Thank you for the reviews yesterday! I'm afraid that I can't answer a lot of questions yet.
The chapters will have to do that for me.
Chapter Thirty-Eight: A Blow-Up Between BrothersHarry waited for a moment while what appeared to be most of the Ravenclaw Quidditch team went by, chattering about how they would beat Gryffindor in their match in a few weeks. He leaned partially against the wall and partially against Draco, though he drew away from the latter the moment the team was by. Draco gave him a sharp look.
"I don't want to look as though I'm about to fall over," Harry explained, before turning and concentrating on the door to Sirius's office.
"But you are."
Harry ignored that. He certainly was not, and if he'd felt a brief moment of surging dizziness and nausea, that didn't matter, did it? Peter was certainly not about to wait for him to catch his breath.
He glanced at the parchment, which had sprouted new letters. I can watch you, you know, Harry. And that was not an impressive display. How are you ever going to face my spells, when I finally tell you where I am?
"Bastard," Harry muttered.
That insult long ago lost the power to sting me, I assure you. Harry had never seen Peter's face twisted into an evil smirk, but he found it surprisingly easy to imagine. Now, open the door. I want you to understand the full history of my brilliant plan, and you can't, not unless you see what lies in Sirius's office.
Harry tried a simple Alohomora first, and wasn't surprised when it didn't work. No professor would leave his or her door bound with magic that all the students could counter. He considered a spell like Reducto, but that would draw attention, and he desperately didn't want anyone else involved in this little game. He knew that Peter would not hesitate to hurt anyone else.
That's going to be a problem, in a short time, Harry thought, glancing sideways at Draco.
"I don't suppose you have the counterspells?" he snarled at the parchment.
Why, Harry, I thought you would never ask, the parchment replied at once. The password is Freedom of the mind. The last word was scrawled with a distinctive flourish.
Harry paused for a moment, wondering what that password said about Sirius, and then leaned close to the door and whispered it.
The door softly came open under his hands. Harry pushed it inwards and stepped into Sirius's office, remembering what it had looked like the last time he had been here. Peter wasn't quite right in saying that he hadn't been in Sirius's office all school year, since he and Snape had chased Remus here when he wanted to bite Sirius, but that had been only a few days after the New Year, and perhaps the voice was being very literal.
Then, the office had been neat and cozy and warm, with a Gryffindor Quidditch banner hung on every wall.
Now, it was dim, the only light a dying fire, and it looked like a cross between a battlefield and a half-destroyed treasure vault.
Harry stared at the cages stirring with spiders of the kind that had attacked him in the Slytherin bedroom. Another one caught his eye, and he saw the swimming motion of the same kind of snake that had attacked Draco. He closed his eyes.
"No," he whispered. "I don't understand. How?"
Draco caught him from behind and leaned him against the table, on which rested other artifacts, weapons of some kind, radiating powerful magic. Harry opened his eyes to read the parchment's answer.
Oh, Harry, I am watching you, and the expression on your face is everything I hoped for. But you should have guessed before this, Harry. Who but a powerful Dark wizarding family would have access to the kind of artifacts that came after you, the kind of artifact used to watch Lucius Malfoy and determine his true intentions from his blood? And, of course, Sirius is still heir to that family, even though he should not have been. Dumbledore saw to that. He could not bear that the Second War might come and they wouldn't have access to the kind of weapons that the Blacks possessed.
Harry felt a gust of anger grip him, and rattled the parchment. "How do I know you're Peter? Why shouldn't you be Sirius?"
Because you would know Sirius's handwriting, wouldn't you? came the swift answer. And this is not Sirius's handwriting.
Harry controlled his anger as best he could. Currently, his magic was gripping the edges of the parchment, suggesting it could rip it, and he didn't dare do that. "So why isn't Sirius helping you anymore, then?"
He grew too sane for us to use anymore, the parchment reported. By now, it had covered both sides, and Harry wondered what would happen next. What happened was its flipping itself over, the lines it had already written vanishing, and the new message beginning at the top of the front again. When he was still insane, struggling under the influence of the curse that the Dark Lord used to bind his mind to his brother's, then he was very useful. A trusted member of the Order of the Phoenix, who would occasionally break and give us information when the pain became too much for him, and who didn't dare tell anyone else what he was suffering because of his stupid pride, who thought he had to fight alone? Oh, yes, very useful. The writing paused for a moment. Harry tried to force away the image of Peter waiting with a quill in his hand and a manic grin on his face. Tell me, Harry, who do you think it was that dropped the anti-Apparition wards in your first year and gave the Lestranges access to the Quidditch Pitch?
Harry lost his breath yet again, and closed his eyes. He heard Draco make an unexpectedly deep and dangerous sound of outrage. Harry couldn't confront him about it, though. His mind was on the first Quidditch game he had ever played opposite Connor. Their parents, Sirius, and Remus had come. Sirius's face had been haggard, his eyes drowning above the dark circles of nightmares.
For at least two years, then, Sirius had been struggling madly against that curse, his sanity wavering whenever he tried, bouncing back and forth between the madness that had led him to attack Snape this autumn and turn against Harry in second year, and the calmness that made him the godfather who had gifted Harry with the armband that would enhance a Parselmouth's magic. And he had said nothing. The parchment called it "stupid pride," but now that Harry knew about Peter, he could well imagine what else Sirius had been thinking. Someone had already been sacrificed for him. Sirius hadn't been indifferent after all. Guilt had probably been eating him alive, and when he found out that the sacrifice wasn't enough to free him from Voldemort's curse, he would have determined to fight the rest of the battle alone.
Oh, Sirius, you and your stupid hero complex, Harry thought, and opened his eyes to read on.
Dumbledore's ornament made him too sane, the parchment wrote, Peter wrote, the words rippling with what Harry imagined was probably disgust. So we did, after all, have to replace him with a more satisfactory servant. And now I am here, and the attempt to resurrect the Dark Lord is not going to fail after all.
Harry shook his head slowly. "I thought you went to Azkaban for love of your friends, Peter, not for love of Voldemort."
Draco leaned heavily on his shoulder, supporting him or being supported, as the answer appeared. I lied. And now he is almost returned, Harry. A few more steps remain, a few more movements on the game board. First, of course, you might want to ask yourself where Sirius is right now.
Harry stiffened, and felt his lungs refuse to work. Draco pounded him on the back until they did again. Harry winced, and whooped out the breath, and snapped aloud, "Walking around the castle, I would assume."
Wrong. The ritual to bring back the Dark Lord requires certain…sacrifices. And who better to be one of them than a man for whom so much has already been sacrificed, and who is fated to die anyway, if one believes the second prophecy?
"How do you know about that?" Harry demanded. He felt horribly helpless, writhing between the urge to rush out and find Sirius right now, and the temptation to keep reading on, so that he wouldn't cause Sirius immediate death or debilitating injury.
I know pain, Peter said. And Sirius has never been good at resisting it. He bore that curse in his head for twelve years, Harry, did you know that? It never broke, though he told everyone else it did, in the hopes of easing his own conscience over my supposed sacrifice.. He relived Regulus's torture each and every time he slept, and the curse whispered and urged him to act in my lord's voice. Sometimes he broke. Often he didn't.
Harry shivered. He thought he knew now why he had dreamed so often of two dark figures in torment, and why those dreams had ceased after his nightmare of the rat and the dog. That had been around the time that Dumbledore's ornament had finally taken hold of Sirius and cured him, to hear the Headmaster tell it. The snapping teeth of the small creature had been the ornament and not Peter after all, Harry thought. His mind had been free at last, with no more reliving of pain…
And now his body was not.
The point is, the writing continued, when he could finally direct his eyes back to it, I think you should know the second prophecy before you come and visit with me and Sirius. And I'm not going to write it down for you. That would be too easy. Find a way to learn it, Harry, and then come to me. And be assured, I shall know if you do not. I have eyes upon you.
Harry pulled himself sharply out of the tumbling disgust and rage that wanted to seize him. He clenched his hands in front of him. "How do you want me to find out the second prophecy without alerting everyone to what you're doing?" he demanded.
You're an intelligent boy. I'm sure you'll figure out a way.
Harry nodded, once. "Draco," he said, "do you know where Connor is right now?"
Draco's eyes were almost black. Harry blinked so hard at that that he nearly missed Draco's words. "If you think I'm going to let you confront your brother in this state, you're mad."
"Draco," Harry whispered, "we have to."
Draco shook his head. "The proper thing to do is turn this over to McGonagall right away, if you trust her," he said.
That wouldn't be smart, the parchment pointed out helpfully. I can hear every word you see, mark every expression on your faces.
Harry bowed his head. He couldn't risk it, not when Peter apparently had Sirius and was going to hurt him. If he understood Peter's temperament right, he was interested in this game right now, and would play until Harry managed to find him. But let someone else step in, and everything was about to go badly wrong. Peter hadn't vetoed the suggestion of Connor, so Harry guessed that he didn't mind if his brother knew.
"I'm going with you, at least," Draco said.
Harry gave the parchment a wary glance, but received only the message Such loyal friends you have, Harry. Even now, Sirius is struggling against me, as though he could get out from under the control I have over him. Stubborn son of a bitch. Once again, Harry thought he could hear the laughter.
Harry nodded. "That's fine for now. Come on." He turned and limped three steps to the door of Sirius's office.
"Wait!"
Harry glanced over his shoulder. Draco was picking up a spider from the table, and Harry winced. "It's going to bite you," he whispered.
"It is not." Draco shook the spider back and forth, and showed its unmoving legs. "I don't think anyone but their master can really control them, Harry. And since Sirius Black isn't in a position to control them right now, they aren't going to respond. But I do want us to have proof of what happened, in case someone is inclined to question this ridiculous story. I would be." He slid the spider into his pocket.
Harry paused abruptly, a spasm of doubt going through him. If only their master can control the spiders, then why did several of them attack me after Sirius supposedly gained his sanity?
And then there had been the sharp crack of a house elf's Apparition in the hallway that day…
Harry restrained himself from glancing wildly around the room, though he thought he knew how they were being watched now. The Blacks would have had access to a house elf along with all these malicious Dark treasures, though, and a Black house elf could have come and gone freely from Hogwarts in a way that a Hogwarts house elf could not have. He had a slight, fragile advantage, or two if one counted his perception of the flaw in Peter's story—whatever it meant. It was still true that he did not recognize the handwriting on the parchment, and he would have known Sirius's.
"If you must, Draco," he said aloud. "Come on. Let's go find Connor."
Good idea, the parchment said.
Harry smoothed his face into desperation for the sake of the house elf's eyes, not that it was hard, and led the way out the door.
Harry swore and banged his trunk shut. Draco glanced up, startled, from where he was studying the spider critically. He'd placed it on his bed and cast several spells at it, none of which raised a response.
"What's the matter?"
"My maps of the school and the grounds are gone," Harry muttered in disgust. "I can't use them to tell where Connor is."
He noticed the parchment trembling in the way that meant new letters were appearing on it, and snatched it up, glaring balefully at it.
I could have told you that, if you asked, Peter was writing. Did you think I would have left you with a weapon that would let you know where we are before I am ready? Easy enough for a rat to steal in and remove them.
"Great, but now I have no idea where my brother is," Harry snapped aloud. Blaise, Vince, and Greg were out in the sunshine, which was the only reason he dared speak like this.
Find him, the parchment suggested, without much compassion.
Harry drew breath to reply, but someone banged on the bedroom door just then. Draco tossed a fold of his sheets over the spider, and moved over to open it, giving Harry a look that Harry correctly interpreted as Stay still and behind me.
Harry didn't think he had the strength to argue. His head and gut were both blazing and slowly spinning with tension and exhaustion. He did call up his magic, but let it drop again when he saw it was only Marcus Flint at the door, his face wrinkled into an expression of disgust.
"Your brother's at the door of the common room, Potter," he said. "Something about your godfather."
Harry nodded back, grateful for the information, and stepped forward. Draco was beside him in an instant, one hand resting on his shoulder for support and to control how fast he went. Harry gritted his teeth and told himself that he was grateful, really he was, to have such a good friend. That he wanted to kill Draco right now was more a reflection of his own tense mood than anything else, he thought.
But he still can't come with me to wherever Peter and Sirius are.
He and Draco were going to have to talk about that, probably in a few minutes, or possibly a few hours, whenever Peter made up his mind to end the game. Harry suspected it was not going to be a pleasant conversation.
They came to the door of the common room, and Harry knew from Connor's desperate, tearful eyes that his brother already suspected something was wrong.
"Where is he?" Connor demanded, one hand in his pocket. Harry suspected he held his wand, though he hadn't drawn it yet. "I've looked for him everywhere, Harry. What happened?"
"I need to know the second prophecy, Connor," said Harry, checking to make sure that the common room door had slid shut behind them and that no one was coming down the corridor. "I know you know it, and I know it has something to do with Sirius, and I know that—"
"And you kidnapped Sirius so that I would tell it to you?" Connor backed away from him, eyes so wide that he seemed to be drowning his face in hazel. "Are you insane?"
"No, no, not that!" said Harry, and reached for the parchment—only to realize he'd left it on his bed. He cursed and glanced at Draco. "Draco, will you go and get the parchment, please?"
"And leave you alone here?" Draco's voice sounded like Narcissa's now, and he hand his wand out, though not quite pointed fully at Connor. "No, Harry. Never. Since you have no self-preservation instinct, I'm just going to have to be that instinct for both of us. And I'm not leaving you with your brother."
Harry counted to ten in his head, in Mermish. "We do not have time," he said. "Please, Draco, we have to—"
"Come to that, Harry," said Draco, in a cheerful voice that didn't at all give Harry warning of what he said next, "your godfather can go fuck himself, and your brother can go fuck himself, and everyone else who needs you to rescue them and think for them can go fuck themselves. I'm protecting you. Your life matters more to me than any of theirs."
"But it's not that way to me," said Harry.
"I know," said Draco. "That means that I'm just taking on a role that you would have yourself, if you'd been raised by someone sane."
"Don't talk about our mother that way!" Connor yelled, and this time he did pull his wand.
"We really don't have time for that," Harry muttered. "Connor, please. I didn't take Sirius, but he is in danger, and I believe that he's probably going to lose his life unless I know the second prophecy. It's important. Please? I have to know it, and I know that you know it."
Connor shook his head, his face turned pale again. "It says that you're g-going to kill him," he stammered. "But prophecies can be shifted, if you try hard enough. They can shift. If I can make it mean something else, if it does mean something else, then Sirius isn't going to die." His eyes fixed on Harry's face with a resolve that Harry found familiar. It came from their last lesson together, when Connor had started fighting back against him with wandless magic. And he was close to the edge of panic now, his magic plunging around him like a wild horse. "I'm certainly not going to tell you how the prophecy says you're going to kill him," he whispered.
"The exact wording matters," Harry said. "And I need that prophecy, Connor. Please. Give it to me."
"You could rip it out of his mind with Legilimency," Draco whispered into his ear. "Damn it, Harry, do it."
"That won't make me any better than he is," Harry snarled back, and hated the moment of temptation that he felt. He tried to smile soothingly at his brother, though he suspected it was impossible under the circumstances and it came out as a twisted grimace instead. "Please. I'll swear by whatever you like, by Merlin or magic or by an Unbreakable Vow, that I'm not going to kill Sirius."
"The prophecy says that you are," Connor whispered. "And if I told you, then I would be making it come true. There's so little room to turn it aside, now. We're getting into the last moments."
"Does it say something about May?" Harry kept his own voice a whisper, too, wondering if he could lure the prophecy out of Connor by playing into his own half-conscious rambling. It seemed to work. Connor's eyes turned to him, but they weren't piercing and panicked. They were dreamy, as though Harry were a figure he was seeing in his own mind.
"Yes," Connor breathed. "Do you swear that you haven't kidnapped him, Harry? Do you swear that you haven't hurt him?"
Harry nodded. "I promise you. In the name of Merlin."
Connor nodded back. "Then I think I know where he is," he said, voice just barely above a mutter. "The last safe place, he told me it was." He blinked, and the mask of sleep or unconsciousness was gone from his eyes, replaced with the same grim determination Harry had been trying to inspire for the cause of Connor becoming a leader. "And I won't let you hurt him."
"I said that I wasn't—"
Connor narrowed his eyes, and Harry recognized the surge of magic, the cool wind in his thoughts, that meant he was about to start using compulsion. With an effort, he kept his voice even. "That doesn't work on me, Connor, remember?"
"There are other kinds than the kind I used on you, Harry," said Connor, voice detached. "Reinforcing someone's deepest desires is the simplest one. And right now, I have the perfect candidate for that."
Harry knew what would happen then, but knowing what would happen wasn't the same thing as being able to prevent it. Connor's gaze moved past him and fixed on Draco, and the next moment Draco grabbed Harry's arms and held them firmly together behind his back.
"I'm not letting you go into danger," he murmured fiercely into Harry's ear.
Connor nodded to Harry. "He really wants to protect you," he said. "Just the way that I really want to protect Sirius. I'll get him off Hogwarts grounds, help him flee to a place where he'll be safe from you and the prophecy will have to mean something else, and then come back and face the consequences of this. Whatever they are." He gave a fleeting, fragile grin, and then turned and ran up the dungeon corridor as if there were Grims after him.
That left Harry with a struggling Draco, who wanted to protect him by any means necessary. Harry tried to throw off the physical grip, but the attack of pain more than a week ago, and then the week in bed, had left him desperately weak. It was easy for Draco to pin him against the wall.
"I'm not letting you go into danger," Draco repeated, looking more stubborn than ever, his eyes still dark. "I'm going to put you to sleep, and then we're going to wait for Snape to wake up. He'll be able to talk sense into you. You know that he wouldn't want you going into danger, either, wouldn't want you risking your life for that mutt of a godfather."
Harry knew he had to do something about Draco before that happened. The moment Snape was awake and through the ward that Harry had put around him, then he could give up any thought of going after Sirius. Draco was right; Snape wouldn't think Sirius's life worth the potential loss of Harry's.
Harry began to call on his magic, rationing it carefully. If he simply attacked, without finesse but with a great pulse of power, then he would hurt Draco. This had to be done with the fine control he had worked on with Snape.
"Consopio."
Harry felt the sleep spell coming at him, and knew he could bounce it—but that would mean being prepared for an attack in the next instant. He took a deep breath and unleashed a bit, just a tiny bit, of his ability to eat magic.
It came to life around him, hissing like a hungry snake, and devoured Draco's spell. Harry let his body sag as if it had hit him, though, and Draco scooped him up, cradling him in his arms. He murmured the password, and carried Harry through the common room and towards their bedroom the moment the door opened. Harry waited, tense as he could be when he was letting his muscles lap over Draco's arms like pudding, but Draco didn't call on anyone to help. He appeared to believe that protecting Harry meant protecting Harry by himself.
Accordingly, once they were in the bedroom, Harry gathered his magic up and used it to pour strength into his limbs, the way he had when he was holding Fenrir Greyback back from biting him. He rolled out of Draco's grip and managed to stand, wobbling, beside his bed. The parchment was there, but when Harry shot a glance at it, he didn't see any new writing on it. He supposed Peter, or whoever was really managing to control the Black spiders and the Blacks' house elf, was content merely to watch and see how this would play out.
Draco smiled at him, a smile full of appreciation. "I should have known that such a simple spell wouldn't take you down," he murmured. "There's still the chance to be sane about this, Harry. You can give me your word that you won't try to escape, and we can go and wake Snape up together. You know that he can help you figure out some plan to keep you safe and perhaps even rescue your godfather."
Harry coughed. His stomach, for a moment, felt as though it were about to empty itself out his throat whether or not he wanted it to, but he held it down. The next moment, he heard the voice murmur in the back of his head. You're not going to be sick. It's not that kind of pain.
Harry felt the voice settle, watchful, in his thoughts. He ignored it for the moment, though. He didn't know how much help it would be, and perhaps it was even content to stay neutral. It certainly hadn't done anything for him so far.
I am trying to. The voice sounded injured.
Draco was already aiming his wand again. "Petrificus Totalus," he said clearly, and the spell's light came for Harry.
The snake wound around his shoulders ate it without being asked, and the magic around Harry began to purr. Harry felt a bit stronger. He pushed away the temptation to eat more. This was still Dark magic, and he was using it at all only because he couldn't risk Draco disabling him. He had to think of something soon, something that would not hurt Draco but would convince him to stay here.
He laughed, in the next instant. He really should have thought of this before. Draco wasn't doing this of his own free will. Harry could return his free will to him.
He locked up the magic-eating ability again, caught Draco's eyes, and whispered, "Legilimens."
He was past the barriers in a moment; Harry wondered if that was because of the strength of his magic, called and dancing around him, or because Draco had little true interest in keeping Harry out of his thoughts. Then he had no time to wonder, swept away by what was before him.
Draco's mind was a house, created in the same silver-gray shade that most of Malfoy Manor was, shading from deep at the bottom to pale at the top, like a rising wave. Harry stood in a wide entrance hall with a spiral staircase in front of him, each tread a different color. Corridors led in different directions, locked doors standing firmly in them, and winds blew past Harry's head, carrying delicate glass bubbles that swirled with more colors still.
Across one of the corridors ran a thick rope, obstructing passage down it and bouncing back the bubbles when they tried to drift over it. Harry strode towards it and laid his hand on it, certain he could unbind Connor's compulsion in a moment and return Draco's mind to where it needed to be.
The rope buzzed and hummed and sang when Harry touched it, and affection poured through him like a tidal wave.
Harry snatched his hand back and stared at the rope. It was an intruder in Draco's mind. It shouldn't work so well as a conduit for his emotions.
Perhaps he had done something wrong. He touched the rope at a different place this time, and made sure to concentrate on his image of Draco free, so that he wouldn't feed the compulsion.
Once more, the affection pounced on him and rolled over him, inundating Harry with ripples of protectiveness and possessiveness and friendship.
Harry stumbled, but managed to retain his grip on the rope, and remembered Connor's words in the same instant.
"Reinforcing someone's deepest desires is the simplest one. And right now, I have the perfect candidate for that."
Draco really did want to protect him. Draco really did feel this affection for him. The emotions weren't unnatural, but what Draco really felt when it came to Harry.
Stunned, disbelieving, struggling hard to avoid confronting what that would mean, Harry stepped away from the rope. He couldn't unbind the compulsion because he didn't have time. As Connor had said, it was wound into the deeper structures of Draco's mind, already making itself a natural part of his thinking, and it would take very fine work to separate it out again.
Harry did a simpler thing, reaching out to the light that surrounded him in Draco's mind and asking it to dim. It did, thrusting Draco into unconsciousness and Harry out of his thoughts.
He opened his eyes and found himself crouching on the floor between their beds, with the voice in the back of his head murmuring some vague appreciation. He forced himself to his feet with a grip on the bedclothes, and stumbled around Draco's bed to look.
Draco lay on the floor, his wand sprawled by his outflung hand, his face peaceful. Harry couldn't help lingering for a moment, staring, before he shook his head and whispered, "Sorry, Draco."
Draco wouldn't be able to come with him. Harry had known it. He did regret leaving him this way.
He made it back to his bed by sheer force of will, and pumping more and more of his own magic into his limbs so that he could stand straight. He picked up the parchment, and saw more words appearing.
You've done the right thing, Harry. I would hate to have someone else interfere in our little game. Now, of course, you have to figure out some other way to learn the second prophecy, as your brother will certainly not tell you, and Sirius isn't in a position to tell anyone anything at the moment. Harry wished he couldn't so clearly imagine the vicious chuckle that would follow those words.
Oddly, he felt stronger than he had a short time before. How much of it had to do with the emotions he'd encountered in Draco's mind, he didn't know, but he would take what he could get.
And, right now, he had a plan to learn the second prophecy.
In fact, he thought, one hand reaching for the spider Draco had left on his bed and one for the parchment, if I'm thinking right, I already did.