Between Ruin and Salvation (HP), NC-17
Title: Between Ruin and Salvation
Fandom: Harry Potter
Rating: NC -17 future chapters, PG-13 for now
Characters/Pairings: Draco/Luna, Ron, Hermione, Harry, Sirius, Snape, Remus
Genre: Romance, Drama, Angst, Dark
Word Count: 8,124
Summary: It was only one second. One second where Remus took his eyes off Harry to stare at the rigid body of his last best friend falling through the veil. One second where he heard James’s son too late, where he wasn’t fast enough to catch him. Then Harry ran through the veil.
Warnings: Gore, violence, multiple major character deaths, bloodplay, and breathplay. (Future chapters)
Notes: Written for turningleft at the 2009 hp_summersmut Fic/Art Exchange. This started off very innocently. I had this plot bunny about a year ago and thought, “Ooh, that sounds cool, but I’ll probably never have the time or desire to actually write it,” and promptly filed it away to the dusty recesses of my mind. Then I signed up for hp_summersmut, read turningleft'srequests, and was assaulted by a harmless bunny turned mad, raving, and possibly murderous. I hid from it for about two months, praying it would go away. It did not. So this gargantuan plotty mess was written at lightning speed, with my parents occasionally poking their heads into my room at the sound of my hysterical laughter to see if I was cracking up. I was, but they understood there was a deadline. So thank you to turningleft for her requests that caused me to unleash this upon the world, thanks to scarlet_malfoy for editing it and reassuring me that no, there are no plot bunny-monsters in my closest, and to thescarletwoman for enabling me by running a lovely fest.
Status: Complete-ish (Under Revision)
( Prelude: Through the Veil )
Three quarters of the castle was in mourning. Seventy-five percent of students had heard that not only was the Dark Lord back, yes, really back, but they’d lost the person they’d all secretly hoped would save them. Yes, Dumbledore was the one person Voldemort feared, but Harry Potter was the one who had survived. Didn’t it stand to reason that he could keep surviving? Weren’t all of the encounters he lived through indications that he was meant to fight the Dark Lord to the bitter end? Isn’t that what the lost prophecy must have said? Isn’t that why Voldemort wanted Harry Potter dead?
Isn’t that why the Slytherin dungeons were singing?
Draco looked up from his vantage point by the common room’s roaring fireplace. Someone had enchanted the flames to burn silver and green in a show of house pride. After all, this was their triumph. With the loss of Harry Potter, the Muggle and Mudblood sympathizers had lost a figurehead more powerful than Dumbledore could ever hope to be. The proverbial shadow had fallen across the cause heralded by blood traitors, their victory no longer assured. No one had heard the prophecy, but they may as well have. People had been pinning their hopes on Potter since he was first marked as a baby. In some secret part of their hearts, they had hoped that Harry Potter would be the one to save them all, if only for the purposes of poetic justice.
But Potter was gone. If the prophecy had indeed said that only Harry Potter could end the Dark Lord’s reign of terror, everyone knew it was now broken. And it was Voldemort crushing the glass beneath his boots.
Draco wanted to be happy. He wanted to be drinking and laughing and celebrating right along with the rest of the Slytherins. He hated Potter. Hated. No one should have been happier than him. No one deserved this more than him.
But once again, Potter had thwarted him in the end and made it impossible for him to be happy. Draco found everything tasted bitter now that his father rotted in Azkaban.
His friends weren’t callous of course. Pansy, Blaise (to an extent), and even Crabbe and Goyle had done their best to comfort him when they heard the news. But as good of friends as they were, they couldn’t completely suppress their excitement. So he’d told them he’d wanted to be alone. Even though they knew he was lying, they left him. This left Draco sitting next to the fireplace with its emerald-grey flames. He sat there, bearing witness to the revelry. He wondered if he could spot the pretenders if he stared long enough. After all, it didn’t stand to reason that every Slytherin was pleased to see Potter gone; but every Slytherin knew better than to advertise in such murky waters.
Nevertheless, being surrounded by the drunken catcalls and wild shrieks, feigned or no, left Draco desperate to escape.
Without a word to anyone, Draco strode out of the dungeons, drawing his cloak closer around his shoulders despite the unseasonal warmth. It was past curfew, but no one was much for enforcing the rules at the moment. All the professors were gathered in the Headmaster’s office to discuss what had happened. Granted, Filch would probably drown his sorrows in torturing students, but if the old bastard knew what was good for him, he’d steer clear of Slytherins tonight.
He walked for the better part of an hour, and he met no one. Even the ghosts seemed to be in mourning - perhaps even Peeves among them. In truth, he wasn’t pleased to be left to his own devices. He hated being alone when he was upset. But there was no one at school who understood, and his mother lost a husband and a sister in one night. She had enough sorrows without having to comfort him as well. So he walked undisturbed until he reached the infirmary. That’s when someone saw him, and that someone spoke.
“You’re depressed.”
It wasn’t the tone or the voice that made him stop in his tracks so much as the choice of words. Not ‘you look depressed’ or ‘all right; you look sad.’ It scarcely sounded like a real sentence, such was its directness.
He turned his head and caught sight of her hair first, glittering like tarnished silver in the darkness. Although she was only a few feet away, her eyes stared at him like twin moons gazing at him from afar. She’d curled up in one of the stone windows, her knees pulled up to her chest, and her skirt stretched thin over her knees.
Draco scoffed. “Loony Lovegood. Should have known. Only you talk rubbish like that.”
She blinked at him in a way that was downright unsettling. “I didn’t know you thought the truth was rubbish.”
Draco felt his cheeks begin to burn. “Did I say that?” he demanded. “Or has your father published some way of reading minds?”
“Not explicitly. You did imply it, however,” Luna answered softly. “As for psychic abilities, The Quibbler has published several articles reporting such phenomena, but we are not as of yet prepared to rule on its existence one way or the other.”
Draco exhaled in a rush. “Talking to you is bloody exhausting.”
“I’m sorry you find conversations with me to be especially taxing,” she murmured, and he swore she actually sounded like she meant it. “If I’d known, I might not have bothered you, but since we’ve never spoken before, I couldn’t have.”
Draco opened his mouth as if to apologize, and then remembered who he was talking to and how insane this conversation was. He stalked closer to her, curling his hands into fists. “You’re doing this on purpose, aren’t you?”
It seemed as though she should blink, and the very fact that she didn’t made his skin crawl. “Talking is a voluntary act, but I suspect that’s not what you mean.”
“You’re baiting me!” he accused, spittle flying from his teeth. He felt rage winding around his chest like a worn blanket, and in spite of the unpleasant adrenaline, he felt comforted. Without Potter, there was no one to yell at, no one to blame for what had happened. Finding a new target, even if she was the token idiot in Ravenclaw, felt warm and familiar. “You did this on purpose just to… just to-"
She tilted her head to the side, cornflower strands slipping over her shoulder like feathers tumbling out of a split down pillow. When she moved, at first he thought the stars were casting eerie shadows across her face. It took him a moment to realize they were bruises, and then for some reason, he couldn’t speak.
Had his father done that?
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she told him, ignorant of his own uncertainties. Her distant tone grated, but there was something in her voice that was almost lyrical. “You’re not a fish, so I see no reason to bait you. If you’re suggesting that I purposefully chose to talk to you in order to upset you, you’re mistaken.”
His fingers strained to hold their position, and his hands began to ache. “Then why talk to me at all? Don’t you blame me for what happened?”
Luna Lovegood was notorious for being unreadable as well as insane, but Draco almost swore she seemed surprised. Then again, she always looked that way. “No. Why would I? You weren’t there.”
“My family was there,” he reminded her bitterly. “My father and my… aunt.”
“But you weren’t,” she repeated, swinging her legs around so that the dangled over the edge. She leaned forward, and she was so close that he could see the healing cut on her lip. He wondered if all crazy people held such little regard for personal space. “I could be angry with you, I suppose… for supporting Umbridge and being on the Inquisitorial Squad. You were very cruel, and you abused your power. But it’s not as if Dumbledore’s Army didn’t expect you to.”
The lower lid of Draco’s left eye started to twitch.
“But I don’t see why I ought to be upset with you over what happened with Harry.” For the first time, Luna’s face was an open book. Draco would not have mistaken her sadness for any other emotion. There was something broken in her eyes, and she reminded him inexplicably of a shattered mirror. If it hadn’t been about Potter, he might have felt a little sorry for her. “You’re not your family.”
The statement was so absurd he wanted to laugh. His name was Draco Malfoy. Of course he was his family. Family had to stick together, always. No one except Purebloods understood that, and although Luna might have had two magical parents, that didn’t make her like him.
He jumped when her hand fell on his shoulder, light as air and the color of cobwebs.
“Besides, I heard what happened to them. I am sorry for your loss, even if I didn’t much care for either of them.”
He scowled, a thousand acidic insults waiting on his tongue to burn her. He wanted to scorn her pity. He wanted to tell her that he wasn’t sorry she’d gotten hurt since she was stupid enough to go fight in the first place. He wanted to tell her he was glad her precious Potter was gone, probably dead, and she was an idiot to mourn him.
But everything she said to him had been devoid of pity. Saying that he didn’t care she was hurt wasn’t the whole truth, since he did wonder who had hurt her. And though he’d never admit it aloud, there was a very small part of him that hated Potter for being gone.
It wasn’t fair that Draco couldn’t hurt him anymore, but Potter had left him in agony.
Draco shook off Luna’s hand. It fell to her side like a puppet with the strings cut.
“What does it matter what you think?” he spat, turning on his heel. “You’re mental anyway.”
“If it didn’t matter what I thought, why did you ask?”
Draco didn’t answer. He simply kept walking, blood heating every inch of his skin and hands trembling from strain. He left her sitting in the window, her legs hanging toward the ground, and the memory of her voice floating after him down the corridor.
-----
Once she was released from the hospital wing several days after the battle, Hermione had stridden out of the infirmary without so much as a ‘by your leave.’ Ron was let out soon after, and when he was free, all he wanted was to find Hermione. He wanted Hermione, who would assure him that there was no evidence Harry was gone-gone, that he was probably just missing-gone. He wanted Hermione to rationalize that no respectable government would have a ruddy archway of death hanging about without at least some sort of sign. But most of all, he wanted Hermione, the only best friend he had left.
He thought about going to the common room, to Hagrid’s hut, or to the kitchens to find her, but he knew Hermione too well to even waste time investigating. With scarcely a breath’s hesitation, Ron took a right instead of a left out of the medical wing and walked through the cool, empty halls until he reached the library.
He was not surprised to find Hermione there. He was also not surprised to see that she’d already managed to find twenty volumes to look through. She didn’t even look up when he entered, sensing his presence.
“Good,” she said, her crisp voice stressed to the point of nearly breaking. “You’re here. I can’t read all of these myself. Well, I could, obviously, but it would take far too long. I’ve spent enough time laid up, and this project calls for efficiency above all else.”
It felt like there was a stone lodged in his throat. He tried to swallow and managed to make it grow larger. “Hermione, you don’t have to do this right now.”
“When would you suggest I do it, Ron? We’re not going to be at school for much longer, you know, and then we won’t have access to these materials.” She wrinkled her nose that way she always did when she had a sudden thought. “Perhaps I could petition Professor Dumbledore to let us stay. After all, if we’re going to get Harry back, we’ll need all the help we can get.” She paused to roll her eyes. “Honestly, he’s utterly impossible. Of all the irresponsible things to do - charging through without even considering what he was getting himself into. It’s so… like him that I could just scream.”
In spite of growing up in a large, affectionate family, Ron had never really gotten comfortable with the idea of hugging people who were not red-haired, freckled, and named Something-or-Other Weasley. For that matter, there were people in his family he’d never gotten comfortable with hugging, although that was really only limited to Percy, the git. So he thought about hugging Hermione then, wondering if maybe she also needed someone to tell her that it was all right, that Harry was fine, that they’d get him back. He thought about it, but his hands hung heavy at his sides.
“Hermione…."
“Oh,” she said, staccato - a plucked violin string. “Of course, you don’t have to stay, Ron. I only assumed-"
Ron sighed. “Don’t be thick, Hermione. If you need help… I’ll stay.”
For the first time since he’d walked in, Hermione actually looked at him. It was only for a moment, but then he saw her raw, as if her skin had been peeled away. He saw the red-rimmed eyes and the drying tear tracks. He saw the lines around her mouth, the width of her smile, the tightness of her jaw. He saw her desperation and her sadness and her depthless gratitude that he too believed in Harry without question, that he would help her without hesitation, that together, they had the power to bring him home.
“Thank you, Ron.”
“Yeah, well,” he muttered, pulling a chair back and selecting the least daunting of the assembled tomes. “What are friends for?”
In the same breath, they both began to read. She reached over and grabbed his hand with frightening intensity. And he squeezed right back until his knuckles flushed pale and it hurt them both to keep holding on.
They did not let go.
-----
After leaving her in front of the infirmary, Draco assumed he would not have to deal with Luna Lovegood anymore in the near future. This expectation prevailed as he boarded the Hogwarts Express to return to a home and an outside world irrevocably damaged by what had happened at the Department of Mysteries. It continued when he stowed his bags, when he boarded, and when he began to look for a seat. Unlike the ride to Hogwarts, there seemed to be no need for Prefects to sit together on the way back, and besides, no one was much for House Unity these days.
Blaise, Pansy, Crabbe, and Goyle were all in a compartment together. They invited him in, but he still couldn’t stand the looks in their eyes. They were torn between sympathy and elation, between their victory and his father’s downfall. He couldn’t stand it. It was too close to feeling sorry for him, and still too false besides. He said he’d find a different car.
He walked up and down the train, eyes flitting through the cracks between the doors and the foggy windows. He heard them all whispering and wondered if they were talking about him. He heard muffled tears and knew they were not crying about him. In the end, he went to find a compartment of his own. He thought he found one at the very end of the train, and, breathing a sigh of relief, he flung the doors open.
And his expectation that he would not have to see Luna Lovegood soared away.
She glanced up at him from the ever-present inverted Quibbler. “Hello, Draco.”
The innocuous greeting was enough to set his teeth on edge. He quickly flipped through his alternatives to sitting with Lovegood. He had a choice between feigned Slytherin sympathy or obvious hatred from any of the other houses. It seemed impossible, but apparently, Luna Lovegood was the preferable option.
He swore by way of greeting and stepped inside, slamming the doors into place. He sat in the opposite corner, glaring. “Don’t talk to me.”
She nodded amicably enough and returned to her ridiculous rag that dared to call itself a newspaper. He leaned back, folded his arms and settled himself in for a long, silent trip back home.
The problem naturally arose when Draco remembered how very much he hated prolonged quiet. When he’d been a boy, his mother sometimes left him on his own for long periods of time, not because she was an inattentive parent, but because she couldn’t put up with the incessant chatter. He’d taken to engaging Dobby in conversation out of desperation. That is, until his father made him stop.
The proud face of his father filled his mind at once, though he tried to shut it out. He superimposed this picture with the man Lucius Malfoy would undoubtedly become in Azkaban - filthy, defeated, and crushed beneath a whispered prophecy.
This of course was why Draco couldn’t abide silence. It left him with too much opportunity to think.
“What are you doing here then?” Draco grumbled. “Oughtn’t you be with the Weasels and Granger and Fatbottom?”
She didn’t look up from the upside down paper. “It’s not nice to call them that.”
“I’m not nice.”
She shrugged as if she didn’t see what that had to do with it. “I’m not sitting with Hermione and Ron because they aren’t going home just yet. They asked Professor Dumbledore if they could stay on at Hogwarts to see what can be done about Harry.”
Draco’s molars ground against each other. Potter. It always came back to Potter. He rather suspected that had Potter never been attacked by the Dark Lord, the green-eyed ponce still would have been at the center of everything. That would just be his luck. Although his parents had made a point of telling him that he was not the center of the universe, he doubted Potter’s Muggles had ever done so. They’d probably always known Earth and sun revolved around the Potter scion and left well enough alone.
“As for Ginny and Neville,” Luna continued, either ignoring or remaining ignorant of his frustration, “she’s having a bad time of it. She loves Harry, you know.”
Draco just scowled.
“Oh, yes of course you do,” Luna recalled in lilting soprano. “You made up that song during my first year. You said Harry had the eyes of a toad. Clever rhyme.”
In any other circumstance, Draco would have appreciated the compliment, even if it did come from a madwoman. “What does that have to do with you being on your own?”
Now Luna looked up, globular eyes fervent. “I’d be happy to help Ginny. She’s my friend.”
It was truly pathetic how she made that sound. It was not the offhand comment others would have favored. She made it sound like being friends with the Weasley girl was some sort of badge of honor, an achievement equal to receiving all O’s in one’s O.W.L.S. At first, he marveled at her bad taste, and then remembered that people weren’t exactly lining up to be mates with a crazy Ravenclaw.
“But?”
Luna continued to meet his gaze head on. “Ginny’s not the sort who does well getting help from other girls. She’s much better with the boys.”
Draco refrained from comment only because it seemed entirely too easy.
“So she’s with Neville,” Luna concluded. “I’d have expected her to go to Michael Corner since she was going with him, but she chucked him as soon as Madame Pomfrey let her out of the infirmary. She said it had to do with him being bitter about Ravenclaw losing at Quidditch, but really she’s just too tired to pretend she likes him when she’s still in love with Harry.”
Draco stared. He knew of Luna’s legendary frankness, but this seemed to go beyond that. “Should you really be telling me this?”
“I don’t see why not. I’d keep it a secret, but it’s not really a secret, is it? Everyone knows.”
Draco wanted to say that just because everyone knew something didn’t mean it was right to go shouting it all over the place.
“And you?” she asked.
“Hm?”
“Why are you by yourself?”
He folded his arms in front of his chest. “I don’t want to talk about it.”
“Oh.” She narrowed her eyes. “Odd that you asked me then, since it seems only natural that I’d turn the question back to you.”
Draco began to very seriously consider stabbing himself in the eye with his wand. Surely that would hurt less. “I don’t need the rules of polite conversation thrown in my face by you of all people, Loony.”
Granted, it hadn’t been the crème de la crème of insults, but he would have at least expected some reaction from her. Her facial expression didn’t change at all. He found himself postulating that in one of The Quibbler’s back issues, Luna was featured as a girl who’s face really had frozen into one expression.
“If you’re sure you don’t want to talk about it-"
“I’m sure.”
“-then I suppose I can come up with something else to ask.” She set aside the magazine and tipped her head to the side. Her face floated in front of the window, and the light pouring in from the window as they zipped across the countryside provided a golden backlight that left her eyes almost completely in shadow. It made looking at her bearable now that he didn’t have to look at those eyes, but unsettled him in another way. It seemed like he was staring into the hollows of a skull.
The skull asked, “Do you miss him?”
He raised an eyebrow. “My father? Of course I miss him. What kind of question is that?”
Luna gave him a strange little smile. “That’s not who I meant, and I think you knew that.”
His fingers strained against the leather seats as they began to curl into fists. “I. Do. Not. Miss. Potter.”
“The adamant tone of your statement leads me to believe otherwise.”
He started to leap to his feet, but the train made a sudden right turn, and he tumbled right back into the seat again. Draco settled for baring his teeth and hissing, “I hate Potter. In what ways have I not made this glaringly obvious, because I will do my best to remedy them.”
She tented her fingers and looked like a mediwitch specializing in mental patients. He nearly choked on the irony. “You must admit, Draco, you are rather obsessed with him.”
If she weren’t a girl, he may have punched her. “You bloody well better take that back-"
“I didn’t mean to suggest anything sordid,” she said in a shallow attempt at placating him. “Cho’s been spreading some rumors, but she’s not in a good place right now. I only meant that you seem to single him out quite a bit.”
Draco nearly asked for a detailed account of these rumors Luna referenced, but he decided it would be better for his emotional state if he didn’t. So he said, “Because he’s a git, and I seem to be the only person in the universe who realizes it.”
“Actually,” she said in a strangely bright tone, “I know a few people in my house who don’t like him much either, after what happened with Cho. You don’t like Hermione either, do you? You’d be surprised how many Ravenclaws take it personally that everyone says she’s the cleverest witch of your year. Since she’s a Gryffindor I mean. I could introduce you if you like.”
A wand in the eye was looking more and more spectacular by comparison. “Obviously, I was exaggerating, but the fact remains that Potter’s always getting special treatment! No First Year’s allowed to have a broom, but bloody McGonagall gives one to him sweet as you please and doesn’t even bother to hide who it was from. And then people have the gall to call her fair and unbiased. Of course she’s biased, to her house and to Potter.”
Luna raised an eyebrow. “You hate him because of a broomstick?”
Draco drove his hands into his hair and gave it a good yank. “It was just an example! That sort of rubbish is always happening to him. He breaks the rules, and everyone treats him like a sodding hero just because of something that happened when he was a baby.”
“That’s not the only reason people like Harry,” Luna said smoothly. “He was nice to me. Not very many people are nice to me.”
“I wonder why,” Draco drawled.
“You’re taking this very personally,” Luna pointed out. “And I think it’s mostly because you don’t want to admit that I’m right.”
Draco trembled with the urge it took not to do something drastic. “You’re mental.”
“I think you miss him,” she repeated. “Not because you like him, but because he’s always been there. He’s been someone you could be angry at and a rival to compete with. I’m not saying your life begins and ends with Harry, but a significant part of it has been devoted to trying to make him miserable or trying to beat him. Now that he’s gone, you’re not sure what you’re meant to do with your life.”
Finally, something inside of him snapped, and later, he would surely marvel that it hadn’t happened sooner. Draco leapt to his feet and reached for her, though he stumbled backwards as the train shook beneath him. He struggled to hold himself upright in addition to holding himself away from her. He wouldn’t hit her, but he wanted to shake her until that damned dreamy look went out of her eyes forever. All he wanted was for her to stop looking at him, to stop talking to him, to stop bringing a dead boy back into his life.
“Don’t you ever tell me about Harry Potter,” Draco snarled. “You have no idea what he and his friends have done. Do you know they almost killed Montague when they shoved him in that cabinet? Didn’t even bother to tell anyone what they’d done! He nearly starved to death, and they laughed about it!”
She had the grace to appear disturbed, or as disturbed as she could appear. “That’s terrible.”
“And everyone treats him like a hero,” he went on. “He’s practically a god to them, and he has his own saints with Weasley and Granger and Longbottom and you! St. Luna the Loony. But don’t for a minute think that you were worth anything to him. As far as Potter was concerned, you were someone to stand in front of him in case my father’s aim was off.”
Luna narrowed her eyes, and he began to think he could make her angry after all. “That’s not true. Harry helped us; he taught us spells we never would have learnt even without Umbridge. He’s prepared us for-"
“For what? For war?” Draco shouted. “Oh, yes. Potter trained his little toy soldiers well, but you just remember three things, Loony: Potter was the general of Dumbledore’s Army, and the general never rides off with the cavalry.”
He spun on his heel and began to make his way out of the cabin. He could endure Pansy and the others with this as the alternative. He’d been stupid to entertain the idea. He’d forgotten that these people were no longer schoolmates. They were enemies.
“And the third thing?” she asked, daring him with the steel in her voice.
Draco paused in the open doorway and hoped his last words cracked her armor.
“He trained you to kill people like me.”
-----
Harry held on to Sirius for as long as he dared, basking in his presence and realness, something he had been so terrified that he’d lost for good. He felt stubble rub against his forehead. He smelled the faint cologne of alcohol and the musk of battle. He stayed connected for as long as he dared and then longer, until Sirius pushed him away.
“You shouldn’t have come here,” Sirius murmured. “It’s not safe. What if-”
“You didn’t come back,” Harry said, a little amazed at Sirius. This didn’t sound like him. But then, perhaps Sirius was only willing to let Harry rush in where he himself had trod before. The veil was a mystery to all. “I couldn’t leave you,” Harry muttered with intensity, attempting to quash these uncertainties.
Sirius sighed, rubbing the back of his neck. “Molly’s going to slaughter me when we get back. She’ll say it’s my fault you went charging in half-cocked.”
Harry pointed out, “You didn’t drag me.”
Sirius snorted. “Tell that to Molly.” He looked around the new grey world, at the dark shadowy blurs that passed them by without a second glance. They both stood in silence for a moment, listening to the whispers that had almost led Harry through the veil when he first saw it. “So. This is what’s on the other side of the veil.”
Harry blinked. “You know where we are?” He’d wondered how aware Sirius had been of his surroundings before he’d tumbled through. Apparently, despite the Stunning Spell, he’d known plenty.
“Couldn’t point it out on a map,” Sirius muttered ruefully, misunderstanding Harry’s implication. “And no one really knows what’s beyond the veil. Except us I suppose.” He smirked, chuckling. “Remus is going to be out of his mind with jealousy when I tell him about this. This is an academic’s dream.”
“No one’s gone through before?”
“Not as far as I know,” Sirius said. “Then again, I was gone for a few years, so something may have changed, but I doubt it. The veil sparks… a certain amount of fear.”
Harry didn’t remember being afraid. Just the overwhelming desire to follow the voices. Harry wondered for a moment if Sirius had been afraid, but he knew better than to ask. He had a feeling he wouldn’t like the answer, no matter what it was.
“How do you suppose we get out?”
-----
The full moon was coming around again for the first time since the loss of Harry and Sirius. Part of Remus wanted to forgo his newfound custom of taking the Wolfsbane Potion. He wouldn’t have minded unleashing the full savagery and brutality of the werewolf. He wanted violence, wanted to rip and tear, wanted to embrace the very aspects of the wolf he usually loathed. But he wasn’t young anymore, and neither Dumbledore nor Severus believed that his body could handle the transformation without the potion and remain in fighting condition.
He tried not to speculate about the possibility that they feared for his sanity as well.
“Lupin,” Snape said, bringing Remus out of his reverie with that ever-present sneer. “I understand that you’re distraught about the loss of your little pet mongrel, but I do have more to do with my life than sit here and watch you mope in front of your potion. Drink.”
Remus ignored the instruction, momentarily losing himself in the sound of words Sirius Black would never say. ‘Really, Snivellus? Have an important engagement with your right hand and a bottle of lotion, do you? Well, by all means, don’t let us keep you.’
“Oh, God,” Snape spat, falling into one of Remus’s kitchen chairs. They both winced at the loud creak. “I’m going to have to console you, aren’t I?”
Remus took a very deep breath. “I’m hardly swooning, Severus.”
“I’m not to leave until you drink every last drop of that. Dumbledore’s orders,” Snape reminded him. “Since you’re apparently too depressed to even do that much, it is apparently up to me to remedy the situation.”
Remus snorted. “You want to cheer me up?”
“I will not debase myself in answering that question.”
Remus heaved a sigh and dragged a hand across his face, surprised to find how pronounced his stubble had become. Body hair always became a bit of nuisance closer to the full moon. “Then don’t embarrass us both by trying. Others have come and gone before you.”
“Yes, I’ve heard about you spurning Nymphadora’s advances already,” Snape said with a pronounced eye roll.
Remus did not know if his being the subject of the Order’s gossip or the fact that he was blushing like a ruddy schoolgirl was more humiliating. “How did you-"
“Molly Weasley is telling anything with a pulse, I suspect,” Snape interrupted. “Can we please not prolong this agony any more than necessary? The way I see it, there are very few people to whom you can actually speak who will offer up more than ceremonial niceties. We both know there is absolutely no danger in hearing that drivel from me. Considering Dumbledore is the only other man I can think of who will be of any use to you, and he is otherwise occupied, I’m afraid your options are severely limited. Either talk or prepare for me to pour that potion down your throat.”
Remus knew Snape better than to take this as an idle threat. He inclined his head until his forehead rested in his open palm. “It’s my fault.”
“I suspect a great many things are, Lupin. You’ll have to be more specific.”
“Harry and Sirius,” Remus snapped. “Please don’t pretend to be dull just to make this more difficult.”
“Oh, that,” Snape said, as if Remus grieved over the misplacement of a grocery list and not the possible death of his best friend and James’s only son. “Of course that’s your fault.”
Remus glowered. “How is that supposed to make me feel better?”
Snape scoffed. “Did you honestly expect that from me? You got comforting and coddling from the others. You obviously didn’t want that if you plotted to keep me here for this excruciating conversation.”
Remus kicked the underside of the table. “Damn it, Severus!”
“Channeling Black from the grave, are we?”
“You don’t know that he’s dead!” Remus shouted. He quickly bit his tongue and did his best to dial back his anger. He was always more prone to violence when the moon grew fuller. Between that and his emotional state, he couldn’t be certain that he could control his temper. “He was only hit with a Stunning Spell.”
Snape smirked. “Yes, I suppose the only confirmed fatality from that evening is Bellatrix.”
“Are you sorry for it?”
“Of course not,” Snape remarked coolly. “I remember her from school and the years following. She was insane and dangerous then, and I’m certain prison only made her worse. I do not mourn her in the least.”
Remus folded his hands in front of his heart, offering up his next statement as a prayer as well as a rebuttal. “They could still be alive.”
Snape frowned, and if Remus squinted, he could almost detect some sadness in the man’s eyes beneath the ever present resentment. “I doubt it.”
“We don’t know how the veil works.”
“It’s a gateway to the world of the dead. Even if they went through whole and breathing, I doubt there’s water and nourishment on the other side. Maybe not even oxygen.”
The idea of Harry and Sirius slowly starving to death, or worse, suffocating and gasping for absent air made Remus’s stomach turn. “But we don’t know-"
“We don’t know if Voldemort has a secret love for kitten stationary, but I rather doubt we can put much stock in this theory.” Snape sighed. “I realize that you must believe that there is hope for their survival so that you are not eaten alive by guilt. By all means, continue. I don’t particularly care for your emotional well-being, but you’re of no use to the Order in such a state. However, do not turn to me for confirmation of these suspicions. As I said before, there are others for that.”
But Remus didn’t want them to tell him that Harry and Sirius were okay. He wanted Snape. The man may have been an insufferable bastard, but he was a brilliant insufferable bastard. If Snape had even admitted there was a possibility, the hope would have sustained Remus indefinitely. Now what was there?
“Maybe they can get out,” he whispered.
Snape began to look very tired. “Lupin, if they could, they would have done.”
“Hermione is researching. Maybe she can find something.”
“I will acquiesce to Ms. Granger’s superior intellect insofar as her outshining her deplorably idiotic peers, but if you are seriously hinging your expectations on a teenager, I fear for your sanity.”
“Maybe-"
“Remus!”
The use of his given name, something Snape had avoided since long before the Willow Incident, could not be ignored.
“Stop it,” Snape spat, his black eyes blazing with fury. “Do you think you are the only one who wishes things had gone differently? You know I thought Black was better off dead, but Potter… he’s too much like his father: pigheaded, foolhardy, and utterly determined to believe that he was the wizarding world’s own personal Jesus Christ. But I knew he was important. I knew what he was meant to do.” He began to shake with intensity. “You have no idea what I have I done for that boy, no idea what I risked…. I, more than anyone, wish that you had caught him before he ran through, and if you knew me better, you would not dare to argue otherwise. But I will not delude myself into thinking that he’ll come riding back to save us. Better to accept that he is dead and gone and find a way to defeat Voldemort without the Boy-Who-Lived.”
Remus looked at Snape coldly, and grasped the goblet containing the Wolfsbane Potion. He downed the horrible concoction in one gulp. “You can go now.”
Snape didn’t have to be told twice.
Continue to Part Two: Sixth Year
Fandom: Harry Potter
Rating: NC -17 future chapters, PG-13 for now
Characters/Pairings: Draco/Luna, Ron, Hermione, Harry, Sirius, Snape, Remus
Genre: Romance, Drama, Angst, Dark
Word Count: 8,124
Summary: It was only one second. One second where Remus took his eyes off Harry to stare at the rigid body of his last best friend falling through the veil. One second where he heard James’s son too late, where he wasn’t fast enough to catch him. Then Harry ran through the veil.
Warnings: Gore, violence, multiple major character deaths, bloodplay, and breathplay. (Future chapters)
Notes: Written for turningleft at the 2009 hp_summersmut Fic/Art Exchange. This started off very innocently. I had this plot bunny about a year ago and thought, “Ooh, that sounds cool, but I’ll probably never have the time or desire to actually write it,” and promptly filed it away to the dusty recesses of my mind. Then I signed up for hp_summersmut, read turningleft'srequests, and was assaulted by a harmless bunny turned mad, raving, and possibly murderous. I hid from it for about two months, praying it would go away. It did not. So this gargantuan plotty mess was written at lightning speed, with my parents occasionally poking their heads into my room at the sound of my hysterical laughter to see if I was cracking up. I was, but they understood there was a deadline. So thank you to turningleft for her requests that caused me to unleash this upon the world, thanks to scarlet_malfoy for editing it and reassuring me that no, there are no plot bunny-monsters in my closest, and to thescarletwoman for enabling me by running a lovely fest.
Status: Complete-ish (Under Revision)
( Prelude: Through the Veil )
Three quarters of the castle was in mourning. Seventy-five percent of students had heard that not only was the Dark Lord back, yes, really back, but they’d lost the person they’d all secretly hoped would save them. Yes, Dumbledore was the one person Voldemort feared, but Harry Potter was the one who had survived. Didn’t it stand to reason that he could keep surviving? Weren’t all of the encounters he lived through indications that he was meant to fight the Dark Lord to the bitter end? Isn’t that what the lost prophecy must have said? Isn’t that why Voldemort wanted Harry Potter dead?
Isn’t that why the Slytherin dungeons were singing?
Draco looked up from his vantage point by the common room’s roaring fireplace. Someone had enchanted the flames to burn silver and green in a show of house pride. After all, this was their triumph. With the loss of Harry Potter, the Muggle and Mudblood sympathizers had lost a figurehead more powerful than Dumbledore could ever hope to be. The proverbial shadow had fallen across the cause heralded by blood traitors, their victory no longer assured. No one had heard the prophecy, but they may as well have. People had been pinning their hopes on Potter since he was first marked as a baby. In some secret part of their hearts, they had hoped that Harry Potter would be the one to save them all, if only for the purposes of poetic justice.
But Potter was gone. If the prophecy had indeed said that only Harry Potter could end the Dark Lord’s reign of terror, everyone knew it was now broken. And it was Voldemort crushing the glass beneath his boots.
Draco wanted to be happy. He wanted to be drinking and laughing and celebrating right along with the rest of the Slytherins. He hated Potter. Hated. No one should have been happier than him. No one deserved this more than him.
But once again, Potter had thwarted him in the end and made it impossible for him to be happy. Draco found everything tasted bitter now that his father rotted in Azkaban.
His friends weren’t callous of course. Pansy, Blaise (to an extent), and even Crabbe and Goyle had done their best to comfort him when they heard the news. But as good of friends as they were, they couldn’t completely suppress their excitement. So he’d told them he’d wanted to be alone. Even though they knew he was lying, they left him. This left Draco sitting next to the fireplace with its emerald-grey flames. He sat there, bearing witness to the revelry. He wondered if he could spot the pretenders if he stared long enough. After all, it didn’t stand to reason that every Slytherin was pleased to see Potter gone; but every Slytherin knew better than to advertise in such murky waters.
Nevertheless, being surrounded by the drunken catcalls and wild shrieks, feigned or no, left Draco desperate to escape.
Without a word to anyone, Draco strode out of the dungeons, drawing his cloak closer around his shoulders despite the unseasonal warmth. It was past curfew, but no one was much for enforcing the rules at the moment. All the professors were gathered in the Headmaster’s office to discuss what had happened. Granted, Filch would probably drown his sorrows in torturing students, but if the old bastard knew what was good for him, he’d steer clear of Slytherins tonight.
He walked for the better part of an hour, and he met no one. Even the ghosts seemed to be in mourning - perhaps even Peeves among them. In truth, he wasn’t pleased to be left to his own devices. He hated being alone when he was upset. But there was no one at school who understood, and his mother lost a husband and a sister in one night. She had enough sorrows without having to comfort him as well. So he walked undisturbed until he reached the infirmary. That’s when someone saw him, and that someone spoke.
“You’re depressed.”
It wasn’t the tone or the voice that made him stop in his tracks so much as the choice of words. Not ‘you look depressed’ or ‘all right; you look sad.’ It scarcely sounded like a real sentence, such was its directness.
He turned his head and caught sight of her hair first, glittering like tarnished silver in the darkness. Although she was only a few feet away, her eyes stared at him like twin moons gazing at him from afar. She’d curled up in one of the stone windows, her knees pulled up to her chest, and her skirt stretched thin over her knees.
Draco scoffed. “Loony Lovegood. Should have known. Only you talk rubbish like that.”
She blinked at him in a way that was downright unsettling. “I didn’t know you thought the truth was rubbish.”
Draco felt his cheeks begin to burn. “Did I say that?” he demanded. “Or has your father published some way of reading minds?”
“Not explicitly. You did imply it, however,” Luna answered softly. “As for psychic abilities, The Quibbler has published several articles reporting such phenomena, but we are not as of yet prepared to rule on its existence one way or the other.”
Draco exhaled in a rush. “Talking to you is bloody exhausting.”
“I’m sorry you find conversations with me to be especially taxing,” she murmured, and he swore she actually sounded like she meant it. “If I’d known, I might not have bothered you, but since we’ve never spoken before, I couldn’t have.”
Draco opened his mouth as if to apologize, and then remembered who he was talking to and how insane this conversation was. He stalked closer to her, curling his hands into fists. “You’re doing this on purpose, aren’t you?”
It seemed as though she should blink, and the very fact that she didn’t made his skin crawl. “Talking is a voluntary act, but I suspect that’s not what you mean.”
“You’re baiting me!” he accused, spittle flying from his teeth. He felt rage winding around his chest like a worn blanket, and in spite of the unpleasant adrenaline, he felt comforted. Without Potter, there was no one to yell at, no one to blame for what had happened. Finding a new target, even if she was the token idiot in Ravenclaw, felt warm and familiar. “You did this on purpose just to… just to-"
She tilted her head to the side, cornflower strands slipping over her shoulder like feathers tumbling out of a split down pillow. When she moved, at first he thought the stars were casting eerie shadows across her face. It took him a moment to realize they were bruises, and then for some reason, he couldn’t speak.
Had his father done that?
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she told him, ignorant of his own uncertainties. Her distant tone grated, but there was something in her voice that was almost lyrical. “You’re not a fish, so I see no reason to bait you. If you’re suggesting that I purposefully chose to talk to you in order to upset you, you’re mistaken.”
His fingers strained to hold their position, and his hands began to ache. “Then why talk to me at all? Don’t you blame me for what happened?”
Luna Lovegood was notorious for being unreadable as well as insane, but Draco almost swore she seemed surprised. Then again, she always looked that way. “No. Why would I? You weren’t there.”
“My family was there,” he reminded her bitterly. “My father and my… aunt.”
“But you weren’t,” she repeated, swinging her legs around so that the dangled over the edge. She leaned forward, and she was so close that he could see the healing cut on her lip. He wondered if all crazy people held such little regard for personal space. “I could be angry with you, I suppose… for supporting Umbridge and being on the Inquisitorial Squad. You were very cruel, and you abused your power. But it’s not as if Dumbledore’s Army didn’t expect you to.”
The lower lid of Draco’s left eye started to twitch.
“But I don’t see why I ought to be upset with you over what happened with Harry.” For the first time, Luna’s face was an open book. Draco would not have mistaken her sadness for any other emotion. There was something broken in her eyes, and she reminded him inexplicably of a shattered mirror. If it hadn’t been about Potter, he might have felt a little sorry for her. “You’re not your family.”
The statement was so absurd he wanted to laugh. His name was Draco Malfoy. Of course he was his family. Family had to stick together, always. No one except Purebloods understood that, and although Luna might have had two magical parents, that didn’t make her like him.
He jumped when her hand fell on his shoulder, light as air and the color of cobwebs.
“Besides, I heard what happened to them. I am sorry for your loss, even if I didn’t much care for either of them.”
He scowled, a thousand acidic insults waiting on his tongue to burn her. He wanted to scorn her pity. He wanted to tell her that he wasn’t sorry she’d gotten hurt since she was stupid enough to go fight in the first place. He wanted to tell her he was glad her precious Potter was gone, probably dead, and she was an idiot to mourn him.
But everything she said to him had been devoid of pity. Saying that he didn’t care she was hurt wasn’t the whole truth, since he did wonder who had hurt her. And though he’d never admit it aloud, there was a very small part of him that hated Potter for being gone.
It wasn’t fair that Draco couldn’t hurt him anymore, but Potter had left him in agony.
Draco shook off Luna’s hand. It fell to her side like a puppet with the strings cut.
“What does it matter what you think?” he spat, turning on his heel. “You’re mental anyway.”
“If it didn’t matter what I thought, why did you ask?”
Draco didn’t answer. He simply kept walking, blood heating every inch of his skin and hands trembling from strain. He left her sitting in the window, her legs hanging toward the ground, and the memory of her voice floating after him down the corridor.
-----
Once she was released from the hospital wing several days after the battle, Hermione had stridden out of the infirmary without so much as a ‘by your leave.’ Ron was let out soon after, and when he was free, all he wanted was to find Hermione. He wanted Hermione, who would assure him that there was no evidence Harry was gone-gone, that he was probably just missing-gone. He wanted Hermione to rationalize that no respectable government would have a ruddy archway of death hanging about without at least some sort of sign. But most of all, he wanted Hermione, the only best friend he had left.
He thought about going to the common room, to Hagrid’s hut, or to the kitchens to find her, but he knew Hermione too well to even waste time investigating. With scarcely a breath’s hesitation, Ron took a right instead of a left out of the medical wing and walked through the cool, empty halls until he reached the library.
He was not surprised to find Hermione there. He was also not surprised to see that she’d already managed to find twenty volumes to look through. She didn’t even look up when he entered, sensing his presence.
“Good,” she said, her crisp voice stressed to the point of nearly breaking. “You’re here. I can’t read all of these myself. Well, I could, obviously, but it would take far too long. I’ve spent enough time laid up, and this project calls for efficiency above all else.”
It felt like there was a stone lodged in his throat. He tried to swallow and managed to make it grow larger. “Hermione, you don’t have to do this right now.”
“When would you suggest I do it, Ron? We’re not going to be at school for much longer, you know, and then we won’t have access to these materials.” She wrinkled her nose that way she always did when she had a sudden thought. “Perhaps I could petition Professor Dumbledore to let us stay. After all, if we’re going to get Harry back, we’ll need all the help we can get.” She paused to roll her eyes. “Honestly, he’s utterly impossible. Of all the irresponsible things to do - charging through without even considering what he was getting himself into. It’s so… like him that I could just scream.”
In spite of growing up in a large, affectionate family, Ron had never really gotten comfortable with the idea of hugging people who were not red-haired, freckled, and named Something-or-Other Weasley. For that matter, there were people in his family he’d never gotten comfortable with hugging, although that was really only limited to Percy, the git. So he thought about hugging Hermione then, wondering if maybe she also needed someone to tell her that it was all right, that Harry was fine, that they’d get him back. He thought about it, but his hands hung heavy at his sides.
“Hermione…."
“Oh,” she said, staccato - a plucked violin string. “Of course, you don’t have to stay, Ron. I only assumed-"
Ron sighed. “Don’t be thick, Hermione. If you need help… I’ll stay.”
For the first time since he’d walked in, Hermione actually looked at him. It was only for a moment, but then he saw her raw, as if her skin had been peeled away. He saw the red-rimmed eyes and the drying tear tracks. He saw the lines around her mouth, the width of her smile, the tightness of her jaw. He saw her desperation and her sadness and her depthless gratitude that he too believed in Harry without question, that he would help her without hesitation, that together, they had the power to bring him home.
“Thank you, Ron.”
“Yeah, well,” he muttered, pulling a chair back and selecting the least daunting of the assembled tomes. “What are friends for?”
In the same breath, they both began to read. She reached over and grabbed his hand with frightening intensity. And he squeezed right back until his knuckles flushed pale and it hurt them both to keep holding on.
They did not let go.
-----
After leaving her in front of the infirmary, Draco assumed he would not have to deal with Luna Lovegood anymore in the near future. This expectation prevailed as he boarded the Hogwarts Express to return to a home and an outside world irrevocably damaged by what had happened at the Department of Mysteries. It continued when he stowed his bags, when he boarded, and when he began to look for a seat. Unlike the ride to Hogwarts, there seemed to be no need for Prefects to sit together on the way back, and besides, no one was much for House Unity these days.
Blaise, Pansy, Crabbe, and Goyle were all in a compartment together. They invited him in, but he still couldn’t stand the looks in their eyes. They were torn between sympathy and elation, between their victory and his father’s downfall. He couldn’t stand it. It was too close to feeling sorry for him, and still too false besides. He said he’d find a different car.
He walked up and down the train, eyes flitting through the cracks between the doors and the foggy windows. He heard them all whispering and wondered if they were talking about him. He heard muffled tears and knew they were not crying about him. In the end, he went to find a compartment of his own. He thought he found one at the very end of the train, and, breathing a sigh of relief, he flung the doors open.
And his expectation that he would not have to see Luna Lovegood soared away.
She glanced up at him from the ever-present inverted Quibbler. “Hello, Draco.”
The innocuous greeting was enough to set his teeth on edge. He quickly flipped through his alternatives to sitting with Lovegood. He had a choice between feigned Slytherin sympathy or obvious hatred from any of the other houses. It seemed impossible, but apparently, Luna Lovegood was the preferable option.
He swore by way of greeting and stepped inside, slamming the doors into place. He sat in the opposite corner, glaring. “Don’t talk to me.”
She nodded amicably enough and returned to her ridiculous rag that dared to call itself a newspaper. He leaned back, folded his arms and settled himself in for a long, silent trip back home.
The problem naturally arose when Draco remembered how very much he hated prolonged quiet. When he’d been a boy, his mother sometimes left him on his own for long periods of time, not because she was an inattentive parent, but because she couldn’t put up with the incessant chatter. He’d taken to engaging Dobby in conversation out of desperation. That is, until his father made him stop.
The proud face of his father filled his mind at once, though he tried to shut it out. He superimposed this picture with the man Lucius Malfoy would undoubtedly become in Azkaban - filthy, defeated, and crushed beneath a whispered prophecy.
This of course was why Draco couldn’t abide silence. It left him with too much opportunity to think.
“What are you doing here then?” Draco grumbled. “Oughtn’t you be with the Weasels and Granger and Fatbottom?”
She didn’t look up from the upside down paper. “It’s not nice to call them that.”
“I’m not nice.”
She shrugged as if she didn’t see what that had to do with it. “I’m not sitting with Hermione and Ron because they aren’t going home just yet. They asked Professor Dumbledore if they could stay on at Hogwarts to see what can be done about Harry.”
Draco’s molars ground against each other. Potter. It always came back to Potter. He rather suspected that had Potter never been attacked by the Dark Lord, the green-eyed ponce still would have been at the center of everything. That would just be his luck. Although his parents had made a point of telling him that he was not the center of the universe, he doubted Potter’s Muggles had ever done so. They’d probably always known Earth and sun revolved around the Potter scion and left well enough alone.
“As for Ginny and Neville,” Luna continued, either ignoring or remaining ignorant of his frustration, “she’s having a bad time of it. She loves Harry, you know.”
Draco just scowled.
“Oh, yes of course you do,” Luna recalled in lilting soprano. “You made up that song during my first year. You said Harry had the eyes of a toad. Clever rhyme.”
In any other circumstance, Draco would have appreciated the compliment, even if it did come from a madwoman. “What does that have to do with you being on your own?”
Now Luna looked up, globular eyes fervent. “I’d be happy to help Ginny. She’s my friend.”
It was truly pathetic how she made that sound. It was not the offhand comment others would have favored. She made it sound like being friends with the Weasley girl was some sort of badge of honor, an achievement equal to receiving all O’s in one’s O.W.L.S. At first, he marveled at her bad taste, and then remembered that people weren’t exactly lining up to be mates with a crazy Ravenclaw.
“But?”
Luna continued to meet his gaze head on. “Ginny’s not the sort who does well getting help from other girls. She’s much better with the boys.”
Draco refrained from comment only because it seemed entirely too easy.
“So she’s with Neville,” Luna concluded. “I’d have expected her to go to Michael Corner since she was going with him, but she chucked him as soon as Madame Pomfrey let her out of the infirmary. She said it had to do with him being bitter about Ravenclaw losing at Quidditch, but really she’s just too tired to pretend she likes him when she’s still in love with Harry.”
Draco stared. He knew of Luna’s legendary frankness, but this seemed to go beyond that. “Should you really be telling me this?”
“I don’t see why not. I’d keep it a secret, but it’s not really a secret, is it? Everyone knows.”
Draco wanted to say that just because everyone knew something didn’t mean it was right to go shouting it all over the place.
“And you?” she asked.
“Hm?”
“Why are you by yourself?”
He folded his arms in front of his chest. “I don’t want to talk about it.”
“Oh.” She narrowed her eyes. “Odd that you asked me then, since it seems only natural that I’d turn the question back to you.”
Draco began to very seriously consider stabbing himself in the eye with his wand. Surely that would hurt less. “I don’t need the rules of polite conversation thrown in my face by you of all people, Loony.”
Granted, it hadn’t been the crème de la crème of insults, but he would have at least expected some reaction from her. Her facial expression didn’t change at all. He found himself postulating that in one of The Quibbler’s back issues, Luna was featured as a girl who’s face really had frozen into one expression.
“If you’re sure you don’t want to talk about it-"
“I’m sure.”
“-then I suppose I can come up with something else to ask.” She set aside the magazine and tipped her head to the side. Her face floated in front of the window, and the light pouring in from the window as they zipped across the countryside provided a golden backlight that left her eyes almost completely in shadow. It made looking at her bearable now that he didn’t have to look at those eyes, but unsettled him in another way. It seemed like he was staring into the hollows of a skull.
The skull asked, “Do you miss him?”
He raised an eyebrow. “My father? Of course I miss him. What kind of question is that?”
Luna gave him a strange little smile. “That’s not who I meant, and I think you knew that.”
His fingers strained against the leather seats as they began to curl into fists. “I. Do. Not. Miss. Potter.”
“The adamant tone of your statement leads me to believe otherwise.”
He started to leap to his feet, but the train made a sudden right turn, and he tumbled right back into the seat again. Draco settled for baring his teeth and hissing, “I hate Potter. In what ways have I not made this glaringly obvious, because I will do my best to remedy them.”
She tented her fingers and looked like a mediwitch specializing in mental patients. He nearly choked on the irony. “You must admit, Draco, you are rather obsessed with him.”
If she weren’t a girl, he may have punched her. “You bloody well better take that back-"
“I didn’t mean to suggest anything sordid,” she said in a shallow attempt at placating him. “Cho’s been spreading some rumors, but she’s not in a good place right now. I only meant that you seem to single him out quite a bit.”
Draco nearly asked for a detailed account of these rumors Luna referenced, but he decided it would be better for his emotional state if he didn’t. So he said, “Because he’s a git, and I seem to be the only person in the universe who realizes it.”
“Actually,” she said in a strangely bright tone, “I know a few people in my house who don’t like him much either, after what happened with Cho. You don’t like Hermione either, do you? You’d be surprised how many Ravenclaws take it personally that everyone says she’s the cleverest witch of your year. Since she’s a Gryffindor I mean. I could introduce you if you like.”
A wand in the eye was looking more and more spectacular by comparison. “Obviously, I was exaggerating, but the fact remains that Potter’s always getting special treatment! No First Year’s allowed to have a broom, but bloody McGonagall gives one to him sweet as you please and doesn’t even bother to hide who it was from. And then people have the gall to call her fair and unbiased. Of course she’s biased, to her house and to Potter.”
Luna raised an eyebrow. “You hate him because of a broomstick?”
Draco drove his hands into his hair and gave it a good yank. “It was just an example! That sort of rubbish is always happening to him. He breaks the rules, and everyone treats him like a sodding hero just because of something that happened when he was a baby.”
“That’s not the only reason people like Harry,” Luna said smoothly. “He was nice to me. Not very many people are nice to me.”
“I wonder why,” Draco drawled.
“You’re taking this very personally,” Luna pointed out. “And I think it’s mostly because you don’t want to admit that I’m right.”
Draco trembled with the urge it took not to do something drastic. “You’re mental.”
“I think you miss him,” she repeated. “Not because you like him, but because he’s always been there. He’s been someone you could be angry at and a rival to compete with. I’m not saying your life begins and ends with Harry, but a significant part of it has been devoted to trying to make him miserable or trying to beat him. Now that he’s gone, you’re not sure what you’re meant to do with your life.”
Finally, something inside of him snapped, and later, he would surely marvel that it hadn’t happened sooner. Draco leapt to his feet and reached for her, though he stumbled backwards as the train shook beneath him. He struggled to hold himself upright in addition to holding himself away from her. He wouldn’t hit her, but he wanted to shake her until that damned dreamy look went out of her eyes forever. All he wanted was for her to stop looking at him, to stop talking to him, to stop bringing a dead boy back into his life.
“Don’t you ever tell me about Harry Potter,” Draco snarled. “You have no idea what he and his friends have done. Do you know they almost killed Montague when they shoved him in that cabinet? Didn’t even bother to tell anyone what they’d done! He nearly starved to death, and they laughed about it!”
She had the grace to appear disturbed, or as disturbed as she could appear. “That’s terrible.”
“And everyone treats him like a hero,” he went on. “He’s practically a god to them, and he has his own saints with Weasley and Granger and Longbottom and you! St. Luna the Loony. But don’t for a minute think that you were worth anything to him. As far as Potter was concerned, you were someone to stand in front of him in case my father’s aim was off.”
Luna narrowed her eyes, and he began to think he could make her angry after all. “That’s not true. Harry helped us; he taught us spells we never would have learnt even without Umbridge. He’s prepared us for-"
“For what? For war?” Draco shouted. “Oh, yes. Potter trained his little toy soldiers well, but you just remember three things, Loony: Potter was the general of Dumbledore’s Army, and the general never rides off with the cavalry.”
He spun on his heel and began to make his way out of the cabin. He could endure Pansy and the others with this as the alternative. He’d been stupid to entertain the idea. He’d forgotten that these people were no longer schoolmates. They were enemies.
“And the third thing?” she asked, daring him with the steel in her voice.
Draco paused in the open doorway and hoped his last words cracked her armor.
“He trained you to kill people like me.”
-----
Harry held on to Sirius for as long as he dared, basking in his presence and realness, something he had been so terrified that he’d lost for good. He felt stubble rub against his forehead. He smelled the faint cologne of alcohol and the musk of battle. He stayed connected for as long as he dared and then longer, until Sirius pushed him away.
“You shouldn’t have come here,” Sirius murmured. “It’s not safe. What if-”
“You didn’t come back,” Harry said, a little amazed at Sirius. This didn’t sound like him. But then, perhaps Sirius was only willing to let Harry rush in where he himself had trod before. The veil was a mystery to all. “I couldn’t leave you,” Harry muttered with intensity, attempting to quash these uncertainties.
Sirius sighed, rubbing the back of his neck. “Molly’s going to slaughter me when we get back. She’ll say it’s my fault you went charging in half-cocked.”
Harry pointed out, “You didn’t drag me.”
Sirius snorted. “Tell that to Molly.” He looked around the new grey world, at the dark shadowy blurs that passed them by without a second glance. They both stood in silence for a moment, listening to the whispers that had almost led Harry through the veil when he first saw it. “So. This is what’s on the other side of the veil.”
Harry blinked. “You know where we are?” He’d wondered how aware Sirius had been of his surroundings before he’d tumbled through. Apparently, despite the Stunning Spell, he’d known plenty.
“Couldn’t point it out on a map,” Sirius muttered ruefully, misunderstanding Harry’s implication. “And no one really knows what’s beyond the veil. Except us I suppose.” He smirked, chuckling. “Remus is going to be out of his mind with jealousy when I tell him about this. This is an academic’s dream.”
“No one’s gone through before?”
“Not as far as I know,” Sirius said. “Then again, I was gone for a few years, so something may have changed, but I doubt it. The veil sparks… a certain amount of fear.”
Harry didn’t remember being afraid. Just the overwhelming desire to follow the voices. Harry wondered for a moment if Sirius had been afraid, but he knew better than to ask. He had a feeling he wouldn’t like the answer, no matter what it was.
“How do you suppose we get out?”
-----
The full moon was coming around again for the first time since the loss of Harry and Sirius. Part of Remus wanted to forgo his newfound custom of taking the Wolfsbane Potion. He wouldn’t have minded unleashing the full savagery and brutality of the werewolf. He wanted violence, wanted to rip and tear, wanted to embrace the very aspects of the wolf he usually loathed. But he wasn’t young anymore, and neither Dumbledore nor Severus believed that his body could handle the transformation without the potion and remain in fighting condition.
He tried not to speculate about the possibility that they feared for his sanity as well.
“Lupin,” Snape said, bringing Remus out of his reverie with that ever-present sneer. “I understand that you’re distraught about the loss of your little pet mongrel, but I do have more to do with my life than sit here and watch you mope in front of your potion. Drink.”
Remus ignored the instruction, momentarily losing himself in the sound of words Sirius Black would never say. ‘Really, Snivellus? Have an important engagement with your right hand and a bottle of lotion, do you? Well, by all means, don’t let us keep you.’
“Oh, God,” Snape spat, falling into one of Remus’s kitchen chairs. They both winced at the loud creak. “I’m going to have to console you, aren’t I?”
Remus took a very deep breath. “I’m hardly swooning, Severus.”
“I’m not to leave until you drink every last drop of that. Dumbledore’s orders,” Snape reminded him. “Since you’re apparently too depressed to even do that much, it is apparently up to me to remedy the situation.”
Remus snorted. “You want to cheer me up?”
“I will not debase myself in answering that question.”
Remus heaved a sigh and dragged a hand across his face, surprised to find how pronounced his stubble had become. Body hair always became a bit of nuisance closer to the full moon. “Then don’t embarrass us both by trying. Others have come and gone before you.”
“Yes, I’ve heard about you spurning Nymphadora’s advances already,” Snape said with a pronounced eye roll.
Remus did not know if his being the subject of the Order’s gossip or the fact that he was blushing like a ruddy schoolgirl was more humiliating. “How did you-"
“Molly Weasley is telling anything with a pulse, I suspect,” Snape interrupted. “Can we please not prolong this agony any more than necessary? The way I see it, there are very few people to whom you can actually speak who will offer up more than ceremonial niceties. We both know there is absolutely no danger in hearing that drivel from me. Considering Dumbledore is the only other man I can think of who will be of any use to you, and he is otherwise occupied, I’m afraid your options are severely limited. Either talk or prepare for me to pour that potion down your throat.”
Remus knew Snape better than to take this as an idle threat. He inclined his head until his forehead rested in his open palm. “It’s my fault.”
“I suspect a great many things are, Lupin. You’ll have to be more specific.”
“Harry and Sirius,” Remus snapped. “Please don’t pretend to be dull just to make this more difficult.”
“Oh, that,” Snape said, as if Remus grieved over the misplacement of a grocery list and not the possible death of his best friend and James’s only son. “Of course that’s your fault.”
Remus glowered. “How is that supposed to make me feel better?”
Snape scoffed. “Did you honestly expect that from me? You got comforting and coddling from the others. You obviously didn’t want that if you plotted to keep me here for this excruciating conversation.”
Remus kicked the underside of the table. “Damn it, Severus!”
“Channeling Black from the grave, are we?”
“You don’t know that he’s dead!” Remus shouted. He quickly bit his tongue and did his best to dial back his anger. He was always more prone to violence when the moon grew fuller. Between that and his emotional state, he couldn’t be certain that he could control his temper. “He was only hit with a Stunning Spell.”
Snape smirked. “Yes, I suppose the only confirmed fatality from that evening is Bellatrix.”
“Are you sorry for it?”
“Of course not,” Snape remarked coolly. “I remember her from school and the years following. She was insane and dangerous then, and I’m certain prison only made her worse. I do not mourn her in the least.”
Remus folded his hands in front of his heart, offering up his next statement as a prayer as well as a rebuttal. “They could still be alive.”
Snape frowned, and if Remus squinted, he could almost detect some sadness in the man’s eyes beneath the ever present resentment. “I doubt it.”
“We don’t know how the veil works.”
“It’s a gateway to the world of the dead. Even if they went through whole and breathing, I doubt there’s water and nourishment on the other side. Maybe not even oxygen.”
The idea of Harry and Sirius slowly starving to death, or worse, suffocating and gasping for absent air made Remus’s stomach turn. “But we don’t know-"
“We don’t know if Voldemort has a secret love for kitten stationary, but I rather doubt we can put much stock in this theory.” Snape sighed. “I realize that you must believe that there is hope for their survival so that you are not eaten alive by guilt. By all means, continue. I don’t particularly care for your emotional well-being, but you’re of no use to the Order in such a state. However, do not turn to me for confirmation of these suspicions. As I said before, there are others for that.”
But Remus didn’t want them to tell him that Harry and Sirius were okay. He wanted Snape. The man may have been an insufferable bastard, but he was a brilliant insufferable bastard. If Snape had even admitted there was a possibility, the hope would have sustained Remus indefinitely. Now what was there?
“Maybe they can get out,” he whispered.
Snape began to look very tired. “Lupin, if they could, they would have done.”
“Hermione is researching. Maybe she can find something.”
“I will acquiesce to Ms. Granger’s superior intellect insofar as her outshining her deplorably idiotic peers, but if you are seriously hinging your expectations on a teenager, I fear for your sanity.”
“Maybe-"
“Remus!”
The use of his given name, something Snape had avoided since long before the Willow Incident, could not be ignored.
“Stop it,” Snape spat, his black eyes blazing with fury. “Do you think you are the only one who wishes things had gone differently? You know I thought Black was better off dead, but Potter… he’s too much like his father: pigheaded, foolhardy, and utterly determined to believe that he was the wizarding world’s own personal Jesus Christ. But I knew he was important. I knew what he was meant to do.” He began to shake with intensity. “You have no idea what I have I done for that boy, no idea what I risked…. I, more than anyone, wish that you had caught him before he ran through, and if you knew me better, you would not dare to argue otherwise. But I will not delude myself into thinking that he’ll come riding back to save us. Better to accept that he is dead and gone and find a way to defeat Voldemort without the Boy-Who-Lived.”
Remus looked at Snape coldly, and grasped the goblet containing the Wolfsbane Potion. He downed the horrible concoction in one gulp. “You can go now.”
Snape didn’t have to be told twice.
Continue to Part Two: Sixth Year