FIC: All the Answers - Chapter 6
Sorry this one took a bit longer to get out! My internet's been very craptastic lately. S'also the reason I haven't replied to comments on any of my recent posts. Sorry!! Thank you so, so much for reviewing, though!
So this is sort of a filler chapter. A lot of what happens is basically a set-up for much later chapters. You'll see what I mean. Still, I hope you enjoy it!
Title: All the Answers
Rating: NC-17 (eventually)
Pairing: Harry/Draco
Word Count: 4900
Disclaimer: It's not mine. Really. J.K. Rowling's the brilliant mind behind HP.
Notes: Post-HBP, so yes, SPOILERS! Many, many thanks to my lovely betas, smutella and impish_nymph! Ladies, you're both fantastic!
Summary: Since when has conquering evil ever been easy?
--> All chapters can be found here. <--
previous chapter
~~Chapter 6~~
By the time they had their first real fight, not the usual bickering that occurred nearly every other hour each day, almost two more weeks had gone by. Had anyone asked Harry about it, he would have had to admit how impressed he was that it had taken that long in the first place. Draco had been cooped up inside with three people he’d previously hated, with no wand, for about two months now. And it went the other way, too. Harry, Ron, and Hermione had done a decent job of blatantly ignoring Draco when he got to be too much, but nonetheless he was always there, ready with a snide remark or a disdainful glance if the situation called for it.
So when it all fell apart one day in the middle of September, Harry couldn’t really say he was surprised.
“I swear to God, Potter, if you don’t let me go down to the village to post this owl, I will kill you,” Draco said calmly, aside from the fierce, almost frantic, look in his eyes.
Harry stood his ground in the doorway, refusing to let the other boy pass. “You can’t leave the Burrow,” he told him, his eyes narrowing. “I told you that already. I’m sure Hedwig or Pig will be back from their hunting soon-”
“I don’t give a fuck what you told me, Potter!” Draco snapped. “I need to send this now, and if-”
“Why didn’t you just use the owl your mum sent?”
“Because she sent it this morning and I didn’t read the letter until half an hour ago!”
It was well past dinner now. Harry blinked. “Well, why’d you wait so long?”
“I don’t know!” Draco exploded. His fist clenched around the note he held in his hand, crumpling it around the middle. “I didn’t think it was anything important, and you all were in the room and - just let me go!”
“Malfoy, even if it wasn’t a Muggle town I still wouldn’t let you go, but that hardly matters anyway because guess what? It is a Muggle town,” Harry said, in what he thought was a perfectly reasonable tone. “They won’t have an Owlery; that’s not how Muggles send their post.”
“What do you mean, it’s a Muggle town? Loony Lovegood lives around here! And don’t tell me she doesn’t, because I know your girlfriend kept going over to her place!”
Harry rolled his eyes. “Yeah, Luna lives here, and so do the Diggorys,” he said. “But it’s still mostly Muggles.”
“Damn it all, let me floo to Diagon Alley, then,” Draco said, and he was starting to sound desperate. “It’ll take me fifteen - no, ten minutes, I swear, then I’ll be right back!”
“Malfoy,” Harry said firmly, “You can’t go. Hedwig will be back within the hour-”
“I can’t wait for your bloody owl!” Draco interrupted, his eyes squeezing shut.
“What’s so important that it can’t wait?!” Harry finally caved and asked in an exasperated voice.
“That’s…” Draco floundered. “That’s none of your business. Come on, Potter. I’ve been good, haven’t I? I haven’t asked for my wand back once, I haven’t tried to steal anyone else’s, I haven’t - hurt anyone! Don’t you trust me at all?”
“What - no!” Harry said wildly, his eyes going wide, as if the answer were obvious. “No, I don’t!”
That seemed to bring Draco to a halt. He blinked rapidly a few times. “You…you don’t? Not at all?”
“Of course not!” Harry said. “You were a Death Eater. As long as you’ve got…that on your arm, I can’t trust you! I can’t, Malfoy, I won’t!”
“But it - it’s not like it’ll just come off, Potter,” Draco said faintly, clutching his forearm so hard Harry thought he could see his nails digging into his skin. “I can’t - that’s not how it works; I can’t just wave my wand and hope it’ll be gone!”
Harry shrugged, crossing his arms. “Not my problem; you never should’ve gotten the damn thing in the first place.”
Draco’s eyes widened a bit. “Fine,” he whispered, backtracking into the room. “Fine. Give me my wand.”
Harry snorted. “Yeah, okay,” he said sarcastically. After all the fuss they’d made about the bloody thing that summer, Harry doubted Draco actually wanted it. He was just putting on a show, that’s all.
“I mean it,” Draco said, still talking quietly. “I’m serious, Potter, give me my wand.”
“What are you going to do with it? Hex me?” He arched his eyebrows.
“No,” Draco replied. “I’m leaving. So give me my goddamn wand!”
Harry paused, his mouth opening to retort and nothing coming out. He tried again, but he still couldn’t think of anything to say. His brow furrowed. “You’re - leaving? You can’t leave!”
“Try and stop me!” Draco snarled. He stomped over to the wardrobe he’d been using, snatching Harry’s old bag up along the way. Throwing the doors open in a haphazard manner, he began tossing all the clothes inside it - some of which were Harry’s and the rest what Mrs. Weasley had been kind enough to get him using Harry’s money - into the bag.
“You know,” Draco started to say, and Harry could actually see his back shaking, “I thought - for a bit - that this might actually work. I didn’t much believe it when Dumbledore offered me protection that night, but I grabbed at the chance anyway because - because I was so fucking desperate and…and a coward and it was a terrible choice to make-”
“It was a choice that saved your life-” Harry cut in, but Draco interrupted him just as quickly.
“It was a choice that sentenced me to death!” he said, whirling around to glare at Harry. “At least if I had killed the old man I’d have someplace to return to, and the Dark Lord would have been proud of me. I would have been revered, Potter!” He turned slowly back to the wardrobe, reaching for more of his belongings. “But no, I had to go and believe that old fool, I had to trust him, and look where it got me! I’m not safe, no matter where I go. The Dark Lord wants me dead, your side couldn’t care less about me - Dumbledore might have, for a second-”
“Dumbledore didn’t give a damn about you,” Harry spat, anger welling up inside him with startling speed. He was furious, even though he didn’t fully understand why. What was Malfoy getting at? Did he think that Harry owed him something for not killing Dumbledore? “He was only trying to stay alive for a few minutes longer, that’s why he even bothered telling you he could protect you!” Harry sincerely doubted that was the case, but the words kept coming and in his anger he didn’t bother to censor himself.
“Thank you, Potter. Not like I hadn’t already thought of that myself but it really helps to have it yelled at me,” Draco muttered angrily. His hands were shaking badly now as he reached for the last of his clothes.
“Where are you going to go, then? Huh?” Harry asked when Draco pushed past him and walked quickly towards the stairs. He grabbed the back of his shirt when Draco didn’t answer, yanking him to a stop. “Answer me!”
“I don’t have to tell you a bloody thing!” Draco snapped, twisting out of Harry’s grip.
“Yes, you do!” Harry clawed for the other boy’s shirt again. There was a desperate edge to his voice. “You know too much, if you think I can just let you go-”
“I DON’T KNOW ANYTHING!” Draco roared. He lurched away and there was a loud ripping sound since Harry was still holding on to his shirt. “You wouldn’t fucking tell me anything, so what is there for me to know?!”
“You know we’re looking for Horcruxes-”
“I don’t know what the hell a Horcrux is! You never told me!”
“That doesn’t matter!” Harry shouted, and he really was getting desperate now. He could feel the situation spiraling out of control. “If Voldemort finds out that we’re looking for them - where are you going, Malfoy?!”
“Away from here!” he finally spat. “I’m going to go where people trust me!”
“You’re not going back to him, not after all I’ve done for you-”
“Oh, fuck you, Potter, throwing that in my face - no, I’m not going back to him!”
They were outside now. Harry had just sped by a startled looking Ron and Hermione sitting at the kitchen table and now he was hurrying along behind Draco across the Weasleys’ property.
“Damn it, Malfoy, you can’t just leave!”
“Give me one good reason not to,” Draco hissed, spinning around so quickly that Harry nearly ran straight into him. “I’m not needed here, that much is obvious-”
“You’re not really needed anywhere, are you?” Harry snapped, and then immediately regretted it and clamped a hand over his mouth.
Draco pursed his lips, breathing quickly, his face pale. “You don’t need me here,” he repeated. “You’re not going to protect me, or some such rot. I don’t know why I thought you could. The rest of the Order still doesn’t even know I’m here!”
“Because you agreed it wasn’t a good idea to tell them!” Harry cried in exasperation. “Don’t pin that on me, you didn’t want a lot of people knowing where you were!”
“Well, maybe we were wrong!” Draco burst out. “Maybe that was a bad idea! Maybe this entire thing was just one big awful idea. It was clearly never going to work!”
“You don’t know that-”
“I think it’s pretty fucking obvious at this point.”
Harry frowned, his mind working furiously. How could he make him stay? There had to be a way. “I - I still have your wand,” he tried, grasping at straws now.
“Keep it,” Draco muttered. “I’ll get a new one. Somehow.”
“You - but - you can’t Apparate! You aren’t any good at it!”
“Then I guess I’ll have to learn rather quickly, won’t I?” Draco said, his voice rising.
“Fuck you!” Harry finally snapped. “I hope you splinch yourself, damn it, and I won’t give back your parts if you do!”
“I’ll try to leave my arse behind,” Draco drawled, “so you can just go ahead and kiss it!”
“Fine,” Harry said quietly, his hands closing into fists at his side. “Fine. I hope you rot in hell, Malfoy. Or Azkaban, which I’ve heard is just as bad. If you’re having trouble finding people who want you, I’m sure there’s always room there. You’d get to visit your father, at least.”
What little color had been left in Draco’s face faded, and he nodded once before turning away from Harry slowly. Harry winced a little and cursed to himself. He thought he could hear Draco muttering the three D’s under his breath - “Destination, determination, deliberation. Destination, determination, deliberation…”
“Malfoy.” Draco looked at him out of the corner of his eye. Harry pushed a hand through his hair. “If you - I mean - um… Don’t tell anyone. About - about the Horcruxes.”
Draco blinked, and Harry thought his face might have softened a tiny, tiny bit. “I won’t,” he said, and then his lip curled and he sneered at Harry. “Trust me.”
Harry tried to say something - anything - but before he could Draco had squeezed his eyes shut, spun on the spot, and - crack! - disappeared. Harry glanced nervously down at the grass where the boy had been standing, half expecting to see a severed leg there or something, but there was nothing.
Draco was gone.
* * *
“Oh, Harry, you should have just Obliviated him!” Hermione said, wringing her hands.
“Are you sure he won’t tell anyone, mate?” Ron asked.
“Yes,” Harry replied, even though he wasn’t sure at all. He slammed the lid of his trunk shut. “Are you both ready? We need to get going.”
Draco had been right about one thing, Harry knew. They hadn’t made any progress in the month-and-a-half of reading they’d done. Hermione had a list of artifacts that could possibly be Horcruxes, but that was about it. If those artifacts were even still around, Harry thought bitterly. Somehow they not only had to locate these long-lost items, but they also had to determine whether or not they actually contained a piece of Voldemort’s soul. That was Hermione’s job, finding a spell that would be able to verify if something was a Horcrux. Personally, Harry doubted there was any such spell, but Hermione was still optimistic, so he hadn’t said anything.
What they needed was someone on Voldemort’s side, someone close to him, who might know where, or at least what the Horcruxes were.
Harry’s mind instantly flashed to Snape, because the answer was obvious, but he still refused to trust the man. He hadn’t really thought about him since that night in August, and he wasn’t going to start now.
“How exactly are we getting to Godric’s Hollow, Harry?” Hermione asked, shrinking all three of their trunks so that they could carry them easily. “I’m sure you don’t actually remember being there…”
“No,” Harry agreed. “I don’t.” He pulled a picture out of his pocket, handing it over to his friend. “I’m not entirely sure it’ll work, but I thought that if we concentrated on an image of the place we wanted to go to, we’d…end up there.”
Hermione arched her eyebrows. “It’s possible, I suppose. Of course things might have changed in sixteen years. And, Harry, isn’t this a picture of…your house?”
Harry glanced over at the photo. It was one of the ones from the album Hagrid had given him all those years ago. He was extremely little in it, probably less than a year old, and his mother was holding him. His father wasn’t in the picture, so Harry assumed he was the one taking it. They were outside of a quaint looking house, and from the look of it there weren’t many other homes around.
“Yes,” he replied. “What of it?”
“Well…it’s just that - I mean, wasn’t your house destroyed?”
Harry pursed his lips. “I think so, yeah. So just…concentrate on the field around it or something.”
“But what if there are Muggles around-”
“Hermione!” Ron interrupted, snatching the picture from her. “Just do it, alright? It’ll be fine.”
Hermione sighed. “Alright, alright. Are we going then?”
Harry nodded, and with a final look at the photograph, the three of them Disapparated.
They landed in what was apparently someone’s back yard, and the dog that was there yelped in surprise and then immediately starting barking at them. Harry cursed, and they quickly scurried around to the side of the house, pressing themselves flat against the wall.
“Brilliant, Harry,” Hermione snapped. “Wonderful plan.”
“Shut it!” Harry hissed, glancing around. It was still early in the morning, and the sun was only just beginning to show in the horizon. There was no one out that they could see. “Ron, your mum knows to put the wards back up, right?”
“Yeah, I told her we’d be gone by the time she woke up.”
Harry nodded. The dog had quieted down again, so he pushed away from the wall and walked to the front of the house. “Guess you were right, Hermione,” he murmured. “It looks like it has changed a bit.”
He could recognize from the picture that they had indeed made it to the right spot, but apparently the area had been built up in recent years. There was a neat little row of houses along the street, and though the field was still at the back of the houses, it was significantly smaller, because on the other side of it was another row of quaint houses.
For some reason it made Harry uncomfortable to look at.
“Come on,” he murmured. “Let’s go into town.”
* * *
He didn’t want to stick around long. It was obvious now that there wasn’t anything left of his once-home here. Still, maybe someone in the town would remember the Potters. Maybe there was a cemetery he could go to. Harry didn’t know why he’d never thought of it before, because his parents had to be buried somewhere.
They explored the town throughout the morning, waiting until a little after lunchtime before they started asking questions. There were more people out and about then. Harry could tell instantly that this was the sort of town where everybody knew who everybody else was. People were constantly stopping to greet someone as they bustled along down the sidewalks. It would have been a nice place to grow up.
There were no signs of a wizarding quarter here, though.
They chose a little café-slash-inn joint to eat lunch at, a place that Hermione said was “cute.” As they sat down at the bar and waited for someone to take their order, Harry thought he could see why. There were all sorts of knickknacks and trinkets adorning the walls, items that looked like they’d been collected over a great number of years by someone who had thought them fascinating at the time, before later realizing they were generally worthless. Harry quickly grew bored of examining them, though Hermione’s burgeoning interest was palpable, as she kept pointing different things out to Ron. After a bit, a little old lady turned up beside them, asking in a croaky voice what they wanted. When she returned with their drinks, Harry spoke up.
“Excuse me, ma’am, you wouldn’t happen to know anything about - about the Potters, would you?”
“The who?” the lady spoke up, cupping her ear.
“Er - the Potters,” Harry repeated, feeling awkward. “They used to live here. Um, about sixteen or seventeen years ago?”
“Seventeen years ago?” she repeated, laughing. “Son, I don’t remember what happened yesterday, much less seventeen years ago!” She tottered off, still chuckling. Harry frowned and rested his cheek on his fist, his elbow propped up on the table.
“Don’t let it get to you,” Hermione said gently. “It was a long time ago, of course it’s hard for people to remember.”
“You’re asking about the Potters?” a new voice asked. Harry glanced around at whoever had interrupted their conversation, and found a different lady standing behind the bar, drying a glass. She was older, but not completely grey and wrinkled like their waitress was. There were wisps of white in her auburn hair, all of which was pulled into a tight bun at the nape of her neck. Her eyes had small wrinkles around them, like she had spent most of her life smiling.
When Harry looked at her, she peered at him for a long moment before her eyes went wide and the glass she had been holding fell abruptly from her suddenly limp fingers.
“Well I’ll be,” she murmured, a grin spreading across her face. “If it isn’t Lily and James’ boy! Hey, MARK!” she turned and called down to the other side of the bar. “Get over here!” She turned back to Harry, and surprised him by leaning over and ruffling his already messy hair. “Harley, wasn’t it? Lord, I’d recognize that hair anywhere. That’s James’ hair! You look just like him, too, darlin’. Has anyone ever told you that?”
Out of the corner of his eye Harry caught Hermione and Ron grinning, and he felt his cheeks warm. “I’ve heard it once or twice, yeah,” he mumbled, trying not to pull away from her touch. He didn’t want her to think he was rude or anything. “And it’s Harry, actually. Um, I’m sorry, you are…?”
“Marsha, sweetness. Just Marsha.” She moved her hand down to cup his cheek, letting out a tremendous sigh. “Lord, what’s it been, fifteen years or something? Too long, I say, too long.”
“I’m - er - I’m seventeen, actually,” Harry said. “So it’s been about sixteen years.”
Marsha rolled her eyes. “Close enough, close enough. Mark, there you are! Come here!”
An older man with grey hair and narrow glasses walked up, giving Marsha an indulgent smile. “You called, dear?” he asked in a somewhat exasperated, yet amused voice. Marsha grabbed him by the arm, pointing in Harry’s direction.
“Look there, Mark. Look at who that is!”
The new man, Mark, peered at him. “No one I’ve ever seen before,” he said, his voice deep and throaty.
“Not in fifteen years, no. That’s Lily and James’ son!”
Mark blinked and adjusted his glasses. “My God,” he breathed. “You’re right! Look at him, he looks just like James! Henry, was it?”
“Uh…it’s Harry…”
“Harry, Harry, of course.” The man beamed at him, as did Marsha. Harry squirmed uncomfortably.
“Oh, dearie, look at me,” Marsha said suddenly, clasping a hand to her chest. “How rude, here we are staring at you like you’re a wax figure on display. I’m Marsha-” She thrust a hand in Harry’s face and he shook it warily. “-and this is my husband, Mark.”
“Your father, James,” Mark said, pumping Harry’s hand up and down, “he used to come in here all the time. We’d watch the football matches on the telly. Somehow he always knew which team was going to win, your dad.” He sighed. “Good man, good man. He was always bringing his friends in here, too. One of them had a motorbike, I remember.”
“Your mother, too,” Marsha added. “She’d come in sometimes. Such a nice woman. Had the best recipe for pumpkin bread, she did. Never could make it exactly like hers, though.” They stared at him for another moment, while Harry fidgeted nervously and listened to Ron and Hermione chuckling openly now. He was beginning to regret his decision to come to Godric’s Hollow.
“Er…”
“Oh, there I go again with the staring,” Marsha said abruptly, grinning widely. “You look so much like him, though. From what I remember…”
Harry and Ron exchanged glances, their eyebrows raised.
“So, Harry, you haven’t spoken to us at all yet!” Harry thought that was unfair; it wasn’t like they’d given him much of a chance to. “Talk to us! Who’re your friends?”
“Oh, sorry. This is Ron and Hermione,” Harry said, gesturing at them both in turn. “They’re friends of mine from - from the boarding school we go to.”
“Boarding school, eh?” Mark rumbled. “That’d explain why you’ve never been back to see us.”
Harry refrained from pointing out that he didn’t really even know who they were. “Yeah,” he said instead. “Sorry about that.”
“So what brings you back now?” Marsha asked, leaning against the bar.
“Oh - um - well, I…I guess I wanted to come and see where my parents were buried.” There was a sudden silence after he said this, and he glanced up to see Mark and Marsha staring at him wide-eyed.
“Buried?” Marsha repeated. “They - they’re dead?”
“Um… yes?” Harry said uncertainly. “They…well, I thought they died here. I grew up with my relatives, and they don’t really talk about my mum and dad.”
“Oh.” Marsha rubbed her neck distractedly. “Oh, how awful!”
“They didn’t die here, son,” Mark said. “They moved when you were just a little tyke. About one, I’d say. Don’t know where they went, actually. They told us they’d probably move back one day.”
Hermione leaned across Ron, saying to Harry in a low voice, “They obviously never moved, so that’s probably when they got their Secret Keeper.”
Harry nodded. “I’m sorry,” he said to Marsha. “I didn’t realize you didn’t know.”
“They were terrific people,” she replied, sounding choked. “Oh, listen to me! Twenty years since I’ve seen them and I’m still about to start blubbering here. Got my hopes up, see? I saw you and thought maybe you’d all decided to move back in! ‘Course you would have had to find a new house, anyhow. There was some sort of gas explosion at your old one awhile back…”
Harry exchanged glances with Ron and Hermione.
Gas explosion, indeed.
“Oh,” Harry said uselessly, not knowing what else to do. He waited for a moment before tentatively speaking again. “Well… Look, is there a cemetery or anything around here? Just so I can…go check…”
Mark nodded. “There’s one down at the end of River Street. Sort of big; we get people from the town over, too, see.”
“Are you going to go see it tonight?” Marsha asked, wiping her eyes. “I’ll make you a picnic dinner, how’s that? It’s the least I can do. And if you need somewhere to stay afterwards, you come right back here! Got it?”
They talked for a bit more, but eventually Marsha said she had other customers that she needed to get to. “Be sure to come around again, alright?” she called after them as they left the café.
“Yeah, sure,” Ron muttered, sharing an amused smirk with Harry. Hermione rolled her eyes at them, and they began making their way towards the cemetery.
“You know, I always thought Godric’s Hollow was a wizarding village,” Ron mused as they went. “I mean, you know, Godric Gryffindor?”
“I think it makes more sense that Harry’s parents were trying to hide out among Muggles,” Hermione said.
“You’d think someone around here would remember that night,” Harry muttered, kicking at a rock. “Gas explosion, I ask you.”
“Well, if they’re all Muggles, they would have been Obliviated, wouldn’t they?” Hermione pointed out.
“Oh yeah…”
They reached the cemetery gates around half past three, and then spent nearly an entire hour looking for his parents’ graves. When they finally found them, Harry could only stand there and stare.
He wasn’t sure what he’d expected. Maybe it was what was before him; maybe it was nothing at all.
Their graves were nothing special. Just two marble markers, about three feet tall, with their names and dates of births and deaths. Harry couldn’t imagine that their funeral had been anything spectacular either. Sirius had probably already been in Azkaban at that point, and Remus would have thought that he’d just lost two of his best friends while the third had betrayed them all…
“Harry?” Hermione said softly. “Do you want to be alone for awhile?”
Harry stared at the graves for a moment longer, and then shook his head. “No,” he murmured, feeling something in his chest loosen a bit. He felt lighter than he had all summer, more carefree, if only for a minute. “No,” he said again. “Stay.” He dropped to his knees in front of the gravestones, running his hand along his parents’ names. “Hey, Mum,” he whispered. “Hey, Dad.” And even though his voice caught in his throat and his eyes felt wet, he was still happier than he’d been in awhile. “This is Ron and Hermione,” he continued in a choked voice. “They’re my best friends.”
He felt Ron kneel down on one side of him, Hermione on the other. “Hello,” she murmured, smiling.
“Hey, Mr. and Mrs. Potter,” Ron said. He grinned, clapping Harry on the shoulder. “We’re taking good care of your son, don’t worry!”
“Tell Sirius we said hi, won’t you?” Hermione said, and Harry couldn’t help the chuckle that tumbled from his lips.
“Yeah,” he said softly. “I bet he’s with you right now. Hi, Sirius.”
The breeze blew through the trees that were scattered through the cemetery, gentle and surprisingly warm for the season. Harry grinned as it ruffled his hair. He felt Ron’s grip on his shoulder tighten, and Hermione had one hand resting gently on his knee.
They didn’t get ready to leave until it was dark and all the food Marsha had packed for them was gone.
“I suppose the only place to go now is Grimmauld Place,” Hermione said, standing and brushing random blades of grass off her clothes.
“Guess so,” Harry agreed. “I admit, I was sort of hoping that…that that my mum and dad’s old house was still here. I thought we’d be able to use it, because Grimmauld Place might be too crowded. The Order, you know…”
“They use it more for meetings than anything else,” Ron pointed out. “We’ll still be the only people there most of the time.”
“I hope so,” Harry said, sighing. He glanced back at the graves for a long moment, and then took a deep breath and turned away. “Alright. Shall we go, then?”
A few minutes later they were cautiously walking through the entry hall of Sirius’ old house. Mrs. Black’s portrait was still on the wall, for one thing, but they also weren’t sure if anyone else was around.
“I don’t think anyone’s here,” Hermione whispered, waving her wand so that some of the lights turned on in the hallway. “It’s rather…creepy in here at night, isn’t it?” She giggled nervously.
“Guess we’re on our own,” Harry murmured. “Ron, if we’re the only ones here, do you reckon we can have our own rooms?”
“Yeah, I don’t mind,” Ron replied. “It’s nice to have a bit of privacy every now and then.” He grinned impishly, and Harry rolled his eyes.
“Yeah, I bet,” he said. “Alright, well, I’m knackered. I think I’ll go ahead and turn in.” He headed for the stairs, before pausing and turning back to the other two. “Um…thank you,” he said, rubbing the back of his neck. “For coming with me. I know we didn’t really get anything done, but still…I’m glad we went.”
Hermione smiled at him. “We’re glad you brought us with you.”
Harry nodded and gave them a small smile. “Alright then. Good night.”
Gah, Draco will be back soon, I swear! Can’t have a Harry/Draco story without Draco! ;D Feedback is very appreciated!
~Maxine
next chapter
You can also read it at my website, or at Skyehawke.
So this is sort of a filler chapter. A lot of what happens is basically a set-up for much later chapters. You'll see what I mean. Still, I hope you enjoy it!
Title: All the Answers
Rating: NC-17 (eventually)
Pairing: Harry/Draco
Word Count: 4900
Disclaimer: It's not mine. Really. J.K. Rowling's the brilliant mind behind HP.
Notes: Post-HBP, so yes, SPOILERS! Many, many thanks to my lovely betas, smutella and impish_nymph! Ladies, you're both fantastic!
Summary: Since when has conquering evil ever been easy?
--> All chapters can be found here. <--
previous chapter
~~Chapter 6~~
By the time they had their first real fight, not the usual bickering that occurred nearly every other hour each day, almost two more weeks had gone by. Had anyone asked Harry about it, he would have had to admit how impressed he was that it had taken that long in the first place. Draco had been cooped up inside with three people he’d previously hated, with no wand, for about two months now. And it went the other way, too. Harry, Ron, and Hermione had done a decent job of blatantly ignoring Draco when he got to be too much, but nonetheless he was always there, ready with a snide remark or a disdainful glance if the situation called for it.
So when it all fell apart one day in the middle of September, Harry couldn’t really say he was surprised.
“I swear to God, Potter, if you don’t let me go down to the village to post this owl, I will kill you,” Draco said calmly, aside from the fierce, almost frantic, look in his eyes.
Harry stood his ground in the doorway, refusing to let the other boy pass. “You can’t leave the Burrow,” he told him, his eyes narrowing. “I told you that already. I’m sure Hedwig or Pig will be back from their hunting soon-”
“I don’t give a fuck what you told me, Potter!” Draco snapped. “I need to send this now, and if-”
“Why didn’t you just use the owl your mum sent?”
“Because she sent it this morning and I didn’t read the letter until half an hour ago!”
It was well past dinner now. Harry blinked. “Well, why’d you wait so long?”
“I don’t know!” Draco exploded. His fist clenched around the note he held in his hand, crumpling it around the middle. “I didn’t think it was anything important, and you all were in the room and - just let me go!”
“Malfoy, even if it wasn’t a Muggle town I still wouldn’t let you go, but that hardly matters anyway because guess what? It is a Muggle town,” Harry said, in what he thought was a perfectly reasonable tone. “They won’t have an Owlery; that’s not how Muggles send their post.”
“What do you mean, it’s a Muggle town? Loony Lovegood lives around here! And don’t tell me she doesn’t, because I know your girlfriend kept going over to her place!”
Harry rolled his eyes. “Yeah, Luna lives here, and so do the Diggorys,” he said. “But it’s still mostly Muggles.”
“Damn it all, let me floo to Diagon Alley, then,” Draco said, and he was starting to sound desperate. “It’ll take me fifteen - no, ten minutes, I swear, then I’ll be right back!”
“Malfoy,” Harry said firmly, “You can’t go. Hedwig will be back within the hour-”
“I can’t wait for your bloody owl!” Draco interrupted, his eyes squeezing shut.
“What’s so important that it can’t wait?!” Harry finally caved and asked in an exasperated voice.
“That’s…” Draco floundered. “That’s none of your business. Come on, Potter. I’ve been good, haven’t I? I haven’t asked for my wand back once, I haven’t tried to steal anyone else’s, I haven’t - hurt anyone! Don’t you trust me at all?”
“What - no!” Harry said wildly, his eyes going wide, as if the answer were obvious. “No, I don’t!”
That seemed to bring Draco to a halt. He blinked rapidly a few times. “You…you don’t? Not at all?”
“Of course not!” Harry said. “You were a Death Eater. As long as you’ve got…that on your arm, I can’t trust you! I can’t, Malfoy, I won’t!”
“But it - it’s not like it’ll just come off, Potter,” Draco said faintly, clutching his forearm so hard Harry thought he could see his nails digging into his skin. “I can’t - that’s not how it works; I can’t just wave my wand and hope it’ll be gone!”
Harry shrugged, crossing his arms. “Not my problem; you never should’ve gotten the damn thing in the first place.”
Draco’s eyes widened a bit. “Fine,” he whispered, backtracking into the room. “Fine. Give me my wand.”
Harry snorted. “Yeah, okay,” he said sarcastically. After all the fuss they’d made about the bloody thing that summer, Harry doubted Draco actually wanted it. He was just putting on a show, that’s all.
“I mean it,” Draco said, still talking quietly. “I’m serious, Potter, give me my wand.”
“What are you going to do with it? Hex me?” He arched his eyebrows.
“No,” Draco replied. “I’m leaving. So give me my goddamn wand!”
Harry paused, his mouth opening to retort and nothing coming out. He tried again, but he still couldn’t think of anything to say. His brow furrowed. “You’re - leaving? You can’t leave!”
“Try and stop me!” Draco snarled. He stomped over to the wardrobe he’d been using, snatching Harry’s old bag up along the way. Throwing the doors open in a haphazard manner, he began tossing all the clothes inside it - some of which were Harry’s and the rest what Mrs. Weasley had been kind enough to get him using Harry’s money - into the bag.
“You know,” Draco started to say, and Harry could actually see his back shaking, “I thought - for a bit - that this might actually work. I didn’t much believe it when Dumbledore offered me protection that night, but I grabbed at the chance anyway because - because I was so fucking desperate and…and a coward and it was a terrible choice to make-”
“It was a choice that saved your life-” Harry cut in, but Draco interrupted him just as quickly.
“It was a choice that sentenced me to death!” he said, whirling around to glare at Harry. “At least if I had killed the old man I’d have someplace to return to, and the Dark Lord would have been proud of me. I would have been revered, Potter!” He turned slowly back to the wardrobe, reaching for more of his belongings. “But no, I had to go and believe that old fool, I had to trust him, and look where it got me! I’m not safe, no matter where I go. The Dark Lord wants me dead, your side couldn’t care less about me - Dumbledore might have, for a second-”
“Dumbledore didn’t give a damn about you,” Harry spat, anger welling up inside him with startling speed. He was furious, even though he didn’t fully understand why. What was Malfoy getting at? Did he think that Harry owed him something for not killing Dumbledore? “He was only trying to stay alive for a few minutes longer, that’s why he even bothered telling you he could protect you!” Harry sincerely doubted that was the case, but the words kept coming and in his anger he didn’t bother to censor himself.
“Thank you, Potter. Not like I hadn’t already thought of that myself but it really helps to have it yelled at me,” Draco muttered angrily. His hands were shaking badly now as he reached for the last of his clothes.
“Where are you going to go, then? Huh?” Harry asked when Draco pushed past him and walked quickly towards the stairs. He grabbed the back of his shirt when Draco didn’t answer, yanking him to a stop. “Answer me!”
“I don’t have to tell you a bloody thing!” Draco snapped, twisting out of Harry’s grip.
“Yes, you do!” Harry clawed for the other boy’s shirt again. There was a desperate edge to his voice. “You know too much, if you think I can just let you go-”
“I DON’T KNOW ANYTHING!” Draco roared. He lurched away and there was a loud ripping sound since Harry was still holding on to his shirt. “You wouldn’t fucking tell me anything, so what is there for me to know?!”
“You know we’re looking for Horcruxes-”
“I don’t know what the hell a Horcrux is! You never told me!”
“That doesn’t matter!” Harry shouted, and he really was getting desperate now. He could feel the situation spiraling out of control. “If Voldemort finds out that we’re looking for them - where are you going, Malfoy?!”
“Away from here!” he finally spat. “I’m going to go where people trust me!”
“You’re not going back to him, not after all I’ve done for you-”
“Oh, fuck you, Potter, throwing that in my face - no, I’m not going back to him!”
They were outside now. Harry had just sped by a startled looking Ron and Hermione sitting at the kitchen table and now he was hurrying along behind Draco across the Weasleys’ property.
“Damn it, Malfoy, you can’t just leave!”
“Give me one good reason not to,” Draco hissed, spinning around so quickly that Harry nearly ran straight into him. “I’m not needed here, that much is obvious-”
“You’re not really needed anywhere, are you?” Harry snapped, and then immediately regretted it and clamped a hand over his mouth.
Draco pursed his lips, breathing quickly, his face pale. “You don’t need me here,” he repeated. “You’re not going to protect me, or some such rot. I don’t know why I thought you could. The rest of the Order still doesn’t even know I’m here!”
“Because you agreed it wasn’t a good idea to tell them!” Harry cried in exasperation. “Don’t pin that on me, you didn’t want a lot of people knowing where you were!”
“Well, maybe we were wrong!” Draco burst out. “Maybe that was a bad idea! Maybe this entire thing was just one big awful idea. It was clearly never going to work!”
“You don’t know that-”
“I think it’s pretty fucking obvious at this point.”
Harry frowned, his mind working furiously. How could he make him stay? There had to be a way. “I - I still have your wand,” he tried, grasping at straws now.
“Keep it,” Draco muttered. “I’ll get a new one. Somehow.”
“You - but - you can’t Apparate! You aren’t any good at it!”
“Then I guess I’ll have to learn rather quickly, won’t I?” Draco said, his voice rising.
“Fuck you!” Harry finally snapped. “I hope you splinch yourself, damn it, and I won’t give back your parts if you do!”
“I’ll try to leave my arse behind,” Draco drawled, “so you can just go ahead and kiss it!”
“Fine,” Harry said quietly, his hands closing into fists at his side. “Fine. I hope you rot in hell, Malfoy. Or Azkaban, which I’ve heard is just as bad. If you’re having trouble finding people who want you, I’m sure there’s always room there. You’d get to visit your father, at least.”
What little color had been left in Draco’s face faded, and he nodded once before turning away from Harry slowly. Harry winced a little and cursed to himself. He thought he could hear Draco muttering the three D’s under his breath - “Destination, determination, deliberation. Destination, determination, deliberation…”
“Malfoy.” Draco looked at him out of the corner of his eye. Harry pushed a hand through his hair. “If you - I mean - um… Don’t tell anyone. About - about the Horcruxes.”
Draco blinked, and Harry thought his face might have softened a tiny, tiny bit. “I won’t,” he said, and then his lip curled and he sneered at Harry. “Trust me.”
Harry tried to say something - anything - but before he could Draco had squeezed his eyes shut, spun on the spot, and - crack! - disappeared. Harry glanced nervously down at the grass where the boy had been standing, half expecting to see a severed leg there or something, but there was nothing.
Draco was gone.
* * *
“Oh, Harry, you should have just Obliviated him!” Hermione said, wringing her hands.
“Are you sure he won’t tell anyone, mate?” Ron asked.
“Yes,” Harry replied, even though he wasn’t sure at all. He slammed the lid of his trunk shut. “Are you both ready? We need to get going.”
Draco had been right about one thing, Harry knew. They hadn’t made any progress in the month-and-a-half of reading they’d done. Hermione had a list of artifacts that could possibly be Horcruxes, but that was about it. If those artifacts were even still around, Harry thought bitterly. Somehow they not only had to locate these long-lost items, but they also had to determine whether or not they actually contained a piece of Voldemort’s soul. That was Hermione’s job, finding a spell that would be able to verify if something was a Horcrux. Personally, Harry doubted there was any such spell, but Hermione was still optimistic, so he hadn’t said anything.
What they needed was someone on Voldemort’s side, someone close to him, who might know where, or at least what the Horcruxes were.
Harry’s mind instantly flashed to Snape, because the answer was obvious, but he still refused to trust the man. He hadn’t really thought about him since that night in August, and he wasn’t going to start now.
“How exactly are we getting to Godric’s Hollow, Harry?” Hermione asked, shrinking all three of their trunks so that they could carry them easily. “I’m sure you don’t actually remember being there…”
“No,” Harry agreed. “I don’t.” He pulled a picture out of his pocket, handing it over to his friend. “I’m not entirely sure it’ll work, but I thought that if we concentrated on an image of the place we wanted to go to, we’d…end up there.”
Hermione arched her eyebrows. “It’s possible, I suppose. Of course things might have changed in sixteen years. And, Harry, isn’t this a picture of…your house?”
Harry glanced over at the photo. It was one of the ones from the album Hagrid had given him all those years ago. He was extremely little in it, probably less than a year old, and his mother was holding him. His father wasn’t in the picture, so Harry assumed he was the one taking it. They were outside of a quaint looking house, and from the look of it there weren’t many other homes around.
“Yes,” he replied. “What of it?”
“Well…it’s just that - I mean, wasn’t your house destroyed?”
Harry pursed his lips. “I think so, yeah. So just…concentrate on the field around it or something.”
“But what if there are Muggles around-”
“Hermione!” Ron interrupted, snatching the picture from her. “Just do it, alright? It’ll be fine.”
Hermione sighed. “Alright, alright. Are we going then?”
Harry nodded, and with a final look at the photograph, the three of them Disapparated.
They landed in what was apparently someone’s back yard, and the dog that was there yelped in surprise and then immediately starting barking at them. Harry cursed, and they quickly scurried around to the side of the house, pressing themselves flat against the wall.
“Brilliant, Harry,” Hermione snapped. “Wonderful plan.”
“Shut it!” Harry hissed, glancing around. It was still early in the morning, and the sun was only just beginning to show in the horizon. There was no one out that they could see. “Ron, your mum knows to put the wards back up, right?”
“Yeah, I told her we’d be gone by the time she woke up.”
Harry nodded. The dog had quieted down again, so he pushed away from the wall and walked to the front of the house. “Guess you were right, Hermione,” he murmured. “It looks like it has changed a bit.”
He could recognize from the picture that they had indeed made it to the right spot, but apparently the area had been built up in recent years. There was a neat little row of houses along the street, and though the field was still at the back of the houses, it was significantly smaller, because on the other side of it was another row of quaint houses.
For some reason it made Harry uncomfortable to look at.
“Come on,” he murmured. “Let’s go into town.”
* * *
He didn’t want to stick around long. It was obvious now that there wasn’t anything left of his once-home here. Still, maybe someone in the town would remember the Potters. Maybe there was a cemetery he could go to. Harry didn’t know why he’d never thought of it before, because his parents had to be buried somewhere.
They explored the town throughout the morning, waiting until a little after lunchtime before they started asking questions. There were more people out and about then. Harry could tell instantly that this was the sort of town where everybody knew who everybody else was. People were constantly stopping to greet someone as they bustled along down the sidewalks. It would have been a nice place to grow up.
There were no signs of a wizarding quarter here, though.
They chose a little café-slash-inn joint to eat lunch at, a place that Hermione said was “cute.” As they sat down at the bar and waited for someone to take their order, Harry thought he could see why. There were all sorts of knickknacks and trinkets adorning the walls, items that looked like they’d been collected over a great number of years by someone who had thought them fascinating at the time, before later realizing they were generally worthless. Harry quickly grew bored of examining them, though Hermione’s burgeoning interest was palpable, as she kept pointing different things out to Ron. After a bit, a little old lady turned up beside them, asking in a croaky voice what they wanted. When she returned with their drinks, Harry spoke up.
“Excuse me, ma’am, you wouldn’t happen to know anything about - about the Potters, would you?”
“The who?” the lady spoke up, cupping her ear.
“Er - the Potters,” Harry repeated, feeling awkward. “They used to live here. Um, about sixteen or seventeen years ago?”
“Seventeen years ago?” she repeated, laughing. “Son, I don’t remember what happened yesterday, much less seventeen years ago!” She tottered off, still chuckling. Harry frowned and rested his cheek on his fist, his elbow propped up on the table.
“Don’t let it get to you,” Hermione said gently. “It was a long time ago, of course it’s hard for people to remember.”
“You’re asking about the Potters?” a new voice asked. Harry glanced around at whoever had interrupted their conversation, and found a different lady standing behind the bar, drying a glass. She was older, but not completely grey and wrinkled like their waitress was. There were wisps of white in her auburn hair, all of which was pulled into a tight bun at the nape of her neck. Her eyes had small wrinkles around them, like she had spent most of her life smiling.
When Harry looked at her, she peered at him for a long moment before her eyes went wide and the glass she had been holding fell abruptly from her suddenly limp fingers.
“Well I’ll be,” she murmured, a grin spreading across her face. “If it isn’t Lily and James’ boy! Hey, MARK!” she turned and called down to the other side of the bar. “Get over here!” She turned back to Harry, and surprised him by leaning over and ruffling his already messy hair. “Harley, wasn’t it? Lord, I’d recognize that hair anywhere. That’s James’ hair! You look just like him, too, darlin’. Has anyone ever told you that?”
Out of the corner of his eye Harry caught Hermione and Ron grinning, and he felt his cheeks warm. “I’ve heard it once or twice, yeah,” he mumbled, trying not to pull away from her touch. He didn’t want her to think he was rude or anything. “And it’s Harry, actually. Um, I’m sorry, you are…?”
“Marsha, sweetness. Just Marsha.” She moved her hand down to cup his cheek, letting out a tremendous sigh. “Lord, what’s it been, fifteen years or something? Too long, I say, too long.”
“I’m - er - I’m seventeen, actually,” Harry said. “So it’s been about sixteen years.”
Marsha rolled her eyes. “Close enough, close enough. Mark, there you are! Come here!”
An older man with grey hair and narrow glasses walked up, giving Marsha an indulgent smile. “You called, dear?” he asked in a somewhat exasperated, yet amused voice. Marsha grabbed him by the arm, pointing in Harry’s direction.
“Look there, Mark. Look at who that is!”
The new man, Mark, peered at him. “No one I’ve ever seen before,” he said, his voice deep and throaty.
“Not in fifteen years, no. That’s Lily and James’ son!”
Mark blinked and adjusted his glasses. “My God,” he breathed. “You’re right! Look at him, he looks just like James! Henry, was it?”
“Uh…it’s Harry…”
“Harry, Harry, of course.” The man beamed at him, as did Marsha. Harry squirmed uncomfortably.
“Oh, dearie, look at me,” Marsha said suddenly, clasping a hand to her chest. “How rude, here we are staring at you like you’re a wax figure on display. I’m Marsha-” She thrust a hand in Harry’s face and he shook it warily. “-and this is my husband, Mark.”
“Your father, James,” Mark said, pumping Harry’s hand up and down, “he used to come in here all the time. We’d watch the football matches on the telly. Somehow he always knew which team was going to win, your dad.” He sighed. “Good man, good man. He was always bringing his friends in here, too. One of them had a motorbike, I remember.”
“Your mother, too,” Marsha added. “She’d come in sometimes. Such a nice woman. Had the best recipe for pumpkin bread, she did. Never could make it exactly like hers, though.” They stared at him for another moment, while Harry fidgeted nervously and listened to Ron and Hermione chuckling openly now. He was beginning to regret his decision to come to Godric’s Hollow.
“Er…”
“Oh, there I go again with the staring,” Marsha said abruptly, grinning widely. “You look so much like him, though. From what I remember…”
Harry and Ron exchanged glances, their eyebrows raised.
“So, Harry, you haven’t spoken to us at all yet!” Harry thought that was unfair; it wasn’t like they’d given him much of a chance to. “Talk to us! Who’re your friends?”
“Oh, sorry. This is Ron and Hermione,” Harry said, gesturing at them both in turn. “They’re friends of mine from - from the boarding school we go to.”
“Boarding school, eh?” Mark rumbled. “That’d explain why you’ve never been back to see us.”
Harry refrained from pointing out that he didn’t really even know who they were. “Yeah,” he said instead. “Sorry about that.”
“So what brings you back now?” Marsha asked, leaning against the bar.
“Oh - um - well, I…I guess I wanted to come and see where my parents were buried.” There was a sudden silence after he said this, and he glanced up to see Mark and Marsha staring at him wide-eyed.
“Buried?” Marsha repeated. “They - they’re dead?”
“Um… yes?” Harry said uncertainly. “They…well, I thought they died here. I grew up with my relatives, and they don’t really talk about my mum and dad.”
“Oh.” Marsha rubbed her neck distractedly. “Oh, how awful!”
“They didn’t die here, son,” Mark said. “They moved when you were just a little tyke. About one, I’d say. Don’t know where they went, actually. They told us they’d probably move back one day.”
Hermione leaned across Ron, saying to Harry in a low voice, “They obviously never moved, so that’s probably when they got their Secret Keeper.”
Harry nodded. “I’m sorry,” he said to Marsha. “I didn’t realize you didn’t know.”
“They were terrific people,” she replied, sounding choked. “Oh, listen to me! Twenty years since I’ve seen them and I’m still about to start blubbering here. Got my hopes up, see? I saw you and thought maybe you’d all decided to move back in! ‘Course you would have had to find a new house, anyhow. There was some sort of gas explosion at your old one awhile back…”
Harry exchanged glances with Ron and Hermione.
Gas explosion, indeed.
“Oh,” Harry said uselessly, not knowing what else to do. He waited for a moment before tentatively speaking again. “Well… Look, is there a cemetery or anything around here? Just so I can…go check…”
Mark nodded. “There’s one down at the end of River Street. Sort of big; we get people from the town over, too, see.”
“Are you going to go see it tonight?” Marsha asked, wiping her eyes. “I’ll make you a picnic dinner, how’s that? It’s the least I can do. And if you need somewhere to stay afterwards, you come right back here! Got it?”
They talked for a bit more, but eventually Marsha said she had other customers that she needed to get to. “Be sure to come around again, alright?” she called after them as they left the café.
“Yeah, sure,” Ron muttered, sharing an amused smirk with Harry. Hermione rolled her eyes at them, and they began making their way towards the cemetery.
“You know, I always thought Godric’s Hollow was a wizarding village,” Ron mused as they went. “I mean, you know, Godric Gryffindor?”
“I think it makes more sense that Harry’s parents were trying to hide out among Muggles,” Hermione said.
“You’d think someone around here would remember that night,” Harry muttered, kicking at a rock. “Gas explosion, I ask you.”
“Well, if they’re all Muggles, they would have been Obliviated, wouldn’t they?” Hermione pointed out.
“Oh yeah…”
They reached the cemetery gates around half past three, and then spent nearly an entire hour looking for his parents’ graves. When they finally found them, Harry could only stand there and stare.
He wasn’t sure what he’d expected. Maybe it was what was before him; maybe it was nothing at all.
Their graves were nothing special. Just two marble markers, about three feet tall, with their names and dates of births and deaths. Harry couldn’t imagine that their funeral had been anything spectacular either. Sirius had probably already been in Azkaban at that point, and Remus would have thought that he’d just lost two of his best friends while the third had betrayed them all…
“Harry?” Hermione said softly. “Do you want to be alone for awhile?”
Harry stared at the graves for a moment longer, and then shook his head. “No,” he murmured, feeling something in his chest loosen a bit. He felt lighter than he had all summer, more carefree, if only for a minute. “No,” he said again. “Stay.” He dropped to his knees in front of the gravestones, running his hand along his parents’ names. “Hey, Mum,” he whispered. “Hey, Dad.” And even though his voice caught in his throat and his eyes felt wet, he was still happier than he’d been in awhile. “This is Ron and Hermione,” he continued in a choked voice. “They’re my best friends.”
He felt Ron kneel down on one side of him, Hermione on the other. “Hello,” she murmured, smiling.
“Hey, Mr. and Mrs. Potter,” Ron said. He grinned, clapping Harry on the shoulder. “We’re taking good care of your son, don’t worry!”
“Tell Sirius we said hi, won’t you?” Hermione said, and Harry couldn’t help the chuckle that tumbled from his lips.
“Yeah,” he said softly. “I bet he’s with you right now. Hi, Sirius.”
The breeze blew through the trees that were scattered through the cemetery, gentle and surprisingly warm for the season. Harry grinned as it ruffled his hair. He felt Ron’s grip on his shoulder tighten, and Hermione had one hand resting gently on his knee.
They didn’t get ready to leave until it was dark and all the food Marsha had packed for them was gone.
“I suppose the only place to go now is Grimmauld Place,” Hermione said, standing and brushing random blades of grass off her clothes.
“Guess so,” Harry agreed. “I admit, I was sort of hoping that…that that my mum and dad’s old house was still here. I thought we’d be able to use it, because Grimmauld Place might be too crowded. The Order, you know…”
“They use it more for meetings than anything else,” Ron pointed out. “We’ll still be the only people there most of the time.”
“I hope so,” Harry said, sighing. He glanced back at the graves for a long moment, and then took a deep breath and turned away. “Alright. Shall we go, then?”
A few minutes later they were cautiously walking through the entry hall of Sirius’ old house. Mrs. Black’s portrait was still on the wall, for one thing, but they also weren’t sure if anyone else was around.
“I don’t think anyone’s here,” Hermione whispered, waving her wand so that some of the lights turned on in the hallway. “It’s rather…creepy in here at night, isn’t it?” She giggled nervously.
“Guess we’re on our own,” Harry murmured. “Ron, if we’re the only ones here, do you reckon we can have our own rooms?”
“Yeah, I don’t mind,” Ron replied. “It’s nice to have a bit of privacy every now and then.” He grinned impishly, and Harry rolled his eyes.
“Yeah, I bet,” he said. “Alright, well, I’m knackered. I think I’ll go ahead and turn in.” He headed for the stairs, before pausing and turning back to the other two. “Um…thank you,” he said, rubbing the back of his neck. “For coming with me. I know we didn’t really get anything done, but still…I’m glad we went.”
Hermione smiled at him. “We’re glad you brought us with you.”
Harry nodded and gave them a small smile. “Alright then. Good night.”
Gah, Draco will be back soon, I swear! Can’t have a Harry/Draco story without Draco! ;D Feedback is very appreciated!
~Maxine
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