Disclaimer: This story is written for the purposes of my own amusement and, hopefully, that of my readers, and no profit of any kind is being generated by it or by either of its prequels. All characters and history belong to J.K. Rowling and to whomsoever she has licensed her creations at the present time. I own the plot and the odd original character, nothing else.
Sorcerors' Endgame A Harry Potter Fanfiction by Penpusher Sequel to "By the Pricking of My Thumbs"Chapter Fifteen: Aftershocks
Her eyelids felt heavy, her body pleasantly lethargic. Judging by the air temperature, the sun was already high in the sky.
Not bothering to open her useless eyes, Syrinx stretched her legs, smiling as the body wrapped closely around her mumbled a sleepy protest before relaxing back into slumber. So Fred was a snuggler – who would have thought it? Well, if she were honest with herself … Her mouth widened from a smile into a grin; this was the right timeline, make no mistake, down to the last detail. Letting out a small sigh, she offered a silent prayer of thanks to whatever higher powers had come to her assistance; none of the others would ever realise just how close it had been.
Still asleep, Fred muttered something incomprehensible in a foreign language. Syrinx raised her eyebrows. So Fred could speak Bahasa Indonesia, eh? That should come in very handy when … Quickly, she cut off that train of thought; the time for Divination was over. If she wanted a normal life, with all its surprises and uncertainties, she would have to learn to control her gift. Sleepily, she mused on the possibilities.
A soft, feminine sigh followed by the gentle movement of a light body jerked the girl once again into wakefulness. Using her ability, Syrinx scanned her immediate surroundings for anything untoward. The room was familiar and pleasant enough, if a little Spartan: bare floorboards, sanded and waxed, covered with several colourful rag rugs; a large chest of drawers, sturdily-made with little in the way of finesse; and a huge wooden bed, obviously of the same manufacture. The light linens covering the high mattress were worn and thin, flowing like silk over their limbs.
The Seeress' prescient sight travelled to the foot of the bed to settle on two figures lying entwined in each other's arms. Harry and Ginny had said little on the return journey from the Oldest Place, but their exhaustion had been palpable. Syrinx smiled gently to herself. They had changed, those two; something fundamental had altered between them. She hoped their Joining was as complete as her insight predicted it would be. The smile faded a little as her thoughts flitted to the other four of their number.
They had finally reached the little house in Denpasar at dawn. Harry had told them, without explanation, that the Old Magic would allow them to Apparate out of the Holy Place with no consequence, but their combined strength had barely been sufficient to get home without splinching themselves. Once there, badly needed rest was not an immediate option since Lucius and Katia had both independently trashed the small house into matchwood.
Guru was so exhausted he was ready to lie down on the bare ground. Seeing this, Sirius had promptly taken charge, raising the flimsy walls of the house and restoring them to some semblance of their former condition, leaving Syrinx to marshal the others into repairing the interior. As soon as the house was viable, Sirius gently levitated Guru into his bedroom, leaving him to sleep himself out. Syrinx and Fred then wearily climbed the stairs to the other room, followed by Harry and Ginny who assumed, quite rightly, that their presence would not be unwelcome. Syrinx giggled quietly to herself: her father would never have allowed Fred to remain in his daughter's bed overnight, despite the young man's tiredness, without witnesses to their good behaviour.
The other occupant of Guru's bedroom was Mouse. In the course of the evening's gymnastics, the muggle had not only been Stunned by Lucius Malfoy, but had also taken a gash to the head from where he fell. Ginny propped her eyes open long enough to examine the wound and administer an analgesic charm. She told him to watch for signs of concussion over the next twenty-four hours and ordered him to get some shut-eye.
More or less physically unhurt, Sirius had brought Katia back to Denpasar for burial. He placed her lifeless body reverently on the wooden trestle table in the living room, remaining with her in a silent vigil of farewell. Her beautiful face was peaceful and at rest as she had never been in life, all lines of anger and pain smoothed away. She looked very young, Syrinx thought privately, as though freedom from the stain of evil allowed the real girl to emerge once again in death. The Seeress' silver eyes grew worried; the one with the mark of the hound upon him had suffered a terrible loss. His life so far had scarcely been easy, and this last bereavement had cut him to the quick.
Her thoughts meandered once more then settled on the last of her companions. The one touched by the dark - Draco. He had uttered not one word since returning to Denpasar. He refused to set foot in the house, but instead slept most uncomfortably on a stone bench in the garden with only his tattered cloak for protection. Syrinx closed her eyes in concentration, examining the probabilities surrounding him. She shook her head sighing inaudibly: the outcome was unlikely to be a happy one. What could be done to solve the dichotomy that was Draco Malfoy? What place did he have in the world now that his father was gone?
As the Seeress pondered, Ginny sighed again and turned over, her eyes flickering open. Quickly the other girl feigned sleep, not entirely sure why she did so. Ginny lay a few moments gathering her wits then slid carefully away from Harry, swinging her legs over the edge of the bed. She bent to pick up her discarded clothes, slipped them on quietly and left the room; Syrinx heard her descend the stairs. A warning began to chime in her subconscious. Sliding out from under the bedclothes, careful not to disturb the man next to her, she padded silently over to the other end of the bed.
"Harry." she whispered, shaking his shoulder gently. "Harry, wake up. I think a difficult situation may be developing here."
"Hmmm?" Harry, his body missing the warmth of Ginny next to him, had begun to rouse. He yawned and opened his eyes.
"Shhh!" Syrinx lowered her voice to a whisper. Harry blinked at her.
"What did you say?"
"I said there might be some problems downstairs."
"What sort of problems?" Syrinx aimed her sightless orbs at him.
"Harry, don't jump to conclusions, but Ginny's gone out into the garden. I can See her now – she's gone to talk to the other man, the blonde one, Draco."
"Malfoy?" Harry exclaimed, now wide awake and scrambling for his trousers. "What on earth would she want him for?" Harry leaped out of bed, hastily throwing on a shirt. Syrinx gave him an exasperated look.
"I was under the impression that you were the person most likely to know that!" She hissed. Harry blinked, then gave her a shamefaced half-smiled. He paused briefly in a listening pose then shook his head.
"Can't tell." he said. "She doesn't seem agitated though." Syrinx frowned; Harry finished fastening his trousers.
"I'll just go and keep an eye on things." he said quietly, his hand on the doorknob. On the landing, he almost collided with Sirius.
"What are you doing up so early?" he demanded in a fierce whisper. Sirius shrugged.
"Actually, it's around nine –not early at all." he responded mildly. "I was vaguely dozing downstairs when someone came into the kitchen. I saw it was Ginny. I was just about to suggest a cup of tea when I realised she was taking some trouble not to let anyone know she was leaving the house, so I thought I'd keep an eye out from an upstairs window. Is she in some kind of trouble?" Harry shook his head.
"Oddly enough, I don't think so." he replied. "Ginny's in the garden with Malfoy." Sirius' eyebrows almost touched his hairline.
"With Malfoy! Gods, we'd better get out there fast!" To Sirius' surprise, Harry did not seem overly disturbed.
"She's in no danger." he said diffidently. "Her thoughts are calm; very rational, actually."
"How can you tell?" Harry simply shrugged.
"We are – much closer since the Joining." Sirius snorted.
"Well, frankly, that's not exactly a surprise. What has happened to you then?" Harry considered.
"I'm – not alone any more." he replied, musingly. "It's difficult to describe, but I know Ginny as well as I know myself. Nothing about her is surprising any more, nothing shocking. She's talking to Malfoy because she feels – sorry for him." Sirius gave Harry one disgusted glance then shrugged, contenting himself with spying on Draco and Ginny from the kitchen window. Harry, totally unruffled, set about making tea.
A short while later when Harry offered him a steaming mug, Sirius seemed a little calmer. He was keeping a very sharp eye on events in the garden, but so far he had seen nothing to give him cause for alarm. Harry smiled, sipping his own drink.
"Chill out, Sirius." he told him. "If Ginny's in any trouble at all, I'll be the first to know – believe me!" Sirius turned to look at his godson.
"So – it was a successful Joining, huh? Whatever that means." Harry nodded.
"Yes." he replied. "The Fat Lady described it as complete before she returned us to our own plane."
"The Fat Lady?" Harry laughed at Sirius' nonplussed expression.
"The Old Magic dipped into our memories, Sirius. It used the Fat Lady to speak to us. We went back to Hogwarts – well, kind of." He clicked his tongue impatiently.
"I'm sorry, I'm telling this the wrong way round."
He smiled and took another sip of tea to order his thoughts before launching into a detailed account of his and Ginny's experiences in the Oldest Place. When Harry had finished his tale, Sirius was silent for a moment, gazing unseeingly out of the window. He cleared his throat in an awkward, embarrassed fashion. Harry glanced at him in surprise. Sirius looked away, unwilling to meet his eyes.
"I don't suppose – " he began, then shook his head, "I mean, did you manage – oh, Merlin. I'm lousy at this! Did you find anything out about – Dumbledore at all?" Harry smiled.
"Yes, I did." he replied quietly. "Sirius, you really didn't think I could just forget what you told me, did you? That so-called betrayal was the stickiest point for me, the last and final thing I couldn't let go. Of course I wanted to know the answer – I wanted it very much!" Sirius shrugged.
"To be honest, I wasn't sure if you believed me." he replied. "Hell, for a long while, I wondered if I believed it myself."
Harry nodded understandingly. Sirius fixed him with a gaze that was almost hungry in its intensity.
"Harry, I need to know this, whatever the outcome." he said slowly. "This thing changed the direction of my life. It almost destroyed what little trust I had left in the forces of light. Please, Harry." His godson's smile widened understandingly.
"There are several different kinds of magic in this world, Sirius." he began, taking a thoughtful sip of tea. "There is the magic of the elements – of earth, fire, sea and sky. There is the Old Magic – or the High Magic, depending on what you choose to call it and where in the world you are. There is the Dark Side which fuels ambition and evil. And there is the magic of people, of friendship and of love. These are not the only sources, but they are the major ones. All magic is constant, unchanging, never ending, never beginning."
Harry paused and glanced into the garden to where Ginny and Draco were sitting on the stone bench, apparently in not uncompanionable silence.
"I had always assumed that when a wizard dies, his magic dies with him," he continued, "however, that doesn't appear to be the case. Magic is not of us but of the world; we merely channel it, utilise it, divert it. All magic goes back into the world, Sirius. When wizards die, our essence is absorbed so that our power is not lost but reborn in other wizards."
Sirius frowned, unconsciously rubbing the knuckle of his index finger over his upper lip.
"Magic is never lost from the world?" he replied questioningly. "So when, for example, Nicholas Flamel died, his magic was not lost, it merely went into cold storage?"
"That's right." Harry took another gulp of tea.
"But what about Voldemort?" Harry nodded slowly.
"And there you have it, Sirius." he sighed, running a hand through his tangled hair. "The nub of the problem." Harry turned away to stare out of the window.
"Voldemort, always Voldemort." Sirius heard him mutter, then he began to speak clearly, his eyes still fixed on the horizon.
"Voldemort truly died, Sirius," he began again, "but he refused to accept his own death, or to relinquish his powers peacefully. He was the most formidable wizard this world has ever known, but his talents were twisted, evil. He suborned and perverted many less powerful wizards and branded them with his Dark Mark. Such a Mark opens up a conduit between two wizards through which power can travel in both directions. Voldemort only survived my infant deflection of his Avada curse by drawing heavily on these connections with his Death Eaters. Those wizards kept him alive – unwillingly and helplessly, but still they nourished him until he could find a better way. Then he broke every law known to magic: he performed a forbidden ritual to bring himself back to life – a kind of half-life, a twisted, painful form of survival whose very existence was an offence against the laws of our world. From then on, he was no longer human. He had already died. He could not die again; he could only be annihilated, obliterated, wiped out.
"However, somehow Dumbledore deduced that to destroy Voldemort would result in the elimination of a large quantity of the world's magic. Once lost, it could not be reborn, and the magical world could not survive such a mortal blow to its resources. So instead of destroying Voldemort, Dumbledore did the next best thing and banished him from this world onto another plane – a place from whence he could neither harm us nor gain access to this world. Of course, Voldemort tried to do both of these things, but Dumbledore had prepared for such an eventuality."
Harry sighed deeply and raised his eyes to his friend.
"He appointed us – all of us, including you, Sirius – as watchmen, as gatekeepers for this reality. That was the real reason I was born – to oppose Voldemort, to know my enemy so well that when the time came, I could protect my world from his depredations." Sirius was silent for a moment.
"So, as the former Death Eaters die, their magic accrues back to Voldemort?" Harry shook his head.
"Apparently not." he replied. "That link is severed by their death. Their magic will stay on this plane – safe." Sirius nodded.
"So I guess we know why You Know Who was so desperate to make his way back last year."
"Indeed: the longer he leaves it, the weaker he will be. Not to mention that the two planes will drift further and further apart as the years pass." Harry took a gulp of his tea and glanced out into the garden once again.
"So for once, Snape was accurate in his surmise." he remarked quietly, almost to himself. "Only death will free those such as he, but by keeping the Dark One at bay, we can at least preserve their legacy for a more deserving generation."
His eyes strayed to the window once more, watching the slender red-haired girl who was his whole world stand with one of his bitterest enemies, knowing that by his own actions she was safe – at least for now.
~oo0oo~
Weary, haunted, alternately dozing and brooding through most of the night, Draco had reached the limits of his endurance. He almost missed the light footsteps on the path so deep was he in the mire of depression and self-reproach. Glancing up, he sighed in defeat. Anyone but her, anyone! Her very presence strained his self-control to its limits – surely she could see that?
Draco stared at the ground for a moment, marshalling his remaining strength, then looked up.
"I was under the impression that, after our last little encounter, we were no longer speaking to each other." he drawled coldly. "You've got nerve, I'll grant you that. Most women in your situation would already be miles away – and still running." Ginny shrugged without smiling.
"It's however you want it to be, Draco." she replied with no particular inflection. He whipped his head around suddenly, eyes sparking.
"Draco is it now?" he spat. "I would have thought that the circumstances of our acquaintance were such as to eternally preclude us from being on first-name terms." Ginny sighed, shaking her head.
"I bear you no grudges: we've been through too much for that. And there are no debts between us any more – I thought I made that very clear when I helped you break out from Malfoy Manor." Draco stared at her with hungry, burning eyes.
"All debts are paid, are they?" he spat. "Well, that may be the case for you, but from where I'm standing there's the little matter of a blood feud. In the general rejoicing at our unexpected survival and also the success of your quest, it seems to have escaped the general notice that you and Potter killed my father. I'm sorry, Weasley, but I can't just let that slide. There's no way this wretched enchantment will let me harm you, but fortunately I am not under the same kind of restriction when it comes to him." Ginny stared.
"You can't be serious." she whispered.
"Why not?" Draco's voice was high with tension. "Whatever he was at the end, the man sired me. He also died violently. If I ignore those facts, if I conveniently fail to uphold the honour of my family yet again, how can I ever hold my head up in public? How can I claim to be a Malfoy if I allow my father's killer to escape without demanding satisfaction?" Without thinking, Ginny grabbed his arm.
"Draco, you can't do this; he'll destroy you!"
"Watch me!"
A spasm of total fury flashed across the blonde man's face. Throwing her hand from his arm as though it were something distasteful, Draco flung himself from the stone bench, striding purposefully back towards the house. He had taken a mere three paces when he stopped dead, rocking back on his heels in reaction; Harry stood before him on the pathway, still carrying his mug.
"Morning, Draco." he said mildly. "Do you want a cup of tea? There's some left in the pot."
Draco looked from Harry to Ginny then back again. His lips twisted into a grim smile.
"So that's how it works." he said softly, nodding to himself. "This so-called 'Joining'. You can hear each other's thoughts – is that it?" Harry nodded.
"Part of it at any rate." he replied. Draco drew himself upright; his eyes glittered.
"Well then, Potter, you'll have heard the relevant bits so I won't bother repeating myself. Draw your wand!" The thin length of wood was already in his hand. Harry stared at it for a long moment then shook his head.
"Don't be stupid, Malfoy." he replied without malice. "It's over, don't you understand?"
"No, Potter." Draco was shaking his head violently. "It'll never be over between us, not while we both live. Best to get this resolved now, don't you think? You know you're obliged to give me satisfaction under Wizard Law. So draw your wand!"
Harry glanced at Ginny, then at Sirius who had followed him into the garden. The older man's eyes were grave.
"Harry," he said quietly, "I'm afraid he's right. You and Ginny were responsible for his father's fate; you owe him a blood debt."
"But – but we don't even know what happened to Lucius and the others!" Ginny's eyes were wide. Sirius shrugged.
"I think the Old Magic made it pretty clear that anyone holding a weapon wasn't going to survive the encounter, don't you?" he replied. "Lucius and McNair both had their wands drawn. I guess we can draw our own conclusions as to their fate."
Harry lowered his eyes. He took a deep breath. Slowly, unwillingly, he released his wand from his sleeve sheath and weighed it lightly in his right hand, his face deeply troubled. His opponent's eyes blazed with rage, then Draco did something so unexpected that Harry had to look twice. For the second time in a matter of hours, he deliberately flung his wand to the ground. Despite the use of excessive force, it did not break but merely skittered across the rough-hewn paving slabs, disappearing under a flowering mass of Bougainvillea. He stood defenceless.
"Alright then, Potter." he said, his voice tense with emotion. "You have first strike – that's the law." Harry stared wide-eyed, but did not move.
"Go on, Potter!" Draco insisted. "I challenged you – you must respond! Come on, strike me down!"
A multitude of thoughts and feelings suddenly coursed through the mind of Harry Potter in that frozen instant.
Draco was the last of the Malfoy family left extant – Lucius' living legacy. It would be so easy just to consign him to hell along with the rest of them. No one would ever blame Harry. And after all, what right-minded wizard would want to share a planet with the heir to the House of Malfoy, now that Lucius' real agenda had become common knowledge? Malfoy had challenged Harry; he had witnesses. The man was a dangerous criminal; everyone knew that. Harry was honour-bound to fight the duel; he had no choice. And Malfoy would die.
And he, Harry, would be free of the one person he hated almost as much as he hated Voldemort.
Abruptly, Ginny's thoughts and emotions intermingled with his own. She believed utterly that Harry could never willingly kill an unarmed man; better that he should act dishonourably than commit a hasty deed for the sake of short-term safety. And alongside these thoughts ran a thread of personal concern for Draco himself. Her feelings were entirely disinterested, but she knew how badly Draco was hurting inside: she could see his emotional turmoil over the failed enchantment, his uncertainty over his family, his drive to know the truth. The Dark Arts training had been thorough, it was true, but there was a place in Draco that had remained untouched, unspoiled. It was less that there was good in him, rather that there existed a part of him that was not yet entirely evil.
I'm damned if I do and damned if I don't. Harry's mind spiralled round and round, coming to rest on a hilltop in China many years ago.
Oh, Jacob! I've lived for long years with your blood on my hands, knowing that you would have destroyed the world if I hadn't stopped you.
He bit his lip hard then looked up suddenly, straight at Draco, skewering him with a long, intense stare.
Physically, there had never been all that much of him to start with, but over the past few months Draco had become almost emaciated. His cheeks were hollowed, throwing his naturally prominent features into sharp relief, and his collarbones jutted almost painfully beneath the collar of his black shirt. His normally pale, translucent skin was marred by dark shadows under the eyes, which themselves blazed with a false, feverish fire. For the first time, Harry realised that Draco was only in his mid-twenties; a young man, scarcely more than a boy, no older than Harry himself.
"What are you waiting for, Potter?" Draco shouted, teeth clenched to stop them chattering. "Go on – do it! Please, just – get it over with! Do it!" Harry could not move.
"What is there left for me, eh?" Draco was almost beside himself with anger. "What was the point of my miserable life? I am a lousy dark wizard – I always was. But what else do I have? All my family are dead, I am the last of the Malfoys. I can't even mourn my family properly; I don't even know who or what they were, how or why they died. There is no one left alive who can tell me who I am. Great Merlin, what a bitter heritage! To die without ever knowing the truth."
"Many of us share the same fate. What truth do you seek?" Sirius stepped up to Harry's shoulder, his voice calm. Draco turned on him a face of sheer despair.
"What do you care, Dog-man!" Sirius turned down the corners of his mouth slightly.
"Not much," he admitted, "but, after all, what would it cost you to tell us? You've pretty much decided on death. What have you got to lose by giving us your reasons?" Draco paused, irresolute, then his shoulders sagged with fatigue.
"Alright." he said. "All right! As you were so courteous as to remind me, I don't exactly have a glowing future ahead of me." The frail blonde wizard took a deep, shaking breath.
"My sister." he finally forced out, staring at the ground. "My sister and my mother. All I know about their deaths is what my father told me. I believed him – all my life I trusted that bastard's word. Until I discovered that my whole childhood was a pack of lies." Draco sighed.
"And now he's dead, so is his lawyer, so is MacNair." he continued listlessly. "Even under Veritaserum, Pettigrew knew nothing – I practically killed him finding that out. There is now no one left alive who knows the truth. No one."
"I do." Draco slowly raised his head to stare disbelievingly at Sirius. The older man stood relaxed but unmoving holding a steady gaze. Draco's lip curled.
"You're lying!" he hissed. "All you want is to get Potter off the hook! You have no real information – how in Merlin's name would you know anything about my family?"
"You're quite right." Sirius was impassive. "The only reason I'd lower myself to give you any assistance whatsoever would be to help my godson. So I'm lying. Fine, good; you've lost nothing. In fact, you're really no worse off now, are you? Harry can kill you and we'll all go home. But what if I do know? What if I'm not lying, and I can tell you the truth about your mother – yes, and Aurora too; what then?"
Draco hissed at him. He bared his teeth in an agony of indecision. Sirius did not move.
"Free Harry from the blood debt." he urged. "Free him – and I will tell you everything in my power to tell. My word on it."
Draco writhed in uncertainty then suddenly he staggered heavily as his legs gave out. He flailed wildly for support, finding nothing within reach, until a strong arm wrapped itself around his upper chest, supporting his weight.
"Sit down, lad." said Sirius gruffly. "Sit down before you fall." Draco allowed himself to be helped onto the stone bench once again where he leaned back against the trunk of a tree, breathing heavily, feeling sick.
"Tell me!" he managed. Sirius put a hand on his forehead, finding it unpleasantly hot and slick.
"Do you release Harry?" His face was implacable. Draco nodded feverishly.
"Yes, yes – anything!" Sirius nodded.
"Heard and witnessed." he said gravely. "Now, Ginny, would you kindly administer some kind of first aid to this ailing creature? I'm also of the opinion that a square meal would probably alleviate most of his ills, so I think I'll just go and see about fixing one."
Obediently, Ginny stepped forward to assist the stricken Draco. She went about her tasks competently enough, but silent tears leaked down her face as she wielded her wand and muttered the correct incantations. Despite the unforgiving hardness of the bench, Draco's eyelids fluttered then closed during her ministrations, and his breathing deepened into the natural rhythm of sleep. Ginny turned to Harry to ask for assistance in transferring the young man to the house, but before she could speak he gathered her abruptly into his arms, smoothing her hair away from her face with exaggerated care, as if she were a rare magical artefact. Wonderingly, she lifted a hand to his cheek.
"Harry!" she whispered. "Harry, you're crying!" He nodded, not bothering to hide his tears.
"I know, my love, I know!" he told her, meaning much, much more.
~oo0oo~
Draco's illness was more serious than was at first imagined. His fever did not break for two days, despite Ginny's almost constant attendance on him. When she slept, Syrinx took her place, bathing the young man's fiery skin as she watched over him, constantly examining and re-examining his possible futures. Ginny was more relieved than anyone when he regained consciousness, but his strength had been overspent and it was another three days before he could leave his bed.
Meanwhile, the others also recovered slowly from their ordeal. The very deep love and respect in which they held each other did not alleviate the overcrowded situation within Guru's tiny house. As soon as circumstances permitted, Harry and Ginny removed back to their hotel accompanied by Mouse, although the three of them spent most daylight hours in Denpasar. Both Fred and Sirius elected to remain under Guru's roof, each for his own personal reasons.
Sirius spent much of the long daylight hours exploring the island of Bali, on foot and on broomstick, and occasionally in dog-form. He had been greatly impressed with the beauty of the wildlife in the area while trekking through the forest to the Oldest Place, and he spent much time walking alone or talking to the local people. One morning, as he was about to set out, he came upon Draco wandering listlessly in the garden and impulsively suggested that he join him for some exercise. To Sirius' surprise, Draco agreed with minimal hesitation, merely warning his prospective companion that his strength had not yet returned in full. Sirius assured him that the going would be easy and chose his route accordingly.
They Apparated to one of Sirius' favourite forest areas, one that was recommended by the Balinese Tourist Board as a safe and easy stroll, even for muggles. The two wizards walked for a while in silence until Draco's strained face and ragged breathing alerted his companion to the unpleasant possibility that even this Sunday afternoon stroll was taxing the young man's vitality beyond its limits. They found a nearby clearing with a convenient fallen tree-trunk to rest upon, and Draco wheezed and sagged like a man twice his age before pulling out a black linen handkerchief to mop his face.
"Sorry." he managed to grate out. Sirius stared.
"What for?" he asked in surprise. "I don't suppose you did it deliberately, did you?"
Draco coughed asthmatically into his handkerchief, trying to shake his head at the same time.
"I knew I couldn't cope with this," he said, when he had recovered enough to speak. "but I had to get you on your own – away from all the others. It's like a goldfish bowl back there in that house. I have to confess too that the Weasley brothers have never been on my Christmas card list, and it just so happens that Fred is my least favourite – after Ron." Sirius' lips twitched.
"Who's your best favourite then?"
"Charlie." was the prompt reply. The other man frowned.
"Why?" he asked, unable to resist.
"I've never met him."
Sirius nodded: he had fallen into that one with a vengeance. Draco grinned at him mirthlessly.
"If memory serves me correctly, Black, we had a deal." he began. "When I released Potter from his blood debt, you agreed to give me certain – information that I seek in exchange." His mouth twisted.
"Time for payment, Black." he said quietly. "Put your money where your mouth was and let's see if it was worth the price paid for it."
Sirius bowed his head gravely, but his eyes were worried.
"I hope you know what you're getting yourself into here." he muttered. "This is not a pleasant tale …"
"Get on with it!" Draco's eyes were bright, but his illness had long abated. Now his fever was for the truth alone.
"Firstly," Sirius began, awkwardly, "I – I'm sorry for your trouble, Draco. For the loss of your father, I mean." Draco grunted.
"Please cease the condolences, Black." he interrupted flatly. "They don't exactly ring true. With a father like Lucius, his demise is more of a blessing than a curse, even to me."
"Nevertheless," Sirius continued doggedly, "he was still your father and the last of your family. Whatever you thought of him, whatever he did to you, his death has to have some effect on you, emotionally or from a practical viewpoint." Draco shrugged.
"I won't miss him." he replied with cold finality. There was a pause as Sirius tried to work out how to continue. Conversation with Draco, he reflected, was difficult and trying.
"You lost someone too."
Sirius blinked then looked up in surprise to find himself the subject of a cool, searching grey gaze. He nodded cautiously, narrowing his eyes.
"You knew?" Draco nodded, his mouth quirking into a grim smile.
"Oh, yes," he replied, "we knew about you and Miss Valentin. Of course, that was before she turned, but we were already working on her when the two of you were together. When he sprang her from Azkaban, my father had some scheme in mind to use her to get at you – to make Potter more vulnerable. I told him your relationship with her was a closed book." He shrugged indifferently.
"It seems his judgment was better than mine, as always. That was one of his major talents – spotting potential weakness and exploiting it ruthlessly, both with enemies and allies. But I digress. After all, it's water under the bridge now. She wouldn't play ball with him – in any way whatsoever, so I understand – and now they're both dead. Any further speculation, however amusing, is pretty pointless, don't you think?" But Sirius wasn't listening.
"Draco," he began uncertainly, "Do you know – can you tell me, well, anything more about her? I mean, you knew her for a while, didn't you? Or am I reading too much into what you say?" Draco paused for a moment, staring fixedly at the ground.
"No, you're not reading too much," he began slowly, "but if you're hoping for a recitation of inmost secrets or a complete character analysis, I'm afraid you're sadly out of luck. I didn't know her that well." He furrowed his forehead in concentration.
"I met her during my training." he said at length, then gave Sirius a very shrewd glance.
"Where do you think the best Dark Wizards receive their advanced tuition eh, Black?"
The blonde man smiled ironically at his companion's nonplussed expression.
"We have universities just like you do – or their equivalent. We keep them very much under cover."
Draco stood up, stretching his arms above his head, and paced the ground a little way. He looked back.
"This was a training camp, Black, the like of which you'll never see. Be thankful for small mercies." His eyes misted over, unfocussed, as he remembered.
"I was sent there to learn advanced self-defence, the art of pain and resistance to the same, and the skills of entrapment. Suffice it to say that I came out of it a changed man – we all did." He paused, staring at the ground. Sirius frowned.
"Do you mean to tell me," he began with growing disbelief, "that you took advanced study in … "
"Murder, torture and whoredom – yes, Black, exactly so." Draco was expressionless. "And so did Miss Valentin. She graduated with flying colours, which was more than I did, I can tell you." There was a pause while he gathered his memories.
"The self-defence was hard." he continued with a small, painful smile. "I was light and agile enough to escape the hardest knocks, and my Quidditch training gave me a small advantage, but nevertheless, there were a couple of occasions when I barely survived. One or two of my team – didn't.
"The study of pain came easily. My father had already schooled me well in the arts of torture, but the people at this camp – " he broke off, shaking his head. "They left him standing; he was a rank tyro by comparison. The trouble was, I really had no taste for it. Ability and knowledge, yes, but my Hogwarts education had spoiled me for the finer points. That problem was mentioned in my final assessment; my father threatened to give me extra tuition." The merest suggestion of a shudder passed through Draco's slight form.
"What about the, uh, 'skills of entrapment'?" Sirius' face reflected horrified fascination.
"The sex bit, you mean? Oh, it's not as interesting as you might think; nor as pleasurable, actually." Draco smiled sardonically. "You see, in a natural world, the sex act is inextricably connected to a number of emotional responses – love, nurture, procreation, protection, family, security, stability, pleasure – yadda, yadda, yadda, you get the picture. Well, the things they subject you to on this camp are specifically designed to obliterate any kind of emotional response. To put it bluntly, by the end of the course, you're able to shag anything that moves, or indeed that doesn't, with equal skill and effectiveness, whatever your own personal feeling. Indeed, even sexual orientation no longer has any meaning. Physical or mental attraction to another person is completely irrelevant."
Sirius shivered. Using sex for advancement was the oldest trick in the book, but this was something else entirely. He couldn't believe that even Lucius Malfoy would condone such evil. To systematically wipe out all trace of honest emotion and leave Draco and his fellow trainees with the conviction that sex was not for pleasure or love, but for manipulation and power. As for the torture training – Sirius screwed his eyes shut against the involuntary pictures in his mind. What did the Dark Side think it was doing to its young witches and wizards? Was this the kind of thing Katia had been subjected to?
Sirius suddenly sprang to his feet, vaulted the fallen log and disappeared into the bushes. Draco raised a speculative eyebrow then grimaced mildly at the sound of dry retching. Presently, Sirius returned wiping his mouth on a handkerchief.
"Can't cope with it, Black?" Draco's words were sarcastic but his tone held only bleak despair. "I haven't even started yet. Just wait till you hear how they did it. Believe me, that's not one for a children's bedtime story!"
"Stop." Sirius grated hoarsely, holding up a hand for silence. Draco opened his mouth then closed it reluctantly. The other man swallowed a few times then sank down on the log, leaning his forehead in his hands. Presently he shook his head slowly.
"I never realised." he murmured, half to himself. He looked up at Draco.
"Tell me about Katia," he said heavily, "But please – no more about your training. I've already lost my lunch – I don't want to lose breakfast too." Draco shrugged.
"Weak stomach, eh? Your choice." he said indifferently. "Okay, then. Valentin was part of my group. She and I were the strongest candidates, to my father's everlasting surprise." Draco smiled almost apologetically.
"You know what she looked like, Black." he said with an arch glance. "No one set eyes on Katia Valentin without wanting to nail her to the floor. In the early days, before the Entrapment Training, I tried to jump her." He shook his head wonderingly.
"I must have been half out of my mind." he continued with a small smile. "She slapped me down with no effort at all, then Stunned me. When I woke up, I was pinned halfway up a tree with my trousers tied around my neck. I didn't live that one down for a month."
"Did you ever manage it?" Sirius asked curiously. "Sleeping with her, I mean?"
Draco shook his head.
"Not likely. After the trousers incident, I asked her why she wouldn't let me bed her. I had the arrogance to assume that the Malfoy name would make any woman fall at my feet. She dismissed the idea as irrelevant; she said sleeping with me would serve no purpose. I ventured the opinion that pleasure needed no purpose and she hit me, hard. She gave me a backhander around the face that made my teeth rattle and told me to grow up. She never had sex for pleasure, she said, it was a total waste of time. Sex was there to be used for advantage and for no other reason."
Sirius winced involuntarily.
"So you see," continued the other man with bitter irony, "she already had a distinct advantage over the rest of us when it came to Entrapment. She already knew how to put it about without getting involved."
Sirius sighed and buried his face in his hands. Oh, Katia! he mourned. Oh my poor love, what did I do to you? He remained silent for a while until he realised that Draco was speaking again.
"What?" he responded, raising his head.
"I said that I believe you were the only exception." his companion repeated calmly. "Strangely, I don't think she had any ulterior motive for her relationship with you. We were fully aware of what was going on, as I said. Pettigrew didn't trust you, but my father dismissed her screwing you as recreation. Something akin to a workout, I believe he called it, with the additional payoff of your potential defection to the Dark Side. He also said she'd forget all that relationship nonsense once she'd been through her Advanced Training. He was right, of course; nobody comes out of that with any finer feelings left intact. I daresay you were the only person she slept with more than twice. Not exactly an edifying epitaph to a relationship, but there it is, take it or leave it."
Sirius made no sign he had heard. Gazing miserably into the tangle of trees, he allowed his mind to spiral backwards over the years. Where would he be now, he wondered, if he had actually followed her and become a Dark Wizard? He blinked, startled.
"What did you say?" He turned to his companion in astonishment.
"I said 'I'm sorry'." Draco replied testily, his pale skin flushing a dull red. "Don't ask me a third time, it's not something I say often. Anyway, at least you can mourn her death. When I think of my father, all I can feel is relief that he's gone."
"He was an evil man." Sirius' voice was low.
"Of course he was evil, you pratt! He was a Dark Wizard; we're all evil, or has that little piece of information just slipped past you?"
Draco's irritation was sufficient to propel him up from the log and set him to pacing the ground once again. Sirius shook his head.
"There are degrees." His voice was thoughtful, strangely intense. "You consider yourself to be evil, Draco, because you've had training in Dark Magick."
"Too right I have! And not just any old training – extensive further education, I might add."
With difficulty, Sirius swallowed but nevertheless continued doggedly.
"But even if you had become the most adept Dark Mage on this earth," he replied, "it wouldn't be enough to make you into a carbon-copy of your father." The younger man was silent.
"Lucius was not just an evil wizard, Draco, he was a psychopath."
"Eh?"
"A muggle term." Sirius had now joined Draco in his pacing. "A psychopath is a being totally apart from normal humans, muggle or wizard. A psychopath is antisocial, completely without empathy for others, utterly amoral. These people are usually aggressive or criminal in behaviour, and they show little or no remorse for their victims. I know this for a fact; I came across a couple of them in Azkaban!"
"And you're telling me that my father was one?"
"Well, I can't see any other explanation for his behaviour, can you? Let's be honest, even Voldemort was more reasonable. Face it Draco, Lucius was not only bad, he was absolutely barking into the bargain."
Draco was silent, deep in thought.
"I never thought to question his motives." he said at length in a wondering tone. "I assumed that to be a Malfoy was to be a Dark Wizard, and that to be a Dark Wizard was to make a career out of committing atrocities."
"You were never given the chance to think about it." countered Sirius. "I would be very surprised if once you left Hogwarts, you came across anyone who could be described as a normal person in the whole of your Dark Arts training."
Draco's shoulders slumped momentarily as if in defeat, then he straightened his spine and smiled crookedly.
"So tell me, Black." he said quietly, his eyes wide. "Tell me: who exactly were my father, my mother, my sister? Why are they dead? Why am I the last of the Malfoys?"
The older man gave a heavy sigh and sank down once more on to the log. Presently, he began to speak in a low, halting manner, his tone at once bitter and full of regret.
"My knowledge of the Malfoy family is slim, Draco, I'll grant you that," he began, "but I knew your mother at Hogwarts. Despite her membership of an opposing house, I knew her quite well; in fact, she was the only Slytherin I have ever been known to address without using abusive language."
~oo0oo~
Sirius had been a peer group leader in Gryffindor House, something of a role model for the younger students. Old for his year and a fast mover, his emotional development had been streets ahead of his closest friends, Remus Lupin and James Potter.
"I was a bit, well, precocious." admitted Sirius with uncharacteristic sheepishness. "I'd dated all the Gryffindor girls who interested me, and even some who didn't, by the time I'd reached the fifth form. By the upper sixth, I was making midnight forays into Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff Houses."
He had fought shy of Slytherin for a while, but the inherent danger, the deep enmity between the two houses was an almost irresistible challenge.
Sirius was dating a Hufflepuff by the name of Miriam Mason when he met Draco's mother. Miriam was a girl of gentle, tolerant temperament whose sheer affability had recommended her to a certain Narcissa Hemmingway, a Slytherin from an old family and of good standing among her peers. The two girls became inseparable, despite a certain disapproval of their friendship within both Houses, and Sirius had been obliged to tolerate her frequent presence. To his everlasting surprise, he found Narcissa a pleasant and even amusing companion. When he realised that the Slytherin girl was occupying his thoughts rather more frequently than her Hufflepuff companion, he even gave some thought towards dating her, despite – or maybe even because of – the inevitable fallout from both their Houses. He wondered volubly why the Sorting Hat had chosen Narcissa for Slytherin in the first place; she was simply not typical of the breed.
"She laughed at me." he told Draco with a faraway smile. "She told me there was more to the Sorting Hat's decision than suitability. Of course, I knew that personal inclination could play a large part in the placing of student, but I couldn't seriously believe that anyone would actually want to get into Slytherin if there was any alternative. She gave me a very odd look – I can remember it to this day – and asked what made me think that there was any kind of choice for such as her."
Later, when Sirius observed Lucius Malfoy making an obvious and inept play for Narcissa's affections, he laughed loud and long, despite the girl's apparent acquiescence. Sirius' blatant mockery drove Lucius to a fever-pitch of fury which eventually erupted into a fist-fight in full view of Professor McGonagall. Their unresolved differences and also the joint punishment they were forced to endure only served to fuel their already potent hatred. Sirius' mind was by now made up; he had to keep Lucius away from Narcissa, whatever it took. It was then that James Potter, always one with an ear for gossip, took him to one side and gave him chapter and verse on the Hemmingway family.
"The Hemmingways and the Malfoys were historically close, both by blood and by business ties – but I expect you already know that." Sirius said. Draco nodded.
"They still are." he put in. "Echo Hemmingway is a Durmstrang-trained witch in her late twenties. I was destined to marry her." He shuddered. Sirius raised an eyebrow.
"Not your type, eh?" Draco shook his head violently.
"Platinum-blonde, six-foot tall and built to match." he replied succinctly. "Wrestles griffins in her spare time. Ye gods, just looking at her would put any man off his stride; she could break my back with her little finger!"
From what James had told him, Sirius continued, Narcissa had been conceived for one purpose only: to make an alliance with the heir to the Malfoy empire. Raised and groomed with an arranged marriage and a life of money and leisure ahead of her, Narcissa had merely gone through the motions, spending her adolescence in limbo, waiting for the time to be ripe for Lucius to claim her. She had few unconventional thoughts; even Sirius was unable to inspire the slightest touch of rebellion in her. Her family expected her to marry Lucius, and marry him she would.
And, of course, she did. They announced their engagement at the end of their final year at Hogwarts and were married a matter of weeks later. Lucius picked his time to deliberately overshadow Lily and James, whom he had hated almost as much as Sirius. Sirius himself hid his grave misgivings about the match, unwilling to throw any kind of shadow over Narcissa's happiness, but he watched the couple leave Hogwarts with a heavy heart.
"We weren't lovers." Sirius said reminiscently. "Not even close. Nor were we friends. To this day, I really don't know why I cared about Narcissa. I was never the altruistic type, even then."
He heard nothing of her for years. Occasionally, he would catch a glimpse of her serene beauty in the society section of the Daily Prophet, but she was now, to all intents and purposes, a complete stranger. He did not expect to meet her again.
It was purely by chance that he happened upon her fate. On the run having escaped from the Dementors for the second time, trying to keep a protective eye on Harry, scavenging for food in dog form, he caught sight of her lovely face once again. An old page from the Daily Prophet, used to wrap stale bread, revealed the title "Lady Malfoy's Illness". Discovering that Lucius had packed her away with such indecent haste so soon after the tragic death of her baby daughter, Sirius defiantly visited her at St. Mungo's – a risky thing to do, considering he was still a wanted man.
"She was totally changed." Sirius shook his head slowly. "Haggard, terrified – she looked as though she hadn't slept for weeks. I came to the conclusion that grief had utterly unhinged her. I was about to leave when she suddenly realised who I was." He looked up at Draco and his eyes were haunted.
"What she told me has remained a secret for many years." he said quietly. "I swore never to reveal it, and in doing so now I am breaking that vow. However, I believe that she would have wanted you to know what happened to her, how she died and why."
Narcissa was still lucid but terribly frail and ill. She had not long to live, she told Sirius, and she had no hope of justice for herself or her family, but she needed someone to know the truth before she died.
Baby Aurora had been a perfect child; beautiful, smiling, sunny and altogether delightful. She had been physically well co-ordinated and was evidently very intelligent. On reaching nine months, she was tested in order to estimate the degree of her potential magical talent. Narcissa was not party to this ritual, but Lucius brought Aurora home angrier than she had seen him for many years. He then proceeded to consult numerous specialists in the field, but the opinion was the same in every case: Aurora had been born a squib. She was totally devoid of magic and would never be any other way.
It was at this point in her account that Narcissa had become almost hysterical with grief. Sirius managed to persuade the staff at St. Mungo's to let him continue to talk with her for a little while longer, but she was rapidly becoming out of control. He managed to piece together a tale as horrifying as it was simple: Lucius, unable to bear the shame of having sired a child with no magical talent, had killed his daughter.
Shocked and appalled, Sirius had promised to try to help free her and get justice for her daughter, but this only seemed to send Narcissa into gibbering terror. She was by now so frightened of her husband that she begged Sirius to keep all that she had told him deadly secret. Sirius repeated that he could help her, but Narcissa was too far-gone in despair to believe him. Reluctantly, he gave his word. A few days later, it was all over. Unable to bear her hopelessness, Narcissa knotted her bedsheets together to form a rope and used it to hang herself.
~oo0oo~
The silence that followed these revelations seemed never ending. Sirius sat passively listening to the birdsong, watching the wind in the trees, musing on his friendship with a woman whose allegiance had flown in the face of everything he had held sacred.
"I knew that." It was said in a hoarse whisper. Draco cleared his throat and tried again.
"I think I've known all my life that my father had to have been responsible for my sister's death, I just couldn't admit it."
"And your mother's." Sirius winced at his own ruthlessness, but Draco's quiet calm was unnatural in such circumstances. The blonde wizard nodded once.
"And my mother's." he echoed. He stood gazing upwards into the canopy of leaves.
"Nothing was ever normal at Malfoy Manor," he continued musingly, "but after they died, things were worse than ever. I turned fully and willingly to the Dark Side because it seemed to offer me the security that I lacked. Also, if I'm honest, I thought it might help me get closer to my father." He sighed.
"What I didn't realise then was that Lucius simply wasn't capable of any normal human feeling. There I was, beating myself to death, trying to be a worthy son – pah!" Draco clenched white knuckles into the sleeve of his black shirt. Already well-worn and tattered, the material gave way with a rending sound.
"I'd have had to have been born a potential axe murderer to have achieved what he wanted for me." He stared uncomprehendingly at the torn sleeve then reached for his wand.
"Reparo!" he muttered absently.
"What will you do now?" Sirius' voice was neutral, unchallenging. Draco shrugged.
"I don't have a great deal of choice." he replied bitterly. "I'm a wanted man, both for my past allegiances and for crimes I did not commit."
"You handed Pettigrew over to the Ministry, that's sure to earn you a few Brownie points."
"Yes." Draco's tone was doubtful. "Yes, there's that. But unfortunately, I'm really not yet prepared to go down that road." Sirius stared.
"You mean you'd go to Azkaban?" His eyes widened in astonishment. "For a group of thugs who would torture you to death for the sake of a little light recreation? Draco, have you totally flipped?"
The younger wizard turned on Sirius, his eyes blazing.
"That group of thugs has been my whole life for as far back as I can remember!" he yelled. "Do you think I can just shop them to the Authorities without a backward glance?"
"You can bet your sweet ass Pettigrew would!" countered Sirius. "He'd hand them over gift-wrapped before you could sneeze!"
"I'm not …" began Draco furiously, then the fire in his eyes faded.
"I'm not – Pettigrew." he finished quietly, shaking with reaction.
Sirius paused just long enough to ponder the likely consequences if he was wrong, then he took two strides and pulled Draco roughly into his arms. At first the young wizard fought him, cursing and trying to push himself free, but Sirius held on inexorably until the struggles died and the first painful, throat-tearing sobs emerged. It had been too long, Sirius mused; too long for a fragile spirit to go without any means of release. What was to become of Draco now?
As he held the shaking body of his former enemy, Sirius felt hot tears spring up into his own eyes – for Draco, for Narcissa, for little Aurora, and also, finally, for Katia.
~oo0oo~