The Gift
It was a dark and stormy night in the Malfoy basement.
"This is going to take a long time." Harry dropped the book with the oddly coloured leather cover, and wiped his hand rapidly on a nearby chair. "I'm seriously thinking of wearing about five pairs of gloves. The things here…they give off the creepiest sensations."
Draco shook his head. "You always say that around my things." He casually Stupefied a vase as it lunged for his leg. "I thought we'd agreed to clear this room before the winter was gone."
"Yes, we did agree to that." Harry sighed. "To be fair, though, you forgot to mention the number of homicidal items we'd be dealing with, and the things that were cursed specifically to attack me, and-"
"All right, all right." Draco held up a hand to still Harry's inventory. "Let's finish up for today, shall we? I've got a special surprise for you upstairs."
Harry froze. "Is it as special as your Valentine's Venus flytrap?"
"Oh, that." Draco flicked a hand dismissively, turning his attention to a particularly angry-looking rug. "I'd heard that a plant was a good present for one's lover, and Trisha's Triffids is the family florist-"
"Keeping Malfoys in Flaming Nettles and Ravenous Roses through the ages?" Harry smirked.
"Yes." Draco frowned in confusion. "What of it?"
"Nothing." Harry ducked to avoid the swooping scythe that sprang from a nearby grandfather's clock. "I'm just hoping this surprise of yours is completely unsurprising."
It was a gnarled and desiccated thing, with odd pale threads that looked like sinews swathed around the closed fingers. Peculiar patches of coarse hair protruded from the thick knuckles and it was covered in a glutinous grey skin.
"Good God." Harry eyed the object with revulsion, swallowing audibly.
"Do you like it?" Draco was watching him, his hand still holding the heavy silk cloth that had covered Harry's gift.
"Er." Harry wracked his brain for a clue as to what Draco was presenting to him. "Ah."
"I know it's a bit grand but-" Draco looked tense, and he held Harry's gaze as he continued quietly, "I thought this would be a good time, after what we talked about the other day."
"I really don't know what to say." Harry's response brought a shy grin to Draco's face.
"It's okay, Harry. I know you never thought it'd be possible." Draco gently pulled him close, and a smirk appeared. "Can I suggest a possible way of expressing your thanks?"
"Now, that's no surprise." Harry laughed and pushed him back onto the bed. Draco drew him into a long, dizzying kiss that still tasted of the mint berries they'd had with supper. It made Harry forget all about the grotesque, mysterious gift for a little while.
But only a little while. When Draco was snoring softly later that night, Harry crouched by the grate in the next room, whispering urgently to his sleep-addled friend. "I don't know what it is, Hermione! That's why I got in touch."
"If I don't know what it looks like, or what it's supposed to do, I don't know how I'm meant to tell you what it is, Harry," Hermione said impatiently, stifling a yawn and resting her chin on a hand. "I'll need you to show it to me."
"I know, but it's a bit tricky. Draco already assumes I know what it is, and it's supposedly something really expensive and important and exactly what I want-" Harry stopped and thought for a moment. "Look, I'll take a picture with my mobile and send it to you. You use yours, don't you?"
"Sure, my parents gave it to me last Christmas. I'm surprised you use yours!"
"Well," Harry gave the nearby doorway a furtive glance, "it's sometimes useful to have other ways to communicate that don't connect to Draco."
"What? Like this fire-grate in his own house?" Hermione's laugh was loud in the quiet room.
Harry shushed her. "You know what I mean. Ron doesn't run everything through you either, I'll bet."
Hermione raised a brow.
"Er, actually I think he does. I'm sure he does. Really. Look, I'll send it tomorrow morning." Harry started getting up. "And I'll drop in on you tomorrow night."
"Before seven o'clock would be good, Harry. We're having Ginny and Neville over for tea and, well-"
"That's fine," Harry interrupted. "I know."
Hermione nodded, saying goodbye.
When she'd gone, Harry sat for a while soaking in the thick silence of the Manor. What was that thing Draco had given him, and why did he think it was Harry's heart's desire? Even after these years of living together, Harry wasn't sure he trusted Draco's logic.
After Apparating to Ron and Hermione's house at six o'clock the next evening, Harry dusted off his cloak and knocked at the front door.
He could hear a stampede of small feet rush towards him behind the door.
"It's Aunty Ginny! It's Aunty Ginny!"
The door flew open and several red-heads with shining faces peered at Harry in disappointment.
"It's only Uncle Harry," said a stout four-year-old.
"Yeah, thanks, Trevor. Make a guy feel welcome, why don't you?" Harry laughed, scooping him into his arms. The other kids dispersed in a wave of giggles and shouts.
"Uncle Harry, where's Uncle Draco?"
"He's at home, er, making me dinner." Harry chuckled to himself. "Where's your mum, Trev?"
Trevor pointed towards the study. After a few strides, Harry deposited him at a nearby table and took in the scene before him.
Hermione was hunched over her desk, piles of books in a staggered array around her. Her quill was flying across the sheet of parchment and she looked like she was still wearing her pajamas.
She looked up when Harry entered, and quickly sent Trevor to the dining room.
"Oh, Harry!" She looked distraught.
Harry eyed the scribbled sheet with unease. "Did you find out what Draco's gift is?"
She nodded, waving him into the chair opposite. He sank down on the split cushion and waited as she pulled out an especially well-covered parchment.
"I can't believe he'd do this! It's wrong in so many ways and almost as if he's plotting against you-"
"What are you talking about, Hermione?" Harry's voice was sharper than he'd intended.
She took a deep breath. "It's called the Fist of Founding."
"You're joking."
"No, that's what it's called." She flicked through to the middle of a particularly fat book. "According to Herbgeldner's Book of Revolting Relics, the Fist of Founding was created after an accident in the laboratory of Yves the Adventurous. It's been in the category of 'Feared Objects' for a few centuries."
"But what does it actually do?"
Hermione gestured to the books before her. "None of these spells it out, so your guess is as good as mine. The closest I've got is a mention in Lockhart's pamphlet 'Philandering in Finland.'"
"The Fist of Founding features in 'Philandering in Finland'?"
Hermione gave him a look. "The pamphlet says, 'Far be it for a man of exceptional valour such as myself to admit to this, but the Fist of Founding is not for civilised society. As precious as it would've been to prove that I'd scoured the glaciers and icy abysses to find this rare and infamous thing, I could not in all conscience return it to where it could do most harm.'"
"Means he never found it, right? As if Lockhart would forego fame if could help it!" Harry quirked a smile.
"He finishes the short section with: 'If pressed, whatever you do, don't wish in two minds.'" Hermione frowned. "Which makes little sense."
Harry heard a faint knock at the front door and leapt up. "That's probably Ginny. I'd better go."
Hermione quickly ran a wand over her clothes and was suddenly wearing more appropriate dinner party attire. "I'll see you out, Harry. Until we work this thing out properly, don't use that gift at all, all right? It must be something pretty dire to be listed as a Fearful Object. I don't know what Draco was thinking when-"
"All you have to do is ask, Granger." Draco lounged in the doorway. "Now, Harry, why does Trevor think I was making your dinner? Does he not know I've never crossed the threshold of a kitchen?"
Harry tried not to look panicky. "Kids! Who knows where they get those ideas. I was just heading home. Shall we?"
Draco sighed. "After all this time, you still assume I'm that amenable." He turned to Hermione. "You don't know what I was thinking when I what exactly?"
Hermione glanced at Harry.
"Time to fess up, I guess." Harry ran an agitated hand through his hair. "I asked Hermione to check out the present you gave me because, er, I have no idea what it is, or what it does."
Draco's only discernible reaction was his raised eyebrow.
"And it never occurred to you that you could ask me?" Draco said softly after a brief silence.
"Well, we'd better be going. You've got people coming for tea." Harry coughed and started towards the corridor. "Draco?"
Draco's face was more closed than usual. He nodded curtly to Hermione before striding out of the house with Harry behind him.
The shadowed planes of Draco's face were deep and his expression was angry.
"I'm sorry. I should've just asked." Harry sat opposite him, almost wringing his hands with remorse. They were in the library after supper, with the grisly object in question on the small table between them. "You were so thrilled by the giving of it; saying that I had no idea what it was seemed to deflate the occasion."
"As my having to hare over to Chez Weasley after you does not?"
Harry looked up. "Hang on, how did you know I was going to Hermione's today? I never told you." Harry frowned. "You must've listened in last night!"
Draco nodded without hesitation. "Of course, I did. It's not every night you crawl out of bed to talk to the fire next door. Incidentally, you should tell Granger that her voice carries clear to the next county."
After a few moments of Harry opening and closing his mouth, Draco sighed and picked up the gift. "Remember the other night after Christmas and our visit with the Weasley brood? You were melancholy and talking about your parents; if I remember correctly, you even cast aspersions on my youthfulness."
"We all get older, Draco, it's hardly a secret-" He hesitated, then hurried on when he saw Draco's now-familiar expression of indignation. "Don't start with the Malfoys-as-wine analogy! I just heard it again last week. Now, are you going to tell me what this present is?"
"The gift," Draco said with barely concealed impatience, "is a reanimator." He waited, obviously expecting a reaction.
"Er, it's the Fist of Founding, right? Hermione told me that much."
Draco sighed with frustration. "Yes, but do you know what a reanimator is?"
Harry looked sheepish and shrugged.
"It's an object that can bring back those who are dead."
"Nothing can bring back the dead. Dumbledore said so."
"Well, centuries of this object's existence and hordes of inferi beg to differ."
"So, you're saying this could bring back my parents? And Sirius? And Dumbledore? And Ce-"
"It can only bring back one of them." Draco's voice was quiet, but his face had finally relaxed.
"Only the one?" Harry's faint question was filled with long-suppressed yearning.
The next night, Draco owled to let Harry know he would be coming home late after a visit to Spinner's End.
Harry sat for hours with the gift, still revolted by its texture but elated by its promise. He was exhausted from not sleeping the night before; his mind ignited with possibilities after Draco's revelations. Through the day, he couldn't keep the ideas out of his head and, by the time evening drew near, he had a fervid craving to use the relic. While Hermione's warning circled in his mind, he knew that this might be the only chance - ever - to see his loved ones in the flesh. The top contenders to be brought back were, of course, his parents. He kept thinking back to the night of Voldemort's rebirth and their shadowy assistance, their encompassing love. Beside him was the photo-album Hagrid had given him all those years ago, after Harry had gazed into the Mirror of Erised and couldn't get enough of seeing his parents.
After making a near-impossible choice, Harry held the Fist of Founding before him, and shut his eyes. The strange gluey texture of the thing made his hands tense and unsteady. His thoughts whirled with jubilation and yearning.
Out loud, he said, "I wish my dad was alive again."
Unsure what to expect, he half-opened one eye.
The Fist did nothing at first.
Then it shuddered and grew warm; the gnarled digits unfurled like pallid worms. Harry almost dropped it in horror but it seemed planted more firmly than ever in his grasp. The parched skin of the Fist swelled with uncanny fleshiness, turning an indecent pink while the tufts of hair turned glossy. Harry gagged when the scent of gamey sweat began to seep into the room.
Once fully opened, with its horny nails extended, the Fist became immobile again. Harry shoved it back on the table, wiping his hands clean on a nearby couch. He felt soiled and not just a little terrified. What had he done?
"Draco?" Harry jolted awake. He must have fallen asleep waiting for Draco to come home. The room was in complete darkness; the fire had burned down to ash and the new self-dousing lamps were obviously working.
Working too well, really, as Harry discovered when he tried to re-light them. Nothing happened. He swore and felt around in vain for his wand. Last he remembered, it was on a nearby desk. Slowly moving across the room, he managed to bash his shin so hard that the chair he'd hit fell backwards with a muffled thump on the rug.
As he leaned over to right it, he heard a second thump. Just across the room.
It sounded like someone taking a step.
He froze.
There was a wet, dragging sound. A second step.
"Who's there? Is someone else in here?" Harry strained to see into that corner, but the heavy darkness of the room was unadulterated by moonlight. He made his way to the closest window, and nervously grabbed a handful of the curtain. Harry yanked it back to let in the night's faint silvery sheen, and frantically scanned the room.
There was a cloaked figure in that corner, hunched but standing, swaying slightly. It moved again, its head leaning forward before it took a sliding step.
Harry's mouth was so dry he couldn't swallow. "Dad?"
A rasping, high-pitched noise that was almost a giggle came from the corner.
"Oh, Harry." Its tones were guttural and…female. The figure moved another clammy step closer. Harry could smell the musty decay as rank air closed around him. The figure's cloak dripped loudly on the rug. "How little it must have meant to you, my sacrifice."
He took a step back, not wanting to be any closer to it. His arms were all gooseflesh and a dreadful panic was rising in his throat. The thing shuffled steadily across the carpet, its breathing laboured. It took a couple of disturbingly fast steps and Harry found himself pinned near the fireplace, his stomach churning at the ripe stench that engulfed him.
Harry bit down a cry of horror when the figure looked up. Her familiar features were deeply shadowed and crusted with black pits; the eyes were malevolent and canny. What hair remained clung in draggled wisps to the protruding bare scalp. There was no doubt about it. It was Lily.
"How could you choose him instead of me? You're mine, Harry. Mine."
Even as she spoke in that strange, scratched voice, her mouth was twisting into an avid maw as wide as his head.
Harry tried to duck around her but she was all of a sudden surrounding him, and closing in even more. He felt himself being pulled into her - a chillingly strong vacuum - even though she hadn't touched him. He was losing consciousness.
"Petrificus totalus!"
Just as Harry thought he'd disappear into the void, the cold abated. The thing - he couldn't think of it as his mother - slowly turned her head all the way around to face the intruder. It was Draco.
"Your feeble spells don't work on me, boy," she hissed. The sapping feeling returned, even more strongly, and Harry knew he couldn't stand it much longer as the blackness again closed in.
Over her shoulder, Harry saw Draco moving across the room, wand drawn. "Incarcerous!" A glimmer of winding rope appeared around the mucky edge of her cloak but then fell away. Harry collapsed on the carpet; his legs felt like they'd gone missing.
As Draco aimed another spell at the thing, Snape swept into the room, pointed his wand at the relic on the table and shouted "Accio!" It flew into his grasp and he immediately incanted a spell that Harry couldn't hear. The Fist of Founding flared with a strange light and started closing.
The figure whipped towards Snape with a shriek, her billowing, rotten cloak dropping to shreds on the floor. She fell backwards and writhed with unseen tortures, her cries piercing. Harry had a shocking glimpse of wasted, grey flesh before the thing melted into nothingness.
The Fist was closed, having once again assumed its desiccated form. The miasma of putrefaction, however, lingered in the slightly hazy air.
"We should have come straight away, Severus!" Draco sounded anguished and he was immediately at Harry's side.
"I thought we were talking hypothetically. I didn't know you'd given Potter the Fist of Founding. Replicas of those things are a dime a dozen in Knockturn Alley…" Snape's voice sounded very far away and Harry closed his eyes at last.
The first thing Harry saw when he opened his eyes was Snape's face looming over him. Instinct made him shut them again.
"I'll still be here, Potter." Snape didn't seem perturbed and Harry knew he was leaning over the bed; he could feel him close to his skin. "His colour's more normal." A prod at his temple with a wand-tip. "The effects are clearing up."
Harry heard Hermione's relieved exclamation, heard Ron's "It's about bloody time!", and wondered where Draco was. His limbs felt extremely heavy, and he was almost melded to the bed with exhaustion.
"Could I have some time alone with Harry?" Draco's voice wasn't really asking. He was somewhere close beside the bed.
Harry heard everyone else troop from the room, with Snape whispering something before the door shut.
The edge of the bed sagged. Harry slowly opened his eyes.
"Thought I'd lost you," Draco said, weariness and guilt etched with equal heaviness on his features.
"Has Hermione said 'I told you so'?"
"Only about five different ways." Draco half-smiled. "But it was even worse when she was trying really hard not to say it. Not that I don't deserve it a hundred times over. Harry, I'm so sorry. I didn't know that thing would-"
Harry shook his head, and had to stop when the dizziness threatened to blank him out again. "I'd been warned. I still went ahead, so I'm not completely blameless myself."
"Not so sure about that. Severus says that the Fist of Founding exudes a form of hallucinogenic that impels you to want to use it."
Remembering the hunger with which he made his wish, Harry didn't doubt it. He stared at the quilted satin coverlet while he tried, and discarded, ways to talk about it.
"It was my mother," he finally whispered, not trusting his voice to say more.
"No, it wasn't, Harry; it wasn't your mother at all. It's a copy the relic makes from the images in your mind." Draco hesitated. "You were wishing for your father, weren't you?"
Harry nodded; the wash of pained shame and echo of hoarse muttering still felt strong and sickening.
"The Fist reads the other memory, the one you don't wish for. Yves the Adventurous wanted to make sure that his mistresses were suitably punished should they have affections for anyone other than his magnificent self." Draco saw Harry's face crumple with guilt, and tried again to lead him away from it. "I'm sorry we took so long to get here last night. Severus had to consult with the Falmouth Muses and, well, they aren't the kind of witches you hurry along. Look, how about I bring Severus in and he can tell you all about it? "
"Er, maybe later. It doesn't much matter right now." The widening maw that almost swallowed him kept flashing behind his eyes. Harry felt the edges of his mind start shutting down again. "Need to rest a bit more."
As he slipped into the velvet embrace of sleep, he felt the soft brush of lips on his forehead. Typical, he thought. Draco's great with affection when no-one's watching.
The next time he woke, he felt almost normal. In fact, he itched to get up and move around.
"Not so fast, Harry." A hand pushed him back as he started pulling the sheets aside. "Snape says you shouldn't get up for at least another day."
Harry scowled at Hermione. "Hardly. I've been flat on my back for ages. I need to get moving."
"Please, Harry, just do what he says." Hermione's anxiety was palpable. "He said that you could easily regress if you overdo it."
He swore and sat back, crossing his arms. "Where's Draco?"
"Helping Snape dispose of that thing."
"They're destroying it, right?"
She wouldn't meet his eyes.
"Hermione?"
"It'll never make it into the world again, that's what counts." At his snort of disdain, Hermione hurried on. "It's not an object that can be undone, Harry, not even by the most powerful wizard or witch."
"It's too dangerous to leave about!" Harry was half out of bed in outrage.
"Didn't Granger tell you that you're to stay in bed?" Draco walked back into the room at that point. His travel cloak was marred with clods of dirt and a few odd slashes; his complexion was ruddy from exercise.
"Were you working outdoors, Draco?" Harry's shock was evident.
"You were right, Granger. That thing didn't want to be sealed away. Severus had to enchant more than four layers of buffering shrouds before it stopped sending out random curses," Draco said, wiping a still-gloved hand across his brow. It left a smear of mud. He turned to Harry. "I just wanted to stop by and make sure you were okay before Flooing to St Mungo's for a thorough check-up."
"I'm fine, except that no-one will let me get up."
Draco gave him a look.
"I know, I know. It's for my own good." Harry asked Hermione for another pot of tea and, when she'd disappeared towards the kitchen, he said, "How about a proper kiss hello?"
With a small laugh, Draco obliged.
"That's better than the one on the forehead," Harry said softly.
"What one to the forehead?" Draco asked, pulling back with a puzzled expression.
"You know; the one earlier when I was falling asleep." Harry sighed. "It's okay, Draco, you're allowed to do things like that, and it's only me here, remember?"
"No, I wouldn't be ashamed about it." Draco suddenly went very still. "I'm saying I didn't kiss you on the forehead earlier today."
"What? Then it must've been someone else. I was almost completely asleep anyway-"
"We were the only ones in the room."
They fell silent, and exchanged apprehensive glances.
"What's wrong with you two? Harry, are you feeling bad again?" Hermione swept back in carrying a heavy tray full of scones and a fat brown teapot.
When they told her, the scones and tea went cold as they contacted Snape, and Harry ended up in St Mungo's care again straight away.
Apparently, he'd contracted a severe Latent Lingering Lurgy from his close contact with the relic. The people Harry had been thinking about before he made the wish were all around him in an odd melancholy haze. They weren't brought back, but the intensity of his yearning gave them a kind of physical substance. For a few days, he felt things brush against his hands, light kisses to his cheeks, and unexpected hugs. It was unnerving, to say the least.
"Nothing some bed-rest and a hearty dose of Anti-Emo-Ecto can't fix, Harry!" said their infernally cheery Healer, a Hufflepuff a few years behind them at Hogwarts.
When the Lurgy finally cleared and they took him home, Harry cornered Draco at the first opportunity.
"Promise me there'll be no more surprises?"
"How about I promise that there'll be no more life-threatening surprises?"
Harry looked wary.
The jangling tune of his mobile phone cut through the silence. Harry had been carrying it around because Hermione said she'd be in touch about how to cleanse the house of the Lurgy, and she'd be in a Muggle library building without a proper fireplace.
"Hello, Hermione?" Harry answered.
"Harry?" Hermione sounded anxious and slightly odd. "Is Draco there with you?"
"Yes, Draco's here with me." Harry frowned. "What's wrong?"
"Oh, nothing. It's- well-" Hermione sighed. "I think Draco was trying to use your phone and, er, he's accidentally sent me a picture. Something very…revealing. Maybe it'd be good if you showed him how to use it properly?"
"Er, sure, I guess. Did you find the information about clearing out the Lurgy from here?" The conversation concluded after a few minutes of Hermione's instructions.
"Everything solved?" Draco asked, looking up from the book he'd been skimming.
Harry nodded, writing down the last of the things he'd have to pick up from Diagon Alley the next day. "Hermione said I should show you how to use this properly," Harry held up the mobile phone. "Apparently, you sent her something by accident today. I didn't even know you were messing with it."
Draco nodded without comment, looking a little strange. Harry sighed. Draco hated having his ignorance of Muggle technology brought up.
"Hello? Anyone home?" Dean Thomas leaned in around the doorway and walked in to take a seat. "Ah, here you are. Just came to see how you were going, Harry. The Ministry's going to need both of you to fill in a report about this whole thing. You know you can count on me to help you with the bureaucratese."
"Thanks, Dean. I knew you were a shiftless public servant for good reason." Harry grinned.
Dean inclined his head in acknowledgment.
Someone knocked at the front door, and Harry waved the others back to their seats. "I'm fine now. I'll get it. Dean, could you show Draco how to take and send a picture using the mobile?" He tossed the phone to Dean.
"But just the other day he asked me to show him-" Dean started, but Harry was already gone. He looked at Draco. "I don't want to know what that's all about, do I? He doesn't know you know how to use this thing?"
A rare spark of mirth lit Draco's face. "It's a surprise."
-- END --