Warnings, disclaimers, Ch. 1.
A/N's -
- Wow, did I write myself into a corner here. Sorry about the long wait. I wonder if annoucing that new chapters will take six weeks will cut my writing time, like it did for BD? Let's try it. Expect Ch. 11 to come out near July.
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CHAPTER STARTS
Ch. 10 - Sorting Things Out
Draco was not surprised to be all but physically dragged to the Headmaster's office by a stern McGonagall. He wasn't surprised to be ushered in and have no less than three Aurors, the Headmaster, and Professor Snape staring at him as if he'd... well, miraculously reappeared after two months' disappearance. However...
"Oh, Draco!" Narcissa abandoned all aristocratic poise, clutching him to herself in a flutter of elegant robes and expensive perfume.
However, he was surprised to encounter that. "... Mother...!" Draco protested, squirming away after a shocked moment. He was sixteen, for Merlin's sake, and supposedly under the delusion he hadn't been missing at all. "Not in front of...!" He cut himself off, eyes flicking to the Aurors and professors. "And what are you doing here?"
A hand settled firmly on his shoulder, and Draco twisted to peer into the face of his father. He, at least, was being properly decorous about Draco's return. "You worried your mother, Draco," he said needlessly. "I do hope you have some explanation."
Draco let his expression crack, just a bit. "This... isn't a prank," he said, voice carefully controlled. "Is it. Sir."
Lucius shook his head solemnly.
Gently, Draco freed himself from his mother's arms, stepping slowly to the nearest chair and letting himself sink into it. "It's September," he murmured to himself, piling on the disbelief. "My summer... my whole summer..." Don't overplay the sympathy cards, cue the anger. Draco refocused on the little cluster of Aurors. A tall black man seemed to be in charge; Draco caught his eyes. "You are going to find whoever did this."
The man managed to not simper at him, unlike many Ministry workers when faced with an upset Malfoy. Draco was not impressed.
"Of course we will, Mr. Malfoy," he said. A nearly-imperceptible gesture, and the green-haired woman behind him pulled out a Quick-Quotes quill and a notebook. "But first, we'll need to ask you some questions."
Draco's hands clenched on the chair's arms. "I assure you," he hissed, "you will have my full cooperation."
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Downstairs, the Great Hall was abuzz with the noise of several hundred hungry teenagers and their gossip. The hot topic remained Draco Malfoy's reappearance, with more evidence being collected as students observed the professor's table. Of all the school staff, only one Head of House remained at the table: Professor Sprout, head of Hufflepuff.
It took nearly five minutes for the Hall to fill up and for the students to seat themselves, but they fell silent quickly after Sprout tapped her glass with a spoon for attention. Under a sea of watchful eyes, the portly woman raised a hand, palm-up, as if gripping an invisible rope. She pulled, and the mass of faces turned as one to watch the doors to the Great Hall slowly open.
Professor Flitwick stepped through. Behind him, towering over him, a gaggle of wide-eyed children followed. The procession flowed raggedly down the long aisle between Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw, children stumbling a few times as they stared at the sky-charmed ceiling, the floating candles, and the mass of teenagers giving silent (if impatient) respect to the coming ceremony.
They halted at the edge of the professors' dais, staring nervously at Professor Sprout... or trying to. Sprout's gentle demeanor and poorly-hidden smile didn't lend themselves to intimidation, and a few of the bolder children found themselves smiling shyly back.
Flitwick hovered a stepstool out from behind the professors' table, setting it next to the stool with the Sorting Hat. He climbed up onto it, fussing a bit as he cast his gaze over the first-years, counting them. Then he nodded, and turned to face the Hat.
After a moment's pause, the Sorting Hat twitched. A flap of fabric near the base opened into a recognizeable mouth, and the Hat burst into song.
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The Auror introduced himself to Draco as Kingsley Shacklebolt, head of the investigation, and the green-haired woman as Tonks. Then he said, "Let's start with the events of June 30th. You woke up that morning..."
"I woke up about half an hour before breakfast..." Draco began, then proceeded to outline the day. He'd had a typical breakfast (he'd forced himself to eat normally that morning, act normal, be as above suspiscion as possible), then packed the remainder of his belongings and checked his luggage. He'd then made Crabbe strip his bed, while he checked the dorm and common room for Crabbe and Goyle's belongings (they always forgot at least one item each; this year it had been a pair of shoes and a shaving kit). Then the rush to the train, taking a compartment, and conversation about summer plans. A bathroom break before getting food off the trolley, and no he hadn't seen anyone or anything strange then. The usual long day's train ride; he'd commandeered a novel off some younger kid, but it had turned out to be boring. He'd watched Crabbe and Goyle play Exploding Snap. He'd played checkers for a while with Zabini. He'd gone to the loo again.
When he'd come out, the whole train had started some insane prank, with everybody trying to tell him it was September 1st. Which had been very convincing, ha ha, except for being an absolutely insane story. That state of affairs lasted until they'd reached Hogwarts, at which point Draco began to suspect that it wasn't a prank. Then McGonagall had pulled him right out of the crowd, brought him up to the Headmaster's office, and that was that.
The Auror nodded in spots throughout the tale, blandly asking Draco to backtrack several times through the story and repeat himself. If he suspected Draco was lying, he had a perfect poker face.
After reading through the statement, Shacklebolt had Draco sign it.
"Are you familiar with Pensieves?" he then asked.
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"So, why do you think Sprout's running the feast?" Harry asked, washing the words down with a swig of his pumpkin juice.
"That should be obvious, Harry." Hermione lifted her chin imperiously, one of her lecturing expressions on her face. "Lots of people sent owls to both Hogwarts and the Auror department from the train; there have probably been Aurors with the Headmaster for hours by now. Professor McGonagall took Malfoy, obviously to meet with them, and Snape's the Head of Slytherin. That's the Headmaster, Deputy Headmistress, and Malfoy's Head of House, which leaves only two Heads of House to handle the Sorting Feast."
"Well, yeah," Ron agreed, as Harry blinked. "Anybody could figure that out. But Harry's asking why Sprout gave the speech." When this brought a blank look from Hermione, Ron clarified, "Doesn't Flitwick outrank her? He's a former duel champion." A pause. "And old and tenured and stuff."
Hermione put her head in her hands. "Sprout's been teaching longer," she mumbled against her fists.
"Oh," they chorused, properly cowed. For all of about two seconds.
As soon as Hermione was distracted, Ron leaned closer to grumble in Harry's ear, "Still don't see what that has got anything to do with it."
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It figured that Dumbledore had his own Pensieve. It also figured that he was delighted to offer its use to the interviewing Aurors.
Carefully, Draco touched his wand to his temple, and pulled a strand of silvery mist from his head. It was long and sticky-looking, like a scrap of cobweb, he thought as he dropped it into Dumbledore's bowl. And if he hadn't cut the memories just right...
But of course he must've. He must've. A person's memories were connected in a single, tangled stream that covered their entire lifespan. The only reason wizards didn't yank their entire minds out to use a Pensieve, or leave an Obliviated person a vegetable, was that they could pick out only the parts they wanted to look at. (And both spells could be misused: just look at Professor Lockhart.) So if Draco cut at the point where he washed his hands on both days...
The head Auror peered into the bowl, bending until the tip of his nose touched.
... and if Pensieves only showed the events, not the emotions and knowledge of the person experiencing them, which Draco was almost certain they did, then it should work.
Shacklebolt pulled his head out of the bowl with a frown. "That's odd..." he murmured, mostly to himself. "Tonks, check this."
Tonks stuck her own head into the bowl, immersing her entire face. After a moment, she pulled it back out, strands clinging to locks of her short hair. "That is odd," she murmured, poking at the silvery fluid with her wand. "I didn't see anything to cause this..." she added, as the liquid heaved upwards. It formed the image of Draco himself washing his hands at a sink, surrounded by a low wall hinting at a bathroom.
Draco carefully refused to bite his lip as the memory played out. Pensieve-Draco dried his hands, glanced up into the mirror... and the image snapped off, watery smoke collapsing back into the bowl with a splash.
Oh shit, Draco thought. That wasn't what he'd meant to do. He'd been trying to take out the memories from after Botan dropped him off, and splice them together with the start of summer to make a full, misleading single day.
Dumbledore nodded. "I see... how very mysterious."
"What is?" Narcissa asked tightly.
"What indeed..." Dumbledore mused.
Shacklebolt crouched, eyes on a level with the rim of the bowl. "Play it again, Tonks," he asked, "but a bit slower."
The Malfoys leaned in, watching the memory play out in slow motion.
The image of Draco finished drying its hands, gracefully turning to look up into the memory-mirror. Its eyes widened in a hint of... well, Draco knew it was fear, due to his impending disappearance, but it could be mistaken for surprise. Then the image collapsed into the bowl again.
"I don't see it," Draco said stubbornly. Except for not continuing on as he'd intended, there was nothing odd to see. The mirror, being a memory instead of an actual object, didn't show anything that Draco wouldn't have seen, even if there had been a culprit to sneak into the tiny compartment. The window... he'd cut this memory hours after Botan had whisked his real body away, so there would be nothing there. The door hadn't been ajar. So what could they be seeing...?
Shacklebolt was facing him again. "Mr. Malfoy, it appears that you've had some memory loss prior to the actual incident of your disappearance." Draco gaped at him, the relief robbing him of words. "Fortunately, the signs of concussion, or most potions with such effects, linger for a number of weeks. We'd like to call up the nurse."
"I... fine." Thank Merlin. "Just... fine."
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When a lone owl swooped silently down from the rafters above the professors' table, a note clasped firmly in sharp talons, Kurama took a large bite of roast and chewed thoughtfully. An outside observer would have claimed he didn't notice; but truthfully, all his attention was firmly on the little owl.
So far, nobody's come breaking the door down to arrest us, he thought, but that could be that they're smart enough to not put the kids in a potential crossfire. The sensible thing to do is a quiet note, and a discreet request to step outside.
The owl landed next to Sprout, offering the note to her.
Kurama noted the positions of the other Tantei in the Hall, and reconsidered his escape routes.
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"Veritaserum?" Lucius repeated dangerously. "Do you realize what you are implying?"
Draco echoed the sentiment. "I'm the victim here, not some... some common criminal!" If he took a truth serum, the whole story would come out.
Tonks raised her hands defensively. "It is a well-known tactic for aiding in memory retrieval."
"On suspects!" Narcissa protested.
Of course, if Draco took Veritaserum, he would also explain Lucius' loyalties in exacting detail. Even though Lucius would never allow that, the Aurors were all but drooling at the prospect.
"Veritasreum is also used in cases where time or tampering may have blurred the memories, if the victim consents and is over the age of twelve." Dumbledore paused. "And with parental consent up to age seventeen, not including cases of alleged abuse."
Lucius drew himself up imperiously. "You have your Pensieve. Draco's memory shows no signs of reversable tampering. He will not be taking Veritaserum."
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As the plates magically cleared themselves of dessert, leaving only the last of the feast's beverages behind, Sprout stood once more and cleared her throat.
"I hope everyone is full and well-satisfied," she said. "Before letting you all go, we have some announcements.
"The Forbidden Forest is off-limits to all students who would like to remain alive and uninjured. It has been searched in vain for the youko from last year," (at this, Harry couldn't help but glance across the hall towards Kurama), "but there are many other denizens who are equally dangerous.
"Mr. Filch asks yet again that students refrain from keeping forbidden items. The list of contraband is posted on his office door. Students caught in possession of these items will be docked points and have it confiscated.
"Quidditch tryouts will be held in two weeks' time; your House teams will be posting the tryout times and positions available. First years are reminded that they are not allowed brooms, and are asked to enjoy the matches and try out next year.
"Professor Genkai has requested that all NEWT-level students, regardless of whether they are taking Defense or not, submit a report of any length about their health and Defense studies over the summer." A chorus of groans rose from the upperclassmen. "This report is due by Saturday.
"And lastly, the Aurors in charge of the Malfoy disappearance will be conducting interviews over the next several days. Please give them your full cooperation." And with that, Sprout dismissed them.
Students began standing to leave, 5th-year prefects calling their Houses' new first-years to gather. Hermione clutched at Ron's sleeve, eyes eager and bright.
"You realize this is because you landed yourself in the hospital?" she asked him, fortunately too low to be heard by the other students. "The Defense report, I mean."
"No... Does that mean I don't have to do it?" Ron asked hopefully.
You'd think Ron would know better by now, Harry thought, as Hermione's expression went flat. "You're doing the report, Ron," she told him. Ron's face fell.
"Thanks bunches, Ron," Harry said teasingly, nudging him with his elbow in the hopes that he'd be distracted. "More homework for us."
Ron glared at him. "What?" he asked testily, not taking the bait. "It's not like you'd have anything to say. 'I was fine, I've got no core magic to sneakily practice anyway.'"
Harry frowned. Okay, so Ron had lost something like half his summer to the hospital, but that was a bit much. "You do realize that it might be something I need to beat Voldemort?"
Ron's head shot up. "Don't say..!"
"... his name," Harry finished. "I know, I know. Still." He waited for Ron's temper to catch up with what he'd actually heard.
After a moment, Ron glanced away. "You know, maybe you should try getting it checked again," he offered in a low voice. "You kinda trust Genkai more now, don't you? The whole 'not trying to kill anybody at the end of the year' might've helped?"
Ouch. But Ron didn't know... okay. Harry hummed noncommittally. "Maybe. Don't know if that was the problem, really." And if it was, well... she hadn't killed, but she knew Kurama had.
Maybe Harry should figure out what he really thought of that.
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"Mr. Malfoy, the Auror department does not have the manpower to allot a bodyguard to your son."
"He disappeared from this school, Shacklebolt!"
"On the contrary, he disappeared from the train. But surely we can work out a compromise with the Headmaster...?"
All eyes fell on Dumbledore, who solemnly steepled his hands. "Given the gravity of the situation..." he murmured, slowly, "perhaps it would be best if Mr. Malfoy was confined to school grounds for the foreseeable future. Unless he wishes to delay his studies for a full year?"
"A year?" Draco echoed, appalled.
"My apologies, Mr. Malfoy, allow me to elaborate. I would, of course, mean if you wished to return home until the perpetrators are caught, you would be permitted to. However, should you elect to do so, you would fall irreparably behind. NEWT-level coursework cannot simply be made up, particularly given that there is no assurance of when the perpetrators will be caught."
"Fall behind..." Draco repeated weakly. Go home. After all this work to keep Draco out of Voldemort's hands, Dumbledore was advising that he go home? Was the man that much of an idiot?
"It would hardly be the first time that a student has taken a year off," Dumbledore mused. "Granted, the precedent was set by girls whose charms had, er, failed..." Draco deliberately made a strangled, offended sound, "but there's certainly been no shortage of other reasons since the Founders' time!" Dumbledore continued. "Why, I had a Housemate who took his sixth year off to settle his father's estate... sad state of affairs, that, it seemed the poor man had transfigured himself into a cockatoo and become stuck..."
"I am NOT going to fall behind!" Draco snapped.
"You would likely have to retake your OWLs," Dumbledore added blithely, and now Draco knew the old man was doing this on purpose. "To insure you hadn't forgotten too much away from the classroom."
This brought Draco up short. "What were my OWLs, anyway?"
"You recieved passing marks in everything except History and Care of Magical Creatures," Snape told him. Draco's mouth twisted in a sneer. What a surprise, considering the teachers. "Do remind us to find your transcript before we finish here."
"Yes," Draco agreed pointedly, "I'll need them to select NEWT classes."
Lucius frowned. "Draco, I cannot condone you staying here without adequate protection... Headmaster, might I inquire as to what you are doing?"
Dumbledore looked up from where he was rummaging in a drawer. "Of course, Mr. Malfoy. I seem to recall a trinket from... oh, it has to be Uric the Oddball's time, I believe it was created specifically to keep track of him as a student... ah, where is my memory? Accio Portrait of Trista!"
Something thumped in a cabinet set in the back of an alcove. Dumbledore stepped over to it and opened the door, catching a round object that came sailing out at his head. "Here we are. Good evening, Madame," he addressed the object; a wide silver cuff, blackened with age. He turned the cuff so that the rest of the room could see an oval painting of a woman set in one side.
Draco peered at the tiny image of, presumably, Trista. She was an aging, plain-faced lady in the distinctive starched-lace ruff of fine Elizabethan robes. Her face was lined, drooping jowls giving the impression of a permanent frown, but her gaze was bright and sharp. She twitched, mouth moving in what was probably a disapproving "hmmph", but no sound came from the portrait.
"If you agree to wear the bracelet, Draco, you needn't worry about your privacy. Madame Trista is mute." The portrait rolled her eyes. "And the absolute soul of discretion; she'll only communicate with other portraits or people to raise the alarm if her charge is attacked or in danger."
Draco glanced at his father, whose expression was stony. With Draco's protests and the Aurors watching, the situation really had only one way to go... and they all knew it.
"I'll take the bracelet," Draco said.
"Excellent. Now, then, Mr. Malfoy, Mrs. Malfoy, if you would please inform Trista that you've given consent, I do believe the House Elves will have saved enough of the welcoming feast for all of us..."
Lucius' voice was cold as he bit out his agreement.
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The Feast had finished without a squad of Aurors kicking down the doors and arresting Kurama and the other Tantei on charges of kidnapping. So now, three hours after arriving at Hogwarts, Kurama figured that if Draco hadn't tripped up yet, he wasn't going to... and Kurama would be safe in resetting his security for the coming year.
He inobtrusively left the common room, abandoning his fellow Slytherins to their activities (this mostly consisted of pretending to not be lying in wait for Draco to return; no doubt the resulting interrogation would create a whole new set of wild rumors to put into circulation). The halls back here were pleasantly cool and dim, lit only by small lanterns, and deserted.
In the dorm, Kurama trimmed the Devil's Snare in the bedcurtains, shaking a few pitiful mouse skeletons out to be swept up by the House Elves the next day. A new flowerpot found a home on his nightstand, this one containing the Makai equivalent of a bluebell. Several stinging nettles encircled his new trunk, covering the side that opened to the apothecary drawers holding his Makai and Reikai seeds.
Then Kurama set his sights on his spyeye, thriving after the summer's warmth, despite a season's neglect. The Slytherin dorms had windows open to the narrow cove where the first-year boats docked, and his vine curled down the bluff and into the lower dungeons through cracks in the stone from here. Fortunately, this year the spyeye only required a relatively quick check (some ten minutes or so, considering its size) to insure that it hadn't grown wild and that the lens-flowers were all still in useful spots.
Kurama was still sitting on the windowsill when the door clicked open behind him. He glanced over his shoulder, remembering all too well Draco's attempt to bully him this time last year, and spotted Blaise.
"Tired of waiting?" Kurama asked, half his attention still in the vine.
The black boy shrugged. "We have the whole year to help his memory." Yes, Kurama thought, that is going to be a bit of a challenge. Blaise added, "And if they do the questioning properly, he won't be back until at least two in the morning."
"Ah." Kurama redirected a lens in the Gryffindor boys' staircase, sacrificing the best view in favor of improved secrecy from Neville. "Good point."
Blaise stepped up next to him, peering out the window, following Kurama's gaze down towards the surface of the water. "What are you watching?"
"Skinny dippers," Kurama replied dryly.
Blaise choked on a puff of laughter. "No, really."
It was Kurama's turn to shrug. "It's a nice night, that's all." He twitched his hand, curled in the leafy vines below the window. "The ivy's thriving. And I think it's going to rain later."
"If you say so," Blaise responded, losing interest.
"I could always give in to my well-reared impulses and try to quote appropriate poetry about it, I suppose. 'Moonflowers; at each one, wind rustles.' Issa, 1803."
"There aren't any flowers," Blaise pointed out.
"Picky," Kurama muttered, and waited until Blaise found a book and left, before concentrating on his plants again.
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"Stop thinking so loud, Potter," Hiei said flatly, up in the Gryffindor dorm.
Harry blinked, startled out of his thoughts, and pushed himself half-up off his pillow. The other boy was carefully checking the posts of his own bed, quill and ink in hand. Swirls of old ink glowed faintly violet, faded in spots that Hiei was reinking. "What?"
Hiei didn't look at him, pointing the feathered end of the quill at Harry, making slow circles in his direction. "You're thinking. Stop it. You don't know how."
"Hey!"
"Then think in quieter circles. Or get to a conclusion."
Yuusuke aimed a kick at Hiei's bedframe, causing Hiei to jerk his quill back with a hiss. "Aw, let him be, man. He ain't the only one wonderin' about Malfoy. Least he's not babbling about it like the kids downstairs."
"I'm not thinking about that, actually," Harry told them, sitting fully upright. The words gained him two surprised looks. "I'm thinking about my first Defense professor. Guy named Quirrell."
Yuusuke peered at him, head tilting with curiosity. "Yeah?"
"Yeah. He was working for Volde-- er, You-Know-Who. He died." Harry paused, gaze dropping to his quilt. "Looking back... I guess I killed him."
"You guess?"
Harry hesitated. But hell, Voldemort had negated the usefulness anyway. "Protective magic. He sort of disintegrated trying to strangle me."
"Huh." Yuusuke considered this for a long moment, leg swinging along the foot of his bed. "Yeah, I guess that does count. Self-defense, but ain't like the rest of us can throw stones. What brought this on?"
Brought 'this'? Oh, the line of thought. "Dunno. I don't really care about Malfoy," Harry lied, "But this is the first time I've had a Defense professor who didn't end up attacking me. It didn't really hit until I saw that Genkai's back."
Yuusuke snorted. "She might yet attack you. Calls it 'training'."
Harry recognized that as a distraction tactic. "That," Harry answered, deciding to go along with it, "would be if I caught her attention like you did. Not looking likely."
"Lucky you," Yuusuke muttered, thumping a foot against his trunk.
The door banged open. "Hey guys," Seamus said as he entered. "Can you believe it? Homework! On the first day! I wasn't even going to take Defense!" His Irish accent thickened as he warmed up to his topic.
Harry made a few sounds of agreement, not that Seamus needed the encouragement to continue, and let the flow of words wash over him as he returned to his thoughts.
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TBC
A/N's -
- "Sprout's been teaching longer." The HP lexicon indicates that Flitwick has been working at Hogwarts since the 1970's (assuming HP is set with Harry born in 1980), but gives no dates for Sprout. What little is known about her doesn't contradict Hermione's point here.
- Trista. The HP Lexicon suggests that Uric the Oddball's name is a phonetic reference to Yorick, from the Shakespearean play Hamlet (the skull: "alas, poor Yorick; I knew him well"). An alleged descendant of the same name narrates the Laurence Stern novel, Tristam Shandy. Tristam shifts to Trista, ta dah.