Ch. 56 - In The End

The remaining days passed all too quickly, with many students catching up on missed sleep. Owls flew back and forth in a flurry of summer planning, friends attempting to coordinate family holiday schedules whenever possible, and Ravenclaws checking luggage allowances and owl-ordering renewed featherlight and compression charms for their massive volumes of summer reading. In Slytherin House, students boasted shrilly about lavish parties, tickets to exclusive concerts and theatre productions, various lessons in arts, music, "and such", all the while with brittle gazes flicking over each other.

Failure infected Slytherin House, but not the usual failure of lost points, of lost games, of lost Cups won by Gryffindors and mudbloods. Whispers of more, of worse, hissed in the cold corners of the dungeons, evaporating at the slightest untoward glance, replaced with thin, glassy laughter. And no one's laughter was more false, no one's eyes sharper and more nervous, than Draco Malfoy's.

No one knew it had been him, of course. Only that they (meaning the purebloods, and their few kin and sympathizers in other Houses) had been told to stay put, stay hidden, just plain to stay and lay low, that a telling blow would be delivered during the night.

But it hadn't. Every year eyed the other years suspisciously, eyed the other sex in their own year, except the boys in Draco's own dorm. And even then, they couldn't know if it had been him or Minamino who'd...

Failed.

The House watched itself warily. Was it you? Is it you? Did you fail father's Master, mother's Lord? Is it you? Is it you?

-0-0-0-

In Gryffindor, chaos reigned. Joy at surviving another round of exams, and a school year notably vacant of You-Know-Who, boosted spirits within the already excitable House. The Weasley twins hosted noisy parties every evening and late into the night, the wireless radio blaring and butterbeer making the rounds, countering every one of Hermione's weak protests with a chorused "school's over; we're not students anymore!"

In the mornings and after dinner, Kurama, fully healed and as unruffled as usual, came to pick up Neville for extensive tutoring in the warm summer air. Every time, Harry watched the Slytherin carefully, searching for one slip, one hint of the gold-eyed demon.

On Thursday, Kurama met Harry's eyes, and his own crinkled in amusement, an eyebrow quirking.

Harry turned away, suddenly cold.

-0-0-0-

Hufflepuff, for the first time in twelve years, won the Quidditch cup, therefore snatching the House cup from Ravenclaw by a narrow five-point margin. So the End-of-Term feast took place amid a blinding display of yellow and black, prompting several bitter mutterings of "stupid bumblebees" from both Gryffindor and Slytherin tables. The celebration was subdued, however, as several older Hufflepuffs requested the win be dedicated to their former Seeker, Cedric Diggory, now dead a year.

-0-0-0-

Sunday morning, Hogwarts awoke to the chaos of last-minute packing. Kurama, having packed all but a change of clothes and his toiletries the night before, calmly ignored the chaos of shouting boys around him as he tucked the last few items away.

"That's my brush, Crabbe! What are you doing with it? Give it here!"

"It's mine." Crabbe turned the handle, pointing. "See? My initials."

Blaise hissed in fury, grabbing at the brush. "Scratched with a penknife over my engraved name! How dumb do you think I am?"

"Uh..."

Kurama checked under his bed, then among the curtains, carefully weeding the Devil's Snare out. A vine curled around his neck, gently restrained by his magic, as he dug its handful of dirt and roots from the corner of his box spring and lowered it into a paper bag. The bag and vine, he buried in his trunk, disentangling himself easily.

Draco came in, arms laden with his basket of toiletries (several of which, Kurama could see, were marked with the Hogwarts crest; probably stolen). "You," he commanded, "whatever it is, cut it out. I can hear you halfway down the hall." The box got dumped onto the bed, and Draco began stuffing his trunk.

Crabbe and Blaise subsided, Blaise yanking the brush from Crabbe's hand. They filled their trunks in silence, then left to fetch their things from the bathroom.

The instant the door shut, Draco shoved his trunk lid closed and sat on it. "Okay, Minamino. Where's the stuff?"

Kurama turned his head to face Draco, staring until Draco flinched, then pulled a vial from his pocket. "This is it," he murmured. Draco reached for it eagerly, and Kurama twitched it away from the boy's grasp. "No turning back?"

"Right, right."

Kurama's eyes narrowed, and he added, "No triggering it early. No going to Voldemort and using this to get away, either. Stick to the plan and you'll get through this intact."

Draco whimpered. "I promised already, just give me...!"

Kurama let Draco snatch the vial away and hide it in his robes. But... "You're sure you know how to activate it by remote?"

"Moste Potente Potions is never wrong," Draco muttered. "If you made it right..."

No need to tell him Snape made it. "It's made right," Kurama snapped. Draco flinched and pretended not to have said anything, locking his trunk and bringing out his wand. Kurama asked, "What are you doing?"

A withering look. "Shrinking my trunk, of course. How else am I supposed to bring it?"

Bring it? Is he mad? "You aren't," Kurama replied.

"What?!"

"Unless you want to be bumped right to the top of His 'deserters and traitors' list, you leave that trunk behind. Taking it screams 'planned disappearance'."

Draco turned to face Kurama, frowning. "But... but what am I supposed to do without my stuff?"

Kurama smirked, but didn't answer.

"You're not serious," Draco whined.

"Entirely," Kurama replied. "Leave it be."

After a long second, Draco twitched, as if remembering what Kurama was, and let the subject drop.

-0-0-0-

By the time everyone in the school managed to get down to the platform, several people (including Neville) had run back for forgotten items, and the train was being loaded with luggage, Hiei was delighted to not be taking the train back to London. He had plans to scout the United Kingdom over the summer, while Genkai and Yukina were staying in Hogsmeade.

It had been Yukina's idea to come down to the platform to see the others off. She hadn't taken Hiei's "I can see them leave from the tree" for an answer, nor Genkai's "I don't want to see the little hooligans until September".

"Ah, Yukina-chan!" Kuwabara caught Yukina's hands up. "I'll come to see you, ne?"

"I'd be delighted, Kazuma."

A tap on Hiei's shoulder; Yuusuke. "Oi, Hiei. See you around."

Hiei grunted in acknowledgement, working to ignore the girls: "Yukina-chan, you just have to write," Botan urged. "Okay? Promise you'll write!"

"We'll write back!" Keiko added.

"And send us lots of pictures!"

Hiei edged away from the display, and a hand caught at his sleeve. Hiei turned to see Kurama. "Hey," Kurama murmured, tugging slightly. Hiei allowed himself to be guided towards the fringe of the crowd.

"Hey." The stupid fox had blown his cover, nearly gotten himself killed, saddled himself with an ungrateful human brat... but somehow he still warranted a response.

Kurama smiled. "I'll see you in September?"

"If you don't get dead," Hiei answered.

"I won't if you won't."

"Deal."

A long moment of quiet, then, "Hiei... what do you think of this whole idea?"

Aside from the sheer stupidity of talking about it where they could be overheard? "You're always making things too complicated anyways," Hiei grumbled.

Kurama chuckled. "Thanks."

The train whistle blew, and Kurama hurried to catch it without a backwards glance.

But that was the way Hiei preferred goodbyes, anyways.

-0-0-0-

Draco ignored the prefects' car, opting to sit with Pansy, Crabbe, and Goyle in their compartment near the back of the train. "Away from that damn mudblood Granger," he muttered in excuse. "If I ever see her again it'll be too soon."

Crabbe and Goyle accepted that with identical blank-eyed nods, and pulled out a deck of Exploding Snap. The four of them played a tense game for nearly an hour, but shortly before the lunch trolley would arrive, Draco excused himself and headed for the bathroom.

Once inside, he locked the door and propped himself up against the sink, allowing his hands to shake. "Last chance, Draco," he murmured to himself in the mirror. "A brilliant idea right about now..." The wild-eyed face in the mirror stared mutely. "That's what I thought." He reached into his pocket, taking the vial out, and sat on the floor.

One dose. One dose, the last of Kurama's Doppelganger potion. "Bottom's up," Draco muttered, gulping the potion down. His vision promptly swirled away.

And swirled back, this time with Draco's own, blank-eyed face centered in his view. Draco jerked away, though this was exactly as described... he pulled his wand from his real body's pocket and stood, smoothing his hair back.

His real body lay slumped at his feet... Merlin, that's creepy, Draco thought, flinching away. He stuffed his wand in his doppelganger pocket, and checked his false-body's face in the mirror. Everything seemed in order...

He washed his hands, unlocked the bathroom, and left, nodding imperceptibly to Botan waiting in the corridor. If she damaged so much as one hair on his real body... he'd do something very unpleasant to her.

Draco returned to his compartment and ordered lunch.

-0-0-0-

Harry had put off making the decision for over a week.

To be precise, he'd spent the first three or four days getting his sleep habits back on track; a more daunting task than he'd expected, since he'd fought demons and run around the Forest in the most insane hours of the night after wearing himself out with two weeks of OWLs. Then he'd spent another day fending off questions from both fellow students (most notably, Neville, who'd been awake and pacing the boys' dorm stairwell the entire night of solstice).

He'd found that "I got distracted" worked wonders in skimming over the night's events between heading down to the kitchens for a snack and going to sit with Hermione. With Hermione and Ron, "I got distracted getting the Cloak" sufficed. It was really rather unnerving how easily people jumped to conclusions without Harry needing to outright lie.

But now, on the train, the north England countryside passing by in a slow flicker of telephone poles and patchwork fields, there were only a few short hours left... and then the decision would be out of his hands, irreversible for the next several weeks of summer.

It was a tempting thought. Decision by procrastination. But it wasn't really Gryffindor, was it?

They're my friends. They know how to keep secrets. They don't hate Kurama. If I tell them he saved my life...

But he did kill the other demon. He's been lying the whole year. He IS a Slytherin. And Ron's first reaction to Professor Lupin after he admitted to being a werewolf... a crowded place like the train or the platform is NOT the place to tell Ron, and maybe not Hermione.

Hermione. She kept Professor Lupin's secret from us for months. Why?

Harry glanced at Hermione, losing badly to Ron at chess and laughing about it.

WHY? You could've trusted us, Hermione! We're your friends! We're Gryffindors, courage and honor and...

... and...

... and it wouldn't have been right, would it.

He bit back a sigh. Right, then. He wouldn't tell Ron or Hermione yet.

Ron tipped Hermione's king. "Checkmate," he said, grinning.

"Okay, that is IT!" Hermione pushed the board towards Ron and dug into her robes, coming up with a deck of cards. "We're playing something else now. Harry, you in?"

Harry sat forward. "Sure. What are we playing?"

"A Muggle game." And as Hermione explained the rules, the train continued south out of Scotland, leaving Harry's worries behind.

-0-0-0-

The lights of London shone in the twilight as the Hogwarts Express approached the platform. In the mob of students filling the corridors, eager to get off the train and home to their families, Draco pushed his way to the bathroom once more.

He got to the toilet compartment just before Kurama did, and shoved past the redhead to get inside. After using the facilities just to waste time, and washing his hands, Draco stepped out of view of the mirror and took his wand out.

"This had better work," he whispered, squeezing his eyes shut and aiming at himself. He tapped his heel against the door once, twice, alerting Kurama, then... "Imperio," Draco whispered.

The spell slammed against him, jolting his mind from his false body, the body crumpling into smoke. As magic hooked behind his navel like a Portkey and jerked Draco from the train, he heard the clatter of his wand dropping free to the tiled floor.

-0-0-0-

Kurama entered the unlocked toilet compartment, picked up Draco's wand, and tucked it into the pocket of his Muggle clothing alongside his own wand. Then he used the facilities, washed his hands, and returned to the crowded corridor as the whistle blew.

The train lurched to a stop.

Botan had better be back, Kurama thought.

-0-0-0

Platform 9 and 3/4, as always, was a madhouse. Students mobbed the luggage carts, too eager to start vacation to bother waiting turns. Owls flapped and hooted offense in their cages, rattled and jostled about.

"Hannah! Hannah, over here, honey!"

"Fred! George! For Merlin's sake...!"

"NEV! Wait, you forgot...!"

"Kurama-san! Keiko-chan! Kochira de! Hayaku, hayaku!"

Harry dodged larger students with all his Seeker agility, snatching a cart without rolling over anyone's feet or getting his own stepped on, manhandling his luggage and Hedwig onto the cart without too much trouble, and getting to the edge of the crowd and the Weasleys.

Mrs. Weasley promptly hugged him, hands still full of confiscated fireworks. "Harry, dear, look at you, you've grown so much!"

Harry squirmed out of the embrace. "I guess," he agreed.

She beamed. "How was school? It's been such a quiet year..."

Erk. "It's been... interesting," Harry replied. He tried a smile. "Very strange. The Defense professor hasn't tried to kill me."

Mrs. Weasley jerked in shock, mouth dropping open.

Oops, Harry thought.

"Oh, my poor child..." she wavered, pulling him back into a hug and patting his head. Harry's eyes flew wide... what was she doing? "I... a... at least... they've managed to hire a Defense professor who isn't on You-Know-Who's side, hm?"

"Um, yes." Right. Not on the wrong side. Could she let go now?

As if reading his mind, Mrs. Weasley released Harry, turning to her children with a face-saving, no-nonsense huff. Harry exchanged a glance with Ron, who rolled his eyes theatrically, as Mrs. Weasley checked they had all the luggage.

"Well, that looks like everything," she said. "Shall we go?"

Harry nodded along with the Weasley brood. Vernon Dursley would be on the Muggle side of the train station. He'd leave them there.

The Weasleys and Harry pushed through the crowd towards the exit from Platform 9 and 3/4. One at a time, the Weasley children angled their luggage carts, shoved, and vanished into the brick wall.

Then it was Harry's turn. With one last glance at the platform, he ran back into the Muggle world.