Come Hither

Chapter 8

Hogsmeade

Waking up wearily in the early hours of the morning, Harry grumpily thought that life had no mercy; he had to wake this early and go to a training session with Dumbledore instead of tripping to Hogsmeade. He trudged along to go performs his ablutions, and thereafter entered the common room to discover it empty, predictably, as it was seven-thirty in the morning. He dragged his feet to the portrait hole, emerged into the corridor, and made his way to the Great Hall for breakfast.

A few minutes before the strike of the eighth hour, Harry stood in front of the phoenix gargoyle and intoned, "Lemon Drops." The statue immediately shifted out of the way for him to ascend the steps to the large oak doors. He organized his mind and his grievances before rapping on the door.

"Come in!" he heard. This gave him mixed emotions but he pushed them aside and proceeded into the headmaster's office.

"Good morning, Harry," Dumbledore said cheerfully. He was still the exact same as he had been before, except for that blackened hand that was still there. Harry thought it would have gotten better within the week but, apparently, that wasn't to be.

The office was also the same: legions of strange objects littered various surfaces, some whizzing, some flashing, and others passive. Some of the portraits lining the higher parts of the wall of the office looked down at him while others snored on.

"Good morning, Professor," Harry greeted back.

Dumbledore gave him a slight smile as he claimed his seat, and when it became apparent Harry couldn't keep his eyes from his shrivelled hand, Dumbledore made a dismissive gesture with the same hand, and said, "Think nothing of it, Harry; we have other important matters to discuss."

"Yes, sir, we do," Harry said, suddenly removing his eyes from the hand and pinning them on Dumbledore with smouldering, emerald accusation, all sympathy evaporating.

Dumbledore raised an eyebrow at this. "Certainly," he said softly.

Before he could continue, Harry asked, "Sir, can I ask you a question before we begin?"

"Of course, Harry."

Harry hesitated for a second before asking, "Have you been searching my mail?" His tone wasn't accusatory, just cautious, despite the sharp gleam in his eyes.

Dumbledore sighed, seeming to have anticipated his question for an age. "Yes, I have." He eyed him solemnly before going on, "You have to understand, Harry. These are very dangerous times. There are many threats we need to consider."

Harry didn't speak again for a while, warring with himself internally. Yes, Dumbledore was right, but even then, he was still angry that Monday might not have been the only day Sirius had appeared in the fireplace, waiting for him to show up at midnight. And now, thinking about how that might have made Sirius feel when he expected him but found the common room empty for God knew how many times made him, Harry, feel angry.

"But after checking them and making sure they were safe, couldn't you then pass them onto me?"

Dumbledore didn't answer for several seconds, but finally, holding Harry's eyes with regret, he said, "I hadn't the time, Harry. Consider the delicacy of your situation. I did not want you running after Sirius Black." He maintained a steady gaze on Harry, looking to be totally unrepentant on this part.

Harry supposed Dumbledore was partly right, but it still didn't justify so many other things. He wasn't exactly angry with him nor was he feeling particularly amicable towards him at the moment.

Getting off that subject, he asked, "Sir, why's your hand still black?"

Dumbledore gave his blackened hand a cursory glance, and then smiled. "As my younger days are over, I, of course, tend to take longer than usual to heal." He chuckled.

Harry's face went stone cold. That chuckle again. Not wanting to attack the man for it, he asked rather stoically, "What time do we finish? I have to meet my friends at Hogsmeade at midday."

"Midday, you say?" mused Dumbledore, running a hand through his long beard. "I believe that will give us more than enough time to cover what we need to," he assured with a smile.

Harry wasn't too inclined to return it, so he just nodded. "Thank you, sir."

The headmaster bowed. Then his face became serious. "You've been religiously practicing your meditation, I trust?" Dumbledore quirked an eyebrow, and there was a slight, upward curl to his lips.

Harry remembered the one time when he hadn't done that, resulting in him seeing that terrible vision of Voldemort and his dark machinations, and Harry thought Dumbledore was remembering this as well; he nodded meekly. He had at least been following up on it, though. It had only been that one slip up, and he didn't know if he was regretful or grateful to see that one vision.

Dumbledore smiled. "Excellent. Well then, Harry, I believe we're in a position to approach the skill of Occlumency."

Three mind-gruelling hours later, Harry was free to go. Dumbledore had given him a special permission letter to go to Hogsmeade in case of the remote chance of any chaperoning professor spotting him and questioning why he came so late. Harry thought Dumbledore had Snape in mind, particularly. His mind numb and almost blank, Harry went up to Gryffindor Tower to grab his Invisibility Cloak, the Marauder's Map, a well-weighted sack of galleons, and a light jumper, before going to the statue of the one-eyed, humpbacked witch on the third floor.

A few minutes later, at twenty-five past eleven, Harry emerged from the secret passage and sneaked up into the Honeydukes store, where his eyes were met with an ocean of colour and shape. Ah, yes, indiscriminate expenditure shall commence. He could seek out his friends after getting his shopping done.

Harry took meticulous care in selecting his favourite delicacies from the old sweet shop: the obligatory jar of Bertie Bott's Every Flavour Beans, a few Chocolate Frogs, some Honeydukes Chocolates, and a handful of Fizzing Whizzbees. He minded the entire 'Special Effects' aisle as he knew this was Ron's specialty; he could ask for some from him later. Stepping out of the store with not too light a sack of galleons, he wasn't used to spending a lot - he had never gotten used to having money, Harry made some more stops to other various shops, forcing himself as usual to allow himself this indulgence and buy a significant amount of candy.

Upon leaving the third shop he had visited, he held out his arm and his wristwatch read, 11:42. Hurrying up along the streets of the village, he weaved his way through a sea of milling civilians and Hogwarts students to the pub with the rusty sign bearing the decapitated head of a boar-hog - the Hog's Head.

But before turning on the last corner store, Harry's peripheral vision caught on a familiar sight. Reflexively, he turned around and it was just as his brain had announced - platinum-blond hair. A little far off, Harry could see the taller, imposing figure of Lucius Malfoy looking down at his smaller version, both wearing dark, elegant Houdani® haute couture, fine lined with stylish, silk emerald seams. Harry frowned. Why was the younger Malfoy dressed just as immaculately? Given, it was commonplace that Malfoy donned expensive designer apparel as his casual wear when he wasn't wearing school uniform during school hours at Hogwarts, but now he still looked like he was better dressed for an occasion or the like.

Walking with one's head looking the other way was never a good idea, and Harry found this out when he bumped straight into a wall of flesh (luckily). "Oomph!"

"Mr Potter."

Harry reeled from the impact and dazedly looked up to the tall, dark-clad figure of Professor Snape. There was an expression on his face Harry couldn't decipher.

"And exactly why are you not with your equally insufferable comrades?" the Potions master drawled, with a raise of an eyebrow. "Then again, don't answer - I seem not to give a feathery owl's bottom about anything you have to say, truthfully."

With a cheeky retort hanging on his lips, Harry had been about to triumphantly whip out his special note from Dumbledore himself, but even as he spoke, Snape's eyes had tilted up to something behind him. Harry turned around and saw the two Malfoys Disapparate into thin air. He turned back again with a frown, looking up at Snape.

Snape's cold black marbles sank down to his own eyes. The man didn't speak, his face didn't move at all, and then he just swooped past Harry in a blur of fluttering black robes like he always did, disappearing behind a corner of some nameless store, probably going to join the other members of the chaperoning Hogwarts staff.

Harry, unable to work out just what happened, idly headed for the Hog's Head, all the while questions swirling in his mind. What was with Snape? Why was Lucius Malfoy in Hogsmeade in the first place? And why did Malfoy follow him, knowing he had to return to school? Unless he wasn't returning to school; Harry's pulse soared; what if Voldemort was giving Malfoy a mission? Or perhaps he was going to be Marked today. Judging from the fancy clothes, it would be like an official event or ritual. Or perhaps the Malfoys just normally wore clothes like that; they were, after all, the epitome of high-class society.

These thoughts accompanied him as he slipped through the doors of the Hog's Head. A thick, heavy air of dust, beer, and the general smell of too many people being in the same room engulfed him. He stopped short at the number of Hogwarts students that had bombarded the small, derelict shop, his thoughts on Malfoy gone. His breath stuck in his throat when a thousand eyeballs swivelled to him. Harry gulped and self-consciously made his way to the back table of the shop where Ron and Hermione were waving him over, their lips stretched into huge smiles on their faces. Perhaps their over-excitement partly attested to their nervousness at all these people as well; it looked like the whole of bloody Gryffindor with half of Hufflepuff.

Harry's chair scraping the floor was about the only sound in the room, not considering the low rumble of the unscrupulous patrons of the Hog's Head only a few feet from their evidently grand meeting. Needless to the say the glares coming from the regulars' corners were elicited solely by the unusual overcrowding. Parvati had outdone herself.

Hermione deftly shrunk his parcels and he stowed them in his pockets, muttering his thanks.

She nodded. "Harry, I was just telling them about the Defence club. We were deliberating on changing the name, or creating a name, I guess." As far as Harry could see upon entering the store, Hermione had been the only one talking. Indeed 'we'. Nevertheless, he nodded at her and kept his eyes on the ancient, wooden tabletop. Hermione smiled and turned to the others, clearing her throat officially. "So, guys, we were discussing the name. Any offers?"

"Why can't we just leave it as the Defence Club?"

It was clear Hermione wasn't even going to look in the way of the person suggesting this, let alone entertain them.

"The Resistance."

Hermione's lips pursed impatiently. Even Ron thought it sounded tacky, judging by his grimace.

"Kids of the Light, or the Light Kids."

Hermione's head actually tilted sideways, either thoughtfully or just in awe of the ridiculousness of the suggestion, and even a few students winced. A rather over-weight girl with a wide, flat face, chunky arms, and a garishly blue sweater in which Harry could fit five times swelled to twice her size and glared daggers at the person who suggested the title of 'Light Kids,' clearly offended, and a few of those around her moved a step backwards; she looked very offended, or perhaps they had been pushed back by her swelling.

"Dumbledore's Army."

That seemed to have finally struck a chord with Hermione. "Dumbledore's Army is good, but don't you think we should use a more discreet name?" Was this actually open to discussion?

"It will only be us using the name, and it's not like we're going to spread the word," Ron said reasonably.

Murmurs broke from the crown, and Harry didn't know if they were assenting or not, but Hermione seemed agreeable to this name, for she said, "Of course no one is going to 'spread the word' because if you're joining Dumbledore's Army, the D.A., I guess, you will be using an Enchanted Galleon." She pulled out of her pocket what appeared to be a normal, standard, Gringotts-approvable Galleon. "Anyone who tries to rat us out will... well, let's just say the experience will not be pleasant."

The gleam in her eyes convinced many of this.

"We didn't say we are going to join this Defence thing yet," the blue-eyed Hufflepuff, Ernie Macmillian, spoke up haughtily, as though he was speaking for the entire mass. "How about a few words from the almighty leader?" The boy crossed his arms and quirked an expectant, dark-blond eyebrow at Harry.

Harry's liking for the boy instantly evaporated. His throat went dry, and his face lost all its blood when he saw Cho Chang watching him intently amongst the crowd, a touch of interest in her eyes. He turned to his two friends, Hermione especially, in the hope they could steer the attention away from him, but Ron's pinched face and Hermione's commiserative eyes told him that this wasn't forthcoming.

"Uhm, I... you... what do you want to know?" he managed to rasp, turning back to the crowd helplessly.

Macmillian was quick to the word. "Why should we join this DA thing?"

Harry thought this was obvious. "Don't you want to learn to protect yourselves? And your loved ones? Voldemort (one, huge collective flinch from the crowd) is back, don't you understand that? He's doing something out there and it involves every one of us. I think..." Harry swallowed, "...I know that as we speak, Voldemort is planning to conquer Hogwarts."

His words didn't even come with a wave of disbelieving murmurs, as he had expected. No, there was stark silence amongst the congregation of Hogwarts students, the only noises being the clatter of tanks, the low murmuring of patrons, and Aberforth's clinking glasses as he wiped and placed them on the shelf.

They probably thought he was crazy for his words.

Parvati Patil looked still shocked, even though she was hearing this for the second time.

"Hogwarts?" It was Cho, and it sounded politely sceptic, not terrified, as Harry would have expected.

Parvati immediately awoke from her shocked stupor and sharpened impressively at this interaction as she put a fist under her chin attentively and her eyes whizzed between the two of them.

"Yeah, I had a--" Hermione cleared her throat delicately. Harry was about to say he had a dream. Perhaps including dreams and visions in his words wouldn't be conducive to convincing the already dubious mass, helped along by Ernie Macmillian, no doubt. "--yeah, he's planning to take over Hogwarts." Hermione looked subtly relieved. "It's fact. We just have to accept it and start to prepare, which is why this duelling club, er, Dumbledore's Army is important. We need to be prepared for anything. In battle..."

Hermione eyed Harry appraisingly, seeing him going into that mode where he was genuinely a leader, genuinely driven by a higher need, when Harry's true colours came out.

"...there are no predictabilities, no... no..." Harry fought to find the words, "...structured progression... established continuation - it's just haphazard, unpredictable. Don't expect to go to classes and go to the Great Hall for lunch. There are no more guarantees, no more constants, no more things we can take for granted, no more trusting in the adults because they themselves can't control the circumstances and force us not to worry.

"These are our own lives, our own families, we need to protect them, we need to learn advanced Defence so when the time comes--" Harry's throat almost closed up, "--we can at the least minimize our losses because be certain that the time is coming. I know Voldemort. I know he stops at nothing, cares about nothing, that he's only driven by pure evil, and I know he won't stop until he gets what he wants, and for now, that Hogwarts."

The silence was so absolute and so palpable that Harry could almost feel it humming.

Forty odd pairs of eyes bored into him.

Mouths gaped.

Frozen expressions, shocked faces, shaken countenances.

Harry took them all in intently, his emerald eyes on fire. "This is war."

***

"I have appealed your... predicament," said a smooth, dispassionate drawl.

Draco looked up slowly through his silver-blond fringe at Lucius' Malfoy's cold, hooded silver eyes fixed on him, not glaring, not lazy, but politely dispassionate. His one hand was holding a tumbler of Malfoy Chardonnay, the other holding the snake cane resting on his crossed thighs.

"Father?" Draco spoke up cautiously.

"I negotiated with our Lord to reconsider the extent of your punishment." His eyes sharpened just a little more here. "It doesn't make your situation necessarily better but it's an improvement, depending on how you look at it." The elder Malfoy delicately tilted the rest of his drink through his lips and stood up elegantly, dark emerald robes sweeping flatteringly upon his figure. "Severus will only be a few hours to see to it that you're adequately prepared for the occasion. I'll be in the library." With that, he swept out of his study, leaving his confounded son behind.

***

A few hours later found Harry, Ron, and Hermione lazing around next to the tree in front of the lake, snacking on the candy they had bought in Hogsmeade. This time, thank Merlin, they weren't accompanied by Luna. The giant squid of the lake was intermittently spewing out bubbles from deep down within, wherever it was. The sun was shining high in the day, it being only about one in the afternoon. There were a quite a few groups of kids outside, enjoying the sunlight. Hermione asked how Harry's lesson had went with Dumbledore in the morning and Harry told her it had been okay, a little rough, but he managed in the end. Dumbledore had been very patient with him.

"I saw Malfoy Disapparating away with his dad at Hogsmeade. He's probably not here right now," Harry told his two friends.

Hermione's eyebrows meshed together. "Malfoy went away with his dad? That's strange. Maybe he's getting Marked or something."

In the split second that followed, it then dawned on Harry that they could speak of serious matters like this in such relatively light tones. Were the three of them that adapted to the threat of the Dark Arts? That deep into the seriousness of their situation that they could do that - talk about Dark Mark initiations on a beautiful day like this and in such a nice mood? Used to being surrounded or having experienced so much evil or such deep evil that it featured in conversations about the weather?

"He's getting Marked," Ron declared, sufficiently convinced, evidently.

Harry smiled wanly, his cheeks bulging with a mouthful of Every-Flavour Beans. "I thought so, too."

"And I didn't see Professor Snape with us when we were coming back," Hermione added, daintily slipping a Whizzy Boily in her mouth.

Harry abruptly stopped chewing and looked up, silent for a split-second. "He's a Death Eater! I knew it, I--"

"Shhh, Harry, you can't just scream things like that!" reproached Hermione.

He wasn't exactly screaming; he was merely pointing out a fact. Nonetheless, he whispered passionately, "I knew it, he was always strange! I should've told Dumbledore! I mean, it's the only logical explanation! Lucius Malfoy appears out of nowhere and goes away with Malfoy, then Snape follows, and we already know Malfoy's father is a Death Eater."

Hermione didn't seem inclined to accept this wishy-washy theory, but she deferred that it had some truth to it. "Maybe, Harry, but you can't just assume so much."

"He's not assuming anything," Ron chided, coming to Harry's aid, the brotherhood pact effecting. "We know Snape is a dark character, he's wanted the DADA job for years! And... he just looks like what a Death Eater would look like."

Hermione gave Ron a blank stare. "And exactly how do you know what Death Eaters look like, Ron?"

Ron shrugged a little sheepishly. "Black robes, evil face - the greasy git is just all of evil combined, Hermione." It was said as though it was simple fact. Ron engrossed himself in chewing his Pepper Imps.

Hermione huffed, clearly unconvinced, and she sucked on her sweet furiously after saying, "You can't just make accusations like that!" This was contrary to her shrewdly narrowing eyes, though; perhaps she was also starting to question things. However, this expression quickly vanished when she focused upon a figure towards the entrance.

Harry turned around to see what had captured her attention, and, to his dismay, saw Cho heading directly their way. His throat turned to sawdust, his Pepper Imp dissolving to ash, as he watched the Chinese Ravenclaw gliding over the grass to their camp, her hair gleaming richly in the sunlight, her smile radiating beautifully even from afar, and her figure totally unspoilt by her uniform.

"Harry," said the girl, with a bright smile.

When did she get here? Harry shook out of his daze and squinted up at the sixth-year, clearing his throat and slipping the candy under his tongue so that it wouldn't show when he spoke, somehow thinking Cho would find him immature if she saw it. "Hi, Cho."

Hermione and Ron went suspiciously quiet at this point, but Harry was only bothered with trying not to make a fool of himself in front of Cho as he had done last year.

"How've you been?"

"Er, great, absolutely great, I guess. Er, you?"

She glanced at the other two and back. "I've wanted to talk to you about that."

"Oh, er, I--you--did you maybe want to talk somewhere?" asked Harry as he stood up.

Cho nodded and smiled at him. Harry turned around to his friends, feeling awkward about what to do or say. He made vague hand gestures, at which point Hermione and Ron shooed him away, so he ambled aside Cho around the lake and tried not to squirm in the silence.

"So, you started a Defence club - the DA. It was really brave of you, Harry."

Harry blushed to his roots. "Erm, yeah, we sort of needed it, with this war thing." Way to spoil the mood bringing in war issues, Harry.

This consequently set Cho off. "I had been so miserable in the summer, Harry, thinking about him, you know."

A distant apprehension approached Harry; he didn't want to talk about Cedric and he hoped this wasn't about having a crying session over him, given Cho's ready inclination to shedding tears.

"I miss him so much, but, I have to move on, you know?" She turned to him with a smile after staring at the ground. "I have to start living my life like before... So... you seeing anyone?" she giggled sheepishly in an uncharacteristic lapse of maturity.

Harry thought that this was quite forward for a girl but it didn't save him from his blazing cheeks. He cleared his throat self-consciously once more. "Er, not really, haven't really had time, you know. There's--there's no one, really." I'm really going to regrets those 'really's some time later on.

Cho nodded with a shy smile and stopped walking, facing him head on. "Do you maybe want to have breakfast with me at the Ravenclaw table tomorrow?"

Harry was floored by this and felt the blood rush to his cheeks again. "Er, oh, wow, I--I sure, why not?" he laughed uneasily, absolutely floored by the Bludger that had come out of nowhere, which lead to his surprised answer; sitting at the Ravenclaw table with the girl's giggling friends wouldn't have been his sound choice.

Cho gave him a big smile, deceivingly making him believe he did the right thing for a second there.

"Great. I'll see you tomorrow, then." She glided away and joined her friends, who were conveniently seated on a stone bench mere metres from where she and he had been standing, and they all exploded into shrieks and giggles at once as soon as Cho came over.

Harry hurried away from the familiarly traumatising noises back to where he had left Ron and Hermione, trying to get his wits about him.

The three of them trooped back to Gryffindor Tower while Harry endured very embarrassing questions from his two insufferable, fiendish friends.

"Can you even call that a date?" Ron asked sceptically when Harry had told him about his eating breakfast with Cho in the Great Hall the following morning. "A date in front of McGonagall?"

"Of course it is," said Hermione, though her mouth twitched, and she avoided Harry's eyes. "It really doesn't matter where you have it - what matters is the two people involved."

"You mean about--" Ron looked over his shoulder at the bench where Cho was flapping her hands embarrassedly at her friends. "--I'm counting seven, Harry," said Ron, in at tone that suggested it was best Harry heeded his warning.

This wasn't a comfort Harry at all. He could never get just one alone, could he? It was always a package!

A little to two o'clock, Angelina Johnson called the Gryffindor Quidditch team to the field to practice for the nearing match against Ravenclaw. After a gruelling practice session ("She should marry Oliver," Ron had grumbled), all muscle-cramped and bone-tired, it was in a dim sunset that the team trudged back to Gryffindor Tower, all sweaty and energy-depleted. Harry and Ron showered and went to play in the common room to pass the time and just generally muck about. Of course, they got a little academic work done under the watchful eye of Hermione. Quite early into the night, after an enduring session of Occlumency at eight in the morning, going to Hogsmeade, the whole stress of leading the DA with so many people looking up to him, the grey area of the Malfoys and Snape, plus the whole Cho thing, not to mention, Harry wearily climbed into his four-poster, drew up his curtains and, without doing his regular meditation, plunged into unconsciousness. Or so he thought...

***

He's on a large bed adorned with a silk emerald quilt. An intricately carved mahogany canopy looms overhead, bearing a large crest with the name 'Malfoy' ostentatiously engraved into it. The room in which he finds himself is large and dark, only illuminated by the soft orange of the embers of the fireplace. The mood is eerily warm and calming, which, surprisingly, isn't far from what he feels at the moment. Parallel to this is a feeling of an anticipated, perverse indulgence, which only serves to scare him more than the tranquil atmosphere does and at the same time entice him immeasurably to the point where he has to suppress a lust-riddled growl issuing from his lipless mouth. Ah, yes, he could feel it, his excitement streaming through his dry veins. To corrupt, to indulge, to defile, to humiliate! Yes, he's waiting for something, someone perhaps...

A door to the left slowly opens. Harry focuses on the heavily carved oaken door, and watches as it slowly reveals expensive emerald robes, so darkly green they seem black in the soft light. His excitement leaps as he takes in the short, slender form: long, platinum-blond hair arranged elegantly around a handsome, smooth, pale face; pale feet peeking out from under the robes; and dulled, seemingly resigned, grey eyes fall upon him as Draco Malfoy stands at the foot of the bed. Harry hears himself give a leering hiss, barely containing his lust at the sight.

However, he remains motionless, does not attempt to move however, but just lies back and watches the younger Malfoy climb up on his large, emerald-quilt bed. The boy halts right in the centre of the king-size, next to his legs, sitting on his haunches, clasping both hands in each other, and bowing his head.

"My Lord."

Ah, the sweet, unblemished tenor of youth, embellished by such sweet deference. It makes his dried, empty veins boil. Harry smiles at the way it sounds, his red, heartless slits glittering.

"Young Malfoy." The cold relish locked in those words is almost palpable.

Innocent flesh lies mere inches from him. Pale, pure, pliable skin; platinum-blond, long, flowing hair; sinuous, working joints - the art of form, so fresh in being; Draco - hunched, resigned, expecting to be done; fingers, so beautiful, long, pale, thin, immaculate, pure - pure of corrupting evil, pure of all crimes. Unable to hold back his deviousness, Harry's white, spidery hand blurs past and clenches onto a pale, delicate wrist, and pulls the body onto his thighs and chest, sparking resigned, grey slates into terror.

"Draco..." A low, hungry, sibilant caress.

The boy averts his eyes, rather looking at Harry's chest, rearranging himself awkwardly on his unnaturally pale thighs. This angers Harry - he wants the boy to look into his red slits, wants him to look into the eyes of the one who's going to rob him of his purity, once and for all.

"Look at me, Draco."

The boy hesitates for a moment, white eyelashes fluttering, pale throat swallowing. He finally lets his silver eyes rise and meet his own, and they glitter only with fear; face so flawless, artistic, blemish-less, pale - an artist's aspiration to capture; lips, small, thin, and shell pink - a drawer's dream to design on canvas. Harry gives a wide, perverted smile.

"I find myself attracted to corrupting the innocent," he says in a soft, seductive hiss.

The tongues of the fire create warm, glowing shadows across young Malfoy's face. Doleful eyes oscillate. The hand in his wrist is limp, resigned hopelessly to the grip, the other hand clutching and releasing the smooth, silk duvet and clutching it again. Harry can feel the humming of thriving life beneath those thin robes of his, can feel the heat of warm flesh in contact with his own robes, can feel his body shaking, and it's calling for him, has his name branded all over it. It is his to take.

"Remove your robe."

Robotically, the boy's hands rise to the front of his robe.

***

Harry gasped, fell off his bed, and coughed, heart beating monstrously in his chest. He heard his friend jumping out of his bed. He couldn't breathe! He drew in rugged breaths. His feet scrambled for traction, he gripped on the edge of his bed, hauled himself up, felt himself getting sick. Ron appeared in the feeble sliver of moonlight and helped him up.

"Harry, what's wrong?"

Idle questions, idle worry.

Harry wiped his wet face, his back equally drenched, and turned terrified, bloodshot eyes to his friend's anxious but knowing face.

"Ron! Malfoy! It-I-I Voldemort he--" Harry stood up and shakily ran to the bathroom, just making it in time for his already ejected vomit to leap over the seat and into the toilet. He wretched into the seat, holding himself steady with both hands resting on the lid. When he could wretch no further, and the bitter taste of it coated his tongue, he stood up in front of the basin and rinsed his mouth.

Absolute disgust gurgled within his stomach. He rubbed his eyes, unable to banish the images from his mind, the feelings. He wouldn't curse anybody with that repugnant punishment, not even his arch nemesis, not even Draco Malfoy.

He quietly stepped out of the bathroom and back into the dormitory.

Ron tentatively offered him a Chocolate Frog and asked, "Harry, mate, what did you see?"

Harry could only grimace in thanks, unable to smile at the moment, and took the sweet confectionery but shook his head at the question - he couldn't tell, couldn't... breathe life to that sickening sight. Merlin, bloody, Merlin.

"What did you see, Harry?" Ron prodded again.

Harry forced himself to stop pacing and to look squarely at Ron. "It was--it was... Draco..." The name was only a whisper, barely audible. "...How--how can that be? I saw him today with his father, but..."

"Harry, what are you talking about?" Ron asked again, some alarm creeping into his voice.

"What's going on?" The other boys started waking, disturbed by the noises. Seamus, Dean and Neville somnolently peeked over to them from their individual beds.

"Sorry, guys," Harry said, feeling guilty about waking his dorm mates.

"Everybody, go back to sleep, Harry's fine," Ron ordered the other boys, who immediately obliged with grunts.

"Harry, what did you see?" Ron hissed for the third time, looking more worried with every attempt.

Harry didn't know if he could tell Ron. It was beyond disturbing. He couldn't tell him this. Draco experienced all of that... that pain and humiliation. And if he told Ron, he would make sure Malfoy suffered even more humiliation. He never pretended to like him but even this was... even here, Harry drew the line - nobody deserved to be raped by an old, reincarnated megalomaniac like that. No bloke deserved to be stripped of his pride like that.

This couldn't have been voluntarily, it absolutely couldn't. Why would Draco want to be raped by Voldemort? And, Merlin, he, Harry, had seen all of that, experienced all of that - the evilness, the anticipation, the indulgence of corruption, the virtues of Malfoy, the pleasure of sex, at the cost of Malfoy... He wouldn't forgive himself for this, for allowing himself the sensations. But it wasn't his fault - Voldemort was the one doing the wrong things, not him! But... he was the one who didn't meditate. It was because of this that he could see what he did.

But now that he bore this horrid witness, would he choose to ignore it, push it aside? Harry couldn't just leave Malfoy suffering like that. Not even Malfoy. It couldn't have been voluntary... couldn't be voluntary. As he stood, Voldemort was raping Draco, desecrating his innocence, torturing him. He couldn't just stand here and let it happen, regardless of whom the victim was.

"I have to tell Dumbledore," were Harry's first words, but then he thought about it further: Dumbledore. Where was Dumbledore when he had to tell him about his dream of Voldemort planning to take over Hogwarts? He had been somewhere and came back injured with a black, shrivelled excuse of a hand. Where had Dumbledore been? That wasn't important now - what was important was Malfoy, and despite Dumbledore's apparent uselessness, Harry still had to try something - he couldn't just let things lie and happen. Harry forced himself to conclude that he had to go to Dumbledore in spite of his increasing faithless misgivings about the man.

Harry stopped pacing, started, then grabbed his school robe and bolted out of the fifth-year-boys' dormitory, leaving a stunned Ron behind once again and his Chocolate Frog on his bed, only bitten once to remove the aftertaste of vomit in his mouth. This wasn't fair to his friend; Ron was the first person to console him whenever he came out of his terrible visions, and he couldn't even afford the bloke a modicum of an explanation? It was inconsiderate, but now, as he skipped three stairs at a time towards the portrait hole, he resolved he would deal with that whole story later - now was the time for direr matters. He knocked the portrait aside and hurtled down the corridors towards the headmaster's office for the second time that day. Torch brackets and portrait frames zoomed past, cobblestone disappeared under his feet, his breaths wheezed laboriously in the corridor, his robes fluttered angrily behind him.

Harry saw the familiar, admittedly comforting sight of the phoenix gargoyle guarding the entrance of the headmaster's office. But, what about his story? Was it legitimate? Was his worry legitimate?

"Lemon Drops!"

Grinding stone, ascending stairs. Harry climbed onto them and was further unsettled by the slow, graceful spiral of the stairs, leaving his blood to saturate with adrenaline and his mind to stretch into a million different directions. Was his story legitimate? It was Saturday, it had been a Hogsmeade weekend, Malfoy Disapparated from the village with his father to somewhere, presumably where the Malfoys lived, probably a mansion or something of equal grandeur, and Snape apparently hadn't returned to Hogwarts after Harry had seen him eye the two Malfoys strangely back in Hogsmeade when he had bumped into him. Yes, he had sufficient reasons to disturb the headmaster at this time of the night. Harry nearly started hopping from foot to foot in agitation at the slowly spiralling stairs, but finally, they ground to a halt and Harry rushed forward and banged on the large, oaken doors.

"Come in!"

Harry bounded into the office immediately but stopped short at the sight that greeted him.

Harry stared into the cold depths of black pools.

"Mr Potter. And exactly what brings you here at such hours? Surely it can't be for another bad dream, the headmaster has far direr matters to handle than console emotional disasters such as yourself."

Was he right to come here? Was he really wasting Dumbledore's time? The man had to have been recovering from his injury on top of repelling those skirmishes Voldemort was staging. Harry's now uncertain gaze fell upon his headmaster.

Dumbledore was smiling. "Forgive your professor here, Harry - he's not in his - shall we daresay - lighter moods." This elicited a chuckle from him.

That chuckle.

"Why do you do that?" he bellowed, and only realized he had done so after he had, but for so many weeks, Dumbledore had given that enigmatic chuckle. It scared Harry immensely, and with his new found doubt about reporting his latest vision to him courtesy of Snape, primarily, it had him close to the edge, which resulted to his outburst.

"Excuse me, Headmaster, but I don't think students are to address their superiors with such impertinence. I would dearly love to have Mr Potter here for detention for that breech of proper etiquette." Snape stretched the last word in an indulgent, silky lilt.

"I agree with Professor Snape," said a snide voice from above them. "Dumbledore, I honestly don't understand why you allow yourself to be..."

"Thank you, Phineas," said Dumbledore, amidst a sea of assenting noises from the other portraits, but they soon faded. "It's all right, Severus," Dumbledore said, without turning to look at the man, who was standing next to him from behind his desk. "I'm sure Harry here is under a lot of stress; it's absolutely forgivable." Phineas Nigellus Black snorted loudly for all to hear. "Harry, would you like to explain your words?"

"That laugh that you do, you did it right now! Are you dying or something? Even before you got that!" Harry pointed at the man's deadened hand accusingly.

Snape's eyes bored into Harry, cunningly assessing.

Dumbledore's eyes told so much: they were sad and deep, all the twinkle gone, leaving dull, cerulean desolation.

"You have nothing to worry about - I'm perfectly fine."

"Bollocks!"

Snape glared murderously while a few portraits hissed angrily at Harry. "Just as foul-mouthed as his father, it's no surprise. Potter, you don't know what you're talking about and you're out of your depth! I suggest you keep a firm reserve on that tongue of yours before I have it licking the spare cauldrons in my closet, is that understood?"

Harry matched Snape's glare with his own and then some, his mind currently quite faraway from trivial things such as consequence and punishment, and he was still holding his invalidated suspicions about him, despite his redeeming, if unexpected presence.

"Never mind, Severus, let the boy have his say. However, I am going to have to insist you censor your language, Harry."

Harry's chest heaved rapidly, and his eyes blazed at the both of them. He didn't know what to do with himself.

Dumbledore eye's wandered down to his table for a moment. He then looked up back at Harry with a bleak smile on his lips. "I think it's time I started to be truthful towards you, Harry, you deserve it."

Snape was quick to argue the motion. "And I think you shouldn't submit to the erratic whims of a disturbed teenager, Headmaster--"

"As much as I value your opinion, my dear Severus, I think Harry has raised an important issue," Dumbledore said, seeming reluctant. "Moreover, as situations have grown increasingly urgent, it's only prudent I give Harry the necessary information."

Harry could sense a 'before something happens' hovering at the end of those words. Not only was he disconcerted about the vision he saw of Malfoy and Voldemort, but he also had to face yet another urgent matter in this very office. There was something these two weren't telling him.

Snape whirled around to Dumbledore, black robes fluttering. "Albus, this is not necessary!" he hissed.

Harry watched all of this from where he stood.

"Severus, you and I both know of the extent of my predicament and it is only fair that I tell Harry what I need to."

Snape glared long and furiously at Dumbledore, seemingly refusing to back down, but at Dumbledore's steady match with his piercing blue eyes, he relented, and slowly pulled himself up, walked around the desk, and swept over to the door after giving Harry a blazing glare; he might as well have bared his teeth at him for all that look's pure hatred.

This left Harry and Dumbledore the only two souls in the room, with the exception of Fawkes, who was sitting watchfully on her perch. Some of the portraits lining the wall of the office were snoozing and some were sitting quite attentively, trumpets in their ears.

"Have a seat, Harry," Dumbledore offered with his healthy hand.

Harry slowly and, in a brittle manner, sat down in the chair in front of Dumbledore's desk.

"First of all, do you want to tell me why you abandoned the comfort of your bed to have a chat with your headmaster?" Dumbledore smiled at him.

Harry's mind became temporarily blocked here. Why was he here again? He remembered soon enough, though.

"Voldemort's...Voldemort's..."

Dumbledore raised a silver eyebrow and gave him an encouraging smile, reminding Harry that this man was one of the few people who believed in any of his words absolutely, and would not ridicule him like Snape just did only moments ago. Emboldened by this, Harry tried again, vaguely registering a brief, melodious note from the scarlet phoenix behind him.

He released an edgy sigh. "In my dream, Malfoy - Draco Malfoy, was with Voldemort. They were in a room and, and... Voldemort, he was... was raping him."

There, it was said - it was out. He didn't have to say it again. Harry nonetheless averted his gaze to the floor, whereupon he waited for the thoughtful silence to pass. It was always like this: Harry would tell him something, then Dumbledore would take a few moments to deliberate mentally on it.

Phineas Nigellus Black blinked down at Harry, and then his sly little eyes bounced around at his fellow portraits. "Pardon me, dear man," he whispered, to an adjacent portrait wherein starred a portly man who was wearing inappropriately colourful pyjamas and who appeared equally Confunded. "But, did I just hear what I thought I heard?"

"Voldemort was with Mr Malfoy, and he was sexually forcing himself onto him?" asked Dumbledore slowly and pensively.

The mouth of the stoutly man had been just about to utter something, but at Dumbledore's words, his jaw dropped to his vast lap, and Black, now quite needless of confirmation, stared at Dumbledore as though he had just said something blasphemous. Sharing this reaction, and lining Dumbledore's higher walls, the rest of the portraits, who boasted various personalities and a few enmities with others, were now quite united in shock.

Harry was unfoundedly uncomfortable with this, and he squirmed a little in his seat. "Yes, he--well, Malfoy came into the room and went over to him. But I--he was maybe forced into that situation. It couldn't have been what he wanted." This left a taste of bile in Harry's mouth at which he grimaced.

Dumbledore nodded thoughtfully at this. "Well, I must confess, this isn't Voldemort's style. As much as he relishes in defiling and corrupting everything he can, sexually assaulting young boys isn't or wasn't one of them, apparently..."

"I certainly hope not," said Black, looking thoroughly disturbed.

They ignored this. Harry kept silent, not knowing how on earth to survive in this awkward moment. They were talking about a bloke he knew here, being raped, as they spoke. "It's happening right now," he said, remembering the urgency of the matter as he thought it.

Dumbledore held his eyes. "Harry--" It was a solemn and sombre voice, and Harry was familiar with it. "--I would very much like to rescue Mr Malfoy from this unthinkable ordeal, but he has parents and his situation is too tenuous to bother."

Harry was amazed at this. "So you're just going to let him suffer? Voldemort is hurting him right now! As we speak!"

"I understand that, Harry, however--"

"You're just going to let him bleed and go through that--that--all of that and not help him?"

"Think, Harry," said Dumbledore, a little sternly, his blue eyes steadily levelled at Harry's enraged green eyes. "First of all, we would need to find Malfoy Manor, and I believe it to be Unplottable since its establishment centuries ago. Secondly, we would need permission from Mr Malfoy's parents to remove him from the manor if we were to even locate it in the first place, and to the best of my knowledge, Malfoy senior wouldn't be too inclined to letting his son be removed by me or any other member of the side of the Light, as this would undoubtedly question his allegiance to his Lord. And thirdly, what you have seen may have been a fabrication of Voldemort's, possibly to lure you into his hands, capitalizing on your goodness, Harry. We have only had one session, thus you are not adequately skilled in Occlumency to rule out the possibility of a false vision being implanted into your mind."

There was dead silence in the room: the portraits weren't discussing in mutters, and Fawkes wasn't chewing anymore.

Harry reeled from every blow those words dealt. "But he... he's hurting... Voldemort's... hurting him." His words came out pathetically weak and dazed.

Dumbledore's eyes were sympathetic but firm. "I understand, Harry, but at the moment I'm afraid we can't do anything unless Mr and Mrs Malfoy personally request our assistance, which, I think, is astronomically improbable."

Harry stared back at Dumbledore in silence.

"I suspect this might perhaps be a punishment of some kind for Mr Malfoy's failure to do something - a certain task; Voldemort is not a tolerant man, and this new development is certainly uncharacteristic of him. Perhaps he was punishing Draco for something he or his father didn't or couldn't do, all assuming, of course, that your vision was true."

Harry had always loathed Voldemort, but this was a new low, even for him. This validated a new, different, more intense, incandescent hatred within Harry. By the gods, he saw that face every day, attended class with him; he was a regular feature in his life, though an awfully irritating and pestering feature but an intimate, well known and accustomed to feature, nonetheless. And Malfoy was probably the most pro-Dark Lord student in the entire school, so for Voldemort to punish even his own sycophants like this... it was just... Harry was only beginning to realize what Voldemort was, only beginning to grasp the full depth of his darkness.

Even though he had heard that cold, high-pitched voice command Wormtail to kill Cedric, it was 'just' murder - clean, swift, and clinical. But now... rape, torture - that was something else; Voldemort was something else; he was truly incapable of mercy, incapable of any human resemblance of emotion; he was heartless in the absolute sense of the word - heartless. This was sick, deeply, deeply sick. Voldemort was out there right now, doing the same or worse to other people who might even be his own, possibly. He had to be removed, just as he removed countless other people, just as he struck down all those other souls without a second glance. Harry's rage was silent, pure harmony, like quiet, efficient clockwork. I'm coming for you, Voldemort. And with that, his hands flew up to his face reflexively to protect him from the spontaneously exploding shards all around the office. Glass showered onto the floor, staining the red carpet with colourful, jagged pebbles.

Harry remained in that protective posture for a while before he slowly let his hands fall, and his eyes took in all the damage he knew he had made: most of Dumbledore's precious trinkets lay in shattered pieces on the floor. His windows had been preserved, however, being sufficiently distanced from Harry's immediate epicentre. But all those shiny, whizzing things lying on various surfaces had been obliterated to smithereens, and lay on the floor in broken community. In the chaos, Dumbledore's inkpot had also exploded and the ink was now splattered all over his desk and onto the bottom corner of his face and beard, as though accentuating the symbolism behind that already blackened hand of his. Was this a bad omen? Dumbledore, covered in more black, more dying, dyeing black? Harry sat there, wide-eyed, scarcely believing what he had done, but Dumbledore was wearing a huge smile on his inked face.

"Professor, I'm so sorry..." he breathed, looking around at his damage rather than deal with Dumbledore's unnerving smile. He noticed that all the portraits were empty of their occupants and left various pieces of furniture tumbled and stretches of muddy-brown background.

"It's quite all right, Harry. I've been battling to get rid of them since I took this office. Consider it having done me a great service." Dumbledore smiled again, his blue eyes twinkled for the first time that evening, which couldn't have looked more ridiculous with ink splattered all over him.

"Wer--weren't they important?" Harry uttered in dismay, as he gazed around the tattered office, and Dumbledore smiling as he was amidst this disaster wasn't helping his nerve.

Dumbledore then frowned a little. "Some maybe, most were not," he laughed softly.

Harry still couldn't dig himself out of his pit of guilt. "I'll go get a broom," he said, jumping up to feet, leg outstretched towards the door.

Particularly at this strong suggestion of his leave, most people began returning into their portraits and nervously assuming their seats.

Dumbledore rose from his seat. "That isn't necessary, Harry. You needn't go anywhere." He took out his wand and gave it a few flicks; the pieces of glass and other various materials on the floor instantly disappeared, leaving the room clean and presentable once more. He also whirled his wand around himself and the ink stains were siphoned off as though they had never been there. Harry looked up to Fawkes' perch, hoping she wasn't injured, but saw that Fawkes had burnt out and was now raising its infantile head out of its ashes. This led him to peer at his wrist to study his watch, but it wasn't there, as he had just come straight from sleeping. This probably meant it was close to midnight, as he knew Dumbledore's phoenix burned up on Sundays.

Dumbledore fashioned his familiar a proud glance before turning his eyes back on Harry, and his smile slowly fell.

The last to return and the least brave, evidently, Phineas Nigellus Black finally peeked from behind the edge of his portrait, and apparently deeming it safe to return, he sidled in but remained close to the edge, nervously twiddling his silk-gloved hands and looking down at Harry warily as though waiting to see if he might explode again.

Harry felt Dumbledore's unmoving gaze sizzle him. In the midst of his guilt and agitation, he was just about to blurt out something rudely, but Dumbledore finally spoke:

"What were you feeling, Harry?" he asked.

Harry blushed. "Er..." then it suddenly hit him, "...I was angry."

"And what made you angry?"

Harry gazed back into the blue eyes, which were invigorated by a new life that had been absent when this man had come back, weakened from wherever, and had sat in that chair behind him, frail and fading, but now, he drew strength from their strength.

"...Voldemort."

Dumbledore smiled and nodded sagely. "You can channel this positively, Harry, you just have to focus!" He suddenly came around his desk and stood in front of Harry, an excited gleam in his blue eyes.

"Take out your wand!"

It took Harry a moment to respond, having been thrown off by the non sequitur, and when he did get his bearings back, his hand went under his cloak automatically, but he didn't find it; in all his haste to get to this office, he had forgotten his one instrument of survival under his pillow back in Gryffindor Tower, and he was leading a Defence club? His cheeks blazed. "I--I--don't have it." He didn't feel too sheepish, more disappointed with himself, especially in the light of this new, burning titillation of inspiration flowing off Dumbledore, whose smiling face didn't shift as he said,

"Go get it."