Chapter Fourteen of 'For Their Unconquerable Souls'- The Blooding
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Chapter Fourteen-The Blooding
Lucius had arranged his room carefully to impress Harry and show him what he might expect of his new home. The Chosen One had had a deprived childhood, from what Lucius had heard through rumor, friends, and frustrated reporters who had tried to find solid facts before they resorted to making things up. The sight of luxury ought to strike him powerfully. Perhaps it would convince him of his importance to the Malfoys in the way that Lucius had given up hope of doing with rational argument.
So the colors of the windows and walls were brighter than usual, red and blue, glittering and radiant with light spells that hovered behind them and darted from place to place, subtly changing the angles of the shadows. So the bed had every accessory employed: the hands that ran up and down the sides of the sheets and the pillows smoothing them out, the mattress that listened to the conformation of Lucius’s skin and bones and adjusted itself in response to any small groans of discomfort, the tables attached to the ends and sides that contained entertainments and delights such as Faerie wine and soft crumbling cheese made to a recipe lost to the Muggle world for centuries.
Lucius was content, though generally he preferred his room less busy, so that he could concentrate on one luxury at a time. This should surely show the Boy-Who-Lived that he could have beauty, good food, and comfort for the asking, where before he must have had to fight for it. Lucius had been doing some investigating of his own, writing letters and calling in old favors from allies who could do research on the Healer Virgo Emptyweed. From what he had learned, Harry’s life under his reign would have been nothing short of torturous.
“And how are you today, sir?”
One look into Harry’s eyes, and Lucius understood how he had miscalculated. Narcissa had been right after all. Harry didn’t come to them as a political entity, someone who already understood the nuances of power and was bent on wringing all the means to it that he could from the Malfoys. He was too obviously trying to control the nervous darting of his eyes and his reactions, of either fear or distaste, when he looked at the moving parts of the bed and licked his lips.
“Very well,” Lucius said, and threw away most of the planning that he had done for this meeting, though he would not banish the riches that surrounded him. That would be too obvious on his own part. “I understand that you have some doubts as to our hospitality.” Is that straightforward enough for you, Narcissa?
Harry paused and blinked for a moment as he spread several of his parchments across the mahogany table that Lucius’s father, Abraxas, had won from a ghost in a riddle contest. Then he shrugged and said, “Not as to your hospitality. I’m quite sure that all the luxuries you’ve chosen to offer me are genuine and made of real glass and crystal and gems. I have some doubts as to the motives behind it, of course.”
Ah. Lucius felt a frisson of genuine pleasure. It was a long time since he’d had someone to teach the elementary lessons of subtlety to. Narcissa had come to his bed already knowing them, and Draco had absorbed most of them by the age of seven.
My son, he thought, gazing at Harry with an eye that he knew was proprietary, but which he doubted Harry would notice, you have much to learn.
He decided to begin with a simple lesson, as well as the one most applicable to Harry’s situation. “Motives may be double.”
“Exactly what I’m afraid of,” said Harry, apparently under the impression that Lucius was capable of going selectively deaf without reason, and then cast an interesting spell that drew Lucius’s attention away from the conversation for a moment. It conjured a sheaf of parchment in front of him and then raced across the paper in glowing lines, binding together a complex diagram that looked like a spiderweb.
Or a Mirror Maze. Lucius held himself still, however, and did not let Harry suspect that he knew what the thing was. If Harry wanted to keep some professional secrets, then Lucius could hardly blame him-as long as they were not really secrets.
“Motives may be double without hurting either party involved,” he said, elaborating the lesson. Of course, he knew it would still take Harry some time to grasp it. Manipulation was neutral in character, to be used for either advantageous or harmful ends, but Harry had grown up in a world that would have taught him to hate and fear it, no matter what. “Good” people were the ones who always followed an open and predictable course of behavior, which they called honest. Lucius had no real objection to honesty, of course, but it was an expensive weapon in the arsenal of a pure-blood family fighting for survival, and not one that the Malfoys had been able to afford in generations.
He wondered for a moment if he should introduce Harry to the notion that good and evil were a matter of perspective-and whether they happened to people inside or outside the family-and then decided, reluctantly, that it was a bit early for that yet.
“I am less convinced of that,” Harry said. “And in any case, we’re supposed to discuss your health, and not a philosophical debate.” He nodded to the glowing lines. “Do you recognize this, sir?” he asked, retreating into formality.
“One may do more than one thing at once, as you have just demonstrated.” Lucius squinted at the glowing lines, to give a convincing demonstration of ignorance, and then laughed. Give him too much room to suspect so, and Harry might decide Lucius was stupid. That would be disastrous for many reasons. “You mean to insult me by suggesting I will not recognize a Mirror Maze, Mr. Potter? And so far, you had been so careful never to seem insulting.”
He saw a brief flicker of amusement and surprise cross Harry’s eyes, but he squashed it at once, apparently thinking it would be unprofessional for a mediwizard to respond to a patient’s banter in a patient’s home. A pity, that, Lucius decided. I think he has spent far too long repressing useful and interesting parts of himself.
“Not insult you,” Harry said. “There’s a difference between an insult and a direct question that simply asks for information. If I had said that I suspected you of trying to trap me, get me used to luxuries, draw me into admiration for your way of life, and only then reveal the hook behind the rich bait, then I would be insulting you. But I haven’t said that in a definite declarative sentence, have I? Those words exist only in a hypothetical one.”
So he is not repressing it so much as measuring it. Lucius could not help the edge of joy to his smile, though he knew Harry would not understand. That won a smile from Harry in return, but it drained away quickly. He was staring at Lucius’s face, which Lucius knew was calm and emotionless again, as if he had seen a crocodile grin before it charged him.
I pity my other son, Lucius thought. I had thought courting Narcissa was hard, but next to this challenge…
Harry coughed and glanced back at the parchment. “I believe that you have a Mirror Maze on you,” he said, “but not the traditional one, or the damage would have been severe on only one part of your body, as it was not.” He flicked his wand, and the imaginary parchment turned sideways, bearing the Mirror Maze with it. Lucius admired the control behind his movements; it was good to know that they could depend on Harry to wield his magic with skill in the events of a battle with an invading family, no matter what toothless spell he had used to defeat the Dark Lord. “This is what you have.” Another flick of his wand; this time, the Maze acquired a third dimension, and the appearance of a faceted lens. Lucius imagined the many points that would allow his enemy to aim at on his body, and respect trembled inside him. He would rather be hunted by someone clever than someone stupid; a stupid enemy would imply too great a contempt for Lucius’s own intellect. “Unfortunately, I still can’t dissipate it until I know for certain what spells compose it.”
Time to challenge him. He is skilled, he has finesse, he has power. He should have made more advances than he has, and he must be dragged through those steps if he will not take them himself. “Do you have any more ideas, Harry? Given your skill, I expect that you should.”
“I do,” said Harry, and bent his head stiffly away. Did the thought of high stakes frighten him so much? Lucius wondered at that. Of what quality was Harry’s courage? Was he only brave in the defense of others, tight-strung when questioned on his own account or challenged to prove himself? It would explain, perhaps, why he had remained a mediwizard. There was a certain amount of safety in a low position. “I know that Mansuefacio is part of it, and the Cutting Curse and the Permanency Spell. Probably also a Replication Charm, to make the same wounds appear in many places at once. And a spell that maps your body, so that whoever controls the maze can study it at all times and know your vulnerabilities at a glance.”
Lucius raised his eyebrows. Time for a mild lie; the last thing he wanted was to make Harry feel inadequate. “I have never heard of such a spell.” I at least have not heard of this application, he added mentally, to appease the shade of Narcissa, who wanted complete honesty, in his head.
“I’ve used it several times.” Harry sighed. “Whoever made this maze has Healer training.”
“Ah.” Lucius gripped the blanket the way he would have liked to grip the shoulders of his mysterious enemies, in admiration-and in the moments before he cast the Cutting Curse that would open their throats. “Then perhaps the mystery of your stabilization fields disappearing is not such a mystery after all. Could the person controlling the maze have dissipated them from inside me?”
Harry shook his head. “If they could, they would also have removed the stabilization field on your chest,” he said. “I think that was an attack from outside, but I’m afraid I have no suspects yet.”
“Mmmm.” Lucius performed an intense stare. If he will not think of it himself, I must suggest it. “Suppose that you perform a spell which will enable you to see the magic making up the rest of the maze?”
Harry blinked. “Such magic exists, of course,” he said. Lucius bit his tongue to avoid saying something like I am glad you realize that much, which would rather ruin the delicate mood of the moment. “But it’s classed as an invasion of privacy.”
“By whom?” Consider who makes the rules, Harry. Then consider whom they are seeking to benefit, as well as those whom the rules benefit in reality.
“The St. Mungo’s authority, and independent Healers, and everyone who teaches mediwizardry,” said Harry, his eyes widening. He stared at Lucius. “We’re taught the incantation for use in emergency situations, but we’re not supposed to-“
“You’re my private Healer now,” Lucius said. Yes, I must do everything.
“Mediwizard.”
“Such distinctions matter less than usual when we are talking about family,” Lucius said. “You are a Malfoy. If you would consent to change your last name, you would be one of us perfectly.” He could not help imagining that. The political statement that the Chosen One’s changing his last name would make…it would force acceptance of the Malfoys by most of those who had rejected them.
But of course Harry had set his forehead into ugly lines and was opening his mouth, and Lucius understood. He would be loyal to his surname as the last member of his family line. Lucius thus added, “Cast the spell, Harry. I wish to see what it reveals.”
Harry licked his lips. “I might get it wrong.”
Where is his self-confidence? How did he become a mediwizard in the first place, in fact, if he always thinks of the consequences first? “Have you got anything else wrong so far?” Lucius lay there on the pillows and tried to look relaxed and confident enough for the both of them.
“You don’t understand,” Harry said, and looked as if he would bury his head in his hands, except that that might cause a confidence crisis in his patient. “I’m not good at spells that require intense concentration, unless fear pushes me past the moment when I’d hesitate. I’ll fumble and mess it up. It would be better if I just went on studying until I could recognize the spells that comprise the maze from watching their effects on the spells I already know.”
“You do have a self-confidence problem,” Lucius said. Bluntness is my only weapon against thickness like this. “How fortunate that I have the cure for such a problem in my possession, and have used it several times over.”
“If it’s a spell-“
“Of course not,” Lucius said, and gentled his voice, which still earned him a glare. If you act like a child, my son, you will be treated as such. “It’s the doing of things that you don’t think you can do, and doing them well. Now. Cast the spell. You know the incantation. Do you think you’ll mess up the incantation?”
“No!” Harry’s eyes were wide and aflame.
“Do you think your magic isn’t powerful enough?” Lucius raised his eyebrows. Harry actually took a step forwards, as if the academic interest in Lucius’s voice offended him more than all the scoldings in the world. Well, that had been Lucius’s intention, after all; he was delighted to find his new son so wonderfully responsive, but not surprised.
“No!”
“Then what do you think is the problem, precisely?” Lucius tilted his head and examined Harry carefully, as if he were looking for the flaw that held him back, some visible sign of his weakness on his skin. He knew he would find none-in fact, if he had been younger, and if Narcissa and Draco had not existed, and if his tastes had swung to men, and if he had been sure that his patience would hold out through the wooing, he might have courted Harry himself-but it accomplished its goal of infuriating Harry.
“You’re trying to heal me,” Harry snarled, aiming his wand, “and I’m the one who should be healing you. Patefacio omnium!”
Blue light eclipsed Lucius, brilliant forks that stabbed down around the bed like the beginning of a storm. Lucius lifted his head and gave Harry a satisfied smile, because only when he began to realize that he was being outmaneuvered would he become an expert at outmaneuvering others.
Harry quivered like an offended horse, his breath streaming in and out of widely-flared nostrils, and then turned to study the pattern. Lucius eyed it sideways; it was too brilliant to look at with comfort full-on. (No wonder that Harry, who always denied himself every comfort, stared at it without blinking).
But it imitated the flexible lens of the Mirror Maze that Harry had already conjured for him, and beside its lines appeared the names of the spells. Lucius sighed and clucked his tongue. Once again, the Ministry had classified an eminently useful spell under the name of illegal magic. He would have to remember this spell himself, so that he could use it on his enemies.
*
Draco saw Harry squinting at the web, and one spell in particular, and he was drawn nearer irresistibly. He had tried to keep out of the way whilst his father engaged Harry; he had seen, from the moment he stepped into the room, the amount of preparation that Lucius had put into encouraging certain reactions from Harry, and he would not have interrupted them. He was satisfied with the place his own courting of Harry rested for now.
But this was something he could help with, and so he could hardly allow it to pass.
“Volnero,” he murmured into Harry’s ear, and Harry only tilted his head back to him, instead of leaping like a startled deer. Hardly daring to breathe at this evidence of trust and success, Draco lifted a hand so that it hovered above Harry’s shoulder. “That’s ‘I cause pain’ or ‘I wound.’ A more complicated and nastier version of the Cutting Charm, which can also be used on objects instead of people. Hebeto. Dark magic, plain and simple. It’s meant to imitate a death caused by wasting disease.” He looked past Harry’s shoulder at Lucius-still alive, still aware, in spite of it all, in spite of everything-and his own voice froze. “I don’t understand why they would bother with that one, when they meant to kill my father in an obvious way.”
“It’ll have something to do with the way it’s bound into the other spells,” Harry murmured. He reached out as if he would stroke the strand marked Hebeto, and Draco suppressed his ridiculous impulse to be jealous of a spell. “See the way it thickens at the end where it runs into the Body-Mapping Charm? I wouldn’t be surprised if that means-“
“It’s meant to deaden areas of his body, instead of the whole thing,” Draco said, as his mind leaped. “Another meaning of Hebeto is ‘I deaden.’”
“Exactly,” Harry said, a slight stiffness in his voice. Is he jealous that I’m taking his territory away? Draco turned his head and sniffed lightly at the skin behind Harry’s ear. I cannot be to my father what Harry is to him, and he should know that. “And in turn that might make the detection of small wounds or vulnerabilities more difficult. I wonder-“
His father screamed.
Draco would never forget the ice spears that jammed down his spine, or how he turned to face the bed, terrified and helpless. Harry was already moving, his wand rising, and to him all Draco’s confidence suddenly clung.
Lucius arched off the bed, his hands stabbing the air. Draco swallowed, mouth gone cold and dry. He would have Summoned his father’s enemies within range of his crooked fingers, if he could have.
And then he wished for healing more than vengeance, as cuts began to open on Lucius’s arms and chest that he recognized. Harry had once used Sectumsempra on him. Someone was using it on his father now.
And around his face-yes, a curse Draco knew for the Scalper’s Curse was opening there, lines of bloody foam circling relentlessly about his forehead and cheekbones. Draco had seen Bellatrix use that enough times, and cradle the torn-off, limp faces of her victims in both hands, crooning at them.
Draco didn’t know the countercurses. He had no memory of the spell that Severus had cast to heal him from Sectumsempra, and as far as he knew, there was no single counter for the Scalper’s Curse.
He looked to Harry, his defense and support right now, and found a frown printed across his face. Then it cleared, but Draco distrusted the light that took the darkness’s place in his eyes, because he had seen that light before, when Harry was preparing to do something incredibly stupid that would hurt him but save other people.
And then, Harry began, “Sacrifici-”
Draco knew the spell. Draco knew. Harry was going to kill himself so that Lucius could live.
The reaction was as instinctive as it would have been had Draco seen his mother about to walk off the edge of a building or his father going, drunk, to confront the Wizengamot. He punched Harry’s hand, nearly knocking his wand spinning and utterly shattering the spell. Harry, perhaps used to such distractions, maintained his hold on the wand, but spun around with a scream of, “What the fuck are you doing?”
“Not like that,” Draco said, and he couldn’t care about the roughness in his voice. “Family members save each other. They don’t sacrifice their lives for one another unless they can’t help it, because that diminishes the size and power of the family.”
So simple. I know Mother said he really doesn’t understand, but he has to. He has to. How could he think that he was less important to us than Lucius?
“That’s the only way to stop this!” Harry whirled away again. His gaze was still on Lucius, always on him. And Draco knew, then. Harry hadn’t thought that Narcissa and Draco would rejoice to have Lucius alive whilst not grieving over him. He had thought only about rescuing a patient. Lucius was the same as any other patient to him.
Draco felt an awed humbleness tug at him for a moment. He had been wrong to suppose that Harry would ever treat Lucius with less care than he should because of their past.
But he couldn’t give way to the humility, because along with that emotion came a great and overwhelming irritation. The spells had not finished killing Lucius yet. There was still another way, and if Harry resisted this Draco would cut him in half and owl the halves to Lucius’s enemies as soon as he discovered their names.
“Not like that,” he hissed into Harry’s ear. “Like this.”
He wrapped his arms around Harry and bowed his head.
The call he sent out was one he had known how to give for years, but which Lucius had made him swear never to use unless he was bereft of choices. It was dangerous, and if performed in front of someone who was not part of the family, it could betray key Malfoy strengths. But Draco knew of no case more desperate or justified than this one.
He called, and the sound of his voice, silent and powerful as a prayer, opened a gate from the physical world into the mental one. Draco felt a hole open in his memory the way it did when he wished to retain facts about potions: a hard, clear, grasping space that would never let what passed into it out again. A similar hole opened in his spirit, and Draco shivered. That felt like a twinge around his heart, a sensation he had never experienced before.
Then he became conscious of the beat of his heart, the pumping of the blood that was the shared bond between the Malfoy family and the shared secret of this special magic. He concentrated on it, forcing it to the front of his awareness, calling again and again, feeling the hard clear space in his mind open wider and solidify at the same time, like a box with a lid tilted above it.
And he knew from the pause and the flow of his blood, the two hammering beats his heart gave, that similar spaces were opening in Harry’s mind and spirit, and in Lucius’s.
Draco opened his eyes. The room was vivid with crimson light, beating in time to the hearts it had come from. Draco could have smiled, but he didn’t want to spare the attention. There was still the chance that Harry would mess everything up with his stubbornness. Draco pulled Harry closer still and aligned the open space in his mind with the open space in Harry’s.
He poured through determination, in a glittering cascade; he received back confusion, heavy as sand, and wonder like sunlight, and an answering determination. That was all the permission Draco needed to clench his hands on Harry’s chest and force him to release his breath. The breath mingled with the crimson light from their hearts, as Draco had known it would, and the resulting cloud ascended into the air like a phoenix and then crossed the distance between them and their father.
Draco stared, wanting to make sure the magic had actually succeeded. And then he saw it settle on his father’s wounds like a vampire, and knew it had. The Dark magic, visible here and there as an uncomfortable twitch to the air and a quiver like the darkness between the stars, flowed out of the wounds, and the fresh blood Lucius had shed rolled up in a scatter of droplets from his chest and hands and face and back into the wounds.
Malfoy blood is precious, Lucius had drilled Draco from the earliest days of his childhood. It must not be mingled with that of Mudbloods, and it must not be lost.
This magic, like all the other spells that belonged to the Malfoys alone, was meant to preserve that blood. Draco swirled his excitement, dancing like sparks of dust in sunlight, through Harry’s mind, so that he would not sense the hint of relief that lurked beneath the brighter emotions.
And then Harry forced more of his power into the spell through his clutch on Draco’s arm and the nearness of their hearts to one another, because of course he could never be still.
Draco gasped, and so did Lucius. That was less because of the power of the magic, however, which Draco felt blast through him and into the spell, and more because of the red and silver world Harry had deposited them in, the world of their minds and spirits.
Harry was there, an angular shape green as lightning. Draco could see the whole glittering pattern of his soul, rich and wild and wonderful and generous as a spreading forest. He understood, for a moment, the revelation ripping through his hands like a great branch, what it might be like to want to heal someone outside his own family. Lucius did the same thing, and Draco could feel his father’s satisfaction, rearing like an unbroken horse.
The silver and crimson cloud traveled past them then, hauling the Dark magic with it. It contained the magic, safely, in the holes that had opened in their minds and souls, because spells meant to affect the body could not affect those. Gradually, the holes would shut, the boxes tightening and fading out of existence, and the Dark magic would be crushed utterly.
A thought of Harry’s whispered past him. It was as if evil had been exiled from the world and love had replaced it.
“You should be familiar with the process,” Draco murmured into his ear. “That was the way your own mother saved you, wasn’t it?” He began to caress Harry’s waist, feathering his fingers against the skin, and thought that Harry could break free when he wanted.
Harry’s head lolled back trustingly instead, and more thoughts stormed through his mind and slipped into the open place in Draco’s, which was becoming smaller all the time. None of his other lovers had ever tried to learn about Healing magic. None of them had ever participated in the process the way that Draco had tried to.
More fools they, Draco thought, and smiled at Harry, who was looking up at him now, eyes as bright as his soul. He trailed a finger down to the corner of Harry’s jaw, and his own breathing sped up. He wanted to take Harry now, in wonder and joy and the need of two bodies thrusting together, seeking celebration of the marvelous experience they’d just been through.
Harry stared back, eyes wide and uncertain, and Draco heard the last fading flicker of his thoughts. Harry understood the lessons Lucius had been trying to teach him. He had accepted that, perhaps, the Malfoys wanted to help him at the same time as they wanted to help their family.
He pulled away in the next moment, and Draco let him go, because he knew it was not time to push yet. And he asked a question about Healing, which let Draco smile anyway, even with the tiny physical space between them. “How did you do that?”
“How did we do that,” Lucius said, softly but insistently.
Harry hesitated, then inclined his head. “How did we do that?”
Lucius smiled at him. Draco encircled Harry’s body lightly with his arms again, and felt him shiver with pleasure at the smile. “Blood magic,” Lucius said. “We pay a large price for our intense devotion to family before all else, but we receive a few gifts from it, too. Our blood can hold and contain foreign danger, just as it can embrace the foreigner when it’s shared. And in this case it pushed the Dark magic out of the blood-out of the body-into a place where it can be destroyed more easily. Our magic and our minds, if you will.” He frowned and made a small movement with one hand. “The parallel is not exact, but it is roughly true.”
True enough, Father. Draco suppressed the urge to roll his eyes. Lucius thought Harry could not understand concepts so abstract, when he had just been through the process himself and had more training than most full Healers.
Harry nodded. And then he would have dropped straight to the ground if Draco hadn’t caught him.
“Why am I so tired?” he muttered, his head lolling back on Draco’s shoulder again. Draco curved one arm around his waist and blinked at Lucius.
“I don’t know,” Lucius said. “That magic should not have been a drain on anyone who got a full night’s sleep.”
“He didn’t,” Draco said sharply. “He slept in a chair for most of the night, and only a few hours at that. He was up most of the night researching. He neglects his own health most disgracefully, Father. We shall have to do something about that.”
And Harry was asleep, then, and Draco was the only one supporting him.
It was an office he would gladly have held, for always.
He ducked his head and took a deep breath, inhaling the scent of Harry’s hair, before he caught Lucius’s eye. He nodded, understanding the demand in that gaze without words. He would take Harry to his room, and then return, so that he and Lucius could talk about how to handle their recalcitrant Potter.
Chapter 15.