Harry Potter & the Price of Mercy

by: NecessaryEvil

Chapter Nineteen: Odd Dialogs and Much Boredom

Disclaimer: Not mine, wish they were. I could use the money.

A/N: Thanks to my reviewers.

ScrewyLouie12: First off I'd like to say that if you had given my story half a chance you would see that the crossover is at a minimum, barely spanning a whole chapter. Second of all do you think I care if I spelled a name wrong? I think I want to say something to you that consists of the first five letters of your name as the first word and the Sixth, eighth, and ninth letters as the second word. Figure it out yourself.

FSlx4: Thank you for reviewing. It is obvious that you would like me to continue. As I am currently doing I may inform you.

Wytil: Only thing I'm high on currently is lack of sleep. Wonder how this one'l turn out.

HarryPotterFan17: Brought to you by the letter 9, the number R, and the support of reviewers like you.

Now, with no more gildin' the lily and no more ado; here's the taker of my sanity, the work of twenty of my precious minutes, chaaaaapter 19.

Cecily Diggory was on a mission, Draco could tell that much, and in the very short time Draco had known Cecily he had learned that when she had her mind set on something it was not generally wise to get in her way. So, when Cecily came to him looking like she was on a mission and told him to follow her, his very first instinct (despite years of parental training that said to the exact opposite) was to do exactly as she told him to.

Which was why at this exact moment he was sitting in an empty classroom with Cecily and Potter's girlfriend. It goes without saying that his Slytherin blood caused him to be a mite uncomfortable in the presence of both a Ravenclaw and a (especially) a Gryffindor without proper Slytherin supervision, but Cecily had insisted that she only wanted a select few to know what she was about to tell him, and of course you do not attempt to get in Cecily Diggory's way when she is on a mission. He was not going to dismiss one of the few things he had learned about Cecily, even if it did lead to a bit of discomfort.

He lived in a world of discomfort now. He had spent the last month sleeping on a spring bed...with only one pillow and two blankets, because the other Slytherins (excluding Crabbe and Goyle who had no opinion....about anything) did not approve of him (1) having feelings (2) for a Gryffindor (3) named Diggory. Personally he agreed with their disapproval, but there was very little he could do about it.

His father had given him many lessons on how to avoid growing feelings, which he referred to as a fungus, but nothing on how to rid himself of the feelings once he had them.

"The fungus," he would say, "will take root in you if you do not head it off early enough and it will infect you and the only way to get rid of it, like most fungus, is to cut off the infected body part, unfortunately murder is still illegal in most countries and you probably don't have the nerve for it,"

But, Draco thought, I digress. Yes Draco had digressed, he had been in fact thinking how uncomfortable he was in this particular company, which was most assuredly, besides the fact that they both got on so well with Potter, all because of his Slytherin blood. Like most of the houses seemed to think Draco was indeed related to Salazar Slytherin, what pure blood wasn't these days, but he was not as most thought a direct descendant of Salazar's', he was actually from one of the lines least connected with Salazar. Draco figured that his biggest connection to Salazar Slytherin was that his great grandmother's grand mother was part of the now extinct Noble House of Slytherin, but really he was probably in some way related to almost any Famous pureblood Witch or Wizard in history for the mere reason that there wasn't that much history and even less pure blood. Really he was probably only saved from being related to Gryffindor or Ravenclaw by the fact that their only son had married a muggle name Rose or something and saved from being related to Hufflepuff by the fact that, while very sexually active for her time, Helga never had an offspring.

But really even that was a bit off topic at the moment. The real question, because it was the question that Draco wanted the answer to and that made it the most important question, was why they were here, which is exactly what Draco asked, in his own way.

"Is there a reason that you've brought us all together, something that does not involve a threesome with Potter's sad and lonely widow?" that was the drawl that no one could duplicate (because the Malfoy family owned the copyright and would not hesitate to sue if you even attempted to think about trying) that infuriated and intrigued Cecily every time she heard it, but of course it was not the time to fight back at Draco's upbringing induced incorrigible nature, she had information to impart.

"Yes Draco. There is a real reason that we are here," Cecily said with a bit of annoyance in her voice, "I was contacted by Harry Potter via the afterlife last night,"

Draco's eyes lit up for a moment, "So Potter really did bite the bucket then,"

"No, he simply used our mutual connection to the nether world in order to contact me. He made that very clear. He also made it very clear that I was only to tell the two of you,"

"Why him?"

"Why me?" Cho and Draco spoke at the same time in similarly startled voices.

"I heard him mumble something about sometimes being able to trust those you don't want to when you really have to, but the point is that I was contacted,"

"How do I know it was really Harry? You could have just been dreaming,"

"He gave me something to say to convince each of you. For you he said something about not being able to die yet and for you he said that he was still willing to take up the brotherly roll if you force him, personally I think he might have gone a bit mad already, but if it makes sense to the two of you,"

She could see from the look of sadness on Cho's face and the look of fear on Draco's face that it did indeed make sense to them, so she elected not to complete her sentence and instead moved onto business.

It had been over twenty years since any two members of the Lupin family had been together outside of the annual Christmas feast and it had been even longer since one of those two had been Remus, but finally times were changing and here to behold were Remus and Romulus Lupin, two brothers who hadn't seen each other since the day that Remus had been bitten by a Werewolf, having a drink in the Three Broomsticks.

Remus with his completely gray hair and the lines and wrinkles covering his tired face and Romulus with his graying black hair and crows feet next to his eyes, both smiling strenuously. Romulus was actually the older of the two, but Remus looked more aged, had always looked so, for the last twenty-eight years, since he had been seven. Now he was a middle aged man who looked old enough to be his own and his elder brother's father. The subject as it happened that they had stumbled upon quite by accident.

"He was never the same after that night. Never forgave himself for letting that wolf kill his son," Romulus was saying.

"It didn't kill me," Remus murmured tiredly, "Though sometimes I wish it had,"

"As far as he was concerned you were dead Remmy and all you staying would have done would have been to serve as a reminder of his failure. Me and mum tried to convince him to let you stay, but you know how our family is we're not close enough to convince each other to do anything,"

"You ever think about the irony of our name?" Remus asked out of nowhere.

"What? That it means wolf?" Romulus asked with a snigger, "Or that we're named after famous brothers?"

"The wolf bit. I mean look at how many of our line got bit by werewolves; Great Grandpa George, Great Aunt Elsa, Uncle Milton, me. You think maybe if we changed that family name we'd have better luck with wolves?" Remus chuckled lightly.

"I suppose we might at that," Romulus said with a grin, "God how I've missed this Remmy,"

"I do too sometimes," Remus replied with a sigh.

Ron was restless. He had been sitting in the locker room for three hours waiting for the team to show and he hadn't seen hide nor hair of a single member. He really hated sitting patiently, but what would happen if the acting Gryffindor team captain wasn't there when the team arrive, if the team arrived. Truth was the team hadn't said a word to him since Ginny had let leak that Ron had turned Harry in for Sayuri's murder. No, the truth was no Gryffindor had been talking to Ron since then. No, the truth was worse, Ron had been cut off from the rest of the student body since people had found our that he had turned Harry in. They all knew two things;(1) that Harry had saved the day more times than anyone could possibly know about and (2) Ron had just seperated Harry from said day.

They did not however know that Ron still to this very moment knew that Harry had killed Sayuri or that Harry himself had sent a message telling Ron not to feel guilty, no doubt to alleviate his own guilt over killing his best mate's girlfriend. They didn't know that secretely Ron was glad that they were singling him out for exile since it meant that he had been put in the spotlight for once even if it was a supposedly bad spotlight. And they didn't know how he felt about Sayuri's death. None of them could. They had been too sheltered for the last four years by 'the Great Harry Potter,"

Ron finally gave up on the team ever showing and began his way up to the school. He was just opening the door when he heard a voice that he knew all too well talking to him, "Well, Mr. Weasely, I hear I owe you a debt of gratitude," Ron didn't even pause to look over his shoulder at the greasy Potion's teacher he was sure he'd see there. No one was that desperate for someone to talk to.

Harry had discovered that he had just enough of his power left unbound to make his little hairs briefly contemplate standing up, before deciding against it and staying put instead. This did not in anyway lighten his spirits. Infact it was quite normal that these fact quite weighted down his spirits like a pair of concrete boots, but atleast the discovery of this fact had alleviated twelve hours of mindnumbing boredom. He now knew why prisoners prefered 12th rate motels to prison cells, it was the fact that atleast you could go out at the hotel, Harry was completely trapped here from dawn till dawn with nothing to do but sleep and count the tiles. He had in fact counted the tiles. There were three ninety three. He had confirmed that number four times. He was now considering naming the mold. Maybe something simple

This was day two.

A/N: You like? You buy? Is cheap.