A/N: You know, I could have made this one a horrible cliffie, but being the nice and awesome person I am I actually gave you one very special answer… or more questions.
A/N 2: If anyone would like to make art for this (because I'm sadly inept), I'd be more than delighted. Thanks.
ONWARD! Charge, my knights of Death, Terror, Twilight and Giddy Little Rabbits!
CHAPTER 9 – The Secret of the Azure Tear
Draco woke little by little, drifting to consciousness like a lost fish in a huge, black sea, that rose to the surface ever so slowly. Finally, he felt someone tapping his shoulder and speaking his name quietly.
"Draco?" the voice said, but something was strange about the sound his name made. A sudden snicker came from somewhere behind his head. Am I lying on sand? he wondered to himself.
"Why don't you tell him professor Snape's here or something like that, it might wake him up, brother," a voice quite like the one closer to his head spoke. There was some weird accent to them that he felt he should know, but in his befuddled state the recognition didn't want to come. I am lying on sand… why am I lying on sand?
"Ah, or the house-elves rioting?" The first voice suggested amusedly, his voice making a funny, delicate rumbling every time he spoke the letter 'r'. "Or why not the truth, since we are after all speaking to a dead man, it seems?" The voice was joking, but slightly worried.
"Not dead yet," Draco mumbled as his sight began to clear, his words greeted with a breathed sigh of relief. He found himself looking up into the finely shaped features of a man's pale face, even paler than his own and almost white. He knew well the dark, blue-black hair that streamed down the face, on both sides of those high cheekbones and the icy blue eyes – this man could only be…
"Ivan Anadyr, what in Merlin's name are you doing here?" Draco muttered as he struggled to rise and felt something in his way – someone lying on top of him – and he suddenly remembered the night before oh-so-clearly.
"Visiting, perhaps?" the man smirked mockingly.
"Yes… well… could you help me up, Ivan?" Draco wondered, his cheeks somewhat more reddened than usual. Another smirk curled the raven-haired man's lips and a flick of wand later Harry was floating, still sleeping, in the air and Draco staggered to his feet. "Be careful with him," he said, motioning toward Harry, and Ivan nodded silently. There had been more, Draco remembered. Someone else… he turned around and saw two young men, exactly identical faces that looked like Ivan's, only slightly younger and the hair they had bound back with black leather was golden like autumn leaves, eyes as blue as summer skies and skin winter white.
"Drahco," one of them greeted, somehow prolonging and changing the 'a' and rolling on the 'r' until it sounded like quite another name, the other one nodding respectfully.
"Vladimir," Draco acknowledged first before switching his gaze to the second brother, "Antonin," he nodded to the two, smiling. He glanced over at Harry, whom Ivan had turned into standing position, still holding him up magically. Once more turning to Ivan he spoke: "Perhaps we should wake him now?" It wasn't really a question, but he waited respectfully for the older man's answer anyway.
"Perhaps and perhaps not. Our beloved sister, Akasya, came from your party last night, bringing tidings concerning this young man and the trouble he is involved in."
"Trouble?" Draco started.
"You did not know, Malfoy?" Vladimir asked him. "Somebody speaking too loudly of the…" The young man paused for a moment, drawing breath, before continuing, "…relationship this young man had to you. Akasya was concerned and Ivan assured her that your father's old companions be not very happy."
"I understand," Draco breathed silently. "We'd better get inside." In silence, the four young men guided the sleeping one, floating through the air half an inch above the ground with Draco's arm around his waist.
"What should we do?" Draco's voice was worried and he glanced constantly toward the door to the room where Harry lay sleeping.
"We do have a plan," Ivan answered slowly.
"What is it?" Draco's face was stern, though worried, and Ivan grinned viciously.
"As we have planned it… it would be best if Harry Potter knew little – he will act in more favourable way if he is truly unaware of what is done. I and my brothers spoke to miss Parkinson and mister Zabini when we knew not where to find you. Zabini did have some ideas."
"Yes, yes, I know Blaise. I figure he had quite a few ideas before you were able to silence him. The man has an overactive imagination," Draco muttered.
"Nonetheless," Antonin said, smiling, "that overactive imagination quite being an asset to us at the moment. Zabini has excellent strategy, if time is on his side." For a moment, the four men sat in silence, looking at each other, evaluating each other, and then Draco nodded slowly.
"You're absolutely right, Antonin. I wouldn't be too surprised if Akasya sent a few strategies of her own on for the road?"
"Of course, how could she not?" Antonin mused. The three were quite proud of their sister, a young woman with chestnut hair, the same fair skin as her brothers, eyes that had scared Draco halfway out of his wits the first time he saw her – they were completely white but for the jet-black pupils. She was as masculine as any one of her brothers, but with a feminine beauty and a truly wicked streak to her personality. The Anadyr brothers usually compared their sister's character with that of a black bear stuck in a really uncomfortable part of Siberia or, when she was in a foul mood, a frenzied Norwegian Ridgeback dragon. Then of course, she got along strikingly well with the dragons in the Malfoy Estate's caverns.
"Well, should we get to business? You said you had a plan?"
"Yes," Ivan nodded, "effective yet simple, indeed. Listen now…"
Harry woke up in a warm bed, feeling scorched and washed and turned inside out. A bath would do me good… but where's Draco? He let his eyes scan the room, revealing that he was in Draco's bedroom – in Draco's bed – but there was no Draco to be found. The piano was standing deserted in the centre of the room, empty and lonely-looking. It was something about a piano… Draco singing… kissing… And for a moment, his brain seemed to stop working. Wait! Kissing? Kissing Draco Malfoy? And how come I remember it with this… this tingle… this strange, warm feeling? Can I… could he… and suddenly, the question answered itself, entirely without his consent. He loved me… and I… I loved him. The thought was too immensely far-fetched for him to grasp. Somehow, he just knew it to be true, but he couldn't make himself believe it. We couldn't fall in love. Can Malfoys love? Could I ever even consider the possibility of falling in love with one?
"I have to try again, it's a thing concerning my relationship to Harry," Draco tried to explain. "I believe my mother left me clues, but I can't find the index… or the key… or password, or whatever she did to keep it from anyone non-Malfoy."
"I see," was all Ivan said, Vladimir and Antonin staying quiet. Draco moved up to the painting and waved to the banshee on it.
"Draco," she acknowledged sternly, "password, please." He sighed heavily.
"I've been here every day since I got back, even time and again before that, now why do you keep asking me for that stupid password?" he growled at her, not really questioning her, but rather slightly upset that such idiocies kept him from working at top efficiency. She smiled slightly, which was a rare sight from the banshees of Malfoy Manor.
"It's the only way I can be sure you're a Malfoy. Password," she repeated. With another sigh, Draco leaned forward and was just about to speak the password when his eyes went wide with shock. Then he howled with glee, making his three companions look strangely at him.
"Are you all right, Draco?" Antonin wondered. Draco nodded furiously.
"I have it! The only way of reading my mother's book correctly. The only way she could be sure none but a Malfoy would be able to read it… of course…" he muttered, apparently very pleased with himself.
"Yes," Vladimir sighed. "Could we get along with this, mister Malfoy?" Antonin and Ivan smiled slightly, but Draco simply nodded.
"Of course…" once more, he leaned closer to the banshee, whispering to her so that no one else would overhear. "Legibus et Armis, my darling." She smirked nastily toward him and the painting swung aside gracefully. The grey-eyed young man waited only long enough to ask forgiveness of the three brothers for leaving them standing in the hallway.
"It's not a place that anyone not Malfoy by heritage or marriage should visit." In response, they nodded respectfully. Then, Draco rushed in, eager to get his hands on those elusive pages, and quickly found the book where he had left it only yesterday, considering it too dangerous a holiday to keep it in the open where it could get lost. The finely printed letters on the front cover were the same as always – his mother's name that he had seen so many times. He took it out and settled in a comfortable armchair by a huge table made of solid oak. He leaned in closer to the book and spoke quietly the Malfoy Key, the only password that would open any door created by a Malfoy: "Legibus et Armis". I can't believe I didn't remember before, he scolded himself a little. So obvious and yet so cryptic.
Draco watched in silence as the book opened itself, flew past page after page and, at last, settled with one page standing straight up. Then the page… fell apart, half to either side, creating two pages only half as thick as the first, and the words began appearing.
Malfoy who reads this, I am Narcissa of the Malfoy family. What would you like to know?
Draco stared at the page, baffled, for a second before he took a quill from its stand on the table, dipped it in a box of ink that opened itself on his command, and wrote to the book of his dead mother:
I am Draco Malfoy, your son.
What do you know of the Azure Tear?
The words that appeared next could not have shocked him more under any circumstances. He hadn't known it possible to do something like that… it must have been his Veela heritage. This meant that he was bonded to Harry Potter in more ways than one. The bond they shared could never be broken, that was why he had suddenly begun feeling Harry's moods since the first day they found the Azure… and somehow, Draco Malfoy still could not believe it.
"The reason… the reason my headache lessened here," he muttered to himself, "must be that the Manor is part of my very soul. That the essence of my existence and all it means to be a Malfoy must be engraved in the castle walls… strengthening and relaxing me… and that part is still close to Harry."
On the page, words he could not force his eyes from continued appearing, an unexpected answer to a question, to the simple how that had lived every generation of half-Veela, knowledge passed on from mother to daughter, from one to the next, even when its need was uncertain, because the knowledge was too complex and too great to be ignored.
Harry had left his rooms. There was a distinct need tugging at the back of his head – he wanted to… needed to talk to Draco about everything. Though he wasn't really sure what "everything" was supposed to be. After roaming the corridors for a while, Harry took off into a side corridor with no real reason – it was dark and dusty and didn't seem like a frequently visited place. There was no great likelihood of finding Draco there, but somehow he was drawn into the darkness of the passageway.
He had no idea where he was, he had been wandering aimlessly for some time, he could not really tell how long but he was guessing from the weariness that slowly began creeping up on him that he'd been walking for quite some time – several hours, perhaps – and Draco Malfoy had not been anywhere. Harry wasn't really sure whether he was supposed to be happy or miserable about that… Draco hadn't exactly made his life easier, but somehow… well, he had thought about that since he woke up and he was no less confused than he had been from the beginning. He had resolved a few questions, but they had only led to more of their kind. Nothing would be really explained until he found that pale young face that lingered in his mind, those lips like red wine, those eyes like liquid silver… his feet stopped walking on their own when he reached a dead end. He could simply not bring himself to begin again.
Harry Potter the eternal Hero felt empty… worn-out and cold. This place was too big to find one single person in. He had seen a few Slytherins that had lingered since the party about to get going, but none seemed eager to speak to him, but rather frightened or uncertain, pulling away as soon as they saw him. It made him furious at first, but the last hour or so he had not had very much of anything, not even the energy to respond to the rude portraits of ancient members of the Malfoy family, who had been muttering – or wailing – insults at him concerning anything from his clothing and hairstyle – somewhere during the night his leather shirt had disappeared into the fog. He was not really concerned as to where. It was a wondrous shirt, but it didn't really feel like him, like Harry.
Oh yes it did, his mind taunted him silently, you know you loved it, why do you hide from yourself? Is there anyone left to impress? And you know… Draco liked it, obviously. You know his breath caught when he saw you, you could feel his eyes on you… and you liked it.
He ignored the voice in his mind and sunk down on the floor with his back against the wall, but he could not escape from the memory of silver eyes sparkling in the moonlight as they asked for the one thing he'd somehow known all along was all the exquisite soul behind those beautiful eyes ever would truly ask for… and a honey-on-ice voice, burning with need, passed through his mind:
"You have to kiss me first."
It echoed, again and again, getting more and more vague until only two words remained, silently resounding in his ears, as he drifted to sleep in the silence.
"Kiss me… kiss me… kiss me…"
A
Slytherin dormitory, where a pale young man was fast asleep… a hand
of his extended and words were muttered in the silence:
"Don't
leave me so alone…"
The
feeling fluttered away, only to be replaced with another, a honeyed
voice speaking to him, through the darkness…
"Have no
fear."
And
another. A foggy memory of a morning long ago, in a home he had never
considered his own… an accusation that had never been meant for
daylight…
"Why didn't you attack him earlier? Then I
wouldn't have been so alone…"
And
the images along with their feelings kept coming… Pain… the
memory of mind-blowing pain in the middle of his face,
reaching for a wand, but somehow a lean figure suddenly howled
a spell that he himself had used to make that blonde hair fly through
the air once. Now the pale young man stood with his wand out,
pointing it at that great oaf Dud… howling with anger, his
shimmering silver eyes filled with his own pain… and
fear…
"Rictusempra!"
A
smile, when the huge corridors had seemed too great to be home to
anything but giants, as his fears were swept away and his anxiety
laid to rest by amused words, spoken with a lovely honey-on-ice voice
he could not for his life forget…
"I could always hold
your hand, if that'd make you feel better.
A
dream so long ago and yet he knew it could not be a dream. Had Draco
loved him so intensely for that long, or was it not long at
all?
"Hold me tight as frozen hell and never tell anybody,
ok?"
Grey
eyes watching his closely, as if they could make him believe with a
glance only. The words that followed made his heart tranquil…
nothing could go wrong…
"Trust me."
He
was watching the silvery moon, surrounded by a silver snake, in the
Slytherin circle, as he once more felt a hand touch his arm and draw
him from his dreaming.
"Far away, Har?"
A
lake under a different moon, just as vibrantly shining, sitting
beneath the branches of the huge oak, watching the light that played
across the surface… it was…
"Green for your eyes, silver
for mine."
And above and below every memory it echoed, over and over again:
"You have to kiss me first."
He woke to someone shaking him roughly.
"Harry," he could hear a wonderfully familiar voice cry.
"Yes," he muttered. "I'm fine. I just need to sleep, Drake… and then, when we're all rested you can tell me how I managed to get lost in this place…" He had almost fallen asleep again when somebody hit him on the head and he whined. "Ow! What was that for!"
"Usually better to use the correct amount of violence, Drahco," an unfamiliar voice spoke.
"Don't hit him, Vladimir," Draco whined. "He's gotten lost and not even holy Raistlin himself knows how long he's been sleeping in this damp corner. Thank the heavens for the house-elf who found him!" Harry looked up into Draco's face.
"Thanks for finding me, Draco," he mumbled lovingly. Draco simply nodded, pulling something shiny from one of his pockets. It took Harry a moment to understand that Draco was holding out the Azure Tear to him.
"Harry Potter, would you accept the Azure Tear from my hands? Would you accept the very essence of my soul?"
In the silence, the knowledge dawned on him and he smiled uncertainly.
"Yes, Draco, I will."
Russian language… They speak like… it's an elegant language, although not very delicate. Instead of calling Mr. Malfoy dra:y-cuh they say dra:h-koh. The Anadyr go to Durmstrang, pureblood Siberian family they are. Recommended music to just about anything that concerns them would be the Soviet National Anthem. Especially when you meet Akasya… she's Russian, from Siberia, obviously bred on snow and vodka – that girl can be aggressive and stubborn like few others.
Legibus et Armis is Latin and means "law and weapons" and it's the heart of Malfoy rule – at least if you have insider information. It's not like they keep common knowledge as passwords for their most secret chambers… dimwit.
REVIEW, please? I'm beyond happy for your reviews and if you have any questions or anything confuses you (yesh, my story ish confushing), just write me a line and I'll explain it some day when my eyes are clear of the smoke and Delirium has given me back my brain.
