FIC: Beyond the Lethe, Part 2 (PG-13)
Title: Beyond the Lethe (part 2)
Author: ZS
Rating: PG-13
Words: ~16,425
Disclaimer: all JKR's.
Notes: grateful thanks to earthmoon and luzmaria8 for everything.
Spoilers: none for HBP.
Summary: For Harry, forgetting was easy...
"You do remember Hogwarts, don't you?"
A few hours later, they're alone on the quiet water of the Hogwarts lake, sailing ever closer towards the massive castle.
Harry glares. "What sort of question is that? Of course I do."
Truthfully, though, Harry can only remember fragments-Snape and moments in Potions and Occlumency lessons, Umbridge, the Chamber of Secrets, Tom Riddle-and they're all unpleasant.
"And you remember this."
Draco steps out of the way, and Harry can finally see-feel, really-the oppressive magic. In the distance, he can see a vague, translucent shimmer in the center of the Forbidden Forest. As the boat brings them closer to Hogwarts, the unsettled feeling in Harry's stomach amplifies until he is close to being physically ill.
It doesn't take long to reach the base camp on foot. Harry is once again stunned by the scope of the mission: there are tents and people and parchments everywhere. Nervously, Harry looks at Draco from the corner of his eye. At first, Draco looks composed. Then, Harry begins to see tightness around his mouth.
"Stop that," Harry says, as they wind their way towards the center of the operation.
"Stop what?"
Draco's expression is full-on innocence, with a hint of amusement around his mouth. This is far more reassuring.
"You're making me nervous."
Draco opens his mouth to respond, but he's cut off by Gravely's appearance.
"There you are," she says. "Finally. Hold out your arms."
Harry does. Gravely waves her wand, and glittery sparkles hit him. His ears pop and he has to swallow a few times to equalize the pressure in his head.
"What was that?"
"A little added edge. It's a communication spell I've been developing. According to our research on your wand, you used magic inside the rings. We're hoping this spell will let us talk to you."
She casts the same spell on Draco, and Harry feels oddly reassured that they will be in communication throughout.
"Did you sleep at all?" Gravely says, leading them away from the camp.
"A little."
"Good. You'll need to be sharp. Here we are."
"Here we are… where?" Harry says, looking around. The nauseating press of magic has increased, but Harry sees nothing remarkable about their surroundings.
"This is the entrance to the rings. See the markings in the ground?"
It's only then that Harry notices they're standing in a giant circle of white sand.
"How is this an entrance?" Harry says.
"It's not. Yet. It needs your blood. We've tried to open the gateway with stored blood, but it didn't work. We concluded that it had to be you, and it had to be here."
She reaches into her pocket and holds out a small knife.
"Good luck, Harry."
Slowly, Harry closes his hand around the handle. Gravely walks out of the circle, and Harry opens his left hand. His heart starts pounding again, the sound becoming a roar in his ears. If he doesn't let himself think too far ahead to what awaits him at the middle of the rings, at least he can breathe.
"Hurry up, Potter, we haven't all day."
Harry blinks and looks up. Draco is still standing there beside him, wand at the ready, feet planted firmly in the white sand.
"What are you doing?"
"Do you really think you're going in there unsupervised?"
Harry sputters. "This is about supervision? You expect me to believe…"
"What else would it be about, then?"
It's a dare. A dare to get Harry to say the words aloud. But he hasn't been able to figure this out yet, and he doesn't have words for what he doesn't yet understand.
Harry changes tactics. "How do you know it'll let you in? Maybe it'll squish you."
"It won't."
"But-"
"It won't. Fuck, Potter."
He grabs Harry around the waist, pushing himself up behind Harry so they're touching back-to-chest. Harry realizes with distinct panic that Draco is exactly his height, and therefore has to peer around his shoulder to watch Harry's hands.
"Let's go," he says softly, and Harry nicks his fingertip.
"How much do you think it needs?" Harry says, as blood starts dripping from his hand into the sand.
"Maybe the better question is how much do you think it wants?"
For a moment, all Harry can hear is the dull splatter of blood hitting sand. He lets himself feel Draco's body snug against his, and he begins to feel dizzy and unsteady. Everything starts spinning. He feels Draco tighten his grip on his waist and press himself even closer as if seeking shelter from the wind. Something howls in his ears, and darkness falls from the sky all around them.
*
"I don't think we're in Kansas anymore," Harry mutters quietly, as the swimming colors recede from his vision.
"What?"
Draco lets him go slowly.
"Nothing." He puts the knife in his pocket and takes out his wand. They're in a grassy area, and there is no sign of the gateway or the sand circle or the base camp. It's daylight, but the sun is barely more than a suggestion through the thick overhead canopy of clouds.
Harry pushes at the tall grass. There is a small path where the grass has been trodden down, and he has a sudden distinct memory of this place.
"I went this way," he says, leading the way.
Ten minutes later, they smell rotting flesh. A few minutes after that, they come across a clearing and the massive, rotting corpse of a wyvern.
Harry takes a step backwards at the sight of the giant creature: a limbless, serpentine body with metallic scales. His stomach twists as a memory crashes back, of the spiked tail swinging and lancing his arm with poisoned barbs.
"Be careful," he says, as Draco pushes on ahead, and Draco gives him a jaundiced look.
They approach at an angle. The wyvern doesn't move; Harry remains skeptical. He knows how these scenarios typically play out, with the assumed-deceased creature striking back with a vengeance. The wyvern's scales gleam dully, and Harry can see where his slicing spells merely dented the hide. Then, his boot sinks into something gooey that squelches underfoot. And then the smell hits him, the stench of rotting flesh and stomach contents. Harry's stepped into a pile of eviscerated organs. Gagging, he stumbles away, trying not to breathe. It's then that he sees the great chunks of flesh missing from the body, the edges of the marks jagged like from teeth, and a hysterical laugh bubbles up from his chest.
"It's still dead," he says.
"Indeed," Draco says, snapping on dragonhide gloves. "This is your handiwork, I presume?"
"The giant tooth marks? I sincerely doubt-"
At Draco's raised eyebrow, Harry looks and sees the nearly severed head of the wyvern.
"Oh," Harry says. "Maybe?"
"You don't remember?"
Draco suddenly leaps onto the carcass, grabbing onto the knobby protrusions for leverage. He roots around in the mess of bone and gaping veins and thick, coagulated blood and muscle, and Harry sputters, "What are you-"
Draco tugs hard on something with both hands, and a dull ring sounds out as he pulls something free, something that looks a lot like-
"Lose something?" Draco says, grinning, a gleam in his eyes.
Harry blinks. "That's…"
"Finder's keepers, maybe," Draco continues, giving Godric Gryffindor's sword an experimental twirl. He hops off the wyvern's body and looks at Harry.
"Any memories coming back?"
Harry shakes his head. "Give me a minute?"
Draco nods. He casts a cleaning charm on the sword. Then, he touches his ear. "Wheaton? Are you still there? Let me fill you in…"
Harry wanders away, trying to let his mind adjust to the new information. He doesn't remember bringing in the sword or using it to defeat the wyvern. That gaping hole in his memory makes him wonder what else he has forgotten.
Not for the first time, he feels nervous. He doesn't even have the benefit of past experience to help them through this. He's just about to ask Draco what they're supposed to do next when he steps on something that crunches under his shoes.
Bones, he thinks, but reconsiders when he realizes how far he is from the wyvern. Unease starts to trickle down his spine. As far as he knows, there weren't any other living creatures here. He bends down so he can see more closely.
The fragments are white like bone but far thinner. They're eggshells, he realizes. He picks up a piece that is largely intact and turns it over in his hand. There is a tell-tale grayish-green spot on the shell which gives away its identity: a wyvern egg. With the lack of food, the juvenile wyverns-about six, Harry estimates-would have either starved to death or eaten each other. And that food source wouldn't have lasted long.
Except for the adult wyvern.
Now Harry remembers the teeth marks in the body; now he stands, feeling his heart start to race; now he is hurrying back, trying to catch Draco's attention with a minimum of noise.
"Draco. There is a very good possibility that we're not alone. I found wyvern eggshells."
Draco pales, but says, "That doesn't mean anything."
It's then that Harry hears the whispering. He can't make out any words at first. But as he looks away from Draco's confused expression to focus in on the voices, he can hear a single word being repeated like a mantra:
"Food."
Harry slides his wand into his palm. Draco does the same and lets the sword drop point-first into the ground.
"What do you hear?" he says quietly.
"That we're on the menu."
"Like hell."
Draco's eyes widen as he too hears rustling in the bushes.
"What's our plan?" Harry whispers, as he mentally prepares a list of spells to use.
"Survive," Draco says. "Also, you need to try to remember how you passed through to the next ring."
"I didn't even remember the sword! How do you-"
"Because our lives may depend on it."
Harry's eyes flicker to a sudden movement over Draco's shoulder just as Draco draws a sharp breath. Draco fires off a spell from his wand just as Harry does the same, shouting "Confundus!" at the white almond-shaped head poising to strike. Then he is throwing himself behind the wyvern corpse, and Draco is gone from his sight in a flurry of robes.
Harry's Care of Magical Creatures lectures begin to surface. He remembers that wyverns are incredibly fast and agile, and that they have excellent senses of smell and touch. Harry sends another curse at the wyvern, but it hisses and retreats into the grass. Harry struggles to keep it in sight, slipping and stumbling through the eviscerated organs and gore of the adult wyvern. They have terrible eyesight, he recalls, and poor hearing.
As Harry scrambles for better positioning, he hears Draco shouting curses and wonders how many wyverns there are. The two he's seen still have their white skins, which mean they haven't grown fully into their armor yet, but they are nearly full-grown and ravenous. Harry slips suddenly and clamps down on a yelp. He lands on his back, and a wave of the corpse's reeking odor briefly smothers his lungs.
Out of the corner of his eye, he sees a flash of white, and he freezes full stop. He tries to breathe slowly, ignoring the thundering of his heart in his chest. Again, he can hear the whispers of "Food, food…" and the bending of the long grass against slithering bodies. He holds his breath now as the wyvern looms over him, tongue flickering over the sole of his shoes, filmy eyes looking straight at him. His body heat will give him away, Harry thinks, that and the uncontrollable shuddering of his chest. But a sudden shout off in the distance grabs the wyvern's attention, and after a last look right through Harry, it darts away.
Harry sits up carefully, using the corpse for cover, in time to see the tail of the wyvern vanishing into the grass. He launches himself after it, and gets about five steps in before a different tail appears out of nowhere and swipes his legs out from under him. Harry lands hard and awkwardly, but he knows he needs to move, now, so he twists and rolls just as the wyvern's jaws snap shut right beside his head. Harry brings up his wand, and the blasting hex tears right through the wyvern's eye. It screams in pain, thrashing and biting blindly. Harry fires off two more spells, and the wyvern's head wetly explodes.
Draco's yelling breaks through Harry's adrenaline haze, and he gets to his feet, feeling only now the first effects of the wyvern's poisonous spines.
Not again.
His vision slips and his tongue feels swollen and slow. The poison is a muscle paralyzer, but Harry guesses that he's only been grazed. His gaze falls upon the dropped sword and he pulls it from the ground before running in the direction of Draco's voice.
Harry hears the wyverns first: angry, unintelligible hisses, not caring for stealth anymore. Then Harry sees their white backs. One of them has a scorched tail and all its spines burned off. It sways wildly, striking over and over. The other wyvern is more reluctant to engage in fighting. It hangs back, looking for a moment of inattention or weakness.
Then Draco comes into view. His back is up against a thick hedge; there's nowhere to run. He's bleeding from a gash in his forehead and is breathing hard, but appears otherwise unhurt, if a bit outnumbered.
Harry goes after the injured wyvern, yelling to snag its attention and then jabbing it in the tail with the sword.
"Potter!" Draco yells, and the second wyvern, sensing Draco's distraction, lunges forward.
Harry loses track of Draco once more. The wyvern lashes out with its tail, but Harry braces the sword in its path. The sword doesn't shear off the tail cleanly; instead, it lodges deeply in the bone. Harry is dragged off his feet and thrown to the ground. He tries to scramble up and away but his legs suddenly won't respond. Instead, he aims his wand at the giant pair of jaws descending upon him, but now he has no words, can't force his tongue to work.
Suddenly, Harry is blinded by a golden light. His eyes are slow to close and he sees the wyvern's skull split open with a resounding crack that he feels in his own chest and teeth.
Then he hears Draco talking to him, yelling at him, and propping up his head. He feels a wave of vertigo as his world shifts.
"You know you're not supposed to run when you've been poisoned," Draco says, pinching his ear. "Gravely, talk to me. Potter's been gouged by one of the tail spines. I need an antidote, or a counterspell to slow the-what? All right…"
Draco runs the pad of his thumb along Harry's ear, and he can suddenly hear Gravely's voice.
"Harry, you need to relax. Don't roll your eyes at me; this is important. Malfoy is going to give you a potion to counteract the poison, but it's oral-you're going to need to swallow as much as you can. Don't fight it, all right? Are you listening?"
Harry doesn't know how he's going to do this. Draco is uncorking a vial of liquid in his line of sight, and Harry is getting nervous. He has to force his breathing now; it's a struggle to just inhale-exhale-repeat.
"Harry, focus. Listen to the sound of my voice. Concentrate on swallowing the potion. You can do this."
Draco opens Harry's mouth and tips the vial. As soon as the liquid pools in the back of his throat, he can't breathe. He panics and coughs, breathing air and liquid, struggling, fighting, but Draco is there, stroking his throat. Over and over he does this, and the intense look in his eyes contracts Harry's purpose to a single word: surrender.
*
When Harry can open his eyes, he looks to see Draco swallowing a draught of the same potion. The blood has dried in his hair and on his face.
"What I'd like to know," Draco says, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand, "is how you managed this the first time when you were alone."
Harry runs a hand through his hair and sits up slowly.
"It was just a graze the first time. And there was just the one wyvern. With you here, I'm starting to get the feeling that the rings may be trying to even out the playing field." He tilts his head. "Are you-"
"Fine," Draco says, as if he is mortified that Harry would dare imply otherwise. He touches his ear. "Gravely? Yes, we're both fine."
Harry takes the opportunity to cast a Scourgify spell which removes the sopping remnants of the corpses' blood and gore from his body and clothes.
"Where should we go?" he says, as Draco casts the same spell on himself.
"You're the one with the map in his head."
The mist begins to thicken, and Harry feels a chill up his spine.
"I'm trying."
"Try harder."
"In case you've forgotten, I lost my memory doing this the first time!"
"And in case the thought never crossed your mind, Potter, when you were off enjoying your brand new, custom-made, Dark Lord-free existence, the rest of us were left to deal with the aftermath."
"I didn't choose any of this."
"No. That's what it means to be chosen."
Harry takes a deep breath and tries to stand up. His leg twinges; he looks down to find his trousers slashed and his skin lacerated from the tail swipes inflicted by the wyverns. The gashes are deep, aggravated by his attempts to stand up, and blood drips from his knees while he searches for his wand.
"Honestly, Potter. Sano," Draco says, tossing him his wand, and Harry's knees stop bleeding.
"Thanks," Harry mutters.
A glimmer of silver catches Harry's eye. In the mist, just a few steps from where they are sitting, a vague impression of a gateway has coalesced.
"It looks like the doorway to the second ring. And a trap," Draco concludes.
"We might as well trip it. It might be our only chance."
For a moment, they lock gazes.
Harry takes the initiative, standing up and walking towards it. He hears Draco following.
He can't help but hold his breath as he passes through the gateway. He wants to reach out for Draco just to make sure they don't get separated, but they both emerge on the other side unharmed.
Draco immediately activates the communication spell. "Wheaton, are you still there?"
Harry presses on his own earlobe, hoping for a signal.
"Harry, Malfoy, we're still here. What's going on?"
Draco casts a look at Harry. "We've passed through to the second ring. Help us out here."
"According to the dream fragment we took from Harry, you'll be encountering the mental challenge next. Maybe phantoms, or spirit shadows. Stay alert and be ready for anything."
Harry lets Wheaton's voice wash over him as he surveys their new environment. It is barren, mostly dry bedrock underfoot and the occasional tree skeleton off in the distance. Harry rolls his wand between his fingers. He isn't good at waiting. If only he could remember something useful about this place. As they crest a ridge, a copse of trees comes into sight. It's painfully out of place in this otherwise barren desert.
"I probably went through there the first time."
"It's so obviously a trap, Potter," Draco says. "Of course you went there."
Harry only just resists the urge to shake him and walks on.
*
The forest has only just closed behind them when Harry realizes he is alone.
"Draco. Draco?"
Harry covers his face with his hands, only just suppressing the urge to scream. This is beyond clichéd, getting separated in the middle of a spooky forest. But it is Voldemort's game he is playing, and he has no choice but to keep making moves. He keeps walking, trying to maintain a straight path, trying to keep his senses alert for any signs of trouble-
"Hello, Harry."
Harry turns slowly. The voice is high-pitched and young, but Harry's skin prickles. He doesn't see her at first, but as the shadows move with the wind, her form appears, silvery and transparent.
He grasps his wand more tightly.
"Who are you?"
Her hair is long and stringy. The flesh on one side of her face is gone and one eyesocket is empty. Her cheeks are hollow, and her jaw shows on the ruined side of her face.
"That's what you said the first time you came here. I'm surprised you don't remember me."
Harry shakes his head and fights the urge to back up. She walks towards him slowly, one bare foot in front of the other. The strange splotches on her dress are blood, Harry realizes.
"Do you remember that explosion in Diagon Alley last year? I was in the bookstore with my mum when it happened. The last thing I remember seeing is all this red on the pages of the book my mum was going to buy for me."
Harry shakes his head. "You're not real."
"Does it make it easier for you to sleep at night if you tell yourself that? A bomb exploded. People died. Voldemort said that terrible things would happen if you didn't answer his summons, but you didn't listen, did you. You stayed hidden, and I died."
She keeps coming, slowly and steadily. Her hands are twisted and mangled and Harry cannot look away.
"Expecto patronum!"
A pitiful wisp escapes the end of Harry's wand.
The ghost laughs. "I'm not a Dementor. You can't banish me like that; in fact, I'm not going anywhere. You've made certain of that."
Harry trips over a rock and stumbles. The ghost smiles at him.
"It's not my fault," he says. "Voldemort did this, not me."
"I still died," she says vehemently. More softly, she says, "You look lonely, Harry. Are you lonely? I have friends."
Harry watches more ghosts appear behind her: some one by one, others in groups. He sees Cedric with his bluish-grey skin.
"We'll stay with you and keep you company. You'll never be alone again."
"You're just ghosts," Harry says, walking in the opposite direction. He is losing control. "You can't hurt me."
"Nobody wants to hurt you, Harry," says a new voice, a voice that Harry knows.
He hasn't thought about Sirius in a long time. He stands still, certain he can feel ghostly fingers brushing the back of his neck.
"You already hurt me."
"What are you talking about?"
Harry spins around. "You left me. You were reckless, and you left me despite knowing that you were all I had."
Sirius shakes his head. "I don't care about the past, Harry. The important thing is that you're here. You came back. I knew you wouldn't leave me here alone."
The vise around Harry's chest tightens and he doesn't understand why. His head pounds as he tries to sort through the flood of memories assaulting him-newspaper articles warning against the criminal Sirius Black, Kreacher and an empty house, promises broken by one spell and an unfathomable distance…
"The last time you were here, Harry, you promised you'd stay."
"The last time…"
Harry shakes his head and steps backwards. The last time he was here, he would have had all his memories intact. What hold could this man possibly have had over him to make him even consider staying? For once, it seems like his lack of attachment to anyone is working to his advantage.
Even so, Harry backs away. He can't take any more of this. He needs to get out of here. He stumbles and half-runs while branches lash his face and hands.
"Harry, don't go!"
Harry stops and looks back at Sirius. His heart feels like it is being torn apart, despite his lack of memories.
Suddenly the little girl is there, right next to him, reaching for his hand.
"Yes, Harry," she says. "Don't go. Stay and play with me."
Harry runs.
As soon as he breaches the ring of trees, Harry can breathe again. But he can't resist looking over his shoulder. The girl stands with one arm around a slender tree trunk and a malevolent look in her eyes, waving at him. Next to her, Sirius stands, shouting words Harry won't let himself hear. He is shaking, but he manages to start walking. He needs to find Draco. With his wand in his hand, he begins to search the surrounding area. And then a thought creeps into his head: what if Draco is still inside the inner ring of trees, trapped with his own ghosts?
He takes a deep breath and forges ahead. He tells himself that Draco is just around that next corner, that he'll be standing against that tree and wondering where the fuck Harry has gone to. Except he isn't there, or there, and the panic inside Harry's chest grows larger and larger.
When Harry finds himself back at the edge of the ring of trees, his ghosts are there to greet him once again. Their combined light emits a silver glow. Taking a deep breath, he starts walking. He tries to focus on the task at hand: finding Draco. When the girl hisses and calls him a murderer, Harry clenches his hands and walks right through her. A chill seizes hold of him and steals his breath, but he finds he can still move.
He calls Draco's name.
When Sirius lopes alongside him and pleads with him to stay, Harry bites his tongue till he tastes blood and keeps his eyes riveted straight ahead.
He thinks he might throw up, and choking back bile, he calls Draco's name again, and louder.
Hours or minutes later, he sees Draco.
Draco does not seem to register Harry's presence. He is intent upon a single, translucent white figure that has its back turned to him. Her hair is upswept into a perfect twist. She is wearing a long gown complete with pearls. She pays Draco absolutely no heed.
"Mother?"
"Draco," Harry says.
Harry brushes Draco's arm with his hand and Draco only spares him a glance with very bright eyes before returning his attention to the ghost.
"Mum."
"Draco."
Harry tugs gently on Draco's arm.
"What?"
Harry waits until he has Draco's attention again. "It's time to go."
Draco looks back at his mother, then at Harry, who holds out his hand. Draco puts his hand in Harry's and lets himself be led away.
Harry's ghosts are strangely absent as they make their way out.
*
"Why haven't we moved on?" Draco says.
"What?"
It's the first words they've exchanged since leaving the forest.
"We're still in the second ring."
Harry shakes his head. "It's different now. Things have changed; we changed the rules."
"You mean we're stuck. Here."
A chill crawls up Harry's spine. "No… I think it's not finished with us yet."
"Merlin," Draco says. "We need an exit. Can we force one to appear?"
"What are you thinking?"
"The first entranceway only revealed itself when you gave it blood. And the gateway to this ring opened only after you spilled a little blood. Maybe this place needs some kind of… offering."
The mist around them thickens and darkens, and the sunlight is blotted out, leaving Harry cold and with gooseflesh prickling his back.
"You want me to slit my wrist?"
"Don't tempt me. Maybe a few drops would be sufficient. Look, Potter, do you have a better idea? Shall we wander around here aimlessly for the remainder of eternity?"
Harry watches Draco's mouth, watches his breath coalescing in the air. Draco is waiting for a response, but Harry's caught up in his thoughts. Something important is happening; if he could only piece it together…
And then, like lightning, it dawns on him.
"We might not have that long," he says.
"What?"
"Dementors," Harry whispers, as he hears the sound of distant screams in his head.
A skeletal hand brushes Harry's cheek and he reels backwards. Something shoves him to the ground, and Harry is suddenly cold. His wand is in his hand, and he is shouting the incantation, but he can't think of a memory strong enough to create a Patronus. Harry covers his face as a Dementor streaks by, but it doesn't attack. They don't want him, Harry realizes. They want food.
They want Draco.
They swarm Draco like starving lions. Mouths open, reeking foul air and death and cold, they screech and howl their intentions.
"Expecto patronum!" Draco shouts, and a bright, silver jaguar erupts from his wand, hitting the ground running and slashing through Dementors left and right.
"Potter!" Draco yells, as his Patronus races past Harry to divert a Dementor. "We need to move!"
"We can't outrun them," Harry says, bringing his wand to bear. "There's nowhere to hide."
"You'd better have a fucking suggestion, then!"
"Sectum!"
The cut that Harry opens in his hand is deeper than he intended it to be, adrenaline fueling the thrust of his incantation, and he doesn't need to encourage the blood flow. Speckles paint the dusty ground, and Harry looks around in hope.
"Harry!"
Draco's behind him, dragging him to his feet. Nothing's happening, nothing but Draco's Patronus fading to a vague suggestion of mist.
"If all you needed to do was cut your stupid hand upon entering the rings, it wouldn't be much of a bloody challenge, now would it?" Draco says.
"No, but I think it calls the portal."
"Now would be the time for certainty! Expecto patronum!"
Another jaguar leaps from Draco's wand, spectacularly luminescent.
"Look, whatever happens, whether you've managed to call the damned portal, go."
"Whatever happens?" Harry doesn't like the way this conversation is headed.
"They aren't interested in you, Potter, in case you haven't noticed. And you're the one who needs to get to the next ring, not me."
"We're both going."
"You know how these things turn out, how they're supposed to be."
"You're telling me I'm supposed to be alone in the end, aren't you. Just like before."
"I'm telling you that you are going when that bloody gateway appears, and I am going to be your distraction."
"Fuck, Draco! Why the bloody hell are you choosing now to be so… so…"
"Altruistic?" He smiles, a flash of teeth. "That's what you called me before. And I'm going to tell you exactly what I said then. This is me being selfish. That right now, for whatever reason, I'm the only one who can do something about you."
"And what's that?"
A glimmer of light in the distance catches Harry's eye, and then Draco's.
"I can give you a chance."
Draco pushes him, hard, and starts running in the opposite direction. The Dementors follow him, and Harry starts to follow them. But he pulls up short when he sees that Draco has stopped, the Dementors kept at bay only by the tenacity of Draco's Patronus spell.
It's Lucius Malfoy. Tall and foreboding and radiating power and displeasure all with the mere narrowing of his eyes and angle of his chin.
"It's not real!" Harry yells, but Draco doesn't hear him.
Over to the right, Harry sees the gateway shimmer, fragile and impermanent.
"Riddikulus!" Harry yells, and Draco's father is suddenly covered in cream pies and wiping frosting from his eyes. With a pop, the Boggart vanishes. The nearest Dementor makes a grab for Draco but its fingers only graze his robes as he twists away. Harry's heart lurches as Draco stumbles and falls, and he screams helplessly as the Dementor smothers Draco's body with its robes and clutches his head with both hands. Draco's jaguar takes a last swipe in vain before dissolving into a wisp of mist.
Harry's wand is up automatically, and he is shouting the words, "Expecto patronum!" but nothing appears but a pitiful gasp of smoke. There's nothing left inside him-somehow, Voldemort has made sure of that. Except he hasn't yet been able to taint this time that he's spent with Draco. The hand at the small of his back. The late night visit. The tenacity with which Draco had stroked his throat. All this strange behavior. It all smacked of… something more, something almost…
"Expecto patronum!"
Harry leaps for the doorway. And just before the wards seal the barrier between the two rings, Harry sees a glimmer of silver amongst all that grey.
*
For a long time, Harry stares at the barrier. Doubts claw at his mind; he has to go back. He has to go back to make sure that Draco is all right, that the Patronus was enough for him to get away. Get away to where, Harry isn't sure, which is why he has to go back, to make sure…
He tries to rip, tear and shred his way back. He tries every spell he knows. But there are no seams, no loopholes.
"Draco, you fucked up piece of shit…"
Suddenly, his ear-spell crackles and Harry's heart leaps.
"Harry? Are you all right?"
Harry freezes. It's not Draco. "Who is this?"
"It's… Wheaton. Listen, Harry. Are you all right?"
"I'm not fucking all right! Where are you? What's happening? Where's Draco?"
"What do you mean, where's Draco? Isn't he-"
"I wouldn't be asking otherwise, now would I?"
Wheaton takes a deep breath and lets it out. "What happened?"
"Dementors," he says, and slumps down against the wall.
Wheaton curses.
"You have to get through and see if he's all right. I…" He swallows. "I left him there."
"You…"
"I fucking left him, all right? He told me to go, and I knew I had to go because the gateway was closing and he said that I had to go on, but I can't go on because he's back there, and I don't know what's happening-"
"Calm the fuck down, Harry! Just breathe."
Harry puts his head in his hands and just breathes. There's something fetid down here (Harry only assumes it's ‘down here' because of the dankness, the utter darkness but for a few lit torches down a long, dark corridor), the smell of death and stagnancy. He knows he has to go on, if only to finish this goddamned mess that he's made.
He proceeds down the corridor.
*
He doesn't have to travel far before he finds out what is creating the awful stench. Voldemort's body is still there: the twisted, disfigured face, the slitted red eyes. Harry gives it a wide berth. He isn't scared-the staccato rhythm of his heart isn't from fear, but from the chill-it's not the body he is dreading.
On the ground, an object shimmers. Harry recognizes it from the memories that Draco extracted. He approaches it cautiously. McEvoy was wrong: it is neither urn, nor planter, nor decorative urn. Like a vase, the crucible is long and tapered. Elegant, even, for something built to hold Voldemort's soul.
Right away, he can see the darkness dribbling out of the tiny crack that hadn't been properly sealed the first time. It swirls and twists upon itself like noxious smoke.
Voldemort is escaping.
"I thought I'd had enough to seal the crucible permanently. But I was wrong."
"What do you mean, enough?" Harry is momentarily startled; Wheaton is still listening in. "What did you use to seal the crucible?"
"I'll talk to you later," he says. A strange calm falls over him. He feels as if he should say something more, like he should give Wheaton a message to give Draco-that is, if he is still alive. But there's really nothing left to say.
"Harry, stay with me."
"It's not enough," he says, picking up the crucible. "It was never enough. I just bought time, that's all."
"HARRY!"
Harry disconnects the communication spell. He watches the black smoke wind around his wrist like a snake. And then, Voldemort begins leaching through his skin like contact poison. And the funny thing is that there isn't the physical pain that Harry expected. He expected to be on his knees, twisted and ragged and unable to breathe for the torture of being possessed this way. But there is only a vast echoing nothingness inside him: the feeling of being alone, utterly alone.
And what comes with that nothingness is everything, creeping in low like fog. It sounds like whispers, and Harry can only catch snatches of words. It's his own voice, saying things he's never let himself really hear before. How terrible a human being he is to have killed someone, anyone. How horrible he is to have failed in this single task that he was put on this earth to carry out. How empty inside he is, how much of a fraud, how much a disappointment and a failure. How terrible a friend he is because he can't remember any of them. How weak and how foolish he is to even think that he could have better, let alone even believe that he might deserve it. How sick he is to wish for things to be over, for him to not have been chosen, for someone else to be strong for him because he is just so tired. How he managed to abandon everyone who ever cared for him at all because he wasn't strong enough the first time.
And this time…
He doesn't really feel himself losing his grip on the crucible. It's more of an inevitable event that his fingers slacken just so, just enough for the crucible to slip through. His muscles react reflexively but he isn't fast enough for gravity, for time, and it's with a detached sense of horror and disbelief that he watches it fall.
The crucible smashes on the ground.
Harry's immediately on his knees, trying to be gentle, trying to be fast. And he's in denial-it's not broken, it's fine, really-but as he touches it, it's clear that everything is going to hell and he's going to be first in line. His hands come away covered in a kind of residue, partly tacky, partly grimy, and it's the runes, Harry realizes, coming off the crucible fragments and transferring onto his hands.
He has a flash of memory, of bright tropical birds and scrawled letters. Then there are two more flashes: one of a flying car on his birthday, another of a photo album and two smiling, waving figures. He doesn't know what any of it means, only that he's truly and utterly fucked, and that the world, consequently, is truly and utterly fucked as well.
Then, blackness begins to rise out of the rubble.
Voldemort's soul has escaped.
It is free.
As it winds around Harry's body like a snake, the echoing in his mind returns, and his attention is now totally consumed by his inability to do anything about the end of the world.
"Don't you dare give up," a voice he doesn't know-or does he?-says in his head, or is it right next to his ear?
"Why not?" he says, because it's so easy to nod his head and go along with the voice-his voice-that is telling him how much better things would be if he were just not here, non-existent.
The voice doesn't answer him. But suddenly his hands are glowing white, and in his mind's eye, he sees a mountain of sweets-Chocolate Frogs and Fizzing Whizzbees and Bertie's Every Flavour Beans-and two pairs of sticky hands taking turns choosing from the pile.
"You need it; take it, Harry. Use it."
"How?"
"Use it like you used your memories the first time you were here."
Harry shakes his head. "I don't remember…" Despair sets in again, cold against his skin.
"Hold on, Harry," a woman's voice says. "Let us help you."
"You can't help me," he says. And then he sees another memory, this one of a Time Turner being looped around his neck by steady, confident hands.
Suddenly, there are other voices, other memories. He watches them unfold in front of him-dozens upon dozens of memories. There's a woman with a tightly pulled back bun, giving him stern looks tempered with rare expressions of approval. There's a huge black dog that should scare him but doesn't. There's an old man with a long beard, eyes bright and knowing. There's another man in a patchwork coat passing him squares of chocolate. There's a man with black hair, and the sound of an engine and the sense of soaring through the air.
Through it all, Harry begins to feel something taking shape in his hands. Something strong.
The energy flows faster and faster, through his head and into his heart where only then he can see them. Now there are fleeting glimpses of even more memories, ones that don't have anything to do with him. There's a sailboat on the water, a first step, a first date. There's a cup of tea, and a warm cat on a lap. There's a favourite song and two people alone on a dance floor. There's a moment of understanding, an apology.
The energy pours out from his hands, and he can suddenly feel something there, something with weight and that takes up space. Harry remembers Draco asking him how he created the crucible in the first place; now he knows. He made it of himself. This is different, however… it's stronger, and larger, and instead of containing just Voldemort, the energy spills around him, surrounding them both like a cocoon.
He is shaking. The outpouring of offered energy both frightens and humbles him. He is filled with all of this, and as the crucible grows stronger with each proffered memory, he feels more clear-headed. And as the flow of memories ends, he views the crucible from the inside, patterned with cherished memories like a stained glass window.
His heart is crushed. The crucible is still not entirely finished. One long hairline crack remains.
And Harry is again utterly alone.
One more memory would do it, he thinks, and it wouldn't have to be big, just strong.
And then, when he's once again on the brink of despair, there is one more voice.
Reluctant.
Reluctant, even now.
"Potter," it says, and something inside Harry's chest reacts to the sound of his name said by that voice.
"Who is this?"
Whoever it is gives a chuff, a laugh that is more snort than anything else. "It doesn't matter, does it? Take this."
Harry's hands begin to glow.
"You-"
"Just. Take it. Just promise me you'll find a way to help me understand, because you know I won't believe you."
"But-"
"Don't argue. The nature of sacrifice, Harry, is that you give up something so someone else can gain. I can live without that memory. I want you to come back."
A memory surges forth, something that is confusing and frightening, something that prickles the back of Harry's neck and raises the hairs on his arms. He finds he can't really breathe even though he doesn't really comprehend what he is seeing, what he is feeling, both with his hands and with his heart.
As the crucible closes around him, something rips Harry's world away. Thrown asunder, he tumbles head over heels. This is Voldemort's fury, this is his vengeance. This is him howling at his revenge being stolen away from him, one small happy memory at a time. And he comes at Harry full of rage and a desire to hurt, a desire to maim him and make him pay and pay, to make him regret and feel guilty and feel alone. And he is strong. There is no denying Voldemort's power. In comparison, Harry is small, breathless, swamped, thrown off his feet and terrified of the dark swirling poison that floods his mind and body and spirit.
He does the only thing he can do in the face of such undeniable power.
Harry surrenders.
He surrenders the fear of what will happen to him because he's done all he can. He surrenders the fear of not knowing love or recognizing it, because he has, and he trusts that he will again. And finally, he surrenders the fear of being alone, because he knows he is not.
Not even here.
Not even now.
*
Bright lights, and a stabbing pain behind his eyes: that's all he feels. Figures in white crisscross through his field of vision, and the overwhelming acrid smell of antiseptic permeates and eclipses all his other senses.
Harry opens his eyes a sliver and regrets it instantly.
He's in the hospital. Again.
He must have had a relapse.
The doctor on duty isn't his regular physician; she's a locum, who nods a lot at Harry's file and the descriptions of his latest episode. She tells him that when he didn't show up for work three days ago, someone called the authorities who found him unconscious on the floor. She authorizes refills for his medications and signs him out that same day. Harry goes to his regular drug store to find a new druggist on duty, a sour looking man with a pinched expression and unfriendly eyes who looks like he has a thousand more important things to do than hand Harry his medication.
He goes home to find a message from work telling him to take a few days off. Holden and Renata have called, too, both threatening him with bodily harm if he doesn't contact them when he is released. He stares at the couch for a while, lost in thought, and consumes half a pint of frozen yogurt that he only vaguely remembers buying.
Days later, Harry feels almost like himself again. The strange feeling that he's forgotten something has subsided, and he returns to work. His days are filled with the familiar and reassuring absurdity of the grocery store's customers, including the return of the woman covered in cat hair who insists on purchasing a pound of jelly beans in every flavor.
On the way home one night, he finds he has a craving for Indian food. The smell of ginger and curry lures him to an Indian restaurant and he finds himself buying takeaway and accepting a half-shot of chai tea from the hostess while he waits for his order.
When he arrives home, he is surprised to find Renata and Holden waiting at the entranceway. Remembering his unfulfilled promise to call as soon as he was able, he sheepishly invites them up.
"I'm fine," he says for what feels like the hundredth time, once they are assembled in his kitchen.
"You still should have called," Holden says.
"Yes," Renata says. "We were worried."
Harry's gaze is suddenly caught by Renata's long, black hair.
"What?" she says, noticing his stare.
Harry laughs, suddenly embarrassed. "Nothing. It's just… I think you both were in my dreams the other night. Not like that," he adds, when Renata gives Holden a look. "Just really strange dreams."
"What kind of dreams?"
"I don't really remember. Stop looking at me like that. Trust me, I've been real-crazy. This is just temporary leave-of-sanity crazy. That's all, I swear," he adds, when they give him identical, unreadable looks. "Um. Holden?"
"No," Holden says, as his face starts to melt-not melt, but change-rippling from underneath, and stretching and changing.
Renata is changing, too, and Harry cannot move, cannot seem to look away. Her long black hair shortens and curls, and she seems to grow a few inches. Her complexion shifts in pigmentation and her body reshapes with more curves.
"Not Wheaton or Gravely, either," Holden says, his voice suddenly different in timbre. His hair has gone light red and freckles begin appearing, one by one, on his face.
"What the hell is this?" Harry says, and in the back of his mind, he is asking himself how they know about his dreams-
"You've been taking your medication, yes?" Renata-Not-Renata-says, picking up one of the various amber vials on the counter and holding it eye-level. She nods at Not-Holden, who takes a deep breath.
"You can come out, Malfoy. He's ready for you."
Malfoy.
Like he was ripped directly from Harry's dream, Draco Malfoy steps out from the shadows. He is an exact copy, from the hair to the pointed nose to the color of his skin.
"This is crazy," Harry whispers, which makes Malfoy laugh.
"Something like that, yes," he says. He has a stick in his hand, and points it at Harry. "Commoneo."
It feels like a gust of wind hitting him in face and he has to close his eyes. His head expands-there's no other way to describe the feeling-and when he hears Not-Holden-or-Wheaton's voice, he thinks Ron and when he hears Not-Renata-or-Gravely say, "spell", he thinks Hermione and magic, and when he opens his eyes and sees Draco Malfoy, he says, "Bloody fuck."
"I think that means it worked," Draco says.
"Harry," Hermione says, approaching him cautiously. "Are you all right?"
It feels like all the tumblers in Harry's head are finally in place, and he's finally able to pull the handle of the lock.
He starts shaking suddenly, and a hysterical laugh forces its way out of his body. "No," he says, laughing harder so he won't cry. "Not at all."
*
Harry spends the rest of the day on his own. At least, Ron and Hermione are trying to give him the illusion of being alone, all the while tailing him from a distance.
They spent a good part of an hour taking him through what happened. Voldemort's structure had come crashing down, and both Harry and Draco had been discovered in the rubble, unconscious and bloody but alive.
"We were afraid that your system would go into shock like last time," Hermione said, "so we sent you back into the Muggle world with all your memories of the Wizarding World suppressed. Madam Pomfrey evaluated you during your hospital stay, and once you were deemed fit to have your memories back, Snape began the process of dissolving the block via your medications, until Malfoy was able to remove it completely."
Physical evidence of the crucible is nowhere to be found, but the tracking device they used to track Voldemort's return is quiet.
"People all over the Wizarding World reported having dreams or visions too similar to be coincidence the night you faced Voldemort again," Ron said.
"The prophecy said that only you had the power to defeat Voldemort," Hermione said. "But not you alone.
As they talked, Harry had felt a great wellspring of guilt churning inside him.
"You gave up some of your memories so I could come back," he said. "I don't know how I feel about that. You don't have them any more, but I have all of mine. Where does that leave us? How do you live when someone makes that kind of sacrifice for you?"
They looked at each other and then at him. "Harry," Ron said. "This isn't an equation. You can't measure worth that way; it doesn't work."
"Don't tell me you don't care about your memories," Harry said.
"Of course," Ron said. "But you remember, don't you? All you have to do is tell us."
"It isn't the same."
"Just because we don't remember doesn't mean it didn't really happen. Just because we don't remember doesn't lessen the actual event."
Every so often, Harry is struck by another memory, triggered by a smell or a sound. This time, it's the sight of a bird calling high up over the treelines and he thinks of Hedwig. Later, it's the tomato and cheese on sourdough that causes him to recall the time in third year when Hermione brought him a sandwich when he'd been too preoccupied to eat. And towards the afternoon, while sipping a cup of chai and hanging his legs over the stone wall near the lake, he thinks about old, comforting things. Things like finding Sirius's well-traveled cigar case, its surface worn from decades of handling, and the single unlit cigar that smelled like leather jackets and kindling; like putting on Remus's outer coat, the one with countless patches and pockets which had always held a sweet or two. He remembers flying again, the sheer stomach-dropping exhilaration. The bite of lip-puckering lemon meringue pie that Mrs. Weasley had once slipped to him when he had been visiting and unable to sleep. The contentment of hearing a chorus of snoring Gryffindors. The wonder of Hermione and Ron's baby, who would never know the fear of Voldemort.
By the end of the day, Harry is emotionally exhausted. He's relived and felt so much. The memories-big and small alike-keep on being triggered, and he knows there are still more waiting to be remembered.
*
He finds Draco looking at the carton of Indian takeaway when he returns to his flat.
"It's your fault," Harry says, and Draco looks up at him.
"Apparently so. Have you recovered sufficiently?"
"Sufficiently."
Silence, then.
"You wanted a choice," Draco says. "Now you have one."
"Now?" Harry says. "You want me to choose right now?"
"The longer you're aware, the harder it will be to go back."
Draco starts walking slowly around the room, taking in the radio, the paintings, the stereo system. He's giving Harry time to think, and yet, Harry can't seem to focus. He can't seem to take his eyes off Draco, or stop chasing the elusive memory that's slowly surfacing in reaction. It's slow to come, and Harry tries not to push things. He can't help but think of that reluctant, final voice in the third ring that enabled him to finish the crucible and defeat Voldemort.
It was late summer, and though the sun had just disappeared under the horizon, the heat of the day still clung to Draco's hair; Harry could still feel the residual heat as he ran his fingers through it. His heart was beating so fast, and he was thrilled at his own audacity for touching Draco like this.
Their lips met. Draco's bottom lip was soft and plush between his own. And then the feelings in Harry's chest became less about the kiss itself than the feel of Draco in his arms, warm and pressed up against him.
"Petrificus totalis," he whispered.
Stepping away from Draco's immobilized body, Harry noted the wand in Draco's hand. Harry had always been faster...
As Harry hurried towards the Forbidden Forest, there was a tightness in his chest and a plea in his mind: please, please let me be able to come back.
Harry gasps, surfacing from the memory. His skin is tingling and the back of his neck is warm. A slow burn crackles low in his body.
"Well?" Draco says, returning to him. "What did you-"
Draco's mouth yields to him like an exhalation, and the closeness and heat and pressure are better than any memory. Draco's hand closes in his hair and the sensations prickle all the way down Harry's back to his toes.
There's an ache in Harry's heart that he understands as the knowledge that Draco won't ever have the memory of their first kiss back. But not remembering doesn't mean that it never happened; Harry vows to remind Draco again and again.
And then, Harry's mind is beset with other memories, things less grand than a first kiss at sunset: an unexpected glass of cold pumpkin juice presented with a half-smirk and a comment about Slytherin cold-bloodedness running in Harry's lineage; a lingering look of concern as news of the attack in Diagon Alley was shared; simple exchanged phrases like ‘hello' and ‘goodbye'. And when it dawns upon Harry that these memories are ones that they share, he feels unexpectedly light.
Draco pulls away slowly. He deliberately uncurls his fingers from Harry's as if to give him space.
Harry can't speak for a moment. His mind is utterly filled with Draco, the memories overlapping and twining with the real thing.
Draco gives him a disbelieving look. "Don't. Not for this. Whatever this is."
Harry just looks at him. "You did."
Draco takes a breath, but he doesn't reply; he avoids Harry's gaze while something like embarrassment crosses his face.
Then the silence stretches out between them like an endless road, but instead of distancing them, Harry's never felt so close.
He touches Draco's hand, the one holding the wand. It would be easy to go back. After all, he's lived without the memories, both good and bad, and it wasn't such a terrible existence. But for all the peace it gave him, it wasn't real. All that has been done for him-whether he knew it at the time or not-and all that he is feeling right now: those things are real, and clear proof that he is loved.
Draco looks up at him; Harry's fingers curl around his wrist. He can feel Draco's tension ratcheting up, can see him balking, but also sees him resigning himself to the knowledge that this is Harry's choice.
Harry pushes the wand aside, walks into the circle of Draco's arms, and chooses.
The End.
Author: ZS
Rating: PG-13
Words: ~16,425
Disclaimer: all JKR's.
Notes: grateful thanks to earthmoon and luzmaria8 for everything.
Spoilers: none for HBP.
Summary: For Harry, forgetting was easy...
"You do remember Hogwarts, don't you?"
A few hours later, they're alone on the quiet water of the Hogwarts lake, sailing ever closer towards the massive castle.
Harry glares. "What sort of question is that? Of course I do."
Truthfully, though, Harry can only remember fragments-Snape and moments in Potions and Occlumency lessons, Umbridge, the Chamber of Secrets, Tom Riddle-and they're all unpleasant.
"And you remember this."
Draco steps out of the way, and Harry can finally see-feel, really-the oppressive magic. In the distance, he can see a vague, translucent shimmer in the center of the Forbidden Forest. As the boat brings them closer to Hogwarts, the unsettled feeling in Harry's stomach amplifies until he is close to being physically ill.
It doesn't take long to reach the base camp on foot. Harry is once again stunned by the scope of the mission: there are tents and people and parchments everywhere. Nervously, Harry looks at Draco from the corner of his eye. At first, Draco looks composed. Then, Harry begins to see tightness around his mouth.
"Stop that," Harry says, as they wind their way towards the center of the operation.
"Stop what?"
Draco's expression is full-on innocence, with a hint of amusement around his mouth. This is far more reassuring.
"You're making me nervous."
Draco opens his mouth to respond, but he's cut off by Gravely's appearance.
"There you are," she says. "Finally. Hold out your arms."
Harry does. Gravely waves her wand, and glittery sparkles hit him. His ears pop and he has to swallow a few times to equalize the pressure in his head.
"What was that?"
"A little added edge. It's a communication spell I've been developing. According to our research on your wand, you used magic inside the rings. We're hoping this spell will let us talk to you."
She casts the same spell on Draco, and Harry feels oddly reassured that they will be in communication throughout.
"Did you sleep at all?" Gravely says, leading them away from the camp.
"A little."
"Good. You'll need to be sharp. Here we are."
"Here we are… where?" Harry says, looking around. The nauseating press of magic has increased, but Harry sees nothing remarkable about their surroundings.
"This is the entrance to the rings. See the markings in the ground?"
It's only then that Harry notices they're standing in a giant circle of white sand.
"How is this an entrance?" Harry says.
"It's not. Yet. It needs your blood. We've tried to open the gateway with stored blood, but it didn't work. We concluded that it had to be you, and it had to be here."
She reaches into her pocket and holds out a small knife.
"Good luck, Harry."
Slowly, Harry closes his hand around the handle. Gravely walks out of the circle, and Harry opens his left hand. His heart starts pounding again, the sound becoming a roar in his ears. If he doesn't let himself think too far ahead to what awaits him at the middle of the rings, at least he can breathe.
"Hurry up, Potter, we haven't all day."
Harry blinks and looks up. Draco is still standing there beside him, wand at the ready, feet planted firmly in the white sand.
"What are you doing?"
"Do you really think you're going in there unsupervised?"
Harry sputters. "This is about supervision? You expect me to believe…"
"What else would it be about, then?"
It's a dare. A dare to get Harry to say the words aloud. But he hasn't been able to figure this out yet, and he doesn't have words for what he doesn't yet understand.
Harry changes tactics. "How do you know it'll let you in? Maybe it'll squish you."
"It won't."
"But-"
"It won't. Fuck, Potter."
He grabs Harry around the waist, pushing himself up behind Harry so they're touching back-to-chest. Harry realizes with distinct panic that Draco is exactly his height, and therefore has to peer around his shoulder to watch Harry's hands.
"Let's go," he says softly, and Harry nicks his fingertip.
"How much do you think it needs?" Harry says, as blood starts dripping from his hand into the sand.
"Maybe the better question is how much do you think it wants?"
For a moment, all Harry can hear is the dull splatter of blood hitting sand. He lets himself feel Draco's body snug against his, and he begins to feel dizzy and unsteady. Everything starts spinning. He feels Draco tighten his grip on his waist and press himself even closer as if seeking shelter from the wind. Something howls in his ears, and darkness falls from the sky all around them.
*
"I don't think we're in Kansas anymore," Harry mutters quietly, as the swimming colors recede from his vision.
"What?"
Draco lets him go slowly.
"Nothing." He puts the knife in his pocket and takes out his wand. They're in a grassy area, and there is no sign of the gateway or the sand circle or the base camp. It's daylight, but the sun is barely more than a suggestion through the thick overhead canopy of clouds.
Harry pushes at the tall grass. There is a small path where the grass has been trodden down, and he has a sudden distinct memory of this place.
"I went this way," he says, leading the way.
Ten minutes later, they smell rotting flesh. A few minutes after that, they come across a clearing and the massive, rotting corpse of a wyvern.
Harry takes a step backwards at the sight of the giant creature: a limbless, serpentine body with metallic scales. His stomach twists as a memory crashes back, of the spiked tail swinging and lancing his arm with poisoned barbs.
"Be careful," he says, as Draco pushes on ahead, and Draco gives him a jaundiced look.
They approach at an angle. The wyvern doesn't move; Harry remains skeptical. He knows how these scenarios typically play out, with the assumed-deceased creature striking back with a vengeance. The wyvern's scales gleam dully, and Harry can see where his slicing spells merely dented the hide. Then, his boot sinks into something gooey that squelches underfoot. And then the smell hits him, the stench of rotting flesh and stomach contents. Harry's stepped into a pile of eviscerated organs. Gagging, he stumbles away, trying not to breathe. It's then that he sees the great chunks of flesh missing from the body, the edges of the marks jagged like from teeth, and a hysterical laugh bubbles up from his chest.
"It's still dead," he says.
"Indeed," Draco says, snapping on dragonhide gloves. "This is your handiwork, I presume?"
"The giant tooth marks? I sincerely doubt-"
At Draco's raised eyebrow, Harry looks and sees the nearly severed head of the wyvern.
"Oh," Harry says. "Maybe?"
"You don't remember?"
Draco suddenly leaps onto the carcass, grabbing onto the knobby protrusions for leverage. He roots around in the mess of bone and gaping veins and thick, coagulated blood and muscle, and Harry sputters, "What are you-"
Draco tugs hard on something with both hands, and a dull ring sounds out as he pulls something free, something that looks a lot like-
"Lose something?" Draco says, grinning, a gleam in his eyes.
Harry blinks. "That's…"
"Finder's keepers, maybe," Draco continues, giving Godric Gryffindor's sword an experimental twirl. He hops off the wyvern's body and looks at Harry.
"Any memories coming back?"
Harry shakes his head. "Give me a minute?"
Draco nods. He casts a cleaning charm on the sword. Then, he touches his ear. "Wheaton? Are you still there? Let me fill you in…"
Harry wanders away, trying to let his mind adjust to the new information. He doesn't remember bringing in the sword or using it to defeat the wyvern. That gaping hole in his memory makes him wonder what else he has forgotten.
Not for the first time, he feels nervous. He doesn't even have the benefit of past experience to help them through this. He's just about to ask Draco what they're supposed to do next when he steps on something that crunches under his shoes.
Bones, he thinks, but reconsiders when he realizes how far he is from the wyvern. Unease starts to trickle down his spine. As far as he knows, there weren't any other living creatures here. He bends down so he can see more closely.
The fragments are white like bone but far thinner. They're eggshells, he realizes. He picks up a piece that is largely intact and turns it over in his hand. There is a tell-tale grayish-green spot on the shell which gives away its identity: a wyvern egg. With the lack of food, the juvenile wyverns-about six, Harry estimates-would have either starved to death or eaten each other. And that food source wouldn't have lasted long.
Except for the adult wyvern.
Now Harry remembers the teeth marks in the body; now he stands, feeling his heart start to race; now he is hurrying back, trying to catch Draco's attention with a minimum of noise.
"Draco. There is a very good possibility that we're not alone. I found wyvern eggshells."
Draco pales, but says, "That doesn't mean anything."
It's then that Harry hears the whispering. He can't make out any words at first. But as he looks away from Draco's confused expression to focus in on the voices, he can hear a single word being repeated like a mantra:
"Food."
Harry slides his wand into his palm. Draco does the same and lets the sword drop point-first into the ground.
"What do you hear?" he says quietly.
"That we're on the menu."
"Like hell."
Draco's eyes widen as he too hears rustling in the bushes.
"What's our plan?" Harry whispers, as he mentally prepares a list of spells to use.
"Survive," Draco says. "Also, you need to try to remember how you passed through to the next ring."
"I didn't even remember the sword! How do you-"
"Because our lives may depend on it."
Harry's eyes flicker to a sudden movement over Draco's shoulder just as Draco draws a sharp breath. Draco fires off a spell from his wand just as Harry does the same, shouting "Confundus!" at the white almond-shaped head poising to strike. Then he is throwing himself behind the wyvern corpse, and Draco is gone from his sight in a flurry of robes.
Harry's Care of Magical Creatures lectures begin to surface. He remembers that wyverns are incredibly fast and agile, and that they have excellent senses of smell and touch. Harry sends another curse at the wyvern, but it hisses and retreats into the grass. Harry struggles to keep it in sight, slipping and stumbling through the eviscerated organs and gore of the adult wyvern. They have terrible eyesight, he recalls, and poor hearing.
As Harry scrambles for better positioning, he hears Draco shouting curses and wonders how many wyverns there are. The two he's seen still have their white skins, which mean they haven't grown fully into their armor yet, but they are nearly full-grown and ravenous. Harry slips suddenly and clamps down on a yelp. He lands on his back, and a wave of the corpse's reeking odor briefly smothers his lungs.
Out of the corner of his eye, he sees a flash of white, and he freezes full stop. He tries to breathe slowly, ignoring the thundering of his heart in his chest. Again, he can hear the whispers of "Food, food…" and the bending of the long grass against slithering bodies. He holds his breath now as the wyvern looms over him, tongue flickering over the sole of his shoes, filmy eyes looking straight at him. His body heat will give him away, Harry thinks, that and the uncontrollable shuddering of his chest. But a sudden shout off in the distance grabs the wyvern's attention, and after a last look right through Harry, it darts away.
Harry sits up carefully, using the corpse for cover, in time to see the tail of the wyvern vanishing into the grass. He launches himself after it, and gets about five steps in before a different tail appears out of nowhere and swipes his legs out from under him. Harry lands hard and awkwardly, but he knows he needs to move, now, so he twists and rolls just as the wyvern's jaws snap shut right beside his head. Harry brings up his wand, and the blasting hex tears right through the wyvern's eye. It screams in pain, thrashing and biting blindly. Harry fires off two more spells, and the wyvern's head wetly explodes.
Draco's yelling breaks through Harry's adrenaline haze, and he gets to his feet, feeling only now the first effects of the wyvern's poisonous spines.
Not again.
His vision slips and his tongue feels swollen and slow. The poison is a muscle paralyzer, but Harry guesses that he's only been grazed. His gaze falls upon the dropped sword and he pulls it from the ground before running in the direction of Draco's voice.
Harry hears the wyverns first: angry, unintelligible hisses, not caring for stealth anymore. Then Harry sees their white backs. One of them has a scorched tail and all its spines burned off. It sways wildly, striking over and over. The other wyvern is more reluctant to engage in fighting. It hangs back, looking for a moment of inattention or weakness.
Then Draco comes into view. His back is up against a thick hedge; there's nowhere to run. He's bleeding from a gash in his forehead and is breathing hard, but appears otherwise unhurt, if a bit outnumbered.
Harry goes after the injured wyvern, yelling to snag its attention and then jabbing it in the tail with the sword.
"Potter!" Draco yells, and the second wyvern, sensing Draco's distraction, lunges forward.
Harry loses track of Draco once more. The wyvern lashes out with its tail, but Harry braces the sword in its path. The sword doesn't shear off the tail cleanly; instead, it lodges deeply in the bone. Harry is dragged off his feet and thrown to the ground. He tries to scramble up and away but his legs suddenly won't respond. Instead, he aims his wand at the giant pair of jaws descending upon him, but now he has no words, can't force his tongue to work.
Suddenly, Harry is blinded by a golden light. His eyes are slow to close and he sees the wyvern's skull split open with a resounding crack that he feels in his own chest and teeth.
Then he hears Draco talking to him, yelling at him, and propping up his head. He feels a wave of vertigo as his world shifts.
"You know you're not supposed to run when you've been poisoned," Draco says, pinching his ear. "Gravely, talk to me. Potter's been gouged by one of the tail spines. I need an antidote, or a counterspell to slow the-what? All right…"
Draco runs the pad of his thumb along Harry's ear, and he can suddenly hear Gravely's voice.
"Harry, you need to relax. Don't roll your eyes at me; this is important. Malfoy is going to give you a potion to counteract the poison, but it's oral-you're going to need to swallow as much as you can. Don't fight it, all right? Are you listening?"
Harry doesn't know how he's going to do this. Draco is uncorking a vial of liquid in his line of sight, and Harry is getting nervous. He has to force his breathing now; it's a struggle to just inhale-exhale-repeat.
"Harry, focus. Listen to the sound of my voice. Concentrate on swallowing the potion. You can do this."
Draco opens Harry's mouth and tips the vial. As soon as the liquid pools in the back of his throat, he can't breathe. He panics and coughs, breathing air and liquid, struggling, fighting, but Draco is there, stroking his throat. Over and over he does this, and the intense look in his eyes contracts Harry's purpose to a single word: surrender.
*
When Harry can open his eyes, he looks to see Draco swallowing a draught of the same potion. The blood has dried in his hair and on his face.
"What I'd like to know," Draco says, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand, "is how you managed this the first time when you were alone."
Harry runs a hand through his hair and sits up slowly.
"It was just a graze the first time. And there was just the one wyvern. With you here, I'm starting to get the feeling that the rings may be trying to even out the playing field." He tilts his head. "Are you-"
"Fine," Draco says, as if he is mortified that Harry would dare imply otherwise. He touches his ear. "Gravely? Yes, we're both fine."
Harry takes the opportunity to cast a Scourgify spell which removes the sopping remnants of the corpses' blood and gore from his body and clothes.
"Where should we go?" he says, as Draco casts the same spell on himself.
"You're the one with the map in his head."
The mist begins to thicken, and Harry feels a chill up his spine.
"I'm trying."
"Try harder."
"In case you've forgotten, I lost my memory doing this the first time!"
"And in case the thought never crossed your mind, Potter, when you were off enjoying your brand new, custom-made, Dark Lord-free existence, the rest of us were left to deal with the aftermath."
"I didn't choose any of this."
"No. That's what it means to be chosen."
Harry takes a deep breath and tries to stand up. His leg twinges; he looks down to find his trousers slashed and his skin lacerated from the tail swipes inflicted by the wyverns. The gashes are deep, aggravated by his attempts to stand up, and blood drips from his knees while he searches for his wand.
"Honestly, Potter. Sano," Draco says, tossing him his wand, and Harry's knees stop bleeding.
"Thanks," Harry mutters.
A glimmer of silver catches Harry's eye. In the mist, just a few steps from where they are sitting, a vague impression of a gateway has coalesced.
"It looks like the doorway to the second ring. And a trap," Draco concludes.
"We might as well trip it. It might be our only chance."
For a moment, they lock gazes.
Harry takes the initiative, standing up and walking towards it. He hears Draco following.
He can't help but hold his breath as he passes through the gateway. He wants to reach out for Draco just to make sure they don't get separated, but they both emerge on the other side unharmed.
Draco immediately activates the communication spell. "Wheaton, are you still there?"
Harry presses on his own earlobe, hoping for a signal.
"Harry, Malfoy, we're still here. What's going on?"
Draco casts a look at Harry. "We've passed through to the second ring. Help us out here."
"According to the dream fragment we took from Harry, you'll be encountering the mental challenge next. Maybe phantoms, or spirit shadows. Stay alert and be ready for anything."
Harry lets Wheaton's voice wash over him as he surveys their new environment. It is barren, mostly dry bedrock underfoot and the occasional tree skeleton off in the distance. Harry rolls his wand between his fingers. He isn't good at waiting. If only he could remember something useful about this place. As they crest a ridge, a copse of trees comes into sight. It's painfully out of place in this otherwise barren desert.
"I probably went through there the first time."
"It's so obviously a trap, Potter," Draco says. "Of course you went there."
Harry only just resists the urge to shake him and walks on.
*
The forest has only just closed behind them when Harry realizes he is alone.
"Draco. Draco?"
Harry covers his face with his hands, only just suppressing the urge to scream. This is beyond clichéd, getting separated in the middle of a spooky forest. But it is Voldemort's game he is playing, and he has no choice but to keep making moves. He keeps walking, trying to maintain a straight path, trying to keep his senses alert for any signs of trouble-
"Hello, Harry."
Harry turns slowly. The voice is high-pitched and young, but Harry's skin prickles. He doesn't see her at first, but as the shadows move with the wind, her form appears, silvery and transparent.
He grasps his wand more tightly.
"Who are you?"
Her hair is long and stringy. The flesh on one side of her face is gone and one eyesocket is empty. Her cheeks are hollow, and her jaw shows on the ruined side of her face.
"That's what you said the first time you came here. I'm surprised you don't remember me."
Harry shakes his head and fights the urge to back up. She walks towards him slowly, one bare foot in front of the other. The strange splotches on her dress are blood, Harry realizes.
"Do you remember that explosion in Diagon Alley last year? I was in the bookstore with my mum when it happened. The last thing I remember seeing is all this red on the pages of the book my mum was going to buy for me."
Harry shakes his head. "You're not real."
"Does it make it easier for you to sleep at night if you tell yourself that? A bomb exploded. People died. Voldemort said that terrible things would happen if you didn't answer his summons, but you didn't listen, did you. You stayed hidden, and I died."
She keeps coming, slowly and steadily. Her hands are twisted and mangled and Harry cannot look away.
"Expecto patronum!"
A pitiful wisp escapes the end of Harry's wand.
The ghost laughs. "I'm not a Dementor. You can't banish me like that; in fact, I'm not going anywhere. You've made certain of that."
Harry trips over a rock and stumbles. The ghost smiles at him.
"It's not my fault," he says. "Voldemort did this, not me."
"I still died," she says vehemently. More softly, she says, "You look lonely, Harry. Are you lonely? I have friends."
Harry watches more ghosts appear behind her: some one by one, others in groups. He sees Cedric with his bluish-grey skin.
"We'll stay with you and keep you company. You'll never be alone again."
"You're just ghosts," Harry says, walking in the opposite direction. He is losing control. "You can't hurt me."
"Nobody wants to hurt you, Harry," says a new voice, a voice that Harry knows.
He hasn't thought about Sirius in a long time. He stands still, certain he can feel ghostly fingers brushing the back of his neck.
"You already hurt me."
"What are you talking about?"
Harry spins around. "You left me. You were reckless, and you left me despite knowing that you were all I had."
Sirius shakes his head. "I don't care about the past, Harry. The important thing is that you're here. You came back. I knew you wouldn't leave me here alone."
The vise around Harry's chest tightens and he doesn't understand why. His head pounds as he tries to sort through the flood of memories assaulting him-newspaper articles warning against the criminal Sirius Black, Kreacher and an empty house, promises broken by one spell and an unfathomable distance…
"The last time you were here, Harry, you promised you'd stay."
"The last time…"
Harry shakes his head and steps backwards. The last time he was here, he would have had all his memories intact. What hold could this man possibly have had over him to make him even consider staying? For once, it seems like his lack of attachment to anyone is working to his advantage.
Even so, Harry backs away. He can't take any more of this. He needs to get out of here. He stumbles and half-runs while branches lash his face and hands.
"Harry, don't go!"
Harry stops and looks back at Sirius. His heart feels like it is being torn apart, despite his lack of memories.
Suddenly the little girl is there, right next to him, reaching for his hand.
"Yes, Harry," she says. "Don't go. Stay and play with me."
Harry runs.
As soon as he breaches the ring of trees, Harry can breathe again. But he can't resist looking over his shoulder. The girl stands with one arm around a slender tree trunk and a malevolent look in her eyes, waving at him. Next to her, Sirius stands, shouting words Harry won't let himself hear. He is shaking, but he manages to start walking. He needs to find Draco. With his wand in his hand, he begins to search the surrounding area. And then a thought creeps into his head: what if Draco is still inside the inner ring of trees, trapped with his own ghosts?
He takes a deep breath and forges ahead. He tells himself that Draco is just around that next corner, that he'll be standing against that tree and wondering where the fuck Harry has gone to. Except he isn't there, or there, and the panic inside Harry's chest grows larger and larger.
When Harry finds himself back at the edge of the ring of trees, his ghosts are there to greet him once again. Their combined light emits a silver glow. Taking a deep breath, he starts walking. He tries to focus on the task at hand: finding Draco. When the girl hisses and calls him a murderer, Harry clenches his hands and walks right through her. A chill seizes hold of him and steals his breath, but he finds he can still move.
He calls Draco's name.
When Sirius lopes alongside him and pleads with him to stay, Harry bites his tongue till he tastes blood and keeps his eyes riveted straight ahead.
He thinks he might throw up, and choking back bile, he calls Draco's name again, and louder.
Hours or minutes later, he sees Draco.
Draco does not seem to register Harry's presence. He is intent upon a single, translucent white figure that has its back turned to him. Her hair is upswept into a perfect twist. She is wearing a long gown complete with pearls. She pays Draco absolutely no heed.
"Mother?"
"Draco," Harry says.
Harry brushes Draco's arm with his hand and Draco only spares him a glance with very bright eyes before returning his attention to the ghost.
"Mum."
"Draco."
Harry tugs gently on Draco's arm.
"What?"
Harry waits until he has Draco's attention again. "It's time to go."
Draco looks back at his mother, then at Harry, who holds out his hand. Draco puts his hand in Harry's and lets himself be led away.
Harry's ghosts are strangely absent as they make their way out.
*
"Why haven't we moved on?" Draco says.
"What?"
It's the first words they've exchanged since leaving the forest.
"We're still in the second ring."
Harry shakes his head. "It's different now. Things have changed; we changed the rules."
"You mean we're stuck. Here."
A chill crawls up Harry's spine. "No… I think it's not finished with us yet."
"Merlin," Draco says. "We need an exit. Can we force one to appear?"
"What are you thinking?"
"The first entranceway only revealed itself when you gave it blood. And the gateway to this ring opened only after you spilled a little blood. Maybe this place needs some kind of… offering."
The mist around them thickens and darkens, and the sunlight is blotted out, leaving Harry cold and with gooseflesh prickling his back.
"You want me to slit my wrist?"
"Don't tempt me. Maybe a few drops would be sufficient. Look, Potter, do you have a better idea? Shall we wander around here aimlessly for the remainder of eternity?"
Harry watches Draco's mouth, watches his breath coalescing in the air. Draco is waiting for a response, but Harry's caught up in his thoughts. Something important is happening; if he could only piece it together…
And then, like lightning, it dawns on him.
"We might not have that long," he says.
"What?"
"Dementors," Harry whispers, as he hears the sound of distant screams in his head.
A skeletal hand brushes Harry's cheek and he reels backwards. Something shoves him to the ground, and Harry is suddenly cold. His wand is in his hand, and he is shouting the incantation, but he can't think of a memory strong enough to create a Patronus. Harry covers his face as a Dementor streaks by, but it doesn't attack. They don't want him, Harry realizes. They want food.
They want Draco.
They swarm Draco like starving lions. Mouths open, reeking foul air and death and cold, they screech and howl their intentions.
"Expecto patronum!" Draco shouts, and a bright, silver jaguar erupts from his wand, hitting the ground running and slashing through Dementors left and right.
"Potter!" Draco yells, as his Patronus races past Harry to divert a Dementor. "We need to move!"
"We can't outrun them," Harry says, bringing his wand to bear. "There's nowhere to hide."
"You'd better have a fucking suggestion, then!"
"Sectum!"
The cut that Harry opens in his hand is deeper than he intended it to be, adrenaline fueling the thrust of his incantation, and he doesn't need to encourage the blood flow. Speckles paint the dusty ground, and Harry looks around in hope.
"Harry!"
Draco's behind him, dragging him to his feet. Nothing's happening, nothing but Draco's Patronus fading to a vague suggestion of mist.
"If all you needed to do was cut your stupid hand upon entering the rings, it wouldn't be much of a bloody challenge, now would it?" Draco says.
"No, but I think it calls the portal."
"Now would be the time for certainty! Expecto patronum!"
Another jaguar leaps from Draco's wand, spectacularly luminescent.
"Look, whatever happens, whether you've managed to call the damned portal, go."
"Whatever happens?" Harry doesn't like the way this conversation is headed.
"They aren't interested in you, Potter, in case you haven't noticed. And you're the one who needs to get to the next ring, not me."
"We're both going."
"You know how these things turn out, how they're supposed to be."
"You're telling me I'm supposed to be alone in the end, aren't you. Just like before."
"I'm telling you that you are going when that bloody gateway appears, and I am going to be your distraction."
"Fuck, Draco! Why the bloody hell are you choosing now to be so… so…"
"Altruistic?" He smiles, a flash of teeth. "That's what you called me before. And I'm going to tell you exactly what I said then. This is me being selfish. That right now, for whatever reason, I'm the only one who can do something about you."
"And what's that?"
A glimmer of light in the distance catches Harry's eye, and then Draco's.
"I can give you a chance."
Draco pushes him, hard, and starts running in the opposite direction. The Dementors follow him, and Harry starts to follow them. But he pulls up short when he sees that Draco has stopped, the Dementors kept at bay only by the tenacity of Draco's Patronus spell.
It's Lucius Malfoy. Tall and foreboding and radiating power and displeasure all with the mere narrowing of his eyes and angle of his chin.
"It's not real!" Harry yells, but Draco doesn't hear him.
Over to the right, Harry sees the gateway shimmer, fragile and impermanent.
"Riddikulus!" Harry yells, and Draco's father is suddenly covered in cream pies and wiping frosting from his eyes. With a pop, the Boggart vanishes. The nearest Dementor makes a grab for Draco but its fingers only graze his robes as he twists away. Harry's heart lurches as Draco stumbles and falls, and he screams helplessly as the Dementor smothers Draco's body with its robes and clutches his head with both hands. Draco's jaguar takes a last swipe in vain before dissolving into a wisp of mist.
Harry's wand is up automatically, and he is shouting the words, "Expecto patronum!" but nothing appears but a pitiful gasp of smoke. There's nothing left inside him-somehow, Voldemort has made sure of that. Except he hasn't yet been able to taint this time that he's spent with Draco. The hand at the small of his back. The late night visit. The tenacity with which Draco had stroked his throat. All this strange behavior. It all smacked of… something more, something almost…
"Expecto patronum!"
Harry leaps for the doorway. And just before the wards seal the barrier between the two rings, Harry sees a glimmer of silver amongst all that grey.
*
For a long time, Harry stares at the barrier. Doubts claw at his mind; he has to go back. He has to go back to make sure that Draco is all right, that the Patronus was enough for him to get away. Get away to where, Harry isn't sure, which is why he has to go back, to make sure…
He tries to rip, tear and shred his way back. He tries every spell he knows. But there are no seams, no loopholes.
"Draco, you fucked up piece of shit…"
Suddenly, his ear-spell crackles and Harry's heart leaps.
"Harry? Are you all right?"
Harry freezes. It's not Draco. "Who is this?"
"It's… Wheaton. Listen, Harry. Are you all right?"
"I'm not fucking all right! Where are you? What's happening? Where's Draco?"
"What do you mean, where's Draco? Isn't he-"
"I wouldn't be asking otherwise, now would I?"
Wheaton takes a deep breath and lets it out. "What happened?"
"Dementors," he says, and slumps down against the wall.
Wheaton curses.
"You have to get through and see if he's all right. I…" He swallows. "I left him there."
"You…"
"I fucking left him, all right? He told me to go, and I knew I had to go because the gateway was closing and he said that I had to go on, but I can't go on because he's back there, and I don't know what's happening-"
"Calm the fuck down, Harry! Just breathe."
Harry puts his head in his hands and just breathes. There's something fetid down here (Harry only assumes it's ‘down here' because of the dankness, the utter darkness but for a few lit torches down a long, dark corridor), the smell of death and stagnancy. He knows he has to go on, if only to finish this goddamned mess that he's made.
He proceeds down the corridor.
*
He doesn't have to travel far before he finds out what is creating the awful stench. Voldemort's body is still there: the twisted, disfigured face, the slitted red eyes. Harry gives it a wide berth. He isn't scared-the staccato rhythm of his heart isn't from fear, but from the chill-it's not the body he is dreading.
On the ground, an object shimmers. Harry recognizes it from the memories that Draco extracted. He approaches it cautiously. McEvoy was wrong: it is neither urn, nor planter, nor decorative urn. Like a vase, the crucible is long and tapered. Elegant, even, for something built to hold Voldemort's soul.
Right away, he can see the darkness dribbling out of the tiny crack that hadn't been properly sealed the first time. It swirls and twists upon itself like noxious smoke.
Voldemort is escaping.
"I thought I'd had enough to seal the crucible permanently. But I was wrong."
"What do you mean, enough?" Harry is momentarily startled; Wheaton is still listening in. "What did you use to seal the crucible?"
"I'll talk to you later," he says. A strange calm falls over him. He feels as if he should say something more, like he should give Wheaton a message to give Draco-that is, if he is still alive. But there's really nothing left to say.
"Harry, stay with me."
"It's not enough," he says, picking up the crucible. "It was never enough. I just bought time, that's all."
"HARRY!"
Harry disconnects the communication spell. He watches the black smoke wind around his wrist like a snake. And then, Voldemort begins leaching through his skin like contact poison. And the funny thing is that there isn't the physical pain that Harry expected. He expected to be on his knees, twisted and ragged and unable to breathe for the torture of being possessed this way. But there is only a vast echoing nothingness inside him: the feeling of being alone, utterly alone.
And what comes with that nothingness is everything, creeping in low like fog. It sounds like whispers, and Harry can only catch snatches of words. It's his own voice, saying things he's never let himself really hear before. How terrible a human being he is to have killed someone, anyone. How horrible he is to have failed in this single task that he was put on this earth to carry out. How empty inside he is, how much of a fraud, how much a disappointment and a failure. How terrible a friend he is because he can't remember any of them. How weak and how foolish he is to even think that he could have better, let alone even believe that he might deserve it. How sick he is to wish for things to be over, for him to not have been chosen, for someone else to be strong for him because he is just so tired. How he managed to abandon everyone who ever cared for him at all because he wasn't strong enough the first time.
And this time…
He doesn't really feel himself losing his grip on the crucible. It's more of an inevitable event that his fingers slacken just so, just enough for the crucible to slip through. His muscles react reflexively but he isn't fast enough for gravity, for time, and it's with a detached sense of horror and disbelief that he watches it fall.
The crucible smashes on the ground.
Harry's immediately on his knees, trying to be gentle, trying to be fast. And he's in denial-it's not broken, it's fine, really-but as he touches it, it's clear that everything is going to hell and he's going to be first in line. His hands come away covered in a kind of residue, partly tacky, partly grimy, and it's the runes, Harry realizes, coming off the crucible fragments and transferring onto his hands.
He has a flash of memory, of bright tropical birds and scrawled letters. Then there are two more flashes: one of a flying car on his birthday, another of a photo album and two smiling, waving figures. He doesn't know what any of it means, only that he's truly and utterly fucked, and that the world, consequently, is truly and utterly fucked as well.
Then, blackness begins to rise out of the rubble.
Voldemort's soul has escaped.
It is free.
As it winds around Harry's body like a snake, the echoing in his mind returns, and his attention is now totally consumed by his inability to do anything about the end of the world.
"Don't you dare give up," a voice he doesn't know-or does he?-says in his head, or is it right next to his ear?
"Why not?" he says, because it's so easy to nod his head and go along with the voice-his voice-that is telling him how much better things would be if he were just not here, non-existent.
The voice doesn't answer him. But suddenly his hands are glowing white, and in his mind's eye, he sees a mountain of sweets-Chocolate Frogs and Fizzing Whizzbees and Bertie's Every Flavour Beans-and two pairs of sticky hands taking turns choosing from the pile.
"You need it; take it, Harry. Use it."
"How?"
"Use it like you used your memories the first time you were here."
Harry shakes his head. "I don't remember…" Despair sets in again, cold against his skin.
"Hold on, Harry," a woman's voice says. "Let us help you."
"You can't help me," he says. And then he sees another memory, this one of a Time Turner being looped around his neck by steady, confident hands.
Suddenly, there are other voices, other memories. He watches them unfold in front of him-dozens upon dozens of memories. There's a woman with a tightly pulled back bun, giving him stern looks tempered with rare expressions of approval. There's a huge black dog that should scare him but doesn't. There's an old man with a long beard, eyes bright and knowing. There's another man in a patchwork coat passing him squares of chocolate. There's a man with black hair, and the sound of an engine and the sense of soaring through the air.
Through it all, Harry begins to feel something taking shape in his hands. Something strong.
The energy flows faster and faster, through his head and into his heart where only then he can see them. Now there are fleeting glimpses of even more memories, ones that don't have anything to do with him. There's a sailboat on the water, a first step, a first date. There's a cup of tea, and a warm cat on a lap. There's a favourite song and two people alone on a dance floor. There's a moment of understanding, an apology.
The energy pours out from his hands, and he can suddenly feel something there, something with weight and that takes up space. Harry remembers Draco asking him how he created the crucible in the first place; now he knows. He made it of himself. This is different, however… it's stronger, and larger, and instead of containing just Voldemort, the energy spills around him, surrounding them both like a cocoon.
He is shaking. The outpouring of offered energy both frightens and humbles him. He is filled with all of this, and as the crucible grows stronger with each proffered memory, he feels more clear-headed. And as the flow of memories ends, he views the crucible from the inside, patterned with cherished memories like a stained glass window.
His heart is crushed. The crucible is still not entirely finished. One long hairline crack remains.
And Harry is again utterly alone.
One more memory would do it, he thinks, and it wouldn't have to be big, just strong.
And then, when he's once again on the brink of despair, there is one more voice.
Reluctant.
Reluctant, even now.
"Potter," it says, and something inside Harry's chest reacts to the sound of his name said by that voice.
"Who is this?"
Whoever it is gives a chuff, a laugh that is more snort than anything else. "It doesn't matter, does it? Take this."
Harry's hands begin to glow.
"You-"
"Just. Take it. Just promise me you'll find a way to help me understand, because you know I won't believe you."
"But-"
"Don't argue. The nature of sacrifice, Harry, is that you give up something so someone else can gain. I can live without that memory. I want you to come back."
A memory surges forth, something that is confusing and frightening, something that prickles the back of Harry's neck and raises the hairs on his arms. He finds he can't really breathe even though he doesn't really comprehend what he is seeing, what he is feeling, both with his hands and with his heart.
As the crucible closes around him, something rips Harry's world away. Thrown asunder, he tumbles head over heels. This is Voldemort's fury, this is his vengeance. This is him howling at his revenge being stolen away from him, one small happy memory at a time. And he comes at Harry full of rage and a desire to hurt, a desire to maim him and make him pay and pay, to make him regret and feel guilty and feel alone. And he is strong. There is no denying Voldemort's power. In comparison, Harry is small, breathless, swamped, thrown off his feet and terrified of the dark swirling poison that floods his mind and body and spirit.
He does the only thing he can do in the face of such undeniable power.
Harry surrenders.
He surrenders the fear of what will happen to him because he's done all he can. He surrenders the fear of not knowing love or recognizing it, because he has, and he trusts that he will again. And finally, he surrenders the fear of being alone, because he knows he is not.
Not even here.
Not even now.
*
Bright lights, and a stabbing pain behind his eyes: that's all he feels. Figures in white crisscross through his field of vision, and the overwhelming acrid smell of antiseptic permeates and eclipses all his other senses.
Harry opens his eyes a sliver and regrets it instantly.
He's in the hospital. Again.
He must have had a relapse.
The doctor on duty isn't his regular physician; she's a locum, who nods a lot at Harry's file and the descriptions of his latest episode. She tells him that when he didn't show up for work three days ago, someone called the authorities who found him unconscious on the floor. She authorizes refills for his medications and signs him out that same day. Harry goes to his regular drug store to find a new druggist on duty, a sour looking man with a pinched expression and unfriendly eyes who looks like he has a thousand more important things to do than hand Harry his medication.
He goes home to find a message from work telling him to take a few days off. Holden and Renata have called, too, both threatening him with bodily harm if he doesn't contact them when he is released. He stares at the couch for a while, lost in thought, and consumes half a pint of frozen yogurt that he only vaguely remembers buying.
Days later, Harry feels almost like himself again. The strange feeling that he's forgotten something has subsided, and he returns to work. His days are filled with the familiar and reassuring absurdity of the grocery store's customers, including the return of the woman covered in cat hair who insists on purchasing a pound of jelly beans in every flavor.
On the way home one night, he finds he has a craving for Indian food. The smell of ginger and curry lures him to an Indian restaurant and he finds himself buying takeaway and accepting a half-shot of chai tea from the hostess while he waits for his order.
When he arrives home, he is surprised to find Renata and Holden waiting at the entranceway. Remembering his unfulfilled promise to call as soon as he was able, he sheepishly invites them up.
"I'm fine," he says for what feels like the hundredth time, once they are assembled in his kitchen.
"You still should have called," Holden says.
"Yes," Renata says. "We were worried."
Harry's gaze is suddenly caught by Renata's long, black hair.
"What?" she says, noticing his stare.
Harry laughs, suddenly embarrassed. "Nothing. It's just… I think you both were in my dreams the other night. Not like that," he adds, when Renata gives Holden a look. "Just really strange dreams."
"What kind of dreams?"
"I don't really remember. Stop looking at me like that. Trust me, I've been real-crazy. This is just temporary leave-of-sanity crazy. That's all, I swear," he adds, when they give him identical, unreadable looks. "Um. Holden?"
"No," Holden says, as his face starts to melt-not melt, but change-rippling from underneath, and stretching and changing.
Renata is changing, too, and Harry cannot move, cannot seem to look away. Her long black hair shortens and curls, and she seems to grow a few inches. Her complexion shifts in pigmentation and her body reshapes with more curves.
"Not Wheaton or Gravely, either," Holden says, his voice suddenly different in timbre. His hair has gone light red and freckles begin appearing, one by one, on his face.
"What the hell is this?" Harry says, and in the back of his mind, he is asking himself how they know about his dreams-
"You've been taking your medication, yes?" Renata-Not-Renata-says, picking up one of the various amber vials on the counter and holding it eye-level. She nods at Not-Holden, who takes a deep breath.
"You can come out, Malfoy. He's ready for you."
Malfoy.
Like he was ripped directly from Harry's dream, Draco Malfoy steps out from the shadows. He is an exact copy, from the hair to the pointed nose to the color of his skin.
"This is crazy," Harry whispers, which makes Malfoy laugh.
"Something like that, yes," he says. He has a stick in his hand, and points it at Harry. "Commoneo."
It feels like a gust of wind hitting him in face and he has to close his eyes. His head expands-there's no other way to describe the feeling-and when he hears Not-Holden-or-Wheaton's voice, he thinks Ron and when he hears Not-Renata-or-Gravely say, "spell", he thinks Hermione and magic, and when he opens his eyes and sees Draco Malfoy, he says, "Bloody fuck."
"I think that means it worked," Draco says.
"Harry," Hermione says, approaching him cautiously. "Are you all right?"
It feels like all the tumblers in Harry's head are finally in place, and he's finally able to pull the handle of the lock.
He starts shaking suddenly, and a hysterical laugh forces its way out of his body. "No," he says, laughing harder so he won't cry. "Not at all."
*
Harry spends the rest of the day on his own. At least, Ron and Hermione are trying to give him the illusion of being alone, all the while tailing him from a distance.
They spent a good part of an hour taking him through what happened. Voldemort's structure had come crashing down, and both Harry and Draco had been discovered in the rubble, unconscious and bloody but alive.
"We were afraid that your system would go into shock like last time," Hermione said, "so we sent you back into the Muggle world with all your memories of the Wizarding World suppressed. Madam Pomfrey evaluated you during your hospital stay, and once you were deemed fit to have your memories back, Snape began the process of dissolving the block via your medications, until Malfoy was able to remove it completely."
Physical evidence of the crucible is nowhere to be found, but the tracking device they used to track Voldemort's return is quiet.
"People all over the Wizarding World reported having dreams or visions too similar to be coincidence the night you faced Voldemort again," Ron said.
"The prophecy said that only you had the power to defeat Voldemort," Hermione said. "But not you alone.
As they talked, Harry had felt a great wellspring of guilt churning inside him.
"You gave up some of your memories so I could come back," he said. "I don't know how I feel about that. You don't have them any more, but I have all of mine. Where does that leave us? How do you live when someone makes that kind of sacrifice for you?"
They looked at each other and then at him. "Harry," Ron said. "This isn't an equation. You can't measure worth that way; it doesn't work."
"Don't tell me you don't care about your memories," Harry said.
"Of course," Ron said. "But you remember, don't you? All you have to do is tell us."
"It isn't the same."
"Just because we don't remember doesn't mean it didn't really happen. Just because we don't remember doesn't lessen the actual event."
Every so often, Harry is struck by another memory, triggered by a smell or a sound. This time, it's the sight of a bird calling high up over the treelines and he thinks of Hedwig. Later, it's the tomato and cheese on sourdough that causes him to recall the time in third year when Hermione brought him a sandwich when he'd been too preoccupied to eat. And towards the afternoon, while sipping a cup of chai and hanging his legs over the stone wall near the lake, he thinks about old, comforting things. Things like finding Sirius's well-traveled cigar case, its surface worn from decades of handling, and the single unlit cigar that smelled like leather jackets and kindling; like putting on Remus's outer coat, the one with countless patches and pockets which had always held a sweet or two. He remembers flying again, the sheer stomach-dropping exhilaration. The bite of lip-puckering lemon meringue pie that Mrs. Weasley had once slipped to him when he had been visiting and unable to sleep. The contentment of hearing a chorus of snoring Gryffindors. The wonder of Hermione and Ron's baby, who would never know the fear of Voldemort.
By the end of the day, Harry is emotionally exhausted. He's relived and felt so much. The memories-big and small alike-keep on being triggered, and he knows there are still more waiting to be remembered.
*
He finds Draco looking at the carton of Indian takeaway when he returns to his flat.
"It's your fault," Harry says, and Draco looks up at him.
"Apparently so. Have you recovered sufficiently?"
"Sufficiently."
Silence, then.
"You wanted a choice," Draco says. "Now you have one."
"Now?" Harry says. "You want me to choose right now?"
"The longer you're aware, the harder it will be to go back."
Draco starts walking slowly around the room, taking in the radio, the paintings, the stereo system. He's giving Harry time to think, and yet, Harry can't seem to focus. He can't seem to take his eyes off Draco, or stop chasing the elusive memory that's slowly surfacing in reaction. It's slow to come, and Harry tries not to push things. He can't help but think of that reluctant, final voice in the third ring that enabled him to finish the crucible and defeat Voldemort.
It was late summer, and though the sun had just disappeared under the horizon, the heat of the day still clung to Draco's hair; Harry could still feel the residual heat as he ran his fingers through it. His heart was beating so fast, and he was thrilled at his own audacity for touching Draco like this.
Their lips met. Draco's bottom lip was soft and plush between his own. And then the feelings in Harry's chest became less about the kiss itself than the feel of Draco in his arms, warm and pressed up against him.
"Petrificus totalis," he whispered.
Stepping away from Draco's immobilized body, Harry noted the wand in Draco's hand. Harry had always been faster...
As Harry hurried towards the Forbidden Forest, there was a tightness in his chest and a plea in his mind: please, please let me be able to come back.
Harry gasps, surfacing from the memory. His skin is tingling and the back of his neck is warm. A slow burn crackles low in his body.
"Well?" Draco says, returning to him. "What did you-"
Draco's mouth yields to him like an exhalation, and the closeness and heat and pressure are better than any memory. Draco's hand closes in his hair and the sensations prickle all the way down Harry's back to his toes.
There's an ache in Harry's heart that he understands as the knowledge that Draco won't ever have the memory of their first kiss back. But not remembering doesn't mean that it never happened; Harry vows to remind Draco again and again.
And then, Harry's mind is beset with other memories, things less grand than a first kiss at sunset: an unexpected glass of cold pumpkin juice presented with a half-smirk and a comment about Slytherin cold-bloodedness running in Harry's lineage; a lingering look of concern as news of the attack in Diagon Alley was shared; simple exchanged phrases like ‘hello' and ‘goodbye'. And when it dawns upon Harry that these memories are ones that they share, he feels unexpectedly light.
Draco pulls away slowly. He deliberately uncurls his fingers from Harry's as if to give him space.
Harry can't speak for a moment. His mind is utterly filled with Draco, the memories overlapping and twining with the real thing.
Draco gives him a disbelieving look. "Don't. Not for this. Whatever this is."
Harry just looks at him. "You did."
Draco takes a breath, but he doesn't reply; he avoids Harry's gaze while something like embarrassment crosses his face.
Then the silence stretches out between them like an endless road, but instead of distancing them, Harry's never felt so close.
He touches Draco's hand, the one holding the wand. It would be easy to go back. After all, he's lived without the memories, both good and bad, and it wasn't such a terrible existence. But for all the peace it gave him, it wasn't real. All that has been done for him-whether he knew it at the time or not-and all that he is feeling right now: those things are real, and clear proof that he is loved.
Draco looks up at him; Harry's fingers curl around his wrist. He can feel Draco's tension ratcheting up, can see him balking, but also sees him resigning himself to the knowledge that this is Harry's choice.
Harry pushes the wand aside, walks into the circle of Draco's arms, and chooses.
The End.