Author's Note: I came up with this one after reading Thing1's story The Casting Stone. While this is very different from all of Thing1's fics, I give her all the credit for finally making me rethink the possibilities of Draco Malfoy's character. There may be a slight chance that he's not entirely a sniveling, useless, git… emphasis on the slight part. This fic is my version of that miniscule chance… take it as you will.
The RedemptionThe Bell had already chimed, warning students they were due back in their perspective houses, as Harry strode down one random passageway or another. This hallway in question was, in Harry's opinion, far too close to the dungeons for his comfort. Of all the many times that he had wandered the halls of Hogwarts after lights out, Harry could think of no objective more unpleasant than a search for Draco Malfoy.
* * *
The evening had begun innocent enough; he, Ron, and Hermoine finding themselves, once again, closeted with work for their NEWT Level Transfiguration class. But Harry's companionship was striped away when the Gryffindor prefects and their illustrious Head Girl were summoned to yet another meeting concerning student safety. The remainder of the study session proved to be uneventful… That is, until the prefects filed in through the porthole a few moments before lights out.
This action was inconspicuous enough, they had to return sooner or later, but what caught Harry's attention were the expressions written on his two best friends' faces. They had hung back a few paces from the younger students and were conversing in concerned whispers. Abandoning his unfinished potions essay, characteristically without a backward glace, Harry quickly made his way across the common room to his fellow conspirators.
"…I bet the git's off meeting with his father about some secret attack on the school from the inside."
"Ron!" Hermoine hissed secretively as Harry approached.
"What happened?" he asked the clearly agitated Head Girl.
"Malfoy didn't show up a for the meeting. He's been acting strangely ever since his birthday last Friday… quieter, like his thinking or worried about something."
"I still say the wanker's plotting to kill us." Ron muttered darkly.
"Language, Ron! Lets at least try to be rational while we consider the situation. I've got a bad feeling about this one."
"So Malfoy missed one meeting," Harry questioned, unmoved by Hermoine's premonition, "that doesn't mean the Death Eaters are about to attack. How do we know that he just hasn't gotten so arrogant that he thinks he's above the meetings, not that he's of age and all…"
"I don't know, Harry. Malfoy takes all his responsibilities at school very seriously. I don't think he's missed a meeting all year."
"Yeah, he just loves giving all us 'lesser leaders' instructions. Plus, you would think that he'd be smart enough to realize that someone would notice the Head Boy seat was conspicuously vacant."
"And you two don't have the same feel for him that I do. I've worked with him all year on our head duties and something's been off recently."
"Well, since you two have him so figured out," Harry caved, "what do you suggest we do about it?"
"The first thing is to find out where Malfoy's gone. He must still be on school grounds, we all saw him at supper. Ron and I can use our prefect status as our excuse for being out past curfew. Harry, you should wear your father's cloak and take the Marauder's Map. We'll search the upper halls, where it makes the most sense that we'd be patrolling. You try to cover as much of the lower halls as you can. We'll meet back here at midnight if we haven't found anything."
"I think we need to consider the possibility that Lucious might be involved in this," Ron insisted, earning a small groan from Hermoine. "Seriously. He took Draco home last weekend to celebrate his birthday. I don't care what type of a public ceremony they had, there was still plenty of time for Lucious to pass on some key information to his son. The oversized ferret didn't show up back here until Sunday morning."
"Fine, Ron!" Hermoine muttered in exasperation. "We'll just have to be prepared for anything. But we're wasting time. Remember, we meet back here at midnight…"
* * *
So now, forty-five minutes later, Harry found himself wandering the halls deep within what was considered to be "Slytherin territory". With sign or indication of neither Malfoy nor any danger, he was beginning to think that his initial speculations had been correct and that he was just wasting his time.
Sighing dramatically, Harry muttered, "It would be just our luck to be running about out here in the dead of night while Malfoy's nice and warm in the hospital wing with a head cold." But, as the candlestick he was addressing didn't seem particularly concerned one way or another, he heaved yet another sigh and continued on his way.
Pulling the invisibility cloak tighter about him to ward off the chill that had sunk into the stonework of the castle, he turned down yet another corridor. Harry walked with a resigned and miserable sense of purpose, scarcely paying any attention to where his feet were leading him. As his eyes swung too and froe, in search of a pray he did not expect to capture, the sound of his careless footsteps echoed off the walls.
A flash of feline eyes at the end of the hallway was enough to shake Harry out of his complacency.
"Bugger!" Harry murmured sharply to himself as he skidded to a halt. "Now you've gone and done it… smooth Potter, real smooth…"
Quickly but quietly the green eyes specter shuffled back against the wall and attempted to appear inconspicuous… or rather not to "appear" as anything at all. Harry held his breath as Mrs. Norris padded past him, her eyes suspiciously darting from sided to side.
Only after the cat had safely disappeared around a distant corner did Harry allow himself to breath once more and to curse his own foolishness.
"You could have at least checked the bloody map, Harry. You brought it along for a reason, you know." The scorn almost dripped from his hushed voice as he berated himself.
Ducking into one of the many unused classrooms, he pulled the Marauder's Map out of his pocket and quickly glanced around before he shrugged off his cloak and placed the blank leaf on an empty desk. Seeing nothing one could consider as out of the ordinary in an unused room in the dungeons of Hogwarts, Harry pulled out his wand.
"I solemnly swear I am up to no good," he whispered tersely.
The curves and lines of the map spread from the tip of his wand as he tapped it upon the parchment. A brief glace was enough to make The Boy Who Lived groan and almost begin to curse himself again. A dot labeled "Filch" was steadily making its way towards the dungeons, obviously tipped off by Mrs. Norris to the "suspicious goings on".
The prudent thing to do would have been to make a dash for it and get back to the Gryffindor common room as soon as possible. He had outrun and outsmarted Filch before on a number of occasions, but Harry suddenly felt guilty for acting so foolishly concerning a clearly important matter. There was still over an hour until he was due back in the common room and he felt a need to make up for his distinct lack of effort, even if Hermoine would never find out about it.
Hurrying over to the slightly ajar door, he shouldered it shut with a brief squeal of protest from the hinges and muttered a silencing spell about the room. He hurried back to the desk, where the map still lay, to check on Filch's progress.
"At least this means he hasn't caught Ron and Hermoine…" Harry mumbled as he noted the foul-dispositional caretaker's position a few halls away.
Sighing, Harry sat down and prepared to wait until the coast was clear. Idly, he glanced about the room. The dust and cobwebs explained that the room probably hadn't been used in any number of years. Boxes, presumably filled with outdated books and magical equipment, were placed operatically on the desks and empty or broken bottles lined the shelves on the walls. Harry's eyes continued to scan the perimeter of the room when they ran over something surprisingly white and just as obviously out of place.
Seated cross-legged in an unobtrusive nook between a bookshelf and the wall was Draco Malfoy.
With a start, Harry jumped to his feet and whipped out his wand. But Malfoy had yet to make a move, indeed, he seemed not even to have noticed Harry's presence. He wore a long-sleeved, baggy, white shirt of wizarding fashion that, in addition to his pale skin and even paler hair, contrasted sharply with the dank conditions of the room. He was seated on the floor, almost hidden by the bookshelf, staring straight ahead and clutching his left forearm, his sleeve pushed up past the elbow. But all Harry could see was the haunted look in Malfoy's eyes and the tears slowly seeping down his cheeks.
Shocked at the alien sight and unsure of how to respond, Harry slightly lowered his wand and took a tentative step forward.
"Malfoy?" The name passed his lips with just a bit more scorn and brashness than he had intended it to. But the Head Boy continued to stare off into the space directly in front of him.
Still unsure of how to proceed and finding the expression on Malfoy's face disturbingly similar to one that, all too often, passed over his own, Harry hesitantly but suspiciously stepped forward into Malfoy's line of vision. Yet again, earning no response he slowly, but deliberately this time, lowered himself into a half-crouching half-kneeling position so that he was at eye level with the Slytherin.
"Malfoy." Harry's voice was direct and purposeful, lacking its former malicious tone.
Malfoy's eyes slowly focused and locked onto his own. The haunted look, Harry noted, did not leave his eyes and they continued to tear in a painfully seeping manner. However, despite their apparent anguish, those pale blue orbs held recognition, Draco knew who was addressing him. Harry found that he could not look away from the young man in front of him. The deep-seeded hatred that had existed for so long between them clashed violently with the empathetic sympathy Harry now felt rise up, unbidden and unwanted, within him.
"I can't go back."
Harry was stunned. Malfoy's face remained as if it was set in stone. He stared directly at Harry and spoke in a firm voice that betrayed his turmoil only by an almost indictable quivering undertone.
Disconcerted and unsure of how to react, Harry fidgeted, shifting from foot to foot, while searching for the appropriate thing to do or say. Yet all the while Malfoy held his gaze. Finally, after what seemed like hours but must have been only moments, Harry cleared his throat. But before he could say anything Malfoy was speaking again.
"I can't go back to that place, that house, those people… to him…" The quavering in his voice became more pronounced and he swallowed. "I can't go back."
Harry said nothing, he just stared straight back at Malfoy. His voice was saturated with pain and with what Harry, somewhat skeptically, identified as fear.
"I can't escape it. Every room, every hallway, every doorway… they echo with his voice. Cold and detached. Deadly with its intent and power. He whispers to me… telling me of his plans and his intrigues… of those that he has killed and of those that he will kill…"
The knot of horror that had been present in Harry's stomach since he first caught sight of his classmate began to tighten and swell with each word that passed Malfoy's lips. He was caught up, almost hypnotized, by the sudden dialogue that shook with meaning and emotion.
"I turn a corner or open a book and his vice leaps into my head… He tells me of his plans for my future, of my loyalties. I must follow in his legacy…"
Malfoy stopped speaking for a moment and briefly closed his eyes. When he opened them again Harry saw the first signs of real human emotion. Rather than leaking tears as if it were an unnatural occurrence, the water welled up along his lower lids and spilled over in large drops. The red lines of his corneas stood out against his porcelain coloration. He drew a ragged breath and looked at Harry, really looked at him this time, his eyes searching his unusual companion's face.
"What did you do on your seventeenth birthday, Potter?" Some of the bite and scorn had returned to Malfoy's voice and Harry could tell he didn't really want him to answer. "Did you have a happy little party with your psudo-family? Was there a home made cake with white frosting?"
The Head Boy chuckled in a bitter, humorless tone as the emptiness of his expression became deeper and deeper. When he spoke again the quaking remoteness had returned, only with an additional, razor tipped, raw edge.
"On the night of my birthday he took me to see Him… Lord Voldormort… He stood behind me and smiled… watching the Dark Lord walk in slow circles around me as I knelt on the floor. It as so cold it felt like daggers… either His gaze or the floor… I don't know which… Finally He told me to stand… His voice hissed and seemed to scratch like claws at my eardrums… Those red eyes bored into mine… Into my mind… Peeling back layer by layer as I stood there and shook. And all the while he stood behind me and smiled in that sickening way of his… it turns your stomach into a block of ice…"
Malfoy shuddered. Harry knew that his mouth was hanging open and that his legs were beginning to ache from maintaining one position for too long, but he could not move.
"It seemed like days that Voldormort stared at me… into me…" Draco continued after an uneven breath. "In the end He shifted His gaze over my shoulder to him… It was all I could do not to collapse… into the pile of shreds He had made of me. 'He is mine' is all the Dark Lord said… 'He is mine'…
"I heard his footsteps coming up beside me and I felt his hands grasp my arm… his fingers clutching into my flesh… I looked at his face as he wrenched my arm out before his master… That same damnable, sickening smile carven upon his features…"
Harry's heart was thumping heavily in his chest. He could not believe what he was hearing… didn't want to believe what he was hearing.
"Voldormort drew His wand with His right hand but lifted a singer finger of His left… agonizingly slowly He moved it towards my outstretched arm… When He finally touched me… It was like being immersed in ice water and thrown into a blazing fire all at once… The darkness… the anger… the scorn… the hate… all the hate… It's smothering. Your mind balks and cowers at the incomprehensible magnitude of it… It fills up inside you until you know nothing else… can sense nothing else… it becomes you…"
Malfoy paused, panting slightly, and regained his breath before he continued.
"I gradually became aware that I was screaming… my eyes rolled back into my head and every muscle in my body rigid to the point of hyperextension… Voldormort finally released me… It was no relief… My mind still burned with the agony he had imposed… I fell to my knees… When I could manage to open my eyes I saw him standing in front of me… looking down on me…"
Malfoy swallowed harshly.
"I've never seen my father look so proud."
With that Malfoy shifted, releasing his grip of his forearm and revealing the blackened image that lay beneath. Harry stared at the Dark Mark burned into Draco's flesh. It had a sinister, malevolent quality to it and the skin around it remained inflamed in an angry, red glare.
"He told me some time later… I'm not sure when, time blurred after the Dark Lord departed… that I was beginning to walk the path of my destiny… a destiny that, no doubt, he has carefully planned and laid out for me. The ceremony the next day was a living hell… clasping hands with one Death Eater after another… each one digging a little deeper into the hole of emptiness inside me… My band began to burn… Their eyes looked on me as jackals look on one another… A forced allay of hate… One more competitor for the great feast of blood… They call me brother but would just as soon sink a knife into my unsuspecting back…"
Malfoy seemed to mentally shake himself out of his despairing memory.
"I cannot go back," he said once more and returned his hand to its original position, covering the charred abomination on his arm, "but where can I go?"
Harry's mind was still struggling to comprehend, let alone to process all that he had been told when it dawned on him that Malfoy wanted an answer to his final question. Harry suddenly was awash with questions of his own. Was Malfoy sincere? How could he possible be trusted after everything hat had happened these past six years? How could such a change have occurred in so brief a period of time? What would ever make Malfoy so willingly tell him, of all people, his tale? However, despite all of his doubts and skepticisms, Harry was certain of one thing: Malfoy was telling no lies.
The pain and confusion and despair evident in Malfoy's face, his eyes, his posture, his voice, his very essence, was something Harry could not mistake. Those same emotions dwelt with severe ferocity deep within his being, in a place he frequented during long, sleepless nights. The connection this caused between the Boy Who Lived and his sworn enemy of over six years was unwanted and disturbing to say the least, but one that could not be broken.
The moments lengthened between them, but Malfoy seemed content to wait for as long as need be. At long last Harry drew a breath.
"The darkness is filling in from all sides… surrounding and drowning out the light…" Harry's voice sounded strange and raw. "We must all find a way to live in or survive the darkness."
A faint gleam of surprise and questioning made it way into Malfoy's beleaguered eyes.
Harry hesitated. Although he had, astonishingly, come to grips with Malfoy's plight and potential change of heart, in no way did this break down all the barriers between them. He was at a loss for what to do next.
Harry suddenly became aware that he had no idea how much time had passed since he entered the room. He didn't know how long he had before he was expected to rendezvous with Ron and Hermoine… or if they were already frantically looking for him.
But what should he do with Malfoy? Should he just leave him here? Should be take him to the Slytherin common room? Should he bring him back with him to meet Ron and Hermoine? Ron, surely, would throw a fit and potentially kill the dispassionate young Death Eater. Or should he take him to Dumbledore?
Harry's eyes had drifted as he thought, but he drew them back to the young man before him. Malfoy, apparently, had taken the time to consider things as well. His eyes were downcast and his grip on his forearm looked to be cutting off circulation. But his face was set and tears no longer flowed down his cheeks.
"You speak of darkness…" Draco's head remained tilted and he did not attempt to meet Harry's eyes. "How much of darkness do you know? I have dwelt in darkness my entire life, ignorant to its true self until it was too late. You have lived, as you say, with the darkness slowly smothering out all the light. Now we find ourselves…" Draco purposefully raised his face level with Harry's, "…alone in the black… hopelessly unsure of how to proceed…"
Harry swallowed. Malfoy's words ringing in the vaults of his mind like the reverberations of a bell. "…hopelessly unsure of how to proceed," he echoed.
The both sat in silence, lost within the labyrinth of their own thoughts. Suddenly, behind them somewhere in the gloom, a clock chimed. Harry's head whipped around and his eyes searched the assorted shapes of the room. Finding noting, he reluctantly turned back to his companion with a guilty expression upon his face.
"Got somewhere to be, Potter?" The Head Boy had assumed his customary drawl, but it lacked some of the bite.
"I'm supposed to meet Ron and Hermoine in the common room at midnight." Harry confessed resignedly.
"Well then you had best get going, least they begin to fret over the fate of their precious hero."
The callus dismissal did more to make up Harry's mind than a nights worth of contemplation would have. But, rather than respond, he deliberately shown his green orbs directly into the Slytherin's blue ones.
Draco fidgeted slightly and looked away. The silence deepened between them as Draco refused to meet Harry's eyes and Harry refused to back down. Harry felt certain that Draco would be content to just sit there and stare at the wall all night. 'It's probably what he wants to do, anyway…' the Gryffindor thought to himself in exasperation.
Abruptly, Malfoy's head snapped forward with a vaguely irritated and obviously irrational expression on his face. "Look, Potter," his vice was a malicious as any other time Harry had heard it, "I will not be responsible for yet another dramatic episode between you and your two tag-alongs. So you had better move your arse!"
Stunned at this… well, customary behavior from his old rival, Harry stuttered, "Look, why don't we just go to…"
"What?" Draco cut in harshly, laughing in a bitter tone, "To Dumbledore? You've got to be kidding me, Potter. Even I credited you with more intelligence than that."
Sighing, Harry recognized the truth in those statements. The proud Head Boy would never go willingly to the Headmaster for help, no matter what the situation. Plus, Harry knew from experience that speaking to the legendary and "all knowing" Dumbledore when one's emotions were so raw and powerful was sometimes not the wisest course of action.
"But…" Harry's voice trailed off, leaving him feeling more helpless by the minute.
"But what?" Malfoy sneered. He looked away and settled himself into his original defeatist pose, his eyes regaining their vacancy that contradicted itself with their overflowing look of pain. "I told you… I cannot go back."
The set to Harry's mouth hardened as his resolve strengthened and the feeling of helplessness was forced back into a far corner of his mind.
"You can't stay here."
"Really?" Malfoy chimed with mock, yet distracted, fascination. "Then I put it to you again… Where am I to go?"
An idea began to form it Harry's head. Smiling faintly, he stretched out his hand to the Slytherin. "Come with me."
Malfoy eyed him warily and made no move to take the Gryffindor's outstretched hand. Suspicion and worry, and even a little fear, were evident on the Head Boy's face as he observed the figure before him. As Harry watched, Malfoy seemed to come to a decision and shrank even further back into his nook. Not to be dissuaded, Harry extended his arm slightly further toward its goal.
"Draco…" Harry's voice was firm but encouraging, "come with me."
By the flickering of his eyes, Harry could tell that the used of his given name was not lost on Slytherin. The world took on a surreal quality as he watched Malfoy's trembling hand slowly reach out and clasp his own. He painfully pulled them both to their feet.
Once standing, Harry nodded, released Malfoy's hand, and turned to gather up his cloak and map from where they had been abandoned on the desk. A brief glance at the map told Harry that Filch had long since departed and was currently locked away in his office, brooding about lost opportunities for punishment. Mrs. Norris was likewise detained near the library, presumably chasing shadows. Harry locked the map, uttering the words as softly as he could, before he turned back to his hesitant companion.
Malfoy hadn't moved and was gazing at him intently but without question or inquiry. Maintaining the silence between them, Harry nodded towards the door, indicating for Malfoy to follow him and began walking with slow, purposeful strides.
They twisted and turned through the maze-like halls of Hogwarts without speaking, Malfoy walking a step or two behind his guide. Although they traveled without cover they met with no resistance. An obtrusive glimpse was enough to tell that Draco was freezing. He followed his old rival without a cloak or robe, nothing but his thin white shirt to fend off the cold of the Scottish winter. But he continued without complaint, stubbornly ignoring the frigid bite of the air that made Harry, beneath his robes, begin to shiver. At long last, Harry halted facing the wall directly opposite a large tapestry, depicting a young man being viciously assaulted by two highly irritated looking trolls, and turned to his classmate. Harry gave the Slytherin a glance and, without apparent reason, began pacing back and forth, muttering under his breath. Suddenly, a sizable door with shiny brass handles materialized out of the wall.
Malfoy shot Harry a questioning look saturated with suspicion.
"Open it," was all the Gryffindor offered in response.
After a few moments speculation, the Slytherin squared his shoulders and moved past Harry. The door to the Room of Requirement swung open at his touch. The Head Boy didn't move, he stood and gazed into the spacious room with clear eyes.
Harry knew better than to expect more of a reaction out of Malfoy. "You can stay here for as long as need be." He said softly.
Draco nodded slightly in recognition and walked into the room. Harry followed a few steps and stopped to observe the form the room had taken for Malfoy. It had a surprisingly comfortable and almost, but not quite, cozy feel to it. The floor was covered with a thick blue and gray carpet that matched the coverlets of the queen sized bed on the left side of the room. A chest of drawers and a desk took up the bulk of the opposite wall and, tucked into a corner, there sat an overstuffed reading chair, conveniently lit with soft candlelight. The only other door in the room looked to lead into a small adjoining bathroom. Harry found himself a little taken back at the sight and more than a little jealous that Malfoy was provided with the exclusive comforts.
Malfoy, who had been standing in the center of the room taking in his surroundings, turned back to Harry. Although his face remained expressionless, Harry could tell that it was, at last, time to leave the Slytherin to his thoughts.
"Well…" he attempted in an awkward voice, "see you…" He turned and began to walk back into the hallway.
"Harry…" startled to hear Malfoy call him back, especially by his first name, Harry swung around. "…thanks…" The expression upon Malfoy's face remained stoic but Harry understood the Head Boy's implications and genuine gratitude.
In keeping with the custom of the night, Harry inclined his head in response, trying his best to keep his face blank, and walked out of the room. The door clicked shut behind him and promptly vanished into the wall.
Harry was left completely alone with his confusion. Hopes and doubts flooded his mind as he shouldered the invisibility cloak and set off down the corridor. He knew that he had must to answer for, Ron and Hermoine must be frantic with worry over him my now, and was not at all looking forward to recounting the events of the evening to explaining his seemingly inexplicable actions.
"Well, I've done my best," he whispered to no one in particular as he made his way back to the Gryffindor common room, "now we'll just have to wait and see what happens."
Fin
Author's Note II: OK, if anyone actually made it through this, please tell me what you think! I just pulled this out of who knows where… I've had some thoughts of continuing it… but only if I get feedback and come up with an actual plot… anyway, review and let me know how to make my writing, in concern to this story or in general, better! Thanks!
~Jem