Vivens cum Pericula
Chapter 17: Attempt
By Anne B. Walsh
Ray looked at himself in the mirror and sighed. "Goodbye, hair," he said. "Goodbye, eyes. Goodbye, face."
"What, are you going to be headless now?" Harry asked behind him.
"No, I’m just going to be my usual self again." Ray concentrated. Pale everything. Pale skin, pale hair, pale eyes. Like a ghost.
His skin and hair went translucent. Harry stared. Ray rolled his eyes. Not like that. Normal. Like I was last week. Like I thought I’d always be.
The face he’d always known was his reappeared. For a moment, Ray had the strange sensation that he was looking at a portrait now instead of a mirror, that in a moment the person in the portrait would leave, or hold up a true mirror, and he’d see again the face he’d seen a few moments before, the one with hair like Peri’s and eyes like Moony’s...
Now you’re being silly.
"I’m ready," he said, turning around.
"So are we, I think," said Padfoot, sliding on the backpack Peri had found for him. "Everyone?"
Letha finished her drink and set the glass by the sink. "Lead the way, Peri," she said. "We’re following you."
"More frightening words I don’t think I could come up with." Peri stepped out the front door. "Come on, then, let’s not be late for our date with the nasty Death Eater."
xXxXx
Aletha left Sirius at the back of the group to make sure the children all kept up and slipped up to walk beside Peri for a minute. Remus, catching her mood, dropped back a few paces to walk with Harry and Ray.
"Are you all right?" Aletha asked quietly. "Seeing Malfoy again, so soon?"
"He can’t hurt me," said Peri. "Not here. I have control." She offered a shaky smile. "Besides, I don’t have much choice. I’m the only one who can link to him reliably. Ray has the blood for it, but not the skills. And if I know Lucius Malfoy, he’ll fight any intrusion into his personal space. I’m our best bet for getting to him."
"You know we’re here," Aletha said, taking her friend’s hand in her own. "We’ll keep you safe."
Peri smiled. "You have no idea how much that means to me."
"Oh, I have a fair idea. From the days when I was trying to deal with having a baby and a job, and no one to share any of the work with, and no idea where Sirius was or even if he was alive. You and Remus kept me sane through that time." Aletha squeezed Peri’s hand lightly. "Now it’s my turn."
Peri’s hand contracted around Aletha’s. "Just don’t let him touch me," she whispered. "Don’t let him close."
"Not within ten feet, I promise."
Try, you slimy worm, just try, and I will personally part you from a few of your teeth...
xXxXx
"So she’s all right again?" Sirius asked Remus.
"As all right as she can be at the moment." Remus kept his eyes on the two women at the front of the group. "She still has a lot of healing to do."
"Yeah." Sirius turned his head to look at a bluebird nesting in a tree along the side of the path they were following. "She’s not the only one," he said almost inaudibly.
"No shame in that," Remus said in the same tones.
"But I feel like there should be, you know?" Sirius had his hands around the straps of the backpack and was squeezing the life out of them. "It shouldn’t have gotten to me. I should just be able to pick up where I left off. I thought I was."
"You were fooling yourself," Remus said bluntly. "None of us can do that. You spent seven years with no one knowing you were human—that’s not nothing. You have to deal with that somehow. And ignoring it doesn’t count."
"But I was doing so well..."
"Riding your high." Remus’ smile was reminiscent. "Just like you always used to do in school. You and James would pull some amazing prank and get caught, and you’d be deliriously happy about the prank for a day or two, until the reality sank in that you were getting punished for it. It’s your pattern, Padfoot. The way you are."
"That’s not fair," Sirius grumbled. "You’re not supposed to know more about me than I do."
"What else are best friends for?"
xXxXx
"I smell something," Meghan announced, wrinkling her nose. "Are we back by the sea?"
"It’s not the same way we came," Hermione said certainly. "It must be a different sea."
"Or another part of the same one," said Harry. "Peri, where are we?"
"On our way to where we need to be," Peri called over her shoulder.
"Thanks," Harry muttered.
"I could have told you," Ray said, grinning. "She never tells you things unless she thinks you need to know them."
"Yeah, yeah. Fix your hair."
Ray felt at his head and scowled at the waves which were starting to infiltrate. "Cut that out," he told them. They went limp under his fingers. "Why does that keep happening?"
"Because it’s like Peri said." Hermione moved up to pace the boys. "This isn’t just a dream anymore. It’s a place where people are what they are, and what they want. Some of what you want is leaking through into what you are."
"Ray wants to stay with Peri and Moony," Meghan chanted to the rhythm of her steps. "Ray wants to be a Lupin and stay with them forever and ever..."
Ray growled under his breath. "Shut up, Meghan."
"Make me."
Ray turned and lunged for her.
"Stop it!" Hermione yanked Meghan out of the way as Harry grabbed Ray by the shoulders. "What’s the matter with you?" she demanded, staring at Ray.
"I don’t even know if this is going to work," Ray said through clenched teeth. "Do you mind not teasing me about it?"
"What, this?" Harry said, waving his hand around them. "What we’re doing? Why wouldn’t it work?"
"A million reasons. We get lost on the way there. We get there but we can’t get what we want. Or we get what we want and it doesn’t work the way we thought it would. Or we think we get what we want, but it turns out to be something else." Ray’s breathing was coming faster. "Or maybe I’m just fooling myself. Maybe this is just my dream, something I want to happen, and it’s just about to turn into a nightmare—"
"Enough," said Peri’s voice firmly, and Peri herself came back around the bend in the path she’d disappeared around a moment or two before. "Ray, if you don’t want to be here right now, tell me. We can do this without you. You can go home."
"No," Ray said flatly. "I want to help."
"Griping and worrying is not helping," said Peri, looking down her nose at him. "I don’t expect you to act like this is a great adventure, or like there’s nothing else you’d rather do, but please don’t talk it down or act as if it’s doomed from the beginning. It is a chance. Nothing more, nothing less. But people behaving as though it will not work make it less likely to work. Do you understand?"
Ray sagged. "Yes," he said quietly. "I understand."
"Good." Peri laid the back of her hand against his cheek. "And with luck and help from everyone, when this is all over, we can go home and cheer because it worked. All right?"
"All right." Ray looked up at her through his eyelashes and smiled. "I like that plan."
"Move to make it official," said Padfoot, coming up from the rear.
"Seconded," said Letha, sticking her head back around the curve. "All in favor?"
"Aye," said the rest of the group in quasi-unison.
"Excellent," Peri said. "Let’s go make it happen."
xXxXx
Waking, sleeping, one thought obsessed him. One piece of knowledge was lodged in his mind like a seed under a tooth, and resisted all his attempts to get it out
His son was going to die.
He’d failed at the most important thing any man could ever do. His line and name would end.
I would have taken the curse all on myself if I only knew my Draco would live. Of course, I would have seen to it that he was properly lodged to undo the damage done by my carelessness—perhaps Patroclus would have been willing, or Amycus...
But it does not matter now.
It will never matter again.
He had been robbed of even the most paltry of revenge against the one who had laid this curse on him. The best revenge, of course, would have been to turn it back to her son, to watch him wither and die and rob the world of its hope for a savior, but publishing her name and what she had done, not to him but to his innocent child, would have given him some measure of satisfaction.
At least I was able to destroy one enemy. He had used all that he knew and all that he could guess of Miss Grant to place deep doubts within her, using his skill to ensure that pleasure of this sort was linked in her mind forever with pain and suffering—for a woman like that will surely never have been gifted with such an experience before, so I have set the template.
He had seen the withdrawal in her eyes as her last scream had died away, and had no doubt that had he not been interrupted he would have been able to drive her so deep she would never surface. Even as it is, she will take a long time to coax from the place she has run to. And will she be the same woman when she emerges? I think not.
But even that shred of satisfaction was being torn from him by this place. His mind would circle back, inevitably, to the inescapable conclusion.
The curse was killing his son. The child who meant the continuation of all he held dear would hurt and despair and die.
And he could do nothing about it.
"Nothing," he said aloud to the bare, featureless plain about him. The word vanished on the wind. "Nothing!" he shouted, hearing a thread of echo—or was he imagining it?
The wind picked up, as if to mock him.
"Are you sure?" asked a man’s casual voice. "Nothing at all?"
"Black," Lucius acknowledged, turning to see his wife’s cousin standing beside him. The man wore a Muggle jacket and trousers and stood in his habitual slouch. "Come to gloat?"
"Not exactly. Just here to say hello." Black removed one hand from his pocket and fanned it once. "Hello."
Lucius snorted. "You always thought you were funny."
"So did a lot of people." Black shrugged. "Guess you never did."
"The most amusement I ever got from you were those few weeks we spent together after the end of the war." Lucius smiled thinly. "You remember, I’m sure."
"How could I forget," Black drawled. "Such fun." His return smile was hardly any broader than Lucius’. "Be glad my wife never found out exactly what part you played in those games. She’d be glad to try and top what she did to Bella."
"Her friend has already more than done that." Lucius stared into the distance.
"Friend?"
"Your lady of the night was always close with James Potter’s Lily, was she not?"
"Call her that again and insults won’t be the only thing coming out of your mouth," Black said coolly. "Yes, they were friends. What did Lily ever do to you?"
"Not just to me. Oh, no. Did you have some impression that Lily Potter was a model of decorum and virtue?" Lucius felt a tiny surge of triumph. In this one, small way, he might still have his vengeance. "She struck not only at me, but at my son. My innocent child. I am dying, slowly, painfully. As is he."
"You deserve it," Black said. "Him...there has to be some mistake. He’s not dying."
"Oh?" Lucius cocked an eyebrow. "How would you know?"
"Well, when I last saw him, he didn’t look like he was dying."
"You have seen him?" Lucius looked Black up and down. "How, when you are dead?"
"Me?" Black pointed at himself. "Dead?" The pointing finger poked his chest once or twice. "I don’t feel dead."
"So you survived, then." Lucius shrugged a shoulder. "No great loss. You still have no way to contact your wife or your friends without dying. How have you lived all these years? Hand to mouth, or should I say paw?"
"Very comfortably, as it happens. I found a nice family to take me in, and all I have to do is look adorable most of the time and bark at a few neighborhood bullies to scare them away from their little girl and her friend." Black looked smug for some reason. "Until the day I got to try and bite you, that is."
"Try to bite me—" Lucius stopped. "The brown dog," he said. "The one that attacked me when I took Potter. That was you."
"Guilty as charged." Black sketched a bow.
"Then you are dead. You could never have survived what I did to you."
"You forgot, Camelot has a health clinic," Black said. "With a Healer on call, and a Healer’s apprentice. They patched me up just fine. I’m barking up the wrong tree just like before." His grin was back. "And we got a little off topic, didn’t we? We were talking about your son, and the last time I saw him. I might even be able to show him to you. Want to see?"
"Very well." If I was wrong—if the curse does not extend to him—
Perhaps I can die in peace after all.
"Here you go." Black drew his wand and flicked it forwards, first drawing a large square with it, then waving it back and forth within the square. "A screen," he said. "Like a Muggle cinema."
"I see," said Lucius, although he didn’t.
The square turned jet black, then lit up with a picture. Draco stood alone, dressed like Black in Muggle clothes, twining string around his fingers. A man came up behind him and tapped his shoulder, and Draco turned and smiled to see him.
"Who—" Lucius bit off the question as he saw the man’s face more clearly. "Lupin," he said, half-growling the name. "What is he doing with my child?"
"Looks to me like cat’s cradle," Black said insouciantly. "What did you think?"
Draco pinched the string back off Lupin’s fingers and turned his hands deftly inside out to reveal a new pattern. Lupin went in for his own change and fumbled, dropping the string and ending up with a loose loop around one wrist. Draco laughed, though no sound came to Lucius’s ears, at the crestfallen expression on the man’s face, then held up his arms as though he were much younger. Lupin obliged, first embracing the boy, then lifting him up and slinging him around so that he was riding piggyback on Lupin.
"You saw this yourself?" Lucius demanded, turning on Black.
Black shrugged, pointing to the screen. "Could I do this if I hadn’t?"
Movement caught Lucius’ eye, and he turned back. Miss Grant sauntered into the picture, her walk easy and comfortable. Lupin stretched out a hand and caught her arm, and she pretended to be affronted, but let him pull her towards him. Draco, still clinging to Lupin’s back, made some comment that made both adults laugh. Lupin helped the boy slide to the ground before taking Miss Grant gently into his arms and not kissing her, but merely holding her, stroking her hair, cupping her face in one palm. She returned the favor, running her hands up and down his back, resting her head against his chest.
"How touching," Lucius said sardonically. "May we move on? I have no wish to see a lycanthropic mating ritual."
"Don’t worry, that part’s almost over." Black nodded in satisfaction as the two broke apart. "Yes, here comes the part I thought you should see."
The scene around the three, which had been as blank as the rest of the plain, now added color and depth, until it was clear they sat in a small living room. Miss Grant seated herself in an armchair, leaning back slightly. Lupin sat on the couch nearby, reaching out to take her hand. Draco climbed onto the man’s lap.
"How did you see this?" Lucius demanded of Black.
"I was at their house. Shh, this is the good part." Black flicked his wand at the screen again, and voices became audible.
"Moony," said Draco, looking up at Lupin, "what’s a family?"
"That’s a good question, Ray," Lupin said slowly. "A very good question."
Draco slumped. "That means you’re not going to answer," he muttered.
"No," said Miss Grant, smiling. "It just means we need a minute to come up with as good an answer as it deserves."
"Oh. All right."
"How long have they been on such good terms as to be using nicknames?" Lucius asked, his teeth starting to ache.
"Long’s I’ve known them," Black said lazily. He seemed to be in high good humor.
"A family," Lupin began on the screen, "is a group of people who love one another and take care of one another. They often live together, but not always, and they’re often related by blood, but..."
"Not always," Draco finished, nodding. "I get it."
"A family can just happen," Miss Grant said, "or people can decide to start one. Usually, people decide. And Moony and I have decided we want to have a family." Her smile was sad. "Most often, when a man and a woman who are married or going to be married say that, it means they want to have children."
"But you can’t," said Draco. "I remember."
"So we’ll just have to find children somewhere else," Lupin said. "We can start with the one Peri’s going to have." He winked at Miss Grant. "And we were hoping we could get another one. A nice big boy, about eight years old, who needs parents to take care of him and love him. And who wouldn’t make too much trouble, but we wouldn’t want one who never makes trouble, because that would be boring."
"We were hoping you knew a boy like that," Miss Grant said, her face solemn, though her lips were starting to curve. "And could tell us where to find him. Do you think you could do that?"
"I think so," Draco said, his face more alight than Lucius had ever seen it. "I think I could. When do you want him?"
"As soon as possible," Miss Grant said. "Is he close by?"
Draco nodded, sliding off Lupin’s lap. "Should I go and get him?"
"Please do," Lupin said.
"This is a farce," Lucius said with some dignity as Draco ran from the room. "I refuse to watch any more of this."
"Just wait," Black said, sounding amused. "There’s a couple more things I think you should see."
Draco dashed back into the room, panting. "Hello, sir," he said, bowing to Lupin. "Hello, ma’am." Again to Miss Grant. "Does someone here want a boy?"
"Yes, very much so," said Miss Grant. "What’s your name?"
Draco hesitated. "It’s silly."
"Don’t worry about that," Lupin said, waving his hand. "If we don’t like it, we can change it."
Draco brightened. "I have a nickname I like," he said. "Almost everyone calls me Ray."
"Almost everyone," Lucius repeated slowly. "Do they indeed."
To his surprise, Draco seemed to flinch at the sound of his voice. "I really like that name," he said, his eyes flicking from Lupin to Miss Grant. "Can I keep it?"
"Of course," said Lupin. "Now, what about your face? You can keep it, or change it, as you like."
Draco put a hand to his face, looking uncertain. "Would it hurt?" he asked. "To change me?"
"Not at all." Lupin drew his wand, but didn’t point it at Draco. "We can try different looks until we get it right. May I?"
"All right." Draco shut his eyes and screwed up his face as though he expected to be shot in the next moment.
Lupin chuckled and waved his wand gently over Draco’s head. A shimmer of sparks drifted down, making the boy wrinkle his nose as they passed. Then a brown-haired child stood there, his face similar to Draco’s but subtly different. His eyes, as he opened them, were a rich blue Lucius thought he’d seen before. When Lupin passed behind the boy, inspecting his work, Lucius knew he had.
"What do I look like?" the boy said in Draco’s voice.
"Here," Lupin said, conjuring a mirror.
Draco grasped it and stared into it. Slowly, his lips curved up. "I look like my mum," he said, glancing over at Miss Grant, who smiled at him. "And like my dad." A worshipful glance went towards Lupin.
Black quickly flicked his wand at the screen, returning it to darkness. "So," he said, shoving his hands back into his pockets. "Still worried about your son?"
A chill cloak had settled about Lucius, one he knew well. It heightened his senses, quickened his thoughts. "You came to show me this, merely out of the kindness of your heart?" he said softly. "Or was it for some other reason?"
"I just wanted to see your face." Black grinned. "You should see your face."
"Thank you, I will pass." Lucius turned more towards Black, listening carefully. There were sounds beyond the screen that should not be there... "So Lupin and Miss Grant plan to adopt my son. And raise the child I so kindly gave Miss Grant."
"So it seems." Black stretched an arm around to scratch his back. "Quite a father you were, Lucy boy. Draco didn’t even wait a week before he started calling some other bloke his dad."
"I was subverted," Lucius said coldly, beginning to move towards the screen. At least two people, likely more. "I allowed Miss Grant too much leeway. And I was not as attentive as I should have been." A fault I plan to rectify now.
"So what’re you going to do about it?" Black rolled his shoulders and shook out his hands. "Draco seems pretty happy without you."
"So I would assume." Three people, not two. And three people with familiar voices. "Or rather, so I would have assumed." Lucius flicked a finger through the periphery of the screen, confirming that it was not solid.
"Would have?" Black asked, looking worried.
"Yes, would have. Had I been deceived as you wanted me to be!" Lucius whirled and was through the screen, stepping on Lupin’s foot, knocking Miss Grant flying. Draco yelled and tried to run, but Lucius seized him and backed out of reach, holding him as a shield. "No tricks," he warned Black as the boy squirmed in his hold. "Or should I say, no more tricks."
The screen vanished. "You’re in charge," Lupin said, helping Miss Grant to her feet. "No more tricks." His voice was controlled, calm, but Lucius could sense the underlying fury.
"What were you hoping to accomplish with this little play?" he asked, shifting his grasp on Draco to use only one arm, drawing his wand from his robes with the other—proof positive, if he hadn’t known it before, that the scene before him was not normal. "Simply to torture me, or something more?" His wand touched the boy’s skin, and Draco stiffened. "Behave yourself, Draco, I am not about to harm you."
He murmured the same diagnostic spell that he had done on himself, then looked over at Black. "So your claim that he was not under the curse was a false one," he said. "This all makes very little sense..."
Draco had not stopped trying to get away. Lucius tightened his grip. "Stay still," he warned the boy.
"No." Draco’s struggles increased. "I hate you. You’re not my father."
"You can hardly deny it, with your true face." Lucius murmured the charm to end a glamour.
Brown hair and blue eyes stayed where they were. "This is my true face," Draco said defiantly, twisting enough to stare up at him with hatred. "You can do anything you want in dreams."
"Can you?" Lucius began to smile. "Can you indeed?"
The boy is doomed anyway.
A child is the property of his parents.
And if he hates me so much, and his life would mean so much to this rather odd couple... His eyes moved coldly over Lupin and Miss Grant.
Why should I let him live?
A wand pressed against his back. "Let him go," said a woman’s voice, cool and strong. "Or you and Bellatrix will be able to trade stories about me."
"Just a moment," Lucius answered, recalling the spell his Master had shown him once, the spell to drain magic and life force from another wizard. "You would not deny a father the chance to farewell his child?"
"Give me your wand," Freeman-Black ordered, her tone unimpressed.
"Very well." Lucius released the wand. "Though how could you imagine I would harm the flesh of my flesh, the blood of my blood?"
"I imagine a lot of things," Freeman-Black said slowly. "Let. Him. Go."
Lucius tightened his hand around Draco’s arm. "One more moment," he said reasonably. "Just... one..."
Surripio Anima!
Draco screamed and thrashed in his arms. Black and Lupin dashed forward, but Freeman-Black was faster, felling Lucius with a blow to the side of the head. He laughed as he fell, through the ground, through endless dark.
Do what you will, fools. The boy will die.
Sooner, now, than later, with what I have done.
xXxXx
"Ray!" Peri snatched him up and held him. He was limp in her arms, his eyes shut, his flesh cool to touch. "We have to get him home."
Aletha had her wand out and was running it up and down his side. "The bastard snatched some of his magic," she said viciously. "Some of his life. He doesn’t have as long as he did before. He may not even be strong enough to wake up."
"Oh, God," Remus whispered beside them. "He said it. He said it himself."
"What?" Sirius asked, looking across them. Harry, Hermione, and Meghan were crowded next to him, the girls starting to snivel, Harry breathing hard.
"He was afraid of this. Of making himself worse. Of not ever waking up again." Remus reached out to brush brown hair away from Ray’s forehead. "What have I done?"
"You didn’t do it," Hermione said, her lip quivering. "You didn’t. Not you."
Peri caught Remus’ hand in her free one. "I’ll be there," she said quietly. "You may have to wake me, but I’ll come. Just like I promised."
"I know you will." Remus pressed her hand to his lips. "I know."
xXxXx
Hermione opened her eyes in time to see Moony lean over and kiss Peri. "Just like Snow White," she whispered. "Except Snow White wasn’t going to..." She stopped, shivering.
"Neither is Peri," Harry said harshly. "We can’t let her."
"We can’t stop it," said Meghan, her eyes damp. "And we can’t stop Ray’s either."
"We have to." Harry slid off the bed, watching Peri stir and open her eyes. "We helped get Peri back. We can help her again, and Ray."
"But we failed," Hermione said dismally.
"Are you sure?" Harry ran a hand along the bottom rail of the bed. "Are you sure we failed? We found out a lot we didn’t know before."
"Ray isn’t going to wake up!" Hermione snapped. "I think that’s failing!"
"He looks like he used to again," said Meghan, looking up at the pale-blond Ray. "Like his father did."
"‘Blood of my blood,’" Harry murmured. "Even though Ray looked like Moony and Peri, his father could still hurt him..."
Meghan was still looking at Ray. "That’s where the curse is," she said thoughtfully. "In his blood. I saw it."
Hermione gasped as a new idea flooded through her mind.
Maybe we didn’t fail after all...
Author Notes:
Yes, that’s a horrible place to leave it. Sue me.
One more chapter, then an epilogue, and we’re done. And I’m afraid I can’t write it tomorrow, because I have another work assignment that begins then! Wish me luck!