Between Ruin and Salvation by Kihin Ranno

Part Two: Sixth Year

This story contains adult material. If you are not of legal age, leave this page now.

Draco emerged from Borgin and Burkes, chin erect and back straight. On his journey from one magical alley into the next, Draco decided he could spend a few more moments away from his mother. Perhaps he’d stop at Fortescue’s and get himself a little treat. He’d certainly earned it.

He’d just threatened a man, not that making threats was anything new. He’d spent the majority of his boyhood sneering at Potter and his little tagalongs, pretending to be so much bigger than he was. And of course he felt that way with Crabbe and Goyle flanking him, the two of them forever at his back. A little lip from the offending party, and all either would have to do is glare or crack their knuckles and suddenly everything would be going his way again. It was easy to manipulate people when they were afraid of you, or more specifically, of your friends.

Well, Draco certainly had more standing behind him than the bulk of Crabbe and Goyle now, didn’t he? He had an entire battalion of Death Eaters behind him. All he’d had to do was mention Greyback’s name, and people fell all over themselves to do as he liked. Then again, werewolves did have a tendency to strike a certain amount of fear in people, and Fenrir Greyback was far more frightening than Remus Lupin could ever hope to be.

Better still, he had the power of the bloody Dark Lord, who had come to the Manor just to give him a job to do. An important job. A job that would certainly vault his father’s status back into the stratosphere once he’d accomplished it.

His mother hadn’t been too happy about it. She’d made quite the scene once the Dark Lord had gone. A crystal decanter Draco had always been fond of became a casualty of the argument that followed. She’d told him he was too young, too naïve to understand.

He scoffed, shoving his hands into his pockets. She was the one who didn’t understand. She’d always sympathized with his father’s views, but she’d never actually done anything about it. Narcissa Malfoy had once been known in Death Eater circles as the epitome of a society wife. She’d been important for establishing connections and for entertaining, but what could she do with their father in prison and in such bad standing? Draco was the first to admit that his mother was brilliant, but there was no wizard or witch powerful to make something out of nothing.

And nothing was all the Malfoys had. Perhaps if Bellatrix had lived, if that white crow werewolf hadn’t laid his hands on her and twisted her head around, they could have managed without Draco getting involved. But without a patriarch to lead them and without an aunt to curry Voldemort’s favor, Narcissa’s more subtle influences were of no use. Someone had to do the work. Someone had to be on the front lines. And that someone needed to be Draco.

Not that Draco minded. For years, he’d dreamed of helping his father politically, and after the Triwizard Tournament, Draco had been elated. Everyone else had been sorry that Diggory was dead, but Draco felt tickled that Voldemort had returned and that one day, when he was old enough, he would be able to join him. While everyone else mourned the future Cedric Diggory would never get, Draco celebrated the future he was ready to sink his teeth into.

True, Cedric hadn’t deserved it, but Draco understood that Diggory had been a necessary fatality. The Dark Lord had needed to keep his resurrection a secret, and Diggory could have exposed him had he lived and helped Potter get away. Of course, it turned out Potter didn’t need help, slippery little sod that he was. Still, the fact remained that Diggory’s death had been a vital expenditure, and not one that made Draco all that sorry. It wasn’t as if Draco had known him. Besides, did the world really need another Hufflepuff running about?

No, what the world needed was people like him. People willing to do what was right for honor and for family, for preserving tradition and keeping the wizarding world safe from Muggles who had only ever wanted to destroy it. It was amazing that wizards never learned from their histories. How many witches and wizards had survived burning in the trials of old that swept Europe, only to be drowned or strangled or worse? True, countless Muggles had gone up in smoke as well, but every once in awhile, the hunters got it right.

That was all the proof Draco needed. It was best for their kind to keep to themselves. Marrying out, producing half-bloods, and worse still, allowing Muggle families entrance into their society just because of a fluke of nature was reckless and put them all at risk.

Draco would do what he must to keep his family safe. He’d protect them all from the Muggles and Mudbloods of the world. He’d get his father out of jail. He’d see his mother smile again. He’d fulfill his mission for the Dark Lord. He would do all of this, and then his mother would see how wrong she had been to call him foolish.

Finally, Draco finished the familiar walk to Fortescue’s. He smiled to himself, going over ice cream flavors to see which he would prefer. Then he looked up and came to a grinding halt.

The shop was completely deserted. Not only that, but it was sealed off. He immediately recognized the red lights in front of the door and the notice from the Auror forces warning people away. This was a crime scene. He stepped forward, wondering if he could get a closer look.

“It’s sad that they took him, isn’t it?”

Draco cringed and found himself marveling at his terrible luck. First thwarted out of a little reward for a job well done, and now he was running into her of all people? Again? He certainly hoped this would not be indicative of the rest of his year.

He looked over his shoulder, shooting a stern glare at Luna Lovegood’s wide grey eyes floating just underneath bangs trimmed too short. “Have you cast some sort of tracking spell on me, because I must say, this is becoming ridiculous.”

She shook her head and plucked at her sleeves. Draco noticed she was wearing Muggle clothes and curled his lips in disgust. She was practically painting a target on her back. “I wouldn’t cast a tracking spell on you unless I needed to find you.”

“You have an unenviable talent of stating the obvious, Luna,” he drawled.

“Thank you.”

“It wasn’t a—oh, nevermind.” Not even ten seconds, and she was already giving him a headache. Brilliant. “Didn’t I threaten you the last time I saw you? I’d think that would be a fairly good indication that you ought to keep your distance.”

Luna clasped her hands behind her back and walked forward to stand beside him. He hadn’t ever really paid attention before, but she always seemed on the verge of skipping. Considering her unpopularity, he had no idea what she had to be so bloody happy about. “You did threaten me, and logically, that’s very true.”

He expected her to continue, but as always with her, his expectations were not met. “Then why are you talking to me?”

“Well, to begin with, I find it highly unlikely that you’d attempt to attack me in the middle of Diagon Alley. Especially not when it’s this busy with people gathering what they need for school.

“Besides, I don’t think you’d hurt me.”

Draco let out a loud bark of laughter, attracting the attention of several other shoppers passing them by. Luna seemed to barely register his reaction. “How wrong you are.”

“I don’t think I am,” she said, oblivious as ever. “I’m a very good judge of character. So I believe you won’t hurt me.”

“I’ve hurt people before,” he reminded her with acid in his voice. “I hurt a lot of people when I was on the Inquisitorial Squad.”

She nodded in agreement. “Well, it’s certainly a mistake placing you in a position of authority. You’re bound to abuse it.”

He wished he could muster up the effort to be offended, but it wasn’t as though he could deny it. “Isn’t that the sort of person you ought to be careful of?”

“Only when they’re in power.” She turned to face him, staring at him with those eyes that never really zeroed in. When he looked at her, he always wondered if she saw his insides or if she saw nothing at all, if he was just as invisible as those creatures she claimed hovered in all the corners of the castle. “You have no power over me, Draco Malfoy.”

He shivered. Something about that disturbed him very deeply. He wanted to say that it was just the fact that no one else would ever dream of saying these things, but he couldn’t be sure. “I pity anyone who would try to,” he muttered dispassionately.

She seemed inordinately pleased by this. Then she turned to the ice cream shop and said, “Anyway, as I was saying, it’s sad that they took him.”

“Who?” Draco asked, and then realized there was only one man she could be talking about. “Fortescue? The ice cream man?”

“Wasn’t I clear?”

Part of him wanted to explain that he was being rhetorical, but he knew he didn’t have the patience. “Who took him?”

“Death Eaters of course,” she said. “They dragged him off one night. No one knows why, but I suppose he did something to make them angry.”

Draco stared at the empty shop. He hadn’t known. Hadn’t even suspected. Wasn’t this the sort of thing he ought to be aware of now? Shouldn’t he be told who to watch out for and who was a friend? Shouldn’t he know before deciding to get a sweet that the man who sold them was imprisoned – probably dead.

“I’m sorry to be the one to tell you. Were you very close?”

He nearly scoffed at the notion – him, close with a merchant – when she laid a hand on his arm. As his bad luck would have it, she stood at his left, which meant that his left hand bore the brunt of her contact. It was a light enough weight against his sleeve, but that didn’t matter. His left arm always throbbed with a dull, constant ache, but anyone so much as brushing against him left it screaming in agony. He winced, unable to stop himself, and cried out, yanking his arm away.

Her hand hung in the air as if pressing against an invisible companion. She wrinkled her forehead, a dark line forming between her blond eyebrows. “Are you all right?”

“Fine,” he growled, trying to ignore the fire racing up and down his flesh, zeroing in on a small patch on the inside of his forearm. Every nerve sang with pang like a harp string plucked and vibrating on and on. Sweat broke out on the back of his neck and his jaw ached with the effort it took not to fall into a swearing fit.

Something shifted in her posture, indicating a change in her disposition. It wasn’t fear. Perhaps she was too mad to be afraid of anything, but she was definitely wary. Apparently, he inspired caution if not terror. He decided it would do for now.

“How did you hurt yourself?”

“Who said I did?”

“Did someone hurt you?”

He raised both eyebrows, nearly agreeing, but then drew it back. “I was flying, and I had a bit of an accident. Why do you care?”

She paused, considering. “I’m not sure why. But I do care.”

Draco began to straighten, considering her. She certainly did have mysterious down pat; too bad she did it in a way that was infuriating, not attractive. She wasn’t enigmatic, but completely backward. She said she cared, but how could she? He wasn’t family, he wasn’t a friend. They weren’t in the same house. And she didn’t know it yet, but they weren’t on the same side. She had no reason to care, so of course she didn’t. But then why would she say that she did?

“I’m leaving,” he announced, forcing himself upright. “Do me a favor. Try not to run into me again.”

“Try not to hurt your arm again.”

He wanted to say something both biting and pithy in response, something that would reassure her that there was nothing out of the ordinary about him. But she was already leaving him, and with her back turned, it just didn’t seem as important anymore.

-----

“Not sure we do get out,” Sirius muttered, scratching behind his ear. “Not sure we can without help.”

The usual twinge of fear bloomed in Harry’s chest, but he quickly soothed it away. He’d been in worse spots than this, after all. “Hermione’ll figure something out.”

Sirius nodded. “Or Remus will know what to do.”

Harry cast his eyes around the grey world, seeking out landmarks or signposts or anyone with a face. But all he saw were tattered grey curtains swaying in a wind he couldn’t feel. Perhaps it was the force of the whispers, blowing them with their speech. “So, it’s like… it’s like we’re in some kind of afterlife. Since only Luna and I could hear the voices, just like the Thestrals.”

Sirius winced. “I didn’t realize you heard them too.”

“I saw Cedric—"

“I know,” Sirius sighed.

The fear returned, no longer blooming like a rose but scraping like a thorn. “Are we dead?”

He’d expected Sirius to mirror his own terror, but the older man only smiled and cuffed him on the back of his head. “Can’t be. Too solid.” He exhaled sharply. “And breathing.”

“Then… we’re alive. And everyone else is dead. All the voices.”

“Looks that way.”

Harry shivered and wrapped his arms around himself. “I don’t like it.”

Sirius let out a single sharp laugh. “Death’s not here to be liked, Harry.”

Certainly not. And Harry hadn’t liked Death at all for quite some time. Ever since he was a child.

“Mum and Dad,” he whispered, already moving. “I could find them.”

Sirius’s hand fell on his arm, gently restraining but heavy as chains. “Harry—"

“They’re my parents,” he snapped. “They’re your friends. I want to see them.”

“Do you see anyone? Anyone besides us?”

Harry squeezed his eyes shut. “Then I could follow their voices, couldn’t I?”

Neither one of them spoke, but there was no such thing as silence. All the murmuring, hissing voices swelled around them, surrounding them on all sides. The volume rose, though only a little, in their self-imposed quiet.

“How?” Sirius asked, his vibrating tone keeping the noise at bay. “There’s too many, Harry. We’d never find them. And then maybe we’d never be found.”

Harry wanted to argue, which even he had to admit had been something of a default position this year. But damn it if his godfather wasn’t making sense. He folded his arms again, petulant rather than guarding against the cold. “Don’t sound like yourself.”

“It seems I channel Remus in the afterlife,” Sirius joked. “Who knew?”

Harry sighed and looked back the way he came. He recognized nothing. “They’re certainly taking their time.”

“It’s all right,” Sirius soothed brusquely. “They’ll be here. They’ll come.”

-----

“Fucking piece of fucking shit,” Draco swore without much feeling, kneeing the rotting cabinet doors. “Work!”

He’d been trying to get the cabinet to see reason, inasmuch as a piece of furniture could, for nearly three months now. He’d had minimal success. The vanishing cabinet still vanished things, but it was a matter of getting it to connect with its mate back at Borgin and Burkes. He’d lost countless items from the Room of Hidden Things with his experimenting and worked so late into the night that by the time he finished, his fingers could barely work properly.

The worst of it was that no one seemed to be of a mind that he was actually trying. How often had he received owls from his mother gently urging him to go to Professor Snape for help? They’d been coming more frequently, and they were steadily growing less gentle. He could only guess at what was prompting her anxiety, though he didn’t care to. She’d been uncharacteristically explicit in telling him that someone might come to him soon to check on his progress. He didn’t have to ask who that was.

He supposed he ought to be happy that it wasn’t the Dark Lord himself paying him a visit. His mother, who had been irrationally afraid following his recruitment, had become paranoid that Draco would often appear before him. She’d then surprised him with the admission that she herself was an Occlumens, who then proceeded to pass on the secrets to him. She’d insisted that he know how to protect his thoughts from the Dark Lord should they meet face-to-face again.

His mother hadn’t known then that Fenrir Greyback would be his contact, and Occlumency wouldn’t do a damn thing to protect him from that foul wolf. Nor had she anticipated that her teachings would be used to fend off another Legilimens. Professor Snape had cornered him and tried to use it once already, had been surprised to find that he could not undo Draco’s plans by looking into his mind.

‘I want to help,’ he’d said. ‘I want to make sure you succeed.’ Not bloody likely. Draco had been warned to keep his mission and his plans to himself. He saw no reason to go against these instructions; it wasn’t worth the risk. Besides, going to Snape would have meant admitting defeat. Draco wouldn’t go crawling to him because of a few minor setbacks. Draco would make sure that no Malfoy would have to yield to his knees ever again.

“Tempus,” he muttered, pointing his wand upwards. The numbers immediately flashed above his head in light blue. It was nearly four in the morning. No doubt Crabbe and Goyle were fixing to nod off, if they hadn’t already, and they were likely quite sick of the long hair by now. So Draco rose to his feet, gave the cabinet one last good kick, and strode out of the room.

Imagine his surprise when he saw Luna Lovegood sitting outside the door.

“You have got to be joking,” he nearly shouted. He immediately sought out the sheepish forms of Crabbe and Goyle, no longer even transfigured into girls, hanging back in the shadows. “Did I not tell you to keep people like her, but most specifically her, from sticking their noses into things?”

“Most specifically me?” Luna asked, looking a little touched.

Draco wanted very badly to rip his hair out. “Well, you’re the only one who’s been following me around since school started!”

She frowned. “You noticed?”

“Yes, and why am I even talking to you? Crabbe! Goyle!” They cringed at his voice. “Explain.”

Goyle exhaled sharply, his big chest deflating, signaling defeat. “We did like you said. Dressed up like girls and led anyone away who came near. Worked for Filch half-a-dozen times, till we locked him in his office.”

“But she comes rounding the corner, takes one look at us, and sits down once we start to run,” Crabbe explained. “We couldn’t exactly drag her off.”

“Why not?”

“She’s mental, innit she?” Goyle asked. “Can’t be right. Draggin’ off a mental person.”

“’Sides, she’s a bird. Can’t go draggin’ off bird neither.”

“’Specially mental ones.”

“Too right.”

Draco just barely resisted the urge to go back into the Room of Hidden Things to find items to pitch at his so-called friends. “Just. Go.”

One thing could be said for Crabbe and Goyle both: Draco never needed to repeat himself.

Draco looked down at Luna, who seemed to be in no hurry to rise, and said, “Why are you doing this? Why are you following me?”

“I think you’re in trouble.”

He laughed, stifling it when he realized how unsettling the sound was echoing across the vaulted stone ceilings. “So what if I am? What business is it of yours?”

Luna frowned and then stood without placing her hands on the floor, moving something like a vertical river. Then she reached forward and grasped his hands, hooking their fingertips together. He was too stunned to shake her off.

“You told me that Harry trained me to kill people like you,” she murmured, her voice sliding through him like a long-forgotten lullaby. “And maybe he did. But I think mostly, he was teaching me how to save people like you.”

Draco scoffed. “What makes you think I need saving?”

Her grip on his left hand suddenly tightened, and with an impressive use of wandless magic for a Fifth Year, pushed back the sleeve of his robes, revealing the Dark Mark.

He yanked his hand away, drawing his own wand. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

She didn’t seem afraid; she never seemed afraid. She only looked sad. “I’d hoped I was wrong.”

“How did you know?” he spat. “Who told you? No one! I haven’t told anyone. Only mother knows, and the others, so how do you?”

“Your arm hurt back at Diagon Alley,” she reminded him. “You said it was a Quidditch accident, but then why wasn’t it taped up? Or why hadn’t it been healed?”

Draco scowled, swearing silently at his own stupidity. She’d unsettled him so much he’d told a bad lie. She always caught him off-guard, threw him off kilter. And now he’d paid for it.

“I wanted to be wrong,” she murmured sincerely. “Oh, Draco. Why did you do this?”

He shook the sleeve of his robes down until it covered his arm to the knuckles. “You listen to me, Loony. There’s no reason for you to get involved in any of this, so stop sticking your nose in it. Forget what you saw. Forget that I come here. Forget everything if you want to live.”

“Are you threatening me?” She acted surprised by this, as if the mark on his forearm were just an ordinary tattoo.

“I am warning you,” he clarified. “You’re annoying as hell, but I’d rather not see you dead.”

She raised an eyebrow. “Oh?”

He paused, marveling a bit at this himself. What did he care if Luna Lovegood kicked it? He shook his head, muttering, “Not right to kill crazy people I suppose.” Then he turned and stalked toward the Slytherin dungeons, leaving Luna once and again, hopefully for the last time.

This was getting dangerous. People were beginning to get suspicious. If Luna went to Granger or Weasley with what she’d seen, they could make things very difficult for him. He’d managed to fly under their radar in their desperate search for an answer to Potter’s disappearance, but a classmate with a Dark Mark might manage to grab their attention away.

But if she went to the Headmaster….

Draco felt considerably cheered. If she told Dumbledore, the old man would have to call Draco to his office. And that would get Draco close enough to fulfill the second part of his assignment.

So he’d wait a bit. See what Lovegood decided to do with her information. And if she decided to do what he asked and keep it to herself…. Well, he had other options.

-----

“Hello, Severus.”

Snape looked up from his desk, raising his eyebrow in mild surprise at the sight of Remus Lupin in his office. Remus supposed it wasn’t often that werewolves stopped by unannounced. “Lupin.”

Remus curled his hands around his steaming mug of hot chocolate, thankful that he’d decided to stop by the kitchens to procure some before coming to see the Potions Master. The dungeons were notoriously cold, but the presence of Snape in them seemed to lower the temperature considerably. “I thought I might save Horace the trouble and pick up the Wolfsbane Potion myself.”

“And you thought you would stop by and exchange pleasantries?” Snape drawled.

“Something like that.”

“Indeed,” Snape muttered, predictably withholding any gratitude. “How odd that this sudden trip directly follows the hospitalization of one our students.”

Cover blown, Remus saw no need to cling to pretense. “How is Ms. Bell?”

“Recovering at St. Mungo’s,” Snape muttered, suddenly looking very tired. He pinched the bridge of his nose. “You know, Lupin, I am at a loss as to why you could not inquire about her condition in a letter or a fire call.”

Remus shrugged. “Maybe I wanted to see if there was anything I could do to help.”

Snape fell into his default sneer. “I sincerely doubt the students would like any help from a werewolf, particularly in these troubled times.”

Remus tightened his grip on his hot chocolate, heedless as the heat began to burn his skin. “Not every student in this castle believes that I’m a danger to them.”

“Enough of them do,” Snape reminded him. “As do their parents.”

Remus took a quick sip from his drink, mostly to prevent himself from doing something childish like flinging it in his old schoolmate’s face. “How like you to rub salt into old wounds.”

“And how like you to assume that your presence is a comfort to anyone,” Snape spat. “I’ll admit that there are those in Gryffindor Tower who consider you a friend, but then you ought to have gone there. Instead, you came to my office, in the Slytherin dungeons, where I guarantee that you will find no one sympathetic to your plight. Now if you would not mind explaining to me what you really came for, I would greatly appreciate it lest I get fleas.”

“Fine,” Remus growled, slamming the mug onto the desk. “Was it Draco Malfoy?”

“Ah,” Snape said, eyes shining. “Now we come to it.”

“Just answer the question, Severus.”

“I might first want to ask you why you believe the young Malfoy is under suspicion?”

“Ron Weasley owled me. In between fretting about Hermione rarely emerging from her research about Harry, he asked if I had any idea why Luna Lovegood might have taken an interest in the Malfoy boy.”

Snape arched an eyebrow. “Why indeed. I might want an answer to that question myself.”

“I couldn’t even tell you what her boggart is,” Remus muttered. “She refused to participate in that particular exercise, said she didn’t want to alarm anyone, and then stuck her nose back in her father’s newspaper.”

“You should have told her to picture me in a silly hat.”

“The point is,” Remus continued, “that it doesn’t take a genius to figure out why anyone would take an interest in Draco Malfoy. I don’t have to tell you that Voldemort using the son to torture the father isn’t unlike him.”

“You certainly don’t,” Snape muttered, rolling his eyes.

Remus sighed. “He’s recruited the boy, hasn’t he? Given him some sort of mission?”

“His mother has told me as much.”

“Well, what is it?”

Snape let his quill fall out of his fingers. “I can’t say that the boy has taken me into his confidence, Lupin. He is under the deluded misconception that he can handle it by himself. Whatever it is.”

Remus appraised him for all of three seconds before snorting. “You know. And you won’t tell me.”

Snape’s look of intense displeasure was enough of an affirmative.

“Fine,” Remus grumbled. “Slytherins take care of their own. I know that well enough. But when other students are in danger—"

“Ms. Bell will live,” Snape reminded him.

“And what if Hagrid hadn’t pulled her down in time?” Remus snapped. “It’s my understanding that some students thought it was all a joke. Only Neville and Ginny understood what was really happening, and they ran to get him. They could have all left her there until she died.”

“Well, that isn’t what happened.”

“Dumbledore ought to put a stop to this.”

Snape’s eyes flashed, and he shot up, baring his horrible teeth. “Do not presume to say what the Headmaster ought to do with his students.”

“I used to be a teacher here, Severus,” Remus said with an added bite. “I know that things were dangerous enough before Voldemort began his ascent. Allowing a loose cannon like Draco Malfoy running around doing Merlin only knows what is practically inviting Death to Hogwarts’s doorstep.”

“Death comes for us all,” Snape murmured.

“Well, there’s no need to rush it along!” Remus hissed. “You seem to be privy to all of his plans. Why doesn’t he stop the boy?”

Snape scowled. “You were always the clever one, Lupin. You tell me.”

In the end, there was only one reason, could only be one reason. But Remus had wanted Snape to tell him something different. He thought he wanted the truth, but in the end, what he really wanted was the more comfortable lie. He should have gone on telling it to himself instead of coming here to have his fears confirmed.

“He’s just a boy,” Remus murmured. “He oughtn’t be used.”

“I thought he was a cannon.”

“He’s a boy who’s been handed too much responsibility by one war lord,” Remus insisted. “And he’s being allowed to continue based on the whims of another. Children shouldn’t be soldiers. They shouldn’t be fighting our wars. They shouldn’t be our instruments.”

Snape’s smile was a knife in the gloom. Remus already felt it sinking through his skin. “Well, perhaps we’d have no need for Draco Malfoy if Harry Potter were still around.”

The blow hit as it always did. Remus wondered why he’d exposed his underbelly.

Then again, he didn’t really have to. Snape could always reach it no matter how Remus tried to prevent it. After all, snakes crawled on the ground.

-----

It wasn’t often that Ron was called to the Headmaster’s office, and the last time had not ended well for him. Spending half the day in a lake, waking up soaking wet, and shivering your arse off was not his idea of a good time. So when Professor McGonagall interrupted yet another marathon research session with Hermione, he couldn’t allow himself a moment to be pleased with the interruption.

He spoke the password she’d given him (‘goblinberry tart’), ascended the swirling stone stairs, and wondered what horrible fate would befall him thanks to this interview with Dumbledore. Still, he was a Gryffindor, so once he reached the office, he strode forward with his head held high. No sense looking like a prat in front of the most powerful wizard alive.

Even if the most powerful wizard alive had somehow wound up with the most disgusting hand in the history of wizardom.

“You wanted to see me, sir?” Ron asked, doing his best not to stare at the withered appendage. Predictably, his best was not that great.

Dumbledore tactfully rearranged his robes and then stepped out from behind his desk. “Never fear, Mr. Weasley. I have no intention of arranging a reunion between you and the merfolk. Though I do believe they were quite impressed with your hair color.”

Ron felt the back of his neck burst into flame. “Pleased to hear that, sir. About the lake, I mean. Don’t know how I feel about merpeople liking gingers.”

Dumbledore chuckled, but Ron didn’t miss the distinct lack of warmth in his eyes. Ron didn’t see much of Dumbledore outside of meals, but he felt like the old man had seemed considerably older lately. The strain of losing Harry must have hit him harder than Ron had thought.

“Tell me, Ron,” Dumbledore began, “how is your research going?”

Ron plopped down in the chair, too exhausted to stand just thinking about it. “Bloody awful, if you’ll pardon me, sir.”

“Of course.”

“There’s no books on the stupid veil to begin with, or none we’ve found at any rate,” Ron grumbled. “And we’ve been ordering them in from all kinds of libraries. You should see the looks Madame Pince has been giving us….” He frowned. “But that’s not the worst of it.”

Dumbledore sighed. “You’re worried about, Ms. Granger.”

“Yeah.” Ron shifted in his seat. Talking about his feelings was never a comfortable thing for him, since no one had ever asked after him at home. But without Harry to rant to on occasion, Ron had felt fit to burst, and though his visit with Remus a few weeks before had helped, it had only let out a little steam. “I’ve never seen her like this, sir. She’s… obsessed. Nothing distracts her. Do you know I have to remind her to eat? And sometimes I have to force her to go to bed. I’ve taken to tucking her in down in the Common Room just so I can keep my eyes on her, make sure she doesn’t wake up in the middle of the night to look at one more book and so on.” He dragged his hands down his face. “And McGonagall’s been on my arse – sorry – about it too. Says her grades have been slipping. I’ve seen her rushing through her homework just so she can get back to finding things out to help Harry, and smart as she is, she’s messing up. Hermione, getting marks off and not even caring.” Ron shook his head. “It’s barmy, that’s what it is.”

“Yes, Professor McGonagall has come to me with similar concerns.” Dumbledore began to pace towards another end of the room, his hands tucked behind his back. “That is why I called you here, Mr. Weasley.”

Ron’s face fell. “I can’t talk to her, Professor. Honestly, I’ve tried.”

“I know you have,” Dumbledore soothed. “And I’m afraid there’s little to be done for Ms. Granger short of taking care of her and helping her search for an answer to our quandary.”

Ron’s shoulders sagged. He’d been hoping Dumbledore might have told him he was ordering Hermione to stop. He’d thought maybe if it came from the Headmaster, she’d actually listen.

It wasn’t that he didn’t want Harry back. He’d punch anyone who suggested that. But he was just so bloody tired. He spent every waking hour reading up on doorways and dimensions and all sorts of things he couldn’t even begin to understand, taking notes for Hermione to sort through, and praying she came upon an answer soon. He wanted to start doing something. He wanted to pull Harry out by his ears and then kick him in the bollocks for putting him through all this shit.

Ron didn’t even have a life to speak of anymore. All he did was research, research, research. Lavender Brown had come up to him months before, whispered things in his ear that nearly made him pop. And he’d had to ignore her and go back to books that couldn’t seem to use words less than four syllables and frequently slipped into Latin. As if he knew Latin. And it wasn’t even that he actually liked Lavender, but it would have been something different, something to break the monotony of his so-called life.

But he couldn’t leave Hermione. She would have been all alone then. She’d work herself to death if he didn’t make her eat and sleep and wash. And before then, she’d fall apart. He knew she would. If he wasn’t there to hold her hand throughout all the disappointments and dashed hopes, she’d go mad.

And then what would become of him?

“Mr. Weasley, I suspect you’re not listening to me.”

“What? Oh, sorry.” He rose to his feet again and strode over to where Dumbledore stood. “Go on, sir. I’m listening.”

Dumbledore smiled that familiar mysterious smile and said, “To be perfectly honest, Mr. Weasley, I would prefer to speak with Ms. Granger on this subject, but I know there will be no tearing her from her research.”

Ron couldn’t help but feel the familiar twinge of disappointment. As always, he was nobody’s first choice. “Oh.”

“It has nothing to do with ability,” Dumbledore said, his tone somewhat admonishing. “But only circumstance.”

Ron frowned. “Do you mean because she’s Muggleborn?”

“No,” Dumbledore said, waving his hand at a cabinet. Ron watched as the doors peeled away, revealing a Pensieve filled with shimmering light. “I would like to speak with Ms. Granger because of her designation as a would-be member of the… Slug Club, as you call it.”

Ron raised an eyebrow. “Yeah, Slughorn’s been after her all year. She won’t have anything to do with him – he’s a distraction apparently.”

“I imagine he is,” Dumbledore muttered, chuckling a little. “Now, Ron, I realize that Christmas vacation is upon us. I understand you and Ms. Granger will be departing for the Burrow, though you will be taking no less than half of our library with you.”

Ron could only groan in response.

“I was wondering if, when the holidays are over, you would like to do me a favor.”

“Does it involve reading?”

“Most definitely not.”

If George hadn’t spent years insisting that Dumbledore was inclined ‘that way,’ Ron may very well have kissed him. “Sign me up!”

Dumbledore smiled behind his ever-present veil of whiskers and gestured to the Pensieve. “Would you step over here, Mr. Weasley? There’s something you need to see.”

-----

Draco ran through the halls of Malfoy Manor, sprinted up every stair, threw himself into his room, and locked the door. Then he magicked his wardrobe to stand in front of the door, sank to his knees, and began to stand guard. If anyone, absolutely anyone managed to burst through his barricade, he’d be ready for them.

He glared down at his wand hand and the hawthorn trembling between his fingers. He tried to steady it with his other arm, but this only made matters worse. He finally decided to forgo his vigilance and dropped the wand, hugging his knees to his chest and struggling not to fly apart.

He wondered if this was everyone’s reaction when Fenrir Greyback paid them a visit.

‘Aren’t you sittin’ pretty, so like a Malfoy. How old are you, boy? Going on 17?’

How stupid he had been. How foolish and rash and naïve, just like his mother had said. What had possessed him to toss Greyback’s name around so casually? He’d been told to, of course, and told that Greyback would be checking up on him. But it had been months, and there’d been no sign of him. Draco thought maybe he’d been too busy. Perhaps he had been. But no more.

‘A little old for me, but nobody’s perfect.’

He regretted everything he’d ever said about Professor Lupin, every lie he’d ever told. Lupin may have been a werewolf, but he was not the monster they had made him out to be. They’d never really been afraid of Lupin. It had all been for show.

Draco was very, very afraid of Greyback.

‘I seem to recall you were told to do something for the Dark Lord. Now me, I don’t care about politics. Don’t give a shit about them. I’m not in it for that.’

It had been a warning. And Draco knew better than to think he’d get more than one. He knew he was lucky to get one at all.

‘I’m in it for when people like you don’t do your jobs.’

Draco couldn’t fail again. Katie Bell had been a mistake he couldn’t afford to make, but he’d made it all the same. Now people were asking questions, wondering who the would-be killer inside of Hogwarts was. And Lovegood was still looking at him with those all-seeing, fearless eyes. She looked at him and through him, and he knew he couldn’t hide from her much longer. She hadn’t told yet, but she would. And then what would become of him? How could he do what he needed to do if they knew?

‘Cause the Dark Lord, see, he doesn’t mind throwing me a bone or two when it comes to people who fail him. How many bones do you suppose you have under your young flesh, little Malfoy?’

He had to get that cabinet to work. He had to kill Dumbledore. He had to do it all, and he had to do it soon.

‘It may please you to know, I won’t lay a single finger on your mother. Oh, no.’

If he didn’t, if he failed….

‘Dark Lord knows I can’t stand them that old.’

He wouldn’t be the only one to pay the price for it.

‘I’m sure he’ll do the honors himself.’

-----

Vacation ended, and eventually, all the students returned to Hogwarts to finish out the term. January turned to February, and winter continued to bite and leave the world masked in dead white. Families continued to be attacked. Anxieties continued to rise. People continued to mourn the loss of Harry Potter, and Ron and Hermione continued to look for a way to solve all of their problems with one fell swoop.

But Ron found himself dealing with another mission, this one assigned by Albus Dumbledore himself. Dumbledore needed him to convince Horace Slughorn to give him the proper memory of when Tom Riddle – Voldemort before he’d lost his nose and his sanity – had asked after Horcruxes. Slughorn had been too ashamed of the truth to show it to Dumbledore, and no amount of pressure from the headmaster had caused him to cave. So for some reason, he’d decided that Ron ought to do it.

Ron hadn’t quite followed Dumbledore’s logic in asking him at all. He knew Harry could have done it, but that was certainly out of the question. Hermione likely could have appealed to his sense of reason or some such, but it was steadily becoming more and more difficult for Hermione to realize that there was a life outside of research. Ron understood that this left him as the next natural choice as far as the Friends of Harry Potter Brigade went. He did not understand why independent of his connections he was at all suited for the job.

Of course, throughout January and February, Ron had begun to realize that perhaps he wasn’t suited and Dumbledore was just feeling particularly desperate.

Ron did not believe he was a master of subtlety, so he had attempted to ask Professor Slughorn right out. However, considering the particular shade of purple the Potions instructor had turned when Ron had brought up Horcruxes and the amount of spittle that hit him in the face during Slughorn’s complete denial of knowing anything about the subject, this had likely been in error. Ever since the first attempt, Slughorn made a point of running in the opposite direction every time they crossed paths.

This had now been going on for a little over two months, and Ron was certain he was going to lose it. He could make no headway with Slughorn, and as far as he knew, they weren’t making any progress on getting Harry and Sirius back either. Frankly, he didn’t understand half of what he read, but he hadn’t seen Hermione’s face light up with the promise of a new theory for quite some time. Ron’s hope flagged to the point of almost diminishing entirely.

There was no guarantee that Harry was even alive.

Ron shot up from his bed, twisting his hands in his hair. “Can’t think about that,” he hissed. “Don’t. Don’t think about it.”

But how could he not? Harry and Sirius had been gone for months. Assuming that they had survived going through the veil, which Ron understood was no guarantee, who was to say that they’d survived crossing into whatever world lay beyond? If it was a realm for the dead, they certainly had no use for food and water. They’d likely starved to death within days. And say the veil led somewhere else. What hostile environments could they have stumbled into? A world with guns or monsters? Maybe even a world where Voldemort had already won. For all he knew, they were searching for an answer to problem that may not exist anymore. For all he knew, the good of the wizarding world had lost the war that night in the Department of Mysteries. Perhaps they could no longer trust to hope.

He’d tried broaching this subject with Hermione once and only once. It was the one thing that got her to look up from her work. She’d stood before him, drawing herself to her full height, and slapped him across the face.

“Harry’s alive,” she’d said with frightening conviction, shaking as if trapped in her own personal earthquake. “He has to be. He wouldn’t leave us. He’d never leave us.”

‘But he did leave us,’ Ron wanted to say. ‘He left us when he ran through the veil, whether he’s alive or dead, he left. He’s my friend, and I want him back, but I can’t help but hate him a bit for leaving us behind.’

He’d said nothing. Just sat down and went right back to work.

But he couldn’t take it for much longer. He couldn’t take Slughorn’s fear, Hermione’s obsession, and Dumbledore’s disappointment. Something had to give, soon. If Ron continued to fail at this as he had failed with what suddenly felt like everything else in his life, he didn’t know if he could stay tethered.

Ron sat down on the floor of his dormitory hard, the furniture creaking in response. He knew he was going about this the wrong way. He’d tried to think of how Harry would do it, and realized that he had probably done exactly what do. He couldn’t even begin to think of what Hermione would do, so instead, he tried to think of what Harry would do after failing the first time.

“Ask Hermione,” he murmured, running a hand down his face. “He’d ask Hermione, and she’d tell him.”

But would Hermione tell him? Could Hermione think of anything other than her books and her research?

“No sense thinking about it,” he muttered and scrambled to his feet. He jogged down the stairs, into the common room, and was not the least bit surprised to find Hermione commandeering her usual table surrounded by books. He rolled his eyes, trying to remember the days when he viewed this with friendly affection and not with exasperation and anxiety. Then he strode forward and sat down in his usual chair.

“You’ve overslept,” Hermione said dispassionately.

“You haven’t slept at all,” Ron grumbled, noting her rank hair and purple shadows beneath her eyes.

She shrugged as if this was of no consequence. “It isn’t a day for classes, so I thought I’d go through a few more books after you went to bed.”

He laid his hand on her wrist to still her movements. It felt thinner than the last time he’d held it. “Hermione, there’s something I need to ask you.”

She looked up, and her left eye twitched a little. “Oh? What is it? Do you think you’ve found something?”

“No,” he muttered, shamed beneath her determination. “No, it’s… it’s about something else actually.”

“Oh, about that business with Dumbledore and Professor Slughorn?”

Ron’s jaw fell open. “How do you know about that?”

She scoffed and shook off his grip. “Honestly, Ron. I realize you think I’m teetering on the brink or something equally ridiculous, but I am not out of touch with reality. Of course, I am still irritated that you didn’t bother to say anything about it, but you are male and apparently thought I was too fragile to handle the information when you first received it.”

Even filled with worry and overwhelmed with shock, Ron found himself grinning from ear to ear. This was the Hermione he remembered. “How’d you find out?”

“A master of subtlety, you are not,” she said, confirming Ron’s suspicions on that matter. “I overheard you asking Professor Slughorn about Horcruxes months ago. I researched them myself while I was waiting on some more books regarding necromancy. Of course, once I discovered what they were, I wondered why on Earth you’d know about them, much less why you’d be asking after them. Then I remembered that Dumbledore wanted to see you right before Christmas, and everything sort of fell into place.”

“I love you,” Ron said, realizing he sounded rather like a desperate puppy – if desperate puppies could talk at any rate.

Hermione fluffed her hair, wrinkling her nose at the feel of her greasy curls. “Yes, well. I still don’t understand why you need Professor Slughorn. I’m sure he’s very intelligent, albeit irritating, what with his incessant invitations.”

Ron explained the whole mess to her. The memories, the alterations, Dumbledore mastering the disappointed twinkle, all of it. When he was done, Hermione frowned, tapping her finger on her chin.

“Well, that certainly explains why Voldemort – honestly, Ron, must you make that face every time – doesn’t die. I ought to have worked that out.” She rubbed her temples and sighed. “So, Tom Riddle asked Professor Slughorn about Horcruxes, an exceptionally forbidden subject, Slughorn told him, and so now Voldemort - Ronald - can’t be killed. And he feels guilty over it, so he changed the memory.”

“Seems that way,” Ron sighed. “And I can’t get him to talk to me. I’m just another Weasley, and it’s not as if I’m close with anyone in the Slug Club.”

Hermione smirked. “Yes, you and Zabini don’t have much in common.” She frowned. “I thought I heard something about Ginny being in it.”

“Nah, another one of his failed recruits,” Ron murmured, frowning. He preferred not to think of how his sister was dealing with Harry’s disappearance. He’d had enough of hearing his mother scream at her over Christmas, frequently throwing the words ‘scarlet woman’ around. Not one of his favorite holidays by a long shot. “Anyway, what am I to do, Hermione? He’s got no reason to tell me anything.”

Hermione nodded. “Certainly not. But come on, Ron. You’re the chess player. Think of this like a game.”

Ron felt his ears begin to burn at the compliment, but he quickly shook it off. No time for that. “Well… I suppose I ought to think about what his weaknesses are. And I guess it’s that he wants to be important, yeah? But he can’t be, so… he surrounds himself with people who are important. And students who will be.”

“Good,” Hermione said, smiling as if everything was normal again. He wondered if she was even thinking about Harry. “How do you use that?”

Ron’s brain worked it out as swiftly as he could manage, and after a few minutes, he could only come up with one answer. He looked at Hermione meaningfully.

She groaned. “No, you were supposed to think of something else.”

“Sorry.”

“But I can’t stand him! Besides, I don’t have time for his little club. I think I’ve almost worked out—"

“Hermione, you don’t actually have to do it,” Ron interrupted. He didn’t want to hear another ‘almost’ promise. “I vote we just go to his office and tell him that you’ll be happy to go to his next… tea or whatever if he gives us the real memory.

She frowned. “Oh, Ron, can’t you just tell him yourself? I really can’t abide him, and besides, I need to keep reading.”

“I don’t know…. Do you think he’ll believe me?”

“Well, I suppose come and get me if it doesn’t,” she compromised. “I’m just very close to finishing this chapter; if you come back when I’m done, it’ll be a good stopping point.”

“Fine,” Ron agreed, getting to his feet. “Thanks, Hermione.”

He started to walk off, emboldened by her suggestion and thrilled to have something resembling a plan. He was almost finished exiting through the portrait hole, when she called out to him.

“And be sure to mention it’s your birthday!” Hermione said. “He might be more amenable.”

He grinned. “Good thinking.”

Then he walked out of the Gryffindor common room towards Horace Slughorn’s office, optimistic for the first time in a long while. Perhaps finally, things were looking up.

“Happy birthday to me.”

-----

On March 1, 1997, Professor Horace Slughorn and Ronald Weasley died. They ingested an unknown poison hidden in a bottle of oak-matured mead. They died within minutes.

When Albus Dumbledore heard the news, he demanded to examine the bottle in question immediately. He did not miss the to-from tag still hanging from the neck. Horace had been planning to give it to him, but decided against it at the last minute. His greed and taste for fine things had saved Dumbledore’s life, but cost the wizarding world two more. One of them a child. One of them a child Dumbledore had sent to do his bidding. One of them a child who might have succeeded, might have been drinking a toast in honor of that success. But Dumbledore would never know. And he would never see the contents of that uncensored memory. He wished he could mourn Ron Weasley more than this lost knowledge.

When Professor Snape found out, his first thought was to find Draco Malfoy. He searched the Slytherin dungeons for him and found nothing. For the first time, he envied James Potter and his little friends the insight that had led them to create that blasted map. Not for the first time, he cursed the absence of Harry Potter, who had that blasted map.

After the disastrous search for Draco, Professor Snape placed a fire call to one former Professor Remus Lupin. He didn’t know why he felt the urge, and why he then followed through with it. But he did know that Lupin was a big enough wizard not to say ‘I told you so’ and for once, Severus Snape wanted a little compassion.

When Remus Lupin answered this fire call, he did not say ‘I told you so.’ He did not withhold his compassion. And he did his very best not imagine strangling the Malfoy boy with his bare hands.

When Arthur Weasley was told of his son’s death, he didn’t believe it. He insisted a mistake had been made, that some other man’s red-haired freckled son had been found and been misidentified. But when he traveled to Hogwarts with his wife gathered in his arms, he saw his son laid out in a closed-off portion of the Hospital Wing. He could not deny his son’s face, his son’s skin, his son’s breath so conspicuously absent. He gave a great howl, fell upon his son’s body, and wept as if the world had ended. In a way, it had.

There are no words to describe a mother’s grief.

When Ginny Weasley found out about her big brother, she found Dean. She threw herself at him, demanded to know why he hadn’t been there. She said it should have been him, as bad a boyfriend as he was. She said he ought to have saved her big brother – they were roommates after all, and friends of a sort. She said she blamed him, said she hated him, said she didn’t understand why she’d had to lose Ron, said she should have been there, said it should have been her, said she hated herself. Then she fell into Dean’s chest and let him hold her as she cried. He wasn’t Harry, and he never would be Harry, but she let him comfort her because he was there, and that’s more than she could say for the Boy-Who-Left.

When Professor McGonagall heard, she set her grief aside for just a little while. There would be time enough for mourning later, and as much as Ron Weasley had exasperated her, she knew she would take a fair amount for herself. But instead of bowing her head, she went and found Hermione Granger, who herself had her own head bowed, buried in a book like always. McGonagall laid a hand on the girl’s shoulder, led her up to her room (carrying an armload of books only to speed the process), and locked the door behind them. Then she told Hermione.

And nothing happened.

“Ms. Granger, did you hear me?” McGonagall asked gently, dipping her head in an attempt to make Hermione look at her. The girl stared only at the books that had been deposited on her bed.

“I did,” Hermione whispered in a throaty voice. “I did. I…. Are you sure?”

“Yes, Ms. Granger, I’m afraid so,” McGonagall continued. “He was in Professor Slughorn’s office. It seemed that a bottle of mead they drank had been poisoned. Though why they were drinking anything at this hour—"

“It was his birthday,” Hermione interrupted. “Ron. It was his birthday.”

McGonagall shut her eyes, steadying her nerves. “A toast to mark another year gone by then. Ms. Granger, I am so sorry.”

Hermione shook her head. “No. It’s fine. I mean, don’t worry about me. I’ll get on.”

McGonagall frowned. It had been difficult to predict the girl’s normally regimented behavior as of late, but this had been the last thing she expected. “Ms. Granger, if you’ll forgive me for saying so, what with this on top of Mr. Potter’s… disappearance—"

“Harry’s not dead,” Hermione spat, fury suddenly leaping to her gaze.

McGonagall held up her hands. “I never said he was.”

“Your tone said it for you,” Hermione said. “I understand you want to make sure I won’t do something drastic, Professor McGonagall, but I can assure you that I’ll be perfectly all right if given some time to process this. Alone.”

So McGonagall left and gave Hermione her time alone.

Hermione stood in the center of the empty room, staring at the unoccupied beds of her roommates. She thought of Lavender Brown and how disappointed she had been when Ron turned her down. Hermione had not only been pleased, but smug, because that meant that Ron had picked her above another girl.

But that hadn’t been about her, had it? It had been about Harry. Or maybe it had been about keeping her sane. It hadn’t been about anything more than that.

And if it had, she’d never get to ask.

She picked up the nearest book and threw it against the wall. Then she picked up another and another and another. The pages flew and the bindings ripped. She’d never heard a more satisfying sound. The books were even screaming in pain. But that was silly, none of these books were like to do that. Then she realized that her throat hurt, that it was her screaming.

“You were supposed to bring him back!” she shouted, chucking yet another at Parvati’s bedpost. “You were supposed to save him!”

She heard the quick thumping up the stairs and the door flying open. She drew her wand and spun around, breathing hard.

It was only McGonagall again. She offered no gesture of surrender, but her eyes were liquid soft. “Ms. Granger.”

The wand fell out of Hermione’s hand, clattering to the floor. Then her knees gave out, but McGonagall caught her before she hit the floor. She buried her face in the skirts of McGonagall’s tartan robes wailing like a child who had never encountered death. And even though she’d seen Cedric, lost Sirius, and couldn’t find Harry, it was nothing like knowing she’d never see Ron again.

“They were supposed to bring him back,” Hermione hiccupped. “The books, they… they were supposed to bring him back.”

“I know,” McGonagall soothed, smoothing her filthy hair. “I know.”

So when Hermione Granger heard the news, she felt betrayed. What she had come to depend on had failed her. And her reliance on it had left Ron alone just when he needed her.

All that, and she was no closer to bringing Harry home.

-----

“Shh,” Harry whispered, looking over his shoulder.

“What is it?”

“Shh!” Harry moved closer to where he thought he’d heard the sound, craning his neck. “Ron?”

He stood, listened, and heard nothing but a multitude of desperate voices pleading for something he could not offer them.

“Ron?” Sirius asked.

“Thought I heard him calling me,” Harry murmured, turning back. “Guess I didn’t.”

Sirius frowned, but he said, “Guess not.”

-----

After learning about what happened to Ron Weasley, Luna did not immediately go to Gryffindor Tower, although it was among her initial instincts. Instead, she wandered the rest of the castle, passing by people weeping and whispering in the corners. She saw a lot of people crying, and once or twice she stopped to tell the ones who looked worse off that it was all right. Ron would be fine. He’d just go on to the next life.

They never said anything back. They just walked away. Luna didn’t think she’d made them feel much better.

She went to the Slytherin dungeons and was nearly trampled by Snape swooping out of the doors like an enraged shadow. She went to the library and found it full of Ravenclaws who shut out their distant grief in books. She went to the Great Hall and found a few others eating it away. She wandered each floor, saving the seventh and the Room of Requirement for last since it would do her little good.

Luna had taken to checking the boys’ bathroom, rightfully assuming that Draco wouldn’t expect her to check those. She’d surprised several other boys with this revelation, and been assured that the castle was very cold. Considering it was early March, Luna had to agree with them.

She found him on the sixth floor, talking to Moaning Myrtle.

“Don’t,” the ghost crooned. “Tell me what’s wrong. I can help you.”

“No one can help me,” Draco insisted in a trembling voice. “I did it. I… I…”

“Draco,” Luna called out, her voice punctuated by a leaking faucet.

Malfoy gasped and gulped, and then, with a great shudder, looked up in the cracked mirror and saw Luna staring at him over his shoulder.

He sniffed and wiped the tears away from his sleeve. “It’s you. Of course it’s you. It always is.”

Luna turned her gaze from Draco towards Moaning Myrtle and gave her a slight nod. “Thank you, Myrtle; I’ll take it from here.”

The ghost pouted, folding her arms crossly. “But I want to help the boy with his problems.”

Luna smiled. “I’ll call you if he needs you. Okay?”

Moaning Myrtle didn’t seem entirely satisfied with this arrangement, but realized it was the best she was likely to get. With her usual wail, she flipped in the air and dove into a toilet, streaking through the pipes to presumably return to her usual haunt.

Now alone, Luna tentatively stepped closer to Draco. “I’m sorry. Would you have rather talked to her? I only assumed you might prefer someone alive.”

Draco laughed, but it wasn’t anything that lifted her spirits. It was the sort of laugh she expected to hear at St. Mungo’s – the kind that scared other people. “I don’t know what I want. Except that I want to live, and I want my parents to live.”

“That’s why, isn’t it?”

Draco stopped staring at her in the reflection and instead looked into his own eyes. He looked ill and angry and so afraid. “He said he’d kill me and them both. My father… I don’t want him to die, but he chose to do this. But Mother… I can’t let him touch her.” His fingers strained against the porcelain. “I won’t.”

Luna took another step forward, reaching for him. “Draco, let me help you.”

“Why do you care?” Draco demanded, straightening like a whip cracking. Then he turned to face her, and she knew he wanted to frighten her. She could muster nothing but sympathy. “I killed your friend.”

“You didn’t mean it,” Luna reasoned. “I know you didn’t.”

“No,” Draco admitted. “But it doesn’t matter. He’s still dead. That won’t change anything for his parents or the 19 siblings, will it?”

Luna tilted her head. “I didn’t think you cared about the Weasleys.”

“I don’t!” Draco raged. “I don’t give a flying fuck about Ron Weasley or any of the others. But I… I killed their son. He was alive yesterday, and now he’s not, and I… hate how it makes me feel. I hate feeling guilty about it. I don’t like him. He’s a blood traitor, and he’s poor, and he’s stupid, and bloody awful at Quidditch, but he’s dead, and it’s my fault.” He sank into a squat, holding his head. “Why do I feel like this? I don’t care about him. I don’t!”

Luna finished crossing and sat down in front of him. She wrapped her fingers around his wrists and gingerly pulled his hands away. Then she lifted his chin until he opened his eyes and looked at her.

“You feel bad because you’re a good person, Draco,” Luna said. “I know you don’t think that. I know you hate yourself for this, and that’s okay. You’re allowed to. But I hope one day you realize that everything you’ve done, you’ve done out of fear and out of love.”

He stared at her, grey eyes surrounded by angry red. “He’s… he was your friend.”

“And I’m sad that he’s gone,” she admitted. “But I know he’s okay. I know that he’s not in pain. I know that he’s not afraid. I know that he’s with some of his family, with Cedric, maybe even with Harry. It’s sad for us when people die, but it’s not sad for the dead.”

Draco’s shoulders heaved with a sob. “That doesn’t explain why you don’t hate me.”

“Draco, I don’t know if you made the right decision,” Luna murmured. “I tried to help, and you refused. I know Dumbledore or Professor Snape would have helped you. I’d like to be angry at you for that, but… you’re sixteen. You’re only sixteen. I think you did the best you could on your own.

“Besides,” she smiled at him with quiet sadness, smoothly away his overlong bangs from his brow. “I know you don’t want me, but I think you’re something of a friend too.”

She hadn’t meant to make him cry again, but she did. He fell forward onto her chest, nearly knocking her flat with his weight. She wrapped her arms around him, giving him leave to cry. She ran her hands up and down his back, feeling each bone of his spine as it curved into her palm. She hummed a song her mother used to sing and didn’t say another word until he calmed down again.

“Can I help you now, Draco?” she asked. “Will you let me?”

His Adam’s apple bobbed against her skin. He took a long breath. When he exhaled, his breath felt cold.

“Yes.”


Coming Soon - Part Three: Burning Pale

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