Black Truth

Chapter Twenty-Eight: Black Truth, Black Wings

The Room of Requirement had made itself into a cave. The walls were limestone, with a low ceiling and a moss covered floor. The room was very small, so small in fact that the three people inside the room had to duck to avoid hitting their heads on the ceiling. The cave was what the room thought of as the perfect place to speak of secrets, and so the three Gryffindors settled down as comfortably as they could against the cold stone.

"There's something wrong with Draco" Harry said, looking down at the moss as if it was the most interesting thing he had ever seen.

Neither Ron nor Hermione were fooled by his antics. Ron, though, was puzzled at Harry's words. "But he seems…er, fine to me. Well… he doesn't act any differently than he normally does."

"No, he's more nervous than usual" Hermione observed.

"Exactly" Harry said. "It's like he's planning something that he doesn't want anyone to find out. And it started after he got that letter."

"But that was a week ago!" Ron protested.

"Yes, and he's received two other letters from his father, both as false as the first one" Harry explained.

"False letters?"

"That's all he'll tell me about them. That they aren't really from his father."

Hermione frowned as if thinking. "But why wouldn't his father write to Malfoy?"

"If he couldn't," Harry replied, looking up at his friends for the first time since the conversation had begun.

"But why couldn't he write to Malfoy?" Ron asked. "He's done it for five years, so what's different now?"

Harry shrugged. "I don't know. Draco doesn't know. And no one who knows is telling."

"Harry, what does Draco think is going on?" Hermione asked. "What exactly does he say?"

"About the letters?" Hermione nodded. "Well, he says that there are certain things his father always puts in a letter, certain phrases, the way he signs his name, and so on… I don't remember the exact details. And he says that all these things are missing from the last three letters."

"But hasn't he done a spell to make sure that it's his father's handwriting?" Hermione asked.

"First thing he does. It's his father's writing, but not his father's style."

"Has there been any other… blood… on the letters?" Ron asked.

"No. Not since the first one."

"I think I see what he thinks" Hermione stated. "His father has always written to him, and so if something happened… like for instance, if his father got hurt, then the absence of letters would tell him immediately that something was wrong. But there isn't an absence of letters. Yet, these recent ones are very different from what he's used to. There are, as he says, certain elements missing to them."

"And then there's the blood" Ron added.

Hermione nodded. "Yes. I think that Lucius Malfoy is trying to tell his son that something is wrong."

"Then why doesn't he come out and say it?" Ron asked.

"We must assume for some reason that he can't."

"But what's going to stop Lucius Malfoy from doing something?" Ron looked skeptical.

"Voldemort" Harry spoke suddenly.

"But we'd know if You-er…Voldemort was doing something… wouldn't we?" Ron asked.

Harry was silent. He didn't know what Voldemort was doing. After all, he hadn't had a vision since he'd bonded to Draco.

Another thing Harry noticed about Draco's change in attitude was that the blond was silent. Yes, in public he acted like the Draco everyone knew and expected… but when there was no one around except Harry, he didn't speak unless Harry started the conversation. It was like he always had something on his mind now. And Harry couldn't find out what.

It wasn't like he could bluntly ask, "What are you planning?" because he wouldn't get an answer… or at least, he wouldn't get the truth. And because Draco was a Slytherin, Harry doubted he'd find any evidence of what Draco was plotting just lying around.

He would just have to wait until Draco told him… or until Draco acted on whatever it was he was planning. Harry didn't like waiting but he forced himself not to call Draco on his behavior.

It wasn't like Draco could do anything drastic, like actually going to Malfoy Manor. Draco had told him that all the fireplaces in Malfoy Manor had been closed off, so Draco couldn't floo there. And there was no point in walking down to Hogsmead and getting on the train because then Draco'd be stuck in London and unable to floo home. Without Lucius trying to bring his son home, Draco was stuck in Hogwarts. And Harry doubted that Lucius wanted his son to come home right now, doubted that very much indeed.

Harry woke up cold. This didn't matter that much to him because his rooms were in the dungeons now and this part of the castle tended to be cooler than other places. But what bothered him was what he realized once he got past the cold part. He had woken up in the middle of the night. Alone. Draco was no where to be found. And judging from the temperature of Draco's side of the bed… he hadn't been in bed for a long time.

"Tempus," Harry muttered, and was informed that it was three o'clock in the morning.

Not good. Harry began to pull on clothing while trying to piece together what he could about the situation.

Don't panic, he told himself. You're just overreacting.

But somehow he knew that he wasn't. If Draco had fallen asleep at all then he would still have been in the same bed as Harry.And Harry had seen Draco sleeping last night before he had gone to bed.

Harry felt a cold wave wash over him as he realized that last night was Friday. Today would be Saturday. That meant that no teachers would realize Draco was missing until Monday, if Draco was gone. And it wouldn't have been that hard for Draco to get rid of his friends for a weekend. Tell them that he would be studying or something.

Harry bit his lip. This was beginning to look bad.

But where would Draco go? Another part of his mind asked. It wasn't as if he could just waltz out of Hogwarts at any time of day or night. And though instinctively Harry's first idea was that somehow Draco had gone to Malfoy Manor, it just wasn't logically possible. No… there just had to be another explanation. Harry continued this like a mantra. He would find Draco and it would be something stupid, though what Draco would wake up for in the middle of the night was beyond Harry, but there had to be something. And it was probably something obvious and stupid and Harry would feel really idiotic when he found out, but that's what would happen.

Yes, that is what would happen.

Harry fumbled on the nightstand for his wand and cast a quick Lumos to help light up the room. It proved inadequate, however, because halfway out of the room he tripped.

Harry hissed in pain as he rolled over to see what had caught his toe. It was a book, a rather thick book. It was one of Draco's 'independent reading' potions books. Harry fought back a groan. As he'd tripped he'd bent about half of the pages, not to mention the cover. He would somehow have to explain that to Draco.

Harry picked up the book and placed it on the nearest surface that was not the floor, his bed. Maybe there was a spell to unbend pages…

Harry winced as he surveyed the damage more closely. Somehow his foot had dislodged a page from the middle of the book, right where the bended pages started. Carefully he opened the book to that page and looked at it.

Harry brought the page near the light of his wand and blinked. This wasn't potions. This was the map he'd made a few days ago that he thought he'd misplaced. Draco must have picked it up.

Harry carefully made his way out of the bedroom to look at the map in better light. Draco had added to it, creating a circle using the attacks farthest away from each other as a diameter. By doing this, he'd also found the circle's center. Harry frowned slightly as he looked at the area Draco had repeatedly starred in different color inks. There was nothing there, at least not on the map. But it had some significance to Draco, it must, for him to indicate it as so important.

Maybe Draco thought that the center of the attacks would be where Voldemort was hiding or launching the attacks? But Draco wouldn't do something so… Gryffindorish as to try and sneak into Voldemort's headquarters… even if he thought that stopping the attacks would stop the lockdown his father had on Malfoy Manor.

Harry folded the parchment again and put it in his pocket. Now was not the time to be thinking 'what ifs'. There was still a chance that Draco was in the school and Harry had to find that out first.

Harry crossed to the corner of the room where he'd thrown his books the night before and pulled the Marauder's Map from his bag. As he spoke the words to make the map spring to life he hoped that a dot labeled "Draco Malfoy" would appear somewhere, anywhere, in Hogwarts.

But he wasn't too surprised when it didn't.

Now what? Harry thought desperately. He could wake Ron, but it was too early to get Hermione out of the Gryffindor girls' dormitory. It wasn't like he could just walk in there after all, like he could the boys' dormitory. Better let Ron sleep, he decided finally. If he couldn't find Draco by the time his friends woke up, then he would ask for their help.

Harry sat down on the sofa, idly staring into the fireplace. He had to think like Draco… yet how could he? He didn't know what else Draco knew about the situation.

OK Harry, he thought, hypothesize. If it's right, you'll find facts to support it once Hermione's up to help you.

So…. Worst case scenario first. Draco was caught by Voldemort… no, worst case was that Draco was dead. But that was out. Harry would be able to feel if Draco was dead or hurt or in danger. No, he wasn't in any pain so Draco must be safe… or physically well or something like that. So, no Voldemort and no death.

Then, the next worst… or hardest to deal with, was that Draco had gone to Malfoy Manor… somehow. Even with Malfoy Manor disconnected from the floo system and unplotable…

Unplotable! Harry grabbed at the map again, a streak of terror snaking down his spine. Where was Malfoy Manor? Draco had never really said where… no one ever had. Somewhere in England, but that wasn't much help was it. But he knew that Malfoy Manor was big so logically you'd need a really large amount of land, so…

The area Draco had starred was a large plot of land with nothing on it.

Harry bit his lip. It made sense, but it was just a theory. He would need to prove somehow that what Draco had starred was in fact Malfoy Manor. But the number one candidate to ask about anything Malfoy was not in Hogwarts. So then who could he ask?

Only one name came to him and Harry decided that the Fates must really hate him if he had to wake this particular person up at… three forty-five in the morning.

"Snape's gonna kill me" Harry muttered at the fire's flames, but they didn't seem to care.

Harry looked at the door to the Potions classroom with more than a few feelings of misgiving. If all the classrooms were set up like the Defense Against the Dark Arts classroom, then Snape's personal quarters would be at the back of his classroom… or to the right of his classroom or connected to his classroom in some way.

Harry grasped the door knob and willed his hand to turn it. The door opened soundlessly. Harry stepped into the classroom and cast his wand around in the dark, looking for a door that didn't lead to the supply room.

There was only one other door to the Potions classroom, other than the doorway Harry stood in and the door to the supply room (which Harry knew didn't have any doors inside it). It was a rather modest door over on the Slytherin side of the room that Harry had never seen opened during all his years at Hogwarts.

Well, that looks a bit promising, he thought as he crossed the room.

"And what exactly do you think you are doing in my classroom at this time of the night?" A voice asked from the shadows behind Snape's desk and Harry nearly jumped out of his skin.

The light of his wand swung to illuminate the glare that he knew would be prominent on his professor's face as the man leaned against the wall. He knew I was here the whole time, Harry berated himself snidely.

Harry said the first thing that tumbled into his mouth. "I need to talk to you about Draco."

"And this is something that you could not speak about to Mr. Malfoy himself? And felt it necessary to wake me up in order to speak at this particular time?"

Screwing up every ounce of Gryffindor courage he had, Harry replied. "Yes. Because I only just found out that Draco isn't anywhere in Hogwarts" After a second's hesitation he added, "sir," just to try and appeal to Snape's good side… if he had one.

Something shifted in Snape's eyes, but outwardly he appeared the same. "And you know this, how?"

Bloody hell, Harry hadn't thought how to reveal how he knew that Draco wasn't in school. Think Harry, think, he told himself.

"Well Mr. Potter?"

"I know it in the same way that I knew how to get to Hogsmead back in third year" Harry muttered, looking down at his shoes, or what he assumed were his shoes – he couldn't tell in the dim light of one Lumos spell.

He could feel Snape's eyes burning into his skull as the man thought about what Harry had just said.

"Where do you think Mr. Malfoy is?" Snape asked after a long silence. Harry's eyes shot up in astonishment before he realized that he was supposed to answer the question.

"I found this in one of Draco's books." He held out the map of England to Snape. "I think he's gone to the starred area… wherever that is."

Snape cast his own Lumos spell in order to look at the map. "If you are right, Mr. Potter, which I highly doubt you are, then Mr. Malfoy has gone to Malfoy Manor. You are undoubtedly aware of how impossible it is to get to Malfoy Manor at this time. How would you propose he got there? Apparated out of Hogwarts and into Malfoy Manor? Rode in one of the school carriages perhaps? Sprouted wings and flew?"

Snape stopped short and Harry's mouth dropped as they both realized what the potions master had just said. A memory of last weekend played through Harry's mind, of snitches, bludgers, and black wings.

"Yes, Professor" Harry replied. "I think he did sprout wings and fly there."