57Chapter 3: Crucio
For the first time since the time loop began, Harry decided to confront Malfoy in the bathroom in the hopes that repeating the fateful day's events, but without casting Sectumsempra, would restore time. He waited until he heard the line "He says he'll kill me . . ." before letting Malfoy see him.
Malfoy spun around, drawing his wand. Ready for an attack, Harry had already pulled out his own. Malfoy's hex missed Harry by a hair, shattering the lamp on the wall beside him. Harry lurched sideways, thought Levicorpus! and flicked his wand, but Malfoy blocked the jinx and raised his wand to cast another—
"No! No! Stop it!" Moaning Myrtle's pleas echoed loudly around the tiled room. "Stop! Stop!"
There was a loud bang and the bin behind Harry exploded. Still unwilling to resort to a spell as violent as Sectumsempra, he instead attempted a Leg-Locker Curse that backfired off the wall behind Malfoy's ear, shattering the cistern beneath Moaning Myrtle, who screamed loudly. Water poured everywhere, causing Harry to slip and fall to the floor as Malfoy, face contorted, cried, "Crucio!"
Fiery pain consumed him. He knew it was not real, that the burning did not mean he was actually consumed in flame, but every inch of him leapt in pain and fear, until he wasn't sure if he was actually screaming or if it was his body that emitted some inhuman noise . . .
After what must have been two minutes, though he was unable to know for certain, it stopped, leaving Harry to tremble on the ground.
As Myrtle continued to cry for help, Malfoy was sobbing again, breathing in choked gasps as he paced.
You have to mean them, Potter! You need to really want to cause pain—to enjoy it . . . echoed dimly in his mind.
The door flung open with a bang! that seemed to echo like a clap of thunder from miles away. As Harry faded in and out of consciousness, someone's hands gripped his arms, turned him onto his back, touched his face.
"What have you done?" Snape's voice was aimed away, up at Malfoy.
"P-Potter attacked me!"
Snape let go of Harry and inhaled sharply. "The Cruciatus Curse. Draco, see me in my office. You have made it exceedingly difficult for me to protect you . . ."
The world faded to black.
Sometime later, Harry opened his eyes to find himself in the Hospital Wing. He lay in bed for a few minutes before Madam Pomfrey came to check on him and saw he was awake.
"How are you feeling, Mr. Potter?"
Harry still felt on edge, but the pain was gone. "Fine."
"I will let Professor Snape know you're awake."
If he weren't in a time loop, Harry might have protested, but he had grown accustomed to letting things play out, since he knew he had nothing to lose.
Snape swept into the room, expression cold and severe.
"Professor, I didn't start anything. I walked in on Malfoy in the bathroom, he was crying and—"
"You must have done something to provoke him, Potter."
Harry glared at him. "Is that what you think? Well, I just told you what I did. He was embarrassed, or whatever, and we fought, and—"
"You allowed him to perform an Unforgivable Curse?"
"I didn't allow him, obviously! Look, I know you wouldn't let him get in any trouble, so I'll tell Dumbledore myself."
Snape's lip curled. "The Headmaster has more important concerns than settling a petty dispute."
"You're only saying that so I won't tell him anything."
Snape glared at Harry. "Go ahead. I can assure you, he will not compound the punishment beyond the detention I gave Draco."
"Why are you protecting him? I know he's planning something, and you're helping him!" Harry would normally withhold all of his suspicion, but he hoped it would get Snape to crack and confess to something, and it felt good to vent. "I found out Malfoy's a Death Eater."
Either Snape was truly unfazed, or he was expertly controlling his surprise. "Oh? You think so? That is a serious accusation, Potter, you wouldn't want to start rumors . . ."
"I saw his Dark Mark once. He was showing his friends, and I was spying on him," Harry lied. "So I wouldn't say it's a rumor."
Snape colored. "When was this?"
"It was . . . last week. In the seventh floor corridor."
"Bluffing or not, you should not meddle in what you do not understand."
Harry scoffed. "Of course you wouldn't care. Dumbledore let you work here and you're a Death Eater."
"You truly are as simple-minded as your father. If you continue to assume your powers of perception are infallible, then you will only place yourself in more needless danger."
"You're wrong. I can see things for how they are. I was right about Malfoy and Umbridge—"
"Convincing you of your misguidedness is not my concern. We are done here. Tell Dumbledore what you will."
After Snape left, Harry began thinking about how he could get information from him. After all, of everyone at Hogwarts, Snape knew the most about the Dark Arts. Unfortunately, if Harry had learned anything from his years at Hogwarts, it was that Snape's hatred of him made it impossible to ask him for help.
A few days after Malfoy used the Cruciatus Curse, Harry's desperation began to set in, more pronounced than he had felt in a while. He was lonely, frustrated, and bored. How long would it take—hearing the same words, going to the same classes, and existing in a stagnant world—for him to go mad?
Professor Sinistra's insight about the conditions of time magic gave Harry the idea to relive May 8th as he had experienced it before the time loop. As much as he didn't want to use the Prince's curse again, especially considering in all likelihood the plan would not work, he would have to rule the idea out eventually. The day passed by smoothly at first, with Ron and Hermione oblivious that anything was off about him. That evening, he waited in the corridor until the right moment, then entered the girls' bathroom carefully, waiting for Malfoy to catch a glimpse of him in the mirror—
Malfoy spun around, drawing his wand. Ready for an attack, Harry had already pulled out his own. Malfoy's hex missed Harry by a hair, ricocheting off the wall. Harry lurched sideways, thought, Sectumempra! and waved his wand.
Blood spurted from Malfoy's face and chest as though Harry had slashed him with a sword. He staggered backward and collapsed, head hitting the tiled floor with a terrible thud. Blood flowed from his torso, mixing with the trickle of blood from his skull.
"Draco!" wailed Myrtle, and she swooped to his side, letting out a low whine, hands uselessly slipping through his torso.
Harry's heart dropped. There hadn't been enough of a struggle, meaning Snape probably hadn't heard them. And for some reason, Myrtle was only sobbing, not screaming. Harry rushed to the bathroom door, opened it and peered around—but Snape was nowhere to be seen.
Trying to remain calm, he returned to Malfoy's side and traced the wounds with his wand, repeating the sing-song incantation Snape had used. The blood slowed to a stop before flowing out again at an even faster rate.
Harry swore. Had the cuts opened up further? He reached for the bottom of Malfoy's shirt, now a deep red color, hesitating briefly at the fear of what he'd done and of wasting any more time, then pushed it up enough to reveal the gashes splayed across his white skin.
Shaking, Harry attempted the incantation again. He tried a different emphasis of the words, hoping it would take.
Blood still flowed.
His vision blurring, Harry tried a different inflection. The blood seemed to continue for a few seconds, but it was only that which had already spilled blooming on the tile. Encouraged, Harry repeated the words, and the skin sealed slightly. After tracing the wounds until harsh scabbed lines remained in their place, Harry rolled Malfoy's shirt back over his stomach and searched for signs of breathing. Beneath the soaked shirt, Malfoy's chest rose and fell almost imperceptibly. His face was slack, his eyes closed and mouth ajar.
Harry thought he looked no more than an inch from death.
Malfoy whimpered, kicking in the rational part of Harry's brain. The Hospital Wing. If he levitated Malfoy, they had a chance of getting there in time. As a precautionary measure, he ran back out of the bathroom, tracking blood on his shoes. A group of students, likely first-years, were walking down the corridor.
"Oi! You lot! Get Madam Pomfrey. Quickly!"
The young Hufflepuff girl nearest him gaped at his bloodstained robes.
"NOW!" He stepped forward.
With a frantic "Okay!" the group sprinted in the direction of the Hospital Wing.
Hands shaking, Harry levitated Draco and slowly moved him in the direction of the Hospital Wing. When he was halfway there, it was Snape that appeared, not Madame Pomfrey.
"Sir, it was a blood-loss curse. It ricocheted off a mirror in the bathroom and hit him. I didn't mean . . ."
Snape stared at him, and Harry could feel the tug of truth worming into the forefront of his mind. "Liar." He began urgently resealing Malfoy's wounds, so that the blood dripping onto the floor was only from his robes. "Wait here as I attempt to save the boy's life." He whisked down the corridor, Malfoy in tow. As soon as he was out of sight, Harry rushed to Gryffindor Tower to retrieve his Potions textbook.
If Malfoy died, would the time loop continue? Maybe that was the point. It was a fluke Snape had shown up to save him that first day, before the time loop—Malfoy was meant to bleed out on the worn tile floor of the girls' bathroom. Now as then, there would have been no reasonable justification for his actions, certainly not with Snape advocating for Malfoy, so Harry's expulsion from Hogwarts was guaranteed. He had only ever been responsible for deaths indirectly: his parents, Cedric, Sirius . . . It made sense that sooner or later he would kill someone directly, using his own wand. After a complete month in the time loop, it would take a murder to free him, only to imprison him again. Would he go to Azkaban? Was there juvenile detention for minors, and if so, what horrible creatures inhabited it?
When Snape returned twenty minutes later, he snarled, "He is alive, despite your attempt on his life, Potter—" He reached as though to grab him by the collar, but was stopped by the book Harry had thrust between them.
"Here it is, sir. My copy of Advanced Potions."
Snape took it slowly, bewildered. "You knew I would ask for this book. Is this a confession?"
Despite Harry's will to hide his memories, it had little effect. "I'm on a mission from Dumbledore. You can't know the full details."
"Oh?" Snape's features darkened. "You are not in a position to lie, Potter." How much had Snape seen? He flipped to the inside cover, the inside back cover, and finally the back cover, where This book is the property of the Half-Blood Prince had been written. "So this is the key to your inexplicable success in Potions. You have plagiarized the efforts of another student for your own benefit, concealing your mediocrity by deceiving others."
"That's not what I've been doing! Who says I can't use the book for tips?"
Snape flipped through the pages until he spotted the scribbled note that had led them here, now. "'Sectumsempra—For enemies.' Was this the curse you used?"
"Yes, sir." There was no use lying, Snape would see through him.
"Malfoy is your enemy? You use a mere Disarming Charm against the Dark Lord and yet you used a powerful curse to murder a fellow student?"
"I didn't want to kill him!"
"And you clearly did not want to open a basic Latin dictionary."
"I—that's beside the point! It doesn't matter what Malfoy does, you'll keep pretending he's innocent. I know he's up to something."
Snape stared at him, burrowing deeper into his mind. "You will be very lucky if you are not expelled. You have wormed your way out of lesser crimes before, but this—"
"You've read my mind, though, haven't you? It doesn't matter what you do to me, because time will reset."
Snape hesitated, and an image of Harry's first use of Sectumsempra burst forward, followed by Malfoy's use of the Cruciatus Curse. "You are fooling around with time? If the Ministry knew . . ."
"I didn't do it on purpose! Even Dumbledore can't figure out how to fix things. That's the reason I did any of this, to make time work again. But it backfired. Tomorrow will probably be the 8th again—"
"If you grow accustomed to everything working your favor, Potter, you will make a mistake you cannot erase. Your father was just as arrogant, and where is he now?"
Harry seethed with fury. "Don't tell me you're happy he's dead, or you have no right to be angry about what I did to Malfoy."
He must have struck a nerve, for Snape finally looked away. "There is not a professor on these grounds who could justify your actions. I will speak with Dumbledore—"
"Tell him to look at his Time-Turner. It's proof that time is repeating."
"Your luck will run out, Potter," replied Snape, then swept down the hall.
That evening, Dumbledore summoned Harry to his office, his whirring Time-Turner set out on desk in front of him.
"Would you have injured Malfoy, had you not known time was repeating?"
"No, sir, not like this. Defended myself, sure, but I only cast Sectumsempra again because I was trying to recreate the events of the day that started the time loop in the first place. And I couldn't."
"I cannot blame you for trying this once, Harry, but I advise against trying it again. You do not know the nature of the curse. If it did indeed take the sacrifice of a life to break, you would have a young man's life on your conscience."
"Yeah, he wouldn't have been the first."
"Cedric Diggory's death was not your fault, Harry."
Instead of arguing, Harry said, "I understand, sir. If I only knew what Malfoy was up to, why he was in the bathroom in the first place . . ."
"You need not hurt him in the process, Harry. Become accustomed to a behavior or mindset in a controlled environment, and you will find it is difficult to readjust to the real world, similar as the two may be."
Although Harry was frustrated that he could be lectured for something that ultimately affected only him, he knew there was truth to what Dumbledore and Snape had said. Using Sectumsempra again was out of the question, so he would have to think of new ways to end the loop. For the time being, he decided to visit Malfoy in the Hospital Wing and see if there was anything to be gained by talking to him.
"Muffliato," whispered Harry, the room too quiet to avoid Malfoy hearing the incantation. He slipped his wand out of his invisibility cloak and said, "Lumos."
Light illuminated Malfoy's face. Severe red lines crossed his face and neck, winding into the bandages on his chest. Harry knew then that there would be permanent scars etched into his skin if the time loop ended. His fatigue, the eerie light in the room, and his bloodshot right eye compounded Malfoy's frightening appearance.
Malfoy's surprise at the light subsided and he sneered. "Come to fight me while my defenses are down, have you, Potter?" Malice dripped from his words, his eyes narrowed in an attempt to be menacing. "Quite noble of you."
Harry took off his cloak. "You attacked me! Anyhow . . . I came to apologize, not fight."
"Oh, sure, that's excellent. Ickle baby Potter has to say sorry. Dumbledore sent you, has he? You can choke on that apology. Is this all the Chosen One has to do to fix nearly killing me? You should be expelled."
"I never wanted to kill you. I had no idea what the spell would do—I had never tried it before."
"And that excuse fooled the bloody geezer? It's a pity how utterly weak he is."
Clenching his fists, Harry stepped closer to the bed. "Get over yourself. No one told me to apologize, apart from this little thing called a conscience. But I suppose you wouldn't know about that."
"Watch your mouth, Potter. You forget that could have been you, bleeding out on the bathroom floor." Malfoy's chest rose and fell with the effort it took to speak. The curse had taken a toll on him, and he had already been in pain.
"I know. Except you're not supposed to kill me, that's Voldemort's job." Harry pocketed his wand and sat on the chair next to Malfoy's bed. To control his anger, he found some relief in picturing Malfoy's face when he had cried in the bathroom.
"That doesn't mean I can't hurt you."
"Believe me, I know." Picture the snot dripping out of his nose, the depressing flop of his hair. "I suppose you can't tell me why you were crying?"
"Madam Pomfrey!" Malfoy shouted suddenly.
"Don't bother. I cast a charm so no one will overhear."
"I will never tell you. I should Obliviate you—" Malfoy began to raise his wand, but Harry disarmed him just in time.
"There's no point. I wrote down what happened before coming here in case you would." Lying was quite easy when Harry wouldn't be held accountable.
Malfoy swore, chuckling to himself as he ran his hands over his face. "Of course you did." He swore again, but this time he sounded exhausted more than amused. "Just say your bloody apology and get out."
"I'm sorry. Even though you're a Death Eater and you're a godawful person . . . I don't want you to die. I shouldn't have hurt you . . . that badly."
"It's not the first time, and it won't be the last, Potter," he said shortly.
"Look, you shouldn't put me in a position where I'm forced to defend myself."
"I'm not afraid of you."
"I never said you were!"
"No, but you think I am. I don't need you thinking I'm weak because—my stress—it's just—you're the one who cried over the ghosts of his parents. You're the one who lost it over the dementors, over Diggory, the one who's always whining to your precious Headmaster about your problems." Coughing suddenly from the strain of speaking, Malfoy tried to catch his breath.
Harry could recount a hundred instances of Malfoy's most spineless moments. But he'd save them for another day, another circumstance that would lead him to this chair, sitting in the Hospital Wing. "I couldn't give less of a damn that you were crying, for Merlin's sake. You didn't expect anyone to see, I understand. Now that I have seen, I thought you'd want to convince me you weren't crying over nothing."
Taking the bait, Malfoy glared at Harry. "It is nothing you would understand."
"Oh, I'm sure I'll understand. Not sure I'll sympathize, seeing as we're on opposing sides of this, aren't we?"
"That is precisely why you ought to save your breath."
They stared at each other. Without the energy to convey his usual loathing, Malfoy merely managed to look bored. The potion on the nightstand beside Malfoy, probably for restoring blood, was nearly empty, yet Malfoy's face was bloodless, white as the pillow propping him up.
"In our first year at Hogwarts, you asked to be my friend. Are you that same person? I can't imagine him crying in the bathroom."
"Of course not. I have changed far more than you have, and endured more. You're still the same as that day in Madam Malkin's. Just as unassuming, emotional, morally righteous—and everything falls into place for you."
"Fine. Let's pretend my parents didn't die, that Sirius Black was still alive, that Voldemort hasn't tried to kill me nearly every year since I've come to Hogwarts. Explain to me why you get a pass for terrorizing the school, for attempting to make my life hell, and crying to the ghost of a teenage girl."
Hands gripping the covers like they were closing around Harry's neck, Malfoy shouted, "Because I have no choice!"
"Neither have I!"
"Yes, you do. You haven't got parents to dictate you and you haven't inherited the choices they made. You haven't got lives resting on your shoulders."
"No? I have an aunt and uncle to dictate me, I inherited the choice of my parents to fight Voldemort, a choice they gave their lives for. If I can't defeat Voldemort, many more people will die." The obvious difference was on which side of the war their circumstances placed them.
A shadow passed over Malfoy's face. "This is exactly why you could never understand. I cracked under pressure that you would weather with hardly a complaint. You have it easier than me because you are fighting for what you believe in, not purely for the sake of surviving. I cannot say the same."
"Then why can't you do something to change that?"
"Would you condemn Weasley and Granger to death because of a choice you made?"
"No, of course not, but what does that have to do with anything?"
"Right, you have not been faced with a choice like that before." The weariness in his features made him look suddenly far older than he was.
Unsure what the parallel was, Harry started to ask who Malfoy meant when Madam Pomfrey's office lit up. Throwing the invisibility cloak on and quickly casting another Muffling Charm, Harry said, "We'll continue this later."
Only, they couldn't continue it, because time reset the next day. What was the point? Harry no longer regretted casting Sectumsempra on the first day, nor did he regret being kicked off the Quidditch team. If there was some greater purpose, some lesson he had learned to make it worth the consequences, maybe it was accepting what he could not change.
"I don't regret it," said Harry, standing in the girl's bathroom after telling Myrtle to leave him be. "If this curse cares, I don't regret anything I did. Malfoy lived, didn't he? It could have been worse—it was an accident."
That didn't work either. When he woke up the next day, he smashed his palm down on his glasses, causing them to clatter to the floor, bent and broken. Purely to vent his spite, he was in a pissy mood the entire day, and refused to explain what was wrong to Ron and Hermione. Instead of going to dinner, he went out to the edge of the woods and aimlessly set fire to dead branches, then levitated rocks so they splashed into the Black Lake.
He enjoyed this taste of freedom enough to dedicate the next several days to it, bringing spell books into the woods and practicing until he grew tired and once again became bored with the monotony.
At six weeks in the loop, it was time for him to try something radically different. Productivity, yes, that will help, he told himself, and resolved to get back on track with what he had tried to accomplish at the beginning of the loop. To get the information he wanted out of Malfoy, there was a simple method he could use, a potion to get him to confess to his task, and ultimately help both of them. Of course, Harry had misgivings about using a tactic Dolores Umbridge had herself introduced him to. If nothing else, at least all of this was temporary. It would be like a Potions experiment. Surely the Half-Blood Prince would approve if he tried using Veritaserum.
NOTE: This potion is a highly restricted substance and not for use on others, especially without the drinker's knowledge. It is NOT guaranteed to reveal the truth, and accuracy will depend on the user's mental state . . . The warning on the vial of Veritaserum went on, descending further into moral ambiguity until the end, when it read outright: tolerated only in emergencies, accepted only when the bastard deserves it. When he failed his first attempt to buy the potion in Knockturn Alley (the shop had a Trace detector to determine his age), he decided to commission Fred Weasley try on his behalf. A 5 ml vial of Veritaserum, the most one could buy at once, cost 15 galleons. The restrictions on the potion only allowed for one purchase of a small amount of potion per six months, though this was easy enough to circumvent in Knockturn Alley and one dose would suffice.
Harry intercepted Malfoy on his way to the girl's bathroom, body-bound him, and awkwardly smuggled him under his cloak into an unused classroom. He forced the boy's stiff body into a seated position, then poured the Veritaserum into a goblet filled with water and set it on the table between them. Even though the look in Malfoy's eyes made him want to reverse the day's events already, he had to follow through.
"Muffliato. Religo." Invisible ropes pulled Malfoy tighter to the chair. Harry cast a Drought Hex and pulled off the invisibility cloak before finally unfreezing him.
Immediately, Malfoy tried to ask for water, but his words came out as a pathetic croak. Harry picked up the goblet and tipped it into Malfoy's parched mouth. Once he had swallowed, Harry lifted the hex.
"What the hell have you done, Potter?" he demanded, face twisted with anger. "You're going to pay for this."
Seeing Malfoy struggle only reminded Harry of the time he nearly killed him. To silence the trickle of guilt within himself, he instead thought back to the time Malfoy petrified him and crushed his nose. "I'm sorry, I just need to know what you've been planning. Er, so: what have you been planning?"
"I've been repairing a Vanishing Cabinet in order to lead a group of Death Eaters into Hogwarts. We are going to kill Albus Dumbledore."
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