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Parsimony	By : Lomonaaeren Category: Harry Potter > Slash - Male/Male > Harry/Draco Views: 14122 -:- Recommendations : 1 -:- Currently Reading : 2
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Chapter Twenty-Three--Resurrection of Hope

            The next week was quiet, astonishingly enough. Draco seemed to be recovering from his shock, and the Slytherins still watching him didn't press the point. Each time they might have, Harry caught their eyes and smiled nastily. Then Zabini, or Nott, or Goyle, would turn in the opposite direction and pretend that they'd never found anything interesting on Harry's side of the classroom in the first place.

            Of course, other things that were quiet were quiet for less hopeful reasons. The Aurors went to the Forest of Dean, as Klein told Harry in confidence before the story broke on the front page of the Prophet, and found the remnants of a Death Eater encampment, but no actual Death Eaters. Rumors of Lucius Malfoy being free circulated, but so did rumors of half a dozen other people, including Greyback, leading the Death Eaters, so Harry didn't pay that much attention to them.

            What worried him most was that there was no confirmation from the Ministry whether or not Lucius had broken out of Azkaban.

            "But I don't understand," Harry told Klein. He'd let a week pass because he'd thought it might take her some time to persuade Olversvald and anyone else at the Ministry to release the information to him, but he hadn't expected to have nothing. "How hard it is to look into the cell and decide that he's there or not there?"

            Klein, who had bigger circles under her eyes than Harry had seen her with before, sighed and glanced away from him. "You don't understand the politics of the guards who run Azkaban in this new world," she murmured. "They lost quite a bit of prestige when You-Know-Who summoned the Dementors to his side and they couldn't prevent it. So now they cling to what secrets they have as a means of dealing with others and commanding their respect. This is a golden chance for them to pretend that they know something mysterious and keep it to themselves."

            Harry narrowed his eyes. "And Olversvald allows that?"

            "Olversvald is powerful in relation to me, and you," Klein said, though she gave him a sideways look that told him she doubted the second half of her statement. "But not so in relation to the entire power hierarchy of the Ministry. You place too much dependence on him and his position in regards to you."

            Harry gritted his teeth for a moment. "Forgive me," he said then, and he knew his voice was a little poisonous, despite his efforts to prevent it. "But I thought the Azkaban guards or whoever's handing you a load of bollocks would know the importance of accurate information to the Aurors so that they could actually track someone down who might be murdering people."

            Klein sighed. "The Ministry is more complicated than you think, Mr. Potter. I appreciate that you have magical and social power I cannot equal, but that's reality. There's always power and corruption."

            Harry snorted. "In this case, then," he said. "I thought the Aurors would know even if the general public didn't. If you can't tell me, fine. But you could assure me that you knew one way or the other, and then at least I would think you stood a chance of tracking Malfoy, or whoever it was, down."

            Klein winced. "The information gives the guards power over us, and frankly, that's what they care about, other parts of the Ministry, other departments, not the public," she said. "Though perhaps it is partially in revenge for the public ignoring them except to blame them when someone escapes or showering them briefly with attention when someone important is condemned."

            Harry just shrugged. He was becoming more and more sure that he didn't want to be an Auror, if he would have to listen to people who didn't care about anything but their own egos. "All right. But please tell me when you have anything to tell."

            Klein nodded. Harry was sure that she would, because she seemed to respect him more than she had before. But that didn't give him anything to bring to Draco, which he had really hoped there would be.

            He went to find Draco, at least, because news or no news, it always gave Harry pleasure to see him.

*

            He found Draco on the shore of the lake, his arms folded around his knees, his gaze locked on the water in a way that said he didn't want to talk. Harry sat down beside him and cast a nonverbal spell that would check the area around them for traps or Eavesdropping Charms. There were none, and so Harry felt free to lean back and stare up at the mostly bare trees above them.

            Draco moved beside him. Harry glanced at him and saw that he had turned to stare at the Whomping Willow.

            "I know," Harry whispered. "But I think he has his own things to work on right now. He was concerned for us, or he never would have given us that potion, but it's best to leave him alone."

            Draco folded his arms, and the icy hunch of his shoulders made Harry wish that he'd come with good news from Klein after all, to melt at least a little of the frozen wall Draco was locking himself behind.

            "I don't know," Harry said. "I don't know why he's so set against helping you now that he knows the truth, except that he has his own life to deal with. Or lack of life," he had to add, remembering the leaves plastered across Snape's neck and the chalk circle he sat in. He still wasn't sure if Snape counted as alive at the moment, or as some kind of self-willed and powerful Inferius. "So, forget about him. We should start talking about Memory Charms again and what we're going to do to free your friends."

            Draco turned to stare at him. His face was so drawn that Harry reached out and put a hand on his shoulder. He would have pulled Draco into his arms, but public friendship or not, Draco probably wouldn't like that, and Harry didn't want to start rumors. Rumors that might guess right, actually, about the feelings that Harry thought he was starting to have for Draco.

            "Everything feels so hopeless," Draco whispered. "We can't do anything for them, or at least all the books keep telling us that they're only going to get worse. And Snape wouldn't help me, and I know they haven't told you anything about my father or you would have told me when you came out."

            Harry said nothing except to rest his hand a little more heavily. Draco closed his eyes and then opened them again. Harry thought he'd never seen anyone look more tired.

            "I hate to ask this," Draco said, his voice a papery noise. "But can you please go to Snape? One more time? Just ask him when he'll be done with the Resurrection Potion and if he can make us something else when he is. Something that would solve everything."

            Harry swallowed. He had the bad feeling that a potion like the one Draco wanted didn't exist, and he also knew what Snape would probably say if Harry asked him. But he'd try, nevertheless, because at the moment it seemed like it was the only thing that would cheer Draco up. "I'll try."

            Draco's smile was faint, but still enough sun to melt the ice. Harry sighed and cursed himself for a fool.

*

            "Make no noise."

            Harry had taken off his Invisibility Cloak the moment he was out of the tunnel and opened his mouth to speak to Snape, but now he froze, one foot off the ground. In the end, he lowered it slowly and leaned back against the wall, trying to make no more noise than some drifting dust would have.

            Snape didn't seem to notice his precautions. He leaned forwards instead, his ferocious gaze on the fire, and now and then his hands would flick and dance, tossing in seeds and bits of bark and pods that made the fire turn so many different colors it dazzled Harry's eyes. Snape said something sharp, and the fire changed to a deep black like a starless night. Harry blinked.

            "Now come forwards," Snape said, and even if the invitation wasn't addressed to Harry, he found himself stepping towards the fire before he knew what was happening. Snape picked up the end of what looked like a rope and pressed it into his hand. Harry stared at it, and discovered that it was a series of leaves plaited together into a long braid. Snape held the other end and extended it over the fire.

            "Now," Snape whispered. "Snap the rope out over the fire and hold it still. No matter what happens, you must hold it still."

            Harry felt his arm trembling as he extended his hand, and grimaced. He hoped that he would be able to hold as still as the ritual, or potion, or whatever, needed him to. He'd had a stressful day and he was missing sleep, again, to come here and check on Snape. He would have thought his day and a half of sleep in the hospital wing would have cured his tiredness as well as his magical exhaustion, but apparently not.

            Snape hissed under his breath, and muttered, and hummed. Harry listened to the muttering, but it didn't sound like it was in any language he knew. And he had to admit, he was more interested in the fire.

            It leaped from color to color madly, back through black to red and then purple and then green, and then a blue that made Harry ache a little, it was such the color of a perfect summer sky. He remembered playing Quidditch with Ron above the Burrow and swallowed. His summer had been busy, but it seemed simpler now that he was in the middle of the school year and all this crazy shit was happening to him.

            Snape began to swing his arm. Harry tried to hold the rope still anyway, but Snape gave him a single glance that seemed to say this was the time to disregard his instructions and start doing what Snape did. So Harry swung the rope in the same direction, and watched it become a blur as it circled above the fire, causing a slight stink of singed leaves to pour into his nose.

            Harry squinted. It was hard to be sure, especially with the rope going so fast, but he thought, now, that he recognized the leaves. They were the kind that Snape had put on his neck over the wound when Harry first came into the tree.

            He wondered what they were in the middle of, and then lost the thought as Snape brought his arm down decisively, right towards the fire, and Harry had to do the same thing or risk having his hand ripped off.

            The leaves burned. The fire seemed to leap up and reach for them, and then it rolled around the leaves in its midst, blazing, and Harry coughed as the smell got all over him and made his eyes water. He gritted his teeth and fought down the temptation to just bugger off somewhere and leave Snape alone. He hoped this was worth it when it was all said and done, though.

            Snape pulled his hand back and spent a few moments meditating, his eyes closed and his breathing shallow. Then he opened his eyes and held out his hand to Harry, his palm flat and down. Harry blinked at him. If there were steps he was supposed to know in this ritual, well, Snape should have told him.

            "Give me something from my former life," Snape commanded, his voice echoing weirdly off the wooden walls. "Something that you knew me by, something that will have me remember how I used to be."

            Harry felt a jar travel through him. What the fuck did he have that he knew Snape by? If he had followed one of his impulses that afternoon and stolen Draco's Sltytherin tie or something, that might have been enough to remind him, but as it was, the Half-Blood Prince's book had burned, and Harry didn't have anything else that he thought might belong to Snape--

            Then he had an idea, and he didn't wait for it. He just acted. He took out his wand, said Diffindo nonverbally in case saying it aloud would disrupt the ritual, and watched as the blood came welling out of a slender slash at the center of his palm. He leaned forwards over the fire, as much as he dared, and shook the drops into Snape's palm, grateful that most of them landed there.

            Snape stared at him. Harry stared back, and said, in a tone of confidence that he hoped could fool the ritual, "You saved my life. My blood still flows in my veins because of you, because you kept me alive. So. Take it."

            Then he held his breath, fearing he'd been wrong and it wouldn't work. But Snape gave him the barest of smiles and closed his fingers around the blood, already picking up another soundless chant. Then he turned and plunged his hand out as if he was going to punch something.

            Instead, it went straight into the heart of the fire.

            Harry opened his mouth to shout or say something or ask Snape if he was mad, but the hand held still in the heart of the fire, and Harry smelled burning skin and hair, but Snape didn't flinch. Harry held back the words. He would hate to have helped Snape with the ritual and then for everything to go wrong because of him.

            Snape hissed a soundless word, and the fire turned black again. Now Harry thought he could smell ice, and frostbitten skin, if that had a smell. Snape pulled his hand back out, and there was something glowing black there, a not-bright spark that made Harry's eyes burn. He jerked his head away, but not before Snape brought his fist to his mouth and opened it.

            The spark tumbled down his throat. That much, Harry did see before his eyes shut in instinctive self-defense.

            The world seemed to turn gently and definitively inside out. Harry floated in a place where he couldn't put his feet down and his lungs were filled with something huge and soft that made him feel as if he were trying to breathe feathers. He choked and coughed, and someone was choking and coughing beside him, away, in another world. He flung his hands out, and touched nothing. He wondered if he would tumble through this strange dimension for life. It certainly seemed likely that he would.

            But then the world solidified under his feet again, and Harry bowed his head and took a long, grateful breath. He caught a faint whiff of smoke and ice, and then nothing. He blinked and lifted his head, looking around.

            The fire was gone, leaving a scorched hole where it had been. Metal slag glimmered next to it; it might be the remains of a melted cauldron. Harry stared down at his hand, which didn't hurt, and found the cut healed. He shook his head, no nearer understanding what had happened than ever.

            "Potter."

            Harry flung himself to his feet and turned around again. Snape stood where he had sat when he ate the spark, watching him. His fingers rested on his wand as though he intended to cast a Memory Charm. Harry braced himself to resist if he tried. This was too important to Draco, and he thought Snape owed him something for helping with the ritual. What would have happened if Harry hadn't come along just then?

            "You have helped me with the Resurrection Potion." Snape nodded at him and touched his throat. Harry could see long red lines under his fingers, as though Nagini had scraped her fangs there and done no other damage. "If you had not come in when you did, it would have been much more difficult. I--thank you." Snape looked as if it was harder to say those words than it had been to brew the potion.

            "How did you get that far without someone to help?" Harry asked. He swallowed a few times, and the obstruction that seemed stuck in his throat finally cleared. "And why didn't you contact me the way you did before, if you needed help?"

            "I could not have sent an owl without unduly disrupting the potion." Snape cocked his head to the side. He might have been in front of a mirror and experimenting with ways to hide the scars. "And I knew that you would show up eventually."

            Harry stared at him, then shut his eyes and shook his head. He didn't want to listen to Snape's self-justifying blather about why that was true. "Fine. Then can I ask a favor of you?"

            Snape went still, staring at him. "If you ask for yourself, then I shall grant the favor," he said. "Not for Mr. Malfoy."

            Harry growled and slammed his fist into the wall beside him. That accomplished nothing, really, but it made him feel better and made Snape's face darken, so he'd take the trade. "Why not? I helped you, and I don't want anything for myself. Nothing you could help with, at least," he added, thinking about his wish for an easy solution to Draco's problem and the ability to shake information out of the Ministry and an uninterrupted night's sleep. "I want something for him."

            Snape looked as though someone had pressed a lemon to his lips and wouldn't let go until he ate it. "If you...insist," he said, drawing out the words. "What would you wish me to do?"

            "Tell me where we should be looking for a solution to those Memory Charms." Harry ran a hand through his hair and pushed most of it so it stood straight up. "Or how we can spy past the wards into Azkaban and ensure that Lucius Malfoy is either in his cell or not."

            Snape tilted his head the other way. Harry wondered idly how he would cover up the scars. Because of course he would. At the moment, there was a small chance that someone might remember the way Severus Snape was said to have died and he could be accused of being him. He wouldn't let the chance, however small, remain out there. "I am intrigued by the challenge of the wards," Snape said. "And disinclined to repair Mr. Malfoy's own damage."

            "Fine," Harry said, anxious not to start another argument. "Then does that mean you can find a way to help us see into the cells?"

            "Yes. Perhaps." Snape fixed on Harry again. "I need as much information about Azkaban as you can give me."

            Harry nodded. He thought Klein would probably be glad to supply him with what she knew, as long as he promised to share the information with her. That meant she would be able to get one up on the guards who enjoyed keeping the Aurors in the dark. "Fine. At the moment I know the Dementors are gone, but that's all. Oh, and that the Ministry is denying Lucius escaped."

            Snape sneered. "Of course they are. The Ministry would not do something useful." He took a step towards the tunnel as if he wanted to use it, and Harry backed out of the way. As long as he had some way to communicate with Snape, than the git could go.

            For some reason, though, Snape lingered, and a moment later said, "The Philomela's Revenge potion. You found it useful?"

            "Dead useful," Harry assured him. "Thank you. Draco had a few Black artifacts that let us into the middle of their camp, and none of them saw or heard us. Well, until Draco cast the spell that was supposed to remove the glamour from his father's face and he was so shocked it didn't work that the artifacts fell to the ground."

            Snape grunted. He watched Harry with care that Harry didn't understand. It wasn't as though the potion could have failed, not if Harry and Draco were still there to plague him. "And you saw nothing in the camp to indicate one way or the other that it was Lucius Malfoy?"

            Harry shook his head. "No. Draco said that the man didn't walk like his father, and I reckon he would know--"

            "Or that his hope is blinding him," Snape said sharply. "You know that you cannot trust Mr. Malfoy to tell the truth on this one, not when he may not know what to look for."

            Harry shrugged in agreement. He was grateful that both Snape and Draco had that thing where, when you said nothing, they thought you agreed with them. "There weren't any other clues I could see. The other Death Eaters seemed to defer to him and be glad when he noticed them. Oh, and Parkinson was there. Cutting her hands on some sort of musical instrument."

            Snape leaned towards Harry, and Harry was sure he had unconsciously struck whatever had made Snape linger in the first place. "Describe it," he said.

            "Well, she wasn't the only one," Harry said, trying to remember details he hadn't noticed much at the time, caught up in Draco's search for his father. "But it looked like a silver harp, and she was cutting herself slowly, spreading the blood down a little bit at a time. I don't know much else, because shortly after that, Draco started trying the spell, and was shattered when it failed."

            "He owes his survival to you?" Snape gave him a nasty little smile.

            Harry shrugged. This time, he let the silence stretch out, so Snape could interpret it whatever way he wanted.

            "The combination of blood and silver was magic the Dark Lord was working on shortly before he died, to increase his power," Snape said abruptly. "Smearing blood over a musical instrument and then playing it at certain rituals is also effective. That Lucius is taking this up concerns me. And it does point, reluctant as I am to grant Mr. Malfoy's wild beliefs credence, to it not being Lucius. Only someone in the Dark Lord's inner circle would have known of his experiments, and at the time of the Battle of Hogwarts, Lucius was not so trusted."

            Harry smiled. "Thank you. That'll be something I can take back to Draco and tell him that's solid. He'll appreciate it."

            "In the meantime," Snape said, after another frozen moment when he stared at Harry as if trying to make his actions fit into one template that Harry was determined not to be forced into, "I will work on a potion that will allow you to look past the wards of Azkaban. I will contact you, however, and expect you to find a way to my laboratory, wherever I establish it."

            Harry concealed a groan as he thought of more lost sleep and nodded. "Fine. Can I bring Draco with me?"

            Snape nodded, and then vanished down the tunnel. Harry gave him a good head start of thirty seconds, and sure enough, when he followed him, saw nothing all the way down the tunnel or when he emerged from it, either.

            Harry drew the Cloak over his head and hurried towards the castle. It might not be exactly the help Draco had asked for, but things were looking up.

*

            unneeded: Thank you!

            At the moment, Harry is somewhat shielded from the consequences because no one knows he was there, but the consequences are going to be more important later on than they are right now.

            Fullmoons_wings: Thank you! Harry will stand up for himself when he thinks it's merited; that's something he learned this summer. But it's also something he's most likely to do when someone else really needs him to, as he felt Draco did.

            Draco was frozen in shock and despair, yes. But one of the reasons that he's so cold in this chapter is that he has no idea what to do next and no idea how to make up the debt to Harry. He does feel ashamed of being the one who always needs to be rescued.

            SP777: Thank you! I hope you feel that this one is also worthwhile, despite the lack of fights.

            Zip: I think that because I'm writing Harry closer to canon than I usually do (in age, if nothing else), I am trying to make his characterization a bit more canon than usual.
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Parsimony