Chapter 10

The Truth

A/N:: Not mine. JKR's.

The old man sat at his desk feverishly reading a yellowed scroll.  At the trill of the firebird the man looked up.  His eyes, normally clear and sparkling were dull and pain filled.  He looked at Fawkes with sadness.

"You knew didn't you my friend."  He stroked his white beard.  "You knew right away what was wrong with her.  You recognized her."  The bird trilled again.

Softly.

Sadly.

"Minerva."  Albus Dumbledore spoke into the magically green flames dancing in his hearth.  He waited a few moments until the familiar face appeared.

"Albus? What is going on?"  She shook her disembodied head, the sharp movement not enough to dislodge the tight bun she always wore.  "I have a class of Gryffindors and Slytherins.  It is all that I can do to prevent Harry from killing any of his classmates for even looking in Miss Granger's direction.  Never mind that she is an attractive girl and the are adolescent males."  She huffed, the affront to her favorite student made her crabby and her Scottish brogue was even more apparent.  "Now what did you want?"

Albus shook his head, not even Minerva's mother hen antics could cheer him.

"Minerva, I found it."  The annoyance left the woman's lined face and fear replaced the irritated expression.  "Please report to my office, and collect Severus along the way.  We will be asking Miss Granger and Mr. Malfoy to join us after we have discussed the ramifications of my discovery."

"Certainly Albus.  Right away."

Hermione sat ensconced between Ron and Harry as McGonagall spoke to the Headmaster in her office.  She could feel his eyes on her.  Those gray eyes filled with fire, trying to see into her soul.  It would happen tonight.  She had begun the process.  If he came to the dance she would tell him everything.

Everything.

Then it would all be over.

She looked up as the Professor entered the room.  She was pale and her eyes swept from My to Drake and back to the Gryffindor bodyguards.

"Class-- I have to meet with the headmaster.  As seventh years I expect you to return to your common rooms until your next class.  Please behave.  Now is not the time for arguments and petty disagreements."

My rose shaken by the near panic reflected in her favorite professor's eyes.  Both boys were by her side even as Pavarti and Lavender discussed the newest manicure secrets.  She gave a half smile, the girls mindless chatter was familiar and unchanging.  She glanced around at her peers, only to have her eyes meet the person that her bodyguards were trying to protect her from.  Once again their eyes locked, and the rest of the world faded away to the periphery.

She looked in his eyes and saw the anger, the confusion, the hurt, but most of all she saw love.  Even as he tried to disguise it.

"Tonight?"  He mouthed, counting on the class's confusion and general self-absorption to mask his actions.  He needed to know everything and he couldn't wait any longer.

She nodded.  "Everything."  She knew what he wanted and that she owed him the truth.

If only to make him see how low she truly was.

Ron's tug at her arm broke their silent exchange, even as Pansy snaked am arm around Drake's waist whispering poison in his ear.

The Gryffindors had her removed from the class room before she could see him shrugging off the thick arm and snarl at the unwanted girl.

Together they walked down the corridors and up into the Gryffindor common room.  She sat in a chair, an open book on her lap watching as first years struggled with homework and Ron and Harry played chess.  She could feel a sigh deep in her chest longing to come out.  The day was stretched out in front of her, long and dreary.  All she really wanted to do was to speak with Drake.  Tell him everything, make sure that he would understand why things happened the way that they did.

A loud 'pop' broke through her grim imaginings of their meeting.  She looked up, standing there looking nervous and unsure was a young house elf she had never seen before.

"Excuse me sirs, Misses.  Headmaster tells Twinky to get Miss granger.  Twinky is to tell her about a meeting with the Headmaster."  The elf wriggled his ears and nose, looked around nervously and whispered, "The password is gobstopper."  And with a final nervous quiver the house elf disappeared with a pop.

My's heart pounded painfully in her chest.  What has happened now?  What did the Headmaster want to tell her?  She stood and slowly walked towards the portrait, not even realizing how pale her face had become.  How shaken she looked.

Harry looked at her closely and felt the contentment that had built up over the last few months fade.  She looked ill.  Pale and worn as if the house elf had removed all of the meager life force she had accumulated since the 'trio' had been reunited.  It reminded him of how she looked that first night at dinner.  He wouldn't let her regress.  She was doing well.  He quickly stood up, not even noticing the cursing of the chess pieces as they fell to the ground.  He walked to her side with a sheepish look on her face. 

"My, I gotta go to the hospital wing.  I ah, I need a headache potion.  How about I walk with you."  His green eyes were blank.  They both knew he was lying through his teeth but she appreciated the lie nonetheless.  Ron simply stood waiting at the exit.  He was going, if only to wait outside the office and stand guard.  He was coming and there was no way, even if she tried to stop him that he was letting her leave the tower with him.

The trio walked down the halls listening to the sounds of a castle in use.  As they passed the hospital wing My forced Harry to go in, a quirky smile on her lips as she and Ron continued their way to the Headmaster's office, Harry's expletive loud enough that they both heard it behind them.

Finally they approached the stone gargoyle and stopped.  Next to them was Malfoy searching through his pockets cursing.

"Gobstoppers,"  My whispered, the gargoyle springing to life revealing the staircase.  Drake's head snapped up at the sound of her voice and grating stone.  His gray expressionless eyes widened at the sight of her pale face.

"My."  The greeting was quiet, unconscious and unnoticed by either.

"Drake."

Ron narrowed his eyes at the two and knew something was going on.  In a way he was glad Harry had been forced away by his own lie.  He never would accept Hermione talking to Malfoy.

"Malfoy."  He kept his voice steady.  He hated the blonde haired man, but My was more important and he wouldn't risk her improvements for a tussle with Malfoy.  He wasn't worth it.  The man in question felt his eyebrows rise at the cold but polite greeting.  Was it possible that Weasly too had grown up over the last months?

"Weasly."  My looked back and forth inexplicably calm at the meeting of two enemies.

"My."  She started at the sound of Ron's voice.  "You should go up.  I'll wait for you here.  She nodded and walked up the stairs.

"I wouldn't touch her if you left Weasly."  Drake's voice was blank careful.  The next move in the game for peace was Weasly's.

"I know that you wouldn't."  Ron sounded vaguely surprised at his own statement.  "It isn't you I want to save her from.  So I'll be waiting even if you swore on your life not to go near her, not to ever let anything happen to her."

"That won't be necessary boys."  Madame Pomfrey's voice broke through the dual verbal and non-verbal discussion that the young men were having.  "Mr. Malfoy you are being waited upon up stairs and Mr. Weasly if you really have nothing to do but wait you can assist me in the infirmary."  Ron shrugged at Malfoy and then opened his mouth to speak.

"If I don't make it back to walk her to the tower--"

"I'll do it."  Somehow, one brown haired girl brought about a fragile truce between the Weasly and Malfoy families that had existed for nearly 150 years.  Ron shook his head at the though and followed Pomfrey as Drake walked up the stairs.

Drake walked up the stairs, he could feel his nerves increase the closer he was to the headmaster's office.  He wracked his brain, tried to figure out what he had done that was so wrong that it required a meeting with Dumbledore.  He could find nothing.  He had stayed out of trouble, the only things he did was school work and--

His dance with My.

He slowed for just a moment outside of the oaken door.  He inhaled deeply and tried to clear from his mind any thoughts of the dance, tried to block off how good she felt in his arms.  He had to be a blank slate, walking into a room with two mind readers and the scariest sane woman he had ever met.

He walked into the office and willed himself not the react to her presence, he would let nothing slip.  He looked up to be greeted with a subdued headmaster.  The usual inane twinkle was gone from his eyes.

"Please take a seat Mr. Malfoy."  Drake inhaled sharply, Dumbledore looked so old.  He walked forward and sat next to My, not even recognizing the other chairs in the room.

"Mr. Malfoy, Draco."  Snape's voice was unsettling.  It was tight with repressed emotions, it was distraught.  "Please have you studied your family history?"  Drake nodded, not noticing his hand approaching hers.  Snape continued.  "Please tell us everything you know about Lucien Malovious."

"Lucien?"  The headmaster nodded, while McGonagall simply looked at him, through him.

Drake's lip curled with scorn.  "Lucien was a fool.  A blunderer.  The reason the Malovious family splintered and was forced to flee France."  He glared at the wall.  "Lucien was never totally with it, the youngest son of a youngest son, he had nothing but the paltry sum of his allowance left to him by his great uncle.  He craved fame and fortune, but above all he craved what no self respecting Malovious would ever desire.  Lucien was madly deeply obsessively in love with a sixteen year old muggle girl from the local village near where he had made his home.  A devout Catholic she rejected his suit.  Not only did he actively practice magic, but she also thought he was insane.  In an attempt to impress her he told her his age.  He was three hundred.  In the day of his familial exile he research the nature of magic and time.  It proved beneficial he harnessed untested powers and accepted the gift of eternal youth.  He never grew any older.  But he did grow lonely.  He wanted someone to share eternal youth with.

"She rebuffed him for years.  She wouldn't risk her soul for him, at least until she turned 22 and the realized no other man dared approach her with the crazy lord interested in her hand.  So finally she agreed.  But only if she could somehow get magic as well."  Drake shook his head at the greed of the muggle girl, not only did she not stick to her principles but she  betrayed her morals.  "In order to satisfy the girls demand Lucien began to madly experiment.  He stole magical creatures and stripped away their life force, their magic and power.  Time and time again he failed, no creature would realize the amount of power required.  Then he lucked out in a sense.  He was searching the forest, and saw his salvation."  Drake paused and closed his eyes.  The gentle cough from Snape made him continue with his narrative.

"He searched the forest and found a female phoenix on a burning day.  He took it.  Took the bird from the nest of volcanic rocks and returned to his lab.  He cast his power leeching spell in the exact moment that the phoenix burst into flames, and the spell was corrupted.  As the phoenix body was no more the power was separated, but it was so much more.  It was the very essence of the phoenix.  The body was ash and the magic link between phoenix body and essence was severed leaving only power and spirit.

"Lucien took this new essence a fiery red ball of light to his love.  She lay asleep, a rosary clutched in her fist.  He aimed and the phoenix left his wand and settled over her chest before it sank in and took over, imbuing her with an unnatural red glow.  When she woke up, she had power."  He glared at the floor, caught up in the ancient family history so carefully recorded and imprinted in his brain.

"She hated it, hated him.  She demanded that he remove it at once, she called Lucien evil and begged him to remove it."

"And of course he refused."

Drake sighed at the disgust in McGonagall's voice.

"Of course he refused, he was an idiotic, stubborn man that violated every law that wizards had in those days.  More importantly he was a Malovious.  We have pride.  And taking back the essence, even if he could figure out how to do it, that was something he wouldn't do.   The muggle girl was forced to remain with him, though of course she was no longer a muggle and in her mind she was condemned to hell.  For years she stayed by his side, letting anger and hatred seep into her system.  Then the phoenix took over.  The girl became ill, began to burn up, touching her skin was like touching a stove top.  She cried tears of flame and her eyes burned like windows to the hell she feared."  Drake looked at the rapt faces around him.  "I am quoting the family journals here, I have no idea if this is the literal truth.  She didn't stay in such a state for long.   One day she simply exploded into a ball of flames.  The phoenix essence was released from an impure vessel, there was nothing keeping it anchored to the body that was decimated to ash.  So the orb disappeared, a human scream lingered in the air after the essence left, leaving nothing.

"Lucien was horrified.  He ran away to his castle and avada'ed as well as gutted him self.  The shame was to much.  The Malovious family splintered and fled to different corners of the globe.  My family faction took all of the journals and all the artifacts.  As soon as we reached the shores of England we changed our name to Malfoy and tried to forget about the phoenix essence and the pathetic miscreant that was Lucien."  His face contorted in a sneer as he finished the story of the ill-fated life of his ancestor.  Then he grew thoughtful.

"This is probably the first time any Malfoy has ever discussed this, the accounts of the others that cleaned up Lucien's mess was all the general public knew.

"Why have I revealed my families skeletons?"  He straightened, "I am not only the last full blooded Malfoy, I am the last Malovious, we are a dying family and I am the last."  Dumbldore could see the cogs in his brain shift, could see the workings of the intelligent man's brain.  "You found it didn't you.  The phoenix essence.  Where is she?  You cannot keep her from me, Malovious and the essence are bound, part of our power lies in the spell that brought the essence into existence.  She is part of me."  Drake didn't notice the stricken look on My's face, or the fact that during his speech he had grabbed her hand, and it was burning as hotly as a coal.

"Sorry Mr. Malfoy, we only think we know where the essence is."

"Where?"  Drake's voice was cold.  Dumbledore remained silent only glancing quickly at Hermione as she sat stock still in her chair.

Drake followed the gaze and his heart skipped a beat.  It couldn't be.  There was no anchor.  She would be gone.

"No."  His voice was cold.  "It can't be."  He pulled his hand from her and pulled out his wand and glared at the other people in the room.  "If you are wrong and this hurts her I'll kill each of you without magic and without fear of repercussions."

He began to mutter  words too low to fully understand with intent dark enough that even Snape didn't want to try.  Dumbledore, despite his unease tried to hear the cadence of the dark magic, and wondered where his student had learned such a spell.  Finally the air was humming, glowing and warping with a sinister sheen of magic.

"Revealio."  The shine speed through the air and spearheaded right through the nervous My.  An earsplitting wail echoed through the castle so high and intense that it was beyond human.

Drake stepped forward and cradled My's cheek in his cool hand.  "Wake-up my love," he crooned to the girl.  His voice unlike anything his professors had heard before.

My's eyes opened, gone were the amber gold eyes, replaced by fire.

She cocked her head in confusion.  "You are not Lucien.  Where am I?  When am I?"

"Who are you, why are you in this body?"

She looked up into gray eyes.  "I wanted it."

"That's not good enough.  Who are you?"

"I am Phoenix.  Or at least I was.  Now I am just a spirit."

Snape spoke dryly, "A spirit able to possess another."

The Phoenix lifted her hand and stared at the faint blue lines deep under the skin.  "This vessel works well enough I suppose.  So much sorrow.  So much anger."  The creature stretched.  "So much power."

"This is not your body to take.  It already has an inhabitant."

My's eyes narrowed at the gray eyed man.  The flames all around them danced higher.

"This body came to me, it was already marked as my own, I simply made use of it."  She glared at him, and the heat of the office grew oppressive.

"That is enough Mr. Malfoy."  Dumbledore's voice cut through the tension between the two.  "Phoenix why are you in this body?"

"It was easiest.  It was pure.  But hurt and afraid and worried but above all, it was angry.  From a crystal prison I watched as she grew angrier.  I watched as unconsciously she summoned a firestorm.  The anger and the fire pulled me from my prison into another.  I helped supply more power and I forced her to finish what she had the gall to begin.  Together, alone, we, I burned the dross that was polluting the cave."

Snape stiffened and fingered his arm through his long black robe.  Drake glared at the cause of his father's death.  He pulled his wand and whispered, "Finite."  My slumped, eyes closed.

"Mr. Malfoy?"

"I undid the spell, she is fine,"  His voice was cold.  "How ironic that the  Malfoy empire was brought down by what could be considered it's greatest triumph."  He slumped in the wooden chair, eyes blank unwilling to let his professors know how upset he was by the irony of his family in effect, destroying it's self nearly a thousand years in the future.

Dumbledore loosened the muscles in his neck.  "I knew it was something along these lines but I had no idea it was so serious.  There is no anchor."  He mused to himself, ignoring the glares from the other people in the room.  "I had thought she had been struck with the phoenix curse."  His eyes swept across the people gathered in the room.  "I was happy to see she was beating it.  The phoenix curse is loosely based on the fantastical story we just heard.  Except it is a curse.  A swish and flick of a wand and six dark elvish words is all that it takes to infect a magical creatures essence with flames.  To allow their power to grow to a point of invincibility and then it happens.

"They combust.  Just as a phoenix would only this is the victims final death, and from the accounts I studied the pain is unbearable.

"But this, this is beyond even the horror of dying from the phoenix curse."  He looked at his prize student, "you have another being resting inside your soul  and it is going to want control eventually."  His voice was calm but the power he held was a constant throb beneath his words.  His eyes weren't twinkling now.  He bent in front of the girl and waited, worry warring with impatience.  "Miss Granger."  She failed to respond, her features blank eyes focused on a spot far, far away.

He straightened from his crouched position, old bones creaking from the movement.  "Miss Granger.  I know you can hear every word."  She lifted her head and looked him in the eye.  "The phoenix essence merged with the soul of the muggle woman so long ago.  Each body or creature it has inhabited  has made the essence stronger and more powerful.  More sentient.  I love Fawkes, but he cannot communicate in the human sense.  This is beyond that.  We must find an anchor for you."  He frowned thoughtfully, "  We must find a way to link you to your body so that when the burning time comes, you will have a place to return to."  He rose, placing a gentle hand on both student's shoulders.  "Now we will leave you to discuss very important questions that you have been side stepping for far to long."

Dumbledore turned and left the office, McGonagall right behind him.  Snape lingered a silent mental battle warring behind liquid back eyes.

"Miss Granger."  His voice was cold and detached, eyes everywhere but her eyes.  "Miss Granger I know this will not help you overcome you self loathing and guilt that you have hidden under for half a year, but I need to tell you to salvage my own soul, and hopefully bring you back from the edge."  She looked up at him, black to amber.  "I am part of the dross burned from the crystal cave.  I was there.  I saw Ron being beaten, Harry being attacked from behind and I was powerless to stop it.  I was powerless to rescue you from the taunts and then the fire.  I had been revealed as a spy that night."  Draco's eyes widened at his head of house, both by the revelation and the first glimpse into what that night had been like."  Voldemort was very disappointed.  I lay broken, bloody and beaten waiting for the death I deserved, the death I earned from my actions so long ago.   Then my focal point as the groups entertainment was lost.  That was the moment that Weasley and Potter walked into the cave.  Arrogant and cocksure they strode in as though they were invincible.  Longing to get into the final confrontation that they were unprepared for.  I watched it all, prone unable to do or say anything unable to protect the students that I, as a teacher, am pledged to protect from harm. 

"By the time you appeared I thought that Weasley was dead, another name added to my list, and I thought Potter was well on his way.  "  He shook his loose fine hair, the candlelight caught the shine making his shaggy hair resemble an oil-slick.  "You appeared like an avenging angel.  A sick and damaged avenging angel.  Of course I added you to my list of sins, of innocents lost to the Dark Lord.  Then you snapped and the fires began."  He grabbed his arm, and My clenched her eyes shut, the voices in her head rose furious he was not with them in eternal agony.  "I felt it burn.  I felt the fire lick up my shin, eat through my robes.  I felt the fire eat it's way through my body.  I lay there on the cave floor glazed and stupid with the most exquisite, and unimaginable pain I had ever experienced before lacing it's way through my veins.  Then there was darkness.

"I resigned myself to death.  To hell.  To an eternity of flames and sulfur.  I know what burning is, and now I've seen hell."  Snape locked his eyes with hers, trying to eliminate any competition on her attention.  "Yet I woke up.  Aching and sore, but alive.  And cold."  He scowled, the look of wonder abating slightly.  "There was nothing in the cave but ashes and old memories.  When I stood it was amazing.  I felt as though I had lost a massive weight from my shoulders.  My memories were just memories, not visions of horror that could bring me to tears.  The best, however, was discovered after I retuned to the school.  Locked in my room, I stripped the death eater robes  from my body and incinerated them.  That portion of my life finally totally, officially, and completely over. 

"Then I looked down and I noticed it."  He held out his forearm and My gasped.  The dark mark was gone.  "The mark was gone and I am free of my past.  Free to live the present and the future."  He knelt in front of her.  "It was because of you.  You did this.  I am eternally in your debt.  Anything, and I mean anything," his eyes darted to Drake listening blankly with awe.  "Anything you want will be yours." At that he stood and swept out of the room.

Drake turned and looked at My.  Tears were streaming down her face.  Battle shock evident in her eyes she shivered in the warm room.  He knew that now was not moment to rehash the past.  Not when her guilt was at war with the notion that only the evil died.

"My."  She looked at him.  "Tonight you find me.  I'll be at Club Zero."  He stood and walked out.  Nodding at Weasley waiting at the entrance, impatience and worry written all over his features.

"Weasley.  Be gentle with her, she's fragile now."

Ron nodded silently, both knew now was not the time for questions.

My entered the club, the steady hypnotic beat was the type Drake favored.  The trip hop beat made the musical trance so much easier with the flashing strobe, the miasma of sweat and smoke.  The crush of people.  What better way to be alone than to be in a crowd of people.

She moved forward, the skin exposed by the top glowed like a beacon.  She felt a pull.  A pull towards a blonde head surrounded by girls.  A blonde head that belonged to her even as it didn't.  She walked forward and stood in front of him.

His gray eyes widened.  The baggy pants emphasized the tiny waist and the perfect tiny breasts.  His blood quickened he walked to greet her and the others left, knowing that they didn't have a chance with this girl in front of him.

She took his hand and led him to the floor.  She needed the clarity the dance gave her.  She moved her head an hips to the music.  Ran her fingers over her arms and moved with the beat.  She raised her hands above her head and twisted and writhed.  The music controlling her movements.

Then hands grabbed her, spun her pulled her she instinctively moved closer to this familiar body.  She stepped forward, straddling one of his legs.  His hands were on her hips, thumbs aligned on jutting hipbones.

They remained joined, the sensual, sexual movements of their dance lit a different type of fire in her, she edged closer to his body.  The liquid heat in her veins and between her legs urged the dance faster, and with a groan deep in his throat Drake followed.  Hands spanned her stomach, thumbs caressing the underside of firm breasts.  She moved closer and felt the product of her closeness on her stomach.

The dance was different tonight.  Rougher, less about escape and secrets and more about something primal.  More about sex and ownership.  Their bodies rocked and moved the feel of her body against his made him weak with want.  My felt the pressure he exerted on her stomach increase the heat of her blood.  She leaned against his leg, his body, his hand, anything to increase the friction and to add to the frenetic energy of their dance.

Before they realized it the club's music ended and dancers began to leave.  Breathe heavy from the exertion and the embarrassment at how intimate their dance had become.  My glanced up at him and then away, face scarlet at the emotions she showed during the night.

"I know don't worry."  Her eyes filled and she angrily blinked away unwanted tears.  "Just tonight, just the dance."

Drake shook his head.  He didn't know what had changed on this day.  But never would her eyes have tears if he could prevent it.  "No My."  He placed a hand on her hip and pulled her closer.  "Not just for the dance and not just for tonight."  He fitted his mouth to hers and kissed her with all the passion and pain he ever experienced.  "Forever.  Your mine.  Now and forever."  She reached upwards and brought his mouth down to hers.  Passion matching passion.

Anger, fury, pain, sorrow, and love.

Not just for tonight.  For forever.

TBC...

A/N::YAY I updated.  A cookie to everyone that is still reading this.  I'm so sorry about the time it took to get this posted but real life sucks ass.

I had planned to list the names of everyone that reviewed (over 50...:). ) but that would take a long time and I figured better to get the chapter out and give everyone  a massive thank you for the kind words.  Special thanks however, go to Lily among the thorns and fixedinsanity for reminding me how longs it has been and to get off my ass and post the next chapter.

Now for a question.  I can finish this in about four chapters or it could continue on for more.  The ending is already written.  How do you want the middle to go?  Let me know in a review.

Mystykitty