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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
- 7
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Thanks again for all the reviews!

Chapter Eight�Ten Little Pieces

�� Harry had
fully expected Draco to refuse to accept those memories back into his head.
When he had described them, as tersely as he could, Draco�s face had paled, and
he had drawn away to stand with his eyes shut and his hands resting on each
other in front of him. Harry supposed he was trying to calm his upset stomach,
or come to terms with the fact that his fingers had been bitten off, and waited
patiently.

�� But soon
enough Draco opened his eyes and crowded towards the Pensieve, extending an
imperious hand. Harry drew his wand, eyeing him with disbelief that he made no
effort to hide. Draco sniffed and threw him an even more demanding look, once
again pointing.

�� All right,
if you must, then,� Harry muttered, and dipped his wand into the Pensieve. Up
came a silvery strand of memory. Flinching, unable to keep from wondering if
this were a moment shared with Pearl or a moment involving intense pain, Harry
pointed the strand at Draco�s temple. Draco stood with his eyes shut and a
frown on his face, even after the memory coiled about, shining, and then shot
into his head.

��

�� When Harry
did nothing, Draco cracked an eyelid and gave him a disgusted glance.

�� If you can
take it so calmly, you�re a better man than I am,� Harry muttered, and squashed
another surge of helpless longing for Ron and Hermione. He took up another
strand of memory, and another, and another. He watched Draco�s knuckles go
white with strain and his throat work, uttering some sound Harry, of course,
couldn�t hear. He swayed on his feet at intervals, as if the returned memories
were a physical weight dragging his head down.

�� But he
stayed upright, and he beckoned Harry on each time he tried to hesitate. Harry
was reluctantly impressed.

�� A final
flick and swish, and the last of the memories vanished. Draco stood breathing
with his mouth open. Harry retreated a few steps, frowning at him and ready to
catch him if he fell.

�� He didn�t
fall. He did slowly open his eyes and frown at the far wall, as if the
returned memories had triggered others. Then he reached out a palm and scooped
up the communication sphere floating beside him. Harry edged nearer to make out
the exact sequence of words the nubs of Draco�s fingers chose.

�� I want
Unspeakables suffering.

�� Harry
grinned tightly. �Vengeance?�

�� Draco gave
him a sneer, to make it clear that his vengeance on the Unspeakables
would be stupendous, monumental, beyond anything Harry meant with the word.
Then he wrapped his arms around himself and swayed. Harry quickly stepped up
beside him to offer him the support of an arm.

�� Are you
cold?� he asked. �Hungry?�

�� Draco shook
his head in answer to both, but reached for the glass again. Tired.

�� We�ll rest
here.� Harry spread out the blankets for Draco, layering them abundantly; he
didn�t intend to sleep, so Draco might as well have twice as much cloth to rest
on. Draco blinked up at him sleepily when Harry laid him down, however, and
made a beckoning gesture with one hand.

�� I have to
stay up and keep watch,� Harry explained. �It was stupid of us both to sleep at
the same time last night. And if I lie down with you, I�m afraid I�ll fall
asleep.� He felt his face flush, and looked away. That wasn�t the only thing he
was afraid might happen if he lay down next to Draco, now that he had got over
his hatred again and was seeing him with the eyes of sympathy.

�� The heel of
a hand rapped against his hip. Harry glanced at Draco, and found him arranging
himself so he sat halfway on his haunches. It was an awkward posture, one that
he would surely fall from if he didn�t have someone to sit behind him and
support his shoulders.

�� Harry saw
what he meant at once: if he sat behind Draco, he was unlikely to fall asleep
as easily as if he were sprawled on the floor. It could still happen, though,
and Harry wasn�t inclined to gamble with their safety�or, at least, not
inclined to gamble with Draco�s safety, anymore. If he proved himself to be an
enemy, then he would have to. And if the scenes in the third Pensieve
outweighed the ones in the second as far as the evidence of the tale they told,
then�

�� Draco hit
the back of his knee, reminding Harry that there was someone here who didn�t
know about his reverie and might become impatient with it. He beckoned again,
curving his whole hand inwards, since he didn�t have the fingers to be
understood otherwise.

�� Harry
swallowed and moved gently behind Draco, sitting down with his legs crossed.
Draco promptly sagged back, and Harry realized how well-chosen the position
really was. Draco rested against his chest and lap, but Harry still had his
arms free to fire curses around the other man�s body, and he could easily open
his legs and move them sideways in case they went numb. The only question was
if Draco could really sleep like that.

�� Can you��

�� Draco gave
him an eloquently disgusted glance, as much to say that he�d slept in far worse
accommodations while he was a prisoner of the Unspeakables, and then curled
into Harry with a small sigh. His breathing immediately became calm. Within a
few minutes, the hand Harry hovered over his mouth and nose seemed to reveal
the soft, easy breaths of sleep.

�� And that
left Harry alone, as he badly needed to be, if he was to stand a chance of
putting the puzzle that was Draco Malfoy together.

�� What do
you do with someone who�s done both good and bad things? he thought,
staring into the darkness that lay beyond the lighted Pensieve room. Idly, he
cast enough protection spells to make the doorway glow like a firefly. Someone
who might not have had the most admirable motives, but hardly deserved what
befell him?

�� He might
have tried to think of the situations with both Dumbledore and Snape, but those
were different. He had thought Dumbledore perfectly good and Snape perfectly
evil until after they were safely dead. Then he could question and feel
anger and wonder and betrayal all he liked, but he didn�t have to deal with the
person on a day-to-day basis. And it was easier to forgive Snape because he�d
been in love with Harry�s mum and easier to forgive Dumbledore because he�d
been a mentor and a friend.

�� Malfoy had
never been a friend of any sort, and his particular error�crime? sin?�here had
nothing to do with Harry. Harry probably shouldn�t even have made the judgment;
Malfoy�s friends or the Wizengamot should have. But they weren�t here. He
was the one stuck in the darkness, stuck with deciding how to treat Malfoy, and
conscious of the fact that they might both live or die depending on what he
chose.

�� Harry took
a deep breath. He tried to ignore the sensation of edging out on a thin blade,
maybe the Sword of Gryffindor, poised over an abyss and that a tumble from it
would result in nothing but darkness and pain.

�� He
evidently couldn�t do anything about his tendency to call Malfoy �Draco� and
feel sorry for him. He also couldn�t do much about his anger, but he was better
at putting his temper aside after a year under Auror training. He didn�t have
the defenses Ron would have, the family feud between the Weasleys and the
Malfoys that gave him an unending source of hatred and strength.

�� So it was
better that he accepted Draco as a companion, trusted him for the
present, and attempted to help him. He wouldn�t be foolish, of course. He
wouldn�t give away his own weaknesses or get himself into a position where his
life depended solely on Draco�s intentions. But at least, if he accepted the
judgment his instincts wanted him to make, then that would be one less obstacle
for him to fight against.

�� Decision
made, he felt his eyelids droop. Harry rolled his eyes at himself. It had
probably been less than one full day since their last rest, and though Draco�s
tiredness was understandable and permissible, his own wasn�t.

�� Besides, he
wasn�t ready to fall asleep while Draco stayed awake and guarded him yet.

�� He
carefully aimed his wand at himself, and murmured, �Cognosco.�

�� The charm
hit him like a dash of cold water in the face and lemon juice in the mouth; he
barely managed to keep from shaking like an idiot and waking Draco. It did its
work, though. Harry had used it before when he needed to stay awake most of the
night to study for exams. He was aware, now, his brain humming and his
senses reaching out. He could hear the soft song of magic sung by the floating
communication sphere and his little ball of light, though still no sound from
Draco. He could smell dust in the air and see the faint joints where the stones
of the wall were fitted together. He could�

�� He could
hear scraping coming from beyond the doorway on the far side of the room.

�� Harry
hissed and sat upright, making Draco shift against him and roll his head like a
waking baby. Harry tried to stay still and listen, then, though his heartbeat
had almost obscured the faint noise in his ears. No need to wake Draco if this
was just a false alarm or his own imagination.

�� The sound
repeated, again and again, the heavy sound of a chain being dragged across
stone. Harry wondered if it were more of the bone-creatures. They had made a
more delicate noise, though, a skittering, insect-like one. Harry cast a
Disillusionment Charm on them both, hoping fervently that his protection charms
and wards on the far doorway would hold.

�� The
scraping continued until it came to what Harry thought must be the final twist
of tunnel before the doorway. There it paused. Harry strained his ears. He
swallowed his breathing as best he could. He had to be prepared for anything,
even an assault of other bone-creatures or a sudden rush from Ron and Hermione.

�� A figure
glided into the room, stepping through his charms and wards as if they didn�t
exist. Harry had only a moment for consternation before he noticed what�or
who�the figure was.

�� It was
Draco.

�� A chain was
tied around his leg, in the exact same position that Draco had been chained
when Harry first found him. His gray eyes were vacant, and he was gray of skin
and shivered with cold, and he was covered with tattered robes, just as the
Draco in Harry�s arms was. He staggered a step forwards, and then clutched
himself with his hands, head swaying back and forth as he stared. Harry thought
he was probably voiceless, too, or he would have spoken by now on recognizing
Harry and his double in Harry�s arms.

�� The
Disillusionment Charm�

�� But for
this Draco, they didn�t seem to be Disillusioned. He was staring straight at
them, and then he nodded and smiled. And then he walked straight towards them,
his eyes full of yearning.

�� Harry
swallowed, his mind dropped straight back into the tumult from which his
decision was supposed to have rescued him. Was this the real Draco? Was
the one he held only a copy? This Draco looked exactly the same as the one so
peacefully sleeping in Harry�s arms. He could have been the one who lost
his memories to the Pensieves, his voice and his ribs to the Unspeakables.

�� He reached
out a hand.

�� And Harry
saw long, intact fingers on that reaching hand, and made his decision at once.

�� A Blasting
Curse, harshly uttered, sent the other Draco flying backwards. He hit the wall
with a cry that proved him not voiceless after all, and woke the Draco sleeping
in Harry�s arms, and summoned a procession of other, identical Malfoys from
within the tunnel, all of them sweeping past Harry�s protections without
stopping.

�� Draco moved
hastily against Harry�s chest, trying to scramble to his feet and be careful of
Harry�s wooden foot at the same time. Harry rose, supporting Draco with one
arm, but keeping his wand trained on the mass of Malfoys. They had halted and
were looking at them gravely, their eyes blinking, as if Harry and the original
Draco were problems in Potions.

�� Do you
know what they are?� Harry whispered into Draco�s ear.

�� Draco held
up his hands in answer. It wasn�t until he flexed the nubs that Harry
understood, or thought he did. �They made them from your fingers,� he murmured,
and the head under his chin nodded.

�� And, from
the signs of it, they could locate their original no matter where he was, no
matter what spells were in the way or how he might be concealed. Harry kept the
cursing in his head. It wouldn�t do any good voiced aloud, and for all he knew,
the sound of a raised voice might agitate the copies into attacking.

�� Immortality
of body?� he whispered into Draco�s ear.

�� A swift
nod.

�� Immortality
of mind?�

�� A
headshake.

�� Harry
dragged a slow breath into his lungs. These Malfoys didn�t know what Draco did,
then, at least if he understood the concept �immortality of mind� correctly.
From the bright curiosity in their eyes, they didn�t even quite understand what
Harry and Draco were. Now and then one started to come towards them and
reach for them like children, but the first one, the one Harry had cursed, held
them back. He was the only one to watch with eyes that held any wariness.

�� Harry
didn�t want to attack again. He couldn�t kill them anyway. He whispered to
Draco, �Do you remember anything else about them? Are they hostile?�

�� Draco
nodded, then shook his head, answering the questions in order. Harry licked his
lips, and looked up as the Malfoys began a concerted mass movement towards
them. He tightened his grip on his own Draco and bared his teeth in a snarl,
prepared to Levitate them into the air again or crash through a wall if that�s
what he had to do.

�� But the
first Malfoy to reach him only patted at Harry�s clothes and hair, with an
expression of childish delight on his features. He laughed and gabbled at the
others behind him, but if they understood him, Harry couldn�t tell. The others
crowded round him, tugging at Draco�s robes and his own, staring in deep
interest at his wand, making passes in the air with their hands as if to
imitate spells. Even the one he�d cursed seemed inclined to accept him, now,
and Harry saw him extending his arms, showing the others how he�d flown across
the room.

�� Then one of
the Malfoys coughed loudly to get the others� attention, and pointed towards
the far doorway. All of them turned to look that way. Harry looked, too, but
saw nothing unusual or worthy of attention.

�� Then one of
the Malfoys got behind him and began to push him and Draco steadily in the
direction of the doorway.

�� Harry tried
to brace his feet, but Draco clamped his hand down on Harry�s wrist and gave a
rapid shake of his head. Harry took a deep breath, unhappy with his decision
being tested so soon, and gave trust its head. He relaxed as much as he could,
and concentrated mostly on making sure that Draco would take no harm from the
pace the Malfoys wanted them to adopt.

�� There
really were ten of them, Harry saw when he had time to count. They looked as
Draco would have with fingers and a voice, though they were missing ribs. But
their faces were different, lacking the lines of pain and suffering that cast
shadows around Draco�s expressions. They bounced and bounded about like
puppies, now and then making sounds that didn�t seem to be words and certainly
weren�t English. They clapped and twined fingers and pointed at the walls and
ceiling and floors and kicked the dust in front of them with the same manifest
delight.

�� Harry saw
nothing for the present but to go along with them. If they were dangerous, then
hopefully Draco would let him know later.

�� Beyond the
Pensieve room, the tunnels twisted out in a bewildering array of patterns.
Harry thought he saw a few flame-like carvings on them, the same that had
surrounded the wooden table in Draco�s memory, and would have liked to stop to
examine them, but the Malfoys hurried him along. Draco faltered now and then in
his steps, maybe out of fear, maybe because he was still too tired. Luckily,
Harry had enough energy for both of them thanks to the awareness charm, and always
managed to provide a stolid support and a comforting murmur in time.

�� The Malfoys
finally stopped in front of a wooden door and regarded it for long moments, as
if searching inadequate memories for confirmation of its existence. Then one of
them stabbed a finger straight into the air and said something that made no
sense, but which galvanized the others. Harry barely whisked out of the way in
time as they sprang forwards, seized the door�s iron hinges, and dragged it
open with a scrape and a groan, louder than the sound of their chains on the
floor. The room beyond brightened suddenly in the rays of Harry�s light globe.

�� Harry felt
Draco stiffen even before he recognized the room. It was either the same
chamber where Draco had sat before the fire with Pearl or an exact replica.
There were even the canaries and parakeets fluttering in their cages, fluting
delicately and cocking their heads at the newcomers. One canary voiced a
throbbing complaint at having his cage nearly upset when two Malfoys dragged Harry
and Draco past.

�� They
settled them into the two tall chairs before the fireplace, separating Draco
from Harry gently but firmly when he objected, and settled on the floor before
them like children ready to listen to a story. Then they stared at Harry in
expectancy.

�� Harry
looked at Draco. His face was drawn, but his eyes were narrowed and sparking,
and Harry thought his mind was probably racing faster than it had during their
entire journey through the maze so far.

�� Draco sat
straight up. The Malfoys nudged each other and clasped their hands on their
knees, leaning eagerly forwards.

�� Draco
reached out commandingly. Harry was floating the communication sphere towards
him before he consciously realized what the gesture meant. He wondered,
ruefully, what Ron would say to see him instinctively obeying Malfoy.

�� Draco spent
some moments ceremoniously cleaning off the glass sphere, though Harry thought
it couldn�t have acquired much dust. Then he leaned forwards and began tapping
out a sequence. The Malfoys made soft squealing noises of appreciation as the
colors flickered and flashed.

�� Immortality
of body, Draco signaled. Fingers. Maze. Not immortality of mind.
Torture. Unforgivable curse.

�� Harry
started at the last phrase, one he hadn�t thought they would ever use, but
which Draco had insisted on including in the sphere anyway, perhaps because he
wanted to tell Harry how he had suffered under the Cruciatus. �The Unspeakables
cursed them?� he asked, staring at the Malfoys and wondering what in the world
the Unspeakables had created them for.

�� He glanced
back to see Draco shaking his head impatiently. He tapped his closed fist on
his chest, then let his eyes widen and his mouth hang slack.

�� The
Imperius Curse,� Harry muttered, still not sure what the point of Draco�s
little story was, but sure of what he was indicating. The Malfoys all laughed
among themselves, as though he had made a particularly good joke.

�� Harry felt
like doing the same himself, or else slamming his head fervently against the
back of the chair. He had never realized how frustrating it would be to speak
with someone who could not speak. He had to fill in the gaps between the
words himself, and he wasn�t good at that.

�� Give me
something to curse, please, he asked whatever fate might be listening, and
then added, Something my curses can affect, anyway.

�� Let me see
if I understand this,� he said, sitting up. �The Unspeakables made these things
out of your fingers.� He waved his hand at the Malfoys, and they hopped up and
down in place without standing, hooting like monkeys. �But even though they�re
immortal in body, they�re not immortal in mind. They didn�t inherit any of your
memories, or your language skills, or your oh-so-charming personality.�

�� Draco
raised an eyebrow at him. It was a cool gesture that would surely have been
accompanied by a cruel retort if he could have spoken. Harry scowled at him, a
bit happy to return to his earlier dislike, and kept scowling until Draco
nodded.

�� This had
something to do with the maze,� Harry said. �But I still don�t know what. How
did the Unspeakables turn the Department of Mysteries into this maze? I�ve been
here before�� Memories of Sirius reared up to sting him like a scorpion. He
swallowed twice before he could continue. �And it wasn�t like this,� he managed
to finish, though he knew his voice sounded thick.

�� Once again,
Draco tapped the facet that meant maze on the communication sphere, and
then signaled himself.

�� Harry
blinked. �You�re the maze? That doesn�t make any sense.�

�� But even as
the words ran out of his mouth, he was remembering his earlier idea that
Draco�s body and his memories in the Pensieve represented the nine balls that
Draco had positioned for Richard in the carvings. Why one person and eight
Pensieves, though? Why not nine people, or nine Pensieves? Harry didn�t
understand why�

�� Why
everything had to come from Draco.

�� He sat up
abruptly and stared at Draco. Draco had a faint smile on his face now, but it
was intolerably sad. Harry�s dislike drained away again.

�� That�s it,�
Harry whispered. �That�s what you read in that book that you concealed from
Pearl, wasn�t it? That a person has to be sacrificed to make up the maze. A
body and a mind, always suffering and never dying, have to go to construct the
maze that makes people immortal.�

�� Draco
nodded, and nodded, and nodded again. Harry wasn�t sure he had much control
over his head and his neck muscles left. His nostrils were fluttering with the
force of his breath, his eyes swimming with tears.

�� They made
these copies of you to serve instead,� Harry whispered. �But these copies were
mindless, and for whatever reason, they had to have your mind involved. So they
used your memories.� He paused. �But then I don�t understand where the Imperius
Curse comes in.�

�� Draco
touched the facet on the sphere that meant free will.

�� You had to
agree to sacrifice yourself?� Harry stared.

�� Draco
looked away from him and made a kind of complicated pass with his hands. That
was hardly the whole story, Harry thought, but it was more or less the truth.
The Unspeakables must have hoped to break Draco with their torture�or maybe
they�d chosen him to be the sacrifice for the maze in the first place because
he�d �betrayed� them�but since they hadn�t, they�d cast the Imperius to give
him the parody of a free will in making the choice.

�� And so,
this maze��

�� Draco
touched another facet. Useless.

�� Harry
narrowed his eyes, remembering the mentions of �intention� and �willingness�
Draco had dropped into his conversation with Pearl. �The Imperius Curse didn�t
count as true willingness?�

�� Draco shook
his head.

�� That would
make sense,� Harry muttered, slumping back against his chair in thought. The
maze didn�t seem like an obstacle course someone would willingly walk in
order to become immortal, if only because there was so many dangers that could
kill you along the way. This was an experiment that had gone wrong, with the
Unspeakables not realizing until too late that their sacrifice hadn�t been
truly willing.

�� He lifted
his eyes to Draco�s face again and asked what seemed to him the most urgent
question at the moment. �But then, how do I rescue you and restore your voice
and your ribs and your fingers?�

�� Draco shut
his eyes. The tears that had filled them earlier were now leaking down his
cheeks. He shook his head, slowly.

�� Oh, come
on!� Harry leaned forwards. �There must be some way��

�� He found
himself abruptly pinioned. Two of the Malfoys had risen and come around the
back of his chair without his noticing, and they were holding his shoulders so
tightly Harry felt his spine bow. Two of the other Malfoys went over and held
Draco likewise.

�� Harry
shouted, but the Malfoys didn�t back off this time. They were giving him
disappointed looks, in fact, as though he had failed at some task they expected
of him.

�� The other
six Malfoys came back into Harry�s line of sight a moment later. They were
holding jagged, serrated knives.

�� Harry�s
heart began to pound like a funeral drum.

*

�� SoftObsidian74:
Well, this chapter provides a little more insight into the Pensieves,
hopefully.

�� Mangacat:
The Unspeakables had no idea that Harry would come after them. For all they
knew, Ministry officials could have been the first to figure out something was
wrong and the first to find a way into the maze. They didn�t plan a lot
of what happened.

�� Lacegag:
Thanks! The next cluster of answers is a long time in coming, though.

�� Thrnbrooke:
Harry suggests some reasons for using Draco�s memories here.

�� Js:
Unfortunately, Draco�s muteness and Harry�s POV make it hard to let the reader
into Draco�s deeper thoughts.

�� Myra:
Thanks! The scene of the mutilation was definitely meant to be horrific.

�� WeasleyWench:
Very good questions! Let�s start with one that Harry hasn�t thought to ask yet:
why is that Draco only told him these things now, instead of right after he got
his memories back from the Pensieves?

�� Bunnicle: I�m
pulling a lot of this from nightmares I�ve had.
- 7
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Forgive Those Who Trespass

Chapter Eight�Ten Little Pieces