Adult-FanFiction.org : Harry Potter

An Image of Lethe	By : Lomonaaeren Category: Harry Potter > Slash - Male/Male > Harry/Draco Views: 21751 -:- Recommendations : 1 -:- Currently Reading : 3
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter and am not making any money from this story.

Chapter List
- 6
- 7
- 8
Thank you again for all the reviews!
Chapter Seven--Wrestling with the Devil
            "You're ready for the next round of tests, Mr. Potter?"
            Harry blinked and turned his head. He'd spent most of the morning in a blank grey room, unlike the days when they usually worked with him on Lethe. Then, he would be taken into rooms with various pools of water and wizards and splinters of wood and stones--all materials that Splinter said were set to become part of Lethe--and he would cast spells until the stones or wood or water resonated, or until the wizards responded with certain spells and nodded and wrote things down.
            So this was a break in the routine. So was the way that Splinter, who had always seemed at least vaguely interested in Harry's fate so far, was calling him "Mr. Potter" and avoiding his eyes.
            "I think I am," said Harry. "But there's something I wanted to know first. Something about the Lightfinder."
            Splinter puffed up and took an important little side-to-side step. "Yes. It was mostly my work that got it ready, you know. Not the work of any dry old theorist they're crediting in the paper today."
            Harry nodded and tried to look earnest and innocent and unaffected all at once. "But I think there are some spells that show the same thing the Lightfinder does, right? The same color of a wizard’s magic and the size of their power by aura?"
            Splinter stopped dancing. His eyes were cold and round as pebbles. "No. What's special about the Lightfinder is that it also measures the taint on the soul that Dark magic causes. Remember?" He was watching Harry with a special kind of caution now, his hand not hovering far from his wand. "No spell can do that."
            This time, Harry tried for a look of innocent confusion. "But this spell is called the Soul Revelation Spell," he said. "I thought it would tell me everything. I thought maybe I could see if my soul has improved since we've been working on it and everyone has been helping me make sure that I don't do anything else Dark."
            Splinter's mouth pursed and his eyes became narrow little slits instead of pebbles. "Who told you about that?"
            Harry hung his head. "Nobody," he whispered, and tried to make it sound like he thought he'd done something wrong--the way he had, a few days ago--without having anything to feel really guilty about. "I was looking through books in the Black library, wearing gloves. I thought reading some books left by a Dark family could help me understand how to stop being Dark. I'd do the opposite of what they'd done, and I'd be cured."
            Splinter didn't immediately accuse him of conspiring with Slytherins, which was something, at least, Harry thought, hanging his head and peering up from under his eyelashes. But Splinter did look as if he were drawing conclusions that tasted sour. A second later, he shook his head and turned to Harry. He was trying to look pleasant, but the inside of his mouth must still have tasted bad.
            "Listen," he said, so calmly, so kindly, that Harry would have been inclined to believe him if he was a fool. "I don't think there's a way that you can do the opposite of most of what they did. You can't un-bait Muggles. You can't ease the Dark taint on your soul by casting Light spells."
            "So the Soul Revelation Spell is a Light spell?" Harry brightened, and hoped that he was doing a convincing job of it. He probably was. If it was Light Arts, there was certainly the chance that they would let him cast it in their presence, which wasn't the case for a lot of the other spells. "I could still try it!"
            Splinter reached out and put a hand like a crab's claw on his shoulder. "You have to stop thinking there's a simple cure for this, Harry."
            At least we're back to first names, Harry thought. "I thought Lethe was a cure."
            "But not a simple one." Splinter's smile was a little strained now. "That's why we have to spend so much time testing you, to make sure that we're not hurting you worse than you've already been hurt."
            "Lethe touches my soul? Is it like the Soul Revelation Spell?" Harry would keep the topic of the conversation on that spell as much as he could.
            "The spell doesn't have anything to do with your soul," Splinter all but snapped, and Harry made his expression as much like a beaten puppy's as he could, stepping back from Splinter and blinking rapidly.
            "Despite the name?"
            "Despite the name." Splinter was watching him with a cold air now, and he looked around as though he expected the bare walls to sprout rebels against the Ministry. "Who's been talking to you about these notions of Light and Dark and baring your soul, Mr. Potter?"
            "I don't want to be Dark," Harry whispered, looking at the floor. "I don't want to be that way anymore. I thought there was a fast cure."
            Splinter sighed. "There's no cure except time and remorse and Lethe. That's why it's new, and that's why we have to test it and test it to make sure that it's safe for you. I'm sorry, Harry. But that's the way it has to be." He patted Harry's shoulder, but it felt mechanical, unlike most of the other times he'd done it. "Come on. We have the next test ready now."
            "Can't I just try casting the Soul Revelation Spell?" Harry asked, and he didn't care how desperate he sounded. He would probably get desperate in a little while, if he couldn't do something that would make Splinter pay attention and stop dragging him towards Lethe. Malfoy was right; who knew what that machine would do? They had been wrong about what the Lightfinder would do, and that might also be the case with Lethe.
            "Why would you want to?" Splinter's face had closed, and his grip had turned to a pincer one on Harry's shoulder. "You can't cast it on yourself, anyway."
            None of the books that Parkinson and Astoria had found had said that. It was possible, since Harry still didn't know a lot about the spell or the magical theory behind it, but he doubted it. He smiled, or he tried. "Let me try anyway? What harm can it do?"
            "It could prejudice your soul as far as Lethe is concerned."
            "Why, if it's not Dark Arts?"
            Harry might have gone on arguing, but Splinter turned and flicked his wand. A spell Harry didn't know shimmered yellow on the end of the wand for a second, then shot up to the ceiling and splashed there in a fountain of sparks. It reminded Harry a little of the sparks that Hagrid had told him and Neville to shoot off in the Forbidden Forest that evening when they had first seen Voldemort drinking unicorn blood, but he doubted the purpose of this spell was as innocuous.
            Harry seized his own wand, then breathed deeply when he saw the challenging way Splinter was looking at him. If he rebelled too much now, he might lose the chance to do it later. He would just be confirming their idea that he was Dark and defiant and couldn't be trusted.
            He managed to release his wand.
            Splinter gave him a hard smile and murmured, "You needn't fear that you'll go Darker than you are, Harry. We'll do anything to prevent that from happening." He turned around as the door opened, and nodded as several Aurors trooped in. "Ah, yes. It seems that Mr. Potter here is asking some questions that might indicate a further taint on his soul."
            "All right," said the Auror on the left, a bulky man that Harry placed after a moment as an Auror called Rallan, one of the ones who had escorted him off the stage after the Lightfinder test. "Come on, then. You don't want to be Dark, do you?" He walked up to Harry with a strange, spring-legged walk that Harry knew meant he was preparing himself to strike back if he had to.
            Harry exhaled noisily and faced him. "I don't," he said. "I was just asking for permission to cast a spell that was Light, not Dark! I don't know why Mr. Splinter is being so difficult." He cast an angry glare at Splinter and saw one of the other Aurors step promptly in front of him. He snorted despite himself. "What do you think I am, a basilisk? It's not like I can kill him with a look."
            "I think you're a dangerous wizard," said Rallan. "I think that you might have forgotten yourself in your overriding exasperation and anger. I think I'm the one in this room who knows when Splinter needs protection."
            His wand had come out, and Harry knew he had to calm things down if he didn't want to be caught up in a magical duel that he might not be able to win. He held his hands out from his sides and smiled as serenely as he could.
            "If I'm going to be deprived of the ability to cast even Light Arts," he said, "I wish someone would have told me. That way, it wouldn't have come as a nasty surprise."
            "You're deprived of the ability to cast Light Arts, or any, spells that can be cast in an aggressive way." Rallan didn't put away his wand, but nudged Harry in the middle of his chest, and Harry obediently turned towards the door. "That's a truth you ought to have anticipated."
            Harry turned his head. "The Soul Revelation Spell is aggressive? Even if I'm using it on myself?" That was certainly not something that Parkinson and Astoria's research had turned up.
            "Casting any spell that we don't want you to cast is aggressive and unpermitted," said Splinter, but his voice was loud and hasty in a way that told Harry he hadn't anticipated having to say that. That meant it wasn't the simple truth, either. "Come on, Mr. Potter. Let's get you to your test, and then you can go home and cast that spell on yourself if you really want to."
            Harry walked quietly out the door. This wasn't the day that Lethe would be ready, and he didn't see any reason to resist the test anymore. He might already have earned enough valuable information that it wasn't worthwhile prolonging the confrontation.
            It was strange, that's what it was. Why would someone care about a Light spell? And if they did know that the Soul Revelation Spell would show them the same things that the Lightfinder would, why waste all that time developing the machine in the first place? The one thing that Harry never doubted was that the Ministry wanted to avoid unnecessary time and expense.
            It wasn't a key to everything that puzzled him about the Lightfinder and the panic over the Dark that had suddenly sprouted up in people, but it was a clue. Harry would ponder it until he could get back to Malfoy and the others.
*
            Draco lifted the book above his head. This was one of the older tomes in the Black library, and even with Preservation Charms, the pages had become as thin as onion sheaves, the markings on them hardly legible. He raised his wand and cast a Lumos Charm.
            There was a bang, and Potter's house-elf appeared in front of him. Again Draco had his wand drawn before he thought about it. The Auror invasion of Astoria's home had apparently lent him all sorts of new reflexes.
            "Master Malfoy might be hiding!" The house-elf's eyes were almost revolving in their sockets, Draco thought, his heart sinking. "And the mistresses! Aurors be walking through Master Potter's house!"
            Draco wanted to question the elf, especially about whether Potter was with the Aurors, but he doubted it. Even if Potter was, it was all too clear that he wasn't directing the search.
            He nodded and gave the book to the elf. "Put this back. Hide the others. Hide all traces of our presence."
            The elf bowed back to him and vanished, as the book floated to the shelf where Draco had got it. Draco held back the impulse that told him to run and shriek in search of Astoria and Pansy. Kreacher was going to warn them, and he could do it faster than Draco could. Likewise, he would hide all traces of their possessions and stay in the bedrooms, better than Draco could. There was nothing like an elf's magic for dealing with a house.
            That left Draco to find a hiding place. One that couldn't be pierced by an Auror's detection spells. One that he had to find in a house that was entirely unfamiliar to him.
            He felt panic gnawing along the edges of his mind, and he shut his eyes and forced it down. No. He would--
            A slight creak startled him. Draco spun around with his wand in hand, ready to strike and damn the consequences if the Aurors were already here.
            No. In the end of one shelf, the paneling stood open. Draco, approaching it cautiously, saw that it appeared to lead to a hollow space behind the books, running parallel to the wall. He had never even thought the bookshelf looked strange, because of the size of those tomes and the way they seemed to press against the back of solid wood.
            He didn't have a clue as to why it had opened now, although from the slight, pleasant buzz he felt in the back of his mind as he stepped into the space, he thought it probably had to do with his mother's blood. Perhaps the house was attuned to the needs of Blacks and would open like this for any family member who needed it to.
            Draco pulled the panel to, and inched along the narrow passage that opened up in front of him. And it was a passage, not just a hiding place. Although he had to turn sideways most of the time to get along it, and the dust was everywhere, Draco could see the shadow of stairs at the far end, and other, faint lines in the wall that were probably doors.
            Other bookshelves? Leading where? Draco's fingers itched. He doubted even Potter knew, because he wasn't a Black by blood.
            On and on Draco inched, until he reached the stairs. When he lifted his wand, he could see that the steps went down, rather than up. They grew steeper and smaller the further they descended, and towards the end, Draco could see dirt in the walls that surrounded them. He nodded. They probably burrowed under the garden.
            He paused and listened, but he could hear nothing from inside here, not even terrified shrieks. He hoped that meant Kreacher had hidden Pansy and Astoria the way Draco had told him to. Kreacher probably knew other hiding places that could contain people who were Black guests.
            At least, Draco hoped he did. He could honestly do nothing about it now. Too many footsteps would have alerted the Aurors that Draco pictured pouring through the Floo.
            That meant he was free to explore. And he followed his instinct down the stairs and around in a cramped spiral that was probably meant to save space inside walls this pressing.
            Draco ended up with his arms clamped against his sides, marching with his wand dangling down next to his hip, so the light would at least illuminate the next turn of the stairs. At least it was nearly impossible to stumble. He could catch himself instantly on the close-packed dirt and stone that surrounded him.
            When he reached the bottom, he stepped onto what he thought was hard-packed dirt for a second, but his feet rang oddly, and so did his hand when it struck the wall. Draco bent his head. Beneath his feet, and all around him, was carefully-laid brick.
            Draco blinked. Some wizarding houses were built of brick, but the older ones, like the Manor, usually had mostly stone walls, and at least some wood mixed in as well. This was odd. He only knew a few places that regularly had brick, especially brick on the floor, for easy cleaning.
            So he wasn't surprised, after a few turns in that narrow tunnel, to locate a Potions lab as the ceiling and the floor widened out at the same time, dropping Draco into a huge brick-lined basin.
            Draco didn't know why one of his ancestors would have wanted to bury a Potions lab beneath the house. But when he cast his wand-light around, he could see that it was still clean, probably as a result of more of the humming wards draped over the place. When he conjured dust onto one of the great tables, just as a test, it vanished immediately. Draco nodded, impressed.
            The main furniture of the lab consisted of six enormous stone tables, all of them supported by six sturdy legs, set in a circle around the drain in the center of the lab. In one corner stood a stone shelf supporting a huge stack of cauldrons, most of them pewter, but a few silver, and one golden. The notched shelf for the vials was made of stone, too, the first one Draco had ever seen that way. He supposed that was no more likely to shatter glass than the wooden ones normally employed. He cast a few detection spells to make sure he wasn't triggering any traps, and then picked up the nearest vial.
            Draco had to catch his breath. The liquid inside slid back and forth, golden enough that he didn't need the neatly-written label to tell him what it was, even though he glanced at it. Felix Felicis.
            It might not still be good, of course. But when Draco uncapped the vial and sniffed, a faint smell of sun-drenched grass rose from the liquid. Yes, it was good.
            "How interesting. You would be a descendant of mine, I suppose. But the blond hair is rather unusual."
            Draco kept from dropping the vial through a massive effort of will that clamped his fingers around the glass. After a moment, he turned and sent the light scattering through the room. If there was a fireplace, he hadn't yet seen it.
            On the wall, when he finally looked for it where he ought to have in the first place, hung a large black picture frame. Draco could have believed it was made out of iron, or the stone that everything else in the bloody place seemed to consist of. In it, painted against a background of bookshelves and a single green rug illuminated by a blazing lamp, stood a wizarding portrait of what must be a Black, given his thick dark hair and his bright eyes.
            "Who are you?" Draco asked.
            "The owner of this lab." The man smiled, and shook his head. "I should be the one asking you that, because you're the one who doesn't look like a Black and doesn't look like he has any reason to be here."
            Draco stiffened his back and made his voice as challenging as he could. "You must know that I'm a Black, because you can see how the wards on the lab welcomed me."
            The man watched him a little longer, then snorted. "Fine. My name is Aster Black."
            Draco searched his memory for a while, although to be honest, his mother had only made sure that he knew the names and right positions of his ancestors in his family tree. She hadn't spent a lot of time on deeds. "Are you one of the family members who got blasted off the tapestry?"
            Aster shook his head, looking slightly irritated. "Are they still doing that? The tapestry never lasts long, with all the damage done to it by those spells." He sighed. "No. I was the father of Sirius, Phineas, Elladora, and Isla Black."
            Draco did a few quick calculations in his mind. "Then I must not know who you are because it was too many generations back. My mother taught me the generations back to your children's."
            "Your mother, then." Aster nodded. "That would explain the hair, if your father is who I think he is." Draco looked an inquiry, and Aster gave him a viper's smile. "It's not hard to tell a Malfoy from the color of his hair."
            Before Draco could say anything, Aster added, "But that doesn't mean I can guess your name, or the name of your mother. I would appreciate it if you could clarify for me."
            "Draco Malfoy," Draco said. "My mother is Narcissa, your great-great-great-granddaughter. I think," he had to say a moment later, and he felt silly, and wondered if Aster would despise him for not knowing his genealogy well enough.
            But instead, Aster had a faint smile curving his mouth. "So she gave you a Black name after all? And you the only Malfoy heir?"
            Draco nodded because he thought it the right thing to do. Aster inclined his head. "Well. Then I can welcome you properly, Mr. Malfoy. You're the first of my descendants to find my lab in at least two generations, and the first one who didn't have Black as a surname. If I can help you, I will."
            That last statement sounded oddly formal. Draco disregarded it, though. He could use Aster's help. "Good. We have a political situation on our hands at the moment. I'm only in the house at all because I was forced to flee my previous sanctuary thanks to Ministry interference."
            Aster sneered a little. "Is this about Muggles again?"
            Draco shook his head. "The Ministry thinks that it's created a way to identify Dark wizards based on a taint in their souls. They use a machine called the Lightfinder to do it. They've already identified a powerful wizard as Dark, and they're using another method called Lethe to try and 'cure' him."
            Aster stared at him. "If he's powerful, why does he allow this?"
            Draco rolled his eyes. "He's showing a little sense at last, but he grew up thinking he was Light. And he grew up in the Muggle world, which is worse. And he wanted to be Light so badly that he let them do whatever they wanted."
            "What is his name?" Aster asked that with a peculiar emphasis, leaning forwards.
            Draco paused, but he didn't think this was a trap. For one thing, if Aster could leave his portrait, he probably knew this already, and for another, there was absolutely no indication that Aster wasn't a Black. He had to be, and that meant he would want to trust and protect family above all else.
            "Harry Potter."
            "The only heir of Potter?" Aster asked, his hands tightening on what looked like a small side-table, though from the angle Draco was standing at, it was hard to tell what was what in that part of the portrait.
            "Yes. Although a half-blood," Draco had to add, so Aster wouldn't have too high a set of expectations for Potter. "And the current owner of the house, since my cousin Sirius was the heir and willed it to him."
            Aster smiled more deeply instead of looking incensed at that information. "I think we have a lot to plan and do," he said. "I know things the Ministry has forgotten, some things it needs to be reminded of."
            Draco smiled.
*
SP777: It was a little hard at first when I started writing multiple stories at once, and now there are still times that I need to look back at the last chapter and figure out which character has mentioned which fact.
- 6
- 7
- 8
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

An Image of Lethe