Sticks & Stones

“Expecto Patronum!”

Harry and Ginny, along with Alicia, Katie, Sally-Ann, Padma and Terry, watched yet again as a silvery wisp billowed from the end of Draco’s wand. It was a huge improvement over the tiny flickers Draco had gotten when they’d first started teaching him the Patronus Charm—but it wasn’t progress from the previous two sessions.

Harry and Ginny didn’t have a lot of time for Draco—it was already nine in the morning and they were supposed to be at Gringotts at ten, when the goblins were going to guide them through the expansive Black family vaults. Hermione and Ron’s search of the Black ledgers had turned up over thirty items that had a chance, however slim, of being the final missing Horcrux, and Harry was going to test every one by touching them and seeing if his scar burned. They were also going to locate the Mermish Water Stunner for Fred, George and Pansy, and there were several other items that Harry, Ginny, Ron and Hermione all agreed might prove useful.

All those items to track down meant that Harry and Ginny would need most of the day; the Black vaults were so expansive, each one was the size of three or four large mansions—and there were twelve vaults that contained objects and not Galleons. Harry had jokingly wondered aloud if they actually would find an entire building in there; Hermione had pointed out in complete seriousness that with magic, almost anything was possible.

Apparently it wasn’t yet possible for Draco to manage a corporeal Patronus; the mist faded again, leaving him looking so frustrated he might scream. “That was better,” Sally-Ann said, trying to be magnanimous.

“Don’t condescend to me, you stupid Ravenclaw mudblood!” Draco shouted angrily, spinning and shaking his wand in Sally-Ann’s direction.

Before the wand was even pointed Harry had started shouting “Expelliarmus!” and Draco’s wand flew out of his hand to Harry, who caught it. “I told you no insults and no pointing your wand at any of us!” He snapped.

“Tell your bloody sidekicks not to insult me then!” Draco yelled back. Sally-Ann’s eyebrow went up, but otherwise she looked unperturbed by Draco’s insults.

“That’s it,” Harry said angrily. “We’re done until you’re ready to behave yourself!” He waved at the others. “You can go now, thanks.”

The others started moving toward the door. “Wait!” Draco exclaimed. “I—look, I’m just frustrated, all right? I didn’t really mean it! Come on, let me have another go!”

Harry glanced at Sally-Ann, who met his eye. “That was a pretty pathetic apology,” he said to her.

The corner of Sally-Ann’s lip twitched. “Well, I think it was sincere, which is a bit of a surprise.”

Harry turned back and stared at Draco as if considering what to do. In truth he was inclined to let Draco continue for the next half-hour they’d allotted him, if only so Draco could succeed and therefore not need lessons any longer. Plus, he was hoping that Draco might actually appreciate being able to fend off Dementors enough that he’d give up some information. “Oh, all right,” he said finally, exaggerating his reluctance, and handed Draco his wand back.

“I just don’t know why it won’t work,” Draco whined. “I can feel it, but it won’t take shape!”

“Well, we all had to practice for a long time before we succeeded in making our Patronuses corporeal,” Ginny pointed out diplomatically. “And not all of us have managed it, actually. It’s very difficult magic.”

Not to mention, Harry thought to himself, that Harry had first practiced on a transformed boggart, and some D.A. members had managed to cast Patronuses at real Dementors. There was no better practice than that. But all Draco had was a bare room. Harry had considered briefly trying to dig up a boggart for Draco to practice with, but dismissed the idea when he realized that Draco’s boggart might actually become Voldemort, just as Professor Lupin had feared about Harry during their third year.

“What memory are you using?” Harry asked, thinking that maybe Draco wasn’t using a happy enough memory, or was using a memory of vindictive pleasure, which Harry had noticed didn’t tend to work quite as well as memories of true happiness.

“None of your damned business!” Draco retorted; his cheeks tinged slightly with red.

Huh… I wonder if it’s a memory about a girl? Harry wondered amusedly. But the humor faded at his next thought—I wonder if it’s about Pansy? If so, that would explain why it won’t work… “Well whatever it is, it needs to be completely happy,” he said carefully. “I mean, if something happened later on that clouded the happiness of the moment with something less positive, then it won’t be as effective.”

“Oh—I didn’t know that,” Draco answered vaguely. He looked troubled, and Harry suspected he’d hit home, if not about Pansy then at least about Draco’s choice of memory being tainted with anger, sorrow or jealousy. Draco stood still for a moment, his eyes turned inward, searching for a different memory to try. Some of the others shifted around, restless, but Harry waited patiently. After a few minutes a smile stole over Draco’s face—a real smile, without the hint of sarcasm or maliciousness that was usually there. “Right,” he said, turning again to face the empty room. He lifted his wand and confidently shouted “Expecto Patronum!”

A huge, thick form erupted from Draco’s wand, and solidified the instant it hit the ground. Harry blinked—it was a giant pig.

Harry might have laughed, but the pig looked utterly ferocious. It had two enormous tusks as long as Harry’s forearm, and its hooves looked quite capable of pounding a man into dust—especially considering it was a meter and a half long, and would have weighed at least twenty stone had it been living.

Harry felt the floor vibrate as the pig trotted around to look at Draco, swinging its head back and forth to test the air. Draco looked utterly stunned, like he’d have been less surprised to see his Patronus take the form of Hagrid. The pig scraped the floor with its hoof twice, snorted loudly, and dissipated.

“Well,” Katie said, the humor in her voice evident, “Congratulations, Malfoy—you’ve managed a corporeal Patronus.”

Draco turned his head and glared accusatorially at Harry. “What the hell was that?”

“Looked like a pig to me,” Harry said before he could stop himself.

“A pig!” Draco shrieked. “A pig? I don’t believe this! I should have a magnificent animal as my Patronus, like an eagle or a stallion—not that overweight swine!” He cast his glare over the others. “I suppose you think that’s funny! Draco Malfoy, reduced to conjuring pigs for you to laugh at—”

“It wasn’t a pig, Malfoy, it was a boar,” Sally-Ann interrupted calmly. “And if it makes you feel any better, boars have long been considered symbols of courage and fierceness.”

“Oh, lovely,” Draco sneered half-heartedly. “A Gryffindor symbol. Now my shame is complete.”

“It’s not something to complain about, Draco,” Harry said. “You should be thrilled! First of all, you successfully cast a corporeal Patronus, which many older, experienced wizards can’t manage. And more importantly, your Patronus is large and fierce—exactly what you want against Dementors. It’ll be a lot more useful than if you’d gotten a snake, won’t it?” He caught Padma’s eye as he said that, and she hid a grin—her twin sister Parvati’s Patronus was a cobra, but Draco didn’t need to know that.

“Well, I suppose that’s true,” Draco admitted, somewhat mollified. He perked up a bit. “Here, let me try it again—”

“No, that’s enough,” Harry said firmly. “We’ve found that too much practice all at once can be unpleasant. You managed it once—it’ll be a lot easier next time.” He held out his hand, and after hesitating a moment Draco reluctantly handed over his wand. “Come on,” Harry said after stowing the wand away. “We’ll take you back upstairs.”

They blindfolded Draco, and Terry, who was bigger and stronger, took Draco’s arm and steered him through the door. After thanking everyone and dismissing them, Harry and Ginny followed behind Draco and Terry, who were headed to the stairs. “I never believed I’d admit this, but you’re not a complete disaster as a teacher, Potter,” Draco drawled with great reluctance as they climbed the stairs. “I guess it’s not surprising your little group managed to out-hex the Inquisitorial Squad during our Fifth Year.”

“Or that some of them hexed you, Crabbe and Goyle into slugs on the Hogwarts Express,” Harry added with a smirk. Ginny grinned at him.

“That was fun, that was,” Terry put in with a chuckle—he’d been one of the D.A. members that day.

Surprisingly, Draco didn’t rise to the taunts. “I still think it was luck you managed to incapacitate the Dark Lord—though how you tricked Wormtail into turning I’ll never understand—”

“What?” Harry exclaimed so loudly that Draco and Terry stopped dead on the stairs. “Wormtail? What do you mean, incapacitate?” He gasped as it hit him. “You mean Voldemort’s arm hasn’t healed where Pettigrew grabbed it?”

“Of course not, I thought you—” Draco stopped, and tilted his head toward Harry, although he couldn’t see him. “So you didn’t know that, did you?” he sneered. “Well, I saw the Dark Lord in person less than two days before you snatched me and his arm was still a mangled wreck. And now that I’ve told you that, consider my end of the bargain upheld.”

“We knew, Malfoy,” Ginny snapped, glaring a warning at Harry to keep quiet. “All you’ve told us is that it’s lasted longer than we expected—Voldemort will have healed it by now. You’ll have to do better than that to ‘hold up your end of the bargain’, as you put it.” Harry nodded appreciatively at Ginny as Draco’s lips curled and he turned to resume the climb up the stairs.

After sealing Draco back in his room on the fourth floor and saying goodbye to Justin, Harry and Ginny hurried back down to the third floor and pounded on Ron and Hermione’s door. Ron answered it and blinked at them in confusion. “I thought you would’ve left by now,” he said.

“Something came up that we need to tell you and Hermione about,” Harry said, stepping into the room.

Harry and Ginny quickly explained the information that Draco had let slip. “Sally-Ann mentioned this to me as a possibility before,” Harry said. “She said that spells that are turned on their caster can sometimes be difficult or even impossible to undo. It was over two weeks after Pettigrew crushed Voldemort’s arm that we snatched Draco—it sounds to me like Pettigrew’s magic hand came back to haunt Voldemort.”

“That’s incredible, Harry!” Hermione exclaimed excitedly. “The power that had to go into the spell in the first place must have been immense, and the power of the rebounding damage could be equally as strong! And I think you’re right—Voldemort must be having a great deal of trouble healing the injury. It must be causing him extreme pain, which means he’d put everything he had into figuring out a cure, so if more than two weeks passed without even Voldemort being able to heal it, then it might not be possible to heal!”

“It’s still possible he’ll figure it out, though,” Ron said. “Is there any way we could find out from the inside…?”

“Not with Kreacher refusing to cooperate any more,” Harry said angrily. “He’d still rather try to kill himself in punishment than obey any of my orders that go against the pureblood families.”

Kreacher had delivered to Harry the information that had led to their successful kidnapping of Draco. But when he’d realized what he’d done, Kreacher had rebelled in the only way a bound house-elf could. “I still think it’s cruel to just chain him up upstairs, Harry—” Hermione began.

“Oh, give over, Hermione!” Ginny snapped. “If Kreacher could go against Harry’s orders to spy for us, he could go against orders and betray everything about the D.A. to Voldemort as well! And he would have, if we’d given him the chance!”

“Oh, I know,” Hermione grumbled. “But I don’t have to like it.”

“I don’t either,” Harry said with a frown. “I think I’ll ask Pansy if she’d take Kreacher after the war’s over—he’d probably love to serve a pureblood like her, and she hasn’t got reservations about house-elves… she could keep him under control.”

“That’s not a bad idea,” Ginny said more calmly. “I’m sorry I snapped, Hermione, but right now we don’t have the luxury of arguing about house-elf rights.”

“It’s all right,” Hermione replied with a weak smile. “I know we have bigger things to worry about. But I can’t help how I feel.”

“And I wouldn’t want you to,” Harry told her. “You wouldn’t be Hermione if you could.” Hermione reddened slightly. “All right, listen. We can’t find out from the inside whether Voldemort is still hurt now, but Snape could give us some insight into how Voldemort would react to being hurt.”

“That might help,” Ginny agreed thoughtfully. “Snape’s had the opportunity to observe Voldemort in person countless times—his insight might be invaluable.”

“Can we trust anything he says?” Ron asked skeptically.

“We’re not asking for facts or suggestions of what to actually do,” Harry said. “We’re just asking for Snape’s observations of Voldemort.”

Ron nodded thoughtfully. “I think it’s an excellent idea, Harry,” Hermione said when Harry looked at her questioningly. “Just be careful not to give away very much— well, I suppose you’ll have to tell Snape it was Pettigrew in order to explain how the damage occurred, and that he was directly defying Voldemort. But don’t describe the circumstances any more than that. Just say that Voldemort was hurt.”

“Do you want to have someone with you, or alone?” Ginny asked Harry.

Harry thought for a minute. “Alone,” he concluded. “I think if it feels like a conversation Snape might be more forthcoming.” Ginny nodded. “I’d like to do it now,” Harry continued. “Ginny, I know we’re supposed to go to the vaults, but this might be really important.”

“We can postpone it a little,” Ginny said dismissively. “I’ll send an owl to Gringotts telling them we’ll be—what, an hour late?”

“No more than a half an hour,” Harry said, getting up. “This won’t take long. Meet me in the kitchen, okay?” Ginny nodded.

Harry went down the stairs, through the kitchen and into the potions lab in the basement. No one else was around, so Harry didn’t hesitate to remove the locking charms on the door to Snape’s closet/living quarters. When he was finished, he knocked and then waited.

After a moment Snape opened the door. “Potter,” he said, nodding slightly in acknowledgment. He stood aside, clearly indicating for Harry to enter.

There was a hint of respect in Snape’s courtesy that Harry noted, and he hoped it meant Snape was ready to stop treating them like troublesome students. “I have a question,” he said as he walked through the door. “It’s not about something that happened so much as… something we think happened. I’d like to hear how you think Voldemort would react to being injured.”

“It would depend on the degree of injury,” Snape said as he shut the door. “And the cause as well. But I suspect he would heal it in short order.”

That was fairly obvious, and not particularly helpful. “What if he couldn’t?” Harry asked. “What if the injury had magic in it strong enough that even Voldemort couldn’t fix it?”

Snape peered intently at Harry for a long moment. “You are not speaking purely hypothetically,” he stated.

“No,” Harry admitted. “Something… very surprising happened.”

Harry explained how Pettigrew’s silver hand had crushed Voldemort’s arm, and added that Pettigrew had been defying Voldemort by stopping him casting a spell, but omitted that Pettigrew had been attempting to stop Voldemort from killing Harry. He laid out their theory that the injury had rebounded magic wrapped up in it, making it more difficult to fix. Snape listened carefully, not interrupting once, and remained silent for several minutes after Harry had finished. Harry waited patiently, knowing that Snape was unlikely to say anything to Harry until he’d mapped out the entire conversation in his head.

“I believe that your conjecture may be correct,” Snape said finally. “The Dark Lord put a great deal of magic into Wormtail’s hand—the silver was almost certainly pure magic given form. It was seen as a great gift and a sign of favor amongst the Death Eaters—most felt Wormtail did not deserve it. And the circumstances surrounding the crushing of the Dark Lord’s arm—an outright defiance of The Dark Lord—translates as magic turning against its caster. It may be that the Dark Lord himself will never be able to heal his wound.”

Harry’s heart leapt. To hear their suspicions confirmed by Snape, who had a far deeper understanding of Dark magic, was incredibly encouraging. “So how do you think Voldemort will react?” he asked quickly. “A crushed arm has to be causing him incredible pain, I doubt he’d be up for much—”

“You are underestimating the Dark Lord, as I told you that you would,” Snape said with a sneer. “His strength of will is far greater than you can imagine—pain will be a temporary obstacle. He will adapt, and work around the pain. He will learn to cast with his left hand. He will declare himself elevated beyond mere physical concerns.” He leaned casually against the wall and crossed his arms. “It is of greater interest to speculate how his followers will react.”

Harry frowned; that wasn’t something he’d considered. “Well, if he’s able to work around it then—”

“That will not matter,” Snape interrupted smoothly. “Followers gravitate to the Dark Lord because of his power, his seeming immortality and invulnerability. But giving Wormtail that hand was an error, and the Dark Lord’s injury will be a weakness that he bears, as it were, on his sleeve. It will be impossible for the Death Eaters to ignore, and some will begin to question, in their own minds at least, whether The Dark Lord truly is as all-powerful as he would like them to believe.”

“But—but Voldemort is a Legilimens,” Harry pointed out. “He’ll know that they’re thinking that…”

“And he will punish them, certainly,” Snape agreed with a lazy shrug. “But punishment will not drive out the thought itself. A seed has been planted; if used wisely it may prove a greater weakness than the injury.”

Harry’s mind was racing. Snape made some good points—once word spread through the ranks of Voldemort’s followers that he’d been injured and couldn’t cure himself, doubt would sink in, and some people might turn, or be persuaded to turn.

But it was also wise to assume that Voldemort was as dangerous as ever—possibly even more so, because no matter how much will power a person had, pain could lead to even more irrational behavior that Voldemort usually exhibited. Plus, Harry thought that trying to cast spells with his bad hand would be absurdly difficult, and wondered if Voldemort wouldn’t accidentally do some things he hadn’t meant to.

“Thank you,” he said sincerely to Snape. “You’ve pointed out a lot I’ll have to consider.”

Snape inclined his head slightly. “It is always preferable to analyze a situation thoroughly,” he said dryly. “It is far easier to compensate for unanticipated events than for lack of effort.”

“I wish I’d understood that before we lost Ernie,” Harry said sadly; guilt was still swelling in him over Ernie’s death. It was his job to keep everyone alive, he was the leader…

“Mr. MacMillan has died?” Snape asked, clearly surprised.

Harry had forgotten that Snape had been shut away for months and knew almost nothing of what had happened in the world. He’d also forgotten that Snape was not someone with whom he could have a casual conversation. “Voldemort killed him,” Harry said gruffly. “Because I didn’t think ahead enough—I didn’t ‘analyze the situation thoroughly’.” He hesitated. “I’m starting to understand why you asked to come along on our next mission, Snape. I can’t say I like the idea of letting you out of here, and I still don’t really believe you’d do everything you can to help. But I will consider it—seriously, this time—because if you can offer insight like you just did about Voldemort and his followers, it would be worth any risk.”