+Mens mea cupit cantare formas versas in nova corpora.+
(Ovid)
CHAPTER EIGHT
The ship, Naeglfar, was very old, and its timbers creaked with each crash of the waves against them. A sad-faced man, who had not introduced himself to his passengers and had not stirred from the tiller since their undocking, piloted the ship with improbable dexterity, despite the heavy seas and precocious winds. It did not seem that they were actually going anywhere, to Harry, but rather that they simply stayed in one place while the sea buffeted the ship and flung salt spray in his eyes - all around him, he could see only the water, with the forbidding cliffs of northern England left far behind. He thought he could see a shadow on the horizon, but the knowledge of what that shadow was... Did he want to get there, or drift on the North Sea forever?
He shuddered at the thought of sinking out here - Naeglfar did not seem to be very sea-worthy - and tried very hard not to be seasick. He was in the middle of fighting yet another prolonged protest from his stomach when a soft, but firm, voice broke into his thoughts.
"You don't have to do this."
Hermione had told him this at least ten times on the boat ride to Azkaban, and the closer they got to it, the harder it became to disagree with her. As the water turned sullen and gray, the waves churning on either side of the Naeglfar's prow, as the shadow of the prison-island loomed, now in the near distance, swallowing the light, all Harry wanted to do was turn around. Even from so far away, he felt the tugging of joylessness, the cold, furrowing sensation of the Dementors reaching out in search of him. He tried to tell himself that he was imagining it, tried to ignore the persistent, lurid memories of his first encounter with a Dementor, tried to console himself with the knowledge that he still had, as Ron put it, "the fastest Patronus this side of the Channel."
/*"Had you noticed anything peculiar about Ron's behavior during his stay at Hogwarts?" Minerva asked. "Something to account for why he might do this?"*
*"No, nothing unusual at all," he answered, trying to fight back rising nausea. When was she going to ask him about Draco?*/
/No, don't think about that./ His hands clenched into fists, his left hand about the wand tucked in his pocket.
Fudge, at least, had consented to giving back his wand, but only after extracting sworn oaths from Harry and Minerva that he would not use it under any circumstance. Even with that nagging inconvenience, it was soothing to once more feel the smooth, polished wood under his fingertips, to imagine that he could feel the throbbing of the phoenix feather's power underneath it. Small consolation, but consolation it was. True, he *did* have the fastest Patronus this side of the Channel... and the rebellious part of him whispered that, no matter what Fudge said or what promises he forced, the magic was still there for the using.
"Harry? Harry, are you listening to me?" Hermione was pulling at his sleeve, her voice insistent. He wondered how long he had been staring out at the water, watching it heave under the relentless whipping of the wind.
"What?" He turned to look at her.
"I told you..." She blinked and turned away, drawing her thick cloak around herself, swiping at a wind-reddened nose with the back of her hand. "You don't have to do this," she repeated, much more softly this time. "You know how you are around Dementors."
"No, I *need* to do this, Hermione," he told her. Saying the words steadied him somehow. /I need to do this... I *can* do this. For myself, for Ron, and for Draco./ He entertained a brief vision of jumping into Draco's cell, shouting 'Surprise!', stifled the urge to laugh at it. "I really... I *have* to do this."
Surprisingly, Hermione accepted this without further argument. Her gaze tracked out over the prow of the ship, to where the island hunched in the turmoil of the sea, solitary and forbidding. Harry glanced backwards, saw nothing beyond the ship's stern save more waves and a flock of lonely gannets crying as they rode the fierce wind. Desire gripped his heart, seeing them, a longing to transform so acute he almost gave into it, never mind that attempting to master the winds out here would certainly kill him.
/But still,/ a sly, quiet voice said, /wouldn't you like to try?/
He reminded himself forcefully of his promises to Fudge, when the Minister had told him he would have Lavender brought to London to return his wand... on conditions, of course. "You are not to perform any magic whatsoever, whether for your own convenience or for self-defense," Fudge had told him, gesturing to Undine and Fortius as he spoke. "That's what they're for."
And what could he have said but yes? He had nodded, keeping bitter words to himself - he'd vented *that* rage on the wall of his room in the Leaky Cauldron, until he'd collapsed weakly in bed, mind churning with images of throttling Fudge, seeing Draco, escaping with Draco. Being happy with Draco. He'd drifted off on that last, and woken only when Lavender broke into his room to hand his wand to him in person, without a word spoken.
Shrill cries broke him from his reverie. He refocused on the bird, watching as a trio of them plummeted to the water. The rest of the flock circled overhead, bobbing on the air currents, until two of the birds resurfaced, bearing fish in their beaks. The third had not come up, but the flock failed to notice this, being too caught up in fighting over the prey brought up by the remaining two. Naeglfar churned on, the chaos of wings and shrieks vanished as the ship drew away; by the time they disappeared from view, the third gannet had not returned.
Arthur, Hermione and Molly appeared on the deck, having been in the ship's small cabin for most of the voyage. Hermione looked as though she had been crying, but she was carefully composed and silent as she walked over to Harry and stood next to him. Molly's pale face was tight and her eyes, normally flashing with equal parts command and good humor, were dull and introspective. Arthur's expression was much the same, and he stood close behind his wife, as though to support her body with his own. Harry's throat tightened, thinking of that. /You couldn't hold Draco up, you couldn't help Ron,/ he castigated himself, /and now you're going to fall, too./
/*"Did you for one moment consider what the potential consequences were?" Minerva asked. "Did you think that you might have been found out?"*
*"All the time," Harry confessed.*
*"Then," Minerva said slowly, as though speaking to a child, "why did you do it?"*/
/Because I had to,/ Harry thought.
A dense fog suddenly rose around them, flat and dark grey and utterly impenetrable. Harry felt Hermione's slight, yet solid presence at his side and was grateful for it; if he hadn't known she was there before, he'd have thought he stood absolutely alone in this blank and endless world, for the fog seemed to swallow everything - the sound of water against the hull, the feel of the deck beneath his feet, even the sharp tang of cold air... it had all vanished, and he stood wrapped in a void...
Just as suddenly as it had come up, the fog vanished, and Azkaban loomed before them.
It was all Harry could do not to cry out, or faint. Next to him, Hermione made a small noise; Molly stifled a cry of dismay against Arthur's chest. Minerva remained stony and silent. Harry had never seen Azkaban himself - the war at least had spared him that - and seeing it now... Even with the horrors he had seen, and the narrow straits he had endured, Azkaban was still Azkaban. He wondered, not for the first time, what kind of mind could have conceived a place like this.
Black it was, relieved by patches of grey and silvery light where the sullen water lapped at the faces of jagged, nearly perpendicular cliffs. /Sullen water./ And indeed it was as if the turbulent seas, just minutes behind them, had never existed. There was a small slit in the rock face to which Naeglfar's pilot was steering them, and the darkness behind it was terrifying in its completeness. They passed through it, as if through a curtain, and vision returned; they were in a small port, ramshackle and boasting only two docks, and a small collection of black-robed figures waiting just beyond them.
Naeglfar lumbered into the slip, brushing against the pylons as its crew scrambled to secure it to the dock. The occasional wave rebounding from the dock would jolt the ship fiercely, which in its own way was as nauseating as the rhythmic bounce of the high seas, and by the time the passengers were allowed to disembark, Harry felt distinctly ill. Taking in his surroundings did not help, for it seemed to him that he was trapped in some unearthly place, the realm of a dream, or a place where no human, no matter how evil, could dwell. Dark cliffs towered above them, rising to dizzying heights, their sides slick with rain. A few plants clung tenaciously to their sides, and the long, weeping tendrils of a storm-ravaged tree hung over a stagnant lagoon. Between the cliffs, a path wound upwards; Harry found his gaze following it into the heights, until a swirling and impenetrable mist made impossible any further discernment.
The sickness did not pass as they walked slowly down the dock to meet the Warden of Azkaban, and the horseless carriage sent to collect them. It grew, rather, as he exchanged civil words with Malleus Ironhand and the witch with him, a sour-faced woman whom Ironhand introduced as Niobe Western. Her hand was limp and chill, and bled coldness into Harry's flesh that persisted even as he climbed into the coach and slid into his seat. Fortius, huge and silent, sat next to him, pressing him close against the doors. Claustrophobia only made his stomach worse as it added anxiety to the mix, and the tugging, sucking sensation only increased in power.
/*"What were your initial... feelings when you saw Mr. Malfoy after his arrival at Hogwarts"?*
*"I... I was happy, I guess, to see him. And worried, a little.*
*"Why?*
*"Because I didn't know how it was going to turn out..."*/
/Now you know./ Harry did not know whether this was his own thought, or something else's; it seemed to belong to a Dementor, for it was cold and insinuated itself into his very skull, like frozen talons. He tried very hard to remember the joy of seeing Draco, of coming upon him startled and half-dressed his first morning back at Hogwarts, of speaking with him back at the manor house. But that became more difficult, and he found those images being replaced by others: the nights when he lay awake, terrified lest Draco see him and hate him, watching Draco be arrested, the nights *after* that when he lay awake, terrified lest Draco see him and hate him for what he had done...
And after that, it grew much worse. The carriage groaned in protest underneath them, bouncing back and forth on a trail that wound steeply upward. Fortius's closeness was suffocating; the grey, flat eyes of Malleus were inescapable. Even Arthur, Molly, Hermione, and Minerva seemed to condemn him, though they sat sunk in their own silence. Harry tried, once or twice, to look out the window, but the prospect was bleak, and quickly made him look back inside again, to be confronted by Malleus's pale, rock-like face. There was no comfort to be found in conversation, for the air in the carriage seemed to kill it, and both Minerva and Hermione were drawn into their own thoughts. There were cracks in the windows, and one of them was stuck open; it was through this that the cold wind moaned.
Harry briefly imagined voices on that wind, muted cries of suffering and despair. In the back of his mind, a familiar image played, indistinct and blurred, dyed in green light. He heard his father's shouts carried on the wind, his mother's weeping, Voldemort's cold, inhuman voice.
He must have made some movement, for Malleus's eyes were upon him and the Warden said, "I apologize for the window - the Ministry is not very good about sending repair teams out here, and no one has been able to fix it. A... um... a Reparo spell won't work, for some reason."
"Ah." Harry said, and that was the last monosyllable exchanged until they arrived at the prison itself. If it were at all possible, the air darkened and became more oppressive, although the Dementors were nowhere in sight. Instead, a blank-faced young man with grey eyes and dark hair stood there, his dark robe making him nearly invisible against the black rock. He stood before a pair of great carven doors and did not move as the company alighted from the carriage. Malleus hastened up the steps to meet him and they exchanged a brief, inaudible conversation.
"Is everything quite all right?" Minerva asked. Harry glanced at her, and was not surprised to see her face cast in lines of impatience. The plumes on her hat bristled aggressively, defying the overwhelming, quelling depression of the place.
"Yes, of course," Malleus answered. "I was just being reassured that all is indeed ready for your arrival; outside of the occasional tribunal set by the Ministry, we don't receive many visitors, and certainly not in such numbers. There were... precautions to be taken."
Despite the neutrality of Malleus's tone, Harry knew exactly what the precautions were for. He shuddered to think that, if this was what Azkaban felt like with 'precautions' taken, what it would have felt during the war, or during Voldemort's first attacks, when Dementors must have freely prowled the island. He thought of Sirius, huddled in his small, dark cell, clinging to the bitter knowledge of his innocence. He thought of Draco in that cell, and wondered what was left to *his* mind. What was left *of* his mind, if it came to that.
But then... how much could happen after only a few days? /You'll find out./
Malleus, standing atop the stairs, surveyed them with an unreadable expression on his face. Apparently satisfied with whatever he saw, he nodded and turned back to the door, placing a hand upon it. There was a terrific grating of stone on stone as the doors slowly swung open to reveal a yawning, dimly-lit atrium.
Harry mounted the steps slowly, just behind Minerva and Arthur, keeping a tight rein on himself. Hermione was still silent beside him, but he could feel her soft, small hand stealing into his, fingers wrapping around his own and squeezing. Glancing down, he found that he could not see her face, for her hair was loose and fell over it, concealing her expression like a veil. They moved through the atrium, which aside from being dark and dusty, was unthreatening. On opposite sides of the room, open doors led into hallways. There was another door before them, plain wood with an ornate bronze knob, worked like the face of a screaming man. It was the only decorative touch of the room, Harry saw, for the entire thing seemed to have been carved out of the cliff itself - were they inside the mountain, then? - and the young man who stood in a dim recess near the plain door seemed as much a part of the rocky walls and shadows as he seemed human.
"I'm sorry, but policy is for only one set of visitors to be allowed to see a prisoner at one time," Malleus explained, standing before the door and turning to address them all. "Mr. and Mrs. Weasley may go first to see Ronald, if they would like, and Headmistress McGonagall to Mr. Malfoy. I trust this is acceptable?" There was a strong indication in his tone that, whether or not it was acceptable, that was how it was going to be.
Minerva seemed to have heard this and nodded stiff acceptance. A swift, subtle gesture from Malleus brought Niobe Western forward, and she in turn gestured for Minerva to follow her off in one direction. Harry tracked the two women with his gaze, watching until they vanished down the narrow hallway. Malleus's voice, now oddly considerate, drew him back, and he realized with a start that he was directing Hermione and Undine to a small suite of visitors' rooms.
"They are plain, but I think they shall serve you well, if you want to freshen up," Malleus was saying. The civility in such a dank, oppressive place nearly made Harry want to laugh. The man, for all his rock-like face and dour manner, managed to sound almost timid. "There is a... a Cheering Charm, I believe, maintained around them - and the Dementors are not permitted to go there."
"Thank you," Hermione answered with the same odd, forced politeness.
The stony contours of Malleus's face readjusted themselves into a smile. He gestured once more, and the young man who had met them at the doors detached himself from the shadows. Without a word or even so much as a look, he moved down the hallway in the opposite direction from Niobe and Minerva, and Undine and Hermione followed, Hermione with a curious, backward glance.
Malleus turned to him now, the smile still engraved upon his face. "And you, Harry Potter... I have wanted to meet you for some time now, you know, but I think you left the Department before you were ever rotated to Azkaban."
"I did," Harry said, too poleaxed to offer further comment.
"Well, we shall have some time to talk," Malleus said as he produced a key from the folds of his robe and unlocked the door. "My office has my own living quarters attached to it; you are welcome, of course, to make use of them to clean up - the sea spray becomes sticky after the water dries, does it not? I have made the voyage out here too many times to count, and I find that I still can't get used to it." The door creaked open and Malleus swept through it, leaving Harry to trail behind uncertainly.
He watched as Malleus moved about the office, methodically lighting candles with matches and straightening the bits of clutter adorning shelves and his desktop. Malleus seemed to be looking for something as well, pausing in his progress to peer under stacks of parchment, open and close drawers, and muttering to himself all the while. Harry glanced covertly about the room, somewhat relieved at the homey clutter of it, the photographs posted here and there on the wall.
Photographs that did not move. And the matches, the uncertainty with the names of spells...
"You're... you're a Muggle!" Harry gasped.
"Guilty as charged," Malleus said, looking up for his search. He did not seem particularly upset at Harry's revelation; instead, the lines of his face shifted into something very much like amusement.
"But... *why*?" The question jolted out of Harry. "I - I mean, why... Oh, damn." He trailed off, realizing there was no graceful way to ask the question: Why would the Ministry of Magic put a Muggle in charge of Azkaban?
Malleus, though, seemed to know the question behind the stammering; he must have gotten that one a lot. "What right-thinking wizard would live amongst Dementors?" he asked neutrally. He had paused in his search, and now those grey eyes were trained speculatively on Harry. It was not an easy gaze to endure. "They drain a wizard of his powers, if you recall - could you honestly imagine a wizard willingly doing such a thing, putting himself in danger of losing everything that defines him, no matter how strong his sense of justice? No... No, it would be much better to have a normal human running Azkaban, for he wouldn't have much to lose by it, and that is what they decided very long ago when this island was first raised and Dementors tamed to work on it. We Ironhands have been Wardens of Azkaban for six hundred years - there are royal families out there who have had their titles less than half the time we've had ours!" Malleus smiled as he looked about his office. "My son will inherit the job from me, I expect, and keep the tradition going."
The thought of Malleus having a son - or any kind of family - was somewhat incomprehensible, as was the thought that Malleus seemed to have no problem consigning his son to such a life. Harry wondered, unsuccessfully, what it must be like to be brought up to *want* this, to be led into this very office and told that this was what awaited him: years of guarding criminals and managing monsters.
"It is a strange fate, is it not?" Malleus asked. He gestured to a chair and Harry, hating not being able to run away but not knowing what else to do, walked stiffly over to it and sat. Malleus took his own seat, folding his hands atop his desk in a manner that reminded Harry forcibly of Minerva. "We Ironhands were chosen, you see, because unlike most Muggles, we can *see* Dementors, and so can the other families who have helped us here for generations, but they are Squibs, mostly, and it's difficult for them, finding work that pays well. And the Ministry does pay us very well for what we do here."
There was a challenge in Malleus's voice, but Harry was unsure as to what it was and how to address it. What Malleus had just told him was startling enough.
"I realize this is something out of the common way for you," Malleus said now. "After all, it's not common knowledge, is it? They would teach it at Hogwarts, I suppose, if it were... but nobody cares very much to hear about what goes on in a place like this."
Harry thought of what Remus Lupin and Sirius had told him of Azkaban; Sirius, it seemed, had not wanted to remember very much at all. And who could blame him? Most of the people who went there never returned... Or if they did, it was filthy and wrung-out and almost inhuman, like Sirius had been. /Dementors drain away all your joy, every shred of every happy memory you have./ What would Draco have to lose? What would he have left to him, by the time this was over, however it ended?
"The Minister of Magic told me of you when he sent me the notice for your arrival," Malleus said, "and I have to confess, I was rather eager to meet you."
/'Rather eager to meet you'? Have you stepped into a Victorian novel, Potter?/ Aloud, though, he said: "I can't imagine why."
Malleus made a reproving, clucking sound. "You lived your whole life as a wizard raised by Muggles - I spent my whole life as a Muggle who lived with wizards. Strange, is it not? Beyond that, though, Cornelius told me something of why you were coming... and that, I suppose, was what fascinated me the most. Many people are not terribly willing to come out here, you understand, even if their jobs require them to. Aurors stay here on three-month rotations and leave as quickly as they can. The Ministry has offices here, but I think the last time they used them was during the first war and they couldn't prosecute Death Eaters fast enough... And now here you come, to visit a former Death Eater with whom, I am given to understand, you never should have been fraternizing in the first place. I have to admit... it is most fascinating."
The queer, clinical gleam in Malleus's eyes set anxiety churning in the pit of Harry's stomach, and Minerva's questions came back to him in a rush.
/*"You knew Mr. Malfoy was being brought to Hogwarts on official Ministry business, business in which you were only marginally involved... You should not have even been speaking with him, as a professor. What ever possessed you to approach him?*
*Harry's mouth dried, and he felt something hard and tight lock about his throat. Minerva's gaze bored into him, as though the woman could read his soul, and for a moment Harry wished she could - that way, at least, he would not have to answer.
*"You must tell me," Minerva said softly. She reached across the table to pat him consolingly on the hand, just as an adult might do for a child. "I will not... I will not judge you, whatever you say, Harry. I simply need to know, so that I can help."*/
Now, with Malleus staring at him hungrily - that was it, that was hunger in those flat grey eyes - Harry said, "You should talk to Minerva about that... not that she'll tell you anything." The small surge of defiance was meaningless; he hadn't been able to answer Minerva's question.
/*"I hope, sir, that you come up with a better reply before the trial - I doubt you'll get such consideration from Fudge and the rest of the court."*/
Malleus shrugged. "Well, the truth will out eventually, I suppose. How is your godfather?"
++++++++++++++++
Weary and nursing an infant headache, Harry stumbled down the hallway, trailing in Malleus' wake. The dark hallways, each one indistinguishable from the last - Malleus had taken who knew how many turns - had blended together, and the minutes had, too. Harry had lost track of time somewhere back in Malleus' office, had lost track of the endless, unexpected interrogation and the half-answers he had given. It had ended only when Minerva had appeared, pale and stiffly silent, and ordered Malleus to stop.
The Warden had, thankfully, and had given quick orders to Niobe that sent her and Minerva off to the visitors' rooms. Hermione would be visiting Ron now, he had added, and - this next said with a telling look - with visiting hours almost over for the day, it would be best to see Draco before much longer.
And how much longer that was... Time felt out of joint here, as though it too were affected by the hopelessness of this place. The only light in the interminable hallways was faint and flickering, and seemed to come from nowhere, the strange half-light of a dream. And there were no doors, he realized dully, no doors or windows, and there was complete silence, as though he and Malleus were the only beings in this place. Or, at least, the only things alive.
Presently, though, Malleus paused just before the hallway dead-ended into another one running at a slight angle to it. He placed his hand against the wall and murmured something Harry could not make out. A deep, subterranean grating filled the hall, bouncing off the walls in a series of harsh echoes. Harry shivered at the sound and drew in on himself even as he tried to look around Malleus' shoulder to see what lay beyond. There was light, at least, and from a real source. He could see torches in brackets on the wall, blazing with even and steady light. /Thank God./
Malleus stepped to the side and gestured, a movement that reminded Harry dimly (and bizarrely) of a hotel concierge. /Step right this way... into a prison cell, ladies and gentlemen,/ he thought as he squared his shoulders and prepared to step inside.
"I shall be just outside, right here," Malleus whispered, hand on his arm to hold him back a moment. "You will have half an hour - and that is all." There was a brief pause, then: "I am sorry."
/For what?/ The question hovered on Harry's lips, but he kept it back. Instead, he rallied himself and strode by Malleus, ignoring the nervous prickling at the back of his neck and the dim, disconnected roar in his ears.
And stopped, disoriented in the light, blazing and uncomfortable against the blackness of the hallways. Blinking, he looked around, froze as he saw Draco sitting in a chair, staring at him.
The persistent vision of Draco shrouded in darkness and menaced by Dementors swept away with such a rush that Harry nearly reeled with relief. For a moment, he could think of nothing else except that his fears had not come true, that Draco was well, unharmed... and so dreadfully, dreadfully pale. And with shadows under his eyes, and a tense, drawn expression that seemed to see a threat in everything. Even a threat in Harry, for the pale eyes fixed on him warily, and the rush of relief from just moments earlier faded away.
"Draco?" Harry hated the question he could not keep out of his voice. The young man sitting across the table from him *was* Draco... but so far removed from the Draco Malfoy he had known that he knew he might as well be looking at a stranger. He remembered visiting Ron in St. Mungo's once, when he had been hurt in the line of duty, and heard the same tone in Hermione's voice, which had not been not so much asking the washed-out, nearly incoherent stranger who he was so much as it had been a tentative, unspoken, "Are you really here?"
"Harry." Draco's voice was raspy and weak, but he managed a slight smile nonetheless. He surveyed Harry for a silent moment. "You look terrible, Potter."
"You don't look so hot yourself, Malfoy." Harry winced at the automatic retort.
Draco, however, waved it off, and the smile grew a bit before it faded out. "Well, this place has played hell with my tan..." He trailed off, shook his head, and sighed. "I think that was my one smart remark for the day... I'm afraid I just don't have the energy to keep it up. The Warden, you understand, doesn't like prisoners who have things to say. Will you have a seat?"
Feeling somewhat numb, Harry nodded wordlessly and sat down in the chair across from Draco, who looked even worse close up. There were streaks of grime on the black robe, and even some under Draco's fingernails. The pale blond hair, which had shone like finest gold under the morning sun that day in the library, was now dull and covered with a fine layer of the same dust that shrouded Draco's entire body. But worse, far worse, was the defeated, nakedly human cast to Draco's face, all its pride and superiority stripped away.
"I know they haven't treated you well," Harry said, wishing his voice didn't sound so rough, wishing the sight of Draco like this did not hurt the way it did. "But... is there anything I can do?"
Draco was silent for a moment. "I wish there was... very much. But that you're here, that's enough." Again, that soft and almost not-there smile. "I'd hoped, you know, but didn't expect it."
"What? You thought that I wouldn't come?" Harry sat back a bit, surprised. "Why would you think that?"
"It's what I would have done," Draco said simply. He blinked and shook his head. "Not that it makes me happy to admit it, but there you go. It would have been far more intelligent - not that Gryffindors have ever been known for it, I guess - to go along with Fudge and let me hang. He wants me to, you know, but it seems that even I get a trial, seeing as Ron gets one. When he brought me here, that's all he was talking about... How it would be for show, you understand, and how I might as well ask to be thrown to the Dementors, to spare myself." A shuddering breath. "Bloody hell! I won't give him the satisfaction."
"Fudge *wanted* me to let you hang," Harry answered, his voice low and intense. /He wants you to be executed, and he wants to make an example of me... / He told this to Draco, whose mouth thinned into an expression very much like Minerva's, when she had heard something she disliked. "I couldn't do that, Draco. I could *never* do it."
"You'll only bring yourself down with me," Draco said wearily. "Why do that? You have a career, friends, people who actually *respect* you... Why throw all that away for me?"
"I don't think I'm throwing anything away," Harry said. "I've asked Ron the same thing, you know, why he was risking everything... and he told me... he told me..." /Say it, Potter./ "He told me I needed to be happy, and he was right about that, I guess, but there's so much more... I still owe you Draco, I know it - I didn't want to save your life just to get you packed off to exile, or to end up here, I wanted to save it because your life is worth more than that."
Draco laughed at that, but the laughter was bitter, so bitter and harsh against Harry's ears that he winced to hear it. "You say that... God, I love you, Harry. Only you could make it sound like a person like me could have anything worth living for, or be worth the piece of meat that he is. I love that about you."
"You could say it like you mean it," Harry muttered, taken aback.
"No, you don't understand..." Draco's grey eyes met his, but then skittered away, and when he spoke again, his voice shook. "You know how this place is - everything I can remember that was happy is leaving... there are days when I have to tell myself that my parents weren't always... Well, there are days. And now I can't think of what I've done without... God!" The last word was a frantic gasp. Harry leaned forward, struggling to hear, for Draco's words were coming low and fast, wrenched from him, tumbling out desperately. "Do you know how many people I killed? It doesn't matter if I really did or not, or if I really tortured them or had their homes burnt, or gave the order... I still did it... and," he paused, and his tone gained force. "Do you think I want to live, knowing what I've done? And now I remember that I was happy when I did those things, or at least thinking that what I was doing was right and necessary, and I hate myself for it - how I regretted none of it, and how I never would have, if this hadn't happened to me... I *should* die. By all rights, I should!"
Harry sat, trying to think of a reply. /By all rights, I should... Do you think I want to live, knowing what I've done?/ "But," he said at last, surprised at the steadiness of his voice, "what if I didn't want you to die?"
"I would say you're crazy," Draco answered.
"Then I'm crazy," Harry said, "because I don't want you to die - and I can't let you. I *won't*." He saw the question in Draco's face, and rushed to answer it. "I've *seen* things, Draco," he said, "people I thought were evil turned out to be good, and people I thought were there to help me who were trying to have me killed. And I've done things, too... hurt people, put them in here, even, and I know - I know this, Draco - that nothing is as simple as it seems. What Fudge is doing to you is no less evil than some of the things you've done, or some of the things I've done. It doesn't matter who we did them for, I think some things are bad, no matter what."
"That doesn't change anything," Draco whispered. "I still see their faces. I'll see their faces for the rest of my life." Unsteady fingers crept up his arm, working underneath the sleeve of his robe, and Harry felt a chill dart down his spine as he realized Draco was searching for the Dark Mark on his arm. It would be invisible, he knew, but could fingers feel it? Or was it something different that sensed such a thing, as though the mark were an impress on the soul? "However long that is, I'll see them."
"You won't see them," Harry said, surprised at how soothing he managed to sound. "Or if you do... They'll be regrets, I suppose, and everyone has them, and at least you know that you're human enough to regret the awful things you did."
"But I never did *before*," Draco said forcefully, bringing a hand down on the tabletop with a sharp slap. The sound echoed briefly in the room, then vanished. "And that's what sickens me. What if... what if I *had* had regrets? I wouldn't be here! What if I had dared admit to myself that I was as human as that wretched Muggle out there? I would have been a disgrace to the family name, but at least I wouldn't be here, wanting to kill myself for what I've done to people who wouldn't protect themselves."
"When Vince was captured by Aurors, I was at his trial," Harry said slowly. "At the time I was relieved he would finally be sent to prison, even though I knew what the Dementors were like, even though I get sick every time I see them, and remember my parents dying... I *wanted* him to be there. And I felt like that for a long time; whenever I'd hear of someone else getting sent there, I'd think to myself that it was better they were there, in that place, than out here. But then, after it was all over, I hated myself for thinking that, that I had ever wished anyone could be stuck forever in this place.
"And," he continued, riding over the objection he knew was coming, "I know that you think we're balanced, that you saved my life and I saved yours... but I feel here," he touched his heart, "that I still... I can't let you die the way Fudge wants you to, or live here. I *will* get you out of here."
"I didn't realize you hated me that much," Draco sighed.
"I don't hate you, and you know it," Harry snapped back. "If anything, please remember that."
Draco took a deep breath, closed his eyes, and nodded. "It's difficult to remember things here... But I remember that day in the library, and the time before that, in my room. You're... I told you you're always welcome. Wherever I am, you're welcome, even if it is a cell."
"It may have to be," Harry said softly.
"Anywhere..." Draco frowned and shook his head. "I was wondering... do you have your wand with you?" Warily, Harry said that, yes, he did. "Do you mind?" Draco held out his hand. "I swear... I swear I won't do anything. I don't think I could."
Harry nodded and pulled his wand from his pocket. He hesitated, thinking of Malleus, but the expression on Draco's face - strangely beseeching and entirely earnest - was too much for him, and he handed it over. Draco's slender fingers, shaking a little bit, closed around the wand, and a faint light kindled in his grey eyes as he took it and whispered, "Lumos."
The wand sparked for a moment before it began to emit a steady glow, difficult to see in the bright light of the room. It lasted a moment only before it winked out, but it seemed enough for Draco, who sighed and set the wand down on the table. "At least I still have it," he whispered. "I was afraid... Well, you know."
"I do." Harry understood Draco's reluctance to speak his fears. /A wizard loses his powers if he's too long around Dementors. But how long is 'too long'?/ "And believe me... you won't be here long enough for that to happen. I'll get you out of here, I swear it."
There was a grating sound just behind him. Harry whirled around, and saw that the wall had swung out, revealing once more the blackness of the hall and Malleus' pale, faintly apologetic face. A cold, insidious breeze swept in, wrapped its fingers around Harry, and he realized that Malleus was not alone: that Dementors waited somewhere in the hall. He closed his eyes, fighting against the rising nausea and the green nimbus of light that hovered at the corner of his vision.
"It's time to go," Malleus said. "Mr. Malfoy, if I could please have you follow me?"
Draco rose, halfheartedly brushing off his robes. He had gone even whiter, the pallor of his skin chalky grey against his robe. He moved like an old man, stiff and unsteady, and the reflexive grasp for support on the tabletop galvanized Harry to action. Before he knew it, he had slipped his arm under Draco's, firmly supporting him as Draco's body sagged against his.
"I have you, Draco," he whispered against Draco's ear.
"You have me," Draco breathed. They shuffled across the floor in their awkward embrace, the sounds of clumsy footsteps nearly obscuring Draco's words. "You... you'll save me?"
"Yes."
"If you can, find Severus's journal," Draco breathed. "I told Blinker to hide it, and only he and I know where. I... I don't know what I'll be able to do - you'll have to find the answer, and the journals, on your own."
"I - I'll do my best," Harry said. Despite the pain in his leg, aggravated by Draco's weight against it, despite the chill of the prison and the looming horror of the Dementors, he felt some contentment sweep through him at having Draco so close. The solid weight of his body was real, tangible - as though, until this moment when they stood together, he had feared the young man sitting across the table from him had been nothing more than a spirit.
"You'll find it, Harry," Draco said quietly. He was so close, smelling unpleasantly of dust and the grave, but still... They broke apart when Malleus took charge of Draco and handed him over into the custody of the Dementors, who stood back a bit.
"You may return to the cell now," Malleus ordered, nodding tersely at the two Dementors, who turned silently and glided away with Draco trailing limply between them. Malleus turned back around and placed a gentle hand on Harry's shoulder to turn him back in the direction from which they'd come, but Harry shook himself free and spun back around just before Draco and the Dementors turned the corner.
"Wait!" Harry shouted past the knot in his throat. "Dammit, wait!"
The Dementors paused, but did not turn around, for which Harry was deeply grateful. Draco shook himself free, one last dying bit of defiance, and turned to face him. And *there* was the vision, so sharp Harry nearly reeled from how close this scene fit to the horror of his nightmares. But at least, though, Draco did not hunch or cower, and if there was not pride, exactly, then there was at least resolution.
"How," he said, licking his lips and forcing himself to speak. /Pain, and a green light. Was that his mother? Why did his head hurt so badly?/ "How do I find it?"
"You need to pull it up," Draco said very softly. A pale hand, little more than a blur in the darkness, described a dipping motion, like a diving bird. "Pull it up... from deep down."
+++++++
tbc.
Notes:
1.) Naeglfar is the ship that will bear the dead to battle at Ragnarok, the end of the world in Norse mythology. According to the Eddas, it is constructed out of the nails of dead men. Gruesome, isn't it?
2.) Malleus means 'hammer' in Latin. The name of our lovely and talented Warden comes from the Malleus Maleficarum, 'The Hammer of Witches,' which was not only wildly popular for centuries, but also the standard work on how to find, capture, and interrogate a suspected witch.
3.) Atmosphere comes courtesy of three of my favorite Old English poems, 'The Wanderer', 'The Seafarer,' and 'Beowulf.'
4.) All info on Azkaban comes from what I've read in the books and in the HP Lexicon. All mistakes and alterations are my own... whether or not they're intentional, though, you may have to ask.
(Ovid)
CHAPTER EIGHT
The ship, Naeglfar, was very old, and its timbers creaked with each crash of the waves against them. A sad-faced man, who had not introduced himself to his passengers and had not stirred from the tiller since their undocking, piloted the ship with improbable dexterity, despite the heavy seas and precocious winds. It did not seem that they were actually going anywhere, to Harry, but rather that they simply stayed in one place while the sea buffeted the ship and flung salt spray in his eyes - all around him, he could see only the water, with the forbidding cliffs of northern England left far behind. He thought he could see a shadow on the horizon, but the knowledge of what that shadow was... Did he want to get there, or drift on the North Sea forever?
He shuddered at the thought of sinking out here - Naeglfar did not seem to be very sea-worthy - and tried very hard not to be seasick. He was in the middle of fighting yet another prolonged protest from his stomach when a soft, but firm, voice broke into his thoughts.
"You don't have to do this."
Hermione had told him this at least ten times on the boat ride to Azkaban, and the closer they got to it, the harder it became to disagree with her. As the water turned sullen and gray, the waves churning on either side of the Naeglfar's prow, as the shadow of the prison-island loomed, now in the near distance, swallowing the light, all Harry wanted to do was turn around. Even from so far away, he felt the tugging of joylessness, the cold, furrowing sensation of the Dementors reaching out in search of him. He tried to tell himself that he was imagining it, tried to ignore the persistent, lurid memories of his first encounter with a Dementor, tried to console himself with the knowledge that he still had, as Ron put it, "the fastest Patronus this side of the Channel."
/*"Had you noticed anything peculiar about Ron's behavior during his stay at Hogwarts?" Minerva asked. "Something to account for why he might do this?"*
*"No, nothing unusual at all," he answered, trying to fight back rising nausea. When was she going to ask him about Draco?*/
/No, don't think about that./ His hands clenched into fists, his left hand about the wand tucked in his pocket.
Fudge, at least, had consented to giving back his wand, but only after extracting sworn oaths from Harry and Minerva that he would not use it under any circumstance. Even with that nagging inconvenience, it was soothing to once more feel the smooth, polished wood under his fingertips, to imagine that he could feel the throbbing of the phoenix feather's power underneath it. Small consolation, but consolation it was. True, he *did* have the fastest Patronus this side of the Channel... and the rebellious part of him whispered that, no matter what Fudge said or what promises he forced, the magic was still there for the using.
"Harry? Harry, are you listening to me?" Hermione was pulling at his sleeve, her voice insistent. He wondered how long he had been staring out at the water, watching it heave under the relentless whipping of the wind.
"What?" He turned to look at her.
"I told you..." She blinked and turned away, drawing her thick cloak around herself, swiping at a wind-reddened nose with the back of her hand. "You don't have to do this," she repeated, much more softly this time. "You know how you are around Dementors."
"No, I *need* to do this, Hermione," he told her. Saying the words steadied him somehow. /I need to do this... I *can* do this. For myself, for Ron, and for Draco./ He entertained a brief vision of jumping into Draco's cell, shouting 'Surprise!', stifled the urge to laugh at it. "I really... I *have* to do this."
Surprisingly, Hermione accepted this without further argument. Her gaze tracked out over the prow of the ship, to where the island hunched in the turmoil of the sea, solitary and forbidding. Harry glanced backwards, saw nothing beyond the ship's stern save more waves and a flock of lonely gannets crying as they rode the fierce wind. Desire gripped his heart, seeing them, a longing to transform so acute he almost gave into it, never mind that attempting to master the winds out here would certainly kill him.
/But still,/ a sly, quiet voice said, /wouldn't you like to try?/
He reminded himself forcefully of his promises to Fudge, when the Minister had told him he would have Lavender brought to London to return his wand... on conditions, of course. "You are not to perform any magic whatsoever, whether for your own convenience or for self-defense," Fudge had told him, gesturing to Undine and Fortius as he spoke. "That's what they're for."
And what could he have said but yes? He had nodded, keeping bitter words to himself - he'd vented *that* rage on the wall of his room in the Leaky Cauldron, until he'd collapsed weakly in bed, mind churning with images of throttling Fudge, seeing Draco, escaping with Draco. Being happy with Draco. He'd drifted off on that last, and woken only when Lavender broke into his room to hand his wand to him in person, without a word spoken.
Shrill cries broke him from his reverie. He refocused on the bird, watching as a trio of them plummeted to the water. The rest of the flock circled overhead, bobbing on the air currents, until two of the birds resurfaced, bearing fish in their beaks. The third had not come up, but the flock failed to notice this, being too caught up in fighting over the prey brought up by the remaining two. Naeglfar churned on, the chaos of wings and shrieks vanished as the ship drew away; by the time they disappeared from view, the third gannet had not returned.
Arthur, Hermione and Molly appeared on the deck, having been in the ship's small cabin for most of the voyage. Hermione looked as though she had been crying, but she was carefully composed and silent as she walked over to Harry and stood next to him. Molly's pale face was tight and her eyes, normally flashing with equal parts command and good humor, were dull and introspective. Arthur's expression was much the same, and he stood close behind his wife, as though to support her body with his own. Harry's throat tightened, thinking of that. /You couldn't hold Draco up, you couldn't help Ron,/ he castigated himself, /and now you're going to fall, too./
/*"Did you for one moment consider what the potential consequences were?" Minerva asked. "Did you think that you might have been found out?"*
*"All the time," Harry confessed.*
*"Then," Minerva said slowly, as though speaking to a child, "why did you do it?"*/
/Because I had to,/ Harry thought.
A dense fog suddenly rose around them, flat and dark grey and utterly impenetrable. Harry felt Hermione's slight, yet solid presence at his side and was grateful for it; if he hadn't known she was there before, he'd have thought he stood absolutely alone in this blank and endless world, for the fog seemed to swallow everything - the sound of water against the hull, the feel of the deck beneath his feet, even the sharp tang of cold air... it had all vanished, and he stood wrapped in a void...
Just as suddenly as it had come up, the fog vanished, and Azkaban loomed before them.
It was all Harry could do not to cry out, or faint. Next to him, Hermione made a small noise; Molly stifled a cry of dismay against Arthur's chest. Minerva remained stony and silent. Harry had never seen Azkaban himself - the war at least had spared him that - and seeing it now... Even with the horrors he had seen, and the narrow straits he had endured, Azkaban was still Azkaban. He wondered, not for the first time, what kind of mind could have conceived a place like this.
Black it was, relieved by patches of grey and silvery light where the sullen water lapped at the faces of jagged, nearly perpendicular cliffs. /Sullen water./ And indeed it was as if the turbulent seas, just minutes behind them, had never existed. There was a small slit in the rock face to which Naeglfar's pilot was steering them, and the darkness behind it was terrifying in its completeness. They passed through it, as if through a curtain, and vision returned; they were in a small port, ramshackle and boasting only two docks, and a small collection of black-robed figures waiting just beyond them.
Naeglfar lumbered into the slip, brushing against the pylons as its crew scrambled to secure it to the dock. The occasional wave rebounding from the dock would jolt the ship fiercely, which in its own way was as nauseating as the rhythmic bounce of the high seas, and by the time the passengers were allowed to disembark, Harry felt distinctly ill. Taking in his surroundings did not help, for it seemed to him that he was trapped in some unearthly place, the realm of a dream, or a place where no human, no matter how evil, could dwell. Dark cliffs towered above them, rising to dizzying heights, their sides slick with rain. A few plants clung tenaciously to their sides, and the long, weeping tendrils of a storm-ravaged tree hung over a stagnant lagoon. Between the cliffs, a path wound upwards; Harry found his gaze following it into the heights, until a swirling and impenetrable mist made impossible any further discernment.
The sickness did not pass as they walked slowly down the dock to meet the Warden of Azkaban, and the horseless carriage sent to collect them. It grew, rather, as he exchanged civil words with Malleus Ironhand and the witch with him, a sour-faced woman whom Ironhand introduced as Niobe Western. Her hand was limp and chill, and bled coldness into Harry's flesh that persisted even as he climbed into the coach and slid into his seat. Fortius, huge and silent, sat next to him, pressing him close against the doors. Claustrophobia only made his stomach worse as it added anxiety to the mix, and the tugging, sucking sensation only increased in power.
/*"What were your initial... feelings when you saw Mr. Malfoy after his arrival at Hogwarts"?*
*"I... I was happy, I guess, to see him. And worried, a little.*
*"Why?*
*"Because I didn't know how it was going to turn out..."*/
/Now you know./ Harry did not know whether this was his own thought, or something else's; it seemed to belong to a Dementor, for it was cold and insinuated itself into his very skull, like frozen talons. He tried very hard to remember the joy of seeing Draco, of coming upon him startled and half-dressed his first morning back at Hogwarts, of speaking with him back at the manor house. But that became more difficult, and he found those images being replaced by others: the nights when he lay awake, terrified lest Draco see him and hate him, watching Draco be arrested, the nights *after* that when he lay awake, terrified lest Draco see him and hate him for what he had done...
And after that, it grew much worse. The carriage groaned in protest underneath them, bouncing back and forth on a trail that wound steeply upward. Fortius's closeness was suffocating; the grey, flat eyes of Malleus were inescapable. Even Arthur, Molly, Hermione, and Minerva seemed to condemn him, though they sat sunk in their own silence. Harry tried, once or twice, to look out the window, but the prospect was bleak, and quickly made him look back inside again, to be confronted by Malleus's pale, rock-like face. There was no comfort to be found in conversation, for the air in the carriage seemed to kill it, and both Minerva and Hermione were drawn into their own thoughts. There were cracks in the windows, and one of them was stuck open; it was through this that the cold wind moaned.
Harry briefly imagined voices on that wind, muted cries of suffering and despair. In the back of his mind, a familiar image played, indistinct and blurred, dyed in green light. He heard his father's shouts carried on the wind, his mother's weeping, Voldemort's cold, inhuman voice.
He must have made some movement, for Malleus's eyes were upon him and the Warden said, "I apologize for the window - the Ministry is not very good about sending repair teams out here, and no one has been able to fix it. A... um... a Reparo spell won't work, for some reason."
"Ah." Harry said, and that was the last monosyllable exchanged until they arrived at the prison itself. If it were at all possible, the air darkened and became more oppressive, although the Dementors were nowhere in sight. Instead, a blank-faced young man with grey eyes and dark hair stood there, his dark robe making him nearly invisible against the black rock. He stood before a pair of great carven doors and did not move as the company alighted from the carriage. Malleus hastened up the steps to meet him and they exchanged a brief, inaudible conversation.
"Is everything quite all right?" Minerva asked. Harry glanced at her, and was not surprised to see her face cast in lines of impatience. The plumes on her hat bristled aggressively, defying the overwhelming, quelling depression of the place.
"Yes, of course," Malleus answered. "I was just being reassured that all is indeed ready for your arrival; outside of the occasional tribunal set by the Ministry, we don't receive many visitors, and certainly not in such numbers. There were... precautions to be taken."
Despite the neutrality of Malleus's tone, Harry knew exactly what the precautions were for. He shuddered to think that, if this was what Azkaban felt like with 'precautions' taken, what it would have felt during the war, or during Voldemort's first attacks, when Dementors must have freely prowled the island. He thought of Sirius, huddled in his small, dark cell, clinging to the bitter knowledge of his innocence. He thought of Draco in that cell, and wondered what was left to *his* mind. What was left *of* his mind, if it came to that.
But then... how much could happen after only a few days? /You'll find out./
Malleus, standing atop the stairs, surveyed them with an unreadable expression on his face. Apparently satisfied with whatever he saw, he nodded and turned back to the door, placing a hand upon it. There was a terrific grating of stone on stone as the doors slowly swung open to reveal a yawning, dimly-lit atrium.
Harry mounted the steps slowly, just behind Minerva and Arthur, keeping a tight rein on himself. Hermione was still silent beside him, but he could feel her soft, small hand stealing into his, fingers wrapping around his own and squeezing. Glancing down, he found that he could not see her face, for her hair was loose and fell over it, concealing her expression like a veil. They moved through the atrium, which aside from being dark and dusty, was unthreatening. On opposite sides of the room, open doors led into hallways. There was another door before them, plain wood with an ornate bronze knob, worked like the face of a screaming man. It was the only decorative touch of the room, Harry saw, for the entire thing seemed to have been carved out of the cliff itself - were they inside the mountain, then? - and the young man who stood in a dim recess near the plain door seemed as much a part of the rocky walls and shadows as he seemed human.
"I'm sorry, but policy is for only one set of visitors to be allowed to see a prisoner at one time," Malleus explained, standing before the door and turning to address them all. "Mr. and Mrs. Weasley may go first to see Ronald, if they would like, and Headmistress McGonagall to Mr. Malfoy. I trust this is acceptable?" There was a strong indication in his tone that, whether or not it was acceptable, that was how it was going to be.
Minerva seemed to have heard this and nodded stiff acceptance. A swift, subtle gesture from Malleus brought Niobe Western forward, and she in turn gestured for Minerva to follow her off in one direction. Harry tracked the two women with his gaze, watching until they vanished down the narrow hallway. Malleus's voice, now oddly considerate, drew him back, and he realized with a start that he was directing Hermione and Undine to a small suite of visitors' rooms.
"They are plain, but I think they shall serve you well, if you want to freshen up," Malleus was saying. The civility in such a dank, oppressive place nearly made Harry want to laugh. The man, for all his rock-like face and dour manner, managed to sound almost timid. "There is a... a Cheering Charm, I believe, maintained around them - and the Dementors are not permitted to go there."
"Thank you," Hermione answered with the same odd, forced politeness.
The stony contours of Malleus's face readjusted themselves into a smile. He gestured once more, and the young man who had met them at the doors detached himself from the shadows. Without a word or even so much as a look, he moved down the hallway in the opposite direction from Niobe and Minerva, and Undine and Hermione followed, Hermione with a curious, backward glance.
Malleus turned to him now, the smile still engraved upon his face. "And you, Harry Potter... I have wanted to meet you for some time now, you know, but I think you left the Department before you were ever rotated to Azkaban."
"I did," Harry said, too poleaxed to offer further comment.
"Well, we shall have some time to talk," Malleus said as he produced a key from the folds of his robe and unlocked the door. "My office has my own living quarters attached to it; you are welcome, of course, to make use of them to clean up - the sea spray becomes sticky after the water dries, does it not? I have made the voyage out here too many times to count, and I find that I still can't get used to it." The door creaked open and Malleus swept through it, leaving Harry to trail behind uncertainly.
He watched as Malleus moved about the office, methodically lighting candles with matches and straightening the bits of clutter adorning shelves and his desktop. Malleus seemed to be looking for something as well, pausing in his progress to peer under stacks of parchment, open and close drawers, and muttering to himself all the while. Harry glanced covertly about the room, somewhat relieved at the homey clutter of it, the photographs posted here and there on the wall.
Photographs that did not move. And the matches, the uncertainty with the names of spells...
"You're... you're a Muggle!" Harry gasped.
"Guilty as charged," Malleus said, looking up for his search. He did not seem particularly upset at Harry's revelation; instead, the lines of his face shifted into something very much like amusement.
"But... *why*?" The question jolted out of Harry. "I - I mean, why... Oh, damn." He trailed off, realizing there was no graceful way to ask the question: Why would the Ministry of Magic put a Muggle in charge of Azkaban?
Malleus, though, seemed to know the question behind the stammering; he must have gotten that one a lot. "What right-thinking wizard would live amongst Dementors?" he asked neutrally. He had paused in his search, and now those grey eyes were trained speculatively on Harry. It was not an easy gaze to endure. "They drain a wizard of his powers, if you recall - could you honestly imagine a wizard willingly doing such a thing, putting himself in danger of losing everything that defines him, no matter how strong his sense of justice? No... No, it would be much better to have a normal human running Azkaban, for he wouldn't have much to lose by it, and that is what they decided very long ago when this island was first raised and Dementors tamed to work on it. We Ironhands have been Wardens of Azkaban for six hundred years - there are royal families out there who have had their titles less than half the time we've had ours!" Malleus smiled as he looked about his office. "My son will inherit the job from me, I expect, and keep the tradition going."
The thought of Malleus having a son - or any kind of family - was somewhat incomprehensible, as was the thought that Malleus seemed to have no problem consigning his son to such a life. Harry wondered, unsuccessfully, what it must be like to be brought up to *want* this, to be led into this very office and told that this was what awaited him: years of guarding criminals and managing monsters.
"It is a strange fate, is it not?" Malleus asked. He gestured to a chair and Harry, hating not being able to run away but not knowing what else to do, walked stiffly over to it and sat. Malleus took his own seat, folding his hands atop his desk in a manner that reminded Harry forcibly of Minerva. "We Ironhands were chosen, you see, because unlike most Muggles, we can *see* Dementors, and so can the other families who have helped us here for generations, but they are Squibs, mostly, and it's difficult for them, finding work that pays well. And the Ministry does pay us very well for what we do here."
There was a challenge in Malleus's voice, but Harry was unsure as to what it was and how to address it. What Malleus had just told him was startling enough.
"I realize this is something out of the common way for you," Malleus said now. "After all, it's not common knowledge, is it? They would teach it at Hogwarts, I suppose, if it were... but nobody cares very much to hear about what goes on in a place like this."
Harry thought of what Remus Lupin and Sirius had told him of Azkaban; Sirius, it seemed, had not wanted to remember very much at all. And who could blame him? Most of the people who went there never returned... Or if they did, it was filthy and wrung-out and almost inhuman, like Sirius had been. /Dementors drain away all your joy, every shred of every happy memory you have./ What would Draco have to lose? What would he have left to him, by the time this was over, however it ended?
"The Minister of Magic told me of you when he sent me the notice for your arrival," Malleus said, "and I have to confess, I was rather eager to meet you."
/'Rather eager to meet you'? Have you stepped into a Victorian novel, Potter?/ Aloud, though, he said: "I can't imagine why."
Malleus made a reproving, clucking sound. "You lived your whole life as a wizard raised by Muggles - I spent my whole life as a Muggle who lived with wizards. Strange, is it not? Beyond that, though, Cornelius told me something of why you were coming... and that, I suppose, was what fascinated me the most. Many people are not terribly willing to come out here, you understand, even if their jobs require them to. Aurors stay here on three-month rotations and leave as quickly as they can. The Ministry has offices here, but I think the last time they used them was during the first war and they couldn't prosecute Death Eaters fast enough... And now here you come, to visit a former Death Eater with whom, I am given to understand, you never should have been fraternizing in the first place. I have to admit... it is most fascinating."
The queer, clinical gleam in Malleus's eyes set anxiety churning in the pit of Harry's stomach, and Minerva's questions came back to him in a rush.
/*"You knew Mr. Malfoy was being brought to Hogwarts on official Ministry business, business in which you were only marginally involved... You should not have even been speaking with him, as a professor. What ever possessed you to approach him?*
*Harry's mouth dried, and he felt something hard and tight lock about his throat. Minerva's gaze bored into him, as though the woman could read his soul, and for a moment Harry wished she could - that way, at least, he would not have to answer.
*"You must tell me," Minerva said softly. She reached across the table to pat him consolingly on the hand, just as an adult might do for a child. "I will not... I will not judge you, whatever you say, Harry. I simply need to know, so that I can help."*/
Now, with Malleus staring at him hungrily - that was it, that was hunger in those flat grey eyes - Harry said, "You should talk to Minerva about that... not that she'll tell you anything." The small surge of defiance was meaningless; he hadn't been able to answer Minerva's question.
/*"I hope, sir, that you come up with a better reply before the trial - I doubt you'll get such consideration from Fudge and the rest of the court."*/
Malleus shrugged. "Well, the truth will out eventually, I suppose. How is your godfather?"
++++++++++++++++
Weary and nursing an infant headache, Harry stumbled down the hallway, trailing in Malleus' wake. The dark hallways, each one indistinguishable from the last - Malleus had taken who knew how many turns - had blended together, and the minutes had, too. Harry had lost track of time somewhere back in Malleus' office, had lost track of the endless, unexpected interrogation and the half-answers he had given. It had ended only when Minerva had appeared, pale and stiffly silent, and ordered Malleus to stop.
The Warden had, thankfully, and had given quick orders to Niobe that sent her and Minerva off to the visitors' rooms. Hermione would be visiting Ron now, he had added, and - this next said with a telling look - with visiting hours almost over for the day, it would be best to see Draco before much longer.
And how much longer that was... Time felt out of joint here, as though it too were affected by the hopelessness of this place. The only light in the interminable hallways was faint and flickering, and seemed to come from nowhere, the strange half-light of a dream. And there were no doors, he realized dully, no doors or windows, and there was complete silence, as though he and Malleus were the only beings in this place. Or, at least, the only things alive.
Presently, though, Malleus paused just before the hallway dead-ended into another one running at a slight angle to it. He placed his hand against the wall and murmured something Harry could not make out. A deep, subterranean grating filled the hall, bouncing off the walls in a series of harsh echoes. Harry shivered at the sound and drew in on himself even as he tried to look around Malleus' shoulder to see what lay beyond. There was light, at least, and from a real source. He could see torches in brackets on the wall, blazing with even and steady light. /Thank God./
Malleus stepped to the side and gestured, a movement that reminded Harry dimly (and bizarrely) of a hotel concierge. /Step right this way... into a prison cell, ladies and gentlemen,/ he thought as he squared his shoulders and prepared to step inside.
"I shall be just outside, right here," Malleus whispered, hand on his arm to hold him back a moment. "You will have half an hour - and that is all." There was a brief pause, then: "I am sorry."
/For what?/ The question hovered on Harry's lips, but he kept it back. Instead, he rallied himself and strode by Malleus, ignoring the nervous prickling at the back of his neck and the dim, disconnected roar in his ears.
And stopped, disoriented in the light, blazing and uncomfortable against the blackness of the hallways. Blinking, he looked around, froze as he saw Draco sitting in a chair, staring at him.
The persistent vision of Draco shrouded in darkness and menaced by Dementors swept away with such a rush that Harry nearly reeled with relief. For a moment, he could think of nothing else except that his fears had not come true, that Draco was well, unharmed... and so dreadfully, dreadfully pale. And with shadows under his eyes, and a tense, drawn expression that seemed to see a threat in everything. Even a threat in Harry, for the pale eyes fixed on him warily, and the rush of relief from just moments earlier faded away.
"Draco?" Harry hated the question he could not keep out of his voice. The young man sitting across the table from him *was* Draco... but so far removed from the Draco Malfoy he had known that he knew he might as well be looking at a stranger. He remembered visiting Ron in St. Mungo's once, when he had been hurt in the line of duty, and heard the same tone in Hermione's voice, which had not been not so much asking the washed-out, nearly incoherent stranger who he was so much as it had been a tentative, unspoken, "Are you really here?"
"Harry." Draco's voice was raspy and weak, but he managed a slight smile nonetheless. He surveyed Harry for a silent moment. "You look terrible, Potter."
"You don't look so hot yourself, Malfoy." Harry winced at the automatic retort.
Draco, however, waved it off, and the smile grew a bit before it faded out. "Well, this place has played hell with my tan..." He trailed off, shook his head, and sighed. "I think that was my one smart remark for the day... I'm afraid I just don't have the energy to keep it up. The Warden, you understand, doesn't like prisoners who have things to say. Will you have a seat?"
Feeling somewhat numb, Harry nodded wordlessly and sat down in the chair across from Draco, who looked even worse close up. There were streaks of grime on the black robe, and even some under Draco's fingernails. The pale blond hair, which had shone like finest gold under the morning sun that day in the library, was now dull and covered with a fine layer of the same dust that shrouded Draco's entire body. But worse, far worse, was the defeated, nakedly human cast to Draco's face, all its pride and superiority stripped away.
"I know they haven't treated you well," Harry said, wishing his voice didn't sound so rough, wishing the sight of Draco like this did not hurt the way it did. "But... is there anything I can do?"
Draco was silent for a moment. "I wish there was... very much. But that you're here, that's enough." Again, that soft and almost not-there smile. "I'd hoped, you know, but didn't expect it."
"What? You thought that I wouldn't come?" Harry sat back a bit, surprised. "Why would you think that?"
"It's what I would have done," Draco said simply. He blinked and shook his head. "Not that it makes me happy to admit it, but there you go. It would have been far more intelligent - not that Gryffindors have ever been known for it, I guess - to go along with Fudge and let me hang. He wants me to, you know, but it seems that even I get a trial, seeing as Ron gets one. When he brought me here, that's all he was talking about... How it would be for show, you understand, and how I might as well ask to be thrown to the Dementors, to spare myself." A shuddering breath. "Bloody hell! I won't give him the satisfaction."
"Fudge *wanted* me to let you hang," Harry answered, his voice low and intense. /He wants you to be executed, and he wants to make an example of me... / He told this to Draco, whose mouth thinned into an expression very much like Minerva's, when she had heard something she disliked. "I couldn't do that, Draco. I could *never* do it."
"You'll only bring yourself down with me," Draco said wearily. "Why do that? You have a career, friends, people who actually *respect* you... Why throw all that away for me?"
"I don't think I'm throwing anything away," Harry said. "I've asked Ron the same thing, you know, why he was risking everything... and he told me... he told me..." /Say it, Potter./ "He told me I needed to be happy, and he was right about that, I guess, but there's so much more... I still owe you Draco, I know it - I didn't want to save your life just to get you packed off to exile, or to end up here, I wanted to save it because your life is worth more than that."
Draco laughed at that, but the laughter was bitter, so bitter and harsh against Harry's ears that he winced to hear it. "You say that... God, I love you, Harry. Only you could make it sound like a person like me could have anything worth living for, or be worth the piece of meat that he is. I love that about you."
"You could say it like you mean it," Harry muttered, taken aback.
"No, you don't understand..." Draco's grey eyes met his, but then skittered away, and when he spoke again, his voice shook. "You know how this place is - everything I can remember that was happy is leaving... there are days when I have to tell myself that my parents weren't always... Well, there are days. And now I can't think of what I've done without... God!" The last word was a frantic gasp. Harry leaned forward, struggling to hear, for Draco's words were coming low and fast, wrenched from him, tumbling out desperately. "Do you know how many people I killed? It doesn't matter if I really did or not, or if I really tortured them or had their homes burnt, or gave the order... I still did it... and," he paused, and his tone gained force. "Do you think I want to live, knowing what I've done? And now I remember that I was happy when I did those things, or at least thinking that what I was doing was right and necessary, and I hate myself for it - how I regretted none of it, and how I never would have, if this hadn't happened to me... I *should* die. By all rights, I should!"
Harry sat, trying to think of a reply. /By all rights, I should... Do you think I want to live, knowing what I've done?/ "But," he said at last, surprised at the steadiness of his voice, "what if I didn't want you to die?"
"I would say you're crazy," Draco answered.
"Then I'm crazy," Harry said, "because I don't want you to die - and I can't let you. I *won't*." He saw the question in Draco's face, and rushed to answer it. "I've *seen* things, Draco," he said, "people I thought were evil turned out to be good, and people I thought were there to help me who were trying to have me killed. And I've done things, too... hurt people, put them in here, even, and I know - I know this, Draco - that nothing is as simple as it seems. What Fudge is doing to you is no less evil than some of the things you've done, or some of the things I've done. It doesn't matter who we did them for, I think some things are bad, no matter what."
"That doesn't change anything," Draco whispered. "I still see their faces. I'll see their faces for the rest of my life." Unsteady fingers crept up his arm, working underneath the sleeve of his robe, and Harry felt a chill dart down his spine as he realized Draco was searching for the Dark Mark on his arm. It would be invisible, he knew, but could fingers feel it? Or was it something different that sensed such a thing, as though the mark were an impress on the soul? "However long that is, I'll see them."
"You won't see them," Harry said, surprised at how soothing he managed to sound. "Or if you do... They'll be regrets, I suppose, and everyone has them, and at least you know that you're human enough to regret the awful things you did."
"But I never did *before*," Draco said forcefully, bringing a hand down on the tabletop with a sharp slap. The sound echoed briefly in the room, then vanished. "And that's what sickens me. What if... what if I *had* had regrets? I wouldn't be here! What if I had dared admit to myself that I was as human as that wretched Muggle out there? I would have been a disgrace to the family name, but at least I wouldn't be here, wanting to kill myself for what I've done to people who wouldn't protect themselves."
"When Vince was captured by Aurors, I was at his trial," Harry said slowly. "At the time I was relieved he would finally be sent to prison, even though I knew what the Dementors were like, even though I get sick every time I see them, and remember my parents dying... I *wanted* him to be there. And I felt like that for a long time; whenever I'd hear of someone else getting sent there, I'd think to myself that it was better they were there, in that place, than out here. But then, after it was all over, I hated myself for thinking that, that I had ever wished anyone could be stuck forever in this place.
"And," he continued, riding over the objection he knew was coming, "I know that you think we're balanced, that you saved my life and I saved yours... but I feel here," he touched his heart, "that I still... I can't let you die the way Fudge wants you to, or live here. I *will* get you out of here."
"I didn't realize you hated me that much," Draco sighed.
"I don't hate you, and you know it," Harry snapped back. "If anything, please remember that."
Draco took a deep breath, closed his eyes, and nodded. "It's difficult to remember things here... But I remember that day in the library, and the time before that, in my room. You're... I told you you're always welcome. Wherever I am, you're welcome, even if it is a cell."
"It may have to be," Harry said softly.
"Anywhere..." Draco frowned and shook his head. "I was wondering... do you have your wand with you?" Warily, Harry said that, yes, he did. "Do you mind?" Draco held out his hand. "I swear... I swear I won't do anything. I don't think I could."
Harry nodded and pulled his wand from his pocket. He hesitated, thinking of Malleus, but the expression on Draco's face - strangely beseeching and entirely earnest - was too much for him, and he handed it over. Draco's slender fingers, shaking a little bit, closed around the wand, and a faint light kindled in his grey eyes as he took it and whispered, "Lumos."
The wand sparked for a moment before it began to emit a steady glow, difficult to see in the bright light of the room. It lasted a moment only before it winked out, but it seemed enough for Draco, who sighed and set the wand down on the table. "At least I still have it," he whispered. "I was afraid... Well, you know."
"I do." Harry understood Draco's reluctance to speak his fears. /A wizard loses his powers if he's too long around Dementors. But how long is 'too long'?/ "And believe me... you won't be here long enough for that to happen. I'll get you out of here, I swear it."
There was a grating sound just behind him. Harry whirled around, and saw that the wall had swung out, revealing once more the blackness of the hall and Malleus' pale, faintly apologetic face. A cold, insidious breeze swept in, wrapped its fingers around Harry, and he realized that Malleus was not alone: that Dementors waited somewhere in the hall. He closed his eyes, fighting against the rising nausea and the green nimbus of light that hovered at the corner of his vision.
"It's time to go," Malleus said. "Mr. Malfoy, if I could please have you follow me?"
Draco rose, halfheartedly brushing off his robes. He had gone even whiter, the pallor of his skin chalky grey against his robe. He moved like an old man, stiff and unsteady, and the reflexive grasp for support on the tabletop galvanized Harry to action. Before he knew it, he had slipped his arm under Draco's, firmly supporting him as Draco's body sagged against his.
"I have you, Draco," he whispered against Draco's ear.
"You have me," Draco breathed. They shuffled across the floor in their awkward embrace, the sounds of clumsy footsteps nearly obscuring Draco's words. "You... you'll save me?"
"Yes."
"If you can, find Severus's journal," Draco breathed. "I told Blinker to hide it, and only he and I know where. I... I don't know what I'll be able to do - you'll have to find the answer, and the journals, on your own."
"I - I'll do my best," Harry said. Despite the pain in his leg, aggravated by Draco's weight against it, despite the chill of the prison and the looming horror of the Dementors, he felt some contentment sweep through him at having Draco so close. The solid weight of his body was real, tangible - as though, until this moment when they stood together, he had feared the young man sitting across the table from him had been nothing more than a spirit.
"You'll find it, Harry," Draco said quietly. He was so close, smelling unpleasantly of dust and the grave, but still... They broke apart when Malleus took charge of Draco and handed him over into the custody of the Dementors, who stood back a bit.
"You may return to the cell now," Malleus ordered, nodding tersely at the two Dementors, who turned silently and glided away with Draco trailing limply between them. Malleus turned back around and placed a gentle hand on Harry's shoulder to turn him back in the direction from which they'd come, but Harry shook himself free and spun back around just before Draco and the Dementors turned the corner.
"Wait!" Harry shouted past the knot in his throat. "Dammit, wait!"
The Dementors paused, but did not turn around, for which Harry was deeply grateful. Draco shook himself free, one last dying bit of defiance, and turned to face him. And *there* was the vision, so sharp Harry nearly reeled from how close this scene fit to the horror of his nightmares. But at least, though, Draco did not hunch or cower, and if there was not pride, exactly, then there was at least resolution.
"How," he said, licking his lips and forcing himself to speak. /Pain, and a green light. Was that his mother? Why did his head hurt so badly?/ "How do I find it?"
"You need to pull it up," Draco said very softly. A pale hand, little more than a blur in the darkness, described a dipping motion, like a diving bird. "Pull it up... from deep down."
+++++++
tbc.
Notes:
1.) Naeglfar is the ship that will bear the dead to battle at Ragnarok, the end of the world in Norse mythology. According to the Eddas, it is constructed out of the nails of dead men. Gruesome, isn't it?
2.) Malleus means 'hammer' in Latin. The name of our lovely and talented Warden comes from the Malleus Maleficarum, 'The Hammer of Witches,' which was not only wildly popular for centuries, but also the standard work on how to find, capture, and interrogate a suspected witch.
3.) Atmosphere comes courtesy of three of my favorite Old English poems, 'The Wanderer', 'The Seafarer,' and 'Beowulf.'
4.) All info on Azkaban comes from what I've read in the books and in the HP Lexicon. All mistakes and alterations are my own... whether or not they're intentional, though, you may have to ask.