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Chapter Twenty-Three—Bonfire
Harry wondered if he was the only one who was thinking clearly.
Shara looked stunned. Dorea's mouth was slightly open, and although she was obviously calculating some kind of odds, Harry didn't think it was going to result in action any time soon. Tom was simply posed, shaking with rage, his hand falling to the wand that wouldn't be drawn soon enough, either.
Dumbledore stood in front of them with a weary, wintry smile, and looked ready to spend all afternoon expounding on his cleverness, if that was what it took.
Under the sleeves of his robe, behind the shelter of Tom's body, Harry clenched his hands into fists and focused on the jewel in the diadem. It would have flickered into the blue-green light that it had shown when Dorea appeared near Malfoy Manor, he thought, but he asked it to be quiet, and it was.
He had very firm control of his magic now, and he turned slightly so that he was facing the shelves.
"There are Blacks in this world who owe me loyalty," Dumbledore said softly, "who think very little of your upstart band, Mr. Gaunt. They understand that not everything might work out to their satisfaction, but they are willing to give up the ability to cast Dark Arts for power in the new world—"
"Their names," Dorea said, and Dumbledore looked at her in surprise. "I want their names."
"My dear Madam, if I'm right you don't even belong to this world. I find it hard to believe that you would care so much—"
Please, Harry asked the diadem, and spread his fingers, and drew on his magic the way he had when he'd asked the copse of trees for power.
The books on the shelf facing him burst into flame.
Everyone whirled around with cries, and Dumbledore and Dorea immediately began racing to opposite shelves, Dumbledore to the burning one as if he'd save the books there, Dorea to the one next to it as if she could keep the flames from spreading. Harry reached out and curled his hand around Tom's wrist before he could do the same thing.
"We need to get out of here," he snapped.
"The library—"
"It's books, Tom, only that. The real knowledge will be worth writing down and finding elsewhere."
"You can't—"
"The reason it makes such a good distraction," Harry said, dragging Tom along bodily and making sure that Shara was following, "is that everyone thinks exactly like you do. But I'd rather lose the bloody Black library than our lives. Now come on!"
They almost bounded down the stairs and towards the front door. It appeared that the Black house had the exact same setup as Grimmauld Place in Harry's first world, if it wasn't actually Grimmauld Place. Harry had had time to breathe a sigh of relief when a house-elf abruptly appeared between them and the door.
"Intruders in the mistress's house!" the elf boomed, in tones far deeper than Harry would have thought one of them able to summon.
Harry moved without thinking, although later he thought it was probably the diadem guiding him. The power was still coiled around his hands, and he clenched them and thought, Fire.
The wall next to them burst into flame, and the portraits on it cowered. The elf cried out and dashed over to smother the flames like Dorea and Dumbledore had in the Black library. Harry felt a twist in his heart as he thought of Dorea, but he shoved Tom and Shara ahead of him and kept them moving. Shara, at least, ought to know the way well enough to guide them.
Someone else stopped them as they came to the bottom of the staircase and the front door, though, and this person was no house-elf.
"I suppose," drawled a tall man with the Black eyes and cruel lines etched in his face as he stepped out from behind a door in the wall, "that you are going to burn something else now to persuade me to let you go?"
"Uncle Arcturus." Shara sounded shocked, leaning back for a second as if she was going to fall over. "Were you the one who told Albus Dumbledore the secrets of the library and how to get in? Don't you know that the Wizengamot is at war with him?"
Arcturus Black snorted. "What should I care for that, when he is going to win? We'll lose the Dark Arts, but gain more than that." He gestured with his wand, and a swaying curtain of white light sprang up between them and the door. It looked harmless, like a clothesline hung with white sheets, but Harry highly doubted that it was. "My branch of the family will gain more than that."
Harry supposed that he would understand later, but at the moment, he didn't much care about the intricacies of Arcturus Black betraying his family and who would manage to be in charge when the consequences of that betrayal came down. He didn't want to try to persuade anyone. He just concentrated on the diadem, and this time he let the gem spill its light—but not to light the whole room, which would have been pointless. Instead, he focused it into one precise, angular beam.
Arcturus Black screamed as that beam caught him in one eye, and staggered, just for a second losing control of the spell. Shara ducked through it, ignoring the way that the white swaying things scraped bloody lines down her shoulders, and punched her uncle in the diaphragm, then punched him again in the nose as he folded up. Then she kicked him in the head and cast a Stunner on him.
Tom finally spoke. "I'm surrounded by thugs," he said, his voice faint.
"It gets things done," Harry said shortly, and pulled Tom along with him as Shara opened the door of the house. The Muggle buildings outside proved that they were on the same street as Twelve Grimmauld Place in Harry's world. Out they pelted, but Tom turned around and abruptly became a drag on Harry's arm.
"What?" Harry snapped, pulling on him as hard as he could.
"We can't leave the Black library to burn to ash," Tom said. Then his pallor retreated a little, and his eye glinted coldly. "Or your great-aunt in there. Merlin knows what she's going to tell Dumbledore."
"If he has access to the Black library and Arcturus Black working for him, she can't tell him much," Shara snapped.
Harry nodded. "And if she—"
"She could tell him about the defenses around Malfoy Manor."
"She barely saw them. Come on, Tom."
Tom did allow himself to be dragged, but not without many backwards glances. Harry shook his head and kept pulling him. They stumbled to the end of Grimmauld Place, and then Harry wrapped his arm around Tom's waist and Apparated them. Merlin knew where they would go if Harry allowed him to do it himself.
They appeared outside the gates of Malfoy Manor, and saw Abraxas hurrying towards them. His expression didn't promise good news. Harry grimaced. He must have set up an alarm to alert him the minute they returned.
"Trouble, my lord," Abraxas gasped, coming to a stop in front of Tom.
"I knew it. Dorea Black's betrayal will be punished." Tom drew his wand with brisk movements, although he did shoot Harry a sharp glance as if to say that he had been right and Harry had to put up with that. "In the meantime, tell me how many of Dumbledore's men are here and I'll—"
"Not that kind of trouble, my lord."
Abraxas interrupted with the kind of thick tone that made Harry sure something had gone deeply wrong. Tom lost all color and tucked his wand away in his belt again, saying, "Tell me." Shara moved tensely forwards behind Harry, her eyes now resting on Tom and now on Abraxas.
"My parents have returned, and they don't want me playing politics with you."
Tom felt a single, intense moment of dislike for Claudius Malfoy, whose allegiance he had never managed to secure. While it had been enough for Abraxas that they'd shared a House and political goals and that Tom could speak Parseltongue, Claudius had never wanted anything to do with a half-blood.
"Consequences?" Tom asked crisply as he stepped through the gates anyway and strode towards the Manor. The wards were more noticeable than they'd been when he and Harry and Shara left, but they weren't closed against them yet. That argued they would at least have time to get the Knights' property out.
"They want you to leave now." Abraxas hesitated. "They said that anyone who's pure-blood could stay another day, in case they came here without other lodgings, but anyone who's dirtier than that has to be out."
Tom nodded absently. If he'd thought about it, he would have expected that to be Claudius Malfoy's stance, he decided. The man didn't follow Dumbledore, but only because he considered his own family so superior that he would bow to no one else. That was probably most of the reason that he disliked Abraxas's following Tom, for that matter.
"All right," Tom said. "We'll get our trunks and then leave."
"My lord." Shara's voice was so low that Tom nearly didn't recognize it. He turned around to find her staring at him with narrowed eyes. "Are you going to jump because some pure-bloods said to?"
"I am going to my family's property," Tom said. "In truth, staying here was something that was always meant to be temporary. And contesting with the Malfoys would put Abraxas in danger."
Abraxas puffed out his chest. "My lord, I would stand up for you if I thought it would do any good."
"I know." Tom gave him a faint smile. Abraxas had done his best to shed his poisonous family history and follow Tom truly, but that just meant he infuriated his parents more, as they saw him escaping further and further from their grasp. "I will be in touch with you, and we will determine what should happen next."
"How can you go to your family's property?" Shara pursued. "My lord, forgive me, but you've been told not to return to the Gaunts' house."
"Am I not a Potter now? Everyone does seem to forget that, don't they?"
Harry spoke up then, a tone of amusement in his voice that Tom was glad to hear no matter what they'd gone through today. "There's one flaw in that plan, Tom, which is that I have no idea where the Potter properties here would be, and I don't think they have buildings on them."
"That's all right. I know the location of the properties, and I think that you'll be able to bring down any charms or wards protecting them with that diadem of yours."
"Even if that's true," Harry said, and his reluctance was a dragging, annoying anchor on Tom's plans, "what are we going to do for shelter? I don't fancy walking into a forest and having to build something on our own, especially if there are problems with the buildings that are there having rotted away."
Tom rolled his eyes and started to answer, but was overcome by a loud screech of, "Filth!"
For some reason, Harry really jumped when he heard that word. Tom made a mental note to ask him later, and turned around to face Martina Malfoy, who was descending the grand staircase with a wrinkle in her nose that might turn permanent if she didn't watch out.
"Mrs. Malfoy, such a pleasure," Tom murmured. Of course Abraxas's mother was much cleaner and richer and better-educated than his own, but at times like these, Tom honestly couldn't see much of a difference between her and Merope Gaunt.
"I told you to leave!"
"As I remember it, your son conveyed your words. Or do you disregard him so much that you think of him as just another mouthpiece?" Tom asked in interest. There was always the chance that today would be the day Abraxas would break away from his parents.
But probably not, as Abraxas flushed and stared at the ground and Martina pointed at the door with one trembling finger. "Out of my house, filth!"
"Did you upset my wife, half-blood?" On cue, Claudius appeared around the corner, his chest poking out so far that Tom was somewhat surprised he could walk.
Tom saw no reason to reply to that, and rolled his eyes back at Harry. Harry nodded and swept his wand down. There was the distant sound of doors banging open, and their cloaks and trunks and books and wardrobes came flying down the corridors. The clothes were neatly folding themselves as they soared.
Claudius lifted walls of flame in the way of their belongings, and began to laugh.
The laughter died as Harry directed the objects over the top of the flames, and the trunks sank down next to them and opened. The clothes and books began to pile themselves inside. Harry, in the meantime, smiled at the elder Malfoys without saying a word.
"Who is this filth?" Martina asked of the world in general.
"Harry Potter," Harry said, with a shrug.
"There are no more Potters!"
"That becomes tiresome to listen to when it's not in fact true," Harry remarked to the air, and then cast a protection spell, looking almost bored, as Claudius turned his wand on them. "Abraxas, it's a pity that you have to live with them. Are you ready to leave, Tom?'
"Filth!" Martina interrupted again.
"And your education has been lacking, I see," Harry told her. "At least in the matter of vocabulary."
Martina's face turned so purple that she seemed not able to get any words out at all. Claudius was the one who stood up and said, "No one gets away with insulting a Malfoy in Malfoy Manor! I challenge you to a duel!"
"Your very existence insults all your ancestors, and I don't see you committing suicide yet," Harry said, in such a flat, uninterested voice. Tom had to bite his lips so that he wouldn't laugh exultantly. It was actually possible to miss how insulting Harry had been at first, his tone was so bland. And he enjoyed the way that both Malfoys were staring now, although Claudius's face had gone red rather than purple.
"Yes, I'm ready," Tom said, and scooped up his trunk and shrank it. Harry nodded to him, nodded to Abraxas—who didn't look as if he saw it—and then they turned and swept from the Manor.
A howling curse came after them, of course, but Harry caught it on a shield and buried it in the earth. He shook his head. "I never thought that any of the ancestral Malfoys had been like that," he murmured.
"You knew them well in your first world, then?"
Harry's mouth twitched with something like readiness to laugh. "Not well. They were—followers of Voldemort. But they prided themselves on seeming arrogant and above it all. It was a shock when I saw the way the war had broken them down." He gestured with the back of his head at Malfoy Manor as they came to the edge of the wards that would prevent Apparition. "And I would never have thought of any of them as prancing around doing that."
Tom shook his head. "Claudius was apparently calmer when he was younger, but now he's this…tattered thing. And he married a woman who thinks that the Malfoys are the only important people in the world."
Harry wrapped an arm around his waist. "Well, it doesn't matter. We're away from them, and if Abraxas won't rebel against them yet, then he won't. Do you think that you can Apparate us to this Potter property that you were talking about?"
Tom turned to him and smiled. "Of course I can. The question is, will you give me a kiss for doing it?"
Tom, still smug from his kiss, took them directly to the edge of what appeared to be a large park. Harry stood still and turned his head in several directions. He could feel the magic humming on the edge of his consciousness, although he didn't know if that came from the diadem or his Potter blood.
If he put his right hand out and let it linger on a corner of the air…
Harry did that, and Tom slammed his opening mouth quickly as the outlines of a door grew in the air. Harry stepped back with his eyebrows raised. The door gained form, looking like it was made of black stone with flecks of a lighter kind in it, and then swung all the way inwards. Harry peered in and saw what looked like a stone floor and ancient torch sconces along the walls.
"What, weren't you expecting it to happen like that?" Harry added over his shoulder as he, Tom, and Shara walked inside.
"Of course I was."
But even Shara looked at Tom in some doubt before she turned around and drew her wand. A spell lit the torch sconces on the walls, and she said thoughtfully, "Should I explore and make sure there's no threat, my lord?"
"You can," Tom said, holding Harry's eyes. He waited until Shara had disappeared and then leaned in and asked, "How did you do that?"
"Something told me to do it," Harry admitted with a shrug. "Maybe it was the diadem."
Tom snorted quietly and shook his head. "Fine, but in the future, tell me before you start to transform the air into a door, all right?"
Harry smiled and turned away to begin his exploration of the house, starting with a corridor that was opposite the one Shara had taken. Tom raised his voice a little. "Harry, tell me."
"Mmmm," Harry said, and slipped around the dark corner.
"Harry."
Harry chuckled and refused to reply. It would be good for Tom to remember that he wasn't the only one who could perform what others would see as miracles.