Back to: Harry Potter » That Which Does Not Kill Us
Also available as: Epub | pdf | mobi | lit | txt
That Which Does Not Kill Us
Chapter 5
By Anne B. Walsh
Draco hurried down the hall, one arm held close to his chest with Starwing perched on it. Letha had sent him a Patronus a few moments earlier. The great silver dog had only said one word, but that word was all that was needed.
Now he was following it, back along a part of the hall he'd come through, but no—it was taking a turn he hadn't made—
Is it just me, or is it darker down here than it was back there? Draco shivered, and felt Starwing fluff her feathers in response. But what could possibly be worse than what they were doing to her?
On second thought, I don't want to know.
Which, of course, means I'm about to find out.
The dog veered into a room to the left. Draco followed it in, whistling a two-note pattern to identify himself. Meghan, curled in a corner, leapt up anyway, but ran into his arms (or rather arm) instead of attacking as she would have a stranger. "Don't look," she whispered into his robes. "Don't look, don't look, Draco, don't look…"
Draco turned his head and looked.
At the other end of the room, Letha stood silhouetted against a green glow. Her hands, one with her wand, one without, were moving in what Draco recognized as rune patterns, but they were well beyond any he'd studied even in seventh year. He licked his lips and grimaced; Letha's and Meghan's scents permeated the air with bitter anger and fear, and Starwing had hidden her head under her wing.
He stepped to one side, Meghan still clinging to him, and looked again.
Within the green glow hung a human figure, suspended like a puppet on wires, arms and legs limp, head back, mouth open as though gasping for air. As the face came into clear view, Draco swallowed. There were lines there worn deep by pain, lines that hadn't been there a few months earlier.
Letha spoke three words, sharp and commanding, and the glow flickered and winked out.
Harry Potter fell limply to the floor.
Harry didn't bother to open his eyes. He'd been doing this for too long to get excited over just another world. Granted, this one was less comfortable than some—often he started out in bed or some variation on bed—but far more comfortable than many. The most recent encounter with Voldemort came to mind.
Funny how it worked out. He has control over what the worlds he goes to are like, but not over whether or not I'm there. I can't control what world they put me in, but apparently neither can they. Otherwise why would they bother with the nice ones?
Unless they were trying to drive him mad faster by alternating pleasure and pain… he thought he'd read somewhere that worked the best…
Well, no, I know what works the best. Making everything unreliable and unbelievable, until the only sanity you can find is in your own mind.
Of course, at the moment, this particular world didn't seem terribly sane.
I'm sure there's a perfectly good reason why I'm lying naked on a cold floor with people whispering off that way somewhere. There might even be one that doesn't make me gag.
Harry debated it with himself and decided that yes, he did actually want to know.
The room was poorly lit and blurry, though the latter was probably a function of his missing glasses.
People ahoy. Looks like two—make that three—no, four. Where'd that last one come from? She definitely wasn't there a moment ago…
"That last one" held out her hand to one of the first figures he'd seen, then came forward towards Harry slowly. Her hands were where he could see them; neither held a wand, though one was closed around a small dark item Harry recognized after a moment of squinting.
"Those—" He broke off, coughing. The girl stopped, looking worried.
"Those are mine," Harry said when he could speak again. "May I have them, please?" He pointed at the glasses in the girl's hand.
"Of course." The girl advanced the final few paces and handed the glasses to Harry. "I was coming to give them to you anyway."
Harry smiled as her face came into focus beyond the lenses. Her voice had identified her to him already, but it was good to see a friendly face again.
At least I think she's friendly…
"I'm glad you know me." Luna held out her hand, and Harry clasped it. "I went through something a little like what they did to you. It was very frightening. I wasn't sure of who anyone was when I was rescued."
"Is that what this is, then? A rescue?" Harry peered over Luna's shoulder, trying to identify the people with her. One of them sounded and smelled (smelled?) familiar, but the other two were harder to place…
"Yes. I know you won't believe it at first, because I didn't. But it really is." Luna looked curiously at, not the area Harry had been hoping she wouldn't look too closely at, but his chest. "Can you tell me about those?"
"What?" Harry looked down. Four small gold medallions lay against his skin.
"Oh, these." He stroked them with a finger. "I wouldn't let them go. I let everything else go, but not these. I even caught the others and held onto them when they were thrown away… most of them, anyway, there was one set I didn't get, I think it stayed with the person it belonged to…"
"You caught others like these?" Luna's eyes widened even further. "Harry, what did you do with them? Please tell me."
"I don't know." Harry kept stroking the pendants, his finger rubbing over one carving that occupied the entire side of one pendant. A cat, he thought it was, except it had big feet and a stubby tail, and tufts of fur on its ears. "I just know I wouldn't let go of them…"
His finger snagged on something. He pulled.
A second gold chain spilled out of the first and hung from his fingertip.
Remus leapt forward, dodging another hurtling lump of rock, and slammed his shoulder against the boards on the door. Again—again—the wood was starting to yield—
With a resounding crash, he broke through, keeping his feet more by luck than by will. The hall beyond would have been gracious and welcoming if it hadn't looked as though no one had been there for a hundred years. Panels were missing from the walls and the banister on the marble staircase had crumbled.
"Where are you?" he shouted. "Say something!"
"Down here!" came an answering scream from beneath his feet. "Hurry, it's caving in!"
Remus started to look around for a stairway, but found he was already moving. A shadow on his left which he had barely noticed turned out to be the entrance to a descending flight of steps, and he was in a dungeonesque hall before he had a moment to think.
A crash from above vibrated dust and pebbles down onto his head. He ducked, and the woman wailed aloud somewhere ahead of him.
"Keep talking!" Remus called, moving towards the sound. "Guide me to you!"
"All… all right." She sounded shaken, but her voice was still strong. "What do you want me to say?"
Surprised by the question, Remus laughed. "I don't think it matters…" He squeezed past a partial blockage in the hallway, gritting his teeth as skin scraped off his elbows and knuckles. "Why don't you tell me about yourself?"
"I don't know. I'm not very interesting." A sound that could have been a laugh or a sob, and was probably some of both. "I'm married, or I was. I don't know if my husband still wants me. Our children are gone now, and we're all we've got, but he's been so distant, so cold lately. It's as if he doesn't even know me."
Remus pulled a few stones away from another cave-in, this one more complete. "Maybe you just need to remind him about you," he suggested. "You can practice on me."
This sound was very definitely a laugh. "If you insist… where should I start?"
"Tell me about…" Remus dropped a large cobble to one side. "Tell me about your family. All the different ways they came to you, and what you love about them." And where that came from, I have no idea…
But his unseen conversation partner took the opening and ran with it. By the time he could squeeze through the gap he'd created, Remus knew all about the couple's best friends, who were like a brother and sister to them; their two sons and two daughters, none of whom would have had that title by most common usages; and their home, large but still crowded with the eight of them, where squabbles abounded but truly serious fights were rare.
Except that I don't think she's had time to tell me nearly as much as I know now…
Experimentally, Remus reached out and knocked a stone free where it threatened to bruise his chest.
That sign over the entrance means something, his mind whispered. Something more than what it seems.
"How helpful," Remus muttered.
"Are you still there?" the woman called from ahead. She sounded closer, but her voice was still muffled, and Remus winced as he looked ahead and saw the reason. The hall was completely filled with rubble, and he knew it was at least fifty yards until there was a door to any room where she could be trapped. He was already tired and hurting, and he wanted nothing more than to sit down and give up.
But she could be caught in an air pocket halfway in. Or even just a few feet. I can't give up now—she obviously can't get out by herself—
"Yes," he called back, starting to roll some of the smaller stones down the heap. "I'm here."
Hermione spun out of the St. Mungo's fireplace into a storm of shouting.
Ron shook ashes out of his hair, shedding his momentary resemblance to his father, and stared at the center of the commotion, which was circling the room at twenty miles an hour while emitting a loud wauling noise. "Is that a cat?" he said tentatively.
Hermione shook her head, feeling soot drift out of her own hair. "Too big," she said. "It's a wildcat. I'm not sure what kind."
The feline skidded to a halt next to them, stared at them wide-eyed for a moment, then bolted for the shelter of Ron's robes.
Ron yelped and turned to flee, but Hermione caught his arm. "Stay still!" she hissed. "If you run, it'll chase you!"
And besides, I think we want to help it.
She went to one knee and extended a hand to the tuft-eared head now poking out from under Ron's black robes—lynx, her mind finally supplied. A pink nose sniffed her fingers, and the lynx sighed and visibly relaxed.
"Thank goodness," said a man's voice from behind her. "We've been trying to settle her down for several minutes; she came in with uncontrolled transformations, and when we tried to stabilize her, it worked, but…"
"She stabilized in the wrong form," Hermione finished, standing up and turning to face the Healer. "She's human, then?"
"As far as we can tell. She could be a transfiguration gone badly wrong, but she seemed intelligent when she was coherent and able to speak. She wouldn't tell us what happened to her, but my guess is she was trying an Animagus transformation and it got out of hand."
"She's sitting on my foot," said Ron, grimacing.
"Be glad she's not doing something else to your foot," the Healer recommended. "She's clawed two people already. Not seriously, but she could do some damage if she were so inclined."