Surpassing Danger
Chapter 59: The Bargain (Year 7)
By Anne B. Walsh
Once again, O readers, I remind you that this is a story and not an essay. If you disagree with any of the ideas in this chapter, that is your privilege. It is mine to request that if you wish to express said disagreement, you do so in calm, polite terms. Thank you very much.
Breath rasping in his chest, one hand raised high to ward off branches from his face, the other holding his robes out of the way at knee level, he ran. His masquerade had been found out at last, and while his lady had been able to give him some small protection from the mark he bore on flesh and soul, it was unlikely to last.
And then he'll be able to find me, wherever I try to hide. Drag me back and torture me, or use me to lure in my family, my friends. He hurdled a rotting log, landing lightly on the soft, yielding ground beyond it, and kept moving, scanning back and forth with eyes, ears, nose. I won't let him do that. To me, or to them.
Though his breath was already coming short, he found a few scraps with which to laugh. A few months later than I thought it'd be, but it looks like I'm going to die after all…
"Psst!" hissed a voice from his left. "Over here!"
Startled, he skidded to a halt, leaves and branches flexing under his feet. Who the hell? I didn't smell anyone—
A small, pale face topped with fair and tousled hair peered around the corner of a bush, silver eyes fixed doubtfully on him. "Fox?" said the hesitant voice which matched the face. "Is that you?"
Anyone except myself, that is.
"Yes, it's me." Turning his wedding ring once entirely around on his finger, Reynard Beauvoi sighed in relief as his features lost their disguise, and went to one knee to face the fragment of his four-year-old self he'd befriended several months earlier. "Why are you here, Draco?" He frowned. "For that matter, how are you here? This isn't—"
"Is so," Draco interrupted, and pushed with his foot on apparently solid ground between the two, setting up a rippling movement in it. "They said you might get caught up in it and forget, but when you saw me, you'd think to check." He grinned. "And then you'd remember."
Remember. Fox shut his eyes, trying to think back. Remember what? Obviously I'm dreaming this, which is good, running for my life from Voldemort isn't anything I actually want to be doing, but what is there to remember other than waking up beside Luna for another day of being the only person I've ever hated? Unless—
Planting his hands for balance, he focused his attention back towards his sleeping body, towards gathering information from its senses, as though it were someone else's. Slowly, gradually, scents and sounds drifted back to him, and the tales they had to tell left him trembling.
Home. I'm home. We're home. Denned up with the Pride. Alive. Safe.
Only how can we be sure the Mark won't—
He pulled back his left sleeve, and closed his eyes for another moment in thankfulness. A faintly shimmering patch of woven magic hid the Dark Mark from view.
"Pretty," said Draco appreciatively, extending a finger. "Can I—"
"Better not." Fox tugged his sleeve back into place, then got to his feet and held out a hand. "Let's walk and talk, huh?"
"Walk and talk." Draco skipped a few times at the end of Fox's arm. "I like that. What do you want to talk about?"
"Let's start with this mysterious 'they' who sent you here." Fox ruffled his littler self's hair. "Not that I don't appreciate the help. Nightmares about what could've happened are pretty high on my pointless list."
"They said I wasn't supposed to use names, but I could tell you about them." Draco shook his hair back into place. "It was when everything was so scary." He looked sidewise up at Fox, as though gauging the older wizard's reaction. "I watched, you know. With Neenie. We watched what happened while you were pretending to be Father. And when it started to get scary yesterday, I said I wished we had a father, a real one, or a mother. To take care of us." He smiled. "And then, just when it got really scary, she came. And she hugged us and held us and asked if we were all right, and said she was as real as we were."
A flash of his own memories burst over Fox, of the woman who had bolted into his dream-bedroom and caught him up in her arms all those years before, murmuring just those words to him as she held him close and safe. "She gives good hugs, doesn't she?" he asked, scowling at the tremor in his voice.
"She really does. And then he came, and that was even better, because of getting double-hugged. And because he tells stories too." Draco extended a foot, looking at it critically. "He told us 'Cinderella' just like you did that one time."
"Where d'you think I learned it from?" Fox waved his free hand at the fallen log he'd leapt over earlier, drawing its wood upwards into a pair of seats. He wasn't sure how much longer his knees would hold his weight. "Sounds like you met my mum and dad, there, Draco. Pretty special, aren't they?"
Draco nodded, clambering up into the seat opposite Fox's. "And they said, if Neenie and I were brave enough, we could go back to you and to Hermione." He pronounced the four syllables with care. "And tell you their message."
"Looks like you were plenty brave from here." Fox squeezed the littler hand resting in his. "I'm listening."
"They said…" Draco closed his eyes to recall. "They said, always remember to have faith and trust. But not pixie dust, because that's just silly, and besides, you're not a pixie. You're a pirate." He opened one eye to grin briefly. "And they said not to give up hope, because they won't, and because stranger things have happened. Oh!" Both eyes popped open now. "And just for you, they said when you woke up, to follow your ears."
"Follow my ears. Got it." Fox nodded. "Anything else?"
"No. That was it." Draco settled back into his chair, looking intently at Fox. "Except for one thing she said, just when they were leaving. She said for you to remember the very first line of the story that has pixie dust in it, and then think about me." His eyes took on a tinge of their old shadowed, frightened look. "Does that mean I have to go away?"
"Not like that, no." Fox leaned over to lift his younger self into his lap. "You belong here with me, and nobody can ever say different. But it's kind of complicated what she did mean."
"Oh, I think I know it now." Draco yawned, cuddling against Fox. "Isn't it 'All children, except one, grow up'?"
"Yeah." Fox let his fingers rest lightly on the small, fair head. "That's it, all right."
"So I shouldn't stay little forever and ever. Or I can, but not all by myself." Draco yawned again. "I have to stay with you, and be grown-up most of the time, but that can be fun too. And I don't have to be afraid of anything, not ever again." He glanced up sleepily and smiled. "Because you're just who I want to be when I grow up."
"Good to know." Fox closed his own eyes and matched the pace of his breathing to that of the child he held, calming himself until their hearts beat as one. Peace settled over him, peace and love and satisfaction, for an old, old promise kept faithfully even today.
"The Den is real—we're real—and when you wake up, that's where you'll be…"
Reynard Draco Beauvoi opened his eyes in the first faint light of morning, his lady curled against his side, his fingertips brushing his twin's soft hair. Rising with care, so as not to disturb them or his other fellow Warriors, he slipped from the den room, disdaining robes for the moment. The soft shirt and trousers in which he'd slept would do nicely for the people he was going to see.
Since they've seen me, and occasionally had to haul me home, in far less clothing than that.
His ears gave him a direction right away, namely, down. Piano and voice, soprano and baritone interweaving and combining, grew louder and more distinct as he descended stairs, until he stood in the main floor corridor listening to the last few notes of "As Time Goes By".
For an instant, he hesitated. They're enjoying themselves—I shouldn't intrude—
Beyond the door, the pianist's clever fingers swung into a new harmony, an open chord structure in a slow three, the final repeated note slipping to one higher at the very end of the phrase.
Fox was inside the music room before he remembered moving.
Letha lifted her hands from the keys, joy and welcome bright in her face, as Padfoot turned to face the door. "Hey, kid," he said with his easy smile. "Good to see you again."
"Thanks." Fox tried to breathe around the sudden frozen lump in his throat. "You too. Er…how've you been?"
"Not too bad." Padfoot shrugged. "Ducking Death Eaters. Running missions. Teaching lessons. You know, the usual sort of thing—"
"Oh, for heaven's sake." Letha shut the piano with a thump and swung her legs around the edge of the bench to stand up, punching Padfoot's shoulder along the way. "Come here, young man," she said, beckoning Fox with a peremptory two-fingered gesture. "Now."
Fox's legs obeyed the mother-voice without input from his mind, and Letha wrapped him in a hard, possessive hug. "If you ever scare us like that again," she murmured, her voice rough with suppressed tears. "If you ever even think about it. I will find the worst-tasting potion I have ever brewed, and I will find a reason you need to drink a gobletful of it every night for the rest of your life. Is that clear?"
"Yes ma'am," Fox got out before his throat closed, and Letha guided him down to the floor, which Padfoot had thoughtfully softened, and on which Padfoot was already sitting. Strong arms reached out to draw him in and hold him tight, and a broad hand rested lightly on his head.
"I wanted to do this the first time I saw you," said Padfoot quietly, his voice reverberating through his chest and into Fox's bones. "Scoop you up and mess with your hair and tell you everything was going to be all right. That no one was ever going to hurt you again." He laughed once, adjusting the way he was sitting so that Fox could fit between him and Letha more comfortably. "I didn't, then. It would've scared you even more than you already were. But now." The hand moved down to lie against Fox's shoulder blades. "Now you're back where you belong, and we're not letting you go again any time soon."
"Are you sure?" Fox could feel his control slipping away from him, even more thoroughly than it had with Hermione the day before. His limbs shook hard enough to make him glad he was already sitting down, and his voice had developed a matching quaver. "You don't know the half of what I've done. I've killed people, murdered them with my own hands, and I had to pretend I enjoyed it—"
"Listen to yourself," said Letha patiently, her fingers resting against the skin Fox's shirt left exposed, soft tingles of Healing energies easing his pain as long-tensed muscles relaxed. "You had to pretend you enjoyed it. And yes, there may have been moments when it was less of a pretense. There can be a terrible joy in doing something so weighty as ending another human life. But simply having a feeling isn't wrong. You feel what you feel. And even acknowledging that feeling isn't wrong. Trying to hide it or deny it would be the wrong thing here, because then it might turn in on itself and become an obsession. Do you understand?"
"I guess." A tight ball of fear within Fox's core was beginning to unravel, but a tiny knot of it remained twisted together. "But what if I start wanting that feeling again?"
Padfoot tugged on Fox's arm, helping him sit up so their eyes could meet. "Do you?" asked the older wizard, with no trace of joking anywhere in his demeanor. "Right now, this minute, do you?"
"No." Fox's denial was immediate and vehement. "But what if that changes?"
"If it changes, we will help you deal with it then." Letha spoke in the flat, no-nonsense tone she employed to inform refractory cubs their last line was close to being crossed. "But because you are aware that it might change, and that you will always need to mind your temper for that reason, you already have the best possible defense against its changing." She looked into his eyes, and try though he might, Fox could find no trace of fear in her gaze or in her scent. "You know now what you are capable of doing. Don't forget it, but don't let it rule you either."
"Choices, not abilities," added Padfoot with his lopsided grin. "As if you haven't heard that one before."
"No, never." Fox made a face at his Pack-father. "Haven't the foggiest what you're talking about. But that's not all of it." He sighed, his momentary relief and comfort dissipating like smoke. "Moony died because of me. Because I wasn't good enough. Because I wasn't smart enough, quick enough, brave enough, something—"
"Oi!" Padfoot snapped his fingers in front of Fox's face, breaking the rant in mid-word. "Focus. What'd Moony go out there for in the first place?"
"To keep Harry safe." Fox shivered, recalling the terrible panic of those snatched seconds with Luna in a side chamber at Malfoy Manor, working out how to send the messenger-Patronus without giving away its caster's identity. "I didn't think he'd come himself, I thought he'd try some kind of long-distance attack, or pull something so strange Voldemort would have to go and see what it was in person—Merlin's bookshelf, I didn't know what he was going to do, but I knew I couldn't think of anything—"
"So you sent a message to your father, and to the head of the Order of the Phoenix, and in both cases you did right." Letha's calm words were echoed by the steady pressure of her hand against Fox's. "Remus chose his own method of drawing Voldemort's attention away from Harry, and it worked. He made his choice, Fox. If you had tried to rescue him before you were sure Harry was safe, you would have dishonored that choice, and you had no way of receiving that message without alerting Voldemort."
"And tell me this," Padfoot took over without a pause. "Did you have a wand then?"
"No." Fox surprised himself with a genuine, if twisted, smile. "Couldn't have used one anyway, not for more than a couple half-arsed spells. I carried Luna's piece so I wouldn't go down alone if I ever got found out."
"Makes sense." Padfoot nodded. "Did Moony have a wand?"
"Doubt it. Patroclus Nott isn't quite such an idiot as all that."
"Even with surprise on your side, could Luna with her wand, and you with a potion piece, have fought your way out of Malfoy Manor by yourselves?" Padfoot's look was familiar from summers spent over the gaming table, as he meticulously poked holes in the cubs' too-elaborate battle plans. "Or even adding Moony back into the equation, if you'd been able to get hold of his wand for him. What chance would you have had, realistically?"
"I don't know." Fox sighed. "Somewhere between a snowball in hell and a deer in a dragon pen. But that doesn't stop it from hurting."
"No." Letha drew him close, and laid a kiss on the top of his head when he leaned into her embrace. "It doesn't."
Upstairs, the four Heir-Warriors had gathered in a small circle, Ginny looking over Harry's shoulder at the diagram Luna was drawing with her wand's tip. Ron sat nearby, listening as he guarded Hermione's softly breathing form (the previous day's emotional ups and downs had exhausted her enough that it seemed wisest to let her sleep herself out).
"It was Professor Snape who really gave me the clue to it," said Luna, pointing out the serpent she'd drawn in lines of light with a poke of her wand. "When he told me about the experiments he did with his own Dark Mark. What he described sounds like a spell that's very, very clever indeed." She smiled. "But anything that's clever can be fooled."
"How so?" asked Neville. "It can't exactly mistake the person it's been cast on."
"No, but it can mistake the other people around it." Luna circled her finger around their little group. "I don't know yet if it will be able to sense magic or not, but it will be able to see and smell, like a real snake can, and it will probably know some of what its caster knew. So when it sees you, Harry, it might try to bite you and use its Portkey-venom on you, either because it knows you speak Parseltongue and can command it, or because you're you and Voldemort wants to beat you and kill you."
"He wants to kill all of us at this point," said Ron, waving his hand in a larger arc. "But I see what you're saying. Harry's an especial target. And if it's Fox he's trying to punish, or the Mark is, Neenie'd be another one." His face hardened. "Like she doesn't have enough to worry about."
"So what do we do about it?" Ginny asked. "Work Disillusioned?"
"It would just try and bite anything it could smell, then. And we wouldn't be able to see each other, so we might get in our own way." Meghan chewed her lip, thinking. "What if we changed our faces around? Disguised all of us as each other? You as Luna, Ginny, and Luna as you. And me and Neenie swapped too. And Harry and Ron and Neville all as a different one of them. If we're sitting down to work the magic, it won't much matter that we aren't the same heights, and the mismatches between the faces and the scents might confuse it just long enough that we can do what we need to. Whatever that is."
"Kill it," said Harry flatly. "Talk it out of biting long enough that we can get a good shot at it, and then…" He flicked his fingers, sending out a whiplash of flame.
"That gets rid of the snake, but what about the skull?" Neville laid a fist against the inside of Luna's extended arm, pausing, with a smile, to trace the crescent-moon scar left so long ago by the shards of her mother's scrying bowl. "It's not going to just turn itself into some harmless little tattoo."
"No, it won't," Luna agreed. "As far as I can tell, it's meant to dissolve into the person's blood and poison them. But if there's a Healer nearby…" She exchanged grins with Meghan. "Especially one who can work with her power whispered invisible, so the poison can't try to hurt her back." Her eyes turned sad. "I wish that would work with Mrs. Danger, but she did better than she knew when she called on her Slytherin jewel to protect her. If anyone tried to help her, even if they weren't a Healer themselves, the poison that's in her would sense it and lash out to kill them. So now, if anyone comes close to her with any kind of Healing magic, whether they know it or not…"
"They can't touch her, can't affect her, can't do anything to her at all." Harry nodded coolly. "But two can play at that game."
A knock on the door ended any chance of further explanation, as well as waking Hermione. Ginny got up to open it, and pounced unceremoniously on the first person she saw on the other side. "Percy!"
"That's his name, but don't kill him, please," said Crystal as Percy loosened Ginny's attackhug with a judicious poke in the ribs and resettled his glasses into their proper place. "We wouldn't do too well without our fearless leader."
"And if I heard right…" Fred peered into the room, then grinned. "I did hear right. Lady Luna Lovegood, or should I say Beauvoi?" Stepping inside, he bowed to her with great ceremony. "Welcome back."
"Thank you." Luna inclined her head in reply, her eyes soft and sad. "I'm glad to have the chance to see you."
"Where's your other half?" Crystal leaned against the doorframe. "Or does he need some quiet time? I was in his shoes, I don't think I'd want to see much of anybody I didn't have to."
"That's about how he feels." Hermione covered a yawn. "Oh, excuse me. But he'll be glad to know you asked after him. Did you need someone, or were you just stopping up to say hello?"
"Yes," said Crystal and Fred in unison.
Percy sighed. "Saying hello is always good, but we were hoping to speak with Harry briefly," he said. "Possibly convince you to come to Sanctuary today, if we can?" he added in Harry's direction. "A great many rumors have begun to fly, and seeing you alive, well, and under your own control would lay at least half of them to rest right away."
"Sanctuary's actually just where I need to be, at least to start with." Harry got to his feet. "Why don't you head downstairs and see if Dobby's got the teapot going yet? I'll catch you up as soon as I'm dressed. And the rest of you lazy layabouts can do whatever you want for a while," he said to the Pride, who made faces or rude gestures back at him as their natures dictated. "We'll huddle up with Fox and get those declarations down on parchment before I leave…"
"Wait for me," came the half-expected hissing whisper at the edge of his hearing, under the chatter of three conversations at once. Harry nodded and busied himself shooing everyone else out of the den-room, returning Hermione's hug and scent-touch last of all, before he closed the door, leaving himself alone with Luna.
"I'm listening," he said respectfully, turning to face her.
"Sanctuary is all the farther you need to go." Luna stood with her hands folded at her waist, the green in her eyes more prominent than ever. "You're meant to bargain, not to beg. A proper bargain is struck on neutral ground, and Sanctuary belongs to both the present and the past. If they mean to treat you fairly, they will meet you there. To bargain for life, in what was once a place of death."
"Who are you?" Harry asked point-blank, switching to Parseltongue so that there could be no mistaking his meaning. "Are you truly Luna, or someone else?"
"You mean Amanda." Luna smiled, the same calm expression with a hint of mischief Harry had learned to expect from the years he had known his friend. "No, Harry, I'm still Luna. But I'm just a little bit of Amanda now too." Stretching out her hand, she regarded her ring, speaking once more in English. "You read yesterday about accidental Horcruxes, and how a tiny fragment of soul sometimes stays behind if a person who makes one later forgives herself. It's a lot like the soul-bits goblin crafters put into their work."
"Is there a bit of Dafydd in Fox, then?" Harry shook his head almost before he was done speaking. "No, there can't be, what am I thinking of? Dafydd never split his soul. He just chose to stay until Amanda was healed."
"We also took the blood differently, Fox and I." Luna chuckled under her breath. "I don't know if he realizes it, but we did. He took Dafydd as a father, and wiped Lucius out of his bloodline entirely. Now that Hermione's twinned with him again, the House of Malfoy truly is no more. But I didn't want to lose any of my relations, so I took Amanda's blood as if I were twin-bonding with her. I'm still my daddy's daughter, but I'm Alex's daughter now as well." She paused, looking worried. "I hope that makes sense."
"Well." Harry prepared himself to Apparate. "As much sense as anything that comes out of your mouth."
He vanished just in time, as Luna's expertly hurled pillow shot through the space where his head would have been.
Padfoot lost the best-out-of-three of wand, quill, parchment with Letha, which sent him down to the kitchen to fetch breakfast. As soon as the door had closed behind him, Letha looked directly at Fox. "Let's have it," was all she said.
"How did you—" Fox began.
Letha shook her head tolerantly. "I'm sure you were very good at fooling the Death Eaters," she said. "Even at fooling Voldemort. You're alive, after all. But I am your mother, and there's something about this little adventure of yours that you aren't sure if you should tell Sirius. So let's have it."
"Now I know I'm home," Fox muttered. "Promise you won't tell him? He'd never let me live it down."
"Not unless you give me permission, or it's necessary." Letha scent-swiped her cheek, then brushed the fingers across her heart in an X. "You have my word."
"Thanks." Fox looked down at the carpet, twisting a loose string between his fingers. "See, I gave myself away once or twice. Once to Tonks, though you probably know about that one. But it happened once before that, and it could have been a total disaster. Except…well, it wasn't." He lifted his eyes to meet Letha's. "Wormtail knew. Peter Pettigrew. At least that I wasn't Lucius. He was never quite sure if I was me, but he definitely knew I wasn't who I said I was."
"Did he." Letha tapped her fingers against her kneecap. "And how did that come about?"
"We shook hands." Fox held out his own as if to perform the action he'd named. "And it didn't occur to me until three seconds too late that Lucius never would have. Not only because he never would have considered Peter Pettigrew that much of an equal, but because he literally wouldn't have dared." He grinned. "Not after the present Danger gave him, and the one Voldemort gave his faithful Wormy."
Letha looked baffled for half a moment, until her eyes lit with laughter. "Oh, of course! Lucius was a werewolf—and Peter Pettigrew's right hand was made of silver!"
"Magical silver, but Lucius wouldn't have taken the chance it might not react the same as the ordinary stuff," Fox agreed. "I was kicking myself for that one for a good week. But nothing ever came of it. He kept his mouth shut. Kept my secret." He met Letha's eyes again, all traces of humor gone. "He died for it."
"I'd wondered." Letha nodded slowly. "When the news got back to us, I knew something drastic must have happened, to him or to his Evanie or both."
"She died first." Fox shook his head, exhaling in wonder. "Merlin's wand, if you want to talk about brave…she deserved better, a lot better, but we got there late, Luna and I, and we're not Healers, either of us. Luna could help her through the worst of the pain, and make sure the baby survived at least…"
"A baby." Letha began to smile. "A little girl, perhaps? Left orphaned in the Death Eaters' stronghold, being cared for by a friendly house-elf?"
"It's like you read my mind." Fox brushed a strand of hair out of his face. "And he chose, Pettigrew did, to get himself killed quickly, once he knew his daughter would be taken care of. Because he knew he couldn't maintain his position without Evanie there to support him, and if Voldemort had a chance to question him, get him under Legilimency…"
"He would have seen that you were not who you claimed to be, and probably had very little trouble discerning for himself who you were, and what he could do with you." Letha blew out her breath. "And thus, Peter Pettigrew saves the Pack. Certainly not a set of words I ever believed I'd say. As for telling Sirius about this, or about little Annette…" She pursed her lips in thought. "Not yet," she decided after a moment or two. "Possibly not ever, but certainly not yet."
"Not yet what?" asked Padfoot, who'd Apparated back into the room with a tray balanced precariously on one hand in time to hear the final words of his wife's sentence.
"Not yet you." Fox jumped up to catch the tray as it started to slide. "But here you are now, so yes yet you. And yes yet food!" He popped the cover off the tray and sniffed appreciatively as Padfoot conjured a table and chairs for the meal. "Not that it was too bad back at the Manor, a bunch of the Death Eaters brought their house-elves with them, but I never seemed to have much appetite. Being forever one wrong move away from hideous bloody death will do that, I suppose…"
A sense of hustle and bustle pervaded Malfoy Manor, as Death Eaters hastily packed their personal property and prepared to vacate the premises. The story, as given out by the Dark Lord's Consort, was that Lucius Malfoy had been treacherously murdered by Remus Lupin, in the very moment of Lupin's well-deserved death at the Dark Lord's hands. Out of respect for their fallen comrade, Bellatrix explained, the Death Eaters would leave Malfoy Manor immediately, and would return there only when they could do so in victory.
Severus Snape wondered, as he finished filling his case of rare ingredients and snapped it shut with his wand, how many of his compatriots believed this tale.
Half, at best, he decided, swirling his wand three times around his cauldrons to reduce them to a size suitable for his pocket. He had decided to abandon anything he could not carry on a single trip, as he already had a supply of common ingredients in his personal workroom at Spinner's End, and dying for the sake of possessions seemed to him the most pointless of all deaths.
The dead, after all, own nothing.
But one thing remained which only he could do. One piece of justice required administration, and he planned to take it into his own hands.
Picking up the case and pocketing first the tiny cauldrons, then the vial of potion he would require, he Disapparated, concentrating on a small room in a long-neglected wing of the manor house.
He emerged from the compressive feel of Apparition to face a startled, shaken witch, her dark hair tousled and unkempt, one hand groping about her robes for her wand while the other waggled at him as though she were trying to shoo a cat. With a sigh, Severus drew his own wand and Summoned hers nonverbally, watching as it zoomed out of a pocket she had yet to reach. "Were you looking for this, perhaps, Miss Gamp?" he asked, setting down his ingredients to catch it between two fingers.
"Give that back this instant!" Elladora Gamp glared impotently at him, and stamped her foot like a child in a temper. "It's not yours!"
"Nor should it be yours, when you misuse it so criminally." Severus glanced around the room, and elected to toss the wand behind the dust-covered vanity. "You know the penalty for what you have done. To spend the rest of your life locked away, in a prison built not only of stone walls but of fears and horrors and nightmares. Is some petty vengeance on your sister worth that?"
"No sister of mine." Elladora drew her shoulders up haughtily. "She was outcast, beyond the law. I could do as I liked."
"Or as you were commanded." Severus motioned for Elladora to pull back her left sleeve, and sighed again when he saw the skin of her forearm pale and un-Marked. "He never trusted you," he said quietly. "He used you instead. Your hatred, your anger, even you yourself, were nothing more than tools to serve his ends. And when he is finished with tools, he discards them. His need for you is finished. Do you think he will protect you any longer?"
"Why do you care?" Elladora tried for a tone of lofty unconcern, but Severus did not need the heightened senses of a werewolf or an Animagus to smell the raw terror beneath her words. "I'm nothing to you, nor you to me."
"Perhaps not." Severus extracted the vial of potion from his pocket and removed the top with one hand. "But I am tired of watching lives wasted or ended because of a single rash decision. You have three choices, Miss Gamp. Leave this room and hope for the Dark Lord's gratitude, should he win this war. Appeal for some measure of clemency from the other side, should they be triumphant. Or…" He held out the vial. "This."
Elladora eyed the vial doubtfully. "What is it?"
"A second chance." Severus swirled the vial's contents, wafting its scent towards Elladora. "To live, and to call your soul your own. Justice more absolute than you can dream, paired with mercy more thorough than you deserve. Will you take it?"
For a breath and a half, Elladora hesitated. Then she snatched the vial from Severus's hand and drained it.
"Excellent," murmured Severus, casting first a swift Levitation Charm, then the gentlest of Sleeping Spells. "Now, to speak to Amycus, and see if he is willing to sell the younger of his house-elves…"
Harry sat in the bedroom where Moony's body lay beside Danger on the bed, watching the two chests rise and fall in unison. Letha had explained to him while she was writing her declaration what she'd done and why, and Harry found himself in agreement with Hermione.
Finding out how to let werewolves have kids if they want them is exactly what he'd want to be remembered for. And she had to start his heart and his breathing again to run the tests that would tell her if her potions worked. Which they did. So if he were still alive, there might be more cubs for the Pack next summer…
But he's not. The thought made his eyes burn, his throat ache, his hands close into fists. His body's alive, yes, but his soul is gone. The Killing Curse throws it out and shatters the bond, so it's got nothing left to hold it in this world. And Danger may still be alive, but the poison's working every minute, so she won't be for much longer.
Unless…
He pushed those hopes to the back of his mind, where Wolf lay down on top of them to guard them. "Whether I'm right or I'm wrong, you're together," he said, speaking quietly enough that had Moony and Danger only been sleeping, as they appeared to be, he might not have woken them. "And whatever I use these for, I won't let that change." He patted the bag he was carrying, in which resided the three Deathly Hallows, along with a handful of strips of parchment, each covered in a Marauder's or Warrior's handwriting. "You saved me once, and then taught me how to save myself. And you did it so well that when my mind and Voldemort's got thrown together, I came out on top. Instead of using my memories against me, he got trapped inside them."
Getting to his feet, he stood still for a moment, regarding his parents' silent forms. "You taught me how to save myself," he repeated. "Now it's my turn to save you."
He turned in place and Disapparated, heading for the kitchen where his Red Shepherd escort was waiting.
His part in the war might not be exactly what he'd once thought it was, but certain things still had to be done.
When Harry, Crystal, and the two Weasleys had been ceremoniously waved on their way, Ginny caught Luna's eye and glanced upwards. A few minutes later, they were sitting knee to knee under the Black family tapestry.
"I think I know what we were missing last night," Ginny said, rolling her pendant chain between her fingers. "Or not missing, exactly, but the last piece of the puzzle about the Pack's cubs. With the Hallows, and what Neville said about the odd one out being 'born'. It's the Heir, isn't it? The next Heir of Gryffindor?"
"Yes, it is." Luna smiled. "She is, I should say."
"She." Ginny let out a shaky breath. "A little girl, then."
"With her mother's hair and her father's eyes." Luna reached across to take Ginny's hand. "Don't be frightened, Ginny. It won't be bad."
"Bad or good isn't the issue. The issue is timing." Ginny laid her free hand on her waist, still as narrow as it had ever been. "We're supposed to finish the war tomorrow, Luna, and babies take a whole lot longer than that to be born—"
"She doesn't have to be born for us to win," Luna cut in. "She only has to exist."
"Why?" Ginny frowned. "If the last bit of the puzzle was 'born'…"
"Two answers." Luna held up the required number of fingers, wiggling them back and forth. "The first one is that we have to pass the point where the line will be continued." She sketched a shape like a family tree in the air. "Where even if the Heir dies in battle, a new Heir will be born. But the second one, and the more important, has to do with magic and love, and both of those come from the soul. And a soul comes into a body as soon as that body exists, no matter how small it is. So when a piece of you, and a piece of Harry, come together inside you and become something new, something that's different and distinct from either of you…"
"That means it's a new body, and a new soul to live in it. A new life begun, right then." Ginny pressed Luna's hand. "Which should be a little scary, I think, or at least not something we take lightly."
"And you're not." Luna returned the pressure. "I don't think you could. But that does mean you have something very important to do, just as soon as Harry gets back." She giggled. "I could help you get dressed for it, if you like, since I had to miss your birthday…"
Harry wandered the grounds of Sanctuary, letting his eyes rove across the cloud-dotted sky decorating the roof of the cavern, the stained-glass windows in the tops of the pillars, the artfully placed boulders for perching or climbing. He'd shaken Mr. Weasley's hand and hugged Mrs. Weasley before dispelling some of the more outlandish rumors which were working their way through Sanctuary, and if his parents-in-law had seen through his careful temporizing on the subject of Moony and Danger, they'd been kind enough not to say so.
Now I just have to wait, and figure out where in all of this the Founders might be…
A familiar shade of red-gold hair caught his eye, and he made his way towards a small group sitting near the foot of the Slytherin pillar. "Good to see you back in harness," he said to Natalie Macdonald, holding out his hand to shake hers and nodding towards the potion piece holstered at her hip. "Keeping up with practice, I hope?"
"Twice a day, every day." Natalie motioned to the rest of the group. "We all are. Though they only use the ones with dye in them," she added hastily, pointing to Bernadette Pritchard and Cissus. "And we asked their parents first!"
"Sounds like you're doing it right." Harry shook hands with Matt Smythe as well, then with Cissus and Bernie. "We're getting pretty close to things now, and if it goes the way we want it to, you shouldn't have to fight," he said, sitting down with them. "But you all know things don't always go the way we want them to. So just be ready, all right? Listen to your parents or the other grown-ups around, stick together, and don't do anything I wouldn't do." He winced almost as the words left his mouth. "Maybe that wasn't the best way to put that."
Cissus shook his head hard as Bernie and Natalie both giggled. Matt drew his wand, and balanced it on his palm. "I don't know if I want to fight," he said thoughtfully. "I mean, I will if I have to, but I don't want to have to." He turned his eyes on Harry, looking at him steadily. "I really just want it to be over. For the people who killed Amanda, and Graham, and Hannah's mother, and Dean's father, and everyone else who's died, to never do it again. And for the rest of us to go on living and do what we want to do, the best way we possibly can."
"Good plan." Harry nodded. "We'll do what we can about the first couple bits, it being over and them never doing it again, but the rest of it? The going on living? You'll have to figure that part out yourselves." He glanced around the circle. "But I think you're all up for it. Or if you're not, don't tell me about it for another couple days, all right? I've got enough of other people's problems to be going on with."
His listeners had barely finished laughing when movement to his right caught Harry's eye. A man and woman in Muggle clothing were approaching them, and Matt scrambled up as soon as he saw them. "Hi, Mum, hi, Dad. Have you met Harry? Harry Potter?"
"Once, in passing, though I doubt he'd remember." Mrs. Smythe, a petite woman with dark red hair, smiled as she gently disengaged her son's tight hug and extended her hand. "Grace Smythe, Harry, pleased to meet you. My husband, Ezra."
"You too." Harry shook the offered hand, and the one of the man next to her, rather mousy-looking and somewhat vague but with a kind smile. "I was sorry to hear about Amanda. She was a good fighter, and a good friend."
"High praise, from you," said Mr. Smythe. "Thank you for it. But we actually came out here looking for these two." He nodded to Matt and Natalie. "Their Transfiguration tutor is wondering where they are."
"Oops." Natalie flushed guiltily. "I knew we were forgetting something."
"Can we come watch?" asked Bernie, as Cissus nodded in agreement. "Please, can we come watch? We'll be quiet as quiet if we can!"
"Go ask, and don't pester." Mrs. Smythe made shooing motions towards one of the doors into Sanctuary's honeycomb of caverns, and the foursome scrambled up and hurried off, calling farewells to Harry and the two adults over their shoulders.
"Well." Mr. Smythe rolled his shoulders. "Now that that's out of the way."
He closed his eyes, as did his wife, and a conscious stillness settled over them both. Harry was tempted to hold his breath, but instead touched his fingers against his leg, counting silently in his head. To win the war one, to win the war two, to win the war three, to win the war—
Ezra Smythe's eyes blinked open once more. Moments before, they had been a nondescript brown. Now, they were as green as Harry's own. Even as he watched, the difference flowed outward across the man's whole body, transforming face, hair, clothing—
"Full physical manifestation?" said Alexander Slytherin, examining his hands, front and back. "Even a temporary one? That's unexpected."
"Yet helpful." The woman by his side brushed down her robes, a deep shade of navy blue, becoming to the warm red hair she'd clearly bequeathed to her daughter. "Anne of Eyrton," she introduced herself once more, curtseying to Harry. "Chronicler and world-guide. Not that any of that matters at the moment, but it's only polite."
"No one else will see us," Alex added, straightening the collar of his usual green robes. "So don't worry about answering questions. Except for the eternal one." He peered around Sanctuary. "Where are we going to do this?"
"What about Amanda's cave?" Harry suggested, glancing at the filled-in archway beside them. Then he winced again, hearing his words as his listeners might. "I mean, only if you're all right with that."
"Perfectly." Anne smiled. "Our daughter is at peace now, Harry, and we have your brother and your Pack to thank for that."
"Among several million other things." Alex took his wife's hand. "We should probably take a little walk first, though. Give the others a chance to catch us up."
It wasn't until they passed by the Hufflepuff pillar that Harry realized they were walking around Sanctuary widdershins, the traditional direction of Dark magic. "How come—" he began.
"Camouflage," said Alex without turning his head. "We're doing a bunch of tricky little dances on the border between what should be possible and what shouldn't, and starting things off like this masks it from our opponents by making them assume it's one of their own kind trying something. By the time they realize it's not, we'll have our wards up, and by then it's too late for them to interfere."
Trying to imagine what sorts of opponents the Founders might face, and then deciding he really didn't want to know, distracted Harry so much he almost didn't notice the new pair of people approaching them. When he did, he was just in time to catch their original faces before they crossed the near-invisible boundary dividing his little group from the rest of the world.
Percy and Crystal? But how—why—
Helga Hufflepuff chuckled indulgently at the look on Harry's face, shaking her head. "Silly boy," she said. "Why in the world would you think I'd mind being hosted by a Muggle? She has a loyal heart, she's not afraid to work, and she fights every day for justice. That's what counts. Now, I don't believe you've met my husband." She gestured towards the tall, weather-beaten man by her side.
"Ignatius of Beruna," said that worthy briskly, tossing Harry a two-fingered salute. "Captain of the Fireflower, the finest ship on the water. Or under it, either." He grinned, his teeth flashing white in his deeply tanned face. "My beauty sailed the hidden seas and rivers underground, and brought students to this castle from every corner of these isles, long before trains were ever dreamed of."
"Captain." Harry gave the little bow in which Padfoot had trained him so long ago, respect to an elder, and fell into step again behind the new pair. Beruna. Why does that name sound familiar? Not like a place I've been, but something I've read about…
As they passed by the Ravenclaw pillar, Harry came alert again, and was somehow unsurprised to see Professor Kettleburn approaching with Madam Pomfrey on his arm.
The people Luna once said had a "difference" about them, but it wasn't anything bad or harmful. She must have been seeing this, or its possibility at least.
The transformation took place again as the two newcomers crossed the boundary, Madam Pomfrey's familiar form metamorphosing into Rowena Ravenclaw's graceful figure, Professor Kettleburn losing his perpetually harried look in favor of a calm poise which reminded Harry a great deal of Neville.
"Sylvanus of the Owlwood," he introduced himself when Rowena had greeted Harry. "Nothing nearly so grand as a captain." The smile he exchanged with Ignatius spoke of a long-standing joke between the two. "Only a gardener, but a good one."
"Some of my best friends are gardeners." Harry bowed again, and continued walking, trying to keep his heart in its rightful place rather than leaping up into his throat. Just Godric and his wife left, and why can't I remember who else Luna saw that "difference" around? Though I suppose this explains why Professor Kettleburn knew so much about the Founders, him and—
The small procession paused at the base of the Gryffindor pillar just as the name clicked into place inside Harry's head.
Professor Jones. He watched her walk smoothly across the Sanctuary lawn, then turned his head to see the wizard coming towards her at an oblique angle. And—
Despite his best efforts, a tiny snort of laughter escaped him, as ex-Minister of Magic Rufus Scrimgeour gravely held out his hand to the Hogwarts History of Magic Professor.
Well, at least his looks won't have to change that much!
Godric Gryffindor nodded to Harry almost before his transfiguration was complete, then indicated the beautiful auburn-haired woman beside him, her robes elaborate with embroidery. "Please, allow me to present my wife," he said. "Hestia, Princess of Terebithia."
"Ma'am." Harry bowed very deeply indeed, and an instant later was grateful for it, since it meant his face couldn't be seen when his mind finally saw fit to present him with the common factor among the three places mentioned.
But that's—I thought it was—
He tried to clear the astonishment and confusion off his features before he straightened, but saw from the little smile on the Princess's lips he hadn't succeeded. "You're a wizard, Harry," she chided in the voice he'd heard in lectures for the past year and a half. "You've swum with merpeople and flown on a hippogriff and stroked the neck of a unicorn. Is it so hard to believe in one hundred years of winter, or sailing to the edge of the world?"
"I guess not." Harry shook his head, feeling dazed by this latest revelation. "But how—"
"That is very much another story," said Godric, glancing towards Anne, who nodded matter-of-factly. "Suffice it to say, the first night we slept in Hogwarts Castle lasted twenty years. For us." He indicated himself, Rowena, and Helga with a gesture. "For the rest of the world, it was simply a night like any other."
"But from that night we gained great gifts, both mental gifts and magical," Rowena took over. "Each of the powers you think of as marking our Heirs today came from our night's sojourn in the land whose name you know."
"Perhaps even more important, in that night we gained time," Helga finished. "Time to codify our ideas about the teaching and learning of magic. Time to experiment with incantations and wand movements, with recipes and proportions for potions."
"And most important of all, we gained love." Godric held out his hand for Hestia's, and smiled when her fingers closed around his. "Though I still consider myself the luckiest of our little band, for I brought home a child as well as a wife. But to tell you all our story would take far longer than we have. We should proceed to the bargaining."
Oh, sure, let's bargain. Harry dropped back one step, watching the procession of Founders walk towards the stone-filled archway which marked Amanda's tomb. You go and throw something this huge at me, and then expect me to think clearly—
"Do you want to win this war or don't you?" muttered Alex as he passed.
Harry responded with a two-part, deeply obscene insult in Parseltongue, which made Alex snicker. "What about your mum?" he asked, intrigued by this new information in spite of himself. "Where'd she come from?"
"She was one of the Serpent Queens, from the underground kingdoms in the north." Alex nodded at Harry's half-stifled groan. "Yeah, explains a lot, doesn't it? Or rather—" He coughed once as they passed through the archway Rowena and Helga had enchanted the rocks into. "Explains a lot about us."
"No secret negotiations, please," Godric called from the front of the line.
"Yes, sir," Alex called back. "Uncle Meaniepants," he added under his breath.
"You think I can't hear you, but you're wrong," said Godric in a conversational tone.
Alex turned a deep and painful-looking shade of fuchsia, and Harry's struggle to keep his face straight and his snickering silent successfully defeated his nerves. By the time he stepped into the small, echoing cavern where the image of the serpent's daughter lay atop her sarcophagus, not even everything he knew about the people he was going to address could daunt his courage.
They have what I want. What I need. I just have to get it.
And hope it doesn't cost more than I can pay.
"My mother," he said into the silence around him, "is dying. The poison in her blood resists Healing. Worse than that, it would lash out to kill anyone who tried to help her, which means no living Healer can save her." He faced Rowena, looking into her eyes. "But maybe you can."
Rowena rose. "We are forbidden to interfere in the affairs of the living," she said coolly. "Unless our aid is properly invoked, and the price for it is paid. Your mother and father invoked us long ago, to rebuke those who mistreated you, Harry Potter. Now it is your turn to stand before us and bargain for them." The slightest of smiles touched her lips. "What do you offer?"
"First, these." Harry reached into his bag and extracted the bulkier of its contents. "The Deathly Hallows. Wand, Cloak, and Stone."
"Sacra Letifera," murmured Rowena, nodding to herself. "After our time, but known to us, yes."
"Do you think we need these things?" asked Godric, with a touch of sarcasm in his tone. "Do you think our power requires such augmentation?"
"No, but I think you might want to know where they are, and who's got them." Harry laid the Cloak out flat on the floor, and dropped the Wand and the Stone onto it, the Stone's two halves landing one on either side of the Wand. "They're powerful objects. In the wrong hands, they could do a lot of damage."
"So they could," Helga agreed. "And even the best hands can become the wrong hands, for anyone can be tempted. Do you offer these to us freely, Harry Potter? To do with as we please, or to order you to do the same?"
"I do."
"Then that is the first part of our price." Alex spoke for the first time, his voice firm and clear. "Destroy the Deathly Hallows. Their time is past. What else do you offer?"
"Myself." Harry laid a hand on his chest. "Whatever I can give that's rightfully mine, or whatever I can do that's right, and that won't interfere with what I have to do. And I don't offer it just for me." Again he plunged his hand into his bag, and brought out his slips of parchment, spreading them out so that the Founders could see them. "The rest of my Pride, and my godfather and un-godmother, all offer the same things through me."
"In their own hands, to make it binding." Helga nodded approvingly. "Well done."
"So you offer both gifts and services." The Princess Hestia smiled, her hands folded in her lap. "Will you give up even those gifts you hold most dear, you and those who have written these papers? Will you give up what is yours through blood?"
"I will." Harry felt a little pang through his chest at the thought of never being able to hold flame in his hands again, but countered that easily with the memory of Danger lying impossibly still and silent on her bed. "So will they, or they would not have sworn."
"It's easy to swear such things, when the goal you want is in your sights," said Captain Ignatius. "Hard to hold to it, when the winds and seas of life toss you about. Are you sure of everyone whose hand you bear, Harry Potter?"
"If I weren't, I wouldn't have asked them for this." Harry squared his shoulders. "I am sure."
"Then the second part of our price is this." Sylvanus sat so still that Harry could have sworn the man was rooted to the ground like a tree. "Two of those who bear the special magics which signify our bloodlines must give them up, forever, for both themselves and their children. And only when one of those two has done so will this Healing you ask be accomplished."
Harry counted to ten, then fifteen, then twenty. "Is this all?" he asked when the silence seemed to stretch unbearably. "Is the price paid?"
"Not yet." Anne got to her feet. "One more piece remains, that only you can pay, Harry Potter. Hear my words and heed them well." She held out her hands, palms up. "At the last moment, on the last day, when you are prepared to choose your own fate and thereby save or doom your world, you must agree instead to place that fate into the hands of another."
"On one condition," Harry said immediately, "I agree."
Anne raised her eyebrows. "Name it."
"I choose the person."
"Very well." Anne inclined her head. "But you must choose them here and now."
"My partner, in magic and in life." Harry held up his left hand. "Ginevra Weasley Potter."
"An excellent choice." Anne turned to look back at the Founders. "Are we agreed, then?"
"We are." Rowena stood, as Anne seated herself beside Alex again. "Hear then the terms of our bargain. On our side, the full Healing of Gertrude Granger-Lupin, known as Danger, from the poison which now threatens her life." She smiled. "Since your assumption, Harry Potter, was a correct one. This poison can do no harm to one who is already dead."
"On your side, to pay for this Healing," Godric spoke up as Rowena sat down in her turn, "three items. First, the destruction of the objects called the Deathly Hallows. Second, two of our Heirs to abrogate their blood-borne powers forever. Third, your promise, Harry Potter, to give your life without reservation into the hands you have named. And the Healing to take place when the first of the two Heirs has given up their powers." His tawny eyes never left Harry's face. "Do you, Harry James Potter, find this bargain satisfactory, and will you agree to it in the name of all?"
"I do, and I will." Harry nodded firmly. "So I speak, and so I intend."
"And so," said Helga with soft emphasis, "let it be done."
The cavern hummed with the echoes of her final word.
Wow. What a rush.
If you don't recognize the mysterious land where the Founders met their spouses, you could always Google up the names of the places they're from. Or you could examine the title of my story "The Lion, the Snake, and the Safe Room", or possibly even read a bit of it. To all long-time readers: I told you that plot-bit would make it into mainverse eventually!
Thanks, as always, for reading, and head on over to Anne's Randomness (annebwalsh.com/blog) for today's Fiction Friday post starring Charlie Weasley and his adventures after the war! Or check out my Facebook page at facebook.com/annebwalsh.page! Or, y'know, just drop me a review. See you next week, with Chapter 60, simply entitled "Worthy"!