Chapter Twenty-Five of 'Forgive Those Who Trespass'- The Eighth Pensieve

[lomonaaeren]

Thanks again for all the reviews!

Chapter Twenty-Five—The Eighth Pensieve

Harry had rested first, and so he lay awake with Draco, softly breathing, in his arms. He could shift to ease the pressure and the cramping in his limbs, but whenever he tried to move further away than that, Draco turned his face towards him and parted his lips in distress. Harry would still again and sweep Draco’s hair back from his forehead, in the gesture that Draco seemed fond of with him.

He knew the last Pensieve room couldn’t be far away. And then—

Then what would happen?

Presumably, the Pensieve room itself was not far from the center of the maze. But since he had no idea what would be awaiting them there, Harry couldn’t make many plans.

Except for saving Draco, of course. And Ron and Hermione if we can find them.

Harry’s arms tightened around Draco. He paused at the last moment, afraid that he’d woken the other man up, but Draco only twitched his nose as if he were snuffling—it was odd how even that made no noise, odder than his soundless sighs—and buried his face in the side of Harry’s neck.

If they didn’t find Ron and Hermione, Harry would grieve; he could hardly conceive of the hole that his two best friends would leave in his life if they vanished. But losing Draco would hardly be any better. Draco deserved the chance to live. Ron and Hermione had suffered, doubtless, but it couldn’t compare to what Draco had gone through in the past year.

And wouldn’t Ron choke to hear me say that?

Harry gave a wan smile and shifted so that Draco’s breath wasn’t tickling the side of his neck. As it happened, Ron probably would choke, but over something else. Harry would never have the chance to say those words to him.

He shut his eyes, and took one more moment to reconcile himself to what he had to do. He’d racked his brain again and again, and had come up with no better idea. Looking in the books that Draco had taken from the room where the Malfoys cornered them, like The Ethics of Human Sacrifice, would do no good when Harry probably wouldn’t be able to understand half the words in them. And Draco had already admitted that he was eternally bound to the maze by the extraction of his fingers, ribs, and voice, as far as he knew.

But that couldn’t be fair. It couldn’t be true. And Harry had dreamed up another solution. It wasn’t the best one, but what was best in this situation? If the universe worked the way Harry wanted it to, Ron and Hermione would never have vanished; the Unspeakables never could have tortured Draco; the maze would never have been built.

And then you would never have got to know him.

Harry worked his right elbow loose; too much of his weight had been resting on it. You can’t think like that. It would be much better for you never to have known him than for him to have suffered like that. The price he had to pay isn’t worth whatever meager comfort your presence may have brought him.

No alternatives. No holding back. No second chances. Harry wouldn’t have hesitated if Richard was in front of him begging for Harry to spare his life; why should he hold back on this?

He closed his eyes and took comfort in the warm, fuzzy push of Draco’s hair and breath against his cheek.

*

They had just spotted the white light of the Pensieve room when Draco’s hands locked on Harry’s elbow. Harry halted and turned to face him, concerned he might have remembered something threatening about this section of the maze. But Draco’s eyes were glazed and wide, staring past Harry at the entrance to the room.

“Draco?” Harry whispered.

Draco didn’t respond. His stare was so glassy Harry swallowed, hard. He hadn’t blinked in the past few moments either, Harry realized. He stepped back and embraced Draco, hoping the hard hold of his arms would be enough to cut through the fog in Draco’s mind.

It seemed so. Draco let go all his breath at once, and then clasped Harry around the torso and refused to let go.

“I know you’re afraid of the memories you’ll find here,” Harry whispered into his ear. “Each Pensieve so far has been worse than the last. But I know that you have the bravery to face it.” He paused long enough for Draco to respond, but the other man only shook his head. Harry’s voice grew stronger. “Yes, you do. You underestimate yourself constantly, you know. You think that you’re a monster just because Richard said so, when anyone in that situation would have crumbled and started doing what they wanted just to make the pain stop. At least you were still acting to protect other people. You’re not an unmixed person, Draco, but you’re predominantly a good one. And you’ll go into that room and face that Pensieve with a courage that will make me weak with admiration just standing next to you.”

Draco stood so still for long moments that Harry was afraid he’d gone into the catatonic trance again. Then he lifted his face, looking lost enough not to be embarrassed about his weakness any longer, and parted his lips.

Harry knew what he needed—and, truth to tell, he wasn’t so reluctant as he pretended. Fleetingly glad that Draco wasn’t a Legilimens, he lowered his head and pressed his mouth against Draco’s.

Draco gasped and tilted his head further back, his hands traveling up to squeeze Harry’s shoulders. Harry focused on keeping the kiss gentle and slow, refusing the fervent pace Draco wanted to set. It would probably distract them too much, and just because there hadn’t been any danger in the Pensieve rooms so far didn’t mean that would last. If Richard had set up a trap to defend any of the Pensieves, it would be this one, so near the heart of the maze.

At last, when Draco stopped trying to stab Harry with his tongue and pulled back a little, Harry let him go and smiled gently into his face. He didn’t know what his own face looked like, but Draco was torn between obvious craving to resume the kiss and obvious longing to prove Harry’s words to himself. He glanced down the corridor again, swallowed, and knotted a hand in Harry’s cloak.

“You can do this,” Harry breathed to him. “Come on.”

And he kept on repeating the same words all down the corridor, whilst ahead of them the white light brightened like the ray Harry had imagined would welcome someone into Muggle heaven when he was just a child.

*

The Pensieve sat alone, without traps, on top of the pillar of rib bone. Harry paused and frowned, noting that no shadowy letters were carved near the base.

In fact, the seventh Pensieve had lacked the letters, too. Harry wondered why things had changed, but he couldn’t fit the mere absence of letters into any pattern he understood. Perhaps his suspicions had been wrong and the letters hadn’t been spelling the words he thought they were, after all.

Draco’s hand kept tugging him forwards, and in the end, Harry went. They halted in front of the Pensieve, and Draco stared at the silvery liquid of his own memories. There was no color left in his face at all. Harry couldn’t blame him. He didn’t need to ask, this time, if Draco would rather view the memories alone. If he tried, he probably wouldn’t be able to keep standing, even with a Sticking Charm on his feet.

Harry cast the charms, then leaned over so that he was embracing Draco from behind. Together, they dipped their heads into the Pensieve.

This brought them out in the same crowded room with the fire in the center where Draco had shared his last conversation with Pearl. Draco was pacing back and forth in front of the hearth, his strides short, his breath coming fast. Harry frowned. This Draco had his fingers and his ribs and his voice, from the sounds he made, intact. Of course, there was no law that said all the evenly-numbered Pensieves had to tell a consistent story, but Harry had assumed this final one would contain the memory of the spell or the ritual that bound Draco to the maze.

He’d been rather counting on it, in fact.

Harry ground his teeth and quit worrying. There was still the center of the maze to look at, and there was every chance that he could figure out what the letters on the last two pillars would have been from the ones he had so far. His plan wouldn’t fail. He embraced his Draco from behind, resting his chin in his hair, and watched this Draco narrowly.

The past Draco spun around when a door started to open, a sharp bark of expelled air traveling up his throat. From the expression on his face, though, the person who stood there wasn’t the one he had hoped to see. He took a single stride forwards. “Richard? Where’s Pearl?”

“Oh, I think you know very well.” Richard’s voice was low and tainted with anger, which made Harry blink. He had thought Richard was mad enough never to become angry. But when he stepped into the firelight, his mouth was pinched shut, and his eyes blazed. “She confessed her plans to you, didn’t she?”

“She didn’t,” the past Draco said, his muscles coiled, alert and wary. “I swear she didn’t. I found a note she left me when I woke this morning. She described what she intended to do there. But I didn’t think she’d actually go through with it—“

“She did.” Richard turned his back to Draco and stared at one of the chairs. “Three of our experiments and much valuable data lost, because she just had to mercy-kill the prisoners.”

“And—what did she say when you captured her?” Draco asked.

Richard laughed harshly. “Exactly what she probably did in that note to you! That we’d gone too far, and her conscience wouldn’t let her continue with these ‘vile practices’ of ours. That she was glad she’d rebelled against us.” Richard’s voice dropped the anger and became that dangerously slow, smooth tone again. “She’ll be sorry, in the end, but probably not for the reason she imagined.”

The past Draco went stiff throughout his body. Then he said, “You can’t.”

“Why not?” Richard glanced over his shoulder, seeming only mildly interested.

“You can’t use her for experiments. You said you only used Azkaban prisoners—“

“And she interfered.” Richard spoke without interest; he’d already condemned Pearl in his mind, Harry thought, fighting not to be sick. “She tried to prevent the good we can do from reaching wizarding society. She chose the lives of people who have a debt to pay over the lives of healthy, normal wizards who can do much good for the world.”

The past Draco paused, his expression flickering between horror and madness. And then he drew his wand.

Harry closed his eyes, not needing to watch the flare of colored light from the hexes, already knowing that Draco’s attempt to take down Richard would be countered, and how. This was the reason Draco had turned against the Unspeakables. They had hurt his friend, probably the only friend he’d had in the darkness of these dungeons.

When the sounds of the duel died down, Harry opened his eyes again. Richard stood with his wand pressed so hard into Draco’s throat that Draco was having a hard time breathing.

“We need you,” Richard whispered. “We can’t afford to lose two researchers in one day. But you’re on probation, Draco—and Pearl’s welfare depends on you. I’m going to give you a test. I want you to choose a victim of your own and perform one of the harder experiments we’ve been putting off because we weren’t sure they would work. Perform it perfectly, and that can be the substitute for Pearl in our research.”

That, Harry thought, must have led to Draco’s choosing the boy to torture; his concern over Pearl’s safety wouldn’t have allowed him to hold back in any sense. If they were satisfied with his loyalty, they wouldn’t hurt her. And of course Draco had been begging Richard to tell him how “she” was in the last Pensieve.

His own Draco was swaying. Harry, afraid he might faint, tugged him even closer against his chest and embraced him with both arms and legs.

Together, they watched as Richard left the room and the past Draco braced himself on hands and knees. His head was bowed, and he didn’t look up for long moments, even though he was alone, so far as he knew. Harry thought he was probably fighting back tears.

The scene slid sideways, trailing streaks of silver and black, and surfaced in a comfortable room Harry immediately distrusted. This was a bedroom, with a plush four-poster in the center; the curtains, drawn back to expose the middle of the mattress, were deep blue and dusky gold. Three fires blazed in various hearths around the walls, lighting it brilliantly. And just stirring, his head piled on silken pillows and his fingerless hands plucking restlessly at the coverlets, was Draco.

Richard stepped into view from a far corner of the room, carrying a broad tray which contained pumpkin juice and a steaming bowl of a thick broth with chunks of meat floating in it. The meal looked good enough to make Harry’s mouth water, but his wariness grew. He hadn’t thought the Unspeakables would treat Draco kindly for any reason, and though they must have fed him at some point, what had he done to merit a meal like this? Why would they treat him well, especially after they’d taken his fingers and—Harry glanced quickly at the past Draco and saw the way his skin sagged along his sides as he sat up, at least half-naked—his ribs and his voice?

Richard’s face told nothing, of course. On it was that pleasant, blank, neutral expression that Harry was sure he must use in all his dealings with the Ministry. He conjured a carved wooden table, set the tray on it, and nodded to Draco. “How are you feeling?”

The past Draco shrugged, his eyes darting between the food and Richard’s face.

“I’m so glad you didn’t trust him by then,” Harry whispered to his Draco.

The other man twisted around and gave him a look that clearly said, I would have been mad to trust him.

“Yes, but in a situation like that you need to rely on someone,” Harry explained. “And with Pearl taken away from you and your friends and family so far away, it wouldn’t have been surprising if you latched onto him.”

Draco arched his eyebrows. As clearly as a shout, his expression stated, Yes, it would.

“What I meant,” Harry began, and then stopped. He had been about to compare Draco’s possible trust in Richard to Draco’s absurd trust in him after only a few days together, but he had the sense to realize it wasn’t the best thing to say right now.

“Never mind,” he muttered, and turned back to the memory. He was almost sure he saw Draco smirk, but since no snigger—of course—accompanied the expression, he could ignore it.

“I know you’ve suffered,” Richard was saying to the past Draco. “But it’s very nearly done and over now. The taking of your voice was the last important step in the completion of our research. Now, eat up. You need your strength.”

The past Draco shook his head, his lips pursed.

Richard sighed and dipped up a spoon that he raked through the broth. He made sure to catch up both liquid and meat, and swallowed them. “Do you see?” he added. “Not poisoned. Not drugged. We do need you healthy, and the pain you’ve insisted on suffering lately has done nothing for that at all.”

Draco shut his eyes as if the mere suggestion that he had inflicted pain on himself was enough to make him sick up, but in the end nodded curtly and accepted the tray onto his lap. His hand trembled as he picked up the glass of pumpkin juice. Harry could see his mouth literally watering, and a wave of pity swept through him. He hoped, when this was done, that the Healers at St. Mungo’s would have the sense to put Draco on a hearty diet from the beginning, with no gruel nonsense.

The past Draco was more cautious about trying the broth, but he did, and soon he was eagerly gulping the pieces of meat; Harry suspected he hadn’t much protein of any kind since he vanished into the Department of Mysteries. He had to rest halfway through, and shook his head when Richard tried to push more broth on him. Harry suspected his stomach had shrunken, and he probably couldn’t have kept more food down even if he’d tried. He was intimately familiar with the phenomenon from his time at the Dursleys’.

His Draco shifted next to him, and Harry glanced down to see a light frown on his face. Harry shared the sentiment. So far, this memory wasn’t particularly horrific. Why was it in the Pensieve?

Richard finally took the tray away, and cleared his throat importantly whilst Draco looked at him warily. “Now,” Richard said. “I suspect you must be eager to find out what happened to the people we were holding hostage against your good behavior, though, as you haven’t asked about them in some time—“

Harry growled; this wasn’t the most hateful thing Richard had done, but still he longed to draw his wand and interrupt the memory. The Draco in the bed, meanwhile, stabbed his nubs against his throat and glared accusingly at Richard.

The bastard just cocked his head and shrugged his shoulders. “How was I supposed to know you were interested in them, Draco? Most people who were would have figured out a way to ask, missing voice or not. That you didn’t ask only tells me that you’re selfishly concerned about your own future.” He paused, and gave Draco a look compounded of contempt and mild interest. “As usual.”

Harry set his teeth. He was imagining the worst curses he knew as punishment for Richard, and still he couldn’t settle on one that was bad enough. Draco, from the way he shook under Harry’s arms, might be having the same problem.

“You look interested now,” Richard conceded, sounding reluctant. “Oh, very well. There are still Unspeakables watching your parents and your friends, but no one has been harmed. They’re of very little use to us, really. The Ministry would notice if we took more prisoners out of Azkaban right now, so even your father’s usefulness is removed.” He sounded disappointed.

The past Draco closed his eyes and shivered, and Harry’s heart went out to him. He wondered how he could ever have thought that Draco Malfoy was cold, snooty, or haughty.

“Pearl—well.” Richard gave a shrug.

The past Draco immediately went still. Then he opened his eyes, but stared towards the wall past Richard’s ear, as if he suspected that his questions wouldn’t be answered.

“She proved useful in some ways,” Richard said. “We particularly wished to understand why she had betrayed us. But she would only babble nonsense about morals and accusations of our being fanatics and all the other things I’ve heard already from others who are opposed to this.” He shrugged again, wearily.

The past Draco glared at him.

“As for her final fate…” Richard lowered his voice solicitously. “How did she taste, Draco?”

Harry felt the words shoot through him like a dart of ice. He watched the past Draco go very still, and then they turned their heads at the same time and stared at the steaming bowl of broth and chunks of meat still sitting on the table next to the bed. Richard observed Draco’s reaction with an expression of mild inquiry.

The past Draco began to vomit. He grasped his stomach and stuck his fingers down his throat in the middle of it, as though he could urge up every speck he might have chewed and swallowed. Richard shook his head and leaned out of the way of the bile, raising his voice a little to be heard over the sound of Draco heaving.

“She was useful, as I said, but she taught us little. In the end, she was rendered down. I doubt you can get all the flesh you ate—the human flesh, remember—out of your body, Draco. Enough time has gone past for it to be absorbed. She has nourished you.”

Harry’s Draco collapsed.

Harry dropped to his knees, too horrified to listen to or watch the rest of the memory. His skin was crawling with cold sweat, his eyes swam with tears, his mind tried to present him with visions of how it would have been, and—

And his Draco lay still and cold under his touch, eyes utterly glazed and fixed, as they had been just before they entered the Pensieve room.

Harry heard Richard binding the past Draco and chanting a spell, but he couldn’t turn to look. He couldn’t do anything but drag Draco into his lap and then wrench them backwards, out of the Pensieve. A moment later, they were falling awkwardly to the floor of the white-lit room, their feet still held in place by the Sticking Charms, Harry twisting his body at the last moment to protect Draco from the collision with the stone.

Draco didn’t react. His breathing was shallow and fast, but steady; its rhythm didn’t falter. His eyes remained fixed. He had gone so deeply inside himself that Harry felt his own breath stutter as he released their feet and maneuvered them around so that Draco was lying fully against him.

An embrace had brought Draco back last time. Perhaps it would work this time.

But no matter how hard Harry squeezed—and even there, he had to be gentle, remembering Draco’s missing ribs—he didn’t respond. Harry squeezed his elbow, pinched his ear, tapped his cheek and yelled in his face.

Nothing. Draco just lay like one of the vegetables that Harry had seen on the Janus Thickey ward, the day Auror Donaldson had taken the trainees there to see what some misfired curses could do—wizards locked so deeply inside themselves that they would never surface again, fled into permanent and self-willed coma to survive pain that was too much to deal with.

Oh, God, the sacrifices he made for her, and in the end they didn’t matter. And then he ate her—

Harry shook Draco hard enough, in a fit of frustration and fury, to bang his head on the stone floor. And then he was clutching him close, whispering, “Please, please, wake up, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it, I—“

Draco didn’t roll his eyes or make one of his soundless hisses of pain. His eyes went on staring. His lungs went on moving. No other part of him responded; no other part of him was alive.

There followed a few minutes, or maybe hours, that blurred in Harry’s memory. He came back to himself with his face and his eyes raw with weeping, his arms holding Draco cradled like a limp doll in his lap, his legs aching with the endless rocking back and forth. His throat hurt, and it took him a moment to figure out why: the words he kept whispering over and over.

“Please wake up. Please be all right. Please just wake up.”

Chapter 26.

Comments

[gilith-ramaloce.livejournal.com]

bleeeeeeeeeegh. Ohhhhh, my Draco. -huggles- Though Harry needs a hug too I think. He should try kissing him awake. I'm not all that surprised at what happened to Pearl though. It's something Richard would do. Good chapter!

[lomonaaeren.livejournal.com]

Well, Harry will try kissing, but that's probably not the answer, given how deeply Draco is locked in his own mind.

And thank you!