TRIGGER WARNINGS for this chapter: As you might guess from the title, this is a very dark chapter. It contains disturbing images that may trigger feelings of helplessness and disgust. Some of it might be labelled as gore or body horror.

Chapter 16: Azkaban

The following Monday at breakfast, a roll of parchment with a purple seal barely missed Harry's coffee. He did not hurry to open it. If it had been Draco's owl, Glynnis, it would be something from the house-elves, about the running of the Manor. But this one was brought by an unknown barn owl, which meant it was probably the bill for the next instalment of his 'community service' (and yes, they did make them payable in Muggle money), or worse, another appointment with the probation officer in Hogsmeade.

The latter was the part of Draco's punishment Harry loathed the most. His probation officer was a square-jawed witch with a subtle smell of firewhiskey. She asked shameless questions about his schoolwork and private life, and barely stopped short of issues of personal hygiene. Harry might have dropped a couple of harsh comments in their first meeting, which did not improve Draco's standing with the lady. Draco gave him a painful kick under the Invisibility Cloak, but it was too late. She was already scheduling an additional appointment to assess his verbal aggression issue.

Harry slid the unopened letter into his pocket, and loaded another sausage onto his plate.

"What was it?" Draco caught up with him on their way to Charms.

"What?"

"The letter."

"Oh, right." Harry pulled it out and opened it. They stopped dead side by side, reading.

Dear Mr Draco Malfoy, We are pleased to inform you that your August 5th request to visit Mr Lucius Malfoy and Mrs Narcissa Malfoy at their place of imprisonment at the Fortress of Azkaban has been granted. Please present yourself at 12 p.m. on Tuesday, the 3rd of November at the Ministry of Magic, level minus three and one seventh, to take a scheduled Portkey to the destination. Be informed that in the interest of security you will be accompanied by a watchwitch or watchwizard appointed by the Department of Magical Law Enforcement for the duration of your journey, including your encounter with the convicts Mr and Mrs Malfoy. Please confirm the above appointment by owl no later than Friday, the 30th of October. Failure to confirm or keep the appointment will result in immediate expiry of your request. A new request can be placed any time as of the receipt of this letter. Yours sincerely, Percy Weasley Department of Magical Law Enforcement Ministry of Magic

Harry and Draco looked at each other and cursed the day Harry's fist landed on Draco's locket. In a week's time Harry could go to Azkaban to visit Draco's parents. Was there anything more preposterous than that?

Draco's face darkened and stiffened, and he resumed his walk with resolute pace.

"Hey! What should I do?" Harry spoke to his back, catching up.

"Sod it!" Draco walked faster. "Or have you missed them? Want to give your mum and dad a hug?"

"I don't believe they'll let me give your mum and dad a hug." Though even if they did, Harry was not looking forward to it.

"Then sod it."

They rushed into Flitwick's classroom just in time, and dropped on a bench together. A couple dozen heads turned in their direction and some giggles rolled over the rows.

Flitwick explained the Ascendio charm. When he started oscillating between floor and ceiling, Harry had a fairly clear idea what he would do about the Azkaban visit. When the practical pulled the noise up to a level that allowed for minimal privacy, he reopened the issue.

"Let's go to Kingsley and tell him that we're swapped." Ascendio did not feel like the most urgent charm to master.

"And then what?" Draco dropped back on the bench from a height of five feet. "Before they decide what to do with us, it's past Friday and we've missed the appointment."

"Maybe. But they'll sort it out before next time. Next time you can go as yourself."

"In five months?!"

"Yes. In five months."

"I'm not going to my father looking like this, next week, or in five months, or in five years."

"Why not?"

"Why not!" If one could shout in a whisper then this was what Draco did. Flitwick gave him a concerned look.

"What about your mother?"

Draco took a breath, but his lips trembled. He grabbed his bag and stormed out of the classroom. Harry stood up to follow him, but Ron fell from the ceiling and towered before him, blocking the way.

"Stay away from Harry, you inbred skunk!"

"We do not discuss genetic heritage in this class, gentlemen!" reminded Professor Flitwick, but Ron was gone somewhere between 'genetic' and 'heritage'.

Harry returned to his place under hisses and giggles from all sides. But Ron's attempt to soothe Draco could not have been too successful either. He came back a quarter of an hour later with a black eye and a purple moustache, mumbling something about having dropped his wand. Obviously, Draco hadn't fancied being caught weeping.

Of course, to miss the Azkaban visit was the most straightforward thing to do. But thinking of Lucius and the mess he had landed them in, it would be a shame to miss the chance. Harry wanted answers. Except, Lucius would never give honest answers when watched by the blasted witchwatch, or watchwitch, was it? Unless—

As soon as the class ended, Harry went to the bathroom to consult the Marauders' Map on Draco's whereabouts in the privacy of a cubicle, but the answer to his question was standing in front of a washbasin, wiping his glasses and throwing angry looks into the mirror.

"What?"

Harry checked the cubicles and lowered his voice just in case.

"Do you want to see your parents?"

"I'm not in the mood for heart-to-heart talk, Potter."

"We could ask Kingsley if you, that is I, could come along as your watchwizard."

Draco raised his eyes and turned around, his face changed.

"Why would he agree to that?"

"Well, I'm supposed to spy on you, remember? And keep you out of trouble. And give you a pep talk if you flip out. Kingsley's personal super secret task for me. Who can better watch you on your Azkaban trip than me?"

Draco listened intently.

"But I will only do it on one condition," Harry continued. "If Kingsley agrees, and we go there, and we're there with your parents, you will find a pretext to leave the room, so I can have a frank chat with your father about the locket."

"Why?"

"I wonder what he really knows about it."

"He knows nothing about it. If he did once, he wiped it out blank."

"I don't buy it."

Draco shrugged and looked back into the mirror.

"And I'll do it only if you solemnly swear not to take advantage of your position. I'd make you give an Unbreakable Vow, but as we are in want of a reliable bonder, we'll leave it at a promise."

"That's two conditions."

"Then two it is."

In a matter of minutes they cobbled together a letter to Kingsley Shacklebolt, charmed a stamp 'urgent' in glowing magenta on top, and entrusted it to Douglas, who took off with fervent enthusiasm—the Minister's office was his favourite destination. The next day, Draco was summoned by Benveniste from the Herbology class and taken to McGonagall's office for a floo conversation with Kingsley.

"Potter, I got you a promotion," Draco whispered proudly during Muggle Studies, when Kazlauskas was having another fruitless fight with the portable power generator. "Shacklebolt said only core staff Aurors could do watchwizard on Azkaban visits, and I said 'er, well...'," Draco paused for demonstration, "and he said 'er, okay. I'll talk to Robards'."

And indeed, on Wednesday Benveniste summoned Draco again, from Transfiguration, and took him to McGonagall's office for a floo conversation with Robards, who took him through the formalities. From Thursday, Harry was not an intern any longer. He was still on unpaid leave, but now as a proper full time Auror. He, that is Draco, had to show up at the Ministry three hours earlier on the third of November for a crash course on security during Azkaban visits. On Thursday evening Glynnis left for London with the confirmation of Draco's appointment. On Friday, McGonagall signed their withdrawal from next Tuesday's classes, and on Saturday they were celebrating Hallowe'en with their houses and silently cheering to each other across the Great Hall to Harry's promotion and the success of the upcoming mission.

When Harry arrived at the Ministry on Tuesday and entered the lift, he realised that he had never seen a button minus three and one seventh there. His fellow passengers were not helpful, and he ended up cruising level two, until he bumped into Percy Weasley himself. Minus three and one seventh turned out to be the Ministry's Portkey and Apparition point, only accessible through a floo connection from the Department of Magical Transportation. Harry hijacked the first downward lift, rushed into the green flames at level six and was disgorged by a wide metal chimney onto a roof somewhere above the distant buzz of London.

Draco was already waving furiously with a rusty piece of sewer pipe, but there was no time to waste on telling off. Harry grabbed the Portkey, they swirled into the murky sky and seconds later found themselves falling into the raging waves of the North Sea.

Harry searched frantically for some charm to keep them out of the water. Damn! Ascendio was a useful spell after all. But a tiny island came suddenly into view, little more than a heap of rocks, that stuck meekly out above the rising and falling masses of grey water.

The Portkey dropped them off on a platform that cowered between the rocks. Tentacles of white foam attacked the platform from all sides. A small but sturdy stone hut sat like a mushroom on the side, warm yellow light streamed out of its window. Leaning against the sweeping wind, Harry and Draco fought their way to the door and entered.

The room must have served its owner as office, kitchen, storage and owlery all at once. Between a lit fireplace and a heap of broomsticks stood a heavy wooden table strewn with open notebooks and empty tea cups. A short witch, who looked like a mushroom herself, glanced up at them from under her hat.

"Mr Potter, I suppose, and"—she looked down into one of the notebooks on the table—"Mr Malfoy. Welcome to the Sticks."

This, of course, could not be Azkaban. The witch stood up and brushed a host of owl feathers and bread crumbles off her robes.

"I'm Nicks, the passage-keeper. I will take you to your final destination from here."

Harry did not like the sound of 'final destination'.

"Your first time here, Mr Potter?"

"Yes," replied Draco.

"For you too, Mr Malfoy, I suppose?"

Harry nodded silently.

The witch made a door appear in what until that moment looked like a solid wall. They followed her down a narrow spiral staircase. After hardly more than a dozen steps they were in a spacious waterlogged cave which opened to the sea through a low round exit. Waves broke in through the opening. A boat with oars attached to a pole shook, and danced, and beat dully against the stone dock.

"Are we going by boat?!" Draco stopped rooted to the last stair.

"Nasty weather, isn't it?" Ms Nicks pulled the side of the boat to face the dock. "Don't worry. We have ways to deal with it." She stepped into the boat, and as soon as her foot touched its floor, the water's surface straightened out like a shirt under Mrs Weasley's ironing charm.

"Please, gentlemen!" The oarswoman helped them in, first Harry, then Draco. They sat huddled together on a low wooden bench as Ms Nicks rowed the boat through the opening.

As they exited the cave, the sea beneath them went still for miles around. Azkaban loomed in front of them, its darkness diluted by the damp in the air. It wasn't far at all. How could they have missed it, when they arrived?

"The island is protected by an inward and an outward shield." Ms Nicks nodded in the direction of the fortress. "The outward shield makes it invisible. And impenetrable, unless you're in the same boat as me."

Harry could guess what the inward shield was good for.

"Can you only get there by this boat?" Draco asked.

"Nowadays, the Ministry also provides charmed broomsticks with a special warrant." Ms Nicks grunted unenthusiastically. "Since the Dementors've been out, the traffic has grown quite a bit. The Aurors coming for guard duty." She sounded like she missed the Dementors. "But for inmates and visitors, this boat is the only way."

A deep purr followed each stroke of the oars.

"Did you see the Prophet the other day? A Jugson tried to get there without a warrant. Dropped half-dead two days later out of one of those Vanishing Cabinets," Ms Nicks glanced at Harry, "right in the Ministry's storage for real evidence. Got to the destination in the end. Three years for attempted help with jailbreak."

The corner of Draco's mouth twitched. He peered into the empty seascape.

The boat kept sliding slowly over the mirror of still water, and Azkaban was no longer a vague mirage halfway to the horizon, but a huge monster of grey basalt towering right over their heads. Next to it, they were a couple of filthy roaches, not worth the trouble of squashing.

The fortress occupied the entire island. Barren rocks protruded here and there from under its foot, but for the most part the walls grew straight out of the sea. Not a plant, not a bird anywhere in sight. No sounds, except the rhythmic splash of the oars and the heavy breath of the oarswoman.

They were approaching a high, narrow triangular gate, which opened into the sea and could be entered only by water.

"This is the prisoners' gate," said Ms Nicks, "this is where I bring most of our customers." A streak of bottomless darkness gaped at them as they passed it.

"Visitors and personnel go around that corner." She pointed at a rocky headland ahead.

They steered around the point, and another entrance came into view. A faint gleam of golden and silver light emanated from it. As Ms Nicks rowed into the gate, they saw its source. The golden light came from torches along the walls, but the silver light came from semi-transparent shapes of animals floating in the air above them and in the water below. Dogs, horses, birds, and mice filled the hollow vault with silvery glow, some disappeared abruptly, others emerged out of nowhere. Patronuses! They gave the place an odd air of jollity, like christmas lights in the darkest night of the year.

"A house full of rat traps instils just about as little trust in me as a house full of rats." Draco had a point.

A glowing shape of an alligator that had been following them alongside the boat disappeared beneath it, as they docked at a narrow stone landing.

"You'll find your way from here, I suppose," said Ms Nicks with a reluctant look from under her mushroom cap and pointed to a door at the end of the hall where the inlet came to a dead end. "I'd better stay in the boat. The swell can get pretty nasty here."

They climbed out onto the slippery slabs. Ms Nicks turned the boat and headed right out.

Behind the door there was a room. No windows, only doors, lots of them.

"Potter? Malfoy? Long time no see."

"Hell, Pucey! What are you doing here?" Draco's open palms flashed for an instant in the dim light of the torches, but turned back stiffly to the sides of his robes.

"Same thing you'll be doing soon enough, Potter." Pucey said dryly, rising from the lonely desk that stood by the fireplace, and traced a circle with his wand around himself. All the doors along the walls went shut with a clank. "Welcome to the Auror Office." He offered Draco a formal handshake, checked out Harry from head to toe, and after a moment of hesitation, gave him his hand too.

Adrian Pucey was two years ahead of them. All Harry knew about him was in the negative. For what it was worth, Pucey was the only Slytherin in his memory who hadn't cheated in Quidditch, he hadn't bullied Muggle-born students, and he hadn't joined Umbridge's Inquisitorial Squad. Seeing that after the war he was still an Auror, he couldn't have got too deeply involved with last year's regime either. A firefly was drawing circles above his head. Upon closer inspection, it was not a firefly but a ladybug-shaped Patronus.

Pucey threw a pinch of floo powder from the pot on his desk into the fireplace, and a face of a Goblin appeared in the green flames. Pucey barked some orders. The Goblin barked back. The Malfoys would be brought down. The Goblin's face disappeared and the flames turned back to orange.

"Sorry, Malfoy, but you're a high security visitor," Pucey said, turning to Harry. "We'll have to impound your wand and search you." He held out his hand.

Harry delivered his wand, and a wave of panic rolled over him. Wandless against a wanded Malfoy! In Azkaban! He wouldn't be able to do a thing, if Draco— What the hell had got into him! Moody would be turning in his grave.

"Revelio!"

"Reverte!" Draco followed up, before Pucey finished waving his wand.

Harry felt his clothes disappear for a split second. The moment was too short to feel embarrassed.

"We must search him," Pucey said.

"Sure. But we'll leave the textiles where they are." Draco's tone forbade contradiction.

They exchanged long death stares. Pucey glanced at Harry and back.

"On your responsibility, Potter." He made Harry raise his arms and part his legs, and traced every inch of his clothing with the tip of his wand, whispering spells and throwing sceptical looks at both of them. His ladybug Patronus crossed Harry's body a few times, none of Harry's natural openings was left unvisited.

"All clear." Pucey's wand jerked briskly to and fro, and one of the doors that flanked the fireplace opened with a crack. "Follow me."

The walls of the torchlit passage were covered with inscriptions: Dates, names, some attempts at full sentences... 'Let me d—', that one was almost complete. The silvery alligator hung serenely under the vaulted ceiling, and seemed to eye them with curiosity.

"In the time of Dementors, the inmates used to wander all over the place," Pucey said, opening a heavy wooden door. "Now we must have them stay put."

The room behind the door was round and as windowless as all the rooms they had seen so far. There was only a door on the opposite side. A golden line gouged into the stone floor stretched from one side of it to the other, cutting the room in two perfect halves.

"This is the Guilt Line, as we call it. It keeps the guilty from the innocent. You cannot cross it from this side, the convicts cannot from the other."

"What about convicts on parole?" asked Draco.

"Hmmm. Good question. We haven't had that case yet. But I wouldn't try." Pucey squinted at Harry. "If you cross, you stay there."

Harry nodded his understanding.

"Why the chains then?" Draco pointed at the two chairs on the other side of the line, not unlike those in courtroom number eleven.

"For the prisoners' own safety. Some get weird ideas. Rodolphus got third degree burns, when he tried to cross. Healing is a costly business here. Healers don't wait in line to come to these parts, I wonder why. Better to prevent unnecessary damage, than patch the idiots up later with what little we have."

"Rodolphus Lestrange?" Draco asked.

"Who else? He's our biggest pain in the neck here." Pucey conjured two regular chairs. "Make yourself comfortable. Mr and Mrs Malfoy will be here any minute. If you need me, I'll be back at reception."

Harry and Draco sat and waited. Harry tried to picture Lucius and Narcissa in his mind. He would presently have to call them father and mother. He had never called a living person father or mother before. And now, the Malfoys, of all people. What a farce!

They soon heard noises behind the door on the other side, it opened with a harsh squeak and a trill, and the first face they saw emerge from the darkness was that of Lucius. He looked nothing like his pre-war self, but he had clearly put some effort into making the best of it. His bleak grey prisoner's robes were clean, the sleeves were folded up, and a thin cut on his cheek betrayed an otherwise largely successful attempt at wandless shaving. He had even put on some weight, Harry thought, when he moved into the light of the torches.

Lucius' face lit up, when he saw who he thought was his son. His eyebrows rose, when he saw Harry Potter next to him, and his face froze in a calculating rictus.

"Forward, Malfoy," commanded a hoarse voice behind his back. "Sit."

Lucius shuffled to the chair on the right. He was followed by a Goblin, tall for his race, who trod heavily under the weight of a woman leaning on his shoulders.

No way! The woman could not be Narcissa! A thick knot of white hair hung behind one ear, brown stains gaped on the torn skirt, and the eyes were empty. If that was what Narcissa's mouth looked like wiped clean of that disdainful twitch. Harry found a crack in the wall to look at.

The Goblin dropped her into the other chair. The chains came to life and wrapped around her elbows. The Goblin left without a word.

"Mo—" Draco jumped up from his seat and froze in a crooked pose, like a body-bound spider. "What's wrong with Mrs Malfoy?"

Lucius glared at him with a half-baked smile and a look of utter fascination.

"What an honour, Mr Potter!" He turned back to Harry. "I am pleased to see you in good company, Draco."

"What's wrong with... mother?" Harry repeated Draco's question.

Lucius's eyes were back on Draco.

"Since our new Minister of Ma—"

"What happened to Mrs Malfoy?!" Draco shouted.

"I'm touched by your concern for my wife's health, Mr Potter," Lucius articulated every syllable like it was made of gold and diamonds, "this is exactly what I'm trying to tell you. My wife was attacked by Dementors. Since the Ministry—"

"DEMENTORS?!" Draco sank back into his chair.

With the Patronuses swarming all around the place, Harry had already expected something like that, but to see it with his own eyes was a wholly different matter. Narcissa's blank face made him suspect the worst.

"Yes, Dementors. Since the Ministry has fired them, they have been trying to retake the fortress." He spoke to Draco again. "Don't get me wrong, Mr Potter, I have no reason to complain. The conditions are incomparably better than they used to be. But... our new Minister should have offered the Dementors a deal. He didn't. Overnight they were unemployed and homeless. No wonder they are angry, to say the least." He turned to Harry again. "This is their fortress. They were here centuries before us. They know every crack in every stone here. No wonder they seep in." He turned back to Draco. "And when they do, they attack the most vulnerable."

"Was. Mother. Kissed?" Saying 'mother' was nothing compared to putting to words the very idea.

"Almost." Lucius said coolly. "Rodolphus's Patronus was just in time to stop it."

"Rodolphus's Patronus?"

"Those of us who could were allowed to conjure a Patronus." Lucius spoke to Draco again. "But not everyone is blessed." Lucius sighed. "This must stop, Mr Potter. With your influence! The Minister must look into the matter. If the Ministry cannot guarantee safety within these walls, then some other location must be found—" He broke off and gave Harry a long meaningful look.

What was Lucius trying to tell him? The relocation of the prison would certainly make for a great opportunity for escape. Was it that?

"But in the meantime," Lucius spoke to Draco again, "I know this is much to ask, Mr Potter, but I'm sure Draco can settle a more than satisfactory deal." He glanced imperatively at Harry. "Narcissa does not deserve to die here. For the sake of justice, and mercy," he hesitated a second, "would you be so kind as to lend us your Patronus?"

Lucius Malfoy had the nerve to ask. But Narcissa's empty eyes spoke for themselves.

"Only until the Ministry comes up with some more permanent solution, of course," Lucius added humbly.

Suddenly, Narcissa stirred. With visible effort, her eyes focused on Harry and glistened. Her lips moved silently.

"I'm sorry, Mr Malfoy," Draco whispered.

A heavy silence fell. Narcissa's eyes faded again, her head jerked awkwardly and fell behind hitting the edge of her chair's back. It rolled over her shoulder like a ball and hung to the side, pulling her upper body along. The chains were holding her from falling off the chair. Her mouth fell open.

"M—" Draco jumped up again, dashed across the room, yelped as his hand caught golden flames touching the space above the Line, and backed off stumbling and quenching it. Trembling like a leaf in the wind, pushed by the force of the rushing air, but held back by the tenacious stem, he made a circle around Harry and halted again, staring helplessly at Narcissa.

"SOMEONE DO SOMETHING DAMN IT!" He darted out of the room, and his steps echoed away in the hollow darkness of the corridor.

When the sound died out, Lucius roused, electrified, as if all the vitality that had left Narcissa now streamed into his veins.

"Draco, what's the plan? Do you have a plan? Have you found out how it works, what was it again?"

Why had he come here? Why was he here? Harry tried to reconstruct the chain of events that had landed him in this room. He was Draco's watchwizard. That is, Draco was his. Oh, right, it was—

"Er, the locket?"

"Yes! The locket, was it? Do you know how to work it?"

"Er, yes, partly. But it's no use, I'm afraid."

"Don't jump to conclusions, my boy. Tell me!" Lucius stared hungrily at him.

Harry gathered himself.

"It makes two people swap bodies. It's like Polyjuice, but won't wear off after five minutes. In fact, I still don't know how the effect can be undone."

"Like Polyjuice, you say?" Lucius leaned back in his chair, his eyes narrowed, "That's the method the Crouches used." He went silent again, thinking.

"There was also something about an eternal bond, but I don't know yet if it's a condition or a result. There were two pairs of Malfoys who, I suspect, used it before. Both had a bond to begin with. One pair was sisters, and the other was a married couple."

"Very good, Draco!" Lucius squinted tensely. "I see."

"What do you see?"

"Aurelia and Flavia, the blood-traitors, now I remember." Lucius was talking to himself. "Ah! Am I not good at memory charms? Now it's all coming back!"

"What is coming back?"

Lucius scratched the cut on his cheek and sighed.

"Flavia took Aurelia's place in Azkaban."

"Yes, that much I've figured out myself!" Harry wanted answers, that's why he was here. "Who do you mean to take yours? Besides, when Flavia died here, Aurelia died with her, not here, but at the same time. So the Crouches' scheme will not work, not really. So what's the point?"

"What about that other couple? Did they also die at the same time?"

"No, but they were kissed by a Deme—" Before Harry could finish his sentence, the realisation struck him. Lucius finished it for him:

"Of course, it's all based on wild guesses, and it's risky, but anything is worth a try in my present circumstances." He looked at Narcissa dangling over the side of her chair. "I'm sorry to say this, Draco, but it's only a matter of time before your mother— Her soul is sitting very loose now, it's barely there, it's only a matter of time before she loses it completely."

Harry could hardly believe what he was going to hear.

"You only need to find a way to smuggle the locket across the Line," Lucius indicated the golden line on the floor. "I'm not saying it will be easy, but you have almost three years to figure out how. Narcissa will be an empty shell by that time. Then I should be able to swap into her body with the help of the locket. If my understanding of how this magic works is worth anything, there will be no bond, eternal or whatsoever. There will be no soul to bond with. So in three years time, I walk out in your mother's shoes, and you have your mother and your father back, two in one."

"Has this been your plan all along? To use her?"

"I don't know what my plan was. The memory charms, you know. But now it all makes sense!"

Yes, it made sense. In a perverse, wicked, heinous way. Harry had an irresistible urge to hurt Lucius.

"Go to hell! You're not my father!"

Lucius sat still, unperturbed.

"You will take that back, Draco. I understand you're upset, but think of the alternative. Look at that." He jerked his head towards Narcissa. "In three years, you'll get that. A body. When you could get a body and a soul. What is the rational choice? Think about it."

What happened next was quick and chaotic. The Goblin and a witch rushed in through the door on the other side, shouting insults at each other, unchained Narcissa and dragged her away through the same door. Draco was back, shouting insults at Pucey and threatening him with his wand. Pucey's attempts to reply drowned in Draco's heated monologue. A seagull Patronus seeped through the ceiling, excreted a lump of silvery substance onto Lucius's forehead and whooshed through the back door after Narcissa. Draco stormed out of the room again, Pucey after him, Harry followed, leaving Lucius wriggling and whining in his chair.

They ended up in a dark passage, Harry had no clue how they got there when Draco was finally out of breath and Pucey managed to get in a word. Yes, they were aware of the problem, no, it was not okay, yes, the prisoners' safety had to be guaranteed, no, he didn't have a quick solution, but if Harry Potter would save some breath for the Minister, he might, in fact, be able to do something good for the wizarding world.

He took them down a few passages, until they stood next to another door in a hall full of the pungent smell of decay. He handed Harry his wand back.

"Erm."

"Yes?"

"Can I leave my Patronus here. With, erm, with my mother?" Harry asked.

"Of course!"

Was Harry imagining it, or did Pucey's voice sound friendly?

"You will make sure that it stays, erm, stays around? I don't know how you do it."

"Of course! That's what we're here for!"

"And you'll see that it actually gets to my mother?"

Pucey sighed. "We have very little influence in that regard. I suppose it depends more on the message you put into it."

Harry concentrated. He remembered Narcissa's face turning away from him and her words "He's dead!" thrown into the darkness. And the cheers of the Death Eaters, and Hagrid's large arms under his back, and the confusion, and the fight, Draco's wand and the Elder Wand locked in a duel. The thud of Voldemort's body against the floor of the Great Hall, and the relief, and the morning sun rising over the hills, and the smell of smoke and fresh bread rolls.

"Expecto Patronum!" Harry exhaled into the deathly stench of the hall, and the silvery stag obliged, as usual.

Pucey waved his wand and sent the stag galloping into the depth of the fortress. He plunged his hand into the pocket of his cloak and pulled out... a dead rat.

"This is your return Portkey."

Draco froze, staring down at the grisly offering.

"Sorry. We make Portkeys from what we have. It activates upon the touch of the visitor." Pucey threw Harry a glance.

The door opened, and closed again when Harry and Draco stepped over the threshold.

They were standing on a cliff covered with layers of tiny headstones. This door served only as an exit.

The sea roared, attacking the cliff, the wind pushed them back against the wall. Draco held out the little corpse with his trembling fingers. Harry grabbed the lump of dead flesh and they swirled into the air.