Becoming

Author's Note: Many thanks to my beta Robert!

January 8th, 1999

I spun slow circles in my office chair as I gazed down at the ring on my finger. Nearly a year and still I couldn't stop marveling at it.

It was probably just a small trinket to him, something he had picked up in Diagon alley or over a Hogsmeade weekend, but to me it was an important symbol.

Symbol for what - I hadn't quite worked that out yet though.

What I thought at first to be a simple sterling band was actually much more than I had suspected. It was ornately covered in silver snakes that slithered across the surface of the ring and tickled the surrounding fingers on occasion. I tried taking it off once, and found it nearly impossible. It wasn't because of a sticking charm or any other kind of magic, but simply because it hurt me to do so.

I felt a persistent burning sensation in my heart whenever I tried to remove it for any length of time, so I just left it on, trying to ignore that I had a piece of jewelry with his name engraved into the metal on the inside of it. I wore it when I slept, when I showered, even when I took Ginny out.

No easy shrug of the shoulders was explanation enough to Gin as to why I wore the silver bauble at all times. Finally I simply had to fib and tell her it was an heirloom, and she left me alone about it. I felt dreadful telling her such a blatant lie, but I justified it by reasoning that maybe it was an heirloom, it just wasn't mine. Regardless, she backed off, which was not something she would have done if I had told her it was from Draco Malfoy.

I'm not sure what she would have done if I'd told her the truth, but I was certain that it would be something unbecoming of a lady, because no one could accuse Ginny of being a lady. It was one of the things I liked about her. She was spirited to say the least, and when she wanted something she stopped at nothing to get it, including me I suppose. Sometimes I wondered if I would be just as important to her if I were mounted on her wall as some sort of hunting trophy as I was just being her boyfriend... No scratch that, fiancé.

The word kept sticking in my throat when I tried to say it out loud, and when I finally did say it, my voice tended to crack, which Ron thought was a laugh riot, but Ginny most certainly did not. It was hard not to think on our impending nuptials with slight fear, even though they were still a year or so away. Gin wanted a spring wedding, and since she had only persuaded me to propose over Christmas, it was too soon to plan for an event like she had her heart set on and still have it in the spring.

Everyone was very supportive... too supportive if you ask me. Just once I would have loved someone to question my judgment, tell me I might be rushing into things, or tell me she's not the one. Even if they were wrong, which they would have been, it would be nice to hear someone, anyone, go against something I said.

But no, I'm the great Harry Potter and what I say goes, no matter how asinine. It would be nice to think, just once, that I didn't get away with anything I wanted simply because I was the Gryffindor Golden Boy.

That very thing was why I ended up in the dank and moist lobby of Azkaban Prison at seven in the morning that Friday.

It was Ron who first agreed. I told him over lunch, barely mentioning in jest that it might be a nice gesture to show up at the ceremony where Lucius would receive the full penalty for his choices later that week. I wanted to oversee things and make sure that Malfoy was doing alright after I vouched for him the previous Sunday.

"Yeah, that would be a laugh, us showing up to his dad's funeral. He wouldn't know what to think!" Ron barked, his face lighting up the way Fred's used to when he was plotting some major mischief.

"You wouldn't be going," I warned. "I just thought, since his father was... you know, receiving the Kiss and all, that maybe he could use a friend," I muttered, not sure how those words even made it out of my mouth.

It's not that I didn't feel awful about it. As terrible as Lucius was I couldn't very well procure him the same deal as I did Draco and his mum. The man did try and kill me after all. But it didn't mean I wanted Draco be alone to watch his father's soul ripped from his body; to watch him turn from the man Draco remembered into a shell who wouldn't even recognize his own wife or son.

No one, no matter how terrible, deserved to have that be the last memory of their father, and if it was, the very least I could do was be there by his side. I nearly grew up with him, even though it was on opposite sides of the world in a way; still, he was my age, my heritage: we could have been friends.

I said none of this to Ron, however. I just looked at him carefully and let him know it wasn't a joke and he cleared his throat and nodded. "Sure, mate. I think it's a good idea," he offered with a shrug and proceeded to change the subject.

No amount of wanting to call him out on being a liar would do me any good. If Ron wanted to placate me the way Molly and Hermione and even Kingsley did, then they could have their fun. I knew they didn't do it out of respect, but rather fear.

I saw it in their eyes, all of them. Even Ginny's sometimes, who was the only person that did not think it was a good idea to visit Malfoy. She still hated the son for something the father did years ago, and I could understand that. That did not, however, means that I necessarily needed to agree with her. The event with the Diary in her first year at Hogwarts made her who she was, but what she failed to realize, was that without it she would have been just as afraid of me as everyone else.

Was there something to be afraid of? Sure.

They all heard the rumors and took what they wanted from them; the fact of the matter was that Voldemort, a sliver of his corrupted soul, lived inside of me for seventeen years. Who knows what damage it caused to my own undeveloped soul? Who knows if it contaminated me with its evil, or if, worse, if it never really left me at all?

Those were the things that kept me up at night. When my magic began to grow exponentially after the war, I kept it a secret: hidden from even the ones I was closest to. It was not because I didn't love them - far from it - but because, as the aftermath of the war began to settle, I realized that I had no true friends and no one who I could completely trust.

If even Ron caught wind of the fact that I could suddenly perform wandless magic with barely a thought, he would turn me into the Ministry; Kingsley wouldn't hesitate to bind me and place me in a cell.

The fact that they knew nothing of my extra abilities and were still afraid of me spoke volumes.

The air was damp. No, I take that back. The air is damp in London; the air out there in the middle of the icy waters of the North Sea, that air was frigid and wet. It burned when I took a breath it was so cold and the spray of the water against the jagged black rock of the island made my body shiver and my teeth chatter.

I was starting to think that this idea wasn't so good after all, but the Portkey in my hand, a tawny pheasant feather, wouldn't reactivate for another few hours.

The ceremony that was to take place was for more than just Lucius Malfoy, which irked me slightly. I felt as though a family should get to experience their grief in private, not in an audience setting with a six for one special.

That day the lives of six witches and wizards would be irrevocably changed as their souls were torn from their bodies and they were reduced to a drooling mass. It made my heart clench as I thought of having narrowly saved my godfather from that same fate a few years before, only to have him taken from me in an even more mysterious - though less horrid - way.

Even with six people dying, there were only five people there, and two I knew were there for Lucius. What could someone do that was so horrible that no one would show up at your funeral? Even Voldemort had mourners, and you didn't get much worse than plotting the genocide of an entire culture.

It made me wonder briefly who would attend my funeral, and how much relief would be in their voices when they spoke about me.

I lingered in the back, taking in the scene before me. Narcissa sat in the front of the small stone hall with Draco at her side. They were both dressed in black, which matched the décor and tone of the room, but contrasted sharply with their brilliant blonde hair and pale luminescent skin. Draco's mother wore a thin black veil covering her face. The moment I stepped aside to allow an older woman with a hunched back and silvered hair to pass, Narcissa looked right at me, and even through her veil I could see the warm thanks in her eyes.

Her eyes were not unlike Draco's in that they held a turbulent force behind them, but her eyes were more of a blue, whereas Draco's only took on a hue that could be likened to blue when he was happy or excited about something. The fact that I knew so much about his temperament and how his eyes would look when he felt one way or another disturbed me slightly.

I gave Mrs. Malfoy a brief but polite nod and hoped she didn't draw her son's attention to my presence. I still wasn't sure if it was appropriate to be there and, if he wanted to talk to me, what would I say? 'Sorry about your father's soul, wish I could have done more?' The fact of it was that I probably could have but I wouldn't have asked for an easy dismissal for the man who was Voldemort's right hand. He made his choices and those were his consequences. I just hated to see Malfoy suffer.

Though I didn't know why that would be the case either.

I hated Malfoy for as long as I could remember, ever since that first meeting when he reminded me of Dudley at Madame Malkin's. The confrontation on the train only hastened my opinion that he was a spoiled git, and then his increasingly aggressive behavior toward me and my friends only made it that much worse.

But there had to have been a reason I saved him that day during the war. And his thanks afterward had seemed sincere, but that was probably mostly only because he sincerely needed my help.

A rotund man was standing in front of me, blocking my view of the Malfoy's and I shifted toward the aisle to try and spot them again, watch them to see if I was intruding or not, when I saw Draco walking right toward me, looking purposeful and perturbed.

"What are you doing here, Potter?" he hissed. "Come to rub it in that my father is finally getting what he deserves?"

I blanched, not knowing what to say really. When I had left him with his mother earlier in the week he had seemed... accepting, even going so far as to invite me to stay and share a meal. I should have known the niceties wouldn't last, and as I steeled myself to walk away I noticed his eyes for the first time.

The storm inside of him was raging, no doubt, but it looked like the clouds roiling through them were made of crimson blood. His eyes were worn, creased at the corners from too much sobbing. His nose was swollen and red, and I hadn't noticed before how raspy his voice was from a throat that was obviously hoarse from screaming.

I'm not sure what came over me in that moment, but I hugged him. I wrapped my arms around his seemingly frail body and I held him tightly to my chest.

He went rigged at first, clearly as taken aback by the gesture as I was, but after a moment or two he relaxed into it, and then he nearly collapsed in my arms, only held upright because I willed it so. He cried into my shoulder that morning, a bout of shuddering yet silent sobs wracking his body. I held him, just as I would have done for any of my friends; just as I had done for some of them when the war took a family member and there was a funeral to attend.

"I fucking hate you, Potter," he rasped into my collar bone, a pale fist pounding weakly into my chest and I simply nodded.

"I know," I told him softly. "I hate you, too."

He stopped crying then, a choking laugh breaking through the tears, but he didn't step back, didn't let go, and eventually I pulled him over to the bench he had been occupying with his mother and sat him down. I was going to go back to my hiding spot at the back of the crowd, but his hand remained firmly in my own, not letting me part from his side.

So I sat there, wedged between Malfoy and a strange dark haired woman with a vacant stare. It was one of the most awkward arrangements I had gotten myself into, and the hand in mine, which continued to grasp roughly as if he feared I would leave, was an odd comfort. I could only hope I was providing some fraction of comfort to him as well.

The prisoners were led into the hall, one by one by grizzled looking Aurors. The Dementor was led in after that, just the one, but still it made my chest tighten and suddenly I was happy to have someone, even if that someone was Draco Malfoy, holding my hand and keeping out the nightmares the creature tried to inflict upon me.

Draco and I gasped in unison when we noticed Lucius for the first time. He was a mere shadow of the man I had grown to loathe as a child. His cheeks were hollow and as pale as the moonlight. His skin was nearly transparent and you could see the purple rushing of his pureblood coursing beneath it. His hair was matted with dirt and grime, cropped short and stubbly against his head. What was worse was the proud Slytherin father figure, the arrogant man who carried himself as if he were the most important person alive - that person had already vanished and became a broken shell who merely grunted as the guard forced him to his knees.

When his gray eyes, eyes that matched Draco's in more ways than color, trained on his wife and son, there was no storm, there were no clouds hastening across their surface. They were blank, like gray slate left untreated in the sun and made powdery and parched.

The man that these two people loved was already gone.

Merlin only knew what they had done to him to make someone as haughty and proud as Lucius Malfoy break so thoroughly in the span of a week.

As the Dementor descended toward the first of its victims I began to panic. More than anything I wanted to shield Draco from witnessing any further atrocities done to his father, and though Lucius would be the last of the six to lose his soul to the Kiss, if Draco knew what it looked like, he could imagine it happening to his father.

With the hand he was holding I squeezed him tightly and with my free hand I turned his face toward mine and away from the ghastly show that was about to take place.

"Potter, what-" he sputtered, his eyes wide and terrified, and I'm not sure what he saw in my own gaze that halted his words, but he said no more.

"Just look at me," I ordered. "Keep watching me, no matter what you hear, or how bad you want to look, just keep your eyes on mine," I demanded softly. "Okay?"

He nodded and did as he was told; his eyes locked with my own and even as the first man whimpered and pleaded for his life, Draco never looked away from me. A loud thump of a thick body hitting the floor was all the warning we got of the second man being taken. The third was a witch, and her shriek rang out through the hall as her soul was sucked from her body, but Draco's eyes stayed glued and unblinking to mine. The forth made more of a gurgling sound, as if he were drowning and the fifth chanted over and over to the gods before there was only silence from him as well.

Draco's bottom lip began to quiver and I steeled my grip on both his hand and jaw, making sure he didn't break our agreement. "Listen to me, Draco. Your father is a Malfoy, as fine and ornery as they come and this will not change that. He loves you, Draco, and he will always love you. Do you hear me?" I asked, ignoring the misting of my own eyes as I spoke.

He nodded curtly and buried his face against my chest and I held him, covering his ears against his father's silent scream and trying not to watch Narcissa's face crumble with unspoken grief at her husband's fate and what seemed to be gratitude for my presence.

The rest of the ceremony rushed by, as the limp, soulless bodies were carried away and the Dementor escorted off the island. Draco never looked back up at me, but kept his hand wrapped firmly in mine as we made our way back into the lobby of the ominous prison.

"No one hears a word of this, Potter," he noted in clipped tones as he extracted his hand from mine.

"I wouldn't dream of it," I muttered, drawing an invisible 'x' over my heart. "Who'd believe me anyhow?"

A small curl of a smile shadowed Draco's lips and he nodded once more. "Thanks," he said quietly before letting his hand fall into his robe pocket and then he was gone, apparently having touched his Portkey.

"I swear I taught him better manners," Narcissa muttered behind me, looking slightly ashamed under the burden of her mourning.

I nodded and smiled slightly, as much as I could given the situation. "He's just upset," I replied, excusing it away as something uncommon, when both of us knew it wasn't.

"He doesn't know the depth of his feelings for you yet," she noted and I paled, running my hand haphazardly through my hair.

"I'm not sure what you mean, Mrs. Malfoy," I muttered.

She just smiled sadly and nodded. "It's the big events that shape us, Harry, and words cannot relay my gratitude for what you have done for my son," she said mysteriously before smiling a little wider and pulled me into a gentle embrace. "Thank you, for being here today, I don't think Draco even realizes yet how much help you were. I'm sure when he does though; he'll be as appreciative as I am."

I shook my head and tried to banish the blush that colored my cheeks. "It was nothing, really," I muttered

She smiled once more, grazing her thumb lightly across my cheekbone in a very motherly gesture and disappeared with her own Portkey.

I sighed heavily, ready to be rid of this place and reached for my own Portkey. Once back at home I collapsed into my favorite armchair, wondering if I was emotionally exhausted enough for sleep to take me, but couldn't shake the wild horror in Draco's stormy eyes.

I wondered briefly if I would ever be able to think of anything else when the rain clouds moved over London, or if I would always simply see his eyes reflected in the sky.

Author's Note: So, this is the first chapter I've ever written that actually made me tear up. I'm not sure what that says, but I hope it's good.