Chapter 14: The Foundations

I woke grasping for my wand and pushing myself out of bed. Something was thumping against the window. It took a moment for the fog of sleep to clear enough to see it was an owl. Damn it, again? No use waiting, it would only start hooting. I shoved the window open and took the letter. The envelope had Bulstrode's writing on the back. For you again. I opened it.

File Clerk,

I have the sample material you requested to track my papers. I will present myself to turn it over at eleven this morning, should you kindly extend permission to enter Hogwarts' grounds.

Yours,

Draco Malfoy

So Shacklebolt had come through, and quickly, too. Eleven? What time was it? I cast Tempus. It was ten-fifty. Damn, I was going to be late. I hated being late. I splashed some water from the basin on my face and struggled into my clothes. I really didn't want to go into that place again, but if Draco was going up there… hell. He had better not go into the Great Hall.

I didn't stop or Aberforth's shouted, "oh, wait a tic –" as I passed him on my way out the back. I kept myself under a disillusionment until I reached the school. I was probably kidding myself that I could keep my presence a secret much longer, since my House and the Ministry knew, but I wasn't ready to completely surrender yet.

I clenched my hands in my pockets before I reached for the door. No need for flashbacks, no need to go into the Great Hall, and no need for Him either. I had won, he had lost, and that was the end of it. I pushed into the entrance hall.

It was always cool in the dim stone hall, but that didn't entirely account for the frigid atmosphere. Minerva was standing in the center of the stairs, arms crossed, watching Draco down the end of her nose. Draco was hanging awkwardly about at the foot of the stairs. He had on the haughty expression he hid behind whenever he was most uncomfortable.

"Ah, finally," said Minerva. "Mr. Malfoy, Professor Snape and I have something to discuss. In private. You will step outside and wait until you are summoned."

Draco shrugged with bad grace and left. As soon as the door shut, Minerva dropped her stiff pose and hurried down the stair to me. "Severus, he said he'd sent you a note, but I wasn't sure you'd come back. Where did you go?"

"I went for a walk. I was back at the Hog's Head last night." True enough, as far as it went.

"Well, I wish you hadn't gone off like that. I suppose… if you couldn't stay, you couldn't." It was more of an admission than I thought I would get from her.

"I've been checking over the school very carefully. There's no sign of our visitor now. I've also done what I should have done long ago and questioned the ghosts about him. Trust Bulstrode to think of it. Well, none of them have any information, not even Myrtle. The Baron has agreed to watch the hall."

The Baron probably didn't like the idea of a spirit who was more menacing then him.

"Now, please, Severus, did you know he was there?"

"No. When I saw him the first time I thought he was a… flashback. It wasn't until I saw you looking at him, the second time, that I realized."

"You've had flashbacks, you've seen him before?"

I very much did not want to go into that. "You think I brought him."

"I'm wondering if you may have… triggered him, somehow."

"Somehow, such as betraying him."

"He did find out about that just before his death."

"Ah, yes, I remember reading that someone told him all about me."

"Now, Severus."

"Don't 'now, Severus' me. He didn't do me any favors."

"He certainly didn't mean you any harm."

"That would be a first," I muttered.

"The point is," said Minerva firmly, "that whatever the trigger may be, it seems to have taken effect only when you enter the Great Hall. You have been several other places in the school and on the grounds without incident, if I'm correct."

I nodded.

"If I thought there was any immediate risk to you, I wouldn't have you back here at all, but as long as we steer clear of the Great Hall, I don't think it's very likely. Still, I believe it would be best for you to avoid the grounds altogether once this business with the contract is over."

"I have no intention of loitering around here."

"And I have no intention of driving you off! This is just until we can solve the problem. I'm uncomfortable with leaving things as they stand and just assuming that something else won't trigger his spirit in the future. I can't have children exposed to him. I've already put Filius on the problem and I'll be calling a staff meeting as soon as he has any ideas. I believe he wants to ask you a few questions about his first appearance."

"You told Filius."

"Severus, he's known about you at least as long as I have. He had a long talk with Albus' portrait when he found out that your body hadn't been recovered. Of course he put it together."

I sighed. "The whole school knows."

"You don't have to fight everyone all your life."

That showed how much she knew.

"Will you talk to Filius? Maybe he can discover some way to get rid of him."

"I'll think about it. Minerva, right now I just want to get the contract and get out of here. I need a few materials for the tracking charm."

"Materials?"

"I can get them from the staff room."

"Hmm. I'll meet you at the Foundation stair door. I expect you to keep Mr. Malfoy under your close supervision at all times."

When I opened the main door, Draco looked relieved that Minerva was gone.

"Sir."

"Come on, we need to make our tracker." He followed me down the corridor.

"She doesn't like me, sir," he remarked.

"Well, aren't you the clever one."

Minerva wouldn't have been pleased that I took Draco into the staff room, but I couldn't see that it made any difference. It wasn't very likely that Minerva would ever let him onto Hogwarts' grounds again.

Draco slouched around pretending to admire the place while I obtained a teacup and a bit of stick from the kindling box.

"Professors know how to live in style."

"Don't pretend you've never been here. I know you sneaked in your third year. You've got the blood?"

He brought out a Ministry-sealed vial. "You pulled strings for this."

"There wasn't any point waiting and having you spend your resources when you didn't need to." I opened the vial and soaked one end of the stick in the blood. Draco didn't look pleased at the implication that he needed to save his resources.

"Yes, but now the Ministry knows."

"One person in the Ministry knows. He won't be leaking it."

"Who?"

I sighed. Draco, his whole family, really, would have to know soon, if Shacklebolt were to arrange another hearing for Lucius.

"Shacklebolt."

"What? He'll use it against father!"

"No, he won't."

"Our barrister told us he didn't believe her about the contract and didn't cooperate with her when she was trying to have it introduced at his hearing."

"That was before I was able to confirm its existence. Shacklebolt has agreed to arrange a new hearing for your father if I can present him with some physical evidence, such as the contract."

I applied a drying charm to the blood. No sense in having it wash right off again.

"Why?" Draco asked carefully.

"Because he owes me." I didn't care to go into the details of my deal with Shacklebolt.

"So you're calling in a favor for this?"

Let him think so, he might even start trusting me again. I filled the teacup with Aguamenti.

"You set the tracking charm," I said, handing him the stick, "it's less likely to point to you as a false positive if you cast it."

He went to work. When he was done, it wasn't immediately clear that it had taken effect. Lucius' blood was fairly fresh, which helped, but his signature was several years old now, and the stick was wavering in the water. Draco regarded it with suspicion.

"Come on, let's get it closer." I led him into the dungeons. The smell of it, god, held far too many memories. There was a two-meter-thick wall separating us from the lake, but this part of the dungeons always smelled of water. The corridors here were so familiar I could have walked them in pitch blackness, as I had done many times before. Back again, and I didn't want to be back again. But it still tugged at me like it was home.

We found Minerva past the third security door in the small round chamber at the head of the foundation stair. She and Draco avoided looking at each other. She put her hand on the door and it shuddered slightly at her touch. "Make it quick, I don't want to hang around here all day."

I nodded and she opened the door to the spiral stair.

It grew colder as we descended, and the walls sparkled and dripped with long tubes of niter. The contours of the stairs were blurred with centuries of use, dipping in the middle. Further down, the drippings from the walls slicked the stairs. I could see the clouds of Draco's breath rising in my Lumos. He trailed one hand along the wall. The stick of the tracker was spinning slowly in its teacup as we wound down. The niter was thick here, draping the walls like frozen curtains. When we reached the bottom, we were in a tunnel of white.

The wall and door in front of us were clear of niter, of any sign of age. There was a small circular niche above the door arch, long bricked over, but beyond that it was all as if it had been built yesterday, the wood still green and the iron polished. Draco reached for the handle.

"Wait!" I pulled him back. "We can't take spells in there."

"What?"

"Deactivate the charm."

"But we'll need it –"

"It's just for this one room, we'll reactivate it on the other side."

Draco pulled the stick from teacup and shook off the water. "Finite."

"Do you have any other active spells on you?"

"Just a couple, an Impervio on my boots –"

"Drop them all." I was casting my own Finites.

"Why?" he asked, but he complied.

"When we are in that room, you will not speak, you will not touch anything, you will certainly not cast any spells, and it's best not to even look at it."

"At what?"

"Shut up. You will just go through and out the other door as quickly as possible."

"What about the Lumos?"

"We won't need it. Nox. Now open the door."

I could hear him fumbling against the door for the handle in the dark. Warm firelight spilled out as the door opened. I steered Draco in with my hand on his shoulder and quickly shut the door behind me.

The four torches mounted on the wall were burning, as always, casting a flickering reddish light over the round room. The dead thorn tree, its branches filled with innumerable scraps of white cloth still gripped the boulder with dead roots. And the pool, the black pool, flat and still and always wanting me.

Keep moving, keep moving.

Draco's head was twisted slightly to the left, he was looking at the pool from the corner of his eyes. All black, except that it reflected the tiny white scraps of cloth like stars in the sky. You could fall into that forever.

I dug my thumb into Draco's shoulder blade and pushed and he finally started moving, sticking close to the curving wall. We stumbled out the door on the other side of the room into the darkness beyond. Once I had the door closed behind me I recast the Lumos. Draco's face appeared white in the sudden glare.

"It… it isn't alive, is it?"

"Shut up."

"But what –"

"Later. The sooner we find the contract, the sooner we can be out of here."

Draco placed the cup on the ground in front of him and went down on his knees to reset the tracking charm. We were in a low vaulted space supported by thick columns. It was bordered by raw rock to the left and stretched out into darkness on the right. The house elves certainly had plenty of room to dump the rubble. How had they brought it all down? Well, house elves had their ways. I couldn't see a trace of it from where we were.

Draco stood and examined the tracker. "The reset weakened it," he said, giving the stick a nudge. It wavered and pointed vaguely to the right, into the darkness.

We set off through the forest of columns, following the charm. There was an irregular dripping somewhere, and our echoing footsteps. The Lumos didn't spread far and I didn't want to strengthen it so close to the Room, so soon we were in a floating island of light in a sea of darkness all around. The sensation became even more pronounced as the general dampness of the floor turned to puddles, then pools, then we were unavoidably wading into the icy water.

"Are we getting close to the lake?" whispered Draco. Even whispering, his voice bounced away through the columns and returned like a stranger. I nodded, not wanting to hear my own voice like that. The water eddied around the sides of our shoes, then over the tops, then swirled around our shins as we went deeper. Were we going to have to swim soon? But then we were at the rubble pile, shattered blocks and snapped beams packed to the top of the vaults and stretching away into the darkness. So much – surely it wasn't just from the one battle? Or had the house elves been piling rubble here for centuries? Centuries of Dark Lords. And how many more would there have to be before they filled this space?

"Oh, Merlin, how are we going to find it in there?"

"Narrow it down."

Draco paced along the face of the pile, watching the tracker slowly swing. There was a three meter stretch that attracted the charm. I tried "Point Me Gargoyle," but I didn't get a hit. Whatever was left probably didn't qualify as much of a gargoyle now. A Point Me on the contract wouldn't do any good. Hogwarts was full of contracts.

An hour of freezing sodden feet and hands stiff from endless levitation charms and we finally uncovered it, the old gargoyle head with blank grey eyes staring up. The animating spells had long worn off, and unfortunately for us, the mouth was closed.

"I could Reducto –" Draco offered.

"No, that might destroy the contract. Hold it steady." I applied a slicing curse to cut away part of the head.

"Not so close to my fingers!"

"If you hold it steady your fingers will be in no danger. Stop wincing! And don't roll your eyes. Remember what happened last time?"

"Yes, sir."

When Draco had regained his nerve, I was able to slice close to the side of the mouth, leaving the head in cross-section. A delicate curl of parchment was just visible in the black cavity of the mouth.

"There! Turn it –" I teased the parchment free. It was all there, Albus' careful printing outlining the impossible terms and Lucius' extravagant signature at the bottom, in his own blood. I rolled it and tucked it into an inside pocket.

"That's it? Let me see."

"No, we'll get out now."

Draco frowned and dropped the remains of the head on the rubble pile.

We stopped to dry our boots and destroy the tracking charm when we reached the dry part of the vault. Draco cast angrily at his feet and the dissolving moisture came out in puffs of mist.

"It's my father's."

"Hmm."

"Why won't you let me see it?"

"I want to get out of here."

"It will only take a second."

"It's none of your business."

He looked at me in angry disbelief.

"Get your hand on the door, I'm dropping the Lumos."

For a moment I thought he would refuse, but then he grimaced and turned to the door. I dropped the spell and we plunged back into darkness. Draco opened the door.

The room was different now, somehow. Draco didn't need my hand on his shoulder to hurry him along. What was different? That was it; there was a breath of air stirring the strips of cloth in the branches of the thorn tree. The torches were flickering. The breeze ran in circles around the room. The surface of the water was moving. Draco came out almost at a run and I was right at his heels. I pulled the door to and leaned against it.

Draco cast the Lumos this time. He was even paler than before. "It can't follow us, can it?"

"No, the room stays here." I stepped away from the door. It held; all was still.

"All right, what is that place?"

"All spells die with the caster, yes?"

"Yes…"

"Unless?"

"Um…"

I glared at him. I didn't spend years pounding magic theory into his thick skull just so I could get 'ums.'

"Uh… unless a spell is cast on an external source of power."

"Such as?"

"Such as… a life, a sacrifice, a symbol, or a manifestation of an element… oh! All four of the primary elements are there!"

Finally. "The founders are long dead. Something has to keep this pile running."

"That's Hogwarts' Source, then? I didn't know it had one."

"Of course it does. It's part of the reason he wanted the school."

"Oh, Merlin."

"And that's why it's essential to not disturb it. You'd have the whole building down around your ears."

I edged past him on the stairs.

"What if he had taken it?"

"Only the Headmaster can get through the upper door."

"That was you… he would have killed you if you hadn't let him in."

I waved my hand dismissively. "What else is new? He had plenty to kill me for aside from that."

"But then why did he… I mean, he tried to kill you before he got in."

"He had more immediate concerns. He had got a bit distracted by the end. He was obsessed with other things. Once he had taken the building he could have appointed someone and then tried to find a way to use the power at his leisure. It doesn't matter."

Draco was silent. I turned and began to climb the stairs. It was gradually getting warmed as we ascended.

"What's wrong with it?" Draco asked.

"Wrong?"

"Doesn't it feel…" He trailed off. I stopped again.

"What, Draco?"

"It's sodding creepy! Uh, sir."

"It's an extremely powerful Source that's possibly over a thousand years old. It's not going to be like visiting Honeydukes."

"Is it supposed to feel like that?"

"Like what?"

"Like it's hungry."

Was that the feeling? I thought it was more like wanting. Or needing. The pool needed… I pushed the feeling away. "I suppose; it's the only Source I've visited."

Draco looked skeptical, but began climbing again. The stairs twisted upwards towards the warmth above.

Draco's voice came from behind me, quietly. "I know."

"Know what?"

"I know. Before his trial, my father told me how you made him agree to help you."

I stopped again. "Did he now?"

"Did you mean it?"

"Mean what?"

"If he didn't… if he didn't help you, you would have framed him as a traitor and turned him over to the Dark Lord." His voice was shaking. His hands too, making his Lumos cast swaying shadows on the walls.

"Draco –"

"Would you have done it?"

"Draco, the only way he could possibly agree to take the risk of helping me was if I made the alternative worse."

"Would you have done it?"

"Listen to me. I lost so many friends to him. One killed himself because he couldn't continue with the Dark Lord. I don't know what I would have done if I hadn't found a way out myself. What would you have done if he had won? Could you have lived with it?"

Draco swallowed.

I went on. "I would have done almost anything to keep one friend from being lost to the Dark Lord. I lost enough to him."

"And turning him over to his death wouldn't be losing him?"

"It wouldn't have come to that and it didn't come to that. Your father was too intelligent not to see the situation, so he agreed to the contract."

"If he hadn't –"

"I didn't give him any choice because I was determined to get him out, to get you all out! That impossible choice was the only way he could agree!"

"Well, he's not out now!"

"You are, and your mother is, and with this," I said, tapping my pocket, "he will be, soon."

Draco studied me. "Oh, Merlin, you would have done it. You would have got us all killed."

"Draco, I didn't think I would have to remind you. You know exactly how far I would go to save your life."

He dropped his gaze. "I'm well aware of my debts, sir. All of them."

"I'm not currently asking for payment."

"Are you paying my father? With that?" He gestured towards the contract.

I wasn't sure how much he knew of my debts to his father. "You think I might have paid him with the life of his son?"

"There is that." He could finally meet my eyes again.

I started up the stairs again. After a few turns I could hear Draco's steps echoing behind me.

Minerva was waiting with ill-concealed impatience at the top. "You have what you came for?" She was resealing the door.

"Yes."

"Fine. Mr. Malfoy, you are not to enter Hogwarts' grounds again. Do you understand?"

"Perfectly."

Minerva held herself rigid until Draco was gone, then turned to me in relief.

"I'm not sorry to see the last of his lot. Too weak-willed for my taste."

I looked at her in irritation. She could have very little idea what sort of will it took to live in close quarters with the Dark Lord as his special target and still eke out a measure of resistance.

Minerva noticed my look. "Oh, don't try to excuse him, Severus. He had his choices."

"No good ones," I snapped.

"Please. Mr. Potter told me in detail what happened that night. Albus offered him sanctuary."

I sighed. Draco had told me about that himself some weeks later, with a nervous laugh, trying for a sliver of reassurance as his world crumbled in. I told him that the offer had been nonsense, and that Albus was a 'barmy old bastard.' For once, my role didn't require much acting.

"Albus was… not at his full faculties. He didn't have any sanctuary to offer him. He had planned for his death; he should have known he wouldn't be present to provide any protection. And even if Draco had somehow managed to get out, his family would have been held accountable. They would have been killed horribly. That was no choice for him."

"Oh, come now, there could have been some way. I refuse to believe that Albus would deliberately mislead him."

"It may not have been deliberate, but Albus had his own kind of cruelty." I had been dangled at the end of his false choices more than once. Were they any worse than the false choice I had given Lucius? "At times he believed that his good intent was more important than the price others had to pay."

Minerva had gone rigid again. "Hasn't he already paid enough for you?"

I turned and walked out. I didn't trust myself to speak just then. I closed the main door behind me with a familiar thud. I knew she still wondered about how I had gathered up the will to put behind the killing curse. She probably suspected that I had wanted to do it. Sometimes I suspected that myself.

When I arrived back at the Hog's Head, under a disillusionment, I went straight up to Aberforth's spare room. I didn't care to see his familiar features at the moment.

I sat for a long time staring at the Protean note that Shacklebolt had given me to contact him. Of course, nothing would come of the contract without his aid, and if he was going to help, the first step was to show him the bloody thing. I sighed. No help for it.

I have it, I wrote.

A/N: Thank you so much for reading! I love to hear what you think!