Thanks for the reviews on the last chapter!
Getting close to the end now. The story will be finished at Chapter 100.
Chapter Ninety-Six: The Second Greatest Is Justice
Harry sat down at his desk in the Defense Against the Dark Arts classroom—it was easier to find space to be alone, now that most of the students had gone home and Acies, of course, was gone as well—and placed a piece of blank parchment in front of himself. It was important that his handwriting in his letter to Loki not be shaky, even if only from the wobbling of a book on his knee.
Now that he had made the decision to go with Draco to the Sanctuary, he had a very clear picture of what he needed to accomplish in the next few days. That meant that the letter he was writing now had to be one that would convince Loki to leave matters alone while Harry was away from the wizarding world and unable to receive owls quickly. Whatever else it did was secondary.
Harry chose bluntness. Subtlety and wit and attempts to make Loki see other perspectives sure as hell didn't seem to work.
June 25th, 1996
Dear Loki:
I am going into hiding this summer, to train in the unexpectedly Voldemort-free time that this battle has produced. That means that I won't be in the wizarding world. You may think this means that you will be able to bite whomever you like, and I will not object. Conversely, you may think the Ministry has the freedom to do whatever it likes to werewolves.
That is not true. I do object, and when I return, if either of those things has happened, I will bring the force of all my magic down on the offender. My oath to help werewolves says nothing about helping them bite others who have not chosen to be werewolves and violate their free will; in fact, my task as vates says that I cannot encourage such things unless I want to risk becoming no more than a Lord. There are other werewolves besides your pack, Loki, and I shall throw my strength behind theirs, so that they will achieve what they want and not what you want. And if the Ministry threatens werewolves, I will help them—but, once again, I will not do it merely to help your pack, but to help all your kind.
You have claimed to want and need my influence in the political arena. I am removing it for the summer. When I do bring it back, do you really wish to be responsible for my opposing or ignoring you? Your best choice, it seems to me, is to refrain from encouraging the Ministry to hunt you without my protection. Reclaim a moral position and the defensive ground. If you do not, if you are hunted not because you are werewolves and the Wizengamot is unfairly prejudiced against you but because you have bitten others, then you will have a second enemy when I come back.
Harry.
Harry would send that with Hedwig, so that Loki would understand he was serious about this. Then he turned to his second letter. This one, luckily, could be written in a tone of more reconciliation and kindness than the first one had been.
June 25th, 1996
Dear Minister Scrimgeour:
I would like to meet with you within the next three days, assuming that you have the time and freedom to do so. If not, then I will send you a final letter when the three days are over, explaining my position and what I intend to do this summer.
Yours sincerely,
Harry.
That would go with one of the school owls. Harry looked at the next dozen sheets of parchment that waited, and drew in a harsh breath. He had asked McGonagall for the names of the parents whose children he had killed. She had argued with him, telling him that it would serve no purpose for him to write to them, especially Aurora and Philip, and only strain him more. She had relented and given him the names only when Harry assured her that he intended to go to the Sanctuary for the summer.
He didn't want to write the letter, but he had to. They deserved to know all the details of the story, not mere rumors and false information. And they deserved to decide what they were going to do about it. Harry still did not want to be brought to trial, and when he thought about it too closely, there was the impulse to scream and lash out with his magic against anyone who would take him anywhere against his will, but he could not make their decisions for them.
Dear Mr. and Mrs. Addlington… He began the first letter, not letting his hand tremble, once again. He would convey as much sympathy as he could through the paper, but shaky handwriting would only give a false impression, either weakness or that he was striving to show that he grieved as much as they did, and of course he never could.
"Harry."
Harry turned around, blinking. Somehow, he had thought that Millicent and her father had left yesterday, but then, he had thought many things in his whirlwind haze of things to do after Draco had convinced him. He'd been on his way to McGonagall's office for something he dreaded more than writing those letters, though, so he slowed and nodded, grateful for the distraction.
"I suppose you've come to say farewell?" he asked, putting out his hand to Adalrico. The older man clasped it tightly, studying Harry's eyes as if he were struggling to see to the bottom of them.
"Of course not," said Millicent, looking vaguely surprised. "Not yet. We want to know what's going to happen to Belville, since he did betray the alliance we're a part of. And Zabini, Findarin, and Tipperary, of course," she finished, with a slight sniff. "I know that the danger was to you, primarily, Harry, and of course two of them won't be returning next year anyway, but Blaise is a different matter. Is he going to remain in Slytherin House, a danger to us all?"
Harry swore, but only inside his head. He had thought Blaise stood a chance of getting off easy, since Draco was still in no condition to come out of the hospital wing and administer the "justice" he'd talked about the night before the battle. Snape was Head of Slytherin, and since Blaise was also one of his House, Harry hoped that sympathy might play opposite Snape's concern for him. Looking at Millicent's uncompromising eyes and her father's stern face, however, Harry had the feeling that that wouldn't be happening.
"I'm not sure yet," was what he said, and turned towards McGonagall's office. Millicent fell into step beside him. Adalrico limped behind, with that gait he'd perfected which didn't deprive him of any dignity. Harry walked with his head up, never glancing sideways. He could feel Millicent's gaze growing sharper and sharper all the while.
"You really don't want anything to happen to him, do you?" she asked at last, in a soft, amazed tone. "Even after he nearly delivered you up to the Dark Lord and ended the war right then and there?"
"He snapped," Harry said. "He was frightened. We all were. And he didn't complete the crime. Surely attempted kidnapping matters less than kidnapping that actually happens?"
He saw Millicent turn from the corner of his eye so that she looked at her father. Harry didn't glance back to see what Adalrico's eyes and face might have been saying or not saying. His focus was forward.
Then Millicent's hand clamped on his arm with a pressure he remembered, and knew not to resist. It was the kind she used when he wasn't eating, or wasn't sleeping, or otherwise doing something stupid. Reluctantly, Harry turned to meet her eyes.
"He betrayed us as well," Millicent insisted. "All of them did—well, except the Death Eaters, but the Headmistress did say they'll likely be turned over to the Ministry anyway, since they didn't know much about the Dark Lord's plans. Belville and the other students—Harry, we need justice."
Harry inclined his head in a quick, shallow nod. "I'm trying to make sure there is justice," he said. "And not vengeance."
"You are too focused on that," said Millicent, voice a soft growl. "In the name of justice, you would let people escape without punishment for what they'd done. You would have done it for your parents, and you're going to do it here, unless someone else keeps you on track."
"I would rather let a hundred criminals go free than see one innocent person suffer," said Harry quietly.
"Even if those criminals cause suffering elsewhere?" Millicent pinched his arm, hard enough to make him wince. "Besides, Harry, have you considered that there's something that applies to Belville and Blaise but not to the others? Belville was actually part of the alliance, and Blaise knows most of our secrets, both from his mother and from sharing a room with you and Draco. To protect ourselves, we can't just turn them over to the Ministry. Even explaining their crimes would give our enemies weapons to use against us."
"I'd considered that, yes," said Harry. That was what was really making his guts churn. Justice wouldn't be simple for either Belville or Blaise. It had to be kept private, and his allies were expecting him to handle it.
Millicent said, "I would be more than happy to punish them for you, Harry. And so would my father. And so would Hawthorn—"
"I know," Harry interrupted her. "But I have to do it myself. I can't ask any of you to take on a task I'm not willing to perform." He pulled his arm free of her grasp and walked towards the gargoyle again. "Now come on. I don't want to keep the Headmistress and our guests waiting."
He tried to brace himself as he walked, for what he suspected his allies would ask of him. Now that Millicent and her father were there—and he knew that McGonagall had asked Arabella Zabini in—Harry suspected Hawthorn would be, as well.
Worse, he saw, when they rode the moving staircase up to the office. Lucius and Narcissa Malfoy were there.
To Lucius, things were very simple.
One took vengeance out of love. So he had gone, during the thirteen days when Draco was trapped in Hogwarts and he and Narcissa could only communicate with him thanks to Rosier-Henlin's spell, to the small house in Finland that sheltered the family of the Death Eater who'd hurt his wife. He'd exacted his own vengeance there. The walls had been blue when he began. They were purple when he was done.
One covered one's own tracks out of caution. So Fiona Mallory was enchanted into her own mind and left there, and wouldn't be able to come out of the trance again unless Lucius decided to release her.
And one made sure that the people connected to one's family, whether or not one loved them, were protected. That made for punishment. Lucius did not care what name he had to give this, vengeance or justice. Harry cared too much about words. What mattered was that Belville and young Zabini had to understand the reason it was unacceptable to betray or harm Harry. He had accepted joining to the Malfoy family. He was theirs. Draco loved him.
Lucius knew he might not be able to arrange their deaths, but he was going to arrange their suffering.
He watched Harry as the young man stepped through the door of the Headmistress's office, and halted, staring at him. A pity he was going to the Sanctuary for the summer, Lucius thought. He would have preferred to have the boys come to the Manor, where he could help them practice both with Dark Arts and with emotional control. Harry needed to get rid of his eyes that widened too easily, the expression that betrayed every emotion. Lucius knew he was capable of being inscrutable; he simply used the talent far too little.
"Mr. Malfoy," said Harry a moment later, and his eyes shifted to Narcissa, sitting in the chair beside Lucius. "Mrs. Malfoy."
"I told you to call me Narcissa, Harry," Narcissa said, rising to her feet and walking over to Harry. She still moved stiffly, a result of the pain curse she'd taken in the back during the battle. Lucius knew the one who had cast it was dead, but watching her made his hand want his wand anyway. She stooped, put her hands on Harry's shoulders, and kissed him. She then whispered something into his ear that Lucius couldn't hear, but he had no doubt what it was. Narcissa had been ecstatically happy when Draco told them last night that he'd convinced Harry to go to the Sanctuary.
"Narcissa, then," said Harry, with a faint smile at her. He darted another glance at Lucius, but didn't ask what they were doing there, to Lucius's infinite relief. He must know that would have been stupid, and Lucius could not enjoy the thought of someone stupid being joined to his family. "Is anyone else arriving?" he asked the Headmistress.
McGonagall sat behind her desk, of course, prim and confident and in control. Lucius studied her, making sure his irritation was veiled. It was better than having Dumbledore as the head of the school—at least she was not a Legilimens and a Lord-level wizard—but she was still a Gryffindor, and she was still doing things that Lucius did not agree with. She had utterly refused to punish Blaise Zabini without his mother present, for example. Lucius saw the way her eyes softened as they rested on Harry, however, and suspected he might have found the fastest way to manipulate her.
"Professor Snape, of course," said McGonagall. "And Arabella Zabini." She hesitated for a long moment, then added, "Both Owen Rosier-Henlin and Hawthorn Parkinson waived their rights to be here. I think they needed more time to grieve." Harry nodded his understanding. "We've tried to find Mr. Rhangnara, but he's apparently in some distant part of the library, Rowena says. I think she approves of him. Miss Pemberley and Miss Apollonis have gone flying. And I did not think it would be a good idea for Mrs. Bulstrode to be here, given her temper."
Harry inclined his head. "I spoke to her about that already. She understood my reasoning." He turned abruptly, staring at the office door, and a moment later, it opened. Lucius nodded. Nothing wrong with his reflexes. But he needs them relaxed and blended with the rest of his life, so that he acts like that every day, and not only in the aftermath of battle. He will make a fine partner for Draco if he can but learn control. And when to use power.
Severus came in first, of course, his gaze traveling rapidly around the room to catalogue threats to Harry. Lucius exchanged nods with him, and hid his own amazement at this deep transformation in the man he had always known as one of the most vicious and violent of the Death Eaters. That Severus could have chosen a son—much less, the blood son of his worst enemy at school—was remarkable in and of itself. That he would consent to speak his love for that son aloud, even during a joining ritual that required such language of its participants, was the real sign of the change, however.
It interested Lucius. He could not help wondering if it made Severus weaker, particularly as the only vengeance he had taken for his son so far was through the legal channels of the Ministry. He would have to test Severus a time or two, and if he was weaker, then Lucius knew what to do.
Behind him came Arabella Zabini. She had wound all the gold and silver bells she possessed in her hair, it seemed, far more than were necessary to proclaim her skill as a Songstress. She walked with her head up, her beautiful face set in faint, smiling lines. She fully intended to stand against them all and walk out of here with her son intact, Lucius suspected. He felt a faint thrill of admiration at her courage and nerve, and contempt for her blindness.
"Please have a seat, Mrs. Zabini, Professor Snape," said McGonagall, with a cordial nod. Her voice did not even cool on the woman's name. Lucius had to respect that. He watched the expression on Arabella's face as she sat down in the chair nearest the door and studied Harry. He could not make out all the disparate parts of it, but fear and anger were certainly there.
"The captured Death Eaters have been questioned under Veritaserum," the Headmistress began, without preamble. "They were low-rankers and knew almost nothing of Voldemort's plans. They will be turned over to the Ministry for prosecution." Her hands folded over each other. "Unfortunately, that leaves us with four people whose cases are not so easy to settle. One, Mortimer Belville, wrote two letters to Voldemort under the name of the Serpent, destroyed the Hogwarts Floo connections, and was trying to poison or rot the food in the kitchens when Harry captured him. The other three are students, Blaise Zabini, William Findarin, and Aidan Tipperary, who fed Harry, and other members of their House, the Draught of Living Death and tried to take Harry to Voldemort during the siege."
"Where are their parents?" Harry asked abruptly. "The Findarin family and the Tipperary family, I mean? Shouldn't they be here to see to their sons?"
McGonagall shook her head. "Both William and Aidan are seventh-years, Harry, and seventeen," she said quietly. "Their parents cannot defend them from deserved punishment. As well, they were not part of our alliance, and I am afraid of what might be revealed in front of them. And Aidan's family has already disowned him."
Lucius made a mental note to send a congratulatory owl to the Tipperary family. It would be anonymous. No need to let them know who exactly approved of their actions, heroic and in defense of their family.
Harry took a deep swallow of air, then nodded and finally sat down, in a chair that faced Narcissa's and was beside Snape's. "I understand," he murmured. "I—who are you going to bring out first, Madam?"
"Belville," said McGonagall simply, and rose and went to a door in the far corner of the office, where, Lucius supposed, she had kept the prisoners.
He studied Arabella Zabini while they waited. The faint traces of deeper emotions had vanished from her face again, and she looked as calm and confident as a queen waiting on her favorite courtier to bring her the heart of her enemy. Her bells gleamed and softly rang as she tilted her head this way and that.
McGonagall came back with Mortimer Belville in tow. Lucius sneered at the man from the corner of his mouth. He had always despised the Belvilles, a once-poor pureblood family that had achieved prominence again only by litigation and "reclaiming" of monies they were supposedly owed for illegal use of their land. That they had taken some of those Galleons from the Malfoy vaults was only a side reason to hate them. The main one was their standards of honor, or rather, lack of them.
When McGonagall released Belville from the Body-Bind, the man put his feet on the floor in a position that didn't allow him to stumble and stared at all of them with narrowed eyes and slightly tilted head. He had obviously prepared for this, Lucius thought, and might even have arguments that he thought would release him from punishment. He noted with infinite satisfaction that Belville's confident look faltered when his eyes passed over Lucius's face.
"I want to know why," said Adalrico, in a voice Lucius remembered from the day he had perfected the Black Plague spores. "None of the rest of us have had a chance to hear your confession yet, under Veritaserum or not."
Belville gave an arrogant shrug, his attention fastened on Harry now. "I wanted respect, notice. I wavered for a long time, but then I thought I was more likely to find that notice and attention in the service of the Dark Lord than in Harry's service. Obviously, I was wrong." He turned his palms up. "But can you punish me? I was only following the best pureblood traditions. When in doubt, choose the winning side."
"You endangered the rest of the children in the school," said Harry, voice without inflection, and so quiet that Lucius was glad he had come. The boy was going to let Belville out without so much as eating a scrap of his magic, he thought. It would be up to someone else to inflict proper punishment. "You destroyed the Floo connections. You went beyond simply offering some service to Voldemort in return for power. You suspected that he would attack earlier than Midsummer, didn't you? That's why you came so early."
Belville laughed easily. "Of course I suspected it. I can show you the very letter from Indigena Yaxley that suggested I'd want to join you as soon as possible." He cocked his head and smiled. "But you've already seen it, Harry. You know all about me. This is only for the benefit of those who don't."
Coward, Lucius thought. Sneaking traitor. He does not have the strength to stand up for his ideals. He noticed the way that Belville looked towards his left arm, and Adalrico's, and Severus's, more than once. He thinks he will be forgiven because others of us have been. I wonder if he realizes that recent crimes committed against a private alliance are far different than crimes from fourteen years ago for which we've been publicly tried and found not guilty?
"I could forgive you," said Harry, voice still just as quiet, "if all you had done was put me in danger—tried to lead me into a duel with Voldemort, for example." Lucius frowned, displeased. That sounded much like Harry was going to try and forgive Zabini, Findarin, and Tipperary for what they had done. But that was not possible. Lucius would not let it happen. "But you suspected the early attack, and did not warn me. You were indirectly responsible for the deaths of over ninety of the students. Then you made sure that those students still alive could not flee the school in the way that would have been safest for them, with the wards against Apparition and Portkeys necessary to protect them from the Death Eaters. You would have poisoned or rotted our food and made the siege harder."
A pressure was growing in the room. Lucius felt it as a band of pain tightening around his temples. He noticed Severus sitting stiffly in his chair, and Adalrico and his heir sniffing discreetly, as if they caught the scent of a thunderstorm.
Harry's magic is building, Lucius realized, staring again at the boy, whose face was now calm and blank, reflecting nothing. He is much angrier than he shows.
Harry took a deep breath, and, with his next words, turned a corner in the path that Lucius had not thought he would turn.
"And I have been told," said Harry, voice thick and slow as treacle with reluctance, "that by trying to doom me, you tried to doom the war. If I am the only one who can defeat Voldemort, then I could not have gone down to him or surrendered my life, no matter what he did to compel me to it." He lifted his eyes, and the masks fell. Lucius could see his rage now, deep and cold as an ocean at the bottom of a cliff. "But he did not give up trying to compel me. And because of that, you are indirectly responsible for a decision that I would rather not have made, a decision that has marked my soul and caused me to mercy kill children rather than leave them to Voldemort's sadism."
The world inside Lucius's head changed very quickly then. He had heard the story of what Harry had done, from Draco, and been sure it was confused somehow. Harry did not have the necessary hardness to choose death over life, a smaller sacrifice over a larger one, in circumstances like that.
Perhaps the Harry he had known did not. But the young man in front of him, who looked as though he had never cried, did. Lucius watched him carefully, and revised some assumptions about what might happen, what could happen, what would happen, with Harry as alliance leader and Draco's joined partner.
"I hope," Harry said softly, "that you like what you had a part in creating, Belville. I am inclined to give you a lesser form of the punishment that I gave Voldemort, who was most directly responsible. I am going to drain your magic." He flicked a glance around the room, whip-quick, dagger-sharp. "If my allies agree that this is a fitting punishment, of course."
Adalrico was grinning, looking younger than Lucius had seen him since he'd taken the Fisher King Curse. "No objections from the Bulstrodes," he managed to say through the grin.
Severus simply shook his head. Lucius could see the ferocity in his eyes, though, and changed another of his assumptions. Love appeared to have made Severus stronger, not weaker.
Well, it has done the same thing for Harry, so I cannot be too surprised.
Arabella said nothing; she was wiser than to try. Narcissa simply gave Harry a warm smile, as if he had received a dozen OWL's.
When Harry looked at him, Lucius chose a careful mixture of pride and cold approval, and let it through into his face. Harry inclined his head in an equally careful nod, and then turned to the Headmistress.
McGonagall smiled like a lioness crouching over a kill. "He hurt my children," she said. Startled, Lucius thought he heard several other voices speaking with her own, at least two female and one male. "He deserves whatever you do to him, Harry, and this will hurt more than death."
Harry nodded, and turned to Belville. It was only then, Lucius realized, that dear, dear Mortimer really believed he was about to become a Squib.
He was laughing desperately, backing up a step as if that would somehow lessen Harry's determination. "Let's think," he said. "Let us think here. Let us be rational. I didn't do much that hurt you in the end, Harry, did I? I was indirectly responsible for your decision and endangering the safety of your schoolmates. You said so. There's no need to be so hasty. And I know that you don't like draining people of their magic. You said so. You—"
Lucius felt the indefinable pull as Harry called upon his absorbere gift. The magic went draining from Belville like a wind, swallowed by Harry's power. Harry didn't move or make a sound the whole time. He simply watched Belville, until the end, when Mortimer opened his mouth and crumpled to the floor with a sound like a dying cat.
Then Harry turned away, a bit too swiftly, and Lucius caught a glimpse of revulsion on his face.
He still needs to be taught, then. Molded. Lucius's own breathing was just returning to normal after the sight of a Dark pureblood—minor and annoying though the Belvilles were—becoming a Squib in front of him. He can still feel revulsion, and he should not. That gift is pure power, and nothing more than that. One does not feel revolted when one exercises power.
Harry did look back at Belville after a moment, and then narrowed his eyes. Lucius felt a brief flash of magic. He must have done something nonverbal, because the next moment, the huddled man looked up with wide eyes.
"What have you done to me?" he whispered.
Harry shook his head. "Put a Babbling Curse on you, tied to the secrets of the alliance. If you try to betray anything about us to someone who doesn't already know, then you'll simply spout nonsense, spoken or written. I won't Obliviate you; that would invalidate the point of draining your magic. And one set of Unbreakable Vows was enough. Good luck getting even Veritaserum to break through that curse, Belville." He smiled, and if he was still disgusted, he hid it very well. "Farewell, Mortimer. You can return to your home alone, I'm sure. After all, even Muggles and Squibs can use Floo powder."
"You don't—you don't understand," said Belville, standing. "I only chose the side I thought would win. It has nothing to do with personal enmity!" He was shouting now, the cords in his neck standing out. "I've only followed the best traditions of purebloods. It wasn't personal."
"And that only make you more worthy of contempt." Harry's voice was bored. "Good-bye, Mortimer."
In the end, Belville chose the wiser part of valor, walked over to McGonagall's fireplace, and cast the Floo powder in. Lucius didn't watch him. His eyes were on Harry instead.
It will be interesting to watch how he handles Zabini, Findarin, and Tipperary. He may not need that much help after all.
Harry felt exhaustion tugging at him as Belville vanished. It wasn't physical exhaustion, or magical; with the magic he'd just swallowed humming around his body in contentment, he felt able to learn the Animagus transformation on the instant, if he wanted to. It was mental and moral exhaustion. He hadn't enjoyed that. He'd come so far from enjoying it that he wanted to go back to his room and put his head under the pillow rather than do it again.
Or go to the hospital wing and curl up with Draco. That would be even better.
But he had three days, and three days only—more like two and a half, now—to make sure that everyone else thought him strong enough not to do stupid things during the summer. So he kept the iron mask on as McGonagall floated Blaise, Findarin, and Tipperary out of the room next to her office.
Blaise's face had frozen into a look of shock and dismay and horror. Harry flinched a bit as he looked at him, and then hoped no one had seen the flinch. It did hurt to think one of his own Housemates would betray him, but he understood all the reasons, all the motivations. Blaise had been frightened, and apparently there had been comments from his mother that made him think Harry might lose. Blaise was a Slytherin, a pureblood, and not above using Dark Arts. It was more likely Voldemort might spare his life if Blaise turned Harry over to him than almost anyone else.
Harry had spoken with Arabella Zabini by letter, and she had stated that she had never encouraged her son to betray him. Of course, she had also flatly refused to believe Blaise had done this in the first place. Harry kept his eyes on her as McGonagall released all three boys from the Body-Bind.
Sure enough, Arabella spoke first, her bells ringing as she tilted her head. "Blaise," she whispered. "Why?"
"You said that you missed me!" Blaise cried. His voice was hoarse from lack of water; the version of the Body-Bind McGonagall had used preserved its victims in utter stillness, but did nothing to remedy a throat already dry when the spell began. "You said that you thought Voldemort was strong! What was I supposed to think?"
"That I wanted you to stay safe," said Arabella. "That was always the only content of what I said to you, Blaise, every time we used the communication spell. I certainly did not intend for you to do something like this." The distaste in her voice was plain.
"But I was frightened," Blaise whispered, dipping his head. "That was all."
"A rather elaborate plan for someone who is frightened," Snape drawled. Harry looked at him warily. McGonagall hadn't allowed Snape to sit in on the meeting with Aurora and Philip yesterday because, as she had told Harry bluntly, she was afraid Snape would kill them. Now, at least, his guardian was keeping his hand from his wand. "You stole ingredients for the Draught of Living Death from my Potions stores. You used Dark Arts spells to cover your tracks. You used glamours to disguise the fact that it was Harry, and not merely a bundle of blankets, you carried. How did you plan to get through the wards?"
"I know a few spells to chew holes in wards, sir," said one of the older boys. Harry thought it was Tipperary. His blue eyes were wide and terrified. "I would have repaired them, though! I promise! I didn't want anything to happen to other people in Slytherin."
"And you did not think that the Dark Lord might choose that moment to strike?" Snape's voice grew lower. "That to get Harry through the wards, you would expose others to danger?"
"I—I—" Tipperary tried to find more words, and then seemed to give it up as a bad job. He lowered his eyes to the floor and shook his head.
The other one, Findarin, spoke up more heartily. "We did think the Dark Lord would let us live, sir," he told Snape. "We're all purebloods, and we can all use Dark magic."
"Were you willing to take the Mark?" Snape asked.
Findarin's swallow was loud in the silence. Harry wondered what his answer would be.
"I was," he whispered at last.
Snape sneered. "I see that I have managed to teach you nothing in the seven years that you have been a student in my House, Mr. Findarin," he said, mouth curling. "You were willing to be tortured, to crouch at the feet of a madman, merely to secure a little peace that would be ripped away from you the moment he decided he was tired of you. And did you know that the Dark Lord only accepts those who come to him willingly, not to save their own hides? Strange. In his own way, the Dark Lord is honorable." Snape's mouth twisted further, and Harry thought his eyes no longer saw Findarin, Tipperary, or Blaise, but someone else, whose mistake had been much more permanent. "He despises traitors."
"We—weren't thinking," said Findarin, gulping, and Harry was relived to see that that sound brought Snape's eyes back from wherever they were looking.
"I would not dignify what occupied your head in that moment with even the name of not thinking, Mr. Findarin," he snapped.
Harry narrowed his eyes. Snape really does need the Sanctuary just as much as Draco and I do. I wonder what he thinks he'll do to avoid the Seers peering at his soul? Wear a glamour all the time? I don't think there's one strong enough to fool them.
"We really didn't think," Blaise spoke up then. Harry thought he was seeing this particular turn of his conversation as his best chance to get out of this trap. "We didn't think. We were frightened. We acted like children. We would probably have got Harry to the doors of the entrance hall, and then not been able to open the wards and had to go back." He laughed, a touch of desperation lingering behind the sound. Harry could see his hands opening and closing, though he had thought he had them hidden behind his back from everyone but his mother; it was obvious from the way his shoulders were moving. "I'm sorry for it. Can we go home now?"
"Why, Blaise?" Harry asked quietly. "Why you? Why were you the one to break?"
Blaise trembled for a moment, and then turned violently on him. Harry studied him in silence in the moment before he began to speak. Blaise's face was almost gray, as if the fear lingered for him even now that Voldemort had been wounded and forced to withdraw.
"Because I never asked to share a House with the Boy-Who-Lived!" Blaise spat. "It was all right when you were just a powerful wizard, Harry, and when you had the Dark Lord's enmity for that, and Dumbledore's. And then your brother revealed you were actually the Boy-Who-Lived. You're the Dark Lord's main target. He's not ever going to stop coming for you, because he hates you. And anyone who stands beside you is going to suffer the same fate as your brother's friends would have, if he were the real Boy-Who-Lived." He wrapped his arms around himself. "I didn't ask for that," he whispered. "I didn't ask to be in the same House as you, the same room as you. I was going to be seen as your friend whether I was or not. And then my mother joined you because the Dark Lord angered her—not because she really approved of you or your cause, just because he stole her books—and I realized that I didn't have a choice. But at least I was still free to hold some distance from you in school. Voldemort wouldn't think the whole House was siding with you, I told myself. Slytherins act for themselves and their own interests.
"And then you were the Boy-Who-Lived." Blaise's breath hitched, and he closed his eyes. "He wasn't going to care who we were, what we wanted, unless I could prove to him once and for all that that I really didn't hold any loyalty to you by giving you up. I just—I didn't want to take the Mark. I didn't want to be hurt. I just wanted to go on living, and I wouldn't be able to do that if you were right there. I wanted to go to France. I told my mother that." He opened his eyes and gave Arabella a pleading, expectant look.
Harry didn't follow his glance. He just kept on looking at Blaise, and wondered if he had ever known him at all.
I think I did, he thought. But the good things in him were crushed by his fear. Just like Lily, come to that. Just like James. Just like Dumbledore, and Sirius.
Harry tasted bitterness for a moment. He hated crushed, wasted, wrecked lives, and he seemed to be surrounded by them.
He turned to Arabella then. She was sitting very straight, her hands clasped together.
"I understand if you no longer want me as part of your alliance," she told Harry. "But I do not think my son should be punished with death or Squib-hood. He did a stupid thing, a very stupid thing that I never encouraged him in, and he is a child, still." She gave Blaise a look that made him drop his eyes. "But he was plunged into the middle of a war against the Dark Lord that he never chose or asked for, and he did have good reason to think the Dark Lord would target him above others. I think he should be allowed to go to France, the way he wanted." She stared at Harry.
"Would you go with him?" Harry asked her.
Arabella nodded. "I will not put him in Beauxbatons," she said. "It is obvious he is unsuited for a school environment." Blaise flinched. Arabella ignored him. "I would arrange to hire a private tutor, and play some part in his teaching myself."
"How can I be sure that you would not tell anyone about the secrets you have learned as part of the alliance?" Harry asked her.
Arabella didn't bat an eyelash. "Put the Babbling Curse on us as well. Bind us with an Unbreakable Vow. Make us swear on a dragon's bone under Veritaserum. The method you use to make sure of our faith does not matter to me. What matters to me is that my son's behavior has proven to me that he is conclusively still a child, when I wished to have an adult heir." Blaise's flinch went bone-deep this time, and still Arabella ignored him. "I must spend some time seeing to my family, vates. When, if ever, I think him fit to play a part in adult activities, then we will come and rejoin your alliance."
Harry studied her for a long time. He had not hoped for a solution like this. He had thought Blaise's mother would insist on his returning to Hogwarts next year and even staying in the same room as Draco and Harry, and Harry did not think he could have allowed that; he would never have felt safe again.
But this…
"I'll choose the Babbling Curse," he said. "It's the least restrictive."
Arabella slowly inclined her head. Only the extreme stiffness in her neck as she moved revealed how relieved she was, Harry thought. "Thank you, vates."
Someone behind him made a noise of protest. Harry turned and followed it straight to Millicent. "He'll be out of the school," he told her. "He won't endanger you again. He won't be able to endanger us indirectly, either. It's for the best, Millicent. He's still a child."
Millicent understood that. Perhaps she understood better than he did, Harry thought, since she was also a Dark pureblood heir, and one expected to act like an adult from a very young age. The disgrace would be worse for Blaise than many other punishments. "Very well," she muttered.
"And if I say that I find this unacceptable?" That was Lucius, his voice light as frost. "If I say that I think someone who tried to kill the joined partner of a Malfoy heir deserves a worse punishment?"
Harry turned around and gave Lucius a smile as light as his voice. "I would say that you may wish to amend your wording, sir," he said, "lest your own punishment land a bit too close to home."
Lucius's face paled, though only for a moment. He was remembering Tom Riddle's diary, Harry knew, and what part he had played in hurting and weakening the joined partner of a Malfoy heir for most of a year. Satisfied that he got the point, Harry looked again around the circle, searching for other objections.
There were none. Harry nodded to Arabella. "Then you may go to France, Mrs. Zabini." He cast the Babbling Curse on both her and Blaise, and anchored it firmly to the notion of speaking about the alliance to anyone outside it. "I hope that you'll return with an adult heir."
"So do I," said Arabella. She rose and held out her hand, and Blaise at once scurried over to take her wrist. "Come, Blaise."
"I hope you recover your courage," Harry told him. Blaise kept his head down and didn't look at him. Harry could see a faint tremble racing up his spine.
When the door had shut behind the Zabinis, Harry faced Findarin and Tipperary again. "I don't know you," he told them. "You aren't my friends. But I can't shield you from what the law says should happen to you in a case like this, either, because you aren't underage."
"Indeed," said McGonagall. "They will be recorded as expelled from Hogwarts, not merely leaving, and their wands will be broken."
Findarin's face went pale, and Tipperary looked as if he would have liked to cry. Instead, he just nodded.
And, like that, it was done. Harry was glad. He wanted to go back to the hospital wing, and not only to see how Draco was doing.
First, of course, he had to wait and watch as their wands were broken. Both boys screamed when that happened. Harry winced, but kept his eyes straight ahead, knowing Lucius and Adalrico were both watching him.
When that was done, then finally, finally, he could go. He got to the door before Snape caught up with him and put a hand on his shoulder.
"A moment, Harry," he said. "I brewed Draco's latest potion before I came here. I will go with you."
So then he had to wait while Snape talked with McGonagall. Something about the Potions schedule for next year; Harry supposed that was only reasonable, since Snape would be gone most of the summer in the Sanctuary with them. Then they were on their way down the moving staircase. Harry pushed his face against the stone wall and let it scrape lightly on his cheeks to keep him awake, as well as hide his expression.
"Harry."
Harry tensed. "Sir," he acknowledged, without turning around.
"May I ask what finally decided you on going to the Sanctuary?" Snape's voice was distant, respectful.
Harry sighed. "Because I can't do this anymore," he said. He turned around and folded his arms over his chest. "I want to think about other things than the fate of the world, and the fate of werewolves, and the fate of the Ministry and the laws. I—every time I've tried to retreat, before, the world's always there, and it shoves itself in. And I'm not doing it good service like this, either, when every decision I make feels like it tears out a part of my soul. I'll do it better by resting for a while in a place where the outside world's not permitted to intrude." He lifted his shoulders and felt his mouth curve into a smile not far from a sneer. "You're always telling me to be a little selfish. I suppose I finally decided to listen."
Snape's hand closed over his shoulder, and he pulled Harry near him. Harry tensed himself to struggle, but the grasp didn't demand anything of him, and a moment later, it began to move, gently stroking over his neck and hair.
Harry tried to make himself relax. But now that justice, if one wanted to call it that, was dispensed, the list of things he had to do had reappeared in his head again, circling his thoughts like moons around a planet.
With a groan, he realized that he wouldn't be able to go and see Draco after all. He had to write to the MacFusty wizards, who owned the Hebridean Black sanctuary, and ask if they would watch out for Acies in her dragon form.
He tried to turn towards the dungeons when they came out of the moving staircase, and Snape's hand restrained him. Harry glanced up at him and shook his head. "I'm sorry. Something I have to do."
Snape said nothing. He just turned towards the hospital wing, tugging Harry along with him. It was not a hard clasp. Harry could have broken out of it if he truly wanted to.
He didn't truly want to.
He trailed behind Snape, and tried to tell himself that going to see Draco wasn't self-indulgent. After all, Draco needed Snape's potion, and he needed Harry and Snape to check his mind again and make sure the damage was healing properly.
Draco was watching the doorway when they came in. His face lit with a wide smile the moment he saw Harry, and Harry told himself again it wasn't what he'd come to the hospital wing for.
But some of his weariness did leave him at the sight.
Harry blinked his eyes open, muzzily. His sight remained blurry until he could retrieve his glasses, which had been lying on a low table not far from him.
He remembered sitting in a chair and talking to Draco. Someone must have moved him to this hospital bed when he fell asleep. From the look of the sky through the windows, it was deep night, and that had been hours ago.
Harry heard a soft flutter of wings and a hoot, and he reached up to find a tiny barn owl struggling to land on his shoulder. He shifted around so she could, then retrieved the letter she carried. It bore his name, both his first and the last name he'd shed, in unfamiliar handwriting.
He looked at the signature first when he opened it. It was from the Addlingtons, one of the families of the children he'd killed.
Then he looked at the top of the letter, and found that it contained nothing but insults, beginning with "you murderer."
Harry took a deep breath. He should read through it and witness what they said about him, in their anger and justified grief. Of course he should.
Instead, he crumpled up the letter, dropped the ball beside the bed—Snape or Draco could read it over later, if they wanted to, to insure there was nothing important there—and shook his head at the owl. "No reply," he muttered.
The owl stared at him for a long moment before she took wing again. Harry leaned back against the pillow and closed his eyes.
He was so tired. He hurt already.
He owed other people things. But there was no reason to torture himself. To do that would be to become the martyr Snape had warned him against becoming.
Maybe that's the point where people take advantage of me, and I've found it at last, Harry thought hazily, as his mind clouded over again, and he fell asleep with his glasses on.