Chapter Twenty-Seven of 'Forgive Those Who Trespass'- The Center of the Maze
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Chapter Twenty-Seven-The Center of the Maze
It took long moments to persuade Draco to move from their position, no matter how awkward it was, and then he insisted on trailing his hands in delight across Harry’s hair and shoulders and spine. Since he didn’t have fingertips to feel, he used his palms, as the most remaining sensitive parts of his hands. The look in his eyes whenever they met Harry’s-which was far too often for Harry’s peace of mind, when he was concentrating on his plan to save Draco-was rapturous. Harry did his best to look back calmly.
Inside, though, he regretted that he hadn’t found another way than Legilimency to reach Draco. It was only now that he began to think about what his memories probably meant to the other man.
He’s going to think-well, all sorts of unfortunate things.
Finally, though, they stood and moved a few paces down the tunnel. Draco went pale and began to tremble on the way, but each time Harry laid a palm against his temple and spoke softly, and that brought him back. He leaned on Harry without self-consciousness. It was not, exactly, the puppy-like way he’d regarded Harry sometimes before. It was simply as if he were utterly comfortable, as if neither of them had anything left to hide.
Harry shut his eyes, to keep from being weak in any number of possible ways.
They slept at last in a room furnished with carpets and a dull fireplace, though any books or furniture had been removed long ago. Harry cast Incendio on the few fragments of wood and cloth on the hearth, and set up strong wards, but curled up beside Draco without fear. He was sure, now, that nothing would trouble them here.
He had become quietly more and more certain that someone was monitoring their progress through the maze. They had found the Pensieves, but not the letters that should have been carved on the base of the rib bone pillars. Though the Pensieves had been so awful, they hadn’t had as many horrible and disgusting traps in the corridors around them as before. And the shadow plague had been a long-term strategy. There was no reason to use one unless a hidden observer was confident it would act in time to take Harry out before he reached the center of the maze-or if he wanted to wait and see if such a strategy would be necessary in the first place.
Harry was sure he knew who that person was. And he knew what bargain he would make with him.
He slept quietly, deeply, without fear and without dreams, though it seemed to him as if he always knew when Draco stirred and reached out for reassurance, and each time he provided it unhesitatingly.
*
Harry made sure Draco had the best portion of the breakfast the next morning, though it was only toast and jerky. His stomach was jumping, and he couldn’t eat. Cold sweat pooled behind his ears and on his palms; he had to keep drying his hands off surreptitiously, when Draco wasn’t looking.
Yet, though his body was so nervous, his mind was perfectly controlled, calm, cool. He knew what happened next. There just weren’t any options any more.
Draco led him at a steady march through blank stone corridors most of that morning-well, Harry chose to think of it as “morning”-but then halted when they reached a half-circle of wooden wall set with a single door. Harry stepped up beside him and took his hand. “This is the center of the maze, isn’t it?” he whispered.
Draco nodded. He hadn’t used the communication sphere once that day, preferring to rely on gestures and expressions.
“All right,” Harry said.
He started to take a step forwards, but Draco reversed his hand and returned the grip on Harry’s wrist. Harry looked at him in wonder. Draco leaned in until his breath made Harry’s beard stubble dance, and mouthed, Mine.
Harry smiled, and kept the impending sickness off his face. “Of course,” he said aloud. “Who else would I belong to?”
Draco apparently failed to notice that that wasn’t the same thing as a promise to stick around, only the promise that Harry would like to. He beamed, nodded furiously, and then swept a hand ahead.
Harry looked down, took in the sight of Draco’s rounded, cut-off fingers one last time, and told himself to be patient, to be calm. Then he raised his wand and whispered, “Alohomora.”
The door swung open with the faintest of clicks, as if it had been perfectly balanced on its hinges, only the weight of the latch holding it back. Harry made sure not to touch it as he guided Draco inside.
The room before them was full of silken silvery light, such as might have come from three full moons. The floor beneath them crunched softly; it was the color of dead grass, and sounded like frost. Harry noticed, first, that a wide circular rim of stone ran around the walls of the room, and then Draco seized his arm and gestured wildly. Harry looked up.
In front of them was an enormous tree, so huge that its roots were big enough to cradle Harry or Draco lying on their backs with all limbs outspread. Its trunk was squat and bulbous, but its arching branches made up for that, reaching far enough to brush against the walls and ceiling of the gigantic room. From each twig, all of which glistened with amber sap, hung a single person. The ends of the twigs seemed to meld with their scalps, or possibly their hair, making them dangle like obscene fruit. All the people had their eyes closed, as if sleeping.
Harry felt his heart clench. Some of the sleepers wore the gray robes of Azkaban prisoners; others wore the hooded cloaks of Unspeakables. He thought he knew the fate, now, of the people who hadn’t been transformed into part of the maze or caught outside the Department of Mysteries when the transformation happened.
Draco tugged his sleeve and pointed again. Harry licked his lips and prevented himself from crying out only with a force of will. Ron and Hermione hung on two of the outermost branches, swaying as though pushed by a wind. Neither of their faces was supposed to look like that, more blank and slack than sleep could make them. At least, in sleep, there were dreams. Harry didn’t think there were any here.
He edged forwards, though he had to drag Draco, who didn’t want to move, along with him. He had no idea what he was going to do, but all his fragmented thoughts focused on getting Ron and Hermione down from the tree.
“Welcome.”
It was Draco’s voice. But it was Richard who stepped around the tree’s trunk and regarded them with calm, unsurprised eyes.
Draco wilted next to him, like a rabbit at the sight of the cat’s claws. Harry maneuvered so his body was between the other two men, and his hand tightened on the wand hard enough nearly to snap it.
But he could not attack-not immediately. This was the man he hoped would grant him the key to Ron and Hermione’s freedom, as well as Draco’s.
And if he doesn’t want to-well. Harry grinned, and knew it was the cause of the thoughtful way Richard eyed him. I’ll force him. There was a small vial he had brought with him that Hermione had brewed only as a curiosity, and which Harry had sneaked into her flat to get before he descended. It was a highly illegal potion, Harry’s secret weapon.
“Did you know,” said Richard, with just that same sneering, drawling tone Harry had always hated about Malfoy from their school days, “that you’ve given me a deal of trouble? At first you seemed likely to die in the maze. And then you kept coming closer and closer, and disrupting my plans.” He shrugged a little. “I had to make sure that, even if you survived to face me, you wouldn’t know everything.”
“I know what I’m missing,” Harry said quietly. He felt Draco start and glance at him warily, but he ignored that. The time when Draco could stop him had long gone past. “You know that you’ll suffer for your crimes, of course.”
“I always knew that,” Richard said. “If I didn’t end my days in Azkaban, I’d most likely die at the end of a prisoner’s wand. Such is the fate of all who labor to make the wizarding world better through their own efforts, rather than merely removing a cancer, as you did.” He shrugged a bit, then said, “Flawed as the maze is-neither of you are immortal simply from walking it-it is better than anything I would have if I let you simply remove Draco from it. Which can’t be done, incidentally.”
Harry had been listening with great care. There was a slight emphasis, no more than a breath, on simply. That relieved Harry. Yes, removal was possible. But it would be difficult. It would not even be so easy-well, Harry counted it easy, anyway-as dying to get Draco out.
Life and death are different here.
“There is a way to discuss matters, actually.” Harry shifted his weight, making sure the satchel moved to the side and under his left hand. He had already arranged things inside it carefully this morning, when they ate their breakfast. He would have to be quick; Richard might be willing to suffer for his crimes, but Harry doubted he would want this potion to touch him if he knew what it did. “Will you hear me out?”
Richard lifted his eyebrows and looked pleased. “I will.”
Bastard. That’s Draco’s voice, not his. He stole it.
Harry nodded, then shifted his weight fully onto his right foot and whipped around in a circle. His hand was already drawing out the potion’s vial from the satchel and throwing it. He should make the hit. He envisioned it as a flying curse, a hex, and surely he’d had enough time already to dream about how much he hated Richard and would hex him on sight.
Richard uttered a cry of surprise, rather than pain, and Harry heard glass shatter. He grinned as he came out of the turn and settled on his heels again. Right on target.
The vial had broken at Richard’s feet, having probably bounced off his outstretched hand or hip first. The yellow potion inside had burst out in a flare of light, and of golden liquid that covered Richard thickly. Richard had his mouth firmly closed, but that didn’t matter. The potion could be absorbed through the skin; so Hermione had bragged eagerly when she first made it. That much, Harry had remembered, more because of the potion’s name and nature than because he’d been spectacularly interested in her research projects.
Gryffindor’s Potion, it was called.
“Now,” Harry said casually, ignoring Draco’s hanging jaw and fretful motions for the communication sphere, “you’ll find that you’ll need to tell the truth. Lying is considered cowardly behavior, unbefitting the House of Gryffindor. And anything that’s unbefitting the House of Gryffindor, that potion is designed to punish.”
Richard narrowed his eyes, then nodded thoughtfully. “Godric’s Delight, I’ve also heard this called,” he said. “Yes. Rather. I understand, and will comply with your request. Indeed, I already thought to do so, in order that both of us may have the greatest shot at getting what we want.”
Harry gritted his teeth. The thing he hated most about Richard (well, at the moment) was how good he was at taking unexpected changes in stride. He tapped Draco’s wrist, and they sat down on the grass, well away from the nearest root of the tree. Richard continued to learn against the trunk.
“I want you,” said Harry, “to tell me what would happen if you had managed to create a perfect maze.”
Richard’s eyes glowed, and his head came up. “It would have been necessary simply to walk to the center of the maze,” he breathed. “The obstacles would be few-certainly nothing that the chosen wizards and witches, worthy of this glory, could not handle.” His gaze was distant. Harry curled his lip. Richard didn’t seem to notice. “Once in the center, the chosen would drink from the sap flowing from a crack in the trunk of this tree. They would become immortal then.”
Harry nodded. “What would have happened if someone Apparated to the center of the maze and then walked back through it?”
Richard laughed joyously. Harry’s skin crawled. Draco should be laughing like that. All the times I imagined him able to speak and rejoice as we walked here, he should have been making that sound. “A wise question, Mr. Potter! But it is not so easy for traitors to our cause to do such a thing. The blessing of the maze is one way only. Walking from the center of even a perfect construction back to the entrance does nothing.”
Harry breathed more easily. One piece of the information he had most needed to know, secured.
And Draco’s heard it. That’s even more important.
“Why did you kidnap Ron and Hermione?”
Richard shrugged slightly. “I expected some flaws and imperfections in the maze-though nothing like what happened.” He looked, briefly, vexed. Harry accepted it as the best vengeance he would get for right now. “I knew our Mr. Malfoy was not perfectly willing, and suspected Imperius was not a good substitute.” He bowed to Draco. Draco hid his face against Harry’s shoulder and refused to look up again. “They would have been used as building material to fill in the gaps.”
“Building material,” Harry repeated numbly.
“Do you have a hearing problem, Mr. Potter? And so far, you had been my paragon of hope!”
Harry breathed slowly through his mouth. “But they wouldn’t have been necessary if the maze was perfect? That is, if Draco had actually been a willing sacrifice?” Careful, careful. Draco had gone stiff where he leaned against Harry. He must not suspect before it was time.
“And you impress me again! No, in that case we would have been able to proceed with using the maze.”
“What would happen-“ Harry began, then revised the question in his head and discarded it as too likely to make Draco suspect the truth. “Suppose a way was found to free Draco from the maze,” he said quietly. “What would happen to Ron and Hermione then?”
“They would die in the collapse of the Ministry, of course.” Richard arched an eyebrow. “We are the ninth level, supporting the others that rest on top of us.”
“But suppose the floor simply became the Department of Mysteries again, without collapsing-or a perfect maze replaced it. Would they be able to walk out of here?”
Richard tapped his fingers together, looking as if Harry had disappointed him somehow. His voice was Draco’s when he had been about to launch something nasty and squishy into Harry’s cauldron during Potions. “Yes. We would have no reason to keep them, in that case. I told you, only the chosen will walk this maze.”
Harry fought back a shiver of loathing. “Have the Unspeakables outside the maze hurt Draco’s friends and family?”
Richard spread his hands. “No reason to. I certainly could not give them the orders, occupied as I am with maintaining things here, and they know better than to move hastily.”
“Some of them came after us in the maze.”
“Only those who were able to leave their posts. And they withdrew on my command, once I decided to deal with you here.”
Harry closed his eyes, once again revising the things he needed to know in his head. “I understand why you took Draco’s fingers and ribs,” he murmured. “But why his voice? And why did you need to enter his soul to retrieve it?”
“That was part of my genius, my improvement on Sir Galen’s original design.” Harry had to pretend Richard was talking about something else in order to listen to this at all. “He recommended at least two physical anchors and a mental one. The ribs and the fingers were the physical ones, the memories the mental. But the voice is both physical-it fills the lungs and travels on the air as sound vibrations-and mental-it translates the thoughts that otherwise would remain in the mind. I chose it as an extra linchpin, in case the creation of the maze should go wrong, and I went into his soul to force a more complete yielding. Its absence made Draco more dependent, more abject. Less human-“
“You bastard.” Harry hadn’t known he would say the words before he said them.
Silence for a moment. Then Richard said, in that same disappointed tone, “Really, Mr. Potter, we will never reach the culmination we both desire if you keep insulting me.”
Harry ignored him for the moment, turning to Draco and lifting his chin with a tender hand. Draco peered up at him with eyes shimmering with tears, but nodded in determination when Harry mouthed at him Can you go on?
Harry stared at him for one moment more, then kissed him gently on the mouth, with open lips but no tongue. This was the last choice he would really allow Draco to make, so he had to respect it.
Turning back to Richard, he strove to match the calm, cold tone the other man had used. “More like something that’s a part of the maze, instead of someone with an independent existence of his own.”
“Yes, exactly. And it took away a measure of his power.” Richard spread his hands. “That’s important. The sacrifice to found the maze on is supposed to be without interest in power of his-or her-own. He will, after all, be the stones walked upon, the floors slept upon, the walls slapped and carved. Had Draco’s commitment been complete, then only a dust analogue of his body would have greeted you in that first room. He would have become the rooms you see here.” He spread his hands further, widening his arms this time. “He is partially them now. You walked through him, in some ways, to get here. But not completely.”
I’ve been inside Draco.
Half an hour ago, the vulgar connotations of that would have occurred to Harry first. Now he only felt humbled, and honored, and grateful.
But Richard’s information reassured him even as it infuriated. Yes, all the pieces were falling into place. He had only two questions left to ask now.
“Why?” he asked.
Richard paused as if expecting more to the question, then sighed patiently. “Why have Muggles experimented on animals?” he asked. “Why have wizards experimented on magical creatures, and Muggleborns, and all those others considered lesser during various spans of time? We need knowledge of suffering and pain, and such knowledge comes only from the experience of suffering and pain. And yet, those who have experienced it most often do not usually become good historians of their own experience. They are likely to be stunned into silence, or break completely, and stare at the world with glassy, unseeing eyes. So others must hurt them, and then observe. The Muggles have become fabulously healthy through testing their drugs on animals, I’ll have you know. And the animals are lesser than they are in power, unable to object, morally not on the same level as humans. The perfect subjects. For us, it was prisoners, those who had forfeited their right to be part of society by committing crimes. They could at least pay for their sins this way. The healthy, the innocent, the children who should never die of diseases and the geniuses who can contribute more to the world by living longer, are saved.”
Harry shook his head. Absolute conviction shone behind Richard’s every word. And obviously he was telling the truth, or the Gryffindor’s Potion would have punished him with tearing pain through his guts.
Last question, then. Harry licked his lips. “I know the letters on the bases of the pillars were spelling out an incantation,” he said. “Crepidinem exi. I want the last few letters.”
And Richard smiled at him, an incredibly proud and tender smile, as though Harry were a beloved student who had come through his last few trials and proven himself worthy to stand beside his professor. Harry looked steadily back.
“Crepidinem existo,” Richard breathed. “I become the foundation.”
Harry glanced at Draco, who had his eyes narrowed. “Is that right? Is that what the Latin means?”
Draco nodded. His eyes were darting back and forth between Richard and Harry as though he suspected he had missed something, but was not certain what it was.
“Good,” Harry said, and the word traveled out on a sigh. “Good. Expelliarmus!”
Richard’s wand came sailing from his hand towards Harry’s. He put it down in front of Draco and glanced at him as he used Incarcerous to bind Richard to the trunk of the tree. Richard wasn’t struggling, only watching in absorbed fascination. That was probably the creepiest thing Harry had seen yet.
“Listen, Draco,” he said. “When you’re free, you should be whole again. Able to walk. Tell Ron and Hermione what happened. You’ll have two wands, so you should be able to defend yourself long enough to make them listen to you.” He glanced at Richard and felt a smile lift the corners of his lips. “And he’s yours. Do whatever you want with him.”
Draco grabbed his shoulder, but tentatively, as though he feared to hold Harry back. Harry stared at him, and hoped his eyes conveyed the full force of what he was feeling. After a moment, Draco’s eyes filled with tears.
Harry stood. “I hope you can forgive me,” he said thickly. No, he wasn’t nervous-it was excitement his hand shook with, eagerness to have this done with-but it was still hard to watch realization dawn on Draco’s face. “I’ve-come to love you, Draco.” And it was not so hard to say, not so hard at the last.
Draco began to shake his head, slowly, and then faster and faster, as the panic that had overcome him when the shadow plague took Harry crept up his body again.
“Yes,” Harry told him. “But it’s important you be free, so you can have whatever you want.”
Draco seized his trousers leg and tugged, nearly hard enough to upset him. Harry read that pull: It’s you I want.
“I know,” Harry whispered. “I know. But we can’t always have those things we desire. And your freedom will give you so much more than I ever could.” He stepped back from Draco, glancing once more at Richard. He simply stayed where he was, tied, awaiting this. He wanted this. His most important priority was the creation of his perfect maze, not his own survival.
He caught Harry’s eye and smiled beatifically. “I did not lie,” he said. “The potion would have punished me if I had. And this will work. When the maze transforms, your friends and the others will walk out of here unharmed. And Draco will have everything back. His parts won’t be needed as anchors for the maze anymore.”
Harry waited, but no golden fire raked Richard. He nodded. His heart was beating so fast that his vision blurred.
How to free Draco? You can’t tunnel under the maze. You can’t simply free him without its collapsing.
Someone else has to take his place. A willing sacrifice.
He caught a brief glimpse of Draco lunging at him, arms spread, eyes wide, mouth full of denial, but Harry had always been very fast with his wand.
“Crepidinem existo,” he said, his voice clear and strong.
The universe tore open.
Chapter 28.