(no subject)
Ok, here’s part 2 of chapter 1, just in case you thought it couldn’t get any more confusing.
“Just shut up, Malfoy, you shouldn’t be here,” he said. This was yet another arena of his life that the Slytherin seemed to be about to infiltrate. Was nothing sacred any more?
“Harry’s got a point, Dumbledore.”
“If you would but allow me to explain,” Dumbledore said politely, waiting for the angry buzzing to cease.
“Please do.” Moody gestured in a mimicry of graciousness.
“Mr. Malfoy, would you care to take a seat?” Dumbledore asked, conjuring a chair next to him and consequently right next to Harry.
“Thank you.” Malfoy sat down primly, making sure to poke Harry on the ear with his wand as he passed. Dumbledore cleared his throat to make sure everyone was listening.
“Draco approached me a week ago with a view to offering information to help the Order in the fight against the Death Eaters,” he said into the ensuing silence. Eyes flicked back and forth between Dumbledore and Malfoy, the latter of whom had his gaze focussed intensely on the table. “I accepted, as you can see. The only condition is that his participation in these affairs is not made common knowledge.”
“Scared of what the Slytherins will do to you?” Harry asked in an undertone so that only Malfoy would hear him.
“No, Potter,” Malfoy replied with an uncharacteristic absence of vitriol, “my family friends.” He looked Harry straight in the face.
“This is an outrage,” Mundungus Fletcher stood up, knocking the violently purple top hat off Dedalus Diggle who was sitting next to him. Harry could tell that what he was about to say would be devalued somewhat by the visible bottle of Firewhiskey poking out of a hole in his tattered jacket. “No son of Lucius Malfoy could ever be seen as trustworthy, he could be passing information straight back to his blasted parents,” Mundungus cried, his wiry black beard moving with his chin.
“I have to agree with Dung on this issue, Dumbledore, I don’t think this is a good idea,” Arthur Weasley agreed, throwing Malfoy a dark look. At the mention of his parents Malfoy had tensed, even though no semblance of discomfort managed to place a fissure in his façade. Harry had almost stopped listening. He could hardly believe this. Malfoy? In the Order? The notion was ridiculous, and Harry was curious to see what reason could lie behind it.
“He could tell Lucius anything!” another voice cried.
“His father was involved in killing the Smythesons no more than six weeks ago,” Tonks said angrily. “Have you forgotten that?”
“Of course not,” Dumbledore replied, and this time there was a stern edge circling his voice. “And somehow, I think, neither has Draco.” There was an uneasy silence for a moment. Harry could hear his heartbeat pounding in his ears, a cruel mix of anger and mysterious injustice springing to the forefront of his mind.
“The only thing I can say in my own defence, should I be permitted,” Malfoy said, “is that I am not my father.”
“Why are you here, Malfoy?” Harry asked suddenly.
“Weren’t you listeni-” Malfoy was interrupted.
“No.” Harry cut in impatiently. “I mean, why are you doing this? Of people most likely to join the Ku Klux Klan for wizards, I’d say you were close to top of the list.”
“You know nothing about me, Potter,” Malfoy snapped, leaning close to Harry, a sudden flash resentment flitting over his face. This reaction was highly gratifying as it was only certain taunts that could elicit any angry response from the Slytherin and Harry flattered himself that he was pretty good at making Malfoy excitable.
“I’ve known you for five years, Malfoy, and you’ve done your best to make my life hell for every one of them.” Had it really been that long?
“Enough!” Dumbledore cried in distinct irritation. “I will not have you arguing like children at these meetings!”
“Sorry, sir,” Harry said humbly.
“This is not the time or place.” Dumbledore regained some of his former composure. “Draco, if you would care to enlighten the company as to why you are choosing to betray the Death Eater secrets?”
“I’d rather not.” Dumbledore’s choice of phrasing seemed to make Malfoy uneasy.
“Oh I’m dying to hear this,” Harry said sarcastically.
“Shut up.”
“Charming.”
“Draco, I think it would be prudent,” Dumbledore prompted benignly, “if only to reassure the company of your loyalty.” There was a long pause as Malfoy seemed to be forming in his mind the right way to phrase whatever he was going to say. Everyone in the room was quiet and watching the boy with an avid interest, clear mistrust ghosting over the faces around the room. Harry had the impression that, to them, it was Lucius Malfoy sitting in the chair next to Dumbledore rather than his son.
“My father,” Malfoy began slowly, “as you all know, has been a Death Eater for the best part of two decades. It was his intention that I should follow in his footsteps and up until about eight months ago, that was my intention also.”
Moody snarled. “Your father is nothing but scum, Malfoy.”
“My father is not scum!” Draco exclaimed in a fit of pique. Harry noted that the subject of family seemed to be a touchy one and filed this away for future reference.
“He’s a Death Eater isn’t he?” Moody countered, looking at Malfoy as though one might look at a rather unpleasant insect worthy of A Jolly Good Squashing.
“He may be a Death Eater but that doesn’t mean you know anything about him or the rest of my family,” Malfoy replied icily, with the edge of hardness that Harry had seen in him so many times. Harry, despite himself, was a little curious as to how this stand-off between Malfoy and Moody would conclude, having never seen anyone effectively stand up to the latter.
“He killed innocent people,” Mairead said, standing up angrily.
“So did Snape,” Malfoy replied deadpan and a couple of gazes flicked over to the starched figure of the Potions Master who was unluckily caught mid-nose-scratch and was therefore not at his most intimidating.
“Thank you, Mr. Malfoy, please keep my name out of this,” Snape said quickly, a look of severe discomfort twisting his mouth.
“Sorry, Professor.”
“You were saying?” Dumbledore said, looking at the enormous golden clock that stood next to Fawkes’s perch. The time had been dragging on and it looked unlikely that the meeting would close before midnight.
“I have no wish to be a Death Eater. When you have seen the two people in the world that you look up to most kneeling before some grotesque shadow of a human and kissing his robes then you get a different perspective of things.” Draco looked as though relating this was against his better will but Harry could tell that some part of him, the part that housed his Slytherin sense of shrewdness, knew that it would be the only way to gain even a shred of these people’s trust.
“When did you ever witness a Death Eater meeting?” Arthur Weasley snorted derisively.
“At Malfoy Manor last New Year,” Malfoy replied, looking Mr. Weasley straight in the eye, his countenance greyed as though he was recalling an harsh memory. “And more recently, I was deemed old enough to witness a glimpse of the life I was destined for. In all honesty it sickened me.”
Harry didn’t believe a word that sprang from his mouth but it was only his wavering trust for Dumbledore that prevented him from loosing his tongue. Lies, all of them. Lucius’s ticket to the Order; his attempts to get a spy for the Dark side.
“Does your father know this?”
“Yes, actually,” Malfoy said, almost amiably. “Contrary to popular opinion, I am close with my father and when I told him, the morning I left for school this term, that I didn’t want to take the Dark Mark he was disappointed but not angry. He and my mother still live in hope that I will come to my senses but I don’t think they’ll try to force me.”
“And Voldemort? How did he take this news?” Harry asked, not noticing the various wizards and witches flinching anxiously at the name. “I can’t imagine he was too happy.”
“My father suffered for my insubordination so that I wouldn’t have to. The Dark Lord considers me, as a Pureblood and as the son of his most loyal follower, to be too precious to waste. He is probably giving me a grace period to change my mind. When that wears off I’ll have to appeal for asylum.” Malfoy said with the air of one who is rattling off something they have learned parrot fashion in order to justify themselves. He was, in fact, very worried as to how much his father had suffered for his defiance. Lucius had only told Draco that he would be fine, and that the Dark Lord would reprimand him for not bringing Draco for the Mark early enough. Draco had horrible suspicions that his father had been tortured, and this thought was eating him up inside. He remembered as his father had grasped his hand before bidding Draco farewell the day he returned to school. Shadows of pain had lingered in Lucius’s eyes, coupled with a fear that Draco hadn’t recognised at the time. Now he realised it was fear of Voldemort’s wrath. And it was his fault.
“The day Lucius Malfoy shows an ounce of compassion is the day Fudge eats his green bowler hat.” Moody grumbled, his magical eye fixed on Malfoy as if trying to bore through his very skull to detect a falsehood.
“Alastor!” Dumbledore chided, even though Malfoy had shown no emotion at this latest dig at his father. In fact, he seemed to be trying not to show any emotion at all. The famous Malfoy porcelain mask was fully in place and Draco’s countenance was at its most unapproachable at times like these.
“And are you satisfied with this testimony of sincerity?” Somnia asked, tiny bells necklaced around her throat were jangling with her every movement.
“I am,” Dumbledore replied affably.
“Why work against your parents, boy?” Moody said, leaning forward close to Draco’s face. “Why not just refuse the Mark?” Draco was quiet for a moment.
“Because the Dark Lord had somebody given the Dementor’s Kiss, a friend of mine, I couldn’t save her but this way-” He broke off and showed no signs of wishing to continue. Harry, even though his mind was full of thoughts such as ‘God damn Malfoy’, ‘such a sodding liar’, and ‘wow, I’m hungry’, he wondered briefly at the sudden flash of pain that haunted the wintry grey of Draco’s eyes.
“And by providing information, Draco heightens his chances of finding sanctuary with the Ministry,” Dumbledore finished for him.
“Exactly.”
“I’m not satisfied with this,” Moody said frankly, inserting one finger in his eye socket to loosen the magical eye, which squelched horribly. “I want him questioned under Veritaserum.”
“I hardly think that is necessary,” Dumbledore’s eyebrows knitted. Privately, Harry thought that was a very good idea indeed.
“Fine,” Malfoy sighed nonchalantly. “If that’s what you want.”
“I deem that a violation of privacy,” Dumbledore said, trying to placate Moody somewhat and failing miserably.
“I don’t care,” Moody interrupted, eyeing Draco with distaste. “Any son of Lucius Malfoy is bound to be a slimy little cockroach.” Harry noticed Draco’s fingers tightening to knuckle-whitening degrees over the arms of his chair. “You prove your honesty with Veritaserum and I might change my mind, but I won’t hold my breath,” Moody went on viciously. There was a murmur of assent from the other wizards and witches that were gathered in the room. Harry was struck with a strange sense of irony. Wherever he went and whatever he did, he seemed to invoke a deep trust in people just by being who he was. For Malfoy, it seemed, the effect was quite the opposite. Harry wondered what it must be like to have people flinch instead of smile when they hear your last name.
“Fine,” Malfoy repeated, looking as though he was trying very hard to control his temper. There was a nasty silence in which Moody and Malfoy glared at each other form opposite sides of the table. One of Dumbledore’s silver instruments that had survived Harry’s angry purge at the end of his fifth year clicked and whirred its way across the table, emitting puffs of smoke.
“Severus, do you have any Veritaserum ready in your stores?” Dumbledore asked.
“Unfortunately not, headmaster.” Snape cast an ill-disguised, dark look at Arthur Weasley who was sitting across from him and twiddling his thumbs. “The fifth-years are studying it at the moment and Miss Ginevra Weasley thought it would be hysterical to slip some in the Slytherin pumpkin juice at dinner two days ago.” There were some titters of laughter at this and Arthur Weasley’s ears went pink in the same way that Ron’s did. “Needless to say, all those afflicted have requested silencing charms to be placed on them before they lose all their friends.”
“Yes, ahem, well…” Arthur said coherently, looking faintly embarrassed at the antics of his daughter.
“Very well,” Dumbledore sighed, “be so good as to mix up another batch, would you, Severus? If Alastor still demands it, Mr Malfoy can be questioned at the next meeting.”
“Which is when, Albus?” Somnia asked delicately. “I cannot help but notice that it is getting very late.”
“Yes, yes,” Dumbledore stood up. “I’m sorry you were detained. I feel we shall have more members at our next meeting so we shall convene on Sunday night in the Room of Requirement. Thank you all very much.” There was much shuffling and grumbling as everybody got up to leave, casting dark looks at Draco over their shoulders and filing out down the moving staircase or else flooing straight from the office. Draco, smirk back in place, brushed quickly past Harry who shot him a glower before the two of them descended the staircase into the passage below. Without warning, Harry grabbed Malfoy by the shoulder and whirled him around.
“What is it now, Potter?” Malfoy asked exasperatedly.
“Why are you on our side?” Harry asked. “I’m serious, Malfoy, don’t bullshit me. You think I believed all that crap about you needing asylum? You know that Dumbledore would always allow you sanctuary at Hogwarts, whatever you did.” Malfoy arched one silvery eyebrow with an evaluating air. He clapped slowly and sardonically. Damn, he was so infuriating.
“Clever, Potter, really clever,” he said silkily. “But forget the delusions of grandeur. You should know that I’m not doing this to be on your side or Dumbledore’s side, or that scarred ignoramus’s-”
“Then what?” Harry asked.
“Oh, I’m doing this because I cannot be on the Dark Lord’s side,” Malfoy replied with a frankness that took Harry aback even though the words were still uttered in those soft cadences that he used so maliciously. With those words, Draco twisted his mouth bitterly and turned round and stalked off down the corridor.
“Harry,” Dumbledore called from above him just as Harry made to move away. “I know this isn’t ideal,” he said.
“Something of an understatement, headmaster,” Harry replied, his insides still throbbing with the hot, sick swoop of irritation. Dumbledore fixed him with an appraising look.
“It is our choices that define us, Harry,” he said, “not our families. Remember that.”
“Yes, sir.”
Due to the lateness of the hour, the common room was relatively empty. Only some of the older years were still milling about by the fire or laughing and talking softly amongst themselves. They looked up as Harry entered and Ron and Hermione came skipping over to him at once.
“How did it go?” Ron asked in an undertone.
“Don’t even ask,” Harry waved his hand. “It was crap. Don’t worry, though, let’s not talk about it.” He wasn’t sure why he suddenly didn’t want to vent his spleen about Malfoy providing information for the Order, all he knew was that he wanted to forget all about Slytherins and Dark Lords and indulge in a bit of ‘teenager time’.
Harry went to join his friends who had commandeered the biggest, squishiest of the armchairs that sat around the glowing embers of the fire and were having a deep, philosophical discussion about broomsticks. Sometimes it was nice to switch off from being the hero and to lay the expectations and burdens aside just for a short while. Harry had long given up resenting his lot in life. He had spent the fifth year being perpetually angry with everyone and everything but now he just didn’t have the energy for that. He just wanted to do the job he had set out to do as quickly as possible and rid the world of all the death and destruction that Voldemort would bring in his wake.
Just a day in the life of an average sixteen year old.
“You see, Hermione,” Ron was saying, a misty glint in his eyes and one hand to his chest, “it’s more than just a stick that helps you fly. It’s a key to a whole new world of possibilities. Broomsticks make men what they are, they provide the gift of flight, thus raising us above common beasts. They lift us onto a higher plane of thinking, literally and figuratively.” Harry could imagine that with ‘Land of Hope and Glory’ playing in the background, Ron would make quite a stirring figure. Hermione rolled her eyes.
“You boys and your penis extensions,” she said indulgently and the surrounding boys spluttered.
“Hey! Stop besmirching our noble sport!” Dean Thomas said.
“Your noble sport is played on enormous phallic symbols,” Hermione said with a grin. “Did none of you ever think of that?” There was some fidgeting, and Harry knew that he would never look at his broomstick in quite the same way again. Hermione had a point, though, there were a lot of possible sexual connotations to be made out of the game of Quidditch. If you thought about the concept of fourteen people grabbing at various balls whilst riding on big, oiled sticks and trying to score…no wonder it was so popular.
Harry leaned back in his chair before being shifted up to make room for Parvati Patil, a very pretty girl who saw fit to hijack his armrest. She was of the sixth-year clique for whom Hermione had little respect because of her unwavering interest in fashion and her complete ignorance of Hogwarts, A History. Harry, though, quite liked her. He had no objection whatsoever to a healthy interest in one’s appearance, especially when it resulted in such lovely tawny skin, glossy black hair and clothes that fitted well in all the right places. He was a teenage boy after all.
“Hermione, why do you have to take the fun out of everything?” Ron complained, eyeing his broomstick in the corner suspiciously. With a cheeky grin at Parvati Harry said:
“Ah, Ron, we know you’re just sore because no matter how much you oil it up, you know that your broom just isn’t as big as mine.” Hermione, Ginny and Parvati giggled and Ron scowled at Harry in mock outrage.
“I’m so hurt, Harry,” he said, giving a fake whimper and failing to repress his smile. “But you’re right, your Firebolt is much bigger than my Cleansweep, compensating for something, are we?” Ron didn’t get much further before he found his face full of pillow. A short War Of The Cushions developed in which cushions were thrown violently at each other, knocking various artefacts off tables and inducing Harry to throw himself atop Parvati and later claim that it was an act of self-sacrifice to save her pristine hair. She didn’t seem to mind all that much.
“Tut tut, Harry, such a ladies man,” Dean grinned, wiggling his eyebrows in Harry’s direction as he and Parvati untangled themselves.
“Ron you sat on me!” Hermione complained, straightening her robes and shooting Ron a dirty look.
“Sorry,” he said looking supremely unapologetic. “Hey, the first Hogsmeade Weekend has been announced, Harry, I forgot to tell you.”
“Oh brilliant, I’m running low on…everything actually, I didn’t get much to eat this summer,” Harry said. “Dudley’s on another diet, now that he’s wider than he is tall, and I’m lucky if I get something resembling a lettuce leaf all day.” He cringed. Why did he always manage to sound as though he was fishing for sympathy?
“Oh, poor you!” Parvati exclaimed, running her hands the length of Harry’s torso as though to feel his ribs protruding. “You’re practically wasting away!”
“Sucks to be you, mate,” said Ron, who was nursing a nice layer of insulation around his midriff, or at least, that was how he phrased it. Hermione just called him flabby. She had a point, as this term it looked as if Mrs Weasley’s cooking was having quite an effect. “Anyway, mum sent you a cake for your birthday, didn’t she?”
“Well, I presume Errol had got tired and had a little stop on the way because there were some suspicious looking beak marks in it,” Harry said, grinning at the memory, even though he’d considered eating Errol at the time, he had been that hungry.
“I thought he was looking chirpier than normal,” Ron said thoughtfully. “Wow, I’ve discovered the secret of owl longevity- marzipan!”
“You’ll make a million,” Harry said solemnly, “keeping owls alive and cheerful through application of cake. Genius, Ron, pure genius.”
“So do you think you might go to Hogsmeade then, Harry?” Parvati asked coyly, twirling a lock of hair around her finger in a most appealing manner. Out of the corner of Harry’s sight, Hermione was rolling her eyes and making vomit motions.
“Well if you’re going then it might be worth my while,” Harry said, leaning closer to her and fixing his most winning smile across his face.
Parvati blushed slightly and Harry could feel Ron snickering next to him.
“I’m off to bed,” Parvati said, her hand lingering on Harry’s arm, “I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“Goodnight,” everyone chorused. When Parvati was out of earshot, Ron burst out laughing.
“You’re such a flirt,” he said, before mimicking Harry’s voice. “‘If you’re going then it might be worth my while’, honestly Harry.”
“Hey, it worked, didn’t it?” Harry said defensively, even though he was smiling. “Anyway, Parvati’s a knockout.”
“That’s true,” Ron agreed solemnly.
“Oh please, she’s so vapid!” Hermione protested. “Now Eloise Midgeon, for example, is so intelligent, she can speak Mermish, you know, but you don’t see the boys all chasing after her.” Hermione really seemed on the ball sometimes when it came to what boys looked for in a girlfriend.
Dean held out his hands as if he was balancing a scale. “Nice face, can talk to fish,” he said, looking from one hand to the other as if weighing these two qualities. “Nice face…,” he tilted one hand up, “…can talk to fish.” He tilted the other one up, looking torn. Harry and Ron were sniggering. “You’re right, Hermione,” Dean said seriously, “fish-girl wins out every time.”
Hermione scowled. “For Merlin’s sake,” she said.
“Now, if you were to get with Eloise Midgeon,” Dean continued, his eyes lit up with excitement, “then I’m sure that would be very attractive.”
“Dean!” Hermione swatted him hard on the arm. “Get your mind out of the gutter!”
“Ouch,” Dean massaged his arm, “sorry.”
“You were asking for that, mate,” Ron said sympathetically. “Come on, Casanova,” he said to Harry, “we’d better get to bed, it’s late and we have Potions first thing in the morning.”
“I’m going too,” Hermione said, yawning. “Goodnight you guys.”
“’Night.”
Harry, Ron and Hermione disappeared into their respective dormitories, leaving Ginny and Dean sitting around the fire, almost last in the emptying common room.
“Are you alright?” Dean asked suddenly. Ginny had been staring into space for the past few minutes with something akin to pain flitting across her face. Ginny was like a sister to Ron’s friends, all of whom cared about her a great deal and would go to great lengths to protect her. Dean, in particular, was very fond of Ginny and they would sit and play chess together or sample the twins’ latest products when none of the others were around. He hated, therefore, to see her looking as downcast as she did now.
“It’s nothing,” she said, but she still looked faintly unhappy.
“You can tell me,” Dean said, putting his arm around her in a brotherly fashion. “I promise I won’t tell Ron.”
“Promise?” Ginny looked up at him, her blue eyes hopeful. She was very pretty, the kind of round-faced prettiness that comes with youth and fades into elegance during adolescence. Her red hair was her crowning glory and shone like a river of molten bronze, cascading down her back. Her face was lightly freckled and her watery blue eyes always seemed to shine with a happiness born of pure innocence. Life was good to Ginny, and it showed. No wonder her brothers were so protective of her, this little scrap of purity that brimmed with light.
“Of course.”
“It’s…well…it’s Harry,” she said at last, looking away as she blushed furiously.
“Harry?” Dean asked, surprised and looking involuntarily over to the staircase up which Harry had just vanished.
“Yeah,” Ginny replied, “I don’t know if you know, but I always had a bit of a- you know-” she trailed off uncertainly.
“Crush on him?” Dean prompted.
“Yeah,” Ginny’s blush deepened and she didn’t look Dean in the eye, pretending to be suddenly very interested in her fingernails.
“What’s wrong?”
“Well, you saw him just now with Parvati,” Ginny said. “He’d never look at me like that or flirt like that with me. I guess I’m a bit jealous.”
“Aw, Gin,” Dean felt genuinely sorry for her, “that’s rough.”
“Do you think it’s me?” Ginny asked, hugging her knees to her chest. “Am I too young or something?”
“You’re not too young at all,” Dean said, “and I’m sure Harry likes you, but maybe he doesn’t see you in that way. He can be a bit oblivious to things like that, you know.”
“I know,” Ginny smiled shyly. “He has girls throwing themselves at him left, right and centre and he doesn’t even notice half the time.”
“Have you told him how you feel?” Dean asked.
“No!” Ginny replied, horrified. “And you can’t tell him either!”
“I won’t, I won’t,” Dean said quickly. “I just think, maybe you should let him know how you feel.”
“What do you think I should do?” Ginny asked.
“Well…” Dean thought for a moment, staring into the glowing ashes of the fire. “If you get the opportunity maybe you should flirt with him. See how he responds, I’m sure he’ll be only too pleased if he finds out that you fancy him.”
“Really?” Ginny asked hopefully. “You think?”
“Sure!” Dean said encouragingly. “Why not? What have you got to lose?”
Ginny didn’t answer him but sat quietly for a while in the dying warmth of the fire.
His friendship, she thought, so everything.
The Gryffindor dormitory was invariably warm and welcoming, with its bright walls, five four-poster beds, and crimson drapes that swathed the room in comfort. At the moment it housed Neville, who was sitting on his bed pruning his thriving Mimbulus Mimbletonia, and Seamus, who was leafing through some old pieces of parchment.
“Hi you guys,” Harry yawned, flopping down tiredly on his bed and feeling his eyes closing automatically.
“Hi,” Seamus said, “good meeting, Harry?” Harry glanced up, Seamus was looking at him conspiratorially and had muttered in an undertone so that only Harry would hear. Harry could remember Seamus having accompanied his mother on some of the less important meetings directly after the death of his aunt, and even though he was not a member because of his age, he was still kept abreast of the developments and was sometimes involved with the proceedings.
“Not bad,” Harry lied, thinking of the way Malfoy had waltzed in and claimed yet another part of Harry’s life for himself. “New member,” he added. Seamus raised his eyebrows.
“Who?” he asked curiously. “You don’t look too happy about it.”
“I shouldn’t really say,” Harry shifted uneasily. On swearing allegiance to the Order, Harry had been called upon to take an oath of secrecy and to sign his name along with all the others that bound him inextricably into the Fidelius Charm that Dumbledore had spelled around the organization itself. Dumbledore, being Secret Keeper, alone knew of every single member that was a part of the Order, but only the ones belonging to the Inner Circle were asked to bind themselves into the charm. This way there were fewer chances of betrayal, and in these uncertain times, it was becoming increasingly difficult to tell friend from foe.
“No worries,” Seamus smiled and went back to his leafing. “Me mam’ll tell me, I’m sure.”
“What are you doing?” Harry asked, looking at the sheets of parchment that seemed as though they would crumble to dust in the near future.
“These are the records from the family,” Seamus said, squinting at the incredibly flowery writing. “Old family documents and things. I found them over the holidays but I never got a chance to read them.”
“Where did you get them from?” Harry asked, looking at them with interest. They seemed to be comprehensive lists of births, dates, marriages and estate holders. “You have an estate?” Harry exclaimed. “Wow.”
“Nah,” Seamus said, looking faintly miserable. “Me dad and his side of the family have that in Ireland. They’re divorced, you know, me parents. I don’t really see me dad that often. He didn’t take the whole wizard thing too well when me mam told him.”
“I didn’t know that,” Harry said, surprised. “I’m sorry.”
“S’ok,” Seamus replied, stuffing the parchments away quickly. “No big deal.” Harry could tell by his manner that this was a barefaced lie but he did not press the matter. He gave his friend’s shoulder a quick squeeze and proceeded to undress.
The moment his head touched his pillow he was fast asleep.
Somewhere in the castle, Somnia was casting twists of sage onto a magical fire, feeling their pungent spirals of smoke coil about her, cleansing her and her rooms before clasping a chain of opals around her neck. She had joined the Order to put her gifts to use, especially those of her prophetic dreams, for which she was renowned. She would be unlucky tonight, and the barriers into her own subconscious would prevent her entry. She would see nothing and she would wake, curled in the coloured silks of her bed, slightly disappointed. There would be another, though, whose mind would peruse the future, as it had done so often, and he even now he was entering the splintered fragments of his dreams.
Scar prickling faintly, Harry felt the spinning of his mind as sleep claimed him with its shadowy void. It cradled him softly for what seemed like the briefest of moments before plunging his drifting mind into a world as vivid as that which he walked on in daylight. The newly minted sickle moon rose from behind the clouds and cast a dreamlike light onto Harry’s face, only the movement of his eyes beneath their lids betraying his visions.
He’d been here before. This corridor. Spinning doors twisted around him, hemming him in on all sides until he was cornered. Hermione’s fiery crosses marked his entry but it was wrong, this was all done, finished. He’d closed these doors in his dreams and in real life. This place had broken him and so many others, this hall of enigma, wrapped in the complexities of a thousand streams of consciousness that he couldn’t see the end to.
The world exploded into colour around him, breaking from its monochromatic listlessness and showering him with the detritus and wreckage of some great disaster. Dust and rubble pooled around his feet and though he tried to move, he was caught, his feet adhered to the ground, his body frozen as he began to recognize his surroundings.
The Department of Mysteries.
Some part of him shuddered as this sliver of ice penetrated his brain. He knew these floors, even if they were now faded to dullness, he had walked along them, this endless corridor. He knew to where it led and it frightened him more than any place in the world.
There was a movement up ahead, a person walking towards him, smiling, singing, a shrill energy rippling from their body. Their face was blurry and as Harry reached out with fingers dislocated by the shafting light, the person fell silent.
“Broken ends,” they said, and shrugged. Harry felt his brow wrinkling. This made no sense. The person vanished, splitting into a cloud of tiny raindrops that hung, suspended, in the air. Harry’s feet were suddenly free and he fell forward into the cloud, tumbling through the air with a terrible speed, until he landed.
WHAM!
Harry sat up quickly, gasping and clutching his chest. He could feel his heart pounding incredibly quickly beneath his fingers, and he was breathless. Taking a couple of steadying gasps, he felt his t-shirt sticking to him; he was drenched in cold sweat. Peeling it off, he threw it to the floor and let the cold air of the tower glance across his naked skin and cool him. The flush receded slightly from his face, as Harry sat there, breathing deeply and trying to make sense of everything in his mind. His scar was aching dully, but that was something that he was used to by now, and he was more concerned with piecing together everything that he could remember from his dream. It had been utterly bizarre and Harry held his hand to his clammy forehead, waiting for his pulse to return to normal and his temperature to drop.
“You alright mate?” Ron’s sleepy voice directed Harry’s attention to the next bed where his friend was sitting up, lit by a patch of moonlight, staring at Harry through his curtains with a bleary confusion. “Whaswrong?”
“Nothing,” Harry mumbled, rubbing the angry, red lightning bolt on his forehead. It was still prickling, the way it always did after he’d had a vision, and he traced it absently, his finger running down his forehead as he assuaged the throbbing.
“Nightmare?” Ron asked, yawning.
“Kind of,” Harry said, “but I’m fine, honestly. Go back to sleep.” The last sentence proved to be unnecessary as Ron had already rolled over again. Neville’s snores made sure that the Gryffindor dormitory was never wholly silent, even at the witching hour, and Harry wished sometimes for some solitude. He knew when one of his dreams was prophetic because of the effects it left on his body. He would be tired for days afterwards, as though he hadn’t slept at all, and flashes of the dream would stand out brightly in his memory, in a way that no ordinary dream would. Harry had the nasty feeling that once again, his connection to Voldemort was telling him something, he just wished he knew what it was.
Already the images of his dream were receding into the blurry tangle of his subconscious and Harry felt the waves of sleep plying his eyelids with lead. He might be exhausted but he knew that he would get no more sleep tonight. Lying back, he closed his eyes against the yellow arrow of dawn as it pierced the skies and his brain mulled over the latest of what he termed his visions. He didn’t think he would go to Dumbledore or tell anyone about it until he was sure what he had seen. The place in his dream may have looked like the Department of Mysteries but Harry had no idea if that was true. Besides, he told himself sternly, it wouldn’t be the first time you followed one of these dreams into mortal peril. There was an unpleasant contraction around his chest as Harry thought about the last time he had taken his visions seriously. He had stormed off to the Ministry of Magic where Sirius had lost his life.
Stifling the uncomfortable lump at the back of his throat Harry rolled over and gripped his pillow tightly. He didn’t cry anymore, he was tougher than that now and he had closed his mind to every memory that might hurt him. He knew that there were an avalanche of things to be faced after Voldemort’s demise but the latter was all Harry could concentrate on for now. When the war against the Death Eaters was over then Harry might find the time to grieve properly.
A breeze drifted through a crack in the window join and Harry stretched, glad to be here in the castle, the only place he ever thought of as home. He questioned what would happen when his time here was ended and he was cast out into the world. He would get no support from the Dursleys, that much was certain, and the uncertainty of his future added to the myriad of undesirable emotions that kept him awake and haunted his mind.
Not for the first time, Harry wondered where his childhood had gone.
**************
This is still chapter 1, folks, I just couldn't fit it all in one post. Hope you like it, anyway, and I'll try to come up with some better posting strategy but for now you'll have to cope with the double chapter affair. Sorry about that.
“Just shut up, Malfoy, you shouldn’t be here,” he said. This was yet another arena of his life that the Slytherin seemed to be about to infiltrate. Was nothing sacred any more?
“Harry’s got a point, Dumbledore.”
“If you would but allow me to explain,” Dumbledore said politely, waiting for the angry buzzing to cease.
“Please do.” Moody gestured in a mimicry of graciousness.
“Mr. Malfoy, would you care to take a seat?” Dumbledore asked, conjuring a chair next to him and consequently right next to Harry.
“Thank you.” Malfoy sat down primly, making sure to poke Harry on the ear with his wand as he passed. Dumbledore cleared his throat to make sure everyone was listening.
“Draco approached me a week ago with a view to offering information to help the Order in the fight against the Death Eaters,” he said into the ensuing silence. Eyes flicked back and forth between Dumbledore and Malfoy, the latter of whom had his gaze focussed intensely on the table. “I accepted, as you can see. The only condition is that his participation in these affairs is not made common knowledge.”
“Scared of what the Slytherins will do to you?” Harry asked in an undertone so that only Malfoy would hear him.
“No, Potter,” Malfoy replied with an uncharacteristic absence of vitriol, “my family friends.” He looked Harry straight in the face.
“This is an outrage,” Mundungus Fletcher stood up, knocking the violently purple top hat off Dedalus Diggle who was sitting next to him. Harry could tell that what he was about to say would be devalued somewhat by the visible bottle of Firewhiskey poking out of a hole in his tattered jacket. “No son of Lucius Malfoy could ever be seen as trustworthy, he could be passing information straight back to his blasted parents,” Mundungus cried, his wiry black beard moving with his chin.
“I have to agree with Dung on this issue, Dumbledore, I don’t think this is a good idea,” Arthur Weasley agreed, throwing Malfoy a dark look. At the mention of his parents Malfoy had tensed, even though no semblance of discomfort managed to place a fissure in his façade. Harry had almost stopped listening. He could hardly believe this. Malfoy? In the Order? The notion was ridiculous, and Harry was curious to see what reason could lie behind it.
“He could tell Lucius anything!” another voice cried.
“His father was involved in killing the Smythesons no more than six weeks ago,” Tonks said angrily. “Have you forgotten that?”
“Of course not,” Dumbledore replied, and this time there was a stern edge circling his voice. “And somehow, I think, neither has Draco.” There was an uneasy silence for a moment. Harry could hear his heartbeat pounding in his ears, a cruel mix of anger and mysterious injustice springing to the forefront of his mind.
“The only thing I can say in my own defence, should I be permitted,” Malfoy said, “is that I am not my father.”
“Why are you here, Malfoy?” Harry asked suddenly.
“Weren’t you listeni-” Malfoy was interrupted.
“No.” Harry cut in impatiently. “I mean, why are you doing this? Of people most likely to join the Ku Klux Klan for wizards, I’d say you were close to top of the list.”
“You know nothing about me, Potter,” Malfoy snapped, leaning close to Harry, a sudden flash resentment flitting over his face. This reaction was highly gratifying as it was only certain taunts that could elicit any angry response from the Slytherin and Harry flattered himself that he was pretty good at making Malfoy excitable.
“I’ve known you for five years, Malfoy, and you’ve done your best to make my life hell for every one of them.” Had it really been that long?
“Enough!” Dumbledore cried in distinct irritation. “I will not have you arguing like children at these meetings!”
“Sorry, sir,” Harry said humbly.
“This is not the time or place.” Dumbledore regained some of his former composure. “Draco, if you would care to enlighten the company as to why you are choosing to betray the Death Eater secrets?”
“I’d rather not.” Dumbledore’s choice of phrasing seemed to make Malfoy uneasy.
“Oh I’m dying to hear this,” Harry said sarcastically.
“Shut up.”
“Charming.”
“Draco, I think it would be prudent,” Dumbledore prompted benignly, “if only to reassure the company of your loyalty.” There was a long pause as Malfoy seemed to be forming in his mind the right way to phrase whatever he was going to say. Everyone in the room was quiet and watching the boy with an avid interest, clear mistrust ghosting over the faces around the room. Harry had the impression that, to them, it was Lucius Malfoy sitting in the chair next to Dumbledore rather than his son.
“My father,” Malfoy began slowly, “as you all know, has been a Death Eater for the best part of two decades. It was his intention that I should follow in his footsteps and up until about eight months ago, that was my intention also.”
Moody snarled. “Your father is nothing but scum, Malfoy.”
“My father is not scum!” Draco exclaimed in a fit of pique. Harry noted that the subject of family seemed to be a touchy one and filed this away for future reference.
“He’s a Death Eater isn’t he?” Moody countered, looking at Malfoy as though one might look at a rather unpleasant insect worthy of A Jolly Good Squashing.
“He may be a Death Eater but that doesn’t mean you know anything about him or the rest of my family,” Malfoy replied icily, with the edge of hardness that Harry had seen in him so many times. Harry, despite himself, was a little curious as to how this stand-off between Malfoy and Moody would conclude, having never seen anyone effectively stand up to the latter.
“He killed innocent people,” Mairead said, standing up angrily.
“So did Snape,” Malfoy replied deadpan and a couple of gazes flicked over to the starched figure of the Potions Master who was unluckily caught mid-nose-scratch and was therefore not at his most intimidating.
“Thank you, Mr. Malfoy, please keep my name out of this,” Snape said quickly, a look of severe discomfort twisting his mouth.
“Sorry, Professor.”
“You were saying?” Dumbledore said, looking at the enormous golden clock that stood next to Fawkes’s perch. The time had been dragging on and it looked unlikely that the meeting would close before midnight.
“I have no wish to be a Death Eater. When you have seen the two people in the world that you look up to most kneeling before some grotesque shadow of a human and kissing his robes then you get a different perspective of things.” Draco looked as though relating this was against his better will but Harry could tell that some part of him, the part that housed his Slytherin sense of shrewdness, knew that it would be the only way to gain even a shred of these people’s trust.
“When did you ever witness a Death Eater meeting?” Arthur Weasley snorted derisively.
“At Malfoy Manor last New Year,” Malfoy replied, looking Mr. Weasley straight in the eye, his countenance greyed as though he was recalling an harsh memory. “And more recently, I was deemed old enough to witness a glimpse of the life I was destined for. In all honesty it sickened me.”
Harry didn’t believe a word that sprang from his mouth but it was only his wavering trust for Dumbledore that prevented him from loosing his tongue. Lies, all of them. Lucius’s ticket to the Order; his attempts to get a spy for the Dark side.
“Does your father know this?”
“Yes, actually,” Malfoy said, almost amiably. “Contrary to popular opinion, I am close with my father and when I told him, the morning I left for school this term, that I didn’t want to take the Dark Mark he was disappointed but not angry. He and my mother still live in hope that I will come to my senses but I don’t think they’ll try to force me.”
“And Voldemort? How did he take this news?” Harry asked, not noticing the various wizards and witches flinching anxiously at the name. “I can’t imagine he was too happy.”
“My father suffered for my insubordination so that I wouldn’t have to. The Dark Lord considers me, as a Pureblood and as the son of his most loyal follower, to be too precious to waste. He is probably giving me a grace period to change my mind. When that wears off I’ll have to appeal for asylum.” Malfoy said with the air of one who is rattling off something they have learned parrot fashion in order to justify themselves. He was, in fact, very worried as to how much his father had suffered for his defiance. Lucius had only told Draco that he would be fine, and that the Dark Lord would reprimand him for not bringing Draco for the Mark early enough. Draco had horrible suspicions that his father had been tortured, and this thought was eating him up inside. He remembered as his father had grasped his hand before bidding Draco farewell the day he returned to school. Shadows of pain had lingered in Lucius’s eyes, coupled with a fear that Draco hadn’t recognised at the time. Now he realised it was fear of Voldemort’s wrath. And it was his fault.
“The day Lucius Malfoy shows an ounce of compassion is the day Fudge eats his green bowler hat.” Moody grumbled, his magical eye fixed on Malfoy as if trying to bore through his very skull to detect a falsehood.
“Alastor!” Dumbledore chided, even though Malfoy had shown no emotion at this latest dig at his father. In fact, he seemed to be trying not to show any emotion at all. The famous Malfoy porcelain mask was fully in place and Draco’s countenance was at its most unapproachable at times like these.
“And are you satisfied with this testimony of sincerity?” Somnia asked, tiny bells necklaced around her throat were jangling with her every movement.
“I am,” Dumbledore replied affably.
“Why work against your parents, boy?” Moody said, leaning forward close to Draco’s face. “Why not just refuse the Mark?” Draco was quiet for a moment.
“Because the Dark Lord had somebody given the Dementor’s Kiss, a friend of mine, I couldn’t save her but this way-” He broke off and showed no signs of wishing to continue. Harry, even though his mind was full of thoughts such as ‘God damn Malfoy’, ‘such a sodding liar’, and ‘wow, I’m hungry’, he wondered briefly at the sudden flash of pain that haunted the wintry grey of Draco’s eyes.
“And by providing information, Draco heightens his chances of finding sanctuary with the Ministry,” Dumbledore finished for him.
“Exactly.”
“I’m not satisfied with this,” Moody said frankly, inserting one finger in his eye socket to loosen the magical eye, which squelched horribly. “I want him questioned under Veritaserum.”
“I hardly think that is necessary,” Dumbledore’s eyebrows knitted. Privately, Harry thought that was a very good idea indeed.
“Fine,” Malfoy sighed nonchalantly. “If that’s what you want.”
“I deem that a violation of privacy,” Dumbledore said, trying to placate Moody somewhat and failing miserably.
“I don’t care,” Moody interrupted, eyeing Draco with distaste. “Any son of Lucius Malfoy is bound to be a slimy little cockroach.” Harry noticed Draco’s fingers tightening to knuckle-whitening degrees over the arms of his chair. “You prove your honesty with Veritaserum and I might change my mind, but I won’t hold my breath,” Moody went on viciously. There was a murmur of assent from the other wizards and witches that were gathered in the room. Harry was struck with a strange sense of irony. Wherever he went and whatever he did, he seemed to invoke a deep trust in people just by being who he was. For Malfoy, it seemed, the effect was quite the opposite. Harry wondered what it must be like to have people flinch instead of smile when they hear your last name.
“Fine,” Malfoy repeated, looking as though he was trying very hard to control his temper. There was a nasty silence in which Moody and Malfoy glared at each other form opposite sides of the table. One of Dumbledore’s silver instruments that had survived Harry’s angry purge at the end of his fifth year clicked and whirred its way across the table, emitting puffs of smoke.
“Severus, do you have any Veritaserum ready in your stores?” Dumbledore asked.
“Unfortunately not, headmaster.” Snape cast an ill-disguised, dark look at Arthur Weasley who was sitting across from him and twiddling his thumbs. “The fifth-years are studying it at the moment and Miss Ginevra Weasley thought it would be hysterical to slip some in the Slytherin pumpkin juice at dinner two days ago.” There were some titters of laughter at this and Arthur Weasley’s ears went pink in the same way that Ron’s did. “Needless to say, all those afflicted have requested silencing charms to be placed on them before they lose all their friends.”
“Yes, ahem, well…” Arthur said coherently, looking faintly embarrassed at the antics of his daughter.
“Very well,” Dumbledore sighed, “be so good as to mix up another batch, would you, Severus? If Alastor still demands it, Mr Malfoy can be questioned at the next meeting.”
“Which is when, Albus?” Somnia asked delicately. “I cannot help but notice that it is getting very late.”
“Yes, yes,” Dumbledore stood up. “I’m sorry you were detained. I feel we shall have more members at our next meeting so we shall convene on Sunday night in the Room of Requirement. Thank you all very much.” There was much shuffling and grumbling as everybody got up to leave, casting dark looks at Draco over their shoulders and filing out down the moving staircase or else flooing straight from the office. Draco, smirk back in place, brushed quickly past Harry who shot him a glower before the two of them descended the staircase into the passage below. Without warning, Harry grabbed Malfoy by the shoulder and whirled him around.
“What is it now, Potter?” Malfoy asked exasperatedly.
“Why are you on our side?” Harry asked. “I’m serious, Malfoy, don’t bullshit me. You think I believed all that crap about you needing asylum? You know that Dumbledore would always allow you sanctuary at Hogwarts, whatever you did.” Malfoy arched one silvery eyebrow with an evaluating air. He clapped slowly and sardonically. Damn, he was so infuriating.
“Clever, Potter, really clever,” he said silkily. “But forget the delusions of grandeur. You should know that I’m not doing this to be on your side or Dumbledore’s side, or that scarred ignoramus’s-”
“Then what?” Harry asked.
“Oh, I’m doing this because I cannot be on the Dark Lord’s side,” Malfoy replied with a frankness that took Harry aback even though the words were still uttered in those soft cadences that he used so maliciously. With those words, Draco twisted his mouth bitterly and turned round and stalked off down the corridor.
“Harry,” Dumbledore called from above him just as Harry made to move away. “I know this isn’t ideal,” he said.
“Something of an understatement, headmaster,” Harry replied, his insides still throbbing with the hot, sick swoop of irritation. Dumbledore fixed him with an appraising look.
“It is our choices that define us, Harry,” he said, “not our families. Remember that.”
“Yes, sir.”
Due to the lateness of the hour, the common room was relatively empty. Only some of the older years were still milling about by the fire or laughing and talking softly amongst themselves. They looked up as Harry entered and Ron and Hermione came skipping over to him at once.
“How did it go?” Ron asked in an undertone.
“Don’t even ask,” Harry waved his hand. “It was crap. Don’t worry, though, let’s not talk about it.” He wasn’t sure why he suddenly didn’t want to vent his spleen about Malfoy providing information for the Order, all he knew was that he wanted to forget all about Slytherins and Dark Lords and indulge in a bit of ‘teenager time’.
Harry went to join his friends who had commandeered the biggest, squishiest of the armchairs that sat around the glowing embers of the fire and were having a deep, philosophical discussion about broomsticks. Sometimes it was nice to switch off from being the hero and to lay the expectations and burdens aside just for a short while. Harry had long given up resenting his lot in life. He had spent the fifth year being perpetually angry with everyone and everything but now he just didn’t have the energy for that. He just wanted to do the job he had set out to do as quickly as possible and rid the world of all the death and destruction that Voldemort would bring in his wake.
Just a day in the life of an average sixteen year old.
“You see, Hermione,” Ron was saying, a misty glint in his eyes and one hand to his chest, “it’s more than just a stick that helps you fly. It’s a key to a whole new world of possibilities. Broomsticks make men what they are, they provide the gift of flight, thus raising us above common beasts. They lift us onto a higher plane of thinking, literally and figuratively.” Harry could imagine that with ‘Land of Hope and Glory’ playing in the background, Ron would make quite a stirring figure. Hermione rolled her eyes.
“You boys and your penis extensions,” she said indulgently and the surrounding boys spluttered.
“Hey! Stop besmirching our noble sport!” Dean Thomas said.
“Your noble sport is played on enormous phallic symbols,” Hermione said with a grin. “Did none of you ever think of that?” There was some fidgeting, and Harry knew that he would never look at his broomstick in quite the same way again. Hermione had a point, though, there were a lot of possible sexual connotations to be made out of the game of Quidditch. If you thought about the concept of fourteen people grabbing at various balls whilst riding on big, oiled sticks and trying to score…no wonder it was so popular.
Harry leaned back in his chair before being shifted up to make room for Parvati Patil, a very pretty girl who saw fit to hijack his armrest. She was of the sixth-year clique for whom Hermione had little respect because of her unwavering interest in fashion and her complete ignorance of Hogwarts, A History. Harry, though, quite liked her. He had no objection whatsoever to a healthy interest in one’s appearance, especially when it resulted in such lovely tawny skin, glossy black hair and clothes that fitted well in all the right places. He was a teenage boy after all.
“Hermione, why do you have to take the fun out of everything?” Ron complained, eyeing his broomstick in the corner suspiciously. With a cheeky grin at Parvati Harry said:
“Ah, Ron, we know you’re just sore because no matter how much you oil it up, you know that your broom just isn’t as big as mine.” Hermione, Ginny and Parvati giggled and Ron scowled at Harry in mock outrage.
“I’m so hurt, Harry,” he said, giving a fake whimper and failing to repress his smile. “But you’re right, your Firebolt is much bigger than my Cleansweep, compensating for something, are we?” Ron didn’t get much further before he found his face full of pillow. A short War Of The Cushions developed in which cushions were thrown violently at each other, knocking various artefacts off tables and inducing Harry to throw himself atop Parvati and later claim that it was an act of self-sacrifice to save her pristine hair. She didn’t seem to mind all that much.
“Tut tut, Harry, such a ladies man,” Dean grinned, wiggling his eyebrows in Harry’s direction as he and Parvati untangled themselves.
“Ron you sat on me!” Hermione complained, straightening her robes and shooting Ron a dirty look.
“Sorry,” he said looking supremely unapologetic. “Hey, the first Hogsmeade Weekend has been announced, Harry, I forgot to tell you.”
“Oh brilliant, I’m running low on…everything actually, I didn’t get much to eat this summer,” Harry said. “Dudley’s on another diet, now that he’s wider than he is tall, and I’m lucky if I get something resembling a lettuce leaf all day.” He cringed. Why did he always manage to sound as though he was fishing for sympathy?
“Oh, poor you!” Parvati exclaimed, running her hands the length of Harry’s torso as though to feel his ribs protruding. “You’re practically wasting away!”
“Sucks to be you, mate,” said Ron, who was nursing a nice layer of insulation around his midriff, or at least, that was how he phrased it. Hermione just called him flabby. She had a point, as this term it looked as if Mrs Weasley’s cooking was having quite an effect. “Anyway, mum sent you a cake for your birthday, didn’t she?”
“Well, I presume Errol had got tired and had a little stop on the way because there were some suspicious looking beak marks in it,” Harry said, grinning at the memory, even though he’d considered eating Errol at the time, he had been that hungry.
“I thought he was looking chirpier than normal,” Ron said thoughtfully. “Wow, I’ve discovered the secret of owl longevity- marzipan!”
“You’ll make a million,” Harry said solemnly, “keeping owls alive and cheerful through application of cake. Genius, Ron, pure genius.”
“So do you think you might go to Hogsmeade then, Harry?” Parvati asked coyly, twirling a lock of hair around her finger in a most appealing manner. Out of the corner of Harry’s sight, Hermione was rolling her eyes and making vomit motions.
“Well if you’re going then it might be worth my while,” Harry said, leaning closer to her and fixing his most winning smile across his face.
Parvati blushed slightly and Harry could feel Ron snickering next to him.
“I’m off to bed,” Parvati said, her hand lingering on Harry’s arm, “I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“Goodnight,” everyone chorused. When Parvati was out of earshot, Ron burst out laughing.
“You’re such a flirt,” he said, before mimicking Harry’s voice. “‘If you’re going then it might be worth my while’, honestly Harry.”
“Hey, it worked, didn’t it?” Harry said defensively, even though he was smiling. “Anyway, Parvati’s a knockout.”
“That’s true,” Ron agreed solemnly.
“Oh please, she’s so vapid!” Hermione protested. “Now Eloise Midgeon, for example, is so intelligent, she can speak Mermish, you know, but you don’t see the boys all chasing after her.” Hermione really seemed on the ball sometimes when it came to what boys looked for in a girlfriend.
Dean held out his hands as if he was balancing a scale. “Nice face, can talk to fish,” he said, looking from one hand to the other as if weighing these two qualities. “Nice face…,” he tilted one hand up, “…can talk to fish.” He tilted the other one up, looking torn. Harry and Ron were sniggering. “You’re right, Hermione,” Dean said seriously, “fish-girl wins out every time.”
Hermione scowled. “For Merlin’s sake,” she said.
“Now, if you were to get with Eloise Midgeon,” Dean continued, his eyes lit up with excitement, “then I’m sure that would be very attractive.”
“Dean!” Hermione swatted him hard on the arm. “Get your mind out of the gutter!”
“Ouch,” Dean massaged his arm, “sorry.”
“You were asking for that, mate,” Ron said sympathetically. “Come on, Casanova,” he said to Harry, “we’d better get to bed, it’s late and we have Potions first thing in the morning.”
“I’m going too,” Hermione said, yawning. “Goodnight you guys.”
“’Night.”
Harry, Ron and Hermione disappeared into their respective dormitories, leaving Ginny and Dean sitting around the fire, almost last in the emptying common room.
“Are you alright?” Dean asked suddenly. Ginny had been staring into space for the past few minutes with something akin to pain flitting across her face. Ginny was like a sister to Ron’s friends, all of whom cared about her a great deal and would go to great lengths to protect her. Dean, in particular, was very fond of Ginny and they would sit and play chess together or sample the twins’ latest products when none of the others were around. He hated, therefore, to see her looking as downcast as she did now.
“It’s nothing,” she said, but she still looked faintly unhappy.
“You can tell me,” Dean said, putting his arm around her in a brotherly fashion. “I promise I won’t tell Ron.”
“Promise?” Ginny looked up at him, her blue eyes hopeful. She was very pretty, the kind of round-faced prettiness that comes with youth and fades into elegance during adolescence. Her red hair was her crowning glory and shone like a river of molten bronze, cascading down her back. Her face was lightly freckled and her watery blue eyes always seemed to shine with a happiness born of pure innocence. Life was good to Ginny, and it showed. No wonder her brothers were so protective of her, this little scrap of purity that brimmed with light.
“Of course.”
“It’s…well…it’s Harry,” she said at last, looking away as she blushed furiously.
“Harry?” Dean asked, surprised and looking involuntarily over to the staircase up which Harry had just vanished.
“Yeah,” Ginny replied, “I don’t know if you know, but I always had a bit of a- you know-” she trailed off uncertainly.
“Crush on him?” Dean prompted.
“Yeah,” Ginny’s blush deepened and she didn’t look Dean in the eye, pretending to be suddenly very interested in her fingernails.
“What’s wrong?”
“Well, you saw him just now with Parvati,” Ginny said. “He’d never look at me like that or flirt like that with me. I guess I’m a bit jealous.”
“Aw, Gin,” Dean felt genuinely sorry for her, “that’s rough.”
“Do you think it’s me?” Ginny asked, hugging her knees to her chest. “Am I too young or something?”
“You’re not too young at all,” Dean said, “and I’m sure Harry likes you, but maybe he doesn’t see you in that way. He can be a bit oblivious to things like that, you know.”
“I know,” Ginny smiled shyly. “He has girls throwing themselves at him left, right and centre and he doesn’t even notice half the time.”
“Have you told him how you feel?” Dean asked.
“No!” Ginny replied, horrified. “And you can’t tell him either!”
“I won’t, I won’t,” Dean said quickly. “I just think, maybe you should let him know how you feel.”
“What do you think I should do?” Ginny asked.
“Well…” Dean thought for a moment, staring into the glowing ashes of the fire. “If you get the opportunity maybe you should flirt with him. See how he responds, I’m sure he’ll be only too pleased if he finds out that you fancy him.”
“Really?” Ginny asked hopefully. “You think?”
“Sure!” Dean said encouragingly. “Why not? What have you got to lose?”
Ginny didn’t answer him but sat quietly for a while in the dying warmth of the fire.
His friendship, she thought, so everything.
The Gryffindor dormitory was invariably warm and welcoming, with its bright walls, five four-poster beds, and crimson drapes that swathed the room in comfort. At the moment it housed Neville, who was sitting on his bed pruning his thriving Mimbulus Mimbletonia, and Seamus, who was leafing through some old pieces of parchment.
“Hi you guys,” Harry yawned, flopping down tiredly on his bed and feeling his eyes closing automatically.
“Hi,” Seamus said, “good meeting, Harry?” Harry glanced up, Seamus was looking at him conspiratorially and had muttered in an undertone so that only Harry would hear. Harry could remember Seamus having accompanied his mother on some of the less important meetings directly after the death of his aunt, and even though he was not a member because of his age, he was still kept abreast of the developments and was sometimes involved with the proceedings.
“Not bad,” Harry lied, thinking of the way Malfoy had waltzed in and claimed yet another part of Harry’s life for himself. “New member,” he added. Seamus raised his eyebrows.
“Who?” he asked curiously. “You don’t look too happy about it.”
“I shouldn’t really say,” Harry shifted uneasily. On swearing allegiance to the Order, Harry had been called upon to take an oath of secrecy and to sign his name along with all the others that bound him inextricably into the Fidelius Charm that Dumbledore had spelled around the organization itself. Dumbledore, being Secret Keeper, alone knew of every single member that was a part of the Order, but only the ones belonging to the Inner Circle were asked to bind themselves into the charm. This way there were fewer chances of betrayal, and in these uncertain times, it was becoming increasingly difficult to tell friend from foe.
“No worries,” Seamus smiled and went back to his leafing. “Me mam’ll tell me, I’m sure.”
“What are you doing?” Harry asked, looking at the sheets of parchment that seemed as though they would crumble to dust in the near future.
“These are the records from the family,” Seamus said, squinting at the incredibly flowery writing. “Old family documents and things. I found them over the holidays but I never got a chance to read them.”
“Where did you get them from?” Harry asked, looking at them with interest. They seemed to be comprehensive lists of births, dates, marriages and estate holders. “You have an estate?” Harry exclaimed. “Wow.”
“Nah,” Seamus said, looking faintly miserable. “Me dad and his side of the family have that in Ireland. They’re divorced, you know, me parents. I don’t really see me dad that often. He didn’t take the whole wizard thing too well when me mam told him.”
“I didn’t know that,” Harry said, surprised. “I’m sorry.”
“S’ok,” Seamus replied, stuffing the parchments away quickly. “No big deal.” Harry could tell by his manner that this was a barefaced lie but he did not press the matter. He gave his friend’s shoulder a quick squeeze and proceeded to undress.
The moment his head touched his pillow he was fast asleep.
Somewhere in the castle, Somnia was casting twists of sage onto a magical fire, feeling their pungent spirals of smoke coil about her, cleansing her and her rooms before clasping a chain of opals around her neck. She had joined the Order to put her gifts to use, especially those of her prophetic dreams, for which she was renowned. She would be unlucky tonight, and the barriers into her own subconscious would prevent her entry. She would see nothing and she would wake, curled in the coloured silks of her bed, slightly disappointed. There would be another, though, whose mind would peruse the future, as it had done so often, and he even now he was entering the splintered fragments of his dreams.
Scar prickling faintly, Harry felt the spinning of his mind as sleep claimed him with its shadowy void. It cradled him softly for what seemed like the briefest of moments before plunging his drifting mind into a world as vivid as that which he walked on in daylight. The newly minted sickle moon rose from behind the clouds and cast a dreamlike light onto Harry’s face, only the movement of his eyes beneath their lids betraying his visions.
He’d been here before. This corridor. Spinning doors twisted around him, hemming him in on all sides until he was cornered. Hermione’s fiery crosses marked his entry but it was wrong, this was all done, finished. He’d closed these doors in his dreams and in real life. This place had broken him and so many others, this hall of enigma, wrapped in the complexities of a thousand streams of consciousness that he couldn’t see the end to.
The world exploded into colour around him, breaking from its monochromatic listlessness and showering him with the detritus and wreckage of some great disaster. Dust and rubble pooled around his feet and though he tried to move, he was caught, his feet adhered to the ground, his body frozen as he began to recognize his surroundings.
The Department of Mysteries.
Some part of him shuddered as this sliver of ice penetrated his brain. He knew these floors, even if they were now faded to dullness, he had walked along them, this endless corridor. He knew to where it led and it frightened him more than any place in the world.
There was a movement up ahead, a person walking towards him, smiling, singing, a shrill energy rippling from their body. Their face was blurry and as Harry reached out with fingers dislocated by the shafting light, the person fell silent.
“Broken ends,” they said, and shrugged. Harry felt his brow wrinkling. This made no sense. The person vanished, splitting into a cloud of tiny raindrops that hung, suspended, in the air. Harry’s feet were suddenly free and he fell forward into the cloud, tumbling through the air with a terrible speed, until he landed.
WHAM!
Harry sat up quickly, gasping and clutching his chest. He could feel his heart pounding incredibly quickly beneath his fingers, and he was breathless. Taking a couple of steadying gasps, he felt his t-shirt sticking to him; he was drenched in cold sweat. Peeling it off, he threw it to the floor and let the cold air of the tower glance across his naked skin and cool him. The flush receded slightly from his face, as Harry sat there, breathing deeply and trying to make sense of everything in his mind. His scar was aching dully, but that was something that he was used to by now, and he was more concerned with piecing together everything that he could remember from his dream. It had been utterly bizarre and Harry held his hand to his clammy forehead, waiting for his pulse to return to normal and his temperature to drop.
“You alright mate?” Ron’s sleepy voice directed Harry’s attention to the next bed where his friend was sitting up, lit by a patch of moonlight, staring at Harry through his curtains with a bleary confusion. “Whaswrong?”
“Nothing,” Harry mumbled, rubbing the angry, red lightning bolt on his forehead. It was still prickling, the way it always did after he’d had a vision, and he traced it absently, his finger running down his forehead as he assuaged the throbbing.
“Nightmare?” Ron asked, yawning.
“Kind of,” Harry said, “but I’m fine, honestly. Go back to sleep.” The last sentence proved to be unnecessary as Ron had already rolled over again. Neville’s snores made sure that the Gryffindor dormitory was never wholly silent, even at the witching hour, and Harry wished sometimes for some solitude. He knew when one of his dreams was prophetic because of the effects it left on his body. He would be tired for days afterwards, as though he hadn’t slept at all, and flashes of the dream would stand out brightly in his memory, in a way that no ordinary dream would. Harry had the nasty feeling that once again, his connection to Voldemort was telling him something, he just wished he knew what it was.
Already the images of his dream were receding into the blurry tangle of his subconscious and Harry felt the waves of sleep plying his eyelids with lead. He might be exhausted but he knew that he would get no more sleep tonight. Lying back, he closed his eyes against the yellow arrow of dawn as it pierced the skies and his brain mulled over the latest of what he termed his visions. He didn’t think he would go to Dumbledore or tell anyone about it until he was sure what he had seen. The place in his dream may have looked like the Department of Mysteries but Harry had no idea if that was true. Besides, he told himself sternly, it wouldn’t be the first time you followed one of these dreams into mortal peril. There was an unpleasant contraction around his chest as Harry thought about the last time he had taken his visions seriously. He had stormed off to the Ministry of Magic where Sirius had lost his life.
Stifling the uncomfortable lump at the back of his throat Harry rolled over and gripped his pillow tightly. He didn’t cry anymore, he was tougher than that now and he had closed his mind to every memory that might hurt him. He knew that there were an avalanche of things to be faced after Voldemort’s demise but the latter was all Harry could concentrate on for now. When the war against the Death Eaters was over then Harry might find the time to grieve properly.
A breeze drifted through a crack in the window join and Harry stretched, glad to be here in the castle, the only place he ever thought of as home. He questioned what would happen when his time here was ended and he was cast out into the world. He would get no support from the Dursleys, that much was certain, and the uncertainty of his future added to the myriad of undesirable emotions that kept him awake and haunted his mind.
Not for the first time, Harry wondered where his childhood had gone.
**************
This is still chapter 1, folks, I just couldn't fit it all in one post. Hope you like it, anyway, and I'll try to come up with some better posting strategy but for now you'll have to cope with the double chapter affair. Sorry about that.