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Forgive Those Who Trespass	By : Lomonaaeren Category: Harry Potter > Slash - Male/Male > Harry/Draco Views: 20650 -:- Recommendations : 1 -:- Currently Reading : 1
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter, nor any of the characters from the books or movies. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.

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Chapter Ten�The Third Pensieve

�� Draco ate
the dried meat Harry had brought along slowly, pausing frequently to sip at the
water Harry had conjured with the Aguamenti charm. Harry assumed the
meat was a bit too salty for him, but when he turned around to apologize from
conjuring a spray of water for himself, he found Draco staring directly at him.

�� Harry
glanced down at his robes. It would be just like him to have let a chicken shit
on him during the night or something. �What?�

�� A few sharp
bites were his answer; Draco, cradling a piece of meat between the stumps of
his fingers like a parrot snatching at a nut, required both his hands free
before he could speak. Then he reached for the communication sphere and said
efficiently, You are tired.

�� Harry
laughed and shook his head, wondering if Draco had forgotten what they
discussed last night. �Cognosco, remember?�

�� Not
right.

�� There�s
not much I can do about it.� Harry smiled at him. �You need more sleep than
you�ve got in the past, and someone has to remain awake to guard us, now
that we�re so deep in the maze. We made a mistake that first night, both
sleeping at once.�

�� I awake,
you asleep.

�� Harry had
been afraid of this. There was nothing for it but to tell the truth, though,
because sooner or later he would run out of lies about the Awareness Charm. He
held Draco�s stare and took a deep breath. �I don�t think I trust you enough to
let you guard my sleep yet,� he said.

�� Draco
jerked; he looked as though Harry had mocked him for losing his fingers. His
hands trembled, nearly dropping the communication sphere, and Harry raised his
wand, ready to levitate it if he had to. But Draco only stuck his chin
forwards, shuddered once, and then tapped out, Now?

�� Even now,
Harry thought that meant, or even still, but they hadn�t put a facet on the
sphere for those other words. He shrugged. �Yes,� he said. �I know you�re much
more trustworthy than you were when we were in Hogwarts��

�� He had to
pause and restrain his laughter at the distinctly sour expression that overcame
Draco�s face. It seemed Draco didn�t enjoy being reminded of his schooldays.
Well, Harry had to concede he was justified in feeling that way. Who would
enjoy recalling numerous incidents of being a prat? Harry didn�t like it
himself.

�� But I
still can�t give my full trust to you yet,� Harry said. Draco shot him another
wounded look. He shrugged. �Sorry. It�s the way I feel. And until I feel that I
can trust you, I�ll use Cognosco to stay awake, and you can rest.
It�s probably better that way. How much rest did you miss when you were under
the tender care of the Unspeakables, anyway?� Anger heated his voice.

�� Draco
closed his eyes and shrugged, which could have meant he didn�t remember or
didn�t care to discuss it. Then his stumps moved again. You sleep later.

�� No.�

��

�� Both
sleep.

�� No.�

�� Stubborn,
ungrateful git.

�� I knew
there was a reason you had me put that one on there.� Harry smiled again as
Draco�s eyes rolled. �Listen, Draco. I do promise I�m trying to work on
trusting you, and I�ll keep at it. You can attribute that to both Gryffindor
stubbornness and our reluctance to let ideas get into our heads. Hermione had
trouble instructing me and Ron, too. But I won�t change things immediately.�

�� You are
tired, you are weak.

�� Harry
shrugged. �So what? I�ve been tired before, and I�ve also used Awareness Charms
for extended periods of time. Neither did me any permanent harm.� He
immediately winced as he thought of the part sleep deprivation had probably
paid in some not-so-remarkable decisions in the last year. But he put that
thought away. Then, he�d been nothing but a frantic Auror trainee trying to
survive in the first part of the program. Now, he knew how much was riding on
his level of readiness to meet challenges. Their very lives, among other
things.

�� Books?

�� Harry
nodded, and turned around to survey the shelves. �Do you know where we should
start?�

��

�� Draco
walked confidently over to a shelf, stuck his nubs together, and pointed them
all at a single large book. Harry cast a Summoning Charm to pull it down, and
then stared at it doubtfully. It was bound in some blue, scaly leather that
might have been wyvern skin. The letters on the front were purple and raised,
and could actually have been studded with small amethysts. They said, The
Ethics of Human Sacrifice.

�� Ethics?
Will that help?�

�� Information,
Draco said with a sharp lift of his shoulders, and cupped his palms. Harry
placed the book in his expectant hands and turned back to the shelves, hoping
to scan the titles and produce a miracle.

�� But all the
while, the questions continued growing in the back of his mind, feeding on each
other the way that young dragons were said to do when their eggs weren�t
separated from each other sufficiently.

�� How much
of his knowledge about this room came back with the memory of him and Pearl
drinking here? How much does he remember of what they were arguing about? How
did he know where that book was?

�� What
else isn�t he telling me?

*

�� By the time
that they were ready�or, at least, Harry was ready and Draco had conceded that
it would take much more research to make much of a dent in the books that
littered the shelves and the floor�to leave, Harry�s uneasiness had grown.
Twice, long, loud calls had sounded down the maze outside, though nothing had
come near their door. That made Harry think it was a large enough beast to be
heard from a distance, which was not a comforting thought. He�d shot a glance
at Draco each time the call echoed, but received only shrugs.

�� His face
was blank, though, carefully tucked and folded so as not to display emotion.
Harry swallowed hard and tried not to think about what Draco was hiding, then
wondered if he should think about it.

�� Draco had
gathered some information, but when he tried to explain it to Harry, the sphere
proved not to have enough words and Harry didn�t think he could have understood
the ones Draco tried to mouth to him even if he heard them aloud. Draco finally
gave him a disgusted look and tossed several books directly into his satchel.
Harry stifled a sigh and thought again that Hermione would have been better at
this.

�� When they
started out into the maze, Harry did have a chance to pause and study the
flame-like patterns carved on the walls. He couldn�t make anything out of them,
though. If they were letters, they had been turned upside-down and fringed and
tortured until a mirror and a decrypting spell would have been necessary to
read them. He did turn around once or twice and see Draco running the edge of
his hand over them. He stopped when he caught Harry watching.

�� This
doesn�t increase my trust of you, you know,� Harry said, as light-heartedly as
he could.

�� Draco set
his mouth and didn�t respond.

�� They ended
up having to retrace their route, since the Malfoys had evidently hurried them
away from the main corridors. Draco led them confidently enough, which made
Harry wonder at the source of his knowledge again. Could a complete
picture of the maze really have come to him in that one memory of the wooden
table?

�� Maybe
he�s guessing and doesn�t want me to know.

�� But once
more, if he started doubting that, then he might as well start doubting
everything. Harry bit the corner of his mouth hard and continued obediently
following Draco, ducking under lower lintels of stone now and then. He wondered
gloomily what would appear ahead when the tunnels broke. Another checkerboard
room? A second clutch of Malfoys, made from other scraps of Draco�s fingers?

�� A shock of
white light told him the truth soon enough. Harry halted and debated for a long
moment if he really wanted to see what was in the next Pensieve. Then he
sighed. He would look. He hadn�t wanted to hunt down Voldemort most of
the times he�d faced him, either, but he had.

�� Draco
stiffened when he saw the light. Harry doubted he would have noticed if he
hadn�t looked up just then, because the next moment Draco was back to his usual
self, leaning casual and relaxed on the wall and watching Harry with a mixture
of impatience and disdain. But Harry had seen, and he was hardly about
to let it go.

�� Well?�
he demanded, stepping forwards. �If you know something about what�s ahead, tell
me!�

�� Draco
gestured imperiously for the communication sphere. Harry floated it over to
him. Draco selected, More memories, from the sphere, and looked sidelong
at Harry, as much to say Ask a stupid question�

�� For the
first time in his life, Harry thought he understood how Professor Snape had
probably felt when faced with his insolence in class. It wasn�t just because he
was the son of James Potter, he thought, and his irritation now wasn�t
just because of his distrust of Draco. Their survival here depended on both of
them. If Harry kept making efforts and getting rebuffed, he didn�t see a reason
to make the effort at all. They would die just as quickly if one of them
refused to share information as if they both did.

�� You won�t
be more specific?� he asked.

�� Draco shook
his head.

�� And he had
agreed to won�t, not can�t, Harry thought. He evidently had some
idea about what the memories in the Pensieve might contain, if not the exact
and specific images. Harry hissed to himself and shouldered past Draco, who
stared after him and then rushed to catch up.

�� Harry
refused to look at him. He really might punch him.

�� The
Pensieve rested on the usual ivory pillar, with the shadowy letters near the
bottom. Harry bent down to look at them. Din. He frowned. This was the
first set that had looked as if it could be an English word.

�� Crepidin,
he thought, if he put the letters on all the pillars together. He didn�t know
what word that might be. It wasn�t English, but it also didn�t sound like
Latin.

�� He shrugged
and started to cast the usual Sticking Charm on his feet, but someone seized
his arm and spun him around. Harry found his breathing speeding up until he
realized it was Draco. Someone, indeed, he thought, and then shook his
head and pulled away when Draco tried to mouth something at him, his face set
in hard, angry lines.

�� No,� he
said. �What happened is very simple. I confessed I didn�t trust you completely
yet, and then you started actively keeping things from me. You even
admitted to it. Why the fuck should I trust you now?�

�� Draco cast
a harsh glance at the Pensieve, and then extended a hand towards Harry. Harry
glanced at the cupped palm. �Am I supposed to feel sorry for you because you
had your fingers bitten off?� he asked. �Because I do already, but it rather lessens
my sympathy to think that you�re helping the people who did it.�

�� Draco
wriggled his palm. Harry finally realized what he wanted, and bit the corner of
his mouth again. Then he shrugged, because he had no choice, and dropped his
own hand into Draco�s. Draco promptly turned his hand around, clasping Harry�s
wrist as best he could.

�� You can
trust, he mouthed at Harry�all of them words Harry had seen enough of now
to recognize right away. Then there came a phrase that took longer for him to
distinguish, but he managed to snare even that; Hermione would have been proud
of him. I promise.

�� And what�s
that promise worth?� Harry muttered, but he was propitiated, and Draco had
probably known he would be. Harry had the distinct idea that Slytherins knew
how to handle Gryffindors better than the other way around.

�� He decided
to make one more test. �But you still won�t tell me what you suspect is in this
Pensieve.�

�� Draco
raised one eyebrow and nodded to the basin of silvery liquid, as much to say
that he didn�t need to tell Harry; Harry was about to go in and see for
himself.

�� Yeah,�
Harry muttered, and then moved to disengage his hand.

�� Draco
clutched at it and refused to let it go.

�� Harry could
have dragged it away easily enough; with Draco�s lack of fingers, especially a
thumb, he couldn�t maintain anything like a good grip. But the look in Draco�s
eyes�gently apologetic, genuinely remorseful�made him sigh, curse himself for a
soft-hearted idiot, and grip back, briefly.

�� Then he
turned and plunged his head into the Pensieve.

*

�� He found
himself in the middle of the enormous, brilliantly lighted room that the
Unspeakables had bitten off Draco�s fingers in. He tensed and turned around,
already preparing himself for another scene of suffering, perhaps the time when
they had taken Draco�s ribs or his voice.

�� But this
memory must have happened before that, because Draco was standing among the
Unspeakables with a small frown on his face and a par of whole hands clasped
loosely in front of him. He glanced behind him, but didn�t talk to the woman
who stood there. It was Pearl, Harry saw a moment later. She clasped Draco�s
shoulder with a firm, steady pressure, but she didn�t speak either.

�� In fact,
everyone was quiet, Harry noticed as he moved among them, trying not to even
breathe too loudly. It was an expectant silence. Harry tried not to
think what it was expectant of. He had no doubt he would find out soon enough.

�� He tried to
reach back to the sense memory of his own body and feel Draco�s hand clasped in
his. It didn�t work. He swallowed and glanced at the several doors that lined
the round room, wondering when something would change, and if the thing that
changed it was about to come through one of those doors.

�� Sure
enough, one of them grated open at last. Harry saw Richard take a step towards
it, and then he seemed to decide it was unseemly to be too eager. He halted
with a small shake, but still leaned forwards like a cat held away from catnip,
trembling now and then.

�� Harry
watched with a queasy feeling as a slender figure in an ash-gray robes was
brought in by several Unspeakables walking on either side of him. This was a
grown man, but so skinny that he looked more like a fifteen-year-old. As he
came nearer, Harry saw the skin hanging off his ribs in confirmation of
prolonged starvation. He winced. He remembered all too well what that felt
like.

�� The man�s
eyes passed from side to side, but not frantically, the way Harry thought a
truly terrified victim would have looked; it seemed to be more a reflex action,
as if he had given up in soul but his body hadn�t got the message yet. The
Unspeakables laid him in the middle of the floor and spread-eagled him, then
hooked chains to iron bands already set on his wrists and ankles and sank the
chains into the floor with spells. The man remained quiet, and only launched a
few ineffectual struggles that his bonds easily contained. Then his captors
moved away, and the Unspeakables� silence sharpened into eagerness like a
spear-point.

�� Richard
turned to face Draco. Draco lifted his wand like a sword, and Harry expected
some conflict to occur between them. But Richard only nodded, smiled, and said,
�As we agreed, Draco. Carefully. If they�re damaged, then we�d have to
start all over again with someone else.�

�� Harry
expected Draco to yell, protest, stamp his foot, refuse; given the pallor of
his face, this was at a part of the timeline when he�d already realized what
the Department of Mysteries was doing and decided he didn�t like it. But to
Harry�s astonishment, Draco nodded once and then moved up until he stood next
to the victim�s torso just above the legs. He aimed his wand and held it still
for long moments, shutting his eyes.

�� Maybe
that�s a delaying tactic.

�� If it was,
it was a shitty one. Draco opened his eyes in the next moment and let out a
long stream of Latin that baffled Harry�s ears immediately; he had enough
trouble with three-word incantations, and this one was a good ten or twelve
terms long.

�� Bloody
gashes opened along the man�s chest, tearing through the thin robes he wore as
if invisible knives were cutting them. The blood grew thicker and thicker, and
still the man didn�t cry out, though his eyes watered. Harry wondered,
horrified, if they had already stolen his voice.

�� Draco made
another gesture, spoke another spell.

�� And the
man�s organs began to float out of his chest, soft round masses of sopping
flesh and tissue.

�� Harry saw
steam rise as they exited the body that had housed them; the air of the torture
chamber, in reality, must be cold. He wanted to look away, thought he should�he
owed no duty of witness here to someone who waited for him, but rather privacy
to a man long since dead�but instead he stood there with his brain in
suspension and noticed every detail of the deed.

�� The liver
shone like wet metal. The intestines were long, quivering layers of smooth
sausage. Something small, the pancreas or the spleen, darted among the larger
organs around it like a small fish seeking safety from the jaws of a shark. The
lungs fluttered twice even as Draco removed them, still pregnant with air;
Harry thought they resembled dying butterflies pinned to corkboard.

�� Draco
whirled his wand again and spoke a third time, confident, strong Latin words
that pulled the organs from the man completely and deposited them into a series
of waiting jars. Like the jars ancient Egyptians used to keep the organs they
pulled from the body when they were making mummies, Harry thought mechanically,
and then wondered why in the world he remembered that.

�� He also
realized something else: among all the organs that had emerged, he hadn�t seen
the heart.

�� The man was
still breathing, still alive, though, from the expression in his eyes, not
still sane. The Unspeakables who might have been his escorts moved forwards
again and raised the chains from the floor. Harry wondered if they would
finally allow the poor bastard to die, but they simply stood there, while other
Unspeakables went to a different door on the far side of the room and led in
four�things.

�� Harry would
have called them horses, except that that was a little like calling a dragon a
snake. Their bodies were made of flesh the same dark color as the liver Draco
had extracted, and their muscles bulged and rippled obscenely underneath it.
Harry couldn�t see a trace of fur, except on their dark gray manes and tails,
which swung and clanged in harsh cries that made him think the �hairs� were
metallic. Their nostrils flared magma-red; their eyes were the color of rotting
flesh. Harry saw the edges of curved fangs when their mouths opened to neigh,
which produced no sound but knocked a small puff of stone dust from the
ceiling.

The Unspeakables attached the
horses to the chains, one for each limb their slit-open victim had. Then
Richard said, �Draco? As we agreed.�

Harry glanced at Draco desperately.
The blink Draco�s eyes made as they closed and opened again looked like the
heaviest in the world.

Then Draco lifted his wand and said
simply, �Verber.�

�� A whip
manifested in midair above the victim�s chest, a precise distance from each
creature. Then it lashed, so quickly that Harry couldn�t make out the
individual blows. He was only certain each pseudo-horse had been struck.

�� They cried
out again, those soundless neighs Harry now suspected were too low for him to
hear, and then dug hooves like razored obsidian into the floor. They leaned
forwards against all the weight and resistance of the object between them,
straining to move forwards, to move away from each other.

�� And the man
in the center, the man they were drawing and quartering, opened his mouth and
began to scream.

�� Harry put
his hands over his ears. The sound traveled through his fingers like a stake
through a vampire�s chest. Frenzied, beyond hope, beyond madness, it gabbled
and scraped and slid against him, ringing like claws over his soul. Harry could
feel tears as thick as blood traveling down his face.

�� The sound
of the man�s body ripping had no right to sound as much like heavy, wet cloth
parting as it did.

�� Harry
looked only once more, to see the pseudo-horses galloping freely around the
room, each dragging behind it a sodden lump no longer recognizable as human.
Green and black and red liquid layered the floor where they passed in puddles
and streams and rivulets and mountaintops.

�� Harry lost
control of his stomach then, and could barely hear Richard praising Draco for a
job well done. He was glad of the excuse not to turn and look at Draco�s face.
Maybe, just maybe, he had already made the ethical arguments to himself before
he entered the room, and this was the result of a long process of
self-deception.

�� Maybe.

�� But now
Harry had to deal with the image of Draco not only as a person who could
passively watch suffering, but as someone who could actively cause it. And it
was suffering so extreme his mind failed to comprehend it.

�� Harry
lifted his head and wiped bile from his mouth. The light was sliding into
darkness, but not into the abrupt stopping that signaled the end of all
memories in the Pensieve, which meant he had more to view. He would have to
keep as open a mind as he could, and reserve all the judgments he could make
until later.

�� He would
have to give Draco justice, if he ever could, after this.

�� Harry knew
that. But he was tired, and sick, his throat and his stomach and his heart
sore, and he had never felt less adequate to any task in his life. He thought
of jerking himself out of the Pensieve right here and now. What else did he
need to see? As Ron would argue.

�� He didn�t.

�� Was that
courage or foolishness or stupidity?

�� No one to
answer the questions but him.

�� Harry
pressed forwards.

*

�� Graballz:
Thanks for reviewing! In this case, no, the solution Harry has in mind is not
for Draco to die. Think about what you know about Harry.

�� SoftObsidian74:
Sorry for panicking you! As you can see, there is more torture coming
up.

�� Christabell:
Thanks for reviewing!

�� Mangacat:
Yes, what the Unspeakables did was not exactly ethical, even if they tried to
make it seem so by using �traitors� and Azkaban prisoners for their subjects.

�� Mariahs_fantasy:
Not for a while, but you can probably figure out what he was thinking if you
concentrate on what you know of Harry�s personality.

�� Stalkerchan:
Thanks! I do intend updates to be fairly regular, probably at least two a week.

�� WeasleyWench:
Thank you! Eventually, Draco�s reasoning will be explained. As to whether this
is the real Draco, I can�t tell you that yet.

�� QueenBoadicea:
Harry just knows that gay men sleep with other men; the books he�s read
concentrate on the sex aspect. He thinks that if he can just refrain from that,
he doesn�t really fit the gay definition.

�� Sorry for
your being confused; I�ll be trying to explain the unique magical concepts I
made up further along in the story. But yeah, this story does assume that you
have a full knowledge of book canon, including the seventh book, so I won�t be
explaining everything.
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Forgive Those Who Trespass

Chapter Ten�The Third Pensieve