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Chapter Nine—Opening the Mind

"You were foolish."

Harry grimaced and nodded. He had been forced to sit still while Lestrange worked over him, healing the injuries he'd received when part of the wall fell on him, and then another Knight had come in and soothed the aftereffects from the spells that his interrogator had cast. "I know. I don't want that to happen again."

Tom leaned back. They were in a small sitting room that Tom had claimed for his own. The walls and furniture were all as white as though they were made of solidified snow, but the fireplace Tom had lit threw bloody shadows over that whiteness. "You're saying that mostly because you don't want me to torture people to death."

Harry took a deep breath and met his eyes. "That too. But I hate the feeling that I disappointed you and made you and some of the others risk their lives."

Tom paused before he reached for a small silver cup of some kind of steaming drink that the Malfoy house-elves had brought. "So that's the way to make you hold back. The threat to my life and others'."

Harry sighed. "Yeah, it is. I don't like making people risk their lives, Tom. I just thought I was likelier to be able to face the Order than most of the Knights."

"That might have been true once, before you sacrificed some of your power. Now you're as vulnerable as they are."

Harry held his gaze. "Not as vulnerable. I still know more battle spells than they do. And I know more tactics, too."

"Then stay in the back of the fight and advise them. You know, the way a leader should."

Harry ground his teeth for a second. But his mind kept going back to the exploding skulls, and the way he'd felt when he woke up tied to a chair and hadn't the least idea of where the Knights were or if they'd been injured trying to defend him, and the look on Tom's face when he spotted Harry across the room. "Yeah. All right. You're—right."

Tom let the steam from the cup he held drift up in front of his face for a full minute before he answered. "So you agree that it's foolish to risk your life as much as you do?"

"If it was just my life that I was risking, I'd still do it. But there's yours, and the Knights', and even Jonquil's if she does manage to join the battle next time. And the lives of anyone who captures or hurts me."

"I'm glad you understand." Tom's voice deepened to the purring note of satisfaction that he used whenever he thought that he'd won. Harry ignored that as best as he could, too. "Now. Drink the potion that Philip brought for you."

"He said that it would make me sleep."

"You need sleep."

"I want to be awake when you interrogate Jonquil and the man you captured."

"What makes you think I would interrogate Jonquil?"

Harry stared flatly at him. Tom shook his head. "No, really. She wasn't captured and has no interesting information."

"I mean, maybe not interrogate, but you would ask her what the hell she was thinking. And you would ask it with this concerned look that would make her think you cared and she could tell you anything. And then you would flay her verbally."

"She's stupid enough to need the flaying, and strong enough to survive it. I could make her run for the portal, Harry, if I unleashed my tongue."

"And then maybe she would get captured again and tell the Order everything in a fit of resentment. No, Tom. Just leave her alone." Harry eyed the potion. "And promise me that you'll save the interrogation of that wizard until I'm awake, again."

"I promise I'll save the full interrogation of that wizard until you're awake again."

Harry nodded and grabbed the potion, swallowing it and grimacing at the bitter taste that rolled over his tongue. He was putting the vial back on the table when he narrowed his eyes and asked, "What in the world does full mean—"

Tom watched as Harry's head abruptly drooped and his muscles, which still trembled a little as a result of the magical exhaustion and fighting he'd been through, relaxed. He stood up and came around the chair, crouching to touch Harry's forehead and listen to his breathing. He was as deeply asleep as though he'd drunk a draught meant to knock someone unconscious instead of just a mild sedative.

That, more than anything, spoke to how much effort he'd expended to defend himself and stay alive.

Tom shut his eyes and closed his fingers around Harry's wrist for a moment, hanging on, listening to the beat of his pulse. Then he nodded and stood. For now, Harry was alive, and he would recover faster with sleep.

And that meant he also couldn't interfere in the conversation Tom needed to have.

He left the sitting room, quietly locking the door with a charm that none of his Knights were powerful enough to break. The twisting corridors of Malfoy Manor, and more than one staircase, led him to the back bedroom where their prisoner sat. Tom had ordered that he be kept sedated until Tom had finished talking with Harry.

Philip caught his eye as Tom came into the room and dismissed the draping sheet from the bed. "Is Harry all right?"

"He will be."

"I—I'm sorry that I didn't manage to stop the Order from taking him, my lord."

"It won't happen again," Tom said, sure of that. Philip might not like Harry that much, but he had failed in the task that Tom had asked of him once. Succeeding next time would be more important than his personal feelings about Harry. Philip nodded fervently, and then cast the spell he'd known Tom would require of him.

Tom watched as the potion left the wizard's system in a thick ooze of green and white exuded from his pores. The wizard immediately flicked his eyes open. Tom might have thought he was already awake if he hadn't had a lot of trust in Philip's potion.

But, whether he'd just awakened or not, Tom would give him credit for nerve. The wizard looked at Tom, then at Philip, and sighed a little. "You know that I'm not going to answer any of your questions," he said. "I can resist the Imperius, and you won't break me with torture."

"And Veritaserum?" Tom asked, smiling. Behind the smile burned his true emotions. He saw Philip take a few careful steps away from him.

The tied-up wizard didn't have that luxury, but he gave a faint smile back. "I'm afraid that I can resist that, too. It's a precaution that our Lord insisted on before he trusted us with some of his most important secrets."

Tom nodded. That didn't surprise him. Most of the Order of the Phoenix might not refer to Dumbledore as "Lord," but they would follow him that way, and Tom fully intended to instill some of the same protections in his Knights. For the moment, most of them were too young to have completed the training.

"I suppose that you won't tell us your name?" he asked, drawing his wand.

"If you tell me what you're planning on doing with that, since I've already told you that you won't be able to get anything out of me."

"An old spell from the grimoires of my ancestors. Now, your name?"

The wizard laughed softly, his eyes brightening for a second. It made his face look a little similar to Harry's, but Tom only had to glance at the phoenix brand on this man's cheek to remind himself of how different they really were. Harry would never allow someone to mark him like that. "You're skilled at telling me the truth without offering anything at all. I think I would have liked working with you, if my people had managed to capture you instead of the other one. I'm Quintinus Silvertongue."

It was an assumed name, of course. Tom only nodded and then slashed his wand forwards, all his concentration narrowing down. He had only read the description of this spell once, and had never performed it. "Lingua serpens."

The magic coiled through the air and wrapped around Silvertongue. He only narrowed is eyes a little and said nothing. Tom stepped back, waited to make sure no violent outburst from the prisoner or the magic would follow, and then asked in Parseltongue, "Are you aware that this is a language you cannot lie to a native speaker in?"

"What are you talking about—" It only took Silvertongue that long before he realized he wasn't speaking English, which was mildly impressive. He stared hard at Tom, and a flicker of fear moved behind his eyes before it was gone. "My Lord thought there was no one left who spoke Parseltongue."

"More likely, he kept it from you."

"What line did you descend from?"

"Through Gaunt, from Slytherin in the beginning." Tom smiled at Silvertongue. "Now. let's begin, shall we?"

Harry woke slowly, to the motion of someone shaking his shoulder. He opened his eyes and found Malfoy standing above him. He grunted and sat up slowly, shaking away old memories at the same time as he brushed the man's hand off. Abraxas Malfoy really did look like his son and grandson.

"Tell Tom he cheated with the sleeping potion."

"He said you would say that." Malfoy had a cheerful grin when he tried. "And he said that I was only to let you sleep this long because he broke through the resistance of the wizard who kidnapped you and then put him under stasis. He promised that you could be present for the interrogation. Come with me."

Harry sighed and stood, wobbling. He pretended not to see the arm Malfoy hastily put out to keep him from falling. "At least he waited this long," he muttered, and walked down the corridor that Malfoy showed him. "What about Jonquil?"

"She's still Stunned and tied up. Or maybe she's awake now. I haven't actually checked on her in a few hours."

Harry glared at him. "She's my cousin. I want her free."

"I know how close you to are to Tom. I'm growing to accept it. But you still can't just march in and give orders like that and expect them to be obeyed. Especially since I know for a fact that Tom still wants her confined."

Harry redoubled the glare, but it didn't seem to help. He growled under his breath. Then he stomped down the corridor. Malfoy continued to walk beside him with a faint, unimpressed smile.

When Harry marched into the interrogation room, he noticed the faint smell of dust in the air, and the blood on the floor. He glared at Tom for that, too, but Tom only nodded to the man slumped over on the chair and spoke in Parseltongue. "I used a spell that replaced his knowledge of English with knowledge of Parseltongue. Then I cut him to draw his blood and complete the spell, and put him in stasis until you could come. This interrogation technique really requires two people who are native speakers of the language."

"Technically, I'm not," Harry hissed back while looking for the wound that had spilled the blood on the floor. He finally saw the cut in the prisoner's robes, over the ribs, and turned to stare at Tom.

"He hurt you. He's lucky to be alive at all," Tom said simply, and then released the man from stasis before Harry could object.

"About Jonquil—"

"Don't test me right now, Harry."

Harry gritted his teeth and faced the man, who looked a little less composed than he had when he was trying to interrogate Harry. "This is Quintinus Silvertongue," Tom said. "And he thinks that merely keeping silent can guard his secrets when he's under this particular spell. He's adorable."

Silvertongue narrowed his eyes at Tom. Tom grinned in a way that looked more like a snarl, and said, "What questions do you have for him, Harry?"

"I want to know why he was after you, actually. Is it just the war itself? What's the more specific purpose that he wants?"

Harry felt an odd sensation in his hand, as though part of his brain had reached out and clasped a hand extending from Tom's brain. His gasp was lost in the sound of Silvertongue's gasp, and the way that he braced his feet against the ground as though he was trying to resist a fall down a steep slope.

"Our Lord had become convinced that you were a danger," Silvertongue said. He was visibly fighting his own mouth, trying to bite his tongue and clench his teeth together. It didn't work. It was weird and kind of disgusting to watch, Harry had to admit. "He did not tell us why, but he wants you stopped. And I know that you were behind the most recent baseless rumors spread about him."

"Baseless? How sweet," Tom cooed. "It seems that we captured a loyalist, Harry. Now. I want to know why your 'Lord' thinks that it'll do any good to ban Dark Arts and eradicate the knowledge of Unforgivables from the world. You can cause just as much harm with a simple spell like a cutting hex."

Silvertongue tried to bite his lips this time, but his tongue was already dancing. "Isn't it obvious? When Dark Arts and Unforgivables are gone from the world, then no one can cause as much harm as they can now. Maybe you could kill someone with a cutting hex, but it wouldn't occur to most people to try."

"It would always occur to me to try," Tom said. "Now. We recently raided another of your safehouses and rescued a young woman who was held prisoner there. I want to know what you learned from her."

"Nothing! She could tell us nothing substantial of the world beyond the portal. And you were the one who killed most of us?" Silvertongue's face was blank, but his eyes were burning. He watched Tom with the kind of hatred that had once been familiar to Harry. "I will remember that."

"You shouldn't have entered the war against me if you didn't want to die. And neither should your Lord."

Silvertongue turned and looked at Harry. "I can sense that you're not as corrupt or as far gone in the Dark Arts," he said, with something that Harry would have thought was calmness an hour ago but now read as desperation. "How can you follow someone like this? How can you support someone who uses Dark magic and indulges in torture?"

Harry stared at him. "You were going to torture me and you used an Unforgivable on me! Why would you excuse your own use of it but not Tom's?"

Silvertongue seemed to take it as an actual question, even though Harry had meant it mostly rhetorically. His mouth opened, and he looked disgusted with himself as he spat, "Our work is done in the name of the greater good. I take the burden on myself to spare my comrades and the innocents of the wizarding world knowledge of it. And someday, I shall have my knowledge removed and my soul cleansed."

Harry sighed. He had thought that would be it. This Dumbledore had twisted the meaning of "the greater good" farther away than his own version would ever have thought to. Or maybe it was just that this time period was closer to when he'd defeated Grindelwald and he had been more like this in the past of Harry's first world, too.

Tom nodded, apparently not surprised, although his eyes shone with crimson for a moment as if he would have liked to attack Silvertongue. "I want a complete list of the Order's safehouses and the people who are part of it."

"We do not hide." Silvertongue made a gesture with his shoulder that Harry thought was meant to indicate the phoenix mark on his cheek, although his hand was bound so tightly at his side that he couldn't reach up to it. "And I cannot tell you the names of all our safe places. They are under the Fidelius."

"There are ways to crack that," Tom said, and showed him how.

By the time Tom finished, Silvertongue was a shivering wreck in the chair, his head bowed and his hair looking wild instead of simply unkempt. Tom stepped back and studied him for only a second before he switched his gaze to Harry.

Harry had been visibly holding his silence for the last ten minutes that Tom had been extracting the information about the Order of the Phoenix from Silvertongue's mind. He was staring at the floor now, his face still. Tom reached over and stroked a quick hand down the side of his shoulder. Harry looked up at him.

Tom was reassured by what he saw in Harry's face. Harry didn't like what they had done, hated causing this much pain to a fellow human being outside the heat of battle, but he wasn't about to fly into a sulk and abandon Tom while he thought about it. He accepted that it had to be done.

Tom turned back to Silvertongue. The man lifted his head as if he could feel Tom's eyes. "I hate you," he whispered. "I will destroy you."

Tom smiled. He enjoyed seeing someone who had scorned him for his use of the Dark Arts while using them himself so broken and unmanned. "Tell me anything else you can think of that might be useful."

Silvertongue tried to bite his own lips and tongue again, but the answer came out anyway. "There is an unclaimed vault of the Slytherin line in Gringotts. My lord told me and a few others about it and enjoined us not to tell anyone else."

And then Silvertongue broke and truly began to weep. Harry looked away. Tom stepped back and waited a little until the man had calmed down, then released the spell and gave Silvertongue his English back.

"I am going to destroy you," Silvertongue said dully, as if reciting the litany of a god in which he no longer believed. "I will—"

"Avada Kedavra," Tom said, and watched as he died. He glanced up once to see Harry flinching with his whole body.

"I wasn't going to let him live to carry out his threat," Tom said quietly, and stood. "It seems that we have a journey to Gringotts to make in the open, and some raids to organize in private."

Harry was tense as he walked beside Tom. He kept his eyes averted. He flinched again when Tom slung an arm around his shoulders.

But he was there. That was what mattered.