Disclaimer: J.K. Rowling and crew are responsible for the four fine books that I draw on for inspiration, setting and characters. I have had to create some of my own, just for the sake of flow. Lucy, Imogen, Anni and Elena all qualify as my own creations. I've made no money from this story. It's all in fun.
Author's Note: This is the space wherein I tell you, my audience, that this story is commencing its second part in this the twentieth chapter of 'The Road to Nowhere'. But, I am faithfully working on the third part of the series, 'Where Madness Gives A Bit'. For A lovely little Christmas treat I am posting this early and am also following it up with the first chapter of the third story. Be sure to check it out after you are finished with this story. And, as always, please tell me what you think.
Hibiscus: I can't in good conscience trick you into thinking your assumption was at least partially correct. I can't lie to one of my oh so few reviewers and so I merely say, you haven't seen the last of her.
Oliverwoodsgirl: I thank you so much for your faithful reviews and I only have to say that you are very clever and seldom trickable. The same hint that I gave to Hisbiscus applies to you as well. You two are just too smart for me to mislead.
CatgirlJasp: I may be one of the very few Peter fans out there. Though I cannot wash all of his sins away for him, I can spin him in a better light. (I am a firm believer in the opinion that James must have done something awful to him). He will not be forgotten in the next story. Please keep reading. There's far more to come.
Magel: Thank you for your flattering words. I was a little nervous about this ending. Firstly, I never anticipated for Lucy to be so well thought of (though I lover her, myself) and I was unsure about how I was going to include so much action without making it all too confusing. As a result, I might have sold Tom's death a little too short. Let's just chalk that up to bad writing and laziness on the part of the writer. Action is the most exhausting thing, I think, to write. I have gotten better at it though. So stay hooked, please. There's so much more action in the third story that it blows the first two out of the water.
Chapter Twenty
The Road To Somewhere
"I'm looking down now that it's over
Reflecting on all of my mistakes
I thought I found the road to somewhere
Somewhere in His grace
I cried out, 'Heaven save me!'
But I'm down to one last breath
And will it let me say
Let me say…
Hold me now
I'm six feet from the edge
And I'm thinking
That maybe six feet
Ain't so far down…"
Creed: 'One Last Breath'Out in the driving rain, on the bridge across the loch, Arabella Figg searched wildly for survivors, anyone.
The children had been rounded up and herded to safety. Sirius was with them as well as Severus.
She was looking for someone entirely different.
She knew that if she found him, she would have to do what's right, turn him in. But, when he was in custody of the Ministry, there was still a chance that she could push a deal, get him a shorter sentence, though he deserved none. She just couldn't resign herself to the fact that he may have perished, unredeemable and broken, in dark service till the end. That was never the Peter she knew, the Peter she loved, the real Peter.
A splash and then a frigid gasp called her attention to a spot on the bank, several meters over, on the shore. Someone had swam that water and survived? It was amazing—it must be enough to bring one's temperature down alarmingly low.
She ran back down the length of the bridge, the flaming remains of the Ravenclaw Keep on Loch Muriadoch reduced to a mass of stone and charred timber. It still blazed wildly and she wondered how many people, innocent and not, had lost their lives in there in the soon to be forgotten mountain of refuse as its flames died away over the next couple of hours, days.
By the vantage of the flames now, she could see whom it was that had turned up on the shore. She was known far and wide in the Ministry and other wizard governments around Europe. Elena Vassikin, spy and most favored assassin to the Dark Lord—well, former Dark Lord. She'd known the line of Slytherin had failed when the family's tomb began to crumble and they had been set at liberty. The centuries old magic that had trapped them there had died with his last remnant of blood.
The wizarding world had finally seen the end of the Dark Reign.
She charged over, hauling the dark Russian to her feet. She was trembling from the cold, but she held her gaze with the spirited redhead that had assaulted her.
Three other representatives of the Department of the Mysteries had stayed behind to canvass the area with her and bring in any of the remaining survivors of the Faction that might wash up, as this one had.
"Agent Finnigan, take this one," she said, distractedly scanning the tree line in the distance where a movement had caught her eye. She handed the Death Eater over to the sandy blond Unspeakable who took custody of the young woman with no questions.
Another look from Arabella told the other two to check out that movement.
"I'm going to move around to the other side, see what I can find," she added to Kirin and started to walk away.
"What about the girl?" Kirin Finnigan questioned. "She needs medical attention," he insisted, eyeing his charge with concern as she shook, her lips turning blue.
Arabella shook her head. "I won't be long. Wait for me."
Stepping over a half decayed log, she scanned the water once more and then up the slope that served as the approach of the keep.
That was when she saw him. Relief washed over her and she headed up to make sure he was all right. Then she would have to arrest him—possibly one of the hardest things she would ever do.
Arabella approached and even though he looked in her direction and there was enough light, he didn't see her. In his arms he cradled a small girl, silver-blond ringlets and a round cheery face that now had the gray pallor of the dead. Peter leaned over her, weeping.
"Peter," she asked, placing a tentative hand on his arm.
He looked up at her with no recognition. "I did it," he cried, "I just as good as killed her. She saved me and I betrayed her and she was wrong about me, I have no hope." He shook his head. He'd given up. It broke Arabella's heart to see him fall to pieces, but he was in jagged fragments now. He would never be the same, no matter how hard she fought for him—how hard this little girl had fought for him. He wouldn't try any longer.
"Who is this, Peter?" she asked, trying to pry the girl's lifeless body from his arms. He let her go reluctantly and told her that it was Lucius Malfoy's child.
She stood, with the child in her arms and Peter by the hand. He'd accepted his fate and that, in Arabella's opinion, counted for the bravery that everyone thought he never had.
***
Assuming that whole structure would collapse any moment, Lucius Malfoy had abandoned the two boys in the entryway, racing back to the hall where they'd come from. Harry and Draco remained on the bridge both aware of what it was that they'd lost and left behind in there.
They were both mindful of the fact that they would never see Lucy again.
Looking back over the bridge, Harry saw that help had finally arrived, though he couldn't imagine how they'd found them. He wasn't even sure of where he was. Sirius called to them from the other side of the loch. The building would fall and the bridge would give out at any time. They needed to be quick.
He looked to Draco who had a self-destructive glint in his eye. He wanted to stay. Harry wasn't willing to lose another person tonight. Another death would not be on his head. He grabbed Malfoy by the back of his sweater and heaved him across the bridge as the entire entryway collapsed where he'd stood moments before. Harry shook his head at Malfoy's suddenly cavalier attitude. Lucy had fought for life, fought hard for it and lost. Draco was looking for ways to hand it off, to end it quickly. If only he could see how insulting it was.
If only Harry could have understood the relationship the two siblings had shared. He'd had a duty to his sister. He was her guardian—her protector and he failed at it. As much as he wanted to blame Potter for his lapse in attentiveness, it ultimately fell to Draco, his sister's well being. Her death was his fault entirely.
He didn't even blame Ginny entirely. Her betrayal was still very wrong, but it must have come under extreme circumstances, and yet all of it didn't matter. Living didn't matter. He wanted out desperately.
Harry had reached the shore and with Sirius they watched the castle fall and the bridge with it. Professor Snape had taken the others to St. Mungo's and they were headed there as well. Draco's arrangements would be made, in all likeliness with his Head of House, when things were sorted out and the story had been pieced together.
***
Draco spent his last days of summer seething over the fact that Potter hadn't let him stay, but he also had known why Harry had saved him. Lucy wouldn't have wanted him to end it that way. Harry knew that, and although Draco didn't want to admit it, he knew as well.
The late summer breeze, filled with those first vestiges of fall weather, blew past him as he tried to ignore it. He'd been ignoring a lot of things since that day. It all reminded him that life would go on, continuing to be many wonderful things for everyone else. But, it had all but stopped for him. He wouldn't acknowledge that it still existed around him—he was in Purgatory.
He walked down the cheery lane from the manor in the late afternoon sun. He and Lucy used to ride down this way often. He wondered if Master Shakespeare would miss her as much as he did.
Coming through an avenue of pines Draco stepped out onto a grassy plain out of view of the dominating Georgian building that he alone inhabited now.
He was standing on the edge of the family plot.
Struggling to keep his features a mask of indifference, even though no one was there to mock him if he had fallen apart—it was the principle of the thing. Draco looked on the resting places of relations that he had despised his whole life, the stones gray and weathered, forgotten by the living. Resting with them were the two people that Draco had loved more than his own life, and they too were gone.
The ground around the smaller headstone was disturbed where the earth had been moved to bury her. She had only been laid here, next to her mother, three days ago, and Draco had come to visit her every day since then, sometimes twice. He had to stay out of that drafty old house as much as possible and so he took to wandering the grounds, inevitably ending up in this same spot.
He casually kicked the brown leaves from the shade oak off of the two graves and brushed a few from the headstone marking his mother's grave.
He stood there and stared at the carved stone words, his hands placed lazily in his pockets.
He smiled.
She was a great admirer of the stoic philosopher and emperor of Rome, Marcus Aurelius. It was only fitting and summed up her time on earth perfectly to quote him on her headstone.
It read:
Lucilla Dale Malfoy
4 April, 1983- 23 August, 1997
"Do Every Act As If It Were Your Last."
He stood there amidst the painful realization that everything that was good in him had died with her in that cold and impersonal stone cell.
He sat with her until the sun had set.
Coming into the cold and lonely entrance of the manor again, with the plans of getting pissed and passing out somewhere until tomorrow, he was overcome with a sense of unease. Something wasn't right. The depressing silence of the place had been disturbed.
He wouldn't be able to explain later why his feet had automatically led him to Lucy's room, but as he got there he noted with alarm and rage that her door had been opened. The house elves knew not to disturb this room.
He threw the door open entirely, expecting to intimidate the brazen intruder only to gasp with horror.
No one was there, but the room had been destroyed. Lucy's belongings had been rent and strewn on the ground. Pictures were smashed from their frames and trodden on. Her cello that had once belonged to her mother lay in a disfigured heap on the floor.
Draco collapsed to his knees in the middle of the mess, rage clouding his thoughts. He hadn't even the capacity of mind to wonder at that moment who could have been that demented. He only thought of his sister, how upset she would have been to see it all, to see her cello mangled beyond repair.
Closing the door with a mournful sigh, Draco vowed that he would put back as much as he could salvage. But not tonight, he'd had enough of this. It was time to get drunk.
But he wouldn't have the luxury of an alcohol-induced slumber this evening.
"Master Draco," Portia squeaked tentatively as her master turned slowly to glare at her. The general rule held that he wasn't to be bothered for anything.
"What is it," he asked in a measured tone, trying to keep his patience.
"Miss Imogen Spencer is here to see you, sir," she said, taking a step in the direction of the foyer.
Draco heaved an annoyed sigh and frowned. He followed the house elf, curious as to why this particular visitor had shown up at his home.
He threw the door to the sitting room open as the house elf had gestured that she was waiting inside.
The slamming of the door against the wall caused the small, raven-haired girl to jump and turn as he entered, scowling.
"What are you doing here?" he asked.
"I," she began and then faltered. He regarded his housemate from school with detached interest. She looked as if she'd run a marathon in hell. Her eyes were puffy and shaded with lack of sleep, a dull cobalt color instead of their natural luminescent sapphire. A livid cut caught his attention as he eyed her hand, nervously working a fold of her robes as she stood under his scrutinizing gaze. He wondered what she could have possibly been up to this summer that had transformed the quiet, bookish girl into a case of nerves and injuries. He was about to ask when she finally found the voice to continue.
"I heard about your sister," she said, looking at the ground.
Draco found that he couldn't stand anymore and was thankful to find a chair nearby.
"How did you—it hasn't been released to the press?" he questioned ineloquently.
She shook her head to dismiss his fear. "I didn't read about it. I've been in and out of the ministry quite often in the past few days. I wanted to make sure you were all right. I know with your father missing, you're alone and," she faltered again, stepping on the sole of one of her shoes with the other nervously, "I thought you might want some company."
She bit her lip and choked out, "I'm sorry, Draco."
He nodded, closing his eyes. He didn't say anything, but invited her to sit down all the same.
***
In the next day and a half that Harry had spent at Ginny's side, routinely spelled by either Ron, Hermione or Mrs. Weasley, he'd seen an alarming digression in her condition before she'd finally started to turn around. Her battle would be mostly uphill, but with support like hers, family, friends, she would recover before the train left King's Cross in a week's time.
The doctors had been gravely concerned with the level of Truth Serum that she'd been force-injected. Her system was almost completely shut down by the time they'd gotten her to the casualty ward. The detoxification of her system was a rough process and almost as painful for those that loved her to watch.
He would always be plagued and haunted by the thought that Lucy had died because of him, and he missed her so much that the pain was intense. He was hardly ever left alone. Nights were terrible and sleep didn't come, but at least he had a handful of memories with her, if that was any consolation. And it wasn't any consolation to him.
The day before Ginny was to be released from the hospital, Harry had gone home to Belfast with Sirius.
Seeing his regret over the loss of Lucy, Sirius imparted his own story of a woman he once loved. It wasn't intended to help in any way, just a friendly reminder that other people have lived that life too and as hard as it may sound and as much as you may resent the cliché, life still goes on for those who are living in it.
Harry would be happy at this point just to dig his ditch and lay in it. Life would not go on, it would bury him and he would let it.