Lightning and War

Opening the Mind

“You were foolish.”

Harry grimaced and nodded. He had been forced to sit still while Lestrange worked over him, healing the injuries he’d received when part of the wall fell on him, and then another Knight had come in and soothed the aftereffects from the spells that his interrogator had cast. “I know. I don’t want that to happen again.”

Tom leaned back. They were in a small sitting room that Tom had claimed for his own. The walls and furniture were all as white as though they were made of solidified snow, but the fireplace Tom had lit threw bloody shadows over that whiteness. “You’re saying that mostly because you don’t want me to torture people to death.”

Harry took a deep breath and met his eyes. “That too. But I hate the feeling that I disappointed you and made you and some of the others risk their lives.”

Tom paused before he reached for a small silver cup of some kind of steaming drink that the Malfoy house-elves had brought. “So that’s the way to make you hold back. The threat to my life and others’.”

Harry sighed. “Yeah, it is. I don’t like making people risk their lives, Tom. I just thought I was likelier to be able to face the Order than most of the Knights.”

“That might have been true once, before you sacrificed some of your power. Now you’re as vulnerable as they are.”

Harry held his gaze. “Not as vulnerable. I still know more battle spells than they do. And I know more tactics, too.”

“Then stay in the back of the fight and advise them. You know, the way a leader should.”

Harry ground his teeth for a second. But his mind kept going back to the exploding skulls, and the way he’d felt when he woke up tied to a chair and hadn’t the least idea of where the Knights were or if they’d been injured trying to defend him, and the look on Tom’s face when he spotted Harry across the room. “Yeah. All right. You’re—right.”

Tom let the steam from the cup he held drift up in front of his face for a full minute before he answered. “So you agree that it’s foolish to risk your life as much as you do?”

“If it was just my life that I was risking, I’d still do it. But there’s yours, and the Knights’, and even Jonquil’s if she does manage to join the battle next time. And the lives of anyone who captures or hurts me.”

“I’m glad you understand.” Tom’s voice deepened to the purring note of satisfaction that he used whenever he thought that he’d won. Harry ignored that as best as he could, too. “Now. Drink the potion that Philip brought for you.”

“He said that it would make me sleep.”

“You need sleep.”

“I want to be awake when you interrogate Jonquil and the man you captured.”

“What makes you think I would interrogate Jonquil?”

Harry stared flatly at him. Tom shook his head. “No, really. She wasn’t captured and has no interesting information.”

“I mean, maybe not interrogate, but you would ask her what the hell she was thinking. And you would ask it with this concerned look that would make her think you cared and she could tell you anything. And then you would flay her verbally.”

“She’s stupid enough to need the flaying, and strong enough to survive it. I could make her run for the portal, Harry, if I unleashed my tongue.”

“And then maybe she would get captured again and tell the Order everything in a fit of resentment. No, Tom. Just leave her alone.” Harry eyed the potion. “And promise me that you’ll save the interrogation of that wizard until I’m awake, again.”