Chapter 22: Two Halves

Harry kept a close eye on the Defence classroom door as students gradually filed in first thing the next morning. His gaze gravitated to the front of the room when Malfoy, Ramstad, and their friends arrived.

Ramstad didn't get to stay in her usual seat next to Malfoy for long. Professor Parasca wasted no time instructing them to pair up with their Occlumency partners. With that, Ron sighed as heavily as he had every other Defence class since the beginning of January. He drug his feet over to where Malfoy sat while Ramstad took Ron's seat with a flick of her long blonde hair back over her shoulder.

Hermione had drilled Harry all weekend on his Legilimency skills. He was definitely getting better, not that Harry was letting that be seen in class. His improvements all happened outside of the classroom so that Ramstad would keep her guard low. As far as she was aware, Harry had some sort of block about Occlumency, and Legilimency wasn't going any better. What he disliked about it was Ramstad's attitude. When Harry resisted every attempt by her to help him improve, her efforts to help took on a patronizing edge. Harry hated facing it twice a week.

"What did you want to do first?" Ramstad asked.

"Occlumency, I guess."

Harry was at least getting better at that. He knew now what Ramstad meant during the first lesson that she ease off—he could block her attempts to penetrate his mind, and could consciously allow her in if he so pleased. Ramstad abruptly returned to view after Sirius flashed through Harry's mind. He didn't really want her seeing him.

One of Ramstad's eyebrows rose. "Sirius Black?"

"His name was cleared," Harry said automatically. The last person he wanted to discuss Sirius with was Ramstad, especially as seeing him again so unexpectedly always came with the very wave of emotions that would upset Harry's tentative hold on Occlumency and Legilimency.

"I know." Ramstad offered Harry a rare smile. "I think you're starting to get it, though. You shut me out."

"Yeah, maybe."

With that encouragement, it was nice for once not to feel like she pitied Harry for his lack of ability at something.

"Should we switch?" Harry suggested.

"Sure."

Ramstad sat up straighter across from Harry and crossed her legs. She smiled again, and Harry grew nervous. This ought to be the time he gave it a shot before he felt too guilty for doing it. Ramstad, like Malfoy, was aloof beyond belief spare the small cracks where a personality actually emerged. Harry took it that if he was starting to see it, Ramstad was becoming comfortable with him to some degree.

He let all those feelings go and cleared his mind spare one name: Voldemort. Harry's hand shook slightly as he raised his wand. "Legilimens."

What looked like the upstairs of a house appeared first, skylights letting in light from a bright moon. Next came Harry himself, from when he must have only been eleven and riding the Hogwarts Express for the first time. The last was a graveyard darkened by a roaring storm—a graveyard Harry certainly knew.

The spell ended early. Ramstad reappeared like a flash rather than at the tail of a soft fade. She studied him shrewdly, her lips pressed. Any hint of her earlier smile was gone.

"I saw a house, then me." Harry paused, debating if he should fully disclose. "Little Hangleton."

"I don't know what that is."

"It's a town," Harry replied. "I recognized the graveyard."

He watched Ramstad carefully. Colour blossomed in her cheeks and the only emotion Harry could associate with it was anger. He didn't like this expression she regarded him with, as if anything light within her had vanished. Her eyes were dull like a reptile's.

"You looked for that on purpose," she said quietly.

"Not that specifically," Harry clarified. "Why were you there?"

"Frankly that's none of your business."

"I think maybe it is."

Ramstad's gaze darted down to her bag.

"Look, you need to talk to me," Harry said before she could huff off. "I get it, you don't want to be involved. None of us do. Not even your parents—"

"Don't you dare," Ramstad cut him off in a harsh whisper.

"They didn't want it." Harry matched her lowered volume. "They're not with him by choice. What's he holding over them?"

Ramstad's gaze wandered, this time over the class in general. Her eyes had widened and emotion returned to her. Harry could see that fourteen-year-old girl again standing up on the landing of her family's manor, powerless to stop her world crumbling around her.

"I don't know," she hollowly replied.

"Is there a way you could find out?"

"Nei."

"Are you sure?" Harry pressed. "We could help them if you did."

"I don't know," she repeated. "I don't talk to them anymore."

"Could you try?"

"You don't think I have?"

She still wouldn't meet his gaze. Were her back not to where Ron and Malfoy obliviously carried on Harry figured Ramstad would be trying to catch Malfoy's eye. He couldn't see her sudden shift in mood. He was too busy making Ron's Defence class as difficult as possible.

Harry decided to try something different. "We're doing everything we can to get to him before things get any worse. If there's anything you know—anything at all—it might be helpful. There are Death Eaters we can't help, but some we probably can. Some we are."

"I don't know anything." Ramstad shook her head. "I stayed out of it."

"If you think of anything then, you can tell me. You could tell Dumbledore."

Ramstad finally met his gaze with that, but not for long. She stooped to pick up her bag and headed over to where Ron and Malfoy were. Malfoy watched her return, Ron turning around in his seat as she approached. His brow furrowed as Ramstad said something to him, and then he rose to his feet.

"What was that about?" Ron asked when he came over. "She said we were switching. Seemed spooked. Did you manage?"

"Yeah, but I didn't get anything." Harry sighed. He watched Malfoy's expression grow steadily more solemn as Ramstad leaned in talking to him. Harry looked back at Ron when Malfoy's gaze came their way. "She basically admitted her parents are Death Eaters, which we already knew. She's tried talking them out of it, which we could've already guessed. She doesn't know anything, which is how Voldemort has always operated even with his own followers."

Ron's shoulders slumped. "Did you get anything at all?"

"She's been to the Little Hangleton graveyard, but she wouldn't tell me why," Harry said. "She associates me with him, but who doesn't? There was a house."

"The Riddle house, maybe?" Ron suggested.

"No," Harry refuted right away, then paused. "I'm not sure, actually. I've seen the inside of it in dreams, but just the one room where Peter Pettigrew and Voldemort were staying."

"Might be a place to start, considering she's seen the graveyard too."

Harry nodded. "Well, we've still got time before the end of class. Guess we might as well practice some more."

With Ron's agreement, they set off on it. Harry was a little distracted wondering what he'd tell Professor Parasca if she asked why Harry was no longer working with Ramstad. Parasca walked past Ramstad and Malfoy first, stopping to talk to them. Whatever Ramstad had to say seemed acceptable, since Parasca just nodded and moved on.

The bell rang for mid-morning break. Harry gathered up his things and headed with Ron and Hermione for the dungeons. Just as they headed down the stairs, Harry heard his name from behind. He turned around and his heart sunk with dread.

"Potter," Malfoy called him again over the swarm of first-years coming back upstairs. "Come here."

"Good luck," Ron muttered under his breath before he and Hermione carried on.

Malfoy headed over to one of the corridor's nooks, his arms tightly crossed. His eyes narrowed as Harry stepped in with him.

"I'm going to tell you this once," Malfoy said, his voice trembling in hardly-contained contempt. "You're making no allies in the way you pry and poke around. If Dagmar and I haven't made it absolutely clear by now, we want nothing to do with you or Dumbledore or anyone else. We've been through enough. Leave us alone."

"Or what?" Harry crossed his arms as well. "I was only trying to help."

"Seriously? Another thing you're bollocks at, it would seem."

That actually managed to sting Harry. Maybe he didn't much like Malfoy or Ramstad, but he'd developed some empathy for them over the past few months. Harry knew something about burdens. They hadn't chosen to get caught up in all this anymore than Harry had.

"Can't exactly just walk up to you and ask what I need to know, can I?" Harry steamed. "Things are moving whether you like it or not, Malfoy. I don't need you or Ramstad to figure things out, but that doesn't mean I want to see you get caught up in anything. Her parents already are, against their will. I thought maybe before that goes a bad way she'd have something that would make it easier to avoid."

"Like I already told you all the way back in November, we don't know anything," Malfoy snipped back. "You think You-Know-Who would tell us his plans? You think he would've let us come back to Hogwarts if we had something useful we could hand over to you or Dumbledore? Get off it, Potter. You're just sticking your nose in because you can."

With that, Malfoy left. Harry lingered, angry despite trying not to be. He wanted to believe that did either of them know anything useful, they'd share it. The frustrating part was that judging by what Harry had seen while using Legilimency on Ramstad, she might know something useful—she just wasn't aware.

Harry really hoped that the thing with the house went somewhere. If not, he may have wasted his last real chance to get any help at all from Ramstad and Malfoy.

He headed off to Potions before Snape deducted a hundred house points or so because he was late. He was the last one to arrive. Hardly caring about being subtle, Harry eyed Ramstad as he headed for his seat. Her expression was blank and distant as she faced the front of the classroom.

Yet again because of Ernie, Harry couldn't tell Ron and Hermione all the details. Ron had at least passed on to Hermione the information Harry learned in Defence class. Harry filled them in on the rest when they took their lunch to a more secluded part of the castle.

"Did you mean to scare her?" Hermione asked.

"Who, Ramstad?" Harry replied. "No. Why?"

"I doubt she would've appreciated the things you said about her parents not wanting to be there. Yeah it's probably a relief in ways if she didn't already know but that's also terrifying. I doubt she needed the reminder that her parents might be in danger. On top of that, if she doesn't know anything, then she's powerless to do something about it."

"I guess," Harry conceded. "Maybe it doesn't hurt her to be scared. She's acting like her grandpa trying to stay neutral in this whole thing, but she really can't be. How's she going to feel if her parents go to the wayside or wind up in Azkaban? Wouldn't she have wanted to do all that she could?"

"Maybe she is." Hermione paused, chewing her sandwich. "There's something else you're not thinking about. What about Lucius and Mrs. Malfoy?"

"What about them?"

"Maybe Malfoy's mum isn't a Death Eater exactly, but Lucius is devoted," Hermione said. "He's not there because he's being forced. If the Ramstads get out, who do you think they're going to turn on first?"

Harry certainly hadn't thought of that. He'd gone out on a whim confronting Ramstad about Little Hangleton. He could've left it as that he'd seen a graveyard and then take from it all he'd ended up getting anyway.

Ron furrowed his brow. "There's this whole thing with the arranged marriages. Crabbe said Malfoy and Parkinson were put together originally. Why would they be changed? Maybe Lucius knew that Ramstad was a liability. I mean, it can't have been a secret she wasn't like how the other Slytherins all used to be. Maybe they knew she was friends with you, Hermione. So how long would it take before she started feeding information over to us?"

"They couldn't have forced her to marry Malfoy and even if they did, that wouldn't mean Dagmar liked him enough to care that much about his family," Hermione pointed out. "However it happened, there's no arguing that Dagmar and Malfoy's relationship is real. Dagmar has too strong a bollocks detector, and Malfoy is too impulsive to keep up a charade for this long. I believe both of them have been genuine in how they act and what they say."

"Okay, well, in that case it's too bad for the Ramstads," Ron said. "If Ramstad didn't like Malfoy, she might not have such a hangup about helping her parents get out. If the Malfoys are going to be Ramstad's in-laws someday, she'll want to protect them too. I think we can all agree that's pretty much impossible. There's no saving Lucius."

"No, he's probably beyond that." Hermione pressed her lips together. "I wonder about Mrs. Malfoy."

"What about her?" Ron asked.

"She might be sympathetic with You-Know-Who about blood purity, but she's not a Death Eater," Hermione replied. "She wouldn't have ever done what Lucius has. She's never hurt anyone, far as we know. Considering what Malfoy's relationship with Lucius is like right now, Malfoy might accept whatever comes of his father. His mother, though. . .he loves her. You see the look on his face as he reads the notes attached to the sweet packages she sends, even though Snape says they're estranged."

"Malfoy would never agree with you about Lucius," Ron said. "Piece of rubbish or not, his dad is still his dad."

Hermione's fist dug into her cheek, her elbow into her knee. "Anything to add, Harry?"

"Not really." Harry shook his head. "There's so much up in the air that I don't even know if it's really worth debating at this point. I want to tell Dumbledore about Ramstad going to Little Hangleton. I'd like to find out if she has something to do with the Riddle family, or if that's even the house I saw."

"Fair enough," Hermione sighed. "I wish Dagmar would talk to me. So much of this could so easily be cleared up."

"Honestly, I doubt it could be," Harry replied. "I don't think she knows a whole lot more than we do. She might even know less at this point."

Dagmar had no real memory of lunch break, nor of History of Magic after that. She hadn't a clue what Professor Binns had lectured about despite taking down two feet worth of notes. In preparation during study hall to keep on with the essay due Thursday, Dagmar tried to reread what she had so far. She could hardly get through half a sentence before her eyes slid out of focus.

She didn't even know where to begin in breaking down everything Potter dropped on her in Defence class. Dagmar had at least enough sense to block Potter's access from more damning memories, such as Voldemort's face from when she'd stood toe-to-toe with him.

Why had that house from Dagmar's nightmares shown up again? It'd been so long now since she saw it that she had pretty much forgotten about it. Perhaps it showed up because it had stopped appearing to her after Voldemort saw it. In that way, Dagmar associated the house to have something to do with him.

Dagmar had been taken aback that Potter recognized the graveyard. Then again, as Dagmar thought about it, hadn't Potter mentioned a graveyard in that interview he did for the Quibbler back in fifth year? Dagmar had only read it once in panic to make sure that her parents hadn't been mentioned, but they hadn't joined yet at that point. It had still terrified Dagmar that if the local wizarding community started to accept Voldemort's return as reality, it was one step closer to when her parents would suffer the consequences of their new loyalty.

She couldn't tell what parts of everything Potter said in Defence were true and what weren't. One thing was certain: if Potter didn't actually already know her parents were Death Eaters, then Dagmar had stupidly told him. He got her with them being trapped against their will. Part of Dagmar always suspected it because it had been so at-odds with the mother and father she grew up with. She still hadn't entirely ruled out the Imperius Curse despite that their behaviour didn't entirely fit within its scope. There was something insidious afoot. Yet again, thanks to Potter, Dagmar was completely uncomfortable with the fact that she had no idea what that might be.

Draco was in the library when Dagmar left study hall at five. He didn't appear to have gotten any further on the Herbology essay than when he had left off on it last night in the library.

Dagmar squeezed his shoulder affectionately. "Are you hungry?"

He shrugged. "I guess I could eat."

Dagmar knew what he meant. She was having a hard time finding an appetite too between all the knots in her stomach. They headed straight for the Great Hall. Halfway down the Slytherin table to their usual spot, Dagmar cursed quietly under her breath and leaned closer to Draco. "I forgot all about Blaise and Luca."

"Me too," Draco admitted.

Blaise looked nervous again. His face was long as he poked at his dinner. Luca was the complete opposite, bubbly and smiling. Dagmar couldn't help but catch just a smidgeon of that whenever Luca's gaze travelled in Blaise's direction. His eyelashes batted up and down with the frequency of it. Dagmar caught Blaise's eye from across the way. He had to cover his mouth, pretending to rub it to hide a shy smile.

A lull in the conversation was hard to find. Theo wanted to complain at-length about Potions class that day which to be fair had not been easy. Eventually, he put enough food in his mouth to glue his jaws shut and give someone else a chance to speak.

"Hey, just wanted to let you guys know something," Blaise spoke up in a forced-casual tone. "Luca and I are going together."

Milly sat beside them on their side of the table. Her brow furrowed slightly and she paused with a piece of dill carrot halfway to her mouth. Dagmar could practically hear the gears working in Theo's head on Draco's other side.

"Going where?" he asked.

Draco scoffed. "You're a prat."

"I—ohhhh!" Theo exclaimed, making everyone laugh. "All right then. Really? Okay."

"That's sweet!" Daphne said past Theo. "I think you two'll be cute together."

"Daphne, please, no man wants to be told he's cute," Theo told her.

"You like it," she shot back.

". . .But could you not tell our friends?"

Dagmar laughed along with everyone else. Blaise certainly seemed relieved for the news to have gone over so well. Luca glowed as he sidled up closer to Blaise, their sides pressing.

"Seriously, though." Theo pointed his fork at Blaise and Luca. "Whatever makes you happy. Anyone gives you a hard time, send them our way. Slytherin house probably won't care, but Muggle-borns might be dicey. Depends what kind of twats they grew up with for parents."

"It'd be pretty stupid for them to say anything at all," Milly replied. "I'd feel like a git myself if I got in trouble for it and then had to go explain to Dumbledore what's wrong with being gay."

They all snickered except Luca, who just looked confused. The potatoes on Draco's fork fell back onto his plate when Theo nudged him. "What're your thoughts, then? Nothing to say?"

Draco shrugged. "I already knew."

"Why did he get to know before me?" Theo asked.

"Because I knew," Dagmar said with a chuckle.

Theo leaned forward to see past Dagmar. "How did you know?"

"Blaise told me," Dagmar replied. "We were betrothed until this summer."

Theo's head tilted further down. "And how long were you two going to hold onto that for?"

"We weren't, really." Blaise shrugged, catching Dagmar's eye. "It just never came up."

"Not until you told me about it, anyway," Luca said. "I still don't really get it, no offence, the whole arranged marriage thing. Obviously it can work—" he gestured at Theo and Daphne, "—but what happens when it doesn't?"

"It can go ugly, don't let anyone fool you otherwise," Draco told him. "I ended my arrangement this summer too. It took months to be free."

Dagmar's gaze traveled across the hall to where Pansy sat with Ginny and her friends at the Gryffindor table. She hadn't looked completely herself today. She was a little pale, sickly, and she'd been rubbing at her temples a lot. Dagmar felt a lick of satisfaction from it.

"Doesn't have to, though." Dagmar shrugged. "Blaise and I were amicable about it. We could've made it work without feelings because we just like each other anyway, but we can pretty much have the exact same relationship with or without an arranged marriage putting us together, so what's the point? We might as well pursue our own things."

"Yeah, I mean. . ." Blaise glanced at Luca with an apologetic smile. "In hindsight, it could have made things more complicated than they needed to be. Maybe Dagmar and I were okay with having other partners, but those partners maybe wouldn't care for the setup."

"Probably wouldn't help I wound up with your best mate," Dagmar added.

"Okay, that I do take offence to," Theo told her around Draco. "Draco, his best mate? You really think so?"

Just like Dagmar had come to dinner unsure how she could focus on anything but her earlier conversation with Potter, she parted with her friends unable to slip back into that horrible state of worry. It made her feel better about discussing it with Draco. She wanted to now. He always had a way of easing her stress about these sorts of things. His hand resting on her knee through dinner had helped.

Draco took her hand as they headed down to the student lab. The first iteration of their Polyjuice Potion would be ripe to test soon. It wasn't quite yet there when they arrived.

"So what all did Potter say to you?" Draco asked as they watched the remaining flakes of bicorn horn float about the simmering cauldron. "When I told him to sod off he said something to me about your parents being with You-Know-Who against their will."

"He told me that too." Dagmar hadn't been in a well enough state at the end of Defence class to tell him that yet. She was relieved that Draco had all afternoon to think about it. "I'm trying hard not to let what I want to be true influence what seems real. It makes sense to me, though. I never understood what my parents were doing when they joined Voldemort."

"Wish I could say the same about my father."

"Ja. . ." Nerves fluttered back to life in Dagmar's stomach. "Potter kept asking me if I knew anything that would help them get my parents out. I don't, but I'm not even sure that if I did I should tell him or Dumbledore anything. I'm worried it might affect your parents somehow. Since we'll be married one day, they're pretty much my parents too even if we haven't really been all that close to them since summer."

"I couldn't blame you if that happened," Draco said. "I've always thought that my father made his own bed by joining him before I was even born. I just can't bring myself to carry that burden if I want any chance of not being a nervous wreck."

"What about your mum?"

Draco made a noise in his throat that was a lot less certain. He wouldn't look at Dagmar until she ran a hand over his forearm.

"I won't do anything that potentially puts her at risk," she reassured him. "I think for the sake of my own mental well-being I'm going to have to agree with you about not carrying my parents' burdens for them. Potter made it sound like things are already happening regardless of us. I'd rather stay out of it."

"He told me he didn't need either of us," Draco replied. "If he wasn't bluffing about your parents, then that's probably true. I'm not even sure if he wanted us for information. He told me he just didn't want to see us get caught up in anything."

"Then why drag us into it?" Dagmar posed. "We're doing our best to stay out of everything and so far that's working. How would feeding information to Potter or Dumbledore help us at all? We already denounced him. I literally attacked him. We're lucky after that he doesn't seem bothered with us. Maybe he is, but there's nothing he can do while we're at Hogwarts. If we still have a chance at this point to get away from it all, I'm not pushing my luck."

"Me neither. Potter needs to fight his own fight. He's got Dumbledore, so he'll do just fine."

"I had a feeling Potter might try something with Legilimency." Dagmar shook her head with a scoff. "I didn't think it would be that blatant. I blocked certain things that might be damning or taken out of context, but he still managed to get around them. I guess he was faking that he wasn't getting a grasp on it. He doesn't ever question why I wouldn't trust someone like that?"

"He said something to me about how he 'can't just walk up to us and start asking questions'," Draco imitated him in a snide tone. "I'd rather he did. Maybe I'd just tell him to sod off again, but at least then he's being transparent."

"On the plus side, he seems to be over the idea we might be Death Eaters." Dagmar rolled her eyes.

"Give him time. He might astound us yet and come back around to it."

Dagmar snorted, ending with her head on Draco's shoulder. "I won't be shocked. Oh well. Are you ready to give this a shot then? It looks ready."

She gestured at the cauldron. The flakes of horn had dissolved, leaving the rest of the potion a thin, murky brown mess.

Draco wrinkled his nose. "It certainly doesn't look appetizing."

"I'll remind you that you volunteered."

"Yeah. . ." Draco looked at her. "I'll hold to that, but I don't think this is going to be very pleasant. Do you have anything to chase it?"

"Nei, I didn't think about it." Dagmar kissed his cheek. "We'll bring some pumpkin juice with us from dinner tomorrow if this one doesn't work. We can alternate too."

"Okay." Draco ladled out some of the potion into a glass, nose still wrinkled.

"Would you prefer a hair or a fingernail?" Dagmar jested. "Or I can just spit directly into it."

"Gross." Draco laughed. "Give me a hair."

Dagmar tried to find a short one closer to her face. It laid on top of the potion before disappearing as it broke down. Nothing happened.

"Hm." Draco tried swirling it. "We expected something would change, right? I should be drinking basically an essence of you."

"Maybe you are." Dagmar nudged him. "Maybe I'm just rancid mud on the inside."

"Here goes nothing, I guess." Draco sighed. "You have antidote handy, just in case?"

"Yep."

Draco held his nose and lifted the glass to his lips. He pulled a face afterward, head bowed in concentration not to let it come back up. Dagmar had to press her lips together to avoid making a peep at his expression.

"That's awful," he said. A belch out of nowhere made Dagmar burst into laughter. "Bloody hell, excuse me."

"Should something have happened by now?" Dagmar asked. Her gaze softened as she studied Draco. "Your eyes changed colour."

"Oh really?" Draco headed over to a glass-doored cabinet to look at his reflection. "How about that? We created the most laborious and disgusting way to accomplish something we could've just done in Transfiguration class."

Dagmar laughed again. "Maybe we'll have better luck tomorrow. The plus side is, you're very handsome with blue eyes."