Chapter 7
"We ruin the countries we govern and the people in our care. We slaughter our enemies and sacrifice our allies. We’ll keep killing till there’s nothing left but to destroy ourselves. It will never be enough." - Alucard, Hellsing.
Narcisa was sitting by the hearth of her home, helping her young daughter to finish her homework when the patronus formed in front of her. A small ball of bluish-like-light that acquired the form of a rabbit the next second. The coffee cup in her hand rattled with the force of recognition that hitted her mind.
Professor Flickwick’s patronus.
“Hello, Mr. and Mrs. Black,” the man’s voice echoed in the small room of her new home. “Please, we need to talk as soon as possible. Please, the school arranged for an emergency port key that will be delivered to you in the next hour.”
An owl arrived as well, its black father belying the creature’s International Cooperation Office status. She sat her cup down and took the letter in her hands and opened the parchment to see the pretty calligraphy of Professor Flickwick.
Hello, mother and father…
I was sorted into this great house with a pretty bird and where everyone uses blue as a kind of badge. Hogwarts seems to be different from Mahoutokoro…
She scanned the document trying to process the words.
The words that seemed like a joke, like a bad joke from the universe to her. A bad joke designed to break half of his heart. To take away half of her life.
“It is with utmost distress that I need to report to you that young Draco’s health is deteriorating by the second. He has been brought to the infirmary a few hours ago and looked and treated by Madame Pomfrey to no avail. This is the main reason for this urgent and informa message. If you can come as soon as possible, it will be a great help to understand the situation better since we require parental permission to go forward with certain procedures.”
“Cissy?” the voice of her husband pulled her from the letter. “Is everything okay, love? You are pale.” His husband said.
“Is it Draco?” the childish voice asked her as well when she remained silent. And that silence answered everything for the small child. “Is Draco.” And the pain in her voice was unmistakable. “Is he gone?” Narcissa didn’t see it, but she heard the tears gathering in her daughter’s voice.
“Astra, baby, please go upstairs,” her husband said and his snowy-white hand took hold of her trembling ones. “Mom and I need to talk.”
“I want to know if something is…” Astra’s voice broke. “If my brother is…” and then, she was sobbing and Narcissa looked up. “He was sick and you both let him go there.”
“There was no other option, Astra,” Narcissa replied, looking up at her younger daughter. She was like Draco, all white-blond hair and fair skin. But her eyes were as dark as a toffee.
“There is always an option,” she nearly yelled, her eyes burning holes in Narcissa’s form. “But you let him go there.”
“There was no other option, Astra.” The only male in the room stated as well. “If I could I would keep Draco as close to me as I can, but we can’t risk it. We can’t risk him this way.”
“Or maybe you just wanted him to be away,” she accused and it hurt Narcissa worst. “He is not a Scamander after all.”
“Astra, that’s enough,” Theodore Scamander said in an enraged and sad whisper. “Draco is as much my child as you are. He may not have my last name, but I raise him as my own. I don’t love him any less than I love you just because he is not mine by blood, because he is mine by all the things that matter.”
“But he was cursed as a baby, you said so yourself,” she accused. “You said he was dying. He is dying. I saw it every single time he fell asleep on the couch, breathing shallowly. I saw it every time his hands trembled after a bad winter. I saw him dying and I saw you doing nothing for him.”
“We tried, Astra,” the honey eyed man said softly, grasping tightly the hand of his wife. “We tried to give Draco the best treatment. But…” He sighed. “The thing is that there has never been a cure for your brother’s illness.” He looked at Narcissa and she nodded softly. “Come sit. There are things you need to know about your brother, aside from the fact that he is actively dying.”
Astra Dehlila Scamander Black followed his parent’s words and sat down, praying for it to be fast. Praying to Merlin for her brother to still have time to. Because she needed time with her brother. She needed more time with her brother. She needed more cuddles, and more of his soft smiles, she needed more time to play with his hair. She needed more time to watch him read on a blanket over the lush, green grass of their home.
She needed time.
Because she still needed her brother’s love.
With a heavy heart Astra sat down to listen about the things that no one ever tried to tell her about her brother. Here the adults were trying to explain all the things she saw happening to her brother while growing up. Draco’s trembling hands and pale lips and paler skin. Draco’s soft smiles and tired bags under his eyes. Draco’s inability to stay awake. Draco’s shallow breathing and a string of charms attached to his body while he slept away an entire month.
The sight that haunted her in her dreams.
Her brother’s pale and sickly skin, going to sleep and never waking up again.
Harry was sitting in the infirmary with Luna, Ron and Hermione, just watching the raising and falling of Draco’s chest. His pretty silver eyes were closed and he was gone to his dreams. Or so, Madame Pomfrey tried to assure them all. She was still bustling around Draco’s body when he looked up for the first time since he brought Draco to the infirmary.
His own tired arms were the proof that they bypassed using magic on the blond to avoid making things worse for him. Or maybe, they were too panicked to think of anything else. Even if he had made fighting Voldemort a kind of job for a living, in all the literary sense of the word, he wasn’t ready to overcome his own panic.
The irrational reaction to knowing that someone that you love is hurt or sick or actively dying.
He squished those thoughts and took Draco’s hand in his, in a replica of Luna’s movement. She was dozing on the hospital bed, tired from her worry and her crying. Harry had half a mind to doze off as well, because he was tired. Tired from the scare. Scared from all the charms that were tying itself to Draco’s body.
He was so pale and so cold.
Harry breathed a warm breath to the hand that was held between his own. His brain was working overtime trying to understand what it was. Sure, Luna told them that her brother was sick. He never thought it was a sleeping curse, like in Sleepy Beauty. Even if in his opinion Draco is much more beautiful than the small princess he learned about during his childhood.
Come on, Draco. I was mustering up the courage to ask you out to Hogsmeade, Harry’s thoughts were relenting and spiraling, all at the same time. But were directed to Draco. You are always cold, so maybe you would like Madam Puddifoot's Tea Garden. But I need you to wake up so I can ask you out. Wake up soon, please.
“Harry,” Hermione’s voice broke him from his trance and he looked up at her. “We are going to dinner. Will bring you something to eat.” And then, she was shaking Luna awake. “Come on, Luna. Let's feed you.”
Luna looked at them like a baby owl recently woke up and it warmed Harry’s heart.
“Draco?” She looked at the bed and the sleepy form of her brother. “What did Madame Pomfrey say?”
Harry, Ron and Hermione shared a look.
“She is positive he will wake up soon,” Ron said swiftly, lying swiftly. And managing to dislodge Luna from her place in the cot. “But none of us can get sick, if any of us do, she will kick us out to avoid contaging Draco.”
Luna looked dejected, then looked up at the sky, then at her brother, then at Harry.
“Okay,” she said softly in that airy voice of hers. “Will you keep him company, Harry? The nargles aren’t as prominent in your side as in mine.”
Harry was lost for a second. And the next, he was still lost, but he managed to nod a yes.
“Sure,” he stated softly. Luna sagged against Hermione’s side.
“I’m tired,” she yawned and Hermione pulled her out of the room, Ron hot on their heels.
Harry sighed when they were alone, Madam Pomfrey watching him with her hawk-like eyes.
“Come on, Draco,” he pleaded with the unconscious form of his friend…? Crush? Whatever. “I really miss you and your need for attention. Not that I think you do it on purpose, but just like Luna, you catch the eye of people. And I want you…” he trailed off. “I want to give you my attention.”
Harry took the other hand in his, holding both of Draco’s hands in his own. His hands were soft and nimble and small and he felt for the other boy. He grasped them, hoping for the better and feeling so much…
Things that he swore he will never feel again. Not after being treated like crap by the Dursleys. Not after he saw what kind of power love holds over common people. Not after he saw the horrific things love did to his parents. He swore he would be careful, but he didn’t want to be. Not with Draco, not when those silver eyes are gazing at him.
But with Draco, he wanted to hope.
He wanted to feel again.
He wanted to stop bleeding.
He wanted to share.
Share.
He felt the pull of his magic being drained from the inside of his body and heaved a harsh breath when the pull intensified.
“Mr. Potter, are you okay?” Madam Pomfrey was at his side in matters of second.
“I don’t know,” he gritted through his teeth. “It feels as if I am being sucked dry from my magic.”
And then, the matron was casting on him and Harry was able to see it first hand, live. Madame Pomfrey’s magic was a soft pink color and tasted like eucalyptus and lilies from Snape’s reservoir. Her magic pulsed a few times over his body and then, his magic reacted, turning the matron’s magic into dust.
“You need to let go of his hand,” she stated softly. “He is siphoning your magic, for some reason. The nexus is established between your hands.”
But Harry wasn’t sure he could let go. He wasn’t sure he could let go, because it didn’t feel like the nexus was being established at their hands, but rather from his chest. It felt like he was being drained from a point close to his chest.
And then, the next thing was happening.
“Oh, no,” Madam Pomfrey quivered in her place and started to cast. "Oh no! Oh no!" she was panicking somehow.
Why is she panicking? She nevers panics.
And then, he was panicking with her as well, because when is this woman not in control? Surely, if she freaked out, he should be freaking out with her as well. If she runs for the hills, he will take Draco with him and run right behind her.
He saw light flowing through Draco’s body.
“What’s happening to him?” He asked, frowning.
Madame Pomfrey took a step back from him.
“Mr. Potter,” she said, hand hovering over his body. “You need to let young Draco’s hand go.”
But he was too captivated by the magic to start processing the events and the meaning of fear. The magic was pouring from Draco and flowing through his body via the Nexus.
Harry saw the vivid colors of magic crackling in the air.
“Please, don’t break the connection,” he rasped his answer, his eyes flowing with tears.
She understood his pleas.
“I can’t,” she stated softly. “No one can break an Infinity Nexus, Mr. Potter. Not me, not anyone.” She took a deep breath. “You are going to, either, die or come up stronger from this.”
Harry felt a second nexus opening in his back. It felt as if a nerve was dying and reviving all at the same time. It was painful and made him feel high. It was muddling his thoughts and making his limbs feel heavier by the moment. And at the same time, it felt like he was healing all of the scars he gained through years of living with the Dursleys.
“Poppy?” Dumbledore’s voice broke through his mind. "The castle is fearing for its own integrity. And the danger is coming from here. Why is it?"
“An infinity nexus, Albus,” she stated. “I have never seen this before.” She stated, scared of her own knowledge. Harry knew controled fear when he heard it. "An infinity nexus happening as organic as always. Never… This has never happened in history. An Infinity Nexus appearing organically."
“An infinity nexus?” the man asked. “But none of them are…”
"He is," she stated, not giving names.
"Which one?" Dumbledore asked, coldly.
“I need to cast to ensure that Harry's health is okay,” she stated, determined to do so. "That Mr. Black is not killing them both in his haste to keep them safe."
The magic enveloped Harry like a blanket.
And then, Harry was being released from his agony and his bliss. He closed his eyes when the sting of the connection closing up hit him full force. When he blinked his eyes open again, he saw a middle size white dragon hovering over him, blue fire spilling from his mouth.
Harry tried to blink the tiredness away without avail.
"Mr. Black, I need you to calm down. No one is trying to hurt your soulmate." Madame Pomfrey's voice reached his ears slowly.
Just like when he was in the Triwizard tournament, during the Black Lake task.
The roar that she received was maybe a no, Harry thought. His mind muddled and slow.
He felt a hard, warm and soft armor coiling over him, the tip of something solid and sharp wrapping around his arm. Baby blue scales glinted under the candles' light.
A dragon.
He was looking at a baby dragon.
Xenophilus was reading his own bit of information about the old books he never threw away because he knew they were the key to understanding things that were to be burned and forever forgotten. The brown-like-colored letters, the phenomena occurring by the aging of ink on parchment, was telling him something that he never knew could be possible.
But the stylica and the mannerism of the letters on parchment were those of his deceased wife. And so, he will never think of those as lies and slander, even when his mind was still caught up in the things he thought were never possible. Knowing who gave him the book just a few weeks ago, when Draco was still too sick to leave Lovegood’s Cottage and Luna offered to look over her honorary brother. Her direct cousin.
Or maybe, half his sister by blood, Luna and Draco were, if he took into account that it was Narcissa who helped them to magically feed Luna. There was so much Black magic running through his girl's veins that he prayed to Merlin everyday for Luna to avoid the insanity that seemed to run rampant in the Black’s blood.
Cygnus was crazy.
Druella was crazy.
Bellatrix was so crazy that she ended up in Azkaban.
Andromeda was crazy. She ended up disowned.
Regulus was crazy enough to join a genocidal Lord under the name of love and ended up dead.
Sirius was crazy enough that some days he wondered if young Harry would turn out okay.
And then, there was Cissy. Cissy was less crazy than the others, but crazy enough on her own.
Cissy, who turned out to be just like Regulus… But worst, maybe. Cissy, who left herself, believed that having an affair, a contract, a lovely life with Lucius “Narcissist” Malfoy was a good idea. Cissy, who let Draco come back to Britain in the middle of a war. Cissy, who let him go to Hogwarts knowing how deranged Albus could be.
Honestly, at this point, he was just praying for Luna to turn out okay.
There was no wondering about Draco’s faith. He already knew how it would turn out like.
But, reading this book now, he doubted the same sanity of his lovely wife. Pandora was a Burke. Her blood ties pulled her close to the Blacks, but closer to the Malfoys. Being that Lucius swot her second cousin and Narcissa her third cousin twice removed. He was sure that with Narcissa’s magic flowing through Luna’s veins, Luna was more black than Malfoy at this point.
The intricacies of Magic transfusions during the pregnancy was wildly unstudied and widely avoided because of the risks. Avoided because it is considered a practice of dark magic. Magical transfusions can carry a lot of magical frames and traits. So, here he was praying for Luna to turn out okay, like Cissy’s level of okay. Maybe Andromeda's levels are okay. And praying harder for his kid to deviate as far as possible from Bellatrix's levels of madness.
Because his wife’s findings were proof that she wasn’t as sound of mind as he thought. Keeping hygiene in high standards and applying to her daily life wasn’t the best way to measure her sanity. But he was in love with her, still is and maybe, he will be in love with Pandora forever. Even now he held proof of the crazy and dark thoughts that were harbored by her mind.
Smart witch his wife.
Hard as a rough.
Swift like a blade.
Fucking bloody as dead itself.
Dehriynenen can be widely casted by a third party, uniting the life forces of a wizard with a magical creature. The casting shall be between these specific specimens: wizards-vampire. Wizard-WildVeela. Wizard-AnimagusForm. Wizard-Werewolf. Wizard-Dragons. Being the dragon bonding the most powerful of the aforementioned.
The magical creature’s body disappears, being the wizard the major absorber of the power by dominating the bond because of its consciousness and rationality. Maybe, even by their fears. A part of the Wizard dies in order to make space for the new energy inside their cores.
This spell is considered of dark nature since it makes the wizard in question an hybrid in soul-built and creates a boost to the magical core. Theory research suggests that this type of cast was beneficial in the past to establish peace between wizards and other magical-powered lines. In other words, this type of bonding was created for political measurements.
This type of spell is always casted between a sacrifice, a wizard and a third party that would act as power or peace executor. The sacrifice was always of low magical-power. The third party would have a kind of leash over the surviving party.
This type of bonding was never casted upon ill people or dying people-creature by records in stone and rupestrian paintings. Nonetheless, there’s one single account about a bond between a Wizard and a wild veela. It was considered sacrilegious and the object was killed a couple of years after the bonding.
Survivor: Veela.
Sacrifice: Wizard.
Bond: Stable.
MAJORITIES:
- Retention of the Veela features.
- Retention of magical properties.
- Retention of form.
- Retention of cognitive functions.
- Retention of wizard-like behavior
MINORITIES :
- Mixing of memories.
- Mixing of survival skills (in the magical world of wizards=
- Mixing of skills.
AVERAGES:
- Magical prowess.
- Magical gaining of a third party.
- Successful merge of both souls.
The information was giving Xeno a good bout of nausea and what-not.
Annotations from Newt Scammander’s casting:
The spell was successfully casted on a Wizard-Dragon.
Date: July 26th, 1983.
Specifics of the subject:
Race: human.
Sub-Race: wizard.
Core age: 3 years, 1 month and 21 days
Age: 3 years old.
Status of the subject at the casting: unconscious. Dying from the subjection of a curse.
Curse subjected to: Cruciatus Curse.
Specifics of the Sacrifice:
Race: Magical Creature
Sub-Race: Dragon
Name: Aquae-Caeruleum Draconis
Age: unknown.
Estimated of Age: 2195 years old.
Core Age: unknown.
Core Age Power: High/Dangerous Levels of Wild Magic.
Status of the subject at the casting: Conscious.
MAJORITIES :
- Retention of Wizard form.
- Retention of Dragon form.
- Retention of cognitive functions.
- High Levels of Wild Magic in the magical core.
AVERAGES: unknown.
MINORITIES : unknown.
Subject’s Name: Draco Kalyke Black.
New Developments : the wizard in questions seems to have absorbed most of the Dragon’s soul. Has retained both forms and can change at will. Side Effects of the Cruciatus Curse remains, which puts on the table the theory of unforgivables not permitting the merging, but the absorption of the soul. A dampener was put in his magical core to tamper down the wild magic running through the core.
Dangerous levels of wild magic in core.
Traces of a forming bond. Maybe of romantic and sexual nature.
Preternatural bond to an unknown specie.
But that wasn't all. No. It wasn't. Because there was a new date at the bottom of the page. A very recent parchment with information.
Annotations by Albus Dumbledore:
The spell was successfully casted on a Wizard-Dragon.
Date: June 24th, 1995.
Specifics of the subject:
Race: human.
Sub-Race: wizard.
Core age: 17 years, 3 months and 19 days
Age: 17 years old.
Status of the subject at the casting: dead.
Curse subjected to: Aveda Kedavra.
Specifics of the Sacrifice:
Race: Magical Creature
Sub-Race: Sphinx
Name: Sapientia Triangularis
Age: unknown.
Core Age: unknown.
Status of the subject at the casting: Conscious.
Majority :
- Regaining life.
- Partially merged souls.
- Retention of human form.
- Allergy to water.
Average :
- Fragmentation of mind.
- Memory Loss.
Minority : Unknown.
Subject Name: Restricted.
So, it was true. Cedric Diggory was dead and someone brought him back.
Xeno was sure that the theory that the soul remains with the body until it reaches a peaceful place for the body to be buried was applied here. Even if it was speculation.
Was Dumbledore the caster or was someone else?
A Patronus pulled him from his musing. Newt's if he wasn't mistaken.