Dealing with Danger
Chapter 18: Despair and Curse (Year 3)
By Anne B. Walsh
Chapter 18: Despair and Curse
"Harry, we’re going to get in trouble," said Hermione worriedly, hurrying to keep up with her brother. "We shouldn’t have left class — we should have kept going with the test, like Professor Snape told us to..."
"You want to go back, you go back," said Harry, his steps never faltering. "Draco’s in trouble. I’m going to help him. You do whatever you want."
"Well, if you put it that way."
"Where are we going?" asked Ron.
"Dumbledore’s office. That’s where Snape most likely took him."
"Look!" cried Hermione, pointing upward.
Feet pounded the steps two stories above. Harry caught just a glimpse of pale blond hair before the person vanished up the stairs. "He’s headed for the Tower," he said with certainty. "Come on!"
Meghan hurtled out of a secret passage to join them on the fifth floor. "What’s wrong?" she gasped out. "I know it’s Draco — what happened?"
"Snape thinks he was cheating," panted Neville, running with a hand pressed to his side. "Thinks he tried to send Harry answers."
"Splinters!" shouted Harry to the Fat Lady as they came into view.
"You and your family, always hurrying," she said as her portrait swung open. "Don’t you ever walk anywhere?"
Harry practically dove through the portrait hole. His foot snagged, and he only missed landing on his face by taking the impact on his shoulder. Ginny was at his side in a moment, helping him up. "What’s going on?" she asked. "Draco ran through here just now like a referee with his broom tail on fire, and his carving’s been glowing for a good five minutes."
"Snape thinks he cheated in class," said Harry. "But he didn’t."
"I couldn’t even see him when he ran through," said Luna. "The shadow covered him too well. It was like he was under a Cloak of Darkness."
"Shadow?" said Ron.
"He’s been under a shadow for a few months now," said Luna. "It gets lighter and darker, but it’s always there."
"Remember, she can see through Animagus," Ginny reminded her brother. "She can probably see when things are wrong with people too."
"I’m going to go upstairs and see if he needs any help." Luna began to climb the boys’ stairs.
"Shouldn’t you be in class?" said Percy, coming over to their group.
"No teacher," said Harry shortly, rubbing his sore shoulder. "He left to do something. Should we go up too?" he asked the rest of the Pride.
"Let Luna handle him to start with," said Hermione. "She’s good at it. She’ll find out what’s wrong, and then we can help figure out what to do next."
"Snape’s probably going to be right behind him," said Neville. "If Draco ran out on him. We might have to stall him off."
"Even Snape can’t get him in trouble for cheating if he wasn’t, though," said Ron. "I’m sorry about this, Harry, I should have thrown that dirty old note out when Parvati gave it to me—"
High above, Luna screamed.
Harry attacked the stairs, Hermione and Ron only an instant behind. Halfway there — three-quarters — Luna’s screams hadn’t let up —
Harry slammed the door open just as Draco screamed as well.
For one instant, what he saw froze him in horror — lightning lashing from the globe Draco held, writhing all over his body. Draco’s back was arched, his eyes closed, his yells of pain now coming through clenched teeth.
Harry’s paralysis ended. He charged into the room, clearing the doorway for others. "Get help," he said over his shoulder to Ron, and felt rather than saw the taller boy start back down the stairs at a run.
"Move!" he yelled angrily, and his voice was joined by another.
"Come on, off those stairs, out of the way now!"
Percy?
But Harry didn’t have any more time to listen to that. Meghan and Ginny had followed him in and were holding Luna, who was cowering away from Draco, sobbing and pointing at him. Neville shut the door behind Hermione, who was staring at Draco. Tortured moans were escaping him now as he thrashed on the floor, his face a mask of pain and stubbornness.
"We have to get it away from him," she said in a rush, darting to Draco’s trunk and flinging it open. "I think I know how — get ready..."
Draco screamed again as the lightning coming from the globe increased in intensity. Hermione leaped onto his bed and down again, landing neatly beside him, and screamed herself, in fury, swinging the back end of Draco’s Nimbus Two Thousand and One down hard and smashing the globe out of his hands. Harry snatched up the discarded bedcurtain lying in the middle of the floor and dived on top of the globe as it rolled free, wrapping it up in the curtain’s red folds.
An eerie silence fell on the room, broken only by Luna’s sobs. Harry set the globe quickly on the end of Dean’s bed and hurried to Draco’s side. Hermione was kneeling beside him, her fingers still on his cheek in the end of a scent-touch. "He smiled at me," she said quietly. "I think he’ll be all right. What was that?"
"A snake," said Luna unsteadily from across the room. She was staring at Draco. "It was a black and red snake, and it came out of that thing." She pointed at the wrapped globe. "It had its coils all around him, and it was about to crush him and eat him. And he was going to let it." The loathing was audible in her voice. "But then he saw me and he started to fight it. It was trying to crush him when he was screaming. He was fighting against it. That’s why it hurt him."
"Is it still there?" asked Harry urgently.
Luna shook her head. "There’s still a shadow," she said. "But I don’t see any snake."
"Let me see if he’s all right," said Meghan, standing up. "Harry, move over?"
Harry stood up and moved back onto the bed behind him, which was his own, and Meghan stepped into his place, kneeling down beside him. She reached towards Draco’s face —
"Meghan, NO!" screamed Luna, but it was too late. Without making a sound, Meghan collapsed over Draco, her hand still resting on his cheek.
"Get her off, get her off!" Luna shrieked. "The snake, it’s still there, it’s trying to hurt her, get her away from him!"
Harry leaned down and grabbed his little sister around the waist, thankful beyond words that she was so small for her age. Hermione lifted from the other side, and together they got Meghan up and onto the bed with Harry. Within a second or two, Neville was there, staring intently into Meghan’s face, checking her pulse at her wrist, holding his other hand over her mouth to see if she was breathing.
Luna had her face buried in Ginny’s shoulder. "I don’t want to see any more," she was sobbing. "I don’t want to see. Don’t make me look at it any more, please, don’t make me."
"She’s alive," said Neville, looking up. "But she doesn’t look good." He glanced over his shoulder at the red-wrapped globe, a look of pure hatred.
"But it didn’t hurt me," said Hermione, staring down at Draco. "I touched him, and nothing hurt me."
Harry wanted to hide under his bed and never come out again, all the more because he knew what was about to happen. In a moment, everyone would be looking at him, and they would all want to know what they should do next. And they would expect him to know, because he was the alpha — because he was the leader —
"What’s going on in here?" asked a voice from the door.
Harry let out a breath he hadn’t been aware of holding. Moony had come. Everything would be all right.
"Draco’s hurt," he said. "And Meghan — we don’t know why, but it seemed to come from that globe Draco got for Christmas..."
"Is this it?" Moony pointed to the red bundle on the end of the bed.
Several people nodded. "It was shooting lightning all over him," said Ginny. "And Luna says she saw a snake coming out of it, trying to crush him."
"Meghan collapsed when she touched him," said Hermione. "Luna saw the snake on her too."
"Luna?" Moony knelt beside her and touched her arm gently. "How are you feeling?"
She looked up at him. "I want my daddy," she said tearfully.
"I’m not surprised. Danger’s going to get him right now. Are you hurt anywhere?"
Luna shook her head.
"Good." Moony stood up. "Hermione, come out of there."
"But I touched him already!" Hermione objected. "I scent-touched him right after I knocked the globe out of his hands, and nothing bad happened to me then!"
"I meant, please move so I can see him," said Moony calmly.
"Oh." Hermione climbed back onto Draco’s bed, and Moony knelt where she had been, pointing his wand first at himself, then at Draco.
When he stood up, his face was grave. "Draco is under a curse," he said. "No one is to touch him until we can figure out what exactly its parameters are, who it will and won’t attack." He conjured a stretcher and lifted Draco from the floor. "I’d also ask you to please stay in the Tower for right now. We might need to find you in a hurry."
"What about Meghan?" said Neville, looking up from her.
Moony twitched his wand. Another stretcher appeared, and Neville laid Meghan gently on it. "I want to stay with her," he said, facing Moony squarely. "Until you know what’s wrong with her."
"Very well." Moony looked once more around the room. "We’ll tell you as soon as we know anything," he said, then directed the two stretchers out the door in front of him, pausing almost as an afterthought to pick up the bundle containing the globe and hand it to Neville. Ron stepped into the room from the landing and shut the door behind them.
Hermione stared at the door. "What’s going to happen to him?" she whispered. "What was that?"
"Dunno," said Ron, sitting down on Draco’s bed beside her. "Professor Lupin said it was a curse, but I never saw a curse do that." He grimaced. "Not that I saw much. What happened?"
"More of the same," said Harry, swallowing against a feeling of dread. "He was screaming, there was lightning all over him, then Hermione knocked it out of his hands and it all stopped."
"But when Meghan touched him, it got her too," said Ginny, still holding Luna. "She just fell over, like someone had Stunned her."
Hermione’s breathing was harsh and ragged. Awkwardly, Ron put an arm around her, and she leaned against him, beginning to cry into his shoulder. Harry climbed across the beds and sat on Hermione’s other side, putting a hand on her back, holding onto his own emotions tightly. One crying alpha was all the Pride needed at this point.
Feet pounded on the stairs, and the door slammed open. "Luna!"
"Daddy!" Luna catapulted to her feet and dashed into her father’s arms. "Daddy, I don’t want to see anymore. I don’t want to. I don’t want to see things anymore. Make it stop. Please, make it stop."
Mr. Lovegood held Luna tightly. "It’ll be all right now," he said, stroking her hair. "It’ll be all right. Daddy’s here. We’ll get it all worked out, you’ll see. Everything will be all right. Come on." Soothing and cajoling her by turns, he led her out of the room and down the stairs.
Danger stepped into the room and looked at each of them, her eyes grave. Hermione let Ron go and ran to her sister, throwing her arms around Danger and holding on hard. "Oh, love," Danger murmured over Hermione’s sobs. "Oh, little love. Hush now. It’ll all be over soon, and we’ll be laughing at how silly we acted. You’ll see."
Ron was sitting with Ginny now, talking quietly to her. Harry saw with a shock that tears were sparkling on her cheeks, and more were spilling from her eyes even as he watched. Ginny never cried.
He looked back at Danger. She was still holding Hermione, but with only one arm — her other one was free, and she was looking at him, beckoning to him —
He crossed to her and hugged her, her and Hermione both, hard. "What’s going on?" he asked, knowing she would know.
"They’re both all right for the moment," said Danger, carefully aiming her words both at the Weasleys off to one side and at the bushy head buried against her chest. "Madam Pomfrey’s been examining them, and she says they’re not hurt, simply unconscious. Aletha’s on her way here with a Healer, a specialist in curses, and Sirius will come as soon as he can get away. Remus is seeing what he can make of the globe."
"A suncatcher," muttered Ron. "A really ugly one. And then give it to Snape, he never sees the sun anyway."
Ginny and Harry laughed weakly, and Hermione turned partway around and gave Ron a watery smile. Danger gave him a thumbs-up. "I suggest you four stay nearby," she said. "You’re excused from the remainder of your Potions class this afternoon. Why did you leave, by the way?"
Harry shrugged. "We wanted to help," he said. "I thought I might have been able to explain things to Professor McGonagall or Professor Dumbledore. And the pendants weren’t cooling off the way they should have if things were going all right. They just kept getting hotter. What was that note?"
"Didn’t you read it?"
Harry shook his head. "I didn’t have time. Snape saw me before I’d opened it."
"It was addressed to you, from Draco," said Danger. "It told you not to mention the bird he’d sent you to anyone, that he knew it was cheating, but it got you what you wanted. Draco admitted he’d written it, but he said it wasn’t about the test today, and he wouldn’t tell us why or when he did write it. Can you?"
A lump of ice seemed to form in Harry’s throat. "Is he in trouble?" he said around it.
"He won’t be, if you can confirm he hasn’t cheated on any schoolwork. Harry, this is very important — please, if you know anything, tell me..."
"It’s the Quidditch Cup," Hermione said into Danger’s robes.
The ice slid down Harry’s throat and into his stomach. Ron and Ginny were both staring at Hermione. "I beg your pardon?" said Danger, letting her sister go.
"Draco saw Higgs going after the Snitch and sent a parchment bird to point it out to Harry," said Hermione chokily, scrubbing at her cheeks with her sleeve. "He was afraid Harry might not see in time. And then he was afraid it would be cheating, so he wrote that note. Someone must have picked it up after Harry read it."
Danger frowned. "I don’t know about this," she said, her eyes shading rapidly more blue. "Give me a minute." She shut her eyes and leaned against the wall.
"Nice going," Harry hissed at Hermione.
"Someone had to tell them! Draco could have been expelled if they’d thought he was cheating in class!"
"We’re going to lose the Cup, Hermione!"
"No, you’re not," said Danger, opening her eyes, which whirled and drained back to brown. "Draco’s a member of the team, even if he wasn’t playing that day. The rules state that team members may give advice to one another, spoken or unspoken. So strictly speaking, what he did was legal, but I wouldn’t advise trying it again. Or noising it around that it happened this time."
"But you’ve got to tell Snape that’s what happened, don’t you?" asked Ginny. "Because he thought Draco was cheating in his class. You’ll have to tell him where he was cheating — or thought he was cheating — and that’s as good as telling the whole of Slytherin House. They’re bound to make a fuss."
"A fuss?" said Ron in amazement. "They’ll demand a rematch!"
"Bring it on," said Harry. "We can beat them any day."
"Nothing of the sort will happen," said Danger firmly. "Gryffindor won the match, and the Cup, fairly. End of story. Now, you all seem fully recovered, so I should go. If you wait down by the fire, we’ll send you word as soon as there’s any news." She gave Hermione another hug, embraced Harry quickly, and nodded to Ron and Ginny before opening the door and starting down the dormitory stairs.
Ron scowled. "I hate waiting," he said. "Why do we have to stay here, anyway?"
"So we’re not underfoot," said Ginny. "There’s nothing we can do. None of us are Healers. Except Meghan, and she needs a Healer herself right now. So we wait."
"I still feel like we should be there," said Ron. "Maybe we could find another miracle cure." He waved an imaginary wand. "Cursus Removus!"
"I wish you could," said Hermione. "I think I’d kiss anyone who could help Draco."
Ron turned away, his ears going red.
"I just wish there was some way we could know what was going on," said Harry, sitting down on the nearest bed. "Without having to sit here and wait until somebody remembers us and throws us a few scraps."
"You mean, like a place we could go and listen to what’s going on in the hospital wing," said Ginny. "Without anyone seeing us, or knowing we were there."
"Yes."
"Maybe a place with a direct connection to the hospital wing, so we wouldn’t have to use any magic to hear."
"Right."
"And a place where we could be comfortable, but still be in easy reach of the common room if one of your parents starts coming back."
"Exactly."
"Just say it, already," said Ron. "You’ve obviously got something in mind."
"The Den. The Hogwarts Den. The library."
Hermione’s eyes brightened. "Of course! It has the slide to the hospital wing — but we don’t have to open it all the way, just enough to let some sound come through! And then we can hear what’s going on, and if one of them leaves to come and get us for something, we can be back in the common room before they get here! That’s perfect!"
"You’re brilliant, Ginny," said Harry, grinning at her.
She blushed. "Thanks."
xXxXx
Luna cried herself to sleep in her father’s arms. She wasn’t surprised, when she opened her eyes, to find herself in a misty place, facing a dark-haired woman dressed in blue. "Hello, Brenna," she said.
"Hello, Luna." Brenna Ravenclaw inclined her head. "Was there something you wanted?"
"There’s something I don’t want," corrected Luna. "I don’t want to see anymore. I don’t want to see what other people don’t."
"Are you sure? It’s a useful talent. You might help people with it."
"I don’t care. I don’t want it anymore. I want you to take it away."
"I can’t do that," said Brenna. "Only you can. And it will cost you another of your jewels to do it."
Luna looked at her pendants. She had spent one Ravenclaw jewel making the Pride able to talk to each other, the night the boys had got rid of Norbert the Norwegian Ridgeback. Another jewel gone would leave her with one Ravenclaw and one Gryffindor. "Done," she said, holding out her hand.
"Are you sure? This can’t be undone without using up your last jewel. And once they’re gone, they’re gone. You won’t get any more."
"I’m sure. Please, tell me how."
Brenna sighed. "Hold the jewel between your fingers, think hard about what you want to do, and say ‘Nolo videre novi.’ That will take it away. If you ever want to get it back, say ‘Volo videre novi.’ But if you do that, you will never be able to reverse it again. Are you sure you want to do it now?"
"Yes. Very sure." Luna took the gem in her hand. "Nolo videre novi," she said precisely, and the gem flared with blue light, then subsided.
"So it is done," said Brenna quietly. "I wish you joy of it."
"Thank you." Luna turned away, and the scene faded.
xXxXx
Alone, Brenna sat down. "I’m sorry, Alex," she said as the mist blew away to reveal a sunny day on the grounds of the Founders’ Castle. "I did what I could."
"It’s all right." Alex stood up from where he’d been lurking in the bushes. "I didn’t think you were actually going to be able to persuade her. Not after what she saw today. She’ll need to grow up some more before she figures out that being able to see things like that is worth a little pain and fear sometimes."
Brenna tilted her head, regarding Alex. "You really care about them, don’t you?"
"Who?"
"The Pack. And the Pride."
"No, of course not."
"Don’t lie to me, Alexander, you’re no good at it."
Alex grumbled deep in his throat. "Yes."
"And you’re mad about Rick’s ban that he put on you when he found out what you did over the summer."
"Yes."
"So you’re trying to find ways to get around it."
"How many times do I have to say it — yes!"
Brenna laughed. "Don’t worry too much," she said. "They always seem to get out of things somehow, those people."
"How they’ll manage this time, I haven’t a clue," grumbled Alex. "Without even a decent warning..."
"You watch," said Brenna in satisfaction, arranging herself to do just that.
xXxXx
Aletha wished heartily that she could have had an hour or two to herself and the use of some of the school’s Quidditch equipment. It would have done her good to go out for a fly and smack a Bludger to hell and back. The best part, of course, would have been imagining Lucius Malfoy’s sneering face on the black ball just before she slammed her bat into it.
But she couldn’t just go gallivanting off because she felt like it. Two of her cubs had been struck down by a curse, and she had to help them. And in this case, helping them meant coming to the school as quickly as possible, staying nearby, and bringing a Healer who specialized in curse damage with her.
Though she would have given almost anything if the most qualified Healer of curse damage on call at the moment hadn’t happened to be Healer Albertus Young.
"Can I see the object?" Healer Young asked, and Remus pushed the glass globe across the table, careful not to touch it with his bare skin. The older wizard peered at it, looking at the runes incised deep into the surface, nodding to himself. "Have you been able to get a reading on these?" he asked. "What they are, and some possible meanings?"
"Yes." Remus sounded very controlled, which, Aletha knew, meant he was furious. "Here it is." He handed across a scroll.
Healer Young began to scan it. "Blood," he muttered. "Secrecy, obsession, compulsion... power, strength, pride... draining, stillness, and..." He looked up. "This is quite a complicated curse, the most complicated I’ve seen in a while. I’ll need a few minutes to get it worked out entirely."
"Of course," said Remus.
Healer Young took the scroll off to a corner and walked up and down, mumbling to himself, making jabs at the air with his wand. From time to time, he would tap it on the parchment.
"What else did you see?" Aletha asked Remus quietly.
Remus turned the globe over. "Look carefully, right here," he said, pointing at a corner inside one of the runes. "Do you see it?"
Aletha squinted. "I think so. It’s a sharp edge, but hidden inside that smoother edge there. How could you do something like that, and why would you want to? How, of course, I know, with magic, but why?"
"To draw blood," said Remus. "I think blood may be necessary for the final stage of the curse. There’s certainly the rune for blood on there. And Poppy said Draco had a small cut on his finger. Perhaps he’d reached some critical point this afternoon — maybe it was even triggered by emotion. But that’s just guesswork."
One of the double doors swung open. Danger closed it behind her and hurried over to sit at the table. "Do we know anything yet?" she asked, looking at Healer Young.
"No, nothing," said Aletha. "Except that Poppy says they seem to be all right for the moment."
"Unfortunately, ‘seems like’ and ‘is’ are two completely different things," said Danger. "We still don’t know anything about this curse. Except what’s on there." She indicated the parchment Healer Young was holding. "And what we’ve heard. And we could drive ourselves up the wall trying to figure it out, so let’s just wait."
"Except that waiting seems to be driving us up the wall just as effectively," said Aletha, trying a smile and stopping halfway through as she realized it wasn’t working. God, I wish Sirius was here.
Remus reached across the table and pressed her hand. "We’ll get through this," he said. "It’s not our first hard time."
xXxXx
Neville sat beside Meghan, holding her hand. He’d heard that great disasters often made people understand things about themselves, or admit them, but he had never thought it would happen to him.
But no one ever thinks it will happen to them, until it does.
And it had. Seeing Meghan collapse that way, obviously not by her choice the way her Healing trance had been last year, had felt like having a large icicle nailed into his chest, and he had realized what had happened to him.
I love her.
It should have been so obvious. Everyone had assumed it. His gran had been disapproving of their close friendship for just that reason. His parents seemed to understand that he didn’t want to talk about love — love was something that happened to old people, people in their late teens and even (horrors) early twenties. It was mushy and sappy and stupid, and he didn’t want anything to do with it.
But loving Meghan didn’t seem mushy or sappy at all. It seemed as normal as breathing, and it was sometimes hard for him to remember that until he’d started Hogwarts, he hadn’t known she existed, and that for his first year, they had communicated only in letters.
She doesn’t expect me to be great. She just wants me to be me. But she won’t settle for anything less than the best me there is.
He smiled, looking down at her. I think I just defined love.
The old Healer had come to look at her, and given him a look that clearly said "teenage boys have no place being by the bedside of not-even-teenage girls who aren’t their sisters or cousins." Neville didn’t care. He was used to that look by now.
But knowing I love her doesn’t really change anything, does it? We were already good friends. Now I just know that there might someday be something else, if we both feel the same about it when we grow up. And didn’t Dad tell me over the holidays that the best person to marry is your best friend? The memory of his father talking with him, like normal fathers and sons did, still made him beam.
I think Dad knows. And Mum. They smile, sometimes, when they see us together. But it’s not a nasty, "I know what you’re doing" smile. It’s a "You go on, you’re doing fine" smile. I wonder if they were friends like us before they fell in love?
But there would be time to think about his parents later. Right now, Meghan was unconscious. And if Neville knew her, she would be furious over every minute she had spent that way, especially with Draco hurt. Even if she couldn’t use her Ravenclaw talents on him, she could still watch the Healer treat him, and find out what exactly were the treatments for exposure to a curse like this.
So maybe I can help her wake up faster. Like everybody else did for us, when we were asleep after healing Mum and Dad. It won’t be quite like that, because there’s only me to take the load from her, but I can cut it in half. That’ll be something.
He eased Meghan over in the bed and lay down beside her, pulling out his pendant chain. Carefully, he draped it over her head as well, then laid his arm over her so that he could hold her hand.
I want to share my energy with Meghan, he thought carefully. I want to share the time she has to spend asleep. Let her have half of what I have, please, and please do it right away. He knew there was a more formal phrase, but he didn’t want to demand anything. Asking politely had always worked for him.
A kind and worthy request, said a woman’s voice in pleased tones. Granted, grandson, and gladly so.
Neville fell asleep before he had quite worked out who was talking to him.
xXxXx
Healer Young lowered the parchment and approached the table. Aletha looked at his face, and was suddenly struck by how old he was. She knew that he’d been working at St. Mungo’s for over seventy years, but it hadn’t really struck her just how very old that made him.
"I believe I understand the workings of this curse," he said, sitting down. "It seems to be designed to do several things simultaneously. Its first function is to ensure that it has come to the proper recipient, a pureblood teenage boy."
"It can tell he’s pureblood?" asked Danger in confusion. "I thought that didn’t matter to how good your magic was."
"It has nothing to do with how good, as you say, his magic is," said Healer Young, sounding very like a teacher rebuking a slow student. "The blood divisions of pureblood, half-blood, and Muggleborn are discernable by magic, but they mean nothing to the quality or quantity of magic possessed by any one individual."
"It’s like... oh, say, color," said Aletha quickly, since Danger still looked confused and Remus didn’t seem much better off. "If you have two chairs, and one is shabby and beaten up and one is strong and sturdy, one could be red and the other blue, or one blue and the other yellow. It wouldn’t change how strong they are. Blood status is like color — discernable, but it doesn’t make any difference to the structure."
"Indeed." Aletha might be imagining it, but she thought Healer Young sounded faintly impressed. "Once it had determined that it had come to the proper person, it began to conceal itself, by making its owner hide it, forget to talk to people about it, not want to show it to anyone."
"Probably means Draco never wrote that thank you note," said Danger. She had stopped off on her way to the hospital wing in Minerva’s office to use the Floo there for a private firecall to Tonks, confirming what she’d already suspected, that the Auror-trainee hadn’t sent Draco a Christmas present and had never seen or heard of the globe before in her life. "To the person who was supposed to have given it to him," she added for the Healer’s benefit.
"Yes. After its secrecy was thus assured, it made itself indispensable by creating feelings of well-being in its owner, then, under cover of those feelings, began to insinuate a complicated message into his mind. It began with great pride in his appearance, progressed to pride in his blood ties and the traits common to that bloodline, and culminated in the wish to cultivate blood ties, especially close ones, to the exclusion of all other ties."
"Also makes sense," said Remus with a weary sigh. "You know who he is, and who he was, I presume."
"And who his father is." Healer Young nodded. "In my turn, I presume that you believe his father sent him this item, and the curse embedded in it."
"I can’t think of anyone else who would have done it," said Aletha, after rejecting at least three ways to say this which were far less diplomatic.
"It makes a great deal of sense out of an otherwise senseless attack on a teenager. The final stage of the curse is blood-dependent, as I believe you had already concluded," he said to Remus. "Once the owner of the item had accepted its message, the sharp edge would emerge and shed his blood, beginning the final stage of the curse. To put it in layman’s terms, this item had a personality of its own. Had your son been as accepting of its message as he seemed to be when the final stage was invoked, that personality would have taken hold and overridden his own."
Someone swore under their breath.
"But he wasn’t," said Remus, with a note of triumph in his voice. "He fought."
"Yes." Healer Young sighed. "He fought."
Something’s wrong. "Was there provision made in the curse for his fighting it?" asked Aletha, although she suspected she knew the answer already, and that she wouldn’t like it.
"Yes. And not a pretty one. The personality embedded in the object, as I said, attempted to overtake him, and might have succeeded had the object not been forcibly removed from contact with him. Once that had occurred, though, the curse’s final set of instructions took effect. Should the personality fail utterly in its attempts to conquer, the curse begins to shut down its victim’s body, beginning with simple unconsciousness, but proceeding quickly to coma and from there..."
A choked gasp was audible. "No," whispered Danger, staring at him. "No, you can’t mean this."
"The process, once begun, is irreversible." Healer Young met their eyes with composure forged over seventy years and, Aletha suddenly knew, far too many deaths. "I’m sorry."
"It’s so like him," said Remus quietly. "If he can’t have Draco, no one can."
Aletha forced her tears away for a moment. She couldn’t break down yet. There was another person depending on her. "What about Meghan?"
Healer Young gave her a small smile. "I’m glad you asked. The curse was able to strike at her due to a blood tie, I would assume — how closely are they related?"
"Second cousins."
"As I thought. That relationship is just close enough to allow the curse to harm her somewhat, but not to allow for any serious degree of harm. She has been rendered unconscious only, and should awaken within a few hours, unhurt."
"Good," said Danger, blinking fast and angrily to clear her eyes. "One is enough to lose to an idiot like Lucius Malfoy. I’m going to find him, and when I get through with him, there won’t be enough left even to identify magically."
"No, you’re not," said Remus roughly. "Not before I get my turn."
"Leave enough for Sirius and me," said Aletha, finding a smile coming to her lips now, of all times, in this awful situation. "We’ll want a few licks before the end. And I don’t think the cubs are just going to sit there and let us have all the fun, either."
"Hell, no," someone muttered.
Remus nodded once in agreement, then looked at Healer Young. "How quickly is quickly?" he inquired, the utter control smoothing his voice again. A stranger would have thought he was asking about when something he had ordered in a shop would come in. "How long do we have?"
Healer Young looked over his shoulder and pointed his wand at Draco, murmuring something. After a moment, he turned back to Remus. "Minutes," he said. "I can’t be any more specific than that, I’m sorry."
Without a word, Remus stood and went to Draco’s bedside, kneeling down beside his Pack-son. He took one of the boy’s hands in his own and bowed his head over it. Aletha turned away as she saw his shoulders begin to shake, but the expression on Danger’s face wasn’t much better — her friend looked lost, lost and frightened, as though hope had left her for good, and the sniffling reaching her ears wasn’t helping either. Carefully, Aletha stood up, helped Danger to her feet, and led her to the bedside.
She should have a chance to say goodbye...
Even thinking the word almost choked her. As Danger, too, slowly knelt beside the bed, Aletha looked down at Draco’s still form, hating it as she did but knowing she’d hate herself even more in the future if she didn’t.
The future. He’ll never have one. And ours will be so much poorer without him.
She bit her lip hard, pressed on the corners of her eyes, and made herself look at her Pack-son, really look at him, as if it was the last time she’d see him.
It is. The last time you’ll see him alive, anyway.
Patience with the negative side of her mind evaporated. Will you just SHUT UP?
Wisely, it did so, and Aletha finally got her look at Draco. He could have been sleeping, except that Aletha knew from years of den-nights that he usually slept curled up on his side. It seemed unnatural to see him lying flat on his back. A slight smile lingered on his face, and the ring and little fingers on his right hand were curled under, with the thumb holding them there, giving him the look of a priest about to administer a blessing. His hair was spread across the pillow.
It’s getting a little long. We’ll have to get him a haircut soon...
She exhaled softly. All right, stupid optimism is not an improvement.
Gently, she stroked a wayward strand of hair out of Draco’s eyes, then let her hand linger on his forehead. His skin wasn’t as smooth as it had been in previous years — he was growing up, she reminded herself, as they all were —
But his growing ends here. He’ll be thirteen to us forever, and we’ll never know how much of the way he’s been acting these last few months was him and how much was the damned curse...
She bent and kissed his cheek, then scent-touched him. "I love you, Draco Regulus Black," she said quietly. "I always have, from the first moment I saw you at Malfoy Manor. I thought, ‘Now there’s a little boy I could love.’ And I was right." She straightened up. "Goodbye," she whispered, and turned away quickly, before the tears could fall.
Healer Young was watching her with something in his face that looked almost like amusement. Cold fury flowed through Aletha, drawing her up to her full height and setting her shoulders.
"Enjoying seeing me fail?" she asked spitefully, drawing closer to him in three precise steps. "When I succeeded so well with other cases?"
"I’m sorry you think that of me." His level tone destroyed what she had been thinking of as a very righteous anger. "I know I wasn’t as polite as I should have been over the Longbottom cases. I am terribly sorry about that, and I was actually hoping to offer you, as little as you may care to accept it, sympathy."
Aletha looked at the floor, heartily ashamed. "Thank you," she said, barely audible even to herself.
"I know what it’s like, Mrs. Freeman-Black."
Aletha looked up at him again, surprised that he hadn’t called her by her title as he always had before.
But that was Healer to Healer. This is human to human.
"I know what it’s like to be able to save lives, all the lives you want. Except the one that really matters."
And for just a moment, pain showed in his eyes, pain that bore a close resemblance to the anguish tearing her heart to pieces at the moment.
Of course, he’s been a Healer for all those years, he must have had so many patients die even he’s lost count —
But she knew deep inside her that he hadn’t, that he could probably tell her precisely how many patients had died under his care, and certainly how many had died because of it, because of some mistake he’d made.
And a man of his age has to have lost people — friends, family members — possibly even a child of his own...
"Tell me something," she said, to drown out the quiet weeping she was beginning to hear from behind her. "If this... was treatable. There have to be curses like this that don’t end this way. How would you treat it?"
"Well, the best way is to transfer it." Healer Young led her to the table, where they sat down. "Another person is found, willing to suffer the effects of the curse, and fitting the original description of the person the curse was laid on. Most curses are laid only very generally, so a member of the family or a close friend is usually willing and able to take the transfer. This curse, though — specifically targeted to a pureblood teenage boy — although he has a brother of the same age, does he not?"
"Half-blood," said Aletha bleakly. "Harry’s mother was Muggleborn."
"I see. Well, perhaps a friend would have been willing. After the curse was transferred, the original victim would recover almost immediately, and the new victim — the transferee — would recover more slowly, as the curse tried to take effect and failed. Once curses are established, you see, they are only truly effective on that one person. A transferred curse invariably fails, and the transference is accomplished by a simple spell."
"But it only works with curses that don’t have this as their end result," said Aletha bitterly, looking at the bed with her two best friends kneeling beside it, racked with grief.
"That’s correct."
There had to be some kind of strange acoustic quality to the hospital wing, Aletha decided. There was no other way she could account for hearing crying coming from two different places — one beside Draco’s bed, and the other somewhere in the vicinity of the fireplace...
She rested her head in her hands, knowing she was about to lose her battle with tears and not caring.
God, Sirius, where are you when I need you?
xXxXx
"Will that be all, sir?" Sirius asked in a monotone for the tenth time. He’d finally told his pendants to leave him alone, since his neck and chest were starting to show signs of first-degree burns.
I know, I know, I know. I shouldn’t be here. I should be at Hogwarts, helping them deal with whatever just happened — Danger said it was a curse, and something about Tonks’ Christmas present, but Tonks wouldn’t curse Draco, would she?
"No, I need a few more scrolls." Calmly, Rufus Scrimgeour ran his quill down a list. "Let’s see now... I’ll need the Vampire-Human Agreement of 1672 and the list of amendments, the Decree on the Growing of Magical Plants from 1974, and the arrest reports from last April..."
Sirius slammed his fist down on Scrimgeour’s desk. The older Auror didn’t even flinch. "With all due respect, sir, this is ridiculous," he said tightly. "This is work for a secretary, not an Auror."
"The work of an Auror is whatever I say it is, Black. Now run along."
"No, sir, I will not run along." Sirius stared into Scrimgeour’s yellow eyes. "What do you have against me? You’ve been hostile towards me since the day I took my tests, you’ve been watching me ever since you got back from St. Mungo’s, and now you’re deliberately keeping me from a family emergency to play your stupid little parchment treasure hunt. What did I ever do to you?"
"You made my Aurors look ridiculous," said Scrimgeour, matching him glare for glare. "A criminal evading capture for nearly nine years, that certainly boosted our image with the public. Not to mention that stunt you pulled at your trial. Having your famous godson produce the true criminal in front of the entire Wizengamot — very pat, I thought. Very smooth. A little too smooth."
"What are you saying?"
"How do I know you didn’t have Pettigrew tucked away all those years, ready to trot out at a moment’s notice as evidence of your innocence?"
Sirius kept his mouth closed by a major effort of will. "Why wouldn’t I have turned him in earlier, then?" he countered. "It’s not like I was in hiding for my health. Harry and the others found him just in time to save my hide, and that’s all there is to it."
"So you say. But I still find it hard to accept you as a shining soldier of the light."
"I never claimed to be one. I’m just an Auror, like any other, doing my part to keep the world safe." Sirius threw some dopey three-bags-full inflections into the last phrase. "Will that be all, sir?"
"No, Black, it won’t. If we’re going to have this out, we might as well have it all out at once." Scrimgeour stood up. "I’m also highly suspicious of your tests falling on the day that Lars Vilias was killed and Amelia Bones and I were poisoned."
"Oh, for..." Sirius censored himself quickly, just in case his career still had a faint chance of continuing. "...crying out loud. That was a coincidence!"
"There are no coincidences in our line of work, Black."
"News flash, sir — yes, there are. You’ve just encountered one." Sirius stood up himself. "I’ve had enough of this. That will be all, sir. I’m leaving."
He turned towards the door. A memo fluttered in through the mail slot and landed in his hand. Quickly, he ripped it open. Another note was inside, this one addressed in Harry’s handwriting. He tore that open as well and scanned it.
As in a dream, he heard Scrimgeour’s furious voice. "Black! If you walk out of this office, you’ll never work as an Auror again!"
Sirius turned back. "And if I don’t, I’ll never see my child again," he said roughly. "Not a very difficult decision to make. Have a nice life, sir."
He shoved the door open so hard it slammed into the opposite wall and stalked down the hallway. Within a few paces, he was running.
The note in Harry’s writing was crumpled in his right hand.
Padfoot —
Come right away. Draco’s dying.
xXxXx
"I sent it," said Harry dully, walking back into the library. "I don’t know if it’ll get through, though. I don’t know if you can Floo things without people."
Ron nodded. "Think you can," he said in a voice that sounded nothing like his usual cheerful tones. "It should get there."
Harry fell into a chair. "Anything happen?"
"Nothing yet," said Ginny. "Except Mrs. Letha and the Healer talking. The Healer said maybe, if the curse hadn’t... you know... they could have transferred it to somebody else and saved Draco like that."
"But they can’t." Hermione lifted her head from her hands. Her eyes were brimming, but none of the tears had yet escaped. "They can’t do anything. And now, any minute..."
A horrid sound, half howl, half heartbroken wail, echoed down the stone chute. It was Danger’s voice, but so distorted by grief that it was barely recognizable. Hermione stared at the opening in the bookshelves, then shut her eyes as two fat tears dripped out of them. "That’s it," she whispered. "That’s it. He’s gone."
Ginny was kneeling beside a hassock, her head laid on it, soaking its cushions with her tears. Ron knelt next to her, his face bewildered as he put a hand gently on her back. He seemed to be trying to say something, but he obviously had no idea what.
Harry stepped closer to Hermione, hoping he wasn’t about to make an enormous mistake. As close as he and Draco had been, he knew that Draco and Hermione had been even closer, coming near to really being the twins they had pretended to be.
"Hermione," he said. "I’m still here."
"Right," said Hermione furiously, looking up at him. "Because you’re the important one, is that it, Harry Potter?"
"No," said Harry, as a lump rose in his throat. "But he was my brother too."
Then the word he’d used came back and hit him in the chest.
Was.
Within seconds, he was holding Hermione, or she was holding him, and they were both crying. Every tear hurt, burning as it left Harry’s eyes, etching a line of fire down his face and his neck to his chest, where they puddled against the other line of fiery heat...
xXxXx
The howl was what woke him. It sounded terrible, and it was right in his ear.
"Shut up," he said. Or tried to say.
His mouth wouldn’t move, and no sound came from him.
That’s odd.
He tried opening his eyes. That didn’t work either.
This is very odd.
Now he could hear words in the howl. "No, no, no, no, no... Draco... Draco, please no..."
Please no what? I’m not doing anything. I can’t do anything. Draco tried, experimentally, to wiggle his foot. Nothing doing.
"Remus, he can’t be... not Draco, not our fox... he can’t be dead..."
Dead? I’m not dead...
I don’t think. Whatever the globe did to me, it hurt a lot, but I don’t think I died because of it. He scoffed inwardly. No way. I can’t be dead. Danger’s just made a mistake.
"He’s not breathing, love," said Moony’s voice, with a pain-filled edge in it that Draco had only heard once before, at the Quidditch match where Harry had so nearly died. "He’s not breathing."
I’m not? Draco thought about it. No, I’m not. I haven’t breathed once since I woke up. And my heart’s not beating either. I’d be able to hear it. And I can’t move at all...
Icy cold fear began to trickle down the back of his neck. He tried to swallow nervously, and couldn’t do that either.
Is this what it’s like to be dead? People talk about seeing a bright light, and going on to something better, and seeing everyone you love again... but no one who’s really died has ever come back. Is that all just delusions, and this is what it’s really like?
The trickle of fear had increased to a flood. I’m dead. I’m dead, and this is all there is. No afterlife, no bright light, no happiness. Just... being stuck in a body that won’t work anymore, and listening to people cry for me...
They’ll bury me. They’ll have a funeral, and stick me in a coffin, and bury me, and I’ll rot, and stink, and turn into a skeleton, and I’ll still be stuck in here...
NO! The scream seemed to echo around the inside of his head. NO! I won’t believe it!
It was a trick, that was what it was. It was another part of what the globe had done to him — it was a hallucination, a bad dream, and he would wake up soon in a bed in the hospital wing, and be able to tell everyone about this horrible dream he’d had, and they would all laugh...
Or maybe it’s something else. His mind, free of the need to maintain his body, was running at warp speed. Maybe this is real, but it’s not normal. Isn’t this the kind of thing your father would do, if he thought you’d got away from him for good? Make you suffer like this, trapped in your own dead body forever?
He wasn’t sure when he’d realized the globe had to be from his father. Probably when it had started hurting him. Or maybe when it had tried to make him hurt Luna.
Luna. She’ll think I’m dead. She’ll cry for me. And Hermione and Harry and Meghan will cry, and Ron and Ginny and Neville, and the Pack-parents... I can still hear Moony and Danger, and Letha and Padfoot have to be around here somewhere... God, if I could only tell them I’m in here, maybe they could help me...
SOMEBODY HELP ME! he screamed inside his mind. SOMEBODY HEAR ME, PLEASE! I’M NOT DEAD! PLEASE, SOMEBODY — I’M NOT DEAD!
But he knew no one could hear him, and no one ever would.
And my pendants feel like they’re going to burn my robes right off my chest.
It was his last coherent thought before he surrendered to panic.