Chapter Forty-Three: Captured

Neville tapped on the door, juggling the hot cups of tea, trying not to spill. "Harry?" He cocked his head to the door. "It's me, Neville. May I come in?"

He thought he heard a muffled yes and jiggled the handle open. He nudged the door wide with a foot and slipped into the darkened room.

Draco had been gone from his body for over an entire day. When the blond had come back, he'd spent the hour he was conscious in the toilet, vomiting. Then he had passed out, much to everyone's panic. Madam Pomfrey had declared it an episode of magical exhaustion and scolded them all for being too excitable.

Very few members of the House had left the dorms that weekend. Neville had spent the better part of his time writing to relatives he had not spoken to in years in hope to find some sort of leverage they could use to pry Harry from St. Mungo's early.

Their break had come from a cousin of Millicent's, a young law wizard who had agreed early on to look at the documents that Sirius Black and the hospital had to file with the Ministry. A bribe in the right place had them copies of the automated records within hours of their figuring out where Harry had been taken. They had found a loop hole in the admissions forms, where they could tear apart the involuntary hold and take Harry from the hospital immediately, with or without an official writ from the Ministry. The break had come late in the evening on Sunday – rather very, very early Monday morning. Few of the older year Slytherins had gotten sleep that weekend. Their Head of House had arranged it so they could eat in the common room, away from the riot of speculation and gossip that had infested the rest of the school since Harry had been taken. Most of them had collapsed into their beds when Professor Snape went with the Headmaster to retrieve Harry. Neville had fallen asleep on the couch by the time they had returned, just after dawn. All of them were excused form that day's classes.

Draco was still in the Infirmary when Neville had woken. Harry had been taken to his room to rest. It hadn't taken long for Draco's messages to reach the dorms via Madam Pomfrey – don't let Harry be alone. Draco wouldn't say why.

So Neville had taken it upon himself to keep Harry company until the Malfoy heir was released from the Infirmary.

"Harry?" The room was lit just by the fire roaring on the hearth. The bed was empty – Neville set the thick mugs of tea on the small table near the fire. The chairs were empty, so was the desk, except…

Neville knelt down and peered under the bed. He swallowed the startled yelp that wanted to escape his throat when he came face to face with the other boy.

"Harry?" He asked when he figured his voice wouldn't crack out of fear.

"Hello, Neville." Harry was curled up on his side, a blanket wrapped around his body and a pillow clutched tight to his chest.

"Ah, I brought some tea."

"Thank you, Neville."

Neville glanced around the room, lost as to what to do. "You need to come out of there, Harry," he finally settled on. A voice that sounded like his Gran spurred him on. "Hiding from it won't make it all go away."

Green eyes stared at him. "Neville…" Harry trailed off with a sigh.

Neville stared back at him. "No, Harry," he said. "I won't let you slip away like my Mum and Dad. You have to fight this, Harry, this black feeling you have, weighing you down. You can't give in," he set his jaw. "We won't let you give in."

Time stretched between them as Harry continued to stare. Then, a tiny smile curled the other boy's mouth. "Never change, will you?" Harry let go of the pillow and propped his chin up with a dusty palm.

"Huh?" Was Neville's answer.

Harry's smile grew. Neville could see fine lines appearing around the boy's eyes – lines that had not been there days before. "Shove over then," Harry said, wiggling out of his hiding place. Neville held the comforter for him as he crawled free.

Neville was a little confused as to how he'd gotten the other boy out from under the bed, but decided not to question it. If it worked, then it worked, as Blaise was fond of telling him.

"Here," Neville handed Harry one of the mugs once they had settled in on the chairs near the hearth. They had yet to light any of the lamps – the warmth of the fire and the dimness of the room made it feel cozy instead of remote. Neville took a sip from his mug and studied Harry from under his lashes.

Harry did not look good. He was pale, but then he was always pale. The dark bags under his eyes were not new, either. No, it was the way his skin seemed drawn over his bones, almost brittle-looking, like a drum drawn too taut and ready to crack. In the dim light, Harry's eyes were hard to name a concrete color – Neville knew they were green, had known they were green from first year on, but…In that moment, as the both of them drank their tea and watched the fire, Neville couldn't name the color of Harry's eyes. Too bright to be black, too dark to be anything else. It was an unsettling thought.

"So," Neville said to break the silence. "How – I mean, are you all right?"

Harry's cup checked its progress to his mouth. He had needed both hands to steady it. "Most people would ask me what happened first," he said.

Neville shrugged. "I'm not most people."

"True," Harry let the mug rest on his leg. "I…will be all right, I think."

"You think?"

Harry's lips pressed together as he shifted a look towards Neville and then away. "They shattered my mind," he said.

"They what?" Neville's question cracked between them like a whip. Harry flinched.

"They…" Harry's shoulders began to curl forward.

"I'm sorry," Neville blurted, one hand held out between them, but not daring to touch. "I'm a git, sorry, Harry. Didn't mean to yell." He knew better than to yell, even by accident. His parents sometimes reacted that way, when they had caught him by surprise with one of their outbursts.

Harry's shoulders straightened. "You're not a git, Neville," he fiddled with his mug. "They just…Fondorn's an ass," Harry's sudden snarl made Neville blink. "He was – is – a horrid, horrid man who should die screaming in a fire." Harry's fingers were bleached white from his stranglehold on his mug.

"Right," Neville said, blinking.

"All he wanted was to do tests on me," Harry's jaw worked a few times. He kept his gaze on the shifting tongues of flame in the fireplace. "Professor Snape has Auror Rayne coming as soon as he's free. I'm glad."

"Who?"

"Auror Rayne," Harry heaved a sigh. "He's one of the ones that escorted me to the Dursleys last year. He got worried for me and Professor Snape thought I'd do well to talk to the man about…things. He's got a degree in it, even."

"That's…good," Neville finished off the last of his tea. "Does it help?"

"To talk?" Harry shrugged and glanced at him. "Yes and no. I can feel angry and not be guilty about it, which makes it easier."

"Angry?"

"At Sirius," another shrug, this one short and choppy. "At – at Fondorn. At whatever I need or want to be angry at."

"…Oh."

"They –," Harry blew out a breath. "Never mind."

Neville shook his head. "It's all right, Harry. I don't mind."

Harry wet his lips. "Well, it started out like this…"

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"Harry?" Draco approached the figure sitting on one of the large boulders that lined the shore of the lake. He could see the ripples from the giant squid moving under the deep water – Severus had told them of the natural hot springs that existed somewhere in the depths of the lake, making it possible for the squid to stay alive during the long winter months.

Their winter term tests had been pushed back a week. They were due to start them after the weekend – Harry had been excused from classes while he healed from the tests that the healers at St. Mungo's had put him through. He would return to take the term tests, one each day for all of their classes. Their professors were kind to them that year. Umbridge was gone, leaving the Headmaster to fill her place – they had learned more during the one week of the woman's absence than they had during most of the preceding years – minus, he had to add for the sake of fairness, the year they had the werewolf teach Defense Against the Dark Arts.

Draco and the others had watched Harry over the long week of recovery. Severus had been frantic – a state that was hard to spy in the Potion Master's usually curt manner, but Draco could tell. He didn't blame the man. Draco, more than any of them, knew just how bad the situation had been, and still was, to a point.

Draco pushed the memories of their long vigil in the Cupboard Under the Stairs aside as he rounded the tall boulder. Harry was curled up at the top, knees pulled in tight to his chest, expression distant. It was becoming a familiar sight to them all.

"Harry?"

The other boy blinked, drawing in a breath. He turned and focused on Draco, something that seemed as though it took effort to accomplish. "Hello," Harry said.

Draco clambered up to sit next to the other boy. "Rayne just leave?"

"Yes, he waited until he saw you exit the castle."

They'd had Auror Rayne visiting almost every day. The young Auror had left the dorms the first few times shaking with rage. Harry had been venturing out the last few meetings, which Draco encouraged over Severus' dark mutterings – the less Harry felt trapped, the happier he was.

"I got a letter from Sirius today," Harry said. Draco curbed the instinct to snarl and demand the thing, just to set it on fire.

"Ah," was all he said instead.

"He wants to make things right," Harry frowned, his nose wrinkling as he stared out over the glassy surface of the lake.

"Was that what you wanted to talk to me about?" Draco mimicked Harry's pose. There was a warming spell surrounding the boulder, cutting down the bitter chill in the air.

"Not really," Harry sighed. "But I thought you should know."

"Thank you for telling me." That earned him a glanced and a wry smile.

"Don't look at me like that," Harry huffed out a laugh. "You of all people don't need to worry if I'll break. Go ahead and say what you want."

"He's a right git and I want to burn the bloody letter to ashes and sow the remains with salt."

"I think someone else needs to talk with Auror Rayne."

"I'm a Malfoy. We do not have therapy sessions. We break things instead."

"How's that working out for you?"

"Wonderfully. I've finally destroyed the last of great-great Aunt Mildred's china."

That earned Draco a real laugh. "Your father let you?"

"My father has been working on it since he was in Hogwarts."

"That's a lot of china."

"Great-great Aunt Mildred was a strange, strange woman."

Harry laughed again, a few lines of tension easing from his face. "You'll have to introduce me to her portrait one day."

"I would be honored – but I'm not allowed near her. Father's orders. Perhaps the house elves can take you."

"I'd like that."

Draco studied the pale face across from him. Some of the shadows had faded from under Harry's eyes. The gaunt hollows of his cheeks had lessened. But there was still that odd brittleness to his aura that had most of the House walking on eggshells around him – especially Ginny Black. The younger witch had not said more than three words to Harry during the entire week – but Draco had to admit, Harry had said just as few back. Neither of them seemed to know what to do or say around each other any more.

"I was thinking," Harry said into the silence. "About feathers."

"And?"

"The Morrigan said to me that she knew this thing she was hunting, this god or whatever," Harry rubbed his nose with the back of his hand. "So, I was thinking, maybe we could isolate the myths about the Morrigan and go from there?"

"Pansy and Millicent have already dragged Hermione to the library."

"Ah, good."

"Have you…seen anything?"

"…No, which worries me." Harry leaned into Draco's side. "I need to do something different than what we have been doing, but I don't know what or how."

"We'll find it, Harry. You know we will."

"I feel bad, taking people from their studies while I'm not there to help."

"You needed to heal. That's what friends are for, Harry. To help you."

"You have tests to study for."

"As do you."

Harry shook his head, a contemplative expression on his face. "No, Draco. I'm not sure if I do."

"What do you mean?"

"What profession do you think I should go into, then?" Harry tilted a glance at Draco. "I'm no good for the Auror program. I'm pants at just about everything else."

"You could teach."

"…Perhaps, perhaps," Harry let out a soft breath. Draco curled an arm around the other boy, content to hold him close.

"How much longer until Professor Snape comes to chase us back inside?"

"Long enough."

"Can we stay out here, then?"

"As long as you like."

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To Harry's surprise, it felt good to enter classes again. The world mended itself in bits and pieces as he walked down the halls flanked by his Housemates. It felt good to be doing something so normal again.

As he had expected, he did not perform exceptionally well on the tests. Most of the questions had him feeling lost – though he answered them to the best of his abilities. It did little to bolster his confidence about his career choices after schooling – if he even had a life after school – during his darker moments, Harry suspected Fate was out to crush him.

Still, it was nice to be doing something normal, even if it felt like something large and horrible was looming on the horizon. Harry had come to accept that even though he could not name that darkness that was gathering, something was going to happen and he vowed to react this time and not sit passive as the events unraveled around him.

Thursday rolled around, bring with it the hardest of their practical exams – Transfiguration. All of them were wiped from the grueling tests. McGonagall gave the Houses no mercy on her exams.

They were collapsed in varying states of exhaustion by that afternoon in the common room. Harry had the small sofa to himself – Draco was sprawled out on the ground beneath him.

"That was bloody brutal," Blaise had an arm thrown over his eyes and his head in Neville's lap.

"I think I passed out at one point," Pansy rubbed at her eyes, making a face at the smear of mascara that ended up on her fingers. "McGonagall is a wretched, wretched woman. As if I'll ever need transfigurations!"

"You're going to be a decorator, right?" Neville asked.

"That's what I plan…why?"

Millicent threw one of the small couch pillows at the other girl. "You will most definitely need it, you airhead. They use the spells to transform the rooms to the client's choosing before marking down the changes."

"Oh, no!" Pansy's wail made them all chuckle. "I'm bloody doomed!"

"You were always doomed," Blaise squeaked as Neville poked him in the ribs. He rolled his head to the side, catching Harry's gaze. "Hey," Harry tensed at the gleam that entered Blaise's eye. "Future boy, how do you think we all did?"

There was a tense silence. Until that moment, none of his Housemates had dared tease him about the recent complications to his life.

"You," Harry felt Draco touch his arm. "You most definitely failed, Blaise. Worse than Pansy over there."

The burst of laughter cleared the tension from the air.

"Hey now!"

"Hey, Harry, do you think Pansy's little dream job will ever happen?" One of the other Seventh year girls who Harry did not know asked.

"Could happen," Harry winked at the blond girl. "If she passes McGonagall's class."

"Hey! Did I pass Ancient Runes?" Draco tugged at his arm.

"The future is cloudy. Ask later, after you've brought me chocolate."

"Hey, who do you think will win the Quidditch cup?" Another person called.

"Slytherin."

"How about how's going to win the House Cup?" Someone else called out.

"The Yanks."

It felt good to laugh again, Harry realized. The broken bits in his head still flared up from time to time, stealing small gasps between his chuckles, but still. Draco's warm hand curled around his, keeping him grounded, safe and warm in what remained of the steady part of his mind.

It feels so good to laugh again, Harry threw back his head as the rest of the House began to offer up their own visions of the future, each more outrageous than the next. Merlin, let it last.

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Draco woke from another intense dream, grasping at the sheets.

"You know, from this angle, those dreams sure look like something else."

Draco yelped and twisted on the bed. Harry stared back at him, half hidden by the deep shadows of the room.

"Harry?" He couldn't help the silly grin that threatened to spread across his face.

Harry moved forward, dressed just in his pajamas and crawled in between the sheets of Draco's bed.

"H-Harry?" Draco leaned back on his hands as Harry crawled over him to settle on his lap.

"Wings," the other boy said after a long moment where Draco tried to focus on everything but the boy on his lap.

"What – wings?"

Harry nodded, solemn and strange in the dim light of the room. "Wings," he repeated.

"I don't understand."

"You reach and reach, but you can't find them," he got a sleepy blink from Harry and the press of the other boy's hot palms against his cheeks. "You race and race and the edge of the cliff is coming, but you can't see it, not yet."

"Harry?"

Without warning, the dark haired boy slumped against Draco's chest. "Mmn," Harry murmured, causing Draco to shudder. "I'm so tired."

Draco curled an arm around Harry to keep him from falling over. He pushed his bangs out of his eyes with his free hand. He was still muddled by the dream, muscles still shaking in places. But…Harry's words did make sense. He did feel like he was straining, pushing forward, trying to grasp something that seemed just – just out of reach.

"Wings?" He directed his question to the dark head drooling on his chest. He got a soft sigh as an answer. "…Wonderful," he prodded Harry's side, but the other boy was out like a light. It took a bit of wriggling, and considerable concentration on things that were not of Harry's body, before Draco got them laid out side by side on the bed.

"Wings, eh?" he asked the darkened canopy. The drowsy call of sleep was his only answer.

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Scrimgeour threw down the latest reports with a sigh. The headache that had been hounding him all week pounded right behind his eyes in time with his heartbeat. He massaged the bridge of his nose, but to no avail. The world felt like it was coming apart at the seams around him and he had no idea as to what to do.

The muggle world was nearing the brink of war. Scrimgeour had studied enough of that other, larger world to know what kind of danger lay in those muggles' hands. The disappearances were mounting up, all pregnant woman and children, sometimes snatched right from their homes in the greater London suburbs. The muggle police were at a loss. Protesters had surrounded some of the ancient sites. Old worshippers, new believers, they would clash with the protesters from time to time, causing riots and all sorts of other public disobedience. The world was a mess, terrified and confused and the muggles had no answer as to what was going on, much less why. That was where his job was growing tricky.

The other wizarding Ministers were urging for exposure of their world to the muggles. Some of the older royal lines already knew of their existence – a few of the German princes had asked for help, sending that part of the European magical community into chaos.

Scrimgeour was torn. He knew the danger that lay in letting the muggles muddle it out for themselves, but the years and years of tradition – and not to mention laws – that bound him from formal exposure to the normal human world was immense. Scrimgeour did not like muggles as a general rule – they were strange, alien creatures that used things when magic was so much better. They polluted the world around them without care – and yet, and yet, many had argued that the muggles had a magic of their own; their strange technology that let them see things far smaller than any spell could enhance and allowed them to travel to places that supposedly had no air to breathe. Rufus was still confused on that last point.

To add to his troubles, the bloody Potter brat was acting up again, sending the press into fits of gossip-induced raptures. The Daily Prophet alone had taken the boy's side in what seemed to be a never-ending war of speculation on what kind of Dark Wizard Harry Potter would turn out to be. Add to that the small weekend stint in St. Mungo's, which had most of the wizarding population of Britain convinced of the boy's insanity. Any stint at St. Mungo's was a stigma in the view of most witches and wizards, Scrimgeour knew it all too well. He'd seen it happen time after time when he had been the head of the Auror department.

Speaking of his old job, he scowled down at another report. Auror John Rayne was taking more leave days that he was authorized. Reports on the man's whereabouts pointed him to Hogwarts every time. Rufus could just imagine what kind of nonsense was going on. He needed his Aurors to be focused on their jobs – and yet…and yet…He also needed that connection, however thin, to the bloody Boy-Who-Lived and his new guardian. Albus Dumbledore had burned a lot of bridges in taking Harry Potter on as his ward – but the old coot still had enough clout to make Rufus' life hell if he so chose.

"Sir?"

He glanced up at the aide that hovered in the doorway. Chase – Casey – Rufus could never remember the young man's name, despite the fact that the aide had been working for him for Merlin knew how long.

"Yes, er…Chris?"

"Colin, sir."

"Of course, do pardon me."

"Yes, sir, of course," the young man ducked his head and stepped into the room. "I have more files for you," he set them on a pile of reports from his still-loyal Aurors in the department. "Do you want them now, or…?"

"Later, please," Rufus waved a hand at the stack of paperwork in front of him. "I'm up to my neck in letters as it is."

"Of course, sir," Colin took up the stack of files and headed out the door at a quick pace. Rufus admired that about the young interns his office had found. Always so quick and eager to do their jobs.

He never noticed that the stack of papers that had been under the files was considerably less than they had been before Colin had retrieved his pile from the desk.

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Harry came out of his normal dream with a gasp. He was not in his physical body – he had no problem discerning the two anymore. His spirit body was trapped, held in what felt like claws, suspended from some height in what he assumed was the air.

It was the Dark, he realized a panicked moment later. The shifting gloom was constricting around him, the panic coming not only from his own body, but from the semi-sentient thing that held him.

Harry did not understand the Dark. At times it tried to kill him, at other times it almost seemed to help him – either way, each time he met it alone he always came away injured. That was something else he was determined to change.

He struggled in its grasp, but it held on tight. The Dark began to lift, revealing a pocket – a something – a –

A pit, Harry squinted at the hazy outline. It was little more than a large hall, gray stone built out of the Dark, holding a pit and what looked like chains handing down from the ceiling. Harry sniffed – he's seen worse. The not-quite-right part of his mind chimed in that he could always be an interior decorator for the up and coming Dark Lords, should he survive to his majority. He'd certainly had enough exposure to know what was chic and what was just tacky.

Harry had gotten used to ignoring that not-quite-right part of his brain lately.

There were feathers everywhere. As he watched, held captive by the Dark, a bloody hand reached up from the pit, straining towards something Harry could not see. A scream echoed through the ether, sending chills down Harry's spine. He knew that scream.

It was the Morrigan.

Harry renewed his struggles against the Dark. He bent his will, his magic, everything against the nameless void that held him as a silent watcher. He would not allow this to happen, not to her. He would not –

The image began to distort around him. He heard shouting, a man's scream of denial and rage. He heard the crash of steel on steel. Harry wanted to beat his hands against the fading image, hook his fingernails into the fabric of the Dream and pull it forward to see, to check, to pray that the man he had heard and glimpsed was not what he had thought he had seen.

Gwyn ap Nudd's piercing scream of agony echoed Harry's as he was ejected from the Dark's hold, back to bloody reality and Draco's worried expression.

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Pythia jerked awake with a gasp. Homer's prone form lay in front of the fire. There was something – something – holding her down –

Hands seized her as she tried to flee, to go to Homer and drag them both away. She screamed as the things resolved into people, people with sticks of elm and cypress, pointing at her and saying crude Latin phrases that made her bones turn into liquid agony. She flung out a hand towards the veil, sobbing breathless in the moment between attacks, her throat too raw to speak, lost to all but screaming. The veil over the abyss fluttered, the thick material darker than the robes that the intruders had worn. A gap appeared in the curtains. She reached out, aware of bones breaking as she reached, reached – reached…

Her voice broke to a thousand pieces as Homer's blood splattered the walls and doused the fading embers of the fire. The curtains billowed, a giant gust of air as one after the other of her attackers left, leaving just two to grasp her arms and haul her up between them and vanish with an ear splitting crack of air.

End Chapter Forty-Three