Thank you for the reviews on the last chapter!
Damn, this was fun to write.
Chapter Fifty-Seven: Blood of the Basilisk
"It will do?"
Harry blinked several times, and then glanced over his shoulder, where the hanarz and ten goblins, all armed with silver arrows, waited. "It will more than do," he said. "It might have been made for this purpose." Then, because no one else was trying to speak to him right now, he returned his admiring gaze to the room in front of them.
It was made of stone, of course, as was the case with all the rooms in the tunnels around Gringotts, and large enough to make Harry feel like an ant moving across a sandwich. The walls that held it up curved slightly, like the ribs of an enormous beast, but contained no distracting pillars that might get in the way of the three-lace pattern Harry planned to use. There were no decorations, either, which might also interfere with the ritual once they became intricate enough. Harry would have to mark out an aisle for the Light and Dark wizards to stand on either side of and for him and Draco to stand at either end of, but that was no trouble, not compared to what he would have had to do in a less suitable place.
"When do you believe that you can free us?" the hanarz asked, jolting Harry out of his contemplation of the room once again.
"This weekend."
Silence from behind him, and it went on until Harry had to peer and see what they thought of that timeframe. He discovered the hanarz standing upright, as if moving would cause her to collapse, her hands clasped tightly in front of her.
"At last," she whispered. The words moved only a short distance in the high-ceilinged room before dying. "At last."
Harry smiled.
Harry considered the diagram in front of him one more time, and then nodded. He knew it by heart now, but a final study was never out of place, he thought, tracing one hand over the sketched lines.
He and the other wizards would form the three-lace pattern. The goblins would be underground with them, save for the few who would have to remain in Gringotts to make sure that the business of the bank went ahead as usual. By the time the weekend came around, Harry knew they would also have forged the metal ingots that were meant to act like coins in his replacement model of Gringotts. Goblins worked metal all the time, for their own pleasure as much as because the web compelled them to attend to wizards' money. The hanarz had assured him that many of their products, from the roughest to the most beautiful, would serve in the model the web would transfer to.
That left vaults, of course, but Harry knew his magic could carve them without trouble. The replacement vaults did not have to be as large as the originals. What mattered was that they felt like them, were cloaked in illusions of belief, to fuel the deception he would practice on the web.
It is going to be complicated, then.
I told you that, Regulus brooded in his head. I told you. But you never seem to listen to me any more.
Harry shrugged at him. Maybe if you told me something worth listening to, rather than just making complaints about a ritual that has to go ahead anyway, then I would. He gently shoved the sketch under a piece of homework from his Charms class and closed his eyes. The diagram was still perfect behind his eyes.
A soft trill announced the presence of Fawkes. Harry scratched the phoenix's head as he landed on his shoulder, and glanced at him with a faint grin. "Are you going to complain about the complication of this, too?" he asked.
Fawkes leaned against him and stayed there. His only music was a low, trilling hum, by which Harry understood that the phoenix was pleased and excited about the ritual. Of course he would be, Harry thought, as he stood to get ready for bed. He was a creature of Light, and he supported Harry's vates cause, and had from the beginning. If he could play an active part in the freeing of another kind and not just carry the message that Harry wanted to try it, then he would be happy.
Harry felt little tingles racing through his body that seemed to make even the brushing of his teeth and the washing of his face into important secrets. He wondered, when he came out of the loo, that Draco could already be asleep in his bed, blond hair thrown over his face and his breathing calm. His heart galloped like a thestral. If it hadn't been for Fawkes, he might not have found any rest when he closed his eyes.
Tomorrow, we do something grand.
Harry swallowed another piece of toast, then pushed away the rest of his breakfast, even though Fawkes gave a reprimanding croon on his shoulder. Millicent dared to stroke the phoenix's tail feathers. Fawkes warbled at her, and then cast a dark eye on Harry. See? said the eye. I think she would eat breakfast if I told her that she had to.
Harry gave an irritable shrug, nearly unseating Fawkes. He had done what he was told to. He had slept well. He'd eaten well. What he had to do today was more important than either of them, however. What did one missed meal and a few hours' missed sleep matter next to the ability to set another species free?
"You're irritated at yourself again," said Draco, without looking away from his plate. "I wish you'd stop it. It feels like sand crunching in my teeth."
Harry shook his head and tried to calm down. A glance at the head table showed that Snape was still eating at a sedate pace, and wouldn't be ready to take him and Draco anywhere by Portkey in the next ten minutes. Harry clenched his hands behind his back and breathed as normally as he could. "Sorry," he whispered. "But it just annoys me at times like these that I've got a body to be fed and rested. Wouldn't it be easier if I was just a creature of pure magic, able to help whenever I wanted, without worrying about silly things like that?"
Draco gave him a full-on glance of pure incredulity for a moment. Then he shook his head and said, "I don't know about you, Harry, but I rather like the fact that you have a body."
Harry felt his cheeks heat up, and then was further irritated at himself for feeling that way. You've heard people say things like that plenty of times without caring.
But this time, it's about me.
Draco deserved feeling like he had a mouthful of sand for that, Harry decided, and cut his toast into small, elaborate pieces until he saw Snape stand up and proceed towards the doors, for all the world as if this were a normal Saturday. Harry rose to his feet, and Fawkes spread his wings for balance, crooning all the way. Draco stood up beside him, and laid a hand on Harry's arm.
"Relax," he murmured. "It's just a ritual, and I know that you'll do fine, creature of pure magic or not."
Harry fought the urge to pull away from the touch. Draco had made him too conscious of himself again. But the last thing he wanted to do was unsettle Draco's mind so much that the ritual didn't work, so he gave him a sickly smile instead and walked towards the door of the Great Hall. Gazes burned after him. They no longer hurt as much as they had, but Harry always knew when someone else was paying attention to him.
One person in particular, he thought, as he reached the doors and briefly glanced back in Dumbledore's direction. The Headmaster drank his goblet of pumpkin juice, but his stare above that was grave and thoughtful.
He's been so quiet. I wonder if he really does want to make peace with me, or if he does think that he deserved to lose some power and prestige?
It was probably neither of those, Harry knew, and that meant he would have to guard his back against the Headmaster at some point in the future.
For now, though, Harry forced himself to shake his head and think of other things. This was a great thing, what they were going to do, and the impatience bucked and jogged and kicked in him as McGonagall followed Snape.
It makes me feel the way I did when I came out of the Maze, he thought. I know that what I'm going to do is right, and no one can intrude and question that, and my own conscience can't sting me, either.
The six of them—well, six counting Regulus's voice in Harry's head and the phoenix on Harry's shoulder, who had to be counted because they would be part of the ritual, like it or not—arrived in the enormous room at the same time as Lucius and Narcissa Malfoy. Snape exchanged a guarded nod with Lucius, and Harry was simultaneously puzzled and amused to see a similar gesture pass between Narcissa and McGonagall. It was just as well that neither pair would be standing across from each other, he thought, where the balances were the most delicate.
"Harry," said Narcissa, glancing away from McGonagall in the next instant and seemingly trying to pretend that she'd never looked. "How are you? You look much better than you have done in the past."
Harry winced. Did she have to draw attention to that? "I've been trying to keep my strength up, Mrs. Malfoy," he said, as politely as he could at this time, with the restlessness and his magic both bouncing up and down in him. "I know this is important, and I wouldn't like to let the reins slip from my control because of lack of food and sleep."
Lucius whispered something in his wife's ear. Narcissa listened with a slight frown and a nod, but didn't bother to let Harry in on what had been said. Harry felt a spike of irritation.
Draco placed a hand on the back of his neck and squeezed gently. "Calm down," he whispered. "We're going to do this, and then I'm going to make Mother take us to Florean Fortescue's. We're near Diagon Alley anyway, and that slop the house elves fix at Hogwarts can't compare to real ice cream."
Harry chuckled in spite of himself, and in spite of the reminder of house elves, and then looked up sharply. A door had opened on the far side of the chamber, and Griselda Marchbanks had entered with the hanarz of the southern goblins beside her.
"Mr. Potter," she said, though she nodded at the others. "The ingots that you required are assembled." She nodded over Harry's shoulder, and he turned to look, catching his breath at the sight of the piled metal. Some of the pieces of it really were coins, though not in any denomination handled in the wizarding world, but much was simple worked metal, wrought to artistic patterns that goblins understood and humans did not.
"Thank you," he said, and then looked up as another three Portkeys tugged in another three people. Hawthorn arrived first, at once standing and moving smoothly away from the wall where her coin had brought her, her eyes fastening on Harry's as though she wondered whether he had managed to hurt himself since they had last met. Moody came in behind her, growling softly at the sight of Lucius and Hawthorn, who both proceeded to ignore him. Tybalt was bouncing his wand in his hand and grinning at everyone. He had a bell tied to his hair just above his ear, but Harry couldn't tell if that meant something or was just to mock and imitate his uncle.
"Thank you for coming," said Harry, inclining his head. The restlessness had soothed itself a bit when he came closer to his goal. It was replaced, now, with determination, which Harry thought could match the roar of blood in his ears for relentless movement. "There's no reason to delay, I think, so we should move." He looked at the hanarz, just to make sure the goblins did not need more time, and was met with a faint smile and a click of her nails.
"We have waited centuries," she said. "You made a golden promise. We are ready."
Harry nodded to her, and then raised a hand. Nearly everyone jumped as his magic boiled out of his body, following the movement of his palm, as he cut a rectangle into the floor. The goblins only watched, though, as if they had expected something like this. Harry concentrated on making sure that the rectangle's sides were exactly equal. It was important to the ritual, and it was good practice for the cutting of the vaults he would have to undergo in a few moments.
"Does anyone have any questions?" he asked, as the final chip of stone soared out of the floor and his magic stopped cutting.
No one did, though Harry thought that Moody and Tybalt, at least, looked as if they were wondering what the hell else he could do, if he wanted to. Harry gestured, and the others moved into their places as he had discussed with them in further meetings after that first one: Draco on the far end of the rectangle, across from Harry; Snape next to him and across from McGonagall, as they were balanced by being the strongest each in power of their respective sides; Hawthorn next to Snape and across from Tybalt, balanced as they each were by the wildness of their personalities; Lucius next to Hawthorn and across from Griselda Marchbanks, as the odd ones out otherwise; and Narcissa next to her husband and across from Moody, made necessary by Moody's intense dislike of all the other three declared to the Dark. Harry took his place at the far end of the rectangle, Fawkes on his shoulder and Regulus at the ready in his mind.
He felt the sharp hum as the three-lace pattern closed and called the ritual's attention. Magic was already pouring into him, or perhaps rising from within him; Harry had read so much about rituals in the last little while, the theoretical arguments as to whether they filled with power from the outside or simply gave a mental mold to the wizard's own strength, that he was not sure which he believed. The three-lace pattern, at least, was old enough that the ritual had required little work to adapt.
No, the complicated part would come with the conjoining of the other wizards' powers—which Harry had to guide, as the initiator of the ritual and the only one here that everyone else was bound to—and the creation of the replacement for Gringotts. Oh, and the actual transfer of the web, and convincing it that it still bound the goblins.
Harry extended his hands, aware of Fawkes's warmth behind his eyelids, Regulus waiting and not whining now, and the watching goblins, who had almost all crowded in at the door of the enormous room. The web blazed into being above them, the fierce white thing Harry had seen once before. He knew about it this time, so he could avoid being blinded by it.
He took a deep breath, and calmed himself, and then uncoiled his magic from out of the center of his body, rising like a whip, like a dragon.
Now.
Magic surged out of him and into Draco, on the other end of the rectangle. For a moment, it wavered. They were balanced by their bond and by their respective families' allegiances to Light and Dark, but the ritual was seeking, ideally, for a Dark witch, and not finding her.
Draco gasped a bit, but met Harry's eyes and held them with a faint smile. His trust was absolute, a bond too strong to be ignored. Harry saw it create the first basis of the pattern between them, a wavering link, tinged deep green on Draco's end and gold on his, fading to gray in the middle. The light flickered and danced before settling into those colors, though. Harry supposed it came from his use of so much Dark magic in the past.
He concentrated calmly on the fact of how much he wanted this ritual to work, and the tie firmed. He could do this, Harry thought. The unicorns had shown him his deep green soul tinged with gold—the color of sunlight, the color of Light. He was both. He could play host to one as easily as the other.
The bond firmed, and sang, a deep musical vibration that jolted the chamber and made the wizards and witches in the pattern flinch, again. Fawkes crooned. Harry smiled.
A faint chiming sound joined the music for a moment, making Harry turn his head curiously, but then it faded. He shrugged. Maybe that's just a side effect of the ritual that I didn't read about.
It had not destabilized the bond, at least, and Harry reached out to Fawkes and Regulus in turn, speaking with words this time. His and Draco's trust was too deep a thing to need them. Phoenix, loyal creature of Light, unselfish giver to my vates work. Regulus Black, once Death Eater, brother of my godfather—sorrow shook in his mental voice, but Harry forced it steady—voice in my head, son of the Dark.
They heard him, and they answered, Fawkes's answer audible and Regulus's a whisper at the corners of his brain. Harry felt the bond shoot from him, and this time there was an audible gasp—from McGonagall, he thought. Harry blinked and looked to the side.
This bond was orange and black, also fading to gray in the middle, and joined at one end to Fawkes's throat. The other end emerged from his temple. Harry swallowed, a bit. He could see how it would be startling.
That bond began singing, too, a clear, pure melody that turned sharply in the middle to a sobbing note. Another chime followed it, slightly louder this time, but no one else voiced concern, and Harry decided that must be normal for this ritual.
Wavering slightly from the sheer power of the magic currently channeled through him, he turned and looked at Moody and Narcissa, the nearest pair to him. Narcissa gave him the barest smile, a curve of her lips. Moody grunted at him—no surprise. His magical eye was fixed intently on Harry, as though he was trying to discover the way the bond going into his head worked.
"Alastor Moody," Harry said aloud. "Light wizard, old Auror, hunter of Death Eaters, in debt to me. Narcissa Malfoy, daughter of the Black house, mother of Draco Malfoy, never a Death Eater, Dark witch, loyal dancer."
The bond coalesced without music, but with an angry hum, which Harry thought came from the difference of two contrary souls beating against each other. On Narcissa's end, it was a dreamy gray, shot through with sparks of black. On Moody's, it was a harsh, clear yellow that reminded Harry of tinted Veritaserum. Like the others, it was gray in the middle. A thread snaked away from it, coalescing around Harry's right wrist.
The buzz faded, and a deep chime shook the chamber. Harry waited for it to trail off, and lifted his eyes to the next pair in line. Madam Marchbanks looked pleased and hopeful, though Harry thought she was trying to hide the expression. Lucius tilted his head and stared Harry down, revealing no emotion at all.
"Griselda Marchbanks," said Harry, "Light witch, Elder of the Wizengamot, older than Albus Dumbledore, friend of the hanarz. Lucius Malfoy, Dark wizard, Death Eater, truce-dance ally of mine—" He might have tried to stop what he said next, but the ritual compelled a litany of titles from him, and it slipped out before Harry could stop it. "Smug bastard."
Lucius raised his eyebrows, even as the bond between him and Madam Marchbanks sprang eagerly into being. On his side, it was gleaming black, with perhaps just a hint of purple, the color of a Hungarian Horntail's scales. Madam Marchbanks shone gold and silver, as like a unicorn as anyone human Harry had seen. This bond aimed for Harry's brow, and tied itself there.
This time, the accompanying chime made Hawthorn nearly falter from her place in the ritual. Harry frowned. That really is not supposed to happen. He turned cautiously to Hawthorn and Tybalt, keeping one eye on the walls as he spoke, wondering if perhaps this room had traps on it that he hadn't detected when he chose it. But why would the goblins not have known about them? And why would they have let him use this place if they had known?
"Tybalt Starrise," he said, and Tybalt all but preened. "Son of Alba Starrise, annoyer of Augustus, pledged ally of mine, wild Light wizard. Hawthorn Parkinson, Dark witch, Red Death, formal ally of my family, runner by the light of the moon." He felt the bond swelling into being, and the last words were abruptly hard to speak. Harry pushed himself through. He had known this would happen, at least, as the ritual went on and he handled more and more magic. This was nothing compared to what he would feel when he had to join the bonds all together and then use them to transfer the goblins' web. He shut his eyes for a moment, to let him endure.
This bond howled, like Hawthorn hunting on a full moon night, and was unexpectedly pale on her end, though Harry supposed it might be the sheen of light off a knife. Tybalt blazed both gold and black, like a bumblebee. Harry staggered a little as a secondary bond shot away from it and towards his heart, but managed to keep his feet.
This chime came into his bones, and Harry heard a hiss, deep and angry, that of a defensive guardian. He snapped his head up and searched the room anxiously with his eyes, but there was nothing save the waiting goblins—who weren't alarmed—and the waiting wizards and witches, peering at him curiously.
Harry nodded, and faced Snape and McGonagall, and began speaking. The hiss remained, growing louder, rushing at him. Well, he would deal with it when it got here.
"Minerva McGonagall, Light witch, descendant of Lady Calypso, Deputy Headmistress, chosen friend." The last words had to well out from between his tightly clenched teeth. Abrupt pressure had gripped his head, as though someone had fastened a crown of iron there. Harry could feel Regulus shouting something, but he had to go through the ritual, and couldn't attend to his words. "Severus Snape, Dark wizard, Death Eater, Potions Master, beloved guardian."
The bond between Snape and McGonagall exploded into being, a waterfall of deep, poisonous green racing away from Snape's side and meeting the deep red hue from McGonagall, twining and then snapping, a sound like teeth or claws on rock. The secondary bond from it coiled towards Harry's left wrist.
The chime hurt Harry's head this time, and the hiss grew louder, and when he opened his eyes, a phantom basilisk was slithering towards him along the bond, straight for his left hand.
Immediately, Harry felt stupid for not seeing it before. Salazar Slytherin established this web. Of course he would have put some measures into place to insure no one could simply destroy it.
The basilisk was growing more present every moment, a snake with dark purple scales and gleaming yellow eyes. Harry felt himself shake as the eyes locked on him. It was not yet real enough to destroy him, but it would be soon, and then it could easily turn on and kill the others.
There was one thing that Slytherin could not have possibly guessed about the destroyer of the web, though, and Harry used that advantage now, hissing at the basilisk in Parseltongue.
"What is the meaning of this? Will Slytherin's pet harm one with Slytherin's talent"
The basilisk gave a vicious, whip-like motion of its neck, and then shut its eyes. Harry was vaguely aware of the shouts from the others, and of silver flashes next to them which were probably goblin arrows. The bonds weren't disrupted, though. Harry and the others had passed too far into the ritual to move from their places now. The thread between Snape and McGonagall lashed around his left wrist and coiled there, hard enough to cut off his circulation. The basilisk lay in the rectangle between the Light and Dark sides—only about ten feet long, nowhere near as large as the one in the Chamber of Secrets—and hissed softly at him.
"Beg pardon. I did not know that you could speak to us. I was told that when someone disrupted my lair, that person was my rightful prey. My master told me so," the snake added, as though attacking a Parselmouth were such a severe breach of etiquette that this was the only way to answer it.
Harry felt his lip curl in spite of himself. He could only imagine what Sylarana or the Many would have said about a snake so willing to crouch at someone else's feet and accept a Parselmouth as a master rather than a partner.
"Your master is long dead," he said. "And I want to change your residing place. You reside within the web, do you not?"
"Within the realm of the spider," said the basilisk. "Yes. And that realm cannot be shredded. My master told me so." It was swaying faintly faster now, and the false eyelids that dimmed its deadly gaze were pulsing with flickers of light. Harry suspected the impulse to open them and gaze was becoming hard for the snake to resist.
"I am changing that realm," he said. "Not destroying it. If you help me, then I will leave you alive. If you do not, then you will die. Do you understand me? I bear you no ill will, but I will not allow you to harm or hurt anyone around me, either."
"Why not?" the basilisk demanded. "They are not all of the Dark, and only one of them can speak to me."
Harry did shoot a short glance at Lucius then, just visible over the basilisk's intensely agitated coils. Lucius had a very odd expression on his face. He could understand the conversation, certainly, but he didn't seem to know what to feel about it.
"Because I say so," said Harry. "And I could kill you. Do you need any better reason? I am offering you a choice, which is more than your master gave you when he put you here."
"I understand," the basilisk hissed softly. "I choose to help. And it feels so wonderful to be real again, to sense and hear. Let me stay. I will help."
Harry was unsure if the snake could help, since the addition of a thirteenth presence to the ritual would unbalance it in favor of the Dark. "As you will," he said. "Be ready to assist me."
The basilisk slithered smoothly out of the center of the rectangle—crossing the boundaries of the ritual without disrupting it, as it was part of the web and not part of this new formation of bonds—and around behind Harry. "Keep your eyes shut," Harry added, remembering just in time that he wouldn't be able to see the basilisk now if it decided to stare at the others, and then turned his attention to the bond around his left wrist.
With some persuasion, it loosened and became more like the others. Harry suspected at least part of the resistance had come from Snape, who was scowling ferociously at him and had probably wanted to destroy the basilisk. Harry gave him a reprimanding glance, and then jerked his attention back and focused carefully on the bonds on his wrists, around his brow, at his heart, at his temple, and the one that sprang from the center of his chest, just below his heart bond, and connected him to Draco.
This was too important, too delicate a task, for him to leave any bit of his focus dangling outside the middle.
Harry took a deep breath, and then threw his magic forward, and to the side, and upwards, and down, and to the left, and to the right. The six bonds shimmered and shone ferociously, and then Harry was seeing them all gathered in an equally fierce lump behind his eyes, their colors running together.
He gripped them and conjoined them, all of them at once, every way that the twelve presences in the ritual could possibly be bound, himself to Hawthorn and Fawkes to Draco and Moody to Lucius and McGonagall to Madam Marchbanks and Narcissa to Regulus and Tybalt to Snape and himself to Lucius and McGonagall to Hawthorn and Narcissa to Tybalt and…
He made himself a crossroads, forcing his thoughts to hold all the myriad, beautiful patterns in his mind's eye. His own magic rose to take up more and more of the burden, supporting the bonds, maintaining them, keeping the other ritual participants' minds from panicking at the sudden intimacy, helping him memorize the patterns instead of go crazy thinking about them. More and more rose, and he had only more to give. And the ritual itself helped, of course, hammering the molds into his mind and telling him what to do next and pulling on his magic.
Harry took a deep breath when he thought he had it. All those bonds, all the possible similarities between them and all the differences smoothed over into similarities, trembled and glowed before him. He could know the thoughts of any witch or wizard in the room at the moment, and, through Madam Marchbanks, the thoughts of any goblin.
This was part of the reason this was a Light ritual, of course, aside from the sense of cooperation inherent in it. It required a trust that many Dark wizards, proud and solitary, would never give to one another, and an initiator capable of resisting the temptation to stare into other minds.
Harry held the ball of all their thoughts for a moment, and wondered if this was what it was like to be a Light Lord, a true Light Lord, not the pitiful imitation that Dumbledore was, living from moment to moment with power and exquisitely aware of how one could affect others at all times.
Then he smiled. No. Because even Light Lords use compulsion, if they think it's best. This is what it's like to be me, acting the Light part in the middle of this particular ritual.
He knew the patterns. He took a moment more to breathe.
Then he called on his magic, called on it as he had not since his battle with Tom Riddle in his second year, drew more and more of it up from the middle of himself, and spread it out and to the pile of coins that lay waiting in the corner of the room, and the web on the goblins, and the stone walls of the chamber.
And the coins and the web and the stone answered.
He felt the coins lift, spinning around each other, hurrying into precise lanes. In moments, his magic expanding his thoughts so that he could conceive what would normally not have been possible, or possible only in isolated moments, he knew they had formed the patterns of exchange in Gringotts. They were moving in imitation of the way that they passed from wizard to goblin hands, in and out of the bank. This was a necessary component of the web's replacement, since it was bound to the way that the bank did business, every removal and every deposit of money reinforcing it.
Harry knew he could not hope to mimic all the millions of transactions down the centuries since Slytherin had tied the web. That did not matter. He had only to convince the web that this was the real thing.
The web trembled, and began to move. Harry slitted his eyes, and saw the white glow around the goblins mounting like a sunrise, soaring up and up, turning the air around the ritual participants clear. It was rising, loosing them of its own free will, drifting up and wafting towards the coins. The goblins themselves were almost all standing still, and doing nothing interesting right now. The illusion of busy money attracted the web instead.
Harry felt his mind, or, more properly, his magic, strain. There was no way that he could be holding all these patterns in his memory at once, naturally. But the magic could contain the ritual bonds, which provided the power for the lifting of the web, and the patterns of the coins, which provided a place for the web to go. Harry did not feel quite human right now. He suspected he wouldn't be able to remember exactly how he felt afterwards, either, as he hadn't been able to remember exactly the experience he'd gone through in the Maze.
He asked his magic for still more.
He felt his heart give a single hard beat, but the magic answered him, deep and welling, lifting and pouring through him from his reserves. Harry reached for the stone walls, and began to blast imitation vaults in them.
Chips of stone soared past his face, when he could see what was in front of his face. His vision pulsed in and out, sometimes showing him what was happening in the room, sometimes showing him what was actually behind his head—the web hovering over the zooming coins and watching them in fascination—and sometimes showing him that immense ball of gathered bonds and magic and trust. Harry could hear, though, his breathing lifting and becoming more and more labored. His magic might give out before the end, at the rate he was going.
What magic cannot do, will must.
Harry locked his will and pushed it forward. The last of the vaults were blasted now, and he remembered what the hanarz had told him. Every use of a key in a vault increased the web, too.
He reached out, confidently weaving a glamour, and his vision and the world were steady but beating, like a heart, repeating what he saw in ordered patterns, bonds and coins and web and illusion—
The illusion put what looked like metallic doors into place over the vault entrances, and then conjured keys. Harry tied off the glamour, and watched in amusement as the keys began to bustle about, "unlocking" the vault entrances and then "locking" them again, all a shadow-play to attract and hold the web's attention. Harry was panting from the strain, but he did enjoy the irony of employing what was technically Dark magic, because it was deceptive, in the midst of a Light ritual.
The web turned to look at the vaults, and Harry felt it writhing, the white tendrils uncurling behind it. Its main object was not confinement of the goblins, but to reinforce itself through the business of the bank. Slytherin had made sure of it, and had, through that, made it seemingly impossible that anyone could free the southern goblins without shutting down Gringotts itself.
Now, though, that was working against his intentions. The web was a mindless thing, not sentient, a creature of fascinations and shallow emotions. It moved slowly, slowly, closer to the whizzing coins and the phantom doors.
Harry could feel his arms trembling. He told himself that was only an illusion, too. He was feeling the strain in his body, particularly his chest, but he wasn't holding anything up. He spun more and more magic out of himself, and into the temptation for the web.
The web sprang.
Harry cried out as its tendrils uncurled from the goblins altogether, and wrapped greedily around the new illusion of the bank. He moved, timing things precisely, letting the web settle into place and hum happily before he held up the ball of all the conjoined bonds, all the conjoined magic, and flung it into the center of the illusion.
It landed, freely given magic, freely given sacrifice, which in the original ritual would have tied the curse into place on the new volunteer. Instead, here, it gave the illusion of the bank a heart, and made it permanent. Harry could feel the web's "belief" in the illusion form fully and formidably, and knew the goblins' freedom was complete.
He took a deep breath of relief.
"Thank you. That was a beautiful place of magic to see. I have missed magic. And now I shall guard the web, which is what my master asked me to do."
Harry lifted his eyes, blinking, and saw the basilisk slithering rapidly towards the newly-placed web. It grew less real as it moved, tattering into purple-black strands of mist and one glimpse of yellow eyes that still made Harry shiver. Then it wrapped itself around the web and vanished.
Harry managed a tired grin. If anyone did try to tamper with the southern goblins' web after this, perhaps move it back to them, they would find the basilisk hissing and probably staring or biting them to death before they could do anything about it. And it was extremely unlikely that Voldemort, the only other Parselmouth in Britain, would care enough to do anything about it.
And now he had to turn around and look at other things, because he was not done yet.
Harry reached out, carefully, and began unbraiding the bonds that still tied to him, going in reverse order. A hissing twist, and the bond around his left wrist parted, and McGonagall and Snape sagged. A howl, and Hawthorn and Tybalt were blinking at each other, as if they didn't know what had happened. A roar, and Lucius and Madam Marchbanks were stepping away from each other with mutual expressions of distaste. A buzz, and Narcissa and Moody were free; Moody showed more relief than Narcissa at their parting.
Fawkes trilled, helping Harry ease the bond between Regulus and himself apart. Regulus sighed. Thank goodness. That phoenix was singing at me all the damn time. I don't know how you stand it, having him bonded to you.
Harry shrugged, a motion that made him gasp in pain—he had not realized how tense his body was—and reached out to the bond between himself and Draco. Though he had not thought much on the other boy while they were bound together, this ritual would have been impossible without him, he thought, meeting Draco's eyes across the rectangle. That steady, fundamental tie of trust had let him do everything else.
Draco laid his hand gently on the bond. Harry shivered. It felt as though the hand had reached into his chest and pressed upon his heart. It felt—not so much good as sweet.
"Can't this stay?" Draco whispered. Harry heard him clearly, despite the distance between them. "I wouldn't mind."
Harry shook his head slightly, and smiled, and released the connection. He caught a look of disappointment on Draco's face before he turned away, but he was sure he had made the right decision. Both he and Draco would have sickened of each other before long, forced to live in such intimacy. It would have made Draco's empathy seem like nothing.
Harry used the moment when the ritual still buzzed and hummed through him to look at the hanarz near the doors. Her face was painted with an expression of joy that even he, inexperienced at reading goblins, could recognize. She bowed her head slightly to him. Earlier, she had confirmed to Harry that she and her people would not be hasty. They would keep up the business of Gringotts as usual at first. Slowly, they would begin changing the terms of their relationship with wizards. Now that they were free, they could afford to take their time. It had been the web, the lack of choices in dealing with wizards, which made them impatient.
Harry whispered the words that would end the ritual. "In the name of sunrise, this ritual is done, and the transfer complete."
The buzz in his head ended as the power withdrew, slipping away from him like water, and the very last expanded boundaries of his mind contracted violently. Harry dropped to his knees, shaking. His body ached viciously. He could actually feel his lungs working to take in enough air, and his vision blurred and swam. Magical exhaustion, he knew, the kind he had experienced when he aided Connor on the Quidditch Pitch in first year.
He heard Snape snapping something out, and hoped, fuzzily, that his guardian was hurting no one's feelings as he scooped him off the floor.
He had done what he came here to do. The goblins were free, and he had exerted himself to the utmost in freeing them. That meant that he had no reason to stay awake. He really had done all he could, with no selfish holding back.
Harry slipped into sleep, fully aware that he would be smiling. There could be no better cause for tiring himself out than this.