The Lion and the Serpent

“Wait,” Calixa said suddenly. “You have my wand. You can check it. For the last spells used. You\'ll see...”



“Nice try, Cali,” Draco interrupted. “We both know that much of Dark Magic is wandless. Much of it, wordless. I have no doubt that you didn\'t use your wand for something like this.”



She shut her eyes then, as in an attempt to hold back her tears.



“Fine,” she said suddenly. “You have my consent. Do it. I won\'t fight you. But I have to warn you... you won\'t like what you see.”



Draco had no doubt of that.



“Legilimens,” he said. Her mind opened before him obediently. She was true to her word, and made no effort to obscure or hide anything.



He looked into her past. There was darkness there, thick and heavy. She was truthful when she had said that Dark Magic had been a part of their family for a long time. There was hatred, fear, bigotry, all intertwined and entangled, into one giant web of deceit. He saw some memories, of her father mentoring her, teaching her, forcing her to learn, to accept the Dark as a part of her. Some of those memories reminded Draco of the relationship between Lucius and himself – and he fought back the urge to feel any sympathy for the girl. Forced by her father into the Dark Magic, Calixa had fought and resisted at some times, and acquiesced at others. At the end of the day, she definitely had what it took to cast a wandless, wordless, deadly curse.



He looked into her memories of the last week. He saw her hatred for Harry, and her fear of him. She had sensed the Darkness gathered around him, and it reminded her of her father. She had hated Harry and the Darkness around him with every fiber of her being, with all the rage she never dared to direct at her own father. Harry\'s cold, sarcastic demeanor, and open contempt for all things Slytherin only made it so much easier for her to despise him, and wish for his death.



He saw her anger and fury towards Harry when he had mistreated Draco. She genuinely did care for Draco – he realized with a start. He was never just a pawn in her plan. She ached for him, with all her heart, and it infuriated her beyond words when she saw any warmth or sympathy towards Harry in him.



Draco pushed forward through her memories. He saw, then, that to her own surprise, she had began letting go of her hatred for Harry. It started when he had rescued them from Arthur, and bluntly admitted to being a Dark Wizard. She couldn\'t despise him quite so much after that, not when he had confessed to the darkness within him so freely. When Harry had called Draco his \'partner\' in front of everyone, she felt something akin to respect for him, and then, a cautious, tentative trust started to form.



She felt a twinge of regret and remorse when Harry announced his plan to give his life to rid the world of Voldemort\'s venom. She accepted the plan without hesitation. She still believed that Harry had to die. But there was nothing in her memories about cursing Harry Potter. Absolutely nothing.



Confused, distressed, Draco kept pushing further into her mind. Her memories screamed her innocence, but the piece of parchment in his hand said otherwise. He knew it had to be her. He wondered if she had someone oblivate her after each time she had delivered the curse – and he pressed harder, more furiously, sorting through every detail of her memory, looking for empty spaces, irregularities, gaps, anything at all. He pressed so hard that his own memories started flowing into her mind, but he did not care in the least. It didn\'t matter to him what she saw , or thought of him at this point.



And she saw everything that had happened in the last week. She saw it all – the whippings, the rape, the slaps across the face, the heart-wrenching coldness and distance. She saw the warmth, the forgiveness, the acceptance, the tenderness, as well. He could see that she was torn by the ambiguity of it all.



When he broke off the contact, he stared at her numbly. He was wrong, after all. He had nothing, only one more person that he had hurt and damaged.



She gazed back at him, her unearthly blue eyes wide open, full of his memories.



“Draco,” she said, her voice shaking with terror.



“I am – so sorry,” he whispered. “I was wrong about you. You didn\'t curse him, Cali.”



“No,” she agreed. “You did.”



There was no accusation in her words. Just sadness.



It should have stunned him to hear those words, but it didn\'t. He could believe the worst of himself quite easily now.



“What did I do?” he asked. “Tell me how I did it.”



“By submitting willingly to Dark Magic,” she said quietly. “But you didn\'t know, did you?”



“I still don\'t know what you mean,” he said painfully. “When... how?”



“Asklepio,” she explained. “It\'s part of the Dark Magic. But it only works when you submit to it willingly. Didn\'t you ever read up on it? Didn\'t you ever see the image of a serpent associated with it?”



Draco shook his head numbly. “It\'s just a healing spell...”



“Not a healing spell, Draco,” she said. “It doesn\'t heal anything. It merely relocates the injury onto another person. Like with all Dark Magic, it blesses one person by cursing the other. That\'s why it was so quick each time... the organic, natural magic isn\'t like that. It doesn\'t give instant results, or immediate pain relief. It only speeds up the ordinary healing processes already at work in your own body. Didn\'t you ever wonder why he was so weak and frail after healing you? Why he nearly cried out in pain when you poked him in the stomach? Why he begged you to obey? Why you could taste blood in his mouth last time you kissed him?”



Draco stared at the dates and times on the parchment. The times of the punishments, and the rape. The times when Harry had healed him.



“But why would he do that to himself?” Draco stammered. “Why would he ... take the injuries inside of himself? Why?”



“Because he\'s a self-destructive Gryffindor idiot,” Calixa said bluntly. “Snap out of it, Draco. Do you still want to save him, or not?”



Unable to talk, feeling like he was going to faint, Draco just nodded furiously.



Calixa grabbed his hand. “Let\'s go then,” she said, pushing him towards the door. “You go get Granger. I\'ll meet you in the infirmary. And for the love of God, give me my wand back!”