Harry Potter and the Will to Live

Chapter Eight: New Perspectives

Harry Potter and the Will to Live

The Room of Requirements was just where he'd left it. But since his need had changed, so had the decor. Instead of scarlet and filled with cushions, it was a dark blue and gold room with a few tables and some stiff couches.

It wasn't made to be comfortable, but neutral ground. For Harry, he figured that was what was needed to get what he wanted.

His back was to the door when it opened, then shut with a click. Harry turned, nodded at Draco Malfoy.

"I wasn't sure you'd come."

Malfoy shrugged. "Curiosity." The Slytherin plopped onto a couch and crossed his ankles. "So, Potter, what do you want?"

Well, nobody could ever call Malfoy stupid or slow. An asshole, but not stupid.

"I want you to teach me the Dark Arts," Harry said calmly.

Malfoy rose his pale blonde eyebrows and looked speechless. He snorted. "I'm sorry- Did you just say you want me to teach you the Dark Arts? Are you joshin' me?"

Irritated and moody, Harry glowered at him. "I'm serious."

Malfoy's amused grin vanished at Harry's look. "Does Dumbledore know you're asking this?"

"No, and I plan to keep it that way." Harry sat on the opposing couch and rested his elbows on his knees. "My friends are dying, Malfoy. I have people behind me, and because they support me they're targets. Hagrid, Cedric, Sirius-"

Malfoy's eyes flashed at the familiar name, but stayed silent.

"And who has died on Voldemort's side? Merlin, Malfoy, it's only a name," Harry said, amused, when Malfoy grimaced. "No need to cower."

"Don't say his name in my presence," Malfoy snarled. "Just don't."

"Fine, whatever, but the point is I have to start fighting back. Somehow, or else Vol- I mean, You-Know-Who will just simply eliminate everyone good before we even battle." Harry was silent a moment. Then, quietly, he asked, "I need an answer, Malfoy."

"Why?" Malfoy burst out. "Why in bloody hell do you need it? You've never even done one dark spell in your entire life."

He hesitated when Harry didn't respond, but continued to stare at him stonily.

"Have you?"

"I used the Cruciatus Curse on Bellatrix, your dear auntie, at the Ministry. It stopped her, but didn't really hurt her."

"Doesn't mean you have the guts to do it! Why do you need to learn it? There are always spells-"

"Do you think that Vol-I mean, You-Know-You will use curses like the Jelly-Legs Curse? I can't fight him, much less defeat him, unless I know what I'm up against. I have to be able to hurt him. I'm going to have to kill him. Dumbledore sure as hell isn't helping me and neither is my Qaiul, so you are the only expert who I know and relatively trust." He wrinkled his nose. "I can't believe I just said I trusted a Malfoy."

Malfoy sneered. "What would I get out of this, Potter? I'm assuming we'd be doing it at night since you want to keep it secret, so I'd be losing sleep and spending time with you."

Harry hesitated. "I don't know what I can give you. I can pay you, but I'm not sure you don't already have money."

Malfoy leaned back again in consideration. After several minutes of silence, he said, "I want insurance, not money. I want to know you have my back if I get caught. Dumbledore said that if I get arrested and put in Azkaban, he wouldn't be able to do anything but recommend against it. If by any chance...I want you to get me out. You said you have friends behind you, but I don't have anyone backing me up."

"You want me to break the law?"

Malfoy sneered. "Aren't you some kind of Mage or something? That's what the newspapers said. They made you seem very heroic, the pained savior cursed. It's enough to make a guy sick. Literally."

"I'm in the newspapers?" Harry asked in surprise.

Malfoy's sneer turned nastier. "It's not a deal unless you agree to keep me free. I'm doing my part in this thing. I'm not going to jail for it."

"Fine. It's a deal. We start tomorrow, midnight, same place and time. Use an invisibility shield or something."

"I have a cloak," Malfoy snapped.

This was going to be fun.

Harry nodded. "Good," and then swept out of the room.

* * * * * *

For the month of January and February, Harry was able to steal a maximum of four hours of sleep a night. With Hermione's studying schedules, his training with Lycander, and his desperate, secret search for knowledge, he snuck away every midnight to be with the boy he'd grown to hate since the first day of school.

And lived for those four hours of freedom. Although it was Malfoy, and he was cursing spiders left and right, he was relishing in the fact that he was actually doing something in the fight.

They acted normally during class or when they clashed in the corridors. Harry was usually in sickened awe when that happened. He was, indeed, a very good liar. And that stunned him.

One day, when Ginny actually found him, he caught her just as he went to open the door to the Room of Requirement.

"What are you doing down here?" she snapped, shoving his Invisibility Cloak into his chest and stalking in.

Stiff, he followed her and prayed to Merlin Malfoy had either arrived late or had heard them and was hiding. He bet it was the latter as Malfoy was rarely late.

"Do you think I'm stupid, Harry? You're dead tired in the morning and you always stay awake after we all go to bed. What do you do in here, eh? Are you waiting for someone, some girl?" She stabbed a finger into his chest. "Is it Cho? Are you two-timing me, Harry Potter?"

Harry jerked back as if burned. "You actually...Are you telling me that you actually think I'm capable of something like that?"

She gave a wide gesture. "You know what, Potter? I don't know anymore. You don't talk to me, you aren't there, and you sure don't give a bloody hell what happens anymore. For all I know you've been coming here for weeks for a little nookie with Cho."

For a moment, he stared at her oddly. Her hair hung to her shoulders and her eyes, even in their fury, had a sheen of tears.

Mutely, he shook his head, dropping his cloak to grab her arms. Although they shook, they tensed and she lashed out. The resounding din of the slap startled them both. The force of it had his head flinging to the right, but his balance, as Lycander would have said, was as impeccable as ever. An inhumane noise sounded from deep within her as she shuddered.

"Do you understand now, Virginia?" he asked calmly. His voice wasn't angry, but sad and tinged with resignation.

This was the end, and he knew it.

"Don't you see? I'm not just destroying me, but you guys as well. I warned you, Gin, and you should know better than this. I may keep secrets, but I do not cheat!" Well, at least nothing but death. "I come here to study, to be alone, and to be in peace. This is my haven, nobody else's. I may lie, I may be cruel and cold and distant, but never taint my loyalty."

"You are my boyfriend," Ginny said viciously, and pointed a shaky hand at him. "I love you. I've always loved you, Harry, and you treat me like some dirty rag. When we made love, I wanted to help you, to clear your mind. I didn't have high expectations, but I did expect you to actually depend on me."

"Make love?" Harry repeated, still frustratingly calm. His mouth tasted bitter and he felt bile rise in his throat. "We didn't make love. It was plain sex, and you damn well should grow up and learn of it. It was a release between friends," he managed. "And I am nobody's property. I am a Mage, an orphan, and a wizard, but I have no potential as a boyfriend.

"I care for you," he said hastily as she paled drastically and backed away. "But it is time for you to grow up and realize I have a mission. Killing Voldemort and the Death Eaters is all I care about. It is my past, my present, my future. It is the sole reason I am still alive. Get over me, Ginny, and find someone who can love and care for you, 'cause I can't guarantee I can. I'm destructive," he whispered honestly, "and I won't care if you get hit in the crossfire."

She shook her head furiously, tears streaming down her flushed and ruddy cheeks. She stumbled once as she dashed for the doorway.

He watched. She didn't look back. He knew because he watched her sprint away, both her sobs and feet echoing in the corridors, back to Gryffindor Tower.

"You love her."

Malfoy folded up Harry's cloak and set it on his chair, then wiped flint off his black trousers. His hair had been styled back as always. His sleeves were rolled up, as he liked to do when he was alone or with Potter, and the Dark Mark glittered on his left forearm.

Instead of denying it, Harry quietly shut the door and asked, "Do you think I'll be able to beat him?"

Malfoy rubbed his hands together vaguely. Although he didn't like talking about it, he wasn't really bothered by it. The only thing that really, honestly cast fear into him was Voldemort's name.

Harry liked to think Malfoy thought of it as a dream, or possibly a game where people just happened to be involved more directly than most. It was all just a game where we had to fight the bad guy, but it wasn't really mandatory or important.

"It would be just horrible if you couldn't, wouldn't it? Pushing everybody away as your doing. But I have to admit, I think you have a good chance, especially since you're a Mage and he isn't."

Harry sat down and laid his head in his hands. Malfoy sat down himself, pushed his feet onto a small coffee table, and folded his arms behind his head.

That was one thing Harry was beginning to admire about him. He didn't need to fill the silence. He could sit there for hours without saying a word. It scared Harry, this bond he was forming with the cool-headed blonde.

A Death Eater.

It was dangerous to care about him, to begin to trust and depend on someone who you know had nearly as good a chance at dying as you yourself did.

"Don't you have a meeting tomorrow night?" Harry asked nearly an hour later.

Malfoy didn't move or open his eyes. "Yes. I'll be seeing my father for the first time since the prisoners of Azkaban were freed."

His answer made Harry remember something that was bugging him. "Hey, Mal," he asked, neither realizing the first use of nicknames, "why'd you switch sides? Not even a year ago you were nothing but a snob, a pureblood prat with no cares in the world. You threatened me."

Malfoy's eyes blinked open sleepily. "I got tired," he answered, "of my father's expectations, our blood lineage, the money. But mostly of being me. I'm sick of it all...just...all of it. My Mum, well, she's so stupid and weak that you can't help but want to protect her. My father beats her frequently. More so than me, actually, but, fortunately, less than the house-elves.

"This war won't last long," he said after a moment, surprising Harry. "Either way, it won't. And when it's over, I'm going to take my Mum somewhere warm, where we can see the sea. Somewhere I won't have to hide."

He was as good an actor as I was, he mused the next day when they met in Potions and routinely fought and insulted each other. And Harry found out what it was like to feel actual kinship. Malfoy wore a mask in which he hid behind, using it as a metal barrier that he could cocoon himself in on a daily basis or whenever he chose to. He'd brought it down in front of Harry for some strange reason; he'd chosen to ignore past animosities when Harry had fully expected him to highlight them.

As was per usual, Harry tried to grasp the wheel of time and slow it, but time only seemed to rebel against him and speed up even more.

He was locked inside, imprisoned in his fear and insomnia. He felt the pain of rejection from Ginny. They were rarely alone, but Harry felt her hatred and vicious love for him from across the crowded Great Hall. Although they spoke -never directly to each other- their eyes met and fought where words could barely skim the surface.

Love was a painful, profound thing he bared everyday. The more time he spent with Lycander -either meditating in his room or outdoors- the more he fell in love with his surroundings. Through the pain, he seriously seemed to be reborn. He felt powerful love when Ron and Hermione bickered; when Mack cussed a student in the middle of N.E.W.T. class; when Dumbledore and Lycander came to D.A. meetings.

The D.A., much as it had last year, was just another escape hatch. Here, mainly, he lost eye contact with Ginny.

He was his best when he felt he was doing something that could possibly make a difference in the war.

The feeling of not knowing, or confusion, about how he felt, was killing him; it lingered and dogged his heels, bared its teeth wherever he went. Harry just threw himself into his meetings, schoolwork, his Mage practices, meditations, the D.A., and his nightly sessions with Malfoy.

The month of March signaled spring, when the flowers bloomed and the Forbidden Forest seemed pretty and friendly. For Harry, who watched the Quidditch match from his perch in the library, it only accented his loneliness and pain, even though his love and knowledge and self-discipline grew.

"What's it like?"

Hermione sat in front of him, her legs hugged against her chest. She had decided to watch with Harry, even though she was aware he was in one of his 'states'.

He turned away from the game and looked at her inquisitively. Similar to Malfoy, she was usually good with silence. She had a depth of kindness and understanding that continued to gratify and amaze him day after painful day.

"What is what like?"

"Geyesh, the Counsel of Majestic. You rarely speak of it and we barely ever see you with Lycander."

Lycander grew more depressed and somber the deeper they plunged into spring. He didn't explain this to her. It was impossible to explain that kind of gut feeling, that instinct.

"Geyesh is very crude," he started out. "It is simple, general, and very much alike Latin. In fact, Latin is one of its branches. The Romans learned of it when the Majestics still lived in this time and dimension. When they left without a trace, the language began to decrease, expand, and eventually transformed into Latin."

He grinned at her attentive face. That was one of the many things they shared, this thirst for unknown knowledge.

"It is hard to learn, and even harder to speak upon thought. When I imagine this place, the Gray Dimension, as Lycander calls it, I envision mountains and grass and nature. They live off the land and are basic, physical, and the children are controlled by their Qaiuls and the elders. Mages are born and taken away to be distributed to some Qaiul who is worthy. The weaker Mages are used as slaves or lesser ranking officers."

Her eyes had rounded with amazement. "You're kidding!" she hissed quietly. "That sounds so barbaric, so..."

"Old-fashioned?" Harry suggested agreeably.

She nodded. "Do you have to go there?"

Harry frowned and twisted the hem of his robes.

"Once a year," he stated solemnly. "I'm to be tried and studied for a month this summer. Lycander says I know nothing yet. I'm behind on it all, really, but he doesn't seem to realize that I don't care. I know they'll despise me at sight either way. So I guess it doesn't matter how I act."

"Because you're not willing to be owned or controlled," Hermione assumed, smiling fondly. "That should be amusing, I guess, these Majestics' reactions to that."

"Hmm," Harry said neutrally and winced as Ginny got a bludger to the shoulder. "How is Ginny?"

Hermione took her time finding the words. "She's hurt." That he could guess. "She's been owling Tonks a lot, and her mother. She sleeps in my bed sometimes when she gets nightmares. She dreams of you dying every night. You said some truly nasty things to her, Harry. Why?"

Such an honest, innocent question. Why? But it sparked a million thoughts, a million different emotions inside of him.

Why?

"Because she'll get hurt!" he said furiously, glaring at Hermione. "Don't you understand that Voldemort could snatch you or one of the Weasleys up? I can already feel my imprisonment if one of you were to be taken You are one of my weaknesses, just one more weakness Voldemort wants to exploit. Ginny...I love her too much." He'd spoken the words before he'd realized it. He turned abruptly away and shrugged Hermione's hand off. "You don't -can't- understand a love like this. My magic, it boils inside, Hermione, and I can feel its purity but at the same time its evilness. It doesn't feel like I'm human anymore, but some mythical superhero that's nobly awaiting a heroic death. It all doesn't seem real: Ginny, Lycander, Olean, Voldemort. The pain is like a never-healing wound in my heart, and it aches."

"But Harry, I don't think you understand. The pain is what makes life real. This magic really has changed you, in every aspect. Your eyes reflect the light more, your skin is darker, tougher, even your speech pattern. You barely sound British anymore. You sound...Geyesh, I guess you'd call it. Like Lycander. But it doesn't mean you still aren't Harry Potter."

"My speech?"

His face must have looked funny because Hermione fell into a fit of laughter.

"It's not bad; it's just noticeable. You don't use as many articles and contractions as you used to. It's probably just because of you learning Geyesh. Are you good at it?"

"I better be. It's all Lycander talks when we're alone. My voice has really changed?"

"Yes, Harry, but it's not a real big deal. Oh! Ron blocked another goal!"

They both turned back to the game and watched a minute later as Ginny raced downwards in a desperate nosedive to catch the snitch, the Slytherin Seeker mere inches behind her. When she and Malfoy both slammed into the ground, Harry jumped off the window alcove and cursed.

"She's not moving!" Hermione cried, staring out of the window in horror.

He took her hand and pulled her with him out of the library. They met Mack at the doors of the castle. Colin Creevey, his face pale and sweaty, panted at her side.

"Don't worry," she said as they pushed through the crowd. "Dumbledore and Lycander are out there."

* * * * * *

Malfoy sat with his elbows on his knees and a bucket between them. His hair was mussed, windblown, and he kept spitting out blood. Mack had been able to fix his nose, but that too bled. Harry could see it was slightly more crooked than before.

Ginny, on the other hand, was sitting next to him, her hair matted with blood and a white bandage at her temple. She was holding her arm in a way that told him it had either been broken or sprained.

"Ginny!" Hermione cried, dashing forward to throw her arms around the redhead.

Behind Ron's head, Harry met Malfoy's eyes, his face inquisitive. The blonde sneered and spat out another spew of blood as an answer.

"What the hell are you doing with him?" Ron snarled, as if Malfoy was a particularly smelly mold he'd found under his bed.

Ginny glanced at Harry, as if to see if her actions had made him angry or jealous, back to the blonde, then to her brother again. "We were just talking, Ron. Dumbledore said we could figure out who got to keep the Snitch ourselves."

Malfoy coughed and reached for the cup of water at the bedside. He drank and squirted it out again to rinse the blood from his mouth.

Hermione looked back at them, torn, then went next to Malfoy. He glared at her, but didn't shrug the hand off. Harry wondered if he wanted to or just didn't have the energy to move.

"What's wrong with him?" she asked Ginny.

Ron shoved his hands into his pockets and sent Harry an exasperated look. Guilt was something he hadn't let himself feel in the past months, but he did now. He deserved to suffer for deceiving them all like this.

"He broke a rib and it punctured his lungs. Mack went to write to his mother. The charm she placed on him only slowed down the inevitable." She shrugged. "He has to go to St. Mungo's."

"Poor you," Harry said and sneered, all the while pitying his tutor. He knew better than most of what a visit to the Wizarding hospital entailed. Ginny and Hermione send him a furious glare.

"You are lucky he was there to cushion my fall, Harry James Potter!"

That night, Harry went to the Room of Requirements with a note of parchment. Written in legible black ink, the word Thanks stood out in contrast.

* * * * * *

...blonde hair. It looked silky, thick, straight. The owner of the hair was a slim woman, facing down in what looked to be a dungeon. Vaguely, he could hear a deep, cruel laugh, coming from a different part of the room. It wasn't Voldemort's, that Harry knew. He'd have recognized or felt something if it had been the Dark Lord's. The laughter, however, was deeper, more human sounding.

As if he was controlling what he was seeing, Harry found himself staring straight into the eyes of Lucius Malfoy. Blood dripped from the older man's hands, splattered as dots onto his robes and pale skin. Without meaning to, he imagined the blonde hair, and the vision, almost like a Muggle video recorder, swiveled until he saw that cloud of sprawled blonde hair and blood again.

Someone else was in the room, standing, he realized. Harry could only see his shoes, his legs, and a hand, but he knew it had to be a man.

"The boy's relatives have been taken care of, Lucius."

Lucius wiped his hands on his slacks, then his cheek.

"Master should approve, then. We should probably get rid of the Wealseys, too. We want Dumbledore scared to let the boy out of his sight. Have you gotten more new from the Order?"

The man Harry couldn't see snorted. "They're clueless about it all. They plan to keep searching for you and what not, but mainly they just sit there and hope we won't get our hands on Potter. Pathetic, really. As if a boy could do anything of any significant importance."

Lucius gave a sharp sneer. "Potter will show very useful soon. There's no doubt whatsoever about that, my friend."

When Harry came back to reality, he was lying flat on his back on a conjured couch in Snape's office. He blinked and rubbed his furiously hot eyes. Had he gone into a seizure in Potions class again?

Merlin, was this getting ridiculous.

"You okay?"

At the sound of Hermione's voice, he looked up. She, Ron, and Mack all sat on another conjured couch across the room, with Dumbledore and McGonagall standing towards the wall. Beside them, Snape sat in his chair behind his own desk.

"I'm fine," he said quietly, rubbing his forehead. His skin felt so hot.... "Where is Lycander?"

"Gone to talk to the Head Counselman," Dumbledore answered briskly. "You just might have a visitor soon. Can you tell us what happened?"

Again, he rubbed one of his aching temples. "I think I saw our spy, Professor," Harry said quietly, then sent his friends an apologetic glance. "I didn't see Voldemort, but I saw Lucius Malfoy. He murdered his wife, and I think the Dursleys."

The image of that bloody blonde hair flashed in front of his eyes. He shoved his feet to the floor and winced. Cradling his head, he began to explain what he'd heard, what he'd seen, excluding any mention of blood or blonde hair.

Dumbledore's voice was grave when he turned to Snape. "You will inform young mister Malfoy?"

"Of coarse, Albus. I'll do it right now."

Hermione put an arm around Harry's shoulders.

"Are you sure your okay, Harry?" she asked quietly.

Ron answered for him. "He just saw somebody murdered, Hermione. I doubt if he's peachy keen at the moment."

She glared at him.

Mack reached over and felt Harry's forehead. "You're burning up. Do you feel all right?"

"Except for my head? Yeah, I'm fine."

But he couldn't get Malfoy out of his head. Or how he'd spoken of taking his mother somewhere warm.

He felt a burst of hatred for Lucius Malfoy and the Phoenix Spy.

* * * * * *

Sweating, panting, Harry dropped onto what he began to call 'his couch'. His arms ached worse than they ever had, even after Lycander's practices. The blonde had always been a good fighter. It had been him who'd taught Harry to fight as well, as calculative, as he did himself. Malfoy was in a fury, but at the moment, he sat on the floor, staring and the navy blue walls that seemed to shrink around them like an enclosing trap.

Grieving.

"Snape said he'd have Dumbledore find me a temporary home for the summer. I don't turn seventeen until November twenty-seventh, and even then the law prohibits me from moving into a flat alone until I've graduated school. And I can't stay with Professor Snape because of, you know, them knowing I'm a spy." Suddenly, Malfoy threw his head back against the cushion of his chair and forced his eyes closed so tightly together that it almost looked painful. Probably was, Harry mused.

"Merlin, Harry, I can't believe she's gone. No warning, no hints, just gone. Just...gone."

"I know," Harry said quietly, emotionlessly. He wanted to feel grief for the deceased Dursleys, but he couldn't. He felt nothing more than a small kernel of sympathy for the waste of human life; and a grief that they'd never accepted him for who he was; grief for the little boy who'd been forced to grow up with them and not even cry when they died. He didn't even know how they'd died, just that they weren't alive anymore.

But he understood that sort of grief you got when you realized you had no parent. The kind that left you in pain, alone, and seemingly abandoned. The kind that followed you around day by day, hour by hour, minute by minute for the rest of your life. The kind that left you an orphan.

It had been in that kind of grief in which he'd grown up.

* * * * * *