Disclaimer: Thankfully, Dark Lady Rowling is quite forgiving of her humble followers that write fanfiction in her universe. (Just kidding Jo, you're not dark, don't sue me into oblivion).
Wow, lots of unhappy reviewers! In fact, two of the first twenty or so were flames, and it took me almost 400 total reviews spread across my other stories before I even got my second one overall. Maybe that means I'm getting better: whereas before they would just close the tab, this story must be just interesting enough that they get angry that it isn't better. Or maybe this story is just worse than my old stuff. Who knows? Either way, this story already finished and I kinda like it, so you'll still get the rest of it whether you like it or not!
Chapter Two
Daphne Greengrass
I had been with Potter for over two weeks the first time I tried to kill him.
It wasn't really intentional...he just pissed me off and I threw a knife at him. It was pure luck that it struck blade first; I don't think I could do it again if I tried. In fact, it probably wouldn't have happened at all if he hadn't stuck his hand up to intercept it. I'd been using a large, perfectly normal, not-very-sharp kitchen knife to rather unskillfully cut vegetables as I prepared a meal, because of course he didn't have any enchanted knives to do it for me. I didn't know how to enchant one myself, and I didn't have my wand besides. Either way, the meals Potter ate were bland and just awful. Why that cheap bastard had so much money and ate like a pauper I had no idea, but I wasn't going to stand for it.
But I'm getting ahead of myself.
The first order of business was separating him from that damnable necklace at which he had constantly fingered and muttered. I'd never seen it – in fact I thought he was going to kill me the first time he caught my eyes on the chain – but it didn't take long for me to figure out it was bad news. At length I convinced him I didn't want to steal it by suggesting he Stun me and conceal it while I was out.
That was probably not my best idea, since we were eating at the time. I still think he took my advice immediately just to make me land face-first in mashed potatoes. Removing it worked almost immediately, as far as I could tell. He didn't even snarl when I next asked about it.
The tension that constantly hung about in the air around him and in his posture dissolved with the absence of that necklace. I didn't even realize how afraid I was of him until that happened. Bolstered by the improvement in the mood, I managed to force him to take me along to buy groceries. After Voldemort killed all the House Elves he could find – rumor had it a House Elf helped Potter escape once, since they were unaffected by anti-Apparition wards – and forced the others into hiding, I'd gotten a crash course in taking their place. It turned out most wizards and witches just stole food from the Muggle world, while the Muggleborns continued to buy it. Potter, unsurprisingly, said we'd pay.
Well, he didn't say it so much as just glare at me when I asked about it. Not that he had any trouble paying, anyway. I'd seen the massive stack of Muggle cash he pulled from his mokeskin pouch before we went; he took only took a few bills out and it was more than enough to pay for several days worth of food. We couldn't purchase more without taking a shopping cart, and disappearing with a shopping cart would have made us a bit conspicuous.
"Why do you live like this when you have so much money?" I had asked when I realized how much he had. I hadn't seen the outside because he had Apparated us here, and then he had Apparated us to a safe place near the grocer.
He just stared at me. He did that a lot. The expression clearly showed that I was asking a stupid question, but then, he apparently considered every question stupid. I should have known better to ask, but one tends to forget such things when one's roommate is an unrepentant, murdering, heartless, zombie bastard...necklace or no. Just when I thought he might answer me, he took in my clumsy vegetable chopping and asked, "how long is this going to take?"
That's when I threw the knife at him. The blood drained from my face when I saw it fly directly toward his. Horror gripped me not because I might kill him, but because I thought for certain a gruesome, painful end was imminent. I'd just broken my promise to Blaise, hadn't I? I stared, frozen, as Potter did nothing when the knife gashed his hand and clattered to the floor. He just stared at his hand for a moment before conjuring a bandage, wrapping his hand, and looking at me expectantly.
That was when it struck me: he said he wouldn't kill me unless I raised a wand against him. Of course, I wasn't about to test that hypothesis if I could help it. "I don't know," I answered, cursing my voice for shaking. I didn't look at him when I hurried over to retrieve the knife, though I could feel his eyes on me.
He went on another raid a day later. He didn't lock me in the bedroom like he did when he slept. "Don't try to Apparate out," he said as he apparently warded the front door.
"Why not?" I didn't really care to know, but he talked so damn little I wanted it to keep going. Not that I would trade his reticence for lust potions and rape. I suppressed a shudder and cursed myself for thinking of my past.
He shrugged. "Well, if you feel like dying..."
Ah, Malfoy Manor had similar protections these days: a Marked Death Eater needed to either side-along me there or ride the portkey with us. He could have been lying, I realized, but that wasn't something I was willing to experiment on. "But what if I'm attacked?"
That seemed to halt him in his tracks. His bathroom door slammed open and he Summoned a few wands from it before it slammed shut again. He tossed them to me, but I didn't catch any for fear that he'd construe it as an attack if I did, so they clattered to the floor around me. "In that case, good luck." Before I could protest, he spun in place and disappeared with a soft pop.
I stared at the space he had occupied moments earlier for some time, unsure about what I was supposed to feel about this latest development. I should be angry at the way he treated me, but...he left me free? And why should I be angry when I'd spent the last few years being treated far worse? I picked up each wand, searching for a reasonable match. None were as good as my maple and phoenix feather, but the moment I plucked a darker, red-tinted wand off the rug, long suppressed magic surged through my arm. It felt incredible to hold a wand again. In fact, I felt surprisingly good overall – powerful, even – like all the helplessness of the last few years had melted away. I might not be able to leave, but I could still do damage to his cause somehow.
High on the rush of power, I took a fresh look at my situation, eager to find weaknesses I could exploit...or at least needle Potter about when he returned. His food stores are open to me...but that's about it. I supposed I could try to bust into his bathroom, which he kept locked, but he probably wouldn't take too kindly to that. It didn't look that big when I managed to peek in on several occasions, so I figured he just didn't want me tampering with his toiletries. True, he'd apparently held some wands in there, but clearly he didn't care about this place. If I destroyed any of the things here, he could just take replacements from the next house he hit.
Hell, this probably wasn't even his place. He probably just killed the previous owners and moved in. Having been previously owned by Death Eaters actually made sense of the depressing decor around here. The ceiling was white, the walls were either a dark red or gray, and pretty much everything else was black, or close enough to it as makes no difference. The soot-blasted mantel over the fireplace held no floo powder, or showed signs of a recent fire; not that I expected either since he hadn't used it since I'd been there. The pantry was still stocked with the long-lasting food: bags of dry rice, dry beans, oats, various canned vegetables with faded labels, and a few small wooden barrels on the floor, the nearest of which was marked 'water' – all of which explained Potter's extremely bland culinary choices. Considering the food, I decided it must have been a safe house, though I wasn't sure – not that it mattered, I supposed – if it was one for the Death Eaters or for the Order.
At least, back when the Order existed. I found it strange to know that the Order of the Phoenix, the scary secret organization that supposedly killed so many of the Dark Lord's followers was real, but no more. It was all Potter. I shivered at the thought. How could he still do this after so long? I'd heard the rumors about his adventures at school, but I'd never believed them. It was just another example of Gryffindor false bravado, wasn't it? The fact that it had always been Malfoy who swore up and down that Potter made it all up didn't escape me. The ponce had pretty much threatened to curse anyone who said otherwise, and, House rivalry being what it was, I never really questioned it. Now, I wasn't so sure.
Looking around the place yet again, even now there wasn't really much indication that anybody lived here. Well, there was a half-empty glass of water on the table where I'd left it, and my outer robe still hung lazily over the back of the loveseat in the sitting room. But there were no portraits, no wizarding photos, no decorations aside from a bookshelf and candles – and those were clearly only present for functional purposes. It struck me that absolutely nothing of Potter's remained in sight. That thought brought me up short, and I had to fight down the urge to try and escape. Surely he wouldn't just abandon me here, would he? I slept in the only bedroom, so I know he hadn't packed anything up since I've been here.
A spike of despair threatened to overcome me at the memory of him showing me the bedroom. I'd thought he expected me to sleep with him...in more ways than one. After all, that's what I was for, wasn't it? But the lust potion had worn off... Shivering with the uncertainty of what had happened to me, I'd lain awake for the entire night the first few nights, terrified for the moment that he would come in and expect me to do what I'd done for so long. The Death Eaters figuratively– and probably literally – beat almost all sense of self-worth out of me. Recognizing that was a battle all on its own, let alone fighting against it. When the pounding on the door had invariably jerked me from my dozing, I almost screamed. Then he'd say breakfast was ready. It had taken me well into my fifth night before I could really fall asleep. Now, sitting here alone and pondering my time here, I realized I've had over a week of better sleep than I'd gotten for years. That realization startled and angered me. He killed Blaise! How can I be so relaxed around him?
A creaking sound somewhere above me jerked me out of my reverie, and brought my panic right back to the fore. My body froze mid-stride, but my mind raced. There were no stairs, were there? I hadn't seen any type of attic access, but I hadn't studied the ceiling in the bedroom too closely. I stood stock still, straining to hear any other sounds, but none came. The fear that someone was trying to get in soon gave way to the worry that Potter had left me here to die. I forced myself to think that he was simply prepared to abandon this place, if it became necessary. What reason would he have to kill me? Yes, he killed Blaise, but it had something to do with the Dark Mark, right? And I don't have it, so... That thought shamed me and angered me again.
I screamed in frustration. An oppressive silence was the only response.
I was getting nowhere with my thoughts, so I pushed the fear out of my mind and glanced around for something to do. A twinge of annoyance struck me when I considered starting on dinner so it'd be ready when Potter got back. It was too early anyway; he was probably following somebody to attack them later. Gods damn it, stop thinking about acting like a house elf! In my anger I thought very briefly of setting up an ambush to disable him and escape, but I didn't like my chances there, and I didn't have anywhere to go immediately anyway. Potter would probably be expecting that, too, and that's not to mention that he seemed to think that I would die if I tried to get out of here without him. Even if I could manage the anger and skill to beat him, I wasn't terribly interested in lying in wait for hours on end, not knowing when he'd be back. I shook the thought off and took a deep breath. My eyes wandered to the bookshelf, and I settled on reading. At first I just grabbed something at random, but as time passed and failures to focus mounted, I got back up to actually browse the books. I waffled between Jigger's Fourth Potions Opuscule and The Auror's Field Guide to First Aid, eventually choosing the latter since I wasn't aware of any Potions equipment in this place.
I'd been in the middle of practicing the wand movement for the Delving Charm when a slight pop sounded in front of me and a flash of red filled my vision.
My eyes opened to the sight of Potter standing a few feet away, holding my wand in his left hand and staring at me without expression. "What the hell was that, Potter?" As soon as I said it I regretted it, because I realized my wand was pointed right at him when he Apparated in. Why am I even alive?
"You were looking at your book," he said as if in reply to my internal question. "That's the only reason you got a Stunner instead of something more permanent." Then he walked away.
I felt the blood drain from my face. Circe's tits, he reacted that fast? The clatter of pots and pans pulled me back to reality. "Wait, let me," I said, marking my place and jumping up to take over.
He didn't respond or even look at me; he just stopped fiddling with the pots and walked into his bathroom. This time, I was still too shaken to be annoyed by his behavior. Dealing with Potter was completely outside of my realm of experience. He always let me boss him around a bit when it came to the groceries, cooking, and grooming himself – that disgusting beard was the first to go. But, as he showed me in no uncertain terms a minute ago, he was most definitely the one in charge. Part of me wanted to cower, but part of me wanted to rebel and find a way to take control. Looking around the kitchen, I had some control, I realized. I pulled out an onion to dice it. Allowing me to choose what to eat was a tiny freedom, true, but it was more than I had for so long.
Over the next week I'd begun to revert to my old personality a bit. The fact that I didn't get the usual Memory Charm after my time at Nott's house actually helped me, I think. When I would come to after one of those, I always felt a general malaise, and it wasn't only from the abuse certain parts of my body had taken. Knowing what happened while I was under the influence of lust potions – at least this last time – gave me a sort of closure for that part of my life. Not that I wished they never used them; I'd heard horror stories about the girls before they started doing that. I understood it was probably worse most of the time, but while Nott was completely selfish, he didn't hurt me, and Blaise refused me. Either way, that part of my life was most definitely over.
At first I'd wished Stori and Tracey would hurry and write back so I could get far away from here. Potter had warned me that the owls were likely to get intercepted either on the way there or on the way back, but he didn't stop me from sending them. He didn't particularly care, it seemed, since I had no way of giving away his hideout. He never said where we were, so even if our location wasn't hidden under a Fidelius – and I had no idea if it actually was – I couldn't give it away. In any case, after this introspection that made me realize I was attempting to return to some semblance of normalcy, I realized I wanted revenge. I wanted Potter to win, even though he killed the only person who cared for me these past so many years.
He killed Blaise, but Merlin damn it all, I wanted to help him.
"Harry," I said over dinner, emphasizing my use of his first name. He hadn't invited me to call him that, but he hadn't seemed to care when I'd heard Blaise do it. I hoped he picked up on the subtle hint that I wanted to be friendlier with him...the whole butcher knife to the face episode notwithstanding.
He turned his full attention to me but said nothing.
The intensity of his gaze brought the memory – the horror – of that night back to my mind. I forced it away and coughed to cover it up. "I want—" I began, but trailed off and cursed myself for phrasing it that way. Demanding something in my position, especially from someone like him, was bound to be counterproductive. "Will you...teach me? I would help you, if you let me."
A slightly raised eyebrow was my only response for several moments. I held his gaze, hoping to show that I was serious. "I killed your friend," he said bluntly, in that gravelly voice of his. I thought it was starting to smooth out, though, perhaps because he'd been using it more now that he wasn't living alone and he'd gotten away from the necklace.
"He died the moment he was forced to take the Mark," I said evenly. It was true; Blaise had always been aloof to most of the world, but he had always opened up to Tracey and me. After Tracey fled and he was forced to take the Mark, though, he had closed himself off even from me. I don't know if he ever slept with me – from his words that night it seemed like something might have happened, but I don't know what. I can say I'd never seen him open up again.
Potter—Harry, rather, nodded firmly and went back to his food.
"Well," I said, but quickly continued to cover up my antagonistic tone, "will you let me help?"
"No," he said immediately.
I fought down a spike of irritation. "I might never hear back from my sister or Tracey," I said, not really trying to keep the despair out of my voice even though I knew he wouldn't care. "I might as well make myself useful."
"You cook and clean," he pointed out.
"I was studying the Auror's first aid manual—" I tried again.
"Already know it," he cut me off.
"But you can't delve yourself for head injuries—"
"In a mirror I can."
Damn it, he got me there. "You can't deny it'd be useful having a second wand in many situations."
"A second one completely on my side, yes," he said.
I clenched my jaw and suppressed a sigh. The implication was obvious: he didn't trust me, and honestly, in his position I wouldn't trust me either. Understanding the logic, however, didn't make it sting less. I cast about in my head for a way to bridge this gap, then had to hide my face for a moment while I flushed with shame that my first thought was to become his lover. That was just not going to happen. Judging by the fact that the bloody bastard had never, even once, looked at me like I was a woman, I guessed the feeling was mutual. But he was talking, and that shouldn't be wasted. I quickly searched for a topic before he clammed up for the night. "How...did it go tonight?" I suppressed the urge to slap myself for that question, but there was no taking it back now.
"Fine," he said in an odd tone.
Damn it! I knew it was a stupid question, but he didn't have to answer like I'm an idiot! "Did you kill anybody I know?"
He shrugged, not acknowledging my petulance. "I killed Death Eaters."
"How many?"
"Two."
"Only two?"
He raised an eyebrow at me. "I rarely catch as many as I did when I killed your friend. Often I don't catch any."
I pressed my lips together. I suppose I asked for that, but he was so infuriating! "Why did you kill him like you did? Why not a Killing Curse?"
He stared at me a moment, but I didn't back down. "I'm saving that...for a special occasion." I frowned, trying to make sense of that. "He died quickly," he added as softly as his voice would allow, averting his eyes.
Was that...did he just try to comfort me a little? In any other situation it would seem ridiculous, but...I hoped I had an opening. "What happens when you get hurt?" I hoped he felt the concern I poured into the question.
If he did, though, he didn't show it. "If I get hurt it means I made a mistake."
I sighed. "That's not what I meant."
"If I make a mistake," he continued, "then I deserve to get hurt."
"That sounds like Death Eater logic," I said, kind of horrified.
He shrugged. "Pain is a powerful motivator."
"There have to be better ones," I countered.
"There are, but I use every motivator I get," he said. "Hate, revenge, rage...they all stack up nicely."
"What about love?" I was really reaching now, but I knew he was close to Dumbledore, and that's the kind of question the late headmaster might have asked.
Harry, however, scoffed. "I wouldn't know about that."
I scoffed right back. "Right."
He stared hard at me a moment, then stood up and left without finishing his food, entering his bathroom.
What was that about? As if pampered little Potty wouldn't know...
Oh, bugger. My head dropped to my hands. Damn it, Daphne, that is not the way to get him to let you help! Once again the wisdom of the Slytherin student body shines through. If he wasn't a pampered prince like certain parties claimed...suddenly a lot of things made sense. Bloody hell, how could I have been so blind? It seemed obvious now: he lived like a pauper now because he always lived like a pauper. The reasoning behind those huge Muggle clothes he wore on the train just hadn't registered before now. His school robes, I supposed, were not anything special either. But then, other than the few people that always had impeccably tailored robes and the few with obvious hand-me-downs, nobody really noticed school robes. And of course, Harry wouldn't have hand-me-downs because his parents have been dead for twenty years.
Yeah, I really screwed up. Just how badly I screwed up manifested itself in the following days, when Harry left me alone for long periods of time. He didn't act any different when he was around, of course, because he couldn't really have been colder toward me than he already had been. But I'd obviously struck a nerve, because my apologies were met with a familiar and irritating silence.
That all changed when, a few days later, he came back injured. He stumbled upon landing, I looked up from my current book – another in the series of Jigger's Potions Opuscules, from which I hoped to glean some more tips and tricks in case Harry ever picked up ingredients and other supplies – and raised an eyebrow at him, but he didn't even spare a glance at me. Inwardly sighing at his continued silent treatment, my eyes fell back to the book and picked up where I'd left off. Then mere seconds later, he knocked over a chair at the dining table and fell to the floor.
Like a flash I was up, immediately taking in the fact that he was dripping blood on the floor. He would have used a Scouring Charm before coming back, so I knew it had to be his. My concern intensified. "Harry!"
"I'm fine!" He growled and forced himself to his feet. The temptation to Stun him and fix him up myself quickly fled when I realized he wouldn't respond very well to that. Hell, he'd probably decapitate me before I even got the whole incantation out, even if his back was turned.
"Please, I can help," I pleaded, allowing a little desperation into my voice.
He leaned against the table a moment more before pushing off toward his bathroom. "No."
"Can I get you anything?"
"No."
"Will you at least tell me what happened?"
"No."
I sunk to the floor as he reached the bathroom. He let me have a wand, but I was still treated like a House Elf. Was that feeling of empowerment...that feeling of usefulness that I didn't even realize I missed..was that just an illusion? I felt the tears coming. "Harry, please."
He stopped, hand gripping the door jamb to steady himself, and half-glanced at me with one wide, bright, Killing Curse green eye, pinning me in place. "If you have steady hands, you can help." The door slammed shut behind him.
I stared dumbly at the door for several moments, despair fading as I tried to figure out what he was asking me. The field guide to first aid I'd read talked wounds caused by dark magic; they couldn't be healed with standard Healing Charms, and dittany only prevented scarring if the counter-curse to dispel the dark magic was used first. Shit, if his wound was that bad...just then the situation struck me: he asked for my help! What did he need? Did he have alcohol to sanitize the wound? I dashed to the pantry and rifled through the supplies. No luck. I ran to my bathroom, only to find it similarly devoid of alcohol. I cursed the Dark Lord for effectively wiping out House Elves. Then the barrel marked water leapt to my mind.
Please, let it be mislabeled!
I ran back out to the pantry and wrenched the first barrel open only to find water. My heart leapt in triumph when the second barrel smelled like firewhiskey. It almost immediately died for a moment when I looked in and thought it was empty, but when I shook it, there seemed to be enough for this. I pulled it out and took into the kitchen, found a bowl, and dumped the rest in there. Not a lot of it, but it looked clean enough. I set the empty barrel aside and washed my hands thoroughly.
"Ready?" Harry's voice rasped from behind me, almost making me jump.
"I think so," I said, straightening and turning around, "are you sure—"
My heart stopped at the sight of him. He was bare from the waist up, his lean torso crisscrossed with numerous wicked scars. His left hand pressed a blood-soaked cloth into his left side and his right held a clean cloth, a small plastic box, and his wand. But for the tightness in his jaw, his face betrayed very little of the pain I imagined he felt. He tossed me the box, somehow keeping hold of the wand and clean cloth in the same hand. "Thread a needle."
"What?" I breathed, hoping I misheard.
I didn't. "Thread a needle," he repeated slowly, as if I were a child. "Quickly."
He started to reach over to snatch the box back, but I quickly turned and opened the box. One of the spools of thread had a needle poked through it. "This one's already threaded," I said.
"That'll work," he said, then he walked over to the rug in front of the fireplace and laid down. "Come here, I'll get it started."
I followed, carrying the bowl of alcohol and the impromptu suturing kit. "Wait, shouldn't we clean it out first?" I gestured to the bowl. "I found that firewhiskey."
He grunted and eyed the alcohol askance. "I'll just use tergeo."
"It won't stop infection," I countered.
"I know," he said.
"Well, you can't go letting your guard down around me by getting sick with infection, can you?"
He only glared at me for a moment from his position on the floor before he pulled out a brown, plastic bottle out of his pants pocket. "You should use this, instead. Muggles don't use alcohol anymore."
I snatched the bottle out of his hand and glared at him right back for making me feel stupid. Of course he would have something better. But then he lifted the bloodied cloth, at which time I almost vomited at the yellowing, pus-filled gash as long as my hand. He stuffed the clean cloth in his mouth, and I poured the liquid from the brown bottle labeled Hydrogen Peroxide into the gash. Harry hissed in pain, and kept hissing as the liquid washed away the pus, bubbled and hissed, and seemed to bleach the skin around the wound white. He lifted his wand and hissed again, and suddenly I realized he was speaking in Parseltongue. He knocked his head on the floor in frustration, then tried again. "Aguamenti. Tergeo."
The wound still looked awful, but it appeared to be clean, and no blood was coming out. I wondered if just bandaging it now would work. "Are you sure we have to do this?"
"See these?" He pointed to some of his most worst scars, the ones that had thick, ropy scar tissue piled up on top. "And it'll take three times as long to heal."
"Oh," I said, feeling indescribably sorry for Harry that nobody was here to patch those up for him. Or, more appropriately, I supposed, sorry that he received them in the first place.
He took the needle and waved his wand over it, making it much sharper, shorter, and a bit thinner, then he switched his wand to his left hand and the needle to his right. I resisted the urge to roll my eyes at the fact that he wouldn't drop his wand, but a moment later, without hesitation, he pinched the skin around the wound and jabbed the needle through. Pulling it through the other side, he stopped pinching, and I realized he was making sure the impromptu stitches were not too tight. I also realized, glancing at the rest of his exposed skin, that he must have done this before. I involuntarily winced at what that must have been like for those scars over his ribs.
He started the second and third loop, but the angle was growing difficult for him to reach without straining the thread. Then he held it out to me. "See? Go diagonal." His voice was strained, but he seemed less affected than I felt.
I took the needle and tried in vain to stop my hand from shaking. I knew this wasn't the way that the first aid manual said Muggles do it, but Harry had obviously done this before and that worked out fine. Then I eyed his other scars. Well, for the most part it worked out fine.
He sighed impatiently. "Give it here, I can—"
The disappointment in his voice hurt me more than it should have. "No! I just need to get past the first one, and I'll be fine." I forced my left hand to touch his skin, and he twitched at the contact. He felt like he was on fire, so I imagine my fingers felt freezing to him. Without thinking about it too much, I placed the needle against his skin, aiming for the same distance from the gash and the same angle he'd used. The thought of his skin tearing open from the stitches being too shallow made me squeamish. But Harry was staring at me, with his wand not so subtly aiming at my head. Forcing myself to avoid thinking about that, I focused on the task at hand.
"Okay, I'm at the end," I told him once I'd gotten there, then let out a sigh of relief. "Now what?"
"Add an extra loop or two where you can, then go back up, diagonals in the other direction." He received a glare for that statement, and I may have jabbed him a little too deep on the extra loop. He needed a solid anchor on the far side of his wound, after all.
"Wait," I said, freezing halfway back. "We didn't sterilize the needle."
He stared at me a moment, then he snorted. Was that actual amusement? It seemed a strange reaction to my second accidental attempt to kill him.
For a full week and a half after that, Harry stayed in the house to care for the wound, changing the dressing each day before I even awoke. Thankfully he didn't get an infection; I don't think I would have dealt with that very well. He didn't thank me for helping him, but he started warming up to me again, like he'd started to do before I had basically called him a pampered prince. 'Warm' being a relative term, that is; he glared at me a lot less and started relaxing more around me, but that was the extent of it. He still wouldn't let me go get groceries by myself, so we were stretching the good stuff as much as possible. I was continually surprised at how little he could eat and still not complain. More often than not I had to make him eat more. Not by outright telling him so, though – he'd just refuse out of principle – but he wordlessly accepted and ate more if I gave it to him.
Another thing that surprised me was how often he'd just sit with his eyes closed. He wasn't sleeping, I knew, because he opened them every time I moved more than just turning a page. If it got too quiet, I thought I could hear him whispering even though I couldn't see his mouth moving. That made me quite uncomfortable more than once, because it reminded me of how he acted with the necklace. He never once picked up one of the books, so I assumed he had read them all. Surprisingly he never complained about being bored, or his side hurting, or anything else, really. It was completely unnatural.
"Harry," I said at one point when I'd had enough of the imagined whispering.
He opened his eyes at me.
"Will you teach me something?" I tried my level best not to wither under his expressionless stare.
"What?" He finally asked.
"I don't know," I said, annoyed, "something useful."
"Very well," he said, then closed his eyes.
I waited for several long moments, but he gave no indication that he was going to continue. I was unamused, but I kept it out of my voice. "Well?"
"Patience," is all he said, still without opening his eyes.
What? I looked around, trying to figure out what he meant. When my eyes drifted over the clock I saw it was just after three in the afternoon, could he be waiting for a specific time? But what time would that be? Did he want something to eat, first? Stumped, I gave up. "What are we waiting for?"
"For you to learn patience," he replied, eyes still closed.
My mouth dropped open in shock. Did he—did he just—? I felt it coming, and I couldn't stop it – I burst out laughing. Did he seriously just make a joke? The absurdity of it all, the continually outrageous situations in which I found myself just kept fueling the laughter. I sounded slightly insane, I imagined, but that thought just made me laugh harder.
Harry just let it happen. After it had finally died down to irregular spurts in between attempts to wipe off tears, he spoke with one eyebrow raised. "Are you okay? For a moment there you sounded like—"
His tone of voice and the fact that he trailed off quickly drained off the rest of my temporary insanity. "What? Sounded like who?"
"Nobody," he said, closing his eyes again.
"Harry," I warned, knowing it was futile.
"Bellatrix Lestrange," he said, opening his eyes and surprising me. Once again my mouth dropped open in shock, only this time I felt an explosion of anger coming. "She's dead now," he added.
That smothered the explosion in surprise. "You...you killed Bellatrix Lestrange?"
He nodded. "But not before she gave me this," he said, holding his hand over the wound we'd patched.
Circe's tits! "She was Dark Lord's most trusted lieutenant, and just as frightening as Voldemort himself! In her own way, anyway." I added the last with a shudder, then let out a long breath and sank back onto the chair. "That's amazing, Harry," I said honestly, "really, it is."
"He's not happy," Harry said, seemingly unaffected by my praise. "Especially at losing his Bella. He's been killing a lot more Muggles in retaliation."
I twitched at the way Harry said 'his Bella,' and when he mentioned the Dark Lord's retaliation. Yeah, Muggles aren't really that important, but I didn't think our Ministry could keep the International Confederation of Wizards from stepping in if Voldemort pushed too far.
Wait, where did that thought come from?
I realized that I hadn't really thought of such things for some time...years, even. What was even happening in the greater wizarding world these days? Harry didn't get a paper, I'd noticed; in fact, he didn't receive any owls at all. The thought that the Dark Lord could be building influence internationally chilled me to the bone. What if Stori wasn't safe?
"What are you going to do?" I asked the question in an attempt to distract myself.
"I'm going to kill him," Harry said emotionlessly.
His matter-of-fact declaration, as I'd expect if he said he was going to the grocery store or just discussing the weather, left me struggling for words. I wanted to ask what he was thinking, if he was crazy, and several other questions that probably would make him stop talking. I settled for, "when?"
"As soon as I'm healed," he said, patting his chest. "No sense giving him an advantage he hasn't earned."
"But what if..." I trailed off, not wanting to give away my concern over my sister. "What are you going to do in the meantime? How can I help?"
In response he very deliberately closed his eyes, and my head dropped into my hands in frustration. It wouldn't be the last time I was tempted to make a third 'accidental' attempt to kill Harry Potter.
A/N:
For those of you interested in the writing process, I actually started writing this with the idea that they would cauterize the wound with a hot fireplace poker or something. Turns out that's really, really not a good idea. Stitching like they did isn't a good idea, either (suturing kits are not expensive and do a much better job, but it takes lots of practice to do it right and Harry almost certainly couldn't do it on himself), but I'm pretty sure it's better than doing nothing. And definitely better than burning himself.
Also, Harry was telling the truth: alcohol (especially firewhiskey from an old barrel) is quite a poor disinfectant compared to hydrogen peroxide, but the latter is no longer recommended for use on treating wounds, as it damages the skin cells and may extend healing time. Nowadays a simple saline solution is recommended to irrigate wounds before attempting to close them. I think this is a relatively recent development, but since the wizarding world is so far behind I figured I was safe with keeping the peroxide in there.
Either way, I'm not in the medical field at all (my research consisted of about an hour of Googling) so if you are, just kinda squint your eyes at that bit and pretend I didn't write something stupid. And don't try this stuff at home, people!
Review!