Hello again! Sorry this update took so long, I've been very distracted. Next update might take a little time too, sorry. Anyway, enjoy!
Small nod to the canon events in this chapter, and I'm hastily rewriting a later bit in light of the series. The Moff is utterly brilliant. Just going to say that now.
Why was he doing this? Draco sighed. He didn't want to be here; he was completely out of place.
Yet Harry had insisted, and for some unknown reason, the blonde had agreed. The DA waited beyond the door. Why was it such a struggle to go through?
Well, it would be a fine irony. A Death Eater joining Dumbledore's Army. Somehow though, Draco couldn't find it in himself to be completely opposed to the idea. Well, not opposed enough to refuse.
The facts were, it might actually turn out well. As long as he didn't get hexed as soon as he stepped in there, that was. So, it could go either way; the blonde was hardly popular with the Gryffindor, Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff students in the Room. Especially given his father's arrest last year.
Harry's voice could just be heard beyond the door; informing the DA of a new member, and how they shouldn't react immediately, they should wait to see how worthwhile the member was. Laying it on a bit thick, if Draco was any judge. With that much said before his arrival, everyone would be expecting the worst.
If only they knew; Draco permitted himself a brief, bitter smile. Even Harry didn't know of the Dark Mark branded on his fore-arm. If they knew that, their opinions would no doubt change an awful lot.
Malfoy heard his cue; Harry calling out for him to enter. Inhaling, tense, the blonde walked into the room.
Instant silence. Stares; Draco could feel them, piercing.
"Is this some kind of a joke?" Dean Thomas, if Draco's memory of voices was correct.
Draco rolled his eyes; he flashed a look at Harry. I told you so. He couldn't bring himself to walk out however. Bear the sneers.
"Now," it was Ron who spoke; "Harry's probably just-" the redhead hesitated. Then, he turned to face the Boy Who Lived; "Actually, Dean's right, is this a joke?"
"No, no," Harry shook his head, voice strangely breathless, possibly from excitement, possibly from some form of embarrassment. The whole DA was looking at him like he was mad. A part of him wished he'd taken the Felix potion. "It's a great idea-"
"The son of a Death Eater?" Zacharias Smith spat; distinctly annoyed.
"He has rather nice hair," Luna murmured, absent-minded.
Her almost irrelevant comment brought the sneers of the crowd slowly to a close. Not for the first time, Harry wondered if there was more to Luna than the slightly dreamy impression she gave off: more than once, her bizarre words had been a great help. He frowned; but quickly seized the chance.
"Stop it!" Harry shouted, taking advantage of the brief silence. "What's the DA for?"
"Fighting You-Know- Voldemort!" it was Neville who spoke this time, gaining a few cheers from most of the DA.
Neville wasn't as against Draco as the others seem to be. Sure, he wasn't completely in support of the appointment, but he trusted Harry enough. Harry had created the DA: the way Neville saw it, he had the right to recruit whoever he wanted. Harry could make the right decisions.
"Why?" Harry looked around. The student had a surprising amount of charisma, possibly stemming from his fame. The DA found themselves listening to him, as the black haired boy walked between them.
Draco stood where he was, stiff, withdrawn.
"Muggle-borns?" Harry continued, arms openly to his sides, "'blood-traitors'? All those words the Death Eaters use. Do you agree with them? You?" Harry stopped just by Zacharias
"No," the student replied, disgusted, but Harry cut him off
"The hatred of anyone- everyone different," Harry's voice rose to a passionate crescendo, "But what are you doing? I thought we were meant to be better than this. If it's Voldemort you're against, don't act like him."
Silence.
Harry was, in a way, the glue that tied them together. He'd been withdrawn over the last few days, still affected by Ginny's death, and the fact he'd delivered such an impassioned plea to them spoke volumes on just how much this meant.
His points were good, true. That was another cause for silence; yet, unquestionably, the greatest effect came from the degree of emotion Harry must have felt. No one could bring themselves to speak.
Draco couldn't suppress a shudder. Harry had spoken out on his behalf; if someone had told Malfoy that five years ago, the blonde would have laughed. Now Draco could just feel guilty; the Dark Mark prickled.
He'd been commanded to kill Dumbledore. And now Dumbledore's Army was accepting him.
"I'll just go," Malfoy muttered, snapping. He couldn't take the silence; it was worse than the sneers. He was struggling to recall why he'd agreed to it.
Steps from the door, a voice from the DA: "No!" Strangely enough, it was Hermione: Draco winced to think the insults he'd once dealt her.
She blushed as all eyes went to her. "Well," she began, "It's only fair to give him a chance."
Harry nodded his thanks; Draco looked at her, incredulous. She flashed him a look to show she hadn't still hadn't forgiven him; yet also to demonstrate her acceptance of the fact he was human and, like all humans, prone to mistakes. It was a startling admission from Hermione, of all people.
"I-" the blonde began, feeling the need to say a few words. He hesitated; "Sorry for the last few years," that was all there was really to say. Then, because: "Thank you."
Malfoy's words managed to break the silence.
The DA began to move, students gravitating into their normal groups, exchanging the normal pleasantries, gossip, just like a normal lesson. It wouldn't be right to say they'd adapted to Draco's presence; more, they'd stopped noticing. With the speeches and pleas, they couldn't think of any rational reason to protest: yet few were happy with it. So, they ignored him.
Not that Malfoy minded. It was better than the stares he'd received upon first entering.
The blonde looked around; person to person. Luna and Neville were practising a few spells together, as were Ron and Hermione, and several other pairs composed of people Draco couldn't quite name.
Harry was by the wall; staring into the mirrored side, silent. He'd gone into himself again, withdrawn, unmoving, unaffected by the real world.
Malfoy watched the student for a few seconds; he sighed. Then, shrugging, the blonde turned and walked straight out of the Room of Requirement, leaving the DA there. He'd been 'accepted', if that was the word. Still, he didn't care. He didn't belong; and he should have realized that before.
O
The Doctor reclined in Dumbledore's Office, staring at the window to the grounds far below.
People vanishing. It really did happen too often, the Time Lord reflected. Though, of course, there were more worries this time: how were the students vanishing? There hadn't been too many, but there were easily enough to worry.
Displaced in time as well as space. Invariably however, the victims seemed to end up in the future; well, the two they knew of at least. Luna, and the one who'd met River.
Something else was nagging at his mind; Rory. The ghost, obviously from his future: Rory was going to die, and would end up in the past of Hogwarts. A displacement in time.
The Doctor didn't want to think it; he just hoped Rory hadn't made the connection yet.
The way things were, it looked like Rory would die this year.
Suddenly, the gargoyle that lead to the headmaster's office rose; two redheads jumped away from it. Fred and George. One of them, probably George, was carrying a familiar piece of parchment.
"This is-" George hesitated "We think you probably want to-"
"See this," Fred finished, grinning.
George extended his hand; the Doctor, frowning, took the Marauder's Map from him.
The Time Lord looked down at the Map. For a moment, it looked normal.
Footsteps wandered around the inked Hogwarts, most labelled in a neat, cursive scrawl. A few exceptions: the Doctor's location was composed of unnamed footsteps, one dot was labelled 'Amy Pond' yet seemed to flicker, and another: a blot on the mark marked enigmatically as Nameless.
The text washes away. Frowning, the Doctor watched as the Map turned to plain paper. Empty. And then words wrote themselves.
Hello sweetie.
"It did that to us too," Fred began, peering over the Doctor's shoulder, "That's-"
"Why we brought it to you," George continued; "It said to."
The Doctor looked up at them once, before returning his gaze to the paper with a roll of his eyes.
"River," the Time Lord sighed. "Just had to be, huh?"
Of course. What did you expect?
The Doctor blinked. Great, now the Map was talking to him. He could almost see River's smirk as she wrote it. "What do you want now, then?" the Doctor sighed.
An awful lot of things. (The Map paused at this point, before continuing the writing). You'll give me most of them later. And believe me, you'll enjoy it. Now though, I'll settle for you taking a quick trip to wherever this Map shows I am.
The Doctor frowned, watching as the text was replaced, once more, with the inked Map of Hogwarts. River was standing, alone, in a fairly wide corridor; the nearest person was…
Oh no. The Doctor blinked, focused on an area just around a corner from the woman.
A blot, Nameless: it wasn't moving, yet its proximity alone was worrying. Almost invariably, creatures without names were trouble; the Map couldn't give him a name, and most people you asked would agree with that assessment. The Doctor was most definitely trouble.
The Time Lord leapt up to his feet, ready to run towards River. Then, seconds before passing Fred and George, he frowned, looking back at the Map: "Wait a moment, how do you even know what to say?"
Spoilers.
For a moment, that looked like all the Map was going to say. Then:
Look to your left.
Rolling his eyes, the Doctor followed the Map's directions; left of him, there was a large portrait on the wall, of an old, mildly pompous, Headmaster. Frowning, the Time Lord walked up to them, grasping the edges of the portrait. The image protested, muttering something about 'no respect for their elders', as the Doctor lifted it off the wall, and rested it on the side of the table.
Looking back, the Time Lord noted a small, yellowing scrap of paper pinned to the stone. The Doctor swiped the paper down, from where it must have been hidden for years. One line of text was written on it
You know, you're really predictable.
The Doctor rolled his eyes again. Trust River. Actually, don't trust River, wouldn't end well.
Leaving the protesting portrait where he'd left it, the Doctor took a last glimpse at the Marauder's Map, before dropping it on the table, running after River and Nameless.
In Dumbledore's Office, Fred and George stayed behind, looking at each other, and then at the muttering portrait of an ex-headmaster.
"Oh, hello there!" it cried, posh, "Would you mind terribly again putting me back up?"
The twins grinned, advancing on the frame. A few seconds later, the portrait was back where it was, left there by a grinning Fred and George. It was a little time before the picture realized it was upside down; and started shouting, but by then the twins had scooped up the map, erased it, and gone.
They didn't read the Map however. The small scrawl, having recently appeared, by Nameless, went unseen. Bellatrix Lestrange.
O
A creature watched from the walls. It felt at home there, somehow, pressed against the coarse stone. Still.
It could feel the effects of time and weathering. Cracks, chips in the wall. Damaged by hyperactive students over years of teaching; replaced again and again. This particular wall had been shattered a matter of weeks ago; it had seen. A Sixth Year, practising a shield charm; and instead, creating something which repelled everything, even air, within a five metre radius. The wall closest had been blown to pieces; repaired, of course, minutes later.
It had no name. It had never needed one. Usually, it spent its time and life alone: except when necessary. Living in this school was a new experience; and not one it wanted to repeat.
There had been one exception. Years ago. A partnership; of sorts. A connection.
And then the Doctor had arrived. And, coldly, uncaring, had taken his life. And had left her laying there, barely alive.
The creature, Nameless, moved ever-so-slightly away from the wall, slow, weary. Centimetres later, it stopped in its tracks.
A body stood behind it, close, with a wand pointed right to its throat. Nameless didn't need to turn; even if it could. It knew who it was; even without the momentary glimpse of tangled hair.
A bubble of fear formed in its mind.
"You haven't been listening to us," the woman whispered, voice rational on the surface, yet Nameless knew of the instability that lay beneath.
If it remembered, her name was Bellatrix. A servant of that pale, cruel figure.
"Why haven't you been listening? It should be an honour to obey him," her voice, strangely soft, only stirred the growing fear.
Silence. The creature was frozen where it was, unmoving, unwilling to. The woman stood by it, wand pointed firmly; both a threat and a promise. Nameless could easily remember the utter, unbearable, impossible agony that the woman could cause. All too easily.
"You should be thanking us," was she taunting? Or did she really believe her words? It was hard to say.
Bellatrix looked the creature up and down; appraising like one might examine an ailing pet.
"You're starved," her voice, little more than a harsh whisper, seemed almost pleased. Then, irritated; she continued; "Your death will not even be an inconvenience. Do not think to threaten us."
The woman took a step back. Nameless tried to tense; but there was no way it knew to prepare for what was coming.
"Crucio!" the agonizingly familiar incantation cut through the air.
Pain coursed through the creature; it stayed unmoving, screaming inwardly. In its mind, there was nothing, no thought: all wiped away by the pain.
Then, slowly, echoes of real thought began to grow, to spread. Fury. Rage. At Bellatrix, at the Doctor, at the pale man.
With a suddenness that was almost an agony in itself, the curse ended. Nameless stayed still, afraid to move, as the woman once more neared it.
"We have given you the chance for revenge. Act on it," her voice gained that warning waver; a sign she was close to her more typical vehemence.
Silence. Bellatrix moved closer; head peering over the creature's shoulder, eerily close to its body; Nameless heard her exhale.
"Her," the Death Eater spoke, pointing forwards at a woman, wandering past. "You need to feed. Feed on her now. And then, kill the Doctor."
Nameless felt Bellatrix move away. It was still; what could it do? Obey the woman, and take the revenge it found so inexplicably hard, or resist and face her agony?
As if hearing its thoughts, there was a flash of blue light: Bellatrix once more appeared, right in front of the creature.
"Obey us," she hissed, "Or next time, the pain will never end." She raised her wand.
That settled it. Nameless was afraid of one thing, above all else: pain. It had never felt the like before, not a pinprick, not a stubbed toe. Nothing. And now, this woman threatened the all-consuming agony which drove many an adapted human insane. It had no choice.
Moving unbearably slowly, Nameless moved past the now-vanished Death Eater, watching the distant woman. River Song; that was her name.
The woman turned around, catching sight of the creature as it was just metres away.
"No…" she exhaled, shocked, blinking, surprised.
And Nameless descended, to feed.