"Nothing Scarlet or Grey" for Aigua Nightshade (2 of 2)
Title: Nothing Scarlet or Grey
Gift for: #073 Aigua Nightshade
From: #42 Eris Moriendi
Pairing: Harry/Draco
Rating: NC-17
Warnings: Very dark themes and graphic (fully consensual) sex.
Word Count: ~13,800
Summary: Harry clings to what he can.
Note: For the very lovely and talented Aigua Nightshade for Reversathon 2007. Many thanks to R. for the beta!
Continued from Part 1.
Nothing Scarlet or Grey
Part 2 of 2
The next morning, Harry murdered a madman.
With the aid of Draco's spell, he transported himself to the only remaining piece of Tom Riddle's soul, housed in its subhuman constructed body.
Voldemort sat on a garish marble throne, carved with skulls and snakes that had rubies for eyes, looking extraordinarily out of place in what had once been the drawing room of the Riddle mansion. Bellatrix stood beside him on his right, but otherwise the room appeared empty.
"Welcome, Harry Potter," Voldemort said with a slow, calm grin. "To what do we owe the pleasure of your visit?"
Harry's eyes narrowed, and he waved his wand in a complicated spiral that tucked around at the end, completing itself. "Evito Serpentanimus!"
The spell had taken many, many hours for the Order to design. Dumbledore himself had laid the foundation for it, and each member had contributed his or her share to its development. This was a spell for Justice, one that would bring forth retribution befitting Voldemort's many and bloodied crimes. In a way, although Harry had been its agent, Voldemort would be responsible for his own death.
Nothing happened.
"Perhaps you should try it again," Bellatrix suggested with a laugh. "Perhaps you're not doing it right."
But the spell had been correct; Harry had practiced it over and over, and he could feel the magic of it around them, swirling around, untargeted.
Harry felt around the pocket of his robes for the enchanted knife he'd hidden there as his last resort. "Evito Serpentanimus!" Harry said again, not because he expected any results, but as a distraction.
Before he'd even finished casting the failed spell a second time, Voldemort stood. He summoned Harry's wand.
But Harry had been the youngest Seeker at Hogwarts in a century; he had speed on his side. Before Voldemort had a chance to catch Harry's wand, Harry's knife was at his throat.
Voldemort laughed. "I wouldn't do that," he said. "Bella, bring out our guest."
Harry knew he shouldn't listen and so he pressed a little, surprised for some reason that Voldemort's blood was a brilliant, wet crimson, the same as everyone else's. Blood of the father.
"Harry? Harry!"
It was Hermione's voice, but Harry didn't dare turn around. It was just a trick. Had to be.
He pressed a little harder, and the red blood began to flow more heavily, staining his hand. Voldemort's nostril slits widened, but his inhuman eyes were dead and could show no terror.
"Tell him, girl," Bellatrix said. "Tell him everything we've done since we caught you last night, filthy Mudblood. Tell him how you've been put in your place."
"Don't listen to her, Harry. Don't worry about me! Kill him, kill him now, while you can."
"You will now kindly remove your knife," Voldemort said, his thin lips twisted in a sneer. "If you're at all attached to your Mudblood, that is."
"Harry, don't-"
Without a doubt, it was truly Hermione. Only she would be brave enough to beg him to do his job regardless of the consequences to herself. And he knew that Hermione was right, that ending this war was more important than any of them. Still, he couldn't let her die; not when it was possible to save her.
Harry let his blade fall to the floor.
"No!" Hermione shouted.
"Very good," Voldemort said at the same time. "Unfortunately, her mind yielded its secrets quite easily, and she is now of no further use." He aimed his wand almost carelessly at Hermione.
"Avada Kedavra!"
Wandless, weaponless, Harry was too far away to do anything other than watch helplessly as the green light engulfed his friend and she crumpled and fell to the floor.
"Hermione, NO! You sick, lying bastard! I will kill you!" He would not hesitate again.
"You had your chance and were unable." Unconcerned, Voldemort turned his wand to Harry.
Harry knew what was going to happen next. He would have only one chance, and so he concentrated harder than he ever had in his life. He saw an eleven year old Ron sharing his pumpkin pasties and chocolate frogs on the Hogwarts Express. He saw Hermione, dirty and dusty, telling him that there were more important things than books and cleverness. He saw Sirius, offering him a home.
And he saw Draco, who was going to finally give him one, a real home, for the first time in his life, filled with joy and love.
"Expecto Patronum!" With everything that was in his heart, Harry cast the spell wandlessly, and he felt a surge of magic greater than anything he had ever managed, greater than himself. Fully corporeal and snorting silver fire, the white stag came pounding into the room, its hooves sounding like thunder.
The green light of Voldemort's spell, intended for Harry, hit the stag's flank and dissolved. Bellatrix tried to hex it, but her spell was intercepted as well, dispersed into a thousand motes of light which difted away harmlessly.
"Attack!" Harry commanded.
The stag shook his head and charged, goring Voldemort's thin body on its rack. It shook its head back and forth to rip the wounds open as widely as possible, until with a loud crack something snapped, and Voldemort's body went limp and seemingly boneless.
It snorted and pulled away, leaving Voldemort's broken corpse behind. Rearing, it turned and made as though to charge Bellatrix, horns dripping blood. She took one look at it and Apparated away.
It then turned to Harry, shaking and snorting. He held out its hand to it and it advanced slowly. As it drew near, it calmed.
Harry got his first good look directly into the stag's eyes, which were dark like midnight and bright light like starlight. In them, somehow, he recognized not only his father, but also his mother, Sirius, Hermione and more, everyone else who had ever loved him and died of it. He reached out to touch the majestic beast, but before he could lay his hand upon it, it dissolved into a silvery mist and dissipated.
He let out a sigh that meant everything at once: sorrow for Hermione's death, gratitude to the stag and hope for his future. Head spinning, more than a little overwhelmed, he reached for the device that would summon Kingsley.
*
Several Aurors, led by Kingsley Shacklebolt, immediately Apparated into the mansion, spreading out quickly and securing it. Harry stood his ground watching over Hermione's body, protecting it from their curiosity.
The Aurors left him alone until Kingsley himself approached, having secured the area and organized the search to his satisfaction. He looked down at Hermione and took off his own outer robe, which he used to gently cover her still form.
"Thank you," Harry said softly.
Kingsley just nodded, a muscle in his jaw working. Harry saw the tears in the stoic man's eyes and it was enough to release his own.
"I'll see to it that her parents know," Kingsley said eventually, his voice rough. "And the Ministry. She'll have the Order of Merlin, First Class, for certain."
Harry just nodded, knowing how little it all meant. He was now a murderer, and Hermione was dead - but they'd won. Voldemort was defeated, gone forever. It should feel like a fair trade, but somehow it wasn't enough, not by half.
A young Auror walked up to them. "Sir, we've found-" She cut herself off when she saw Harry's scar, by the looks of things more from shyness in the face of a celebrity than out of a sense of propriety and desire to keep her information confidential.
"There isn't anything you can't say in front of Potter," Kingsley covered for her smoothly. "We owe him our thanks."
"Yes, sir," the Auror said, and flushed. "Thank you." She turned to Harry and continued: "Sir, we've found three more people in one of the attic rooms."
"Three?" Harry asked, his tears stopping as an icy cold lump forming in the pit of his stomach. In a vivid flash he saw the stag's eyes once more.
"Yes, sir," she said. "I came right away, as instructed. I'm not certain what their status is yet."
"Take me there. Now."
The Auror looked to Kingsley for approval; he nodded once. "Go. I'll look after Hermione."
*
With every stair he climed, he came to dread more and more what he might find in that attic room. Something was very wrong - he felt it. And when he reached the top he saw Arthur Weasley: Arthur, who hadn't been a part of their plans at all; Arthur, who must have been the spy; Arthur who was crying and apologizing over and over to Ron, who appeared to be coming out of some kind of stupor, for a moment Harry wanted to hex them both.
It didn't help that Draco had been partly right. A Weasley had been the spy, if not the one he had assumed.
Lying only a few feet away, was Draco's unnaturally still form, and Harry did not need to check for a pulse to know that he had gone.
He stumbled into the room. Barely aware of what he was doing, he gathered Draco's body in his arms. He - it - was still warm. Still warm, but Draco was dead, just like everything else Harry had ever touched.
Not again. Another home, another new life for Harry, gone before it had even been his for one single day.
And Draco, who'd waited for him, who had looked so brilliant in scarlet… Everything Draco had worked for, hoped for, in his life was gone.
Harry did not cry. He didn't feel anything at all.
Lucius and Narcissa had been dead for months; Harry was the closest thing Draco had left in the world to family. He wasn't going to allow the Ministry to get their hands on him. They'd treat him like just another Death Eater and there wouldn't be anything Kingsley, who knew better, would not be able to do stop them in time.
Still holding Draco tightly, Harry Apparated home.
*
Home was Grimmauld Place and having the portrait of an insane old witch shrieking at him the moment he entered the house.
"You dirty-blooded filth, you are not welcome here! This house should have gone to those of my blood, not trash like you. Leave at once!"
"Would you like to see what's become of your blood?" Harry asked quietly. He was quite calm now, as though seeing everything from a great distance, knowing that the pain and the grief were still there, would always be there, but that they couldn't do anything more to hurt him.
Walburga looked at him with skepticism, and so he levitated Draco's corpse up so that she could see. "Narcissa's boy is dead and they are hunting Bellatrix now. When she is found - and she will be found - she will be Kissed. This is what has become of your kind. Ask any portrait you like."
Finally, the old witch was silent, and trickles of wet paint ran down her cheeks. "All of them?"
"Yes," Harry said. "And I will find a way to destroy your portrait, too. The war is over now. Your kind has no place in this world."
"The charm is Eximo Fabrica," she said. "Cast it. Take me down, burn me! The world is overrun with filth and I will not bear to see it."
"I will do so at my convenience, the more quickly if you are quiet." Harry closed the curtain.
"What am I to do with you?" he said to Draco's corpse. "There will have to be a burial, I suppose. Shall I bury you in scarlet, or would you prefer your old school robes?"
There was the tapping of a wand against the front door. Harry jumped.
"This won't do," he said. Thinking quickly, he levitated Draco's corpse up the stairs and to the master bedroom. He tucked Draco in under the covers and gently brushed away a few soft strands of blond hair before kissing his cooling forehead. Slowly, he went back down to answer the door, hoping against all probability that whoever it was had gotten tired and had gone away.
The tapping hadn't ceased. If anything, it was louder and more insistent. Harry threw open the front door and found find himself face to face with Ron.
"Come in," he said, stepping back to give him room to enter. Wordlessly, he led the way to the dining room where long ago Sirius had argued strenuously with Molly. There was very little Harry wouldn't give to hear either of their voices now; the war had claimed too many lives.
"Kingsley said you were there," Ron began, "when Hermione- when she died."
"I was," Harry said, overwhelmed by guilt. If only he'd acted more quickly, maybe Hermione would still be around.
"Why didn't you save her?" Ron demanded, his expression darkening. "Why didn't you do anything to help her?"
He's just grieving, the sensible portion of Harry's mind offered. He wants an argument and then a catharsis, and he wants them from you because you are his best friend. He doesn't know.
Like hell. Harry had done his best; what more would be required of him? It was true that Ron had loved Hermione, but Harry had loved Draco. It had been Ron's job to watch over Draco, and now Draco was dead. He wanted to shake Ron, to demand an apology.
Every piece of glass or crystal in that dining room - wine glasses, a mirror, the enormous chandelier which hung from the ceiling - cracked and then shattered, falling to the floor in a rain of glass. Neither Harry nor Ron flinched, though struck by several small fragments.
"What about Draco, Ron? What did you do to help him?" Harry spoke quietly, even softly, but he could be heard clearly in the aftermath of the destruction.
"Malfoy?" Ron's voice rose, incredulous. He started shouting as though glad of the excuse, the words pouring out his mouth in a flood of invective. "Hermione, remember her? She worked every single day to keep you safe. She studied, and she risked her neck to watch your back and now where is she, Harry? Why aren't you thinking about her?
"But no, you're thinking about Malfoy. All you are worried about is whether or not I followed your orders like a good little minion, right? Hermione, one of your best friends, is dead and you are asking about a snooty little ferret like Malfoy!"
Pain briefly stabbed through the anger and numbness around Harry's heart. "Voldemort killed Hermione. I couldn't stop him. I tried, I dropped the knife, but he killed her anyway. I gave up, and do you know what? It didn't even matter. She's dead.
"Now YOU tell ME: just how hard did you try to stop your father from killing Draco? Or did you step aside and cheer him on? You never wanted to guard him in the first place, did you?"
"My father is in St. Mungo's right now on a full watch in case he tries to kill himself. It's common among people who've been victims of Imperius, when they're released and have to deal with what they've done. Not that you fucking care," Ron spat out through gritted teeth.
He wiped angrily at his eyes and then continued, "Christ, what did you expect? That I'd draw my wand on my own father without even thinking? Shoot him down to save Malfoy's scrawny hide?"
Harry's vision began to darken, to fill red in for the light. Little cyclones began to form in the room, brilliant, shining with spun reflected light from the thousands of tiny slivers of crystal and glass swept up into their vortices.
"You didn't have to hurt him, only to stop him, stun him the way he did you. You faltered. It was a mistake. Just admit it, you made a mistake and now Draco is dead." Harry felt his control slipping; he'd been through too much, held on to too much magic that day already.
Heedless of any danger, Ron drew his wand. "The only mistake I've made is to consider you a friend. Why, Harry. Tell me why Malfoy is more important to you than Hermione, because I just don't get it."
"Fuck. You. I don't have to explain myself to you."
"Of course not, you're above all us little people, aren't you? Spent way too much time with Malfoy, if you ask me. Seems he rubbed off on you."
"Stop talking about him like that!" Something inside Harry shattered like the glass. Draco was one of the real heroes of the war, every bit as much as Hermione, and he wasn't going to stand for Ron's disrespect.
The cyclones grew larger, the glass inside beginning to hum loudly and a strong wind rose through the entire house. Walburga began shrieking again, the curtains hiding her portrait probably blown away completely. Her voice was as loud and insanely grating as usual, except that this time her screams were demands for her own destruction.
Harry had to shout to hear himself over the cacophony. "If he were here, he would be living with me right now. I'm sorry for the life you lost with Hermione, but I've lost mine too! You just can't see that, can you? Because it doesn't feed into your fucking petty little insecurity complex. I loved him, and I trusted you to keep him safe for me!"
Ron shouted something Harry couldn't hear, and a bright bolt of light shot from the tip of his wand. One of the cyclones moved up to intercept it and the glass shards swirling in it broke the light up into thousands of little beams, some of which turned back on Ron, who doubled over.
Everywhere the reflected beams of light struck Ron's skin, blood began to drip rapidly as though from the deepest of pinpricks. One such missed his eye by mere inches.
And Ron had aimed this spell at Harry.
"Get. Out." Harry pointed, and from down the hall he could hear the front door open obediently to his thought. "Get out and never come back."
*
More people came after that and still others after them. Harry ignored them all and finally put a Silencing Charm on the front door, so that he would not hear the tapping. In every other respect, the spells that had once protected Grimmauld Place as Order Headquarters would serve Harry well - save only the Fidelius Charm, which had died with Dumbledore.
Doubtless the Ministry would eventually break down his front door to give him congratulations for becoming a murderer.
Harry was exhausted, but thoughts of sleep led to the bed upstairs and its occupant. He couldn't sleep, not while Draco lay dead, slowly decomposing on the silk sheets. He'd have hated that. So Harry went to the library to see if he could find a spell that would help him preserve Draco's body until he figured out a way to give him a proper burial.
He wandered the shelves, unfamiliar with the Black family method of cataloguing. It was as though he could see Hermione in every corner of the place. Several times, he even caught himself turning to ask her the question, only to remember that she wouldn't be there anymore. Eventually, he fell asleep on a chair, a thick, dusty book of Dark Magic open on his lap.
*
When he woke up the next morning with a stiff back and a dull ache where his heart was supposed to be, he glanced down at the book he'd been reading, The Cultivation of the Dead. It must have given him some fairly odd dreams, because his thoughts kept wandering onto strange and morbid paths. He shook off a lingering sense of apprehension; given everything, it probably would have been strange for him to be feeling wholly normal.
He wandered to the kitchen, more out of habit than because he thought his stomach would be able to handle anything. He went through the motions of making tea, which smelled delicious as it grew cold in front of him while he read the Daily Prophet.
VOLDEMORT IS DEAD! the headline screamed, and only slightly farther down, in smaller text: Boy-Who-Lived Missing. He read through the articles, in which the Ministry was shown to have all but delivered Voldemort to Harry's feet. Hermione was mentioned once and Draco, of course, not at all.
Putting the paper down, he got up to check the spells on the front door.
"You promised you would destroy me," Walburga screamed at him. "Coward. You don't even have what it takes to do that much."
Not bothering to reply, he closed her curtain going to the door. He checked it carefully to make sure no one was behind it and then opened it to find a stack of letters, several of which had obviously nibbled on by irritated Owls, piled up nearly halfway to the doorknob.
He brought them back in to the library, where he threw most of them into the fire unopened. The last thing he wanted to see was the word 'Congratulations' charmed to sparkle and shine in his face. Towards the bottom of the pile, though, there was a thoughtful one from Ginny, who offered to give him a shoulder should one be needed. It was a lovely thought, one he appreciated her giving despite her brother's anger, but one he didn't plan on taking up.
I don't need a shoulder. I just need Draco back. Crying wouldn't help.
The very last scroll was written neat but cramped handwriting, black ink on white parchment. It was from Kingsley and politely requested a meeting that afternoon.
Harry scribbled a quick affirmative on the bottom of that same note and gave it to Hedwig to deliver. Kingsley would be able to tell him what was going on, and the challenges he would face in giving Draco an honourable burial with perhaps some kind of posthumous award.
Draco would have liked that: Draco Malfoy, Order of Merlin, First Class. Had he been given the choice, he certainly would've chosen to live, Slytherin that he was, but one couldn't always have everything. Not even Draco.
It would be hours before Kingsley arrived, so Harry wandered back to the library to continue his reading. A sick awareness had begun preying on his mind: time was working against him and Draco. He couldn't bear the thought of Draco starting to…smell, to become nothing more than rotting meat. It was almost as though decay would make it real.
*
The Cultivation of the Dead turned out to be full of strange lore, some terrible and some wonderful. It would most definitely have been in the Restricted Section at Hogwarts. The ways to restore life to the dead were many, from zombies to Inferi (there was a difference: an Inferi obeyed only the Dark wizard or witch who created it, while a zombie listened to no one), vampires (who could be created only at the moment of death) and liches, which were basically zombies who had been powerful witches or wizards in life and who retained their personality and their abilities.
Oddly, he couldn't seem to find a simple preservation spell by itself, although some amount of preservation was interwoven with just about any spell designed to be cast on a human or animal body.
The book captivated him so entirely that he was almost surprised to hear the chiming of the clock announce the time of Kingsley's visit.
*
Kingsley Shacklebolt looked exhausted. His normally spotless and neat robes were wrinkled, with what looked like a coffee stain on one sleeve.
Harry invited him in to the dining room. Although he had made some effort to repair the damage done during his argument with Ron, his spellwork had been sloppy and disinterested, and most of the breakable items showed lines of fractures.
Although Kingsley gave no sign that he noticed, Harry doubted he'd missed much.
"Can I make you some tea?" he asked awkwardly, because it seemed like the normal thing to ask.
"No, thank you," Kingsley said. "I haven't much time, I am afraid. They're expecting me back at the Ministry. But I don't agree with what they are doing, and I felt you deserved a warning."
Harry just nodded. He sat and listened intently, sick to death of endless crises and unable to muster much emotion at the thought of yet another one.
"Some people at the Ministry feel that it isn't healthy for you to be hiding away like this, that you need to be seen by a Healer after all you've gone through." Kingsley grimaced in distaste, pausing as though not sure how to continue.
"In other words, they are upset that I'm not publicly giving them my support now that Voldemort is dead," Harry finished for him.
Kingsley nodded gratefully. "Exactly. They are sending over a team of Aurors to place you in protective custody."
"When?"
"Six o'clock this evening, possibly sooner. I'm sorry, Harry."
"It's not your fault. Thank you for letting me know. What about Malfoy? How do I go about clearing his name?"
Kingsley blinked and Harry realized he'd forgotten. Harry clenched his fists under the table.
"I'm sorry, Harry. Now that Voldemort is dead, the people who were too afraid to do anything while he was around are suddenly shouting at anyone who will listen that the Ministry needs to take a tougher stance with those who were Death Eaters, known or suspected. Right now they are organizing the largest hunt in the history of the Aurors to find Bellatrix Lestrange.
"The time will come to tell the truth about what he did for us in this war, but right now I doubt anyone would be willing to listen." Kingsley looked truly sorry as he spoke.
"I will make them listen," Harry said.
Kingsley looked at him for a long time. "I believe you will, but not from the Ministry's protective custody. You need to lie low for awhile, let people's tempers cool a little. Can you go to the Burrows?"
Harry swallowed. "I doubt Ron wants me there. We had words the other day, about Hermione's death. He… He blames me."
"Hermione's death was not your fault. Remember that, Harry. Whatever Ron said, he wasn't himself at the time."
He tried to hurt me, Harry thought, remembering Ron's spell. He appreciated Kingsley's help though, and so he didn't argue the point.
"I'll think about it," he said. "I know you risked your career to come here, and I appreciate that more than I can say. Thank you." Harry rose, bringing the conversation to an end.
*
When Kingsley left, Harry fought back the urge to smash the hallway, smash everything in Grimmauld Place, just as he had once smashed Dumbledore's office.
Time. He needed time.
If Grimmauld Place wasn't safe, there weren't many places he could go. Except one - there was one place no one would look, no one could look, one door he was the only person alive who could open.
Harry smiled grimly, appreciating the irony, and began to get ready.
*
Draco's skin looked a little grayer than it had before, a deficit of colour against the scarlet sheets. And it might have been Harry's imagination, but he could have sworn he caught a faint whiff of something not quite, something dead and gone that should be buried, hiding beneath the antique lavender scent that had been permanently spelled into the room.
These things made up his mind to do what he must, distasteful though it would be.
The Cultivation of the Dead in one hand, he took out a few dried dittany leaves, leftover stock from the supply cabinet kept by the order. He tried to open Draco's mouth, but rigor mortis had set in fully and he could not do it.
"Alohomora!" Harry tried, surprised when it worked and Draco's jaw opened quietly. He crushed a couple of leaves and placed them in Draco's mouth.
This is only for a little while, Harry promised himself, only until the wind changes, until I can make things right for him.
He sliced his palm until the blood ran freely and held it over the herbs in Draco's mouth. The more powerful Necromantic spells often required more in the way of a sacrifice, up to a human life - much too high a price. His own blood, however, he could and would gratefully give.
"Gero Inferius!" Harry said, fighting the urge to whisper.
Dark magic always has a penalty. Avada Kedavra had turned him into a murderer, had torn his soul.
Creating an Inferius crushed his hope.
Moments passed and without moving or drawing a single breath, Draco's colour became a little warmer; though still pale, he was no longer grey. He sat up, opened his eyes, and looked at Harry. For a moment Draco seemed confused, and Harry wanted to believe Draco recognized him, that the power of their love had reached through death and that they would be together, at least long enough to say goodbye.
But nothing happened. There was no sign of warmth or human feeling, no recognition at all beyond a construct looking to its Creator.
"Draco?"
Draco turned his head to look at Harry. There was no feeling in the movement, no anticipation or expectation.
"Say something!"
The corpse opened its mouth, blood and herbs falling from its lips onto the coverlet. "Something." The word was clear, said in a flat, humourless monotone, no joke intended.
It set Harry off nonetheless. He clutched his sides and he laughed and laughed until the tears ran down his face.
The Inferius merely sat and watched.
So completely had Harry lost track of time that he nearly failed to move when he first heard the alarm spells announce the arrival of the unwanted visitors Kingsley had told him to expect. They'd come to arrest him for grieving, for not being what the Ministry wanted to be.
"Hold this," he said absently, shoving the bundle he'd readied into Draco's arms and throwing his Invisibility Cloak around them both. "We can't Apparate into Hogwarts, not directly, so we're going to go in through a passage in Hogsmeade," he explained unnecessarily.
*
It felt strange to be returning to Hogwarts through the old passageway, and more so to walk through the halls of Hogwarts itself, an Inferius huddled behind him underneath his cloak. On one hand, Hogwarts was the first place Harry had ever felt at home, and for him it was the one place that always would feel that way. On the other, he was a very different person from the boy who'd gone to school there over a year ago. He'd willingly cast Dark spells. He'd taken life.
The Inferius kept pace with him easily, more graceful than Harry remembered the creatures from the lake where they'd found Regulus' note. It was nowhere near as graceful as Draco had been in life, but it did make Harry wonder.
Perhaps he thought as he greeted the tap in the girl's bathroom quietly in Parseltongue, Perhaps Tom Riddle was simply too picky. An icy chill shot down his spine and he quickly shook off the thought. Bringing back the dead was forbidden.
The tunnel leading to the Chamber of Secrets did not look as it had during Harry's second year. The basilisk's skin was gone, for a beginning, and the animal bones had all been cleared away. Probably by house-elves; Harry couldn't imagine anyone else who'd care enough about an uninhabited portion of the castle to make the effort.
"Dobby!" he called, throwing off his Invisibility Cloak but making certain Draco remained covered.
All Harry heard in response was the trickling of water through the pipes. No one came. Which was just as well; even Dobby's first loyalty was to his family - in this case, the school. He'd be forced to give Harry's whereabouts if questioned directly, in the unlikely event that someone thought to ask.
Harry approached the Chamber, the Inferius following him closely. The carved doors slid open exactly as they had before. As though he belonged inside.
Everything in the Chamber was as he remembered, cold, gloomy green or grey and inhospitable. The serpent-carved stone pillars stood off to each side, and the ugly statue of Salazar still dominated one end.
"We're home," he told Draco grimly, opening his bag and pulling out the first of his reduced objects: a small, shrunken bed he'd taken from Grimmauld Place. He placed it carefully and returned it to regular size before reaching for the next item.
After a few hours, the place looked positively surreal. A lavish bed with thick, expensive sheets stood at one end of the room, bright against the rough, nasty, cold stone of the Chamber. A small maple table stood next to the bed upon which a brass lamp did its best to cast a warm glow into the room against the dim green light that was native to the environment. A large chest at the foot of the bed held what clothing he'd brought, and a bookshelf holding a few carefully selected volumes, including the The Cultivation of the Dead, completed the setup.
He hadn't been sure what to do for Draco, whether to bring another bed or what he would need. In the end Harry had settled on bringing the large, emptied wardrobe from the master bedroom at Grimmauld Place. Coffin-like, it stood at the far end of the Chamber.
Later that night, Harry could creep out into the school, covered in his Invisibility Cloak. He would grab some food from the kitchens and stop by the Room of Requirement. If it had given chamber pots to Dumbledore, it would give one to Harry as well, hopefully of the magical self-cleaning variety.
Harry looked around in satisfaction. He'd be able to stay until the Ministry grew bored of him and raised a new hero. Perhaps Ron, he thought snidely, still stinging from their argument. Ron had always wanted the attention.
*
Living below ground, life quickly assumes its own rhythms. Day and night are marked by the body's needs, eating and sleeping, rather than by the sun or convention. Harry fought to keep awareness of the world above. He couldn't let the time slip by, at least not yet. He still had Hermione's funeral to attend.
He passed most of his time reading, hoping to find a better temporary solution to preserve Draco for burial than leaving him in his reanimated state. He kept catching himself talking to the Inferius as though it could understand. It wasn't Draco and he knew that, but the temptation to wish otherwise grew steadily and was difficult to ignore.
Occasionally too, he would sneak above to find copies of the Daily Prophet, to try to keep track of what passed in the real world above. One morning, the entire editorial section of the paper was given over to a brilliant eulogy written for Hermione, praising her intelligence, talents and playing up her contribution to the war. "Where would the wizarding world now be?" the article asked, "without the fearlessness, the bravery and sacrifice, of a young witch who never really had the chance to make her way in the world? I had the very great honour to have met Miss Granger…"
Touched, Harry's eyes flickered to the byline and found that it had been written by none other than Rita Skeeter. The thought of that woman singing Hermione's praises was absolutely priceless and he just had to share the joke. So Harry read the article out loud to Draco, who listened without moving or reacting at all to the words, forcing Harry to laugh for the both of them.
"Try laughing," he suggested to the Inferius, morbidly curious as to what such a thing would sound like.
Draco opened his mouth to emit a few harsh chuckles that sounded more like anger than humour, and Harry had to cover his nose. Apparently, the charm which preserved an Inferius and kept it fresh only worked so well, which explained the state of the Inferi in the cave.
Draco too would end up that way, if Harry didn't do something.
The book suggested a small dose of blood, which Harry offered easily. It was a challenge to get it into Draco's mouth at first; several drops rolled right out of his mouth before Harry thought to command him to drink. And it was far from a perfect solution; even the very next morning, Harry noticed he'd begun to grey a very little yet again.
There was another option. According to the book, there was a spell Harry could cast that would return Draco's soul to his undead body, restoring his magic and turning him into a lich. Such a thing would be an abomination, but the desire to hear Draco's voice once more made the thought impossible to ignore completely.
"What ought I to do with you?," Harry asked, fighting back a wave of hysteria as he cut himself to feed his charge the second time. "I won't let them treat you like a criminal when you risked so much. I won't let them take you." He fought back tears of loneliness and exhaustion. "You are all I have left."
The last truth shamed him and Harry couldn't look the thing in the eye when he said it. Before the blood had even stopped trickling from his cut, he'd ordered Draco to stand in the wardrobe.
*
Another day and a few hours of restless and unfulfilling sleep brought the morning of Hermione's funeral. His plan was to attend wrapped completely in a heavy black cloak, so that he would be able to offer his condolences as himself without disrupting the ceremony. Although the Aurors might well be watching, they would also be unwilling to create a fuss, so chances were great than anything that they might throw at him, he'd be able to handle easily.
The weather that day was perfect. Bright sunshine made the grass and the leaves of the ancient trees glow green until the earth shone with timelessness. The gentle scent of cultivated flowers wafted by on the light breezes. The cemetery, one of the wizarding world's most prestigious, had been meticulously groomed to exude an almost aggressive soothingness, a sense that death, although inevitable, was most certainly lovely.
It was exactly the sort of place Draco deserved to be buried. Harry would have been willing to bet that scores of Malfoy's ancestors could be found there.
During the ceremony, Rufus Scrimgeour himself rose and gave a long and moving speech about Hermione's bravery. He held up her dedication to the Ministry's goals of Fairness and Justice as a shining example to all. "We at the Ministry would do well to learn from her," he declared. "And so from this day forth, September 19th will be known throughout Wizarding Britain as Hermione Granger Day, a day for us all to show appreciation for house-elves and other nonhuman helpers."
While many of the guests were looking to each other and nodding solemnly in approval, Harry could practically hear Hermione telling them all off from her coffin. She'd never had any respect for Scrimgeour when she was alive. Many times, Harry had wondered how long it would take Hermione to replace him.
Hermione's parents, John and Alice Granger, were the only other people who didn't seem to react to the news. Alice was sitting stiffly, looking as though if she tried to bend, she would break. Her husband just seemed lost, his gaze darting around the crowd as though expecting to find his daughter in it. Harry could barely see Ron sitting beside them, and despite everything, he really hoped that Ron was managing well.
Deep down, he knew he should be there, should be standing beside them to offer comfort. But he wasn't sure he would have known how. He'd been cast out, cut away from the healthy world he'd helped create. What had been his place, wasn't anymore.
When the guests lined up to pay their respects, Harry carefully placed himself at the end of the line. By the time he made it to Hermione's parents, only a few witches and wizards remained, forming little knots around the grave, talking and remembering Hermione.
"I am so sorry," he said awkwardly. He pulled back the hood of his cloak just enough to identify himself to them without attracting the notice of the few spectators still there. "Hermione was the bravest witch, the best person, I've ever known."
"You were there, when-" Alice broke off there, her voice rough as though she'd only just been crying and would begin again any second.
"It didn't hurt," Harry said, although certainly her parents already knew that. He found he didn't quite know what to say. Dumbledore had been there to explain things to Cedric's father. Even if Dumbledore had lived, Hermione had been his friend, and he felt he needed to find the right words for himself. "She was so brave. If it wasn't for her, I wouldn't be standing here right now. So many people wouldn't."
From the corner of his eye, Harry saw the telltale glimmer of a few Disillusioned figures creeping up on them from the shadows. Aurors. He was running out of time, so he turned.
"Ron," he said. His friend looked years older, and there were deep dark circles beneath his eyes. "I've missed you."
"I knew you would show up here, Harry." Ron's voice broke, a little. "I've missed you too. Look, it's not your fault, okay? None of this is. You need help. Just turn yourself in and let them look at you, please?"
For a moment, Harry considered doing it. Draco was dead, and Ron was all Harry had left in the world. But just then, Ron nodded slightly. It was a signal and not to Harry. It would have been imperceptible to anyone who didn't know him as well as Harry did; the tiniest shift of his chin just over Harry's shoulder, and Harry knew the Aurors were raising their wands, targeting him.
"What's the going rate for treachery these days?" he asked Ron, who looked back at him blankly. "Thirty sickles, or has inflation kept up with the times?"
"It's for your own good." To his credit, Ron sounded as though he believed it himself, or at least had convinced himself that he did.
It didn't matter the reason Ron had betrayed him. Perhaps the Ministry had offered him a decent position. Perhaps he truly did care about Harry's welfare.
If Harry allowed himself to be tricked like this, taken into custody, Draco would be left behind. Who knew how long he would inhabit the Chamber of Secrets, a nightmare left behind until the next unlucky Parselmouth stumbled into Myrtle's bathroom.
Harry Apparated away.
*
Days and days passed in the Chamber of Secrets, broken more and more rarely by Harry's trips for food and newspapers. Harry spent most of them reading, devouring the books he'd brought from the Black library and even, greatly daring, making a few successful attempts to cross-reference information in the Restricted Section. He debated fine points of the Necromantic arts with Draco, who offered no opinions on the subject.
Sometimes, the one-sided conversation was more personal. "He betrayed me," Harry said once.
Draco had just stared at him dully, his grey eyes beginning to film over. It was almost time for more blood.
"Ron did," Harry answered as though he'd been asked. "You never liked him, did you? Well, you were wrong, he wasn't under Imperius. But I never, ever should have had him watch over you, Draco. I'm so sorry. Can you forgive me? Say it, Draco. Say you forgive me."
"I forgive you," Draco's monotone voice droned.
Harry wept.
*
One night several weeks after Hermione's funeral, Harry set out to replenish his food supply. On the way, he passed two students out long after curfew who were fighting in a hallway. Living students, and the sound of their angry, passionate voices made him feel like he was less than real, an imposter.
One of the students was from Gryffindor, the other Slytherin, and the sight made Harry's vision waver a bit and his throat close up. Harry was gathering his courage to walk past them - it wasn't likely they would notice him - when he heard one say to the other: "You couldn't get a date if they forced that witch Lestrange to go - after tomorrow when the Dementors have had her."
Quickly, Harry hurried away to look through rubbish bins for a discarded copy of that morning's Prophet. When he found one, it confirmed what the students had been saying. The Aurors had finally captured Bellatrix Lestrange. The very last battle of his war had ended.
Perhaps he could leave and start a new life somewhere. There was no mention of him anywhere in the paper.
Harry returned to the Chamber, his mind spinning with possibility. He could make a deal with the Ministry, which would be eager to tie up loose ends as well. They would clear Draco's name, give him a good resting place, and in exchange Harry would submit himself to whatever poking and/or prodding St. Mungo's cared to do.
It was over. He could leave.
He looked around at his bed and his books and then at Draco. The Inferius stood silently in front of his wardrobe, waiting for a command.
The thought of leaving his makeshift home caused him to break out in a cold sweat. He didn't want to go. He had everything he needed right where he was. It was true that Draco wasn't really Draco and Harry knew that, but he was there in some form, a physical presence, which was a start. And while some might have considered the environment inhospitable, Harry was at home living in dark enclosed places; it was where he'd grown up and where he belonged.
Best of all, it was quiet. Harry wasn't famous in the Chamber. He'd finally found a place to hide from the attention that had made him so uncomfortable.
There had to be another way, a way he could stay. A way he could keep Draco from rotting away, make it so that Draco would stay with him. And then it hit him: Bellatrix was the key.
Harry could bring Draco most of the rest of the way back, though he'd recoiled at the idea in the past. To do so he would need to take a life and even though he was already a murderer, there was no way Harry would sacrifice the innocent, even for Draco.
Bellatrix, however, was going to die anyway, was going to worse than die. He'd be doing her a favor.
He had little time, if he was going to capture her and bring her back to the school.
*
According to the Daily Prophet, Bellatrix Lestrange was being held in a specially-prepared cell in Azkaban, surrounded by no fewer than three Dementors at all times. This was good news for Harry, who had learned to ward off Dementors at fourteen years old.
He snuck out of Hogwarts during daylight hours for the first time since he was a schoolboy. At first, he stumbled around dangerously, blinded by light stronger than that to which he'd grown accustomed. Avoiding the students while carrying his broom was difficult; the Invisibility Cloak wouldn't protect him if he ran into someone headlong. Somehow, he made it to the statue of the humpbacked witch without giving himself away. He rested for a few moments, safe in the quiet of the secret passage, letting his overwhelmed mind prepare itself for the rest of the journey.
Fortunately, Honeydukes was emptier than Harry had ever seen it. Most of its usual clientele was probably still in school or working their day jobs. He made it out of the store and up into the air on his broom without incident.
He approached Azkaban, focusing his considerable magical power to push back against the dampening field set up in the air around the fortress, so that he was able to bring himself to a controlled landing on the shore. Harry stood on the beach proudly, waiting for one of the very few human employees to come down and greet him.
When the poor man showed up, breathing hard and looking as though he'd run the entire way, Harry was ready.
"Imperio!"
The guard's face relaxed immediately, and Harry drew a sigh of relief.
"Take me to Bellatrix Lestrange. Don't set off any alarms or let anyone know we are here." Harry commanded.
Together they walked over the rocks to find the single path that led to the fortress. It climbed steeply, a sheer drop onto sharp rocks on either side. Before they entered, Harry raised the hood of his robes, throwing his face into shadows.
"Tell them I am expected," he said to the guard. "Special Inspection from the Ministry."
Only two more guards greeted them from inside the fortress. Harry figured that it was hard to find employees willing to work in such close proximity to the Dementors, and what few people they could find would probably need to be rotated on a regular basis, to keep them from going mad.
The guards, a witch and a wizard, merely nodded acceptance when their companion showed him in. They went straight to Bellatrix's cell.
Three Dementors floated just outside the door, hovering about the keyhole. The sound of their rattling, raspy breath filled the hall, chilling the mind as the cold in the air chilled the body. They would not attack as long as the guard was along, but any closer and both Harry and the guard would feel the effects of the proximity, the draining of their happiness.
"What is your name?" Harry asked.
"Ben, sir. Ben Nightshade."
"Send the Dementors away, Ben," Harry ordered.
"Go away," the guard said to them obediently. The Dementors did not move.
"Tell me why they didn't leave," Harry said.
The guard answered, as blankly as an Inferius: "They don't answer to me. They only answer to the Ministry liaison."
It was an obvious safety precaution, one that Harry was prepared to deal with. He concentrated, attempting to remember the bright and beautiful things in his life. Only, the edges of those memories was blurred and fuzzy around the edges, and when he called out "Expecto Patronum!" the only response was a formless, silvery mist that shot out the end of his wand.
He gathered himself up to try again, putting every bit of his force of will into the effort, holding nothing back. And for the second time, he failed.
The Dementors noticed the silver mist and came floating towards them. Harry tried to brace himself against the rush of bad memories. And they came: his mother and Voldemort and the flash of green light; Cedric lying cold on the ground, Sirius, falling through the archway; Hermione, tortured and murdered, her body crumpling to the floor; and Draco, lying motionless while Arthur Weasley sobbed in the background. Then he saw Draco as he was now, a walking corpse, unable to think or feel and there was a happiness mixed in with the grief and the pain.
None of these images had the power to affect him, not anymore. He saw them too often, replayed in his mind over and over until the grief and terror, the nightmares, had become a nearly permanent state of mind. Comfortable.
"Leave us," Harry commanded, and to his surprise, the Dementors bowed and floated away.
Harry wasn't going to question his good fortune. "You can stand up now," he told Ben, who was on the floor in the foetal position. "They're gone."
Shaking, the guard stood.
"Good man. We're almost finished now. Open the door and secure the prisoner."
Ben walked forward to the door the Dementors had been guarding and took out a very large set of iron keys. Fumbling around, he eventually found the correct one and the door swung inward to the sound of Bellatrix shrieking in madness on the other side. Harry couldn't hear what spell the man cast, but there was a flash of light and the wailing stopped abruptly.
"Bring her out here," Harry said, staying where he was.
Bellatrix came to the doorway first, blindfolded and gagged, her hands tight tightly and legs hobbled with bonds made of magical energy. There must have been more to the spell, for she went easily, almost docilely, wherever the guard indicated she should go.
"Well done," he said. "Now let's get out of here."
They walked out the hallways and through the front door unchallenged. However, a few moments after they stepped back onto the rocky path they were brought up short. Kingsley Shacklebolt, completely alone, wand in hand but not pointed, blocked their way.
"I'm afraid I can't let you leave, Harry," he said firmly but not unkindly. "You have to come back with me now."
"Get out of the way." The last thing Harry wanted to do was fight Kingsley, who had been there for him when no one else had been.
"Drop your wand." Kingsley gestured with his own. "Do it, Harry. Please."
Harry didn't wait for him to ask again. "Stupefy!
He'd only intended to knock Kingsley out, to get past him unhindered. But the blast came out with much more power than Harry had expected, and the force of it pushed Kingsley over the edge. He saw, as if in slow motion, Kingsley falling down the sheer face of the cliff.
Already unconscious, there was no way Kingsley could have survived.
"Take me to where I can fly out of here," Harry said to the guard, not stopping to mourn his friend. There would be time for that later; he would not waste the life he'd inadvertently sacrificed for his cause.
*
Harry threw Bellatrix facedown on the floor of the Chamber at Draco's feet.
"I'm doing you a favor," Harry explained. "It's more than you deserve, a clean death like this."
She was the last element needed to bring Draco back for real. He couldn't risk the possibility that the curse the guard had placed on Bellatrix would interfere with her energy as a sacrifice for his spellwork; he would have to free her. He had nothing else to tie her with, so he tore strips from his coverlet and bound her arms and legs tightly.
"Finite Incantatem!"
Bellatrix sagged to the floor, turning her neck at what had to be an uncomfortable angle to look up at Harry.
"Look at you, boy. You murdered Him with that filthy animal spell and now you're going to murder me. They all think you are so innocent, so pure. You're a lot like He was, you know. In time you might even be worth something." Bellatrix grinned triumphantly, as though Harry was the one tied up and waiting for death and not her.
"Shut up!" Harry said, kicking her in the ribs.
Bellatrix began to sing, so wildly off-key that there was no discernable tune:
"The Muggle got uppity and so the Mudblood ate him
The Mudblood got uppity and so the Squib ate him
The Squib got uppity and so the Half-blood ate him
the Half-blood got uppity -"
She broke off there, laughing. "Just like you ate your pretty Mudblood friend. You could have saved her, you know, had you thought to bargain."
"Shut. Up!"
He leaned down to slap her this time, recoiling from the foul smell of her breath as she continued to laugh and laugh at him.
The sooner he'd gotten this over and done with, the better.
He picked up The Cultivation of the Dead (even though he had the spell information memorized) and an antique silver dagger. The book automatically fell open to the necessary page, and he set it to the side.
The spell Harry needed was fairly straightforward. Like all of the most powerful, ancient spells, this one required very little more than blood, earth and strength of will.
He placed one handful of grave dirt, taken from Hogsmeade, into a dull copper goblet.
"Hold out your arm," he commanded. Draco thrust out his arm obediently, palm facing down.
Harry twisted it gently, turning it over. He flipped the dagger and slashed once, diagonally, across Draco's wrist. Only a very few sluggish drops of blood fell from the cut, and so he took Draco's arm and squeezed until a few very heavy crimson drops splashed onto the earth, muddying it.
"Oooh, the naughty ickle boy is playing with nasty Dark magic. Be careful, you might get your hands dirty." Bellatrix taunted, but Harry ignored her.
"We'll be together soon," Harry promised Draco. He turned to Bellatrix. "This is a kindness," he repeated.
A calm sanity that he had never seen shone in her eyes. She met his gaze evenly. "I know."
Harry grasped a handful of Bellatrix's lank, greasy hair and held her neck over the cup of earth. She did not struggle, and for a moment he hated her for that, for making this difficult for him.
Focusing on Draco and only on Draco, he brought the knife to her neck. It bit into her skin the way it had to her Master's and for a second he could almost hear Hermione in the background, telling him to stop, to keep going - to do something, he wasn't sure what - but he needed to concentrate or it wouldn't work and he would be alone. So he shut everything else out, and let his love for Draco fill him entirely.
They would be reunited.
Harry moved his arm, cut Bellatrix, slashed her throat wide open, and he didn't feel a thing for her. Blood gushed out, flooding the goblet, which began to glow a low, dull dark purple-black in the gloom. When he had enough, he dropped her body to the side.
He stirred the earth and the blood with his dagger six times widdershins. The winding scent of sharp copper and wet soil filled the room, while the purple glow darkened, becoming a thick black mist that threw misty tendrils from the mouth of the cup.
The next step was to paint arcane symbols all over Draco's body, to dress him in the muddied scarlet of Harry's sacrifice. He dipped the knife into the mixture, and slowly and carefully drew ancient runes that glistened key points over his body. The black mist hovered above each reddish mark, connected to its brothers in a complicated, changing pattern where the swirls joined each other, only to break off and reconnect elsewhere.
Finally, he brought the cup of earth and blood to Draco's lips. "Drink."
Draco did as commanded automatically, but then his fingers tightened their grip around the goblet. His hold was weak at first, but soon the metal began to bend and was crushed in his grip, the remnants of the vile concoction dribbling out to smear over his hand.
The dark mist rose from the red designs painted on Draco's body, pulled upward as though by a twisted and inverted gravity. It skimmed the surface of his skin to sink into the pupils of his eyes. The grey irises disappeared, and then the whites, filled in with an inky blackness that grew larger and larger, until they were swallowed up whole in utter darkness. He turned to look at Harry and in that alien gaze Harry immediately recognized the spirit of the man he loved.
"Harry?" It was Draco's voice, his real voice instead of the Inferius' horrid monotone.
"I can't believe you're really here! You came back to me." Harry had no idea what he was saying as gladness rushed through him.
"What have you done?" Draco looked at his pale, perfect body and at his bloodied hands, his expression horrified. "Oh, my love, my heart, what have you done?"
"I missed you. I've been so alone, and I needed you." Harry walked forward and wrapped his arms around Draco. His body was still cold to the touch, but his arms came up and returned Harry's embrace and that was all Harry needed.
"I love you," Harry wept into Draco's shoulder. "Please forgive me."
"I forgive you," Draco said sadly. "I must. I loved you, and now I will love you forever."
*
~End
Note: Thanks again to the amazing Aigua, who gave me this unbelievably fantastic prompt:
Draco is gone (killed, kissed, vaporized, anything. It's up to you). Harry can't live without him. He is willing to do anything, everything, even the cruelest thing, to see Draco again. Harry/Draco. I'd like a dark fic, please, as dark as you want. Kill as many people as you see fit. :-)
I hope this was something remotely like what you were looking for. This story was an absolute pleasure to write! :)
Gift for: #073 Aigua Nightshade
From: #42 Eris Moriendi
Pairing: Harry/Draco
Rating: NC-17
Warnings: Very dark themes and graphic (fully consensual) sex.
Word Count: ~13,800
Summary: Harry clings to what he can.
Note: For the very lovely and talented Aigua Nightshade for Reversathon 2007. Many thanks to R. for the beta!
Continued from Part 1.
Nothing Scarlet or Grey
Part 2 of 2
The next morning, Harry murdered a madman.
With the aid of Draco's spell, he transported himself to the only remaining piece of Tom Riddle's soul, housed in its subhuman constructed body.
Voldemort sat on a garish marble throne, carved with skulls and snakes that had rubies for eyes, looking extraordinarily out of place in what had once been the drawing room of the Riddle mansion. Bellatrix stood beside him on his right, but otherwise the room appeared empty.
"Welcome, Harry Potter," Voldemort said with a slow, calm grin. "To what do we owe the pleasure of your visit?"
Harry's eyes narrowed, and he waved his wand in a complicated spiral that tucked around at the end, completing itself. "Evito Serpentanimus!"
The spell had taken many, many hours for the Order to design. Dumbledore himself had laid the foundation for it, and each member had contributed his or her share to its development. This was a spell for Justice, one that would bring forth retribution befitting Voldemort's many and bloodied crimes. In a way, although Harry had been its agent, Voldemort would be responsible for his own death.
Nothing happened.
"Perhaps you should try it again," Bellatrix suggested with a laugh. "Perhaps you're not doing it right."
But the spell had been correct; Harry had practiced it over and over, and he could feel the magic of it around them, swirling around, untargeted.
Harry felt around the pocket of his robes for the enchanted knife he'd hidden there as his last resort. "Evito Serpentanimus!" Harry said again, not because he expected any results, but as a distraction.
Before he'd even finished casting the failed spell a second time, Voldemort stood. He summoned Harry's wand.
But Harry had been the youngest Seeker at Hogwarts in a century; he had speed on his side. Before Voldemort had a chance to catch Harry's wand, Harry's knife was at his throat.
Voldemort laughed. "I wouldn't do that," he said. "Bella, bring out our guest."
Harry knew he shouldn't listen and so he pressed a little, surprised for some reason that Voldemort's blood was a brilliant, wet crimson, the same as everyone else's. Blood of the father.
"Harry? Harry!"
It was Hermione's voice, but Harry didn't dare turn around. It was just a trick. Had to be.
He pressed a little harder, and the red blood began to flow more heavily, staining his hand. Voldemort's nostril slits widened, but his inhuman eyes were dead and could show no terror.
"Tell him, girl," Bellatrix said. "Tell him everything we've done since we caught you last night, filthy Mudblood. Tell him how you've been put in your place."
"Don't listen to her, Harry. Don't worry about me! Kill him, kill him now, while you can."
"You will now kindly remove your knife," Voldemort said, his thin lips twisted in a sneer. "If you're at all attached to your Mudblood, that is."
"Harry, don't-"
Without a doubt, it was truly Hermione. Only she would be brave enough to beg him to do his job regardless of the consequences to herself. And he knew that Hermione was right, that ending this war was more important than any of them. Still, he couldn't let her die; not when it was possible to save her.
Harry let his blade fall to the floor.
"No!" Hermione shouted.
"Very good," Voldemort said at the same time. "Unfortunately, her mind yielded its secrets quite easily, and she is now of no further use." He aimed his wand almost carelessly at Hermione.
"Avada Kedavra!"
Wandless, weaponless, Harry was too far away to do anything other than watch helplessly as the green light engulfed his friend and she crumpled and fell to the floor.
"Hermione, NO! You sick, lying bastard! I will kill you!" He would not hesitate again.
"You had your chance and were unable." Unconcerned, Voldemort turned his wand to Harry.
Harry knew what was going to happen next. He would have only one chance, and so he concentrated harder than he ever had in his life. He saw an eleven year old Ron sharing his pumpkin pasties and chocolate frogs on the Hogwarts Express. He saw Hermione, dirty and dusty, telling him that there were more important things than books and cleverness. He saw Sirius, offering him a home.
And he saw Draco, who was going to finally give him one, a real home, for the first time in his life, filled with joy and love.
"Expecto Patronum!" With everything that was in his heart, Harry cast the spell wandlessly, and he felt a surge of magic greater than anything he had ever managed, greater than himself. Fully corporeal and snorting silver fire, the white stag came pounding into the room, its hooves sounding like thunder.
The green light of Voldemort's spell, intended for Harry, hit the stag's flank and dissolved. Bellatrix tried to hex it, but her spell was intercepted as well, dispersed into a thousand motes of light which difted away harmlessly.
"Attack!" Harry commanded.
The stag shook his head and charged, goring Voldemort's thin body on its rack. It shook its head back and forth to rip the wounds open as widely as possible, until with a loud crack something snapped, and Voldemort's body went limp and seemingly boneless.
It snorted and pulled away, leaving Voldemort's broken corpse behind. Rearing, it turned and made as though to charge Bellatrix, horns dripping blood. She took one look at it and Apparated away.
It then turned to Harry, shaking and snorting. He held out its hand to it and it advanced slowly. As it drew near, it calmed.
Harry got his first good look directly into the stag's eyes, which were dark like midnight and bright light like starlight. In them, somehow, he recognized not only his father, but also his mother, Sirius, Hermione and more, everyone else who had ever loved him and died of it. He reached out to touch the majestic beast, but before he could lay his hand upon it, it dissolved into a silvery mist and dissipated.
He let out a sigh that meant everything at once: sorrow for Hermione's death, gratitude to the stag and hope for his future. Head spinning, more than a little overwhelmed, he reached for the device that would summon Kingsley.
*
Several Aurors, led by Kingsley Shacklebolt, immediately Apparated into the mansion, spreading out quickly and securing it. Harry stood his ground watching over Hermione's body, protecting it from their curiosity.
The Aurors left him alone until Kingsley himself approached, having secured the area and organized the search to his satisfaction. He looked down at Hermione and took off his own outer robe, which he used to gently cover her still form.
"Thank you," Harry said softly.
Kingsley just nodded, a muscle in his jaw working. Harry saw the tears in the stoic man's eyes and it was enough to release his own.
"I'll see to it that her parents know," Kingsley said eventually, his voice rough. "And the Ministry. She'll have the Order of Merlin, First Class, for certain."
Harry just nodded, knowing how little it all meant. He was now a murderer, and Hermione was dead - but they'd won. Voldemort was defeated, gone forever. It should feel like a fair trade, but somehow it wasn't enough, not by half.
A young Auror walked up to them. "Sir, we've found-" She cut herself off when she saw Harry's scar, by the looks of things more from shyness in the face of a celebrity than out of a sense of propriety and desire to keep her information confidential.
"There isn't anything you can't say in front of Potter," Kingsley covered for her smoothly. "We owe him our thanks."
"Yes, sir," the Auror said, and flushed. "Thank you." She turned to Harry and continued: "Sir, we've found three more people in one of the attic rooms."
"Three?" Harry asked, his tears stopping as an icy cold lump forming in the pit of his stomach. In a vivid flash he saw the stag's eyes once more.
"Yes, sir," she said. "I came right away, as instructed. I'm not certain what their status is yet."
"Take me there. Now."
The Auror looked to Kingsley for approval; he nodded once. "Go. I'll look after Hermione."
*
With every stair he climed, he came to dread more and more what he might find in that attic room. Something was very wrong - he felt it. And when he reached the top he saw Arthur Weasley: Arthur, who hadn't been a part of their plans at all; Arthur, who must have been the spy; Arthur who was crying and apologizing over and over to Ron, who appeared to be coming out of some kind of stupor, for a moment Harry wanted to hex them both.
It didn't help that Draco had been partly right. A Weasley had been the spy, if not the one he had assumed.
Lying only a few feet away, was Draco's unnaturally still form, and Harry did not need to check for a pulse to know that he had gone.
He stumbled into the room. Barely aware of what he was doing, he gathered Draco's body in his arms. He - it - was still warm. Still warm, but Draco was dead, just like everything else Harry had ever touched.
Not again. Another home, another new life for Harry, gone before it had even been his for one single day.
And Draco, who'd waited for him, who had looked so brilliant in scarlet… Everything Draco had worked for, hoped for, in his life was gone.
Harry did not cry. He didn't feel anything at all.
Lucius and Narcissa had been dead for months; Harry was the closest thing Draco had left in the world to family. He wasn't going to allow the Ministry to get their hands on him. They'd treat him like just another Death Eater and there wouldn't be anything Kingsley, who knew better, would not be able to do stop them in time.
Still holding Draco tightly, Harry Apparated home.
*
Home was Grimmauld Place and having the portrait of an insane old witch shrieking at him the moment he entered the house.
"You dirty-blooded filth, you are not welcome here! This house should have gone to those of my blood, not trash like you. Leave at once!"
"Would you like to see what's become of your blood?" Harry asked quietly. He was quite calm now, as though seeing everything from a great distance, knowing that the pain and the grief were still there, would always be there, but that they couldn't do anything more to hurt him.
Walburga looked at him with skepticism, and so he levitated Draco's corpse up so that she could see. "Narcissa's boy is dead and they are hunting Bellatrix now. When she is found - and she will be found - she will be Kissed. This is what has become of your kind. Ask any portrait you like."
Finally, the old witch was silent, and trickles of wet paint ran down her cheeks. "All of them?"
"Yes," Harry said. "And I will find a way to destroy your portrait, too. The war is over now. Your kind has no place in this world."
"The charm is Eximo Fabrica," she said. "Cast it. Take me down, burn me! The world is overrun with filth and I will not bear to see it."
"I will do so at my convenience, the more quickly if you are quiet." Harry closed the curtain.
"What am I to do with you?" he said to Draco's corpse. "There will have to be a burial, I suppose. Shall I bury you in scarlet, or would you prefer your old school robes?"
There was the tapping of a wand against the front door. Harry jumped.
"This won't do," he said. Thinking quickly, he levitated Draco's corpse up the stairs and to the master bedroom. He tucked Draco in under the covers and gently brushed away a few soft strands of blond hair before kissing his cooling forehead. Slowly, he went back down to answer the door, hoping against all probability that whoever it was had gotten tired and had gone away.
The tapping hadn't ceased. If anything, it was louder and more insistent. Harry threw open the front door and found find himself face to face with Ron.
"Come in," he said, stepping back to give him room to enter. Wordlessly, he led the way to the dining room where long ago Sirius had argued strenuously with Molly. There was very little Harry wouldn't give to hear either of their voices now; the war had claimed too many lives.
"Kingsley said you were there," Ron began, "when Hermione- when she died."
"I was," Harry said, overwhelmed by guilt. If only he'd acted more quickly, maybe Hermione would still be around.
"Why didn't you save her?" Ron demanded, his expression darkening. "Why didn't you do anything to help her?"
He's just grieving, the sensible portion of Harry's mind offered. He wants an argument and then a catharsis, and he wants them from you because you are his best friend. He doesn't know.
Like hell. Harry had done his best; what more would be required of him? It was true that Ron had loved Hermione, but Harry had loved Draco. It had been Ron's job to watch over Draco, and now Draco was dead. He wanted to shake Ron, to demand an apology.
Every piece of glass or crystal in that dining room - wine glasses, a mirror, the enormous chandelier which hung from the ceiling - cracked and then shattered, falling to the floor in a rain of glass. Neither Harry nor Ron flinched, though struck by several small fragments.
"What about Draco, Ron? What did you do to help him?" Harry spoke quietly, even softly, but he could be heard clearly in the aftermath of the destruction.
"Malfoy?" Ron's voice rose, incredulous. He started shouting as though glad of the excuse, the words pouring out his mouth in a flood of invective. "Hermione, remember her? She worked every single day to keep you safe. She studied, and she risked her neck to watch your back and now where is she, Harry? Why aren't you thinking about her?
"But no, you're thinking about Malfoy. All you are worried about is whether or not I followed your orders like a good little minion, right? Hermione, one of your best friends, is dead and you are asking about a snooty little ferret like Malfoy!"
Pain briefly stabbed through the anger and numbness around Harry's heart. "Voldemort killed Hermione. I couldn't stop him. I tried, I dropped the knife, but he killed her anyway. I gave up, and do you know what? It didn't even matter. She's dead.
"Now YOU tell ME: just how hard did you try to stop your father from killing Draco? Or did you step aside and cheer him on? You never wanted to guard him in the first place, did you?"
"My father is in St. Mungo's right now on a full watch in case he tries to kill himself. It's common among people who've been victims of Imperius, when they're released and have to deal with what they've done. Not that you fucking care," Ron spat out through gritted teeth.
He wiped angrily at his eyes and then continued, "Christ, what did you expect? That I'd draw my wand on my own father without even thinking? Shoot him down to save Malfoy's scrawny hide?"
Harry's vision began to darken, to fill red in for the light. Little cyclones began to form in the room, brilliant, shining with spun reflected light from the thousands of tiny slivers of crystal and glass swept up into their vortices.
"You didn't have to hurt him, only to stop him, stun him the way he did you. You faltered. It was a mistake. Just admit it, you made a mistake and now Draco is dead." Harry felt his control slipping; he'd been through too much, held on to too much magic that day already.
Heedless of any danger, Ron drew his wand. "The only mistake I've made is to consider you a friend. Why, Harry. Tell me why Malfoy is more important to you than Hermione, because I just don't get it."
"Fuck. You. I don't have to explain myself to you."
"Of course not, you're above all us little people, aren't you? Spent way too much time with Malfoy, if you ask me. Seems he rubbed off on you."
"Stop talking about him like that!" Something inside Harry shattered like the glass. Draco was one of the real heroes of the war, every bit as much as Hermione, and he wasn't going to stand for Ron's disrespect.
The cyclones grew larger, the glass inside beginning to hum loudly and a strong wind rose through the entire house. Walburga began shrieking again, the curtains hiding her portrait probably blown away completely. Her voice was as loud and insanely grating as usual, except that this time her screams were demands for her own destruction.
Harry had to shout to hear himself over the cacophony. "If he were here, he would be living with me right now. I'm sorry for the life you lost with Hermione, but I've lost mine too! You just can't see that, can you? Because it doesn't feed into your fucking petty little insecurity complex. I loved him, and I trusted you to keep him safe for me!"
Ron shouted something Harry couldn't hear, and a bright bolt of light shot from the tip of his wand. One of the cyclones moved up to intercept it and the glass shards swirling in it broke the light up into thousands of little beams, some of which turned back on Ron, who doubled over.
Everywhere the reflected beams of light struck Ron's skin, blood began to drip rapidly as though from the deepest of pinpricks. One such missed his eye by mere inches.
And Ron had aimed this spell at Harry.
"Get. Out." Harry pointed, and from down the hall he could hear the front door open obediently to his thought. "Get out and never come back."
*
More people came after that and still others after them. Harry ignored them all and finally put a Silencing Charm on the front door, so that he would not hear the tapping. In every other respect, the spells that had once protected Grimmauld Place as Order Headquarters would serve Harry well - save only the Fidelius Charm, which had died with Dumbledore.
Doubtless the Ministry would eventually break down his front door to give him congratulations for becoming a murderer.
Harry was exhausted, but thoughts of sleep led to the bed upstairs and its occupant. He couldn't sleep, not while Draco lay dead, slowly decomposing on the silk sheets. He'd have hated that. So Harry went to the library to see if he could find a spell that would help him preserve Draco's body until he figured out a way to give him a proper burial.
He wandered the shelves, unfamiliar with the Black family method of cataloguing. It was as though he could see Hermione in every corner of the place. Several times, he even caught himself turning to ask her the question, only to remember that she wouldn't be there anymore. Eventually, he fell asleep on a chair, a thick, dusty book of Dark Magic open on his lap.
*
When he woke up the next morning with a stiff back and a dull ache where his heart was supposed to be, he glanced down at the book he'd been reading, The Cultivation of the Dead. It must have given him some fairly odd dreams, because his thoughts kept wandering onto strange and morbid paths. He shook off a lingering sense of apprehension; given everything, it probably would have been strange for him to be feeling wholly normal.
He wandered to the kitchen, more out of habit than because he thought his stomach would be able to handle anything. He went through the motions of making tea, which smelled delicious as it grew cold in front of him while he read the Daily Prophet.
VOLDEMORT IS DEAD! the headline screamed, and only slightly farther down, in smaller text: Boy-Who-Lived Missing. He read through the articles, in which the Ministry was shown to have all but delivered Voldemort to Harry's feet. Hermione was mentioned once and Draco, of course, not at all.
Putting the paper down, he got up to check the spells on the front door.
"You promised you would destroy me," Walburga screamed at him. "Coward. You don't even have what it takes to do that much."
Not bothering to reply, he closed her curtain going to the door. He checked it carefully to make sure no one was behind it and then opened it to find a stack of letters, several of which had obviously nibbled on by irritated Owls, piled up nearly halfway to the doorknob.
He brought them back in to the library, where he threw most of them into the fire unopened. The last thing he wanted to see was the word 'Congratulations' charmed to sparkle and shine in his face. Towards the bottom of the pile, though, there was a thoughtful one from Ginny, who offered to give him a shoulder should one be needed. It was a lovely thought, one he appreciated her giving despite her brother's anger, but one he didn't plan on taking up.
I don't need a shoulder. I just need Draco back. Crying wouldn't help.
The very last scroll was written neat but cramped handwriting, black ink on white parchment. It was from Kingsley and politely requested a meeting that afternoon.
Harry scribbled a quick affirmative on the bottom of that same note and gave it to Hedwig to deliver. Kingsley would be able to tell him what was going on, and the challenges he would face in giving Draco an honourable burial with perhaps some kind of posthumous award.
Draco would have liked that: Draco Malfoy, Order of Merlin, First Class. Had he been given the choice, he certainly would've chosen to live, Slytherin that he was, but one couldn't always have everything. Not even Draco.
It would be hours before Kingsley arrived, so Harry wandered back to the library to continue his reading. A sick awareness had begun preying on his mind: time was working against him and Draco. He couldn't bear the thought of Draco starting to…smell, to become nothing more than rotting meat. It was almost as though decay would make it real.
*
The Cultivation of the Dead turned out to be full of strange lore, some terrible and some wonderful. It would most definitely have been in the Restricted Section at Hogwarts. The ways to restore life to the dead were many, from zombies to Inferi (there was a difference: an Inferi obeyed only the Dark wizard or witch who created it, while a zombie listened to no one), vampires (who could be created only at the moment of death) and liches, which were basically zombies who had been powerful witches or wizards in life and who retained their personality and their abilities.
Oddly, he couldn't seem to find a simple preservation spell by itself, although some amount of preservation was interwoven with just about any spell designed to be cast on a human or animal body.
The book captivated him so entirely that he was almost surprised to hear the chiming of the clock announce the time of Kingsley's visit.
*
Kingsley Shacklebolt looked exhausted. His normally spotless and neat robes were wrinkled, with what looked like a coffee stain on one sleeve.
Harry invited him in to the dining room. Although he had made some effort to repair the damage done during his argument with Ron, his spellwork had been sloppy and disinterested, and most of the breakable items showed lines of fractures.
Although Kingsley gave no sign that he noticed, Harry doubted he'd missed much.
"Can I make you some tea?" he asked awkwardly, because it seemed like the normal thing to ask.
"No, thank you," Kingsley said. "I haven't much time, I am afraid. They're expecting me back at the Ministry. But I don't agree with what they are doing, and I felt you deserved a warning."
Harry just nodded. He sat and listened intently, sick to death of endless crises and unable to muster much emotion at the thought of yet another one.
"Some people at the Ministry feel that it isn't healthy for you to be hiding away like this, that you need to be seen by a Healer after all you've gone through." Kingsley grimaced in distaste, pausing as though not sure how to continue.
"In other words, they are upset that I'm not publicly giving them my support now that Voldemort is dead," Harry finished for him.
Kingsley nodded gratefully. "Exactly. They are sending over a team of Aurors to place you in protective custody."
"When?"
"Six o'clock this evening, possibly sooner. I'm sorry, Harry."
"It's not your fault. Thank you for letting me know. What about Malfoy? How do I go about clearing his name?"
Kingsley blinked and Harry realized he'd forgotten. Harry clenched his fists under the table.
"I'm sorry, Harry. Now that Voldemort is dead, the people who were too afraid to do anything while he was around are suddenly shouting at anyone who will listen that the Ministry needs to take a tougher stance with those who were Death Eaters, known or suspected. Right now they are organizing the largest hunt in the history of the Aurors to find Bellatrix Lestrange.
"The time will come to tell the truth about what he did for us in this war, but right now I doubt anyone would be willing to listen." Kingsley looked truly sorry as he spoke.
"I will make them listen," Harry said.
Kingsley looked at him for a long time. "I believe you will, but not from the Ministry's protective custody. You need to lie low for awhile, let people's tempers cool a little. Can you go to the Burrows?"
Harry swallowed. "I doubt Ron wants me there. We had words the other day, about Hermione's death. He… He blames me."
"Hermione's death was not your fault. Remember that, Harry. Whatever Ron said, he wasn't himself at the time."
He tried to hurt me, Harry thought, remembering Ron's spell. He appreciated Kingsley's help though, and so he didn't argue the point.
"I'll think about it," he said. "I know you risked your career to come here, and I appreciate that more than I can say. Thank you." Harry rose, bringing the conversation to an end.
*
When Kingsley left, Harry fought back the urge to smash the hallway, smash everything in Grimmauld Place, just as he had once smashed Dumbledore's office.
Time. He needed time.
If Grimmauld Place wasn't safe, there weren't many places he could go. Except one - there was one place no one would look, no one could look, one door he was the only person alive who could open.
Harry smiled grimly, appreciating the irony, and began to get ready.
*
Draco's skin looked a little grayer than it had before, a deficit of colour against the scarlet sheets. And it might have been Harry's imagination, but he could have sworn he caught a faint whiff of something not quite, something dead and gone that should be buried, hiding beneath the antique lavender scent that had been permanently spelled into the room.
These things made up his mind to do what he must, distasteful though it would be.
The Cultivation of the Dead in one hand, he took out a few dried dittany leaves, leftover stock from the supply cabinet kept by the order. He tried to open Draco's mouth, but rigor mortis had set in fully and he could not do it.
"Alohomora!" Harry tried, surprised when it worked and Draco's jaw opened quietly. He crushed a couple of leaves and placed them in Draco's mouth.
This is only for a little while, Harry promised himself, only until the wind changes, until I can make things right for him.
He sliced his palm until the blood ran freely and held it over the herbs in Draco's mouth. The more powerful Necromantic spells often required more in the way of a sacrifice, up to a human life - much too high a price. His own blood, however, he could and would gratefully give.
"Gero Inferius!" Harry said, fighting the urge to whisper.
Dark magic always has a penalty. Avada Kedavra had turned him into a murderer, had torn his soul.
Creating an Inferius crushed his hope.
Moments passed and without moving or drawing a single breath, Draco's colour became a little warmer; though still pale, he was no longer grey. He sat up, opened his eyes, and looked at Harry. For a moment Draco seemed confused, and Harry wanted to believe Draco recognized him, that the power of their love had reached through death and that they would be together, at least long enough to say goodbye.
But nothing happened. There was no sign of warmth or human feeling, no recognition at all beyond a construct looking to its Creator.
"Draco?"
Draco turned his head to look at Harry. There was no feeling in the movement, no anticipation or expectation.
"Say something!"
The corpse opened its mouth, blood and herbs falling from its lips onto the coverlet. "Something." The word was clear, said in a flat, humourless monotone, no joke intended.
It set Harry off nonetheless. He clutched his sides and he laughed and laughed until the tears ran down his face.
The Inferius merely sat and watched.
So completely had Harry lost track of time that he nearly failed to move when he first heard the alarm spells announce the arrival of the unwanted visitors Kingsley had told him to expect. They'd come to arrest him for grieving, for not being what the Ministry wanted to be.
"Hold this," he said absently, shoving the bundle he'd readied into Draco's arms and throwing his Invisibility Cloak around them both. "We can't Apparate into Hogwarts, not directly, so we're going to go in through a passage in Hogsmeade," he explained unnecessarily.
*
It felt strange to be returning to Hogwarts through the old passageway, and more so to walk through the halls of Hogwarts itself, an Inferius huddled behind him underneath his cloak. On one hand, Hogwarts was the first place Harry had ever felt at home, and for him it was the one place that always would feel that way. On the other, he was a very different person from the boy who'd gone to school there over a year ago. He'd willingly cast Dark spells. He'd taken life.
The Inferius kept pace with him easily, more graceful than Harry remembered the creatures from the lake where they'd found Regulus' note. It was nowhere near as graceful as Draco had been in life, but it did make Harry wonder.
Perhaps he thought as he greeted the tap in the girl's bathroom quietly in Parseltongue, Perhaps Tom Riddle was simply too picky. An icy chill shot down his spine and he quickly shook off the thought. Bringing back the dead was forbidden.
The tunnel leading to the Chamber of Secrets did not look as it had during Harry's second year. The basilisk's skin was gone, for a beginning, and the animal bones had all been cleared away. Probably by house-elves; Harry couldn't imagine anyone else who'd care enough about an uninhabited portion of the castle to make the effort.
"Dobby!" he called, throwing off his Invisibility Cloak but making certain Draco remained covered.
All Harry heard in response was the trickling of water through the pipes. No one came. Which was just as well; even Dobby's first loyalty was to his family - in this case, the school. He'd be forced to give Harry's whereabouts if questioned directly, in the unlikely event that someone thought to ask.
Harry approached the Chamber, the Inferius following him closely. The carved doors slid open exactly as they had before. As though he belonged inside.
Everything in the Chamber was as he remembered, cold, gloomy green or grey and inhospitable. The serpent-carved stone pillars stood off to each side, and the ugly statue of Salazar still dominated one end.
"We're home," he told Draco grimly, opening his bag and pulling out the first of his reduced objects: a small, shrunken bed he'd taken from Grimmauld Place. He placed it carefully and returned it to regular size before reaching for the next item.
After a few hours, the place looked positively surreal. A lavish bed with thick, expensive sheets stood at one end of the room, bright against the rough, nasty, cold stone of the Chamber. A small maple table stood next to the bed upon which a brass lamp did its best to cast a warm glow into the room against the dim green light that was native to the environment. A large chest at the foot of the bed held what clothing he'd brought, and a bookshelf holding a few carefully selected volumes, including the The Cultivation of the Dead, completed the setup.
He hadn't been sure what to do for Draco, whether to bring another bed or what he would need. In the end Harry had settled on bringing the large, emptied wardrobe from the master bedroom at Grimmauld Place. Coffin-like, it stood at the far end of the Chamber.
Later that night, Harry could creep out into the school, covered in his Invisibility Cloak. He would grab some food from the kitchens and stop by the Room of Requirement. If it had given chamber pots to Dumbledore, it would give one to Harry as well, hopefully of the magical self-cleaning variety.
Harry looked around in satisfaction. He'd be able to stay until the Ministry grew bored of him and raised a new hero. Perhaps Ron, he thought snidely, still stinging from their argument. Ron had always wanted the attention.
*
Living below ground, life quickly assumes its own rhythms. Day and night are marked by the body's needs, eating and sleeping, rather than by the sun or convention. Harry fought to keep awareness of the world above. He couldn't let the time slip by, at least not yet. He still had Hermione's funeral to attend.
He passed most of his time reading, hoping to find a better temporary solution to preserve Draco for burial than leaving him in his reanimated state. He kept catching himself talking to the Inferius as though it could understand. It wasn't Draco and he knew that, but the temptation to wish otherwise grew steadily and was difficult to ignore.
Occasionally too, he would sneak above to find copies of the Daily Prophet, to try to keep track of what passed in the real world above. One morning, the entire editorial section of the paper was given over to a brilliant eulogy written for Hermione, praising her intelligence, talents and playing up her contribution to the war. "Where would the wizarding world now be?" the article asked, "without the fearlessness, the bravery and sacrifice, of a young witch who never really had the chance to make her way in the world? I had the very great honour to have met Miss Granger…"
Touched, Harry's eyes flickered to the byline and found that it had been written by none other than Rita Skeeter. The thought of that woman singing Hermione's praises was absolutely priceless and he just had to share the joke. So Harry read the article out loud to Draco, who listened without moving or reacting at all to the words, forcing Harry to laugh for the both of them.
"Try laughing," he suggested to the Inferius, morbidly curious as to what such a thing would sound like.
Draco opened his mouth to emit a few harsh chuckles that sounded more like anger than humour, and Harry had to cover his nose. Apparently, the charm which preserved an Inferius and kept it fresh only worked so well, which explained the state of the Inferi in the cave.
Draco too would end up that way, if Harry didn't do something.
The book suggested a small dose of blood, which Harry offered easily. It was a challenge to get it into Draco's mouth at first; several drops rolled right out of his mouth before Harry thought to command him to drink. And it was far from a perfect solution; even the very next morning, Harry noticed he'd begun to grey a very little yet again.
There was another option. According to the book, there was a spell Harry could cast that would return Draco's soul to his undead body, restoring his magic and turning him into a lich. Such a thing would be an abomination, but the desire to hear Draco's voice once more made the thought impossible to ignore completely.
"What ought I to do with you?," Harry asked, fighting back a wave of hysteria as he cut himself to feed his charge the second time. "I won't let them treat you like a criminal when you risked so much. I won't let them take you." He fought back tears of loneliness and exhaustion. "You are all I have left."
The last truth shamed him and Harry couldn't look the thing in the eye when he said it. Before the blood had even stopped trickling from his cut, he'd ordered Draco to stand in the wardrobe.
*
Another day and a few hours of restless and unfulfilling sleep brought the morning of Hermione's funeral. His plan was to attend wrapped completely in a heavy black cloak, so that he would be able to offer his condolences as himself without disrupting the ceremony. Although the Aurors might well be watching, they would also be unwilling to create a fuss, so chances were great than anything that they might throw at him, he'd be able to handle easily.
The weather that day was perfect. Bright sunshine made the grass and the leaves of the ancient trees glow green until the earth shone with timelessness. The gentle scent of cultivated flowers wafted by on the light breezes. The cemetery, one of the wizarding world's most prestigious, had been meticulously groomed to exude an almost aggressive soothingness, a sense that death, although inevitable, was most certainly lovely.
It was exactly the sort of place Draco deserved to be buried. Harry would have been willing to bet that scores of Malfoy's ancestors could be found there.
During the ceremony, Rufus Scrimgeour himself rose and gave a long and moving speech about Hermione's bravery. He held up her dedication to the Ministry's goals of Fairness and Justice as a shining example to all. "We at the Ministry would do well to learn from her," he declared. "And so from this day forth, September 19th will be known throughout Wizarding Britain as Hermione Granger Day, a day for us all to show appreciation for house-elves and other nonhuman helpers."
While many of the guests were looking to each other and nodding solemnly in approval, Harry could practically hear Hermione telling them all off from her coffin. She'd never had any respect for Scrimgeour when she was alive. Many times, Harry had wondered how long it would take Hermione to replace him.
Hermione's parents, John and Alice Granger, were the only other people who didn't seem to react to the news. Alice was sitting stiffly, looking as though if she tried to bend, she would break. Her husband just seemed lost, his gaze darting around the crowd as though expecting to find his daughter in it. Harry could barely see Ron sitting beside them, and despite everything, he really hoped that Ron was managing well.
Deep down, he knew he should be there, should be standing beside them to offer comfort. But he wasn't sure he would have known how. He'd been cast out, cut away from the healthy world he'd helped create. What had been his place, wasn't anymore.
When the guests lined up to pay their respects, Harry carefully placed himself at the end of the line. By the time he made it to Hermione's parents, only a few witches and wizards remained, forming little knots around the grave, talking and remembering Hermione.
"I am so sorry," he said awkwardly. He pulled back the hood of his cloak just enough to identify himself to them without attracting the notice of the few spectators still there. "Hermione was the bravest witch, the best person, I've ever known."
"You were there, when-" Alice broke off there, her voice rough as though she'd only just been crying and would begin again any second.
"It didn't hurt," Harry said, although certainly her parents already knew that. He found he didn't quite know what to say. Dumbledore had been there to explain things to Cedric's father. Even if Dumbledore had lived, Hermione had been his friend, and he felt he needed to find the right words for himself. "She was so brave. If it wasn't for her, I wouldn't be standing here right now. So many people wouldn't."
From the corner of his eye, Harry saw the telltale glimmer of a few Disillusioned figures creeping up on them from the shadows. Aurors. He was running out of time, so he turned.
"Ron," he said. His friend looked years older, and there were deep dark circles beneath his eyes. "I've missed you."
"I knew you would show up here, Harry." Ron's voice broke, a little. "I've missed you too. Look, it's not your fault, okay? None of this is. You need help. Just turn yourself in and let them look at you, please?"
For a moment, Harry considered doing it. Draco was dead, and Ron was all Harry had left in the world. But just then, Ron nodded slightly. It was a signal and not to Harry. It would have been imperceptible to anyone who didn't know him as well as Harry did; the tiniest shift of his chin just over Harry's shoulder, and Harry knew the Aurors were raising their wands, targeting him.
"What's the going rate for treachery these days?" he asked Ron, who looked back at him blankly. "Thirty sickles, or has inflation kept up with the times?"
"It's for your own good." To his credit, Ron sounded as though he believed it himself, or at least had convinced himself that he did.
It didn't matter the reason Ron had betrayed him. Perhaps the Ministry had offered him a decent position. Perhaps he truly did care about Harry's welfare.
If Harry allowed himself to be tricked like this, taken into custody, Draco would be left behind. Who knew how long he would inhabit the Chamber of Secrets, a nightmare left behind until the next unlucky Parselmouth stumbled into Myrtle's bathroom.
Harry Apparated away.
*
Days and days passed in the Chamber of Secrets, broken more and more rarely by Harry's trips for food and newspapers. Harry spent most of them reading, devouring the books he'd brought from the Black library and even, greatly daring, making a few successful attempts to cross-reference information in the Restricted Section. He debated fine points of the Necromantic arts with Draco, who offered no opinions on the subject.
Sometimes, the one-sided conversation was more personal. "He betrayed me," Harry said once.
Draco had just stared at him dully, his grey eyes beginning to film over. It was almost time for more blood.
"Ron did," Harry answered as though he'd been asked. "You never liked him, did you? Well, you were wrong, he wasn't under Imperius. But I never, ever should have had him watch over you, Draco. I'm so sorry. Can you forgive me? Say it, Draco. Say you forgive me."
"I forgive you," Draco's monotone voice droned.
Harry wept.
*
One night several weeks after Hermione's funeral, Harry set out to replenish his food supply. On the way, he passed two students out long after curfew who were fighting in a hallway. Living students, and the sound of their angry, passionate voices made him feel like he was less than real, an imposter.
One of the students was from Gryffindor, the other Slytherin, and the sight made Harry's vision waver a bit and his throat close up. Harry was gathering his courage to walk past them - it wasn't likely they would notice him - when he heard one say to the other: "You couldn't get a date if they forced that witch Lestrange to go - after tomorrow when the Dementors have had her."
Quickly, Harry hurried away to look through rubbish bins for a discarded copy of that morning's Prophet. When he found one, it confirmed what the students had been saying. The Aurors had finally captured Bellatrix Lestrange. The very last battle of his war had ended.
Perhaps he could leave and start a new life somewhere. There was no mention of him anywhere in the paper.
Harry returned to the Chamber, his mind spinning with possibility. He could make a deal with the Ministry, which would be eager to tie up loose ends as well. They would clear Draco's name, give him a good resting place, and in exchange Harry would submit himself to whatever poking and/or prodding St. Mungo's cared to do.
It was over. He could leave.
He looked around at his bed and his books and then at Draco. The Inferius stood silently in front of his wardrobe, waiting for a command.
The thought of leaving his makeshift home caused him to break out in a cold sweat. He didn't want to go. He had everything he needed right where he was. It was true that Draco wasn't really Draco and Harry knew that, but he was there in some form, a physical presence, which was a start. And while some might have considered the environment inhospitable, Harry was at home living in dark enclosed places; it was where he'd grown up and where he belonged.
Best of all, it was quiet. Harry wasn't famous in the Chamber. He'd finally found a place to hide from the attention that had made him so uncomfortable.
There had to be another way, a way he could stay. A way he could keep Draco from rotting away, make it so that Draco would stay with him. And then it hit him: Bellatrix was the key.
Harry could bring Draco most of the rest of the way back, though he'd recoiled at the idea in the past. To do so he would need to take a life and even though he was already a murderer, there was no way Harry would sacrifice the innocent, even for Draco.
Bellatrix, however, was going to die anyway, was going to worse than die. He'd be doing her a favor.
He had little time, if he was going to capture her and bring her back to the school.
*
According to the Daily Prophet, Bellatrix Lestrange was being held in a specially-prepared cell in Azkaban, surrounded by no fewer than three Dementors at all times. This was good news for Harry, who had learned to ward off Dementors at fourteen years old.
He snuck out of Hogwarts during daylight hours for the first time since he was a schoolboy. At first, he stumbled around dangerously, blinded by light stronger than that to which he'd grown accustomed. Avoiding the students while carrying his broom was difficult; the Invisibility Cloak wouldn't protect him if he ran into someone headlong. Somehow, he made it to the statue of the humpbacked witch without giving himself away. He rested for a few moments, safe in the quiet of the secret passage, letting his overwhelmed mind prepare itself for the rest of the journey.
Fortunately, Honeydukes was emptier than Harry had ever seen it. Most of its usual clientele was probably still in school or working their day jobs. He made it out of the store and up into the air on his broom without incident.
He approached Azkaban, focusing his considerable magical power to push back against the dampening field set up in the air around the fortress, so that he was able to bring himself to a controlled landing on the shore. Harry stood on the beach proudly, waiting for one of the very few human employees to come down and greet him.
When the poor man showed up, breathing hard and looking as though he'd run the entire way, Harry was ready.
"Imperio!"
The guard's face relaxed immediately, and Harry drew a sigh of relief.
"Take me to Bellatrix Lestrange. Don't set off any alarms or let anyone know we are here." Harry commanded.
Together they walked over the rocks to find the single path that led to the fortress. It climbed steeply, a sheer drop onto sharp rocks on either side. Before they entered, Harry raised the hood of his robes, throwing his face into shadows.
"Tell them I am expected," he said to the guard. "Special Inspection from the Ministry."
Only two more guards greeted them from inside the fortress. Harry figured that it was hard to find employees willing to work in such close proximity to the Dementors, and what few people they could find would probably need to be rotated on a regular basis, to keep them from going mad.
The guards, a witch and a wizard, merely nodded acceptance when their companion showed him in. They went straight to Bellatrix's cell.
Three Dementors floated just outside the door, hovering about the keyhole. The sound of their rattling, raspy breath filled the hall, chilling the mind as the cold in the air chilled the body. They would not attack as long as the guard was along, but any closer and both Harry and the guard would feel the effects of the proximity, the draining of their happiness.
"What is your name?" Harry asked.
"Ben, sir. Ben Nightshade."
"Send the Dementors away, Ben," Harry ordered.
"Go away," the guard said to them obediently. The Dementors did not move.
"Tell me why they didn't leave," Harry said.
The guard answered, as blankly as an Inferius: "They don't answer to me. They only answer to the Ministry liaison."
It was an obvious safety precaution, one that Harry was prepared to deal with. He concentrated, attempting to remember the bright and beautiful things in his life. Only, the edges of those memories was blurred and fuzzy around the edges, and when he called out "Expecto Patronum!" the only response was a formless, silvery mist that shot out the end of his wand.
He gathered himself up to try again, putting every bit of his force of will into the effort, holding nothing back. And for the second time, he failed.
The Dementors noticed the silver mist and came floating towards them. Harry tried to brace himself against the rush of bad memories. And they came: his mother and Voldemort and the flash of green light; Cedric lying cold on the ground, Sirius, falling through the archway; Hermione, tortured and murdered, her body crumpling to the floor; and Draco, lying motionless while Arthur Weasley sobbed in the background. Then he saw Draco as he was now, a walking corpse, unable to think or feel and there was a happiness mixed in with the grief and the pain.
None of these images had the power to affect him, not anymore. He saw them too often, replayed in his mind over and over until the grief and terror, the nightmares, had become a nearly permanent state of mind. Comfortable.
"Leave us," Harry commanded, and to his surprise, the Dementors bowed and floated away.
Harry wasn't going to question his good fortune. "You can stand up now," he told Ben, who was on the floor in the foetal position. "They're gone."
Shaking, the guard stood.
"Good man. We're almost finished now. Open the door and secure the prisoner."
Ben walked forward to the door the Dementors had been guarding and took out a very large set of iron keys. Fumbling around, he eventually found the correct one and the door swung inward to the sound of Bellatrix shrieking in madness on the other side. Harry couldn't hear what spell the man cast, but there was a flash of light and the wailing stopped abruptly.
"Bring her out here," Harry said, staying where he was.
Bellatrix came to the doorway first, blindfolded and gagged, her hands tight tightly and legs hobbled with bonds made of magical energy. There must have been more to the spell, for she went easily, almost docilely, wherever the guard indicated she should go.
"Well done," he said. "Now let's get out of here."
They walked out the hallways and through the front door unchallenged. However, a few moments after they stepped back onto the rocky path they were brought up short. Kingsley Shacklebolt, completely alone, wand in hand but not pointed, blocked their way.
"I'm afraid I can't let you leave, Harry," he said firmly but not unkindly. "You have to come back with me now."
"Get out of the way." The last thing Harry wanted to do was fight Kingsley, who had been there for him when no one else had been.
"Drop your wand." Kingsley gestured with his own. "Do it, Harry. Please."
Harry didn't wait for him to ask again. "Stupefy!
He'd only intended to knock Kingsley out, to get past him unhindered. But the blast came out with much more power than Harry had expected, and the force of it pushed Kingsley over the edge. He saw, as if in slow motion, Kingsley falling down the sheer face of the cliff.
Already unconscious, there was no way Kingsley could have survived.
"Take me to where I can fly out of here," Harry said to the guard, not stopping to mourn his friend. There would be time for that later; he would not waste the life he'd inadvertently sacrificed for his cause.
*
Harry threw Bellatrix facedown on the floor of the Chamber at Draco's feet.
"I'm doing you a favor," Harry explained. "It's more than you deserve, a clean death like this."
She was the last element needed to bring Draco back for real. He couldn't risk the possibility that the curse the guard had placed on Bellatrix would interfere with her energy as a sacrifice for his spellwork; he would have to free her. He had nothing else to tie her with, so he tore strips from his coverlet and bound her arms and legs tightly.
"Finite Incantatem!"
Bellatrix sagged to the floor, turning her neck at what had to be an uncomfortable angle to look up at Harry.
"Look at you, boy. You murdered Him with that filthy animal spell and now you're going to murder me. They all think you are so innocent, so pure. You're a lot like He was, you know. In time you might even be worth something." Bellatrix grinned triumphantly, as though Harry was the one tied up and waiting for death and not her.
"Shut up!" Harry said, kicking her in the ribs.
Bellatrix began to sing, so wildly off-key that there was no discernable tune:
"The Muggle got uppity and so the Mudblood ate him
The Mudblood got uppity and so the Squib ate him
The Squib got uppity and so the Half-blood ate him
the Half-blood got uppity -"
She broke off there, laughing. "Just like you ate your pretty Mudblood friend. You could have saved her, you know, had you thought to bargain."
"Shut. Up!"
He leaned down to slap her this time, recoiling from the foul smell of her breath as she continued to laugh and laugh at him.
The sooner he'd gotten this over and done with, the better.
He picked up The Cultivation of the Dead (even though he had the spell information memorized) and an antique silver dagger. The book automatically fell open to the necessary page, and he set it to the side.
The spell Harry needed was fairly straightforward. Like all of the most powerful, ancient spells, this one required very little more than blood, earth and strength of will.
He placed one handful of grave dirt, taken from Hogsmeade, into a dull copper goblet.
"Hold out your arm," he commanded. Draco thrust out his arm obediently, palm facing down.
Harry twisted it gently, turning it over. He flipped the dagger and slashed once, diagonally, across Draco's wrist. Only a very few sluggish drops of blood fell from the cut, and so he took Draco's arm and squeezed until a few very heavy crimson drops splashed onto the earth, muddying it.
"Oooh, the naughty ickle boy is playing with nasty Dark magic. Be careful, you might get your hands dirty." Bellatrix taunted, but Harry ignored her.
"We'll be together soon," Harry promised Draco. He turned to Bellatrix. "This is a kindness," he repeated.
A calm sanity that he had never seen shone in her eyes. She met his gaze evenly. "I know."
Harry grasped a handful of Bellatrix's lank, greasy hair and held her neck over the cup of earth. She did not struggle, and for a moment he hated her for that, for making this difficult for him.
Focusing on Draco and only on Draco, he brought the knife to her neck. It bit into her skin the way it had to her Master's and for a second he could almost hear Hermione in the background, telling him to stop, to keep going - to do something, he wasn't sure what - but he needed to concentrate or it wouldn't work and he would be alone. So he shut everything else out, and let his love for Draco fill him entirely.
They would be reunited.
Harry moved his arm, cut Bellatrix, slashed her throat wide open, and he didn't feel a thing for her. Blood gushed out, flooding the goblet, which began to glow a low, dull dark purple-black in the gloom. When he had enough, he dropped her body to the side.
He stirred the earth and the blood with his dagger six times widdershins. The winding scent of sharp copper and wet soil filled the room, while the purple glow darkened, becoming a thick black mist that threw misty tendrils from the mouth of the cup.
The next step was to paint arcane symbols all over Draco's body, to dress him in the muddied scarlet of Harry's sacrifice. He dipped the knife into the mixture, and slowly and carefully drew ancient runes that glistened key points over his body. The black mist hovered above each reddish mark, connected to its brothers in a complicated, changing pattern where the swirls joined each other, only to break off and reconnect elsewhere.
Finally, he brought the cup of earth and blood to Draco's lips. "Drink."
Draco did as commanded automatically, but then his fingers tightened their grip around the goblet. His hold was weak at first, but soon the metal began to bend and was crushed in his grip, the remnants of the vile concoction dribbling out to smear over his hand.
The dark mist rose from the red designs painted on Draco's body, pulled upward as though by a twisted and inverted gravity. It skimmed the surface of his skin to sink into the pupils of his eyes. The grey irises disappeared, and then the whites, filled in with an inky blackness that grew larger and larger, until they were swallowed up whole in utter darkness. He turned to look at Harry and in that alien gaze Harry immediately recognized the spirit of the man he loved.
"Harry?" It was Draco's voice, his real voice instead of the Inferius' horrid monotone.
"I can't believe you're really here! You came back to me." Harry had no idea what he was saying as gladness rushed through him.
"What have you done?" Draco looked at his pale, perfect body and at his bloodied hands, his expression horrified. "Oh, my love, my heart, what have you done?"
"I missed you. I've been so alone, and I needed you." Harry walked forward and wrapped his arms around Draco. His body was still cold to the touch, but his arms came up and returned Harry's embrace and that was all Harry needed.
"I love you," Harry wept into Draco's shoulder. "Please forgive me."
"I forgive you," Draco said sadly. "I must. I loved you, and now I will love you forever."
*
~End
Note: Thanks again to the amazing Aigua, who gave me this unbelievably fantastic prompt:
Draco is gone (killed, kissed, vaporized, anything. It's up to you). Harry can't live without him. He is willing to do anything, everything, even the cruelest thing, to see Draco again. Harry/Draco. I'd like a dark fic, please, as dark as you want. Kill as many people as you see fit. :-)
I hope this was something remotely like what you were looking for. This story was an absolute pleasure to write! :)