"Animagus training is a precise and complicated process. It requires strength of will and good concentration. It is also very dangerous. The chances of you becoming an inanimate Animagus are high if you do not pay the correct amount of attention."
"Inanimate?" Zabini asked, confused.
"Indeed. Imagine, for example, if rather than becoming, say, a bowtruckle, you became a wheelbarrow. That would not bode well for you. In fact, I suspect I would be rather annoying."
"Oh,"
"Now, there are three things to bear in mind when you transform. Three things to focus on. Your Animagus form, the incantation, and you being in your Animagus form. Now, next week we shall be finding out your Animagus forms, then for the rest of the time we shall be working on the actual transformations. Today, however, I want you just to take notes."
"So when do I get my map back?" Harry whispered as he sat down beside Draco and took out his quill and some parchment.
"You can have it now," Draco replied, and pulled the Map out of his bag, handing it to Harry, who scanned it quickly. He couldn't see anything out of the ordinary.
"Can I borrow your wand?" he asked Draco.
"Where's yours?"
"Whoever attacked me nicked it."
"Are you sure you don't know who it was?" Draco asked, eyeing him shrewdly. Harry shook his head.
"Sure. Now, pass me your wand." He took the wand from Draco, and tapped the Map. "Mischief managed."
"I'll have to remember that."
"Yes. You will. I don't want anyone else finding out I've got a complete Map of Hogwarts."
"Incidentally, I couldn't help notice several secret passages leading off the map. I don't suppose you want to tell me where exactly they end up?"
"Well, there's seven, I think, all together. Filch knows about four of them, so I've never used them. There's one behind a mirror or tapestry somewhere, but Fred and George said it had caved in, so I've never used that one either. There's one which is covered by the Whomping Willow, and that leads to the Shrieking Shack. I've used that one a few times, but not for social excursions. Then there's the one behind the statue of the one-eyed witch on the third floor. It leads up into the cellar of Honeydukes. I use it all the time."
"We have to use it again some time, you know," Draco said seriously.
"How did I know you were going to say that?"
"Mr. Malfoy, Mr. Antares! Quiet!" McGonagall barked.
"Can we go tonight?" Draco whispered enthusiastically, bending his head over his parchment. Harry thought for a moment.
"I suppose so. I'll come down at eleven. Be ready."
When Harry quietly hissed the password to Draco's room, the Slytherin looked extremely confused as Harry closed the door behind him. He was gazing at Harry, face screwed up in suspicion.
"Who's there?"
"Me, of course. Who'd you think?" Harry asked incredulously, and pulled off the Invisibility Cloak. Draco yelped in surprise and only just caught himself before he fell off the bed.
"You have an Invisibility Cloak?" he asked, shocked. Harry grinned.
"It was my dad's. Dumbledore gave me it for Christmas in first year."
"So that's why I could never find you, no matter where I staked out,"
"You used to come out looking for me?" Harry laughed.
"I spent most of last year skulking in corners." Draco admitted. "Can I see it?"
Harry passed the silvery cloth to him, and watched as Draco ran his fingers over the smooth fabric. He suddenly realised that he'd revealed yet another one of his deepest secrets to his old archenemy. Two months ago, he would have found the situation preposterous.
"With this and the Map, I could go pretty much anywhere without being caught."
"You can't begin to imagine what I would have given for these two items the last five years. They're every student's greatest wish, to be able to sneak around uncaught. And these are the two implements that would allow it!"
"I guess I'm just lucky,"
"That actually explains quite a lot. Including that time when you appeared in Hogsmeade without your body."
"Sorry about that. I just couldn't resist."
"Yes, well. We ought to get going."
"Indeed. Well, come here."
Draco stood up and moved over to Harry, who slung the Cloak over them both.
"This thing used to be big enough for Ron and Hermione as well, but now, we're lucky if we can get two of us under without one of our feet trailing around behind us."
"We fit fine," Draco pointed out. Harry ignored him and held the Map out in front of him. The silently exited the Slytherin dungeons and made their way up through the labyrinth of dark, gloomy corridors up to the main school. Once there, Harry trod the familiar path to the third-floor corridor. Considering he had never been under the Cloak before, Draco was doing a surprisingly good job of keeping close to Harry without getting in his way. Not once did Harry have to hiss at him, something that had used to happen with Ron quite frequently.
"This corridor was off-limits in first year." Draco whispered suddenly in Harry's ear. Harry jumped slightly and growled gently.
"Don't scare me like that."
"Sorry," Draco apologised. "But it was, wasn't it?"
"Yes, it was." Harry paused. "Don't you know what it was all about?"
"I know you had something to do with it – you're always involved – and I know that you got sixty points for whatever it was you did. But I don't know what happened, or anything."
"Funny, Dumbledore said the whole school knew. Oh well." He paused again. "Do you know what the Philosopher's Stone is?"
"It transforms any metal into pure gold. It also produces the Elixir of Life, which makes the drinker immortal," Draco replied with a nod.
"Well, it was hidden here in Hogwarts in the first year. A load of the teachers put up various protections – Hagrid provided a three-headed dog, Sprout a Devil's Snare, then a flying key which was a mix of Flitwick and Hooch, I think… um… McGonagall's giant chess set,… oh, a troll from Quirrell, and a bunch of potions with a riddle from Snape. Then Dumbledore's trick of course. The Mirror of Erised."
"What's that?" Draco prompted. He was watching Harry intently, listening with an earnest interest.
"It's a mirror that shows you the deepest, most desperate desire of your heart. Now, how did he say it… oh yes. 'Only someone who wanted to find the Stone – find it, but not use it – would be able to take it out of the mirror. Other wise they'd just see themselves making gold or drinking elixir.' Or something along those lines." Harry frowned.
"So what happened down there?"
"Well, we got past Fluffy, the dog, by playing music. The Devil's Snare you get rid of with fire. The key for the next door was charmed to fly, so you had to use the broomsticks to catch it. Ron conducted the chess game, and sacrificed himself to win. The troll had already been knocked out, and Hermione solved the riddle so we knew which potion to take. She went back to help Ron and get Dumbledore, and I went forward to the Mirror."
"And then?"
"And there, standing before the Mirror, was Quirrell."
Draco's mouth dropped open.
"You're kidding!"
"Nope. He had Voldemort possessing him in a way – he was kind of attached to the back of his head. He spoke to me. Said that if I gave him the Stone and joined him, he would spare my life. He kept on taunting me, saying my parents had died begging him for mercy, that I would be wasting their sacrifice if I died refusing to give him the Stone…"
"Better save yourself and join me… or you'll met the same end as your parents… they died begging me for mercy…"
"LIAR"
"How touching… I always value bravery… Yes, boy, your parents were brave… I killed your father first and he put up a courageous fight… but your mother needn't have died… she was trying to protect you… now, give me the Stone, unless you want her to have died in vain…"
"Harry?"
Harry jerked suddenly back to reality. Draco's hand was on his shoulder and he was aware of two tiny, wet streaks down his own face. He scrubbed at them furiously.
"Quirrell couldn't touch me because of the protection my mother left on me when she died. I kept him away by touching him. Dumbledore came eventually and took care of it all. I woke up three days later in the Hospital Wing." He finished numbly. He stopped beside the statue and tapped it with his wand, muttering "Dissendium"
"Incredible," Draco whispered as the hump slid away, revealing the entrance to the passageway. Harry motioned to the hole.
"You first. I'll be right behind you."
"What, I just climb into it?"
"Yes. You'll slide to the bottom. You'll be fine."
Looking dubious, Draco hoisted himself up and slid feet-first down the chute. Harry heard a faint yelp as he landed. He pushed the Map into his pocket and took off the Cloak, pushing it down the chute. He climbed in after it and slid down after Draco. However, Draco had decided not to move so there resulted in a tangle of Harry, Draco and Cloak on the floor of the passageway.
"Let's get going," he said brusquely, picking himself up off the floor and stuffing the cloak into his pocket. Draco clambered to his feet and followed, nervous quiet settling around them. After an age, the passageway sloped up and ten minutes later they reached the trapdoor.
"Where does this come out again?" Draco asked, peering at the trapdoor.
"Honeydukes cellar," Harry replied shortly, and beckoned Draco to him, covering the two of them with the Cloak again. He pushed on the trapdoor and it lifted, leaving a large enough gap for them to climb out. They made their way through up to the store, and Draco pulled out a bag.
"Would you hate me if I were to borrow something without asking?" he looked at Harry innocently. Harry's closed mood immediately disappeared.
"I suppose we may as well."
Grinning like anything and keeping close to Harry beneath the Cloak, he began taking various sweets off the shelves and putting them into his bag, which he suspected had wizardspace within it. He added at least one of nearly every sweet, and made a point of taking lots of blood-flavoured lollies.
"How can you eat them?" Harry asked incredulously. "They're disgusting!"
"I rather like them," Draco replied, grinning, and motioned towards the door.
"Can we go to the other shops as well?"
"I don't see why not. Let's see if the door's locked first."
"Alohomora!"
The door swung open.
"I expect it would have had stronger charms on than that." Harry said, surprised.
"They have simple ones on the inside. It'll be harder to get into the other shops."
They closed the door silently behind themselves and walked across the street to Zonko's. Draco pulled out his own wand – oak and unicorn tail hair – and tapped the lock.
"Aperire." He whispered. There was a click and the door swung open. They stepped inside and closed the door.
"How did you know that spell?"
"My father,"
They proceeded to rob half the stores in Hogsmeade, including several bottles of Butterbang – a newer, stronger version of Butterbeer – and a large bottle of Ogden's Old Firewhisky. After two hours of pillaging the village, they finally went back to Honeydukes and back into the passageway. At the base of the chute to the one-eyed witch, Draco grabbed Harry's arm.
"Hang on. We can have a Butterbang each now," he suggested. Harry shrugged, and sat down on the floor. Draco slid down the wall and sat down beside him, rummaging in his bag for a bottle each. He handed one to Harry, and with a flick on his wand opened them both. Harry took a swig and coughed.
It tasted the same as ordinary Butterbeer, but was sweeter and much more potent than its ordinary counterpart. Draco smirked at him from behind his own bottle.
"I forgot you'd never had any before."
"How convenient," Harry grumbled. He leaned his head back against the wall and took out his wand, to provide them with slightly more substantial light. The Lumos charm it produced was much more powerful than Draco's given the core, and it illuminated the passageway brilliantly.
"What happened in the second year?" Draco suddenly.
"What?"
"I said, what happened in the second year?" Draco repeated impatiently. "Oh come on, Potter. Every year something special has happened to you, in the summer. Don't think nobody's noticed. It's becoming a regular pattern. You know the school year's about to end when Harry Potter escapes the Dark Lord's clutches once more,"
"I suppose it is getting cliché, isn't it?" Harry said with a wry grin. "OK then, second year."
"Slytherin's heir."
"Precisely. That diary which your father gave to Ginny Weasley In Flourish and Blotts happened to be the diary of a seventeen year old Tom Riddle. He possessed Ginny through the diary and got her to release Slytherin's monster and try and kill the Muggleborns. Fortunately, they always saw it as either a reflection or through a screen of some sort. This meant they were only Petrified."
"So I'm guessing the monster was a Basilisk?"
"I had to fight it. I went down into the Chamber of Secrets to rescue Ginny. Tom was draining her of her life, and using it to come back. He set the Basilisk on me. Dumbledore sent me his phoenix with the Sorting Hat. I pulled Gryffindor's sword out of the Hat and used it to kill the Basilisk. Then I destroyed the diary. Tom was gone, and I brought Ginny back out of the Chamber."
"Where was the Chamber in the end then?"
"The entrance is – or maybe was, I don't know what's been done about it – in the disused girl's bathroom. You have to speak Parseltongue to one of the taps and it opens the entrance."
"So that's the girl who was killed! Moaning Myrtle was the Muggleborn killed the first time around."
"Yes. We had to ask her for help, against my better judgement."
"All right, what happened in third year then? I'm guessing it had something to do with Sirius Black."
"Yes. You knew he was my godfather before I did. I didn't find out anything about what he'd done until I overheard Fudge, McGonagall, Flitwick and Madam Rosmerta talking about it in the pub. Well, at the end of the year, we went down to Hagrid' hut to comfort him, the night Buckbeak was to be executed."
"What, the Hippogriff?"
"Yes, the one you tried to get killed." Harry replied coldly.
"Sorry about that." Draco replied hastily. "Carry on."
"Well, as we were leaving his hut that night, a large black dog kidnapped Ron and took him under the Whomping Willow. Me and Hermione followed them, and found out that it took us to the Shrieking Shack. We found Ron there, and his leg was broken. It was then that we found out who the dog was."
"Who?" Draco asked, paying close attention.
"Sirius Black."
"He was an Animagus?"
"Yes. So was my father, and Peter Pettigrew."
"What were your father and Pettigrew's forms?"
"My father was a stag. Prongs. That's the form my Patronus used to take. And Pettigrew was a rat." He paused. "Do you remember, when you came to our compartment in the first year on the Hogwarts Express? Do you remember that a rat bit Crabbe's finger?"
"It was Goyle's finger, but yes. Hang on, are you saying that was Pettigrew?" Draco asked incredulously. Harry nodded.
"He'd been posing as a rat for twelve years. You see, Sirius was my parent's Secret Keeper. But he convinced them to change it to Pettigrew at the last moment. They did, and he went straight of and told Voldemort that he could give him my parent's whereabouts. Voldemort killed them that night."
"… Voldemort would be sure to come after me, would never dream they'd use a weak, talentless thing like you… it must have been the finest moment of your life, telling Voldemort you could hand him the Potters…"
"You don't understand! He would have killed me, Sirius!"
"THEN YOU SHOULD HAVE DIED! DIED RATHER THAN BETRAY YOUR FRIENDS, AS WE WOULD HAVE DONE…"
"Harry?" said Draco's voice quietly. "You're doing it again."
"Sorry," Harry mumbled, shaking his head.
"You don't have to tell me," Draco said gently.
"No, I want to." Harry took a deep breath. "Lupin came and he and Sirius explained everything to us. Then Snape came, and he tried to kill Sirius. We knocked him out with three Stunners. Then Lupin and Sirius made Wormtail change back. They were going to kill him, but I persuaded them not to. That was one of the worst choices I've ever made." Harry said bitterly, then carried on. "We started going back to school, but then Lupin started to change. He hadn't taken his Wolfsbane, and Wormtail got away again. Sirius changed into Padfoot and he tried to keep Lupin off us, but he was injured. I ran after him and we both collapsed on the side of the lake. The Dementors came, hundreds of them, and tried to perform the kiss on Sirius and me. Then someone cast a massively powerful Patronus, and I passed out."
"Is that it?" Draco asked, puzzled. Harry took another swig of Butterbang and laughed.
"Not at all. I've still got another three hours to tell you!"
"Exactly three hours?" Draco sounded sceptical.
"Exactly. See, when we woke up, we tried to persuade Dumbledore to believe us about what had happened, but he said he couldn't sway the Ministry without Wormtail as evidence. So he basically told us to do something illegal,"
"Dumbledore? What did he make you do?"
"He made us use a Time-Turner. Hermione had had it for the whole year, it's how she had been getting to all her lessons. Hermione and me went back three hours and freed Buckbeak. Then we waited whilst our other counterparts were in the hack, talking. When we came back, I went to the lake. You see, when I had passed out before, I thought I had seen my father standing on the edge of the lake, casting a Patronus. I was wrong. I had seen myself. I cast a Patronus that got rid of the hundred Dementors. Then Hermione and me flew Buckbeak up to the office where Sirius was being kept and we freed him. He took Buckbeak with him."
"You know, you telling me this actually explains a lot of what happened these past five years. Now, I know what happened fourth year, my father told me everything – but what about last year?"
"You won't know everything about fourth year. Once Voldemort and I used our wands against each other, they formed a link. In short, my wand won a little battle they were having, and his was forced to relive the past murders he'd carried out. The ghosts of his victims popped out of the end of his wand. That included Cedric, and my parents. They told me what to do. I got away and used the Portkey to bring Cedric's body back to Hogwarts. Then Moody took me away. Only it turned out he wasn't Moody – he was Barty Crouch in Polyjuice."
"That's a bit extreme,"
"Dumbledore found me before Crouch could kill me though."
"So what about last year then?"
"Voldemort was sending me visions. Dumbledore got me to take Occlumency lessons with Snape, but he got stressed out and refused to teach me. I received a vision in which Sirius was being tortured in the Department of Mysteries. So of course, I went straight off and took Ron, Hermione, Ginny, Neville and Luna Lovegood off with me. We got there, and I foolishly took the prophecy about me off the shelf. You r father was there. He tried to take it off me. A fight ensued, during which Ron went temporarily out of his head, Hermione was sent unconscious, Neville's nose got broken so he couldn't say any proper spells, Luna seemed fine, and Ginny's ankle got broken or something. Then some Aurors arrived, along with Sirius and Lupin. They were fighting the Death Eaters, and Sirius…"
Harry choked as the memories he had worked to hard to crush came flooding back.
The second jet of light hit him squarely on the chest
It seemed to take an age for Sirius to fall: his body curved in a graceful arc as he sank backwards through the ragged veil hanging from the arch.
Harry heard Bellatrix Lestrange's triumphant scream, but knew it meant nothing – Sirius had only fallen through the archway, he would reappear from the other side any second…
But Sirius did not reappear.
"Harry?"
Lupin dragged Harry away from the dais. Harry, still staring at the archway, was angry with Sirius now for keeping him waiting –
But some part of him realised, even as he fought to break free from Lupin, that Sirius had never kept him waiting before… Sirius what risked everything, always, to see Harry, to help him… if Sirius was not reappearing out of that archway when Harry was yelling as though his life depended on it, the only possible explanation was that he really could not come back…
"I went after her, I tried to avenge him, but I couldn't. I wasn't strong enough. So Voldemort came and tried to kill me… he tried to get Dumbledore to kill me. I couldn't do anything. And it was my entire fault, if I had tried to learn Occlumency, if I had listened to Snape and not thought I knew better, then he would still be alive…"
He was once again aware of the tears streaming down his face. This time, however, he did not wipe them away. He glanced at Draco. The blond Slytherin was sitting with his long legs out in front of him, shoulder touching Harry's, nearly empty Butterbang held loosely.
"I'm not going to say that it wasn't your fault, that it couldn't have been helped. Because that would be condescending, and you deserve better." He said honestly. Harry stared at him. "You were foolish indeed to ignore Snape's instructions. And although it is true that you should have been warned beforehand, it still leaves the fact that you deliberately disobeyed you teachers to be pig-headed. However, what's done is done. You can't change what happened to Sirius any more than I can change what happened to my mother. Whether you are at fault or not, the fact remains that now there is nothing you can do to bring him back. You must learn to accept it as your fault, and take it in your stride. Otherwise you will be reduced to a heap of self-pity and self-hatred. So accept it, and get past it."
Harry stared at him for a long while before turning his gaze away to watch a worm on the floor.
"Thank you," he said finally. "For not treating me like a child."
"Like I said. You deserve better."
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