Author's Notes: I had intended to have this up last night, but I suppose
life doesn't work like that! I hope you all like this chapter, it's taken
two re-writes to get it finished...
Disclaimer: See part one.
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When we were finally released from isolation, Harry retreated to his cell and ignored me for the next week. Which didn't really matter, since he was ignoring everyone else as well. As for me...I only talked to Claw, Gary, Eddie and Rubber, all of whom were entirely unsympathetic - Rubber went so far as to drag me to some of the courses in the afternoons.
I ignored him, but went to the courses anyway, since I knew Harry wouldn't. Not after what had happened.
It was at the end of the week that something happened to get Harry talking to me - and I won't say again, since he had never really talked to me in the first place. I'm sure he had his reasons...but after what happened - actually, after the two things that happened - he really began talking to me in earnest.
The first thing was that Gary had a visitor, and returned to my cell - where we were all messing about - grim-faced. We fell silent, and a shiver of premonition ran through me. I don't think I'd seen him this grave, not in three months.
"What's wrong?" Rubber asked quietly. "What did your visitor say?"
Gary glanced at him, then looked at me for a moment. "Harry ought to be here to hear this," he said reluctantly. "Draco..."
Right. Of course. Harry wasn't speaking to me. And he didn't want to say it twice. I shrugged, easily lying. "So go and tell him, I don't care."
Gary looked suddenly angry. "Quit with the attitude," he snapped. "This is important - for you as well, because although at the moment I'm not sure why, Harry trusts you, and this affects Harry - and all of us, for all I know!"
I stared. That was possibly the longest I'd ever heard Gary speak for at a time. Rubber, Claw and Eddie were staring at him as well, although probably for slightly different reasons than I was - his words had sunk in.
He'd said that Harry trusted me. Harry trusted me. Me. Me, the betrayer of each and every side possible. Okay, maybe that wasn't quite true. But still.
"I'll go and get him," Eddie volunteered, rising smoothly to his feet with his natural grace. "You guys just, uh, wait here."
"Not a problem," Claw muttered, glancing between Gary and I. "No-one's leaving this cell until I say so." Hmph. And it was my cell as well. He couldn't have had his little power display in his own cell?
Of course not. That would have defeated the object which was, of course, to keep me in line. In the pecking order of the prison, although I was higher than Eddie I was most definitely lower than Claw. Claw was only lower than Harry himself.
I resolutely glanced away from Claw, my eyes roving over the wall of my cell searching for something, anything, to focus on. My walls were bare though - certainly I had no photos or pictures, because after that first visit from my mother I had had no contact with the outside world.
Not that I really wanted any.
The clinking of chains brought me back to the real world, and I glanced up; Eddie was reclaiming his seat on the floor, and Harry was standing in the doorway, his face - and eyes - as unreadable as always. His wrists were still bound in the chains Voldemort had put on him, but the chains on his ankles were gone - I assumed he had taken them off himself, and wondered why he kept the others on.
"May I come in?" he asked me, a slightly sarcastic note to his voice that I recognised with bitterness as nearly identical to the tone in which I always had spoken at Hogwarts - before my eyes had been opened. I shrugged, and waved a hand at the cell.
"Make yourself at home." Matching sarcasm for sarcasm, allowing a touch of my old arrogance into my voice, and he saw it, I know, for one eyebrow was lifted ever so slightly. He entered my cell, and seated himself on the bed next to Claw - Gary, who had been standing, sat down on one of the chairs.
"So what's wrong, Gary?" Harry inquired lightly. "Must be something important."
"It is," Gary said grimly. "I've just had a visitor, Harry - our mutual acquaintance Half-Eye."
Harry seemed to do a double-take. "Half-Eye?" he demanded incredulously. "Half-Eye came here? Is he mad, or just stupid? He knows our visitors are monitored, or he ought to know!"
Well, I hadn't known. I'd worried for my mother because of my father...a chill of fear ran down my spine as I thought of what the consequences might have been if Voldemort had also come to know of her visit.
"Yes, he was here," Gary agreed, oblivious to or ignoring Harry's discomfort. "I told him it was a bad idea, but...well, you know Half-Eye - and he hasn't changed a bit in five years."
"Of course not," Harry muttered sarcastically. "Why should he? Of all of the resistance he's the one least likely to get caught, so he assumes that he doesn't need to change."
Was I missing something here? I hadn't a clue in hell who Half-Eye was, although he was obviously part of the resistance. But Eddie, Rubber and Claw looked confused also, so I knew it wasn't just me.
"Who's Half-Eye?" Claw demanded. "He's in the resistance?" Well, of course. Even I had figured that one out.
"Yeah," Gary agreed. "He's one of the operatives. He's." He trailed off, and looked at Harry. Harry shrugged. "He's a half-wraith," Gary went on. I went into shock. A half-wraith. The resistance were working with a half- wraith. Bloody hell. No wonder their information was always so good. It made me wonder why they'd even needed me.
"A half-wraith?" Eddie queried. Claw looked similarly puzzled, but Rubber looked a little pale. I wondered why - he wasn't a wizard, although I remembered that he'd once said something about having a sister who was...he might have heard about the wraiths and the half-wraiths from her, but I doubted it. They weren't much talked of - indeed, before the war few had even believed that they existed.
But they did exist, oh yes, they existed. And one was helping the resistance.
Bloody hell.
"A wraith is a being made of shadow," Harry said quietly, his eyes closed. "They can pass through walls and doors, windows, anything manmade. They're practically invisible, have fantastically good hearing, and all of them, without exception, have photographic memories. Needless to say, they're very useful as spies. Half-wraiths are the same, except they have human blood in them and so can appear human whenever they wish." He opened his eyes. "It's probably worth noting that the Dementors are related to them." Ah yes. How could I have forgotten that?
"So why doesn't Voldemort have them as spies as well?" Claw demanded. "If they're that useful, I don't see why everyone doesn't use 'em."
"Because they keep themselves to themselves," I put in. "They've never got involved with any human wars - at least, the wraiths haven't, and the half- wraiths are shunned by both sides and so stay away from everyone."
Harry glanced sharply at me, as if surprised by the fact that I knew about them. Why shouldn't I? The Malfoy library was bigger than any collection in England - except quite possibly the Snape library before Severus Snape had given the whole lot to Hogwarts, mostly for the Restricted Section I might add. The majority of the books in our library had been on Dark Magic and creatures, and wraiths were nothing if not Dark.
Rubber, I noted, was looking whiter by the second.
"But this...Half-Eye is working for the resistance," Gary started again. "Merlin knows why, but he is."
"I know him," Rubber spoke up quietly. "I know why he's helping them."
All eyes were suddenly fixed on him. How could Rubber know Half-Eye? That was just...weird.
"I, uh..." He was nervous, that much was obvious; he was twisting his hands in his lap, and he was still as white as...a white thing. "He's one of my relatives," he admitted finally. "I'm not a half-wraith, but there's wraith blood in me...somewhere."
Was that what he'd been worrying about? "Interesting," I commented wryly. "Did you know there's Veela blood in me...somewhere?"
Claw guffawed. "I never would have guessed," he commented sardonically. "You're only the best-looking guy in the whole prison - with the exception of Harry, of course."
Did he have to say that? I glanced automatically at Harry - our eyes met, and I flushed a little, quickly glancing away to Rubber. He flashed me a thankful grin.
"All this is very interesting," Eddie commented, "but can we please get to the point? It's lunch soon, and I for one am hungry."
"You're always hungry, Eddie," Harry told him with a half-smile. "Gary?"
Gary shrugged. "He said there've been rumours - he was careful to say rumours, mind - that the resistance is planning a large attack on some important building - he wouldn't say where, but he...dropped hints."
"And?" Harry nudged, impatience clear in his eyes. I frowned; did it really matter to him? If he cared so much about what was happening in the outside world, why didn't he just walk out of here? He had the power to do it, I'd seen it, and Voldemort wouldn't be able to stop him. For that matter, why did he still have those chains on?
"And from what he said, he thinks it's going to be here."
Ah.
That would explain why Gary thought this was so important, then.
Bloody hell.
It was when they all looked at me weirdly that I realised I must have said that out loud.
Oops.
"Well, it's what you were all thinking but didn't say," I retorted smoothly. Only Harry didn't smile; he had an odd look on his face. "Well, if they attack Talsgate or not, it's still lunchtime," I continued. "Come on - I'm starving."
We all tried to joke our way through lunch, but somehow it didn't quite work - not with Rubber still a little pale, not with Harry so grim, and I suppose not with my own poor attempts at humour.
If the resistance was going to attack Talsgate prison it could change everything - a lot of the men in here were political prisoners of some sort, not just murderers or thieves or resistance fighters. If we got out...if we got out, I knew there was a lot of damage we could do to Voldemort and his government.
Still, it was only a rumour. It didn't mean that it was going to happen, and even if it was true, it probably wouldn't happen for months, if not years.
I should have remembered that Muggle saying: Where there's smoke, there's a fire.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
To be continued.
Replies to reviews:
chrisseee667 - yes, I wrote Dragon Mage. Thank you!
Hana-chan - Thanks - Did I answer why Hermione changed sides? Did I *really*? You sure about that? You will be finding out about Blaise - and I'm going to give my standard answer here - eventually. As to Draco thinking about his life...he is in every chapter a little bit. He tries not to. It'll be explained, I swear.
EnigmaDesdemona7 - Forgiven! Hope you had a good birthday.
pagedown - no, the lack of information on what Draco's life was like after Hogwarts is very intentional. As it's all from his POV you'll have to wait until *he* thinks about it, and he really, really doesn't want to do that just now. Trust me, he will - fairly soon, I think.
beautiful disaster - Thank you!
T.K. Yuy - thank you! And you may just be right about not being able to hand out trophies per individual chapter...I hope you liked this one.
Hedwig - thank you!
Demeter - thank you! Again, the plot isn't thickening, it's always been thick! You're just beginning to see what else is happening! No, you're not seeing things that aren't there with Ron and Harry - but remember that things aren't always as they seem in Chained. And I hate to say it, but you are missing something about Hermione's role in Ron's capture. So is everyone, I hope, since Draco himself doesn't know the whole story. And I'm cruel? I put up four chapters in two days, how am I cruel!?!
Disclaimer: See part one.
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When we were finally released from isolation, Harry retreated to his cell and ignored me for the next week. Which didn't really matter, since he was ignoring everyone else as well. As for me...I only talked to Claw, Gary, Eddie and Rubber, all of whom were entirely unsympathetic - Rubber went so far as to drag me to some of the courses in the afternoons.
I ignored him, but went to the courses anyway, since I knew Harry wouldn't. Not after what had happened.
It was at the end of the week that something happened to get Harry talking to me - and I won't say again, since he had never really talked to me in the first place. I'm sure he had his reasons...but after what happened - actually, after the two things that happened - he really began talking to me in earnest.
The first thing was that Gary had a visitor, and returned to my cell - where we were all messing about - grim-faced. We fell silent, and a shiver of premonition ran through me. I don't think I'd seen him this grave, not in three months.
"What's wrong?" Rubber asked quietly. "What did your visitor say?"
Gary glanced at him, then looked at me for a moment. "Harry ought to be here to hear this," he said reluctantly. "Draco..."
Right. Of course. Harry wasn't speaking to me. And he didn't want to say it twice. I shrugged, easily lying. "So go and tell him, I don't care."
Gary looked suddenly angry. "Quit with the attitude," he snapped. "This is important - for you as well, because although at the moment I'm not sure why, Harry trusts you, and this affects Harry - and all of us, for all I know!"
I stared. That was possibly the longest I'd ever heard Gary speak for at a time. Rubber, Claw and Eddie were staring at him as well, although probably for slightly different reasons than I was - his words had sunk in.
He'd said that Harry trusted me. Harry trusted me. Me. Me, the betrayer of each and every side possible. Okay, maybe that wasn't quite true. But still.
"I'll go and get him," Eddie volunteered, rising smoothly to his feet with his natural grace. "You guys just, uh, wait here."
"Not a problem," Claw muttered, glancing between Gary and I. "No-one's leaving this cell until I say so." Hmph. And it was my cell as well. He couldn't have had his little power display in his own cell?
Of course not. That would have defeated the object which was, of course, to keep me in line. In the pecking order of the prison, although I was higher than Eddie I was most definitely lower than Claw. Claw was only lower than Harry himself.
I resolutely glanced away from Claw, my eyes roving over the wall of my cell searching for something, anything, to focus on. My walls were bare though - certainly I had no photos or pictures, because after that first visit from my mother I had had no contact with the outside world.
Not that I really wanted any.
The clinking of chains brought me back to the real world, and I glanced up; Eddie was reclaiming his seat on the floor, and Harry was standing in the doorway, his face - and eyes - as unreadable as always. His wrists were still bound in the chains Voldemort had put on him, but the chains on his ankles were gone - I assumed he had taken them off himself, and wondered why he kept the others on.
"May I come in?" he asked me, a slightly sarcastic note to his voice that I recognised with bitterness as nearly identical to the tone in which I always had spoken at Hogwarts - before my eyes had been opened. I shrugged, and waved a hand at the cell.
"Make yourself at home." Matching sarcasm for sarcasm, allowing a touch of my old arrogance into my voice, and he saw it, I know, for one eyebrow was lifted ever so slightly. He entered my cell, and seated himself on the bed next to Claw - Gary, who had been standing, sat down on one of the chairs.
"So what's wrong, Gary?" Harry inquired lightly. "Must be something important."
"It is," Gary said grimly. "I've just had a visitor, Harry - our mutual acquaintance Half-Eye."
Harry seemed to do a double-take. "Half-Eye?" he demanded incredulously. "Half-Eye came here? Is he mad, or just stupid? He knows our visitors are monitored, or he ought to know!"
Well, I hadn't known. I'd worried for my mother because of my father...a chill of fear ran down my spine as I thought of what the consequences might have been if Voldemort had also come to know of her visit.
"Yes, he was here," Gary agreed, oblivious to or ignoring Harry's discomfort. "I told him it was a bad idea, but...well, you know Half-Eye - and he hasn't changed a bit in five years."
"Of course not," Harry muttered sarcastically. "Why should he? Of all of the resistance he's the one least likely to get caught, so he assumes that he doesn't need to change."
Was I missing something here? I hadn't a clue in hell who Half-Eye was, although he was obviously part of the resistance. But Eddie, Rubber and Claw looked confused also, so I knew it wasn't just me.
"Who's Half-Eye?" Claw demanded. "He's in the resistance?" Well, of course. Even I had figured that one out.
"Yeah," Gary agreed. "He's one of the operatives. He's." He trailed off, and looked at Harry. Harry shrugged. "He's a half-wraith," Gary went on. I went into shock. A half-wraith. The resistance were working with a half- wraith. Bloody hell. No wonder their information was always so good. It made me wonder why they'd even needed me.
"A half-wraith?" Eddie queried. Claw looked similarly puzzled, but Rubber looked a little pale. I wondered why - he wasn't a wizard, although I remembered that he'd once said something about having a sister who was...he might have heard about the wraiths and the half-wraiths from her, but I doubted it. They weren't much talked of - indeed, before the war few had even believed that they existed.
But they did exist, oh yes, they existed. And one was helping the resistance.
Bloody hell.
"A wraith is a being made of shadow," Harry said quietly, his eyes closed. "They can pass through walls and doors, windows, anything manmade. They're practically invisible, have fantastically good hearing, and all of them, without exception, have photographic memories. Needless to say, they're very useful as spies. Half-wraiths are the same, except they have human blood in them and so can appear human whenever they wish." He opened his eyes. "It's probably worth noting that the Dementors are related to them." Ah yes. How could I have forgotten that?
"So why doesn't Voldemort have them as spies as well?" Claw demanded. "If they're that useful, I don't see why everyone doesn't use 'em."
"Because they keep themselves to themselves," I put in. "They've never got involved with any human wars - at least, the wraiths haven't, and the half- wraiths are shunned by both sides and so stay away from everyone."
Harry glanced sharply at me, as if surprised by the fact that I knew about them. Why shouldn't I? The Malfoy library was bigger than any collection in England - except quite possibly the Snape library before Severus Snape had given the whole lot to Hogwarts, mostly for the Restricted Section I might add. The majority of the books in our library had been on Dark Magic and creatures, and wraiths were nothing if not Dark.
Rubber, I noted, was looking whiter by the second.
"But this...Half-Eye is working for the resistance," Gary started again. "Merlin knows why, but he is."
"I know him," Rubber spoke up quietly. "I know why he's helping them."
All eyes were suddenly fixed on him. How could Rubber know Half-Eye? That was just...weird.
"I, uh..." He was nervous, that much was obvious; he was twisting his hands in his lap, and he was still as white as...a white thing. "He's one of my relatives," he admitted finally. "I'm not a half-wraith, but there's wraith blood in me...somewhere."
Was that what he'd been worrying about? "Interesting," I commented wryly. "Did you know there's Veela blood in me...somewhere?"
Claw guffawed. "I never would have guessed," he commented sardonically. "You're only the best-looking guy in the whole prison - with the exception of Harry, of course."
Did he have to say that? I glanced automatically at Harry - our eyes met, and I flushed a little, quickly glancing away to Rubber. He flashed me a thankful grin.
"All this is very interesting," Eddie commented, "but can we please get to the point? It's lunch soon, and I for one am hungry."
"You're always hungry, Eddie," Harry told him with a half-smile. "Gary?"
Gary shrugged. "He said there've been rumours - he was careful to say rumours, mind - that the resistance is planning a large attack on some important building - he wouldn't say where, but he...dropped hints."
"And?" Harry nudged, impatience clear in his eyes. I frowned; did it really matter to him? If he cared so much about what was happening in the outside world, why didn't he just walk out of here? He had the power to do it, I'd seen it, and Voldemort wouldn't be able to stop him. For that matter, why did he still have those chains on?
"And from what he said, he thinks it's going to be here."
Ah.
That would explain why Gary thought this was so important, then.
Bloody hell.
It was when they all looked at me weirdly that I realised I must have said that out loud.
Oops.
"Well, it's what you were all thinking but didn't say," I retorted smoothly. Only Harry didn't smile; he had an odd look on his face. "Well, if they attack Talsgate or not, it's still lunchtime," I continued. "Come on - I'm starving."
We all tried to joke our way through lunch, but somehow it didn't quite work - not with Rubber still a little pale, not with Harry so grim, and I suppose not with my own poor attempts at humour.
If the resistance was going to attack Talsgate prison it could change everything - a lot of the men in here were political prisoners of some sort, not just murderers or thieves or resistance fighters. If we got out...if we got out, I knew there was a lot of damage we could do to Voldemort and his government.
Still, it was only a rumour. It didn't mean that it was going to happen, and even if it was true, it probably wouldn't happen for months, if not years.
I should have remembered that Muggle saying: Where there's smoke, there's a fire.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
To be continued.
Replies to reviews:
chrisseee667 - yes, I wrote Dragon Mage. Thank you!
Hana-chan - Thanks - Did I answer why Hermione changed sides? Did I *really*? You sure about that? You will be finding out about Blaise - and I'm going to give my standard answer here - eventually. As to Draco thinking about his life...he is in every chapter a little bit. He tries not to. It'll be explained, I swear.
EnigmaDesdemona7 - Forgiven! Hope you had a good birthday.
pagedown - no, the lack of information on what Draco's life was like after Hogwarts is very intentional. As it's all from his POV you'll have to wait until *he* thinks about it, and he really, really doesn't want to do that just now. Trust me, he will - fairly soon, I think.
beautiful disaster - Thank you!
T.K. Yuy - thank you! And you may just be right about not being able to hand out trophies per individual chapter...I hope you liked this one.
Hedwig - thank you!
Demeter - thank you! Again, the plot isn't thickening, it's always been thick! You're just beginning to see what else is happening! No, you're not seeing things that aren't there with Ron and Harry - but remember that things aren't always as they seem in Chained. And I hate to say it, but you are missing something about Hermione's role in Ron's capture. So is everyone, I hope, since Draco himself doesn't know the whole story. And I'm cruel? I put up four chapters in two days, how am I cruel!?!