Work Text:
A Rare and Precious Gift?
by N. Ranken
spooniekid@yahoo.com
"What is it?" The confusion in the boy's voice was endearing as it filtered down the hall from Morningway's den. I smiled to myself--or, at least, I would have if I'd been corporeal at the time. Instead, my essence was permeating the second shelf of a bookcase near the library door, which allowed me to listen.
"It's an abacus," Morningway replied, his snake-smooth intonation a remnant of his former diction studies. "Bob said you've been having difficulties with more complex mathematics. I thought this might help."
"I-it's huge." Puzzlement washed over me at Harry's uncertain tone; I'd had a perfectly serviceable hand-abacus as a youth, and I had anticipated Harry would receive the same. A tabletop version would be difficult to use on the move as we worked our way into Newtonian physics.
"Higher maths take far more concentration and space." I could hear the smile in his voice, the smug bastard, and I resented for a moment that I had to let Morningway give my student my gift. "Your mother had one of these when she was younger." Liar. "We broke it playing chase through the house, and your grandfather was very cross with us." He lied better than he told the truth, but Morningway could never lie to me, even when he tried. "Happy birthday, Harry."
"Thank you, Uncle Justin." Harry sounded happy and enthusiastic, but unlike his uncle, Harry was not a good liar. I'd taught him how to simulate contentment to avoid social mishaps, and the tone of it came very clear to my ears. There was a pause and a ruffle of cloth, which I took for a short, rare hug between them.
"I'll have it moved to the library. Bob will show you how to use it to help your studies. For right now, though, let's go get our dinner--it's your favourite: macaroni and cheese… only, this time, we'll have the *real* stuff." I had always found Morningway's patronisation of my ward to be irksome; the young man had the wit of an adult, along with his youthful penchant for mockery and sarcasm. Given a few more years to mature, he would make a far better and more powerful wizard than his uncle had ever been.
I lost track of time for awhile as I slid through the books. One of the games Harry and I played together involved Harry hiding books in false bindings for me to find. I couldn't help but wonder if he'd been unaware of the nature of the books he'd hidden for me here, or if he'd been testing the limits of our game, but nevertheless, they were quite diverting. I paid no attention to the staff as they brought in the gift, and didn't think to emerge until I heard Harry's footfalls over the tile.
I can, when I wish, dampen the soft noise I make when I cloak myself in the image of tangibility, and did so then. It allowed me the appearance of walking up behind him, and I knew he preferred to relate to me as a person rather than a ghost. "Happy birthday, Harry," I hummed.
"Thanks, Bob." The table upon which my skull rested was in his path, and he scooped me up with practiced ease to give the bone a brief hug. He walked over to the abacus, which was far, *far* larger than I'd anticipated, to look it over. It stood nearly six feet tall and three broad, made of ornately-carved walnut. Trust Morningway to take a simple idea and blow it ostentatiously out of proportion.
The silence stretched on, and I moved to Harry's side, looking over at him. I was dismayed by the look of upset on his face; anger, frustration, and doubt all lurked within his dark eyes. "What's the matter?"
"Why did you tell Uncle Justin that I'm bad at math?" he asked, his voice low and measured as he turned his gaze from the frame to me. "He doesn't like me much as it is; I don't want to give him any reason to get rid of me. I felt his arm tighten on my skull, the gesture giving the lie to the tone of calm interest I'd helped him cultivate to cover his worry.
"He's not going to put you out, Harry. If I'd known you were truly worried about such a thing happening, I would never have joked with you about it. You are your mother's son, and the last heir to the Morningway line, even though you carry your father's name and blood. Your uncle will never have children; he's not at all good with them… no matter how tall they become." I favoured him with a small smile, but the silence from his expectant stillness stretched between us. I hadn't answered the question he had asked. "I mentioned your difficulty and the abacus to him because I cannot get it myself." I reached my hand out to him, trailing fingers through his shoulder until he shivered, to make my point. "Of course," I continued, placing my hands behind my back again, "I had something much smaller and more portable in mind."
"So… this was your idea, then. Not his." Harry kept the sentence a statement; while he looked up to Morningway, the boy didn't fully trust him.
"Yes," I reassured. "I used to have a small one of my own when I was a youth. I lost the need for it, though, when I could carry the numbers in my head."
"I don't think I'll be able to get to that point." Harry shook his head, his fingers playing absently over the edge of my skeletal jaw. I had to suppress a shiver at the almost-sensation, not quite a touch, and not quite... not.
"Perhaps not to the level I have, but multiplication will get easier, even if division does not. It's not as if you'll be expected to solve complex trigonometrical formulae without at least a pencil and piece of paper."
He was silent a short while longer as his eyes slid away from me, his attention focused on the monstrous abacus. "You'll show me how to use it?" he ventured after several heartbeats.
"Of course." Asking me to show him was far different, in the language we'd developed between us, than asking me to tell him how to do something. 'Teach' could go either way, depending upon the intonation, but 'show' always referred to entering the secret little pocket of the NeverNever we shared on occasion, his dreams granting me the solidity I needed to interact with him.
"Thank you." The relief in Harry's tone was audible, and I could see the tension drain from his shoulders. "What are the beads made of?" The counters on the ropes were large, and their warm tones matched the wood of the frame, lighted by the fire in the hearth.
I looked them over as we stood together, trying to determine their natures. "Amber, tortoiseshell, polished wood, petrified wood, bone--"
"Bone?" Harry interrupted. "Which one?" He shifted my skull to his left arm, waiting to reach out.
"The string at your chest level, fifth from the right." There was no warning. The instant Harry touched the bead, the entire abacus exploded spectacularly. Waves of purple-black energy burst from the wooden frame and swept across the room. It was all over in a few seconds, but it seemed to last forever. The force of the blast sent Harry flying backward with only a soft grunt of surprise. I didn't even have the chance to feel the tug of my tether; I was already sprinting toward him. In my panic, I had forgotten that I could not touch.
A loud crack resounded through the room, and I winced. It was not the brittle crunch that would be expected of damage to my physical prison, but the thick sound of damage to living bone. I watched his head bounce, and I shouted for Morningway; my ward had failed to catch himself on his arms.
It took me a few moments to realise why: though he lay crumpled, blood oozing from the wound on his temple, he was still curled about my skull. His knees were drawn up under my jaw, and his arms, their grip loosened somewhat by his loss of consciousness, still held me to his chest. Harry had protected me from not only the fall, but the magical onslaught, with his own body.
I called for Morningway again, though I hadn't needed to. He'd been drawn by my shout and the noise, but the hall rug had muffled his footsteps from my ears.
"Hrothbert, I command a report," he snapped, kneeling beside his nephew. As if I wouldn't have told the greedy bastard, anyway.
I extended my senses toward the smoking remains of the abacus--the explosion had been magical in nature, and there was no fire to spread. "It appears to have been a masked trigger in one of the counters," I opined. "It was likely meant to harm you when you decided to use it, and implicate that you died in an experiment with black magic, since it's ringing all around us."
Morningway paused, looking up at me with a puzzled expression. "Why do you say the latter?"
"It's what I would do if I wanted to be rid of you and ruin your name."
There was a few beats of silence as he processed that. "What was he doing with your skull, Bob?"
"He was moving me so I could explain the abacus." We stared at each other for another few moments, his gaze one of puzzled suspicion and mine forthright, daring him to call me a liar. His first command to me had been to never lie to him, but I still retained the ability, unbeknownst to him, to tell only a portion of the truth if not asked directly.
Morningway looked away first, turning his attention to Harry. He smacked the boy very lightly on the cheeks to awaken him, careful not to shake. "Harry, come on now, wake up. You can't sleep if you have a concussion."
Harry's arms quivered as he tightened his grip, then relaxed it, his eyes flickering slowly open. "Nn? Dad?"
"It's your uncle Justin," Morningway corrected. "Wake up now, so I can make sure you're all right."
"Bob!" Harry's dark eyes widened, and he struggled to push himself up with one arm, the other still holding me to him. "Is Bob okay? I tried to protect--oww." The boy swayed woozily, reaching up to the sticky wound on his temple.
"Bob is fine," the older of them replied curtly, cutting off Harry's line of thought. "I'm more worried about you right now." For a few moments, the only sounds in the library were their breathing, and the occasional soft protest of pain as Morningway assessed the damage. The frown of anger upon his face masqueraded as one of concern, and I felt gratitude that Harry was in shock and likely wouldn't question me on it.
"I didn't mean to break it, Uncle Justin."
"You didn't. Someone spelled it to hurt me, not you." He stood, expression stern. "Stay here. I'm going to get something to clean that up before I charm it closed. "Do not go to sleep."
"I won't." Harry finally caught sight of me after Justin left, and gave me a wan smile. "You okay, Bob? I tried to hold on."
Looking back on it, I can see that this was to be the first of many times that Harry would be harmed in his pursuit of protecting others. At the time, however, I only felt horrid that it had been my gift that had hurt him. "I'm so sorry, Harry. I did not at all mean for this to happen."
Harry shook his head, closing his eyes in denial and pain. He brought his hand down atop my skull, absently dabbing me with his blood. My eyes widened as I felt the sticky wetness on my skull and the pulse of energy that sparked from the contact. It swept through me, Harry's particular flavour of magic; I could feel this new covenant forming, a harmonising of our energies. It started small, a few vines twining within us, likely unnoticeable to any mage. Though it displaced only a small amount of his uncle's suffocating command, it felt far stronger than my cursed binding to Morningway had ever been. The link between Harry and me germinated in shared trust, respect, and affection; whether Harry wished it or not, he would be the next to take possession of me, and I would serve him as long as he lived. "It's not your fault," he hummed, and I fought a laugh at the absurdity of this young boy trying to reassure me. "If he'd done something simple like you wanted, this probably wouldn't have happened."
We were interrupted by Morningway's re-entrance, and I watched him patch up my uncomplaining student. With his uncle there, he was shuttered and compliant, allowing the sorcerer to clean and close his wound. When the man's back was turned, however, I could clearly see the weariness in his eyes.
"Bob, I want you to keep Harry awake until three," Morningway insisted, putting his healing supplies away. "He should be sufficiently recovered enough to sleep then, under watch." I nodded to him and watched him leave before turning back to my ward.
"Chess," I pronounced, wishing I could reach down and give Harry a hand-up. "Take your seat, and we'll begin."
"Why chess, Bob?" he asked, voice thick with mild drowsiness as he carried the skull over to the chessboard.
"Because it's easy for you to play, and it will keep you awake. While we're playing, I want you to keep your hand upon me, and don't let go."
Harry looked down at the bone, and grimaced when he saw the stain. "Oh no, I got you all dirty!"
"It's not dirt, Harry, it's blood, and don't worry about it." I leaned in closer to him, pitching my tone low. "Because of it, I can heal you, and soon you'll be able to sleep on the divan instead of being awake and woozy."
Harry blinked. "Sounds like a plan." He settled into the chair, holding my skull in his lap with one hand. "You mind being white again? My blacks are already out."
I allowed the illusion of seating myself across from him, and with a wave of my hand, I conjured illusory chess pieces to contrast with the ones already on the board. Such an appreciation for irony the young boy had, and it never failed to make me smile. "Maybe someday, Harry. But for right now, let's stick to chess."
"Checkmate in nine moves," he called sleepily.
"Aren't we presumptuous?"
"Not me. You."
END