FORTY-NINE: All Kindred Powers

“…but they wouldn’t really let me go until I’d demonstrated, of course,” a familiar voice said, but there was something unfamiliar about it, too. Something that didn’t belong? After a moment, Harry realized that it was a voice that did not usually hold any hint of humor in it; but it did, now. “Seems you end every year in Hospital, Harry,” the voice continued, bemused. “That’s why they tell me not to worry. But the truth is…” There was a small pause, and the voice dipped to a whisper. “…if you weren’t here, I think I might've thought I was going spare.”

Harry stubbornly tried to place the voice and could not. The scents were familiar: the crispness of the cloth around him, along with the smell of almond castile soap told him he was in the Hospital Wing. The voice didn’t go with that, either…

Harry’s lids flickered, and lit on an unfamiliar boy seated on a wooden chair at his bedside. He still didn’t have his glasses on, but in all honesty the person before him did not look like anyone he knew: the hair was too dark to be Draco’s, and besides, he was far heavier than –

Suddenly Harry knew why this voice had seemed so very out-of-place. “Dudley?!”

Dudley grinned, and Harry groped for the glasses at his bedside, slamming them on to his face to make certain that this wasn’t some sort of freakish nightmare. Surely enough, Dudley remained, if it could even be called Dudley; the boy was half the bulk Harry remembered.

Far from whalelike or fit for amusement park rides, he was now merely chubby. There was a look to him as well, one Harry had never seen before. After a moment, Harry classified it as relief mingled with excitement. “Ma’am!” he bellowed, calling to Madam Pomfrey. “Ma’am, he’s awake!”

The motherly witch bustled out of her small office and exclaimed in delight over Harry. “Oh, sweet Merlin, thank goodness you’re of a piece!” she tacked on. “We weren’t quite certain when you’d awaken, were we, dear?”

Dudley shook his head. “Not a bit of it! That old guy…”

“Professor Dumbledore, dear,” Pomfrey prompted.

Dudley rolled his eyes.  “He said he wasn’t sure you’d be all there when you woke up.”

“Mr. Dursley!”  Madam Pomfrey exclaimed.

“Well, maybe it’s not what he said, but that is what he meant, wasn’t it?” Dudley demanded, unapologetic. “But I could tell the moment you opened your eyes that you were going to be all right.” Dudley paused, frowning at him. “Although now I think on it, you do look a bit like you’ve swallowed a golf ball.”

“W-what are you doing here?” Harry managed.

“Harry Potter!” Madam Pomfrey exclaimed, scandalized. “What a way to talk to your cousin after he’s traveled all this way!”

Dudley grinned wickedly. “Yes, Harry,” he said. “What a way to talk to me! I’m of a mind not to say a thing.”

Harry ignored his cousin in favor of Madam Pomfrey. “How long have I been here?”

She smiled. “A bit longer than your habitual end-of-year stay, Mister Potter. Four days.”

Harry gaped at her. “Oh… uhm, but you can usually heal scrapes and things so quickly…”

“Yes, dear.” Madam Pomfrey’s shoulders slumped slightly. “However, if there is a great deal of damage, especially internally, care must be taken. Rapid healing may sometimes have deleterious effects–”

“Internally?” Harry wasn’t sure why he was in the Hospital Wing, come to think of it. “What happened?”

Madam Pomfrey frowned. “What’s the last thing you remember, Harry?”

Harry strained, thinking carefully back. “I was… outside, picnicking with Hermione and Draco and Ron,” he replied.

Pomfrey clucked to herself. “That’s most likely just as well. I know the Headmaster will want to see you, Harry, and your friends as well, and… well, there is quite the waiting list, if you must know. I’ve kept out the gossipmongers; it’s only been staff and family.”

Harry gave the older woman a relieved grin. The last thing he needed was some new headline gracing the front of the Daily Prophet: ‘Harry Potter Gravely Ill! What Does This Mean for the Wizarding World?’

“Do you know what happened?” Harry managed, once Madam Pomfrey had bustled off to find Dumbledore.

Dudley shrugged. “I can’t really make it out. I think there was some kind of attack, here, and you were hurt. For the first day or two I was here, everyone was quiet and sometimes angry; there was one man, a teacher I think, who was here every day, looking like his dog’d died – but then they had a big celebration.” He puffed up. “I was invited.  It was pretty incredible.”

“So we must’ve won.” Harry’s expression cleared. “That means I killed him.” He grinned. “That means I did it!”

“That means you killed someone?” Dudley demanded, taken aback.

“I think so,” Harry replied; then, “the guy who murdered my parents, Dudley, no one you’d miss.” He found himself biting off those last few words, harsh, defensive. Harry didn’t like the idea he was a murderer, but he liked the idea of a world with Voldemort even less, so… Harry leveraged himself up in bed, muscles twingeing throughout his body. He hissed under his breath, the pain taking him by surprise. “Why are you really here? It’s not to congratulate me, that’s for certain.” Harry glanced around the Hospital Wing, and found more of the beds occupied than was usual. There had been some sort of battle, and no mistake.

At that moment, the Hospital Wing doors opened, and Ron, Ginny, Hermione, Draco, McGonagall and Dumbledore spilled in, followed closely by Poppy Pomfrey, who was – quite ineffectually – reminding them not to excite Harry overmuch.

Hermione was the first to reach him. She threw her arms around Harry, nearly choking him, dampening his shirt with her tears. “I told you, Harry, I told you I don’t like it when you’re in danger, it’s no longer allowed!” she sobbed, drawing back briefly to stroke his face with the side of her hand. “Oh, Merlin, Harry…”

Ron wrapped him in an awkward, round-the-shoulder hug. “I’m glad you’re all right, mate,” he said simply, but the look in his eyes was worth a million more dramatic greetings. His face said what Hermione had done in words: don’t you dare ever do that again, you nearly killed me.

Ginny was comforting Hermione, looking up at him with an odd, wry grin that the bushy-haired girl was more in need of assistance than Harry at the moment.

“Good morning, Harry,” Dumbledore said, trademark twinkle in his eye. “Glad to see you’re with us.”

“Glad to be here,” Harry replied, genuinely.

Minerva McGonagall didn’t say much except for something that sounded suspiciously like ‘five hundred points’, after which she became immediately misty-eyed.

Harry looked for the two people he found he most wanted to speak with and found one of them absent and one of them silent.

“You did not notice,” Dumbledore said, slowly, his features falling. “He is there, Harry.”

Harry turned to view the form of none other than Professor Severus Snape, lying silent in a hospital bed four or five from Harry’s own. Harry swung his legs out to touch cool tile before he knew what he was doing. Ginny ducked under his arm and helped him hobble over.

“What happened?” Harry demanded. “He was fine!”

“Cruciatus,” said a cold, raspy voice. “Tortured to death.”

Harry turned to Draco. “To death? But he’s – I mean, he’s there, lying there!”

Madam Pomfrey moved to the other side of the Professor’s bed. “Four spells proclaim him deceased. One says he is still alive, if only by a hairsbreadth. There is little chance he will recover.”

Harry shook his head, almost absently. It was always like this. He found an adult who liked him, who was willing to look after him, and then they died – through association with him. First it had been his parents, then Sirius, and now Severus. He moved back to his own cot, seating himself and tucking his feet under the covers, feeling cold and numb.

“In the end, there were few casualties,” McGonagall told him. “Two students died, although many spent several days here. Poppy had her hands full. You all just took them by far too much surprise.” A wicked grin adorned her features, briefly.

“It was the brooms,” Ron said with a grin of his own, much broader and more free with his happiness. “The brooms really did it. You and Draco… brilliant!”

Harry noted that Draco looked pale and drawn, and that he wasn’t saying much. The Slytherin had his normally expressive eyes trained on his feet. Harry instinctively wanted to talk to him alone the moment it was possible, not least because he still had no real idea what had gone on.

“What about you, Ron?” Hermione inquired, having regained her equilibrium. “You were like some sort of general!”

Ron flushed, and for awhile the group reminisced about the battle and their heroic roles in it; Minerva quietly excused herself, but not before ruffling Harry’s hair. Dumbledore left and took Dudley with him, startling Harry with the summary claiming of his cousin. Soon, it was just the four of them, Ron seated on Harry’s bed, his wrist lightly sitting against Harry’s, a quiet and private reminder of his presence – or perhaps Ron was doing it to remind himself that Harry was warm, alive, and intact. Hermione regaled Harry with stories of the feast, and stories of Dudley’s introduction to Hogwarts.

"Dumbledore thought it was important that he be here, although he's keeping his cards close to his chest as to why," Hermione stated, arching one, dark brow. “But to start with, I thought Muggles couldn’t see Hogwarts."

“Me, too,” Ron said. “But when you think about it, he’s not entirely Muggle, is he? He’s Harry’s first cousin, you know. His mum and Harry’s were sisters. So maybe he’s part-Wizard or something.”

Harry fully expected Draco to start nattering on about bloodlines, and purity, but the other boy was silent. He didn’t seem to be completely cognizant of his surroundings. When Draco walked over to examine a vase of flowers shining in the windowsill, Ron tugged at Harry’s wrist.

“He’s been like that since the battle,” he said, sotto voce. “I think he feels like – he’s responsible, or something. Now you’ve woken, I was expecting he’d be more cheerful, but…” Ron’s somber eyes flickered over to Draco, who, standing in the sunshine, looked like some angel lit to earth. And yet, the slope of the shoulders, the jerky way Draco moved, the way he stood with his head tilted to one side, as though he could not hope to find anything more fascinating or engaging than the rectangle of world revealed through the tall Hospital-Wing windows, all screamed ‘wrong!’ to Harry. “He couldn’t’ve done more,” Ron muttered, more to himself, now, than to Harry. “He just couldn’t’ve. I mean, he killed Voldemort and everything. But maybe that could be the problem?”

Harry choked on air.

“Yeah, I know, mate; you’d think anyone’d be happy as a clam to be the one who did us that particular favor.”

Hermione had caught wind of the conversation and was now shaking her head in dismay. “He didn’t even notice my hair.”

Harry hadn’t, either, but when he looked up he saw that her hair was pulled back on either side with small, jeweled purple clips.

“He is a bloke, you know,” Ron offered.

Hermione sniffed. “Draco? Not notice something to do with hair? You obviously don’t know him as well as you think you do, Ron.”

Ron had to laugh at that.

Harry frowned. “Let me have a chat with him, will you?”

Ron and Hermione exchanged a glance.

“Good luck,” Hermione said dismally. She and Ron trailed back out into the hallway, closing the door gently behind them.

It took Draco awhile to even notice they were gone; and, when he did, he made for the door himself, halting almost guiltily when Harry called his name.

“What’s the matter?” Harry inquired when Draco finally perched at the edge of his bed.

The Slytherin shifted uncomfortably. “Nothing,” he said.

Harry laughed. “I can try to read your mind, if you’d like.”

“No!” Draco’s cheeks were pink, now. “No – don’t.”

The dark-haired boy shifted up into a seated position to get a better look at Draco’s features. “All right – I was only joking, anyway. That’d be like the Imperius Curse all over again if I didn’t ask.”

Draco shook his head. “I want to tell you.”

“Draco, whatever it is, I–”

“Don’t make promises you can’t keep,” the other boy snarled suddenly.

Harry was beyond frustration and sliding into worry and fear. “All right,” he repeated slowly. “No promises, except that I’ll listen. How’s that?”

“Good,” Draco said, his expression calming. “That’s good.” He paused again, though, running a hand through his hair.

Harry couldn’t help but note that, for the first time in a long time, Draco’s hair was not slicked back or styled. In fact, if he didn’t know better, he would’ve sworn that the other boy hadn’t even bothered brushing it that morning. As Draco would probably take time to style his hair while standing at wandpoint, this more than anything betokened his unsettled state of mind.

“I’ve done something,” Draco said.

To Harry’s surprise, the other boy slid into his thoughts, after all.

Irredeemable.

Harry realized that Draco was shaking, and squeezed the Slytherin’s hand, hard. Draco jerked away from him and shook his head, vehemently.

“You won't want to touch me,” he rasped. “I’m not your friend. Listen, I – at first it was like some kind of game, a war game, and I... I felt important. Succeeding where even my father had failed... you can’t know what that was like.” Draco sent the feeling, anyway – elation, and triumph, supported on a very old bitterness. “I got you to trust me, and you started letting things slip – little things, at first, and that was helped along by the fact that you were obeying me...”

The words were dropping into Harry’s mind like pebbles going over a chasm, making great booming echoes wherever they touched. He slumped back against the headboard, his lips parted slightly in surprise. He should have seen this – he should have. He had, briefly – but Ron had shamed him out of it.

“...but he wanted something bigger, something huge, some old secret of Slytherin’s that could change the wizarding world forever, and he was certain you knew it, only he couldn’t break into your mind anymore... so he asked me to.”

“Imperio,” Harry murmured.

“Yes. He wanted me to do it to you, or, failing that, for me to goad you into doing it to me. He already knew there was enough similar between us to form that connection.” Draco shuddered. “Kindred, he called us.”

Some of Draco’s terror slipped between the link, and Harry saw a picture in his mind’s eye: Draco standing in front of Voldemort, the man Legilimizing him, prizing into all of his most secret places. The man had known the Imperius would form this sort of lasting connection because he had learned the dark corridors of Harry’s mind in fifth year; he had been able to compare, to note similarity.

“I couldn’t find out, though, because you didn’t know, not really. So I was meant to break you if I could, befriend you if I couldn’t. I did all that and I did it without a second thought about you.”

Harry’s eyes slid up to Draco’s to confirm the statement, because he was still having trouble believing. The Slytherin’s grey eyes were hard and dark; they absorbed everything, including Harry’s will. He slumped. “All right,” he said quietly. “I understand.” A depth of shame welled in him, threatening to overwhelm him; he already felt tears prick his eyes, but he knew they wouldn’t drop. He had learned a long time ago when not to cry. Slytherins didn’t respect the weak, anyway.

Before he knew it, the shame exploded into cold anger. All that time – all that time he’d been laughing with Draco, and trying to convince Hermione and Ron to get along with him, all the secrets he’d shared or let slip – it was all a lie. All of it. He wanted to scream.

“But then you disappeared, went down into the Chamber of Secrets, and...” I was scared.

Harry blinked in surprise as Draco gave an odd, half-strangled laugh. “At first I told myself it was because it was my responsibility to keep track of you, but then I searched myself into exhaustion, until I couldn’t help but know that what I was searching for was you, and that I was–” He shook his head. “You weren’t what I thought you were. You were a puzzle and I wanted to solve you. When I thought of what things would be like after you were gone...” Draco shook his head in absent wonder, words failing him.

“You were my friend,” Harry said. “You are. You and I began to trust one another at the same time. That’s when I really knew you were all right.” When Draco smiled weakly, Harry went on. “Why bring all this up, now? Voldemort’s dead; you killed him. As odd as that sounds.”

Draco winced. “Yes...” His eyes trailed to Snape’s bed. “You know Voldemort was holding my Mum.”

“Yeah,” Harry said in a low, sympathetic voice.

“He told me that he knew that there was a spy,” Draco said, “and to find out who it was. Or...”

Harry’s eyes followed Draco’s. “No...”

“I told him,” Draco whispered. “It... it was... no... no, I thought it was... the only way, and... oh Merlin, Harry...” He put his head in his hands, and his shoulders began to shake.

“Are you being Slytherin?” Harry demanded quietly.

Draco lifted a tear-stained face. “No, I am not being SLYTHERIN! If anything I’m being a bloody Hufflepuff, Harry. I’ve... I’ve killed him! I’m a murderer. Wouldn’t Father be proud?”

Harry frowned, searching for the right thing to say, to do. It was hard for him to imagine what he might’ve done if his mother had been captured by Voldemort; he’d never known his. The best he could manage would be if Voldemort had been holding Dumbledore, or Hermione, or... or Draco himself? How would he have behaved? What would he have done?

“You’re not a murderer,” he managed coldly. “At least, not yet. He’s not dead, you know.”

“He might as well be!” Draco shouted. “And do you know what else? While you were asleep the Aurors found the Dark Lord’s hideaway, on some street in Muggle London of all places. My mum wasn’t there. Either he’s killed her, she’s escaped – or she was never there in the first place! If he had her, he was never planning on giving her up. He would’ve kept on until she died of natural causes, and by then I wouldn’t have needed an excuse to do the things he told me to!” Draco blinked away more tears. “I knew,” he said with wide eyes. “I knew it, then. I did think he had her, but I knew that he’d keep using her name to get me to do what he wanted, I knew that he’d never stop. But I had to keep on, because if I didn’t...”

Behind the words were the feelings that had engendered them, and Harry could feel the suffocating pressure of the last several months, the way it had started simple for Draco: Voldemort as a tool for his own ambition. Slowly, though, he became aware of what he was giving and what he was gaining, and panic closed over his head.

Harry’s Gryffindor side wanted to rail at Draco. Couldn’t the other boy have told someone? Anyone? It didn’t have to be him, Harry. Dumbledore would’ve done. Snape. Hermione, or Ron. Yolande, his cousin. He could’ve trusted any of those people to stand by him, to protect him. But no, he’d been so certain he could handle it on his own – so certain what Voldemort had been planning and certain he was the only one who could deal with it...

Now, Harry’s Slytherin side interjected, who does that remind you of?

Harry looked at Draco’s trembling shoulders and let out a long, low whoosh of breath. “Someone said to me once that Voldemort had hoodwinked older and wiser wizards than me,” he said softly. “I guess I ought to pass that on, then.”

Draco’s tear-stained face jerked up in surprise. “W-what?”

“Well, he manipulated you, didn’t he? He knew you loved your mum, and he used that against you.

“Once he tricked me into thinking he had my godfather. I didn’t tell anybody what was going on. Ron and Hermione found out of course, because that’s what they do. But then Neville and Luna found out as well, and then Ginny and of course they all wanted to follow me – to save my sorry hide. They nearly all ended up dead because of me.” Harry paused. “My godfather did die, or pass beyond the Veil, anyway. It was my fault.” He paused again, with a small frown of realization on his features. “In a way, I didn’t stand a chance, though. Voldemort saw that I had too much pride, that I thought I could always handle things myself, without help. He counted on it. It’s ironic in a way, because now that’s exactly what I have to do: handle things without help. My godfather’s gone, likely irretrievably, and I loved him very much.”

Harry felt an odd lightness fill his lungs as he took a breath deeper than he had in a long time; a subtle tightness left his frame. It was almost as if an Obscura had lifted without any conscious effort on his part.

“I loved mine, too,” Draco said dully. The Slytherin’s gaze lit on Professor Snape.

Harry tried to swallow past the lump in his throat. "You can't mean that Snape's -"

Draco’s grey eyes conveyed a dismal agreement without words. "Everything, Harry," he finished softly. "I've bollocksed everything."