Chapter Eleven of 'Forgive Those Who Trespass'- The Reasons

[lomonaaeren]

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Chapter Eleven—The Reasons

The next memory that arose made Harry blink in puzzlement. Draco and Richard stood in a room Harry hadn’t seen before, lit with a kind of soft, natural golden light that made him think it had to be on the surface. But when he turned to glance about him, he discovered the light came from enchanted windows like the ones the Ministry had, to show “surface” scenes even though the building was buried. This was still the Department of Mysteries, and they were still firmly underground.

The room was different, though. The walls appeared to be made of wood, not stone, or at least the stone had been covered with wood. Large, plush, expensive furniture occupied every corner except for a faint trail of carpet in the center, which Harry assumed was used to reach the bed and the chairs positioned along the way. There didn’t seem to be a way to reach the end tables and the bookshelves and the large table in the center of everything, however, except by leaning over other furniture. Maybe it had been temporarily disarranged so something could be moved through.

“You said you had something to show me, sir?”

Harry turned back to the central players, reprimanding himself for allowing his attention to wander. He was here for one reason, and one reason alone. He had to understand the motives that had given Draco the inhumanity to rip someone else apart. If this scene could help him understand that any better, Harry was quite prepared to watch every expression and analyze every word spoken.

“Yes, Draco.” Richard’s voice was bluff and hearty. He threaded expertly through the cumbersome furniture, and Harry surmised this was probably his living quarters. He nudged a shelf casually with one elbow, and a book fell neatly into his hand. Harry wondered if he thought that a move more impressive than a Summoning Charm. In one sense, it was. “I wanted to ask you if you’d ever heard of the Remote Vision Spell, and to read you a description if you haven’t.”

Draco folded his arms. Harry thought this must be a memory of a time before anything had happened, before the violation of anything or anyone. Draco’s attitude was puzzled, but not exactly defensive. He did watch Richard closely, however, and move an elbow back now and then—checking the position of his wand up a sleeve, Harry thought, who had often done the same thing himself. “I have. You can cast it and watch your enemies—or your friends, of course—from a distance. But the last wizard who knew how to perform it died in the fifteenth century.”

Richard laughed. “Not so! It wasn’t linked to the knowledge of one particular family line, as the fools who put together textbooks think. There was a corruption in the incantation instead, and so of course the spell wouldn’t work for later wizards. Our researchers managed to correct the corruption, and now we can perform it.” He held the book towards Draco. “The description of the spell doesn’t tempt you at all?”

Draco merely cocked his head, not exactly nodding, not exactly shaking it.

“Perhaps this will, then.” Richard stretched to put the book down on a table across the chair next to him, and then lifted his wand. “Somnium devium de Draco Malfoy!”

The air between Richard and Draco flickered and then turned transparent, as though a misty glass pane had suddenly formed there. Harry narrowed his eyes and leaned forwards. He could see Draco doing the same thing, and felt a brief stab of kinship with him.

Then he reminded himself sternly that the Draco who had felt and done and seen these things was probably gone forever, and retreated into neutrality as much as he could. He would watch, and listen, and observe. Only then could he judge.

“The wizards who tried to use this spell in the past six centuries were using the wrong word for ‘vision’ and the wrong adjectival form of ‘remote,’” continued Richard, as though nothing out of the ordinary were happening. “And they often forgot to include the target of the spell, which would have caused the incantation to fail even if they knew the proper words. No wonder they couldn’t cast it properly!”

Harry wished the cozy voice would shut up. There were figures coming to life in the transparent pane. It resembled a Muggle movie screen far more than did anything else Harry had seen in the wizarding world.

The “screen” took on thickness and density, though, until it really did seem as though a window had opened between the two men and given Draco a glimpse of the outside world. Draco hissed suddenly, and Harry cocked his head to see that his hands had gone white-knuckled. There was no doubt that he recognized the place.

Harry inched to the side so he could see better. He wondered if he would recognize the place, too.

It turned out he did. Narcissa Malfoy stood in one of the rooms of Malfoy Manor that Harry had seen on his extremely brief visit there during the war. She had her head bowed, as though in a reverie or praying. In front of her was a portrait of Draco, as a much younger child. He was playing with a fluffy white dog. Harry stared. He hadn’t expected that Draco’s parents would let him have a pet, unless it was to give him a target to practice the Unforgivable Curses on.

There’s only one person in this room right now whom you know to have performed Unforgivable Curses, and that’s not him.

But then Harry remembered that wasn’t true, either; Draco had put Madam Rosmerta under the Imperius Curse during their sixth year. He took his frustration out in an intent stare at the scene, as if Narcissa Malfoy could feel and flinch from his gaze.

Draco’s mother turned away from his portrait and paced down the length of the room, her head still bowed; now she seemed deeply in thought. But the perspective changed, pulling back instead of following her. Now it clearly framed a window, and outside the window stood a single figure under the shimmer of a powerful Disillusionment Charm. Harry had to squint, but he thought he could make out a dark wand as well as an ash-gray robe.

Draco said nothing. His head was lifted, but his eyes were distant, focused far away. Harry thought it was almost as though he saw nothing of the window at all, or had reduced it to being part of an unimportant dream. When he did focus his gaze again, it was to lean around the window and look at Richard.

“You must have extraordinarily good operatives, to get inside the Manor’s wards,” he said lightly.

“Well.” Richard folded his arms across his chest and nodded his head a time or two, as if they were discussing the sex habits of unicorns or something else that couldn’t possibly threaten Draco. “Consider this. We’ve been researching obscure magic and magical artifacts for seven generations now, and the Ministry gives us everything that it doesn’t know how to handle or what to do with. That might include spells or other magic that could give us an edge over even the most impressive wards, mightn’t it?”

Draco once more swayed on his heels, graceful as a blade of grass moving in the wind, to stare at the results of the Remote Vision Spell. “And you have someone watching her at all times, of course,” he said.

“Of course,” Richard murmured. “And elsewhere.” He cast the spell again, and this time the window changed to reveal a sight Harry knew only too well: the sea-bathed walls of Azkaban Prison. The window carried its viewers quickly through the corridors, only to hover on a cell in which a single prisoner with bedraggled white-blond hair crouched. The guard stooping down to hand him a bowl of mushy food was wearing a gray robe beneath the standard-issue Auror robes.

Harry closed his hands into fists. He was now doubtful that all the Unspeakables had been caught in the trap the Department of Mysteries had become. There were still some out there, fulfilling the purposes of Richard, or another leader. And they might be able to undo anything Harry came up with to challenge Draco’s imprisonment.

It was all so frustrating. Harry knew how he would have felt if it were Ron and Hermione threatened like this.

But when he glanced at Draco, he encountered only that imperturbable mask. Draco even nodded, as though complimenting Richard on the neatness of the arrangements he had made.

“There are others in place, I assume?” he asked.

“Of course,” Richard replied. “Pansy Parkinson, Gregory Goyle, and everyone else noted as being part of your circle in school are watched. Not harmed, of course; never that, as long as you cooperate with the task I ask of you tomorrow.”

“But I don’t really know that the Remote Vision Spell tells the truth,” Draco noted idly, “or that it shows me the present. Perhaps you’ve already harmed my parents. Perhaps you’ll harm my friends at some point in the future, when you ask me to die for you and I refuse.”

Richard laughed. “I assure you, Draco, whatever we ask you to do for us, it will not involve dying.”

Harry shuddered, but the Draco of this memory didn’t seem to realize the implications hidden behind the words. He looked back to the Remote Vision Spell, then nodded. “As you say,” he said. “Perhaps someone can be bound to the maze through his major organs, as you’ve theorized. And torturing him until he dies should be sufficient to fulfill the spell’s requirement for immense suffering.”

“That is what I thought.” Richard banished the Remote Vision window with a wave of his wand and stepped through the air where it had been, to clasp Draco’s shoulder. “I knew I could count on you for good ideas as well as sterling common sense. You’ve always been remarkable for both, Draco.”

Draco glanced up at him with eyes that reminded Harry of a slumbering lion’s. “I like to think so.”

And that memory dropped into darkness, while Harry closed his eyes and tried to recover before the next one approached.

All right. So. Draco had been threatened by the destruction—probably the death, or something worse than death—of the few people he genuinely cared for. Harry himself had been witness to the closeness of the Malfoy family during the war, as well as the way that Draco had been compelled to torture under someone else’s command. It was hardly admirable that he could find the strength of will to cause someone else incredible pain, whatever the reason, but it was understandable, and a solution to the problem of his motives that Harry ought to have thought of earlier.

He became aware that he had not been pushed back into his own head yet. But one memory had been of Draco doing something horrible, and the other vision had explained it. What could remain?

Shuddering, and wondering if he really wanted to know, he opened his eyes to see another unfamiliar room.

Draco sat on a bed in the center of it. Around him stood an array of tables and books, the latter mostly overflowing the tables to pile on the floor; the ones wavering on the furniture looked as if they’d topple over with a strong wind. A single torch flickered near the head of his bed, providing the only light.

Draco sat with his head bowed, his arms wrapped around it. Harry hesitated, then stepped nearer and knelt down so he could see inside the protective circle.

Draco’s face was contorted, his eyes screwed shut, tears trickling slowly from them. He looked more in pain than sorrowful. Harry decided, based on very little evidence except the sudden flash of intuition in his gut, that he was seeing the moments when Draco had wrestled with his conscience, trying to decide if he could go forwards with the torture.

Despite knowing how the contest would end, Harry still watched in fascination. Draco shook his head and muttered nonsense words now and then. Then his voice grew stronger, and Harry could distinguish “no” and “can’t” and “Mother.”

At last Draco sprang to his feet, drew his wand, and ignited one of the books. The pages flared and vanished into a fireball, which Draco quickly caged to prevent it from spreading to other parts of the room. But he did stand there and watch the last bits of leather and parchment become ash, his face the same mask Harry had seen when he lashed the pseudo-horses into motion.

Then he sat down again, tilted his head back, and asked the ceiling rhetorically, “What choice do I have? There’s no one else who knows they’re in danger. There’s no one else who can rescue them, or who even gives a fuck about them.”

He rolled over and was still.

And then there was darkness, and then there was the sensation of being back in his body, Draco still clutching at him with one mangled hand.

Harry stared at him, and the brave man, the tormented man, the tormenting man, ran through his head. He had no idea what to say or do. He had the impression that just standing there like an idiot would hardly help, but the shock and the fear bobbed up and down in his gut, a slick cool ball as big as the communication sphere that hovered beside Draco. He trembled, cold sweat breaking out on his skin, and swallowed twice.

Draco, never taking his eyes from Harry’s face, summoned the communication sphere with a twitch of his free hand, and Harry lifted his wand and floated it over for him, in utter numbness. Draco stroked the facets meaninglessly with the nubs of his fingers for a moment, then tapped the facet that meant What?

“Did you have a suspicion as to what those memories would be?” Harry whispered.

Draco studied him without responding for several long moments. Then he touched the facets to spell out, Torture. I suffered torture in the second Pensieve, did torture in the first. This one? Doing torture.

That was a reasonable guess, Harry had to allow. Reluctantly. “Well,” he said. “It’s…bad. Worse than I could have imagined.”

The light in Draco’s eyes dimmed, and he started to pull away.

Harry caught his wrist to hold him there, babbling, hardly aware of what he was saying or why he wanted Draco to stay instead of retreating. The words spilled out of his mouth like bees desperate to escape from a burning hive.

“No. I saw your reasons and I—I can’t say I agreed with them completely, because in one way it would be nobler to let your friends suffer rather than inflict pain on someone you don’t know, and I know that Ron and Hermione would never forgive me if they found out I made a bargain like that to ensure their safety. But your friends are different. And who else is there to love your family? I didn’t—I don’t know how much of the pictures were real. Does the Remote Viewing Spell show the truth? I don’t know. But I always seem to be suspending my final determination of your character, and I don’t even know why. It’s hard for me, but it’s even harder for you. And I said I didn’t trust you, and I still don’t, not really, but there’s something like pity growing in me. At least I believe you want vengeance on the Unspeakables, or you will, when you see what’s crouching in this Pensieve.”

He cut himself off as Draco put the free hand gently but imperiously over his mouth. Harry had to close his eyes and realize that nothing of what he said made much sense, because Draco hadn’t yet seen the Pensieve. He nodded and stepped out of the way, so that Draco could plunge his head into the liquid.

Harry held his shoulders, vaguely aware that this was the first time Draco had put his head into the bowl instead of simply signaling for the memories to be returned to him. And then he hesitated, as he wondered whether there was more to that than just fear of having those horrors contained in the confines of one’s skull again.

Well, fuck it. Even if there wasn’t an unusual significance to it, Harry could damn well make one up.

He lowered his head and pushed it into the liquid beside Draco’s, joining him. He was just in time to catch the beginning of Draco’s torture of the nameless man—given the state of his robes, probably an Azkaban prisoner.

Draco stood by main force of will, his arms wrapped around himself, shuddering. Harry took a step forwards and embraced him. Draco rested against him without turning around; he seemed determined not to miss a minute of the evil happening in front of him.

As Harry had, he lost control of his stomach. The vomit flopped on the floor of the memory and vanished. Harry supposed his own must have done that, too. He hummed and ran a soothing hand up and down Draco’s spine, watching again as the organs flew to the stone jars on the far side of the room.

It made sense that the Unspeakables would keep them, if they really wanted to use them as links tying their victim to the maze. They hadn’t got rid of Draco’s ribs or fingers, either, though they had transformed them.

Harry’s stroking hand paused for a moment. If everything they took had its part in constituting the maze, what had happened to Draco’s voice?

He frowned and held Draco a little more sturdily when he felt the other man shudder with a soundless sob. Since there seemed to be only one correct path through the maze, they’d no doubt find Draco’s voice sooner or later.

Draco sagged bonelessly against Harry when the pseudo-horses were brought out and bound to the victim. Harry supported him and forced himself to consider different details this time, as he watched it happen all over again. No drugs administered to the man to ensure he couldn’t scream, after all. Nothing that would make the process a whit less horrific or more merciful.

There couldn’t be. The instructions for the immortality maze had called for endless suffering. Harry reckoned this was the way the Unspeakables had tried to secure it in the time before they understood that their prospective victim for the creation of the maze had to be both willing and unable to stop suffering.

That memory faded and took them into the second one. Harry kept his eyes courteously averted from the real Draco’s face. Watching the false expressions the memory-Draco had been forced to put on over his emotions was bad enough. He would give Draco the ability to control who witnessed his humiliation, fear, and wretchedness this time.

Instead, he studied Richard, looking for a sign of remorse or insecurity. If Richard were still alive, instead of caught somewhere and smothered in the trap the way the other Unspeakables apparently had been, then they would have to face him, and Harry preferred to understand as much about his enemy as possible before that happened.

The man displayed no sign of weakness. He kept his eyes fastened on Draco the entire time and spoke like a cheery uncle. His gaze did burn as he watched Draco writhe, trapped, between two equally untenable decisions, but Harry had seen the same expression on Voldemort’s face when he looked at some of his Death Eaters. That just meant that this was someone who had the ability to take pleasure in other people’s pain. It didn’t mean Richard was mad. Harry didn’t think he could be. The Unspeakable was much more dangerous than Voldemort had ever been.

But wait a moment. What had been Voldemort’s ultimate goal? Power and immortality. His longing for both had hardened into a blind fanaticism that drove him past all reasonable limits, past the point of sanity.

Could the same thing have happened to Richard? Could Harry be dealing with someone who was not technically mad, as had happened to Voldemort, because he hadn’t drunk unicorns’ blood or been disembodied or made Horcruxes, but someone who also was a fanatic on the cause of immortality?

If that was so, then Harry thought he might understand his opponent’s mindset after all. And the more he watched Richard, the more subtle clues seemed to come to him from his expression and the slow blink of his eyes and his incredibly light, incredibly pleased voice.

The memory faded into the one of Draco burning the book. And the Draco in Harry’s arms straightened and took on an expression that Harry couldn’t remember seeing him wear before.

He was looking at his past self with longing. Even when the past-Draco incinerated the book, a sign of temper Harry had assumed would bring on shame when it was remembered, his Draco continued to stare, his face softened, his fingerless hands reaching out a few inches.

He wanted to be that person again, Harry thought. That person who could call without hesitation on his own magic, even for something as small and counterproductive as burning a book. That person who had made his own decisions, horrible as they might be, instead of acting and reacting like a victim all the time.

Not a hero, not a villain, not a victim. Harry knew now that Draco hadn’t walked into this trap out of any ambition to match his own stature, and he hadn’t stayed because he was so dark of heart as to love torture. And now Harry had the final confirmation that Draco didn’t want to accept the only role apparently left to him. Draco wanted to be a person, a normal one, free in the ordinary ways, limited in the ordinary ways.

Harry’s heart tolled like a bell, and his arms tightened around Draco.

It was the same desire he had himself.

He wanted, with a desire as heavy as sickness, to be up on the surface again, joking around with Ron and Hermione, avoiding questions of his own sexual orientation when they tried to arise, studying frantically for exams and using Cognosco for no more important purpose than not falling asleep over his textbooks. And he wanted to have a family and a normal love affair with a normal man—

Girl, damn it.

--and to be one of the faceless millions who drifted past each other every day in London’s streets, not longed after except in small, ordinary ways, remembered fondly by some, ignore by the vast majority, important only when he wanted to be or when he had responsibility thrust on him that he decided to rise to.

Draco wanted the same thing.

How could Harry push him away to a distance that rendered him inhuman? How could he pity him forever, or despise him forever?

Part of him melted and was reforged like iron becoming steel in those instants, when for the first time he saw Draco Malfoy with Draco Malfoy’s own eyes.

When they came out of the Pensieve again, he waited for Draco’s eyes to rise to him, and gave a smile that caused Draco to blink and step back a little.

“Do you want the memories back now?” Harry whispered.

Confused, still blinking, Draco nodded.

Harry scooped the first of them up from the Pensieve, but took the chance to trace Draco’s temple with a finger before he planted the strand of silvery liquid.

“I believe in you,” he whispered. “Not in what you were when you joined the Unspeakables, but in the man you became.”

Hope lit Draco’s face like pain.

Chapter 12.

Comments

[lomonaaeren.livejournal.com]

Thank you!

Harry without his righteousness would have almost no self-esteem, I think. He needs that hard more core, however exaggerated and harmful it is sometimes, to support him while he does his heroics.

And yes, Draco will be avenged. Or avenge. I haven't decided yet.