Part Nine : Sunset


Late summer, early afternoon, and the door is locked. Pleasantly so, too, as the sun's warmth streams through the window and warms his hair beneath my fingers, dances over the sheen of his skin and the flush of his cheeks.

"Alohomora," is the only warning we receive, before the door flies open.

"Sirius," he wails, and I echo, "I hate you."

Sirius scowls: the figure I've come to recognize as easily as Potter in the last month, the only one of Dumbledore's "army" who has accepted me without question, the man that actually offers us dinner and reminds us teasingly about schoolwork. The man that ruffles my hair like a loving father. (I hate it when people ruffle my hair. But that doesn't change anything.)

"It's my bloody flat," Sirius insists, tossing his wand and cloak on the chair. Remus follows him, dust-stained and weary, and behind them -

"Snape?" Potter gapes, yanking the blanket from where I am huddling and leaving me yelping. "Er, Professor?"

Severus Snape, infamous Potions Master of Hogwarts, only raises an eyebrow at us and turns away with what seems to be amusement twitching the corners of his mouth.

"You," Sirius growls, gesturing wildly at us. "You stole my key this morning on purpose, didn't you? You thought, oh, we'll just lock Sirius out of his own home so we can have the whole bloody afternoon to ourselves! No thought that Sirius might possibly be bringing people with him, no thought that he might need to get into his own home, why would that ever cross your idiot minds?"

"Bad day, Sirius?" Potter asks, sweetly. He reaches over me with one tanned arm to grasp his shirt, the last lines of summer's light trailing down his skin.

Sirius shakes his head and beckons his companions past us into the kitchen. "Get yourselves in order and join us," he says sharply, and disappears. The door slams shut.

He looks at me, the flush of autumn wine spilling onto his cheeks, and bursts out laughing. (It is a rare thing, his laugh, when so often I catch him haunting the corners and brooding with the taste of ash on his lips. It is only on these days, spiraling to an end, that his frowns relax and the lingering heat of autumn coaxes him into the sunlight and my arms.) His shoulders still shake a bit as he yanks the shirt over his head. (Sun has woven her chains to drape in your tousled cap, fingers daintily bestowing you with those lines of bronze and blood gold. The crown of autumn, and yet you seek the comfort of my shadows.)

My fingers are fumbling at the buttons of my shirt, and he leans forward with a wicked grin. "Let me do that." Fingers tease their way to my neck and he yanks me forward unceremoniously until our lips meet and dissolve together.

"Sirius sai-" I only halfheartedly protest, when he slides his tongue across my lower lip and does that sultry pout he is so innocently good at. We rapidly degenerate into a rumpled state of entwined limbs and fervent kisses.

"Harry!" Sirius' voice shatters through the house. "If you aren't out here in the next thirty seconds, I'm sending Snape in!"

Reluctantly, though with necessary haste, he kisses me once and disentangles himself. I follow him into the kitchen and note, to much amusement, that his shirt is on backwards.

"-teenage boys, Sirius," Remus seems to be saying. "It's rather -"

He glances up at me, into his tea, and stops.

"Afternoon, Sirius, Remus," Potter says, that innocent smirk skipping through his words. "Er, afternoon, Professor. We were just -"

"Mr. Potter, as far as I am concerned, you were just nothing. It would be a sad world indeed, were I to sink to indulging in the sordid details of your personal life."

"They aren't that sordid," I say sweetly, affecting Potter's casual tone. "I believe wholeheartedly in abstinence, Professor."

Sirius snorts into his tea and Potter has the grace to go rather red. Snape only moves that disdainful glance to me. "Is that so? Do sit down, Mr. Malfoy; forced as I was into conversing with these two, we were just discussing you." He slides something across the table towards me. "And this."

Potter moves behind me to look at the parchment. He rests his chin on my shoulder just to provoke Snape; nevertheless, the shivery comfort of his breath on my hear is not one I would willingly relinquish. "That's your Advanced Potions essay," he says, surprised.

"We have a bit of a problem," Sirius admits to the both of us. "It's Cho."

"When is it not Cho?" Potter hisses, and moves away. (No matter where we are, I can feel you; your presence in the room jars the clockwork of my body. Don't think I don't feel those eyes.)

"Harry. She's coming to stay here."

He is halfway across the kitchen and I can sense his sudden unease. His fists are clenched roughly. "No. No."

"Alicia and Angelina can't deal with her anymore. They've tried, but she goes missing and turns up in the oddest places. They have jobs, lives; they can't watch her every meal and every moment. She's - Cho's not stable, Harry, you know that. She was making threats in a Muggle restaurant yesterday, ranting about being a murderer until the police took her away. We had to slip her out of jail. No one can keep an eye on her."

"What makes you think you can do any better?" he challenges.

Sirius looks towards my essay, then away. "That."

"That?" Potter stares. "Sirius, it's irreversible, it -" He simply glares at the four of us, wrapping me up in the heat of his anger as if I am somehow involved in this plot, and storms without warning from the room. A picture of Harry and Sirius dangling crookedly from the wall jumps as his footsteps rattle the hall.

"Draco," and Sirius starts warningly, "you will not follow him. We need you here."

"You can't tell me what to do," I mutter, but it is halfhearted and I sink into a chair. "So, what? You want to use my potion? Professor Kimball said it doesn't work."

"It doesn't," Snape tells me snidely. "Have you learned nothing? One of the most difficult potions in the world, the actual process known to a precious few, and you want to adapt it from an old farmer's concoction? Half of these ingredients either react with or cancel out the others! And you can't go about simmering the mixture for three entire minutes! But," and his scowl deepens to negate the reluctant praise, "the concept is sound. You've done surprisingly well, considering."

Remus shakes his head wearily. I notice the dust that has skittered across the tablecloth, shifting from his travel-stained robes. "Never was one much for Potions -"

Sneered, from Snape, "As has been obvious."

"-so let me talk to Harry." Exchanging of glances. "Really, Sirius." Three pairs of eyes follow his exist.

"You are all," Snape says coolly, "barking mad."

"Sirius?" He looks at me. "There - there really isn't an antidote, is there? No way to end the potion's effects?"

He is searching his tea as if the answers will surface in the bitter taste and rising steam, if knowledge will appear from the depths of his cup. "Snape's working on it. But I don't know, lad. You see - well," and he shifts warily to Snape, voice bitingly hard, "why don't you tell him."

"Ah, yes," he says, eyes narrowed at me. Everyone believes that Snape favored me during school; in truth, he hated me as much as everyone else. I only managed to be good at what happened to be his favorite subject. "Mr. Malfoy, do you know the thirteenth use of dragon's blood?"

I blink. "But-"

"No? Two points from Slytherin." He isn't smiling, though that is certainly no indication of his mood. As if he had not just done something so potentially world shattering as make a joke, he carries on, frowning. "You see, there are twelve known uses for dragon's blood. It is a potent substance and a dangerous one. However-"

"We don't need the Hogwarts, A History version," Sirius snaps. "In short, Snape's made changes to your potion. He'll brew it," this with a fixed look at Snape, "and give it to me. I'll combine it with her blood and take it."

"Does she know?" I ask, more for Potter's sake than my own curiosity.

"No. She's with Angelina right now." Sirius looks almost amused. "They're shopping."

"And you'll be forced to stay with her for the rest of - for the rest of the war?"

"She needs looking after."

Snape makes a sound that almost sounds like laughter. "Oh, yes, that's you all right. Taking in all the world's misfits, hm? First Potter, then-"

"I am not," I say haughtily, "a misfit. And I have a home, thank you very much."

Neither of them disagrees. Neither of them agrees.

"Dragon's blood helps to form extreme links between two people," Snape says, in the stillness. "Very few know this, for the potential of such bonds are terrifying. One can imagine, I'm sure. However, it only works when combined with the right ingredients, for the right amounts of time, and I for one am not going to reveal this information to you. It is a dangerous thing."

"Yes, you've said that," Sirius growls. "We don't need a lecture, we need the potion. You can use the kitchen, if you must."

"How generous of you," Snape sneers back. "I want no interruptions for the next hour. Now get out."

Something bristles in Sirius' form and he stands. "It's my -" He stops, abruptly, glares at Snape, and then stalks out of the kitchen without another word. I shift in my chair and watch as Snape pulls ingredients from his pockets.

"Have you something to say, or are you stuck to your chair?"

"I - do you need any help?"

"Absolutely not. Leave."

Snape's curt voice, one I should be used to by this point, chases me from the room. Sunlight still yawns across the floor, but the only occupants are Sirius and Remus. He is nowhere to be seen.

"You do know what you're doing, Sirius?"

"I know enough to know we've no other choice." Sirius glances up wearily to me, hair as tousled as Potter's own. "What else is there? You and I know plenty about the cruel effects of war."

Remus sighs. "Don't do anything rash."

Sirius' eyes flash. (I watch the currents between them: the give and take, the ebb and flow. There are emotions and lives and worlds tumbling in their eyes, a novelty of sweetness and sorrow I have never seen before. The eyes of my mother were but mirrors and only reflected; my father's were polished like glass, if I remember correctly. I haven't actually looked in his eyes for many years.) "I am not," says Sirius, "a child."

The other gives him a pointed glance. "No. You are not."

Finding myself following their conversation like a spectator at Quidditch, I gnaw at my lip. "Is -" I begin.

"He's sleeping."

So I sink into the embrace of Sirius' old couch, its scent of cigarette smoke and musty clothes always tangled in my memory with the smell of him. (And his eyes tell no stories, act as no looking glass. They do not blind you with their careful shine. They simply reach out and swallow you, wrapping the world in tissue paper of forest and ocean and watermelon rind green.) I watch the sun caress her way across the expansive sky, watch the shadows elongate and merge, watch Sirius and Remus speak in monotone voices of flannel and down and cotton candy clouds. I wait.

When Snape appears from the kitchen, cradling a tiny vial, we all start nervously. "Three drops of her blood. Shake, don't stir it - nothing should touch it after the blood is added. Is that quite clear? There's your potion. I've spent long enough in this cursed place."

Sirius takes the vial, examining the contents. He does not speak, not for insult or for gratitude, so I do. "Um, Professor? Did my - did my mother - she -"

For the briefest moment, Snape's gaze flickers. "Narcissa excelled at Potions," he says coolly, and turns away. The sound of the door slamming shudders through us all.

"Age," Sirius comments under his breath, "has certainly not improved him."

"Can't say as it's helped any of us," Remus replies lightly. "Some of us are still the fools we once were."

Potter's guardian smiles dryly. "You're far too hard on yourself."

"I was referring to you, Sirius."

"Me? I can't imagine why." Feigned surprise, rueful grins.

They argue like old friends, and neither glance up at me as I slip from the room. The carpet is rough on my bare toes and I walk it slowly, surprised to recognize its marks. (There, where he threw me against the wall after I insulted Sirius; there, where we spilled pumpkin juice; there, where the oil of my fingerprints left marks on the walls when he kissed me the first time. Strange, that I've drifted in and out of this home less than a month and made it a part of me.)

"Potter," I call softly, shifting his door open ever so slightly. He is sitting up, eyes bitterly reflecting the sky. He does not turn until I move to sit beside him, looking at me as if just noticing my presence.

"Malfoy." He looks, distantly, back out the window.

For as much as has been said between us in the past two years, just as much has echoed in the silence. We speak in it now, eyes exploring opposite corners of the room, avoiding and evading and generally taking our time not speaking. (The silence drips on like butterbeer in its sunny warmth, seeping past our lips in gulps of quiet.)

"Snape left," I finally manage to say, giving him the tiniest glance out of the corner of my eye. His gaze is still calmly fixed upon the wall.

"Did he."

"Yes."

"Well."

"He made the potion."

"Oh."

And we subside back into our easy silence, trading more than words can say. (He speaks in monotone, his words but sips of air and silent breath, and I with my stuttered gulps of sentences. Or perhaps we just trade glances and speak through those, paragraphs and rhythmic verses skipping between us. Silence, your words are as addicting as his are.)

His gaze, at long last, stays steady with mine and he sighs into the melting sky outside. "Look, I - I guess I shouldn't have stormed out like that. But Cho. You know I can't handle Cho."

"You'll be at school after next week," I remind him softly.

"As Remus lost no time in reminding me. But Malfoy, this is the last thing Sirius needs. The last thing. Cho hates him, and yet, she-" He turns away from me and leans forward, eyes searching for something in between the glowing clouds. Early evening has turned the sky tones of pink champagne and orange sherbet, lazy tendrils snagging the curtains of blue. "She likes him, too."

I frown. "Am I misinterpreting you here, Potter?"

"No," he says, carefully as anything, eyes still fixed away from me. "You heard me. Cho - and Sirius - were - are -" Faltering, he simply turns back and meets my gaze. I can read everything there, and it is a chilling tale.

"I'm sorry."

He snorts quietly. "Like hell you are. You're always sorry. Everyone's always sorry."

I can't go to him when he pushes the walls back up like this, stacking brick upon brick with his words sliding like butter through the cracks. Yet no more can I reach to him through these lines, the sunlight glittering past me and around us in motes of lingering day.

"You know," I finally say, voice subdued, "you don't have to call me Malfoy anymore."

"It's habit," he returns, quickly. (Too quickly?) "You're just…Malfoy."

"And you can't be P-"

"No." He glances to me, the lines of sunset dying his hair the darkest crimson. "No, don't."

"Fine."

And he - Potter, Potter - does not even react. Does not, any longer, look to me, but instead focuses on the distant sky. "If she lives through the war, I'm going to kill her."

"You what?"

"What else? I won't let her twist Sirius like this, not after everything. I won't let her do this, you hear? Not to me, not to my friends, not to my family."

"They don't think she'll make it," I say, quietly, unsure of what else to say.

"Who knows."

"Snape's working on an antidote," I offer, yet again.

Snort. "Snape."

"Potter -"

"You bloody created the potion, Malfoy. Or at least reminded them of it. You know what it does, all right? You know how irreversible it is, how strained the tie can become, how dangerous it is. Dangerous! You know what this means, you know how difficult this is going to be! Damn it, do you know what you're doing? Do you know how they all dismissed it, even Sirius, as a necessity?" He glares at me, gaze finally returning to mine, eyes burning with a strange ferocity. "What is it doing, Malfoy? What is this war doing to all of us?"

I go to him, fingers outstretched, my own gaze wrapped tight with his. "I don't know," is all I can say. "Shh. Let it go. For now, let it go."

His fingers, when they grip my own, are desperately tense. His face, though buried painfully in my shoulder, stays dry. And his voice is as cool as the ominous gasps of winter's light streaming into this tumbling autumn sky. "You think I can let this go?" he asks quietly. "No one can. We're all clinging to our pasts."

"Even me?"

"Especially you."

I think about Cho and her nightmares of Cedric, her desperation for someone, anyone. The very thing she hates the most. (Ironic, is it not? That from hatred springs need? Tell me of it, Cho, and the conflicted things he makes you feel. Summer and winter and autumn and spring, tumultuous seasons of hate and love and need and want and despair and loneliness and oh, god, contentment.) I think about Sirius, the pain of his failures and the labels of the masses like shackles on his life, she just another chain keeping him from the agony of freedom. I think about Dumbledore, the world's eyes watching him as they always, always have. (Cages of silence, of fame, of grief, of pain and of fear and of hate and of love. What is it doing to us, Potter? It's setting us free. And that is the most dangerous thing of all.)

I think about my father, his grasps for power, his meaningless attempts at something greater or something better, his own love-hate relationship with the world. His misdirected efforts in the footsteps of a thousand ancestors, struggling against the struggle to be anything else. The name Malfoy worn like a badge and polished like a trophy, but secretly pinning him to an identity of shame and failing power and foolish games that end too soon. (If the door is open and you cannot walk through, does that make you the wise man or the fool? Does accepting your fate, the fate laid down for you by generations, make you a Malfoy?)

I think about my mother. My mother and her fragility behind those iron bars; my mother and her strength in the face of another world and its lights and its machines and the throbbing fear of death and death's freedom. I think about me, and my own shackles, my own cages, my own choices and hatred and love.

I think about Harry - no, Potter - and the ghosts of his parents haunting his footsteps, the legacy of his survival branded on his forehead and weighing on his soul. I think about Potter, yes, and the pain he brushes off every day, the way he slips through the world like a stray sunbeam that we all fix our eyes upon.

And when the sun sets in its glory, its grace, leaving a sky still shuddering with all the colors of the rainbow and no traces of evening's grays and deepening indigos, no sight of night's defining black, it is all I can do to whisper to his skin, "Actually, I'm clinging to you." (His skin tastes like paper leaves and pumpkin juice and the mingling of despair with laughter and love, the way I imagine the sunset would taste were it a wine of the finest flavor.)

He watches the sky, watches it without blinking those tears away, and he does not deign to answer.