Chapter Twenty-Four of "Forgive Those Who Trespass"- The Shadow Plague

[lomonaaeren]

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Chapter Twenty-Four—The Shadow Plague

Harry woke slowly, blinking against the pressure of sleep on the corners of his eyes. He yawned and started to roll over.

Then he paused. Something was wrong, but he couldn’t tell what it was. He wanted to look down at himself—and at Draco, who had sprawled on his chest whilst they trusted to the wards Harry had cast on their resting alcove last night—but the crusted sleep on the corners of his eyes prevented him. He lifted a hand to scrape at it.

Nothing happened, save the faint brush of coolness across his face.

Harry sat on the panic that wanted to explode through him, reminded himself that he didn’t know what had happened and anyway that panicking would wake Draco up, and squeezed his eyes tightly until he felt a few flakes fall down his face. Then he forced them open.

He no longer had hands. Instead, his arms simply trailed off into two wispy shadows, with faint, floating gray shapes at the end of them that might have been his fingers.

Harry’s eyes fell shut again. He had no strength to keep them open. His mind was full of the tiny, darting, flickering shadow he had seen when he and Draco passed out of the room of voices. It had not, after all, been the shadow of a creature running away from them. It had been the sight of something joining with his.

And now it was working on him, transforming him into something like itself.

Harry forced himself to look down as he tried to rest one of his faded hands on Draco’s hair. He felt nothing at all, and he was sure that Draco would feel nothing more than the slight coolness he himself had done—the coolness of a shadow altering its position in the sun. Draco uttered a little breath in his sleep and turned over, his arms tightening possessively around Harry’s torso.

He won’t be able to feel me soon. Harry glanced at his arms and grimaced. Was there already another small piece of flesh gone from the bends of his elbows? He thought there might be. It’s progressive. And it probably started with the hands so as to prevent me from using my wand to cast a spell that would reverse this.

Harry felt a terrible yearning to lie there and simply let the magic consume him. Draco would wake gently, slowly, and not have to suffer terror and anger for the last few hours Harry had left before he faded completely.

Then he smiled, and knew the smile was rueful. He would never forgive me if I did that. He used the still solid part of his left arm to prod Draco in the shoulder, trying his best to memorize the feel of cloth and skin from Draco’s ragged robes and warm body. Would memory be left to him? He supposed it depended on how much of the transformation was magical and how much physical. Ghosts could retain their memories, but, on the other hand, they didn’t have their brains literally turned to shadow.

It makes sense that I wouldn’t become a ghost. Life and death are different here, as Richard would say.

Draco blinked at Harry, smiled, and then sat up. Harry saw the moment when his smile faded and he noticed the smoke-like nature of Harry’s hands.

But he had not expected the transition from sleepy contentment into full-blown panic.

Draco’s fingers clamped on Harry’s waist. He was shaking his head, again and again, to the point that Harry could hear his neck popping and creaking. His face was a mindless mask of terror. Sense had fled his eyes so suddenly that Harry was frightened for him.

“Draco,” he said. “Listen to me. I don’t know if anything can stop it. But the important thing is making sure you can survive and continue on to the center of the maze, and that you don’t catch it from me—“

Another wild shake of his head, and Draco grabbed onto his arms, running the nubs of his fingers down them. He stopped just short of the gap where Harry’s flesh became gray mist and stared at it.

“Don’t touch it!” Harry said, shocked that Draco would put himself in so much danger, and pulled back. Draco grabbed his leg and buried his face against Harry’s hip. Harry swore. Draco was strong; he was a survivor; he had endured worse tortures than this and come out staggering, limping, but essentially undefeated. Harry had thought he would rise to this challenge better than he had.

He reached down, then remembered he no longer had a hand to push the other man away, and swore again.

Draco lifted his head. His face was streaked with silent tears that broke Harry’s heart. He’d had no idea that Draco had been crying, and probably wouldn’t have until he felt wetness on his robes.

He yanked himself free with a great effort—Draco’s hands fell helplessly to the floor and lay there, palms upturned, cropped fingers still—and then knelt down in front of Draco. “Listen to me,” he whispered. “You can’t catch this. One of the things I’ve worked for since I started to trust you is to let you survive and be free. Will you promise me to keep working for that? I can’t—I can’t watch you give up.”

Draco seized the communication sphere, squeezing it so hard that Harry was briefly worried he’d break it. His nubs scrabbled across the glass. You can’t surrender. You can’t leave me. Never leave me.

“Do you know something that can reverse this?” Harry asked, and held up one of his hands. “Especially since I can’t hold a wand anymore?”

Draco shook his head. The gesture had become a series of spasmodic jerks by now, even as he bent over the communication sphere again. I’ll die.

“I think you might be able to at least take the wand—“ Harry pushed away his own rising fear. At least he wasn’t in pain; this shadow plague didn’t hurt as it ate him. When he glanced down at his arms, a bit more flesh was gone, and he hadn’t even noticed. “Maybe you can’t use magic, but you can intimidate other people into thinking you can. And maybe the worst of the traps are past. There’s only the eighth Pensieve, and then the center of the maze. Draco, you’ve got to go on. Please, if I’ve ever comforted you or helped you, help me now. Try to find Ron and Hermione. Learn their fates, even if you can’t avenge them or free them. And free yourself. That’s what I want. That’s what I was willing to die to ensure.”

Draco’s head still shook. His fingers tapped out, I’ll die. I’ll go mad. I’ll die. I’ll go mad.

And then Harry understood. And he was filled with the impulse to lie back and simply bang his head on the floor until he passed out. Maybe, by the time he woke up again, he would be shadow entirely, and the problem would have solved itself.

Draco would go mad without Harry by his side to get him through the rest of the maze. Or he’d simply give up and sit still, not moving, not eating, until a monster or the Unspeakables found him and ate him or put him to use. His dependence on Harry was so great that he’d given up some of his strength to endure indescribable pain.

I knew this was bad for him, Harry thought, guilt and pain swirling through his soul, at least as strong as his regret that he wouldn’t get to see Ron and Hermione again. This relationship we have, this leaning on each other. It’s taken more away from him than it’s given, if he’ll go mad at the loss of it.

It also raised troubling questions about how exactly Harry was supposed to do what he had to do to free Draco and give him back as much normality as possible, if Draco would go catatonic at Harry’s not emerging from the maze with him—

Then Harry reminded himself of the more immediate problem. The shadow plague was eating steadily towards his shoulders. He’d never get the chance to free Draco at all if he didn’t solve this riddle.

“Be still,” Harry said, piercingly enough that Draco stopped shaking and stared at him. “I promised not to leave you, and I won’t. But I need to think of a way to come back to myself—“

His breath left him with a whumpfh when Draco hugged him, squeezing his ribs until Harry had spots in front of his eyes, leaning and clinging and rubbing his face against Harry’s neck as if he were trying to crawl inside him. And wasn’t that an unfortunate image? Or at least it could have been, if Harry didn’t have other things to think about. He coughed and leaned away from Draco, who had lifted his head from the crook of his neck to look at Harry with undisguised greed.

You are necessary to me, he mouthed.

Harry shivered, uncomfortable. It was too much like his own sentiment when they’d left the room that held the veil. No one else would ever mean to him what Draco did.

And that was—well, maybe good in ordinary circumstances, maybe fine in ordinary circumstances, but these were not ordinary circumstances. Harry had to be sure that Draco survived, no matter if he made it to the end with him or not.

“Right,” Harry said. “Now, please let me go. I don’t want you to get this from me.”

Draco immediately sat back, obedient, though his hands twitched when they were away from Harry’s skin. That made Harry wonder if part of the problem was their constant physical contact. Draco had to be used to that now, when no one had touched him for a year except to hurt him, and he would find it harder to give up than even ordinary conversation, perhaps.

Things will have to change, Harry promised himself as he closed his eyes and prepared to think his way through the problem. If I solve this, I’ll pay more attention to strengthening him and less to weakening him. Because that’s what I’ve done, even if it wasn’t intentional.

He forced himself to ignore thoughts of what would happen to Draco, and to Ron and Hermione, if he succumbed to this disease, and dragged his thoughts through as much of his Auror training as he could readily remember.

He was certain he had never learned about a virus, or a creature, or a spell, that could cause someone to turn into a shadow. It was easier to make someone else Vanish forever than complete the transition into insubstantiality. Even affecting a ghost was difficult; it took magic on the order of a basilisk’s gaze to do it.

On the other hand, he’d become insubstantial rather suddenly and recently, hadn’t he? When he had used the mistaken spell that turned him into light, he’d only come back together because Draco recalled the memory of him as he had been.

But Harry’s excitement died when he remembered that he’d emerged from that little disaster with a wooden foot. Who was to say that he wouldn’t dissolve into light, return, and still have the shadow plague eating him up, colored as Draco’s most recent memories would be by that?

Well, you have no other choice than to try. And Draco was only trying to remember you at all that last time; you didn’t ask him to heal your wounds. Ask him this time. And you’ll have to get him to perform the magic.

“Draco,” he said, opening his eyes. “I have something that might work, but it will be dangerous.”

Draco immediately sat up on his knees, face bright and radiating attention. Harry felt a wave of deep sadness as he gazed at him. I’m so sorry, Draco. I didn’t mean to turn you into a puppy hanging on my every word. Well. That’s one reason to get better, so I can give you a better future.

Apparently he’d been silent too long. Draco snapped two fingers in front of Harry’s face—quite a feat, with so much of the flesh missing—and Harry started and nodded. “We need to cast the spell that dissolves me into light again,” he said. “This time, concentrate on pulling me back into my flesh—my flesh as it was, not as it is right now. That’s the only way I can think of to reverse the plague.”

Draco visibly swallowed, but he nodded. Then he glanced from Harry’s wand to Harry’s shadowy hand and raised his eyebrows.

“You’re right. I can’t hold the wand.” Harry looked directly at him. “You’ll have to.”

He nearly got his eye put out by Draco’s frantically stabbed fingers. Draco flexed his hands open and closed several times, to make sure Harry understood.

“Yes, I know,” Harry said. “But I think you’ll do better with this spell than with many others. The motion is mostly in the wrist; think of how you showed me. And you can cast spells nonverbally. You were rather good at it in our sixth year, as I remember.” He smiled encouragingly, but Draco shook his head again, and went on shaking it until Harry glanced down, saw the swathes of gray covering his shoulders, and lost his temper.

“You’re going to,” he said. “I think your thinking you can’t use magic has more to do with constant pain and degradation, the loss of your voice, and the fact that you haven’t been let near a wand since they started torturing you. You’ll have to, because I can’t. Hold it in your teeth if you must—“

Draco pointed at Harry’s mouth, with an accusing expression.

“Because I’d still try to say the spell,” Harry said. “And the wand might get turned into shadow, too. And because I’m on the very edge of being scared out of my mind right now, Draco, and I need you to do this.”

Strangely, that made Draco peer at him for long moments, and then straighten with a smart nod. He picked up the wand and clutched it clumsily in the middle of his right palm, bunching his cut fingers together around it. Harry watched critically. It seemed hard to believe that the Unspeakables would have overlooked his continued capability to handle a wand, as much time as they’d had to work over Draco.

But given how shaky his hold was, and how long it took him to work the wand into position, Harry determined that the Unspeakables probably hadn’t worried that much. Even if Draco got hold of a wand, it would be extremely easy to Disarm him, and he’d probably drop it in the middle of a frantic duel.

They weren’t in that situation now. And if Draco could successfully cast with Harry’s wand, that would give him some of his confidence back, and show him he could do magic. That, in turn, would lessen his dependence on Harry.

May he not come out of this with deeper scars than he has now.

Draco began to move his hands in the broad sweeps necessary for the Fingere solis, and the wand promptly skittered away from him and into a corner of the room. He dropped his head and stared at Harry from under his lowered eyelids, his expression a mixture of misery and defiance.

Harry took a deep breath. The shadow had moved so that it covered the sides of his neck now. “That’s all right,” he said calmly. “Just go and get it, and this time hold it with both hands as you perform the movements.”

Draco trotted across the room, though he kept turning his head to look at Harry, as if swallowing a last sight of him—or making sure he wouldn’t run away. A few moments later, he was crouched in front of Harry again, and this time he held the wand with his right hand and curled the stubby fingers of his left hand around the edge of his palm. When he began to sweep it, the wand trembled, but stayed firm.

Harry met his eyes and gave him the gentlest, most tender smile he could muster under the circumstances. Draco’s eyes lit up as though someone had touched flame to kindling inside him, and his movements smoothed and widened.

Harry saw a brief, spreading fan of light traveling towards him in the moment before he lost control of his body and the intense strangeness radiated through his mind.

He could remember—

He could not remember—

What was memory?

He tried to lunge towards the furthest corners of the room, but something made him turn and glance behind and to the side first. And there was an attractive center, blazing so with thoughts of him that he had to look. And once he had looked, he found the thoughts written on the glass of the other man’s mind, and he came together enough to remember his name and the purpose of what they were doing.

Harry flicked his name like a whip through his dispersing remains, calling them into line, scourging the desire for freedom from them. That was not freedom. Freedom was what he owed Ron and Hermione. Freedom was what Draco needed and would have from Harry in the end, whether he wanted it or not. Harry needed to survive in a human body so that he could attain that greater freedom.

The bobbing, blinking particles of light he had become funneled towards him and drifted behind him in a more or less obedient mass. Harry turned back to Draco, ready to grasp his memories and appear in, hopefully, a renewed body.

Then he saw the gray thing in the middle of the light.

It resembled a rat, but was nothing so innocuous, Harry knew. It flickered and sputtered, a dim reflection of the brilliance next to it, trying to pretend it belonged with him just like his memories did. It hid behind the light and darted from place to place, doing its best to fool his eyes.

This was the thing that had caused the shadow plague.

Harry reached out to Draco. He needed help, he tried to say as clearly as possible. The seed of the plague was still here, and if he came back into his body as he was, it would follow him and simply cause the disease again, like a scum of bacteria that remained despite an intensive cleaning regimen.

Draco understood. The fiery letters, lit from beneath, on his mind’s surface said, I will remember you for as long as it takes.

Harry hoped Draco could feel his gratitude in lieu of a visible nod. Then he turned and charged the shadow.

It fled him, diving and twisting, extending its boundaries until it thinned almost to the point of invisibility, coming back together and whirring briefly into the shadows cast by the globe of light. But Harry knew those shadows. His globe of light didn’t wane or change like the setting sun and the moon did. He could see the intruder lurking at their edges, and he would not be fooled, not this time.

And now, there was no human shadow for the plague to hide in.

Even as he thought that, it turned and made for Draco like a snake.

Harry stooped over it like a hawk. His one thought was to destroy it, disperse it before it could harm Draco. He protected Draco. Nothing was going to get past him and hurt Draco whilst he was still alive. And this counted as being alive, in a very odd way; he could not die as long as that one faithful human memory held him.

He remembered the shadow-wolf that had attacked them in the room where Draco was imprisoned, and how he had sent it away. And he turned and picked through himself even as he dived, searching for the spark that had been his magic. If everything else was here with him, his physical body and his memories and his name and all, the magic must be.

It came to him, and Harry—it was the best description he could come up with afterwards; he was not really sure of what he was doing even as he did it—forced his intentions through a ring of light into reality. Magna! Magna! Magna! he thought over and over, until the spell beat in him like a drum.

Drumbeat mingled with light, and radiance struck through the room like a phoenix going nova. Harry felt guilty as he remembered that he hadn’t warned Draco to shield his eyes, but he honestly wasn’t sure he could have, given how much effort the casting of the spell had taken.

He could still see, since he was the light. And he heard the thin, insubstantial wail as the plague virus flared, eaten in from the edges like a burning piece of parchment, and vanished just before it touched the edge of Draco’s shadow.

Harry blasted his triumph through himself, and reached out to Draco. He needed the thoughts of himself inscribed on Draco’s mind to come back to his body, and he needed them now; already the sparks were wandering away again, since he’d concentrated on something other than keeping himself together.

Draco, through pained from the inferno of brilliance he’d been plunged into, still responded. Harry felt bits of himself sticking together, memories flowing, the sensations of flesh enclosing him briefly like the thought of blankets when he was tired—

And then he was himself, and although he still had a wooden foot (which made sense, because Draco had seen him longer in the maze with the wooden foot than without), his arms were solid again. He at once snatched up the holly wand resting near Draco’s knees and waved it in front of Draco’s face, murmuring a simple charm to heal his burns and restore his eyesight. That, he could do, having been caught flat-footed by Magna a few times during Auror training. It was such a small thing, against all the weight of Draco’s suffering, but it would have to do.

Draco blinked, and blinked, and then looked at him. Harry suspected he was still seeing through dazzling haloes and afterimages, but his gaze rested on Harry’s newly solid hands with unmistakable contentment.

“There’s no way I could have done that without you,” Harry whispered, and grinned at him. “And you can use magic. Who knew? We’re pretty good together—“

Draco flung himself straight at Harry, and a moment later Harry lay on his back, winded, with an insistent Draco turning his face around. Then their lips met, and their tongues tangled, and Harry moaned as he realized how much he had forgotten about pleasure, even before he became light.

He lifted his hands and threaded them through Draco’s hair, delighting in the sensation against every fingertip. He had almost lost this, and joy struck him in the chest a bit late; he’d been so focused on survival he hadn’t allowed himself to feel fear, and now the relief he’d lived and could touch Draco again was overwhelming.

Draco uttered a hungry breath, a rush of warm air against Harry’s chin and neck, that probably would have been a moan of his own if he could make noise. Then his hand brushed, gently but insistently, against Harry’s chest; somehow he’d undone a few buttons of his robes.

Harry swallowed, slowly ended the kiss, and sat up, with Draco still in his arms. Draco stared at him, hand resting on bare skin, and then rolled his eyes and visibly relaxed from a tension that could have been a coil of anger. He patted Harry’s shoulder with a condescending expression, and mouthed, I’ll wait until you’re ready.

Then he leaned his ear against Harry’s chest to hear his heart, instead of buttoning the robes up again.

Harry bit his lip fretfully. He could only give Draco so much. He would have to be so careful, to ensure that Draco was not depressed forever when Harry left him.

It would be so much easier if Draco hadn’t decided, on his own, that Harry was not merely convenient or helpful, but necessary.

Chapter 25.

Comments

[lomonaaeren.livejournal.com]

Thank you!

Once Harry does something stupid, then he understands how to utilize the stupid thing in future endeavors! A unique skill.

Harry thinks he's been weakening Draco because he thinks Draco's survival instinct should be stronger than it is. And he lived throughout a year without help, why can't he live now? Harry hadn't counted on what having another person around would do to Draco. Of course, you can argue that he helped Draco become human again and face his worst memories, but all Harry sees is how likely Draco is to die.

One big difference between them is that Harry tends to think of a sexual relationship as something that could be endlessly deferred even if he survives, while Draco will insist on having it.

And thanks!