Title: Wounded Soldier
Author: Frances Potter ()
Artwork: Classroom by Alice
Rating: R
Disclaimer: This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by JK Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoast Books, and Warner Bros., Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.
Notes: Thank you to Plumeria for betaing so swiftly, and to Olivia Lupin for her help with this story, her comments and support have been invaluable. (FJB February 2003)
What would I get if I added powdered root of asphodel to an infusion of wormwood?
Even after all these years I can still hear Professor Snape asking that question. Asking him that question. Then his quiet voice responding, "I don't know, sir."
I don't know.
The powdered asphodel is staining my fingers as I pound it beneath the pestle, like dried blood against the white marble of my mortar. It makes me feel sick and I remember the first time I made the Draught of Living Death in my sixth year. Snape told us to be careful with the asphodel, as it would seep through the flesh and into the blood. Seep into the mind and dull the senses. It doesn't normally dull mine ... just makes me feel like throwing up. It's the wormwood that affects my mind.
Makes me remember things I don't want to, and lose myself.
The infusion I have now is the last that Snape made, and once it's finished I will have to use my own. I can tell it isn't as good by the colour. It should be emerald green. Bright and jewel sharp. Like Potter's eyes used to be before the fighting started.
Mine is like over-boiled cabbage. All the goodness and joy lost somewhere. Like Potter's eyes now that he's learned how to kill.
He's standing behind me. I've deliberately not looked at him because I don't want to see him. I don't want to give him any reason to speak to me, either. We haven't spoken since yesterday when we got back from our mission and I know he's still got his arm in that wretched sling. Why doesn't the bastard go and get his arm fixed?
I want to believe he's just not had time, but there's a deep wound in me that says he's waiting for me to say thank you. "Thank you, Potter, for saving my life. Thank you for risking your precious skin to protect my miserable arse." Well, I'm not going to say it, not just to make him feel better.
The wormwood bottle is made of crystal. Glass would ruin it. As I hold it up to the light, I can just make out the sliver of emerald that turns the infusion from a useless mixture into a miracle elixir. It takes a month of complete darkness for the ingredients to suck all the colour out of the emerald, leaving what was once shining glorious green nothing but a piece of dead crystal ... grey ... opaque.
Lifeless.
Like cold grey eyes ... my father's eyes.
I can hear him shuffling his feet. That little wounded soldier who everyone thinks will save them.
Save me.
He did save me, after all. More times than I want to remember.
The first time was on my 16th birthday when he prevented me from joining Voldemort's Death Eaters. Yes, that noble Gryffindor physically stopped me from going to my own Death Mark party.
He called it that ... Voldemort's Death Mark. As he stood there, his hand wrapped around my bicep in its own death grip, he had asked me if I wanted to die because that was what taking the Mark meant. That to bear a Dark Mark was the first step on a path that would inevitably lead to my death.
I scoffed at him, and with a sneer told him he had no idea what he was talking about.
"Oh no?" he replied, and with his free hand, he pushed his fringe from his forehead. "What the bloody hell do you think this is?" I swear his scar was glinting like white gold in the dark - a bright white slash across his tanned skin. "That Mark isn't some sort of fashion statement, Malfoy. It will reach in and touch your soul, and once it's got that in its grip, you will die a little each day until you have no soul left. Then you might as well be dead because Draco Malfoy ... the real, living, breathing, Quidditch-playing, happy, beautiful, sad, pain-in-the-butt Draco Malfoy ... will be just a shell for Voldemort to fill with his hatred."
He was smaller than me ... he still is ... but that touch.... The strength and power in it. We stood there in that deserted corridor, me knowing that my father was waiting in the Entrance Hall, him knowing that if I went I would return a different person, so close I could feel his breath on my face.
And I hated him for it. Hated that he was right and that he seemed to know me better than I knew myself.
This is the difficult part of the potion. Mixing the wormwood into the asphodel. A single drop at a time, each to be carefully blended until the mixture is a paste ... not enough and the paste will be useless ... too much and the draught will be deadly. The only way to tell is to rub the paste between your thumb and finger to see what its texture is like. We spent weeks and weeks working on it. In the end, only three people in my class mastered it.
We were the last class Snape taught to make it. Thomas died in one of the first battles after Voldemort decided it was time to strike... he was just 17. Granger is still alive, but she's far too busy for making potions. Her skill at charms makes her too valuable a person to leave mixing arcane recipes.
So that just leaves me. Ha! The youngest Potions Master Hogwarts ever had. I'm 19 and I spend most of my time in this dark place. Now I know why Snape had sallow skin -- he was too busy to bother with the sun. Why his hair was greasy -- he never had the time to take care of it because he was too immersed in his work. Why he had such a god-awful temper -- the ingredients warp your perception.
Snape saved my life as well. That's why he's dying now. When Voldemort lost me, he decided to make an example of Snape. After all, didn't Snape have his handy little Dark Mark still linking him? I don't know how he did it, what form of magic Voldemort commands to strike someone over such a distance and behind so many wards.
At first Pomfrey thought he had a fever, then she realised what Voldemort had done. Snape's Dark Mark burned, and every time his blood passed through it, it heated more and more. The Dark Lord was destroying his ex-follower from the inside out, burning him inside his own skin.
Snape wanted us to kill him, but they are sure there must be a way to conquer this. By 'They' I mean the Gryffindors. Ever-hopeful little Gryffindors. It was Granger's idea actually. She'd read in some Muggle medical book that they treat people with head injuries by making them unconscious while their body heals itself. We've been using the Draught of Living Death on people who've been driven almost insane by the Cruciatus or other curses. The Draught puts them into such a deep sleep that no more damage can be caused while we look for a cure. Or while their bodies cure themselves. Well, that's the theory anyway.
I put Snape to sleep a week ago and haven't seen him since. I can't bring myself to visit the hospital, so I stay down here, in the dark, making potions and trying to at least be useful.
He's still there. Potter. In his best little Wounded Soldier mode. If he doesn't leave soon, I will strangle him with that sling.
My mother called me 'her little wounded soldier' once. We had been walking in the manor grounds when I tripped over a tree root. I hurt my hand when I fell ... there's still a little scar on my palm where I cut it ... and I started to cry. She took hold of my hand, said nice things to calm me down, and tied her lovely white handkerchief around it. She held me close and made me understand that I was precious to her. My father ripped the handkerchief off when we got home, punishing me for daring to cry. My mother never showed me affection after that.
And I never cried again.
I can't stand this any longer. Doesn't Potter realise how difficult this potion is to make? How being here in the dark can destroy whatever feelings or emotions I might feel for ... anyone. For him? The crystal bottle is cool against my hot palm; pressing on the scar that reminds me of my mother who died emotionally on the day her seven-year-old son was taken from her, and who died physically on my 18th birthday.
My coming of age present.
"What do you want?"
Finally unable to ignore him any longer, I turn as I speak. He is standing, backlit by the light streaming in through the open door, his face in shadow so I can't see his expression. But he can see mine. Laid out in all its tired, emotional glory.
I don't want him to see me like this, so open, so vulnerable.
I shut down, hiding what I am feeling, but I still get the impression that he knows what's behind my mask.
Just the way I know what is hidden under those robes. But I don't want to think of that, either.
"Pansy said you needed some Star Water."
Why does he always talk like that? Quiet and calm. It makes me want to shout at him just so I can force him to shout back ... to lose himself in rage like the rest of us. I'm supposed to be the cool, controlled one -- the person who doesn't get ruffled, but now it's him. Sometimes I find myself just watching him when he's talking to other people because the serenity he radiates filters over everything ... even me.
He can walk into a room full of agitated, quarrelling people, and within minutes everyone will just settle down -- he doesn't even need to say a word.
The last time I saw him excited and animated was after our first great victory a year ago. The whole Army of the Phoenix (I hate that name -- so Gryffindor, but I guess it's better than 'The Army of Light'!) were celebrating in the Great Hall. Really celebrating. Everyone was drunk, even people like Snape and Weasley-- all the Weasleys as it turned out, even Ron. I hate thinking of him as 'Ron', but when there are so many of them, first names are the only way to distinguish one from the other. After all, I can hardly call him 'Weasel' in public anymore.
I was sitting on a table when Ron came up to me, speech slurred from too much Ogden's Old Firewhisky. He stood in front of me for a moment, swaying slightly, then actually flung his arm around my shoulder. He leaned in very close, ruffled my hair, and said, "You're not really that bad after all, Malfoy." I watched him stagger away and say almost the same thing to someone else and I was too drunk to really care.
Later I had eventually decided the table wasn't a good place to sit. It had taken me a minute to actually get off of it, and I hoped no one noticed I had to grab a chair back for support. With my half-full bottle of whisky for company, I wandered outside to look at the stars. Muggles don't get to see stars like we do, their electricity causes light pollution, but there are still some places where they can be seen in their glory. Malfoy Manor had incredible sky vistas and Hogwarts does as well, especially if you get away from the buildings.
Potter was on the main steps, lying back against the stone with his arms stretched out to either side. It looked like the most uncomfortable position I could think of. If he wanted to sleep on the steps, then why didn't he just lie along one of them instead of sprawling like that? He was lucky I didn't step on him, bloody idiot. I nearly tripped down the stairs, but managed to make it look like I had intended to sit down next to him all along.
He looked at me with a strange but contented smile on his face and his dazzling green eyes dancing in the moonlight. I felt his hand pat me on the small of my back. It remained there as he spoke, "We did good."
"Yes we did," I responded and did the only thing I could at that moment.
I leaned down and kissed him.
It wasn't a romantic or passionate kiss, just a brief touch of my mouth on his. I can't even remember if he returned it. He tasted of Butterbeer and was still smiling when I pulled away. We remained out there in the late summer night watching the moon disappear behind the Forbidden Forest and sharing the remains of my whisky bottle.
Star Water. Pure spring water that has been left in the starlight to infuse with the energy for one moon cycle. It's the final ingredient for the Draught and I have to leave my carefully mixed paste for 12 hours before adding it. I can see the bottle in his hand, clutched in careful fingers. He holds it out and I wonder if he's scared to come any further into the room. This is, after all, Snape's potions laboratory, and I know Potter spent more than his fair share of detentions scrubbing and cleaning the place. He finally does cross the few paces to my workbench and sets the bottle down.
And I can see his face.
The same face that had looked at me with despair and pain thirty-six hours before.
Is it really only that long ago? It feels like forever. The day had started well -- perfect for collecting potions ingredients. There are several important ones that can't be cultivated and have to be used directly from their wild natural state. The trouble was that the only place to get the ones I needed was a broom ride away, out of the protection of Hogwarts and into the unknown. We knew Voldemort's Death Eaters were in the area even though we'd secured it for miles. Their curses attack the castle all the time, sometimes succeeding in seeping through the wards. The latest ones eat into our emotions and do weird things with depression. Potter says that it feels like Dementors are in the castle in the places the curses get through. I know Granger is working on new charms to counteract them, but even she is susceptible -- I found her crying in a corner a couple of days earlier.
When I got to the main entrance, Potter was waiting, broom in hand... his precious Firebolt. "Hermione said you're going to collect some ingredients."
"Yes," I replied. I don't talk much these days. Talking takes too much energy.
"You shouldn't go on your own. I'll come with you."
"You?" I was shocked that he would even suggest accompanying me. He was too important to waste on a plant-collecting expedition. "No."
"You're too important to send out on your own."
Me? Important?
No one had called me important for a very long time.
We argued, but I knew Potter would win in the end. He always wins. In fact, he didn't even have to argue ... he could have just stood there and said nothing while I ranted, and still won. So in the end I let him come with me and we spent the day out collecting. It had been one of the best days I had spent for a very long time.
I should have known Voldemort would spoil it.
They attacked us out in the hills, and the only reason we got out of it alive was because he took a curse aimed at me. It got him in the arm, but would have hit me in the heart and killed me. After that, we managed to get all of them, but not before someone cast a weather storm. God, that was terrible -- ice cold rain that ripped into our flesh and soaked through clothing so quickly that within minutes we were both frozen to the bone.
There was a cave. I knew where it was because I'd once found the mountain moss I was looking for in it. We couldn't fly in the storm, so I had to carry Potter most of the way and once we were inside he just collapsed to the ground like a lead weight. Heat was a priority, but I knew I needed to do something about the curse first. He looked at me with pleading eyes and I realised that he must have been in incredible pain. The curse had left what looked like a deep knife wound on his arm, but the blood oozing from it was a sickly dirty river of rust. He sobbed when I picked the limb up to have a closer look and it was all I could do not to just hold him tightly.
By the time I'd dealt with the curse and got some heat going he was unconscious, but I knew he was going to be okay because it was the deep, even sleep of recovery. There was no wood, so I had to heat stones and use them to dry the clothes because spells wouldn't work. I had a blanket in my emergency kit and I wrapped both of us in it, spooning against his rain-slick skin.
I hated touching him. Hated that it made me feel so ... blissful to have him against me. Feelings like this are difficult for me. I hate relying on anything ... on anyone. Feelings are for other people, not for Malfoys.
But...
But this was an amazing thing. Amazing in its simplicity. To feel another's skin ... the rise and fall of their breath ... their hair against your cheek. It was what I had been waiting my whole life for, and if I never touched him again, I would hold the memory of Harry's skin in my heart for the rest of my days.
I pick up the bottle of Star Water and study the contents. Goodstar water gives off an energy so strong you expect it to actually glow with power. This is a reasonable sample, but I know I will have to speak with Pansy about making the next batch better. I wonder if Potter can sense that power. I can sense him now, standing next to me. Suddenly I feel so tired that all I want to do is sink to the floor and curl up into a protective little ball.
Then he touches my arm.
I'm so shocked by the touch that I flinch. Actually flinch away as though he has hit me, but he holds on with a firm but gentle pressure I can feel through the material of my robes. His fingers feel like five hot little marks on my skin.
"I wanted to say thank you."
"What?" It was the last thing I expected him to say.
"You saved my life. I would have died if you hadn't gotten us to that cave."
I opened my mouth, but still couldn't say it. Still couldn't say 'thank you' back to him.
Nineteen years of pain press down on me, digging into my heart and soul. They say that when you die your life flashes before your eyes, and I feel this is happening to me. My whole world feels like it is going to collapse and that my life might end at this very moment. Every terrible thing I had done or that had been done to me opens huge wounds and I want my mother to just hold me one last time ... to wrap my pain with her clean white handkerchief and call me her little wounded soldier.
"You missed dinner."
I stare at him and blink a couple of times; the sudden change of conversation leaves me momentarily confused. I'm tired, I keep repeating to myself over and over. Tired, just tired.
"I was busy." The hand I use to push my hair off my face is shaking.
"I missed it too. But I've got some supper things in my room. "His fingers had brushed down my sleeve and are now curled around my hand. "If you want to join me."
Join him?
"Thank you." Finally...
Finally I manage to say the words, and I know that Harry understands that I am thanking him for everything. Thanking him for his trust and for saving me. Thanking him for being Harry and forgiving me a reason to feel.
He leans in and kisses my cheek as though he were my brother. He pulls just slightly away to look into my eyes, and then leans in a second time and kisses my lips as though he were my lover.
"Come on then, or it will all get cold." He leads me towards the light.
We are both wounded -- maybe so wounded that we will never be healed, but at least I know his touch will soothe my pain, and that... incredibly ... somehow, I am the one that can soothe him.