He had to dodge a few patrolling prefects, but in the end, Harry reached the seventh floor. He stared at the blank wall the feeling seemed to be coming from, frowning. What could be there? Was it something that Voldemort had tainted when he was a student here? A place where he'd cast a curse?
Or buried a body.
Harry shivered, hoping it wasn't really that.
But there seemed to be few other factors that would connect with his scar and draw him to this random place in the middle of the seventh-floor corridor. Harry picked his way forwards and let his hands rest on the wall.
Nothing happened, except the tug becoming more insistent. Harry closed his eyes and tried to reach out with his mind. Hello? he asked, because why not?
Sudden "silence" in his mind, the tugging sensation stopping. Harry forced his eyes open and frowned at the wall. Maybe there was some remnant of Voldemort's energy left, but it would fade if acknowledged.
Then someone replied to him.
Hello? Can you hear me? I'm trapped. Can you hear me? Oh, Merlin, can you hear me? How long has it been?
Harry took a step back from the wall, unnerved. The voice stopped at once. It seemed that his hands needed contact with the stone to let it speak.
Harry's first impulse was to turn around and run up to the owlery, where he could send a letter to his parents. But what exactly would he say? He felt something pulling him and then heard a ghost speaking to him from a wall on the seventh floor? It sounded like a fever dream when he said it to himself.
And even if a few more days would make no difference to the person trapped in the wall, Harry's skin crawled at the idea of leaving them alone. Had Voldemort killed someone and they'd been here ever since, calling out desperately, waiting to be heard?
Is this all that's left of the victim of a killing for a Horcrux?
The thought of that made Harry extend his hands again, and the minute his palms landed on the stone, he heard the frantic voice.
-please don't leave me alone, please, please, I don't know how to make you hear me, I don't know when someone else would ever hear me again, please hear me—
Yeah, I hear you, Harry "sent." He didn't even know how he was sending. Was it just that because he had been a Horcrux, he would be sensitive to another victim? Was it because his soul had been entwined with Voldemort's soul? That was a disturbing explanation, but Harry didn't have a better one.
The voice stopped abruptly. Then it whispered, Hello. What's your name?
Henry Malfoy. Harry thought he shouldn't use his former name, just in case this was someone Voldemort had killed more recently and they would have heard of him.
My name is Mal. A man named Tom Riddle killed me and trapped me here. Do you know—how are you hearing me? Do you think other people could hear me? Could they get me out of here? Do you know? Do you know?
Harry grimaced and pulled back a little. The desperation in Mal's voice was grating, but Harry reckoned he could understand, if he'd been trapped there twenty years, or fifty years, or more. I don't know for sure how I could hear you. Or if other people could. Sorry.
Mal was quiet for a moment. Then he said, Do you think they could remove me from the wall? It's not—my body is here, but it's really my spirit that I want removed. Do you know any talented necromancers?
Harry jerked, thinking of the spell Father had cast. Mal said nothing, apparently waiting for his answer, and Harry at last sighed and said, I know a necromancer, but they've promised not to do any more of that kind of magic. Maybe I could talk to one of the professors, though? Or the Headmaster?
In his heart, Harry knew he would go back to Father and ask him about necromancy if he had to. He couldn't really picture himself addressing it with any of the adults at Hogwarts, and Father did know about necromancy.
I think they would think less of me for letting myself become a victim.
Why is that?
Because I was warned, and warned, and warned, and yet I dared to go up and talk to him anyway. My killer. They would pity me, but they would think that I got what I deserved.
Harry shook his head. No one deserves to be trapped in a wall for decades. I'll do what I can to get you out of there without mentioning your name.
Thank you.
Harry's eyes stung a little from the sheer relief in Mal's voice. He leaned his hand harder on the wall for a moment. You're welcome.
Mal didn't respond, but Harry thought he felt a pulse of gratitude anyway. He pulled back and walked up the corridor that would lead to the staircase. He was already wondering how he should write the letter to Father.
And wondering, too, if this was an ancestor of his. Could "Mal" be short for Malfoy?
"Permit me to say that you seem to be more tense than usual, Harry."
Healer Letham was sitting on the couch in the Room of Requirement with a cup of tea in her palm, but she seemed to have forgotten it. She was staring at him, and Harry sat back with an embarrassed smile when he realized that he'd been sitting on the edge of his own couch, bouncing his heel back and forth.
"Oh, it's nothing."
"Nothing?"
Harry scowled at her. He enjoyed speaking with Healer Letham, but she had a certain trick where she would let her voice rise in a question that made him doubt his own solid answers that he'd already given.
"Something happened, but I don't want to talk about it."
"Nothing that could endanger your life, I hope."
"Of course not!"
Healer Letham studied him for a moment longer as if she didn't believe him, but in the end, she nodded and leaned back on the couch. "All right. How is your relationship with your parents since you and Draco spoke with them?"
Harry picked up his own teacup with a little sigh. Mother had been so focused on revenge after Marcus Flint had attacked Harry that she'd tortured Barty Crouch Jr., whom Father had captured, instead of coming to see Harry or Draco. And Father had promised not to use necromancy, but—well, that conversation hadn't been easy, either.
"I think it's better," he said carefully. "At least Mother knows that we were upset with her, that we needed her and she ran off to do something else instead. And Father's been careful in his letters to me, but that's only to be expected."
"Do you know how much you mean to them?"
"Of course I do! I know how I was stolen, and that they would have torn the world apart to try and get me back—"
"I didn't mean that, precisely, Harry. One thing I have sometimes wondered is if they should spend more time telling you how they love you, and not only as a stolen child, but as yourself. Henry Malfoy."
"They do that. Of course they do that."
Healer Letham propped her chin in her palm. "Do that? Because the way you were speaking seemed to me as though you were talking about Aldebaran Malfoy instead."
Harry swallowed and wondered what he should say. That sometimes he did feel like his parents saw what he had been or would be more than what he was right now? That he felt lonely when they laughed about memories that were years old but which he hadn't been there for?
Because those things were true. But he didn't think that meant Mother and Father loved him any less than Draco.
"I'm all right, Healer Letham."
She watched him with opaque eyes for a moment more, and then said, "Very well. You know your own mind the best. I am only here to help you know it better." She smiled and leaned back, and the moment got less intense. "And there's nothing else that you wish to talk to me about?"
"Only that I'm still having arguments with my friend Hermione sometimes…"
Harry was happy to talk about normal things. Low-stakes things. Things that definitely did not involve conversations with his father where he might have to ask Lucius to take up necromancy again, or murdered people trapped in walls.
But he knew that help would be available if he needed it. And no matter what anyone else might think, it did make a real difference to have that help available.
He just didn't need it all the time.
....
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