Adult-FanFiction.org : Harry Potter

The Wages of Going On	By : Lomonaaeren Category: Harry Potter > Threesomes/Moresomes Views: 43959 -:- Recommendations : 3 -:- Currently Reading : 7
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter. I am making no money from this story.

Chapter List
- 38
- 39
- 40
Thank you again for all the reviews!
Chapter Thirty-Nine—Dying for the Truth
            “There are people who will punish you for this,” Tarriash whispered, sagging against the bonds that held her to the chair. Her voice was faint and harsh.
            Severus watched her in silence. He judged that now she was fairly beaten by the power he had shown her and would answer truthfully. She seemed to think that she would be able to do that, then be set free, and come back and have vengeance on them later.
            Severus was not about to do that. He had learned from the Lestranges’ mistake in leaving them alive and functional. Corrupting someone with a telepathic ritual might be all well and good in theory, but more practical was killing your enemies once they had ceased to be useful to you.
            “I am sure that you would like to think there are,” said Severus gently, and moved a step forwards. That made him the one Tarriash’s eyes focused on. He let them. He would do what he could to protect Draco and Harry from being noticed, even by someone who wouldn’t survive the interrogation. “Now. What part did you play in the betrayal of the safehouse wards?”
            Tarriash tensed her muscles, and said nothing. A second later, she moaned, and stared down at her legs, which were trembling.
            “Did I mention the secondary consequence of the spell, which inflicts more pain the longer you take to answer?” Severus asked softly.
            The glare she gave him probably contained more hatred than she had ever mustered against Harry. Severus nodded patiently back. Then he waited, and the trembling grew pronounced, and Tarriash finally huffed out a short gasp of agony and replied.
            “I didn’t know anything about the initial plan the Lestranges made.” Her legs grew still, and she stared down at them as she continued. “But I was approached by some people sympathetic to me in the Aurors, and they told me that the Lestranges wanted revenge on Malfoy and Snape.” Her glare picked them both out. “They were also the ones who told me that Potter would be doing the guarding.” A second later, Severus saw that her hatred for Harry was, after all, stronger. “So then I decided that I would give the Lestranges some notes I had about Potter’s fighting style and likely tactics.”
            How important those had actually been, Severus did not know. But it was plain that it was enough, at least for Draco, who had turned pale. The expression on Harry’s face had become difficult for Severus to read at all.
            “You bitch,” Draco whispered.
            “How did you arrange to be there as my Healer when we rescued ourselves?” Harry asked. His voice was bland, like his expression.
            Severus cast a sharp glance at him; Harry was doing exactly what Severus wished he would not do with Tarriash, draw attention to himself. She loathed him enough already. But she didn’t seem to loathe him with any greater intensity as she answered. “I’ve healed enough people from Dark afflictions and spells they wouldn’t want noticed that I could pull strings in St. Mungo’s. When they heard that the Aurors needed a Healer, they called for volunteers, and I arranged for the only other woman who volunteered to be…elsewhere. I wanted to see what you’d suffered with my own eyes. And it was worth it,” she whispered. “Oh, it was worth it.”
            Severus held out an arm, so that it slammed into Draco’s chest when he tried to step forwards with a snarl. Harry didn’t seem that much affected. “Name the Aurors you were in contact with,” he said.
            Tarriash closed her eyes and began to reel off several names, most of which Severus didn’t recognize. But he did know Stockwell, the leader of the attempt to sacrifice Harry in the knowledge ritual, and Nelson, the Auror they had stripped of his magic.
            Draco seemed to be dancing from foot to foot, nearly literally, as Tarriash finished her answer. “And how much do you know about the ritual and the consequences of what happened to us?” he snapped. “How much of it was your planning?”
            Tarriash gave Draco a narrow, considering glance that made Severus want to shove him out of the way again. But the damage was probably already done, and acting now would just reveal that he wanted to protect his—his colleagues against Tarriash’s notice. Better to remain still and make it seem as if that prospect did not trouble him.
            “I knew from my contacts in the Aurors about the experiments the Aurors had been conducting trying to make telepathic bonds possible. Some of the victims of those attempts had come here.” Tarriash shrugged, a motion that she couldn’t make casual. Severus wondered what she was about, until he saw the way she watched Draco and Harry, again. She was trying to hurt them any way she could, sting and sting them until they ached all over, because she was just that kind of viper. “It was also simple to steal those notes and send them to the Lestranges, with some details about the kind of ritual circle that would be most effective in binding three people.”
            Severus said nothing. Not only did he want to deny Tarriash the satisfaction of seeing his pain, he thought that he might kill her now if he moved.
            Draco did move. He ducked around Severus’s arm, and he headed for Tarriash with his wand clutched in one hand and a dreamy smile on his lips. Severus opened his mouth to shout. Draco did not like inflicting pain, had been used as little more than a rack by the Dark Lord, and would regret this later, whatever he might feel now.
            Harry neatly tripped Draco, swept him around in his arms as Draco began to fall, and laid him against a wall. Severus could not hear what Harry said to Draco; he had laid his mouth too close against Draco’s ear.
            To distract himself, Severus turned to Tarriash and said, “You know what will be the necessary end of this?”
            Tarriash turned her madly joyful eyes away from Harry and Draco and looked at him. “I know that you can’t murder me in the midst of St. Mungo’s without triggering more wards than you knew existed,” she said. “And it’s only inside my offices that the spells to prevent the detection of Dark Arts exist. Do anything outside them, even something to hide my body, and you’ll be stopped at once.”
            Severus smiled. She probably thought she was effectively threatening him because she could only tell the truth now, and so he had no alternative but to believe her. “There is more than one way of killing someone,” he said, smiled more widely into her puzzled eyes, and turned to study Harry and Draco.
*
            “This is what she wants, you realize that. To hurt you until you strike back because you’re so hurt, not because you’re considering the scope of your retaliation and what would hurt her most. Don’t let her get to you.”
            Draco closed his eyes, and swallowed. He wanted to say that he was different from Harry and Severus. Harry was used to dealing with criminals who wanted to hurt him because of his Auror career, and for that matter, people who hated him just because of who he was. And Severus had learned patience, or had it enforced on him, because of the way that he had to act with potions, who didn’t care if you were upset or not when you brewed them.
            But what experience did Draco have to prepare him for taunts like this? All he had was the fluttering pulse in his head that drove him on to vengeance, and the experience of that bond, and how horrible it had been.
            That’s not true. You have something more right now. Feel the way that Harry is touching you.
            Harry’s hands pressed down heavily on his shoulders, that was true, and his breath slid over Draco’s chin. His body wasn’t actually touching Draco’s, but not that far away, either, sensed more than felt. Draco reached up and laid his hand over Harry’s, letting himself be forced to relax the way that Severus would be around a potion.
            “We can do this if you just hold onto your temper.”
            “We can do anything, right?” The words were glib and light on Draco’s tongue, and he tilted his head back to lock his eyes on Harry’s. “Including replacing the bond with something more? Something else?” His hand moved to the nape of Harry’s neck.
            Harry’s eyes, gone cautious, weren’t what Draco had wanted to see. “You should consider that later when we’re in a different situation,” he said, moving his head so that Draco’s hand fell off his neck. “And with someone who’s willing to participate in a bond again. I’m not. I don’t ever want someone in my head again.”
            “Not what I meant,” Draco whispered. “A bond in the sense of friendship is different than one forced by a ritual, don’t you think?”
            Harry didn’t answer, instead moving away and turning to face Severus. Draco dared a look with him, suddenly wondering how Severus felt to see him and Harry so close together without him. Severus didn’t look anything other than prim and slightly displeased, though, the way he did when Draco messed up a simple potion.
            “This book that we found,” Draco said. He felt calm, centered again, with the two people he valued the most right there. He picked up the book that Severus had removed the curse from, and saw Tarriash’s face contract. He smiled. “Yes, we removed that nasty little spell you thought would defeat us. Well? What kind of information does it contain on the ritual circles and the bonds?”
            Tarriash seemed to struggle against answering for a moment, but in that instant, bubbles of burned skin appeared on the side of her face. Draco watched in appreciation. He had had no taste for causing pain to the Death Eaters, but he wondered now if that was because most of them had never directly hurt him, only the Dark Lord. If he’d been able to hold someone under his wand who had hurt him, like the Dark Lord himself, who knew what he would have done?
            “I found the book only after I realized that you had survived and bonded,” Tarriash finally gasped. “I wanted to understand what had happened, why the trap hadn’t worked.”
            “And what did the book tell you?” Draco asked, swinging the book around, and watching the way that Tarriash’s eyes nervously followed it. “Where did you get it?”
            “I removed it from the library of St. Mungo’s,” said Tarriash. Of course, the one library that we probably wouldn’t have been able to get access to, Draco thought, trading a grimace with the others. “And the book told me that a bond and ritual circle like the one you were exposed to could only be transmuted by a sacrifice.” Her eyes went back and forth between them. “I am trying to determine what sacrifice it would have been. Not your magic. That was all I learned.”
            It must have been, Draco thought, or Severus’s spell would already have punished her. He looked at Severus, who had his arms folded and a considering look on his face, then at Harry, who nodded and stepped forwards.
            “What do you know about Voldemort coming back?” he asked.
            Tarriash flinched, but Draco thought that might be as much at the name as because she was surprised or frightened. “What? I heard nothing about that. Do you mean—do you mean that you sacrificed your defeat of him so that you could survive the bond?”
            Draco opened his mouth to ask what she meant, but Harry plowed him down. “You’re not to ask questions. I want to know what you heard about methods for removing the bond, either elsewhere or from that book.”
            “The book said the bond could only be removed by reversing the sacrifice,” said Tarriash. “You would have to take back your magic or restore to life the person or animal you sacrificed. Not likely.” She looked satisfied.
            “Your information is outdated,” Draco said, and took even more satisfaction than he thought she had felt in watching her squint at him in frustration. “We got rid of the bond, and we didn’t need to reverse the sacrifice.”
            “Perhaps not the best idea, Draco,” said Severus mildly. He had moved close enough that one hand rested on Draco’s shoulder, not far from his neck. “Even if she is going to die…”
            He didn’t want Draco to reveal any more information, Draco knew that. He would have rolled his eyes if he wasn’t facing Tarriash. If an enemy they were going to kill wasn’t safe to tell the truth to, who was?
            Harry shifted off to the side, and caught Draco’s glance. Draco looked at him, and considered seriously, for a second, what Harry had sacrificed, and what would happen if Draco mentioned it to Tarriash accidentally.
            Then he sighed and stood down. The three of them were safe to share information among, and if he couldn’t be content with that alone, then he would be ungrateful. He had already known that he couldn’t tell anyone else the truth of the Banishing Curse that they had used on the Lestranges, either. He rolled his head and murmured to Severus, “Is there anything else that we need to know?”
            “She hasn’t outright answered the question about Voldemort,” said Harry. “Did you know that the Aurors who were going to take me captive a second time would have asked me questions about Voldemort, because they thought he was coming back?”
            “I knew nothing,” said Tarriash. She was flexing one hand as though working something up from her side or the side of the chair, although Draco knew that they’d thoroughly taken her wand away. He decided to keep a sharp eye on that. “The most I heard about the D-Dark Lord was that the Lestranges regretted his defeat and thought his spirit felt satisfied when they had exacted revenge from you.”
            Harry studied her, so calm and deadly still that Draco wondered if he believed her. Then he said, “Severus, would you mind Legilimizing her? I don’t know the right questions to ask, and I don’t dare let her die without more information.”
            “Very well,” said Severus, without demurring as Draco had been sure he would do. He raised his wand and murmured the incantation, and his gaze locked with Tarriash’s. Draco moved off to the side. He had once accidentally interrupted the Dark Lord’s eye contact with a prisoner he was using Legilimency on, and he had had flashes of unwanted images and memories. It had taken him days to feel like the inside of his head was his own again. Although he suspected the effect would be milder with Severus than it had been with the Dark Lord, it still wasn’t something he wanted to experience.
            “We seem to be at another dead end.”
            Draco grimaced as Severus stepped back and broke the eye contact. Tarriash was shuddering with her head down, which Draco noted with satisfaction. It at least showed that Severus hadn’t been gentle with her. “You didn’t see anything about the Dark Lord in her mind?” Draco asked.
            Severus shook his head, his mouth twisted in a grimace that other people might have taken as wry. Draco had known Severus longer, and could see the faint desperation behind it. Severus might not want to charge into situations without a plan, but on this count, he was close to doing so. “She knows nothing. She has done enough to hurt us that she deserves punishment, but all she did in regards to the Aurors was pass information on to them. She did not know what they intended to use Harry for.”
            Draco sighed and leaned against Tarriash’s desk. “Where else do we search?” He had to admit that he had no ideas, and his skull felt hollow when he tried to think of them. Harry’s unexpected insight into Tarriash’s involvement was a fortunate break of the kind that probably wouldn’t happen again.
            “There’s one thing we can try.”
            It was Harry who spoke, his voice nearly sepulchral. Draco turned to him. “No,” he snapped.
            Harry stared at him. “You don’t even know what I was going to propose.”
            “I know that tone of voice. You only use it when you’re going to talk about something noble and stupid and that you want to do all on your own. No.”
            Harry sighed noiselessly. “I thought we’d had a talk about trusting the risks that I want to take.”
            “Draco is right that risks should be confined to as small a magnitude as possible,” Severus cut in. “However, I for one would be interested in hearing your suggestion.” His gaze cut across Draco’s, and the little jerk of his head said that if Harry’s plan was too dangerous after all, they could always reject it after they’d heard it.
            Draco swallowed back a protest. The reason he knew that gesture was that he had proposed some silly plans of his own when he was a Death Eater, and Severus had listened to them and then rejected them, and prevented Draco, several times, from blurting them out in front of anyone else.
            But if he had paid Draco the compliment of listening to him, Draco thought it only fair they do the same to Harry. He sighed and turned back to Harry reluctantly. “What did you have in mind?”
*
            Harry watched their faces for a second to make sure this wasn’t a false alarm and they weren’t about to start insisting that he couldn’t make his own decisions. But although Draco’s mouth still had grim lines about it and Severus’s face was entirely blank in a discouraging way, at least they didn’t interrupt.
            Harry nodded and heaved the book that Tarriash had found. “My suggestion is a knowledge ritual adapted from the one that Stockwell and the others were going to use on me. Not as dangerous, not as apt to hurt me.” He saw Draco’s mouth open, but he lifted his voice and talked on. “This book can probably tell us one that we could use. If it has our bond in it, then it has information on incredibly rare things. A knowledge ritual that’s safe to use is an incredibly rare thing.”
            “I don’t want to put you at risk,” Draco announced.
            “I must admit that this idea is not one I favor,” said Severus at the same time.
            Harry paused a second to clear the confusion of hearing two different voices at once out of his ears, and then shrugged a little. “It’s true that we’ll have to study for a bit. But we’ve relied on one ritual to take revenge on the Lestranges already. I think we can trust each other to put enough time and preparation into it.”
            Draco and Severus looked at each other. Harry waited it out. He did think they were communicating on some level he couldn’t access, but that came from shared experience and had nothing to do with the bond or even having been in Slytherin together. He would have done the same thing with Ron and Hermione in front of them, not even meaning to.
            “The idea could be tried,” Severus muttered at last, and Draco nodded, although Harry thought he could hear the creaking of tendons in his neck as he did.
            “Good,” said Harry, and turned to Tarriash, who had been entirely too silent during these last few minutes for his taste. Even supposing she was still recovering from Severus’s Legilimency, she had the look of someone who was listening and storing up secrets. “And what are we going to do with her?”
            “I said there was more than one way of killing someone.” Severus’s voice, mild and deep, made Tarriash look at him and away from Harry, at least. Harry would be a little ashamed to admit how relieved that made him. Tarriash’s eyes flamed as if she wanted to burn him alive with the force of her hatred, and she might succeed if she went on looking at him for too long.
            “I told you that any Dark Arts you use will be detected. There’s more. The spells on my office that confine the Dark Arts inside will fall the minute I die. So you’ll be surrounded by people who want to know what all the Dark magic inside here is, whether or not you’re the ones who originally put it there.”
            “Thank you for the warning,” said Severus. He glanced back at Harry. “You can’t think of any other questions that you want to ask her?”
            “Is the only reason you hate me because I arrested your brother?” Harry asked her then. “That’s a hell of a reason to hate someone, when he was the one doing the crimes in the first place.”
            “Herman was a genius,” said Tarriash flatly. “In ways that you don’t understand, and never will.”
            She wouldn’t say more than that, so Harry shrugged and turned to Draco. He shook his head. “I want to take that book with us, but other than that, I don’t think she can tell us anything else.”
            “Fine,” said Harry, and waved Severus on. He had to admit he was a little curious about what the man was going to do. It probably involved one of those spells that Severus had invented, but Harry couldn’t think of anything he’d seen in the Half-Blood Prince’s book that would adequately punish Tarriash for what she’d done.
            Severus faced Tarriash and said nothing for a moment. Then he murmured, “A pity that we cannot bring a Dementor here. But it would not accomplish what I want it to, in the end.”
            “You developed a spell that mimics the Dementor’s Kiss?” Harry asked, impressed in spite of himself. He hated Dementors, but he could recognize how skilled someone would have to be in magical theory to invent a spell like that. They’d briefly studied, in Auror training, some people who had tried and failed, and ended up as soulless husks.
            “Yes,” said Severus. “But my spell does not suck the soul. It sucks away knowledge. Any knowledge I ask it to. And it leaves a corner of the victim’s mind alive and trapped, and screaming. They know what happened, but they cannot communicate it to anyone, even what is left of their own mind. It comes out only in relentless nightmares, for the rest of their lives.”
            “No!” said Tarriash sharply, in a shrill voice that Harry thought expressed her real fear for the first time.
            Severus paid no attention to her. He came up to her, tightened the magical bonds on her with a nonverbal spell that Harry recognized, and laid his wand in the center of her forehead.
            “I am going to take your knowledge of Healing,” he said. “I am going to take your knowledge of what we were doing here today, and the conversation we had in front of you. I am going to take all knowledge that you had of the Dark Arts, and rituals, and bonds, and curses. Everything, I think, relating to magic.” He paused, and smiled. “Except Lumos. You will ned some protection against the darkness, after this.”
            Tarriash screamed into his face and tried to struggle, but that was why Severus had tightened the bonds, after all. Harry listened to the unfamiliar chant, and watched as magic spread around Tarriash’s face and head like clinging ivy vines. Slowly, knowledge and spark and something more drained from her eyes. Severus moved back within a few minutes, admiring the way she helplessly blinked.
            “I haven’t damaged her magical core,” he explained, when Draco looked a pointed question at him. “There will be no sign that it was affected. She could relearn what she has lost. It will only take her years, and years, and years.” He smiled once more at Tarriash, and turned and left.
            Draco followed him, the book on rituals and bonds clutched under his arm. Harry looked one more time at Tarriash. She was staring at him in a dazed way, the way that someone might who was just coming out from under the influence of a Memory Charm.
            He knew he should be horrified by what he had witnessed, the way he should be by his own use of the Dark Arts and the Wand-Cracking Charm he had seen Severus employ.
            He should be.
            But he had changed. And his impulse to follow Severus and Draco out of the room, and be close to them, was stronger than his impulse to stand there and stare at Tarriash and contemplate her. So he followed.
            He smiled as he did it.
*
easyreader: Thanks! And so far, Harry has been inclined to let Draco and Severus do what they want, except when it comes to overprotecting him. He really did change a lot as a result of what the Lestranges did to him.
pittwitch: Thanks!
- 38
- 39
- 40
You need to be logged in to leave a review for this story.You need to be logged in to leave a review for this story.
Report Story

The Wages of Going On