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This is now definitely the eighteenth chapter of 31, not counting the interludes.
Chapter Eighteen: RecoveryHarry opened his eyes slowly. The hospital wing bed was not uncomfortable, but he could feel the sheets scraping against him when he tried to roll over. It felt as though Madam Pomfrey had wrapped him as tightly as she possibly could, for fear of him escaping. Harry snorted at the thought. He was tired and had a pounding pain in his head. The last thing he wanted was to leave.
"Harry. Oh, thank Merlin."
Sirius loomed into view for a moment, staring at him, then fell into a chair beside the bed and clenched Harry's hand in his. For a moment, he tried to say something, but he ended up bowing his head. Harry felt a touch on the back of his hand, tears and a kiss.
"Hi, Sirius," he said, and blinked. His throat didn't feel as though he needed much to drink, but his voice was hardly louder than a rat scratching around a well. "How long has it been?"
"A week," Sirius whispered. "Today is Christmas Day." He smiled. "And this is a pretty great Christmas gift." He messed up Harry's hair.
Harry nodded slowly. "Can you get me some water?"
Sirius already had a goblet from the nearby table in his hand, and he helped ease Harry up the pillows so that he could drink. Harry was annoyed to find out that he couldn't move by himself, even when he tried. It was the effect of a week of bedrest, he knew rationally, but he didn't like it. He had important things to do.
"Has anyone else been visiting me?" he asked Sirius. Many things could have changed in a week, even his relationship with Connor. He had to know so that he could figure out what to do next.
"Oh, of course," said Sirius. "Malfoy every day—and he really does seem to be your friend, Harry, though Merlin knows why. Snivellus sometimes." Sirius frowned as if he didn't like that, but hadn't yet come up with any arguments to refute it. "And Lily and James came yesterday. The Headmaster's been in at least once a day to inquire about your health." He smiled, but his eyes were misty. "We were so afraid that you weren't going to wake up again, especially after what Sn—Snape told us about the damage to your mind."
Harry touched his head. "My scar hurts, but what does he mean by damage?"
"Apparently, during the—battle with Tom Riddle, you lost some memories," said Sirius carefully. "Sn—Snape thought it should be restricted to mild gaps, but he couldn't be sure. The longer you remained asleep, the surer he was that there was some other, more permanent harm done." He smiled, and this time it looked more like the carefree grin Harry knew. "He's a gloomy bastard. I'll tell him so."
Harry smiled back, then hesitated. There was a question he really wanted to ask. But the answer was obvious from what Sirius had said.
In the end, though, the pressure, the hope that Sirius had just forgotten to mention the answer somehow, was too much.
"Did Connor come and see me?"
Sirius's eyes lowered. "No," he said quietly. "I'm sorry, Harry."
Harry breathed in, out, in, out. His eyes fixed on the wall. "Why not?" he whispered. "I know that he was embarrassed about facing me, but I could have died." Then he winced. He was whinging. He did not want to sound like he was whinging, and he knew now that he shouldn't have asked the question.
"I think he's embarrassed, even now, that he didn't believe you at first and tried to get you expelled from Hogwarts," said Sirius. "I know that your parents had a very stern talking-to with him about that, and I think Professor McGonagall also had something to say. But—he's not ready, Harry. I don't know why, but he's just not, yet."
Harry nodded. He could accept it. He had to accept it. He didn't know everything that was going on in Connor's head yet. Until he did, then he had no right to judge his brother, no reason to think that Connor hadn't come to the hospital just to punish him. It could as easily be the bewilderment and confusion that Sirius believed it was.
He became aware that Sirius was making a show of looking around the hospital wing, his eyes darting in every direction. Harry raised his eyebrows and looked back at Sirius, who laughed at him and scooped him out of bed.
"Sirius?" Harry squeaked. He felt weak, still, but he didn't object to being carried—until Sirius began to walk out of the hospital wing.
"You've been cooped up in here too long," Sirius said firmly as they trotted down the halls. "Madam Pomfrey isn't here right now, she went to visit some niece of hers. And the Headmaster and Sn—Snape and all the students who stayed are down at the Feast. There's no one to see us if we go flying." He turned Harry around and winked at him. "And I have to give you your Christmas present."
Harry fell silent as they sneaked through the halls. He knew that trying to talk sense into Sirius was no good, and if no one really would see them…
He just hoped they could be back before Draco and Snape left the Feast.
Sirius took a side door out of Hogwarts, one that Harry had never seen before. Of course, he thought, as the door opened onto drifts of snow and a wide, glittering expanse that shone with blue shadows in the sunlight, if anyone would know secret ways out of the school, it would be a Marauder.
"Here we are," said Sirius, and cast a warming charm on Harry. "Now, your choice. Would you rather fly on my motorbike or your broom?"
"The motorbike," Harry said at once. He thought it was safer. At the least, it had more room for two people. And he was going to do what he could to preserve their safety, if Sirius wouldn't.
He supposed he should protest. He couldn't bring himself to do so. He'd missed this casual camaraderie that his godfather showed him, including Harry in his pranks without thinking twice. And if this was what would make Sirius comfortable, serve as an apology of sorts for what he'd done over the school year, then Harry was willing to indulge him.
So am I.
Harry started. He'd forgotten Sylarana until she spoke, though the presence of a weight on his left shoulder had led him to assume she was there.
Thank you so very much, she said, and stretched. The warming charms feel nice. I'm hungry.
We'll go and get some food after this, Harry promised, as he watched Sirius put the motorbike on the ground and bring it back to normal size. But he wanted to be nice. I think we should let him.
Are you still angry at him? Sylarana asked.
He was, Harry acknowledged. Not that he had any right to be angry. He started to put the anger in the box.
He couldn't. Harry frowned. He tugged, but the near-instinctive motion produced no effort worthy of note. The box remained closed.
I locked it, said Sylarana. With a pattern that Locustas know, and only Locustas. You can't open it unless I let you or something cancels the pattern.
Harry felt irritation at that, too. But he refocused the irritation towards the need to know things. Why didn't you just use that pattern when we were training to fight Riddle?
Because I didn't have the time and the peace necessary to make it, said Sylarana. This week has provided me with plenty of that.
She shifted out from beneath Sirius's hand as he lifted Harry onto the motorbike by the shoulders. Then Sirius put his arms around Harry's waist, settled behind him, and kicked the bike into life.
Harry leaned against Sirius's chest and listened to his godfather's laughter while his breath steamed in front of him. He was not sure how to feel. The irritation at Sylarana and at Sirius and at Connor—even though he told himself several times over that he shouldn't feel irritation at Connor—danced along the surface of his mind like lightning in a dark sky. He could live with it, he supposed. But it would have been simpler and easier to put it in the box.
I didn't think that you wanted to do things the easy way, Sylarana remarked. You never have so far.
Harry frowned at her and went back to work on controlling his emotions. He didn't have the goal of defeating Riddle to occupy him now. He would have to find something else.
Then he found it—the goal that was never far from his mind, the one that he had devoted his life to.
Protecting Connor. But what would be the best way to protect him, now that I've sent Riddle away and I'm no longer a danger to him?
Make him a leader, of course. And show him that I'm really not a danger to him anymore, no matter what he thinks.
Harry had just started to think of ways to prove that when Sirius stopped the bike and made it hover. Harry twisted around to stare at him. Sirius's face was solemn as he pulled something from a pocket of his robe.
"I wanted to give you this when no one else was around," he murmured. "It's private and special to me, Harry. I want you to—well, keep it with you, and never feel that you have to hesitate before using it."
Harry traced a finger along the edge of the object. It was wrapped in black cloth, so thick that he could make out nothing more than a general round shape. The cloth itself had a pair of small words stitched in silver along the bottom edge. Harry squinted to read them. Tojours Pur.
Harry sucked in his breath. He recognized the Black family motto. "Sirius, is this—"
"Something from my family," said Sirius. "Something from the last War, in fact. Go ahead, Harry. I promise. I want you to have it."
Harry slid the cloth away. Beneath it was a round circlet of metal, made of some black material that Harry didn't recognize and edged with shimmering silver. The silver made it difficult to see how wide the circlet was, flashing and playing tricks with his eyesight when Harry tried to squint at it. He couldn't tell if it was meant as a bracelet, a crown of some kind, or something else.
The silver pattern didn't only exist on the edge, he found out as he turned the circlet around. It dipped down into the middle of the black material, and finally coalesced into a single figure. The figure was a serpent, rearing, its mouth portrayed as open. Harry saw a tiny thread of silver in the very center of the mouth that might have been a forked tongue.
"I don't understand," Harry whispered.
"This belonged to an ancestor of mine who was a Parselmouth," said Sirius calmly. Harry could hear the strain beneath his voice, and didn't quite dare to look at his face. "Supposedly, it strengthens a Parselmouth's magic, especially as it relates to serpents. Dumbledore thought it might give someone who couldn't understand snakes an edge over Voldemort in the last war. It didn't, though, and eventually we put it back among my family's treasures and just forgot about it." Sirius let out a small breath. "But I don't have a son of my own, and you're a Parselmouth, Harry. You should have it. After all, I'm not going to give it to Voldemort, am I?" He smiled at that, and looked more like himself again.
Harry couldn't speak for a long moment. He stared at Sirius's face and then at the circlet again, which he thought was meant for his upper arm. Sirius had done more than just give him a Christmas gift. He had shown that he accepted what Harry himself still thought of, automatically, as a Dark gift.
It isn't, said Sylarana, and Harry sensed her shifting closer to the edge of his sleeve. And I can't sense anything from that thing. Perhaps you have to be wearing it in order for the magic to manifest? As if you need help being stronger.
Maybe, Harry answered her absently, and slid the circlet into the pocket of his robes. "Thank you, Sirius," he whispered. "Merry Christmas. I'm sorry the gift I got you is at home, but—"
Sirius messed up his hair. "It doesn't matter, Harry. I'll probably visit Godric's Hollow in a little while. I don't know if Dumbledore will let you go with me yet, but—"
"Harry!"
Harry looked down resignedly. Draco was standing in the snow beneath them, so bundled up it was nearly impossible to tell who it was—except that he was shrieking in a voice that Harry knew very well.
"What are you doing out of bed? Madam Pomfrey said—you couldn't—just wait until I tell Professor Snape—" And he started hopping up and down in rage, as though he couldn't think of anything else to say.
Harry looked at Sirius. "I suppose we should go down."
"I suppose we should," Sirius said. He put a hand on Harry's shoulder and squeezed, briefly. "I'm glad that you're still here, Harry."
Harry nodded. He felt the weight of the Black circlet in his robes all the way down, and held Sirius's acceptance tightly to himself. It seemed as though his reunion with someone else who claimed to care about him was not going to be nearly so happy.
Sure enough, Draco began shouting again just as the motorbike landed. "Harry! Why didn't you wake up while I was there? I come back from the Feast, with some treacle tart for you and that damn snake—"
Treacle tart! Sylarana sounded delighted. She stuck her head out of Harry's sleeve, then shivered as her neck met the edge of the warming charms, but didn't withdraw. Where, where, where?
Probably back in the hospital wing, Harry replied, his eyes on Draco in fascination. He wondered if Draco realized how much he sounded like his mother, or if that was just coincidence.
"—and, and, and you were gone, and no one could tell where, and Professor Snape's running around the school thinking you've been kidnapped, and I finally came out here and you were flying like a prat, and I decided to stay here and miss Christmas at the Manor for this, and—"
"Draco," Harry managed to cut in. Sirius was coughing, the way he did on the (rare) occasion when he didn't want to laugh aloud at someone. Harry suspected he would start chuckling in a moment, and he didn't think Draco would take that well.
"What?" Draco paused, his face flushed and his breathing difficult as he glared at Harry.
"Thank you for staying for me," Harry said.
Draco's face melted into a dazzlingly sweet smile. He reached forward and actually dragged Harry out of Sirius's loose half-embrace, something Harry hadn't thought he was strong enough to do. "Prat," he muttered, his face in Harry's hair. "And it's more than you deserve, too, after the way that you shut me out of your mind so rudely. Well, not to worry. Professor Snape can make that potion again, and—"
Harry put a gentle hand on Draco's shoulder. This was something he had thought was clear the moment he severed the bonds, but perhaps it wasn't. "Draco," he said. "I only had the bonds because I needed your help to defeat Riddle. I won't be renewing them. My task now is guarding Connor and keeping him safe, and I don't think that's something that you need to be in my mind for."
Draco pulled back and gaped at him for a moment. Then he began to splutter. Since Harry had expected that that would happen, he managed to look calm, he hoped, instead of as exasperated as he felt.
"But I liked hearing your thoughts," said Draco, who had evidently decided that the best way to get Harry to change his mind was to pout about it. "And I thought that you needed someone in your mind now to help you heal the damage. Professor Snape was telling me about it. You could have wounds from your battle with Riddle. I could help fill them in."
"Occlumency will do that," said Harry firmly. "And I thank you for wanting to share my thoughts, but I don't want you to."
"Why not?"
"You would tell me to do things differently," said Harry. "Not just try to help me heal the wounds or protect Connor. You would tell me that protecting Connor was wrong and that I should be doing something else, and—well. I just can't do that, Draco. Being available to my brother is always the most important thing." He braced himself, hoping that Draco would understand.
Draco stared into his face. Harry wondered how deeply he saw. Someone trained by a man like Lucius Malfoy should see quite a bit more than was apparent on the surface, in Harry's view, but Draco had surprised him before, especially when he was determined to get his own way.
Draco looked away from him then, and muttered something that Harry couldn't make out. It had words on the end about "come first," but when Harry asked him to repeat it, Draco shook his head, his face gone cold and closed.
Then he smiled again and hugged Harry hard around the shoulders. Sylarana moved out of the way again with a patient sigh. "But I'm still glad that you're better," he said. "And I can't wait to give you my family's gifts."
Harry blinked, then flushed. He had forgotten entirely about getting Draco or the Malfoys gifts—or he had thought of it once, in early October, and then it let it slip his mind again once Riddle started possessing him. "Ah, Draco, I—"
"That doesn't matter," Draco interrupted him. "Really, Harry, since you woke up on Christmas Day and you're going to come back to the hospital wing with me now, you don't need to give me a gift." His voice challenged Harry to comment on anything at all in that sentence.
Harry shook his head and gave in. He knew he should ask more about what was troubling Draco, should apologize more about not giving a gift, and should attempt to reason out just why Draco was so troubled about not sharing his mind any more, when it had always been a temporary thing. But that would involve digging into subjects that Harry wasn't sure he was ready to see, subjects that would hurt both him and Draco.
Harry could see the edge of an abyss he had nearly tumbled within, and was glad to step away from it as he said farewell to Sirius, hugged him, and then followed Draco back to the hospital wing.
I know I can't be too close to Draco, or it would get in the way of my friendship with Connor. I always knew that having friends in Slytherin might do that. And even though he's shown me loyalty so far, and even chose me over his family, this is one choice I don't want to ask him to make yet. If we just ignore it, then we can pretend we're untroubled for a little while longer.
Snape was waiting for them when they got back to the hospital wing. He narrowed his eyes at Harry and glided forward from the bed, his robes sweeping behind the way Harry imagined the basilisk's tail moving. "And where have you been, Mr. Potter?" he whispered, hard enough to make Harry feel as though frost still nipped at him.
"Black took him flying," said Draco, and bundled Harry back into bed. "Even though he's not strong enough yet, and started shivering on the way back from outside."
"Draco," Harry managed to say half-heartedly. It was true that he'd started shivering. It was not true that he saw any need to bring this up to Snape.
"Flying," said Snape, in a voice that promised doom and gloom.
"Flying," said Draco, with a nod, and then turned away and gathered up three gifts from beside the bed. He dumped them in Harry's lap. "Does that potion send Harry to sleep, Professor Snape?"
"Yes," said Snape. "It prevents Mr. Potter from doing more damage to his mind. Of course, he seems determined to do that on his own already."
Harry ignored him as he opened the first gift. He blinked. He'd had no idea…
"Draco, where did you get this?" he whispered, tilting the object so that he could see it better in the hospital wing's light.
"Oh, my family's had the frame for ages," said Draco airily. "Genuine dragon's tooth, mixed with crystal and—"
"Draco." Harry turned the picture around so that Draco couldn't pretend to ignore that it was a photograph of them together, walking down the hall at what must have been some point early in the year. The Draco in the picture was poking the Harry, who looked to be trying to sidle away from him without being obvious. The Harry had a fond smile on his face that Harry found deeply familiar, and the Draco was trying to keep his own face from breaking out in a smile of glee. "This, I meant. Where did you get it?"
"Around."
Draco's face had that shuttered look again. Harry decided not to ask, lest it would mean discussing all the other uncomfortable things they had lying around. He gently put the photograph back in his lap and stroked the crystalline frame, which shimmered with light and subtle facets under the surface. "Thank you," he said.
Draco shrugged and dipped his head. A light blush had started on his face.
Harry sneaked a glance at Snape, only to find the man simply standing there and watching, his face neutral. Of course, it sprouted a sneer the moment Harry looked at him. Harry rolled his eyes and opened the second gift, which turned out to be Narcissa's, a regal sculpture of a phoenix, made of what Harry thought might be genuine gold, with rubies for eyes and the tips of the feathers. Giving in to temptation, he stroked its breast, which, though made with metal, looked real enough to shed downy feathers and let them drift around the room.
The phoenix began to sing. Harry had to close his eyes when he recognized the song. It was one that Narcissa had sung and played for them when he'd been a guest in the Malfoy Manor last Christmas. One of the old history songs of the wizarding world, about the founding of Hogwarts and the final exile of Salazar Slytherin.
Harry swallowed around the lump in his throat. "Tell you mother thank you for me, Draco," he whispered, taking his hand away. The phoenix hushed at once.
"You can write to her and say thanks yourself," said Draco. "She would welcome a letter from you, you know." He had an intent look on his face now, which didn't reveal anything of his other emotions.
Harry shook his head, too overwhelmed to start speaking, and then, with some caution, opened Lucius's gift. It had been a Foe-Glass last year. Harry expected something else like it this year, double-edged and ironic, a sharp reminder that they were on different sides.
He frowned in puzzlement to find only a ring. He turned it around in his hand, flinching, half-waiting for a needle to sprout from the stone on it and stick him with poison, or for his hands to swell and turn blue with some horrible contagious disease.
It remained as it was, though, a simple silver ring set with a single clear stone the color of snow that picked up light and reflections from everywhere in the room. Harry knew the stone wasn't a diamond, but he wasn't sure what it was. He touched it, at last, flinching just in case the needle was activated by touch.
The stone was shockingly cold, and Harry understood, then. It wasn't a jewel. It was a piece of ice kept frozen by charms Harry had never heard of.
He half-closed his eyes as he remembered his training. Ice rings were a rare gift now, but they had once been common, just like so many of the pureblood traditions Harry had insisted on learning. They meant a balanced regard, acknowledging the danger and power of a potential enemy while showing that the giver wasn't exactly ill-disposed towards him.
They were also, or had been once, the very first gift given when a truce was being negotiated between two powerful wizards.
Harry blinked at nothing, then shook his head. He knew that Lucius Malfoy wouldn't abandon Voldemort, not after the things he had done in his name. This ring was a token of regard, probably to satisfy his son, and not the opening move in a truce. Harry couldn't imagine why Lucius would want to do that.
He could very well imagine why Lucius would want to play a game like this, though, and a grim smile formed on his lips. He thought he might ask Sirius to visit Diagon Alley for him and buy the next gift in the game, a triangular piece of ebony cut exactly like the ice on the ring. That answered power with power and announced lingering suspicion. Harry knew Lucius wouldn't continue the farce for long, since the gifts grew steadily more serious and expensive, but it would be interesting to see what he did when he'd received Harry's gift.
"Thank your father for me, Draco," he said, slipping the ring onto his left middle finger. "And tell him his message was accepted." He paused. "No, wait. I'll tell him myself in a letter."
Draco eyed him for a moment. "You won't write to my mother, who likes you," he said. "But you'll write to my father, who's a political enemy. I don't understand you at all, Harry."
Harry shrugged. "That's all right. And maybe I'll write to your mother, too." He picked up the photograph and the phoenix from his lap and stuck them carefully on the table next to the bed. "Thank you, Draco. Very much."
Draco flushed again, then leaned forward and hugged Harry. "Merry Christmas," he said.
"If you are quite finished, Mr. Malfoy," said Snape, "I should present Mr. Potter with his potion."
Draco nodded, whispered a farewell, and slipped away. Harry turned to face Snape. He had noticed that Snape hadn't interrupted the ritual of gift-giving, for all that he'd sneered at it. Harry was under no delusions that Snape liked him, or even really that he liked Draco, but at least Snape was fair enough that he was no longer unwarrantedly hostile.
Towards me, Harry amended, when the first question out of Snape's mouth was, "Do you have any idea what you are doing to yourself in the name of serving your feckless brother?"
Harry shook his head. "I know very well. You keep assuming I'm a child, sir. I wish you wouldn't. These actions are all the results of decisions that I made a long time before I came here."
Snape snorted at him. "You cannot tell me that you expected to be possessed by Tom Riddle."
"Of course not," said Harry. "That was an unpleasant surprise. But I expected that I would face Voldemort. And learn Dark spells, before you can ask about the Fugitivus Animus Cogitatio. I really did get it from a book. I'll use it again if I have to, and others like it, to make people pay attention to Connor. I assume it dissipated when people finally did leave the Great Hall and escaped Connor's presence?"
"Yes," said Snape grudgingly. "It worked as you expected, Mr. Potter. But that is not the point. You have dozens of new wounds in your mind now. You are missing memories. I suspect that your magic has been strained, and that it will be some time before you can perform as competently in class as you have done." He paused, then added, tone etched with acid, "I sincerely hope that this upset has not affected your potion-making skills."
"If it has, sir," said Harry, never looking away from Snape's eyes, "I promise you that I'll study to get them back."
Snape shook his head and dragged in a breath. When he spoke again, his voice was rough. "Why are you doing this? There is no reason to. Others can protect Mr. Potter—that is to say, your brother. I was under the impression that Black was here for the express purpose of doing so. And he must face the Dark Lord on his own terms sooner or later."
"Of course he must," Harry said calmly. "And when he had to do that last year, he did very well, and burned Quirrell to ashes. I'm here to handle the other threats that might come his way, lesser ones—"
"Tom Riddle is hardly a lesser threat, you idiot child!"
Harry waited a moment, just to be sure Snape wouldn't interrupt him again, and shook his head. "Yes, he is. He's only a fragment of Voldemort, not the whole thing. Connor didn't need to deal with him. He needs to reserve his resources for the bigger prize. So I'll get in the way as long as I can, and also work on making him a better leader and more skillful—something I've sadly neglected so far. There's a limit to how far I can train him, of course, since I can't show how advanced my own skills are. But I promise you that he'll save us, sir."
Snape looked at him in silence. Then he handed the potion over, saying, "We must resume your Occlumency training after the holidays. That is the only way to fill in and eventually heal the wounds in your mind."
Harry nodded, drank the potion, and lay down to go to sleep. It was a relief to escape the probing eyes of his Potions Professor, and the nagging guilt that, once again, he'd failed to convince Snape of Connor's importance.
Snape stood watching Harry for long moments after the boy's eyes had closed. He found himself grateful that Harry had not awakened until a week after his battle, for all that Snape had been more certain with each passing day that he would never return to consciousness.
The delay had given Snape time to deal with his own emotions—the shock he'd experienced when Harry's magic expanded from the depths of his being, the fear he'd felt that Tom Riddle would break free, the sudden release of growing weeks of tension and fear.
And the grudging pride, or something very like it, that Harry had used Occlumency and knowledge of his own mind as well as he had against Riddle.
Snape reached over, hesitant despite his knowledge that the potion would keep the boy firmly asleep, and carefully brushed his hair away from the lightning bolt scar. It still burned fiery red. It had not calmed since Harry arrived in the hospital wing, though at least it had stopped bleeding after the first hour.
Snape had heard fragments of Riddle's conversation with Harry, so hard had he been concentrating. He only believed it more likely, not less, that Harry was the Boy-Who-Lived. How else could he have such a deep connection with the Dark Lord?
But he also knew that trying to convince Harry of that truth would be nearly impossible.
So don't speak to him about it, he decided as he stepped away from the bed. Let him believe what he needs to believe, or wants to believe, in regard to his brother. Instead, offer him training, what he doesn't have and will yet need in the battles to come.
It is more important that he succeed than know why he is succeeding.
But if and when he ever changes his mind…I will be ready.
Snape turned and left the hospital wing, cloak swirling determinedly behind him. He meant to find and taunt Black into a guilty rage about taking his godson out of the hospital wing while he was still weak. It would please him, and Black had truly been stupid.
Besides, Snape had to do something to keep up appearances now that he had decided the bet with Black had also been a mistake on his part.