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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
- 4
- 5
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Chapter Five�Treacherous
Memories

�� Harry
forced himself to open his eyes and watch the continuation of the memory.
Malfoy had deceived him, of course, and he would not forgive himself for
falling for the trap. But at least he had become aware of the deception before
it could advance far, and there might be more clues in the Pensieve as to why Malfoy would do such a thing.

�� Had he been
betrayed? Maybe he had, but God knew what he had done in the meantime. If he
had been responsible for helping to recruit others�if he had tortured and killed
and harmed others in the name of getting the Dark Mark off his arm�

�� Harry licked
his lips and calmed his fears by sheer force, the way he had compelled himself
to study for exams during the Auror training. He would miss details of the memory,
important nuances, if he continued to focus on himself. He watched as the
strange man and Malfoy touched their wands together, and a spark of diamond
light passed from one to the other. It wasn�t a spell Harry recognized, but he
could describe it well enough; the spark flared like magnesium in water. He
might be able to get an answer from Malfoy about it.

�� If I can trust anything he says.

�� Really, the
yawning pit of betrayal in his stomach made no sense. He hadn�t had the time to form a friendship with Malfoy of
the kind that would regard such concealment as a treachery. And he should have
known, would have known, that Malfoy was capable of something like this if he
had kept a clear head. It was only his horrified pity that had made him ignore
his own memories of the past.

�� No longer, he thought, and then started
as the memory spun around him and became another place, a smaller but brighter
room with large enchanted windows lining the walls. Malfoy was leaning on the
edge of a round wooden table, staring down at something in the middle of it.
Harry sidled closer, reluctant to come into contact even with this memory
Malfoy, but wanting to know what could make him look so grave. A chess game?

�� But no, he
was toying with a series of red and blue counters that looked like fat marbles.
Harry frowned.

�� Ah, Draco,�
said a familiar voice, and the bearded stranger moved into the room. He wore
casual robes now instead of Unspeakable gray, but Harry was sure of his
identification. �You haven�t yet decided which position those balls should go
in?� He chuckled and took off his cloak, hanging it from a hook next to the
door he�d entered by. Harry glanced at it quickly; there were wet stains on it,
already diminishing, but recognizable when he saw a gleam of white next to one
of them. Melting snowflakes. Had this scene taken place last winter?

�� Not yet,
Richard,� said Malfoy, and flung his head back. Harry controlled a sneer at the
sight of his face, which was free of the shadows that haunted the face of the
real Malfoy waiting in the room behind him. I
suppose his actions haven�t come to recoil on him yet, so he�s been eating and sleeping perfectly well. �I do think I�m
close, though. There are only so many orders that Sir Galen could have arranged
those marbles in, and I�ve duplicated his invention more or less exactly.� He
glanced at the wooden table again. �The more combinations I try and which prove
nonsensical, the fewer I still have to try.�

�� Harry
frowned. The name Sir Galen was familiar from his Auror training�some ancient
wizard who had been working on learning the secret of immortality, but without
the use of the Philosopher�s Stone�but he had to let it go for now, so he could
keep up with the conversation.

�� That�s the
same thing you said last week, Draco,� Richard murmured. He had a goblet of
some drink in his hand now; a glance sideways didn�t enable Harry to tell what
it was. �And the week before that, and the week before that��

�� And, just
like that, the atmosphere in the room had changed. Before, Harry would have said
that the two men were friends, or at least colleagues, the way he was with most
of the other trainees in the Auror Department. Now Richard watched Malfoy with
no trace of a smile, and his hand on the stem of the goblet was too tight. And
Malfoy had folded his arms as if he were cold, his eyes narrowed and
speculative, the way Harry had seem him look when he was trying to figure out a
way to use Umbridge to his advantage.

�� The more
time passes, the larger my chances of breaking the code are,� Malfoy said
quietly. He lifted his head and shook his hair back. Harry could see an added
pallor to his skin now, and decided, reluctantly, that he hadn�t been completely unaffected by his stay with
the Unspeakables. �If you had permitted me to try translation charms and
rearranging charms from the beginning��

�� Absolutely
not!� Richard snapped. His hand tightened again; Harry was vaguely surprised
that he hadn�t crushed the goblet altogether. �Those parchments are too
delicate for such advanced magic, which literally breaks apart and reforms the
material the letters are written on. Even if they were yours in the beginning,
I can�t let you simply manipulate them now.�

�� Harry
glanced back at Malfoy, and saw him jerk a little, as if he had just figured
out the answer to a problem that had been plaguing him. Other than that motion,
though, no trace of surprise showed on his face. He simply nodded a little and
hummed under his breath. �Just so. And then constructing this invention took me
some time. But I will understand it.
And, in fact�� He faced the table and lifted his wand.

�� The red and
blue balls began to roll together with a series of clacking sounds. Harry
scanned them desperately, but he couldn�t make out what they were doing, other
than sliding along grooves and channels and corners carved into the table.
There were symbols he didn�t recognize cut in delicate flame-like patterns next
to the grooves. It looked like the world�s most complicated game of billiards.

�� The balls
spiraled around each other in a dizzy series of turns, which made Harry shake
his head and squint; if something important happened in the next few moments,
he wanted to be able to see it, not dozens of dancing spots across his
eyesight. He did notice that there
was a large, dimpled depression in the center of the table into which all the
balls eventually settled, except for nine which halted in various places on the
carved pattern and remained as if nailed there. Harry scanned those still
balls, looking for a pattern. Seven were blue and two red; he couldn�t tell
what that meant, if anything.

�� Finally
every other ball was still, and Malfoy looked up expectantly at Richard, who
was frowning and rapping his fingers on the tabletop.

�� But we
knew, already, that most of them must go to the center,� he said. �We knew that. The problem is��

�� The problem
is the ones along the way,� Malfoy interrupted, his face shining with a scholar�s
passion that made Harry think of Hermione, and then scold himself for the
comparison. �Where should they go? Where do we put them so as to fracture the
pattern appropriately and set up lines of magic that will help the walker to
achieve true immortality?� He
gestured at the maze in front of him. �I�ve placed them at last.�

�� With a soft
exclamation, Richard bent over the table. Harry stared at the pattern again, relaxing
his mind and letting the visual observation skills that Auror Gillyflower had
tried to pound into his head take over. He was fairly sure that he could remember
the position of the balls when he returned to the real world, though asking him
to remember all the twists and turns of the maze was impossible.

�� Well, I�m sure Malfoy will be able to
remember when he gets these images back, Harry thought viciously.

�� Yes,�
Richard murmured. �Yes, I see.� He tapped the third ball abruptly, one of the
red ones. �Why is this here, though?
Sir Galen�s notes seem to call for it to be on the fourth turn, not this
straight path.�

�� That�s one
of the precautions he took, sir.� Malfoy�s voice was extremely smug, reminding
Harry of the times that he�d got a potion right before the rest of the class. �Place
the balls in the wrong order or the wrong settings, and the maze will become
nothing more than a giant trap for everyone inside it.�

�� Harry
cursed under his breath. Was that
what had happened to the Department of Mysteries? Had they tried to enact this
spell or build this maze, in order to create a pattern of sorts they could walk
to achieve immortality, and been caught in it?

�� Except he
still didn�t understand how they would bring a pattern carved on a table to
life. It was one thing to decode a message; it was another to create corridors
to imitate the twists and turns he saw splayed out before him. And what about
the flame-like symbols next to it, and the balls themselves? What did they
represent?

�� Neither
Richard nor Malfoy seemed overly concerned about that, however. They were
chattering happily to each other about increasingly abstruse magical theory.
Harry stood with his arms folded across his chest, waiting for the memory to
stop and release him from the Pensieve. He had a few things to say to the
present-day Malfoy about playing with ancient magic and the consequences he
deserved for doing so.

�� When the
memory shifted, however, it plunged him into darkness, instead of releasing
him. Harry came up abruptly on alert, his wand clutched in his hand, and stared
in several directions, even though he knew nothing here could hurt him.

�� Maybe. After the discussion he�d watched
Malfoy and the Unspeakable having, Harry wouldn�t have put it past them to trap
a Pensieve in some way.

�� A moment
later, light flared through the darkness. Harry turned and tracked it towards a
small firepit in the center of a floor that might be wood or might be stone; the
flames didn�t throw enough light to make it out. Malfoy stood not far from the
fire, one hand over his mouth, his eyes large. Harry could hear his quick, unsteady
breaths. A woman stood across from him, clad in the gray of the Unspeakables.
Her hair was gray, too, though more the color of iron than ashes, and her eyes
were large and dark. Harry winced. Her face was distorted with the same
unhealthiness that plagued Malfoy�s now. Was he watching the point at which Malfoy
had tortured the first of his victims?

�� But the
woman had a wand in her hand, and she was speaking softly but urgently to
Malfoy. Harry edged nearer.

�� You know
this has to be done, Draco,� she said. �I am never one to argue for unnecessary
sacrifices. This is needed. You know it.�

�� I didn�t�I
didn�t�� Malfoy shut his eyes and shook his head. In that moment, he looked
very young, as he had in the memories Harry had seen where Voldemort was
ordering him to torture someone else. Harry squashed the sympathy that thought
stirred up. Malfoy had had no choice in that situation. Here, he had, and had
got himself into water deeper than his head. Harry didn�t have to feel sorry
for him now.

�� This is
only the first step on a long road,� the woman said. �But think of what we gain
at the end! True immortality, without the price paid by those who try to drink
unicorns� blood! Common immortality, not dependent on the rare Philosophers�
Stones that miserly alchemists clutch to themselves! Immortality that leaves
the mind and soul intact along with the flesh, unlike what we have found in the
transformations! Isn�t this worth a few broken limbs and lost lives along the
way? Besides, they were only criminals, Draco. And we didn�t promise any of
them they would survive, only that they would be free from Azkaban during the
time we were using them.�

�� My father
was thrown in Azkaban once,� said Malfoy, so lowly that Harry was surprised his
companion heard him. She reached across the fire, though, and clasped his hands
between hers.

�� And you are
a different breed of man than he was, Draco,� she said, her voice soaring, rich
and warm. It reminded Harry, a very little, of the way that Hermione got when
she was trying to persuade him and Ron to care about house-elf rights. �You are
a better fit for this new world we are constructing. Your father thought only
in terms of petty power, ambition fit to control people but not benefit them.
Am I right? From what you told me about him, he couldn�t even foresee the
consequences of his own actions, or he wouldn�t have begun to serve under a
madman.�

�� That�s
true,� Malfoy said. �But, Pearl�� Harry started, until he realized it must be
the woman�s name ��I can�t see things like that happen and not question. It�s
not possible. When Richard first brought me here, I thought what we did would
be�theory. Not, not this.� He made a little gesture at the fire.

�� Harry glanced
at the fire, wondering for a moment if Malfoy was seeing images in it. And then
he gagged, and put a hand over his mouth, since he wasn�t sure what would
happen if he vomited in a Pensieve. The fire�s kindling wasn�t wood. Harry
could make out a gaping mouth and eyes under the flames, and ears, and sockets
where limbs should have been. The compact, folded human body, which might have
been female, was sprouting fire from every possible orifice, and Harry thought
she was still alive.

�� It�s
rather shocking at first, yes,� Pearl said soothingly. �But, don�t you see, each
time we do this, we move a bit further towards final knowledge, Draco!� Her
hands stroked his, soothingly, caressingly. �We see what the human body can
endure. We can detach limbs now, and make them live. We can take immortality
from magical creatures, and we�re beginning to be able to apply their magic to
ourselves. We show that someone can burn, and burn, and not die. And when we
give that knowledge to people who deserve it, they�ll be able to walk alive out
of burning buildings. No longer will parents fear having their children
incinerate themselves with accidental magic or tumble headlong into fires.�

�� Harry
shivered, hating this Pearl woman already. He wouldn�t have been convinced by
the arguments, he thought, not with the atrocities happening right in front of
him, and if Malfoy was, then he had
already been looking for an excuse in the first place. At least he didn�t look
at the burning woman as he held his inner debate. Harry supposed that was a sign
of compassion.

�� Or squeamishness. Or not being able to face
the consequences of one�s actions.

�� I can�t
say you�re right,� Malfoy whispered. �Not completely. But I�ll stay a little
while longer. Richard has promised that we can get away from this kind of
research soon, and start actually changing the state of our own bodies.� His
right hand rose and brushed over his left arm, and Harry knew what he was
thinking of. �I hope so.�

�� Of course
we will.� Pearl took his arm and started walking him away from the fire, into
the depths of the dim room. �And just think what we�ll be able to accomplish soon.
You can look as young and handsome as this forever. You�ve told me you don�t
want to age. And of course no one wants to die. We�ll be able to��

�� The memory
dissolved there, and Harry found himself rising to the surface of the Pensieve
again. He stood there for long moments, gasping, his hands locked on his wand
and the empty air. Slowly, he leaned back from the Pensieve, and his empty hand
clenched into a fist.

�� He turned
to find Malfoy waiting not far away, his eyes wide and inquiring. Harry wasn�t
sure what the expression on his own face looked like, but Malfoy flinched as if
he�d been struck a blow.

�� These are
your memories,� Harry said. How he managed to keep back the impulse to shout
and scream and curse, he�d never know. Maybe he just didn�t want to warn Malfoy
of what would happen when he gave the memories back. His voice was empty and
polite. �And I think it�s important that you see them.�

�� He dipped
his wand into the bowl and cast the spell that would attach the memories as
sticky silver strands to the end of it. Then he stalked towards Malfoy, who
looked at him with a nervous fluttering of his eyelashes and tilting of his
head, but made no attempt to run away. Harry was grimly glad. He would get some
of what he deserved, when he saw what he�d done. And maybe then he�d drop the
innocent act that had made Harry almost feel sorry for him.

�� Another
whispered word, and the strands of memory uncurled and whipped back into Malfoy�s
temple. He stood there with wide eyes for a moment, blinking, as if he had
expected the transfer to hurt more.

�� And then he
made a little jerking motion, like a rabbit caught in a trap, and buried his
head in his hands. His fingers were so short, however, that he could barely
hide his cheeks, never mind his eyes. Harry hadn�t anticipated that effect of
his mutilated hands.

�� He stood
with his arms folded, waiting, wondering what excuses Malfoy would come up with
to keep him around. Heat and cold pulsed over his body in alternating waves. He
debated whether he should cast a spell that hid him from sight and simply walk
away from Malfoy. God knew the prat, weakened from torture and his own bodily �modifications,�
would never be able to catch him up.

�� Or maybe
Harry should look him in the eye and say, �You disgust me,� first. Malfoy might
shatter at those words. Harry didn�t think it likely, but if he could just see
guilt in those gray eyes, then maybe�

�� Malfoy
screamed.

�� Harry only
knew it because he was watching him, waiting for the moment when the excuses
would start. Malfoy�s mouth was open, his eyes shut so tightly it looked as if
they hurt, and he was clawing at his cheeks with the ineffective stubs of his
fingers.

�� Harry had
taken a step forwards before he thought about it, before he knew what possessed
him. He hesitated a moment. Did he really want
to stop Malfoy? Shouldn�t he let the bastard inflict pain on himself, to make
reparations for all the pain he�d caused, and stood around and watched without
stopping?

�� He clenched
his own fingers into his palms as he watched Malfoy fall to his knees and curl
up into a ball, whimpering. He recalled the image of the burning woman and
tried to paste it on the inside of his eyelids, so that he could remember
Malfoy deserved every bit of guilt and horror from the newly reacquired
memories he could stand�

�� And then he
cursed helplessly and knelt down, wrapping his arms around Malfoy. He didn�t
deserve comfort, or he probably didn�t deserve it, but Harry couldn�t stand to
watch someone suffering like that in front of him and do nothing. The burning
woman was in the past; he couldn�t help her. But Malfoy was quivering like the
spider that the Barty Crouch had put under the Cruciatus Curse all those years
ago, and Harry wasn�t made of stern enough stuff to stand there and let it
continue.

�� Malfoy
flinched away from him at first, probably assuming Harry was Richard, or at
least that Harry wanted to hurt him, and Harry had to call him �Draco� three
times and soothingly stroke his hair before he would unfold and let Harry
close. Then his arms wrapped around Harry hard enough to drive the air out of
his lungs. Harry gasped a little and kept up the stroking and murmuring,
calling himself ten kinds of fool as he did it. This is what lets criminals win, because the actual Aurors are too
compassionate, he thought, recalling a lesson that Auror Peabody, the most
scarred person Harry had ever met except for Mad-Eye Moody, had told him.
Peabody had tried to be kind to an old woman who had committed murders out of
rage over the death of her only child, and lost two of his limbs, three of his
fingers, and one of his ears as a consequence.

�� But his
traitorous body ignored him and went on holding Malfoy. Malfoy shook in a way
that made Harry think he�d be heaving sobs if he could make a sound, and went
on doing it for far longer than seemed healthy. But Harry wasn�t Hermione, who
would have known the perfect spell for the occasion, and he wasn�t Ron, who
would have had better sense than to try and comfort a torturer. He was just
stupid Harry Potter, himself, and more alone than he�d ever been, since he couldn�t
trust his only companion anymore.

�� How long
they knelt there, he didn�t know; long enough for his knees to ache, anyway.
Finally, Malfoy gave a little whuff
of air, felt and not heard, and then collapsed against Harry. Harry rose
awkwardly to his feet and stood there with him, in turn, until Malfoy pulled himself
back and stared up at Harry.

�� He
stretched out a hand, beckoning. It took Harry a moment to realize he wanted
the glass globe. He shrugged and fetched it with a wave of his wand. His
compassion was retreating, his caution asserting itself full force. But the
only way Malfoy could make the sphere into a weapon would be to hurl it at him,
and Harry was the one with the magic to catch and turn a missile like that.

�� Malfoy
touched the sphere, and then stopped and closed his eyes. Harry blinked when he
realized that apparently the words Malfoy wanted to say were nowhere in the
immense list of phrases they�d compiled.

�� When the
prat turned to him with desperate, drowning eyes, though, Harry thought he knew
what they were.

�� You�re
sorry,� he said, as flatly as he could.

�� A frantic
nod. Malfoy crossed the ground between them so fast that Harry had no time to
blink, and then he was burrowing uncomfortably into Harry�s chest, the globe trapped
between them, getting his wrists and palms all tangled up in Harry�s robes.
Harry rolled his eyes to the ceiling and permitted that for a moment before he
spoke up with his plan.

�� I�ll take you
back to the staircase upwards. There has to be a way to get past that room full
of flesh and the shadow-wolf. You can go to safety, and I�ll��

�� Malfoy was
a few inches away from him in moments, his eyes glittering with outrage and his
hands firmly poised on the glass. A few taps, and he had found the facet that
meant No and touched it.

�� You have
to,� Harry hissed at him, exasperated. �I don�t care how sorry you are.� Malfoy
flinched from his tone. �I can�t trust you anymore. And I can�t have someone at
my back in these situations whom I don�t trust.�

�� Malfoy
lowered his eyelids and appeared to be deep in thought for a moment. Then he
looked up and mouthed at Harry, again using the exaggerations of his lips so
Harry could be sure to understand the words, This is a maze.

�� I get that
now,� Harry said coolly. �And I think I know who�s responsible for it being
that way, too.�

�� Another
flinch, but Malfoy didn�t back off. I
know the way through.

�� And Harry
cursed himself for not putting that memory of the grooves on the table into his
own head when he had a chance.

�� You won�t
tell me, will you?� he asked.

�� Malfoy
shook his head.

�� I don�t
understand why you even want to stay with me,� said Harry, crossly,
uncomfortable and hating the feeling that he didn�t know exactly what the right
thing to do was. Heroes always should. �You�ve got to know it�s immensely
dangerous. And up above, you might be able to find someone to heal you.�

�� Malfoy
tapped the globe and chose the facet that meant Revenge, then went to the sarcastic phrases facet and chose You idiot Gryffindor.

�� Apparently,�
Harry muttered, and raked a hand through his hair. He wanted Ron and Hermione
back with him so badly it was a physical ache, spreading through his chest and
down towards his toes.

�� And if he
wanted them back with him, he had to follow the only guide he had. He could
always arrest Malfoy later, when everyone was safely out of the Department of
Mysteries.

�� And he had
the wand.

�� Fine,� he
said, gesturing with his head beyond the Pensieve. �Come on, then.�

�� Malfoy
smiled triumphantly, but then chose the facet of the globe that meant Thank you.

�� Don�t
thank me,� Harry muttered as they began to walk again. His back prickled, and
he shifted until Malfoy was where he could see him. �We�ll both end up dead in
some horrid way, and then you�ll be
sorry that you didn�t take an out when I offered you one.�

�� Headshake,
and another triumphant smile. Harry quietly tightened his grip on his wand.
From now on, he would be watching, and he would
not let compassion get the better of him in the end.

*

�� SoftObsidian74:
It hasn�t yet been revealed what Draco did to get in that condition, but you
can see the outlines of it here.

�� Paigeey07:
Thanks for reviewing!

�� Dreiad: And
here you see the sarcastic part of the sphere in action!

�� WeasleyWench:
The Unspeakables probably would have worked harder on Harry alone if their
purpose was to lure him down. The Department�s defenses were pretty much
designed to keep people out, not let them in.

�� Mangacat:
They�re a long way from the center of things yet, but it�s coming. And I�m glad
you like the atmosphere and the pillars!
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Forgive Those Who Trespass