Chapter Seventy-Six: Fenrir Greyback’s Legacy
Draco was practicing how to move like a shadow.
He’d thought, after the brief surge of hot panic when he’d decided Harry was dying, and then the whispered conference between Regulus and Snape that announced Harry would have to remain at the Black house for a few days, that he’d want to do nothing but sit and brood about his boyfriend. But he’d got bored of that more quickly than he used to do. Draco had leaned back against his pillow, looking so baffled that Blaise evidently had a need to comment on it.
“Manticore got your tongue, Malfoy?” he asked, peering through his bed curtains. Draco refrained from commenting on the mark on his cheek, which looked vaguely as if someone had slapped him. It would make good blackmail material later. Besides, he wanted someone to pay attention to him.
“No,” he’d sighed, folding his arms and putting them behind his head. “Just—I used to be able to brood on the wrongs done to me for hours. And now I can’t. What’s wrong with me?”
Blaise shook his head. “Harry’s not here to make you into a little orbiting planet?”
“I notice your lioness isn’t here either, though her handprint is,” Draco had snarked, good intentions forgotten, and Blaise had scowled at him and ducked back inside his bed. But his remark had made Draco seriously consider whether it was Harry’s absence that made him feel differently.
In the end, he’d decided that, no, it wasn’t. Since his confirmation as Malfoy magical heir, he’d tried to keep busier, and now it had reached the point where sitting around and brooding on the wrongs done to him felt like a waste. At least his father created plans to avenge those wrongs. If Draco couldn’t do that, said this new sensibility of his, he didn’t deserve to brood at all.
So he joined the rune circle around his bed together again, and lay back, and closed his eyes, leaping into Blaise’s mind—but not to take over his body. He wanted to see if he could skirt his thoughts like a shadow, move about inside them without Blaise noticing and panicking. That wasn’t something he could practice with Harry, even if he’d wanted to; Harry was too sensitive to any change in his mind after all the Legilimency and Occlumency he’d learned and the numerous restructurings he’d done.
He found it was possible to lie like a stone in a river beneath the chattering surface of Blaise’s thoughts, his presence nothing more than a gentle ripple of inquiry every now and then. He could access memories if he really wanted them, or, sometimes, tug Blaise’s head to look in one direction rather than another. He did that a few times for amusement value, so that Blaise read part of the left page of his Astronomy text over and over, and then rose on smoky wings, padding out of Blaise’s head and towards the common room.
He no longer felt the same panic he had when he tumbled free of another person’s body. He had learned to relax and open senses he hadn’t known he had when he was so focused on possessing a body instead of thoughts. Now Draco let himself follow a pulling line, centered on a sixth-year girl studying by the fire. He settled into her body, and let himself get used to the unfamiliar sensations of breasts, soft genitals, strange chemicals circulating in her bloodstream.
He wondered if he could make her scratch her nose, and what would be the best way to do it. Taking control of her hand and lifting it would alert her that something was wrong at once. But maybe he could make it itch?
Draco thought of her nose becoming red and raw and irritated, twitching the thoughts through her brain, mixing them in with the regular ones. A moment later, the girl gave a grunt of annoyance, reached up her hand, and scratched her nose. Draco ran through her mind like a shadow and on to the next one.
He practiced on most of the Slytherins and grew confident before he allowed himself to venture out of the common room. He turned down the dungeon corridor, and a powerful mind yanked him into another body.
Snape.
Snape was marking Potions essays, a frown on his face as he dashed off sneering remark after sneering remark. His mind constructed the words with such flowing efficiency that Draco couldn’t trace the thoughts to their beginning. He settled very carefully into the depths of Snape’s mind.
He’s a Legilimens. I probably can’t possess him without his sensing me. But it would be a wonderful opportunity to practice…
Draco stayed still as Snape went on marking, observing the complicated structure of his mind. Quicksilver pools glittered everywhere that he looked, most of them hiding jagged dark shapes—emotions that Snape didn’t want to deal with, Draco surmised, from Harry’s description. From this position, Draco could also see layered trap after layered trap, meant to catch and turn the probing of an enemy. And what traps were there that he wasn’t seeing? It was a good thing that he’d resisted the temptation to possess him.
But still. It was such a wonderful chance to practice. And Snape might know something was wrong, but not what. He was more likely to think the Dark Lord than he was to think Draco. This was the first time that Draco had ever managed to possess someone without eye contact, after all.
That thought startled and momentarily elated him—his mistake, he guessed later. Those emotions were so foreign to Snape’s mind that his thoughts bore down on them at once, trying to guess their source.
Draco found himself whirled around, caught in one of the traps, threaded between its glittering teeth. Snape examined him for a moment, and then he laughed. Draco, spinning, disoriented, couldn’t tell if the laughter was in the physical world or the mental one; he only knew it made the trap ring like a banged kettle, and sent him bouncing from wall to wall.
“Draco. I should have known.” Snape’s voice drained and bled cold. “Think before you invade my mind again. If you intend to possess a Legilimens, you will need to be more subtle than that.”
He threw Draco out, as if he were a horse bucking, and Draco found himself drifting aimlessly in midair for a moment. He started to feel for a thread that would bring him to the next mind, and then he was speeding along a corridor, drawn relentlessly by another one. He wondered if he had remained in Snape’s mind so long that only one person was in the common room.
He understood when he found himself settling into Harry as he strode up the stairs to their bedroom. His gift knew this mind, and had brought him back to a familiar place.
Harry sensed him at once, but unprotestingly carried him up the stairs and walked close enough to his bed that Draco could fly to his body. He opened his eyes, rubbed at them, and rolled over to look at Harry.
“You’re back,” he said.
“So pleased you noticed.” Harry sat on his bed and stretched for a moment, then yawned. His face was exhausted, Draco saw, but it bore no trace of burns.
“That was a stupid thing you did,” said Draco, and Harry looked at him with a faint nod.
“Yes, I know,” he said. Draco kept his mouth clamped shut, because otherwise his jaw would dangle, and Malfoys shouldn’t allow themselves to be that startled. “I should have had someone else with me when it began,” said Harry. “Or I should have stopped when I realized that it hurt. I didn’t think it was supposed to hurt. Of course, I didn’t know much of anything about the phoenix fire.” He scooted up the bed until he lay back on the pillow. “That’s cured now.”
Still trying to deal with the fact that Harry had admitted something risky he’d done was a mistake, Draco could only say, “Pardon?”
“I researched phoenix fire in the Black library with Peter,” Harry said, and then stifled another yawn. “For hours. I think I’ll see the words behind my eyes when I go to sleep.” He shut his eyes as if he would go to sleep then and there, and Draco leaned across the gap between their beds. His hand slammed into a barrier, though, and he realized the rune circle protecting his body was still up. He rose and impatiently smudged it away, then poked Harry.
“You don’t get to tell me that and then just rest,” he pointed out, when Harry opened his eyes again.
“Sorry.” Harry gave him a sleepy smile. Draco caught his breath for a moment, then shook his head and fixed Harry with a stern look. “Peter thought that some of the old legends about phoenixes, the human-created ones, might apply to someone human who had phoenix fire and a—voice.” Harry grimaced. Draco was about to ask what was wrong, but Harry was plowing on. “It seems they do. I can get mesmerized by my own fire if I’m not careful. And there used to be a tale that you could capture a phoenix chick by luring it with the smell of sweet flowers. Peter tried some on me. It has no effect when the fire doesn’t burn, but when it does—“ Harry shook his head and snorted. “I’ll have to be in one of your rune circles if I want to burn in front of Voldemort, given that he has the Thorn Bitch with him, and she has plenty of flowers.”
“Then you aren’t planning on using your phoenix fire in battle?” Draco asked.
Harry shook his head again. “I don’t think it would be useful. Even Fawkes didn’t often burn his opponents, remember? He struck at their eyes, most of the time, or tried small, concentrated blasts of fire. And the way he died was as a sacrifice, consuming himself in his flames, yielding his own immortality. He died as a gateway for the Light, so that it could enter the heart of the Dark storm; it couldn’t have done it otherwise.” Harry stopped talking and stared into the remote distance for a moment. But though grief salted his voice, it had vanished when he went briskly on. “It would be dangerous to use as a weapon unless I had some idea of how to avoid being mesmerized when the battle is done. As long as I consumed the impurities from the tainted magic in my body, I could keep my mind on the task. The moment I tried to just call the fire for its own sake, I lost my mind.”
“So Snape and I might actually have done you more harm by interrupting you?” Draco had wondered about that since the time, three nights ago, when he’d come back and found Harry rolling on the bed, burning and screaming.
“Oh.” Harry looked startled. “No, I don’t think so. It did hurt, and Peter said that the fire-pool in Silver-Mirror had to do some healing of its own for me.” He held up his left arm and watched it shake for a moment. “I’ve absorbed two different kinds of venom through this in the last month,” he muttered. “Peter says not to do it any more.”
“That’s good advice,” Draco said quietly.
“Yes, I know.” Harry cocked his head. “And what about you? How did you manage to possess me without making eye contact?”
Draco laughed and began to describe his adventures, though he neglected to talk about his possession of Blaise with Blaise right there. He didn’t see a need to describe his resounding failure with Snape, either, though by the glitter in Harry’s eyes, he knew there was something missing. But he didn’t pursue it, and Draco didn’t pursue the mishap with the phoenix fire, since Harry had admitted he was wrong. They slid back more easily into companionship than Draco would have expected.
Maybe something really has changed, now that he’s accepted my courting ritual, Draco thought, and admired the shine of Harry’s eyes when he smiled, and counted the days in his head until Walpurgis.
Harry expected the post owl that came winging in to him at breakfast. He and Scrimgeour had exchanged numerous letters on the matter of werewolves in the past few months, since Harry had made the oath to fight for werewolves’ rights, and the Minister was a few days overdue with the next one.
He didn’t expect what it said, though.
April 5th, 1996
Dear Harry:
You will know that the full moon was the past three nights. It seems that a rogue werewolf calling himself Evergreen bit a member of the Wizengamot on the second one. The Wizengamot is meeting today to set stricter limits on the rights of werewolves. I am sorry, but there is nothing I can do to stop this when the Wizengamot has a personal cause for outrage. And it is feared that Evergreen may be acting out of a larger political agenda. There were a few points in the past when werewolves tried to make people in power amenable to their viewpoints by biting them. It has worked because the victims decided to hide the curse, and allowed their biters to blackmail them.
Elder Gillyflower has decided to reveal the curse she is now infected with. That means that the Wizengamot is buzzing with outrage on her behalf, and fear that this might happen to them next, and determination not to allow any werewolf to achieve his ends based on intimidation. It is likely that the stricter limits will include mandatory confinement on the nights of the full moon for all werewolves, and from there it is only a small step to putting them in Tullianum permanently, with penalties for those who refuse to admit their curse. Amelia is already speaking of authorizing Aurors to kill free-running werewolves on those nights. She is shaken and upset by what happened to Elder Gillyflower, an old friend of hers, but other members of the Wizengamot will not be less extreme in their sentiments.
I am sorry, Harry. But there is no way to oppose this right now. Werewolves are not allowed to speak to the Wizengamot in their own defense, either during trials or in situations like this, when laws debating them are being passed—one of Fudge’s provisions that I never dreamed would cause so much trouble.
Regretfully,
Rufus Scrimgeour,
Minister of Magic.
Harry was shaking by the time he finished the letter, and he crumpled it viciously in one hand as he stood. Scrimgeour hadn’t mentioned what time the Wizengamot was meeting—probably in an attempt to discourage Harry from interfering—and he might already be too late. But if not, then Harry knew whom he wanted to call upon.
Draco grabbed his arm. “Harry! Where are you going?”
Harry tossed the letter to him and sprinted out of the Great Hall. He knew Snape would be following. He didn’t care. At the moment, nothing was more important than having a modicum of privacy so he could use the communication spell that Charles Rosier-Henlin had taught him.
He spoke Laura Gloryflower’s name, and heard the soft chime of phoenix song. A moment later, Laura’s voice sounded in his ears, and Harry said, “A werewolf bit a member of the Wizengamot two nights ago. They’re meeting today to try and push stricter limits on them, which will probably mean confinement in Tullianum on full moon nights—or permanently. Can you help me?”
“Of course,” said Laura at once. “Delilah will not object to others knowing she is a werewolf if it is for a cause like this one. I think the hiding is rather wearing on her, to tell you the truth. She is a trained war witch, and was made to walk in the sunlight and reveal her secrets to all, even as the bells in her hair proclaim her skill. I will be at the Ministry in an hour, Harry.”
Harry nodded, then remembered she couldn’t see him, and said, “Thank you, Mrs. Gloryflower. I know this is sudden, but I don’t see much chance to stop them if we don’t move now.”
“I am prepared,” said Laura, and her voice deepened into a growl. “And I do have favors in the Ministry I may call in, Harry. Ordinarily, I save them for the idle telling of gossip, but this is more important. They are not going to hurt my niece.” She was snarling like a lioness by the time she cut off the communication spell.
Harry turned around, and saw Snape next to him. “When are you going to the Ministry?” Snape asked quietly.
“As soon as you’re ready,” said Harry. “And Remus. I want you both to be there, even though I’ll have go into the courtroom without you, sir.”
Snape cocked his head. “And why is that?”
“They have to see me as an adult, flanked by people committed to the cause of werewolf freedom, and you’re my guardian, sir,” Harry pointed out. “As long as you’re there, it’ll be easier for them to think of me as a child. I don’t want to leave you behind, but I can’t have you overshadowing me.”
Snape inclined his head, various emotions beating just under the calm surface of his face. Harry was fairly sure that one of them was pride, and even surer with the next comment he made. “I can hardly complain about the development of your political instincts,” Snape observed.