The Return of the Griffin

Chapter Eleven

Harry stood in front of the Weasley's fireplace. His hand hovered over the pot of floo dust, as he looked at the family's expectant faces. I can't do this he thought. Not until I know what will happen to Draco. His hand dropped to his side roughly. Suddenly, he felt so very tired.

"Would someone please send me?" he asked quietly. He heard someone sniff. He suspected it was Molly, and refused to look in her direction.

Ron stood up next to his old friend. He grasped his friend's arm squeezing it slightly, tossed a pinch and said, "Hogwarts, Albus Dumbledore's office."

He pushed Harry into the flames.

They caressed him and he moved through, feeling nothing other than the gentle tickle. He popped out of the fireplace in the headmaster's office in a puff of soot.

Dumbledore's eyes twinkled, and the man looked thirty years younger.

"Welcome back, Harry," he called, smiling brightly. Harry got the distinct impression that he did not only mean to welcome him back to the office or Hogwarts itself. But then, Dumbledore was always a hopeful person.

"Thanks, Albus." He took a seat in front of the headmaster's desk and looked around. "Where is Professor Trelawney?"

"She'll be here momentarily. She never was one to be exactly punctual, and being a ghost with infinite time on her hands has only made her worse," he chuckled.

"That is not true, Albus. I am right here." Sybill floated through the wall next to Fawkes' perch. It was so eerily familiar to the way she would try to float through her classes, that Harry started for a moment.

"Hello, Harry. I see you have yet to pass horribly from this existence," she sighed. "Not that I had ever wished horrible circumstances on you, you understand."

Harry smirked inwardly, but graciously rose and bowed to his ex-professor. "Of course not. Thank you for seeing me--for volunteering for this. I imagine it cannot be very easy for you."

Trelawney gave him the first real smile he thought he had ever seen from her. "You are quite welcome, my dear. I have found my abilities are underused in my spiritual form." She turned to Albus. "Did you make the preparations I requested?"

"Of course, my dear Sybill. The table is right here." He pulled back a thick maroon curtain behind him, where a small round table sat with candles in an alcove.

She settled herself on one of the small wooden chairs, and swept her arm toward the second and third. "You will be joining us, Albus?"

"Yes, I think it might be suggestible. Are you ready Harry?"

Harry took a moment. For seven years, he had done okay. He had beautiful children, a loving wife, a family that loved him dearly. Was it really all that important to know the why's of what happened?

Then he thought of Draco. Remembering how he had looked, hanging nude in Ereshikgal's temple. How he himself had said that he had been in hell and how scared he had been. If it meant Draco had to return to such an existence, he would gladly never use his magic again...by choice.

Perhaps this was just another one of Ereshikgal's tests. Perhaps it had nothing to do with the dragons. His mind flew around the perhaps in his brain. Dumbledore watched him, waiting patiently.

There was only one way to get the answers.

"I'm ready."

Harry and Albus took the other two seats, and Albus waved his wand, closing the curtain behind them. The alcove became close and dark. It didn't take long for it to also become incredibly hot. The candles fluttered in the close quarters. Odd. There wasn't a breath of movement in the air.

Trelawney had her eyes closed, and her hands out on the table facing up. If it weren't so serious, Harry would've laughed at the image she was projecting. Another breath of air stirred the currents around the candles.

"You are a very powerful man, Harry Potter," uttered the ghost, very unlike the normal wispy tones of the old divination professor.

"I'm not. I'm just a man."

"You disagree with a Goddess?" Her eyebrow arched slightly.

This was not going well.

"Why do you say so?"

"Do you know what magic is, Mr. Potter?"

Albus' lips curved upward slightly, but he kept his eyes closed, his countenance focusing on an invisible piece of lint in his lap.

"It's a power inside some of us. Some think it has to do with belief," he murmured.

"You are closer than some. But you are still a human, with human understanding," Ereshkigal gave him a hard look. It was even more distressing to see it on Trelawney's face than it had been to see it on his mother's.

"When you returned from my kingdom, what happened?" she asked, changing tact.

"I was blind," Harry answered carefully.

"Were you missing anything else?"

"I don't understand."

"Of course you don't. It would not do for you to simply have it explained to you. You must work for the understanding. Were you missing anything else?"

"My magic. I didn't have my magic."

"How did you know? Did you test your wand?"

Harry stuttered, "Umm. No. I didn't."

"Did you have all your belongings? The ones my sister divested from you?"

So quietly, he was certain no one heard it he answered, "yes."

"You needed to be willing, and you proved yourself. There was no point in our keeping your belongings."

Finally, Harry could take it no longer his face white with repressed stress. "Did you take my magic?" he blurted out.

"What do you think?"

Harry's temper got the better of him. "If I knew, I wouldn't have to ask!"

Ereshikgal watched him studiously for a moment before replying, "Magic is balance, Harry. I asked for something that would not affect anyone but yourself."

"But then....but then isn't everything interrelated? If everything is a balance, any one thing has to rely on another?"

Ereshikgal smiled warmly, "You are a surprising individual."

"There was nothing I could offer, was there? Anything I offered would by nature affect something else," he thought aloud, realizing that he actually sounded like Hermione.

"I did not ask what I could take, I asked what you could offer," she paused. "When power is not used, it builds, and it throws off the balance."

"The dragons," Harry whispered.

"My sister's children. They are magical. Their power has been pulled away to help balance somewhere else that the power has been held back, to help keep the balance."

"I...I killed the dragons?" he asked in a shocked tone.

"If that is the way you wish to look at it." She inclined her head. "But I am afraid Tiamat blames me. I have grown unused to speaking with mortals."

Albus lifted his head.

"I asked what you were willing to give me. I never answered what I took. I am sure I don't need to tell you how ...astonished I was with you. I did not take your magic, Harry."

Harry shuddered, choking up. All that time lost, all the hurt he'd caused his friends, his family.

"You didn't? But then, what about Draco?"

"Your offer was acceptable. I simply did not to extract payment. In all truth, I could not extract payment without affecting the balance. You are honorable beyond comprehension. You thought you gave me something. It is a power even I do not understand that kept you from using even accidental magic. Do you not think I can tell when someone is sincere or not? The last fool who tried me lost his magic, not for payment, but for his arrogance. I did not take it, he used it all to reach me, and had none left." She looked at him shrewdly. "Your enemy will be as he is now. Perhaps he too, will work on returning balance. Guilt, I believe, has kept him from balance in other matters."

Harry looked confused, while Albus nodded slightly.

"What do...what do I do now?" Harry asked, obviously feeling lost.

"The more you use your magic, the more balance will be restored. When balance is restored, the dragons will be healed. We will no longer have to drawn their power to keep the balance."

Harry nodded abruptly. "Thank you."

"I have said it before, you are an extraordinary man."

The silvery outline of Trelawney shivered as her torso fell forward to float slightly off the table top.

Harry looked up at Albus. "Sybill will be fine. I am sure that was somewhat taxing, but she will be fine. However, I think perhaps we should leave the alcove?"

Harry gratefully stood up as Dumbledore flicked his wand to move the heavy curtains aside. He blinked in the bright morning sunlight that streamed into the headmaster's office. Harry's thoughts swirled so quickly, he felt nauseous. He must have turned green, because next he knew, Albus had conjured a bucket in front of him, and pressed his head down between his knees.

"It will all turn out, Harry."

His mind slowed as the blood forced its way into his head. He needed to tell Draco. He knew the family already knew, really. He was the only one who refused to believe.

He had refused to believe.

"We need to call Draco, Albus." Slowly he raised his head, feeling quite a bit less queasy.

"What did Ereshikgal mean about his creating a disturbance in the balance?"

"Without going into particulars, that are of course Mr. Malfoy's business to share, he has not really allowed himself to be happy, Harry. There are things he could do, and people who care, but he keeps it all at an arms' length. I am surprised, really, that Ereshikgal would be involved, but she is correct in her assumption that he does so out of guilt."

"You're talking about Mariah, aren't you professor?" Albus stared at him, but refused to say.

"He once told me that Mariah reminded him of my sister, Jamie. He was in love with her you know, in my other life."

"He had mentioned in passing that he was both blessed and cursed with those memories," he sighed.

"Will you call him?"

"Why don't you do it yourself?" he asked, smiling. Harry looked dumbly at him, then shrugged and stood up.

"Draco Malfoy," he uttered, tossing the powder onto the small fire. Harry knelt down, and looked in. He chuckled slightly when he saw his ankles and what looked to be rather expensive leather shoes.

"Oy, Malfoy, down here!"

The feet stopped, and turned. Draco squatted down (Malfoys never kneel) and looked into the flames.

"I heard you were back. Wondered when you were going to grace me with your presence," he answered without any true irritation.

"Do you have some time, Draco, or are you content to needle me?" Harry laughed.

"While I do need to catch up on needling, as you so quaintly put it, of course I have time. Would you like me to pop over?"

"No, I'd rather kneel on the hearth, speaking to someone who looks more like a merman or took being a Slytherin a bit to far in his personal appearance."

Draco smirked. "Be right there." He heard him setting his wards in the background. Harry stood up, moving to the side to allow him to pop through the floo.

Draco sauntered through the fire, straightening up when he cleared the mantel. He looked a bit different. He stood straighter, and his face looked more relaxed than Harry remembered it being. And his hair...

"What did you do to your hair?" Harry demanded.

Draco laughed. "Not much. I just figured the white-blonde bit went out." Indeed, Draco's hair was no longer platinum, though it was still blond--a honey gold blonde. Harry looked thoughtfully for a moment.

"Ya know, I think it suits you."

"You better be careful what you say, I don't think you want to be hexed into next week by Mariah or Ginny."

"You'll never stop, will you?" Harry smirked.

"Eh, you wouldn't want me to." He smirked back.

"While I am most happy to see the two of you together again, I am afraid I must ask you to continue elsewhere," Dumbledore requested fondly. "I find I have quite a bit of work to accomplish since the students left on Friday. I am sure there is plenty you can occupy yourselves with outdoors?" His eyes twinkled at them.

They nodded their agreement, and promised to stop back before leaving. They nudged each other as they headed down the spiral stairs and out the front door. The day itself was bright and warm, and by nature, they headed down toward the lake. As they walked, they teased each other about quidditch, women, whatever came to their heads, until they reached the shore.

Harry crashed beneath a beech tree, his eyes focused out to the lake where the giant squid's tentacles were lazily floating. Draco dropped down next to him staring out too, waiting for Harry to speak.

"I spoke with Ereshikgal today," he murmured. Draco's body tensed.

"Do you know Squibs can't use the floo at all?" he chuckled derisively. "I didn't."

Draco's eyes narrowed in thought, realizing that Harry had just spoken with him through the floo.

"Seven years, Draco. Seven. I ran away--oh, don't look at me like that--I know I did. Married to a witch, having magical children, and never once using what I thought was magic."

"Am I going to die, Harry?" Draco interrupted abruptly, realizing what the sacrifice had been for his life. If it wasn't a sacrifice, then how could he be alive?

Harry turned to his sometimes friend, "Bloody hell, Draco. No. Not from this at least. You're more likely to die from a rogue bludger attack." He turned back out toward the water and sighed. "Ereshikgal said she never took it. She was intrigued enough that I wanted to save an enemy. It was all in my mind. It was all in my bloody mind." He picked up a stone and tossed it out into the water. One of the squid's tentacles reached out and caught it before letting it drop back into the water with a splash. "I've fucked everything up."

"Oh, so now saving my life is a fuck up?" Draco glared at him. "Well, isn't that bloody convenient."

"I fucked up your life, Draco. I could've done magic all this time. I could've stayed here, hell, I could've whooped your ass in quidditch professionally! All because..."

"Because you're a bloody Gryffindor, you git." Draco smirked. "Who else would be honorable enough to not use something they thought they didn't have?"

Harry muttered something about how he made that sound like it was a bad thing.

Chuckling, he answered him. "So like, you can really do magic again? And I'm not going to die for it?"

Harry nodded.

"Well, I think that calls for a celebration. I'm dragging your sorry arse to the Three Broomsticks. I believe there is a bottle of Ogden's waiting for you and me."

They stood up, brushing themselves off, and tossing a wave to the squid who surprisingly raised a tentacle in what looked disturbingly like a salute.

"Before we get totally smashed. Why haven't you married Mariah yet? I know you love her."

"I will, Harry. I will." Draco looked at him intently. It was then Harry realized why he hadn't asked her in the last seven years.

Harry remembered what Ereshkigal had told him about Draco's "You have nothing to feel guilty for you know."

"Merlin's Beard, when the hell did you get to be so intuitive? It's freaky." With a false punch to Harry's shoulder, they walked through the main gates of their old school.

"You try being married to Ginny for 6 years," he laughed "Without magic. I would've been killed more than once if I didn't gain some intuition."

Draco laughed with him, tossing his arm around the shoulder of his old friend.

A pair of twinkling blue eyes followed them, shining brightly with unshed tears.

This is how it should have been.