Harry Potter and the Isle of Mists
Disclaimer: I can only hope to attain the creative brilliance of J. K Rowling.
AN: This story is AU after OOTP.
Caught Between a Rock and a Hard Place
Harry's ears were ringing, and his mouth tasted of metal. Draco Malfoy seemed to loom largely above him, from his position on the ground. Malfoy's gray eyes were like chips of flint, and his jaw was clenched tightly. The sky and treetops in the backdrop of Harry's view whirled and tilted crazily, as if he were on some kind of carnival ride. He wondered if he was going to throw up.
With seemingly renewed zeal, Malfoy had been cursing him for what felt like forever, but, with no hint of apology in those cold eyes, had somehow avoided doing him any permanent harm. He'd yet to strike with an Unforgivable, but Harry was afraid that Voldemort and Lucius would be out of patience soon. Malfoy Senior was standing off to one side, with one hand wound through Narcissa's golden hair, and his wand at her throat. Her body was quivering with silent sobs, but she was making no sound through a lower jaw that had been grotesquely dislocated.
"Tell us where the Claviomnis is, Potter," Malfoy ground out from between clenched teeth. Harry regarded him owlishly. Either the Slytherin was one hell of an actor, or he had misjudged badly by trusting his classmate.
"I don't know what you're talking about," Harry bit back. "I don't even know where we are."
"We're in Normandy, Mr. Potter," Voldemort interjected almost languidly. "On the grounds of the ancestral home of Godric Gryffindor. Why do you suppose that is?"
"You tell me," Harry retorted. "If you've got it all sussed out, then why bother with me at all?"
Voldemort moved with catlike swiftness, and Harry thought for a moment that the older wizard was going to backhand him as his Uncle Vernon had been wont to do. But instead, Voldemort whipped out his wand, and Crucio'd Harry within an inch of his life.
Compared to this, Malfoy's hexes had been tickles. The pain was like being flayed alive, like having skin slowly separated from bone, organs twisted into knots, and muscles turned inside out. It was pain that he had hoped never to feel again. There was a harsh, rasping sound echoing in his ears, and he realized with some surprise that it was coming from him.
When the electric current of agony mercifully ceased, Voldemort was regarding Harry almost appraisingly, as if attempting to ascertain whether or not Harry had changed his mind. Harry decided to disabuse him of that notion quickly.
"I'd never tell you where it is - even if I knew," he said hotly, almost gasping through bared teeth.
"At least now you're admitting your knowledge of the artifact to which I'm referring," Voldemort observed icily, and Harry realized his slip. Voldemort's wand stabbed downward again, and Harry's world was obliterated of everything but pain. Malfoy's cool features, watching detachedly, whirled and blurred. He was losing consciousness. He was …
There was a sudden, agonizing presence thrust into his mind. His body convulsed as he vainly tried to force it out, but Voldemort's insidiousness would not be denied, and his nimble fingers began to sift through Harry's mind, even as his ancestor's had in Harry's all too recent memory. He pushed his hands outward, arms crossed, as if to ward something off, but the intrusion he was fighting against had already happened. He struggled desperately to close off everything dealing with Hermione or the Claviomnis, but he was terribly afraid that he wouldn't be able to do it. Voldemort had been waiting for just such an opportunity, where Harry's defenses were lowest.
And then it was as if there were a blinding light behind his eyelids. He felt a surge of strength and wholeness flood his mind, and the doors of his thoughts shut decisively. Voldemort's presence had been cut off.
Harry? The bell-like tones of Hermione's voice resounded in his pain-clouded mind, and he clung to them as salvation, even as he tried to figure out exactly what had happened.
I thought I told you to leave, he managed to say.
Honestly! She sniffed, but her voice sounded a little ragged. As if I'd ever leave you. No matter what you said. Are you all right, Harry? He brushed off her concerned question.
There's not much time, Harry said, squinting through his eyelashes at Voldemort, who had been approached by a frantic Death Eater, reporting something that he couldn't hear. He'll try again, and I don't know if I can stop him. I don't want you to put yourself at -
Harry, I've got it, she blurted suddenly, cutting him off.
Got -- got it? Harry said carefully, not even wanting to think the word.
I'm not sure. I tried to summon it, and this box - well, it just came. I can't open it, but I'd wager the Claviomnis is inside. Hermione sounded as bewildered as he felt.
Are the others with you? Harry said. Blackness was seeping around the edges of his consciousness, and he did not want to pass out now.
Yes, they're here. We're still cloaked. The Death Eaters are widening their search though. We won't be able to stay here much longer.
Harry shifted and the movement sent spasms of pain throughout his body. He struggled to stifle a groan, not wanting to call attention to himself. Draco was standing nearby, holding his wand, Harry's tucked in his back pocket. He looked down then, and their eyes met, an obvious question in Malfoy's gaze. Harry brought his chin down once, in an approximation of a nod, and flicked his eyes towards Malfoy's mother, almost completely out of his range of vision. He hoped Malfoy understood, and the hope surged through him, as Malfoy slowly moved away from him, toward his parents.
Hermione, are there any caves nearby? He couldn't help but wonder if there had been more to Myrddin's batty conversation than he had first thought.
There's a small cliff face behind us… Hermione spoke slowly, as if she were thinking out loud while surveying her surroundings. And it looks as if … there could be - yes! There is… I can see the crevice in the rocks. But why … ?
Get the others inside the cave. Give Luna the Claviomnis. Try to break the Anti-Apparation wards. I think if I concentrate on you, I can get through them.
Even if you could get past them, who knows what it would do to you, Harry! You don't know how to -
There's no way I can get out of here under my own power. I wouldn't get halfway to the woods, before I'd be cursed within an inch of my life. But if we can punch through the wards together, we might just make it. Besides, don't you remember that we Apparated while escaping Slytherin?
There was a moment of silence. Apparently, Hermione had not realized this during that flight for their lives.
I don't think I could do it just anywhere, he clarified. It must have something to do with my connection with you.
And - and what of Malfoy? She asked, for lack of anything more articulate to say.
Leave Malfoy to me.
Voldemort turned back toward him, having issued some orders that dispersed many of the Death Eaters that had remained at the site. Harry was Crucio'd again, and this time, Voldemort really appeared to be enjoying himself. Harry's breathing was ragged and noisy in his ears, and something wet dripped from both nostrils, running down over his lips and chin. He tasted salt.
Come on, Hermione. I'm not sure how much longer I'll be good for this. In truth, he wasn't entirely sure that it wasn't already too late.
There was a sudden ear-piercing clap of thunder and a column of fire rose upward some distance away in the trees. There were muffled exclamations from Death Eaters, and a contingent of them immediately headed in that direction. A diversion, Harry thought, and looked at Malfoy.
Now.
He squeezed his eyes shut and thought of Hermione, thought of the link they shared, thought of the way she tasted, the way her skin felt under his, the music of her laugh in his ears.
And then he moved. He could think of no other way to describe it. There was a faint noise as he appeared in the forest, obviously distant enough to obscure the campsite completely from view.
Hermione? He asked, afraid to speak aloud.
Behind you. He turned. Follow me.
He could not see her, but could see where she passed, in her invisibility cloak, by the way the vegetation bent and sprang back. However, he did not follow her, but crept back toward the camp quietly. In the distance, he could hear the shouting; it would not be long before the Death Eaters began to search.
He raised his arm, lifting his wand, and pointed it in the direction of the uproar.
Harry, what the hell are you doing?
My saving people thing, he replied shortly, and murmured,
"Accio Malfoy." He stood poised, as if for flight, should a Death Eater happen upon him, waiting, wondering if he'd been close enough, if he'd pointed his wand in the right direction, if…
There was the sound of rustling leaves and snapping limbs, as something - someone - was propelled toward him. Something quite heavy collided with him, hard, and they hit the ground. All the air was driven from Harry's lungs, as he was sandwiched in between the person and the earth.
For a brief moment, there was silence. Then,
"Very smooth, Potter." Derision was evident in Malfoy's words.
"Next time, I'll just leave you to be tortured by Voldemort and his minions, then," Harry said with equanimity. "Now get off." He shoved Draco away from him and stood up, for the first time seeing the additional person who'd come with his Summoning spell. Draco leaned over his mother, and deftly healed her jaw.
"Draco, what is the meaning of this?" Narcissa Malfoy began to pick herself up carefully from the ground, and dusting bits of forest bracken from her clothing.
"There's no time to explain, Mother. We'll discuss it later, now let's go." Harry turned back in the direction where he'd last seen Hermione, searching for any kind of movement at all.
Here I am, she said, and at the same time, he saw a branch snap in half, breaking the muted sounds of the forest with a click. Harry followed, keeping a sharp eye on the movement of the undergrowth, and Draco followed, leading his mother with one hand under her elbow.
They had picked their way through the forest for quite some distance, and all sounds of pursuit had dwindled to nothing. Harry was beginning to feel the effects of the curses catching up with him. There was a stabbing pain in his head, and he brushed ineffectually at the blood, now beginning to congeal and crust over, caked in his nose. It was making breathing difficult. He wobbled slightly, causing Malfoy to swear, and look at him with what might have been concern. He knocked Malfoy's hand away from him, prompting a haughty,
"Well!" from Narcissa.
And then he saw the crevice in the rock, barely a black crack on the gray face of the stone. Just at the entrance, it was as if the air flickered slightly, and he thought he saw a flash of brown curls. Harry sucked in a deep breath, forced the pain to the back of his mind, and began what he hoped was the last leg of the journey.
sssssssssssssssssssssssssssss
The crack was barely wide enough for a person to slide in sideways, and it meandered along in a narrow path in a leisurely way, before finally widening out into a small cavern. There appeared to be no way out, but it was as good a place as any to hide - or to make a last stand - since the narrowness of the tunnel would allow only a single-file procession.
"Harry?" Hermione murmured, as he staggered into the larger chamber, almost clinging to the wall in order to remain upright. "Are you all right?" The smooth gray walls tilted and spun around him.
"I've been better," he told her, his voice slurred. Most of the group clustered around him watching anxiously, though Luna squatted back on her heels, cupping a small, ornately carved box in her hands. Her eyes glittered brightly, and there seemed to be millennia of knowledge lurking therein.
"I can't believe you Summoned me, you brainless wanker," Malfoy said, though the words didn't carry much heat. "I'm not a bloody roll of toilet paper." Ginny snorted.
"Shut it, Malfoy," Ron said hotly, "or you'll think being a ferret was a picnic." Narcissa Malfoy had been watching the exchange with a politely horrified look of disbelief.
"Draco, I don't understand. Are you working - with these people?" She said the last phrase in the same way that one might refer to animal waste. "A family of known blood traitors and - and Harry Potter?" Her eyes grazed coolly over Hermione and Luna, as though they were something she'd found beneath her shoe.
"Mother, I've come to see that the Dark Lord's agenda no longer meshes with my own," Draco replied levelly, and Narcissa backpedaled from him, one hand to her breastbone, looking upward as if fearing reprisal from a offended deity.
"You're - you're betraying…" She couldn't even put it into words. Draco looked as if he could not believe his ears.
"Mother, after what they did to you - you're just a pawn in their game…a way to manipulate Father and me. And he doesn't even - that sodding - he just hurt you, without thinking twice. Now you're defending him?"
"Your father has always looked after me. I respect him for maintaining his allegiances - in spite of difficult circumstances." Everyone in the cave, Draco included, was staring at her incredulously. Difficult circumstances? When everyone knew that Voldemort was a madman?
"I wanted to take you away from that," Draco blustered on, feeling the ground figuratively slipping away from beneath his feet. "I don't want him - them - to hurt you anymore. You deserve better than that." Narcissa sighed, and looked at him tiredly.
"Your father is going to be so disappointed in you."
The others in the group looked more than a little uncomfortable, and began to move away slightly from the intra-familial conflict. Together, Ron and Hermione helped Harry down into a sitting position, casting a Cushioning charm on some jutting rocks, so that he could recline. He appeared to be staying conscious with difficulty, exhausted from the physical and mental strain.
"They're going to come, you know," Hermione told him soberly. "Are we still under the wards?" He reached out with his mind, to discern where the wards ended, and shuddered with the effort.
"Doesn't matter," he rasped, as he failed to properly read the wards. "We might be able to manage it - together… but we can't leave them."
"I hate to tell you this, mate, but I don't think you're going anywhere," Ron chided him gently, coming up to the two of them. "You look like hell."
"Try being… Crucio'd by Voldemort a couple of times… and see how you look," Harry replied in kind. Hermione waved her wand over him, and some of the pain was replaced by a delicious warmth. She magically cleaned the blood from his face, and healed his nose from where Draco had broken it.
"That is the second time that … git has broken my nose," Harry complained, putting one hand up to the injured feature. Hermione suddenly got very still, and she got that look on her face, as if she'd just had a breakthrough on an Arithmancy equation.
When Draco broke Harry's nose out on the Quidditch pitch, she'd felt it. When Draco hit him in Avalon, before dragging him before Voldemort, she'd felt it. But since then, even as the entire debacle unfolded, even as he'd been Crucio'd by the Dark Lord himself, she'd felt nothing.
"You've been shielding it from me, haven't you?" she said quietly.
"Hermione - " he tried to defend himself, but was startled to see furious tears standing in her eyes.
"I thought we were a team!"
"I didn't want to put you through that. I wanted to spare you. I - " Desperation made Harry sit up, even though it spun his stomach with nausea to do so. His head throbbed.
"I could have helped you bear it. Remember with Ron and the hexes? The effects were lessened. Why didn't you let me help you?" Hermione sounded more sad than angry now. Harry reached up to touch her cheek gently, but his arm dropped back to his side, short of its mark.
"I can't stand the idea of ever causing you pain," he admitted, his voice barely above a whisper. Hermione's face crumpled a little as she tried to smile, and she leaned closer to him, propped on one hand, using the other to brush his sweat-dampened hair away from his forehead.
"Don't think you can sweet-talk your way out of this, Harry," she said, but her voice was low and heavy and soft. His lips moved. Even as he spoke it, she heard his voice resounding in her mind.
I love you.
They touched foreheads, smiling at each other beatifically, able for a moment to forget about the precarious situation in which they now found themselves. The others in the cave had been a rapt and unashamed audience to the entire display.
"I think I'm going to be ill," Draco snorted. "Makes me wonder if maybe my mother wasn't - " Whatever he'd been about to say was lost, as he began to look around, curiously at first, and then frantically. "Where's my mother?"
Narcissa Malfoy was nowhere to be seen. Draco plunged from the cavern, and they could hear his disembodied voice echo back to them, as he looked for her.
The search did not last long. When he glumly arrived back in the main body of the cave, the others were standing - except for Harry - and they had their wands trained on him. Draco's face was nearly gray.
"She's going to bring them straight to us," he said, in a tone of utmost certainty.
"Is this what you had planned, Malfoy?" Ron hissed. "Put on a show of fighting with us, until the Death Eaters have bloody well killed us all?"
"Sod off, Weasley!" Draco shouted, startling everyone. "I told you what I saw in the Oracle. I didn't want that to happen to my mother. I wanted to take her away from that. I thought we'd be able to - " He shook his head, a spasm passing across his face, and changed tack. "I had no idea that she'd - that she'd willingly…" His eyes looked dazed and vague, as if he couldn't fathom how his life had taken this unexpected veer from course.
"Then - then we should go now, shouldn't we?" Ron said tentatively. "Before they trap us in here?"
"Go where, Ron?" Hermione retorted, and her voice sounded sharp in its anxiety. "Shall we climb the cliff face, with Harry in this condition? Or go back to the forest where the Death Eaters await? Besides," she gestured toward the narrow opening where the tunnel issued into the cavern. "Only one Death Eater is going to get in at a time. Maybe we can hold them off." Ron skewered her with a glance, his eyes flickering knowingly to Harry.
"For how long?" he asked, and Hermione did not have an answer.
Harry had remained quiet up to this point, struggling not to exert himself, with the knowledge that he probably would have to before the day ended.
"Luna, can you open the box?" he asked suddenly, causing the blond girl's eyes to fly to his face in surprise.
"Hermione called it," she said slowly. "I don't see why I'd be able to - "
"You opened the door in Avalon. The one no one else could open. And Merlin made it for your ancestor . He said so. Why couldn't you open it?" Luna looked at him for a long moment, and tapped her wand on the ornate box in an intricate pattern.
Nothing happened, and Ron swore under his breath.
"Harry, what exactly did Merlin say about the Claviomnis?" Hermione asked urgently. Harry pushed himself into a more upright position against the rocks, and thought furiously.
"He said it was made from the stones of Avalon and that he made it in honor of Viviane," he said after a moment. "What?" he asked. Hermione was shaking her head.
"He made it in honor of her, not necessarily for her," she said. "Hand me the box." Luna passed it over quickly, and she held it out to Harry. He took hold of the two corners nearest to him, and looked mildly surprised when she did not relinquish the box. She knelt beside him, and they held the box suspended between them.
Close your eyes, Hermione instructed, and when Harry looked at her in befuddlement, he saw that her eyes had already shut. He followed suit, and found himself only barely aware of the tips of his fingers in contact with the box. His mind hummed in harmony with Hermione's, and he felt an abatement of some of his pain, as he pictured in his mind the carved lid of rich wooden box springing open.
From very far away, a voice sounded in his head - one that was not Hermione's, but one that sounded vaguely familiar to him, Myrddin's voice, albeit more cracked and wizened with age.
The Heir of Gryffindor has returned with his chosen one. The Claviomnis yields itself to its master.
There was a click, barely audible, yet it pulled Harry fully back into the real world. The box was open. It had been so simple, and yet somehow Harry knew that only he and Hermione working in tandem could have opened that box.
The Claviomnis, looking like it had not been a thousand years since he'd seen it last, hung suspended in the center of the box, held in place by a Cushioning charm that tinged it a shimmering blue.
Everyone stared at it, transfixed, and Draco reached one hand toward it, as if unable to help himself, before arresting the movement abruptly. Harry and Hermione lifted reluctant eyes from the Claviomnis to regard each other somberly.
Maybe we can -
Harry, it's too dangerous - we don't know what it's capable of. We can't use it!
Harry parted his lips to speak, to tell her that maybe they didn't have a choice, that maybe this is what they were destined to do, but all of that was cut off when a copper-colored spell zipped through the narrow entrance to the cavern, striking Ginny, who fell forward onto her face with a cry, then lay there, unmoving.
Ron swore wrathfully, as he and Malfoy moved to check on her. Hermione gave a sideways glance to Harry, and they raised their wands, blasting a white-hot spell in the direction of the tunnel opening. There was a commotion and a muffled cry. A tight, mirthless smile lifted the corners of Harry's mouth.
"Is she okay?" Harry called out to Ron, who had gently turned her over. Ginny was bleeding copiously from a laceration at her hairline, made when she had struck a rock as she fell.
"She's breathing," Ron said with some relief, trying to stanch the flow of blood with a spell from his wand. Draco had reassured himself of Ginny's life, before moving to the mouth of the cave, where he and Luna began picking off the Death Eaters who maneuvered themselves toward their quarry.
"Can you seal off the door?" Draco asked her, and Luna, after throwing a hex that covered the approaching fighter's face with sprouting daisies, nodded seriously. "Do it," he said perfunctorily, looking over his shoulder at the corridor. The bodies of disabled and/or unconscious Death Eaters had begun to pile up in the tight space, further hindering the others from progress. Assisted as they were by their vantage point and ability to maneuver with more ease, Draco and Luna had made easy work of their pursuers. However, if even one of them were taken out of the fray, their numbers were such that one Death Eater breaking through would almost certainly finish the fight for them.
Malfoy moved across to where Harry was, kneeling down beside him, and looking at him with as serious an expression as Harry had ever seen on the Slytherin.
"We can't hold out forever, Potter," he said, not mincing words. "They'll keep coming; the Dark Lord will keep sending them, until they've killed us all or starved us out." He darted a glance over to where Ron was tending his sister. "Although we could always eat the Weasel."
"Surely you'd be too good to eat a blood traitor, Ferret," Ron shot back blandly, not taking his eyes off of Ginny, as he clumsily healed her head wound with his wand.
"We need to get out of here," Hermione said. "If there's not another way out, could we make one?" Draco shook his head thoughtfully.
"We'd be risking bringing the entire cave down on top of us," he said. "Maybe we could hold off the rockfall, but maybe not. It'd be like fighting enemies from two different directions."
"I don't think we could do it," Harry responded. "Plus there's Ginny to worry about. We don't even know what hit her."
"It looked like a Stunner," Draco said, "Death Eater style, of course."
"What the hell does that mean?" Ron's worry for Ginny and distrust of Malfoy made him sound especially belligerent.
"It's designed to incapacitate the victim, even after return to consciousness. Ginny probably won't be able to do magic for a couple of hours." Ron's eyes widened, and Harry swore.
"Our best bet is to try and burrow our way out of here," Hermione said practically, "while keeping the Death Eaters occupied over there at the same time." Malfoy looked dubious, but conceded.
"It's better than staying here to die."
ssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss
"Oy!" Ron called out, from his position near the tunnel entrance. "Here they come again." He nodded to Luna, who looked at him from her position at the opposite side of the tunnel mouth, and she saluted him with her wand. They had had a good ten minutes of reprieve, while the Death Eaters apparently assessed probabilities and moved their wounded, figuring out what to do next.
Hermione and Draco had busied themselves beginning a new tunnel on the far side of the cave, in the curvature of the same wall into which the other passage opened. This seemed to be the most stable wall in the cavern, and its position made it extremely difficult to see from the entrance. All they needed, Draco had said, was for the Death Eaters to cotton on to what they were doing, and then it really would hit the fan.
Harry had tried to stand up, and had just made it before being extremely sick in front of everyone, something that made his face burn with embarrassment, even in the direness of their current situation. He had finally convinced Hermione to let him help, from his position propped against the wall, and she had agreed, while looking somewhat doubtful. The three of them were making slow progress, having carved out approximately four meters of tunnel, with only the occasional sifting of fine powder down on their heads.
"We've got to go at more of an angle," Hermione said, in her lecture voice. "It won't do for the tunnel to come out to close to the other one. They'll see us break through." Draco muttered something under his breath about know-it-alls, but adjusted the trajectory of his wandfire, and did not use the word "Mudblood". Harry smiled to himself, as he shifted his position slightly to change his point of impact as well. He considered that progress.
Ron and Luna was holding their own at the cave mouth, using their advantages to their maximum potential. Luna had managed to hold a Protego shield for a impressive length of time, winking it in and out to allow Ron to spellcast through it. They were working almost seamlessly, and Ron allowed himself to flush with the pride of their success.
Ginny lay near to Draco, close enough that he could cover her in the event that the Death Eaters. Hermione noticed with interest the concerned looks that he intermittently flashed in Ginny's direction. Ron would have a coronary.
About what? Harry asked curiously. Hermione screwed up her face in chagrin at Harry's eavesdropping, and blew out a large chunk of rock to cover her non-response. About what? Harry asked again, more intently.
Don't tell me you haven't noticed the way Malfoy's been looking at Ginny?
Ginny and the Ferret? Not in this lifetime! Was Harry's assertive response. Ron would - Ron would -
But what exactly Ron would or would not have done was left to Hermione's imagination - and then quickly driven altogether from her thoughts, as the cave let out a dangerous rumble of protest.
The three of them stopped carving out the tunnel, and looked at each other with anxiety.
"What the hell was that?" Ron called out unnecessarily.
"That shouldn't be happening," Hermione said in a somewhat panicky voice. "We've calculating the - nothing we've done should - I - " She was cut off, as a particularly and jagged edge of rock dislodged itself from the roof of the cave, and plummeted toward the floor. It smashed against its sister rock, spraying debris and powder everywhere, stinging their skin upon impact.
Another rumble, and this time the cavern floor shook violently, knocking Hermione from her feet. Malfoy flung himself over Ginny, as more crumbled stone rained down on them. Parts of the archway began to collapse, half-filling the doorway. Luna yelped as she narrowly escaped being pinned, and Ron let out a hoarse cry of alarm.
"I'm all right," she assured him, and they stopped as a hoarse challenge from Death Eater rang up the passageway, made up of words with fell intent. Ron went ashen, and turned to the others, crouched carefully near the mouth of the fledgling tunnel.
"You lot aren't doing that," he informed them carefully. Relief had only begun to wash over Hermione's face, when he continued, stopping the emotion as quickly as it had come. "They are. They mean to bring the whole mountain down on top of us, if they can."
TBC
My sincerest and humblest apologies for the long delay. It's been harder than I thought to tie up all the ends to conclude this story. I had intended for this to be the final chapter, but it was starting to get long, so I figured that it'd be best to post something now, and leave the conclusion for an additional chapter.
The cliffhanger is unfair, but it was as good a place as any to have the chapter end. Hope you enjoy.
You may leave a review on your way out, if you like.
lorien
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