A Soul to Keep

Chapter Nine

Through the Looking Glass

Matilda made brief eye contact with Pansy as she rushed toward them and threw herself in front of the curse. Three Aurors descended upon Lucius as Pansy fell...

Lucius threw himself hard onto the stone floor, the green stream of his curse soaring inches over Pansy's shoulder and ricocheting off the wall as she landed with a pained grunt beside the young Malfoys and Potter.

The Gryffindor paused for a moment, looking lost and yet strangely determined to save everyone in the room as he glanced madly around. Appearing to forsake all reason, he began to move over to Pansy, still clutching Draco tightly against him.

"Get him out of here, you fool!" she screamed at him. "What are you thinking?"

Harry stopped where he was, exactly halfway between the exit and the stage. He was staring with impossibly wide eyes over at Lucius, who was now surrounded by a cloud of Death Eaters and Aurors and deftly cutting his opposition down with quick, practiced precision.

"He's bleeding to death!" Pansy shrieked over the roar of the battle, and Harry started and blinked if he had been lost to horror.

"Where's Matilda?" he shouted back, shuffling forward a bit, making it obvious that he was completely unaware of what his next move should be. Draco groaned in his arms, his feet scraping limply against the stone floor, his head flopping from left to right as what colour he usually possessed swiftly drained from his face. It didn't look like Harry was going to be able to hold him up for much longer, and he slipped further down toward the ground.

Pansy searched frantically through the crowds, craning her neck over the adults as if Matilda could have somehow regained full consciousness and joined the battle without a word of warning. She had been there just moments ago, the dark lump on the floor between Lucius and Pansy herself.

"Jesus Christ!" Harry said, staring across the room toward the stage.

Pansy followed his gaze. Somehow Lucius had broken free of the raging mob; he must have fought his way back to the teenagers and actually picked Matilda up off of the floor in all of the confusion. He was dragging her now across the room, much like Harry was holding Draco, his niece looking very much like a limp doll with glassy eyes and droopy shoulders as she shoved weakly and uselessly at the arm wrapped around her ribcage.

"Milord!" he bellowed, his voice cutting through the battle and stopping a few of the Death Eaters where they stood. Voldemort was behind an overturned chair, firing curse after curse at Dumbledore, who was blocked in the same manner. "Milord!" he shouted again as he stepped up onto the stage. His face was glistening and flushed, and his eyes were wild and resolute. Matilda whimpered and pushed a bit harder, staring up at the ceiling as desperate tears began tumbling from her eyes.

"No!" someone screamed in the greater battle. Tonks burst from the crowd and made for the stage at top speed. She pulled her wand just as Lucius pointed his own at her chest, firing a long, yellow bolt of a hex at her and looking mildly disappointed when she hit the ground and continued to breathe.

He threw his wand down at his side, the wood clanking on the metal it landed on, and he leaned over awkwardly to pick up the sword. Matilda was close to passing out and there was no way that she was going to be able to force the blade away as it was raised to her throat. She tilted her head back, the unpleasant cold of the metal soon giving way to a sharp sting and then a burning agony as he drew the metal slowly across the thin flesh. She silently pressed her head against her uncle's chest, fighting for breath and trying to move beyond the rush of warm liquid on her throat, the sudden incredible weight of her limbs, the impossible distance between her and everything else in the room.

"She's not your heir!" Pansy screamed, tearing toward the stage as the girl in Lucius' grasp issued a pathetic, choked-off sob of pain and somehow seemed to dangle even more loosely in the arms that held her upright.

"She is a Malfoy! She will do!" Lucius barked back, his feral rage seared into his red cheeks.

He was fumbling now, Matilda wilting in his arms, the sword dangling from one hand, his wand far out of reach. He was helpless, unarmed, and up on a pedestal. Pansy pulled her wand on him and screamed the first thing that came to mind - "Petrificus totalus!" - and his limbs seized up before he fell, rigid as a plank, the solid crack of his head against the bars echoing through the room.

Matilda was now pinned to him, the frozen arms tight around her chest, and she was still bleeding. Pansy had to get to her, pull her away and up the stairs with Potter and Draco and get the both of them the hell out of the Manor. But there were Death Eaters everywhere, surrounding her, making for her, and there were Aurors mixed in as well. The battle had exploded with Lucius' fall and had reformed around her. She was trapped in the crowd, Matilda too far away to save, Draco completely out of sight. She began shoving, pushing through the strangers, bashing some of them to the floor and forcing her way through.

Soon, she was free of them and had made it to the stage. She pulled at Lucius' petrified arms, his stormy eyes furious and blazing with silent threats. Matilda was bleeding, but not too badly; the cut was deep, but she was still a little bit awake, and she was most certainly breathing.

"Grumos," Pansy whispered, pointing her wand at the gash in Matilda's throat. The blood quickly stopped flowing, forming into an unpleasant scab that wrapped around the girl's neck in a thick, brown line.

She was fine, she was alright, she could be saved and so could Draco, but the arms had to come away first. The thin wrists and the manicured hands were slick with blood and unyielding as shackles around the wounded girl.

Pansy quickly gave up on prying and moved around so that she was leaning over their heads. She threaded her own arms under Matilda's and pulled her free of Lucius' grasp. She stood as she pulled and then stumbled as Matilda's feet were freed, both girls flying backward onto the bars. A sharp, burning pain exploded through Pansy's calf, and she heaved Matilda off of her to grab at her leg.

She had landed on one of the daggers.

It was buried in the flesh of her calf and she cried out before she remembered that she had no time for anything like nursing her own wounds. Her friends were dying.

A loud series of cracks drew her attention back into the room as each of the seven Hags Disapparated from the Manor, bored and disappointed expressions on each of their faces.

"No!" someone young hollered from somewhere on the other side of the room.

It was Harry. Draco was a crumpled heap against a wall a few feet away from him and the Gryffindor was running toward an old man splayed out on the floor.

"Dumbledore!" he bellowed, dropping to his knees and skidding over to the prone body.

The Death Eaters stopped moving and parted as Voldemort began to walk through them. He drew closer to Harry with slow, calculated strides and pointed his wand at the boy's head, a few blue sparks floating up from the tip as residue from the curse that had so direly injured the Headmaster.

Voldemort was smiling.

When Harry spoke he did not look up from Dumbledore's face. "You can't know that by killing me you aren't killing yourself," he said darkly.

"I am very much aware of that, boy," the Dark Lord replied, his voice light and almost carefree. He turned to the stage and looked intently at Pansy, still stretched out on the stage, clutching at her leg with one hand and Matilda's arm with the other as if this minor physical contact could save the other girl's life as well as her own. As if it were some sort of an anchor.

He moved his wand away from Harry and pointed it over to the wall, over to Draco, and hissed, "Mobilus Corpus." Draco's limp body was lifted into the air, dangling like a deathly marionette, and Voldemort directed him over to the stage. "Do it properly, Pansy," he instructed as the boy was laid down carefully before her. "Through the heart! Father and son! You must do it for me!"

Pansy did not move, she did not reply. Draco was so pale, so still, the blue tinge in his lips and the soft flutter of his eyelids whispering to her of his incredible vulnerability. There was nothing stopping her from taking the sword back up and doing as she had been instructed. There was no one there to stop her. The Aurors would surely try to take her away. Even now the mêlée was bubbling up again, those on the side of light and good fighting to get closer to the traitor, to the Slytherin girl that had betrayed her best friend and had stabbed him without so much as a second thought, and the Death Eaters had begun to retaliate.

"Pansy!" Voldemort bellowed. He was standing perfectly still, his wand raised up to her. Harry was still crouched beside him, held at wand-point by three masked Death Eaters and watching with her the same sort of intensity as the Dark Lord himself.

"No," she said. It was little more than a terrified whisper.

Voldemort couldn't have taken more than a second to scream, "Crucio!"nd send Pansy into the most violent fit of agony she had ever experienced. Her body was on fire, her mind exploding within her skull, her finger and toe nails were being torn from her flesh and she didn't think she could survive this, no, there was no way she was going to survive this, and, as abruptly as the torture had begun, she was left whimpering and numb, a dry, scratchy feeling in her throat as if she had been shrieking. Somehow she forced herself to stand, to look the monster in the eye and defy him directly.

"Crucio!" he screamed again, and Pansy could feel a hard metal bar force her kneecap up and out of place when she collapsed in anguish.

"You need me!" she wailed as the pain ebbed, her head throbbing, her injured legs seemingly enormous and in flames. "You can't harm me!"

"I believe I have made it abundantly clear, dearest, that I can harm you a great deal. I have done it to many before; I will do it to you again. I can make you lose your mind, beg me for release, plead for me to give you time enough to do as I ask, cry - "

"Crucio!" Harry roared, his wand pressed suddenly into Voldemort's side.

The Dark Lord screamed; his airy voice transformed hideously into a high-pitched screech as he hit the ground. The Death Eaters that had been surrounding him quickly fell as several of the Aurors abandoned their own battles and rushed to Harry's aid.

"You will regret this, boy!" Voldemort hissed, raising his wand and grimacing as the last wave of agony assaulted him. He opened his mouth, drew in a quick breath, and then disappeared completely from the room.

Dumbledore groaned and dropped his wand arm, forcing himself into a sitting position and rubbing at a large sore on his neck.

The Death Eaters stopped. Their leader was suddenly missing, most of those originally present were now injured or unconscious and laying either perfectly still on the ground or pressed against the wall in one form of suffering or another. Soon, those that remained uninjured and able were Disapparating from the scene en masse.

"Where did you send him?" Harry asked, the room now quiet and filled with unconscious Death Eaters and Aurors alone.

"I didn't send him anywhere," Dumbledore replied, leaning heavily against one arm and, for the first time since Pansy had entered Hogwarts, revealing his incredible age.

From the back of the room, Blaise appeared. He shuffled through the relieved pack of Aurors and up to the stage, his left arm hanging limply at his side and his left leg dragging behind him. When he spoke, the left side of his face did not move and he was difficult to understand through the slurs and the saliva. From where Pansy stood, it sounded like a very wet, "You okay, Matty?" followed by laboured swallowing.

"Oh," Matilda gasped, still fighting for consciousness, her voice raspy and painful sounding. "Just great. Superb."

***

For three days, the infirmary at Hogwarts was a complete circus. News poured in of Lucius Malfoy's capture at a small inn somewhere high up in the Alps, while no mention was made of the actual events - even in the Quibbler. There had been no news of any sightings of the Dark Lord of any sort, although Dumbledore assured the students that he was not going to be any kind of threat for quite some time.

Mountains of cards quickly built up on the table at the end of Matilda's hospital bed, although she largely ignored them once she was able to stay awake and breathe properly again. She instead spent the greater portion of her wakeful hours eating too much and complaining energetically about the hospital food to Pansy, who diligently remained in the common wing even after her injuries had been healed.

Blaise popped in often and remained long enough to braid and re-braid Matilda's hair several times, tusking angrily at his numb left hand. He had been hit with one half of a Death Eater's hex, the other half taking Ron, and everything on the left side of his body had been petrified in the same manner as the Gryffindor's right. The hex had been easily lifted from both of them once they had returned to Hogwarts, but neither of them had regained full feeling in various parts of their frozen limbs.

Hermione had somehow managed to make it through the entire battle utterly unscathed and was merrily playing mother to anyone that would allow it, especially Ron, and occasionally even Harry, when he was out of the infirmary.

Draco had been placed in a private ward, and, other than Dumbledore himself, the only visitor that had been allowed in to see him was the little hero boy himself. After two nights spent in that room, supposedly sleeping in a chair, a second bed had been set up for him and an anonymous student had hung a sign on the door reading "Draco Potter" that played a wedding march whenever anyone read it out loud.

It had taken Matilda and Pansy three hours to convince Blaise to make it, but Draco's scream of outrage when Dumbledore joyfully brought it in to show pair of them had been priceless.

By day four, Matilda had returned to classes with Blaise and Pansy and they were finally told that they, along with the other two-thirds of the Trio, had been finally given permission to pay Draco a visit.

"The food here is so much better," Matilda commented blithely during dinner that evening. Swallowing was still agony for her, and each word she uttered seemed to tear through her throat like razors, yet she found herself performing both of these activities as often as she had ever done.

"Matty, it's exactly the same in the Great Hall as it is in the hospital wing," Blaise argued wetly, stabbing disconsolately at the mystery meat on his plate. Since the battle, he had developed a rather amusing lisp and had yet to discover how to keep his saliva inside of his mouth at all times.

"No it's not."

"Yes it is," Pansy told her authoritatively.

"No, no it's not," Matilda insisted, shovelling a bit more chocolate pudding into her mouth.

"Fine," Blaise sighed. "Whatever you like, you're the one with the throat thing."

"It's not like it makes food taste any better. My throat was slit. I am in constant pain, you inconsiderate monster."

Blaise raised his fork up to his mouth and then grimaced before placing it back down. "Actually, the charm Pansy used can affect that sort of thing."

"Since when are you a charms expert?" Matilda enquired testily.

"Shut up the both of you," Pansy interrupted. "We have to get going."

In the hospital wing, they found Madam Pomfrey bustling about with a look of determined fervour that Matilda was certain she had never seen on anyone while they were working. She practically ran up to the group of them, the tray of vials and thermometers rattling dangerously as she moved.

"Thank goodness you're here!" she exclaimed in an excited whisper.

Matilda took a step back and eyed her carefully. "I'm sorry?"

"Shhh! That horrible little... Mr. Malfoy is demanding that the three of you visit him immediately. He's making such a fuss that the third-year Potions class with the engorged eardrums have begun to cry on several occasions. It is only irritating their inner ears, and the healing potions have been rendered useless - Go! Get going!"

She ushered them fiercely through the common wing with furious shooing motions, past bed after bed of small students with pillows pressed tightly against their tear-streaked cheeks, and then shoved them through the door. A new sign reading, "Draco Potter" had replaced the previously removed one, the handwriting on this new version bearing an uncanny resemblance to the Headmaster's own.

Inside, both of the boys were sitting on one bed, the other one still perfectly made, with Harry's arm draped casually around the pale boy who looked irate and chilly. A clean, white bandage was wrapped tightly around Draco's shoulder where the sword had entered him, a beautiful testament to Pansy's terrible aim.

There was a smear of chocolate across Harry's lower lip and he was studying a Chocolate Frog card intently when the three Slytherins entered unnoticed.

"You complete bastard," Draco complained. "You've eaten every single sweet I've been given."

"Like you even eat sweets," Harry muttered distractedly, still reading the back of the card.

"I might've liked to have- as a celebration."

"Lies."

"I hate you."

Harry continued to read and began to smile broadly. "You're a terrible liar."

"I am no such thing! You take that back right now. My lies are legendary." Draco ripped the card out of Harry's hand and grabbed his chin to force him to turn his way.

Harry continued to smile. "Your lies wouldn't be legendary unless people had known you were lying. Otherwise your honesty would be legendary. Which would be a lie."

Draco dropped his hand to the bed. "Do not bother me with your logical observations. I am healing here, and all you're doing is stealing my food and distressing me. What if I slipped into hypoglycaemic shock?"

Blaise cleared his throat before Harry had a chance to reply.

"Where the hell have you three been?" Draco demanded, finally taking notice of the others in the room.

"I see you're feeling more like yourself again, cousin," Matilda said.

"You sound horrible."

"You look horrible."

"What happened to your neck?"

"Same thing that happened to your shoulder."

Draco nodded in grim understanding. "Ah, right. I didn't see you at the Manor, Zabini."

"I was there," he contended. "But you were busy being sacrificed and bleeding all over yourself. I was with the Gryffindors." He shuddered almost imperceptibly.

Draco regarded him thoughtfully for a beat and then asked, "Are my lips pink yet? They're usually so nice, and they've been so pale since I was nearly tragically murdered in my own home."

Harry mouthed the last bit of Draco's sentence along with him and then rolled his eyes. "No," he told him. "You still look absolutely foul; horrendous, really. I couldn't bear to remain in this room were it not for my Gryffindor courage and all that."

"You've been spending entirely too much time with me, Potter. You've become witty. And I repeat: I hate you. Ever so much."

"You love me."

Draco glared. "You lie."

"You lie!" Harry corrected him. "I thought we'd just covered this."

"You are trifling with me again. I can feel my blood pressure rising. I may have a stroke at any moment and lose the use of my right hand. You would deprive the world of my impeccable penmanship and thoughtful responses to fan mail."

Harry snorted. "You do not get fan mail, Malfoy."

"Well, neither do you."

"Yes, I do."

"You are trifling with me yet again, young man. I will not stand for it. This is really the last straw..."

Matilda could feel someone lightly tugging at her sleeve and she looked up to see Blaise grinning and motioning to the exit with his chin. They quietly backed out of the room and shut the door behind them.

Draco's appalled tone and Harry's cheerful laugh could be heard straight out into the common wing, where at least four of the third years had begun quietly crying again and pressing their pillows tighter than ever against their ears.

Ron and Hermione were just entering the room and ducked behind a curtain when they saw Pomfrey heading their way. When the three Slytherins reached them, they were quickly pulled behind the curtain with swift hands.

"Should we come back later?" Hermione asked, with a sigh, as if she had been expecting this all along.

"Only if you fancy anything like a conversation," Matilda replied, regarding the slight droop of the right corner of Ron's mouth with a tiny smile. "I think everything's back to normal now."

"Normal!" Ron said loudly, in tones that indicated he'd been wrestling with the entire situation for quite some time by then. "Harry's been locked in a room with Malfoy for four days of his own free will, he just saved Malfoy's life from Malfoy's own father in the dungeons concealed beneath the Malfoy Manor, you lot went to visit him before we even left the Great Hall, and I still can't feel half of my tongue. How is any of this normal in any way?" He was suffering from the same sort of lisp as Blaise was and he seemed sadly ludicrous in his confused frustration. One of the patients in their vicinity began sobbing quietly.

Hermione shook her head at him in an affectionately tolerant manner. "Let's just go, Ron," she said, patting him patronisingly on the arm and laughing lightly.

He dropped his head and nodded. "I'm missing something really obvious here, aren't I?" he asked pitifully as he grabbed her hand and followed out into the corridor.

"No, no. Well, yes. But it's sort of like we've stepped through the looking glass or fallen down the rabbit hole, isn't it? No one expects you to understand the Mad Hatter."

"I have no idea what you just said to me."

"That's so shocking and unexpected," Matilda muttered.

Pansy laughed.