Chapter 11 – The Jigsaw
A/N – yes I know you've all been waiting an age but I really didn't want to screw this up *smile* I'll let you judge whether this endeavour was successful or not once you reach the bottom but my beta (the ever fabulous Maria) thinks that it's passable so…. *grin* In any case, enjoy and let me know what you think.
Harry lay in bed later that night, long after he assumed the other two had gone to sleep, thinking about all that his father had told him over the last few weeks. He had been so incredibly glad to get a chance to hear what the marauders had gotten up to first hand, and then the whole thing had been turned upside down. Hermione, Ron and he had listened to the end of the diary that night but it barely took them further than the start of the term. Perhaps the most shocking account had been of the differences between Malfoy's return and Professor McGonagall's. Where the blonde had been met with interested questions about his sudden departure and uncommon last-minute change of courses and had brushed them off easily, the Professor's first appearance had been a little different. Though there had been no outright questions – certainly none in front of James - there had been comment on the quite observable changes that had occurred since they had last seen her in the classroom. The long black hair was now pulled up into an even more formal bun, to match her even sterner style. It hadn't been hard to match the traits of their own teacher, to those that his father had seemed a little unnerved, if not surprised, by. Now that he took the time to think about it, he supposed that he had always realised, or at least subconsciously assumed, that there was something different about her. He had never been able to pinpoint it; whether it was some kind of grief or …well something else, it seemed to hold her back. It was as if sometimes, she wanted nothing more than to be there for her students in every way she could, but that there was something preventing her from feeling comfortable. The events they had just learned of more than explained any hesitance he had witnessed in her growing close to them – or anyone.
He came to the decision that he hated Lucius Malfoy. Not that this was really a particularly new development, but this had cemented his feelings in a way he had never thought possible. But as he thought about it, something even more disturbing occurred to him. Lucius Malfoy was a Death Eater. He had no doubt about that and hadn't for some time. But if that was true it was just as likely that this act had certainly not been his only of this sort, and probably not even the worst example. This sent a chill down his spine as he tried to examine his feelings more closely. It wasn't that he cared for the other victims any less, but there was something about being able to identify one that made it all so much more real; brought it to life. He supposed it was like the difference between knowing of death and knowing death. Now that he thought about it, he realised that there must be hundreds of woman in the same position, even if they were not so certain who their attacker had been. He had to wonder though, how many of them had managed to move on so successfully even if it meant leaving a part of themselves behind. It was not easy for him to try and put himself in his Professor's position for a number of reasons, but in the closest simulation he managed to conjure, the concept of having to deal with teaching the man's son - never mind having to cope with Malfoy senior's sporadic and havoc creating visits as a Governor- was beyond his comprehension. He fell asleep, his mind still a swirl of all these thoughts, and had to be roused early the next morning to ensure that he was up in time to catch the train back to the school.
"Harry?" Hermione asked as they were sitting in the back of the black cab they had caught from outside the Leaky Cauldron.
"Hmm?" He replied turning to look over the top of Hedwig's cage, at where she was sitting opposite him.
"I just, I just wanted to make sure you were ok?" He guessed that she wasn't simply meaning in general. "I know how much getting your father's diary meant to you. I guess we just weren't expecting it to hold so many dark secrets." He nodded and glanced at Ron, who was alternating between glancing out of the window and drumming his fingers on the armrest of the door.
"I suppose it makes sense that there was something fairly radical in this one, this diary I mean." He ventured not long after. "There had to be a reason why he asked Sirius to look after it. Why he thought it was special."
"He didn't want it to be forgotten." Ron put in. "He wanted to make sure that you knew what had actually happened back then." He supposed his friend was right. His father had wanted to keep the memory alive, however unpleasant that memory was. When he was doing some last minute packing he had come across the letter that his Godfather had sent along with the book, the offer of clarification where they could offer it. It made him wonder; he hadn't had many opportunities to observe either Sirius or Lupin interacting with the Professor, but when he had they had certainly seemed…'close' wasn't quite the word, but they seemed to have an underlying understanding. Whether he had never noticed it before or had simply chalked it down to shared experience in the Order he couldn't be sure now, but somehow like so many other things, the pieces just seemed to fall into place.
Their arrival at the station was a little on the late side, so they had to rush to the platform and were, as far as Harry could tell, the last people on board. Once they had manage to tug Ron's chest aboard they all collapsed in a heap, and really couldn't help but laugh at the look on some of the first year's faces as they had thrown their luggage perhaps just a little to close to the group standing in their way. Eventually they pulled themselves together and apologised and introduced themselves (which lead to the now customary rounds of 'oohs and aaahs') after which they made their way through a few of the carriages until they found Neville and Ginny sitting in a compartment on their own.
"Oh there you are! I thought we'd left you behind!" She said, launching herself at her brother as soon as they walked through the door. This was followed by a long stream of questions, which were pretty much indecipherable. She ended this by producing the now compulsory package of sandwiches and telling them, "Mum wasn't sure that you'd have been eating properly, so she made you all some." He smiled at this. It seemed that Mrs Weasley had coped with the increasingly few of her children who were still at home by trying to feed anybody else who happened to walk close enough by.
"Actually," Hermione said after storing Crookshank's cage safely on the rack above their heads, "I didn't get time for breakfast." She reached across and began unwrapping them. The same thought obviously hit Ron and Harry at the same time, as they both helped themselves too.
The sights, familiar now from six years worth of trips, sped past as time progressed and Harry found that the longer he spent in the company of his school mates, many of whom made visits into their compartment, the more relaxed he became. Part of him began to feel as if the whole holiday and all that it had contained belonged to a different world entirely. They played exploding snap and reminisced about how it had felt when they were first years, until the tea trolley had appeared and they had bought enough to feed a small army. It was late in the afternoon when they had settled into a comfortable semi-silence, when the piece was broken by a sneering and instantly recognisable voice.
"Well, if it isn't the Boy Wonder, his faithful if decidedly incompetent side-kick and their bit of fun on the side." He saw a flash of red as Ron was past him in an instant. Malfoy had barely made it through the door before he was pushed straight back out. Hermione and Harry managed to grab an arm each before their friend could lay in properly though. Once Harry had a firm grip on him, he nodded to Hermione who simply walked over and shut the door in the blonde's face, leaving him and his two tank-like companions looking rather mystified.
"I thought you had given up on getting pissed off at him?" Neville asked. Harry was seething, his teeth clenched as he forced himself to take a few breaths before replying.
"It's a little different now" was all he said. He couldn't believe that he had just heard that – it was like Draco was a carbon copy of the man they had read about. Hermione was trying to calm Ron down but he could tell that she had seen it to. Before he had very much longer to brood on it however, the whistle blew as the train slowed to the only stop it made on their journey – they were at Hogsmeade.
Harry had seen five of the six previous sortings that took place before the welcoming feast in the Great Hall, but even still he was fascinated by the stream of youngsters who followed the Deputy Headmistress into the hall. It wasn't until she called out 'Norwell, Lucy' and he misheard the girl's first name that it all came crashing back down around him. For the first time he looked at her knowing that his Head of House, the woman standing there in front of them all, was the same woman his father had described sitting perched on the edge of the common room sofa. She was the same woman that James commented on Sirius watching from the back of the class room as he wondered if she ever took her braid out, and his friend wondered what she wore under her robes. He was startled out of his epiphany when the hat announced in its confident air 'Slytherin', and a roar went up from the table at the edge of the hall. He saw the blonde standing up and clapping enthusiastically. He couldn't be sure that the look on Malfoy's face wasn't simply in his mind, but it was almost predatory. Never having seen Draco 'under the influence', he could not guess what he would be like but it was decidedly easy to picture him behaving in a similar manner to his father. He shuddered. The rest of the meal passed quickly, the usually stunning food tasting like cardboard in his mouth. Gryffindor had received a large group this year and after helping to herd them up in the direction of the tower, he slipped off into the seventh year dormitories. Closing the curtains, he shut out the rest of the world and pulled some parchment and a quill out of trunk and began to write.
Dear Sirius,
He stopped for several minutes and sucked on the end of his quill as he tried to think of what it was he wanted to write.
I read the diary.
In a way that seemed to cover it, but he knew that his Godfather would not know how much he knew from that simple statement. He couldn't even decide what the purpose of his letter was.
I know. It makes so much sense that now that I do, I wonder why I never saw the…the gaps it fills before this. I guess I just…I want you to know that I understand why you didn't…nothing happened back then. Or at least I think I do. Maybe I shouldn't be telling you this – I don't know how much you know about what Dad thought about all this. Maybe you should have read the diary. Maybe I shouldn't have.
Don't take that the wrong way. I loved being able to hear about you and Lupin and Mum, but I just wonder if I…If there was anything to be gained by me, us, knowing this. It just seems so stupid now. The Professor looked the same as ever today, the same as she always has to me – except now I know that she wasn't always like that. I can't walk around in the same haze that assumes that adults, that Professors, were born old or that they're beyond our reaches to hurt.
He wrote and he wrote until the small hours of the morning. He was only vaguely aware of the noises his fellow students made as they to went to bed, of the last of the natural light fading from the gap at the bottom of his hangings. Pages and pages of his thoughts; sometimes making unprecedented leaps from one aspect of life to another and in other instances, simply repeating the same things. All his fears and concerns had culminated in his desire for revenge. He spoke about Draco and his attitude, and his own concerns that the son was exactly the same as the father. He asked his Godfather how he was supposed to be able to sit in class with that carbon copy, knowing what was in his blood, knowing what he was capable of. At some stage he must have fallen asleep though, as when the sun began to shine through the curtains surrounding him he woke, still fully dressed, on top of his bedclothes and in a sea of parchment. His mind seemed clearer now than it had previously, but still the answers to his many questions eluded him. Stretching and trying to work some of the kinks out of his neck and back, he suddenly realised that it was awfully quiet in the dorm. Straightening his glasses he checked his watch and realised that breakfast was about to start. He rushed through his usual morning routine taking time only to ensure that he was clean and vaguely presentable. When he arrived in the common room he was greeted by Ron and Hermione, neither of whom looked like they had gotten any more sleep than he had.
"Morning." Hermione said as she finished fastening her braid. Ron just grunted.
"Yeah, guess it is." He replied. "I suppose we had better go to breakfast and get our timetables," he suggested, and in accord they headed through the portrait hole. When they were descending the main staircase he paused half way down. As is typical in situations like this, it seemed that the three of them were destined to run into Malfoy absolutely everywhere they went. This time he was crossing the entrance hall with his two cronies, quite obviously ogling a group of Ravenclaw girls in front of them. All three of them waited until the others had entered the Great hall before they resumed their course, none of them feeling the need to express their feelings verbally. Harry couldn't help the anger and resentment that boiled up in him at the sight of the other boy, and was so caught up in trying to analyse these feelings he had just discovered, that he almost didn't notice Hedwig swoop in through the front door and start circling them. She hooted persistently until her master snapped out of his introspection.
"Hey girl, what have you got there?" He asked, referring to the letter that was attached to her leg. The bird lowered herself onto Harry's shoulder and obediently stuck out a leg to allow him to remove it.
"Messers H. Potter and R. Weasley and Miss H. Granger." He read aloud before turning the envelope and slitting the seal. If the graceful handwriting hadn't told him who the author of this message was, then surely the seal would have. No one else in the world could possibly combine muggle candy and a phoenix in their coat of arms. With one of his friends on either side, he removed the card inside and read what their Headmaster had to say in silence and yet together.
We cannot blame the sins of the father upon his son, for we no-more choose whom we are born to than the seed can choose where upon the ground it shall fall.
There are crimes to which no punishment can ever be equal, and so we must remember that in these cases it is often far better to think first of the victim and not the perpetrator. After the dust has settled we must weigh carefully the prospects of letting it lie, versus the consequences of digging up past horrors; those that should be left well alone.
Harry was once again shocked by the foresight of the man they had all grown to respect more than any other in their time at the school. These words seemed to penetrate the fog surrounding his emotions and decision-making centres, allowing him to think clearly for the first time in days. He looked to the other two, not sure what he expected to see in their faces. Hermione looked as if she were about to start crying but when he caught her eye she smiled, and Ron nodded when she in turn looked to him. He was sure they all knew it was not necessarily going to be easy to accept what they had learned and return to their old ways, but he was certain they would try their best. As they entered the hall where breakfast was well underway he couldn't help but look up to the staff table. As ever, Dumbledore communicated all he wanted in a single look and Harry let a smile flicker across his face in response. He had no idea how he had even known that they had read the diary - never mind how it had left them feeling - and he supposed he never would. It would be chalked down as yet another example of what made this man so special. Walking towards their House table, he let his gaze drift towards his Head of House. At that particular moment, she seemed to be arguing vehemently with Snape over something that looked very like the Quidditch practice schedule. This lightened his heart as he realised that maybe things hadn't changed as much as he had suspected. The pieces had fallen into place, but still it was the same jigsaw as always.