lomonaaeren | Chapter Fifteen of 'Forgive Those Who Trespass'- The Fourth Pensieve

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Chapter Fifteen—The Fourth Pensieve

Harry walked into the fourth Pensieve room with Draco’s hand on his shoulder, now and then flexing as if Draco were mimicking the motions he would have made with longer fingers. Harry tolerated that for a time, then turned about and snapped, “You were right, you know. It was a stupid idea to run away from you into the Collecting Room and not pay attention to your warnings. But we’re past that now. I won’t run away anymore.”

Draco glanced at his hand on Harry’s shoulder, then at Harry, and raised his eyebrows.

“Yes, of course you’re doing that because you think I’m about to run away.” Harry shook his head, snorted, and rolled his eyes when Draco went on staring at him. “And I’m telling you that I won’t.”

Draco’s eyes widened humorously, but, of course, he said nothing. Harry was growing irritated with himself for constantly expecting some audible response. Draco dropped his hand from Harry’s shoulder, but strolled right beside him as they went into the Pensieve room and towards the pillar made of rib-bone, which Harry thought was nearly as annoying. He just wanted to get away from Draco and have a little freedom to move. Besides, that would be important, and not just for personal reasons, if it turned out that there were traps or enemies in this room after all.

No traps, no enemies. Only the familiar pillar, the Pensieve awaiting them on top of it, and the sharp white light that made the doorway they had come through and the far one both slots into darkness. Harry stooped to study the base of the pillar, where the two letters waited like shadows. Em, this time.

Crepidinem? That sounded more like Latin, but it wasn’t a word Harry had studied in Auror training or used in incantations, and that automatically meant he didn’t know it. He gave a little shrug and glanced at Draco. “Do you want to go with me into the memories this time, or remain behind?”

Draco studied him for long moments, as if the question were more absorbing than Harry had meant it to be. Then he gave a decisive nod and stepped up beside Harry, curling one hand around his arm.

“All right,” Harry murmured. He didn’t want to admit he was grateful for the company, since the second Pensieve had shown him such horrific memories of Draco getting his fingers bitten off, but he thought Draco could sense it anyway, from the sheer trembling of his limbs. He cast the Sticking Charm on his feet once more and stooped into the Pensieve.

Draco was beside him when they fetched up in a large, rather cozy room, this one with a central fireplace and tables radiating out from it. Harry glanced at the tables, and then away again. They held glass jars of floating frog legs, pickled brains, and less pleasant things. He didn’t do well with objects like that even when they were absolutely necessary for Potions; he didn’t want to imagine what the Unspeakables might have been doing with them.

But he quickly had to pay attention to the figures in the center of the room, who were laughing uproariously with one another in that way that signaled they were pissed. Harry edged forwards, threading his way through the tables, with Draco stubbornly close beside him. Harry told himself it was the atmosphere of the place that made him so grateful not to be alone now.

One of the figures was Draco, of course, but the other was the woman Pearl. She was pressing a hand to her chest, hiccupping with the force of her own laughter. Draco watched her with an expression Harry had never seen on his face: his eyebrows slightly uplifted, his lips parted to show a dazzle of white, straight teeth. His quick tongue darted along his lips to remove a trace of brilliantly-colored liquid, perhaps Firewhiskey.

Harry froze, shivering. The Draco beside him cast him a surprised glance. Harry shook his head and murmured, “Nothing,” and then tried to focus on the conversation.

I’m not supposed to notice he’s attractive, damn it. Thoughts like that are bad in and of themselves, and they’re worse when they apply to a man as wounded and hurt as Draco is. Whatever he might have looked like in the past, that’s come to an end.

A sly thought that tried to whisper Draco wouldn’t always look like this darted across his mind. Harry shook his head firmly and rejected it, which was made easier when Pearl began speaking again.

“I never would have expected—” She hiccupped and wiped her hand across her mouth. Harry dismissed the suspicion that she’d munched on something out of the jars; it was probably just more Firewhiskey. “I never would have expected that a dignified Malfoy such as yourself could succumb to such childish impulses,” she finished, with tipsy dignity.

Draco’s smile changed, becoming more reflective and private. Harry banished forming images of stupid situations where Draco would smile at him like that. “Well, I did. There was no limit to my awfulness when I was a child, really.” He shrugged and leaned back in his chair, propping his feet up on the stool in front of him. “Luckily, I had people who could teach me better.”

“You mentioned Severus Snape.” Pearl sighed and collapsed into her own chair, tilting her head back as if some soothing sunlight would bathe her face.

“Yes,” Draco acknowledged. “After I saw his heroism, clinging to my own ideals of rightness and fairness—the ones that said I should always be privileged, always treated as special—seemed petty. And there was the fact that I wasn’t around Potter anymore, so I had no need to compete with him for prestige and attention.”

Draco’s nubby fingers dug into Harry’s arm. Harry glanced at him and managed a half-smile, though he could feel the sweat prickling through the hair on the nape of his neck. “Don’t worry,” he whispered. “I won’t hold your drunken ramblings against you.”

Strangely, Draco did not look reassured.

Harry shook his head and turned back to the Draco in front of him, who had folded his hands and was staring into the fireplace, absently playing with a fold of his robes. Harry felt a sudden pang of pity. How long was this before he lost his fingers? Did he have any idea how soon he would be disfigured, his engagement with the Unspeakables turned from one of research into one of experimental subject?

“And there was someone else who taught me, too.” The historical Draco’s eyes were abruptly alight, and he flung a sly glance at Pearl, who blinked and tried to sit up, as if to prove that she was still paying attention. “Of course, I highly doubt I should talk about him to you. He’s the source of stories that would offend your virgin ears.”

“If you think I’m a virgin, Mr. Malfoy, then I haven’t done any job of educating you.” Pearl snorted and lifted her cup in a toast to someone unseen.

“Oh, but there’s virgin and then there’s virgin.” This Draco waved his hand airily. “I’m not sure I should tell you about him.” He paused and pretended to consider while Pearl pouted at him. Harry was a little startled at how well he could read the other man’s emotions; it seemed that practicing on the Draco at his side could help even with a Draco who had his voice and his whole body and his confidence. “On the other hand,” he went on musingly, “I told you about Severus Snape, and this couldn’t be much worse than that.”

“No, of course not,” Pearl said, so eagerly that Harry had to stifle a laugh. He doubted the Draco watching stiffly at his side would think this scene at all funny. “Did he kill anyone? Did he take you over his knee and spank you?”

The historical Draco laughed and stretched his hands towards the fire. “Nothing like that! On the other hand, he did…” He trailed off for a moment, and Harry, staring at his face, glanced down at his hands almost too late. They were busy making a series of explanatory, obscene gestures.

Pearl stared at him for a moment, and then let her mouth fall open. “You’re gay?”

Harry shivered, a strange coldness like a flying splinter of ice glimmering up from the middle of his chest. He shook his head and very carefully didn’t glance at the Draco beside him, who must be embarrassed at such a personal revelation.

Draco nodded. “Yes. And Jason taught me, hmm, rather a lot.” He closed his eyes and hummed beneath his breath. “He’s one of the reasons why I’m here. He let me know my life hadn’t come to an end after the war. I could still study new disciplines and make something of myself. But I wanted the Dark Mark gone. Add that to the confidence Jason gave me, and, well, I followed up on Richard’s call.” He leaned forwards coaxingly. “So, I told you something important about me and the reasons why I’m interested in this research. You promised me you’d tell me your motives. What were they?”

Pearl’s face became solemn. Harry struggled to fix his full attention on it. He was sure that this was the important part of the conversation, the one they’d come here to hear. It didn’t matter how much Draco’s revelation had shocked him; he had no reason to think about it before anything else.

Still, a voice in the back of his mind continued to chirp over and over, Malfoy’s bent!

“Well,” said Pearl at last, “you’ve probably worked out by now that a good number of my ancestors were Muggleborn.” She darted a glance at Draco to see if he would explode.

Draco waved a hand and snorted elegantly. “Yes, I got that, Pearl. I got it the moment I realized I don’t recognize your last name. What I want to know is why that would inspire you to do this research.” This time, his hand-wave encompassed all the jars sitting on tables. Harry shifted his weight, surprised at how grateful he was to realize this was Pearl’s research and not Draco’s. “Are you looking for a way to become pure-blooded?”

“If it were that simple,” Pearl muttered, “I would never have got involved with looking into immortality. No.” She sighed, and remained still for so long that Harry had to resist the impulse to step forwards and shake her. At last she said, “Many members of my family have died from Muggle diseases that wizards don’t often get. Cancer, especially. I’m here to find a way to combat those diseases, and create treatments that work better than either Muggle medicine or healing spells.”

“Hm.” The historical Draco leaned his head against his chair and stared with fascination at the ceiling. “I can see that, I suppose. And of course it would benefit your relatives as well as you.” He nodded firmly, even though he hadn’t looked at Pearl to see her own nod. “That’s good. Family’s important.” He hiccupped.

“After I watched my sister die of breast cancer,” Pearl said, “I promised that I wouldn’t let anything stand in the way of my research. Not other people’s objections. Not moral objections to Dark magic. Not silly laws.” She paused, and her voice, gentle as it was, held a warning when it spoke next, a warning Harry doubted the Draco of the past heard. “Not even friendships.”

“Understandable,” Draco muttered, and then his chin fell on his chest and he let out a deep snore.

Pearl rose and arranged several cushions behind his head. Harry could see her gaze linger on Draco’s face for a moment, as if she were attempting to memorize the way it looked, whole and unhurt. Then she turned to prod the fire, and in a whirl of sparks, the memory dissolved and left them in front of another one.

Harry blinked. This was yet another torture chamber, with a human-shaped metal frame set in the stone floor. The frame was arranged as if to hold someone tied spread-eagled, but there was additional space on the sides of the flanks Harry didn’t understand. Was it meant to accommodate an obese wizard?

A scream resounded from the other side of the room.

Harry turned sharply, barely feeling Draco lean against him as if he had suddenly lost his balance. He saw the past Draco, his eyes wide and his face full of terror, briefly tear free from two Unspeakables who held him and try to spring out the door he’d just come in by. The door slammed as he reached it, and Draco clawed at it with nubby fingers, still screaming.

Harry shivered. They took his voice after his fingers, then. Is that what we’ve come here in order to watch?

But when the Unspeakables had strapped Draco down to the metal frame in the middle of the floor and lifted their wands, he knew it wasn’t.

Harry recognized one word in the Latin incantation the hooded Unspeakables used, cut, and thought about closing his eyes. But if he would have felt cowardly closing his eyes when he was by himself in the Pensieve, and no one could tell whether he was witnessing the crimes against Draco or not, how much worse would he feel with the companion at his side?

He kept watching, and did not turn away when the spell sliced straight down the middle of Draco’s chest and opened the flaps of skin along the sides like a door. Those flaps rested on the flat part of the metal frame that had so puzzled Harry. Somehow, the revelation that the Unspeakables had known exactly what they would be doing and constructed this frame ahead of time was as disgusting as what they were doing; Harry had to swallow again and again.

Against him, Draco shivered. Harry, thinking they might both get through this better if he showed that he could still protect someone, wrapped his arm around Draco’s shoulders.

The past Draco was screaming, struggling, and straining, but the chains on his limbs didn’t allow him to rise very far, and he had no movement in his torso at all. Whether that was the result of a chain or another spell, Harry didn’t know. Somehow, he managed to continue watching as the nearest Unspeakable, face completely covered, laid his wand against the flap of skin on the right side and began to sever Draco’s rib bones from it.

The past Draco was cursing now, a steady stream that dissolved at the end into broken whimpers and moans. Harry’s Draco continued to lean against him, trembling like a rabbit. Harry was impressed he was keeping his feet, and stroked the other man’s neck and hair as soothingly as he could.

The ribs came away, leaving holes in the canopy of flesh and skin. The Unspeakables carefully stacked the bloody bones beside them, with more care than they showed for the living person. Then they touched their wands to the chest flaps and cast another series of spells that made Harry want to flinch. Whether he could recognize the Latin or not, he knew hostile intent when he saw it.

Small buds formed on the flaps of skin, and the past Draco screamed again. Harry frowned and took a step forwards, leaving his own Draco behind for a moment. He had to see what was going on. He didn’t think he would have the strength to watch this again, and once the memories were back in his own head, Draco might or might not be inclined to talk about them.

The buds, Harry realized with a jolt, were new ribs. They lengthened into knobs of bone as he watched, and then the Unspeakables folded Draco’s chest back together like a cloth tent and cast rough healing spells, stealing the sight from him.

Harry closed his eyes. They only took Draco’s fingers once, but they took his ribs again and again. No wonder they had enough bones to make the Pensieve bases.

How many times was that done? How many times was he made to suffer that torment, to go through his own pain, and know each time that it would only happen again, and again, and again? That they would never let him die?

Harry could not conceive of giving up, but he could see, now, how death might be a mercy and a kindness, not just a means to save other people from a fate even more horrible.

The Unspeakables rose and unhooked Draco from the metal frame as the healing spells settled and the red lines on his chest became white scars. He had stopped screaming some time since. His eyes were dead, and his head hung in a way that made Harry ache to hold him.

His own Draco, however, wanted holding, if the way he had pressed himself against Harry’s side like an abused puppy was any indication. Harry turned and buried his face in Draco’s hair, telling himself he wasn’t seeking illegitimate comfort, and that he wasn’t missing anything. The Pensieve had gone briefly dark around them, the way it did when moving from one memory to another. There would be nothing to see for a few more seconds, and Harry was confident that they could understand the next memory even if they missed some of the introduction.

Draco shook, and shook, and shook. Harry stroked his hair as often as the tremors raced through his body, wishing helplessly that there was something more to be done.

There is, he thought suddenly. I can’t change the past, but I can change the future. That especially holds true if Ron and Hermione are already dead. I can’t help the pain Draco’s suffered, but I can carry out my plan to free him, as soon as I have the means.

His breathing steadied, as his resolve steadied him. He felt able to turn around and face the next scene with confidence.

This was a cell. No question about that, Harry thought, staring at the pallet Draco sat on, and the chains extending from the wall, though at the moment they weren’t being used. The Draco of the memory leaned his head on the wall and panted. Harry wasn’t sure why, but from the sweat on his face and the scratches on the backs of his hands, he thought Draco might have been pounding on the door, trying to open it. The only light came from sconces along the walls, carefully placed above any height Draco could reach.

Harry cocked his head, and nodded grimly when he saw that Draco’s fingers were gone and that the skin around his chest sagged. This must be a fairly late memory, after they had begun to use Draco as their tool for the maze.

Then he remembered the last image, of the ribs regrowing, and shuddered. Who knew how long they had actually tormented Draco before they had felt ready to cast the spell and make him the foundation of their schemes? Six months? Nine months? Most of the year he had been missing?

He glanced to the side to see how his Draco was taking this. He saw him standing grimly straight, staring at his past self. Harry hesitated, then held out an arm, wondering if Draco would take the support now.

He walked over without a pause and stood under the circle of Harry’s arm, but the expression on his face and the angle of his gaze didn’t alter.

The door unlocked itself with a suddenness and a rasping of wood and iron that made Harry jump. The Draco under his arm simply stood as if nothing could disturb him. The past Draco whirled around and brought his hands up in front of his face with a pathetic defensive helplessness.

Richard stepped into the cell and eyed Draco critically for a moment. Harry bit his lip to keep from shouting in rage when he realized Richard was looking at Draco the way Harry had seen Muggles study dogs they were breeding.

“You should know,” Richard said, without changing his tone at all or giving any inflection to the words, “that your mother is dead, thanks to your disobedience.”

The past Draco made a sound like a cat being dissected. The Draco under Harry’s arm trembled like a leaf. Harry found himself stroking the other man’s hair again, whispering, “No. No. That’s not true. It was never true.”

Richard shot his wand out and chanted a soft spell beneath his breath that Harry couldn’t make out. A silver stream of thought immediately uncurled from the trapped Draco’s temple and into a vial he held ready. Richard corked the vial and held it up to study, turning it from side to side, as if different light on it would really show him differences in the composition.

“Why did you do that?” whispered the past Draco. His voice was thick with horror and exhaustion. A voice, Harry thought, as he held his Draco tighter, that had been ruined by months of screaming.

“The memories that will become the foundation for part of the maze must be exact, of course,” Richard said absently. “Memories of pain and suffering, or memories that lead to pain and suffering. We missed that essential truth for a long time, but we know it now.” He swirled the vial once more, then left, adding over his shoulder, “Your mother is still alive, of course. But we had to see what the jolt of pain would do to a captured memory.”

The Draco in the cell slumped and put his hands over his eyes. Harry could still see the gleam of tears, since his shortened fingers didn’t cover them completely. For a moment, the memory paused, as though debating showing them something else, and then Harry found himself blinking his own eyes and stepping back from the Pensieve.

He glanced to the side at once. Draco had his mouth slightly open and his eyes tightly shut, as if that would make what he had seen in the Pensieve easier to bear. For all Harry knew, it would. He held Draco without speaking, letting his hand cup the other man’s jaw or travel through his hair when he thought it would help.

His mind was on the two most important pieces of information he had learned in the Pensieve. First, that the memories placed in the maze had to be memories of pain and suffering.

That doesn’t make my plan to free Draco impossible, but it does make things more complicated. I’ll have to be very careful.

The second was the fact that Draco was bent, and even as Harry berated himself for considering that important, as compared to the anguish Draco had experienced, his mind ran about and played excitedly with the information.

Does that mean that…?

But Harry knew the answer to his own question.

No. One of three things is going to happen. One, you’ll both die here, in which case it can’t matter. Second, you’ll find Ron and Hermione and free them, and free Draco, but he’ll still be wounded physically and mentally, and he’ll need lots of recovery time in St. Mungo’s. Nothing he would like less than someone fawning around him and thinking that he might be attractive. Third, you’ll carry through your plan and free Draco from the maze, in which case no attraction will be important to you ever again.

Harry snorted to himself. That’s one way of solving the crisis of my sexual orientation.

Then he grabbed his stupid thoughts and made himself confront the truth. You won’t be gay, and there’s no guarantee that Draco would ever find you remotely attractive. Not all straight men and straight women date each other. Why should two men date just because they might share the same preferences? No, there’s no question of this, and you can’t allow this to change how you treat him.

He felt the motion in his arms and looked down to see Draco staring at him with solemn, open eyes. Harry smiled, and made sure to keep the smile purely detached and sympathetic, with no hint of the stupid things it might have become. “Hey,” he said quietly. “Ready to take your memories back?”

Draco took a breath that seemed to go on forever, and then nodded.

“Good,” Harry said, and extended his wand towards the Pensieve, while his admiration for Draco threatened to burst through his chest.

See? That would be a more valid reason to be interested in him than just because he’s bent. And you won’t be interested in him, because you can’t be. End of story.

Chapter 16.

Chapter Fifteen of 'Forgive Those Who Trespass'- The Fourth Pensieve

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