Accidents of Circumstance

Chapter 7: Trail of Tears

Hermione had gotten a permission slip for the Restricted Section of the library from McGonagall. Harry had one from Weidmuller, their latest inept Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher. Ron had even managed one from Flitwick, who had been so tearful and profuse in his offer to help in any way. "I know you're going to look for Regina, the poor brave woman. I know you are, the three of you. And whatever you need, I'll help you!" Ron had thanked Flitwick rather uncomfortably, and rushed off to the library.

Three perfectly legitimate permission slips in hand, all three students showed them to Madam Pince. She was unsurprised that they had open slips. "I would've let you through the stacks at will just this once, if you hadn't gotten those slips," she said, her stern veneer cracking. "Regina was always such a wonderful patron, so respectful..."

"We're going to do our best, Madam Pince," Harry had said. It felt like the hundredth time he had said that. The entire school felt that it was up to them to find a way to rescue Regina Vial, suddenly everyone's favorite teacher.

They collected various books on wards, locator spells and healing spells. They silently had divided the subjects, and had brought rolls of parchment and plenty of quills to take notes. It was much more somber than their usual forays into the library, much more silent. They spent most of Sunday in the library, and by previously spoken consent, went to Regina's room.

"Do you think we can make a spell of our own?" Ron asked in a hushed tone of voice. "You know, the way she made the Circle of One spell?"

"But we don't understand this magic the same way that she does."

"She said something once... about slipping sideways," Harry began. "She said something about Weird Sisters taking care of her, that someone called an intercession on her account and they took care of her."

"That's dangerous, Harry!" Hermione yelped.

"If someone else suggested it..."

"I'd still say it was dangerous!"

"Listen, can't we use that old magic in the runes and parts of these locator charms? The high level ones? She's got to have a hairbrush here..."

"Ron, if she invented that Circle of One spell, don't you think she'd use it? Her hair would be powerless to spells." Ron deflated at Hermione's reminder.

Ron perked up suddenly. "But what about-"

"Keep it down, out there, I'm trying to sleep!"

All three heads whirled around to the bedroom. Draco Malfoy was tucked into Regina's bed as if he had every right to be there.

"What are you doing here?" Ron shouted, jumping to his feet.

"I was sleeping until you started yapping."

Harry placed a hand on Ron's arm when he would have tried to say something else. "Malfoy, what do you want here?"

"Peace and quiet," he said in a weary tone. Harry felt something like pity well up inside of him, and he nodded. Draco had obviously reacted badly to Regina's kidnapping the day before, and had been missing all day. Harry could understand the impulse to run and hide and deal with the pain later. He wouldn't begrudge that of Draco, especially when he wasn't being overly nasty to them. "All right then, we'll just put up a silencing charm so you can't hear us."

"It won't work, you know," he said, as Harry raised his wand.

"What won't?"

"Mixing ancient runes and locator charms. It doesn't matter how old it is, how strong the charm. It won't work."

"Flitwick said he'd help us."

"Flitwick would slip off his pile of books if he heard you." Draco abruptly sat up in the bed, revealing a plain white pajama top with the Slytherin crest embroidered over the left breast pocket. "You can't mix magic like that."

"It's possible. Regina did it."

"Only because she knows how the magic works. Do you?" The three of them were silent, and Draco nodded. "I thought so."

"It's easy for you to say, isn't it?" Ron said nastily. "Your daddy's probably got bits of her just waiting for you at home!"

Draco immediately whipped his wand out and hexed Ron, sending him across the room and into the chalkboard. It cracked in half, and Ron slid down to the ground. Hermione and Harry raced to Ron to assess the damage. Other than the chalkboard, nothing was damaged. Hermione took out her wand and said "Reparo!" The chalkboard fused, making it impossible to see where the crack had been.

Draco watched it all dispassionately, even when Harry turned to him, wand in hand and a grim face on. His mind seemed to have snapped. And the woof and weave was thrown too wide, the mirror crack'd from side to side...

Muggle poetry, before his mother had known the author was a Muggle. Draco had been seven, and he had wanted to hear the poem again. Now he only had imperfect memory to dredge up the poem, the solitary tower, the mirror reflecting the outside world backwards and inverted, but it was all she had to see with...

"Give me one reason why I shouldn't hex you right now."

Draco sighed at Harry's inane bravery. It was nothing new. Just sparring, back and forth, as if nothing had changed, as if they weren't in Regina's bedroom and she was gone, somewhere no locator spell could find her.

"It won't bring her back," Draco said in a dull tone. "Nothing will."

"We're not going to leave it like that."

"You can't do it, Potter, the magic won't work for you like that."

"She's been gone a day, we can figure it out."

"You don't understand, that many of them, they would've been able to drag her anywhere, and she would've let them if we escaped."

"Show me your forearm," Harry said, his tone fierce, wand still ready. Draco had already dropped his once the hex had reflexively left his wand. He sighed and rolled up the left sleeve of his pajama top. The skin of his forearm was bare. Harry pointed to it, and murmured "Aparecio," but nothing appeared.

"There's no glamour there, Potter. I didn't take it."

"Why not?"

"I couldn't." Draco glared at Harry and unrolled his sleeve. "That's all you're getting."

"Why couldn't we just craft a spell out of the older magic, then?" Hermione asked, coming up behind Harry. Ron was sitting in a fluffy armchair, hands in fists. Hermione had made him promise to sit there and not insult Draco any further.

"You couldn't say it."

"I've been getting lessons."

"Are you good enough to read anything on sight?" Harry flushed, but kept silent. "And no, I don't know it. So I couldn't read it for you."

"Looking for something is better than doing nothing." Hermione said fiercely.

"And that's where we're different, Granger. Slytherins know when their efforts are wasted. We know when it's best to stop."

"You're supposed to be ambitious. Where'd that go?" Ron sneered from the sitting room.

"It left when they took her!" Draco shouted, grabbing his wand. Both Harry and Hermione had theirs posed at the ready. "Get your pet Weasel out of here. He'll corrupt the place in her absence."

"Put down your wand first," Harry said blandly.

Surprised, Draco did just that. "There. Will you hex an unarmed opponent?"

"You're only an opponent because you choose to be," Harry said quietly. He lowered his wand then tucked it securely into his robes. "C'mon, Mione. We'll figure something out in our common room."

"You're letting him stay?" Ron cried. He jumped to his feet, then staggered backwards into the chair as the room seemed to spin. "Ow."

"Come on, Ron, there's nothing we can do here like this." Hermione gently pulled Ron to his feet and let him slide an arm around her. "Let's go."

Draco watched them leave together, jealousy twisting at his insides. "Potter!" he yelled, just before the portrait door shut. Harry paused, and looked back at him, his expression a question mark. "Carite Shi'ara sindaero."

Kah-ree-tay she-ah-rah sin-day-row. It took a moment for Harry to realize what Draco had just said, and narrowed his eyes.

"Gourout sinae rejin." Goo-root sin-ay ray-gene.

Draco fell backwards onto the pillows as Harry slammed the door shut.

May the Sisters of Mercy visit you this night, he had said. A customary saying when departing from friends, assuming you all knew Neo-Pictish.

The dark night will pass, Harry had replied. It wasn't the customary response at all, but something of a message to Draco. And Harry's pronunciation hadn't been all that bad.

I will teach you something very dangerous, very secret. No one else knows this kind of magic anymore, no one teaches it, his father had said three years ago. They had begun with reading the Neo-Pictish script, then conversing in it together that summer. The spells had come during the fall, written in Neo-Pictish. I entrust to you part of the Malfoy heritage. It's not just the French Mal fois, it's also the ancient English magicks, before wands were known. That had been a lie, too, since wands had been around for thousands of years. They just hadn't been common for all wizards. Just the rich ones, like the Malfoy family.

Learn these spells, Draco. You will serve our Lord well with them. I pass down this knowledge to you, to use it against the damn Muggles and Mudbloods, against those who stand in our way. Lucius had known to sound proud of Draco then. No one must know of this, they would think you're plotting something.

Aren't we, Father? he had asked, three summers ago. He had wanted to use the spells against the great Harry Potter, who had refused his friendship three years before that. It still stung, if he allowed himself to think of it.

Never give yourself away too soon.

All it ever came down to was Regina's simple know thy enemy.

Draco pulled the covers up over his head just as he used to do when he was a child. The house elves would pull them down in the morning, shouting "Master Draco, Master Draco, Mistress is wanting you downstairs!"

Lucius had killed his favorite one before his eyes when he was six. It was to teach him to never become attached to anyone. Then he had grabbed Draco so hard his arm broke in three places as Draco was lifted off the ground. "Malfoys never cry," Lucius had said.

Draco hadn't been able to cry at his grandmother's funeral four months later. He had been there when she died, choking on the potion meant to keep her alive. His father hadn't said anything when he had found Draco curled on her lap in the bed, just picked him up and left the room with him. Like any Malfoy, his grandmother had been burned, her ashes buried with all due ceremony in the Malfoy family crypt.

Gourout sinae rejin.

Draco rubbed his right arm, the one that had been broken three times. It ached suddenly, as much as his chest did. He stared at the wall blankly, feeling his thoughts slide away from him, glistening and wet like unshed tears.

When the spells are learned properly, burn the scrolls, his father had instructed. There must be no proof of this teaching. It's enough to get me removed from the Ministry. It's only a few steps from there to Azkaban. You don't want me there, do you?

"Yes, I do," Draco whispered to the darkening room. All of the lighting spells had slowly been going out ever since Harry shut the door. He liked it dark in here.

Cast the circle properly, boy. You can't mix the magic, it'll explode in your face!

I'm trying, father, but I can't write this rune...

Slap. I thought you said you knew this properly. So cold, so cold. Draco could feel the chill in the tone even now, years later. He had hated that holiday.

I can't make the yetha.

Shove. Then let me do this right, before the entire afternoon's brewing was for nothing!

The symbol had refused to be written. Even Lucius couldn't write it. Lucius had wanted to test Draco's skill, had wanted to start with the Ritual of Binding Souls, armed with a handful of hairs taken from Pansy's head. There was a potion where the hair would be dissolved, then spread into the circle, with runes written into the fluid before it cooled. When the Ritual of Binding Souls was complete, Pansy would do anything and everything Draco said, without question, until he broke the bond.

Lucius had been in a mood that night. Magic had never refused him before.

Regina had explained it to Draco once, when he had been talking with her late at night about magic, and whether or not it was really a tool. "Magic can refuse you if your intent is counter to the spell, if it's not complete, or if you just can't handle the spell in question. There's only so much you can do without real training, without any kind of prep time. If you can't take all a spell has to give, it either drives you insane or doesn't work."

Draco felt as if the entire foundations of his life had shifted beneath him. He may have been expected to make sacrifices, but that didn't mean he did so willingly.

***

"What did he say?" Hermione asked, still propping up Ron. She didn't think he needed to see Madam Pomfrey, but just needed to sleep it off.

"It was the Neo-Pictish Regina was teaching me."

"The sodding git lied to us!" Ron cried, hauling himself to his feet. He grit his teeth against the pain at the base of his skull.

"It was a farewell between friends," Harry continued.

"Do you think he meant it?" Hermione asked gently. She wasn't sure herself; it depended on what kind of greeting it had been.

"It was the formal farewell, one you give someone you don't know well, or someone who should have your respect," Harry said over Ron's indignant "Of course not!"

"We need to be careful. If he's grieving that much... There's no telling what he'd do."

"Grief? Malfoy?" Ron sputtered.

"You don't see it since you hate him that much. But couldn't you see it? He only reacted when you said his father had Regina in pieces." Hermione was trying to be reasonable.

"Well he probably does," Ron said, refusing to be swayed.

"He's not a Death Eater," Harry added.

"That doesn't mean much."

"I think he was being as honest as he knows how to be."

"And that means what?"

"It means, he didn't know that was going to happen, he didn't want it to happen. It's not an act, Ron. He's upset by it, but he's not the type to work at getting her back."

"So it's up to us to do it."

"Yes." Harry noticed that Hermione had stopped in the hallway a few feet behind them, staring out of the window onto the grounds. "Mione?"

"It's a full moon out tonight."

"Can that help us?"

"One of the healing spells I read about today referenced a ritual invoking Diana, the goddess of the moon."

"Isn't that Luna?"

"She's a Titan. They're different," Hermione said, cutting herself off from a lecture in mythology. "This ritual could be used as a scrying spell, but only on nights of the full moon, and it had to be outdoors, with natural water."

"How do you get fake water?" Ron asked.

"Meaning, no buckets, no pipes, just water that fell onto the ground naturally."

Harry was standing next to Hermione, looking out the window. There was a massive expanse of snow covering the grounds, lit up and shining with the light of the moon. "Solid water counts, doesn't it?"

"What do we have to do?" Ron asked, coming up behind them.

"I think I remember how to do it... We'll just need to go outside right now."

"It's freezing out there!" Ron cried. "Can't we get our cloaks?"

"Accio cloaks!" Harry called out. Hermione rolled her eyes. "Well, we won't freeze. It's no good to the spell if we do."

The cloaks zoomed through the air, following them to the closest doorway leading out to the grounds. They trudged through knee-deep snow a few feet from the doorway. With her wand, Hermione sketched a small circle, and began chanting in Greek.

Images began to blurrily form across the top of the snow. They were mostly black and red, the same colors Regina had been wearing yesterday. The images were blurry, shifting in and out of focus as if they were seeing them submerged under water. They didn't clear, no matter how many times Hermione tried to repeat a spell noted for enhancing vision. If Harry didn't know any better, he would've said that Regina was swimming in her clothes.

"It's not working," Ron whispered. "What do we do now?"

Hermione looked ready to cry. "We'll have to wait."

A cloud passed over the moon, cutting off the moonlight. The circle dimmed, and the colors bled away into the snow. When the cloud passed, there was nothing but a hastily sketched circle drawn into the snow in front of them. And they were cold.

"Let's go. It didn't work."

They trudged inside, and went up to their rooms.

***

strip of skin today, dear?

oh yes, thank you. i'd love some. you always make it the way i like it, nice and bloody.

Draco dear, i think it's time for you to eat.

the monstrous things he called his parents beckoned to him from the dining room table, bloody bits of humans on their table. Draco could see a single hazel eye centered in the middle of vanilla ice cream, teeth around the sides of the dish as a garnish.

His father was having sliced tongue and bicep muscle, blood everywhere on the plate, knives and forks. His father kissed his mother on the mouth, spreading the blood around her lips. It was the brightest thing on them, they seemed to be black and white shadows. The blood was vivid red, everywhere on the table.

dear, we've saved some for you.

And inside of the cut open cranium lay Regina's brain, still solid and pink.

eat quickly, before it liquefies. we've saved all her knowledge for you.

Draco woke with a startled gasp, still seeing the brain in front of his eyes, floating there by his mother's unseen hand. It was Monday morning now, and he was late for class.

"Fuck it," he said. It was getting easier to say every time he said it. "Fuck it, fuck it, fuck it all to hell, I don't want this."

The room remained silent. Draco sat up and shivered. The temperature had dropped, and he had twisted so much that he had kicked the covers from the bed. Draco looked around the room at all of her books, her private ones, the Muggle books she read for fun. She had leant him some of her comic books, some of the novels she had liked. She had treated him no different from anyone else in her class, just as she had promised, but she had always treated him fairly, as if she had seen something of worth in him, something she liked.

He straightened the bed, something he never, ever did. House elves did that, not rich children spoiled by their parents. He felt himself buckling to the floor, his fists catching on the bedspread, pulling it over him in a wave of black, gold, burgundy and green. Her eyes were hazel with flecks of gold in them. They crinkled when she smiled, which was often, and she honestly had such love of this place, of teaching.

Draco sat huddled under the bedspread for a while, he couldn't say how long. Finally, he pulled on his discarded outer robe and went into the sitting room. Most of her books on magic were here, though she had a clever glamour on some of the more interesting ones, set high on the bookshelves. Draco had hit six feet this past summer, and reached into the shelves easily. He found her books written in Neo-Pictish, some others on Gelion potions, which had never been made in over two thousand years.

Draco sat hunched over her desk, books piled around him and Regina's paper and pens in front of him. He scratched out various things in Neo-Pictish, double checking with her books that he was correct or not. Please don't let me be full of shit, he prayed silently, not knowing or caring who he was praying to.

Some of her books had been spelled blank if not opened by her hands. The covers had their odd titles, their symbols, but the text inside had been blank. He wished he had known about her books, her devious hiding schemes. There was so much more he needed to learn, so much he didn't know about ancient magic.

He didn't know how long he spent there, with her Muggle paper and pens, writing in the old language, knowing only he and Potter were able to read it. Well, maybe Dumbledore, too, no one knew what he knew. He knew that Potter couldn't be completely right about old magic being used to trace Regina. The Death Eaters would have thought of that, since Lucius had been studying the magic for the past few years. Draco had found out about that by accident, by mixing something together in a spell he shouldn't have. When Draco had yelled that he didn't know what happened, something must have gone wrong, Lucius had yelled back at him that he wasn't the expert, he hadn't been studying this kind of magic for that long.

When Draco's stomach rumbled hollowly, he was aware of the time. He hadn't eaten breakfast, and according to the clock, was close to missing luncheon as well. Draco carefully put down the pen and stacked his papers neatly, then shoved them into one of the Neo-Pictish books. He piled them in one neat stack beneath the table, just in case Potter and his friends decided to come back and plot their useless plots.

Draco snuck into the kitchens and bossed around the house elves there. They made him lunch, and extra snacks that he ordered to be brought to Regina's room. From there, he snuck back towards Regina's room, and found Neville there, talking to Mabel in a quiet voice. Another one, Draco thought sourly. He misses her, too. He wasn't as alone in his grief as he would've liked to be.

Finally, Neville left, his face still downcast. Draco looked at Mabel, who opened for him without question. Draco sat in the armchair, unable to think of runes, of scratch marks in stone and what they might mean.

If you've no paper to write with, Regina had said, you have to use what's available. And it's a bitch to carve curves, you know. Hence the mostly straight lines making up Pictish and Neo-Pictish. Draco stared at the dark television set, the looped cables going from the game consoles to the controllers. He had never found out how she had gotten futuristic things, had never thought to ask when he was too busy playing the games. He couldn't play them now, he didn't think his fingers would remember which buttons to press, in what order, which combos he would want to play against the computerized enemy.

Know thy enemy.

And then Draco suddenly stood up, grabbed fresh paper, and began to write.

***

Ron had grudgingly admitted that perhaps Malfoy was really upset. He had missed Potions that morning, and had skipped Alternative Magic. Dumbledore himself sat in the class, explaining how the midterm written and practical exams were going to be given that week. He would administer them in the way that Regina had written, and then after midterms, things would have to be decided. His eyes unerringly slid toward the seat Draco customarily sat between Blaise and Pansy, but he remained silent. No one commented on Draco's absence.

Given the fact that Draco skipped the two classes that everyone knew were his favorites, it was no surprise that he skipped on the rest of the day.

"Do you think we should try Regina's room again?" Ron asked nervously. "He might be there, but we really don't want to tell everyone we don't know what we're doing."

"He's probably there. I overheard Pansy and Millicent saying that they didn't know where he might be," Hermione said quietly. She dropped her books onto one of the tables in their common room, and sat down. "It's the one place no one thought to check."

"He might still be sulking," Ron said. "If we put up a silencing charm, we don't have to deal with him at all."

"Let's just go, get this over with," Harry said, eyes on the fire blazing in the common room's fireplace. "Besides, maybe one of Regina's books could help."

Mabel let them in without any fuss, and sure enough, there was Draco. He was surrounded by papers and books, most of which were in Neo-Pictish. He didn't even look up when the three arrived, he was too focused on what he was writing. He had started playing some of Regina's music to help keep him aware of passing time, and he was writing with deep, gouging strokes into the paper. Most of his motions were in straight lines.

"I thought you couldn't read Neo-Pictish," Ron said after a long moment.

"I lied," Draco said through grit teeth, not pausing in his feverish writing. His hand looked as though it were cramped around the pen. "I'm almost fluent in it."

"Your father's doing?"

"You think I learned it here?" Draco scoffed, refusing to rise to Ron's bait.

"What are you writing?" Hermione asked, peering over his shoulder.

"I've almost figured it out," Draco replied, not looking up at all. He kept writing, deep, angry strokes, some of which cut into the paper and inked the sheets below it.

"Figured what out?"

"Where they took her. It has to be to the Drawing Stone."

"Why? What's that?"

"It's one of the Death Eater hideouts, isn't it?" Harry asked, cutting off Draco's reply.

"Yeah. Um... Austria, I think."

Hermione watched Harry pick up the various sheets of paper, all with cramped Neo-Pictish writing on them. He read them silently to himself, mouth working over the strange syllables, slowly comprehending what he was reading. "Spells. You're writing all kinds of spells down, aren't you?"

"At first I was. Until lunch. I had that at one or so, don't know what time, really. Then I started trying to trace them."

"So how can we get there?"

"We don't. I don't know how to get there... Not really. But I've been writing it all down, maybe someone can figure it out."

"You mean Dumbledore, right?

Draco finally looked up. "Of course, you silly git. I wasn't going to go."

"We could, I suppose. You wouldn't have to be involved," Harry said slowly.

Draco snorted. "Of course I wouldn't be involved. I'm not stupid." He turned back to his writing and looked surly. "Unlike you three, I know what I'd be up against, and I have no intention of walking into it."

Harry picked up one of the pages with cramped Neo-Pictish. Translated, it went through the strengths and weaknesses of various strongholds that Draco knew about. "A lot of people you know will get thrown into Azkaban for this."

"I know."

"Why?"

Draco looked up, jaw set. "I don't want Regina suffering for my choices. I chose not to take the Mark, my father chose to take a sacrifice to remind me of my duties."

Even Ron had nothing to say to that. Draco finished off the last of what he was writing, and clicked the pen shut. "That's the last of it, about the Drawing Stone, why I think it's where she's been taken, what it's about."

"Thank you," Harry said quietly.

"Just get her back."

***

Dumbledore accepted the pages and Harry's English translation quietly, and thanked the three Gryffindors quietly. He gave them gumdrops and tea, chatted with them a bit to set their minds at ease, then ushered them out of his office to go back to their common room. He read both sets of papers, mouth pursed. Fawkes the phoenix twittered slightly on his perch, but otherwise made no motion to show that he knew something was wrong.

Dumbledore burned the sheets, and remained seated.

He already had known about the Drawing Stone, and knew that Regina wasn't there.

***

***