Tiniest Wish: Alea Iacta Est, Part 37
Rating: T -warning for language.
Summary: An accidental revelation creates tension between the Severus and Narcissa. Italics – flashback.
A moment later, however, he felt as if Narcissa might as well have cast a confringo spell directly into his chest – when he realized, with horror, what he was seeing. Morfael Gaunt, Marvolo's Gaunt's grandfather… Thomas Marvolo Riddle's great, great grandfather.
Harry was indirectly, though by wizarding standards, closely, related to the Dark Lord. In point of fact, if he was counting the degrees of kinship correctly, Voldemort had an equal, if not slightly greater claim…
"Incendio," he snarled, gripping the edge of the parchment tightly even as it turned to ash in his hand before steeling himself to do what he knew must be done. Nevertheless, as he turned on his mother and Narcissa, drawing his wand, Severus was momentarily overwhelmed by self-disgust.
Tiniest Wish, Part 37
Wiping away the blood that was blurring his vision from Narcissa's well aimed cutting curse, Severus drew a pained breath and pushed himself back onto his feet. He was quite certain that her blasting curse had broken at least two ribs and moved carefully to avoid puncturing a lung, but otherwise ignored the intense pain in his side as he grasped his wand tighter and turned to locate his opponent.
"Narcissa, I have no desire or intention to cause you harm or injury, but I can not allow you to leave this room with the knowledge you possess."
Carefully stepping over his mother, whom he had petrified before turning his wand on Narcissa with the intent of obliviating her, Severus scanned the room carefully searching for any trace of a disillusionment spell, knowing that she could not have broken through the locking ward he had placed on the room seconds after disposing of the damning parchment.
For the first time in many years, the rhythmic bubbling and steaming of brewing potions was not a calmative but an annoyance, distracting him from his search for the cunning witch as he carefully walked between the well appointed lab tables, absently noting the varieties of potions that she was working on.
A whisper of sound to his right spun Severus's gaze to a disillusioned chair losing it's charm, just as something pulverized beneath his heel. Glancing down, he recognized the sparkling shards of a potion vial glinting from the floor and wisps of a vaporized potion swirling around his legs in a loose cone that was rising toward his face. Shutting his lips tightly against the fumes that he could already faintly scent, Severus grimaced in frustration.
Vaporized Veritaserum... and by the taste, a very potent solution.
Fighting the surge of light headed, confused, disorientation that was over taking him, Severus was two distracted to defend his wand when he felt Narcissa's silent expelliarmus drag his wand out of his room and throw it across the room. Catching it lightly in her extended hand, Narcissa quickly applied a sticking spell, locking it to the counter in front of her, and countered her disillusionment spell.
"Severus, why did you think I would permit you to tamper with my memory?" She asked approaching him almost idly as he fought the sway of the solution.
"I..." he bit his teeth together forcefully and fought the brew's influences, but the response still slipped from his lips. "... di-d no-t think for a second that you would permit it. I would not have attacked you if I had."
"So, you do acknowledge that you attacked me, and I certainly had the right to defend myself?"
"Yes!" The admission came laced with a heavy tone of self-derision that cause her eyebrow to raise, but she set his obvious distaste aside and continued.
"Why would you risk confronting me in such a reckless manner, Severus? Risk incurring Lucius's wrath, when you know that his pride would not allow him to accept any excuse as a reasonable justification for threatening his me?"
"Harry." The potion's hold abated enough that he did not feel immediately compelled to fully explain, but he knew that she would follow up with a second more probing question that he would not be able to avoid as easily. Recognizing that he would not have the strength to both wandlessly break the sticking charm and summon his wand, Severus waited until she glanced at him coldly and through the entire strength of his mind and core behind a single wandless spell: "legillimens".
He had not attempted such an action previously because he was well aware that she had no small talent in occlumency and that to do so would without doubt initiate a mental battle that neither of them could walk away from unscathed. There was no choice, now, however: he could not allow her to keep the memory of the bloodline that she had seen, nor further drag its meaning from him.
As he had expected, on entering her mind, Severus was entangled in fierce defenses, symbolized writhing waves of sharply thorned rose vines that blocked the entrance to an ancient marble castle that might have been straight from the myth of Sleeping Beauty. As they wrapped around him, her voice cut across their shared mindscape as a draconic roar.
"You are a fool, Severus."
Shearing through the thick living vines that wrapped around him like a devil's snare, Severus marveled at the strength and tenacity of her mind, startled by how deeply he had underestimated her. As he fought his way forward, a shadow cut across his path darkening the ground ahead of him as it swept forward and landed in front of him as a crystalline dragon. Every scale of the dragon reflected frosted images back at him that he could barely make out, but that transfixed his gaze... Images of Lily during her school years, laughing tucking the small moonflower plant that he had given her into her hair, over her ear, as he watched barely aware that his stolen attention had allowed the rose vine to entangle him again, the dragon transformed into the mental image of a haughty ice queen reflective of Narcissa's own image, but embued with a sense of infinite power.
The emphasis she was placing in the illusion was not lost on Severus as he once again fought to move forward, mentally cursing himself for allowing himself to become distracted again.
"Severus, I had respected you for having a greater intelligence than this." The ice queen sighed. "Why are you so frightened of Harry's bloodline getting out? He could use the fact that his is a decendant of the Gaunts and Salazar Slytherin, much to his advantage."
"Voldemort could use it against Harry." Severus ground out unwillingly.
"How?"
"Noo--," Severus gasped for breath as the vines tightened and the potion burned though his mind. "No...blood ... No...heh... relation-- I ... will not... be- tray Harry."
"I had forgotten. The 'dark' lord had claimed to be a descendant Slytherin. I had put little stock in it, but ... I take it, he is a Gaunt?"
"will... not...Yesssss." Severus hissed angrily, glaring at the ice queen with an blaze of something near hatred for pulling the truth out of him.
"And you are obviously willing to sacrifice everything for your son. Even yourself?"
"Yes!" Severus roared, willingly, using it to rally his strength and focus his thoughts into a tight fiendfyre that swirled around him burning the vines to ash as he charged toward her.
The ice queen transformed within their minds into the crystaline dragon, once more, ready to meet his challenge, but as she did, her roar questioned, "And Draco? Would you sacrifice Draco for Harry? Would you sacrifice my son for yours?"
The question froze him midstride, extinguishing his anger as soundly as water to flame, and his understanding of her mindscape became instantly clear. She was not the princess in the castle tower, protected by fierce defenders, but the dragon, the ice queen, keeping a young boy safe from the world, pampered and protected. A child that she was equally willing to risk all for, sacrifice all for. His godson. Staring deeply into the castle that he had at first thought to be opaque - marble, Severus was startled to find that she was allowing him to see through the crystal barriers, into its heart... into the courtyard where a young blond prince played, attended by a smaller, thinner, raven haired companion, and he knew with certainty how deeply this battle could rage. But the truth bubbled from his lips as he watched the children together, for better or worse: "No."
As much as he loved his son, and had loved the child's mother before the child, he would not, could not willingly sacrifice his godson: a child he had grown to care for... and love... as deeply as his own son. If it were not for Draco,the child who had slythered his way into Severus's heart as a toddler, Severus was not certain that he would have been able to open his heart to Harry.
"No. I would die first." He swore to her, knowing it was the truth... and the only truth she would accept.
"As I thought." The dragon transformed once more, revealing Narcissa herself. "Severus, be very thankful that I understand and respect your motivations, for if I had not, it would have been basilisk venom roiling through your veins instead of veritaserum. I will not allow you to tamper with my mind, as you must undoubtedly realize by now; but, I can also easily understand why you need greater assurances. So, I propose a fidelus charm, including you, your mother, myself, Nymphadora, of course, and Draco, with Harry as the secret keeper."
"Draco? Absolutely not. That would only put him in greater danger."
Narcissa smiled more coldly than she had as the ice queen when she answered, "Draco's friendship with Harry will put him in far greater danger than this single secret, but more to the point, the children are inseperable and it is inevitable that when you will not be able to be ever-present to protect Harry and Draco. They will both fare better if Draco fully understands the implications of whatever situation that may arise."
He gazed angrily at her, but could not deny the truth of her comments.
"Very well."
"Good. Now that we have come to a compromise, Leave My Mind!" Narcissa's voice came to him once again as a draconic roar that forced him back, dragging him through a seemingly endless valley of thorned rose vines, to a dark and desolate maze of black crystal that mirrored thousands of indistinguishable passages, and further backward through an expansive abyss that suddenly blinked into the image of Narcissa leaning over him.
When she saw that he was fully back into his own mind, she rocked him with a stinging slap, slashed her wand to counter that petrificus and locking spells, and slowly walked toward the door. Just inside the door, however, she stopped and stared back at him with a disconcerting gaze.
"I usually do not offer warnings, Severus, but I feel it's justified in this instance. Where you and Lucius have been otherwise occupied in your daily occupations, I have had fifteen years of idle time to perfect the arts that I excelled in, with few other responsibilities and a driving purpose. You truly have no concept of what I can be capable of."
With her final words ringing in the air, Narcissa cast a heavy glamour over herself to hide her pallor and dishevelment and left the room, leaving Severus alone with his mother, who was now staring at him mystified and angered by his assault.