Disclaimer: None of these characters are mine, which is just as well, because they keep ordering me around. Draco, especially, will not do what I want him to.
Precious
-Catspook
Chapter 6: Regret
"Woof! Woof! Woof!" An enormous, shaggy, black dog ran into the Great Hall during breakfast the next morning. The students, and some of the staff, were then shocked to witness the dog morph into a tall, thin, filthy man with shaggy black hair who was yelling, "Harry! Harry!"
Stranger still, Harry Potter, who despite his fame was universally known by the student body for being rather quiet and well behaved in public, yelled, "Sirius!" and dove into the man's arms.
The man, who many now recognized as Sirius Black (his declaration of innocence by the Ministry had been the cover story of that morning's Daily Prophet), lifted Harry up and swung him around, grinning happily. "Harry! I'm free! And it's all..." Sirius trailed off when he realized that Harry was not laughing, but rather sobbing and clinging to Sirius desperately. "Harry, kiddo, what's wrong?"
"Oh, Sirius, I was so scared! I thought that the Death Eaters had caught you!"
"Why would you think that?" Harry looked at him, his green eyes wide and confused behind his glasses.
"Your note said that the Death Eaters were close. I was afraid that they were after you for sending me that information about Crouch."
"What? Harry, I never sent you any information about Crouch."
"But the note..." Harry dug around in his pocket, but Sirius had to put him down before he could pull out the note.
Sirius frowned. "I never sent you this, Harry."
"What? But... if you didn't, who did?"
Sirius shrugged. "I don't know. But never mind that; I'm free! You can come live with me now. I mean, if you still want to-"
Harry launched himself at Sirius again and nearly knocked him over. "Of course I do!"
Sirius laughed and ruffled Harry's flyaway hair. "Great! I can stay with Moony until I can get the house ready, and..."
"Uh, Sirius?"
"Yeah?"
"Everyone is staring at us."
Sirius finally looked around, and Harry was right. The usually boisterous Great Hall was completely silent, and every student and staff member was staring at Sirius in shock. Except for Dumbledore, of course; he was smiling at them, his blue eyes twinkling brightly.
Sirius waved awkwardly and said, "Uh, good morning, everyone." Nobody moved, until a very petite boy with blond, curly hair whipped out a camera. The flash momentarily blinded Sirius, but he could hear the Great Hall erupt into chaos.
Dumbledore had to shower the students with sparks to prevent a riot. "Quiet, everyone! Classes are set to begin an a few minutes anyway, so why don't we give Mr. Potter some time alone with his godfather, shall we?"
As Sirius blinked his vision clear, he saw the students slowly get to their feet and trickle out the front doors. He continued to hold Harry in his arms; he was wary of some of the suspicious and accusing looks some of the students (especially Hufflepuffs, for some odd reason) were sending Harry. The Ravenclaw, Beauxbatons, and Durmstrang students were the first to leave, followed by the majority of the Slytherins and Hufflepuffs. The Gryffindors got up to leave only after Harry smiled at them and told them everything was fine.
Sirius exchanged some friendly words with Ron and Hermione and was introduced to Ginny and the twins while the students continued to filter out. Many of the professors left as well; to prepare for their classes, Sirius supposed. The twins and Ginny left after McGonagall gave them a pointed look (she hadn't changed a bit since Sirius' own school days), but Ron and Hermione stayed.
Everything seemed to be progressing smoothly until a Hufflepuff boy (who Harry later identified as Ernie MacMillan) started yelling at Harry and Sirius, "Been consorting with the enemy, Potter? I suppose that's how you knew about Crouch. Eliminating the competition, are we?"
Sirius glared at the boy, but that seemed to make matters worse. "See that?" the boy screeched, "He's threatening me! I don't care what the paper says! He should be locked up!"
Sirius was growing more and more angry, and Harry could obviously tell, as he tightened his grip on Sirius' arms. Unexpectedly, a tall, slender, darkly tanned boy (a Slytherin, Sirius was surprised to note) stepped between them, raised his hands in a non-threatening gesture, and said, "Why don't you calm down, MacMillan, and leave Potter alone."
In response, MacMillan flushed in anger, and impulsively drew his wand on the Slytherin. "Hey, relax, MacMillan!" the Slytherin warned.
"All you Slytherins are in it together, aren't you!" MacMillan snarled and began a curse. Another Slytherin (a tall girl with blonde hair) tried to snatch the wand from his hand, but she wasn't quite fast enough. The curse missed the tan boy, but struck his book bag head on, causing books and assorted items to scatter all over the floor. Muggle items.
"Bugger!" the tan boy huffed, while the blonde girl sighed heavily.
"What's this?" MacMillan accused, "Gathering information? Planning some muggle baiting?"
"Oh will you shut up?" A second blonde Slytherin girl sighed, kneeling to help gather the items, "We're not Death Eaters."
"And why should we believe you?"
"Because we are muggle-borns you idiot!" she shouted.
Silence. "Twenty points from Hufflepuff, MacMillan," Professor McGonagall sighed, "And report to my office directly after dinner. Now go to class before I take more points." Speechless, MacMillan complied.
Hermione walked over to help gather up the boy's things. Harry, Sirius, and Ron followed, while McGonagall waved any remaining students on to class.
"Are you really muggle-born?" Hermione asked, handing the boy several colorful pens.
"Yeah. Thanks."
"Thanks for that," Harry said, gathering several magazines.
"Thanks for blowing old snake-face's plan," The boy replied with a crooked grin, "We'd have been the first on the chopping block if he had succeeded. Hey, you're Sirius Black, right?"
Sirius grinned, "Yeah, but you can call me Padfoot."
O~O~O~O~O
"Mmmm." Draco sighed contentedly, still half asleep, and burrowed deeper into the blankets.
Lucius smiled; Draco looked so peaceful, smiling faintly. Lucius slowly ran a hand though Draco's hair. "Good morning, precious. Did you sleep well?"
"Mm."
"Is that a yes or a no?"
"Mm."
But Draco's content smiled curled slightly into a mischievous grin. Lucius grinned just as evilly; if Draco felt like playing, he was more than happy to play along.
"Hm, you seem to be quite awake yet. Maybe this will wake you up..." Lucius then started tickling Draco lightly on his stomach. Draco didn't move or make a sound, but from the twitch of his lips, Lucius could see that he obviously was exerting an extraordinary effort not to laugh. Lucius tickled harder, but still Draco did not laugh. Finally, Lucius took both hands and tickled Draco all over, from his waist to his neck. That was too much for Draco.
"Father," he giggled, "Father, stop! I'm awake! I'm awake! Father, please!" Lucius chuckled; he was having too much fun to stop. "Father! Stop, I mean it!" Draco finally flipped over, curled up in a ball, and covered his head with his hands.
Lucius placed a hand on Draco's back, but the boy jerked away. "I can't believe you did that!" Draco snapped, "I told you to stop, and you didn't!"
"I'm sorry, precious; I thought we were playing."
"Stop calling me that!"
Lucius frowned. "What? Why?"
"Because you don't mean it!" Draco sobbed into his arms.
Lucius froze; he thought that he had made such progress with Draco. "Precious-"
"Stop it!" Draco screamed.
"Pre- Draco, please, listen to me. I love you-"
"No you don't! You've been lying this whole time!"
"What? Why would you think that?"
"Because you didn't listen to me! I told you to stop and you didn't! You never do!"
"What are you talking about? Is this about me forcing you to eat? Draco, I was just doing what was best for you."
"And when you hit me and cursed me, was that for the best too?" The anger had leeched out of Draco's tone, and now he sounded lost and confused. But that didn't make it any easier to Lucius to hear; anger, he could have dealt with, but not this despair. Had he done this to his precious son? He had.
"Draco... Draco, I made some terrible mistakes with you. I never... all I ever wanted was for you to be happy, and," Merlin, this wasn't coming out right. "Draco, I... I always wanted to be a good father, but no one ever... Draco, my own father hurt me constantly because he enjoyed it, and I swore I'd never be like him-"
"Then why did you hurt me?" Draco sobbed brokenly. There was nothing Draco could have said that could have hurt Lucius more.
Despite all his attempts to stop himself, Lucius started to cry too, silently. "Draco, I told you at the time that I was trying to teach you how to be strong, how to-"
"That is such crap!" Draco snarled, completely unaware of the tears that were now streaming down Lucius' face.
"I know, I know. I see that now. And I have never been more sorry for anything in my life than for how I've hurt you. But at the time, it seemed to make such sense... Draco... I am not a good man; I've done a lot of evil things in my life. The only thing I ever did that meant anything was having you. Draco, if there was anything I could do that would make up for what I've done to you..." Lucius trailed off; he hated the tears that had started to creep into his voice and tried to stop them. But apparently Draco had noticed them anyway.
Draco rolled over and blinked at Lucius with red, puffy eyes. He didn't say anything, he just watched solemnly as Lucius tried to bring himself under control. Finally, Draco spoke, "I've never seen you cry before."
"Yes, you have," Lucius replied, self-disgust evident in his tone.
"When was that?" Draco sniffed.
"That first night. You were half asleep; I'm not surprised you don't remember."
"Why were you crying then?"
Lucius glanced at him with newly dried, gray eyes, "You had been hurt. Why else would I be crying?"
Apparently, Draco didn't have an answer to that. He just stared at the blankets, tugging idly on a loose thread. Lucius handed him a handkerchief and Draco wiped the tears from his face.
O~O~O~O~O
"That kid... the nerve, comparing me to Snape... just like James..." Percy stared, open mouthed, as tall, filthy man with very long, unkempt black hair stalked into the hospital wing, muttering to himself. Percy glanced at the newspaper photograph accompanying the declaration of Sirius Black's innocence and realized that the wizard in question was the very same who had just entered the room.
"Black?" Mr. Crouch blinked sleepily.
Black stopped in his tracks and glared hatefully at Mr. Crouch. "I remember you," he growled. "I guess you're going to know what it's like now, aren't you?" and without waiting for Mr. Crouch to respond, Black marched to the bathroom and slammed the door.
Black did not emerge until lunchtime, when Harry, Ron, and Hermione showed up, looking for him. "Sirius!" Harry grinned, practically glowing with joy, "You're clean!"
"Yes," Sirius scowled, "As you can see, that comment about my hair looking like Snape's was completely unwarranted."
"Not this morning, it wasn't," Harry replied, still grinning. "Have you been in the shower this whole time?"
"No," Sirius pouted, "It just takes a while to comb hair this long." Sirius then flipped a lock of now sleek, shiny, waist-length hair over one shoulder.
"Why didn't you just cut some of it off?"
"Because he's too proud," a new voice answered.
"Moony!" Sirius declared happily. Former professor Lupin smiled shyly, "Hello, Padfoot. It's good to see you."
Sirius grinned brilliantly and hugged Lupin tightly, chanting, "Moony! I'm free! I'm free!"
Lupin chuckled, "I know, I saw the papers. Would you mind putting me down, now?"
"Yes!" Sirius laughed, swinging Lupin around. Harry and Ron laughed, but Hermione looked disapproving.
"Sirius, put me down; I mean it," Lupin managed to sound dignified despite being tossed around like a sack of flour.
"Maybe you should, Sirius," Harry giggled.
"Oh, fine," Sirius mock-pouted. He set Lupin on his feet, straightened his robes, and smiled at him. "Good as new."
A shadow flickered across Lupin's eyes. "No," replied softly.
Sirius pushed a wayward lock of graying hair behind Lupin's ear. "I know. But we can try."
Everyone suddenly looked solemn and sad for a minute, until Hermione asked, "Harry, why don't we ask Professor Lupin about the note?"
"What note? And you all can call me Remus; I'm not a professor anymore."
"Okay, Remus," Harry smiled shyly, digging a wrinkled piece of parchment out of his pocket. Remus examined the note thoughtfully.
"I assume you didn't write this?" he asked Sirius.
"Right."
"And this is what tipped you off about Crouch, Harry?"
"Yes," Ron answered, "We nullified the polyjuice the night after we received it so that it wore off at dinner in front of everyone." Ron looked awfully smug.
Remus then cast a series of revealing and reversal charms on the note. "Nothing's happening," he muttered, "It was forged the muggle way."
"But who could have sent it?" Hermione wondered.
"Who would want Crouch caught without doing it themselves?" Remus countered.
"I think the better question is who would have wanted Crouch caught and *known* about the impersonation," Sirius clarified.
Percy glanced at Mr. Crouch, who was obviously listening intently to the conversation but trying to make it appear as if he were not. And for some reason, Sirius' comment had brought an image of Lucius Malfoy to Percy's mind. What had he been doing in the ministry records that day? But Lucius Malfoy had no motive to expose Crouch jr., so it couldn't have been him.
"What can you tell me about how you received it?" Remus asked Harry.
"It was delivered at breakfast by a black crow that just flew off after it delivered it."
"A crow? You're sure it wasn't a raven?"
"Yes," Hermione replied with certainty, "I looked it up."
"Hmmm. Did the bird look domesticated?"
"What do you mean?"
"Was it clean, well groomed? How did it act?"
"Come to think of it, it was rather scraggly looking. It didn't make a sound the whole time, just circled once, dropped the letter in Harry's oatmeal and flew off," Ron replied.
Remus looked thoughtful. "Did anything odd happen around the note was delivered?"
"No, just the normal breakfast, quieter, though, with Malfoy gone," Ron grinned.
"Malfoy's gone? Why? For how long?"
"He went out for the Hogsmeade weekend and didn't come back. He has been looking rather sick lately," Hermione replied.
"If he was sick, why didn't he just go to the hospital wing?"
"That's what I said," Ron cut in. But Percy wasn't listening to Ron; he was watching Mr. Crouch very carefully.
As soon as Ron had mentioned Malfoy's absence, Mr. Crouch had flinched, and looked almost... guilty? What would Crouch feel guilty for? He wasn't in any shape to have done anything to the Malfoy boy, but what if... Suddenly everything clicked into place; if Crouch jr. had done something to hurt Draco, Lucius had ample motive to expose him. Lucius hadn't been into Harry's file that day as part of an evil plot, he had been looking for a sample of Sirius' handwriting! Sirius was Harry's godfather, after all; his signature had been on Harry's birth certificate. But now that Percy knew, how could he prove it?
O~O~O~O~O
Percy didn't know why he was doing this. Mum would have a fit if she knew that he, *he*, had actually caught the twins after dinner and asked them to sneak out, after hours, to meet him in an obscure corner of the dungeons. And considering what Percy was then going to ask them when they arrived...
Percy had decided that afternoon that his next step was to find out as much as he could about Crouch jr.'s tendencies for violence. Percy couldn't access the ministry files on him or Malfoy (information on him might also prove useful); Crouch's were under high security right now, and Percy didn't want to be found rifling through a former Death Eater's files while everyone was still so worked up.
The same went for the official Hogwarts files; Dumbledore had them, and Percy didn't want to bring him into it until he had proof of his suspicions. The only other files that could help, Percy had decided, belonged to Filch. But Percy still hoped to get the files he needed without Filch knowing; for that to happen, he needed a distraction. That's where the twins came in.
"Hey, Perce."
"What's up?"
Percy took a deep breath before answering, "I am never, ever going to ask you to do this again, but I need you to distract Filch while I get some files from his office."
The twins' jaws dropped. "He's an imposter!" George whispered loudly to his twin, drawing his wand.
"Ok, who are you and what have you done with our brother?" Fred demanded.
Percy sighed in frustration. "It's me. This is really important-"
"Liar!"
"Percy would never ask us something this cool!"
"Shh! Keep your voices down! And I am Percy!"
"Prove it!"
"What was the worst thing we ever did?"
Percy sighed again, "Well, I wasn't happy with the whole pyramid thing-"
"Ha!"
"But the worst thing you did was when you tried to trick Ron into making an unbreakable vow."
There was a pause. "Ok, if you really are Percy…"
"And we're not saying you are…"
"What's in it for us?"
Percy hadn't thought of that. "Um, what do you want?"
"Well... first of all, if we get caught, you tell Mum it was your idea."
"Of course."
The twins traded shifty looks. "And you tell us why you're going though Filch's files."
"I can't tell you that."
"Tell us, or we'll raise the alarm."
"You'll be rotting in Azkaban, Percy-imposter!"
Percy growled, "Fine! I think I know who sent Harry the information about Crouch jr., and I'm looking for evidence to back up my theory."
"Who?"
"I can't tell you that now."
The twins frowned and folded their arms. "You tell us or we won't do it."
Percy frowned; just once, couldn't the twins simply go along with what he was asking? "I can't tell you until after I get the files I need; I need to know I'm right before I start rumors."
The twins looked even more suspicious. "But doesn't the ministry have more up-to-date files?"
"Yes, but they are under top security right now. Look, I'll do anything you ask; I really need these files."
George grinned evilly. "Anything?"
Percy suddenly realized how stupid he'd been, saying that, but he needed those files; and he was a Gryffindor, wasn't he? Percy squared his shoulders.
"Anything."
O~O~O~O~O
"Father? Would... would you sleep with me tonight?" Lucius couldn't keep the relived smile from his face. He had been terrified that Draco hated him; the boy hadn't said a word since their argument. He'd been quiet and withdrawn all day. He'd also eaten very little, but Lucius hadn't had the heart to call him on it.
"Of course I will, precious." Draco flinched at the endearment but didn't say anything. "May I ask why?" Lucius continued.
"No."
"All right." Lucius raised his hands apologetically; he was terrified that he would say the wrong thing and Draco would bolt. "Do you still want your potion?"
Draco nodded, "Yes."
"All right." Lucius called for Dibby, careful to use a gentle tone around Draco. Lucius pulled back the covers so that the boy could climb under them, then helped Draco drink the half-full goblet, careful the whole time not to touch him. Once he'd drained the goblet, Draco lay down, blinking sleepily.
Before he drifted of entirely, Draco looked at Lucius and said, "I'm sorry he hurt you, father."
Lucius stared at Draco, now fast asleep, then hid his face and his hands, lowered his head between his knees, and began to cry. "I'm sorry too, precious. I'm sorry too."
* End Chapter 6 *