The Song
Warnings for: aftermath of torture, semi-graphic description of internal injuries
Chapter notes: The Song is from Rey-verse. Apparently, the muse would like to involve some elements of Marvel-verse also in this story….
Black Lodge, 2nd November 2003
“It’s past midnight already, Zabini.”
“Still included in ‘tonight’.”
“Huff. I don’t know if he’s awake or not. He does need to sleep, you know.”
“The Song doesn’t require him to be awake.”
“The… song?”
“The Song, Potter, with a capital S. You’ll see. You can stay. You might need it, yourself.”
“What’s the Song?”
“You’ll see.”
“No, tell me first.”
“Shall I swear that I do not mean you or the mystery man harm?”
“No. Just tell me. It’s much easier and less taxing, I think.”
“No. Too complicated. Too many questions. I’m tired, Potter. I’d rather go finish this then crash down somewhere comfortable. You can ask your questions tomorrow.”
I pause, scrutinising his countenance and posture sharply, just before we arrive at my guest’s bedroom. Zabini does show more expressions than normal, and use more words, as if too tired to care about their image. They don’t really slump, but they look like they really want to.
I frown. I never knew of oaths that bind people except for the Unbreakable Vow before this, or I would have performed it in front of the entire school and guests in my fourth year at Hogwarts, when most of them doubted my non-participation of putting my name forth as a champion for Hogwarts for the Triwizard Tournament. But Zabini seems to take their vows – this kind of vow – seriously, and I do need my guest healed without any fear of sabotage or blabbermouth….
“All right. Swear it. To heal him – to do your best to heal him, and not by killing him or something bad like that – and not to tell anyone about healing him or his presence in relation to mine.”
The prat quirks a small smirk, to that. “He’s that important to you, eh? Now I’m ever more curious.”
I glare.
They swear the vow, in the end, after a few confirmations about the wording, all with a small smirk on their lips.
I fight not to stomp into the bedroom that’s been housing the man Hermione, Justin and I rescued, after that.
The man lying in the bed opens his eyes on my approach, as if this were just our usual chat session, not an unannounced visit in the middle of the night. It makes me suspicious if he ever managed to sleep, before this.
Well, no matter. Hopefully, he can sleep without pain after this.
“Hello,” I greet him verbally, then reach out with Legilimency and knock politely at the fringes of his mind.
It’s hard to put forth the concept of “friend,” and Zabini isn’t my friend anyway, so I introduce the prat to him as: `Good person. No male no female. I know them. Here to make better, for you.`
Distrust not of my own flows into me on the concept of “make better.” It makes me try harder to convince him. `Safe. You will be better. They promised me, outside, before we walked in here. Serious promise. Chains them.`
He caves in, quite grudgingly and doubtfully.
`I stay here?` I offer, next. On his blink and mental agreement, I conjure a chair and seat myself beside the bed.
Zabini looks critically at the chair, then at the bed, then at the chair again.
“No,” they say at last. “Go lie on the bed. You’ll feel sleepy. I don’t want you to fall, if you sit on the chair, in case your conjuration doesn’t stay long. It’d mean more work for me. I’ll sit on the bed, myself, in case I’m too tired to go anywhere after that.”
I frown. But, before I can wonder aloud about how taxing and potant the healing would be, and quite without my permission or my guest’s, the prat already moves the latter to the side, blanket and all, and levitates me to the space they’ve just made on the bed.
“Hey!” I squawk belatedly, struggling against the force that seeks to lay me flat on the still-warm spot on the said bed. The man who now lies beside me also struggles, perhaps seeing my displeasure and mistaking it as alarm.
“If you want to rest any time soon, just go with it, Potter,” the prat scowls as they park their bottom on the foot of the bed as they said. “Look, you’re putting unnecessary stress on your friend. If you indeed mean to torture them, go ahead, but I won’t be party to it. Tell me first, so I can get out and claim a space somewhere else until you see sense.”
I cease struggling and glower mutely at them.
But, beside me, Teal’c doesn’t cease his struggles. Damn.
Zabini seems to notice the same thing. After giving me a “Your fault” look, they seem to concentrate, closing their eyes, and… hum a string of notes, followed by another, and another, and another. The melodies seem to come from their throat, and yet… not. Too etherial, too perfect, too wide-ranged, too expressive, too frank, with power in each note, like the songs of the mer-folk but wordless and literally powerful.
Teal’c’s struggles lessen gradually on each string of the melodies, which are different from one to another.
Strangely enough, I feel like I somehow recognise the notes, or something like this peculiar form of singing, from… somewhere. It’s almost like déjà vu, while I’m rather sure that I was never exposed to it before.
And, freakier than the déjà vu, I seem to be able to understand what each note represents, the longer I listen.
And my new friend ceases his struggles entirely, when I unconsciously join in the… Song, which is… trying to convince him that Zabini means only to attempt to heal him, after introducing themself to him rather thoroughly.
The prat’s wide-eyed stare meets mine, even as I follow their lead in humming the notes.
I can’t think further on the reaction, as we’re coming to the healing part. My attention is entirely riveted on the full-body, full-detail scan on Teal’c and his little abdominal tagalong that a particular series of melodies causes to appear in my mind.
And the damage to his nerve system is thorough.
He should have been braindead, or at least as bad as Neville’s mum, before she and her husband were killed in the Death Eaters’ last salvo – a killing spree on certain sections at St. Mungo’s.
Worse, the nerves are not the only damaged section on his body.
He shouldn’t have been able to blink, or grasp my hand, or hum that small noise that he used to attract my attention.
But he did. For me.
With that notion in mind, I’m eager – even impatient – to quickly heal the damages. But something warns me against deviating from Zabini’s path, so I hold the urge back… for now… with much difficulty.
Damn. If I got my hands on those Unspeakables….
I wince inwardly when I falter on a few notes, overwhelmed by fury as I am.
Zabini glares angrily at me.
I look away, take a few deep breaths, and slip into the melodies again, just as the healing begins in earnest, tiny section by tiny section, with each different note for each different section. The pace of the singing is faster, now. Magic pours out of Zabini and I and washes gently but steadily over Teal’c’s damaged body like waves lapping on the shore of the Black Lake at Hogwarts.
And each section that it has touched is healed into perfection.
With the cost being my own vitality… and most likely also Zabini’s, as the magic that we spend never comes back to us, dissipating fully into the damaged sections of Teal’c’s body to repair them.
I am already more than half-way into the realm of oblivion when the last combined notes begin to fade.
The silence that follows feels heavy.