lomonaaeren

“You’re getting really good at conjuring those silken bags, you know that?”

Henry gave Draco a narrow smile, focused more on the pin he was wrapping up than on his brother. “Well, it’s by necessity. We don’t know what would happen if we just left this unwrapped.”

“True.” Draco leaned back with a sigh and looked out the window of the Hogwarts Express. They were heading home for the Easter holidays, and he hoped that seeing Mother face-to-face would enable them to ask what in the world she had been thinking, sending Henry that pin.

They had heard from Father, but only a letter that said, It is done, so Draco knew the diadem had been destroyed. If Father had known what was wrong with Mother, he would have written. Draco was certain of that.

“Harry!”

Granger came bouncing into their compartment. Draco rearranged his face into a pleasant, neutral expression and reached for one of the books they had sneaked out of the Restricted Section, one which unfortunately hadn’t revealed the nature of the spells on the pin, but was interesting all the same. Draco had disguised the cover.

He was glad to be close with his brother, but he could have done without the closer acquaintance with his brother’s friends.

*

“Write to us and make sure that we know what the Healer says, all right?”

Harry hugged Hermione and didn’t say that he would share what he wanted to from the Healer’s report. Father did want him to be checked over to make sure that he didn’t have any lingering effects from the possession, but it was mostly an excuse so that Hermione and Ron wouldn’t wonder about why Harry was so eager, almost worried, to get home.

I don’t like keeping secrets.

But maybe someday he would be able to tell them the whole truth, and they would understand.

“Boys. There you are.”

Father was striding towards them across the platform, his eyes narrowed. Harry hugged Hermione one last time and stepped up to stand close to Father. Draco was already on the other side of him, their trunks both hovering near him.

“We will be Apparating home,” Father said crisply. “We have an appointment that we must keep immediately.”

“I think it’s great that you’re taking Harry’s possession seriously, Mr. Malfoy.”

Hermione said that with a trembling tone, but she said it. Harry shot her an astonished look. Hermione looked back at him, and Harry could practically read her thoughts: I don’t like him or trust him, but he’s your father.

Harry nodded, overwhelmed and grateful. He hoped that he would be able to show Hermione and Ron how much he appreciated their friendship sometime in the future, whether that was by telling them his secrets or some other method.

Father blinked. “Thank you, Miss Granger,” he said, with a small inclination of his head, and then turned and gathered Harry and Draco close. “Come.”

They twisted through the sickening blackness of Apparition before Harry could say good-bye to Ron and Hermione, but he had already mostly said it on the train, anyway. And he was vibrating with Father’s concern even before they landed. He took a step back and looked up into Father’s eyes.

“I have destroyed the thing you sent me,” Father said, his voice low, even though they stood outside the gates of the Manor and there couldn’t have been any spells set up to eavesdrop here. “But I have not been able to figure out the nature of the possession gripping your mother. Every detection charm I have used on the pearls has come back clean. I have cast countercurses. They have not worked. Delving into the Darkest of the books we have, including the ones on Horcruxes, has revealed nothing.”

Draco caught on while Harry was still kind of gaping at Father. “You think that whoever did this invented the spell that’s on that necklace?”

Father nodded, his fingers clenching back and forth. “And that means that we have little chance of removing it in the way that I hoped we could, without distressing her or destroying the necklace. We will have to do something that will distress her. It is the way that things are.”

Harry opened his mouth, because he wanted to say there was another idea that could work—

“Hello, Harry.”

Harry whipped around. Sirius Black was standing near the edge of the wards, and he was smiling, red-eyed. There was a golden locket around his neck, exuding the slimy feeling of a Horcrux, and he was holding up one clenched fist, fingers curled shut around something that Harry couldn’t glimpse.

“Henry, run.”

Father was blurring towards Black before Harry could grasp his command. Black only laughed at Father, backed off one step, and opened his hand. There was a confusing moment when Harry thought Black was casting the Killing Curse, and then he made out that it was only vivid green powder, the same color as the spell.

It swirled right over Father’s head, and descended on Harry.

Harry felt his face twist as the powder struck, reshaping bone, and began to scream.

*

Lucius heard Henry screaming, but he could not turn back. Black, or the possessed thing that Black had become, had the Killing Curse glowing on the end of his wand, and he would hit Lucius or Draco or Henry with it if he stopped now.

And then Lucius’s world would end, one way or the other.

Lucius spoke a command to the earth that his feet sped over, earth that had been under the dominion of Malfoy wards for centuries, and it opened up beneath Black. He cursed as he dropped, and his Killing Curse went wild and sped over Lucius’s shoulder. Lucius heard no scream and so put it out of his mind.

He raised his wand and called Fiendfyre.

Nothing happened.

The moment put Lucius so badly off-balance that he nearly got hit by the shimmering purple spell Black aimed at him. He managed to dodge it, but then he stared at his wand and wondered why it had failed him.

“I’ve been here for days,” Black, or the thing in his body, rasped, as he climbed out of the hole. “I’ve had my chance to build up subtle enchantments on your wand. I couldn’t take every spell from you, but there were some I made sure I did.” He smiled. “I’m going to enjoy the chance to kill you, traitor.”

Lucius met Black’s eyes and knew, with surety, that he would indeed die. Some spells had been taken from him—he had no idea how many—and Black, or the Horcrux that had possessed him, was probably the source of the possession that gripped Narcissa. He, it, had invented spells. Lucius would not be able to counter all of them.

Very well. Then I shall sell my life for my sons.

Lucius shifted his grip on his wand and prepared to do so.

*

“Master Regulus must come! He must!”

Regulus dropped his wand with a clatter, and snatched it back up again, blushing. He had been trying to deal with his nervousness over meeting Henry and Draco by reading up on some of the spells Lucius had wanted him to learn. It obviously hadn’t worked that well.

Kreacher had appeared in front of him, wringing his hands. Regulus looked at him over the book’s top and tried to summon his best calm expression.

“Yes, Kreacher?”

“Master Sirius and the locket be attacking Master Lucius!”

Regulus tossed his book aside, surging to his feet, his heart pounding. Had this happened at King’s Cross? He knew Lucius had gone to get the boys, but—

“They are being here! And Master Sirius is being here!”

Regulus cursed under his breath for not paying more attention to Narcissa as he snatched up his wand and bolted for his bedroom door. Obviously she had invited Sirius here, or something possessing her had, or—

I’m not ready to duel Sirius, I don’t know all the Dark Arts that Lucius insisted I learn!

But that wasn’t very relevant when he was running down the stairs to where his young cousins were in danger, and he would need to protect them. And if he couldn’t defend them the way Lucius had thought he should, because he wasn’t as good with those spells as he needed to be, then Regulus would just have to make his own method.

He looked down at Kreacher, who was keeping up with him by short magical pops, as he ran to the front doors. “Will you help me, Kreacher?”

“Kreacher would die for Master Regulus!”

Regulus smiled at him as he cracked the door open with a spell that shattered all the glass in the windows as the door swung back against the wall. “I know, but I don’t think you’ll have to. Not if what I’m going to do works.”

“Master Regulus has a plan?” Kreacher asked, as Regulus caught sight of the duel Sirius and Lucius were fighting, and the green magic that was dancing around someone shorter with his hands over his face. That must be Henry.

“Yes,” Regulus said, and he reached out a hand towards Kreacher without looking at him as he ran. “Join your magic with mine.”

“Master Regulus.”

Kreacher sounded stunned. Regulus wriggled his fingers. “Come on, Kreacher, no time to lose!”

Kreacher took a deep breath, and Regulus felt a magical surge grip him far stronger than the hold that Kreacher abruptly had on his hand.

The world changed around him.

*

There had never been so much pain. Not in the universe.

Harry could feel the force that gripped his bones traveling deeper. It was unraveling his hair. It was forcing his blood to flow in new patterns. It was changing the color of his eyes.

It was changing him from a Malfoy into a Potter.

Harry flung his will and magic against it the way he had when he and Draco were battling the diadem. He felt Draco’s magic reach out to him; Draco must have cast the same spell that twined them together.

But this wasn’t a Horcrux. It was a necromancy spell, enhanced by a ritual—Harry felt the knowledge flow into him from Draco—and it had used some of the crumbled bone from what must be James Potter’s grave. Probably Lily’s, as well. It was turning Harry into someone he didn’t want to be.

Fight it, Henry!

I’m trying!

Distantly, Harry could hear Sirius’s cackling laughter and the blast of spells. He tried again and again, flinging more and more of himself against the whirlwind. Father hadn’t come back to help them, which could only mean that he was fighting for his life.

Something thundered through the air, and Harry heard the cackling stop. But he didn’t have time to open his eyes and find out why. He couldn’t open his eyes, because his eyesight was struggling, swinging back and forth between what it would have been like as a Potter child and what it was as the Malfoys’ son.

Henry.

Draco gave him more magic, and more. But it was starting to feel choked off. Harry could feel himself becoming less and less Draco’s twin.

And that was terrifying.

*

Regulus felt Kreacher’s magic weave around his, so thick and strong that it was like standing on a bridge that had suddenly sprouted and was carrying him into the air. He opened his eyes and saw the bonds everywhere.

House-elves were bound to wizards, and Regulus saw the one that connected Kreacher to the Black family. And he saw the bonds of blood that tied him to the two Malfoy sons, one stretching back into the Manor that must be to Narcissa, and one stretching ahead of him to his brother.

Even around Lucius, there was the swirl of a blue link, the color of a marriage tie. Lucius was not Regulus’s brother-in-law, but he had married into the family, and house-elf magic sill saw that.

There were the bonds between the stones of the wall, the iron of the gates, the flakes of the dirt, the atoms of the air—

Regulus!

It was Kreacher’s voice, as deep as a hunting horn, and Regulus pulled himself back from the contemplation of Everything. His house-elf spoke to him, and for once, there was no title before his name, and Regulus thrilled to it.

We must stop him!

Regulus nodded, struggled for a moment against losing himself in the wonder of how his muscles and flesh connected, and then drew his wand. It was the conduit for their joined magic at the moment. He aimed at Sirius’s back, or the back of the possessed thing that had been his brother, and whispered the incantation for a spell.

He didn’t pay attention to the words. They were there to be another conduit. Their literal meaning sheathed the spell, but didn’t shape it.

The jet of blue light struck the back of Sirius’s robes, and spread all over him. Silver flickers of lightning danced in it, the color of friendship bonds, and then Sirius shrieked as the connection between him and the Horcrux was severed.

The locket went flying from around Sirius’s neck as he collapsed to the ground. Regulus swung to point his wand at the thing, knowing that Kreacher was moving with him at the same time.

The locket clicked open. Red eyes fixed on them.

What are you?

Regulus didn’t pay attention to the snarling voice. Kreacher had bad memories of it, but they were more than Kreacher at the moment, more than Regulus who had almost drowned in the lake trying to retrieve this thing, they were Kreacher-and-Regulus, and they spoke the words together.

“Finite Incantatem!”

The words were simple, but the magic that went forth was elven and human, and it hit the Horcrux, diving deep beneath the golden surface, finding the shard of soul that lurked within, grabbing it, twisting it—

Severing its bond to the locket.

There was a scream more profound than the one Regulus had heard last week that had signaled the disembodiment of Voldemort. The locket writhed and flopped and fell still, and something like dark smoke flew into the air.

It swung back and forth, and Regulus-Kreacher knew it was looking for a suitable host. Sirius had already been severed from it. Kreacher-Regulus was partially a house-elf and immune to its magic in this blended form.

It swung towards Lucius.

Regulus-Kreacher struck again, and this time, they spoke the words without the wand, lifting their hands to send sapphire magic through their palms.

“Finite Incantatem!”

The soul shard glowed incredibly bright for a moment, lit from within as it might have been had the Dark Lord expressed genuine remorse for what he had done to himself. And then it shattered into less than flying atoms, as the spell severed every bond that tied it.

Kreacher-Regulus watched carefully as they lowered their hands. They would have to act again if there was a single piece of the Horcrux left. It still might manage to possess someone else, as the wraith soul had with Quirrell in Henry and Draco’s first year that Narcissa had told them about.

But no. It was gone. The sky and the earth glowed, free of the taint.

Regulus looked down with a smile, Kreacher looked up with one, and they separated. Regulus crashed to his knees, gasping, mourning the loss and rejoicing in the freedom. Kreacher was shaking beside him.

Lucius stared at him for a long, wordless moment. Then he whirled and strode towards the boy with the cloud of green smoke around his head, who must be Henry.

Regulus closed his eyes. Lucius would have to handle whatever was happening to his son on his own. Regulus was more worthless than a wrung-out rag right now.

But he still managed to reach out and clasp Kreacher’s hand. And Kreacher’s fingers closed back on his, as strong as twigs.

*

Draco could feel his connection to his twin fading.

It was a strange and horrible thing. He hadn’t even been aware of it until now, except when he and Henry were fighting the diadem. But now he could feel it thinning, slowing down, tarnishing—becoming other.

No! No!

He clawed after it, but it seemed like there was nothing he could do to recapture it. It just wasn’t there anymore. And Henry’s breathing was slowing further and further, his sobs emerging more slowly now.

It might not be Henry that woke up even if he did survive it. It might be Harry Potter.

Then Father was there, kneeling beside Henry, and he was cutting open his own arm without a word. He sliced his wand again, flashing, and Henry’s arm opened, too, and began to bleed. Father pressed the cuts together.

He was chanting something in a low, intense voice, but Draco had no idea what the spell was. He leaned forwards with his mouth open, and then saw the tense set of Father’s shoulders. It was possible that Draco could interrupt this and doom his brother without even realizing it.

Although it was possibly the hardest thing he had ever done in his life, Draco settled back and waited.

*

Harry was drowning. Even his memories were warping. He thought the necromancy ritual that Sirius had used was altering his brain. He groped for the memory of that first Christmas he had spent with the Malfoys, his discomfort with being called Aldebaran and the compromise of Henry, and it was fading like a cobweb in sunlight.

Then a powerful beast descended on him. Its talons snatched him from the running river of blood.

Harry gasped and began to weep. He could feel something like cool air on his face. They were going somewhere, but he didn’t know if it would make a difference—if he would be able to become Henry Malfoy again.

It had once been his fear that he would drown inside that identity. Now to be Henry was all he wanted.

The pain ceased so suddenly that Harry kept crying. And then something stretched over his face, like a mask of sticky blood, and he felt the bones twist and flow, painlessly, back into the configuration they should have.

Harry shuddered, and felt something fall down his face. For the first time in what felt like three eternities, he opened his eyes.

Father was crouched above him, his voice so soft and thick that he sounded as if he’d been chanting for hours. He reached out and brushed something from Harry’s face, and Harry realized what it was. Bone dust.

Father finally stopped chanting and closed his eyes. He knelt there, shaking, and then he swept Harry up and hugged him so hard that Harry felt his bones creak again.

At least it’s for a better reason, this time.

Another pair of arms wrapped around him, and Harry knew it was Draco. He turned his head blindly in the direction of his brother’s. Draco was whispering something, but Harry thought he didn’t need to know the words.

“I am sorry, Henry.”

Harry swallowed and forced his eyes open again. “Why?” he asked, his own voice hoarse, probably because of all the screaming he’d done. “You saved my—self.”

“I had to promise you to the Great Serpent to do so.”

“What? What’s the Great Serpent?”

“A power that our family once worshipped, and which I petitioned to destroy the object that you sent me. We had not worshipped it in centuries. But I had to promise that you would in order to save you from the necromantic ritual Black had enacted.”

“Oh,” Harry murmured, his head drooping to the side. “That’s okay. Maybe I should, anyway, as a Parselmouth. Hey. I thought of something that could rescue Mum.”

Father choked. Harry wondered why. “What?”

“Have a house-elf break the spell? We were going to have one do that anyway, to take away her madness. Maybe we could have one do this…”

Father might have said something about that, but Harry was already drifting off to sleep.

*

Father stood up with Henry in his arms, and stared down into his face. Draco glanced back and forth between him and the sprawled Black—and the man who was apparently Cousin Regulus, kneeling beside a house-elf. Draco had seen him in old photographs his mother had.

“Is Henry going to be all right?” Draco whispered.

Father nodded and said absently, “Yes. I did have to promise that he would serve the Great Serpent that we once worshipped so that he could stay a Malfoy, but…I think that a small price, in the end.” His arms tightened around Henry, and he turned towards the house. “I am going to find your mother.”

“I’ll come with you.”

Draco trotted past his cousins, staring at Regulus on the way. Cousin Regulus gave him an exhausted smile and said, “I know it doesn’t make sense, but I’ll explain later, I promise.”

“Okay,” Draco said, only later realizing how very Henry a word that was, and followed Father and his twin up to Henry’s bedroom, where Father put Henry to bed. Draco sat down on the chair next to him and shook his head.

Obviously Henry really needed to spend time studying Dark Arts, so that he could survive all the insane things that happened to him.

But for now, Draco thought ,as he reached out and squeezed Henry’s shoulder, I’m just glad that I still have my brother.

*

“Master Lucius called?”

Lucius nodded without taking his gaze from his wife. She was lying on her bed, staring at the ceiling. The black pearls around her neck gleamed with the image of a locket now, each and every one. She was neither moving nor speaking, and apparently hadn’t, according to the elves, since the Horcrux had been destroyed.

“Yes,” Lucius whispered. He had to hope this would work. If not, it was possible that Regulus could do something when he had recovered, but Lucius longed to hold Narcissa in his arms again, to know she would be well, long before that. “Please, take the Black madness from my wife.”

The elf he had summoned, Elsie, stared at him with wide, pale green eyes. Lucius looked at her, and Elsie finally nodded and faced the bed. She snapped her fingers, her face wrinkled in deep concentration.

Narcissa shrieked.

Lucius lunged forwards, but the black pearls were already turning to ashes and tumbling away from her neck. Narcissa sat up, one hand clapped to the hollow of her throat, and screamed again. Then she grabbed him and began to sob.

Lucius cradled her, and only knew complete reassurance when she whispered, “Lucius?”

“Yes, darling?”

“I’m—I think I’m—well. But the boys?”

“Well.”

She began to cry again, and Lucius held her close.

*

Sirius opened his eyes.

He was in a small, blank stone room. There was a bed beneath him, and a door in the corner that led to a bathroom, from what Sirius could see. There was a desk, a chair, and a small shelf of books in front of him.

And a piece of parchment on the desk.

Sirius stood up and stumbled over to it.

Cousin, it said, in Lucius’s precise handwriting.

Your fate is now up to Henry. When he recovers, he will say what should be done with you. But for now, I see no need to tax my son with your wretched existence. You will spend time here until he is ready to speak with me about it. You will not see the sun. You will speak with no one but the elves who bring your food. You will do nothing but read and sleep and eat. I have broken your wand.

My son is tender-hearted. He may not condemn you to death. But I will be glad if he does, and I will be as glad to sacrifice you on an altar to the Great Serpent if he asks me to. I will be gladder still to torture you to death, to listen to your bones break. It is no more than you deserve.

If he cannot bring himself to condemn you at all, I will choose your fate.

Sirius lowered the parchment and stood there staring at nothing. He could barely remember his possession by the Horcrux. He thought that he had cast the necromantic ritual on Harry, but…

At least he knew that Harry had survived.

And that perhaps a dark, silent existence until he died was indeed what he deserved.

*

Narcissa stood by Henry’s bed and watched her son sleep. Draco was curled up in the chair beside him, holding his brother’s hand.

She had come so close to losing them both.

It felt strange, to have the Black madness burned out of her mind. It had left her skull feeling hollow and clean, as if it were made of bone and not the fire it had always half seemed to be. She looked at books and paintings and letters and thought she understood them more, better than she ever had.

And she knew that Henry and Draco were worth far more than Sirius had ever been.

Narcissa closed her eyes. Lucius had told her what he intended to do with Sirius, and she had agreed. Henry would deal with it when he was stronger. Or they would keep Sirius until he was ready to deal with it.

She could admire the elegance of this solution, now that the madness was gone and she did not need to torture Sirius to death for what he had done.

Narcissa feathered her fingers through Henry’s hair, and he turned his head towards her with a little sigh. She studied the bones of his face, the pale lashes of his eyes, the silken feel of his hair, all of it inexpressibly dear to her, given what the necromantic ritual could have caused him to lose.

My little phoenix.

Narcissa kissed both her sons on the forehead, and returned to her husband’s arms.

*

“Regulus is going to bed?”

“Yes, Kreacher. In a moment.”

Regulus stood looking out over the Malfoy grounds from the window of his suite, a small smile on his face. He was looking forward to the morning. He was looking forward to meeting his young cousins, properly, and especially the boy he had come back from death to help save.

He could feel the wards of Grimmauld Place humming in the back of his mind. He looked forward to the opportunity to set the house in order.

But most of all…

The locket Horcrux was dead. The quest he had set out to accomplish all those years ago was done.

Regulus felt as if he could truly breathe for the first time since he had surfaced on the shore of the lake. There were hard things ahead, undoubtedly, but there were also grand ones. And he would be part of them, without the lingering guilt and anxiety about not having fulfilled his purpose.

When he was young, Mother had said to him and Sirius many times, “If you know one good trick, like the hedgehog, you will survive every duel. You don’t need to be like a fox and know many clever ones. One is enough.”

But Regulus emphatically thought he would rather be the fox, able to think of things like joining his magic with Kreacher’s in order to destroy the locket Horcrux.

He looked forward to exploring that magic with his friend, too.

The End.