Shadows Came to Stay

The Great Hall rang with the shouts of curses.

Harry Potter, The Boy Who Lived, was one of the few whispering instead of shouting. His eyes closed, the wand he gripped spraying the Gryffindor Table with lurid green sparks, he murmured the Killing Curse under his breath over and over. Across from him, Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger were not speaking at all.

"Would you stop that? I don't want my book catching fire!" Hermione snapped suddenly, sliding Hogwarts: A History away from the onslaught of the magical sparks. Ron, eating his dinner methodically, glanced at Harry and gave him a sympathetic, best-friend's smile.

Harry stopped, opening his eyes just in time to catch Ron's smile and Hermione's irritated expression. He stopped whispering and set down his wand. "Sorry," he said, raising his voice to be heard over the cry of Unforgiveables. "I'm just kinda -- y'know--"

"Afraid of forgetting the spell?" Hermione sighed. "Honestly, is it that hard? Avada Kedavra -- we've practiced it thousands of times in Curses. You just need to concentrate, Harry. You did it perfectly when you tried it the other day."

"That's easy for you to say," Harry blurted, "you two have already taken your O.W.L.s! I don't even know who I'm being assigned -- what if I say avis instead, or what if I start thinking about Mum, or--"

"You'll be fine, Harry," Ron reassured him between bites. "It's really not hard -- Hermione's right...for once. They gave me Zabini. I told you about how dark it was...I never had to see his face, remember?"

This year, for the fifth-year's O.W.L.s, the students in the three houses had been split into groups. Each group was to be taken out of the castle to do the practical part of their exams on a different day. The process was spread out over a week. Hermione and Ron had been in the same group, had gone to their testing sites individually with an entourage of judges dogging their heels. They had already gotten their O.W.L.s over with. It had infuriated Harry more than he was willing to admit.

"I remember," Harry admitted reluctantly. "But I dunno -- Mum sent me a letter earlier, and...never mind. I reckon I'll be okay."

He put away his wand and pulled out a piece of folded parchment, already read at least ten times. He unfolded it on the table and shared it with his best friends for the first time. Lily Evans, in her neat, even hand, had calmly assured her son that he would do fine on his O.W.L.s, that she believed in him, that she loved him, that everything was going fine in Godric's Hollow.

Harry treasured every one of her letters; she was the only parent he'd ever known. Members of Dumbledore's Army, for which he was training now, had eliminated his father -- a blood traitor -- after he divorced his mother, when he was only a baby. He'd had custody of Harry the day he died, and they'd mistaken him for a blood traitor as well. It was how he had gotten his scar.

Hermione turned her eyes away quickly, knowing how Harry liked to keep these letters private. Harry wasn't stupid enough to think she hadn't read it all, but he liked the illusion. "She went through her O.W.L.s ages ago, but never like this," Hermione said. "Minister Dumbledore didn't even allow the army to kill blood traitors then. It was a different sort of test. Still--"

"Your mum's got the right idea, Harry," Ron said warmly, nearly sprinkling the treasured letter with food debris. Harry hastily tucked it away. The redhead, oblivious, went on. "There's nothing to be afraid of. Anyone can do it!"

"Except poor Seamus." Hermione's voice was mournful and low. "He was taken to his test right after dinner last night. But he refused to kill the boy -- Longbottom, was it? He failed because of that."

Before Harry could worry about whether or not he had the force of will to look at another wizard and condemn them to death, Headmistress Minerva McGonagall approached. "You'll be going first tonight, Potter," she said briskly, setting down his pass before him. The left sleeve of McGonagall's robes drooped badly, and with good reason: there was no arm inside it. In an assembly last week, she'd told her students about the terrible duel she'd had with a blood-traitor who'd escaped from Azkaban, how a curse from the pureblood had erased her arm utterly. The traitor, of course, had died for her misbehavior.

"Er..." Harry looked up at the severe woman. "What's it going to be...like?"

McGonagall looked down at the clipboard in her hand, a spell helping her shuffle through other passes. "Very routine -- I believe you went over it in Poisons," she murmured. "We'll tell you all about the blood traitor you're assigned to kill. You'll Apparate to your testing site, along with me and four other judges. Then, you'll assassinate him or her. We'll judge you on stealth, wandwork, diction -- things like that. You ought to know your score immediately after. If you have any other questions, see Miss Chang...she's one of our student judges this year."

As McGonagall drifted away, Harry scanned the Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw tables. It didn't take him long at all to locate Cho Chang, smiling demurely and probably thinking of her boyfriend Cedric Diggory, an official member of Dumbledore's Army this year. He couldn't keep himself from blushing. Hermione coughed and hid herself behind her book.

"And don't worry about missing," Ron said. "Minister Dumbledore modified the Killing Curse so it only kills purebloods -- er -- blood traitors." Ron was the member of a family of purebloods identified as 'benevolent,' and a growing number of purebloods were joining them. Probably because they know that's the only way they'll become immune to the Killing Curse, Harry thought. Probably because they know Dumbledore's trainees use them as target practice otherwise.

"Enough of that," Harry said suddenly, putting his pass away. "Ron, what d'you think of the Cannons' chances this year?"

* * *

Young as she was, the girl was a Malfoy born; she didn't raise a single verbal complaint. In the pictures, she was slender, with soft blonde hair and blue eyes. The trouble was, they were related. Crabbe and Goyle were as wary as he was (though he'd be damned if he'd show it). Lucius Malfoy, predictably, remained as stoic as he would have been if he'd arranged his son with a pureblood who wasn't a close relation.

In his father's bedroom now, Draco Malfoy stood very still as the elder dressed him -- a tradition that had been upheld in all times of stress. Draco's hands had developed the disconcerting tendency of shaking whenever he was affected by a particularly strong emotion; he knew he wouldn't be able to dress himself properly tonight, as he was presently in such a state. He'd be going north in a few hours, and the people he'd meet there wouldn't accept anything less than perfection in their daughter's suitor. He could feel the heat radiating from Lucius' hands as he buttoned his gray dress shirt.

"Have you packed everything?"

"Hours ago." Draco held his breath as his father's fingers traced his jawbone, gray eyes searching Lucius' face for any betrayal of what he was thinking. "Mother told me the girl...cried when she heard she'd been arranged to me, Father."

Lucius snorted, but daintily so. His hands left his son, grabbing a black tie from where it had been carelessly laid down on the bed. He coiled the fine material around Draco's neck. "She's a girl, Draco; she's fifteen, and she's afraid. What more could you expect from the sex? They're weak...your mother nearly died of fright when one of those filthy mudbloods came for her. And Bellatrix -- well--" He broke off, his pallid lips twitching up in something that may have been private amusement.

Oh yes, Bellatrix was a frail dove, just ask Minerva McGonagall. Draco smiled back; the headmistress of Hogwarts had managed to kill his aunt, but she was one arm the poorer. Lucius must have forgotten that he, too, read the Daily Prophet Percy brought by in the mornings. "Bellatrix will be missed, Father," he said quickly, eager to return the conversation to his own troubles, "but my future wife's still alive."

He was instantly sorry. He could see his death rising in his father's eyes, but the threat disappeared as quickly as it had arisen. "No pureblood should be forgotten just because they've fallen to those cravenly...assassins," Lucius informed him, his voice thick with obvious disgust. "As for Pansy, she'll be all right. She's only been arranged for a day -- her father will make her see reason. Unless that's not what you meant to ask at all..." The man's lips turned down in an unseemly sneer. "Are you afraid as well?"

"I'm not a girl, Father," Draco said, emphasizing the word just as his dad had. He kept in mind that in the future, he should keep his comments to himself while his father's hands were around his neck. Presently, Lucius' hands were securing the tie in what felt like a complicated knot.

"I saw what little you have to offer when you asked me to put on your boxers. Did you think I'd forgotten so soon?" Lucius' voice dripped with contempt.

Draco shrugged, looking very noncommittal. He wanted to disappear when he felt his cheeks grow warm at his father's frankness. "No," he said after a moment.

"Good." Lucius handed him his black blazer, which -- apparently -- he expected Draco to put on himself. After he moved away a little, Draco completed the challenge admirably. "The Parkinsons are good purebloods, Draco -- cowardly, fleeing Dumbledore's ragtag army as they have...but good. And Pansy is a good girl, a beautiful, obedient girl. She's very enjoyable, you'll see. You'll have beautiful pureblooded children."

Draco didn't tell his father about his worries or fears; nor did he tell him that he wished to be accompanied. He was a pureblood, after all, and he wouldn't be afraid. "I'll miss you, Father," he mumbled, as weak as he allowed himself to get.

Lucius leaned forward and kissed the corner of Draco's mouth. "Be careful. I'll see you in two weeks," he murmured as he pulled away.

* * *

The wind whispered through the tress, and the soft, slow rustling of the shrubbery surrounding the Malfoy Manor grew abruptly loud and rapid following a succession of cracks as Harry Potter and his judges Apparated behind them. Immediately after they'd gotten their bearings, the members of the DA oozed into the cracks a few rosebushes provided and disappeared like shadows. Slightly less gracefully, Harry hid, too.

The five judges and the one boy watched in predatory silence, waiting for the lights in the mansion to go out one by one. "The boy will be coming out in five minutes -- when the last light goes out," Headmistress McGonagall told Harry for the sixth time, rubbing the place where her left arm ended absently. "Potter, are you ready?"

The dark-haired Gryffindor looked up at the sky. They were in the English countryside now, and he could see countless stars. He recalled distant constellations, snatching their names from his memories of Astronomy -- the one class Hogwarts students had whose purpose wasn't twisted to justify murder. The smell of some fall flower pleased his nose, the scent coiling sweetly around the nervousness that made him tremble inwardly. "Yes, miss," he lied.

"Aim straight and speak true." Auror Alastor Moody, to his left, had a low, deep voice. Minister Dumbledore had employed him to help fifth-years during this most difficult of tasks. Harry supposed he was all right, but his ruin of a nose made it hard to look at him for long. "Nothing stings worse than missing on your first try."

Harry nodded respectfully and curled his fingers around his wand, stashed in one of the pockets of his robes. Supposedly, the DA had secured the area before his arrival, and the boy wasn't to arrive for five more minutes yet, but it was best to be prepared. He resisted the urge to look at Cho Chang, who he knew was looking at him.

McGonagall's reproach seemed to come a bit late. "Moody, we've warned you time and again against this. You know the rules -- you're not supposed to give the students help or advice once they're at their testing site. Minister Dumbledore would never approve!"

"D'you think he'll have this opportunity when he's out there like this during his N.E.W.T.s and has to stand a kill on his own?" Moody objected. "He ought to get all the help he can right now! Otherwise -- well, you know what'll happen if you're not prepared, don't you, Minerva?"

The headmistress' voice was loud with heat, growing steadily more vehement. "He's had five years--"

"Quiet, both of you!" one of the more diminutive judges squeaked. In the twilight gloom that shrouded the mansion's lawn, Harry couldn't tell which judge it was. "Will you kill each other so the blood traitors don't have to? Look, the lights are starting to go out! They'll be watching the lawn more carefully now!"

"I wouldn't go that far, Filius. Thank you," McGonagall said contritely before lapsing into silence.

Marveling at the fact that this Auror had dared to take a jab at his headmistress -- a woman who had distinguished herself most beautifully in her duel against the wicked blood traitor Bellatrix, a woman who had gained a terrible wound that still smarted in exchange for her notoriety -- Harry turned his eyes to the Malfoy Manor along with the other five. Together, they watched the first light go out.

Another flickered out. And then another. As darkness claimed the manor, the scent of those flowers seemed far sweeter, and motivation, like some tingling sort of fuel, flushed away his nervousness. He'd be on his own soon, just as Moody had said. He'd be able to hold someone's life in his hands and decide whether to kill or not. He'd have control over something! That knowledge was intoxicating, dizzying.

Someone's hands brushed against his. A fifteen year old boy whose attention was easily averted, Harry looked away...and looked over at the older student judge who'd so discreetly touched him. It was Cho. "Good luck, Harry," she whispered tenderly, then moved away.

He was still blushing and being lovesick and not remembering how to breathe when the last light went out. Nearly immediately afterward, one of the double front doors of the manor creaked open. Harry snapped to sudden attention.

A thin, short boy, perhaps around his age, stepped out and closed the door behind him. When he started walking arrogantly -- and stupidly -- across the green lawn, Harry knew him for who he was. Yes, here was the target: the boy had the same pale skin and colorless hair and dark clothes as the prim, unsmiling boy he had seen in the pictures. The boy who, outwardly, seemed so stiff but harmless. Yet he'd come to know him well since the time he'd been given his pass at dinner. The headmistress had secluded him and fed him facts about this boy, telling him of his deeds, the despicable things he'd done to condemn himself as a blood traitor. Those things had helped him learn to hate. Those things had helped him realize it was all right to kill.

Harry gripped his wand, hidden in one of his pockets. "I'll be back soon," he said to his judges, slithering away from the DAs to hide behind foliage closer to the target.

The boy made little attempt to camouflage himself -- as useless as that would have proved, given his startling appearance -- obviously not expecting to be attacked in front of his own house, which made this testing site so perfect. His hair gleamed moon-bright under the intensity of the stars and Harry followed that shining beacon, hiding first behind other rosebushes, then behind a young tree thick with green leaves. Peeking at him, predicting that he would cross a droopy willow tree beyond them both, Harry made that his next destination. When the boy looked down to retrieve something from the blazer he wore -- perhaps his wand? -- Harry raced for the tree and hid himself behind its slender trunk.

Not one part of his body showed beyond the diameter of the trunk; he felt as slim as a blade. He could hear the blood roaring in his ears. He could hear his quick breathing. He could hear the way the boy would scream when he realized that curse of cold green death was coming towards him. Liquid motivation swirled in him like a wizard's volatile potion in its cauldron. He'd lied to McGonagall before, but he wasn't lying to himself now. He was ready.

"What are you doing here?" The boy's voice was a sleepy drawl.

Eyes wide, Harry whirled around -- to find himself face to face with the boy, even paler up close like this. He had the feeling that he'd have his arms crossed if there was a way he could do so without creasing the expensive blazer he wore. Harry was surprised to see his eyes were gray and not white...but in them was the sickening arrogance that marked every blood traitor -- and he thought he saw the fact that he knew...and that he knew that Harry knew. He had to be eliminated quickly! The Gryffindor drew his wand, trying to be unobtrusive. He hoped he was making the right decision.

"What--" A trembling smirk greased the boy's thin lips as Harry took a few steps forward and pressed the tip of his wand against his sternum, wondering if it hurt (if it did, no hint of it showed in the pureblood's mercurial eyes). His pale eyes flicked down to the weapon, nearly hidden between their bodies. "What are you going to do with that thing, mudblood?"

I'm going to kill you, Harry wanted to say, but the words wouldn't come. He'd imagined this moment many times: going up to some unsuspecting blood traitor, whispering some florid speech that explained why they were going to die, uttering the spell and feeling the triumph of victory as they fell cold and dead, but this was nothing like his fantasies. The boy was calmly composed in the face of death, not cowering and weeping like purebloods invariably did in his smudgy daydreams; it took a lot of the thrill out of it. And he couldn't remember the spell -- was it avarda or avanda or something else? Harry was feeling slightly sick.

Before he could think any further, he heard the familiar crack! that signaled someone's Apparition and his heart dropped; while he wasted time thinking and daydreaming and not paying attention, the damned blood traitor had escaped! He'd lost his target! He was going to fail his O.W.L.! The force of the boy's attempt at Apparition had broken them apart, and...and...he was gone! Then, he looked ahead; the boy was there, perhaps two yards away -- well, most of him was. They both seemed to realize at the same time that his wand hand was missing.

The blood traitor's gray eyes grew wide and frightened. "FUCK!" he shouted, very loudly, perhaps to alert whoever was in the house that he was about to be murdered. His eyes flicked to Harry and he bolted blindly, apparently not realizing he was heading right towards his assassin. Harry reached out as the pureblood passed him, snagging one of his arms and stopping him before he could go far.

The boy's arm was so warm, and he was trembling. "Let me go," he growled, trying to pull free. "You nasty mudblood, I don't want you touching me. Why don't you let me fight? It's just like Father said--"

"You don't have a wand hand," Harry pointed out. His voice was a whisper. He was afraid of what would happen if his judges knew he was talking to this boy, this boy who was already supposed to be dead. He was afraid of what would happen if he continued this conversation. He tried to think of why he was speaking at all and couldn't.

"I splinched myself, I know. I told Father I was too young to Apparate, what did he expect?" The pureblood frowned. His startlingly gray eyes moved to Harry's wand. "I'm not so bad with my left hand. Maybe I'll take your wand and show you."

"Maybe not." He hastily moved his wand out of reach. "Maybe I'll kill you now, instead of later."

The boy's face twisted. "Now, later -- what does it matter? I'll be dead. You might as well get it over with. If you try to torture me, I won't scream, you know."

He didn't answer. Shooting a meaningful glance at the rosebushes where his judges were hidden, tightening his grip on the boy's forearm, he dragged him quickly behind a clump of bushes, where he was certain they wouldn't be seen -- not by the boy's relations, and definitely not by the DA. "Time to go on a trip, I think," he murmured, pushing the blonde roughly to the ground.

"Hey!" The pureblood shouted, outraged, as he was manhandled. "You can't do this! Father told me the Ministry passed a law against this! Just because I'm a pureblood doesn't mean I don't have rights, you know!"

* * *

"What in Merlin's name does he think he's doing?" McGonagall wanted to know, her eyes unblinking as she watched Potter stray out of sight and out of earshot. "He's supposed to kill him!"

"I'm sure Harry knows what he's doing," the student judge, Cho Chang, said demurely. She did everything demurely.

"Then he should know that he's supposed to use the Killing Curse on the blood traitor. Honestly, what kind of soldier will he be in two years if he can't discipline himself now? I'll put a stop to this madness!"

"I'd get back down, if I were you." Moody's voice was slow and quiet and superior to the point of sickness. "What was it you said earlier, Minerva? About not interfering with the students' O.W.L.s? I think that applies now, don't you? Like Chang said, he knows what he's doing. And if he doesn't -- well, let him make his own mistakes."

The other judges agreed. Scribbled on their score sheets.

* * *

The boy, sitting on the ground, still somehow managed to look at Harry as though he, a boy training to become a part of Dumbledore's Army, was beneath him. It infuriated him, but he was confident that he could kill him now. The words were Avada Kedavra, just as Hermione and a thousand other Hogwarts students had recited earlier; he wondered how he had ever forgotten them. He could kill him in private now, and he was ready.

"It's not personal," Harry said, explaining carefully with his gleaming wooden wand. That was nowhere close to the eloquent sentences in his head, but it sufficed, and it was all he wanted to offer the blood traitor now. "I have to do it for my O.W.L.s."

"Then go ahead and do it, for your precious O.W.L.s." The boy sighed and rolled his eyes. "I'm not afraid -- not yet -- but I will be if you keep pussyfooting like this."

"I'm not pussyfooting," Harry retorted hotly, without the slightest inkling of what the word meant, without the slightest inkling of why he had responded at all. "D'you really to die?" It couldn't be so. He'd never met a person who wasn't afraid of dying by the hand of someone a part of Dumbledore's Army (or nearly a part of it, in his case), but this boy sounded like he meant it.

"Of course, you dimwit! I already told you why!" the boy sneered. "Is the rest of Dumbledore's Army as deaf and stupid as you?"

Harry extended his wand. The glossy wood gleamed under the light of the glittering, infected stars. The boy watched the switch with big moon eyes.

"You want it? Here," Harry hissed. "You think it makes me feel good to have to kill someone I don't even know? Okay, why don't you try it, see how you like it."

When the pureblood made a wild grab for it, as Harry fully expected he would, he stepped quickly out of reach. The wand was rock-steady, pointed at him, even as he fell flat on his face. The blood traitor forced himself to his knees with the aid of his one hand, his pretty clothes all wrinkled and smudged with grass. "A rotten trick!" he growled.

"Not nearly as rotten a trick as the one you played on that girl," Harry shot back, remembering what McGonagall had shown him in his seclusion after dinner. "Why did you kill her?"

"What are you talking about? I've never killed anyone. I can't even pronounce the Killing Curse. I'm not like you, killing some pureblood just to get my rocks off and receive a dozen O.W.L.s."

Doubt wormed its way into Harry's belly. He ignored it. "Don't play stupid with me, blood traitor. I've seen what you did to that girl in Norway, they showed me. Don't remember slaughtering the daughter of the respectable mudblood family who fled your wand? The name Parkinson doesn't ring a bell?"

The pureblood's upper lip curled. "You think you're really witty, don't you? Parkinson's the surname of the girl I'm arranged to -- and she's a pureblood, just like me. I heard she fled to Merlin knows where to escape the Muggle lover's hired wands. I don't even knows where she is. Really. You've seen me Apparate, do you really think I'm capable of something like what you're suggesting?"

"They have records, blood traitor. They said--"

"My father arranged me with her! He knows I'd never run off with a mudblood, much less lower myself to kill one! That one was actually funny, do you have any other stories you want to spin?"

"It's not a spin. It happened." It happened because they wouldn't lie to me. And even if they did, you're going to be dead soon anyway. Wasn't he? He'd heard they'd killed Longbottom when Finnigan refused. And--

The blood traitor must have picked up on his doubt. His gray eyes narrowed and he actually smiled, though he still looked contemptuous. "How would you even know? You were never there. They could tell you anything to get you in the mood to kill people like me -- anything, and you'd believe it because you're so eager to join their little army, aren't you?"

"I'm not," Harry said, tiring of this nonsense. "Avarda -- oh, dammit, wait!"

"If you really wanted to kill me, you'd have said the spell perfectly," the boy commented, pressing his advantage. He seemed to be feeling a lot more confident, suddenly, like the addicted gambler who believed he could bet it all on one last game and win. "I think you knew it was a lie -- whatever it was they showed you -- all along. You knew it was a lie and your conscience wouldn't let you kill me knowing that, even though I am a blood traitor. How many other purebloods have died because of lies, I wonder? Did they tell you that?"

The boy became agitated when Harry only stared and did not speak. "If you don't want to answer the bloody question, then get it over with! Kill me, you filthy mudblood, what're you waiting for?"

"This is kind of awkward," Harry said to the grass.

"Oh, so it's only awkward now!"

He should never have allowed him to speak. In the face of this, he couldn't hold on to his motivation, not with the ugly possibility that everything behind it might be a lie. That unclean motivation had dissolved in proportion to the time he spent sniping with this pureblood.

Harry lowered his eyes and his wand. "Go," he muttered.

The boy looked up at him, his eyes dark with surprise and suspicion and cheating death.

"Go on," Harry said; his wand arm felt like it was filled with lead, and he couldn't raise it. "Before I return to my wits. Go."

He went.