Disclaimer: Draco Malfoy, Remus Lupin, Sirius Black, Ginny Weasley, etc. are property of J.K. Rowling. This is an unauthorized fiction. I am not receiving money for this fiction.
A/N: Thank you to my kind reviewers! Draco and Moony are my favourite characters as well – hence this fic. The two of them are not going to remain shut up in the interrogation room for the whole story, in case anyone's wondering, but for now it's a one-on-one. Enjoy the next chapter!
DEMONS
"Seven days... are you sure he said seven?"
"Positive."
"Only seven?"
"Yes, only seven!"
"That's not enough time! We don't know where she is! And if – no, when we find out, we still have to plan a rescue, set up a team, and, and..."
"Don't I know it, Padfoot."
"Do you really? We need more information, Remus, and quickly. I hate to say it, but... the Cruciatus curse – "
"No!"
" – is our best chance at saving an innocent, no matter your objections to it. Do you consider Ginny's life worth sparing a Deatheater some well-deserved pain?"
"Every life has value. I won't make a decision like that lightly."
"I'm not asking you to make it lightly, just to make it."
"Come on, Padfoot! You didn't really expect him to talk on the first day – no one ever does! I thought you knew more about the job than that. Just give me more time!"
"Time... the one thing we're always short of. Alright. I suppose if anyone can do it, you can. Just do it quickly."
"I don't need any prompting... this is a delicate situation, that's all. I'd swear he isn't all bad, I really would."
"No, he's not all bad. He's pure, undiluted evil. It's completely different."
"Not funny. No one is evil."
"Right. Sure. Your faith in people never ceases to amaze me. But if you can prove it and save Malfoy's soul along with Ginny's life, I'll mix you up one of Sirius' Serious Shockers. Hell, I'll make it two."
"Oh, now I feel really motivated..."
"OK, just leave the sarcasm to me from now on, it doesn't suit you. Here we are. On to the sea, Mahatma! Six days left! No pressure or anything..."
"Ha!"
************************************************************************************
The smile faded from Lupin's face as soon as he caught sight of Malfoy. It was the same room, the same table and chairs, without additions or removals – boredom was supposed to soften up the subject and induce him to spill the beans sooner. But of course, the subject wasn't usually Draco Malfoy.
It was actually an impressive feat of engineering, Lupin reflected as he examined the ingenious structure Malfoy had built. And all constructed completely without magic. The kid would have made a good architect. As long as he didn't take it into his head to invent buildings that collapsed on the unsuspecting inhabitants' heads.
Malfoy had set both chairs onto the table, one at each end. In between, he had somehow suspended his coat, shirt, and trousers to form a hammock. He lay unconcernedly in his home-made recline, hands behind his head, eyes closed angelically, clad in only his black boxer shorts. One would have thought he was asleep, except for the air of silent laughter in the room. When the door shut with a soft snick behind Lupin, Malfoy opened his eyes to glittering slits. The corners of his mouth curled slightly, and his body shifted the tiniest bit on his makeshift hammock.
"Sorry. It's a bit hot in here," he said.
Lupin wondered whether he should laugh, cry, or call in a psychiatrist immediately. In the end, he decided to clear up matters himself. It almost amused him that the kid thought he could play head games with him like this. Lupin was, after all, a werewolf – the dangers of humanity were paltry compared to what he had to deal with on a monthly basis.
He let his gaze travel consideringly over Malfoy's half-naked body. Even if he had been the sort, he would hardly have found this skinny kid attractive. Apparently the Deatheater life was far from glamorous. Come to think of it, it could hardly pay well, except in power and blood. After an appropriate length of time, he let out a long, slow breath.
"Amazing," he said, "You look just like your father."
Malfoy's mouth dropped open and he sat up with a jerk – only to bring the whole delicately arranged structure tumbling down. Both chairs tipped off the table as he came crashing onto it, ending up tangled in his own clothing like a bride in her wedding veil. He cursed, trying to free his restrained limbs.
"What in the bloody – " Lupin winced at the surprising obscenities flowing effortlessly out of the kid's mouth, " – do you mean, my father? I swear, if you..."
Lupin sighed and pulled out his wand. "Accio, chair!" he murmured, and the chair he had pointed at flew obediently to his side. He sat down calmly, tucking his wand back into his robes.
After a moment, Malfoy ceased his frustrated struggles and just glared at him. "Must I ask?" he hissed, "What prompted that obscene comment?"
Lupin couldn't help himself; he had to laugh. "You're one to talk about obscene!" he remarked, "But if it will put your mind at ease, I have never had the dubious honour of seeing Lucius in a similar position. Nor would I want to, I might add. But I thought I should stop this charade before you embarrassed yourself further. Nice hammock, by the way."
"Thank you," Malfoy said, sitting up and slipping back into his clothing as if nothing had happened, "I should have known you would be completely passionless. It would be a necessary survival trait, considering that no woman could stand a man who dresses like you anyway. Neither could a man, for that matter."
"If you're that desperate to get out of here," Lupin said, watching Malfoy as he settled himself cross-legged on the tabletop, "I can offer you a much better way. If you will answer all my questions truthfully, I can arrange a refuge for you outside of a conventional prison. Under the Hermiculus charm, of course, but its a good deal better than the equivalent of a new Azkaban."
"The Hermiculus curse, you mean?" Malfoy sneered, "Well, that's exactly what I want – to be confined to a four-acre space under my own private bubble for the rest of my life! What makes you think I want to go to prison, anyway?"
"You already are in prison," Lupin pointed out patiently, "And don't think you're going to get out – except by dying – with the kind of joke you just tried to play. I'm offering you a lot more than anyone else would."
Malfoy stared at him seriously, tiny wrinkles of thought marring his pale forehead. "You are, at that," he mumbled, "I wonder why? Is your conscience biting you, wolfie? And you're biting back? Does being kind to me make up for all the other things, for the murders and secrets and lies?"
"I have never been party to a murder," Lupin said icily, "And if I have ever lied or kept a secret, it was for the general good." The words felt weak in his mouth, and he expected Malfoy to laugh and shoot a stinging retort at him. But he was wrong this time.
"I'm sure that's true," the Deatheater said morosely, "You would be the type. How fascinating. Remus Lupin... you should have heard my father complain when you took up that teaching post at Hogwarts. He remembered you all too well from his own days there. Remus Lupin, the intelligent, the mature, the humane, the good-hearted. The perfect angel, the saint, who never did anything wrong, who didn't know the meaning of the words "wrong" or "immoral" or... "evil." Everyone loved you. And all the while," he laughed maliciously, "That pure facade concealed the heart of a blood-thirsty demon. The irony is beautiful, don't you think?"
Lupin could feel the cold sweat on his palms. This was not going the way it was meant to. And yet... he had never had a tougher case, or a more important one. Perhaps it was only appropriate that this one time, he had to give before he could receive. One couldn't tame a horse with a whip after all – only with trust and love. And they had so much in common, though only he could see it, and even he could only admit the extent of it secretly to himself.
"Irony?" he said softly, "What makes you say that? You're smart, Draco, but not as smart as you think. What do you think made me act so carefully polite all the time? Where do you think all that feeling came from? Ordinary people don't need to make sure their every act is moral... but when you're a werewolf, you never know whether you're doing something because of your human side, or your demon side. That demon is inside you, and the only way to fight it is to become its opposite."
Malfoy stared at him. Somehow, he looked different; all traces of the Deatheater had disappeared. A young man sat there, looking confused and mildly desperate. He opened and closed his mouth a few times, then looked down at his hands.
"And what if the demon is too strong? What if you can't fight it?"
Lupin snorted. "Don't be ridiculous. You can always fight it. It's only a part of you, and you rule yourself, don't you?"
In a flash, the glimpse of the human boy had vanished, and the Deatheater was back. "Does anyone really?" Malfoy smirked sarcastically, "Here you are, yipping and turning flips for your superiors. And here I am, stuck listening to you do it."
"I'm only too happy to listen to you instead. Where's Ginny?"
Malfoy laughed snidely. "Bold, but no cigar," he said, "We have an agreement, remember? Quid pro quo. You asked first last time; it's my turn today."
Lupin sighed. He had been close to something, of that he was sure. But somehow Malfoy had pulled away at the last minute, and they were back on the slow track. Still, light was beginning to shine through the chinks; he could see more, understand more than he had before. Even the slow track moved, after all. Perhaps he could find a way to turn the questions to his advantage. He hoped so, anyway.
"Fair enough," he said, "Ask whatever you like."
"Tell me more about her. You know who I mean – what was her name, anyway?"
Lupin hesitated, but he couldn't turn back now. It was time to throw out the bait, and hope his prey would come sniffing around after it. But if only he weren't the bait himself...
"Chryseis."
It came out as a whisper. The name burned his mouth. As soon as he said it, he wished he could take it back; a door opened somewhere in his mind, and memories slipped through, shrouded in grey, mourning the past. In a minute he would see her face; mentally, he began to count by twos, letting the numbers block out the memory.
"What does that mean?" Malfoy frowned, "It sounds familiar."
"'The golden one,'" Lupin said, making no further comment. In his mind's eye, he saw the golden rays of the sun, filtering tentatively through the grimy windows of the Shrieking Shack. They stretched languorously across the floor, rubbing themselves against the dusty wood unabashedly, until the pure light came to rest on the pale face of a woman named Chryseis. A face that was terribly, unbelievably, unfairly and irrevocably still.
"Funny, I'm sure I've heard it before. Not that it makes the least bit of difference," Malfoy rambled on mercilessly, "So then, I just want to know one thing. What was your first thought? When you saw her, I mean – what was the first thought that crossed your mind?"
"Why do you ask?" Lupin said. His voice was as calm as ever, he knew. He wasn't one of the best interrogators in the England for nothing.
"I want to know if the demon or the human spoke first."
The picture shifted subtly in Lupin's mind. No, Malfoy wasn't attempting to torture him – none of this farce was about him at all. It was about Draco Malfoy, purely and simply. Was it possible that the boy was actually trying to pull himself out of the dark alleyway that had been his life thus far? If it were himself in this situation, how would he go about it? Malfoy couldn't turn to his family or his former associates, and everyone else hated and feared him, with good reason. Lupin wished fervently that Sirius had told him where exactly the agents of the Ministry had found Malfoy. How had the boy come to be there? And why, why now? If Draco had left the Deatheaters on purpose... to end here... and be confronted with himself, the one man who had experienced both sides of that faded moral line. Had it been consciously done? Did Draco know himself what he was doing? Or was he reading too much into a simple question, the amusement of a cruel and petty mind?
He had no answers. Anything was possible. It even occurred to him that the whole thing could be a ploy, and that Malfoy had been sent to learn what he could from the MIA and would disappear with the knowledge later. That, at least, seemed unlikely – it was not easy to get away from Sirius once you were in his clutches, as Lupin well knew.
In the end he was as clueless as ever, but he had decided on one thing, at least.
"'Nymph, in thy orisons be all my sins remember'd,'" he said.
"What?" Malfoy asked half-contemptuously.
"That's what I thought when I saw her. I'll leave you to decide if it was demon or human. Though I don't know many demons that have read Shakespeare."
"And then what? What did you say afterwards?"
"Nothing. Why would I speak? I was alone, after all, and hardly in the habit of talking to myself. I went to Hogsmeade for the authorities; they took the body away. I didn't go to the funeral."
"Why not?"
"It was on the evening of the next full moon."
"Oh. Well, that would explain things. Just one more thing..."
"No," Lupin said, determined to get something out of this day's session or be damned, "I answered your question. Now you answer mine. That's our deal, remember."
Malfoy shrugged and stretched his legs out where he sat on the tabletop. He shook his head back and forth, cracking his neck, then popped his knuckles. "Ask away, wolfie," he said after this procedure.
"Where is Ginny?"
Malfoy threw back his head and laughed. His shoulders shook with unrestrained mirth; he seemed genuinely amused. "Throwing subtlety out the window, are we?" he said, "Well, I can play a card or too as well. She's with Voldemort. And my mother."
"We guessed that much," Lupin said irritably, "But where, Malfoy, where are they?"
Malfoy grinned at him insolently, looking perfectly pleased with himself. "In the most obvious place, of course. Azkaban, where else?"
"That's a lie and you know it," Lupin said flatly, "We know Voldemort had his headquarters there for a while, but not anymore. Azkaban was razed to the ground the year after you played double agent at Hogwarts. The Ministry's people have been through the place at least a dozen times – up, down, around, and underground. There's nothing there, not so much as a senile Dementor."
Malfoy shrugged. "If that's how you want it, I won't argue with you. But I thought you wanted questions answered?"
"I want them answered truthfully. That was in the rules, wasn't it? The rules you made yourself, I might add."
"Getting a bit bitter, are we? I can't help it if you don't want to listen to me," Malfoy looked gleeful, "Just remember, you'll have no one but yourself to blame when the poor Weasley girl turns up stone dead six days from now."
Lupin ground his teeth. He knew Ginny well – he and Sirius were closely acquainted with the Weasley family. They were the best-hearted people he knew, and thinking of their pretty, innocent, impishly grinning redhead of a daughter among Voldemort's Deatheaters made his skin crawl. It never failed to amaze him how anyone, even Voldemort, could harm someone so obviously innocent, and so innocently charming. But then, Voldemort was fully capable of attacking young couples with their newborn children...
"You're not turning out to be very successful at exorcising your demon," he said aloud.
Malfoy's eyes narrowed. "What are you talking about?" he hissed, "I'm not - "
"Oh, yes, you are. Don't play the I'm-so-evil-nothing-can-touch-me game with me. You're not as opaque as you think, and I'm fairly good at seeing through a put-on. You're frightened, that's all, and you've decided to run from it." Lupin wondered briefly where all this was coming from; but he did not seem able to shut his own mouth. "You're running from Voldemort, your mother, the Deatheaters, yourself – everything. But you can't run from that demon, not as long as you keep acting like this. Goodness comes from inside, and it starts with helping people."
"'Goodness comes from inside,'" Malfoy mimicked rudely in a high falsetto, "Sheesh, you sound like my kindergarten teacher. Or like she used to. I think we killed her at one point too... not by means of werewolf, though. It must have been awful for poor little Chryseis, or whatever her name was. But not as awful as it was for you. You've dug yourself into a moral shell where no one can reach you, and now you sit there preening yourself and preaching at everyone who doesn't kiss your feet. You've no idea what real life is like anymore. I'm the frightened one? Ha! You're frightened of your own shadow, and even more frightened that other people will see it. What if your friends knew about those killer urges?"
Suddenly, Lupin didn't think he could take another moment of this. Malfoy's needling had gotten to him. The thought made him angry, but he tried to quench the feeling. Anger only led to more trouble, and he couldn't afford to alienate the boy. Maybe if Malfoy thought he had won this round he would be more cooperate. In any case, Lupin wasn't about to stay in that room a second longer.
Still, he could not resist a final retort before he left.
"At least I have friends to care about," he said, "Which is more than you can claim."
Outside, he leaned his forehead against the corridor wall. It felt cool and soothing, a relief for his feverish mind. He wanted to sleep, or even better, go on a very long vacation. But there was no time for that, no time at all. Lupin almost groaned. He still wasn't any closer to finding Ginny. Sirius was going to have a fit.
* "On to the sea, Mahatma" – Mahatma Gandhi led the Indian people to independence by means of non-violent passive resistance. On one occasion, he directed thousands of people on a march to the sea to manufacture salt as a protest against salt taxes. The goal was to complete the entire procedure without violence. It was considered foolish and impossible by many, and yet succeeded.
* Chryseis – a Greek name I got from a book about the fall of Troy. Although I don't speak Greek (it's just Greek to me, har har), this allegedly does mean "the golden one."
* "Nymph, in thy..." – quote from the end of Hamlet's famous speech (To be or not to be)
A/N: This is not going to turn into a slash fic, so I hope no one got that impression. The hammock thing was just Draco trying to get under Lupin's skin, unsuccessfully. If this gets boring at any time or the characters act OOC, please inform me! I aim to entertain. :)