Adamant and Starlight

Chapter 6: The Family Crest

Harry found himself standing in one corner of the cell - it could be nothing else - staring at the huddled figure in the other corner. The room itself was a simple stone box, with a bench built into the wall opposite Harry's vantage point. To Harry's right, a row of iron bars that shimmered oddly in the dim, shifting light, divided the cell from a passage outside. There was no visible opening in the bars, no door that would let a person in or out, and nothing at all in the passage except a single torch flickering on the wall just outside the cell.

All in all, Harry could never remember seeing such a crushingly grim place. Even the torch seemed depressed by the atmosphere, as if afraid to shed too much light or heat. Harry could not feel anything in his insubstantial state, but he knew, without feeling it, that the cell was dank and deadly cold. The bare feet of the boy seated in the corner were marble-white, tinged with blue, the nails turning purple. When he lifted his head to rest it against the stone at his back, Harry saw that his face was as chill, white and lifeless as his feet.

Harry crossed the room and dropped to a crouch in front of him. Draco could not see him, he knew, but he could not help himself. "Look at you. You're freezing," he murmured.

"Harry."

Harry started and turned to find Dumbledore standing in the corner where he had first arrived. The Headmaster looked reassuringly solid and normal, but his face was drawn with worry. "Where are we, Professor?" Harry demanded.

"I don't know. I've never seen this place."

"Could we be under Malfoy Manor? In the old catacombs?"

Dumbledore shook his head. "I've been in those passages - only once, but I remember them well. This is not like them. Not so ancient, I think, nor so extensive." He moved over to the bars and studied them, frowning. Then he stuck his head through the barrier and peered down the dark passage. "Hm."

Harry wanted to join him at the front of the cell and see what lay on the other side of the shimmering bars, but he couldn't bring himself to leave Draco. He could do nothing to help, but he felt compelled to stay close to him, as if, somehow, his presence could reach this ghost out of memory and give him comfort. Without rising to his feet, he twisted around and asked, "What is it?"

"We are underground; that much is certain. I can see a flight of stairs going up. And there seem to be a handful of other cells, but I'd guess that Draco didn't see much of his dungeon beyond this room. The image is blurred and indistinct."

Harry turned back to the seated boy, studying his familiar face closely. Draco looked sick and frightened, and something about the deadened look in his eyes told Harry that he had felt this way long enough to grow almost used to it. His mind was starting to go numb.

He was dressed only in a white shirt and black trousers. His shoes, socks, Hogwarts robe and other bits and pieces of clothing were gone, leaving him looking very exposed without his usual elegant trappings. His hair was tied back with a ribbon, as always, but it had obviously been some days since he'd washed or combed it, and the silver-blond strands were stiff with dirt. More dirt smudged his face, darkened the nails of his right hand, and smeared his feet. He had been in this cold, damp, filthy room for quite a while, then, or in one very much like it, with no chance to wash off the grime of his imprisonment.

Harry put out a hand to touch him. Draco did not even flinch when Harry's hand passed right through his body and into the wall at his back. With a sign, Harry withdrew his hand and sat back on his heels. He was reassured to see that Draco's adamant hand was whole and unmarked, and that no magical burn scarred his cheek. But that meant they had come into his memory before these things had happened, and that they would have to watch them. This thought filled Harry with a mixture of curiosity and lurking dread.

"Someone is coming," Dumbledore said.

Draco must have heard footsteps against stone at that moment, because he stiffened, his face hardening, and scrambled to his feet. Harry instinctively pulled back, not wanting to have Draco pass through him, no matter how invisible or vaporous he might be. His backside landed hard on the floor, and he scuttled out of Draco's path, as the other boy took a step toward the bars.

Dumbledore moved over to Harry and held out a hand to pull him up. Harry was surprised to find that Dumbledore was solid, and when he clasped the old wizard's offered hand, he could feel the texture of his skin and the brush of his velvet sleeve. Dumbledore helped him up, then drew him back a step to give them both a wide view of the tiny room.

Lucius Malfoy stepped up to the bars and halted there, gazing coldly at his son. Draco stood stiffly in the middle of the floor, shoulders back, head tilted haughtily, hands hanging very still at his sides, his face a pale marble mask that hid everything but the aloof pride that was as much a part of his features as his grey eyes. Harry, who knew him so well, saw the fear and defiance in him, but Lucius clearly did not. His first words proved that Draco's act fooled him.

"I am pleased to see that you mean to face this like a Malfoy, even if you have forfeited all right to the name." Draco said nothing, and a look of regret crept slowly into Lucius' arctic eyes. "There are times, Draco, when you make me very proud."

"I'm sorry to hear that," Draco answered, his voice rough with disuse.

Lucius' mouth thinned. "And then there are times when I am ashamed to own you."

"Don't concern yourself, Father. It will be over soon, and you'll be done with me."

"That is what you think of me?" Lucius put out a hand to touch the bars, and Harry could have sworn he saw genuine hurt in the Death Eater's face. "That I could send my son to a traitor's end and think no more of it? I did my best for you, Draco. I fought for you." His long, white hand tightened around the bar, and the magical shimmer moved to enclose it. "But you left me no recourse, no argument that might save you. Now you will pay the price for your betrayal and bring us victory at the same time. In that, at least, I can take some comfort."

Draco's mask slipped just the tiniest bit, a flare of alarm showing in his eyes. "What do you mean?"

"You need to know nothing."

"Or maybe you know nothing, and you're simply trying to frighten me."

Lucius shook his head. "How could you grow up in my house, see me every day of your life, and know so little of me?"

"I might ask the same question."

"I have never lied to you, Draco. Nor have I ever tried to intimidate, hurt or frighten you."

"You lied, every time you called me son."

"You are my son, much as it shames me to admit it when I see you like this. But you are, and you will be even after tonight."

"When I have brought your master victory?" Draco asked, his voice soft and cold. "When I'm dead, and you can conveniently forget what I really was? How generous of you, Father."

"I will never forget." Lucius paused, then added, in a voice like chill poison, "I will never forgive. But I do not lie, even to myself, and you are a part of me."

"Am I?" Draco set his jaw to hold in the force of his emotion. "Did you feel it, then, when the Dark Lord tried to crush my brain to bloody pulp? I felt it. Harry felt it. Did you? Did you even know what he was doing? Did you even care?"

Harry felt a terrible urge to go to Draco, to put his arms around him and tell him it wasn't worth the effort to talk to this horrible man, because the people who really cared about him were waiting for him to come home. But Draco could not feel or hear him, and the only person in his dark, little world at this moment was Lucius. Dumbledore's hand gripped Harry's shoulder, steadying him, and he sucked in a deep breath to still the boiling frustration in him.

"Harry Potter." Lucius gripped the bars with both hands now, his eyes narrowed to evil slits and his lips drawn back in a snarl. "You dare to speak his name to me? You dare to ask me what I knew, what I felt, what I suffered, when you tied yourself to that filthy, fawning, mongrel half-breed?"

"Voldemort is a half-breed." Harry had never heard Draco use the Dark Lord's name before, and it gave him a start. "Just like Harry."

No! Not just like me! Harry wanted to cry out. I'm nothing like him, and I don't want you to be my Death Eater! It isn't like that... you know it isn't!"

"So that's it," Lucius purred. "The pathetic little half-breed boy hopes to rival the Dark Lord, and you want to establish your place at his side. Well, you picked the wrong master to serve, my boy, and now you will pay for your lack of judgment."

"I don't serve Harry."

"What else would you call it?" When Draco said nothing, Lucius gave him a sour, hateful smile and said, "We all serve according to our lights. It's only too evident where your strengths lie."

The hurt and revulsion in Draco's face may have been hidden from his father, but Harry saw them all too clearly. "You know nothing about it," Draco said, flatly. "But how could you? The only thing that ever mattered to you was sucking up to Voldemort."

"You have no concept of what you mock so lightly. Do not dare to speak his name."

"Oh, you mean, like I'm not supposed to speak Harry's name?"

Lucius gave a hiss of rage and, in one fluid gesture, pulled the bars aside to leave a wide opening. He stepped through the gap and into the cell. The bars closed silently behind him. Draco did not back away from him, but his entire body stiffened and his hands clenched into fists against his thighs.

"Funny how you say you're not afraid of Harry, but you treat him just like you do your own master," Draco went on, recklessly.

"I treat the Dark Lord with respect. I treat Potter with contempt. Only such a one as you would fail to see the difference."

"Such a what as me?"

Lucius eyed him for a long, burning minute, then hissed through his teeth, "Such a fool."

Incredibly, impossibly, Draco hung his head and Harry, who could not watch him falter before this hateful man, shouted angrily, "Don't listen to him! You know he's wrong!"

"Either you are fool enough to believe the lies fed to you by that foul old schemer, Dumbledore, and his pet martyr," Malfoy went on, his voice cold enough to freeze the puddles on the floor, "or you are fool enough to hope that Potter will defeat the Dark Lord in the end, usurp his place, and give you a position of trust or power in recompense. Which is it, Draco? Are you an idealistic fool or an ambitious one? Knowing you as I once did, I would assume the latter, but with Dumbledore's magic and Potter's stink about you, I barely recognize you now."

Draco lifted his head to look squarely at his father. "That's really the problem, isn't it, Father?" he said. "You're afraid I'll take your place as the number one flunky of the ruler of the wizarding world, without having to crawl to Voldemort to earn the title."

Now it was Lucius' turn to flinch under the lash of his son's tongue. He glared at Draco, so furious that Harry wondered he did not hit him, and snarled, "Crawl?! You say I crawl?! And what do you do for your master, my proud boy? At least the Dark Lord has never asked that of me!"

Draco stared at him, white-faced and tight-lipped, and whispered, "I believe you'd do it, if he asked. I do."

Lucius took a step toward him, his left hand drawing back. "How dare you speak so to me?"

"You've given him everything else."

"I do not prostitute myself for my master, or for any creature."

"Neither do I."

Lucius leaned forward until his face was only a few inches from Draco's, his hand still raised to strike. "You do, every time you let Potter touch you."

"You're forgetting one thing, Father. Harry isn't Voldemort. He may be a half-breed, an orphan, and an incredibly powerful wizard. He may even have it in him to rule the wizarding world, if he chose to do it. But he doesn't. He doesn't ask people to crawl or grovel or... serve him. That's what makes him Harry."

"Very touching," Malfoy sneered. "So you are an idealist, as well as a catamite."

Draco winced but did not back down. "I've been called worse."

"And you're so proud of yourself for standing up under the insults, aren't you? So proud of your status as Potter's Plaything."

That one struck Draco a physical blow, and he staggered back a step. His eyes widened, seeming only now to see the true depth of the fury and loathing in his father's face, and the last vestiges of color drained from his cheeks. Harry, unable to stop himself, took two hasty strides out of his corner. He needed to be closer to Draco, to make him hear, make him feel his presence, if nothing else, but a look at the other boy's face brought him up short in horror.

Something inside Draco had broken. Harry could see it in his eyes. For the first time in his life, he saw Draco Malfoy utterly humiliated, and the sight was enough to wrench a cry of protest out of him. Whirling on Lucius, he shouted, uselessly, "I'll kill you for this! I swear I will, you bastard!"

"Calm down, Harry," Dumbledore said from just behind him. Warm hands clasped his shoulders, but he pulled away.

"He's listening to him," Harry choked out. "He's actually believing it!"

"This happened days ago. You can't stop it. You can only watch, learn, and use what you see to help Draco when the time comes."

"It isn't true, Professor. None of it's true! I don't want to be Voldemort, and I would never do such a thing to Draco, even if I did! You have to b..."

"Hush." Dumbledore's hands tightened around his upper arms, silencing him. "Listen."

Some noise from the far end of the passage had distracted Lucius Malfoy. He spun away from Draco, and with his going, the force that held his son upright vanished. Draco collapsed onto the bench like an unstrung puppet, wrapping his arms around his midriff and closing his eyes. He looked as though he were about to vomit or faint.

Lucius strode up to the magic bars and bent them easily aside. Then he stepped through to greet a pair of cloaked and hooded figures who hurried down the passage, dragging a third person between them. Their prisoner was wailing in a high-pitched, piercing voice that sent a chill of recognition down Harry's spine even before he got a glimpse of her face. Only one person he knew could make that hideous noise.

"Pansy!" Draco cried, jumping to his feet as her captors dragged her into the light.

It was Pansy Parkinson. She looked disheveled and terrified, her black robe askew and her hair standing up in clumps. A wool muffler lay about her shoulders, having been pulled off her head, and her heavy boots left muddy footprints on the stone floor. She had obviously dressed for stealth in the darkness and just as obviously been caught in the act of doing something she shouldn't.

At the sight of Draco standing behind the bars, she let out a whimper and reached toward him. Her eyes, usually so sharp and spiteful, were bewildered, drenched with tears, and pleading.

"Oh, Draco," she wailed, "I muffed it! I'm so sorry!"

"Shut her up," Lucius snapped, and one of the hooded men clapped a hand over Pansy's mouth.

"What are you doing to her?" Draco asked, angrily. Whatever his reaction to his father's verbal assault, he had managed to summon his usual arrogance in the presence of the others. "Leave her alone!"

Pansy fixed wild eyes on Draco's face, while tears coursed from between her clumped lashes to drip over the Death Eater's fingers.

"She was caught trying to counter the concealment spells and open the door," one of the Death Eaters said to Lucius. "Then she told a pack of clumsy lies about having permission to visit..." he jerked his chin toward Draco.

Lucius' lip curled disdainfully. "You're the Parkinson girl, aren't you?"

Pansy turned her terrified gaze on Lucius and nodded.

"What are you doing here? And remember that I know very well you did not have permission to visit my son."

At Lucius' signal, the Death Eater took his hand from Pansy's mouth. She drew in a deep breath, ready to utter another shattering howl, but a single glance from Mr. Malfoy stifled it. Licking her lips, she ventured, in a squeaky whisper, "I wanted to see Draco. I heard he was down here, he was in trouble, and I wanted..." The steady glare fixed on her dried up the words in her throat, and she cast a pleading look at Draco. "I only wanted to help!"

Draco shook his head, a look of combined disbelief and exasperation on his face. "Pansy..."

"Help in what way?" Lucius asked. When Pansy did not answer him immediately, he took a threatening step toward her and dropped his voice to a malevolent purr. "Do not try to lie to me, Miss Parkinson, or it will go very hard with you. Tell me what help you thought to give my son."

Pansy drew away from him until she found herself pressed back against the Death Eater who held her on the right. Her pug-like face was twisted with fear and horror, her eyes starting from their sockets, and her breath coming in suffocating sobs. "To get him out," she whispered.

Draco gave a soft groan and let his head drop forward against the glowing bars. They did not bend for him as they had for Lucius, but neither did they hurt him. "God, Pansy, that was stupid."

"I heard my Mum talking to Mr. McNair. She said they were... they were going to kill you. It's not fair, Draco! It's not right!"

"What do you know about right, Miss Parkinson?" Lucius drawled, coldly. "You're an idiot schoolgirl with a crush on a boy who prostitutes himself for power. What chance does a silly chit like you stand against the Famous Harry Potter?"

"Stop it, Father! Don't talk to her that way!"

"Ah! The catamite learns chivalry!"

Pansy looked from one to the other, her mouth working in distress, then she blurted out, "It's not his fault! You know it isn't, Mr. Malfoy. Blaise told you! It's Dumbledore and Potter! Draco would never..."

Draco cut her off, sharply. "You don't know what you're talking about, Pansy."

"Oh, Draco!" she wailed miserably.

"Just go home and pretend you never heard anything. You can't help me, and you'll only get into trouble if you try."

"You are already in trouble," Lucius interjected, in a silky, dangerous tone, "and wise as my son's advice may be, it comes too late to save you."

"Father..."

"Take her outside. Put her with the others."

"Father!"

Lucius flicked his fingers toward the end of the passage, and the two Death Eaters began dragging Pansy away. She thrashed and screamed, shouting for Draco and for her parents, until Lucius called after them, "And silence that racket!"

One of her captors pulled the muffler from around her neck and stuffed it in her mouth. Then the threesome disappeared into the shadows. A moment later, Harry heard the dull thud of a door closing.

Draco heard the noise as well, and he flinched as if slapped. Turning away from the bars and his father's gaze, he walked over to the bench and stopped when his shins pressed against the stone edge. Harry could not see his face, but he could read sorrow and defeat in every line of his body.

"What are you going to do to her?" he asked the wall.

Lucius stepped once more into the cell but did not move any closer to his son than just inside the bars. "What we do to all traitors."

"How can you... how can you do that to someone you've known since she was born? She's a pureblood wizard, from a fine old family, everything you say you respect..."

"Do you know what this night symbolizes, Draco?" Malfoy sounded calm and relaxed, as if having an educational chat with his son over dinner.

Draco shook his head.

"It is the Vernal Equinox. The festival of renewal. Tonight, we usher in a new season of growth, of strength, of purity and purpose."

"Spring cleaning," Draco whispered, and his shoulders began to shake with silent, desperate laughter.

"Precisely. "

"But what will you do with our bodies, when you've let the Dementors have our souls? Won't that be rather messy? Awkward, even? Not really cleaning house, at all, with a bunch of zombies roaming around the place."

"You need only know that your... sacrifice will bring a swift and victorious end to this war."

Draco turned, very slowly, to face him, and Harry saw that he had abandoned all pretense at composure. His face was drawn with pain and, in the torchlight, his eyes glinted with tears he would not shed. When he spoke, Harry could hear the tears in his throat, as well. "Harry will come for you. Dumbledore will follow to protect him. You'll ambush them both and kill them. Or you'll try. That's the plan, isn't it, Father?"

"You were always a bright boy with a good head for strategy."

"I was a fool and a brute, and you made me that way. The only strategy I ever knew was to hit fast, hit hard, and kick my opponent when I had him down. And you were..." Draco's voice broke for a moment, and he paused to dredge up his last shreds of dignity before he finished, "proud of me."

"I was." To Harry's utter amazement, Lucius moved toward his son, one hand lifted in a pleading gesture. Draco shied away from him, but he could withdraw no further with the bench behind him. One pale, elegant hand came to rest against his cheek. "I am. I know you think me cold and stern, but you know that I have always done my best for you, taught you what I could, given you what I felt you needed, and loved you. Yes, Draco, I have loved you. I would love you again, if you gave me the chance. Only come back to me, trust me, and be my son again."

In a very small, very frightened voice, Draco asked, "Would it change what's going to happen tonight?"

Lucius stroked Draco's cheek with his thumb and shook his head sadly. "It would give us both something to be proud of, something to treasure, when we say goodbye."

Draco swallowed audibly and said, still in that odd, nearly soundless voice, "You won't save me."

"I cannot. The Dark Lord has made his plans, and there is no turning back from them."

"Then, no matter what I do or what I say, you'll turn me over to the Dementors, watch them suck out my soul, and use my empty body to bait a trap for Harry."

"Does my approval, my love, my pride in you mean nothing?"

Very slowly, very deliberately, as if he had to fight an Imperious Curse to do it, Draco shook his head. "No, Father. Nothing."

A spasm of pain or rage passed over Lucius' face, and he hissed, "Because you belong to Potter now?"

"I do not belong to anyone!"

Draco's furious shout cut the dank air of the cell like a blade, rocking his father back on his heels and making even Dumbledore start in surprise. Harry choked off a cry and sank his nails into his palms to stop himself from charging across the cell - to do what, he had no idea, he only knew that every fiber of his being ached to fling himself at Draco and Lucius.

"You delude yourself, boy," Lucius spat.

His hand reached again for Draco, and this time, he sank his fingers in the long hair slipping loose from the ribbon at his neck and twisted viciously in the silvery strands. Draco's head was wrenched to one side, and his eyes blazed up into his father's. In that moment, their expressions were so much alike that Lucius might have been looking into a mirror instead of the face of his son.

"We all serve, if we crave power," he went on, harshly. "We all belong to someone stronger than ourselves. I would have given you to a master worthy of your gifts, but you defied me. You chose your own kind of servitude. But you are a fool if you think Potter is any kind of master. He is already owned, already bound..."

"You lie!"

"I have never lied to you, Draco. You do not always choose to accept the truth, but I always give it to you. And now I tell you that Harry Potter belongs to my master. He wears the mark of it on his face, for all to see. His blood brought the Dark Lord to life again, and his life will put the Dark Lord back in power. When Potter dies, all will be right again."

"You're mad!" Draco gasped, his eyes filling with tears of pain, as his father's fingers wrenched at his hair and pulled his face up to catch the fitful torchlight.

"You thought that scar was a sign of strength? Of a special purpose or destiny? It's nothing but a brand, a mark of ownership. I suppose you could say that it signifies a special purpose, but not the one you dream of, my poor, besotted boy."

Draco ground his teeth together, forcing his words out past the treacherous sobs that gathered in his chest. "Harry will kill your master, and you with him!"

"One ugly little scar makes a hero out of a nothing, and my pathetic excuse for a son falls at his feet. It's disgusting and laughable." Tightening his grip for a moment, Lucius hurled Draco back and away from him, knocking him onto the bench. "Do you look at that scar and dream of greatness, while you're giving yourself to that Muggle-loving brat? Is that how you stand it, Draco? Is that how you face yourself when it's done? If that's all it is, I can make it so much easier for you! If all it takes is a scar..."

Lucius' left hand came up, clenched into a fist, and Harry saw the torchlight glance off the enormous emerald in his ring.

"No!" Harry cried, starting toward them.

Dumbledore caught him by the arm and held him with surprising strength. "Just watch, Harry."

"I can't! I can't stand this... he's going to..."

Lucius lashed out, striking Draco in the cheek with the back of his hand. There was an explosion of green sparks and a hiss of burning flesh. Draco uttered a tearing scream, his hands flying up to ward off the blow a fraction of a second too late. Lucius leaned forward, one knee on the bench, pushing the glowing gem against Draco's face and holding it there, in spite of the boy's struggles to escape him.

"Now you're mine, again," Lucius hissed. "Claimed and marked. And he'll never have you again!"

Harry threw himself across the cell, his hands out to grab Lucius Malfoy, shouting in wordless rage. His body passed completely through Lucius', and he stumbled, recovering himself. Before he could turn and attack again, something caught him in an iron grip and began to pull. He cried a protest, struggling against the pull, but he was flying upward through the icy darkness. Out of the Pensieve. Away from Draco.

With a jolt, he landed back in his own body, in Dumbledore's office. He had a bare moment to register the presence of other people all around him, then the shock and nausea that had not been able to reach him in his insubstantial state hit him with full force. He staggered back from the desk, gasping, and sat down hard on the floor. Dumbledore stooped over him, blue eyes grim behind their half-moon spectacles.

"It's all right, Harry. Take a deep breath."

"Dumbledore," Moody loomed over them both, glowering at the Headmaster with his normal eye and raking Harry with the magic one, "it's Black. He says it's urgent."

Dumbledore straightened up quickly. "Is that why you pulled us out?"

"Yes."

Moody nodded toward the fireplace behind the desk, and Harry twisted around to see Sirius Black's head floating in it. He gaped at his godfather, too stunned and shaken by what had happened in the Pensieve to absorb what was happening in the real world. Dumbledore moved swiftly over to the fire and crouched in front of the disembodied head.

"What is it, Sirius?"

Had Harry been thinking more clearly, he would have noticed that Dumbledore had lost all of his usual jovial courtesy. He was all tightly-reined anger and brisk efficiency, without even a smile for Sirius.

"I've just spoken to Kingsley Shacklebolt," Sirius answered, in a manner every bit as clipped and intent as Dumbledore's. "He was called into the Ministry as part of a formal inquest. Fudge wanted him to inspect a body for traces of illegal magic."

Dumbledore's eyebrows rose. "A body?"

"Lucius Malfoy." The room fell instantly quiet. "He's dead. Killed with the Avada Kedavra curse. Kingsley was certain of it."

Dumbledore digested that for a moment, then asked, "Who brought the body?"

"Narcissa. And Headmaster, she says that Draco did it."

Dumbledore did not move for nearly a minute, while everyone in the room held their breath. Then, without warning, he was on his feet and moving. "Thank you, Sirius," he said over his shoulder, as he crossed to where Harry sat. "Keep me informed of any developments. Harry, come with me."

Harry allowed Dumbledore to pull him to his feet. "Where are we going?"

"Back into the Pensieve."

"What about Draco?" Harry was disgusted to hear his voice shaking, but he couldn't control it. "What will happen to him? Will they take him to Azkaban?"

"Not if we can stop them." Dumbledore bent over the Pensieve, both hands grasping it, and shot Harry a look from beneath his lowered brows. "Can you do this, Harry? We have no time to spare. We must see this through and find out what really happened, or the Ministry of Magic will take Draco away from us and lock him up for the rest of his life. Do you understand?"

Harry swallowed the lingering sickness in his throat and nodded.

"Good. In you go."

Obediently, Harry reached out to touch the glassy surface. He plunged once more into the cold and darkness, falling back into the nightmare.

To be continued...