A/N1: Ok, want to say sorry for this chapter being so long, you should have seen what I cut for the next chapter! Anyway, thank you all for taking the time to read, please enjoy! And don't forget to review!-but of course, I know you wouldn't forget that!;)
Hopeful? What me?
Chapter Five: Sirius
Remus moved through the hallways on the way towards the room, which Dumbledore had given him while he was staying here. He still wasn't quite sure how Dumbledore had pulled it off, letting him stay here like this.
Perhaps Fudge had come to some of his senses and decided Remus wouldn't do any harm providing he was safely kept under the influence of Snape's potion, which would keep him from turning into his caneid form.
Or, perhaps, Dumbledore just hadn't informed Fudge of the school goings on.
But what happened next surprised Lupin to no end. He had just passed by the Staff room when the door sprung open, and Snape stepped out, almost into Lupin. He looked in a terrible rage.
"Severus, I am sorry, I didn't know you where there." Remus apologized, "What seems to be the matter?" He ventured, unsure as to whether or not it was the wisest thing to do. It didn't seem to be.
"Oh! Nothing!" Snape spat, "I often find myself in fits, keeps me healthy." He spoke through gritted teeth and Lupin could hear Snape grinding his jaws together now.
"Actually...I was just on my way to find you," This all seemed very difficult for Snape to say without screaming it, and even now their was a very clear amount of bitterness in his voice, "Headmaster Dumbledore wishes to speak with you, and you're in luck. He's in the staff room just now."
As Lupin entered the staff room he heard Snape rush away, and judging by the loud stomps, he was continuing his rage all down the hall.
The staff room was fairly small; a set of windows sat directly to your right as you entered and to your left sat large bureau dressers and potted plants. The rest of the room held chairs of green velvet and small foot stools, in the corner seemed to be a table that held plates and cups, and at the moment, the room also had Professor's Sprout, an exhausted looking McGonagall and Headmaster Dumbledore, who turned, standing quickly up to greet Remus as he entered.
"Ahh! Remus, good, good, I had just sent Severus out to find you." Dumbeldore said, reaching his arms out to pat the younger man's thin shoulders.
"Yes, I-he found me in the hall just outside. What can I do for you Professor?" Remus answered, his voice lowering slightly as if his words might suddenly become very secretive.
Dumbledore guided him slowly away from the rest of those in the room and back again towards the door through which Remus had only just entered.
"Not here, come with me to my office and we shall speak." Dumbledore's tone was not bad, it was low and serious, but nothing to be frightened of.
Of course Remus had never had any cause to be frightened of Dumbledore-though in his younger years he sometimes found reason to be frightened of the detentions the old man dealt, but those were few and far between, and as Remus had discovered as he aged, he and his friends had very much deserved some of what they'd got-and he found himself quite curious as to what the Headmaster wished to speak with him about.
And why...why could he not do it in front of the other Professors? Surely they, along with Remus, could be trusted?
Curiosity sometimes got the best of Remus J. Lupin, but now was not one of those times. No matter how very much he might have wanted or felt the need to ask Dumbledore what this was all about, he held his breath along with his tongue until he recognized how close to Dumbledore's office they were growing.
"Is anything wrong, Professor?"
"Wrong? My good boy, no. You shall see. Though I should no longer call you boy, you are, and have been for quite a long while now I dare say, a man. I must get used to seeing my students as adults when they leave." Dumbledore said, his voice slowing as footsteps increased, he seemed lost, if only for a moment in memories of younger times, "They are and I'm afraid will always be children to me though. My students."
Remus watched the old man's eyes change slightly, neither in colour nor in size, but as though in depth. He could see further just now if he looked into them, and it was a scene never before played out in front of him.
"Ahh, here we are." Dumbledore's eyes sparkled again with a familiar gleam, "The password is 'Peppermint Cluster', go on in and I shall return in a while." He was hiding something. Remus could tell from the look he had on, the same look that James and Sirius always had before voicing some plan for a great adventure.
"Professor, I had been meaning to ask you something," Remus ventured, now seeming as good a time as any.
"Oh? Yes, go on?"
"-About Sirius Black."
"I shall answer all questions of him when I return. Wait in my office, and perhaps you will learn some yourself. Go on now, shoo." Dumbledore said with a slight wave of his hands. He turned to leave a bewildered, but obedient, Remus Lupin in his wake.
Puzzlement filled his features as he stared after the retreating Headmaster, finally turning to face the gargoyle mounted on the wall before him.
He cleared his throat. "Ehm, um, Peppermint Cluster"
The huge gargoyle opened before him, sliding to the side, the sound of slow scraping stone against stone in his ears until finally it came to a stop and he was permitted entrance.
There was a hallway before the actually office, very short, but there none the less; paintings hung on the stone walls, which were a lighter shade then most of the other's in the school. A detailed oriental carpet lined the few feet of floor just before a huge oaken door sat, the only thing left blocking the way to Dumbledore's office.
Lupin pushed the door open, not pausing to knock for he knew that there would be no one in there now anyway-and oh, how wrong he was.
His hair was still black, Remus realized as the man turned to face him. And his face, still too thin. Much thinner then he had remembered it.
But he did look better then the last time Remus had seen him. He looked healthier, though worn still; he looked as though he had recently had a good meal and a bath and that both of these had done wonders for him mentally as well as physically.
He looked neither happy nor upset-frankly, and in all honesty, he looked bored.
"Sirius..." Remus' own voice spoke, as though it had a mind quite of it's own. He didn't remember forming the words, only the feel of them as they slid off his tongue.
Sirius eyes grew wider, and he dropped the bauble he'd been toying with. He looked as though he had not been expecting to see his old friend standing in the doorway. And as though reading Remus' thoughts, finally Sirius spoke.
"Remus? Remus! I was expecting Dumbledore!" Black leapt forward with all the speed of a rabbit and the grace of a dog. He tackled Remus, nearly knocking him to the ground.
This was certainly more like the friend Remus had had all through his school years here.
And Remus hugged Sirius back. Though not as strongly, not as bone crushingly. "I-You-...I didn't know you where here." Remus said quietly, awe evident in his voice as Sirius pulled slightly from the embrace of those who are too long separated.
He could feel himself pale.
"I didn't know YOU were here! They told me you might show up for this meeting today, but they didn't tell me you were already here!" Sirius scratched at the back of his head, a familiar lop-sided grin on his face, "Hey, Moony, I think they finally got back at us with a trick."
Remus smiled, moving slowly to sit down by Dumbledore's desk, "Yes, well, we've always known that Albus had a prankster-ish streak in him. Just look who he's descended from."
"Darn right!" Sirius agreed as he took his original seat again, following Remus' suit. He leaned forward looking at his friend, elbows on his knees; he tilted his head, a spark in his eyes as he studied his old comrade carefully.
Remus could almost feel a blush rising in his cheeks under his friend's stubborn stare. "What are you looking at? You look as if I'm a centaur. Have I really changed so much?"
Black remained silent for a while, but he continued to stare.
He and Remus had been good friends. Sirius and James had always been the closest of the four, but as time went on and their years at Hogwarts grew fewer, James began spending more and more time with Lily, and Sirius and Remus seemed stuck to play pranks with-and on-each other only.
Peter Pettigrew had never been wholeheartedly into the tricks they played. It was one of those things that seemed brilliant and perfectly normal for him to do at the time, and then, Remus always had the feeling that Peter would lie awake at night in his bed, wondering just what he'd done. Why? And who he was.
If Peter could only have found that out in some other way then.... But it was the past. Peter had betrayed them, though, in Remus' mind, that was not his friend. It was not their Peter, it was a shell, created from too many interruptions of stories by more talkative people, too long sitting in the last seat of the table, and too long being the one to walk behind all the others.
There were no excuses of course though, that Remus made for Peter. The plain truth, as Sirius would like you to believe it, was that Peter was always just a rat. Though Remus could tell, as he said this, from the look in his eyes, that even Sirius himself didn't quite believe it.
Peter had been just as much his friend as any of theirs, and Remus felt that perhaps the true fact behind Sirius' anger, even beyond Peter's framing him, was guilt; that he had been too blind to see his friend grow away from him. Too blind or ignorant to ever stop to listen for more then a second.
But, the point was that mid-way through their fifth year, Sirius and Remus began to play tricks on their own. And they grew to be closer friends through that time.
To the point where they would visit each other on summers, even if the other two of the Four were un able to make it.
And now, to see Sirius again, and looking so well after such a long and hard struggle, it made Remus' heart feel light, as it had not felt in years.
"Do I look so different?" He asked again.
"No...you look so the same." Sirius answered, and reached out his hand. "More lines though." He smiled, touching the wrinkles of stress on Remus' face, as if thinking the lines suited Remus quite nicely.
"Oh, yes? Well I haven't been sleeping. And if you remember clearly, I didn't point out your oldness the last time I saw you." Remus said joking.
Sirius dropped his hand, the noise it made a barely audible 'thwap' as it hit the loose fabric of his dark robe.
"I didn't say you looked old.... You always did put words in my mouth, Moony. Daft git." Sirius said affectionately.
"Must be spending too much time with you." Remus countered, and Sirius howled with laughter. They'd always shot insults back and forth to each other, but Remus' had never been much more then tiny words strung to hint at something not terribly nice. He'd never been good at insults.
Except for taking them.
/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\
Dumbledore made his way back to his office, taking his time in getting to it. He'd had no reason to leave Remus alone with Sirius except for the fact that he felt the two could use time to get to know each other once again, and though he did have business to discuss with both of them, the familiar sounds of their voices and laughter rising even through the now closed gargoyle, made Dumbledore rethink his moves.
And it was with a smile that he left the two alone for a bit longer. They had nearly 15 years of catching up to do.
'Perhaps,' Dumbledore mused contentedly, 'I shall go and see Poppy..'
/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\
"You realize they're all idiots. Every one of them, they don't even know what magic IS until they get their letters," Pansy said a bit later that afternoon during a break, in the Slytherin's common room, "I mean, people expect us to just welcome them? Ha! That's absurd." She drawled the last word slowly, and Draco shuddered at just how much she could sound like him sometimes.
He felt like telling her off, that she was just jealous of what Muggles had, though he didn't know what exactly there was that they had for her to be envious about, but it did seem that way.
She'd been going on about them for almost an hour now and her little speech was just as boring now as it had been when she'd started.
Occasionally she would slip into abusing Mudbloods, but inevitably she'd whined up back where she started. Again, and again.
At first Draco had listened, even agreed with her on a few things, tried at the least to be polite, after all she was a fellow Slytherin, but as she continued to drag on things began to change in him, the act went something like this: Agree, agree again, after 15 minutes of it, begin making mental bets-a game-as to how much longer she could go on.
He lost every one of those bets.
And after 30 minutes, he'd decided to simply nod, or do nothing at all. But now, now he was at the stage where he did nothing-absolutely nothing. Just sat, slumped into his chair, and waited for the blessed relief of her shutting up. Maybe, he thought, maybe she'd get laryngitis.
Draco's luck never *had* been very good.
And once again it had been proved null when he'd received a letter from his father that morning at breakfast.
He hadn't opened it yet, and that hung heavily in his heart.
Another pound of weight to press down on his shoulders. There had been no good reason for him not to open it, and in fact it would most likely have been the smarter thing to read it right away. If his father had bothered to send a letter directly-and not through his mother or a servant-then it must have been important.
Pansy Parkinson went on with her rant on Muggles, and Draco began to feel his will power cave in. He had to open the letter now, as much as half of him didn't want to know what his father had to say, the other half, the better trained half, would read it anyway.
"-old them I wouldn't do it! Ick! Being that close to a Muggle town was just not something I was into doing, what if they gave me some sort of disease? Can you all imagine what my face would look lik-" Pansy's words were blissfully cut off in Draco's mind at least, as he picked up the envelope, held deep within his robe's pockets, he stared again at the tidy handwriting, and his own family seal on the back.
It made a tiny cracking sound as he slid his thumb beneath it, to break the wax and open the letter.
He unfolded the paper, which made crinkling sounds and he checked to make sure no one was watching him. No one important anyway.
Draco could make himself very close to being invisible when he wanted; and now was one of those times. He was leaned so far back into his green, high backed chair, that he could hardly see Pansy's face anymore, even if he'd wanted to try and look.
But his eyes were concentrated on the parchment, which he finished unfolding with trembling hands.
Dear Draco,
This is your father. Though I am sure you are already quite
aware of that fact. I am coming to your school, today, the 1st of March. I will
find you, there is no need for you to mention this to anyone. I have something important to
discuss with you and it cannot be said over letter. I have...we have, a mission for you.
Be free this afternoon.
Lucius Malfoy
Draco's heart had this horrible habit of stopping at the wrong moments. Such as this one.
A mission? What sort of mission? And who exactly were 'we'? Draco really didn't need that question answered however, as he already was quite sure of whom the 'we' entailed.
This afternoon? Draco nearly spat, his father had no right to commandeer an entire afternoon just so Draco could do yet another thing for him. It wasn't fair. And in the most childish way that Draco had acted since he was 6, he felt like throwing a tantrum.
It just wasn't fair. And what...exactly, did this new mission of his, involve?
A/N: Ooh, what DOES the mission involve? Why did Dumbledore go to see Poppy...? What's up with Remus and Sirius, and what the heck did Dumbledore want to see them about anyway? Stayed tuned, questions will be answered;)
Thank you for reveiwing all and sorry this bit took me so long to post!
Hopeful? What me?
Chapter Five: Sirius
Remus moved through the hallways on the way towards the room, which Dumbledore had given him while he was staying here. He still wasn't quite sure how Dumbledore had pulled it off, letting him stay here like this.
Perhaps Fudge had come to some of his senses and decided Remus wouldn't do any harm providing he was safely kept under the influence of Snape's potion, which would keep him from turning into his caneid form.
Or, perhaps, Dumbledore just hadn't informed Fudge of the school goings on.
But what happened next surprised Lupin to no end. He had just passed by the Staff room when the door sprung open, and Snape stepped out, almost into Lupin. He looked in a terrible rage.
"Severus, I am sorry, I didn't know you where there." Remus apologized, "What seems to be the matter?" He ventured, unsure as to whether or not it was the wisest thing to do. It didn't seem to be.
"Oh! Nothing!" Snape spat, "I often find myself in fits, keeps me healthy." He spoke through gritted teeth and Lupin could hear Snape grinding his jaws together now.
"Actually...I was just on my way to find you," This all seemed very difficult for Snape to say without screaming it, and even now their was a very clear amount of bitterness in his voice, "Headmaster Dumbledore wishes to speak with you, and you're in luck. He's in the staff room just now."
As Lupin entered the staff room he heard Snape rush away, and judging by the loud stomps, he was continuing his rage all down the hall.
The staff room was fairly small; a set of windows sat directly to your right as you entered and to your left sat large bureau dressers and potted plants. The rest of the room held chairs of green velvet and small foot stools, in the corner seemed to be a table that held plates and cups, and at the moment, the room also had Professor's Sprout, an exhausted looking McGonagall and Headmaster Dumbledore, who turned, standing quickly up to greet Remus as he entered.
"Ahh! Remus, good, good, I had just sent Severus out to find you." Dumbeldore said, reaching his arms out to pat the younger man's thin shoulders.
"Yes, I-he found me in the hall just outside. What can I do for you Professor?" Remus answered, his voice lowering slightly as if his words might suddenly become very secretive.
Dumbledore guided him slowly away from the rest of those in the room and back again towards the door through which Remus had only just entered.
"Not here, come with me to my office and we shall speak." Dumbledore's tone was not bad, it was low and serious, but nothing to be frightened of.
Of course Remus had never had any cause to be frightened of Dumbledore-though in his younger years he sometimes found reason to be frightened of the detentions the old man dealt, but those were few and far between, and as Remus had discovered as he aged, he and his friends had very much deserved some of what they'd got-and he found himself quite curious as to what the Headmaster wished to speak with him about.
And why...why could he not do it in front of the other Professors? Surely they, along with Remus, could be trusted?
Curiosity sometimes got the best of Remus J. Lupin, but now was not one of those times. No matter how very much he might have wanted or felt the need to ask Dumbledore what this was all about, he held his breath along with his tongue until he recognized how close to Dumbledore's office they were growing.
"Is anything wrong, Professor?"
"Wrong? My good boy, no. You shall see. Though I should no longer call you boy, you are, and have been for quite a long while now I dare say, a man. I must get used to seeing my students as adults when they leave." Dumbledore said, his voice slowing as footsteps increased, he seemed lost, if only for a moment in memories of younger times, "They are and I'm afraid will always be children to me though. My students."
Remus watched the old man's eyes change slightly, neither in colour nor in size, but as though in depth. He could see further just now if he looked into them, and it was a scene never before played out in front of him.
"Ahh, here we are." Dumbledore's eyes sparkled again with a familiar gleam, "The password is 'Peppermint Cluster', go on in and I shall return in a while." He was hiding something. Remus could tell from the look he had on, the same look that James and Sirius always had before voicing some plan for a great adventure.
"Professor, I had been meaning to ask you something," Remus ventured, now seeming as good a time as any.
"Oh? Yes, go on?"
"-About Sirius Black."
"I shall answer all questions of him when I return. Wait in my office, and perhaps you will learn some yourself. Go on now, shoo." Dumbledore said with a slight wave of his hands. He turned to leave a bewildered, but obedient, Remus Lupin in his wake.
Puzzlement filled his features as he stared after the retreating Headmaster, finally turning to face the gargoyle mounted on the wall before him.
He cleared his throat. "Ehm, um, Peppermint Cluster"
The huge gargoyle opened before him, sliding to the side, the sound of slow scraping stone against stone in his ears until finally it came to a stop and he was permitted entrance.
There was a hallway before the actually office, very short, but there none the less; paintings hung on the stone walls, which were a lighter shade then most of the other's in the school. A detailed oriental carpet lined the few feet of floor just before a huge oaken door sat, the only thing left blocking the way to Dumbledore's office.
Lupin pushed the door open, not pausing to knock for he knew that there would be no one in there now anyway-and oh, how wrong he was.
His hair was still black, Remus realized as the man turned to face him. And his face, still too thin. Much thinner then he had remembered it.
But he did look better then the last time Remus had seen him. He looked healthier, though worn still; he looked as though he had recently had a good meal and a bath and that both of these had done wonders for him mentally as well as physically.
He looked neither happy nor upset-frankly, and in all honesty, he looked bored.
"Sirius..." Remus' own voice spoke, as though it had a mind quite of it's own. He didn't remember forming the words, only the feel of them as they slid off his tongue.
Sirius eyes grew wider, and he dropped the bauble he'd been toying with. He looked as though he had not been expecting to see his old friend standing in the doorway. And as though reading Remus' thoughts, finally Sirius spoke.
"Remus? Remus! I was expecting Dumbledore!" Black leapt forward with all the speed of a rabbit and the grace of a dog. He tackled Remus, nearly knocking him to the ground.
This was certainly more like the friend Remus had had all through his school years here.
And Remus hugged Sirius back. Though not as strongly, not as bone crushingly. "I-You-...I didn't know you where here." Remus said quietly, awe evident in his voice as Sirius pulled slightly from the embrace of those who are too long separated.
He could feel himself pale.
"I didn't know YOU were here! They told me you might show up for this meeting today, but they didn't tell me you were already here!" Sirius scratched at the back of his head, a familiar lop-sided grin on his face, "Hey, Moony, I think they finally got back at us with a trick."
Remus smiled, moving slowly to sit down by Dumbledore's desk, "Yes, well, we've always known that Albus had a prankster-ish streak in him. Just look who he's descended from."
"Darn right!" Sirius agreed as he took his original seat again, following Remus' suit. He leaned forward looking at his friend, elbows on his knees; he tilted his head, a spark in his eyes as he studied his old comrade carefully.
Remus could almost feel a blush rising in his cheeks under his friend's stubborn stare. "What are you looking at? You look as if I'm a centaur. Have I really changed so much?"
Black remained silent for a while, but he continued to stare.
He and Remus had been good friends. Sirius and James had always been the closest of the four, but as time went on and their years at Hogwarts grew fewer, James began spending more and more time with Lily, and Sirius and Remus seemed stuck to play pranks with-and on-each other only.
Peter Pettigrew had never been wholeheartedly into the tricks they played. It was one of those things that seemed brilliant and perfectly normal for him to do at the time, and then, Remus always had the feeling that Peter would lie awake at night in his bed, wondering just what he'd done. Why? And who he was.
If Peter could only have found that out in some other way then.... But it was the past. Peter had betrayed them, though, in Remus' mind, that was not his friend. It was not their Peter, it was a shell, created from too many interruptions of stories by more talkative people, too long sitting in the last seat of the table, and too long being the one to walk behind all the others.
There were no excuses of course though, that Remus made for Peter. The plain truth, as Sirius would like you to believe it, was that Peter was always just a rat. Though Remus could tell, as he said this, from the look in his eyes, that even Sirius himself didn't quite believe it.
Peter had been just as much his friend as any of theirs, and Remus felt that perhaps the true fact behind Sirius' anger, even beyond Peter's framing him, was guilt; that he had been too blind to see his friend grow away from him. Too blind or ignorant to ever stop to listen for more then a second.
But, the point was that mid-way through their fifth year, Sirius and Remus began to play tricks on their own. And they grew to be closer friends through that time.
To the point where they would visit each other on summers, even if the other two of the Four were un able to make it.
And now, to see Sirius again, and looking so well after such a long and hard struggle, it made Remus' heart feel light, as it had not felt in years.
"Do I look so different?" He asked again.
"No...you look so the same." Sirius answered, and reached out his hand. "More lines though." He smiled, touching the wrinkles of stress on Remus' face, as if thinking the lines suited Remus quite nicely.
"Oh, yes? Well I haven't been sleeping. And if you remember clearly, I didn't point out your oldness the last time I saw you." Remus said joking.
Sirius dropped his hand, the noise it made a barely audible 'thwap' as it hit the loose fabric of his dark robe.
"I didn't say you looked old.... You always did put words in my mouth, Moony. Daft git." Sirius said affectionately.
"Must be spending too much time with you." Remus countered, and Sirius howled with laughter. They'd always shot insults back and forth to each other, but Remus' had never been much more then tiny words strung to hint at something not terribly nice. He'd never been good at insults.
Except for taking them.
/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\
Dumbledore made his way back to his office, taking his time in getting to it. He'd had no reason to leave Remus alone with Sirius except for the fact that he felt the two could use time to get to know each other once again, and though he did have business to discuss with both of them, the familiar sounds of their voices and laughter rising even through the now closed gargoyle, made Dumbledore rethink his moves.
And it was with a smile that he left the two alone for a bit longer. They had nearly 15 years of catching up to do.
'Perhaps,' Dumbledore mused contentedly, 'I shall go and see Poppy..'
/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\
"You realize they're all idiots. Every one of them, they don't even know what magic IS until they get their letters," Pansy said a bit later that afternoon during a break, in the Slytherin's common room, "I mean, people expect us to just welcome them? Ha! That's absurd." She drawled the last word slowly, and Draco shuddered at just how much she could sound like him sometimes.
He felt like telling her off, that she was just jealous of what Muggles had, though he didn't know what exactly there was that they had for her to be envious about, but it did seem that way.
She'd been going on about them for almost an hour now and her little speech was just as boring now as it had been when she'd started.
Occasionally she would slip into abusing Mudbloods, but inevitably she'd whined up back where she started. Again, and again.
At first Draco had listened, even agreed with her on a few things, tried at the least to be polite, after all she was a fellow Slytherin, but as she continued to drag on things began to change in him, the act went something like this: Agree, agree again, after 15 minutes of it, begin making mental bets-a game-as to how much longer she could go on.
He lost every one of those bets.
And after 30 minutes, he'd decided to simply nod, or do nothing at all. But now, now he was at the stage where he did nothing-absolutely nothing. Just sat, slumped into his chair, and waited for the blessed relief of her shutting up. Maybe, he thought, maybe she'd get laryngitis.
Draco's luck never *had* been very good.
And once again it had been proved null when he'd received a letter from his father that morning at breakfast.
He hadn't opened it yet, and that hung heavily in his heart.
Another pound of weight to press down on his shoulders. There had been no good reason for him not to open it, and in fact it would most likely have been the smarter thing to read it right away. If his father had bothered to send a letter directly-and not through his mother or a servant-then it must have been important.
Pansy Parkinson went on with her rant on Muggles, and Draco began to feel his will power cave in. He had to open the letter now, as much as half of him didn't want to know what his father had to say, the other half, the better trained half, would read it anyway.
"-old them I wouldn't do it! Ick! Being that close to a Muggle town was just not something I was into doing, what if they gave me some sort of disease? Can you all imagine what my face would look lik-" Pansy's words were blissfully cut off in Draco's mind at least, as he picked up the envelope, held deep within his robe's pockets, he stared again at the tidy handwriting, and his own family seal on the back.
It made a tiny cracking sound as he slid his thumb beneath it, to break the wax and open the letter.
He unfolded the paper, which made crinkling sounds and he checked to make sure no one was watching him. No one important anyway.
Draco could make himself very close to being invisible when he wanted; and now was one of those times. He was leaned so far back into his green, high backed chair, that he could hardly see Pansy's face anymore, even if he'd wanted to try and look.
But his eyes were concentrated on the parchment, which he finished unfolding with trembling hands.
Dear Draco,
This is your father. Though I am sure you are already quite
aware of that fact. I am coming to your school, today, the 1st of March. I will
find you, there is no need for you to mention this to anyone. I have something important to
discuss with you and it cannot be said over letter. I have...we have, a mission for you.
Be free this afternoon.
Lucius Malfoy
Draco's heart had this horrible habit of stopping at the wrong moments. Such as this one.
A mission? What sort of mission? And who exactly were 'we'? Draco really didn't need that question answered however, as he already was quite sure of whom the 'we' entailed.
This afternoon? Draco nearly spat, his father had no right to commandeer an entire afternoon just so Draco could do yet another thing for him. It wasn't fair. And in the most childish way that Draco had acted since he was 6, he felt like throwing a tantrum.
It just wasn't fair. And what...exactly, did this new mission of his, involve?
A/N: Ooh, what DOES the mission involve? Why did Dumbledore go to see Poppy...? What's up with Remus and Sirius, and what the heck did Dumbledore want to see them about anyway? Stayed tuned, questions will be answered;)
Thank you for reveiwing all and sorry this bit took me so long to post!