Thank you for the reviews yesterday!
...And then there was this chapter, which is nothing like what I originally envisioned. The title of this chapter comes from Swinburne's "Hymn to Proserpine."
Chapter Forty-Four: The Wind of the Future
Harry felt it as he realized that his begging wasn't going to convince Connor, that their parents might die, and Connor wouldn't agree to the last desperate plan that Harry had thought of to save them.
For just a moment, temptation reared up in him, and turned, and looked him in the eye.
You could use your magic to interfere, after all, it whispered. An Obliviate, or even just a simple confusion spell that would cause them to believe what you told them about the evidence—
Harry shoved the temptation away from him, horrified that he'd listened to it for this long. Dimly, he heard himself crying out. He buried his face in his arm, unable to speak, barely able to think. It was easier just to feel the skin burning against his forehead, and the arms clutching at him, and to pant.
"Harry?" Draco whispered to him. "Harry, what was that?"
He shook his head, not thinking he could answer, either. Thought came back to him in drifting bits and pieces, like the broken flotsam of a shipwreck on the tide. He shuddered, and felt Draco tighten his hold again in concern. Obviously, the shudder hadn't done a great job of convincing him that nothing was wrong.
Harry didn't think he could stay here another moment. He hadn't listened to Peter's testimony so far, but he could hear it continuing behind him, relentless and calm, paving the road to execution. He would listen to it if he stayed here, and perhaps his desperation would grow until he reconsidered using magic to interfere with the process of the trial, as he'd said he wouldn't, as no one but a Dark Lord would do.
"I need to get out of here," he said, moving his mouth enough back from his arm that Draco could understand him. "Can you get me out of here, Draco?"
Draco was more than willing to comply. Harry kept his eyes lowered as they passed to the courtroom's upper doors. He knew that most of the gazes would be pitying, but at least some would be speculative. They would begin thinking of him as the Boy-Who-Lived, now, and wouldn't things change the moment some reporter wrote that up for the Evening Prophet?
Things had changed, and Harry felt, for the first time since the trial began, that he had a glimpse of just how great the changes would be. And as the protective dread for his parents faded and his rage reared up again, he knew that the changes wouldn't be just in the outside world.
Merlin.
Draco and Snape had been right. Harry didn't like admitting that even in his head, since what they'd wanted had seemed so mad, but it was true. Draco, ushering him into an anteroom that might or might not be the one they'd used before, and Snape, briskly unstoppering a vial, by the sounds of it, had both been right.
He needed to talk. He needed to think. He needed to shove this out, or he might end up taking the first step on the road that Dumbledore had followed. Dumbledore had had no qualms about using his magic to interfere with the process of the trial, after all, just as Voldemort didn't care about destroying and manipulating other wizards' lives to suit his own whims.
"Harry? Harry, will you drink this?"
Harry lifted his head, blinking. He wasn't entirely sure if he'd had his eyes shut, but it felt that way, so involved in his own thoughts had he been. He certainly hadn't realized that Snape had poured a Calming Draught into a conjured goblet and was holding it out to him, or that Draco hovered off to the side, eyes frenzied, somewhere between grabbing Snape's hand and forcing it away and opening Harry's mouth and forcing the potion down his throat.
But they were still leaving it open to him. His choice.
Yes. Everything has to be.
Harry once more slammed his emotions into a box, as he had just before he went back to the courtroom with Draco. That box hadn't held. This one had to. He padlocked it tightly. He would have to think about and resolve the questions he'd thrown into it, but for the moment, he just wasn't in a place where he could accomplish that.
The word "place" hit his mind like an arrow, pinning him to one particular idea before he could stray from it.
I need a place. I require it. I'll use the Room of Requirement when we get back to Hogwarts.
He took a deep breath, feeling much better now that he'd already made one decision, and said, "Yes. Thank you." He reached out and accepted the goblet from Snape, who had just started to pull his hand back. Both Draco and Snape stared at him in shock as he drank the potion, wrinkling his nose slightly at the taste. It was sweet enough, but had a faint, acidic aftermath.
He felt the serenity spread across his mind like another Occlumency pool, and took a great, whooping breath. What emotions he still had he felt detached from, as if he were hovering above them—except for the determination. Absentmindedly, Harry wondered if Calming Draughts didn't affect the will. It wasn't something he'd ever researched, being more interested in the properties of the Potions themselves. I can do this. I can still do this. And I'm going to do this.
"I didn't expect you to take it, Harry," Draco said, breaking the silence that had fallen between them.
"I know." Harry looked up. "I felt I had to. I don't want my magic exploding and destroying the Wizengamot." Snape's face hardened at that, but Harry refused to allow himself to think it was anger at him, because he knew it wouldn't be. He was shaping his own thoughts into an arrow now, aiming at his target, forcing himself to ignore distracting, irrelevant, nagging little insecurities. It wasn't very comfortable, but he wouldn't have to endure for it very long.
I can't go on as I have been. I need to go to the Room of Requirement and think, not just feel and react. And I don't want to do it alone, not this time. I'll take Draco with me.
"Can we go back to Hogwarts?" he asked. "I know that it wouldn't be good for me to hear the rest of the testimony." At the very least, he thought Hawthorn would testify—unless someone had found out she was a werewolf; the newest anti-werewolf restrictions said that known lycanthropes couldn't testify in court—and Lucius. Remus couldn't, of course, because too many people knew about his lycanthropy, including the Minister. Maybe Adalrico Bulstrode, if he was there; Harry hadn't seen him.
And he had to stop reciting the list of witnesses to himself, or he would go mad. He brought himself down with a sharp chop, and thought nothing more about it. Those thoughts went into another box.
"Don't you want to hear it, Harry?" Draco asked.
"Very much," Harry said softly. "Too much. I won't, not now." He hesitated one moment further, but if he didn't tell them, it was likely neither of them would understand why he wanted to go to the Room of Requirement. Besides, he wanted to tell them. He could admit that much, in the privacy of his own head. "I almost used magic on Connor when he refused me."
Draco closed his eyes. Snape drew in his breath sharply, and then said, "What kind of magic?"
"A spell I would have regretted using." Harry met his eyes and held them, grabbing other thoughts that wanted to rise, about other circumstances when Snape had looked that way—last Christmas, most prominently—and throwing them recklessly into another box. The sense of urgency, similar to what he had felt when he was getting ready to rush to the battle on the beach, built up in him. "I can't stay here. I have to get back to Hogwarts, and to the Room of Requirement. It'll give me a place where I can actually face these damn things."
Draco looked as if the morning had come. "Harry—"
He broke off, but Harry didn't know if he was choked up, or didn't trust himself to find the words, or if it was because of something else. Throwing more thoughts into boxes, he said, "Yes. I know. My parents may both die tomorrow, but I'll have to go on living. And I've got to do something to make sure I can." He'd lost track of how many boxes there were now, how many memories and feelings they were holding away from him so that he could function. That was all right. He had time to unpack them, once he was in a place where he wouldn't destroy anyone else when he did. "I must, I have to do this."
Snape said nothing, but reached into a pocket of his robes and brought out a small key carved of what looked like ash wood. Harry blinked and looked up at him. "Sir?"
"The Headmistress thought we might have to return to Hogwarts quickly," said Snape. "She has set up a Portkey location on the sixth floor that we may travel to for as long as the trial lasts." He hesitated a long moment, then said, "Harry. Will you want to do this in the company of both of us, or only Draco?"
Looking into his guardian's eyes, Harry wished he could say "both of you," but he couldn't. A large part of the anger he'd put into the boxes was still anger at Snape, at the way this had worked out. "With Draco, sir," he murmured, and Snape nodded and put the ash key into his hand.
"Speak the Portkey incantation while you hold it, and both of you will be taken to Hogwarts," he said, moving his gaze to include Draco. "I will stay here and watch the trial. I will tell you what they said later this evening, if you feel capable of hearing it, Harry."
Harry was wildly grateful that he didn't say something like, "If you've survived this bloody scheme with your mind intact." Snape was showing trust now, too, showing that he expected Harry to do the right thing, and that there was no question of his survival because he wouldn't endanger himself. He grasped the Portkey, and Draco stepped forward and held the other end.
"Thank you, sir," Harry said. "For everything. Portus!"
Draco recovered from the dizzying swirl of the Portkey method of travel faster than he usually did. Perhaps it was the odd emotion gripping him now, a mixture of battle-readiness and desperate joy. Perhaps it was that he'd been staring so intently at Harry's face that he'd had a focus in the usual formless dance of color.
Perhaps it was just the fact that Harry had finally, finally decided that he was going to speak about this. And unlike the time he'd run away to Godric's Hollow, he wasn't going to do this alone.
Harry waited for a moment, until he was sure Draco had his feet, and then opened the door of the small closet they'd landed in. Draco peered out behind him, searching for moving students. They must have arrived in the middle of classes, though. Draco would have murmured a quick Tempus charm just to make sure, but Harry was already striding out of the closet and down the corridor, making for the stairs that would take them to the seventh floor and the Room of Requirement.
Draco sped up until he was almost running. He was taller than Harry, and his legs longer, but none of that seemed to matter when Harry got into one of these moods of his. Draco had seen moods like this when Harry faced the dragons in the First Task of the Triwizard Tournament, and when he was getting ready for the battle on the beach, and when they were leaving to fly to Woodhouse. It was Harry's look when he was about to go conquer something.
But, Draco realized as they waited for one of the moving staircases to swing back around, it wasn't exactly like any of those. The determination to face the dragons last year and Voldemort on the autumn equinox had had Harry's usual protective fervor behind it; he knew that other people were in danger, and he wanted to do something to help them as soon as possible. At Woodhouse, he'd been almost giddy. This wasn't giddy. It was—
Damn it. Malfoys are not supposed to lose all their words at once.
Harry's magic was glimmering around him now, though Draco doubted that he knew it. When the staircase deposited them on the seventh floor, Harry almost floated off the last step rather than simply walking. The light that traced him shone indigo, and then red, and then green, pacing through the shades as Harry paced until he found the tapestry of the ballet-dancing trolls. As he began to move up and down before the opposite wall, muttering something fiercely under his breath, Draco realized that the magic had outlined Harry in a mantle of keen, dark color, like a trailing cloak.
He stepped closer, fascinated and awed and longing to hear what Harry muttered.
"I need a place where I can think for myself and talk to Draco and work out what I need to do and won't harm anyone."
Draco blinked. He would have thought the demand shorter, since Harry's will ran so high. But he supposed Harry was trying to think consciously and painstakingly about this, so as not to miss out on anything he needed to do tonight.
If he does it. Harry had ignored so many invitations to talk about his emotions towards his parents in the last few weeks that Draco couldn't help but think this would be another failed attempt.
And then he remembered that Harry had taken the Calming Draught of his own free will, and walked away from the courtroom, and invited Draco to come with him, and his hope began to rise.
He waited with suspended breath until a rough stone door appeared in the wall Harry'd been pacing in front of. Then Harry stepped forward and opened it, and Draco followed him inside, into a large dark space.
Harry glanced around with eyes he could feel widening. He'd concentrated on his need rather than on what the room might look like when it formed itself, but still. He was sure he hadn't been thinking of something like this.
The room was a gaping cavern now, large enough that Harry knew it would extend out of Hogwarts entirely if its dimensions were normal. The walls were made of a dense dark crystal, slick and gleaming, but smooth enough to present wavering reflections of himself and Draco. Harry's wonder increased as he watched strings of silver move under the crystal, the worms that fed on it and spun it. He knew this substance, now. Called ianthinum, it was less rock than living thing, a growing matrix that slowly increased as its worms did. And it absorbed whatever magic was thrown at it. It had supposedly existed around Merlin's time, but because no wizard had seen ianthinum since, Harry had had no clue if it was real or just an old legend.
Well, the Room can make it real, obviously.
Towards the far end, the ianthinum melted into darkness. Void or black fire? Harry couldn't tell from looking at it, but from the way it moved, it might be either. He tossed a bit of magic into it, to see what would happen. It just fell, like a Knut down a bottomless pit, and didn't come back. Harry smiled. Well, I can't hurt anyone with my magic this way, even if I get angry enough to blow up half of Hogwarts.
The crystal didn't cover the whole surface of the walls, he saw, when he turned and looked at them again, though the faint light—which came only from the worms in the ianthinum shedding their silver glow—had fooled him into thinking it did. He moved a step forward, and studied the small, framed portrait that hung, looking like a wizarding photograph, between one strip of deep blue and another.
He choked a bit when he recognized it. It was the memory that the Wizengamot had watched during Connor's testimony, as Lily taught him how to resist taking pleasure from anyone else's touch.
Harry flicked his eyes to the side, and saw other portraits waiting. He nodded. The Room had obviously decided that one thing he required was the inability to back away from any of his sacrifices.
He felt coiling terror rise from his belly in a spiral, heading for his heart, but he crushed it. He'd faced Lily's training once before, hadn't he, the day he asked for Draco to touch him? And he'd been equally courageous other times before.
Until he had that thought, he hadn't realized how deeply and thoroughly Connor's words about cowardice had shamed him.
Thank you, brother. You're one of the reasons I'm here. But this time, I'm not screaming in pain as Sylarana's death destroys me, and I'm not trying to rebuild my mind. This is making decisions that I should have made a long time ago, continuing the shift that's already begun. I'm not Voldemort, and I'm not Dumbledore. I can accept that I have limitations, and I need to change, and that there are things in the world greater than I am. I can't afford to do anything else. The strength of my magic and the fact that I want to be vates say that.
It was why he'd asked for a place to think, rather than feel. He'd had enough of reacting out of blind emotion. He was going to face the emotions, yes, but he was going to face them consciously. He'd felt ashamed of crying in Draco's arms as he had earlier that day, and that just made him tighten up and pull away again. So this time he was going to do it his way.
"Harry? What do you think this is?"
Harry turned around, and saw Draco standing next to an enormous pendulum in the center of the room. Harry blinked and strode over to it, wondering how he could have missed it before. It was silver, and apparently hanging from the ceiling, and had a huge, sickle-shaped blade. Draco held a hand a few inches from it, as if he wanted to touch it but thought that wasn't a good idea.
Harry shook his head. "I don't know, Draco."
Draco eyed it one more time, then took a step backward. "All right." He faced Harry. "So what did you want to talk to me about?"
The pendulum began to swing. Harry moved Draco out of its path, made sure the blade wasn't about to cut into his own back, and then met his boyfriend's eyes.
"The things I can't hide from anymore," said Harry. "The reasons I didn't want to use the Pensieve spell that you made, essentially."
Draco's mouth opened slightly, perhaps at the way Harry had phrased that. Then he asked, "Do you want me to summon a Pensieve? The Room could give it to us, if we require it, and I know how to cast the spell again."
Harry shook his head. "I will keep my promise about that spell after the trial's over, but I know my own mindset. I've just hidden from it." He started walking back and forth, parallel to the pendulum's swing. Whoosh-thrum, the enormous blade sang as it sailed past him. "I want you to help me talk it out, and tell me when I'm being stupid."
Draco looked as though someone had slapped him. Harry cocked his head at him. "Did you not want to?" he asked. "I admit, I didn't ask that before, but I thought you would have objected if you didn't want to come."
Draco said something inaudible, then shook his head and murmured, "Not—not at all, Harry. I'm just amazed that you're actually willing to do it now. Did nearly using your magic have that much of an effect on you?"
"Yes," said Harry flatly. He could already feel the emotions knocking on the insides of the boxes, demanding to be let out. He was no longer good at building and holding these kinds of solid containers, not since Snape had trained him so well in the fluid pools of Occlumency. "I saw that I could turn into what I hate. And I don't want to. I will not."
"All right," Draco breathed.
Harry took a deep breath, dissolved the first box, said, "You might want to stand out of the way," and then turned and threw a burst of anger and magic at the ianthinum wall.
The magic manifested as a whirling black vortex, tugging in air and light as it moved about the room; Harry even saw the pendulum sway towards it, as if it wanted to vanish into it. And then the vortex touched the crystal, and turned into a waterfall of purple and blue. The ianthinum expanded a bit, and then settled back, pulsing gently.
Harry smiled. At least I know that it works to absorb magic. He squeezed his hand, and his magic sprang up and trailed him in faithful, obedient waves as he began talking again.
"I want so badly for them not to die, Draco. I told myself I was content with that. If I couldn't save them from Tullianum—well, at least they'd be alive. I wanted the same thing for them as I did for anyone else. As long as they're still alive, then I could visit them sometimes, perhaps—"
"No, you couldn't have," said Draco. "I would have sat on you if you tried."
Harry nodded at him. "Yet another sign that I wasn't thinking right, right there. And then I realized that I didn't want the same thing for them as for anyone else. I wanted more. And I didn't care that they'd abused me, that was what I told myself, I was somehow above all that—"
He dropped to his knees as two of the boxes shattered at once, and rage flooded him like a dark, hot whirlwind. Harry felt everything around him burning. He turned his head, to make sure Draco was all right, and found Draco standing safely on the other side of the pendulum, beyond which none of the flames could apparently pass.
A cool wind came blowing out of the darkness at the far end of the Room. Harry felt it take his flames and swallow them. In a moment, they were gone, but that didn't remove the emotions, which circled in him like sharks hungry for blood.
Harry closed his eyes, and gritted his teeth, and drove his palm into the floor as he spoke the words he had to speak. "I do care. Quite obviously. There is part of me that hates them and wants them to die. Also quite obviously. And I need to stop thinking that I'm somehow above that, because if I was, I wouldn't be feeling this."
"And there's no need for you to be a saint," Draco snapped at him. "Quite obviously. For fuck's sake, Harry, did you think that you couldn't be angry?"
"Yes," said Harry, and then convulsed as another box broke. This let out a bunch of shame that tumbled merrily around in his chest, and he knew that he'd have to deal with that next. "That was exactly what I thought," he whispered, and took a deep breath, and then he was crying.
Draco slid around the pendulum and came up to put his arms around him. Harry leaned his head on him, and did his best to talk through the sobs. The words didn't sound that great individually, but, assembled, worked out as:
"I needed this, you know. I wanted to talk to someone so much about my parents before the trial, especially after I'd punished Mrs. Bulstrode and didn't have that weighing on my mind anymore. I didn't think there was anyone I could talk to. I was so convinced that you would hate me if you found out about my anger, my hatred, my desire to string them up by their guts until they were dead."
"I wouldn't have," Draco whispered in his ear. "It's not the kind of thing you'd go to McGonagall about, sure, but I don't care, Harry, I don't mind." His hand was making large circles on Harry's back now. "I would have helped you string your parents up by the guts."
Harry found he could still smile, which was at least more than he'd been able to do during his crying jag earlier. "I know. But I still love them, too."
A startled pause, and then Draco pulled away and glared at him. "And now I know that you're a bloody idiot."
Harry gloried in the sharp spark of defiance looking at him. He wanted Draco not to agree with him. He needed to be reminded that there were people in the world who didn't think like him, who weren't him, who believed things that were in perfect opposition to his own beliefs and with perfect justification. When he knew that, he had a reason to go on arguing, and he had the necessary caution to keep his magic from making too much of an impact on the world. He couldn't just do whatever he liked, because there were other people here, too.
Neither Voldemort nor Dumbledore ever really remembered that.
"I am not," he answered. "I love them, Draco. I wish they could have been real parents to me. I told Regulus that when he asked me on Saturday, the day we went to Cobley-by-the-Sea. The only family I've ever wanted to belong to is my own."
Draco flinched as if the vortex had struck him. Then he stood up and moved several steps back. "Harry," he whispered. "Does—I mean, my father hooked you into the wards on Malfoy Manor. Mother and Father gave you an alliance bracelet for your birthday. Does that mean nothing to you? Would you really prefer your mother and father over mine?"
Harry wanted to bite his own tongue, he wanted to take it all back, he wanted to say that of course he hadn't meant it that way and of course he would issue an apology at once—
But this was fear, the kind of fear Connor had talked about, the kind that had made his parents send Peter to Azkaban for crimes he hadn't committed. He had to remember that other people existed, but he couldn't let fear of what they might say prevent him from facing his emotions.
And he had to remember, he had to, that Draco trusted him, loved him, was in love with him. That love was strong enough to survive a disagreement, even a savage one. Harry was walking in strange territory, grasping things he didn't instinctively feel or know, had heard only as proverbs, for guidelines. But if he was ever going to make them part of his own life, then he had to do this.
"I would have preferred my mother and father the way I thought they were for the first eleven years of my life," he said quietly. "My father was the perfect Gryffindor, brave and strong and so like Connor. And my mother was someone I shared a secret trust with. We were going to save the world together. If they were real? Yes, I'd prefer them. Your parents are wonderful, Draco, and they've done so much for me, but I don't belong with them the way you do."
Draco folded his arms and snarled at him, angry tears forming in the corners of his eyes. Harry tried to remember the last time he had seen him this enraged, and didn't think it had been ever.
Fear ate at him. He Vanished it. Fear was the only emotion he was going to refuse to feel this afternoon, because it was fear that had kept him from feeling everything else.
"I'd like to know what other definition of belonging you'd use," said Draco, voice cracking down the middle. "They've welcomed you, treated you like a son, and like a son-in-law, known before you did that I loved you—"
"And all of that's wonderful," said Harry. "But, for example, I don't feel comfortable accepting the Black legacy because I think it should be yours. Or Andromeda's, maybe." He felt a surge of confusion. He let it ripple through him. He was granting permission to himself to do things like that, after all. "That kind of belonging, the kind that comes with blood. I don't feel that with your family. I'm sorry. Maybe I will someday, but I don't right now."
Draco turned away from him. Harry let him. He was still listening—Draco had never been good at the silent treatment—and Harry knew that he was hardly defeated. This was still words. It was still a contest where they could be equal.
"But now I know that my parents weren't the kind of people I thought they were," he whispered. Images of his mother flashed and rippled before his eyes. Whoosh-thrum, the pendulum sang. "I wanted them to be, and I desired them to be. I thought I could still make my mother into that kind of person when she appealed to me. She really did believe that she was saving the world. So, if that much of her was real, why wouldn't the rest of it be?"
"Because she abused you!" Draco screamed, swinging around again. "Does that fact not stay in your mind for longer than two minutes at a time, Harry? What is it going to take to make you think that you're the same as anyone else in rights, that you didn't deserve what she did to you?"
Harry held his eyes, and felt another box fly apart as if struck by a Blasting Curse. "This, I think," he said simply, and then turned and faced the wall. Draco had the good sense to duck behind the pendulum again.
Harry took a deep breath. This time, the air in his lungs seemed to turn to scales. Freezing rage ran along his arms, and manifested as coils, as tails, as hissing, lifted heads, as venomous fangs. Harry whirled, and serpents, magical and mundane, flew from him in every direction, sliding off his shoulders, vomiting themselves up from his throat, flying like sling-stones off his spine. They sped towards the ianthinum and the void at the end of the Room, but there were always more where they came from. Harry's emotions choked him and sped out of him, manifested and choked him again, appeared and then cleared from his throat, until he could finally scream.
"I hate her!"
The words themselves seemed to crack the air. Harry watched as a jagged lightning-bolt shape sped towards the wall, opening the Room up to—nothing behind it, but the crystal ate that, and grew a little closer. Harry could see the silver worms under the blue-purple rock brightening with contentment.
Draco made a small sound that turned Harry back towards him. "You hate who?" he asked.
"My mother," said Harry clearly, and pushed.
The fear he'd felt of saying that shredded and collapsed to the floor in limp rags. He remembered Lily telling him how she'd become a part of the sacrificial ethics Dumbledore preached, and heard, for the first time, as a response to it, not his own pity thinking that he should heal her mind and forgive her, but Connor's voice saying that Lily hadn't been under a web, but Harry had, and he'd still done better than she had.
"Lily Potter," Harry whispered. "I hate her. I hate that she made me into what I am. I hate that I can't just get rid of her. I hate that she'll always have marked me, no matter what I do."
His emotions altered, from the choking serpent-spit to wild contempt like the lash of lightning on a mountaintop.
"And I despise my father," Harry continued viciously, not knowing he would say the words until he did. "Could he be any more of a coward? Edith Bulstrode is stronger than he is. Connor is stronger than he is. I thought he was going to change, but he couldn't cling to and keep that change. And if I can't keep my own change, my own promises, then I'm going to be no better than he is."
"Harry, don't say that," Draco said, coming forward to the edge of the pendulum, and then hesitating again. "You'll always be stronger than he is."
Harry scowled at him. "Don't interrupt."
Draco shut his mouth.
"Not right now," Harry added, and tried to keep his tone light, but he couldn't manage it. He could feel himself prowling back and forth, his scorn rising and fluttering behind him like ragged wings. "Merlin. He lied last year, when he said that he'd always loved me, but he didn't know what Lily was doing to me. He doesn't love me. Of course, at this point, who can tell? He was saying something he thought would save his pride, I think, and keep him from being exposed to the shame and ridicule of being a child abuser. But maybe he meant it at the time. He couldn't keep it up, though." Harry heard his own voice descend to a hiss. "No matter. I cannot trust him. I am done with him."
His thoughts swung again. This time, he knew what he was going to do, but he had to pause, to reflect, to reconsider whether it was a good idea. Then he shook his head wildly, impatiently. No, and no, and no again. I don't want to deal with him again. He can have all the second chances in Tullianum that he wants. I don't care if Connor visits him, or ignores him. I don't want him to die, still not now, but I don't want him as part of my life anymore.
He glanced to the side, and saw the pendulum at the top of its swing. He moved under it and held out his hand, hearing Draco's shocked gasp, ignoring it. By the time Draco grasped his shoulders and pulled him out of the blade's path, the edge had already cut his palm. So sharp was it that Harry didn't feel the pain until several moments after the cut had appeared.
Harry squeezed it to remove some of the blood, and four drops fell to the floor of the Room. Harry considered whether four would be enough, then decided that he would make it be enough. He was in a wild, fey, impatient mood, and he didn't want to wait any longer.
"I renounce what James Potter has given me," he said calmly. "From this moment, I renounce all claim to Lux Aeterna and the house at Godric's Hollow." One of the drops of blood froze into a pebble, and Harry nodded. "From this moment, I renounce all other Potter inheritances that might possibly pass to me as his son." The second drop burned. "From this moment, I renounce all claim to my middle name, which is his." The third drop turned into water. "From this moment, I renounce all claim to my last name, which is his."
The fourth drop became wind, and a deep, violent, bitter, sweet note of ferocious song. Harry tilted his head back and let it wash over him. The wind became indistinguishable from the swing of the pendulum in a moment. Harry stood there for a long moment, conscious of feeling lighter than he had just a short time before.
"Harry," Draco whispered. "You do realize that you just left yourself penniless, don't you?"
Harry opened his eyes and smiled at him. "And nameless, I know." He shook his head. "I'll survive, thanks to my magic—"
"And to me, you git," Draco cut in. "Not to mention all the other people who would be more than happy to help you."
Harry felt an instinctive revulsion rear up in him. But he looked at the revulsion, and it was revulsion Lily had taught him, to think that he didn't deserve gifts and a sense of belonging. He had told Draco the truth: he didn't fit in with the Malfoys or anyone else just yet. But perhaps he could, someday, and it would be stupid of him to reject that chance, just like the revulsion was stupid.
"Thank you," he said, and made himself accept it.
He turned, and began walking back and forth again. He almost wanted to swear a vow that he wouldn't use his magic to interfere with the trial, even if execution was declared for both his parents tomorrow, but the more he thought about it, the more he thought that was unwise. He had to make the decision on his own, or it was worthless. Yes, in some ways he'd have to lay himself under strictures—he grimaced to think of what he'd already decided he'd have to do after they were out of the Room—but he didn't think this was one of them.
No. I'll make the promise to myself, and not anyone else. That way, I'll always have to be vigilant and clear-eyed, and watch myself. I know that I'll still want to stop the Wizengamot if they decide on death tomorrow, but I have to see if I can actually hold myself back.
He must. He had to. He had to do this, and in some ways it was like surrendering to a law of the inevitable, reassuring and freeing, and in some ways it was like riding a thestral he couldn't see, plunging into the darkness and trusting that there was something to catch him, from moment to moment.
He took a deep breath, and said, "I hate my mother so much. But I have to go tomorrow. I still know that I'd rejoice if they freed her, because of that part of me that loves her, even though I don't want to come into contact with her again." He glanced at Draco. "This time, if you think I'm doing something stupid that's hurting me more, then you have my permission to force a Calming Draught down my throat, to try and get me to see reason."
"But not to use a sleeping potion on you," said Draco, slow realization creeping across his face. "Or remove you from the courtroom."
Harry shook his head. "I have to watch this. I have to watch if she—if they kill them, Draco. I have to."
Draco closed his eyes. "I don't think it's a good idea, Harry. I think you'll break."
"I know," said Harry softly. "And I don't think it's justice, that's why I'd break. But I can't stop the Wizengamot at this point short of compulsion. I won't use that. And I know—" Why was this part suddenly so hard to say? "I know that I can't be objective," he finished, miserably. "Maybe they do have some points, and I just can't see them. Maybe—oh, damnit."
And he was crying again, but Draco was there, holding him up again. Whoosh-thrum, the pendulum sang, and Harry clung to Draco and cried fiercely, out of anger as much as pain.
"Maybe they were right," he whispered, when he could speak again. "Maybe you were right. Maybe I was being abused, and denying that it was abuse."
He felt a great shudder run through Draco, the kind of motion a prisoner might make when getting up after being bound to a rack and stretching. Harry held on to him, and watched the walls part in his mind. If he was riding a thestral he couldn't see, it was carrying him high and far and fast now, and Harry couldn't tell for sure if the light ahead was sunrise or sunset.
I'll just have to take the chance, won't I? It's all new now. It's all changing. I thought everything was settled after I resculpted my mind, but it's never settled, it can't be settled. I'm going to have to change from moment to moment. I'm going to have to listen to Draco and Snape and all the others and evaluate what they say, not just trust that they're right or I am. I'm going to have to refrain from using my magic some of the time, and use it at others, sternly enough that my enemies will realize they shouldn't try to kill anyone on my side. I'm going to have to lead.
This time, he was the one who shuddered, and his magic spun around him like thrumming thestral wings, so chaotic that Harry couldn't tell what shape it formed from moment to moment. It bore him over a changing world. He closed his eyes and stood in the middle of rushing black wind.
But he was also firmly in the middle of Draco's arms, and that was what kept him grounded, spinning around a center instead of just flying loose and wild in the storm.
I've fallen once. I'll go on falling, and trust that he's there to catch me.
Harry hoped he would grow to trust others as much, in time—though he wasn't entirely sure Draco would want that—but it would have to begin here, with this one person. He trusted Draco with his life, his sanity, his weakness. Draco had taken the central place in his life that Connor had once held, but Harry couldn't just serve him the way he held Connor.
Merlin, I'm in love with him.
The realization almost made Harry lift his head and jerk away, but then he burrowed in once more and clung close. Draco grasped his hand and squeezed tightly. Harry chuckled.
"Don't damage that," he whispered. "I have to write a letter when we're out of here."
"A letter?" Draco pulled back enough to look at him.
Harry nodded. "A letter to—to the Seers. I can't go to the Sanctuary, not when there's a war on—"
"Yes, you can—" Draco began.
"No, I can't," Harry disagreed, vehemently enough to shut Draco up. "It's too isolated, and news takes too long to travel there. But maybe one of the Seers would agree to come here, and speak with me. I think I want them to now. Isn't that odd?" he added, meditatively.
"No," said Draco, who looked as though Christmas had come early.
Harry snorted. "Yes, you wouldn't think so."
He pulled back, and closed his eyes, and took a deep breath, and felt around in himself. He couldn't feel any more boxes, any more need to explode with magic right now. He'd renounced his father, and committed himself to surviving the trial, and to at least considering that what other people said about his parents had more basis in reality than his own beliefs. He'd admitted he hated them. He'd had an argument with Draco, and fallen in love, and come to the realization that there wasn't just one course he could take and have it all be better. He thought that was enough for one hour.
"I think we're done here," he said.
Whoosh-thrum, the pendulum sang, and then it embedded itself in the floor, and stopped. The door opened.
Draco didn't believe it—he didn't dare let himself believe it, in some ways—until he came back into their bedroom from using the loo and saw Harry sitting with his Transfiguration textbook braced on his knee, under a piece of parchment, on which he steadily scribbled. Then he had to creep around to Harry's shoulder and read what the letter already said.
Dear Vera,
I know that you made the offer to me, once, to come to the Sanctuary. I still don't think I can do that, but will you, or another Seer, send me post, or come to Hogwarts to speak with me? I think I'm ready to speak to you about the state of my soul now. I'd prefer you, out of all of them, but as long as you're sure that the Seer sent is equally gifted and compassionate, then—
Draco had to put his hand on Harry's shoulder. Harry looked up at him, cocking his head.
"What?"
Draco said, "I love you, that's all," while around him he felt the wind of the future catch them up, and hurtle them forward.