Reversals | HP, RW, DM/OFC | PG-13
First posted on 6 August 2004
Rating: PG
Summary: Be careful what you wish for.
Disclaimer: Not my characters, locations, or attitudes. Dang.
Reversals
Ron Weasley was a Gryffindor Beater, and he was determined to get Draco Malfoy, that Slytherin slimeball, off Harry Potter’s tail.
Bloody Malfoy teasing Hermione calling down my family dogging Harry what’s he got to crow about his Dad’s a bloody Death Eater.
A Bludger from one of Slytherin’s Beaters grazed past Harry’s head and Ron soared up to meet it. Ha! Malfoy’s going to regret everything he’s ever said to us. I’ll knock his block clean off.
The bat burst down its length, and split the heel of his palm, driving splinters into the tender flesh. Ron howled and dropped the pieces on the pitch. He heard the Bludger strike, but didn’t notice the absolute silence that strike created in the stands around him.
Eyes watering, sucking air through his teeth in pain, he looked for Harry, and spotted him at the Gryffindor end of the pitch, holding up the Snitch. Harry had a red smear on his cheek. Ron looked for the blond Slytherin so he could, hopefully, deliver a smack with his bloody hand on the way down. That, he reflected almost cheerily, would certainly upset the little fop.
When he located Malfoy on the field, and understood what he saw, the world went away in white noise, and all he could do was keep breathing.
Harry held up the Snitch, his newest glorious catch, expecting Gryffindor to burst out in ecstatic howling, and Dean Thomas to announce the win. None of that happened. Harry swung around to look for Ron, hoping his friend could provide some explanation for this uncharacteristic lack of enthusiasm, and saw, hanging between them, Draco Malfoy. What was left of him, anyway.
Harry had seen, after Hallowe’ens in Little Whinging, the remains of jack’o’lanterns that had been captured from doorsteps and garden gates by older children and smashed in the streets. When he saw Draco Malfoy, that was what he thought of.
He tried to catch Ron’s eye, but the other boy was lost somewhere.
Creep’s even got a cheat-broom. He should’ve fallen when he died. The blood went out of Harry’s head, and he wobbled on his broomstick. Merlin, did I just think that?
Malfoy’s reputed girlfriend, a Ravenclaw girl seen frequently in his company, kicked off from the pitch on her own broom, and glided smoothly up to his body. She was a Keeper for her House, one of the better Potions students, and surprisingly average-looking, even thick about the middle. Harry had assumed that Malfoy would only be with stunningly attractive girls and as he watched her close on Malfoy’s drifting body, he couldn’t stop rehashing this in his mind. Her name is Omia Palmer, he thought, and she isn’t beautiful.
She brought out her wand, and Harry thought she might hex Ron, who was terribly pale and not at all triumphant. Instead she collected every bit of Malfoy that she could recover, from the grass, his broomstick, the surface of the Bludger, which had been magically halted mid-air shortly after it struck Malfoy.
It was weird to see the blood run up in rivulets, and re-enter the destroyed skull, pieces of brain and bone re-form in what seemed to be the proper shapes and locations. Harry saw the skin and hair that had been wide open knit over a newly-whole skull. Omia Palmer was putting him together for his funeral, Harry thought, and marveled at her skill. Malfoy looked almost normal, if awkwardly seated. His Mum shouldn’t see him like that. I wish I’d thought of it. She treated Malfoy quite gently. She loved him. No-one else did.
Then Omia Palmer did something stranger. Ron made a sick noise, and in the stillness of the evening, Harry heard him vomit. He also heard a sigh sweep the stands. Omia Palmer was kissing Malfoy.
Kissing him and Harry saw her tears, though she made no noise, and hadn’t since Draco was hit. She was kissing him and crying and Harry felt a buildup of energy around the pitch, the careful quiet in the stands, no coughing, no whispers between friends. Omia Palmer was doing something that none of them understood but somehow they knew to respect it, and to listen. Listening, Harry thought, looking quickly at Ron, is something we don’t do for Malfoy because he’s all noise. I bet she listens. Omia Palmer listens, and then he listens to her.
And Omia Palmer was making a sound now, he realized. It was a hum, but not with her mouth. The noise came from all of her, like her atoms had sped up until their collisions could be heard. And once that noise of violent atoms could be heard, it could be seen.
Omia Palmer began to lose focus. She had no outlines any more, and still nobody in the stands spoke. Maybe they couldn’t see it, but Harry had Malfoy’s blood on his cheek and he could see.
Ron could see too, but he thought he’d lost his mind with the solid sound of death, and assumed that this was part of it, watching the girlfriend of the bloke you killed melt at the edges and then melt into her dead sweetheart, or whatever you called someone like Malfoy if you ever managed to get close to him.
And then of course madness made you hear her buzzing as she melted through, passed body-through-body and emerged on the other side with a scream like having one’s soul put to the fires of Hell.
Harry watched Omia Palmer move her body through Draco’s like a House ghost teasing a first-year. It was more than he had imagined possible even with magic - he had no words. He didn’t have anything to feel about it, it was too bizarre.
And the scream as she emerged from him again was nothing short of alien. It couldn’t come from a human throat. A sound like that was for nightmare, and then never so clearly heard. It sounded like a soul torn to pieces by something best left unimagined. It sounded - it sounded like she was dying, and after magic like Omia Palmer had performed, it wouldn’t have surprised Harry at all if she’d suddenly lost the top of her own skull.
But she didn’t. She slumped on her broom, managing to keep her grip and proximity to Malfoy. Harry watched her pull something out of the pocket of her jumper and smooth it out a bit on Draco’s thigh, as if she needed to read it.
Her voice was shockingly small. Harry had expected it to boom out over the pitch, over the silent assemblage, like the voice of an elder god. Instead, it was a thready little trickle of sound, and difficult to hear. Harry moved toward her without thinking, and she shot him a look that froze him, head to toe. It wasn’t hateful or angry or despairing. It had command, and he knew he should stay back. And he did.
“Draco Malfoy, I cancel our bond and return to you that which is yours. This is freely given, in the spirit of joy in which it was bestowed. Enervate.”
Draco twitched. Twitchy little ferret aren’t you Malfoy? thought Harry and didn’t scream. He watched Malfoy’s hands and feet make random, confused movements, and those spread up his limbs and into his body, until he was jerking visibly on his broomstick, which pitched and bucked. Omia Palmer I can’t stop thinking her whole name held it steady, exhausted and something else Harry could almost identify.
All at once, Draco Malfoy arched off the broom and howled in a fair approximation of that scream Omia Palmer had introduced to the waking world, and she grabbed him off his broom before it could react to his movements. Malfoy’s broom dove to the pitch and stuck in the grass. Omia Palmer had him safely under one of her arms, like a Quaffle.
She took him to the ground, and laid him out. He spasmed randomly, eyes shut, and if Harry and Ron and everyone else at Hogwarts hadn’t seen Malfoy’s grey matter exposed to the sun not five minutes earlier, Harry almost could’ve believed it had only been a glancing blow Malfoy took. Enough to knock him out, but certainly never to kill him, to open his head like a piñata and drop scrambled-egg brains and stain the grass red and decorate Harry’s own face with more of the same.
What did she do? What spark? What did she give him back?
But he knew. Had he thought she was thick-waisted? She wasn’t any more.
He landed a few feet behind her, and she looked up. All he could think to say was, “Did he know?”
She nodded. “He said we’d be married if I wanted. He does love, Potter. He loved me.”
Harry nodded. “I’m… glad. Erm, what did you do?”
She shrugged. “Old magic. Not Dark, just old. It’s something you can’t take, it can only be given. So I gave it to him.”
There was still no-one near them. Madam Pomfrey would arrive at any moment, and he had to ask her so much… “Will he be himself?”
Another shrug. “I don’t know. I don’t even know if he’ll still be mine. But I couldn’t let it happen like this. Tell Weasley I don’t hate him. Slytherin’s Beaters failed, it’s their fault. Not that they’ll ever admit it. I won’t let Draco blame him. Tell him I don’t blame him?”
Harry was stunned. “I - I will. He won’t believe me, but I’ll tell him. What will Lucius do?”
She shrank a little. “He’ll probably try to have Ron killed. Protect him, Harry. He needs a lot more than a bodyguard right now.” She laid herself out next to Malfoy, who seemed to register her presence, and relaxed. He turned toward her like a pale flower seeking the sun, and Harry couldn’t bear to watch, knowing this girl who wasn’t beautiful loved Draco Malfoy more than anyone had a right to be loved, and he’d done something to deserve it, and Harry would never be able to look at Malfoy the same again, least of all because he’d seen him die so messily.
“Why aren’t you throwing hexes and turning people into flobberworms?”
That shrug. It said so much for her. Not resignation this time. Inevitability. “I knew he’d probably be attacked some day. He’s the son of a Death Eater and a huge snob. His tongue has already made him more enemies than you’ve got. But he’s safe on the pitch, people are here to protect him. Anything you do to him here is forgiveable because he’s got his team to watch over him. It’s them I blame, not Weasley.”
“Can you still have more with him? Did this magic change that?”
Madam Pomfrey arrived and checked Draco when did I start thinking of him as Draco? while her assistant, who saw it all, made Omia Palmer sit up so she could also be checked.
“I don’t know,” Omia Palmer told him quietly. “But he’s here. He’s with me.”
Then Draco opened his eyes and said her name Omia like Please and Harry had to look away.
Anyway, he had to deliver a message to Ron.
Rating: PG
Summary: Be careful what you wish for.
Disclaimer: Not my characters, locations, or attitudes. Dang.
Reversals
Ron Weasley was a Gryffindor Beater, and he was determined to get Draco Malfoy, that Slytherin slimeball, off Harry Potter’s tail.
Bloody Malfoy teasing Hermione calling down my family dogging Harry what’s he got to crow about his Dad’s a bloody Death Eater.
A Bludger from one of Slytherin’s Beaters grazed past Harry’s head and Ron soared up to meet it. Ha! Malfoy’s going to regret everything he’s ever said to us. I’ll knock his block clean off.
The bat burst down its length, and split the heel of his palm, driving splinters into the tender flesh. Ron howled and dropped the pieces on the pitch. He heard the Bludger strike, but didn’t notice the absolute silence that strike created in the stands around him.
Eyes watering, sucking air through his teeth in pain, he looked for Harry, and spotted him at the Gryffindor end of the pitch, holding up the Snitch. Harry had a red smear on his cheek. Ron looked for the blond Slytherin so he could, hopefully, deliver a smack with his bloody hand on the way down. That, he reflected almost cheerily, would certainly upset the little fop.
When he located Malfoy on the field, and understood what he saw, the world went away in white noise, and all he could do was keep breathing.
Harry held up the Snitch, his newest glorious catch, expecting Gryffindor to burst out in ecstatic howling, and Dean Thomas to announce the win. None of that happened. Harry swung around to look for Ron, hoping his friend could provide some explanation for this uncharacteristic lack of enthusiasm, and saw, hanging between them, Draco Malfoy. What was left of him, anyway.
Harry had seen, after Hallowe’ens in Little Whinging, the remains of jack’o’lanterns that had been captured from doorsteps and garden gates by older children and smashed in the streets. When he saw Draco Malfoy, that was what he thought of.
He tried to catch Ron’s eye, but the other boy was lost somewhere.
Creep’s even got a cheat-broom. He should’ve fallen when he died. The blood went out of Harry’s head, and he wobbled on his broomstick. Merlin, did I just think that?
Malfoy’s reputed girlfriend, a Ravenclaw girl seen frequently in his company, kicked off from the pitch on her own broom, and glided smoothly up to his body. She was a Keeper for her House, one of the better Potions students, and surprisingly average-looking, even thick about the middle. Harry had assumed that Malfoy would only be with stunningly attractive girls and as he watched her close on Malfoy’s drifting body, he couldn’t stop rehashing this in his mind. Her name is Omia Palmer, he thought, and she isn’t beautiful.
She brought out her wand, and Harry thought she might hex Ron, who was terribly pale and not at all triumphant. Instead she collected every bit of Malfoy that she could recover, from the grass, his broomstick, the surface of the Bludger, which had been magically halted mid-air shortly after it struck Malfoy.
It was weird to see the blood run up in rivulets, and re-enter the destroyed skull, pieces of brain and bone re-form in what seemed to be the proper shapes and locations. Harry saw the skin and hair that had been wide open knit over a newly-whole skull. Omia Palmer was putting him together for his funeral, Harry thought, and marveled at her skill. Malfoy looked almost normal, if awkwardly seated. His Mum shouldn’t see him like that. I wish I’d thought of it. She treated Malfoy quite gently. She loved him. No-one else did.
Then Omia Palmer did something stranger. Ron made a sick noise, and in the stillness of the evening, Harry heard him vomit. He also heard a sigh sweep the stands. Omia Palmer was kissing Malfoy.
Kissing him and Harry saw her tears, though she made no noise, and hadn’t since Draco was hit. She was kissing him and crying and Harry felt a buildup of energy around the pitch, the careful quiet in the stands, no coughing, no whispers between friends. Omia Palmer was doing something that none of them understood but somehow they knew to respect it, and to listen. Listening, Harry thought, looking quickly at Ron, is something we don’t do for Malfoy because he’s all noise. I bet she listens. Omia Palmer listens, and then he listens to her.
And Omia Palmer was making a sound now, he realized. It was a hum, but not with her mouth. The noise came from all of her, like her atoms had sped up until their collisions could be heard. And once that noise of violent atoms could be heard, it could be seen.
Omia Palmer began to lose focus. She had no outlines any more, and still nobody in the stands spoke. Maybe they couldn’t see it, but Harry had Malfoy’s blood on his cheek and he could see.
Ron could see too, but he thought he’d lost his mind with the solid sound of death, and assumed that this was part of it, watching the girlfriend of the bloke you killed melt at the edges and then melt into her dead sweetheart, or whatever you called someone like Malfoy if you ever managed to get close to him.
And then of course madness made you hear her buzzing as she melted through, passed body-through-body and emerged on the other side with a scream like having one’s soul put to the fires of Hell.
Harry watched Omia Palmer move her body through Draco’s like a House ghost teasing a first-year. It was more than he had imagined possible even with magic - he had no words. He didn’t have anything to feel about it, it was too bizarre.
And the scream as she emerged from him again was nothing short of alien. It couldn’t come from a human throat. A sound like that was for nightmare, and then never so clearly heard. It sounded like a soul torn to pieces by something best left unimagined. It sounded - it sounded like she was dying, and after magic like Omia Palmer had performed, it wouldn’t have surprised Harry at all if she’d suddenly lost the top of her own skull.
But she didn’t. She slumped on her broom, managing to keep her grip and proximity to Malfoy. Harry watched her pull something out of the pocket of her jumper and smooth it out a bit on Draco’s thigh, as if she needed to read it.
Her voice was shockingly small. Harry had expected it to boom out over the pitch, over the silent assemblage, like the voice of an elder god. Instead, it was a thready little trickle of sound, and difficult to hear. Harry moved toward her without thinking, and she shot him a look that froze him, head to toe. It wasn’t hateful or angry or despairing. It had command, and he knew he should stay back. And he did.
“Draco Malfoy, I cancel our bond and return to you that which is yours. This is freely given, in the spirit of joy in which it was bestowed. Enervate.”
Draco twitched. Twitchy little ferret aren’t you Malfoy? thought Harry and didn’t scream. He watched Malfoy’s hands and feet make random, confused movements, and those spread up his limbs and into his body, until he was jerking visibly on his broomstick, which pitched and bucked. Omia Palmer I can’t stop thinking her whole name held it steady, exhausted and something else Harry could almost identify.
All at once, Draco Malfoy arched off the broom and howled in a fair approximation of that scream Omia Palmer had introduced to the waking world, and she grabbed him off his broom before it could react to his movements. Malfoy’s broom dove to the pitch and stuck in the grass. Omia Palmer had him safely under one of her arms, like a Quaffle.
She took him to the ground, and laid him out. He spasmed randomly, eyes shut, and if Harry and Ron and everyone else at Hogwarts hadn’t seen Malfoy’s grey matter exposed to the sun not five minutes earlier, Harry almost could’ve believed it had only been a glancing blow Malfoy took. Enough to knock him out, but certainly never to kill him, to open his head like a piñata and drop scrambled-egg brains and stain the grass red and decorate Harry’s own face with more of the same.
What did she do? What spark? What did she give him back?
But he knew. Had he thought she was thick-waisted? She wasn’t any more.
He landed a few feet behind her, and she looked up. All he could think to say was, “Did he know?”
She nodded. “He said we’d be married if I wanted. He does love, Potter. He loved me.”
Harry nodded. “I’m… glad. Erm, what did you do?”
She shrugged. “Old magic. Not Dark, just old. It’s something you can’t take, it can only be given. So I gave it to him.”
There was still no-one near them. Madam Pomfrey would arrive at any moment, and he had to ask her so much… “Will he be himself?”
Another shrug. “I don’t know. I don’t even know if he’ll still be mine. But I couldn’t let it happen like this. Tell Weasley I don’t hate him. Slytherin’s Beaters failed, it’s their fault. Not that they’ll ever admit it. I won’t let Draco blame him. Tell him I don’t blame him?”
Harry was stunned. “I - I will. He won’t believe me, but I’ll tell him. What will Lucius do?”
She shrank a little. “He’ll probably try to have Ron killed. Protect him, Harry. He needs a lot more than a bodyguard right now.” She laid herself out next to Malfoy, who seemed to register her presence, and relaxed. He turned toward her like a pale flower seeking the sun, and Harry couldn’t bear to watch, knowing this girl who wasn’t beautiful loved Draco Malfoy more than anyone had a right to be loved, and he’d done something to deserve it, and Harry would never be able to look at Malfoy the same again, least of all because he’d seen him die so messily.
“Why aren’t you throwing hexes and turning people into flobberworms?”
That shrug. It said so much for her. Not resignation this time. Inevitability. “I knew he’d probably be attacked some day. He’s the son of a Death Eater and a huge snob. His tongue has already made him more enemies than you’ve got. But he’s safe on the pitch, people are here to protect him. Anything you do to him here is forgiveable because he’s got his team to watch over him. It’s them I blame, not Weasley.”
“Can you still have more with him? Did this magic change that?”
Madam Pomfrey arrived and checked Draco when did I start thinking of him as Draco? while her assistant, who saw it all, made Omia Palmer sit up so she could also be checked.
“I don’t know,” Omia Palmer told him quietly. “But he’s here. He’s with me.”
Then Draco opened his eyes and said her name Omia like Please and Harry had to look away.
Anyway, he had to deliver a message to Ron.