods. Weasley and Granger have sworn their oaths, so he doesn’t mind them knowing a little more.

“We think he was trying to destroy Voldemort’s connection me,” Harry says quietly. “He didn’t seem to care about what kind of pain it would cause me, or what would happen to me in the end. Merlin, maybe he would have been happy if I’d died. I don’t know for certain.”

Granger chokes and reaches out with one hand. Harry catches it and smiles at her. Theo blinks. It’s the first time he’s seen Harry touch his friends in—a while.

Then again, maybe he regularly does it out of Theo’s sight.

“And the backlash?” Weasley asks, his freckles standing out like scattered drops of blood. “Could he—what happens if he returns to himself?”

“He’s hardly going to admit what he did,” Theo says, taking over so that Harry doesn’t have to keep talking about it if he doesn’t want to. “I don’t think that he’s even written the secret down anywhere, because he’s so paranoid about it and hates telling people the truth so much. He only told Harry and me the truth because we didn’t give him a choice. And maybe he’s communicated it to someone else, too, but they wouldn’t know about the ritual circle or what it was meant to do.”

“Professor Snape?” Granger whispers.

Theo looks at her sharply. She’s let go of Harry’s hand to take Weasley’s. “You think he trusts Snape that much?”

“I don’t know for sure. But a few of the Gryffindors reported seeing them arguing on the edge of the Forbidden Forest.”

Theo nods grimly. That would make sense. Dumbledore’s hold over Snape does seem to be pretty extensive. “Thanks for the warning. But even then, I don’t think anyone could have anticipated the backlash of the circle. Snape might suspect what put Dumbledore in the coma, but he won’t know for certain.”

“Still. Watch your back.”

Theo swallows his hilarity at the idea of that warning coming from Weasley, of all people, and just nods. He has no intention of letting his guard down.

And now, he can also conduct a few experiments on the Horcrux that he might have been hesitant to do if Harry had still housed it.

He intends to destroy the bloody thing before a month’s out, both to get rid of Voldemort and any ideas Harry might have about reclaiming it. If he gets hurt or even dies…

Well. Always better him than Harry.