Chapter Twenty-One of 'Mansions of a Monstrous Dignity'- A Cure

[lomonaaeren]

Chapter Twenty.

Title: Mansions of a Monstrous Dignity (21/21)
Disclaimer: J. K. Rowling and associates own these characters. I am writing this story for fun and not profit.
Pairings: Harry/Draco, Lucius/Narcissa
Warnings: Violence, angst, gore, torture
Rating: R
Summary: Alone in the cursed house that’s the only place that will shelter them, Harry and Draco labor to prove their innocence, get revenge on Draco’s ex-parents, and earn their jobs as Aurors back. But not without quarrels and danger, of course.
Author’s Notes: This is the fourteenth fic in the Cloak and Dagger series, about Harry and Draco as Auror partners who hunt down Dark wizards. This follows "Invisible Sparks", Hero's Funeral, Rites of the Dead, Sister Healer , Working With Them, This Enchanted Life, Letters From Exile, Writ on Water, "Evening Star,", The Library of Hades, "There Was Glory", A Reign of Silence, and "Dictionary of Losses". You should read those fics before tackling this one. This fic will probably be somewhere between 15 and 20 chapters.

Chapter One.

Thank you again for all the reviews!

This is the last chapter of Mansions of a Monstrous Dignity. Next week will be a one-shot, called “The Horn That Was Blowing,” followed by a longer chaptered story.

Chapter Twenty-One—The Cure

Draco turned to face his mother, still restrained on the fake altar with the charms that he had cast on her before joining the duel with his father. His heart pounded, slow and serious, and he had to keep himself from biting his lip. He wondered if they should have brought the real altar after all, to make sure that their ritual had real power behind it.

But he shook his head as he thought about that. Since the original ritual to pollute his mother with the Blood Cobra’s venom had been performed on that altar, memory-echoes of it might have popped up, the stone remembering what it had been used for, and that would have hindered more than helped.

He thought he knew how to perform this ritual. Thought. He was not certain.

But it made sense that, if one had become twisted through some sort of ritual, performing the ritual in reverse ought to undo the damage. Unwind it back, Draco thought, tapping his wand against his palm until he noticed his father watching him and stopped. Pour the blood into its original container. Cleanse the blood that had been mixed with the blood of an alien species.

“How do you want to do this?” Harry had moved forwards to his shoulder and spoke into his ear, gently, so that Lucius wouldn’t hear.

Draco waved an idle hand, and then smiled at Harry and knelt down beside the altar. He knew the way he had to begin, although he suspected it would anger his father: he had to check the strength of the binding charms that held Narcissa in place.

“What are you doing?” Lucius asked, as Draco had expected. He stood off to the side, not trying to interfere, but he shifted as Draco looked at him, to try and see everything they were doing.

“Making sure that she doesn’t move around during the procedure,” Draco said crisply. It made it sound official, he thought, to call it a procedure, even more than if he had named it a ritual. "She didn’t during the official transfer of blood, did she?”

His father folded his arms with a frown and watched them for a moment. “She did not,” he said at last, his voice so thick and reluctant that Draco relaxed a little. That was the familiar tone that Lucius had used to use to consider any idea new to him, like the idea that Draco had presented him with when he turned twelve, that his father should buy new brooms for the Slytherin Quidditch team the next year. “But they managed it without binding charms. She held still.”

“I find it hard to believe that they didn’t do something so she wouldn’t flinch in pain and interrupt all their work,” Draco said dryly.

“How dare you imply that my wife would flinch—”

Harry glided between them. “Mr. Malfoy, does it matter what we imply, as long as we heal your wife?” he asked wearily. “I thought that you had agreed to give us the chance to cure her.”

Lucius stood so still that his body seemed emptied of life. Then he inclined his head in a curt little nod, a bob so brief that Draco might have missed it if he didn’t know his father. From his blinking, Harry had missed it.

“Do what you must,” Lucius said harshly, and turned away.

Draco swallowed and looked at his mother again. She was breathing softly, but not struggling against the bonds anymore. Draco thought she might not know they were there. She had seemed less than conscious ever since the scar climbed away from her body, which would make sense if it was intimately connected to her, both mind and soul.

“What spell do you want me to use to burn the scar?” Harry asked, his voice the portrait of calm professionalism.

“The hottest one you can,” Draco said, barely moving his lips. He didn’t think that his father would be impressed with their professionalism if he could hear the substance of Draco’s conversation with Harry. “It’s a magical thing, and part of her. I—don’t even know if it can be destroyed without harming her.”

Harry reached out and put a hand on Draco’s shoulder. He held him so firmly that his arm didn’t even tremble, and Draco blinked quickly because he couldn’t afford to close his eyes right now. “We’ll manage.”

“You mean you will.” Draco had to point that out. If Harry was expecting help with burning the scar, Draco wouldn’t be able to give it.

“I mean we,” Harry said. “You have your part, and I have mine.” He gave Draco a fleeting smile, and stepped back, turning to face the ritual circle of blood he’d drawn in which the scar was trapped.

Draco rose to his feet and nodded remotely to Lucius. The skills that his parents had drilled him in would stand him in good stead now, to preserve his expression and make it seem as if he had no doubts. Draco knew how often his father had used those particular skills to mask uncertainty, but now, the intimate knowledge only flowed one way.

“We will need space,” Draco said. “If you will stand back, please.”

Lucius gave him a long look before he did. He was suspicious. Draco restrained himself from a shrug with some effort. Well, Lucius should have backed away before now, and maybe his mother would already be cured.

If we can do it. Draco hadn’t known what had happened to her before his father told the story, and he wasn’t sure that reversing the ritual would be either enough or as simple as he made it sound.

But he settled his shoulders and nodded to Harry. Harry nodded back, and lifted his wand.

This was all either of them could do, functioning on the same strength, working with the same soul.

And Draco let himself glide forwards into the first spells.

*

Harry turned towards the scar, his wand already feeling heavy in his hand. He thought he knew what he would have to cast, but it would take a lot of energy, and even then, he wasn’t completely sure that he would have the strength needed to burn a magical being that was a thin line of shadow.

Not even shadow, power, Harry thought, staring at the scar as it began to slither around the inside of the circle. That, and maybe skin. It had been part of Narcissa’s body in the way that the Dark Mark had become part of Draco’s, but perhaps it was an even stranger relationship. As far as Harry knew, the Dark Mark had never got up and tried to run away.

On the other hand, he hadn’t ever spoken Parseltongue to the Mark on Draco’s arm, either…

And this is putting off what you know you need to do.

Harry grimaced and held out his wand, above the “wall” of the ritual circle. Once his magic crossed the boundary, the scar could do the same, which was a great argument in favor of getting this right the first time. “Conflagro.”

The flame broke from his wand in a pattern like a firework, reaching arms that aimed straight for the center of the scar. But the blood circle broke in the same second, and the scar flipped itself in the air, away and back from the reaching flames, and then raced towards Harry as fast as a cobra.

Harry spat Conflagro again, and surrounded himself with a circle of fire. He wondered if the scar could jump that, too, but it didn’t seem inclined to try. Instead, it circled around the edge of the ring like a deadly shadow, eyeless head always aimed straight at him.

Lucius said something derisive, or so Harry assumed, from beyond the barrier. When was Lucius ever not derisive towards Harry?

That didn’t matter. What mattered was burning the scar, destroying it before it destroyed him, and keeping his promise to the Malfoys—and more importantly, to Draco. Harry wouldn’t be here if Draco hadn’t wanted it.

Can you do it?

Draco had asked the question without words, dropping Harry straight into the middle of this situation. Harry smiled, grimaced really, and the scar paused for a second, head lifted towards him, twisting back and forth. Harry breathed out, and with his breath came the next incantation, the stronger, Darker spell that he had held back before now.

“Flamma animae.”

The fire took shape in front of him, above the intense burning that the Conflagration Curse had caused. It was a little spark of blue at first, and then formed into the shape of a candle-flame, and it turned white, and the most brilliant point of fire Harry had ever seen was hovering in front of him. Harry nodded. Then he glanced at the scar, and the floating point turned with him.

He focused on the scar, sending the silent command to the white flame along the temporary bond they shared—a bond of will. What he wanted, the flame wanted, for as long as it existed. Burn it up.

The white flame glided out, moving slowly until it had floated away from the Conflagration Curse. Then it darted down.

The scar reared to meet it. For a second, Harry thought he saw the wisp of a forked tongue sticking out the end of it, but it was so sudden and savage that he couldn’t be sure. Then the flame and the scar clashed, and that was the beginning of the end.

White fire lined the scar from end to end. It looked less like a shadow now than a dark window into some brighter world. Harry held his breath as they wrestled, flame and shadow. He wasn’t sure that even the Soul of Flame spell was Dark enough and strong enough to destroy this piece of ritual magic, but he thought it had a good chance.

Slowly, the scar began to shrink, writhing all the while in protest. Harry hissed in Parseltongue to it, telling it to be still, to let go, and the end that resembled a head jerked towards him once.

That made the burning go even faster, white patches breaking through the grey-black line of it. Harry smiled. He’d hoped distracting the scar might work that way.

The scar made one more determined attempt to break through the circle of fire, in a place where the flames left a tiny gap, and Harry stepped hastily back. But then he narrowed his eyes and channeled more will into the Soul of Flame spell. Destroy it utterly. Wipe it out. Make sure that it can never come back again.

There was a brief flower of white light, and the scar vanished in the midst of it. Harry spent a second breathing, and then nodded. Yes. That was the way it should be.

He had done what he could. He banished the fire and then the circle of blood, just to make sure that no one else could do anything with his blood, before he turned to face the altar, and see how Draco was getting on.

*

The minute Draco cut into the slash on his mother’s neck, she began to scream.

The sound would have made him flinch if part of him hadn’t expected it, and he kept his hand absolutely steady. He did raise his wand and cast a Silencing Charm, however, because there was no saying that the sound wouldn’t distract him later, or Lucius, or Harry. He caught a glimpse of his father from the corner of his eye, and it seemed as though Lucius was on the verge of stepping forwards and intervening.

After the charm, Narcissa’s mouth still opened and closed steadily. Draco nodded. She might as well do that, and then she could go on releasing the emotion. But he couldn’t allow it to distract him or do anything else that would make his hand slip.

He cut deep into the slash with delicate motions of his wand. He had no ritual knife here, and he didn’t know what the original had been made of anyway, in terms of metal or stone. Using certain materials that weren’t the same as the original could have a negative effect, or might even react to the slash the way that Potions ingredients sometimes reacted to each other. Better to use the absolute bare necessities for a cut and the restoration he would make on top of it.

When he had the slash open, he could see blood welling up along the sides. Draco cast a few quick charms he had learned from Professor Snape, the kind that would keep blood from spilling to the ground or into a cauldron and potentially ruining a potion. These kept the blood trickling in thin streams around the edges of the slash and then looping back on itself, growing thicker over time, instead of coating the side of Narcissa’s neck and making things even more difficult for him.

Draco plunged his wand into his mother’s wound and closed his eyes, divorcing himself, furiously, from the way that he wanted to react. What he wanted to do was flinch and jump back and find some other way of dealing with this.

But what he wanted was not at stake. His mother didn’t know there was any relationship between them anymore. Neither she nor his father would be any more disgusted or overwhelmed by the fact that Draco was doing than they would be by the thought of a stranger doing it. That was what he was to his family, a stranger.

His breathing evened out. He spoke the seeking spell, the incantation that would find the Blood Cobra’s venom in her veins, with an equally steady voice.

The spell dived from his wand into the slash, and then into her body, twining through her veins, making them glow. Draco opened his eyes and nodded. As he had expected, the blood and the venom it carried with it had diffused throughout her body, so deeply mixed with hers that no ordinary means could pull them apart.

But Draco didn’t intend to use ordinary means.

He lifted his wand out of the slash again. The red glow remained where he had put it. Draco gathered more of his magical energy, still in body for a second, but with a whirlwind of power rising further and further inside him, pointing up towards his head in a long, slender spiral.

“Abalieno cruorem.”

He heard Lucius shout, distantly. He must have recognized the spell and, not knowing what Draco intended before now, objected to having it applied to his wife.

Draco hardly had a choice, though, and when he opened his eyes and gazed remotely down on his mother, he saw the spell working as he’d intended to.

A line of white, flame-white, the same color he sometimes saw coming from Harry’s direction when he glanced away from his mother for a second, was making its way down Narcissa’s body. It traced around the contours of her veins, following the red line of the blood that he’d marked out with the seeking spell. It continued to glow for a few seconds, and his mother’s mouth stopped moving in the scream, although she still struggled against the bonds. Everything seemed poised, perfect, ready to fall.

Then Lucius tried to come forwards, and Harry stopped him. Draco knew that from the flash of the spells from that direction. He couldn’t afford to glance away, to look. The only restitution he could make right now was to sit with his mother as she screamed.

Because she was screaming, her head tossing back for a second and then falling into the grip of more binding charms that Draco had prepared to take effect in case she had to do this, her mouth open and panting.

The white line traced around the red, and glowed, and then began to yank, to separate the Blood Cobra’s blood from Narcissa’s. Narcissa’s skin parted the way the slash at her neck did, open and gaping. Her own blood stayed within her veins, but the venom dripped out of her, thicker and redder than any human blood.

The process was painful, of course, the venom escaping through the nearest pores on the surface of the skin. When Draco glanced at his mother’s face, it was oozing out her eyes, forcing its way through her ears, cascading up in a fountain out of her throat. She couldn’t move now, but her arms still flexed and tried to twist in the hold of the bonds, and her mouth parted around the streams of blood as though she was opening it to let them escape, instead of to emit sounds of pain.

Draco touched her shoulder, and tried to ignore the venom that soaked his hand in response. This was the only way he could be with her now, or apologize for what he’d had to do.

The blood finally stopped flowing, and Narcissa fell back, her face white. Draco stirred his wand along his arm, and a cut opened down his own vein in response, spilling the blood out.

Since they had been born family, whether or not they still were, Draco’s magic was compatible with his mother’s. He could transfer blood into her veins, in a procedure he had read of being used to rescue new vampires, and it should hold her, at least until Lucius could either take her home and work on her himself or get her to a real Healer.

Lucius was hammering and shouting on something, perhaps a barrier that Harry had raised around himself or around Draco and Narcissa. Draco couldn’t look. He couldn’t be sure whether Lucius would interrupt them in the middle of the transfer, a delicate situation. He could be sure of nothing but that his own blood was spilling into his mother’s veins, and that her chest was rising and falling faster now, and that a slight rosy color was creeping into her cheeks, erasing the dangerous pallor from before.

Draco knew he would be staggering in a moment, but that was another reason why he had sat down before. Now he waved his wand and sealed his veins again. He had given as much blood to his mother as he could without endangering himself. They would both need Healers—or help, since Draco couldn’t go to a Healer—but they should live until then.

Draco let the bonds go, and removed the Silencing Charm. His mother only screamed for a second, however, before her head fell back and her mouth shut. She took a great, heaving breath, deeper than Draco would have thought she could manage at that point, and then opened her eyes and stared up at him.

Draco felt his own heart leap weakly before he remembered that he wore a glamour. She would remember nothing.

And her eyes were sane.

Draco touched her shoulder once more before he forced himself to draw back. He had done what he could. He had done all he could, the only debt he owed his mother, and atoned. Now they would have to survive on their own.

She turned to track his progress, and her eyes narrowed, her lips firming into a frown that Draco would have feared he was a child. Now, he could gaze calmly back at her, and nod a little in encouragement. Narcissa raised a hand and touched the slash in her throat as though she remembered it but didn’t know what had caused it, and then stood up.

Draco turned with her, although he didn’t try to rise to his feet from the altar. There was a series of linked Shield Charms between him and Lucius, but they parted for Narcissa. Harry was standing on the near side, a hand reaching out towards Draco. Draco clasped his wrist and nodded to him.

Harry smiled at him once before he faced Draco’s parents. Draco remained quiet, watching them. He had to turn his head away when Lucius embraced Narcissa, though. He knew he would never receive a touch like that from either one of them again, and it hurt to know.

“Mr. Potter.”

It was Narcissa, her voice so cool. Draco glanced up at that. She looked at him, but her eyes left him almost at once to go back to Harry, whom she knew. She was bathed in blood, front and center and robes, but the slash in her neck had become bloodless again, a simple cut that she could heal or cover up with a glamour. She let her hand touch it as she gazed at Harry.

“Yes, Mrs. Malfoy?” Harry’s voice was like the one he had used to make the bargain with Lucius, calm and cool and neutral.

“This pays for the life-debt that you owed me,” Narcissa said.

Harry didn’t smile, but his voice was dry as he said, “I certainly hope it would.”

Lucius pulled on Narcissa’s arm, as though he wanted to urge her away, but Narcissa stepped neatly back and came a step nearer instead. “It has always puzzled me,” she murmured, “why I would lie for you when I had no real reason to do so, and much to gain if the Dark Lord won. Can you clear up that mystery for me? It is as though a mist lies over that part of my life, and I cannot recall a clear memory from it.”

Draco thought he was the only one who saw the way Harry’s hand tightened on his shoulder, because Harry was standing so that his body, and the shimmer of the Shield Charms, blocked Draco’s parents from seeing him properly. But Harry took a deep breath and returned, “I think that you had a powerful motive because you thought about the power that you could gain if the Dark Lord died, but also about what you would gain should he live. You balanced and weighed those things against each other, and for some reason, you decided that you would have better lives if you lied for me. You told me that much, but you never told me what tipped the balance in your mind.”

Narcissa made a soft, thoughtful sound. “I suppose I shall never know now,” she said. “Perhaps my mind blurred the matter to protect me from the consequences of a wrong decision.” She nodded to Harry and, once, to Draco. “This has at least reassured me that seeking power is more complicated than I thought.”

She turned away.

Draco clenched his teeth so that he wouldn’t reach out to her. He sat still so that he wouldn’t appeal to Lucius, who also looked back before they left the manor completely.

Then they were gone, with twin cracks of Apparition, and Harry knelt down in front of Draco and hugged him, shielding him from sight more effectively than any charm could have.

Draco shut his eyes tightly, but a few tears escaped. Only a few, because even if he was utterly alone with Harry in his own house, he didn’t think he could really weep.

Only a few tears. Fitting for an ending.

Harry kissed his cheek an endless time later, and whispered, “Are you ready to go now?”

Draco opened his eyes, and nodded. “Yes. Let’s go take down the Ministry, and cure the twisted, and do anything else we can to put a spike in their wheel.”

Harry gave him a feral smile as he assisted Draco to his feet. “Taking down the Ministry sounds good as a first goal. We can talk about the others later.”

They left together, Draco leaning on his shoulder with his eyes shut.

Harry, perceptive the way he could sometimes be, walked with his arm around Draco, and Side-Alonged him to Cuthbert’s Corner, a swift leap into the dark.

The End.