Author's Notes: Yes, I am particularly late this time. College has gotten hard all of a sudden and I'm bad at time management. Anyway, enjoy one of the last fluffy chapters for this book. We're approaching the climax of Year 2 now, which means that everything's going to go to hell pretty soon. :)
More Notes: This chapter will build on information from "Chapter 9: Punishment," and since I posted that chapter about two months back, I figure a lot of people have forgotten by now. Therefore, I've provided a quick recap (or alternatively, you could just reread that scene with Synesis in Chapter 9):
-A demon Seed will eventually cause its host to go into "Anthesis" or "blossoming," which will then turn the host into a demon.
-Sometimes, if a Seed is damaged during the planting process, a partial Anthesis can occur instead, giving the host demon-like qualities without fully taking over the host's body.
-Synesis and Harry have come to the conclusion that Auranos (the Level Two demon that Harry tried to summon on Mabon) ended up planting a demon Seed of some sort inside Harry. We are not yet sure whether Synesis was affected.
-Because Auranos said, "Your body belongs to Chaos, just like everything does, and Chaos will control it," they suspect the Seed belongs to the demon god Chaos.
-Synesis wonders how the hell any of this is even possible, considering that both Chaos and Auranos are dead, and only the Seeds of living demons can blossom. Harry decides that Synesis's knowledge on demon magic is outdated, and that the impossible is now possible now that the realm has destabilized thanks to Voldemort's invasion.
-Harry has already informed Draco of all the above.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
VALENTINE'S DAY
o
"It pisses me off that the dirty-blood won so easily."
"I'm hardly surprised by it. Your little brother is talented, Sebastian, but that Potter boy is… something else. I knew it from the moment I saw him."
"My brother is a useless little bitch, actually."
"It seems to me that your hatred of the Potter boy is a bit… personal. You completely snapped the other day."
"What the hell are you talking about? You're the one who asked me to wait until after the duel to torture him. I offered to beat him up before the duel started, or join in partway through, but you wanted me to—what was it you said—'show the dirty-blood that he doesn't belong in a Tournament for Purebloods, even if he's the best'—or whatever."
"Ha. Did I strike a nerve? Do you have a personal reason to despise the Potter boy?"
Silence.
"Sometimes I wonder. What with your plan for Potter during the final exam, the plan that involves young Mr. Malfoy, I can't help but think—"
"I get great enjoyment out of torturing uppity dirty-bloods, Adolphus. You know that. And it's clear to me that there's something going on between Potter and Malfoy. I thought I could… find a use for it, that's all."
"A delightfully evil use for it, let me add. I'm looking forward to seeing everything play out. Just try not to hurt young Malfoy too much, will you?"
"Remember two things for the ritual, Harry. Blood and bait."
The Seed cleansing ritual. Simple in theory, but dishearteningly difficult to pull off.
"You have to attract a variety of demons with bait—blood sacrifice works best—and then keep them trapped in a summoning circle so they can't attack you or possess you, all while you barter with them to lend you their cleansing powers. Sometimes, they're not interested in bartering. And if they find out you're the Colossus, they might not want to help you at all," Synesis had said in the days after Mabon, when they'd both been reeling from Auranos's attack.
Blood and bait were the core components of the ritual. On Imbolc, Harry would lay bait for six powerful demons, one from each race—Sapience, Astral, Sisyphean, Pestilence, Templar, Psyche. The bait would be a unique object, one for each separate race of demon, and would be smeared with Harry's blood to further entice them. In the end, if all six demons decided they were interested in the bait laid out for them, they would mark it with their symbol.
The final and the seventh race of demon, the Leviathan, did not exactly need bait. A Leviathan's interest could only be captured when all the demons from the other six races had marked their bait. If it was pleased, its symbol would appear on the instigator of the cleansing ritual, Harry himself, marking the first phase of the ritual complete.
Then, more than a month later, on Ostara, Harry would summon all seven demons. Not into his own body, but into the secure summoning circle, where he would be relatively safe from their machinations.
And he would need to be.
He would be summoning not just any seven powerful demons, but seven Rank Seven demons.
"The more powerful the Seed, the more powerful the demons tasked with expelling it will have to be," Synesis had said, grimly.
Harry wouldn't have dared to summon Rank Sevens in a normal summoning ritual, nor would Synesis have let him. But the Seed cleansing ritual, as it did not require an actual fusion between human and demon and merely oversaw a brief flow of power from the second to the first, came with certain protections that could not be replicated in any other situation.
"Because I am a Rank Seven Sapience, I once knew all of these demons intimately. They are the most harmless and agreeable of the Sevens. You will be safe from them as long as you are outside the circle, and they will give you a fair hearing."
Not that any of them were harmless, but like Synesis had said, they were the most harmless of the bunch, which had to count for something.
Harry, with Synesis's help, would barter with them from the outside, trying his hardest to convince them to combine their seven powers into a surge of cleansing. He would have to be careful to keep his identity as the Colossus concealed. If he didn't, perhaps the demons would be able to break the laws of summoning just like Auranos had, and as Rank Sevens they were capable of far more destruction if they managed to possess him or escape the summoning circle.
So far, there's no way they know about me.
There couldn't be. The demons isolated inside the dying realm had no idea that the Colossus had been found and infected with Chaos's Seed; Auranos had self-destructed, unable to bring the news back to them. They had no reason to suspect Harry.
He hoped so, anyway. He would worry about that when the time came, on dreaded Ostara. Comparatively, the Imbolc part of the ritual sounded easy. Harry just needed to find seven objects, a knife, and some healing paste.
Like they had planned, Harry and Draco were meeting at two o'clock AM, in the same abandoned classroom Harry had summoned Auranos in. It had only been about fifteen minutes since they'd arrived, and Draco was already asleep, draped over one of the dusty desks, wearing his school robes but wrapped in a fluffy, expensive-looking ermine scarf he'd made into a makeshift pillow. His crown of pale-blond hair blended into the white fur of the scarf, Harry noticed.
He'd begged Draco not to come, afraid of what might happen tonight or on Ostara, but of course Draco refused to listen. Harry wouldn't admit it, but he was grateful for the company, even if Draco was too tired to be useful right now. Harry would just have to wake him up later.
Or I could just let him sleep. Draco looked cute with his mouth hanging open and his eyes squeezed shut, too cute to disturb.
"I don't think this is going to work, Harry," Synesis said tremulously just then, from the desk next to Draco's.
"What makes you think that?" Harry asked, putting the finishing touches on the summoning circle.
There was a long silence. Draco snored and mumbled something.
"There's—" Synesis halted abruptly. Harry straightened up to stare at it. "It's just—nothing. I'm just overreacting, as usual. You should wake up Draco."
"No, tell me, Synesis," Harry said, lowering his voice and reaching out to stroke the book's spine. "I won't get mad."
"I swear it's really nothing, Harry. I'm just… well, you know. The usual. I'm afraid I'm going to fail again."
Harry sighed. Synesis had indeed been quiet and withdrawn lately, less likely to nag and more likely to just sniffle in a corner. Harry was worried about it. Before, Synesis had never shut up with its hysterical, panicked chatter, but now it seemed to have lost all its energy.
"It's not your fault," Harry said. "You had no way of knowing Auranos would be able to possess me."
"But you might die," Synesis choked out. "If the cleansing ritual doesn't work tonight or on Ostara, if even the tiniest thing goes wrong, you're as good as dead. You'll turn into Chaos one day—or something else, something worse. In fact, I think you have less time than I previously thought."
"What?" Harry almost dropped the book. "I thought you said that even if this fails, I'll have years. You said if Auranos planted a powerful Seed like Chaos's inside me, it would take a long time to germinate—"
"That's what I thought," Synesis said, "but I've been… hypothesizing, and, well, everything's too much of a coincidence."
"Synesis! Tell me!" Harry half-yelled, and Draco jerked awake at once and looked around, eyes bleary.
"What? Where are—oh. Sorry. I fell asleep."
"No, it's okay. I wasn't talking to you." Harry turned his attention back to Synesis, pinning the book down with a glare. "What's too much of a coincidence, Synesis? I want to hear every one of your theories."
A pause, then Synesis gave a sigh of defeat.
"Fine. Remember when I told you about Anthesis, the day of demonkind's birth? Chaos and Control fought for an eternity, and each destroyed the other, on the day that was to be known as the Day of the Bloody Moon, because their blood flew into the sky after their deaths, washing it in crimson. Their shards scattered throughout our realm, and twenty-three sunrises later, the demons blossomed from those seed-shards," Synesis said.
"And remember that I said that our world cycles through the ritual days—Ostara, Beltane, and so on—in a thousand years, while yours takes only a year? The first Anthesis took place on the summer solstice, Litha, almost seventeen thousand Earth years ago, and that means that this year's Earth Litha is the official end of the seventeenth cycle in our world. It lines up perfectly."
"Yeah, I remember you saying something like that," Harry said slowly, though he recalled that this was the first time Synesis had ever mentioned the "Day of the Bloody Moon," and that the first demon seeds had taken "twenty-three sunrises" to grow. The second was an odd, random addition to the story that had broken the flow of Harry's thoughts.
Something about it rubbed Harry the wrong way, and he wondered if he was missing something important, but Synesis had already moved on.
"Yes, so going off on that… There is a tale, a prophecy of sorts, we demons liked to recite to each other, back home."
"What are you two talking about? Can you tell me what the book's saying, Harry?" Draco whined, and Harry waved a hand to shush him.
"Later. Go on, Synesis."
"On Anthesis, the tale says, Chaos will rise and blossom once again—like we demons grow from seeds—to bring about the end times. Chaos will devour everything until the universe resembles its original state. This can only happen on an Anthesis, at the beginning of a cycle. That means, after the one this summer, there won't be another Anthesis for a thousand more Earth years."
The blood in Harry's veins froze solid. "So, you think that, if Chaos's Seed really is inside of me, the only day it could blossom would be this summer's Litha?"
"Not exactly," Synesis squeaked. "The story hints that it will take many more cycles than just seventeen. The exact phrase used in the tale is 'tens of thousands of years,' and only seventeen have gone by. I mean in demon years, of course—here on Earth we call our years 'cycles' to avoid confusion. But if the tale was referring to human years, and not demon cycles like we assumed, then everything fits. I thought it was clear what 'years' was referring to, but now I'm not sure."
"But—but doesn't the tale say that Chaos will basically end your realm? How could any demon want that to happen? Why would they plant a Seed inside me for that?" Harry spluttered.
"Harry!" Draco wailed, fidgeting. "Hurry up and tell me what you two are talking about!"
"It is possible that the Seed inside you is not Chaos's," Synesis said, after Harry had shushed Draco again. "But if it is, there could be a variety of reasons they are so eager to bring the tale to life. Many demons do not believe that Chaos will destroy our realm; they think Chaos will save it. Many think 'end times' means 'end times' for Earth, not demons. The tale is utterly up to interpretation. Perhaps the Royal Demons know its true meaning, which is why they are so eager for Chaos's return."
"So we only have until this summer." An icy rock settled into Harry's stomach.
Synesis whimpered hopelessly. "I don't know, Harry. I don't understand how a Seed as powerful as Chaos's could germinate in less than a year, which is why I didn't consider this possibility until now. Like I said, it's possible that it's not Chaos's—"
"Right now, we're assuming the worst case scenario," Harry said, his expression hardening. "That means I have one chance to get this Seed cleansing ritual right." He'd thought that if it hadn't worked this year, he could've tried again next spring, but now Harry no longer had the luxury of time. "Enough talking, Synesis. It's time to start the ritual. That's the only way I can fix any of this."
"HARRY!" Draco screeched, nearly upturning his desk in his haste to stand up. "I'm panicking more and more with every word you're saying, and you still haven't told me what the hell Synesis told you—"
Harry told Draco.
"What?" Draco covered his mouth. "I thought you said it might be years—"
"Nobody knows," Harry said through gritted teeth. "But really, nothing's changed. I was going to have to get it right this spring anyway."
Harry rummaged in his bag, taking out seven objects—the bait—he'd carefully wrapped in parchment earlier. Draco had helped him collect them after Harry had informed him about the ritual.
First, for a Rank Seven Sapience called Aletheia, was an ancient tome of the magical world, complete with endless pages of maps. Harry had snuck into the library after midnight and nicked it. The next object was a sparkling silver telescope Draco used for Astronomy—bait for a Rank Seven Astral demon called Chordi, the same type as the accursed Auranos. Unlike Auranos, however, Chordi was about ten times more dangerous, capable of being sent anywhere around the world and listening to anything in secret before reporting back to its master. Fortunately, it would be rendered useless in the ritual circle, as Harry did not intend to invite any of these demons inside his body to wreak havoc.
The third object was an ornate iron shield, some old Malfoy family heirloom that Draco had brought to Hogwarts to decorate his room back in the beginning of the year. It would be the bait for a Sisyphean demon—the same race as Kardin—except that the Rank Seven Gigas, capable of giving its master innate immunity to most magical spells, was far more useful.
Harry thirsted to summon something like Gigas into his body one day, but he had more important things to be focusing on this year. Besides, Synesis had warned him that Rank Sevens were much harder to beat down than demons like Kardin, so if Harry valued his life, he'd wait a few years—and maybe get through this whole Seed thing first, just a thought—before attempting anything of the sort.
The fourth object—for the Rank Seven Pestilence demon—was a bag full of rotten meat Harry had asked a few (confused) house-elves to whip up for him.
In order to obtain the fifth object for a Templar Rank Seven, Draco had sent a sweetly-worded letter to his father, asking for an ancient Malfoy ceremonial dagger so he could "show it off" to his new friends. Mr. Malfoy had sent the dagger back with an owl immediately.
"I have the healing paste," Draco whispered in Harry's ear as Harry unwrapped and arranged the objects neatly on the desk. "You're just going to use a kitchen knife to get your blood out, aren't you?"
Harry flinched. He'd been so absorbed in his work that he hadn't heard Draco creep up behind him.
"Yeah. Hold off on the healing paste until after the ritual, though."
"Hmmm." Draco slipped his hand into Harry's, then squeezed hard. "Try not to die."
He looked at Harry with striking eyes, and Harry forgot where he was for a second. Draco's left cheek, the cheek he'd been sleeping on just a few minutes ago, had gone bright red and misshapen where he'd slept on it. His hair stuck out in tufts.
"Thanks for helping me get the items." Harry's voice came out hoarse.
"S'not a big a deal. You don't have any money to get your own stuff, so I figured I'd have to do it all."
Draco paused, glaring at Harry's bag. "Anyway, you forgot to unwrap that. Hurry up, will you? We don't have all night."
Harry swallowed, tearing his gaze away from Draco's angelic scowl with great difficulty, and got out the final object, meant for a Rank Seven Psyche.
He held it—a small oak-wood mirror with a silver handle, also from Draco, of course—up in the air, scrutinizing it. Unlike the dagger Draco had asked his father for, or that fancy shield hanging in his bedroom, this mirror was of a more personal nature, the very same mirror he pulled out between classes to check his hair.
Harry was seriously flattered Draco was letting him use it.
"Are you sure?" Harry asked, running a finger over the whorls in the wood. "I mean, this is…"
Draco's scowl deepened. "Come off it, Harry. It's just a mirror I like to use. It's not even a family heirloom. Anyway, the demons aren't going to be taking this stuff back to their realm. I'll get it back at the end of this whole mess."
"But I'll have to drench it in my blood," Harry said.
"It's just blood, Harry. I'll wash it off. Or I'll just get another mirror. Hurry up, will you?"
Harry tilted the mirror so that it reflected Draco's expression. "Why do you even look at this thing so much?"
"What?" Draco spluttered.
"I mean, why do you care so much about your hair, and your skin, and—"
"Yeah, yeah, you're going to say something like 'you don't need it,' or 'you're so good-looking already,' and other stuff I've heard a million times. Just start the ritual already, will you?
"Who called you good-looking?" Harry asked, distracted by this revelation.
Draco rolled his eyes to the ceiling. "It doesn't matter. Let's start now."
"But—"
"HARRY!"
"Okay, fine!" Harry straightened up and put the mirror on the desk with the other bait objects.
Of all of them, the mirror—and the Rank Seven Psyche demon that came with it, Leipsia—worried him the most.
The Pysche race of demons could wreak havoc on the minds and personalities of their victims. According to Synesis, there existed a Rank Four Psyche capable of sending its victims into an never-ending laughing fit, a Rank Three that could force its victims to speak in rhymes for the rest of their lives, and a Rank Six that could make perfectly civilized humans turn into rabid, slobbering animals. These demons, back in the time before wands and spells, had once been so popular that they'd inspired the creation of modern spells with the same abilities.
As a Rank Seven, Leipsia was a whole lot more dangerous than those, and if that wasn't bad enough, something about Leipsia's powers unsettled Harry.
"Now, I know what you're going to say," Synesis had sighed when they'd been picking which demons to summon. "But Leipsia's the best choice we have."
"What does it do? What do we need to attract it?"
"Leipsia is the vainest of demons," Synesis began, haltingly, "but it's the safest of all the Rank Sevens precisely because of that. I haven't mentioned this before, but we demons sense beauty rather than see it like humans do, and we've never been able to sense beauty on Earth, not the same sort of beauty you could find in our realm. But physical beauty, the kind we can't understand, fascinates many of us. Especially Leipsia. Leipsia is obsessed with it and its effects on humans. You humans are so suspectible to beauty, enamored with it, and Leipsia wants to understand that, and then exploit it.
"So wizards and witches who summon Leipsia… well, they become the world's center of gravity. Like the demon Dynamos gives the Dark Lord an endless well of magic to draw upon, Leipsia offers the one who summons it a subtler— but no less useful—gift. Otherwordly charisma. Breathtaking allure. Someone with those qualities can accomplish anything in your world, can control anyone."
The words otherworldy charisma and breathtaking allure, as cheesy as they sounded in his head, had immediately reminded Harry of someone.
"Harry? You're spacing out again!"
Harry looked up from the mirror, right into Draco's eyes, and felt his heart give a dull thud.
Yep. There was no denying it. Charisma and allure were two qualities Draco Malfoy possessed in spades.
"Yeah, I'm ready." Harry swallowed, realizing that he had run out of excuses to keep pushing the ritual off. "Give me a minute to set up."
Synesis piped up just then, almost as if it could sense Harry's trepidation and wanted to reassure him.
Not that Synesis did a good job of it.
"You'll find that demons much prefer coming to Earth for cleansing rituals than being enslaved by humans. I expect they won't be very rebellious today; they'll mark the objects because this is probably the first time they've been called out for something like this. They might give you a bit of trouble on Ostara though, might try to gamble with you a bit. But I think the ones I've picked out for you are quite reasonable. Not that this will be easy. It's always possible for something to go wrong, so don't get complacent."
"Oh, something is definitely going to go wrong," Harry muttered, bracing himself, but at the same time relieved that Synesis was starting to sound a bit like its old self again. He drew his knife and made a wide but shallow incision on his palm, then smeared at least a few drops of blood over each object, all while trying to ignore Draco wincing and cringing beside him.
"You sure you don't want this healing paste?"
"Later."
Harry knelt down and placed all six objects neatly within the circle, then stepped back to survey his work. His hand stung, so he let it hang limply at his side.
"Draco, move back."
Draco, for once seeming to understand the importance of getting out of Harry's way, hurried out into the corridor.
One last cut.
Harry raised the knife again, holding his other hand right above the small triangular mark of the rune circle, the single mark that would bring the ritual to life, but only when it made contact with his blood.
He flicked the knife in a cut parallel to the old one. In the next second, the room blazed with white light, bright enough to temporarily blind him. The torches seemed to wriggle up the walls, animated as though by a stray gust of wind, sending hungry and licking shadows across the room.
Harry clenched his eyes shut too late, his head throbbing.
Draco gasped from the door. "Harry, I think—"
The glow died down, and so did Draco's voice.
Harry squinted at the circle, blinking back the multicolored spots that burst and whirled in his field of vision, burned into his retinas.
Five of the six objects were glowing, cradled by pale golden light. The sixth one, Draco's mirror, lay dark.
"Only five of them have been marked," Synesis said as Harry went lightheaded. "I don't understand why Leipsia didn't take the mirror. If we can't convince it, we won't be able to get the seventh demon to mark you, and then the ritual won't work. Do something, quick!"
Harry looked up, hands shaking. "Draco, Leipsia didn't like the mirror! Hurry back to your room and try to find something else—"
Draco let out a squeak, and Harry's heart froze.
"Harry…" A lump bobbled in Draco's throat as he swallowed. "Something's… something's in the circle. I can hear something."
Harry whirled back around, his heart in his mouth.
The circle was empty.
"What—"
The next sound Draco made was half-whimper, half-gasp, and Harry's terror blossomed inside him like a thorny, far-reaching flower.
"I can hear it," said Draco, his eyes oddly blank.
"That was a very beautiful mirror. But there's something much more beautiful here."
Draco felt the voice crawling up his back, whispering into his ear. Without noticing himself doing it, he'd walked right up to the summoning circle, and now stood inches from its border, his feet rooted to the ground. The mirror was glowing now, outlined in silver instead of gold like the others.
"Come inside the circle, Draco, so I can mark you instead. I don't have to see your face to see your beauty, don't have to hear your voice to hear the power in your words. I know because the world turns to look at you. It can't look away. And neither can any other human."
Draco's breath came out in soft, shallow puffs.
"Think of how unstoppable you will be with my powers. Who would be able to resist you?"
"Draco, get back!"
Draco felt arms around his waist, pulling him back from the edge.
"What the hell are you doing?" Harry snarled, replacing the voice in his ear.
Draco's breathing sped up. "It wants me as bait, not the mirror."
A white-faced Harry yanked him over to the door. "Why can you hear it and I can't?"
"It's speaking to me," Draco choked out, straining against Harry's grip without even knowing he was doing it.
A pause, a long one, and Draco wondered if Synesis was talking. Harry's voice rose in terror. "Synesis thinks Leipsia is able to talk to you because it touched your mirror, and that lets it open a small window to communicate with you while the ritual is going on. You can't listen to it, whatever it's telling you, Draco! Don't listen!"
"Just imagine. With my help, you will be able to cause wars with a sweet whisper, with a caress of your lips. You will have the power to dominate those who dominate, to control the world from their shadows. Why do you need to win a single duel, why do you need to know any spell at all, when you can be beautiful?"
"Draco, snap out of it!"
Harry's face came into focus, his green eyes searing behind his glasses, chest heaving.
Draco felt his world sharpen and clear, and reorient itself around Harry.
"No," Draco said, raising his voice, keeping it steady. He rest his head back on Harry's shoulder, relaxing as Harry tightened the grip on his waist, a rock-hard presence at his back. "Take the mirror, Leipsia. I'm not getting into the circle."
The circle blazed bright with white light again, and Draco heard a exasperated hiss.
"I'll mark this mirror for now. But we will meet again, Draco Malfoy. I am Leipsia. Your beauty will give me the power I need, and in return, you'll have everything you've ever wanted, and everything you've never wanted."
Then Harry cried out, releasing his grip on Draco and staggering away, his hand jumping to the back of his neck.
"Harry!"
The six objects in the circle stopped glowing. The torches flickered out, plunging the room into darkness.
"Something—something bit me!"
Draco took two short steps and gently pried Harry's arm away from his neck. He let out a massive sigh of relief, allowing the tension in his back to uncurl. A tiny septagon, seven-sided and crimson, had been etched into Harry's skin, imprinted where his neck met his shoulder.
A Leviathan's mark.
Draco looked up, so grateful he could cry. Leipsia had almost ruined everything by trying to lure Draco into the circle like the Incubi and Succubi of legends lured their prey. He knew nothing good would've happened had he let himself be marked as bait—the further he stayed away from demons, the better. Leipsia's voice had chilled, disgusted Draco to the bone. He never wanted to hear a demon again as long as he lived.
But… but.
He'd been momentarily entranced by the promise of the demon's slick words. Draco didn't have magical power like Harry and Theo, but he had something else, something just as valuable.
If he could nurture that power, let it grow, would anything be able to stop him?
Harry collapsed against Draco, half-sobbing, and Draco snapped back to reality. "For a moment, I thought you would step into the circle, that Leipsia would possess you. I'm sorry, Draco, I'm sorry. I shouldn't have let you do this with me. I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry—"
"Shhh." Draco closed his eyes, tracing the symbol on Harry's neck with a lazy finger. Harry shivered beneath his touch, and Draco quickly drew his hand back.
"It's okay, Harry. The Leviathan marked you. All seven of them took the bait. It worked, Harry. And I'm alive. I'm fine. We're both fine."
Then they both collapsed against each other, exhausted, and sick with the knowledge of what could've gone wrong.
Harry lay in bed a few nights later, somewhat unable to believe neither he nor Draco had died horribly on Imbolc.
The Mind Tournament was approaching, and after his monumental fall from grace during the Body Tournament, Harry wasn't much looking forward to it. Then again, Draco had assured him that the Mind and Soul simulations could not be tampered with, so he'd stop worrying about them, at least for now.
Which was why he switched to worrying about something else.
Oh boy, I wonder what's going to go wrong on Ostara. Can't wait.
Apparently, Synesis was wondering the same thing.
"I'm worried about Leipsia. It took the bait, but only reluctantly. It might make trouble on Ostara. And so might any of the others. You absolutely cannot reveal to them that you are the Colossus."
"You've told me that a million times," Harry said. "Besides, I won't be letting my guard down. And Draco will be there."
"Perhaps Draco shouldn't come. His gravity overwhelmed that of the bait you laid out for Leipsia, diverting Leipsia's attention. I didn't think—well, I'm not a good judge of human attractiveness, so I had no idea Leipsia would find him so captivating."
"What does it mean, that Leipsia finds Draco captivating?" Harry asked, wanting to cry for a reason he couldn't explain to himself.
"Leipsia sees potential in Draco as a host. I've hypothesized that Leipsia not only gets enjoyment out of physical beauty, but also is powered by it. It's one of the few demons that gets excited about being summoned, and I picked it for the cleansing ritual because it would be the least dangerous compared to the other Psyche demons—definitely the most willing to barter with a human, in any case. But I didn't realize it would take an interest in Draco. If it decides it wants to possess Draco, that makes it the most dangerous of the lot. It was able to speak to him despite being the ritual circle, which means it's able to establish a brief connection with him for the duration of the ritual. That makes Draco more vulnerable to its tricks."
"I couldn't hear what it said to him. He didn't tell me much, either. I don't think he wants to." Harry swallowed. "I'll ask him to tell me. It's important to know, so we can prepare for what happens on Ostara. In fact, he just shouldn't come for Ostara at all. If he's nowhere near the ritual circle, then Leipsia won't be able to talk to him."
"Yes. It would be best for him to be down in the Skull dorms," Synesis said.
Harry paused, a question niggling at the back of his mind. "If Draco summoned Leipsia, what would he even get out of it? I feel like Draco already has that, um, charisma and allure stuff, or whatever it was you said Leipsia could do."
"For someone at Draco's level, someone who already possesses a high amount of… gravity, let's say, Leipsia's influence would multiply his natural allure tenfold. There are rumors of some of its past hosts—the most beautiful of them—being able to fully control those obsessed with them with only a touch. In fact, Leipsia's ability inspired the creation of the Imperius Curse. But this mind-control is much more natural, harder to detect, and impossible to resist."
Harry spluttered.
"It will probably wreck Draco in time though," continued Synesis. "Pysche demons are known for driving their hosts insane after a few months. Beauty has a cost, and many of those who summoned Leipsia did not know this and soon regretted it. Under no circumstances should Draco summon it or allow it to possess him. I don't think convincing him of that will be an issue, not if he has any brains at all."
Harry scowled. "It doesn't matter if he does or not. I'm never letting a demon near him, you know. Especially not"—he shuddered—"Leipsia."
February 10th had arrived, and with it, the Mind portion of the Tournament. Draco and Theo settled into adjacent beds within the ever-familiar simulation room, Dungeon Three. Harry was off on the other side of the dungeon, and Draco had the strangest feeling that he kept looking over at them every few seconds.
Draco fluffed his pillow, thinking hard. He wasn't too worried about Mind, and hoped his score in this portion of the Tournament would be high enough to offset his low scores in Body and Soul. Not that he'd taken the Soul test yet, but he imagined he'd do awfully on it.
"Good luck."
Draco gave a start. Theo lay on his back on his own bed, staring up at the domed ceiling.
"Oh. Good luck to you, too."
Theo had been brooding ever since he'd lost the duel to Harry, but Draco could see that some of Theo's old confidence had returned today. Mind was Theo's forte, and his intelligence a gift that few other students could rival, least of all Harry.
"Draco, I've been meaning to ask you something."
"What?" Draco asked, irritated. The Bronze Skull passing out the simulation potions was approaching their row, and Draco wanted to get a head start.
"Never mind," Theo said quickly, and turned around, cheeks flaming red. "It's nothing."
"O…kay." Draco furrowed his brows. Theo often pulled these kinds of tricks. He'd ask Draco a question, or make a vague comment, only to retract it a split second later. It seemed that Theo was itching to tell him something, but couldn't muster up the courage to do so.
He can't really muster up the courage to do anything, can he?
Draco resisted the urge to roll his eyes, accepting a simulation potion as the Bronze Skull distributing them walked down his row.
"On the count of three, gulp them down!" shouted the Skull, returning to the front of the room. "Three… two…"
"Um, actually, Draco—" Theo started, his voice a bit hoarse.
Ignoring him, Draco unstoppered the vial with steady fingers and brought it to his lips.
"One…"
"Never mind," Theo said again. "We're busy right now."
Yeah, we kind of are. Not waiting another second, Draco tilted his head back and drank it all down.
Harry jolted awake, uncomfortably aware of his shirt sticking to his sweaty back. He'd gotten through six of the Mind tests without issue, only to be smacked out during the seventh after getting hopelessly lost in a simulated hedge maze.
"You're done. Leave." Fawley, the Bronze Skull who'd been patrolling the dungeon as the Initiates slept, walked over to him, scowling up a storm. "The results will be posted in the Initiate common room within the week."
"Er, yeah, I'm getting up." Harry looked around, realizing that a good amount of the Initiates had vacated their beds already; he'd lasted a lot longer than many of them had. He suspected he'd made it into the top half, maybe even the top third. Though he was relieved he'd done reasonably well, it didn't matter too much. Harry's intelligence, while above average, wasn't his best feature, after all.
"Hurry up!" Fawley snapped, and Harry jerked back to the present, stumbling out of his bed. On his way out of the dungeon, he noticed that Draco and Theo still slept under the simulation. Draco's eyelids were fluttering frantically in his sleep, and his fingers twitched and flexed, almost as if he were trying to touch something.
Harry ached to watch him for a bit longer, but he got ahold of himself and left in a hurry. He needed to stop being such an idiot.
Draco's head hurt, which wasn't surprising. He'd been stuck in head-hurting situations, one after another, for what felt like an eternity. Now, he lay on a cold, hard stone floor, his arm stretched out at an awkward angle. Groaning and clutching his head, he straightened up and squinted into the darkness. He sat in a tiny room, hardly bigger than a cell, illuminated by nothing more than a single flickering torch. Red stains covered the stone walls.
Blood?
Turn around.
Draco held back a scream. The voice came from everywhere and nowhere at once, as if it originated from the inside of his very head.
I said, turn around.
Draco struggled to his feet and did, his heart thumping wildly against his ribcage. Something about this voice reminded him of Leipsia's, oily and deadly. Two doors were set into the back wall: one red, one blue, both with peeling paint. As Draco stared at them, torch creaked and swung above him, sending the shadows into a fervor, washing the doors in a dark gray tint.
One door leads to life, said the voice pleasantly. The other leads to certain death. You must figure out which one is which, and escape this room with your life.
Draco scowled. "I'll stay in here, thanks."
No. Look up.
Automatically, Draco craned his neck, and nearly fell back to the ground. Iron spikes jutted out of the ceiling, rusted and bloodied.
In ten minutes' time, the ceiling will descend upon you, crushing you into dust. You must choose a door, or you die anyway.
Draco took a shuddering breath and drew his arms around himself. "How do I know which door to take? Do I have to guess?"
The voice chuckled. No. To find out, you are allowed to ask one single question about the doors.
"So I can just ask you which one it is?" Draco said, furrowing his brow.
Me? Of course not. But you can ask them.
Draco blinked, saw what had appeared in front of the two doors, and took several hasty steps backward until he bumped into the wall behind him. His heart had thumped his way up his throat and now seemed to have clogged his windpipe.
"That—that's—that's—"
These are my knights. Their names are… well, let's just call them Truth and Lie for now.
Two grotesque creatures, encased in glistening silver armor, guarded each door. They shifted in and out of Draco's focus, appearing as every terrifying creature at once but nothing for longer than a split second. Their eyes, deep within their helmets, were beady and black and dead-looking. As Draco gaped at them, they cocked their heads. To make it worse, they reeked, radiating the stench of food gone sour, and as they shifted and moved, their bodies made squelching noises that filled the painful silence.
You can ask either knight a question—but you can only pick one knight to ask, and you are only allowed to ask only one question. Be warned, though. Truth tells only the truth, while Lie tells only lies.
"Which one is which?" Draco's asked shrilly.
Hmmm… I don't remember. You have ten minutes.
The voice went dead, and Draco's stomach churned. Resigning himself to his fate, he turned to face the knights, who regarded him with those empty, doll-like black eyes.
He could ask one of them one question. He could ask them, "Which door leads to life?" But that knight could be telling the truth or lying. There was no way to tell which one was which. They both looked identical, right down to the position they were in and the creatures they shifted into as the seconds passed.
He had to ask a question that would lead to the right answer, regardless of whether he asked Truth or Lie. But did such a question exist?
Draco paced the cramped room, muttering under his breath. "Which one of you is lying?" he could ask, and if he asked Lie, it would lie and accuse Truth. If he asked Truth, it would tell the truth and accuse Lie. Each would implicate the other, just like they would for just about every question. Draco would be no closer to knowing who was lying and who was telling the truth. And in addition to not accomplishing anything, he'd use up his only question without figuring out which door to pick.
He needed to phrase his question so that it would lead him to a door.
But it didn't have to be the correct door. As long as he knew what one door led to, that would automatically tell him what the other door led to. So if he asked—
My mind is beautiful, Draco thought, grinning so hard his cheeks hurt.
He knew what question to ask now.
He faced the knight on the right side, the one in front of the blue door. The knight hadn't stopped staring at him this whole time, and he cleared his throat, feeling his spine crawl with terror as he looked into those dead eyes.
"Which door does the other knight say is the correct door?" Draco asked, gathering his courage.
There was a shocked pause, and both knights' armor clinked in the silence. Draco stood his ground, hoping that his legs weren't trembling as much as he thought they were.
BLUE.
The answer echoed around in the small chamber with an air of finality.
Draco could have yelled in victory. He'd pinpointed the one and only question that could trap the knights into a corner. If the knight he'd just asked had been Lie, it would've had to say Blue because the other knight, Truth, would say Red. But if the knight he'd just asked had instead been Truth, then it would've had to say Blue, because the other knight always lied.
When asked this particular question, both knights had the same answer. The wrong answer.
The correct door was red.
Draco pushed past the creatures, relieved that neither of them tried to attack him, only rotated slowly to face him. Desperate to get out of there, he grabbed the red door's knob and yanked as hard as he could, only to tumble into the next test.
In the end, Draco came in second place, Harry came in eighth, and Theo, of course, came in first. Hopefully, such a high rank would help Draco pass Initiation, but today, he had more pressing issues. Valentine's Day had arrived in a whirl of icy February wind and pink confetti—and for Draco, it had arrived in a flurry of owls carrying half a dozen confession notes and two boxes of chocolate.
Early in the evening, after class but before dinner, Draco could be found sprawled on Theo's bed, shuffling through all the presents he'd gotten that day. Theo sat on his chair, bent over and scowling up a storm. They'd started their homework an hour ago, but then Theo had discovered the cards and little boxes jammed inside Draco's bag, and this had ruined the productivity of their study session.
"Don't eat any of those chocolates," Theo snarled, and Draco looked up from reading a letter a third year acquaintance had given to him.
"Why not?"
"They might be imbued with love potions," Theo said darkly.
Draco rolled his eyes. "You've listened to one too many melodramatic shows on the wireless."
"Are you going to respond to any of the letters?" Theo asked after a long pause. "I mean, you don't even know everyone who sent you a letter."
"Some of them are anonymous, but I guess I must've met all the senders at some point."
Draco shuffled through the small pile of letters. Four were anonymous, two weren't. One of the anonymous notes consisted of an extremely cringy and pretentious poem that compared Draco's eyes to "shimmering dewdrops" and his hair to "moonlight personified." Theo had read it aloud with cutting, derisive sarcasm a few minutes earlier, and Draco, red-faced, had shrieked for him to stop.
"So are you going to respond to the people you do know?" Theo asked, gaze searing.
Draco rummaged around in the pile some more, trying to stall. "Well, Montague sent me a note that says—"
Draco yelped as Theo snatched the note in question out of his hand. "Hi, Draco," Theo read, eyes narrowing dangerously, "Just wanted to tell you that you're really fun to talk to, and I was wondering if we could talk some more one of these days—Argyle Montague. What the hell does he mean, 'talk some more'? What kind of vague nonsense is that?"
"I dunno," Draco said, studying the patterns in the floor to avoid looking at Theo. "Just him being nice."
Of course, he knew that wasn't true. Draco wasn't an idiot, or blind, or deaf. He was quite aware of fact that several of the older boys had crushes on him, and even more aware of Theo's awkward behavior at this knowledge.
"Oh, really?" Theo chucked the letter aside and breathed through his nose.
Draco eyed him warily. "I'll just thank Montague for the letter and move on."
"You can't thank him for the letter," Theo said through gritted teeth. "That'll hint to him that you accepted it!"
"What am I supposed to do? Ignore it and never speak to him again? I've spent months being friendly with the older Initiates! I'd prefer if it didn't all go to waste, you know."
He stood up and stretched. "Anyway, I've got to get going. It's not like we're going to get any studying done anyway."
"Where are you going?" Theo looked at Draco with no small amount of trepidation.
"To take a walk." Draco slipped on his cloak.
"I'll come with you."
"Actually, I lied. I'm going to talk to Harry," Draco amended quickly, noticing Theo freeze in place. "You probably don't want to come with us. I'll be back soon."
"Oh," Theo said, in a very small voice. "Okay."
Draco blinked at him, offered him a weak smile, and left. After slamming the door shut behind him, he distantly heard Theo hiss "Incendio," followed by the crackling sound of parchment burning, and wondered what exactly Theo had set on fire.
A few minutes later, Draco and Harry could be found beaming at each other inside the kitchens. Draco seemed unusually giddy today, and Harry was happy to indulge him.
"I'm surprised you made eighth place." Draco moved his head to rest it on top of Harry's nest of hair, humming merrily. "Pretty good, all things considered. I thought you'd be in dead last."
"Ha ha, very funny."
"Why'd they even let you rank so high?" Draco asked. "Maybe they're doing it because they want you to become a Skull, but not an exceptional one. So you getting eighth place doesn't bother them."
Harry sighed, not really liking the turn their conversation had taken. But he'd mulled over this quite a while over the past few weeks, and with Synesis's input, had arrived at the likliest conclusion.
Might as well tell Draco my theory.
"I think they're doing this because they want to reassure all the Purebloods that even if a half-blood is better than them, they never have to worry about losing their… superiority. It doesn't matter if I win fair and square; they'll twist the Tournament to make me lose. I didn't win Mind, so they left me alone this time, but the closer I get to first place, the more they're going to mess with me."
"What do you think they'll do when you win Soul, then?" Draco asked, biting his lip. "I mean, you definitely will, since you can see through the simulations. Will they just post the wrong results?"
"I don't know," Harry said, "and I don't care. I showed everyone during Body that I'm the best. And during the final exam, I'll show it to them again."
Besides, Sebastian and Adolphus will know the truth, no matter what they announce officially, Harry thought with vicious satisfaction.
"Hmm. I hope you're right. Sometimes I don't know what we're doing." Draco sighed into Harry's hair.
"What else can we do?" Harry snapped.
"I think it's going to work, though. Everything. The Skulls and the demons." Draco said, extricating himself from Harry to take a seat in the chair next to his, then leaning on him again. "Imbolc went as well as it could've, and I… I have a feeling Ostara's going to go well, too. We'll get this Seed out of you, and then we can think clearly about Initiation."
"You're optimistic."
"If I don't force myself to be, we'd never get anything done," Draco pointed out, and Harry squeezed his hand.
This reminded him: he'd almost forgotten to give Draco his present.
Today was Valentine's Day, and the only reason Harry had even remembered it existed was because he'd sat behind Lavender, Parvati, and Mandy in Transfiguration class two days ago and had overheard them discussing, between giggles, which of the boys and girls in their year liked them and guessing who would get them something for Valentine's Day.
Harry suspected that nobody would, because nobody cared, but their conversation had reminded him to make something for Draco. Not because it was, well, Valentine's Day, but because they were friends, and he wanted to repay Draco for all the effort he'd put into getting the bait for Harry on Imbolc.
But if Draco wanted it to have something to do with Valentine's Day, Harry would play along.
"Uh, Draco, there's something I, um…" Harry trailed off, reaching for his bag with such haste that he nearly tipped the table over.
"What?"
"There's something I've been meaning to give to you. As a present. To thank you for, um, Imbolc, and everything else really. Mum doesn't give me a lot of allowance to buy stuff, so I made this using Transfiguration and Charms. It was pretty easy. I'm still powerful and everything, you know. I just needed to go over the theory, and then—bam. Got it."
"Harry," Draco said, a breathtaking smile spreading across his face. "Stop bragging and show me what you made."
Harry finally found the small wooden box he'd kept the present in and slammed it down on the table. "Open it."
Draco fumbled with the lid for a second, then let out a shriek of delight. "Harry! Harry!"
A tiny bird made out of folded parchment, charmed a reflective silvery-white color, emerged from the box, chirping softly. It hopped up Draco's arm, coming to a stop at his shoulder, then started pecking at his cheek with its sharp paper beak.
"How did you make this?" Draco spluttered, almost going cross-eyed in order to keep the bird in his field of vision.
"Color-Changing Charm for the silver. Pretty basic, that one," Harry said, leaning back with a satisfied grin on his face. "Animation Charm. That's… that's, like, a fourth year spell. Still easy. I folded the bird myself, though." He'd gone through a whole stack of parchment because he'd kept messing up.
"I love it." Draco caught Harry's gaze and held it. For a moment, but not for the first time that week, or even the first time that day, Harry was dazzled by the grace, the gravity, as Synesis had called it, in Draco's every movement. "Make me more. Make me a whole army of them."
"Maybe I'll make you a few more," said Harry, who would probably make a hundred if Draco willed it. "Oh, and Draco?"
"Yeah?"
"Happy Valentine's Day."