Blood-Soaked Succession Chapter 36 (Patreon)

Chapter 36:

XXX

Harry and Hermione led both women inside and surrendered them to Cresspool before asking any more questions.

The mediwizard commandeered one of the smaller sitting rooms near the entrance and had Millicent and her mother seated on opposite ends of a sofa while he examined them. Both remained unnaturally pale beneath the light, with Millicent's lips retaining a faint bluish tint that made Harry considerably less confident in his earlier assessment that they were fine.

Ron excused himself to the kitchen, always having been queasy around medical stuff.

Cresspool passed his wand over Mrs Bulstrode's chest and watched several diagnostic charms unfold above her before repeating the process with Millicent.

"Blood-Freezing Curse," he announced. "Both of you were hit with it, and somebody applied the countercurse afterward. Recently."

"We know," Mrs Bulstrode said. "Marietta reversed it."

Mrs Bulstrode rubbed her hands together as though trying to restore circulation to her fingers.

Harry stepped closer.

"What happened?"

Mrs Bulstrode glanced towards her daughter before answering.

"I don't know how long we were unconscious. When I woke up, Marietta was standing over us with another woman. Young. Dark-haired. She introduced herself as Walburga Black. Although I don't see how that could possibly be true. I know she died, I was at the funeral. But the girl did look just like Walburga did at the Hogwarts graduation."

"You knew her?"

"She was a few years ahead of me, prefect and head girl. I used to get in trouble." Mrs Bulstrode frowned as she searched her memory. "The resemblance was uncanny. A secret daughter, perhaps?"

Whatever had happened at Number Twelve, Marietta had attacked the residents, apparently killed at least these two, then either changed her mind or Walburga made her resuscitate them. He knew the blood freezing curse could be safely reversed and its victims revived within ten minutes of casting. The 'safely' was a relative term.

Permanent damage was still likely.

"Why did they let you go? What happened to everyone else? Jun Chang and Eric Creevey were there." Hermione asked.

"They're alive," Mrs Bulstrode answered immediately.

Some of the tension left Harry's shoulders.

"They specifically mentioned the children. The woman claiming to be Walburga said they have no interest in fighting you and even less interest in becoming babysitters. They want the children returned to their families."

"Then why didn't they send them with you?"

"Because they will only release them to their guardians."

Harry frowned.

Jun's guardian, at least for practical purposes, would be Cho. Eric had two older brothers currently fighting in Harry's forces, but Colin was the elder of the two and he didn't think Dennis was a legal adult yet anyway.

Cho and Colin, then.

"They want the two of them to come to Number Twelve?"

"No. They want a meeting arranged with you. The children can be returned as part of it."

There it was.

"What do they want?"

"They didn't say. Only that they wished to negotiate and that we were to make it very clear they don't want a war with you."

Harry believed that part, or at least believed they wanted him to believe it. Sending the Bulstrodes back alive was an intelligent way to demonstrate their intentions. They'd attacked Number Twelve, incapacitated its residents and taken control of the building, yet their next action had been to reverse two potentially fatal curses and release the victims carrying an offer to negotiate.

Harry could respect that. More importantly, they'd inadvertently solved another problem for him.

Perenelle wanted her laboratory. Harry no longer needed to explain to Perenelle that he'd somehow lost the entire building containing it. He could simply inform Walburga that the world's oldest living witch wanted to collaborate.

If Harry was particularly lucky, he might convince her to surrender Number Twelve entirely and relocate whatever she wanted elsewhere. Though she did have legitimate claim to the building, as Sirius' last living relative it ought to have gone to her before Harry. Hell, it had gone to her after her husband's death and son's incarceration.

The children complicated matters.

Harry glanced between Millicent and her mother.

Walburga claimed she wanted them returned safely to their relatives. Maybe she meant it. Refusing to hand children over to random members of Harry's organization wasn't unreasonable when Cho and Colin could personally receive their siblings. And they were an illegal paramilitary group training child soldiers. He wouldn't give two children to such a group either.

But she also wanted to negotiate. Which meant Jun and Eric were leverage whether Walburga called them hostages or not. Harry couldn't even fault her much for that. She had something he wanted, he undoubtedly had something she wanted and neither side apparently wanted to start shooting at the other. Even if the concern for the children's proper guardians was nothing more than a moral justification pasted over an exchange of hostages, it was still more civilized than most of Harry's negotiations lately.

"Did they say when and where?"

Millicent shook her head.

"They didn't give us a time or place. Mrs Black said she wanted to arrange both with you directly."

Millicent reached into her robes and removed a small hand mirror.

He accepted it carefully and turned the mirror over in his hand. It looked remarkably similar to the one Sirius had given him years ago, right down to its otherwise unremarkable construction.

Harry smiled beneath his respirator.

So Sirius's pair hadn't been unique. That raised some questions. If the Black family possessed multiple sets of mirrors capable of communicating over enormous distances, why had Harry never encountered another one outside Sirius's possession? Something that useful should have been hanging from the shelves of every magical shop in Britain.

Unless the Blacks had never shared how they were made? A family secret, then.

Harry slipped the mirror into his pocket. Walburga had waited this long. She could wait another hour or two while he finished dealing with the aftermath of yesterday.

He looked towards Cresspool.

"Will they be all right?"

"They need blood. The countercurse restored circulation, but the Blood-Freezing Curse can destroy blood cells before it's reversed. I'd like transfusions for both of them, and supplemental oxygen until I can determine how badly their blood's oxygen-carrying capacity has been affected."

He gestured towards the faint purple discoloration around Millicent's lips. Harry had taken it for hypothermia but if it was lack of blood oxygen that was much worse.

He reached behind his head, undid the straps holding his respirator in place and pulled it away from his face.

Millicent stared at him when he offered it to her.

"Take it."

"But—"

"It supplies oxygen. Pass it back and forth with your mother until Cresspool gets back with something for both of you. Deep breaths, slow exhale. Give it back when he does."

Millicent accepted the respirator and fitted it over her mouth and nose.

Cresspool was already heading for the door.

"I'll be back."

Harry sat down while the mediwizard disappeared into the corridor and focused on his own breathing. So long as he wasn't actively fighting he could go hours without the thing.

Millicent inhaled slowly through the respirator before removing it and passing it to her mother. Mrs Bulstrode fitted it over her own face, took another long breath and handed it back while she exhaled.

They settled into a rhythm. Inhale. Pass. Exhale slowly while the other inhaled. Pass it back.

Harry watched them for a moment.

Footsteps approached from the corridor and instead of Cresspool, Ron entered. Dobby followed close behind.

Harry knew something was wrong.

The house-elf walked several steps behind Ron with both hands wrapped around his ears, twisting them nervously as he followed. Harry knew that expression. Dobby had something important to say and every additional second he remained silent appeared to cause him physical suffering.

Harry raised one finger.

"In a moment."

Ron nodded and Dobby somehow twisted his ears harder.

Thankfully, Cresspool returned a minute later carrying two small oxygen cylinders with masks attached. He went to work fitting one over Mrs Bulstrode's face while Millicent took one final breath from Harry's respirator.

She held it back out to him.

"Thank you kindly."

Harry accepted it and secured the mask over his face again. The familiar hiss accompanied his first breath as he stood.

"Cresspool?"

"I have them."

Harry nodded.

He looked towards Ron and Dobby.

"All right."

Then he followed them into the corridor. They led him to an empty sitting room on the opposite side of the manor. Hermione entered behind them and closed the door before layering several privacy charms across the walls.

The moment the last one settled into place, Dobby exploded.

"It's Miss Cissy, Harry Potter sir!"

"What about her?"

"Miss Cissy is getting worse! Much worse! Dobby has been watching her and trying to help, but Miss Cissy won't listen and Dobby doesn't know what else to do!"

The elf twisted his ears again until Harry reached down and gently pulled his hands away from them.

"Slow down. What's happening to Narcissa?"

"She is disappearing."

Harry frowned.

"Not magic disappearing! Withering! Miss Cissy barely eats anything anymore. She does not sleep properly. Dobby brings food and finds it untouched hours later, and when Miss Cissy does eat, she only takes a few bites because Dobby asks her to. She has gotten so thin that Dobby thinks Dobby could lift her now!"

Harry's frown deepened.

"She walks around the manor all night. Sometimes Dobby finds her sitting in rooms doing nothing. Sometimes she stands outside Master Draco's bedroom. She wanders around her own home like a ghost."

"How long has this been happening?"

"A while, Harry Potter sir."

"And why am I only hearing about it now?"

Dobby's ears drooped.

Harry regretted the edge that had entered his voice.

"Dobby knew Harry Potter was busy," he said quietly. "Harry Potter has so many people depending on him now. So many battles and plans and important things. Dobby did not want to bother Harry Potter with something Dobby thought he could fix."

Harry wondered if Dobby really thought something like this was beyond his attention. Or if he simply wouldn't care. He wanted to have a good, long, private talk to his friend to console him that there was always time in his schedule to see him, and that no matter was too small.

But that exact moment served as a reminder that in reality Dobby wasn't wrong. He had too much to do right then.

"Thank you Dobby."

He looked towards Hermione and Ron.

"When we're finished in Kazakhstan, Draco comes back here."

"Temporarily?"

"No. This is his permanent station. Or at least until his mother recovers. He can work from the Manor if we need him for anything, but I'm not dragging him around Britain while she's wasting away alone in his house. She needs her son."

"What about Lucius?" Hermione asked.

Harry's eyes moved briefly towards the wall, as though the shade might somehow be hovering on the other side.

"No."

Ron raised an eyebrow.

"You're leaving him dead?"

"For now."

Harry rubbed the bridge of his nose beneath the respirator.

"Peter still has Lucius's original body prepared. We can bring him back properly whenever we decide to, same as we did with Draco and Hermione."

He shook his head.

"But I'm not doing that to either of them yet."

Hermione understood first.

"Narcissa would have her husband back. But with how fragile she is the shock could kill her."

Harry felt that was either a bit of an exaggeration, or at least too close to the line between metaphorical and literal. There was also the small matter that he didn't trust Lucius.

Lucius had cooperated with them. He'd fought for them, provided intelligence and spent enough time as Harry's shade that Harry was increasingly willing to believe his priorities had genuinely changed. None of that meant Harry was ready to put Lucius Malfoy back into a living body and give him the freedom that came with it.

XXX

Harry moved around Azkaban while memory ­Hermione and the others continued bombarding the temporal barrier with anything they could tear. Everything from the stone to furniture passed harmlessly through his body before striking the translucent sphere and dissolving into heat and light. And unidentifiable sludge.

He ignored the battle and concentrated on the man standing at its centre.

The Head Unspeakable of Time had already discarded his outer robes. Beneath them he wore nothing remotely resembling what Harry expected from one of the most powerful officials in the Ministry. A white sleeveless undershirt, faded jeans and heavy boots made him look more prepared to repair a roof than manipulate the fabric of time.

Harry circled closer.

At first the man's proportions had reminded him vaguely of Slughorn, but the resemblance disappeared under closer inspection. He was shorter and nowhere near as round. Late middle-aged, certainly, with a slight gut and a bald spot to rival Mr Weasleys', but there was still definition in his arms and shoulders. He looked like someone who had done actual physical labour at some point in his life and never entirely gone soft afterward.

Something glinted near his waist. A thin chain ran from the man's belt into the pocket of his jeans. A pocket watch.

Harry looked back at his masked face, then down at the watch chain again.

"Oh."

The memory vanished around him and Harry emerged from Dumbledore's Pensieve.

They were back in the Kazakhstan base. Ron, Hermione and Draco were waiting nearby, all three watching him expectantly.

Harry removed his hands from the basin.

"Dedalus Diggle is the Head Unspeakable of Time," he announced.