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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.

Chapter List
- 11
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Thanks again for all the reviews!

Chapter Twelve�Instauro Nos

�� Harry had
barely stepped away from the Pensieve when he staggered. He put one hand on the
base of the pillar supporting the Pensieve, though he longed to flinch away
because it was Draco�s rib, and one hand on Draco�s shoulder. Draco paused,
staring at him and mouthing a question.

�� I�don�t
know what�� Harry muttered. His head was swimming, and his feet seemed a long
way from it. He shook himself, remembering that he was making a spectacle in
front of a man who had just recovered perhaps the most disturbing part
of his past, and took a firm step.

�� It planted
him on the floor. He didn�t even remember falling, which argued he had blacked
out on the way down. He picked himself up, staring at his scraped palms; the
stone of the Pensieve rooms was as smooth as that of the rest of the maze, but
he�d come down hard, and with his hands splayed in front of him to catch his
full weight.

�� What�� he
asked.

�� The
communication sphere was suddenly in front of his eyes. Harry blinked, while
his vision narrowed and tunneled and rolled over twice and expanded, while
Draco carefully selected the facet that meant Tired.

�� Then
rest,� Harry mumbled drunkenly, and leaned his forehead on his palm. �I�ll be
up in just a moment to cast spells on the far doorway and�� He frowned. He knew
there was something else he had to do before Draco slept, but he couldn�t
remember what it was. He went floundering after it in his mind for a long
moment before he realized Draco was tapping out another message on the
communication sphere.

�� Not me.
You are tired.

�� Harry
finally understood what must be happening, and flushed for not figuring it out
earlier. The effects of the Cognosco had worn off. He was so weary that
the thought of standing was intolerable, let alone putting one foot in front of
another.

�� And so,
unexpectedly, came the first test of his new trust in Draco.

�� Harry
raised his head, though it lolled drunkenly on his neck, and stared at Draco.
Draco looked back, eyes glittering; Harry could make that out when he
concentrated as hard as he would on a Potions recipe. The shortened fingers
reached out, traced down Harry�s forehead over his scar, and landed on his
eyelids, which they forced shut.

�� He might as
well have spoken aloud.

�� If you
really trust me, prove it.

�� All
right,� Harry whispered. �Yes. I�ll sleep.�

�� He dragged
the blankets out of the satchel with numb fingers, and messily spread them on
the floor. He would have fallen asleep right then and there, but Draco forced
him aside so that he could hook his wrists under the blankets and arrange them
to his own satisfaction. Harry protested, but since it was in a sleepy mumble,
Draco seemed content to loftily ignore him.

�� And then,
instead of a pillow, Harry�s head somehow wound up in Draco�s lap.

�� The thought
occurred to him of what Ron would say, and then of the thoughtful nod Hermione
would give, and how both of them would stare when they first saw him like this.
He entertained, briefly, the idea that he should roll off Draco�s lap and lie
on the floor simply to prove a point, but he had forgotten what the point was.

�� Then a palm
stroked his hair, and the next moment he was asleep.

*

�� Harry woke
so slowly that he felt fretfulness pulse somewhere deep inside his head. Had
something gone wrong? Had someone cast a sleep spell on him? Had an Acromantula
come along during the night and tied both him and Draco up? Why was it so hard
to move?

�� But at
least he understood better when more of his consciousness returned. He was warm
and deliciously comfortable, lying with his head still on Draco�s lap, one
blanket over him and more beneath him, his breath still heavy and drugged in
his ears. Draco�s slow, carefully moving palm, wandering through Harry�s hair
to the nape of his neck and then back over his skull, proved he was still
awake, and keeping watch.

�� He had
slept next to Draco, of his own free will�well, mostly of his own free will;
Harry still doubted he would have chosen that if the Awareness Charm hadn�t worn
off�and nothing bad had happened.

�� He would
have liked to lie there and maintain the warmth, but a sudden thought of his
friends caused him to stiffen. What would they say, if they could see
him there like this? Hermione might comment approvingly. She might say
that it was good to see Harry getting over his problems with his sexual
orientation, enough to lie close to and accept comfort from another man.

�� Harry
pushed himself away from Draco, who stared at him with raised eyebrows. Harry
coughed, said, �Good morning,� and reached for the satchel. He was hungry, and
food was the best way to deflect any questions Draco might have.

�� He seemed
to have none. Instead of trying to start a conversation, he willingly accepted
the cold meat and cheese Harry offered and ate. But he stared at Harry the
entire time, and his gray eyes seemed to communicate significance without
meaning. Harry turned away from them at last and rose carefully to his feet,
testing to make sure the scrapes on his palms hadn�t interfered with his
ability to draw his wand. They had scabbed over already, which he was grateful
for, but which worried him with the indication of how long he�d slept.

�� Ready,
Draco?� he asked, the name slipping easily from his lips this time. �I think we
should start.�

�� Draco
pulled himself gracefully to his feet. His eyes remained on Harry, joined this
time by a quiet smile. Harry turned away, blushing. He could think of all too
many reasons Draco would smile. He trusted the other wizard not to betray him
to the Unspeakables now, but Draco would still make snide and mocking remarks
as often as possible. God help Harry if he ever learned about Harry�s little
preference for men.

�� Is there
another section of maze beyond this room?� he asked Draco.

�� Luckily,
Draco closed his eyes to think about that, which cut off that intense stare.
Harry shifted from foot to foot. The wooden one still clunked with an
unfortunate noise, but at least he was getting used to balancing on it.

�� At last,
Draco shook his head. Harry nodded briskly, slung the satchel over his
shoulder, called the communication sphere and the sphere of light to float
after him, and made his way to the room�s far door.

�� It opened
on absolute blackness, as the other doors from the Pensieve rooms had, but this
time Harry caught his breath when the sphere darted past him and he started
casting his spells. This was a single, enormous room. It wasn�t a
cavern, either. The walls and floor were finished stone, jointed flagstones.
There were faint lines of squares that might have been windows filled in by
more stones. Harry frowned, wondering why the maze would bother with such
things when the windows had never existed, and then shrugged. Why put Draco�s
memories in Pensieves on pillars made of his rib bones? The symbolic aspects of
the maze seemed as important as the physical and real ones.

�� The room
had no furniture, and Harry�s spells revealed, once again, no traps and no
magical creatures. He had just started to relax when Draco grabbed his arm. He
could squeeze hard for someone without a proper hand, Harry thought, wincing a
little.

�� What?� he
whispered.

�� Draco
pointed to the walls. Harry lifted his wand, and the sphere of light flew
higher. He frowned when he made out long lines of portraits, stretching away
beyond sight. They seemed about the same size, all only a bit shorter than a
human body, all set in neat mahogany frames. And they all seemed to be of the
same woman, unless they changed beyond the point that his light could reach.

�� Harry
leaned as near as he could without stepping into the room, studying the woman
in the portrait. She was a dark-eyed, dark-haired, beautiful witch, her eyes
cast down on the floor. She sat in a chair covered with forest-green cloth,
turned sideways to the viewer. She wore formal blue dress robes, as if she
expected to go dancing any minute, and her hands were neatly folded in her lap.
The only unusual thing about the portraits, Harry thought, was the series of
runes inscribed under each one�and, of course, he couldn�t read them, never
having been smart like Hermione and taken Ancient Runes in Hogwarts.

�� Well, what
do they say?� he whispered to Draco.

�� Draco shook
his head, which might mean he couldn�t read them or it wasn�t important. The
next moment, he flapped his left hand demandingly for the communication sphere,
and Harry floated it over to him before he considered how odd it was that he
should be able to read that single gesture so neatly.

�� Draco
tapped the facets that meant, I know her.

�� Harry
blinked and glanced back into the room. �You�ve seen the original?�

�� Unspeakable.
Torturer.

�� Harry
hissed under his breath, and studied the portraits again, the unknown runes
seeming ten times more ominous to him than they had before. �Were you there
when the picture was painted?�

�� Draco shook
his head, and looked again into the room, troubled.

�� Harry let
him have his stare, but when he made no move to reach for the communication
sphere or to press forwards, he asked, �Is there a way around this room?�

�� Another
headshake.

�� Harry put a
hand on his shoulder, and drew him close, so that Draco could absorb the warmth
and steadiness he needed after being confronted with the picture of a woman who
had probably tortured him. Hadn�t one of the voices in the scene where
he lost his fingers been a woman? Harry was quite prepared to believe that it
had been, and to hate her.

�� At last
they moved forwards together, Draco matching paces with Harry exactly, even
when his natural feet could have carried him faster than Harry�s mismatched
ones.

�� Harry
glanced over his shoulder continually, and sent the light sphere wheeling in
odd circles, so that it filled corners with sudden radiance and reeling
shadows. Nothing was revealed, and nothing approached them. The room remained
absolutely silent, and no portrait differed from the others. Harry, to Draco�s
visible nervousness, did stop and spend some time studying the runes beneath
one picture, thinking that they might be Latin or simply letters reversed for a
mirror, and that a good moment�s concentration would make him able to figure
them out. But nothing came to him�they still remained dots and lines and
squiggles�and he gave up in disgust and led Draco on.

�� He wished
there was some way of knowing when they were halfway through the room. There
wasn�t, of course. No line was drawn on the floor; no door appeared in the
distance; they passed the portraits and the lines that signaled filled-in
windows at absurdly regular intervals. Harry cast a spell that sharpened his
senses so that he might hear or smell anything out of the ordinary, but all
that enabled him to make out was his own stink of sweat. He wrinkled his nose
and cast a Cleaning Charm. Draco mimed a sigh of relief at him. Harry shoved at
his shoulder, though not hard enough to get Draco away from his side. �Prat,�
he muttered.

�� More
pictures, and more stones, and more darkness, and more light where the sphere
floated, and more silence, and Harry was losing his fear of the room, though he
thought he should have felt more suspense instead. It was only natural
to feel a bit giddy when you�d been keyed up for an attack and then nothing
attacked you, wasn�t it? Harry thought he must have felt that way all
the time.

�� He frowned
and tapped his fingers on his thigh at his inability to remember. Him.
The giddiest person he knew. The boy who had rushed around in Harry�s second
year snapping pictures of him and never listening when Harry asked him to stop.
The boy who died in the Battle of Hogwarts. What was his name again?

�� But no,
wait, he hadn�t died in the Battle of Hogwarts, had he? He had lived and
married that giggling girl Ron was always dating in sixth year. They had six
children already. Six, to match the number of the years she�d spent in Hogwarts
before she started dating Ron. Harry was delighted with himself for making the
connection, and delighted with them for the match. They both suited each other,
so giggly. What was her name?

�� He glanced
at Draco�Malfoy�Draco, and wasn�t it funny how the name kept seesawing in his
head? Draco-Malfoy-Draco was rubbing his forehead as if it hurt, frowning
slightly. Harry laughed, and figured it was just jealousy when Draco jerked his
head towards him in alarm, because Harry could laugh and he couldn�t. �Why are
you doing that?� he asked. �I�m the one with the scar.�

�� Draco
summoned the communication sphere with a flap of his hand, though it took Harry
a moment to understand him. Harry shrugged indolently as he sent it skimming
over. Not his fault if Draco-Malfoy-Draco�s lacking fingers meant that
his gestures were hard to read. Or should that be Malfoy-Draco-Malfoy?

�� Whilst
Harry pondered this intriguing question, Draco was stroking the communication
sphere, looking hopelessly for the facet he wanted. Harry laughed again. �We
didn�t put in words for everything,� he said, and then frowned a little.
Maybe they had put in words for everything. It would have taken an
awfully long time, but who could tell how much time had passed since they�d
begun this journey into the maze anyway?

�� Had they
begun the journey? No, Harry thought he had come alone. But then he�d found
Malfoy-Draco-Malfoy.

�� He thought.

�� His
attention was drawn back as Malfoy hissed and pushed the communication sphere
away from him, to float in midair. Then he glanced to the side and froze in
shock. The next moment, he was pinching Harry to make him look, too.

�� Ouch,�
Harry said indignantly. He didn�t see the big deal when he turned, either.
There were just the portraits on the wall, like always, with the witch in the
fancy dress robes turned so that she was looking at them, her mouth gaping
wide. And a faint silvery mist was streaming into each painted mouth. So what?
It was cold in here, and when it was cold you could see people�s breaths. �So
what?� Harry asked aloud, and shrugged. �She�s just breathing.�

�� Draco gave
him a look of distress. Harry couldn�t remember seeing anything so funny since
the jokes made by those blokes.

�� You
know, he told himself, cudgeling his brain. Those blokes. The red-haired
ones. I�ll remember their names in a moment, don�t know why my memory seems to
be so full of holes�

�� Draco
opened his mouth and closed it again, silent as a sheep in a thunderstorm.
Harry laughed once more, and reeled down until he was sitting. It seemed a
safer position than walking. He closed his eyes; the spirals of silver smoke,
which seemed to be rushing from his temples towards the mouths of all the
portraits, rendered him dizzy.

�� Someone
fetched him a terrific thump on the back of his head. Harry opened his eyes and
repeated, �Ouch.� A blurred figure stood above him, and for a moment he thought
he must have lost his glasses, but then he realized it was just that he didn�t
recognize the man.

�� Hullo!�
Harry said, pleased to have met company in this unpleasant dungeon. Or was it
an unpleasant dungeon? Maybe he was wandering in a dream, or the dungeons under
Hogwarts, which resembled home to him now. �Who are you?�

�� The man
fell to his knees in front of Harry, oddly silent in response to a friendly
greeting. Harry squinted. He was barely visible through the fog of silver that
seemed to be steaming off them both. But he thought he could make out shortened
fingers reaching and plucking the glasses off his face.

�� Harry let
them go; they were covered with the silver steam, anyway, and less than
useless. He watched in curiosity, though, as the fellow with the nubs for
fingers began to trace clumsy letters in the fog on the glass, because he had
nothing better to do.

�� Insta,
the stranger wrote, occupying both lenses, and then breathed on them to obscure
the letters and started over again.

�� It really
was uncommonly cold in here.

�� Uro nos,
the stranger finished, and then handed the glasses back to Harry, who squinted
obediently at the letters.

�� Oh, no, I
don�t want to wear them, you can keep them,� he said, and settled his head back
against the wall. He had a vague recollection that he used to have unpleasant
dreams, but he believed he could sleep without interruption now. His head felt
pleasantly empty.

�� The
stranger thrust the glasses at him again, then forced them onto his face and
picked up Harry�s arm, pressing his fingers shut around the stick he held.

�� That�s my
arm,� Harry pointed out�patiently, he thought.

�� The
stranger flourished the stick through a movement, again and again, so
insistently that Harry thought he might as well mimic the motion so he could
get solitude and some sleep. But when he repeated it, did that content the
stranger? No. Of course not. He could never get a break, Harry thought
crossly. The stranger jumped to his feet and started tracing the letters in the
air this time.

�� They won�t
stay,� Harry felt obliged to inform him.

�� The
stranger pointed at him, waving his hand wildly in the air and beginning to mouth
the words this time. Harry watched the movements of his lips critically, to be
sure he had the words and because the bloke really wasn�t a good writer. Then
he shrugged and lifted his wand.

�� This time,
he used the movement and the words at the same time. �Instauro nos!� he
shouted, enthusiastically, because he hadn�t had a good shout in a while.

�� The steam
around him shivered, and then appeared to reverse itself. Harry gave a sleepy
smile and lowered his wand. Hm. That was funny. The stick was a wand? What did
he do, go about playing at magician and performing at children�s birthday
parties?

�� What did
he do? What an excellent question.

�� And then
the memories slammed into his head, all at once, the steam streaming backwards,
the collision with what he�d managed to retain making Harry gag. He leaped to
his feet at once, panting harshly, and shot an arm around Draco, bringing him
close to his side. Draco came without protest, his head falling on Harry�s
shoulder as if he�d exhausted himself.

�� He
probably has, if he lost some of his own memories and then had to go through so
much effort saving my life, Harry thought grimly.

�� Blue-white
light like the glow of a will-o�-the-wisp flickered over the surfaces of the
portraits. Harry could see clearly now that the position of the witch had
changed. All of her leaned forwards in their chairs, their fists clenched in
front of them and their mouths open in hungry snarls. Harry shuddered. She had
nearly eaten him�and maybe Draco.

�� He wasn�t
sure which vision made him angrier�himself as a mindless shell and his friends,
whom he had to rescue, suffering forever, or Draco sent back into a version of
the same slavery he�d just escaped, losing all his newfound memories.

�� He scarcely
thought about what he was doing. His wand flicked out, and he sent a
Conflagration Curse at the nearest portrait.

�� The
blue-white light caught on fire in a moment, and oil poured down from the
surface of the painting as if it were melting. Harry stared in fascination,
even as the figure of the witch behind the oil blurred to a dark, skeleton-like
shape. Draco was tugging and pulling on his arm, trying to get him to run away,
but Harry refused to move. He wasn�t about to leave his enemies behind him, and
though he doubted he could kill these paintings, any more than he could kill
the shadow-wolf or the Malfoys, he had to make sure he neutralized them.

�� The oil
melted away completely. What was left looked like a doorway into another room,
the one where the pictured witch sat. And then she stepped out of the portrait
and started striding towards him.

�� Harry
didn�t need Draco�s panicked squeeze to tell him that this was not good.

�� No time for
qualms, no time for spells of lesser power. Harry twisted, to put Draco fully
behind him, and aimed his wand directly at the striding figure. �Avada Kedavra!�

�� The green
light passed through her as it would have through a ghost, not slowing down.
The witch grinned at him, if you could call opening her mouth fully and drawing
in her breath a grin. The dress robes she wore stretched and creaked around her
as if supported by whalebone.

�� Draco
pinched him again.

�� Harry
looked at him, perforce, and realized that Draco was leaping up and down
excitedly and pointing at the portrait the witch had come from. Harry put up a
Shield Charm in the hopes that might hold their enemy off a moment, and then
stared at the burning painting, choosing to trust that Draco had something
important to tell him, even if it was in actuality a foolish child�s fancy.

�� The oil had
poured into the runes. Harry blinked. They weren�t runes at all, he saw, but
parts of letters. They had been impossible to decipher because they were so
broken and scattered, but the oil filled in the gaps like a shimmering paste.
There was now clearly a name beneath that portrait, and, Harry thought, beneath
the others as well.

�� He glanced
at Draco. Draco gave him one more nod, and mouthed the name, conveying that
this was the witch he had known.

�� Josephine!�
Harry said aloud.

�� The witch
stopped and screamed, a piercing, terrible sound, though still not as loud as
the roar Harry had heard when he and Draco were both in the room with the
Malfoy-chickens and the books. Everything in the room glowed: Draco�s hair, the
silvery streams of memory that once again were beginning to flow from Harry�s
temples to Josephine�s mouth, the blue-white light on the burning portrait, the
sphere of light, the crystal communication sphere, and the lines between the
stones on the floors and wall. Harry flung an arm up to partially shield his
eyes from the light, but didn�t stop watching as Josephine�s body thinned into
a spear of radiance and flew backwards into her portrait. The fire recoiled,
the melted oil trickling upwards and once again resuming the appearance of a
barrier over the picture�s occupant. Harry thought he heard a final hungry
snarl as the name became unreadable once more.

�� That just
left the problem of how they were going to cross the remainder of this enormous
room without the other portraits sucking out their memories. Even if he didn�t
burn another painting, Harry knew well enough that the oil barrier didn�t
prevent Josephine from feeding.

�� Then he
snorted to himself. Once again, as with the shadow-wolf, the solution was
simpler than he was making it out to be.

�� He chanted
a certain charm Hermione had taught him when he wanted to avoid looking at
letters he hadn�t answered yet, and then used a multiplication charm on that,
so it would spread out to engulf however many objects of the same kind crowded
the room. In moments, each portrait was flipping to face the wall. The silver
streams stretching out from Harry halted, wavered uncertainly with no mouths to
go to, and then flowed back into his head when he repeated the Instauro nos
incantation.

�� And then,
finally, they were free to cross the rest of the room without being eaten
alive.

�� Harry
sighed and looked down into Draco�s face. �You just saved my life twice, you
know,� he told him. �You have the right to be a little smug.�

�� Draco
leaned against Harry�s chest to listen to his heart instead.

*

�� SoftObsidian74:
I think Draco didn�t have many options at all�not even the ones Harry would
have, because he�d never been taught how to fall back on acting for principles
instead of just for himself.

�� You have
the feeling that something bad is coming up because something bad is always
coming up.

�� Mangacat:
This chapter wasn�t high on the gore level, either. But make no mistake, Harry
and Draco are in danger of dying pretty much every moment. Cheerful

�� Ramandu:
Thanks for reviewing!

�� QueenBoadicea:
Richard is definitely dangerous. Harry tends to think he�s less dangerous than
Voldemort, though, just because he doesn�t have Horcruxes and doesn�t seem to
be as powerful.

�� Harry gets�call
it a �clue�to Ron and Hermione�s whereabouts fairly soon.

�� Tepee712:
Thanks! I�ll hope to maintain that standard, then.

�� Lilith:
Harry trusts Draco now, but he still doesn�t have the full story. He�s going to
insist on the parts of it Draco does remember next chapter.

�� WeasleyWench:
Thank you! Yes, Harry is definitely forging a bond with Draco. How far it goes
and what it entails, though, he�d still set sharp limits on.

�� And I had a
very happy holiday; I hope you did as well.
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Forgive Those Who Trespass

Chapter Twelve�Instauro Nos