Rating:
PG-13
House:
Schnoogle
Characters:
Draco Malfoy Harry Potter
Genres:
Action Romance
Era:
Multiple Eras
Stats:
Published: 08/11/2003
Updated: 05/04/2005
Words: 113,869
Chapters: 15
Hits: 64,090

Adamant and Starlight

CorvetteClaire

Story Summary:
Draco disappears from Hogwarts, then returns just as mysteriously, unable to explain where he's been. Suddenly, half the wizarding world wants to get their hands on Draco, and Harry will lose him to his mother, the Ministry of Magic or much worse, if he can't find out what happened to him during those missing days. SLASH WARNING. Sequel to Thicker than Blood.

Chapter 07

Chapter Summary:
Draco disappears from Hogwarts, then returns just as mysteriously, unable to explain where he's been. Suddenly, half the wizarding world wants to get their hands on Draco, and Harry will lose him to his mother, the Ministry of Magic or much worse, if he can't find out what happened to him during those missing days. SLASH WARNING. Sequel to
Posted:
11/20/2003
Hits:
3,725
Author's Note:
This chapter completes the puzzle of what happened to Draco during those missing days. I tried to write it quickly, so you wouldn't all have to hang off that cliff for too long, and I tried very hard not to make it a cliff-hanger of its own. Unfortunately, since we're smack dab in the middle of the story, pretty much any ending is going to leave you dangling a bit. But hopefully this one won't be too painful. :)

Chapter 7: Lionheart

They were back in the cell. Harry could not tell how much time had passed, but Draco was alone, huddled on the floor in the corner, exactly as before. Only the angry burn and fresh blood on his face told Harry that they were in a new memory, a later one, and not right back where they had started. That, and the crushed, brutalized look in the back of his eyes.

The sound of approaching footsteps came almost immediately. Draco did not stand up, but he turned his wounded gaze on the passage. Lucius stepped into view, with two anonymous Death Eaters - both cloaked and hooded so closely that they might have been Dementors for all Harry could see of them - flanking him. He halted at the bars and bent them easily aside.

"Come," Lucius said, his voice utterly devoid of feeling. "It is time."

Draco obediently climbed to his feet and crossed the cell to his father. He moved slowly and deliberately, with none of his usual feline grace, as if he had to think very hard about where he put his feet to be sure they were behaving properly. His father did not hurry him but stood in rigid silence, one hand against the nearest bar to keep them apart, until Draco stepped through the opening.

Lucius allowed the bars to close, then he pulled a black cord from his pocket and gestured for Draco to turn his back. Once again, Draco obeyed in silence. The resigned defeat in his face did not change as his father bound his hands behind him, and when Lucius gave him a firm shove to start him moving, his only acknowledgement was to drop his eyes to the ground in front of him. Still with that strange, deliberate gait, Draco started down the passage with his silent escort close about him. Harry and Dumbledore walked straight through the bars and fell in at the back of the procession.

They passed the other cells and approached the stairs - a single, narrow flight of steps leading up into darkness. One of the Death Eaters went first, his wand in his hand. Draco followed him, with the other Death Eater holding his elbow and pushing him from behind. Lucius came last, pacing regally up from this squalid prison as though issuing from his throne room, his long cloak sweeping from his shoulders to flick through Harry's body as he climbed the steps behind him.

When he reached the top, the first wizard muttered a spell, and there was a flash of bluish light. A door swung slowly open. A patch of velvet sky, spangled with stars, appeared above them. Once again, they climbed upward, and suddenly Harry found himself stepping out of the ground and into a fever dream.

It was Stonehenge, as he had expected, but not the Stonehenge in the pictures at his Muggle school. This was a bewildering dance of looming shapes, eerie light and moving shadows, a circle of ancient stone that held magic and menace cupped within it like wandfire in a wizard's hand. And from inside that deadly place came the sound of a familiar voice - high, piercing, utterly evil - that sent rivers of ice coursing down Harry's spine. Voldemort. The Dark Lord was here to do his spring cleaning in person.

They approached from outside the circle, crossing the close-cropped, rain-soaked grass beneath a gorgeous midnight sky that seemed no part of the horrors that awaited them. Behind them, the door to the underground prison disappeared, hidden by concealing spells or vanishing back into the earth until some Druid summoned it again. As they drew near the outer ring of stones, Draco tilted his head back to look at the sky. Unconsciously, Harry did the same.

The stars were enormous, burning so brightly that they hurt his eyes. They seemed close enough to touch, if he could only climb atop one of the standing stones and stretch out his hand, close enough to set the grass afire with a stray spark. Harry stared at them, amazed, then turned to Dumbledore and whispered,

"Look at the stars! Is it Voldemort's magic that makes them pulse and glow like that?"

Dumbledore shook his head, his face as hard as adamant in the strange, cold light. "It's Draco."

"What do you mean?"

"We are seeing what he saw, exactly as he saw it in his fear and, eventually, his madness."

Harry broke stride, his eyes lifting to the too-near stars again. He swallowed convulsively, then dropped his gaze and ran to catch up with Dumbledore as they passed beneath the shadow of a huge triptych. Draco was just ahead of him, and Harry saw him draw in on himself, retreating from the clutch of magic inside the great stones.

The stars went out, lost behind the clinging darkness the Dementors breathed. The Giants' Dance rose threateningly on every side, growing taller with every step Draco took toward the inner ring. There was light ahead, but not the light of moon or stars, or even that of orange flame. It was a cold, unnatural light that seemed to bleach all color from the world around them, until the grass, the shrouded sky, the great stones, and the cloaked Death Eaters all bled together into a formless blackness. In the midst of this blackness, Draco passed like a ghost between the stones - pale, withdrawn, drained of all warmth and life.

Harry drew closer to Dumbledore, as though the old wizard could protect him from a memory, and whispered, hoarsely, "It wasn't like this the last time I was in the Pensieve."

"That is because you visited my memories, not those of a terrified boy going to meet his death."

Harry shuddered and said, doggedly, "He doesn't die."

"No, and I want you to hold onto that fact, Harry. You will need it."

Harry nodded wordlessly. They had stepped through the inner ring of stones and now found themselves in the heart of the Giants' Dance. Harry stared around him, struggling to make sense of what he saw, but Draco's vision was all confusion and gut-churning terror.

They had entered a ragged horseshoe of stones, many of them fallen every which way and half hidden in the grass. Death Eaters stood like sentinels between the stones, all wrapped close in long cloaks, their faces hidden, holding balls of wandfire in their hands. Dementors - Harry assumed they were Dementors, because they had no wands and held no light - milled restlessly about at the open end of the horseshoe, as if all these healthy people in such close proximity filled them with a hunger they could not control.

Near the closed end of the horseshoe lay a huge stone. The ancient altar, Harry guessed, though how anyone could tell which was which in the chaos of fallen stones he did not know. Dementors stood at either end of the altar, while a third figure, taller and thinner than all the rest and seeming to radiate power though he was nothing but a towering shadow in the darkness, stood behind it.

Harry did not need to see the creature's face to know who it was. He was suddenly intensely grateful that this was only a memory, even if it meant that he could do nothing to help Draco. He had seen Voldemort in his dreams, in visions, and in person. Now he saw him in memory, and in spite of the fact that he had no body to feel these reactions, he could swear that his stomach began to churn and his palms sweat with remembered fear.

No sooner had Draco and his escort stepped through the ring of Death Eaters and into the shivering light of the wandfire than Voldemort cried out, in his high, cold voice, "Bring the girl!"

He was answered by a piercing wail, and Harry jerked around to see Pansy Parkinson being dragged into the circle. She struggled futilely against the grip of her captors, feet skidding on the wet grass, and called to the silent watchers, "Let go of me! I didn't do anything! I didn't... please!"

At the sound of her voice, Draco recoiled as though he'd been struck with a lash. "No!" he choked, turning to look at his father's rigid profile. "You can't!" Lucius gave no sign that he heard, continuing to stare intently at the scene by the altar.

"Draco!"

Pansy had spotted his familiar bright head among the dark figures of the Death Eaters and now strained toward him, eyes wide and wild with terror. Draco turned to face her, his whole body tensed for battle or for flight, his hands knotted into fists so tight that his adamant fingers struck sparks from his palm.

"What's happening?!" Pansy howled. "What are they going to..." At that moment, her eyes fell on Voldemort, and she uttered a long, agonized scream that seemed to make the very air shiver with horror. The Death Eaters flung her to her knees before the altar stone, and she huddled there, too stunned to move. At a signal from Voldemort, a Dementor glided forward from its place at the end of the altar.

"Stop it!" Draco shouted, pulling against the hands that restrained him. "Don't touch her!" He managed to tear himself free for a moment and took a step toward the altar, but the Death Eaters grabbed him before he could take another. "Get your filthy hands off me!" he shouted, twisting in the Death Eaters' grasp and lashing out at them with his bare feet. "She didn't do anything! She didn't!"

Finally, Lucius moved, stepping up close to Draco and facing him squarely. Draco tried once more to throw off his captors' hands and cried out to his father in a desperate, pleading voice that set Harry's teeth on edge, "She was only trying to help me! You know that!"

Calmly, deliberately, his face frozen with contempt and his eyes empty, Lucius drew back his hand and struck Draco a vicious blow across the cheek. His huge, emerald ring tore into the brand and sent fresh blood trickling down Draco's face. "Be silent and watch."

Draco turned his appalled gaze to Pansy, just in time to see the Dementor swoop down on her, its rotten, slimy hands reaching to clasp her face between them. He gave a low sob but did not try to break free again. Pansy stared up at the blank face with its ragged, sucking hole of a mouth, her own mouth falling slackly open and her eyes glazed.

Nothing moved for a hideous moment, then Voldemort hissed, "Take her," and the Dementor lowered its mouth to Pansy's.

Suddenly, the world seemed to lurch and shift around Harry. He staggered, clutching at Dumbledore's sleeve for balance. The ground quickly steadied, and Harry found he could stand without support, but he kept a tight hold on Dumbledore anyway as he stared around him in amazement, trying to absorb what had happened.

Nothing had changed, and yet everything had. The balls of wandfire were larger, heavier, their colors soured and their light weakened. The cloaked figures all about them wavered, as if they were no longer quite solid, and the standing stones leaned over the invaders in their midst with a tangible malice pouring from them. As the Dementor straightened up, letting Pansy fall limply to the grass, its outlines blurred and it left a strange, rainbow-hued afterimage that confused the eye.

Harry drew in close to Dumbledore's side and whispered, hoarsely, "What was that?"

"His mind is beginning to fragment."

"Draco?" Harry turned appalled eyes on the other boy, standing still and rigid among his tormentors. "Oh, my God."

Harry took a step toward him, unable to help himself. He could not stand here and watch Draco disintegrate in front of him. He could not live inside Draco's growing madness and stay sane himself. He must do something... stop them somehow...

A hand clasped his shoulder, halting his steps and pulling him out of his dark reverie. He turned to find Dumbledore's eyes on him. They were kind and sad, full of understanding, and the sight of them closed Harry's throat up tight with tears. "Now is not the time, Harry."

"I can't watch this."

"Yes, you can. You must."

Harry shivered with fear, but Dumbledore's certainty steadied him. Dumbledore was right. This was not the time to help Draco. But that time would come, soon, and Harry would be there. He would know what to do, what to say, how to mend the terrible damage, because he would finally understand what had made Draco's wounds. That was his whole purpose for being here, and he could not falter in it. He must be stronger than memory - even such a memory as this.

"The time has come, my faithful ones!" Voldemort called, his voice ringing coldly among the ancient stones. "The hour of our victory is nearly upon us!"

He paused, waiting until a Death Eater had dragged Pansy's limp, unknowing body from before the altar, then he stepped up closer to the great slab of stone. Lifting a spidery hand, he thrust back his hood. A ripple of sound went through the ring of Death Eaters, and Harry felt a ghostly tingle in his scar. Back in Dumbledore's office, he knew, back in his own body, his scar was burning with a terrible pain. But here in the Pensieve, the pain was no more solid than he was himself.

One by one, the Death Eaters dropped to the ground to grovel before their master's face. Lucius pulled Draco to his knees, but Draco refused to bend his head. He stayed straight and defiant, looking so much like the archangel of his imaginings that Harry wondered he did not sprout wings and launch himself into the sky. The skull-like face of the Dark Lord, with it's slitted nostrils and glaring red eyes, turned to look at each huddled servant in turn, a smile lifting the corners of its lipless mouth. As the evil gaze swept over Harry, he flinched but did not back away. If Draco, who was actually here in the circle of stones with this monstrous creature, could hold his ground then Harry, who was only an intruder, unseen and bodiless, certainly could.

Voldemort's red eyes lingered on Draco for a moment, and the cruel smile widened. Draco kept his eyes down, and Harry could see sweat shining on his face in spite of the cold. Then Voldemort flicked a hand in an imperious gesture and called, "Rise! Rise, and witness the triumph of Lord Voldemort!"

The Death Eaters climbed to their feet again and retrieved their balls of wandfire. There was a new tension inside the ring of stones, an anticipation that hung visibly in the air and curled like vapor about the gathered wizards. Even the Dementors fell still, turned toward their master with something like eagerness. Draco remained kneeling with Lucius' hand on his shoulder, and Harry noticed that everything - the Death Eaters, Lucius, the stones - seemed taller than before. The light from the wandfire began to pulse faintly, as if in rhythm with Draco's heartbeat.

"It is here at last," Voldemort went on, a gloating smile on his terrible face, "the night of rebirth, the night of prophecy. We have rid ourselves of the rotten, the weak, the faithless, and now we will go forward into the final battle with the stars themselves heralding our victory!"

"What does he mean?" Harry breathed. Dumbledore shook his head without answering, eyes fixed on Voldemort.

The Dark Lord raised both his arms, holding his wand in one hand, and his body began to glow with a scintillating golden light. "The portents are clear. With the proper sacrifice, I will plunge the wizarding world into a battle it cannot win and finally claim what is rightfully mine! Mine! And you chosen few who have remained faithful will have your just rewards. I, Lord Voldemort, greatest of all wizards, champion of the ancient ways and the ancient blood, who have challenged death and crushed it, will reward those who stand with me!" His burning gaze swept the ring again and came to rest on Draco. "And punish those who defy me."

Lowering his wand, he pointed it at the altar stone and hissed, "Morsmordre!"

A jet of green light shot out of the wand and splashed over the stone. As it died, Harry saw a familiar, hideous shape drawn on the altar in lines of golden light - the same shape he had once seen rising above the trees at the Quidditch World Cup and burned black on Wormtail's arm. A skull, with a serpent for a tongue. The Dark Mark.

Voldemort tucked the wand into his robe and turned his baleful gaze on Malfoy. "Lucius."

Malfoy reached down to grasp Draco's arm and pull him to his feet. Draco moved numbly, obedient to the pressure of his father's hand, stumbling now and then as he crossed the grass to the altar. When they reached the stone, Voldemort pointed to a spot in the middle of the glowing skull.

"Put him there."

Draco clambered onto the stone awkwardly, his hands still bound behind him and his body stiff with a deadly mixture of cold and fear. At Lucius' direction, he turned his back on Voldemort, facing outward toward the ring of Death Eaters and Dementors, and he sat back on his heels. His face was blank, white, and still, a death mask with dark wells of pain where his eyes should be.

Harry knew Draco couldn't see him, but in that moment, he could have sworn that the other boy's eyes rested on his face. "Don't be afraid, Draco," he whispered, too low for even Dumbledore to hear. "You can do this. You'll get away."

"This wretched boy thought to betray me!" Voldemort snarled, his voice like liquid venom on the air. "He betrayed his blood, his birthright, his father and me! But such is the power of the Dark Lord that he can turn even such a worm as this into a weapon! And such is my mercy that I will not kill him for his crimes." Voldemort laughed, and Harry shuddered at the sound. "I will even send him home to his chosen master."

With a sweep of his hand, Voldemort summoned the Dementor that stood to his left. The creature drifted slowly toward them, its face still concealed in its hood, and Lucius drew back to give it room. It halted slightly directly in front of Draco, its robe brushing the altar.

The ghost pain in Harry's scar flared afresh, and he sobbed aloud in rage and frustration. As badly as he wanted to turn his eyes away from Draco, he could not. He could only stare, horrified, as the Dementor pushed back its hood to expose its ghastly, featureless face. Draco also stared, but his eyes had a queer, blind look to them that sent a chill of recognition down Harry's back. He seemed mesmerized by the dreadful thing above him.

The Dementor lifted its hands again, this time to clasp Draco's head. It's fingers were foul and slimy against his face, leaving trails of filth on his bright hair, and as it tilted his head up, blood from the wound on his cheek ran over its hand.

Voldemort spoke his final sentence with oozing satisfaction and cruel laughter in his voice. "Draco Malfoy, I condemn you as a traitor and sentence you to receive the Dementor's Kiss. Go into your living death with the certainty that you have served me well, in the end. And rest assured that you will be with Harry Potter very soon."

Those words seared through Draco like an Unforgivable Curse. His entire body stiffened, his spine going rigid and his head snapping backward to tear free of the Dementor's clasp. For a terrifying moment, Harry thought that he was having some kind of fit, but in the next breath he came alive again. One wrench of his adamant hand split the cord that bound him, and he threw up his hand in front of his face, screaming, "No! Harry!"

The Dementor hesitated, confused by the glittering thing that blocked him from his lawful prey, and Voldemort snarled, "Finish it! At once!"

Harry had the weird feeling that he had seen all of this before or, more accurately, lived it. He saw Draco recoil from the Dementor, his hand pressed to his mouth, and he knew what was coming next. He found himself clenching his fists and hissing, "Now! Do it now!" as Draco lunged to one side, away from the reaching hands, and flung out his hand to point an adamant finger at the Dementor.

"Expecto patronum!"

Silver mist erupted from the end of his finger. A magnificent beast took shape as its front paws struck the ground, and it bounded fearlessly toward the fleeing Dementor, shaking its mane as it ran. Harry stared at it, aghast, and somewhere inside, he began to weep. For Draco's patronus was a lion. A Gryffindor lion. And suddenly Harry knew where he had found the strength to summon it in the midst of his fear and growing madness.

Another terrified cry from Draco tore Harry's eyes away from the patronus, and he turned in time to see Voldemort grab Draco by the collar in one bone-white hand. Draco reacted instinctively, lashing out, not caring who it was that held him, and his adamant hand struck the Dark Lord full in the face. There was a burst of silver sparks, a howled curse from Voldemort, and the night exploded into chaos.

Shadows whirled in, shrieking like tortured spirits. The light shattered into a hundred colors where it struck stone, each shard pulsing with the quickening beat of Draco's heart. Black cloaks flapped like crows' wings, feet pounded against the grass, curses burned the air, and through it all the patronus raced, scattering Dementors and Death Eaters alike before it. Voldemort's voice rose above the din, but Harry could make out no words in its thin, piercing cry.

"Where's Draco?!" Harry called to Dumbledore.

"There!"

Harry followed his pointing finger to where a slight figure in a torn white shirt was dodging through the fallen stones toward the outer ring. Harry took off running toward him, shouting uselessly as he went. He did not have to sidestep the obstacles in his path, but he found the whirl of darkness, light and noise disorienting and had trouble keeping track of Draco. He reached the other boy just as Draco stumbled over a stone hidden in the grass and went sprawling.

Draco rolled onto his back and pushed himself up on his hands. Harry dropped to his knees beside him, shouting, "Get up! Oh God, Draco, get up!"

Draco's eyes widened in horror, and Harry twisted around to see a dense black shadow towering above them. Words came from it - low, furious, deadly words that froze Harry's blood and brought raw panic into Draco's face. "You cannot escape me, boy. You belong to me! You are mine!"

The face of Lucius Malfoy took shape out of the darkness. His eyes burned with a madness greater than anything that tortured his son, and his lips were drawn back in a feral snarl. "He will never have you again! Never!"

Draco stared at his father in blank terror for the space of a single breath, then his hand jerked up, all five fingers pointed at Lucius' face, and he screamed, "Avada Kedavra!"

A blast of green light hurled Draco back onto the grass and blinded Harry for a terrible moment. Draco did not wait for the discharge of power to die, but scrambled to his feet and began to run. He was sobbing so hard that it shook his entire body, and he could not keep his feet under him for more than three steps at a time, but he ran anyway, headed for the standing stones and the darkness beyond them.

He passed the inner ring of stones, clutching at the nearest one for balance as he went, and made for the outer ring. Harry and Dumbledore followed, Harry pacing at his shoulder, urging him on with no thought for how foolish he looked shouting at a memory. Draco heard voices behind him, separating themselves from the chaos around the altar, and he put on a burst of speed, making for the complete blackness beneath the great triptychs.

Suddenly, he stumbled and fell. Harry instinctively reached out to catch him, then swore as his hands passed through Draco's shoulder. He halted and turned to wait for the other boy to get to his feet again, but Draco did not move.

"Come on, Draco! There's no time for this!"

Draco did not hear him and did not seem to notice the voices drawing closer. He knelt in the grass, staring at something that lay huddled at the base of an upright stone. Harry dropped to his knees at Draco's side, peered into the thick shadows, and gasped.

"Pansy," Draco whispered, his voice thick with tears.

The slack, empty face of the girl in front of him did not change. Gently, incredibly gently, Draco reached up to take Pansy's face between his hands. The light of the stars, which now gleamed fitfully through the weakening shroud of the Dementors' gloom, struck brilliant sparks from the facets of Draco's hand and let Harry see it clearly for the first time. The two outer fingers were gone - blown off by the force of the Unforgivable Curse that had killed his father.

Harry stared first at the shattered hand and then at the tears streaking Draco's face, and he felt more helpless than he ever had in his life. As he watched, appalled, Draco leaned over to kiss Pansy's lips. "I'm sorry," he said, and Harry felt the chill of recognition go down his spine again. "I'm so sorry."

Draco's fingers tightened, the broken ends sinking into Pansy's flesh until blood showed black around them. His face contorted in agony. In another second, he would crush her throat and finish the job Voldemort had begun, and Harry could do precisely nothing to stop it.

A shout from the darkness to the right brought Draco's head around with a snap. He let go of Pansy, and she slumped to the ground.

"There he is!" a woman's voice shrilled triumphantly.

"Watch it, Bella," another voice said. "He's already killed Lucius."

"Go, Draco," Harry urged. "Run!"

But Draco did not run. He gazed down at Pansy's face, at the bloody wounds he had left in the side of her throat, and then he lifted his head to look at the stars. The tear streaks on his face were rivers of diamond-hued light. "I don't care what you say," he murmured. "I won't start a war for him. I won't lead Harry into a trap."

"Come along, little worm," the woman jeered, her boots crunching loudly on the brittle grass. "Come to your Auntie Bella."

Draco closed his eyes and bent his head again, covering his face with his hands. The woman gave a hard, ugly laugh, and Harry shouted in frustration, "Do something!"

There was a terrific lurch, and suddenly, everything was quiet.

Harry gasped, staring around him in confusion. They stood on close-cropped, wet grass, under a canopy of stars that sat too close to the earth. Stonehenge was gone. The Death Eaters were gone. The horrible, chaotic shrieking and crying were gone. There was absolutely nothing here but Draco Malfoy and the ghosts he had brought with him.

Draco still knelt with his head down and his face hidden. He was shaking, and though he made no sound, Harry knew that he was crying. Dumbledore and Harry exchanged a stunned look over the top of his head, then Dumbledore looked down at the weeping boy with blank wonder in his face.

"What happened?" Harry finally murmured, very softly, as though afraid that a loud noise might startle Draco.

"He apparated," Dumbledore answered, his voice full of awe.

"That's impossible. He doesn't know how and he didn't even... I mean, don't you need a spell?"

"I don't know how he did it, Harry, and you're right. It is impossible. Or it should be." Dumbledore knelt beside Draco, still peering intently at him. "How extraordinary!"

Harry followed Dumbledore's lead and sank to his knees on Draco's other side. "What about Pansy?" he asked, roughly. "Do you think he... hurt her?"

Dumbledore's eyes went cold. "Let's hope, for Pansy's sake, that he broke her neck. He could do her no greater favor."

His voice very small and frightened, Harry said, "I don't think Draco will see it that way."

Dumbledore lifted a hand as if to touch Draco's hair, then remembered that he was no more solid than Harry and pulled it back. "With any luck, he'll never know."

Before Harry could think of an answer to this, Draco stirred. He lifted his head, looking around him in blank disbelief then up at the strange, over-bright stars clustered so thickly above him. He clearly had no idea where he was or how he'd come here. Wrapping his arms tightly about his body, he took a few shaking breaths and whispered, "What did I do wrong, Harry?"

"Nothing!" Harry protested, then he caught Dumbledore's eye and shut his mouth with a snap.

Draco went on, in a quiet, desolate tone, "It doesn't work this way for you."

But it does! It does! Harry cried silently. People die, people suffer, and all because of me!

"All I wanted was..." Draco broke off and swallowed painfully. His eyes, so dazed and abstracted that they didn't seem to see at all, drifted toward something in the middle distance. Something Harry could not see. And he slowly reached out with his left hand. "Harry?"

His adamant fingers, the blood on them showing black in the starlight, spread as if to catch hold of the mysterious something. In the same instant, a tremendous bang shook the ground beneath him, and a pair of blazing headlights came to a shuddering stop just a few feet from where he knelt. Draco did not even glance at them, but Harry instinctively threw himself out of their path.

A cheerful voice hailed Draco from behind the blinding glare of the headlights. "Welcome to the Knight Bus, emergency transportation for the stranded witch or wizard... 'Ey, Ern! Lookit wot we got 'ere!"

Help in the form of Stan Shunpike had arrived.

"Come, Harry." Dumbledore caught hold of Harry's arm. "It's time to go."

Harry did not struggle against the pull of Dumbledore's hand. He had seen enough, and more than enough, of Draco's memories and wanted to be safely back at Hogwarts, where Voldemort and the Dementors and Lucius Malfoy and Pansy Parkinson really were no more than memories. He caught a last glimpse of Stan bending over Draco, while Ernie leaned out the door to see what the fuss was about, then icy blackness closed about him and he was rushing up out of the Pensieve.

He landed back in his own body with a jolt. Dumbledore's office came into focus around him, and he stared numbly at the faces confronting him. Moody. Snape. McGonagall, though Harry was sure she had not been there before. Dumbledore, a hand on Harry's arm, eyes full of concern and understanding. Harry swallowed once, convulsively, and put a hand up to rub his scar, which was burning and tingling.

Moody grunted at him, then turned his mismatched eyes on Dumbledore. "Well? Did he do it?"

Dumbledore nodded.

"Oh, Albus!" McGonagall murmured.

"Then it's over," Snape growled, his face tight with a pain Harry understood all too well. "The Ministry will take him, and there's nothing we can do to stop them."

"It's far from over, Severus," Dumbledore answered, wearily, "and there is much we can do. But we must face the fact that Draco is guilty. He used an Unforgivable Curse to kill his father. That alone is enough to..."

Harry turned abruptly and headed for the door, unable to listen to them anymore and needing desperately to find Draco. Dumbledore called his name as he pulled the door open, but he ignored the Headmaster. He ignored everything and everyone, stalking silently through streams of chattering students headed for their second class of the afternoon, heedless of who he left standing in the halls, staring after him in confusion. He did not hear or see any of them.

In the hospital wing, Madam Pomfrey was busy with three students and barely accorded him a glance over her shoulder. He vaguely heard Colin Creevey hail him, calling cheerfully to come and see the truly brilliant bite he'd gotten from a plant in Greenhouse Three, but he did not even glance at the other boy. He broke stride for a moment at the door to Draco's room, hesitating only long enough to glance through the magical window and see that Draco was alone. Then he muttered his password and slipped inside.

Draco lay curled on his side, deeply asleep, his face peaceful. Harry stared down at him, remembering what he had seen in the Pensieve and the incredible horrors that lurked behind that beautiful, archangel's face. Of its own volition, his hand lifted to touch the brand on Draco's cheek.

The agony inside him swelled to fill his chest and throat, making him gasp for breath. He wanted to weep, to scream curses until his throat was raw, to find the people who had done this to Draco and torture them with the Cruciatus Curse until they begged for mercy, but none of it was possible. None of it would help, not even the tears. They had hurt Draco, and hurt him and hurt him... Voldemort had failed in his plans to draw them into a doomed battle, but he had succeeded in one thing. He had sent Draco back to Harry so lost and broken that Harry could not reach him, could not help him, could not even love him without causing him even more pain.

"There's nothing I can do," he whispered.

Then it came to him in a flash - the one thing he could do, the one thing he could always do for Draco, that no one else could. Circling around the bed, he sat down on the mattress and kicked off his shoes. Then he climbed under the blanket and lay down close behind Draco. His body curved naturally to fit against the smaller boy's, protecting it, warming it, and his arm slipped around Draco's waist. He pressed his hand flat against Draco's chest, so he could feel it rise and fall gently as he breathed, then he burrowed his face into the snarl of silver-gilt hair strewn across the pillow and closed his eyes.

A stream of foolish endearments, pet names he never dared utter aloud and promises he could not keep went through his mind. He wanted to pour out all the sentimental drivel in his heart, while Draco could not hear him and would not understand if he did, but instead he whispered, simply,

"I'm here now, Draco. I'll keep you warm."

To be continued...