WARNINGS for this chapter: gore.
Chapter 31: Norma and Circinus
Benveniste arrived on Friday. She walked into their potions lab, when Harry was pouring another gallon of the screening solution into the last empty jerrycan. She surveyed the rows of containers with the results of their month's work, unscrewed a couple of lids, sniffed, and gave a satisfied grunt.
"The eye regrower?"
Draco gestured her to his half of the room and showed the small crystal bottle of Spectrogenium.
"Polyjuice?"
Draco took the lid off the copper cauldron.
"Good." Benveniste pulled a vial out of her breast pocket, which contained something brown and fluffy. She emptied it into the cauldron and gave it a stir with a wave of her wand. In a matter of seconds, the grey sludge turned into vibrant metallic liquid, like quicksilver. Its smooth surface gave off a perfect reflection of Benveniste's wand.
"Gorgeous." Benveniste took a spoonful and swallowed it without a second thought. Her body began to change, and next moment, they saw Ewen hastily pushing a pair of dainty ballerina flats off his overlarge feet. "Let's see how it goes down with these eyes." He— er, she fell into a chair and threw her head back, her eyes wide open. Harry's breath hitched.
"What are you waiting for, gentlemen? Mr Malfoy? Spectrogenium!"
"Er. Yes, Professor." Draco shuddered, searched frantically for something, gave it up, pulled a small amount of the potion with his wand out of the bottle, and put a drop into each of, well, Ewen's eyes.
Benveniste blinked.
"Good," she said flatly, and to Harry's dismay, Draco sent the potion down the drain again.
The conversation that ensued was in a dialect that Harry didn't understand. Benveniste wanted it 'sharper'. Snape complained about the quality of the jequirity beans. Hesitantly, Draco offered to 'cue' them up, or to 'queue' them up, perhaps, whatever that meant. Benveniste was perplexed, but Snape looked interested. Then it was just the two of them, Snape interrogating and Draco dropping numbers. Ewen's brown hair grew black again and interlaced itself back into a waist length plait, as Benveniste was putting her shoes on.
Harry left quietly, before they made him clean up.
Ewen arrived on Saturday, but Benveniste prescribed him a strict regime of physical exercise, meditation, and sleep, so Harry only got to see him briefly at lunch.
"Where is Draco?" he said, looking down like a demigod at the students scattered around the hall.
"In the dungeons, probably, rebrewing the stuff for your eyes for a hundredth time." Harry sensed tension and hastened to add, "Everything's under control. Draco's doing an amazing job."
Ewen gave him a chaste kiss and floated like a swan out of the Great Hall.
Draco had rebrewed Spectrogenium three times since yesterday, but each time Benveniste took on Ewen's shape to test it, his mind went blank. Now she half-sat in front of him again, her head thrown back, Ewen's Adam's apple protruding under her— his pale skin, and it took Draco all his self-possession to steady his hands and apply the potion.
Benveniste closed her eyes and opened them again. They sparkled like diamonds.
"Excellent!" she said decidedly, Snape threw up his eyebrows and didn't say anything sarcastic, and prickling warmth spread in Draco's chest.
"Now you'd better get Mr Potter here and take the whole stock upstairs," Benveniste said, turning back into a woman. The Adam's apple disappeared. Draco would never get used to it.
Sunday morning was grey, but not dark. When Draco entered the Divination classroom, he expected to see it flooded with cold light, but the windows were draped with black-out curtains, and it seemed like he had walked straight into a deep moonless night.
A circle was drawn on the floor in the middle of the classroom, with runes inscribed and five burners spread evenly along its perimeter. The burners were heating cauldrons with what, judging by the resinous smell, must have been the screening solution.
In the centre of the circle Ewen was sitting cross-legged on a yoga mat. Benveniste was kneeling behind him. She greeted Draco with a nod and continued massaging Ewen's neck. Ewen was cradling a cup of tea in his hands. Or was it one of Potter's potions?
"Morning, guys!" Ewen said cheerfully. "Excited?"
"Yeah," Potter said behind Draco's shoulder. He hadn't noticed him arriving.
"How are you?"
"I'm excited too." Ewen took a sip of his tea. "By the way, who are we summoning, Norma or Circinus?"
That was a good question! It hadn't occurred to Draco that they would even get to choose. But Ewen could probably not be possessed by more than one spirit at a time.
"Circinus," Draco blurted out spontaneously, just as Potter said "Norma".
"Nice to see you agree, gentlemen." Benveniste stood up and took the empty cup out of Ewen's hands.
"It doesn't really matter, I suppose," Potter said.
"If not, I could just go down and see which one's easier to get," Ewen suggested.
Draco wasn't sure at all that it didn't matter. If the Louberts were as patriarchal as the Malfoys, then business was done with the head of the house, who was always male. On the other hand, women were probably more talkative. Draco didn't dare to voice any of these ideas in front of Benveniste and nodded silently.
Benveniste put a chair right in front of Ewen but outside the circle.
"Here, Mr Malfoy. Since this is your ancestor, I expect you will do most of the talking." She gestured to Potter to take a seat next to him. "I hope you have invested some thought into how you are going to conduct the interview. The sooner we're done, the better. Ewen's health is at stake."
Draco felt at the piece of parchment with the list of questions in his pocket, but had a strange premonition that it wouldn't be of any use, be that because of the lighting conditions, or because he'd forget about it the moment he saw Circinus. Or Norma.
Now that Draco's eyes had adjusted to the dim light, he noticed a stretcher leaned against the first row of desks, and his bottle of Spectrogenium standing next to an assortment of other vials and jars with unknown content. It looked like there was more than one thing that could go wrong, and Benveniste had prepared for all eventualities. Draco's stomach shrank to the size of a shrivelfig.
Benveniste went into the circle, knelt in front of Ewen, and held him reassuringly by the shoulders. She whispered something to him, Ewen nodded. She sighed and gave him one last pat on his shoulders.
"Let's begin then," she said, getting back to her feet and out into the dark depth of the classroom.
"Look into my eyes, Draco," Ewen said, "and no Occlumency please."
For a few seconds their eyes were locked. Draco felt a warm calm presence penetrate his mind slowly but confidently. Pictures of his father flashed in a rapid succession. They were standing in front of the mirror in the drawing room, he was persuading father to flee, and father listened to him, probably for the first time ever. Then father was prostrated on the floor, kissing the Dark Lord's shoes and begging him to stop the torture. Then they were in his study, and father was teaching him to kill. As they sank deeper and deeper into the past, the pictures became less dark. Father buying Nimbus 2001s for the whole Slytherin team, father buying him his fifth, fourth, third, second, and finally his first broomstick. Father buying this and father buying that. Father applauding him on his first flight around the Manor. That was a sunny memory. He should try it for the Patronus.
And then the vision vanished, and Ewen's warm presence was gone too. Ewen's eyelids fell closed and he stretched out on the mat, on his back, his arms open.
Nothing happened for a very long time. They sat in silence, waiting. The steam that rose from the five cauldrons was pulled into the circle and moved in a slow whirlwind above Ewen's motionless body. The steam changed colour from orange to yellow to white to blue, and grew thicker. After a while Ewen's feet were the only part Draco could see clearly. The rest of his body blurred in the spinning mist.
Benveniste checked on the cauldrons every so often, and added more screening solution from the jerrycans. No one said a word.
Draco's feet were cold and his stomach was still churning. Was Ewen now flipping through the private pages of his paternal bloodline like it was his own diary? Did he see all those senior Malfoys freak out about their moth-eaten family traditions? Did he hear them whine over their punishments for stepping out of line? Did he get to the bottom of their secret dreams that they'd never dare confess to their fathers? Was he, Draco, now supposed to feel guilty for exposing them like that?
He remembered courtroom number eleven. The Goyles, the Notts, the Vaiseys, the Mulcibers, the Selwyns, he had exposed them all. He hadn't left them a fig leaf to cover themselves with! And what was he doing now? Surrendering all his forefathers to some half-baked crystal gazer of dubious social background? Who shagged him, to top it all! His father's voice cut through him like a saw and Draco screwed up his face in pain.
This was unfair! After all, it was his father's fault that he was in this idiotic situation in the first place. He had known more about the locket than he had told him. Why hadn't he told him what he knew? Because he didn't trust that he would be able to keep it hidden from the eyes of the Ministry's mind readers? If only father knew what he had kept hidden.
And now? In fact, he was doing exactly what his father wanted. Finding out how the locket worked. And Ewen was not half-baked. He was the most powerful young seer in Britain. And who had a dubious social background anyway? At least, in Ewen's family no one was convicted of a crime. And as for who shagged whom, well, Draco was gay and that was it! He would never marry a witch, and his father had better get used to the idea.
Draco had recited this monologue so many times in his head, he knew it by heart by now. But would he ever dare repeat these words to his father's face? Draco dismissed the thought. He would worry about it, when his father was out of Azkaban, which might be never.
Draco continued staring at Ewen's feet. Where was he now? Had he reached Hyperion? Had he managed to go from Hyperion straight to Gerard? Or was he forced to work his way through the entire nine hundred years of Malfoys? Did they notice that he was messing with their souls? Were they angry with him?
Suddenly, Ewen's toes gave a twitch. Next, two fiery eyes lit up in the blue mist. Two beams of orange light pierced the space inside the circle. And then, the swirling particles pulled together, and formed, piece by piece, two, yes, two human shapes.
Draco heard a sharp intake of breath and hectic movement at the back of the classroom. A soft buzz went off above their heads. The camera mounted on the ceiling sprang to life. Benveniste emerged from the darkness and raised her wand.
The figures in the column of dim light, a man and a woman, did not look like ghosts at all. The fabric of their garments radiated warmth and comfort, the trimmings and the jewels gleamed proudly, and a good deal of smiling was imprinted in their wrinkles. The only thing that betrayed that they were not flesh and blood was that they weren't trampling Ewen down, but were floating weightlessly above his body.
Benveniste pointed her wand at the woman and whispered an incantation. The woman shuddered, blinked, and peered warily into the darkness. Benveniste repeated the charm on the man. He gasped, but let out a relieved sigh when he saw his wife next to him.
"Darling!"
"Love!"
"Where are we?"
They huddled together and looked around. Their eyes fell on Draco, and on Harry next to him.
"Hello," said the woman. She didn't look alarmed any more, but totally bewildered.
"Madame and Monsieur Loubert," Draco started hesitantly.
"Who are you, boy?" said Madame Loubert.
"I am Draco Malfoy. A distant descendant of your son, Herman Loubert Malfoy."
Both Louberts froze, transfixed, as if Benveniste took back her enlivening charm. The camera buzzed persistently above their heads.
"Herman?" Madame Loubert's furrow tightened.
Draco produced the locket and held it up in the light of his wand. What other evidence could he offer? "This belonged to you, I suppose. My father inherited it from Herman."
The Louberts gaped at the locket, then at Draco again.
"You are Herman's boy?" said Monsieur Loubert, "Darling, this is Herman's boy!"
"Herman lived?!" Two big tears swelled in Madame Loubert's eyes.
"Yes," Draco said. "He lived to old age and had three sons. The first two died childless, but his third son, Henry, carried on the, er, the name."
Draco wasn't sure if 'the' name was the right word for it in the present circumstances, but the Louberts didn't seem to care. Madame Loubert was weeping. Monsieur Loubert stretched out his arms to Draco, but started disintegrating as he approached the edge of the circle, and quickly returned to its middle. He pressed Madame Loubert tight to his chest, but continued staring at Draco with a half-happy half-insane look.
"I told you he lived!" He patted Madame Loubert's back. "I always believed."
"You did!" she whispered between sobs.
"I told you he took our locket."
"What does it matter now."
"Look what a fine boy! Draco Malfoy, was it?"
Draco glanced at Harry nervously. The fine boy was sitting next to him really. He wanted to point it out, but the moment didn't feel right.
Madame Loubert wiped away her tears, and they both grinned at him lavishly, like he was their newborn baby. Draco's face burned, his brain was melting down, and some silly part of him was ready to curl up and coo in their arms.
"Tell us about Herman!" said Madame Loubert.
"Tell us about your family! About you!" said Monsieur Loubert.
Draco took a deep breath.
"What can I say?" There was a lot to tell. Ever since he could understand and even before he could speak, he had been fed with stories of the great deeds of his ancestors, he could recite them in his sleep. "Herman came to England with William, Duke of Normandy, later King of England, and for his assistance in consolidating his power, William rewarded Herman with knighthood and land."
"Knighthood and land?!" Madame Loubert said and pressed her hand to her chest.
Monsieur Loubert laughed, brushing a tear from his eye.
"When Herman was a little boy, he wanted to become king when he grew up! Knighthood and land! That's about the closest a common sorcerer can get to a king," he said smugly.
Madame Loubert shook her head defeatedly. Monsieur Loubert took her hand and caressed it in his.
"How did you carry on, the Malfoys?"
"Oh, fine." Draco shrugged. "We still have the estate. We're rich. We're infl— We used to be influential. We're out of politics n—"
"Just so you know, boy," Monsieur Loubert interrupted, his smug smile was gone, and a thin crease formed between his eyebrows. "You may call yourself Malfoy, you may call yourself whatever you want, but Herman is our son, and his children are our grandchildren, and you are our family."
Draco didn't know what to say. He had seen that furrow in his father's face, and his grandfather's, and even in the face of Lucius the first every so often, when they pronounced those words, 'our family'. Now Monsieur Loubert had the very same look, and there was no hidden 'if' or 'but' in it. They were family and that was it.
"Yes, sir."
The camera kept buzzing. Ewen lay on the floor, his eyes burning. Benveniste gave a soft cough at the back of the classroom. Draco clutched the locket tight in his hand.
"Sir! Ma'am! I— er, we—" Draco glanced at Potter. He had been so silent, that Draco suddenly was not sure if he was still there. "In fact, we would like to ask you something."
"Why don't you introduce your friend first?" said Madame Loubert.
"Oh, of course, ma'am. This is Harry Potter." 'Friend' was definitely an overstatement, but Draco wasn't sure if there even was a word to describe their relationship. 'Friend' was good enough for the time being. "We would like to ask you about this locket." The small iron disk gleamed in the orange light of Ewen's eyes as he held it up. "Did you make it?"
Monsieur Loubert wanted to touch it, but his outstretched hand disappeared as he approached the edge of the circle. He examined the locket from as close as he could get.
"Yes, we did. Why?"
"Could you explain to us how it works?" Draco tried to remember his list of questions. "Harry Potter and I, we swapped appearances. We don't know how it happened. It was an accident. And we tried to swap back, but it didn't work."
Monsieur and Madame Loubert exchanged concerned glances.
"I told you it was a dangerous toy," said Monsieur Loubert to his wife with a sad smile, but without reproach.
"You were right," she replied, and looked intently at Draco and Harry. "What did you try?"
"Well. When we swapped, it was after he hit me. I mean, he hit the locket when I was wearing it. So we first tried just to do it again. We hit it, and touched it, but nothing happened. And then we tried it on swans one time, and it worked both ways, they would swap back and forth, but it doesn't work for us."
"You tried it on swans? We did that, too." Madame Loubert said, smiling, "You're smart boys!"
"It also— It was also a different sound when the swans swapped. So we— So I thought that the first swap and the back swap were different. But we don't know how. I mean, are they?"
"Oh yes, they are, you are right! Very good!" said Madame Loubert. "They are very different. There are two steps. In the first step, you exchange bodies. In the second step you exchange souls. The result is the same as if you had swapped the bodies back. Each soul comes back to the body that it started with, but the way it happens is very very different."
"How different, Ma'am?"
"The second one, exchanging souls, requires much greater power. You see, our bodies grow when we are young, but when we reach adulthood they stop growing. The power needed to perform the first part of the transition remains roughly constant throughout your life, so if you had enough to start it off, you shouldn't need more to reverse it, if it were possible.
"Our souls, however, keep growing throughout our entire life. Every thought we think, every moment of joy or sadness that we go through, every memory we keep add to our soul, and it gets bigger and heavier every day, every minute. And, I daresay, it gets much bigger than that of a swan. Only really great power can move it."
"What kind of power, Ma'am?"
"Love is your best bet."
Love magic. That's what Draco had feared.
"But we're not lovers! We're just"—Draco was stuck again, in want of a word for their relationship—"friends, schoolmates." Well, in a sense, they were lovers—lovers of the same man, who now lay at their feet, burning his eyes down—but this could not be what Madame Loubert meant. "What is our best bet then?"
"That we cannot know," she said. "What is your eternal bond? Friendship? Brotherhood? You will have to find out. But whatever it is, keep it. You will need it, because that will be the source of your power."
"And how do we draw that power?"
"When it reaches the critical point, you should touch the locket, like you did, and the second part of the magic should proceed by itself."
"But you should be very careful," Monsieur Loubert intervened. "When a soul is transferred from one body to another, it has to leave the first body first. It is as if it is sucked out of it. If anything goes wrong at that stage, the body can remain without a soul. Like an empty shell. Think twice before you risk it."
"Would it be like a Dementor's kiss?" Draco said, thinking of baby Cassius and his parents.
"Dementor's kiss?" Monsieur Loubert's face was blank.
"The first record of Dementors dates back to the fifteenth century," Benveniste murmured behind Draco's back.
"Couldn't we get our bodies back in some other way?" Potter said suddenly, "by swapping bodies like the first time? If not with your locket, Sir, Ma'am, then in some other manner?"
"No." Madame Loubert shook her head. "Our bodies move forward, and our souls have to follow them until we die. You can hold back your souls for a while, as we did, but they will have to move on sooner or later."
"So does it mean...? Did you use the locket? Did you swap too?" Draco said.
"Oh yes, we did." Madame and Monsieur Loubert exchanged mischievous looks.
"But why? What for?"
Madame Loubert cocked her brow and eyed them in amused hesitation. Monsieur Loubert stared at his feet with a vague smile.
"You should know, boys, this is a serious matter, nothing to joke about!" Madame Loubert gave them an authoritative look. "A matter to be approached with great responsibility." She held Monsieur Louberts hand firmly in hers. "But you are big boys, and you, too, will soon have to face it."
Draco had no idea what she was getting at.
"My spouse and I," continued Madame Loubert, "we were— how should I put it? We were not very happy in bed." She played with the edge of her sleeve. "So we wanted to know how it feels for one another. To be in each other's skin. That's why we made the locket." She gave Monsieur Loubert a tender smile. "I hoped I could please—" the image flickered suddenly and her speech was distorted, "—better if I had that experience."
"And, er, did it help?" Potter asked.
"Mr Potter, please stick to the topic," Benveniste's annoyed hiss sounded from the darkness, "Mr Arling is working very hard to help you."
"But sir, ma'am," Draco took over again, "what can we do now to swap back? How do we reach that critical point? What precautions can we take to protect our souls from going lost?" There were still so many questions that needed answers, and Benveniste's nervous pacing in the darkness could only mean that they were running out of time. "How did you do it? How did you swap back?"
The Louberts stood still in the middle of the circle.
"We never did," Madame Loubert said softly, "I am Circinus Loubert, still."
"And I am Norma Loubert," said Monsieur Loub— er, what?!
The floor under Draco's feet seemed to turn to ice-cold water and his chair was sinking.
"We never managed to perform the second part of the magic. We had underestimated the power needed for that step," Norma said, and scratched her balding forehead. "You see, the older you get, the bigger your soul grows, the more power you need to perform the magic, the stronger your bond must be to achieve that power. But the stronger your bond, the bigger your soul grows. It's a vicious circle."
Their voices sounded muffled and far away. Draco was drowning, and the ice crust was closing above his head.
"We first kept it secret," said Circinus, "but when we saw that we could not reverse it, we told the family, and our apprentices, and our neighbours. And, goodness, Herman was so angry with us! Of course, people laughed. A man living as a woman, and a woman living as a man—that was unimaginable! And then, when I got pregnant," a proud glint flashed in his eyes, but died again. Circinus sighed. "That was the last straw. Herman was so ashamed, he packed his tools and disappeared."
"A couple of years later, it turned out that he went to live with Uncle Malfoy in Rouen," said Norma. "But he was Herman Malfoy now, and didn't want to have anything to do with us."
"The last we heard of him was Uncle Malfoy weeping at our doorstep, telling us that Herman left with William's ships." Norma brushed another tear off her cheek. "It is so good to hear that he lived! It is so good you called us! Thank you, Draco."
'Thank you,' Draco wanted to say, but couldn't. He had frozen into a block of ice.
"Thank you, sir, ma'am," Potter said instead of him.
"There's not much to thank for, I'm afraid," Circinus said. "I am sorry we couldn't be of more help. But you asked about precautions. What keeps your soul safe—"
Circinus's voice turned to piercing buzz, the stream of light in which the Louberts' shapes were floating started to flicker, the last Draco saw were Norma's arms stretched out towards him, and then, the light went out, and they were gone.
Benveniste's shadow dashed across the room. The black curtains fell to the floor with a heavy thump and blinding white light flooded the room. When Draco could see again, Benveniste was kneeling next to Ewen with the bottle of Spectrogenium. Ewen's eyes— Draco shuddered, but forced himself to look. Two thick black stripes crossed Ewen's temples. Blood bubbled in his eyes as Benveniste applied the potion. Ewen groaned.
"Hospital wing!" commanded Benveniste and threw a towel over the bloody mess of Ewen's face.
Harry and Draco heaved him on the stretcher, and raced out of the classroom, with Benveniste in their wake with the half-empty bottle of Spectrogenium. They bolted out of North Tower, Filch jumped out of their way with a hiccough. Mrs Norris followed them, as they carried Ewen, limp and bloody, past the stairs to Ravenclaw Tower. Two more corners to turn, two more corridors. Madam Pomfrey waiting at attention. And finally, a bed.
They put the empty stretcher out of the way, a curtain whizzed before their noses, and Ewen's body disappeared behind it.
END OF PART 3
Note: OMG, we are heading for the finale! How are you doing so far and what are your bets for the ending?
And by the way, the challenge to find one Albanian word in this fic is still open and will stay open until I post chapter 38. Your last chance.
And did I already mention I love languages? Please, feel free to comment in your first language if you are not comfortable commenting in English.
