Disclaimer in Chapter 1.
Chapter XV: Tactile Communication
Huddled in the corner of his cell, the inmate stared blankly into space. The soft, echoing drips from the crack in the wall were maddening and captivating at the same time. The inmate liked to imagine that it kept him grounded, this constant aural dissonance.
It was ironic that he'd spent his entire short life listening to rich, complex orchestrated pieces that required years of study to fully appreciate, only to find beauty in the simplest of musical expressions.
Perhaps he was well and truly losing his mind.
It happened to everyone else in this particular pit of hell, it was only logical that it happen to him.
His hair was filthy.
He huddled further into the corner, trying in vain to retain his body heat. It was bitterly cold, and the night would only get colder.
Draco shook his head slowly and whispered in a voice weak and reedy from disuse, "I don't want to die in here..."
"And you won't, if you so choose." A new voice cut through the damp, cold air in his cell.
"Who's there?!" Draco cried hoarsely. New faces couldn't be a good thing... Were they coming to hurt him again?
A pair of piercing blue eyes appeared at the grate, speaking in a clear and gentle voice, "My name is Dr. Lucas Winters. I'm fairly confident that you've never heard of me, so my name is hardly relevant. What is relevant, however, is whether or not you want people to know your name." The corners of his mouth turned up in what seemed to Draco to be a soft smile.
"What do you mean? How did you get in here?" the blonde-haired inmate asked tremulously.
The man held up a small, silver ring, then tossed it casually into the cell. It rolled a short ways towards the shivering boy and tinkled softly on the slick, damp stone. Pointedly ignoring the question of how he entered a high-security Wizarding prison, he said, "I have the feeling that you know exactly what I mean, young Malfoy. This is my calling card."
Draco picked up the ring and examined it. It was a basic design, but very precise and uniform. The only markings on the band were of an intricately etched snowflake. It felt gloriously warm in his hands, and he clasped his hands greedily around it.
"Hungry for warmth, are you? I can give you more that you hunger for; all that you hunger for. How will people remember you, Draco Malfoy? Is this," Dr. Winters motioned to the cave-like appearance of his cell, "how you wish to leave this world?"
The blue-eyed doctor smiled wider this time, and there was a dark, sinister edge to it. "If you want your name to strike fear into the hearts of men, if you want to be more feared than Voldemort himself, then follow me; I will lead you to greatness." He held up his hand to the grate, and Draco saw that he was wearing what appeared to be the same ring, but his was pitch black.
With a curt nod, Dr. Lucas Winters walked away.
Draco didn't even notice the fact that no footsteps accompanied the doctor's departure; he was focused entirely on the silver ring in his hands. It heated further, bleeding warmth into his cold bones. He sighed in relief as his mind focused on something other than constant aural dissonance for the first time in over a month. For several long minutes he stared at the ring, turning it over in his hand and running his fingertip over the snowflake pattern.
With one last look at his dismal surroundings, a steady determination filled his slate-grey eyes. He knew it was a trap; that this ring could very well destroy him, but he didn't care. The last heir of Malfoy would not die here. He would have his vengeance.
He slid the ring onto the middle finger of his right hand, and it immediately constricted until it was too tight to remove. Draco fought the panic rising in his chest, fought to remain still as the ring heated to nearly blistering. He gritted his teeth to keep from crying out as the ring seared his skin and burned its way through the tender muscles in his finger. His breathing came in short gasps as he fought to keep from crying out in pain. His senses were completely overwhelmed with the sheer volume of pain he was feeling. He didn't know how much longer he could stand it...
As if sensing he had reached his threshold, the ring cooled. The pain disappeared with the heat, strangely enough. His breathing was labored as he attempted to regain his composure. The ring was tiny now, a quarter the size it was only a minute ago, and it seemed to have fused with his finger bone. Even as he watched, the muscle, sinew and skin began to grow over the ring. Soon his hand had healed completely, hiding any evidence of the silver ring. He examined his hand in wonder.
A voice rang out inside his head, one he recognized as belonging to the man who had just visited him.
You have done well, Draco, and you should be proud of yourself for withstanding that amount of pain. You have a unique role to play, in that you will be my face to the world. No one will know of me, they will only know of you. They will fear you, respect you. In exchange, you alone will know my face, and you will serve me unquestioningly.
Now I will remake you into something worthy of serving me. Count it an honor, for you are first among my followers. Brace yourself, for I am going to bestow my gift upon you...
Draco was on the verge of hyperventilating as he braced himself against the inevitable onslaught. No sooner had the voice in his head stopped speaking than the first waves of pain ran up his spine, exploding into his head. His mind was being ripped into shreds, rearranged, added to. It was indescribably painful, worse than anything he'd ever felt in his life. He couldn't contain it, and his screams echoed hauntingly in the halls of Azkaban.
Sirius Black's office was a peculiar place, all things considered. He had a few pictures from his Hogwarts years, one wall carried a wide collection of books that he never read (along with a few he did, though they were disguised) and a framed copy of Witch Weekly Magazine in which he was the featured article. Everything else in the room was devoted to Harry. Harry's first broom, every last one of Harry's eighty-six certificates of commendation, at least fifty pictures of Harry on various missions... anyone who spent a minute in Sirius Black's room knew that he was immensely proud of his godson.
And yet, despite all of Harry's impressive achievements and accolades, Sirius had never been more proud of his godson than he was right now.
"So let me see if I've got this straight, Harry: you waltzed in on a girl in the shower, a Weasley no less, while she was showering. She screamed, you ran away. You ignored her for three days, and then said you were sorry. Now everything is right as rain?" Sirius Black's voice had an incredulous tone to it, but he couldn't fight the grin spreading across his face.
"I was not taught how to waltz, Sir, I just walked as I normally do." Harry replied, with a note of irritation underlying his signature monotone.
His chest swelling with pride, Sirius wrapped his godson in a giant bearhug. After releasing him and clapping him heartily on the back he said, "I'm so proud of you!"
The Boy who Lived wrinkled his brow in confusion. He'd known his godfather a long time, but there were still occasions where he was positively unfathomable. "Was that good?" he asked curiously.
"Harry, that was brilliant. I couldn't have done better myself! You silver-tongued stud..." Rubbing his knuckles over his godson's short black hair affectionately, he fought back tears as a strange emotion welled up in him.
For years, Sirius had carried without complaint the debilitating weight of his decision to train young Harry to fight. It was his choice alone to make, and he made the choice he'd hoped that both of them could live with. And they had! But ever since he defeated Voldemort, it had become exceptionally clear that his godson was not capable of just going about his life. He single-handedly brought about the downfall of the darkest wizard in the world, and yet he couldn't have carried on a normal conversation with a civilian.
He hadn't grown up like other boys, constantly surrounded by their peers and improving their ability to interact socially. Harry had never had a girlfriend, never even had a friend that was a girl... never had many friends at all, to be perfectly honest. His friends were just Remus and himself, really.
Shame flooded him when he realized this, about a week after the final battle. He had been so focused on making sure that his godson would live to see the end of Voldemort that he had forgotten to make sure Harry was capable of living afterwards. So he sent him to Hogwarts, to give him a chance at a life he'd never been allowed to live before.
It had been remarkable seeing Harry smile for the first time; seeing the look of joyous exhilaration when he won his first Quidditch match, giving him 'the talk', hearing about his 'rapid abdominal contractions'... It was cathartic, and it gave him hope that maybe, just maybe, he hadn't ruined his godson's entire life in the name of the greater good, after all.
"Sir, my tongue is not made of silver, or any other metallic substance that could be confused as such. You know this. I do not understand." Harry's inquisitive monotone broke Sirius out of his musings.
Well, maybe.
Ginny had waited patiently outside Mr. Black's office for over ten minutes now, and she was never very good at waiting. Her foot tapped impatiently as her ire grew steadily.
"I said I wanted to visit your base, Harry, not stand outside Sirius Black's door while you two talk about Merlin-knows-what..." she muttered to herself, staring down at her new, and rather expensive, black leather boots. She'd gotten them to match her also new, also rather expensive black blouse, which was utterly wasted when the Boy who Lived wasn't there to appreciate it! At least she'd gotten a smile out of him when she came down to the Common Room wearing her new outfit. That was something, considering just how hard it was to make Harry Potter smile.
They were supposed to meet Ron and Hermione at the Three Broomsticks at 1300- she caught herself and smiled- at 1 o'clock at the Three Broomsticks, which left them with a little over two hours to themselves. Alone time with Harry was not to be wasted in a stuffy office, especially if she wasn't even there!
The door opened silently and both men appeared. Sirius was the first to speak. "Sorry for wasting so much of your time on your day off, Ms. Weasley. Harry, show her around, will you?"
"Yes, Sir!" Harry said, saluting crisply.
In a bold move, Ginny looped her arm through Harry's and dragged him off, waving goodbye to Sirius. "Don't worry, I'll keep him out of trouble!" she called back to him as they disappeared around the corner.
"Ginny, where are we going?" the Boy who Lived asked curiously.
"Hey! Aren't you the expert? Show me around already!" she poked Harry in the ribs, which caused him to twitch slightly.
The youngest Weasley grinned widely. She'd been having a remarkably good day so far. Her hair had cooperated quite well, she had finally convinced Harry to show her around his base and she did look rather good in her new outfit. Even her emotionally abusive inner monologue agreed, for once! Yes, this was definitely looking to be a very good day.
The base was quite like a small city, complete with a shopping center, grocery store, video arcade and even two movie screens. Harry wound his way into the interior of a building, coming to a hallway with four doors on the left. "These are called suites. They're single-person rooms for people that have been here a while, with a shared bathroom between us. Edwards, Lewis, McGready... and this one is mine."
Ginny glanced up at him, catching the slight pause in his voice. For a moment, he almost seemed ... shy? She had never heard him talk like that before. "Well, shouldn't we go in, then?" She asked, suddenly feeling nervous. She'd heard stories about the boy's dormitory, how they left dirty magazines and used underwear strewn about...
Harry opened the door to an immaculate, spartan room with white walls. There was a small bed in the corner with a footlocker in front of it and a simple dresser next to it, and there were two handles spaced about a foot and a half apart attached to the ceiling. When asked, Harry replied, "They're for pull-ups." There wasn't a single poster on the wall, no dirty magazines or underwear in sight.
Ginny made her way over to his bed, sitting down on the remarkably hard cushion. It felt like a slab of stone covered in cotton! The dresser only had two items on it; a thin, worn out book and a simply framed picture. "May I?" She asked, reaching for the photograph.
Harry nodded. "Those are my parents, Lily and James, along with Sirius and Remus Lupin." He pointed out each of the people as he spoke.
Looking at the photograph, Ginny's eyes softened. His parents were dancing; laughing and so obviously in love that she wondered how any child of theirs could grow up not knowing how to smile. She looked around his room again, a new resolve burning in her to ensure that he didn't stay here. He deserved better than this.
"Ginny? What else would you like to see?" Harry asked, oblivious to her newfound pledge to keep him occupied and out of this dreary room for as long as possible.
"Hmm..." there were several places she wanted to go, but more than anything she wanted to go to the shop where he bought those White Flag Irises, so that she could buy one and have her mother preserve it. They meant quite a lot to her now, after their 'accident' a few weeks ago. "How about a flower shop? Do you have one of those on base?"
Shaking his head, Harry said, "Negative. I don't know where a flower shop is. I could look it up, if you'd like."
Ginny frowned, confused. "Where did you get those White Flag Irises, then? They don't exactly grow around here."
"I picked them." Harry said, suddenly quiet. He seemed almost shy again, which was very strange to Ginny. She felt the need to urge him on.
"Could you take me there?" she asked hopefully.
"Of course. We'll go the quick way." Holding out his hand, Harry helped her to her feet. In the blink of an eye, he'd turned on the spot and apparated with her. She felt the strange sensation of being pulled through a rubber band, but it was noticeably less uncomfortable than when her Dad brought her along.
No sooner had Harry touched the ground than he turned on the spot again, dragging her through yet another rubber band. They apparated twice more after that; by the time they finally reached their destination, Ginny was nearly sick from all the tangled sensations running through her.
Her sickness was soon forgotten when Harry released her. The temperature was swelteringly hot, but the breeze was cool enough to negate most of the heat. The brightness of the day made her squint, and when she put her hand up to shield the sun she gasped at what she saw: hills, as far as the eye can see, covered in flowers of every shape, size and color.
A pop beside them caused her to jump back slightly, and an old, pleasant-looking woman greeted them with a smile. "Welcome back, Mr. Potter. I see you've brought company this time! Hello there, my name is Madam O'Farrell, welcome to O'Farrell's Exports. We sell flowers, as you can see, and I've been after my husband for some time to change the name to O'Farrell's Flowers, it sounds better, doesn't it? Got a nice ring to it, I say, and it'd keep people from wasting their time asking us if we sell anything else..." The woman said this all quite fast in a hard-to-place dialect; Ginny had a hard time following her.
"Hello Mrs. O'Farrell. This is Ginny Weasley. She wanted to see the place where I got those White Flag Irises a few weeks ago."
With a knowing smile Mrs. O'Farrell said, "Aren't they wonderful? I'm quite fond of them, too! Of course, my husband..."
Whatever her husband thought of them, Ginny didn't particularly care. She interrupted, "You don't suppose I could buy one of those, do you? I wanted one for my Mum, you see..."
"Absolutely not! I'd never charge a friend of Harry Potter's!" The woman looked scandalized, as if she'd been called a thief. She pulled out her wand and aimed it over Ginny's shoulder, making a flicking motion and then muttering gruffly, "Accio!"
A White Flag Iris, with the stem cut quite precisely, flew into her outstretched hand, and she promptly handed the beautiful flower to Ginny with a kindly smile on her face. "There you go, dear. I hope your mother enjoys it."
She turned to go, then whirled around again and said, "Oops!" With a tap of her wand, a small bubble encased the flower, almost causing Ginny to drop it. "It's going to dehydrate a bit if you take it back by portkey, floo or apparition, this should keep the wilting to a minimum, you'll hardly notice it."
Before Ginny could even thank her, the old lady disapparated with a small crack. "Thanks..." she said to nobody in particular, feeling the need to say the word despite her departure. What an odd bird, not to mention... "Harry, she mentioned magical dehydration, how did you keep mine looking fresh?"
In his now recognizably reticent voice, "I decided not to travel by portkey, floo or apparition on the return trip, in an effort to preserve the flower's aesthetic integrity." Harry sounded almost embarrassed to tell her that. Why?
After waiting for a few long moments for a better answer, Ginny prodded him along. "So how did you travel, then?"
Harry muttered something short and unintelligible under his breath, looking at something off to the right.
Ginny poked him in the chest and said, "Hey, look at me. How did you get back?" Idly, she wondered what on earth he could be so shy about. He had walked in on her naked in the shower, a thought which still brought a flush to her cheeks, but he was embarrassed to say how he got her flowers. How barking mad was that?
Making eye contact again, the Boy who Lived said more forcefully, "I said I flew. I flew the return trip. Should we go back to Hogsmeade now?"
The green-eyed Gryffindor was getting better at speaking normally, but he had a lot to learn about changing the topic, and she'd learned quite a bit about the fine art of interrogation since Harry Potter boarded the Hogwarts Express.
"Where are we, Harry?" Ginny asked in a level tone that promised a great deal of pain, should her query remain unanswered.
After a moment's hesitation, he said, "Outside Las Palmas de Gran Canarios, the capital city of the island of Grand Canaria in the Canary Islands."
Ginny blinked, gaped, and then blinked again. "Harry, that's... a long ways away. That's a really long ways away." She looked around, taking in the sights. They were indeed overlooking a rather large resort city. Never in her life had she been this far from home, and Harry had managed it in about ten seconds. It figured.
"A little over 4,000 miles." Harry offered. "Yes, it's quite a distance. Are you thirsty? " He reached for her, apparently trying to apparate them back to Hogsmeade.
She took a step back and asked desperately, "And how in the name of Merlin's baggy Y-fronts did you manage to fly 4,000 miles in a night?!" There was just no way this was possible. They didn't make brooms that fast.
"My new broom tops out at around 600 miles per hour, due to a modified air repelling charm on the nose and extendable, forward-swept wings mounted in the tail. I overshot by a few hundred miles on the first night, but the second night I managed the trip in six and a half hours." Harry looked quite uncomfortable, now, but hadn't yet reverted to his monotone. That was a rather promising sign for Ginny, all things considered.
The second night... six and a half hours... Ginny's heart sank with the realization. He had flown back with a single flower in his hand every night she was angry with him; a full dozen the night before they 'engaged in closed negotiations.' While she and her dorm mates were cursing his existence, Harry Potter was visiting the Canary Islands to pick her a flower, and he flew it back, 'preserving the flower's aesthetic integrity' so it wouldn't look wilted in the morning when she woke up. She thought he'd been ignoring her, avoiding her, but he'd been doing so much just to make her happy, so much that she'd never even thought to ask about...
Ginny Weasley felt positively wretched; she didn't deserve him. He had sacrificed so much for her sake, even after she tried to hex him, and she hadn't even noticed... Her whole body slumped with the thought, but the Boy who Lived grabbed her by the shoulders and righted her again with a shake.
"You weren't supposed to know!" Harry said fiercely, his piercing green eyes boring into hers. "I didn't do it to make you feel worse; I did it to make you happy! I did it because the thought of you being angry made me want to do whatever it took to make it right."
Running a hand through his short, black hair – which Ginny recognized now as a sign of frustration – he continued, "Besides, a few nights of sleep is a small price to pay to see you smile, and –"
Whatever he was going to say next was lost as Ginny dropped the flower she'd been holding, flung her arms around his neck and kissed him full on the mouth. Harry had not been trained for this sort of situation, so he wrapped his arms around her slender frame to support her weight better and just ... stood there. The most incredible sensations were flooding his system in torrents; it could have easily been described as euphoric. Wow.
Closing his eyes, Harry reached out and touched Ginny's mind lightly, finally moving his mouth and evaluating her physical and emotional reactions to his movements. If he sensed that something made her feel good he kept doing it, modifying and adding to it as he discovered what she liked.
Ginny continued kissing him with giddy abandon, never mind that he was absolute rubbish at it. He had been absolute rubbish at a lot of things. He'd get the hang of it in no time, just like everything else he'd picked up over the last few months... She would have hated him for it, if she didn't reap most of the benefits.
As the first minute ran into the second, (which she promptly lost track of, due to his rapidly improving abilities) Ginny's mind wandered where it wandered altogether too often these days.
Harry Potter was an enigma: absolutely hopeless most of the time, but he could do and say the most amazingly romantic things without even knowing how amazing they were. He'd accidentally drink your orange juice at breakfast, and the next morning he would have an entire bowl full of ripe oranges ready to squeeze into your goblet. When you didn't show up at dinner because you were studying for a huge Transfiguration exam the next morning, he'd sneak up your favorite foods and patiently explain things that he probably learned when he was eight years old and hadn't needed since, then give you a five-star, Merlin-help-me-but-his-hands-are-magical back massage to help you get to sleep.
No matter how rigid and uninformed the Boy who Lived could be on occasion, he really was a brilliant bloke... and it was high time he knew how thankful she was. So here she was: standing on a hill, surrounded by rare and astonishingly fragrant flowers, overlooking a city in the Canary Islands, on her tip toes and kissing Harry Potter (the Savior of the Wizarding World, perhaps you've heard of him?) for all she was worth.
She would have giggled at the thought, had her attention not been fully occupied with expressing the full extent of her affection for the green-eyed Gryffindor.
Life was good. Life was very good.
Ron and Hermione were already seated by the time Harry and Ginny made it to the Three Broomsticks. The place was packed, and it took more than a little effort to get to the corner where their friends were.
As they got comfortable in the booth, Ginny grabbed his hand surreptitiously beneath the table and gave it a reassuring squeeze. Harry flashed a small smile just as Hermione asked, "So, what have you two been up to all morning?"
Ginny grinned like a Cheshire cat, and Harry looked at her, silently asking for direction on what exactly to tell them. Ginny picked up his hand in hers and slung his arm over her shoulders, then grinned cheekily up at him and said it was okay to tell them.
Harry nodded and said, "We spent an inordinate amount of time practicing, actually. Ginny taught me several new systems relating to tactile interpersonal communication that I was previously unfamiliar with, and I found it very relaxing and enjoyable. Oddly enough, air management proved to be more difficult than I had previously imagined. It's something I look forward to working on."
Hermione grinned widely at this. "Couldn't have said it better myself, Harry. Congratulations. Ginny, how did you like teaching Harry these new ... systems?" She barely suppressed a chuckle as she finished her sentence, and then almost everyone burst out laughing.
Almost everyone.
Ronald Bilius Weasley was vexed, and most certainly not smiling or laughing madly at this new turn of events.
Wherever Harry had been with his baby sister, something had happened. Something that made her put his arm around her shoulders. Even worse, when Harry said ... whatever it was that he just said, Hermione started grinning like a loon. That was bad, because it meant that whatever Harry and his sister had done, they didn't want him, her caring and insightful older brother, to know. And that, naturally, meant only one thing: they were getting close. Too close.
You see, it was Ron's brotherly duty to ensure that any 'potential' boyfriends were threatened with severe and immediate physical violence, should their 'potential' attempt to realize itself one night. His was an old and glorious profession, stretching across the continents, reaching back to innumerable generations of older brothers, and he had always been exceptionally good at his job. In fact, he hadn't run into a potential boyfriend yet that couldn't be persuaded otherwise with the liberal application of wanton brutality.
The only problem was, simply, that this 'potential' boyfriend had an impossibly, ridiculously large amount of 'potential'. The boy in question, of course, was none other than the vanquisher of Dark Lords, the catcher of snitches, the bane of Malfoys, the speaker of monotone, the Boy who Lived, the defender of the Wizarding World and quite possibly the next Merlin (if he could grow a decent beard), Harry "sunshine-blows-out-of-my-arse" Potter.
Ron didn't doubt for a single moment that this boy was capable of single-handedly stomping the entire school's collective ass (faculty included) well into the next century. Suddenly, having five older brothers to rely on didn't seem like much of a consolation.
Coincidentally enough, he just so happened to be this boy's best mate; and since best mates just don't go around threatening each other with wanton brutality and painful, debilitating injuries...
Ronald Bilius Weasley was vexed.
This was indeed a conundrum of epic proportions, and he couldn't possibly be expected to ascertain the proper course of action with only a minute's thought. This would take time and many, many owls of correspondence between him and his fellow brothers.
Hermione glanced over at Ron, who had gone into one of his 'older brother' broodings. She'd have to have a talk with him about that before he did something he'd regret, like opening his mouth. It was one of the things that she adored about him, his fierce, relentless loyalty, but all too often it was directed in entirely the wrong way...
Harry spent the rest of the Hogsmeade trip drinking, talking and laughing. Ron dragged him into Zonko's, but when an errant filibuster firework caused the Boy who Lived to blow up a nearby display case, they were politely asked to leave.
As the green-eyed Gryffindor trudged up the hill towards the familiar outline of Hogwarts, he couldn't help but feel as if he was going home. It was, he decided after little deliberation, a very good day.