Chapter Twenty of 'Forgive Those Who Trespass'- The Room of Voices
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Chapter Twenty-The Room of Voices
Harry and Draco spent most of the afternoon-or the period that Harry thought of as the afternoon, anyway, and who was there to contradict him?-negotiating a series of stone passages that looked even more alike than usual. Draco didn’t hesitate, or Harry might have broken down and begged for reassurance. By the time they saw the walls gradually drawing back ahead of them, indicating the presence of a larger room, Harry was longing for the sight of sunlight, for windows, for the jars that the Unspeakables had used to preserve the organs of their victims, for anything but yet another blank stone wall scored with the same incomprehensible patterns as before.
He started to dash past Draco into the mouth of the large room, and the other man had a difficult time catching hold of him. He stared at Harry until Harry gave a little shudder and shake of his head, and drew his wand. “Yes, of course,” he muttered. His voice sounded drunken to his own ears. “I should check for danger first.”
Draco scooped the communication sphere out of the air like a Seeker scooping up the Snitch, and tapped his fingers against the facet of glass that meant, Wait.
“Why?” Harry asked, and his voice cracked. His brain seemed to be filling in with fog, with fuzz. He shook his head to clear it.
You’re tired.
Harry was grateful for the spell they had used that bound the meanings of the words to the color of the facets in their minds, or he would never have remembered what Draco meant. And he was grateful for the hand that he brought up to brush across his face just then, or Draco would have seen every detail of his humiliated blush.
“Oh,” he said lamely. “Right. The Awareness Charm is wearing off.”
Draco waited in silence. Well, what else is he going to do? Harry asked himself, but he had learned to judge the quality of Draco’s silences, and he knew this one. It was critical, but also patient, waiting for Harry to see and admit his mistakes for himself.
Harry finally lowered his hand, even though the blush still hadn’t gone away, and coughed. “We could go forwards,” he said.
Draco’s eyes narrowed.
“I would cast the Awareness Charm again, of course,” Harry added hastily. “So that I wouldn’t collapse and start snoring in the middle of the room, or screw up by not seeing danger until it was too late.”
Draco crossed his arms over his chest and stared some more.
“Not the best solution, is it?” Harry muttered.
He fought with his own impulse to cast the Awareness Charm again quickly, before Draco could grab his wrist and stop it. Once it was cast, Draco would have to accept it, and they would go on. Harry would be more than ready for whatever challenges they might encounter in the large room.
But when his collapse finally came, it would be more forceful, and it might be in the midst of battle, or at some other inconvenient time. And Draco didn’t have the ability to protect Harry whilst he slept as Harry could protect him.
And Draco might think Harry’d stepped backwards again, overreacting defensively to the revelations about his sexual orientation, and that he regretted trusting Draco.
This man doesn’t need that aggravation.
“All right,” Harry muttered. “I won’t cast it. Let me take some precautions to make this area safe, and we’ll camp here.” He hesitated. “But you have to promise to wake me up immediately if anything happens.”
Draco stepped forwards and laid a hand on Harry’s shoulder. His smile was so happy and light that Harry had to glance away. How in the world can he smile like that after he knows that he tortured people and skinned them and drew and quartered them?
He started casting wards so he didn’t have to think about it.
At last, the wards were as good as they were going to get, and blankets had been spread on the ground, and Harry had checked and double-checked for traps and animals and the nasty, lingering kinds of curses he thought the Unspeakables might have left on this part of the maze. He lay back with a sigh-
To find himself laying his head in Draco’s lap again.
“Aren’t you getting tired of this?” he muttered, but his eyes were already closing, and even if Draco had been capable of speaking an answer, he probably wouldn’t have heard it. A deep ache, centered in his bones, spread warningly through him. He’d heard that it really wasn’t a terribly good idea to use multiple Awareness Charms, but, well, what else was he supposed to do?
He did feel Draco’s fingers stroking his forehead, parting the fringe to expose the scar and then letting the strands of hair fall back together again and again, and in that touch sensed his answer.
No.
*
Harry awoke feeling much better-not that he wanted to admit that. Draco sat so still beneath him that for a panicked moment Harry thought he was dead, or held prisoner, and incapable of moving to warn Harry of danger because someone had a wand at his throat. He gasped, and his eyes flew open.
Draco was motionless, but a look at his face, bowed towards Harry’s and hidden within the fall of his tangled hair, revealed no death, and no sleep. He wore an incredibly soft smile. His eyes just about shone. Harry hadn’t known that gray eyes could look that bright, unless they were gray eyes in a woman’s face.
And he couldn’t face what shone out of them.
He started to roll away, but Draco’s hand came down delicately on the side of his throat and kept him there. Harry hesitated, concerned about the sensitivity of Draco’s fingers, and Draco bowed further, undoubtedly hurting his neck, and captured Harry’s lips in another kiss.
Harry swallowed nervously as he kissed back, not once parting his lips. It wouldn’t do to encourage this kind of thing. He and Draco had to remain aware of their danger. He had to ensure that Draco didn’t become too dependent on him.
It seemed forever until Draco pulled back. It probably wasn’t. Draco’s face was perfectly neutral, and Harry swallowed again. He wondered if he should apologize, but then Draco might think he was apologizing for the kiss, and that was not the impression Harry wanted to give at all, and-
He resisted the temptation to bury his head in his arms, but barely. Thinking like this hurt. And whilst he could probably handle this kind of burden at least as well as Ron and Hermione, part of him resented that he should have had to handle it at all. If Draco had only agreed with him!
But that would be impossible, since Draco had already come to terms with being gay.
Harry yanked himself out of that unprofitable tangle of thoughts and sat up, removing himself from both Draco’s increasingly piercing gaze and a position that probably encouraged intimacy. He sighed and took off his glasses, fogged with warm breath, to wipe them on his robes.
“No one disturbed you?” he asked, and Draco shook his head. “No noises? No sign of the Unspeakables who might have been pursuing us?”
More headshakes. Harry nodded and started to say something else, but his stomach spoke for him, loudly enough that he flushed. Draco laughed soundlessly, and Harry was grateful to see some of the tension drain out of his face.
“Let’s eat, then,” he said, and dug into the satchel again.
There was an orange, which Harry hesitated over-he wondered if he should save it-but half-remembered lectures from Hermione, on the importance of some vitamin that only oranges and sunlight contained, made him decide to eat it now. God knew Draco could use vitamins and some more meat on his bones, and there was no way they would get sunlight here unless they conjured it. He sliced the orange into discrete pieces with a sharp wave of his wand, and then fetched plates for that and the corned beef sandwiches that followed. Draco wrinkled his nose at him in protest over having to eat corned beef.
“So sorry,” Harry muttered, leaning against the wall near his wards and trying to peer into the large room. He could see nothing, though. He thought about darting the globe of light into it, and then prudently refrained; there were plenty of sights in the maze that could put them both off their lunch. “I wasn’t thinking, when I packed, that I would be down here long enough to get tired of it.”
Draco parted his lips to emphasize his sigh; Harry knew it was a Why do I put up with him? sigh from the position of his eyebrows. But he ate the sandwich with more enthusiasm than Harry would have suspected he’d show after that introduction. Probably, after the year he’d had, wholesome food of any kind looked good. That didn’t mean he wouldn’t complain in an effort to get even more wholesome food, of course.
What am I doing with him?
The question occurred suddenly and smoothly to Harry as he watched Draco lick orange juice from his fingers, an expression of simple delight on his face. The conversation he and Draco had had after the Pensieve, and the need to comfort him, had driven the images of Draco skinning a helpless woman alive from his mind. But now they returned, and he had to put down his sandwich briefly to control the nausea.
He’s changed. I know that. But is that enough to make up for what he did? Can anything ever make up for it? I don’t think so.
Harry picked up his sandwich again, chewed slowly, and tried to keep the scowl off his face. Hermione claimed he always scowled when he thought too hard, and the last thing Harry wanted to find out was that Draco was as skilled in reading his features as he was in reading Draco’s.
No. He can’t atone for it. But that doesn’t mean it’s right to leave him here by himself, or reject him again. I’ll just have to be careful how I relate to him. Because I wouldn’t want him to think that anything he does is all right with me, either. I’ve heard that some people recovering from traumatic experiences can become so dependent on their caretakers that-
And then Harry half-laughed. Draco gave him a pointed, disgusted glance as bits of corned beef flew out of his mouth. Harry shrugged his apology and swallowed.
I’m talking and thinking-still-like this is going to be a permanent friendship or love affair. It won’t. You have things to do, remember?
Worry about life and death before you worry about exactly how much moral guilt Draco owes. Your own hands aren’t so clean.
Harry returned to his meal feeling absurdly cheerful. Putting off a decision that would have been difficult always affected him that way.
*
“You don’t remember anything about this place?” Harry disliked the skepticism in his voice, but he had to admit it seemed strange. Draco could remember the route through a maze of hundreds of nearly identical alcoves and turnings and side-passages, but he couldn’t remember a room as distinctive as this one?
Draco shook his head and turned away, his arms locked together around his stomach. That left Harry to glance dubiously around the room, one more time.
It resembled nothing so much as the finished entrance hall of a castle, assuming that castles were ever constructed of marble. Marble gleamed everywhere. Harry could see a slick shine on the floor that told him the joined stones there had been polished. The corners of the rectangular chamber bore jewels, large topazes from the look of them, all gleaming as proudly as though an army of house-elves had worked on them just a moment before. In the center of the room perched a high-backed throne, carved with cavorting lions and made of a gold-white, sweet-smelling wood Harry didn’t recognize. The throne stood facing away from them, and Harry felt a prickle of curiosity to walk around it and see what the seat held.
But, after what they had been through elsewhere in the maze, the temptation was not a strong one. His spells had revealed no people and no magical creatures; that was enough for him.
“Come on, then,” he said, and took Draco’s elbow to ensure he wouldn’t slip on the slick stones. Draco leaned on him, which rendered the escort a bit more problematic. Harry frowned.
Well, maybe he can save my life again. That seems to make him more confident and less dependent.
The room echoed as their footsteps tapped across it, of course. In fact, the echoes were eerily clear. Harry shivered and did his very best to ignore the implications of that that ran riot and jumpy through his mind.
They were a few steps from the throne when the first voice began to whisper.
Harry froze at once, and then whirled to look behind them, certain that more Unspeakables had chased them through the maze and only now caught up. But he saw nothing there. He cast the spell to reveal humans yet again, and it returned without result.
But still the voices continued. There was more than one of them now, and all the time they grew clearer and louder. Harry forced himself to stand still; running, or even casting, would cause noise enough to obscure them.
“-never realized how little he does to help himself, really.”
Harry shivered and went taut. Ron. That was Ron’s voice.
“Well, most of his victories were achieved with someone else’s help. Fawkes. And us, in first year. And where would he have been this last year, hunting the Horcruxes, without all the things I remembered to bring along and he didn’t? Honestly.” There followed a sharp huff of breath, though Harry had to wonder how that was possible when the voice seemed to be speaking from air instead of through a nose and mouth.
Hermione.
“Think we ought to mention it to him?”
“Of course not. He knows already, and he takes it hard enough.” Hermione’s voice was full of pity.
Harry winced, then hoped Draco hadn’t seen. Draco had his head turned towards the opposite side of the room, though, and was standing quite still. Vaguely familiar voices were speaking there; Harry thought they might be Lucius’s and Narcissa’s. He stepped over, put his arms around Draco, and tried not to listen.
That proved to be as impossible as not listening to the conversation between Ron and Hermione, of course.
“He won’t amount to anything,” said Lucius. “Not when he refuses to accept responsibility for his own faults. It’s certainly his own fault that the Potter boy doesn’t want anything to do with him.”
“I know,” murmured Narcissa. “But I’ve tried and tried to reason with him on the subject, and I just can’t. It drives him further into the obsession, in fact. I caught him lying in bed with a Prophet with Potter’s picture on the front page the other day. Just staring.”
Harry’s arms tightened around Draco in spite of himself. Draco kept his head bowed, but his shoulders were hunching, as if he found no comfort in Harry’s embrace.
“I’ll talk to him.” Lucius’s voice was full of grim promise.
Harry lowered his head and whispered into Draco’s ear, “It’s all right. I don’t think the less of you for it. We were all idiots when we were younger. Please, don’t listen to them. Just-“
And Ron’s voice began speaking again behind Harry’s shoulder, as if he and Hermione had seen Harry moving away and decided that was unacceptable. It was loud enough this time that Draco couldn’t miss a single word Ron said.
“He’s so frustrating, Hermione! Why did he break up with Ginny, if he wasn’t really going to date other men? He just sits around and broods all the time, and it’s all I can do to keep from kicking his arse and yelling at him to wake up!”
Harry breathed slowly, shallowly. Well. He had known that Hermione didn’t approve of his desire to remain out of the dating arena until he stopped liking men, and Ron often shared most of her deep-seated attitudes, now that they were engaged.
Hermione’s voice sighed, a long sound that seemed to come from the depths of her soul and blew around Harry like a storm-wind, but didn’t answer in words.
“He’d just better give Ginny first choice when he’s straight again, that’s all I can say,” Ron muttered in disgust. “Do you know she spent half the night after they broke up in tears? He was all she’s ever wanted. It’s not comfortable, you know? Torn between wanting to protect your kid sister and trying to understand your best friend?”
“I know, Ron. Remember, Ginny’s one of my best friends, too.”
Harry flinched with his whole body this time. He was holding Draco, so Draco would feel that, but there was no help for it.
Sometimes, he had surprised an expression on Hermione’s face, or on Ron’s, that made him think they really weren’t accepting his transition into a different sexual orientation as calmly as they said they were. This conversation sounded-very real. They’d probably had it in their own flat when they went home from the Ministry, and probably more than once.
Just like they’ve probably had the previous conversation you heard more than once, Harry thought, his eyelids drooping shut. They must have got tired of the way that everyone applauds you for being the big hero, but they played just as much part in defeating Voldemort as you did, and where’s their media attention?
But the realizations did not cut him with guilt. He had come to terms, long ago, with his own inadequacy when he was on his own; it was one reason he was so frantic to find Ron and Hermione now, and fervently wished they were with him as he and Draco journeyed through the maze. And if he couldn’t explain and defend his own sexual choices even to himself, well, why should he expect his friends to understand perfectly? He really should have been either straight with no regrets, or gay with no apologies.
Lucius was speaking again, his voice low and pointed and poisonous, even though by now it was loud enough that it sliced right through Harry’s private thoughts.
“I’ll tell you this once and only once. If you ever see that young man again, I will cast the Castration Charm. Oh, don’t look at me with that superior expression on your face, Draco. You may not think the Castration Charm exists, but I assure you, it does, and I will use it. As you well know, I have final approval of your choice of liaisons. I will not have you coming spoiled and tainted by Mudbloods to your marriage bed.”
Draco began to cry. Harry felt the first drops land on the sleeves of his robes, and then he felt Draco struggling madly. He was trying to raise his hands, Harry realized, and cover his face so that Harry couldn’t see the tears.
“No, don’t,” Harry whispered. “I don’t care. Draco, I don’t. What you did wasn’t wrong. It’s normal for you, remember? I don’t care.”
Ron and Hermione were talking again, but Harry forced himself to ignore them. Besides, from the sound of it, they were speaking about the anger he’d exhibited in fifth year. He already knew that was stupid, and that it had led to the loss of Sirius. The room could come up with nothing to torture him that he had not already thought up to torture himself.
Hearing his best friends’ voices say it-yes, that was bad. But for whatever reason, it was far more devastating for Draco, and right now, he was the one who needed help.
“I don’t care,” he whispered, directly into Draco’s ear this time, daring to hope that would make some difference. “I don’t. I already know you’re gay. I accept that you were obsessed with me, if that’s what you were. I know I hurt you in the past, probably more than you hurt me. I apologize for that. Please, don’t listen to them. We’ll go on. We’ll get through this.”
Draco quivered once, then relaxed against him. And then he began to tow Harry across the room and towards the far door as if his life depended on it. Harry went with him, only pausing now and then to adjust the grip of his arms or keep his wand aimed high. If the voices were only voices, well and good. If they manifested bodies or speakers at any moment, he would be ready to cast.
But no, the voices only went on, getting louder and louder all the time, until Lucius was bellowing his disappointment in Draco and Ron and Hermione were shrieking to each other about how difficult Harry was to live with, given his moodiness. Harry doubted Draco would have heard him now if he whispered comfort. The arm slung around Draco’s shoulders, the arm that only moved when Draco did and then only to adjust its grip to a firmer one, would have to do.
A quick, flickering movement near the shadow of the throne caught his eye. Harry swished his wand towards it. But although the movement repeated itself, it seemed to be aiming away from them, scuttling towards the door they had come in by. And nothing manifested when Harry waited for a challenge, and it was difficult to be sure it existed, anyway, given that the light globe threw their shadows long behind them, almost to the door itself. Harry turned his head away at last, the better to concentrate on helping Draco keep his feet.
And then they were out of the room of the voices, and stumbling headlong into a narrow, wood-paneled corridor aiming towards the brilliant white light of another Pensieve room. Draco’s body was shaking with reaction-and relief, Harry hoped. The voices had already cut off. Harry suspected it was human presence in the room that triggered them.
He gently pushed the hair back from Draco’s face, murmuring reassurances that sometimes included endearments, and sometimes were just Draco’s name. “It wasn’t real,” he said finally.
Draco shot him an incredulous, narrow-eyed look.
“Some of it was,” Harry corrected himself. “But even telling the truth, even saying horrible things about you, they can’t make you evil.” He tried a smile. “If the Pensieve memories haven’t convinced me you’re evil, why did you think your father’s voice would? I never trusted your father, anyway.”
Draco motioned for the communication sphere, and Harry floated it over to him. Draco sullenly tapped out, You were free. Why?
Harry thought about that. The only answer that came to him was the one he had realized in the room. “I was hurt,” he said at last. “But I’ve already thought those things, or variations on them, to myself. Or I would see an impatient expression on their faces and imagine that they were thinking those things about me, even if they really weren’t.” He shrugged, not sure how to better explain it. “Does that make sense?”
Another stare, and then Draco selected the facets that together meant, You have a sad life.
Harry laughed. “I won’t dispute with you there.” He paused a moment. “Are you well enough to travel on?”
Draco tossed his head and climbed to his feet. Harry saw a slight flush on his cheeks, and suspected he was embarrassed about needing so much help. Harry scrambled up to join him with a slight clack of his wooden foot.
“You don’t have to be humiliated in front of me,” he said softly. “I’ll never tease you about it.”
Draco hesitated one moment, then buried his head briefly into Harry’s shoulder. Harry hardly had time to touch his face before he pulled away again and strode towards the white light of the Pensieve room. He paused halfway between Harry and the door to cock his head back and flip up his eyebrows. Are you coming?
Harry smiled. “Yes.”
As he went after Draco, he again saw a flicker of darting movement behind him. But again it came from the direction of his shadow, and he doubted there was anything there. The last thing he needed to have was paranoid fantasies; he should concentrate on the very real evils in front of him.
Chapter 21.