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I Give You a Wondrous Mirror	By : Lomonaaeren Category: Harry Potter > Slash - Male/Male > Harry/Draco Views: 17806 -:- 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 Thirty-Three�No
Questions Answered

�� For Draco,
it was like a dream.

�� He had
known, vaguely, that his mother�s sister and his own cousin existed. But they
had never been a part of his life. How could they be, when his aunt had had the
bad taste to marry a Mudblood and then her half-blood daughter had chosen a
werewolf? A werewolf whom Draco had never liked, or had any reason to? Not even
Harry spoke of Tonks and Lupin often, and he was the only reason Draco would
have considered them as worth anything.

�� But it was
one thing to know that an aunt and cousin he would probably never see existed
somewhere in the world, and something else altogether to think they had been
taken out of it.

�� And then to
see the look in Harry�s eyes, caught between fury and blank misery, with the
guilt not far behind�

�� Draco
wanted to follow him on the path he was taking, and avoid letting him fall into
the vortex of his own emotions. He put an arm around his shoulders and turned
to look steadily at Granger. �What can we do?�

�� Granger,
who had been watching Harry in terrible pity, glanced up at him. Draco thought
she was glad to have someone to speak to, and permitted himself a mental sneer.
He had done it for Harry�s sake, not hers.

�� The site
has been put under the control of the Blood Reparations Department already,�
she said quietly. �We�re investigating to see if we can uncover a clue as to
why the Masked Lady chose to attack them�or to Andromeda and Teddy�s survival.�
She cocked her head a little, and Harry stirred under Draco�s arm. �I was
thinking that Harry might like to come along.�

�� Draco didn�t
think it was a good idea. On the other hand, it would have taken the force of a
hundred Death Eaters to hold Harry back now.

�� What is
this about?�

�� Draco heard
his mother enter the room behind him, and felt another sorrow smite his heart.
Andromeda had still been�maybe still was; it would be best if he could convince
himself to be optimistic�his mother�s sister. She was about to suffer a loss
that Draco was almost sure she would feel more keenly than he did.

�� The Tonks
house has been attacked, Mrs. Malfoy,� Granger murmured, at least keeping her
voice properly respectful, and not sneering over Draco�s last name. �By
dragons. We think�we think that Mrs. Tonks and her grandson might be dead. But
we�re going to look, so that we can make sure we�re not dismissing evidence out
of hand.�

�� There was a
long silence, and then Narcissa sighed and said, �Of course you must go. But my
son will come, too.�

�� Yes, Mrs.
Malfoy,� said Granger. �We�re�not sure why they attacked Mrs. Tonks, and there
are some spells that might help us find out and can only be performed by a
blood relation. If we find a body, that is.�

�� Draco felt
his mother�s hand brush against his back, and he knew how to read the way she
touched him without further instruction. Go.
Do whatever you can, and then come back safely, to me.

�� He touched
her hand in return, and thought of Scorpius, and Harry�s children. He would go
into battle beside Harry, and he found the thought exhilarating, but there was
no reason to take unnecessary risks.

�� Harry
himself was pale, but he nodded several times, as though Granger�s words needed
his personal approval. �We�ll be along as soon as we can make sure we have
everything we need,� he whispered.

�� Draco was
grateful for the extra minutes. He didn�t have his wand on him, he needed to
dress properly, and he wanted to take along a few of the more battle-ready
potions that he had taken to keeping on hand. Not to mention the fact that they
would have to cage Tutela so they could Apparate with her.

�� Given the
way Harry had gone mad the last time he attacked the Masked Lady, Draco didn�t
think it was a good idea to leave the owl behind.

*

�� Harry
nearly didn�t recognize the house.

He knew it was the right place,
because he hadn�t Splinched himself, Draco, and Tutela in the Side-Along Apparition
there. But fire had melted it, slagged it, burned it down to its foundations.
He shuddered slightly.

Draco�s hand, resting on his elbow,
curled around his arm in question. Harry glanced up, and saw the concern in his
lover�s face.

He shook his head determinedly. He
didn�t need to go back. He opened the cage, and Tutela hopped to his shoulder,
a warm, comforting presence who hooted now and then. Then Harry walked forwards,
steeling himself for more.

If Andromeda and Teddy had died
here, he might be the only one who would be able to confirm it for certain,
blood relative spells or not. He knew what they looked like more intimately
than anyone else alive. Ron and Hermione didn�t visit that often, and neither
did Ginny. Andromeda had never encouraged visitors. Remembering the
conversation she�d had with him about grief, Harry thought he knew why now.

He only hoped that she was still
alive to feel that grief. Regardless of what tortures she and Teddy might
suffer at the hands of the Masked Lady, they could come back from most of them.
Death, they could not.

They started in the gardens, or
rather the mass of fused sand and glass that had been the gardens. Nothing
green and alive was left. Harry had to use considerable cooling charms before
he could walk comfortably on the ground. He forced himself to lower his gaze
and search carefully for familiar landmarks, as well as anything out of place.

He frowned almost at once, and
reached out to pick up something that lay just on top of the glass.

�Not so fast, Potter,� Draco said,
and then flicked his wand. The hot shard rose up in front of him. Draco arched
an eyebrow, and Harry blushed and tried to pretend that he hadn�t nearly risked
burning his fingers off to do something that simple magic could do.

He turned his attention to the
shard instead. It was large and white, with a faint iridescence to it, like
mother-of-pearl. It seemed to be made of ceramic. It made a faint ringing sound
when Harry punched it.

�What is it?� he muttered.

�I�m not sure,� Draco said, and
then cast a charm Harry didn�t know, but which sparkled red around the edges of
the shard. He shook his head when the red glow faded. �That charm would have
told me if it was something I�d had contact with before. Whatever it is, it�s
completely strange.�

Harry ranged away, though Draco was
never far from his side, and Tutela was swooping back and forth above him, now
and then drifting low enough for her wings to touch his head. Harry had to
admit it was strange and comforting at the same time. He did most of his Blood
Reparations work alone; he hardly needed a partner to convince Muggleborns to
come back to the wizarding world. For the first time, he wondered if he should
have become an Auror after all, if this experience of companionship was what
Ron felt all the time.

There was no sign of a corpse, but
so thoroughly had the garden been burned that Harry was not sure there would have
been. He imagined, for a morbid moment, that he was walking just above Teddy�s
ashes, or Andromeda�s bones. He imagined the dragonfire melting their faces,
turning their eyes to jelly in their sockets�

He made himself stop imagining it,
especially when Draco gave him a concerned look, probably at the expression on
his face, and Tutela perched on his shoulder and hooted into his ear. They were
getting closer to the house, which had still smoked with too fierce a heat to
let anyone approach when Hermione�s people first arrived. He had to steel
himself for the fact that they might find answers there, and that the answers
would be uglier than anything he had ever seen.

He had to be strong. Whether Andromeda
and Teddy were dead or prisoners, that was still true.

*

�� Draco hated
everything about this place. His skin prickled unpleasantly with the heat. He
had to continually stop and renew the cooling charms on his boot and robes. And
he didn�t like the expression Harry wore, or the way that Tutela spent more
time on his shoulder than in the air now. He was wrapping his grief up in rags
and shoving it to the back of his mind.

�� Well, what would you have him do? Draco thought,
as he floated another shard of ceramic, or ceramic-like material, into the air.
He can hardly break down crying in front
of all these witnesses, and you know that he wouldn�t feel able to take comfort
even if you offered it right now. Leave it to his owl. That�s why you got her
for him.

�� He was
still trying to decide how he should feel, and wondering if Marian had been
here, when the first Inferius erupted out of the ground in front of him.

�� The ground
above it was glass and slag, a packed mound of gray and brown and half-white as
firm as anything Draco had strode on in his life, but that didn�t matter. The
corpse clawed its way upwards, the soil cracking and trembling and flying away
from its hands, and then stood in front of Draco, hunched, rotting, jaws
parting a moment before it flew at his face.

�� Draco
whipped his wand around in front of him and spoke, without thinking, one of the
Dark spells he�d spent some time studying when he first knew this was war. �Memoriam reverto!�

�� The Inferius
screamed pathetically as Draco�s spell tore through it, a thin, keening sound
that resembled the wailing of wind through rock. And then living memories
exploded in its head and clashed with the Dark magic that had made and driven
it, and it collapsed, pounding its own fists into its skull with pulpy sounds.

�� Draco
dodged past the screaming thing, heading for Harry. He crumbled a few more
Inferi on the way, mostly by melting them or Transfiguring their legs into
masses of hopping frogs and crawling grubs. He really had no doubt what he
would see.

�� Harry was
turning in tight circles, casting furiously, gold and green light whipping from
his wand. A ring of Inferi surrounded him. They were so intent that Draco wondered
how Harry had survived so far.

�� And then he
actually caught a glimpse of Harry casting spells, and understood.

�� Harry�s
wrist traveled further than Draco had known a wand could work. His mouth was
slightly open, even though he was probably casting half his spells nonverbally.
He seemed to know instinctively when a monster was about to close in behind
him, and he would whirl and leap and let the Inferi crash into one another.
Strong as they were, they were also heavy, and once they built up momentum,
they didn�t turn aside easily. They would smash forwards, and then Harry would
leap away like a kitten taunting a lion, and he would land in the clear while
they went down in a mass of dust and tattered strips of cloth. Meanwhile, his
magic tore their faces off and sank their legs into the ground so they couldn�t
move.

�� Draco
realized he had dropped too openly into admiration when a hand curled around
his neck and yanked his head backwards. He screamed, but the sound was muffled,
and the Inferius had grasped his wrist with its other hand, so he couldn�t get
the wand up in time.

�� He felt
Harry�s green gaze on him as if they were connected with a mental bond, and
then Harry crouched slightly.

*

�� Harry didn�t know how he managed
to leap over the Inferi. He only knew that seeing Draco about to die tore a
bolt of panic through him�no, no, I just
found him, we just fell in love, this can�t be happening�and then he was in
the air, landing miraculously on sand clear of Inferi and ignoring the burning
sting in his knees and ankles as he hurtled towards Draco.

�� He cast the
Cutting Curse without thinking about it, without worrying that he might slice
Draco�s hand off instead. He knew it was already perfectly aimed, the way that
he always knew when he was about to catch the Snitch. The Inferius�s hand
exploded into a curtain of gray powder, and Draco was able to bring his wand
up.

�� But he
still wasn�t going to be in time.

�� Harry
screamed, and his wandless magic rose and lashed out with a fury and force he hadn�t
known himself capable of.

�� The
Inferius vanished. It simply�went. Harry didn�t know if he had melted it, or
disintegrated it, or made it cease to exist. He was already beside Draco,
examining the fingerprints on his throat, making sure that he could breathe,
his half-formed questions coming out of him in great ripping gasps.

�� Draco just
shook his head, wordless, and then Harry�s vision went white-gold.

�� He had
braced himself to fight the pull of one of those tunnels the life-debts were
fond of before he understood what had happened. The magic had appeared only
briefly, healed the fingerprints on Draco�s throat to shadows, and then faded
again. Harry had no doubt that he would have similar shadows on his throat if
he reached up and touched them.

�� He had
saved Draco�s life a fourth time.

�� Eighth
life-debt,� he murmured.

�� And I
think there will be more,� Draco said, and then pulled Harry forwards and took
his mouth in a kiss so ferocious that Harry couldn�t do much more than submit
to it. Harry felt a sudden surge of gladness that he had a lover who was
willing to do that, and that not even killing could turn Draco into a different
person.

�� Then the
Inferi came at them again, and Harry turned to meet them.

�� Now that he
could fight side-by-side and back-to-back with Draco, their numbers didn�t seem
as overwhelming. And Tutela was back by now, screaming and swishing past the
Inferi, so silent and so keen-eyed in the dark that their lumbering swipes had
no chance of catching her. Harry felt laughter rising in his throat. It was
hysterical laughter, so he didn�t voice it, but even that felt better than the
bitter despair that had started to consume him when the ring of Inferi he�d
been fighting earlier pressed in.

�� And then he
fell.

�� He didn�t
know exactly how it happened; perhaps some piece of the burned ground had
twisted itself out from under him and cracked open in such a way that his
braced foot couldn�t take it any longer. Or perhaps another Inferius had
actually burrowed up from under and grabbed him. But he was down, and he knew
he was being drawn further away from Draco, and his casting of Cutting Curses
at the arms that held him didn�t appear to have any effect at all.

�� He raised
his head and snarled, knowing he might die, but more frustrated than
frightened. He was leaving Draco exposed, and his children without a father�

�� A low flash
of golden light exploded past him and destroyed the arm pulling him with a
cascade of what looked like blazing water. And then the magic of the life-debt
came in answer, and Harry knew he had the marks of hands on his legs, too, and
that Draco had saved his life again, and shared the scar.

�� He burst
back to his feet and turned. Draco was watching him with a contented smile�not looking
at the Inferius coming up behind him.

�� Harry blew
its head off just as the great arms reached for Draco, and there was a silent
flash of gold-white once more, like lightning without thunder. Harry wondered
idly where the life-debts had put the scars this time, since he had saved Draco�s
life before he was wounded. In its passing, he saw Draco grinning at him, and
felt a sudden surge of outrage.

�� He probably let me save his life on purpose,
just so that we would have ten binding us, like the couple Hermione told Ginny
about.

�� The little�

�� The ground
rocked, and he was thrown from his feet. Seeing the fountain of blue sparks
that rose from the north of the house, he didn�t think it would be a good idea
to try and regain them. He crawled towards Draco instead, who had his head
tilted back and was regarding the blue light with a gaping jaw.

�� What was
that?� he demanded.

�� Hermione,�
Harry said, feeling warmth race through him as all the Inferi in sight turned
to stone. �She developed a spell during the last few years that could cope with
infestations like this, because a few of the pure-blood supremacy groups we
pursued talked about experimenting with Inferi. But it�s enormously complicated�more
a ritual than a spell, really�and she would have had to have people defending
her and taking the pressure away from her before she could perform it. She must
have had just long enough.�

�� Draco
leaned on him silently. Harry stroked his forehead, and then glanced curiously
down at him. Sure enough, his robes had shredded around the hems, and Harry
could see the silvery marks of wide-spread hands on his ankle.

�� Draco
touched his throat and smiled wryly at Harry. �I reckon that we�ll have a
chance to look for that last scar later,� he murmured. �For now, should we look
for your godson and his grandmother?�

�� Harry
nodded, and offered a hand to help Draco to his feet.

*

�� Nothing. And
nothing, and nothing.

�� That was
the best thing that could be said of their evening�s expedition, Draco thought,
warming his hands with a cup of tea as he stood near one half-crumbled and
blackened wall of the Tonks home. They had found no trace of Andromeda and
Teddy Lupin, no sign of a struggle. The Masked Lady might have killed them and burned
their bodies thoroughly. On the other hand, she might have taken them with her.
Harry had described how frail and grief-filled the old woman was. A threat to
her grandson, the only family she had left in the world, would probably have
been enough to make her roll over.

�� Which didn�t
answer the question of what the ceramic shards were, or how the Inferi had come
to be buried under the grounds.

�� Granger
strode towards him. Draco took a moment to watch her in admiration. He would
never admit to that admiration, of course,
but he had felt the sheer strength of the magic that washed over him when the
Inferi turned to stone, and he knew how much concentration and power that must
have taken. Granger was still a Mudblood and an interfering bitch, but she knew
her work.

�� At the
moment, she was an interfering bitch who looked half-frantic, Draco thought. He
put his cup down and stepped forwards to meet her halfway.

�� What is
it?� he asked, trying to run everything his father had told him about Inferi
through his mind. He wasn�t an expert on the subject, but he might know more
than Granger�s team of �good� wizards and witches did.

�� I need you
to come with me right away,� Granger hissed. �Ginny�s here, and she�d made her
way to Harry before I saw her. With Harry in the mood he�s in�� She shook her
head and turned around again.

�� Draco followed
quickly. Though he hadn�t seen where his lover had gone�he had known that Harry
wanted time to mourn privately, and he had trusted Tutela to keep an eye on him�he
knew where he must be. After all, he could feel the magic building up from one
corner of the gardens, beneath a series of twisted shapes that might have been
the roots of a toppled tree.

�� And if
Harry was already that angry�

�� Stupid Weasley. Draco thought she
deserved to lose her life. But he knew that Harry wouldn�t agree, and it was
for Harry�s sake, not the wench�s, that he hurried.

�� He found
Harry leaning on the tree, his hand splayed as if he would like to dig his
fingers in but knew the crumbled bark wouldn�t stand it. And Weasley was in
front of him, tears streaming from her eyes, her fingers reaching out as if she
could drag him back to her side.

�� It�s for
the children�s sake, yes,� she was saying in an impassioned voice as Draco came
up. �But also for mine, and yours. I love
you, Harry. I miss you along with James and Al and Lily. And you can�t say that
you never loved me, that you don�t miss me, that the bond of trust has been so
broken that you wouldn�t want me near you again, after a lot of time and work
on my part��

�� And then
Draco came up beside Harry, and the world broke apart around them.

�� Draco had
thought the tunnels that the life-debts tried to draw them through before this
were insistent. He had not known the half of it.

�� His feet left
the ground. He could hear the hungry wailing like the cry of an Inferius, like
the bellow of a dragon in mating time. The light swarmed and bulged and rippled
with strange shapes wherever it liked. He could make out squiggles of brown and
orange in the gold and white, but he wondered if they were actually real or
just the result of his eyes desperately seeking any other color.

�� The air
opened in front of him, twisting and lifting as if he had already traveled
through part of the tunnel, and he saw an image of the Manor�s gardens, in the
dawn of an autumn morning, with Harry in his arms and Tutela fluttering around
them, while their children, Scorpius and Al looking at least four years old,
played on the grass, and Lily toddled about, waving her fists�

�� The vision
grew sharp as if it was edged with diamonds, and Draco could feel it breathing itself
into reality.

�� And then
Harry snarled, �Teddy has to be there!� and the tunnel dimmed and dropped them
and vanished as suddenly as it had appeared.

�� Draco,
breathing hard, reached down to Harry, who had dropped to crouch on the ground.
He couldn�t help wishing that that vision was
real, but they would have to survive the Masked Lady and somehow settle matters
with Marian and Weasley first.

�� And then
Harry threw back his head and screamed.

�� Draco,
stricken, dropped to his knees beside his lover and wrapped his arms around
him. Dull, sickly light was welling from Harry�s body�gold-white on the side
closest to Draco, and brown- red like dried blood on the side closest to his
wife. Harry was shuddering as if he were about to be ripped in two. Draco
swallowed fear and tried to hold on, since he didn�t think he could do anything
else.

�� Ginny, go!� he heard Granger�s voice bellow.

�� She
Apparated out, and the red light vanished. The gold-white clung for a moment,
eddying around Harry like mist, as if it wanted to be sure that he would be
there for it to manipulate in the future. Then it vanished, too, and Draco was
left with a shaking Harry and a Granger whose eyes looked as old and burnt-down
as the ashes around them.

�� What was
that?� he asked her.

�� That,� Granger said quietly, �was your
life-debts and Harry�s wedding vows engaged in a struggle against each other.
We saw the red light at Harry and Ginny�s wedding, when they bonded.� She
closed her eyes for a moment. �I�m afraid that you�ll create so many life-debts
they�ll become exactly as strong as
the wedding vows.�

�� And what
happens then?� Draco asked.

�� I don�t
know,� Granger said tiredly. �Every other record of a similar situation I can
find had the involved partner staying
with his or her spouse, Malfoy.�

�� And she
turned and walked away, leaving Draco there on that field of no answers
whatsoever, with the horrid image of Harry actually being ripped in half.

*

�� Myra:
Sorry, but you have to wait a while to find out about Teddy and Andromeda

�� AlcyoneBlack:
Well, if the Masked Lady can�t get to Harry, she�ll go after Harry�s friends.

�� Mangacat:
Does it help to know that you find out about the Masked Lady�s identity in a
few more chapters?

�� Listener: I�m
sorry to hear that. I hope this story brings you some comfort, or diversion
anyway.

�� Amiyom, mariahs_fantasy,
Mephistedes, half_n_half: Thanks for reviewing!
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I Give You a Wondrous Mirror