Heir Of Voldemort

Set - a few days after the trial

Notes: This came from a moment of inspired madness (actually I´m still writing ch. 15 as I type this chapter, that´s how inspired I am). A test-reading friend mentioned that - on first peek at ch. 15 - Draco was masking his grief with anger. I had plans for this chapter and most of the scene written out on paper and everything but then I got to wondering about Draco and what he was feeling...and inspiration gave me a good kick up the arse.

After all, this `tiny´ story - which was meant to be ten chapters long originally - has completely changed in the eight months which have passed since I hand-wrote the first scene in this chapter, so I figured I might as well adapt it.

And I have done.

BIG TIME!

God, I love my muse sometimes.

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Draco slouched into The Leaky Cauldron, feeling emotionally drained. There were only a few people seated in the booths, none of whom bothered to look around as he closed the door behind him.

It was quiet, even the murmurs hushed, which was just what he was looking for.

He´d had enough of shouting and jeers to last him a lifetime, the somnambulistic atmosphere of the small pub so much more comfortable than both the claustrophobic courtroom and his isolated home.

The trial had been one of the hardest things he had ever had to do in his life and he knew his father would probably have cursed and beaten him down for disowning Voldemort, but that was why he had done it.

His father was not there to curse him or beat him or do or say anything to him and his beautiful mother wasn´t there to smooth his hair and kiss his brow and tell him everything would be all right.

Because they were dead.

Rotting.

Gone.

Still.

Nothing had changed, despite everything he had done.

They hadn´t come back.

They were still dead and gone.

On top of that, even vengeance didn´t have the effect he had hoped.

He had disowned the Dark Lord his father had supported so passionately, he had brought the Witch who bore his son to justice, he had done it for his parents but he kept playing back the final moments of her trial in his mind.

It was haunting him.

Her face.

She was still chained in the chair at the fore of the court, her face white, her long hair pulled back from her face. Her dark eyes had scanned the packed courtroom and, somehow, she had found his eyes, out of the hundreds in the room.

Her head tilted slightly to one side, her lips had lifted in saddest, sweetest smile he had ever seen. Nodding to him alone, she closed her eyes briefly, then looked away from him as she was lead from the room.

She didn´t react like so many of the prisoners did, screaming wildly or yelling last-minute words of loyalty to the Dark Lord. As she was condemned to life in Azkaban, jeers rising from the court, she had risen to her feet with such calm and dignity that a somewhat stunned silence had fallen.

When she had spoken, he knew the words had been for him.

"I forgive you."

Somehow, the revenge for the deaths of his parents, by having Voldemort´s precious `Lady´ imprisoned, had completely backfired thanks to the pride and dignity of the witch, leaving him feeling worse than he ever had, wishing he had just gone along with his brief idea of suicide.

His eyes stinging once more, Draco cleared his throat as he stumbled towards the bar, grateful for the dim light that filtered through the building. He wanted to hide in the shadows, out of the way.

Rounding the edge of the bar into the gloomiest corner, only illuminated by a candle, he sat down on one of the empty stools and folding his arms on the bar, burying his face in his arms.

"Rough day?" an oddly-accented voice spoke from beside him.

Lifting his head reluctantly, Draco looked around at his neighbour, who was mulling over a butterbeer. He half-smiled at Malfoy, but it didn´t reach his eyes, which were oddly familiar and as shadowed as Malfoy was sure his own eyes were.

Malfoy had never seen him before: he was tall and fairly well-built, although not as bulky as Crabbe or Goyle had been, with a messy mass of black hair, dark eyes and ears that stuck out from his head.

"You could say that," he replied, his voice rough with tears he needed to shed but couldn´t. Forcing a smile, which faltered before it even reached his lips, he sighed heavily. "Things have been a little difficult around here."

"I can tell," the young man, who looked about the same age as him, said. "Want a drink or something? You look like you could use a pick-me-up." He gave Malfoy a persuasive look. "My treat."

"That´s generous of you," Sitting up, Draco leaned back against the low back of the stool, staring up at the shelves above him, trying to stop his eyes stinging.

His neighbour shrugged. "No big," He waved Tom over. "You look like you could use something and I have all this money in my pockets, so why not?" Tom, wiping out a glass, approached.

"What can I get for you?"

The dark-haired youth looked at Draco. "Anything you want?"

"Whisky," Draco said. Tom studied him for a moment, as if to verify his age, then nodded. Malfoy sighed, watching as the small glass of amber liquid was brought to him. He wasn´t a drinker, but damnit! He needed something.

"That bad, huh?" His new best friend gave him a sympathetic look as he knocked back the contents of the glass in one, blinking and panting. Whatever that stuff was, it was strong.

He blew out a breath, then asked. "Have you ever done something, something that seemed like a good idea at the time, but regretted it afterwards?"

"All the time."

"Involving a life-and-death situation?" His neighbour nodded again, taking a deep drink from his tankard. "It...it isn´t my life-or-death, you see, so I think that´s why its so hard," He shook his head, laughing bitterly. "I don´t know why I´m even talking about it. I don´t want to bother you with my ramblings."

The youth beside him studied him for a moment. "How about this - you tell me what bug´s bitten you and I´ll tell you what´s biting me," Draco wondered if he looked as confused as he felt when the boy chuckled without humour. "Oh yeah...must find some magic metaphors..."

"That was a muggle metaphor?"

The youth shrugged. "Guess so."

"You´re a muggle?" Somehow, today, that didn´t seem to matter as much as Draco knew it should. Even if the boy was a muggle, he still was speaking to Draco in a way he had never been spoken to before.

He was speaking to him as an equal, as just another guy at a bar, someone to booze some troubles away with.

It was an odd feeling.

Most people derided him, especially lately. Before, they had cringed and simpered in front of him, fawning over him, thanks to his father´s influence. His father hadn´t shown favour in any way, showing a tolerance for his son, but that was all.

The only person who had treated him even remotely like this odd person was - and he started when he realised it - his mother.

She hadn´t cared about what he had done or not done as a Death Eater. She simply appreciated that he was who he was. To her, he was someone that she could happily talk to, to be concerned about, to share the day´s adventures with...

To find this...muggle arousing feelings of safety and being more than willing to listen to him...

It was definitely not what he expected, when he had wandered into the gloomy pub.

The boy smiled slightly at him. "Not exactly," he replied. "My dad was a wizard, my mom was a witch, but no one told me that I had any magic in me until last week, so, kinda made with the big surprise...not only was the guy I thought was my dad just a random drunk my mom married out of desperation, turns out both my parents are magic...things."

Draco laughed without amusement. "At least you have parents."

"Not right now, I don´t," He put his tankard down, turning a little on his stool to look at Draco. "Look, You have issues. I have issues. How about we share and then drink a lot to forget and get a very bad headache tomorrow?"

Malfoy found himself smiling for the first time in days. "Well, the drinking sounds like a good idea to me," He waved Tom over again, requesting a bottle of Scotch and two glasses. Tom gave the boy next to him a dubious look. "He´s with me."

Still dubious, Tom shuffled off down towards the cellar.

"So...where do we start with the sharing?" His neighbour finished his butterbeer, shoving his tankard away from him.

"Who are you?"

A lop-sided grin crossed the boy´s face. "Well, I guess that´s as good a place to start as any," he replied. "Xander."

"Interesting name," Draco remarked. "I´m Draco."

Xander snorted. "And you said my name was...interesting."

"I was actually being serious," Draco looked more than a little put-out. "Most people think my name is amusing, so it is a bit of a relief to find someone with a name as unusual as mine."

The dark-haired boy flashed that infectious lop-sided grin down at him again. "My bad," he said apologetically. "I´m guessing you´ve been in here before. Bar-guy looks like he knows you."

"I´ve passed through from time to time," Draco glanced around. "Normally, I would avoid an establishment as crass as this."

"Look at Mister I´m-too-good-for-the-neat-little-pub-but-I´ll-drink-their-whisky-anyway," Xander snickered, giving Tom an appreciative smile as the bottle of whisky was placed on the bar in front of them.

Draco shot a look at him. "If I wasn´t feeling so bloody depressed, I would have you for that."

"Sure," Xander turned dark brown eyes - which were almost black - to him, giving him what could only be classed as a puppy-dog look. "But then, who would poor Dwaco have to get dwunk with?"

"Are you sure you´re completely sane?"

Xander chuckled. "That was never part of the deal, Draco. Depressed, yes. Wanting to be very drunk, yes. Sane, never even got a mention in the small print," He accepted the first glass of whisky, swirling the fluid. "So why are you in the drowning-of-spirits-in-spirits mood? That life-or-death thing?"

"Yeah," Studying his own drink, Draco laughed tightly. "You know, a year ago, it wouldn´t even have bothered me, but now..."

"So what´s the what?"

"Pardon?"

"What happened?" Xander rephrased his words. "Something to do with Big Bad Snakeman that everyone is so afraid of?"

Draco nodded wearily. "Isn´t everything?" He took a sip of his drink, grimacing. "It´s his fault that my parents are dead."

"He killed them?" Xander looked shocked.

"Not personally, but they were killed in the battle," Sighing, Draco put the glass down on the counter, watching the candle-light reflecting of the amber fluid. "I saw it happen...my mother..." He paused, a sad smile crossing his lips. "My mother was so beautiful..." Again he paused, pinched the bridge of his nose hard and sniffed, trying to fight back tears. "I...I keep remembering the last time I saw her...alive...she died in my arms...I could barely recognise her..."

"Oh God...I´m sorry..."

"You don´t need to be."

Xander´s expression shifted, but Draco didn´t notice. "Yes, I do," the dark-haired boy murmured.

"I-I tried to save her..." Malfoy turned his glass around, fascinated by the glimmers of light reflected onto the wooden counter. "I...she was trapped...under rubble...I-I got rid of it, but..." He shook his head, blinking hard. "She was bleeding...didn´t even know that I was there...I-I..." His hands moved blindly, as he remembered lifting her against his chest. "I held her...like this..." He touched his left shoulder. "Her...her head was here...I...I asked her to stay with me..." Tears were rapidly gathering in the corners of his eyes. "I...she...she was weak...and..." His hands fell into his lap. "She just left me...didn´t even...no goodbye or anything...loved her so much...didn´t even get a chance to say goodbye.."

Xander made an incoherent sound of sympathy in his throat, one hand squeezing Draco´s shoulder.

The young wizard bowed his head, not wanting to show his weakness by crying, the silent tears ticklishly sliding down both sides of his nose, which had suddenly become unbearably runny.

"Buddy, don´t worry about me seeing you crying," Xander said gently, his hand still reassuringly resting on Draco´s shoulder. "I´m not gonna run to the press about it. Its okay to cry."

Draco laughed, a strange choked sound. "My father would kill me if he saw me acting like this. Probably beat me around the head with his stick..." he managed to say, clapping his mouth shut to prevent the escape of the miserable howl of grief he could feel building.

"You´ve got good reason," Xander gave his shoulder another squeeze. "Me, on the other hand...I´m sure that I´ve walked in on the set of some weird, magic TV show and all of this is set and props...I can´t believe what I´m being told."

"Why?" The feeble squeak of a word was the only thing that Draco trusted himself to say.

"My mom...she apparently did something that kinda annoyed some people over here, some spells on my muggle dad that were illegal..." he paused, before adding - a little cautiously Draco noticed. "And...other stuff. They arrested her."

The blond boy nodded. "They´re arresting a lot of people these days...don´t want to risk Voldemort coming back, so they´re grabbing anyone who even does the simplest of dark magic," He downed his drink, reaching for the bottle. "What?"

"You..." Xander was staring at him. "You said his name? I thought no one said his name around here."

"My father..." Pausing, Draco weighed up what he should say. Yes, he had already been tried, but he didn´t want to lose his new drinking partner because of his father´s connections. It was...nice to have someone to talk to. A random someone, who wasn´t in it for the Malfoy name, someone who just wanted to talk and listen. "My father worked for him."

"Oh."

"Feel free to flee in terror," he drawled, almost sounding like his old self, before sighing. "Everyone else usually does."

"If that's the deal here, you should be the one doing the running," Xander studied him. "You worked for him too, didn´t you?"

"Not by choice," Draco admitted, the first time he had done so. Even at his mockery of a trial, he had never mentioned the fact that his father had forced him to serve the Dark Lord. Probably the warm feeling the drink was causing. "It was seen as a family business. Father-son kind of thing," Pouring himself a fresh glass, he sighed again. "I agreed with some of the principals of what he was saying, but that bastard hurt my father a lot. I hated him for it."

Xander was very quiet for several minutes. He sipped his drink, his brows beetling together, as if he was thinking long and hard about something.

"What was he like?" he finally asked. "Was he as bad as everyone said?"

"If everyone says he´s a sick, malicious, twisted bastard, then yes," Draco answered bitterly. "He´s as bad, if not worse than that. Even with his loyal followers...he loved to torture them for the most trivial reasons."

"Suddenly very glad that I never met him," Xander went back to studying his half-full glass. "I´m guessing you were trying to get back at him, ergo the whole life-or-death dilemma."

"Good guess."

"Did you do it?"

Draco snorted. "I tried," He scowled at his glass. "I thought it would get everything out of my system - that I would feel better once I had done something that I knew would piss Voldemort off."

With a sweep of his hand, his full glass hurtled off the bar and smashed against the wall, glass tinkling onto the stone floor. Folding his arms on the counter, he buried his face in them again.

"Didn´t fucking work, did it?" His voice was muffled. "I sent a decent witch, a goddamned innocent fucking witch, to Azkaban because I thought she was like him and she forgave me and now I feel worse than ever."

Xander´s voice was tight. "Wh-what did you say?"

Bitter tears staining his face, Draco looked at him. "I thought, being the fucking arse that I am, that sending Voldemort´s heir and his mother to Azkaban would be revenge against them for taking my parents from me..." His face was concealed by his arms again, as he started to weep, for the first time since his mother´s death. "I was at her trial... saw her...her face. She was innocent... just like my mother..."

There was a long silence, broken only by Draco´s raw sobs.

Xander, though, was staring down at the blond wizard. His mouth was hanging open and he shook his head, looking away from Draco, as if trying to comprehend what he had just heard.

"You didn´t send the Heir..." His voice was shaking when he spoke, breaking the silence. "You just sent his mother there...because she was the only one they caught... they didn´t realise that she was yelling to the Heir to run...to get help..."

"And she was fucking innocent." Draco spat, self-disgust etched on her face. "She...I sent her to Hell..." His face lifted fully from his crossed arms, when he realised what the boy next to him had said. "You what? How could you possibly know?"

Xander gazed at him, his expression saying that he was either going to punch Draco very very hard or start to cry equally hard. "How do you think I know, Draco?" he asked, his voice quiet.

Malfoy stared at him, wondering if the boy could be implying what he thought he was implying. "You..."

The boy´s brows rose. "I...?"

"No...you can´t be...you don´t..." Draco stood up so quickly that his heavy stool fell over, crashing down on the floor, drawing several startled looks from further around the bar. "No..."

Xander released a sigh, then looked at his drink. "Sorry, Draco, buddy, but I can be and I do be and that nice "fucking innocent" witch you sent to Azkaban for the rest of her life just happens to be my mom."

Draco´s already white face went several shades whiter, with a bit of grey and green thrown in for good measure. "Xander...you...you´re saying that you..." he laughed, a little shrilly, breathless and hysterically. "You´re Voldemort´s Heir?"

"Yeah," Gazing across the bar, not even looking back at Draco, Xander wrapped his hand around the small glass in front of him. "I´m Snake Man´s only living kid. Make with Whoo and a bit of the Hoo."

The blond wizard backed away from him. "But you...your father..."

"Is a bastard who hurt my mom more than anyone," Bleak brown eyes looked back at him wearily.

"He...hurt your mother?"

"Yeah." He gave the blond a look. "And stop backing away. I´m not about to kill you for hating him... God knows I hate him," he paused. "Or for what you did to my mom. I would have done the same, if I was in your shoes...but I am still thinking about hitting you, so don´t come too close."

Draco was stunned. "You...you hate him? But you´re his son!"

Xander lowered his head. "Why´d´you think I´ve been in hiding my whole life? Do you think mom was raising me away from him for no reason? Did you believe that she was going to teach me dark magic so I could be like the wizard who had hurt her so much?"

"A-Actually, yes."

Xander shook his head. "Wizards..." he muttered under his breath, then looked up at Draco. "I don´t know a thing about magic apart from card tricks that my buddy at school taught me. I don´t want to know either."

"She never taught you anything?" Draco´s guilt was getting worse by the minute. He had assumed that the heir would be as power-crazy as the father, but here he was, as powerless as a squib. Xander shook his head. "But surely you have some abilities you want to use..."

"Nope. Mom hid them from me and even though I wanted them, ever since I was a kid, it´s no big deal now. I have his power. I can feel it, feel everything around me, but I don´t need it. I don´t want it," He studied the remnants of his drink. "All I want is to get my mom back."

"I-I..."

Xander raised hand with a sigh. "Don´t go there," he said quietly. "I´ve been talking to you, remember? I saw you making with the guilt. I know you´re sorry. You don´t have to say it. It´s all anyone has been saying lately."

Picking up his stool, Draco hesitantly sat back down beside Xander, although a little further away than he had before. "You´re really his Heir?" Xander nodded. "You... I expected you to look...different..."

"That´s the only reason I´m allowed to wander around here," The dark-haired youth murmured, a tired smile on his lips. "I look nothing like him. I look like my mom´s side of the family, right down to her eyes. "

"Can you...are you a parselmouth?"

Xander made a hissing sound in response. Draco stared at him. "That´s `yes, you asshole´ in Snake-ish," he elaborated.

"So why are you here?"

"To undo what you just did," Looking straight at Draco, Xander gave him a small, sad smile. Those dark eyes, combined with that quiet little smile, were the ones that had haunted him from the courtroom, and he finally believed that Xander was who he claimed. "At least me being Snake-guy´s son´ll have some uses."

"I want to help."

"Revenge?"

Draco nodded. "For my mother."

"Sounds good, but first," Xander gave him a measured look. "We have something to finish first..."

"We-we do?"

"We did agree to getting very drunk and having headaches, didn´t we?" Xander started to pour another glass full, then noticed Draco´s broken one on the floor. He looked at his tankard. "It works," he said, starting to pour from the bottle into the large, glass mug.

"You really want to get rat-arsed?"

Xander drew a deep breath and blew it out. "Look, Draco, I just found out exactly how my dad got my mom pregnant. I found out what he did to her and her family and her friends. I just want to be drunk enough so I can try to forget for a little while."

"Sounds ideal."

"You use the bottle. I´ll use the cup thing."

Draco looked at the whisky bottle, which had been thrust into his hands, still a third full, then at the tankard, which was filled to the brim. "You really don´t do things by halves, do you?"

"Hey, the Heir of Snakeman has no limit in budget," He clinked his tankard against the bottle. "Here´s to forgetting."

"Here´s to booze." Draco agreed, both of them downing a mouthful and grimacing.

"And what do you gentlemen think you´re doing?" a voice asked from behind them.

***

She knew she had slept.

Or...

All right, she thought she had slept.

Maybe that was just a delusion...

Or maybe she had fainted again.

Cringing against the stone wall, the dark green slime soaking through the back of the ragged robes she was wearing, Cassandra´s eyes darted around her prison again, a whimper of terror escaping her.

A rash of goosebumps rose on her skin, but she couldn´t be sure if it was because of the icy draughts swirling through the bars of her cell, or because of the rising fear that was making the back of her neck prickle with unease.

He was here...

She could see his burning crimson eyes gleaming at her from the corner of the room, from beneath his hood.

He was standing there, motionless, his dark robes swaying in the wind, which whistled shrilly through cracks in the walls around her, the salty tang in the air almost reminding her trips to the sea side with her family so many years before.

Only, the scent of persistent death and blood hadn´t been such a big part of the Blackpool summer trips.

Or the continuous moaning and wailing.

Exhaling a panicked breath, which appeared in a white puff of condensation, her blood-shot eyes scanned around, searching desperately for some way, any way at all, that she might be able to get past him, away from him.

How he had gotten into her cell past the Dementors, she didn´t know, but he was there. He moved forward and she cringed back further, raising her arms over her head and sobbing.

"Leave me alone...leave me alone..."

"Ah, Cassandra, you know you shall never be free of me," his voice was the hiss she remembered so well. "You and your little boy, your Alexander are always mine. You know it to be true."

"No...no...no..." Repeating the words like a mantra, she pressed her eyes tightly shut as he drew closer.

She tried to force herself to remember that it was all just an illusion, just drawn out of a painful memory, but the moment that the memory touched her, she felt herself starting to shake, so hard that her teeth clattered together.

"So smooth..." Her face scrunched up, she pressed her upper arms over her ears to try and ignore his words, her hands thrust through her matted hair and twisting into it, her eyes pressed so tightly shut that ever tears could barely slip free. "Soft..."

Even with her ears covered, her memories whispered the same words.

The words he had said the first night he had violated her.

Everything felt so real.

Panting and crying out, Cassandra tried to break away, scrambling across the stone floor of the cell, her knees and hands scraped raw, and slamming hard against the metal bars that made up the opposite wall.

"Don´t touch me!" she shrieked.

"You think that begging will stop me, you stupid little girl?"

Lucius Malfoy moved towards her and she cowered down, trying to make herself as small as possible. His hand caught her hair, as it had so many years ago and her head snapped up as he kicked her savagely across the face.

Slumping heavily on her hands, sobbing bitterly, Cassandra turned her face towards him in time to receive the second blow that she remembered so well, before she felt his hand thrust between her thighs and cruelly squeeze her private area.

"Hot little thing, aren´t you, girl?" he growled. "I wonder if the Master will let me play when he´s had his fill..." He touched her in a way that made her scream in pain and shame.

Whimpering, as she crashed back against the bars, bruises blossoming on her back, she started to rock back and forth. From the cells around her, she could hear the same and wondered what torments they were going through.

"Don´t you worry about them, whore."

"Oh God..." Cassandra whimpered, scooting desperately across the floor, her hands shielding her face. "No...NO!" A pair of hands grabbed on arm, another pair taking the other, two more on her legs. "Get off me!"

"Feisty," the American accent drawled.

"Do what you like with her," She recognised the drunken slur of her husband´s voice and kicked out, screaming frantically, but - even if it was just an illusion - they were still more powerful than her, as they had been thirteen years before.

Writhing on the cold stone floor, her body jerking and thrashing as her nightmarish memories rose to the surface one after the other in rapid succession, her throat quickly grew hoarse from screaming.

The violence of her reactions were causing her more damage than the real scenarios had, her body smashing against stone and metal with brutal force, as she tried to escape from the memories that were tormenting her.

Blood from cuts and scrapes on her arms, legs and face stained her pale skin, bruises lining her back and limbs, her face bruised and scratched by her own hands as she struggled to block out everything.

Her already-filthy, blood-streaked robes were getting more ragged by the second, as she scrambled here and there, desperately trying to get free, muttering and whispering to herself.

On the opposite side of the long corridor of cages, all of which held inmates at various levels of sanity, a small, shadowy figure watched the blonde witch thrashing and screaming in her cell.

Maybe it was considered an amusing joke by the Ministry to place her there, within his line of sight.

She didn´t know he was there, obviously.

She wasn´t aware of anything, but the memories.

Shifting as much as he could, the raw red scabs of his face moving in a frown, he wondered what could be causing her to react so savagely. Of course, there was always the minor affair of her abduction so many years before...

Clearly, her life in hiding hadn´t been as pleasant as she expected.

Never had anyone in Azkaban been affected as violently as she had by the looming, forbidding forms of the Dementors. He knew it well, just by watching her, able to focus all his attention on her.

The Dementors barely affected him. They never had, not since he had overcome his mother´s death, with the death of his treacherous father. There was nothing he feared, nothing he dreaded, no happy emotions left to suck from him.

The only emotions he had left were hate, frustration and boredom.

Sooner or later, he would be liberated, or he would be strong enough to escape, but until then, he had to tolerate entertaining himself by watching his fellow-prisoners go gradually insane, many of them connected to him in some way.

Once again, his gleaming, red eyes wandered back to the woman writhing on the floor of the opposite cell.

Maybe, he mused, she would be worthy of being a Dark Lady to him, if she wasn´t completely insane by the time they were liberated.

Shifting again, the tattered scrap of blanket that covered him, agonising against the raw shell of his skin, he continued to watch her crying, Lord Voldemort and his Lady reunited, but for the bars between them.

***

"What did we tell you?"

It was almost like being in a class with McGonagall, Draco noted, staying where he had been ordered to, his back against the wall. There was the lecturing adult, looming over the recalcitrant youth.

Xander, or Alexander as it transpired he was called, sat on the end of his bed, staring down at the floor. "I just needed to take my mind off things," he replied quietly. "I don´t want to have to think of my mom being in a place that´s like Hell."

"Y-y-you should have asked us and we could h-have helped!" The more serious of the two men who had dragged the dark-haired boy and Draco up the one of the rooms in the Leaky Cauldron looked angry. "Wh-what if someone had learned who-who-who you are, while you were there?"

"Ripper," The other man, this one not wearing a suit, but a maroon shirt and black trousers, with a mass of curly, sandy hair laid a hand on the first´s shoulder. "Leave off. Let me talk to him."

"Ethan..."

"Rupert, please."

With a sigh, the first man removed his glasses and started to clean them, waving the other one forward. The second approached the bed where Alexander was sitting, looking utterly dejected.

"Alex," Squatting down, he looked up at the boy.

"Xander," the boy replied.

The one called Ethan nodded. "Right, Xander. Can you do me a favour and listen to me to stop Giles whining?" His hands resting on his knees, Ethan sighed. His tone was persuasive, probably what a shrink would sound like. "Look, I know this is hard for you. It´s hard for me as well."

"How can it be hard for you?" Tear-filled brown eyes lifted to him and the squatting man looked away, his own face crumpled in pain. "How can you possibly know what I´m going through?"

"I...I just know," he gritted out. Draco´s eyes widened, recognising the expression on the man´s face. It was the expression he had only ever seen on his father´s face, when his mother had entered a room.

Apparently Xander didn´t recognise it though.

"How?" he demanded, glaring at the sandy-haired man. "Gimme some back up to the words here. My mom is in the wizard´s prison, probably going crazy and you..."

"I love her," It was little more than a whisper.

Alexander jerked back. "Wh-what?"

Ethan laughed tightly. "I love your mother," he answered.

"You...do?"

"I have done since we were at school together," He looked down at his hands, then back at Alexander. "If she wasn´t married to that American bastard you call dad, I would have married her myself."

Alexander was staring at Ethan, a look of revelation on his face. "You...you were in Sunnydale..." he said, like a child who had finally understood a joke. "Sometimes when I came home and she was happy, she said it was because she´d been thinking of you...it was because you had visited, wasn´t it?"

A tired smile crossed the man´s face. "Or I had got in touch with the silly tart," He nodded. "Your mother is one of the most incredible witches in the world. She might not have huge amounts of power, but she has strength by the bucketload."

"But..." Alexander seemed hesitant to ask. "But will she be strong enough to get through being in Azkaban?" He swallowed hard, before continuing, his voice shaking. "I...I usually get feelings. Y´know... intuition...especially about important things but I-I haven´t had any about mom..."

"Your mother is-is-is strong, Xander."

Ethan, though, had lowered his head. "Not for Azkaban, Ripper," he replied quietly, his voice as unsteady as Xander´s. His green eyes rose to Giles´. "Voldemort made her trade her body for her family...then he killed them..."

"Bloody hell..." Giles and Malfoy both uttered the words.

"And there´s a whole lot more fun of the not variety," Alexander said, looking up at Giles apologetically. "Dad...I mean, the guy I called dad...he used to beat her up...I-I think he raped her as well...and some of his friends hurt her too..." He looked down, picking the knee of his jeans. "She used to lock herself in the bathroom...I think that was her safe place."

On the far side of the room, Draco sank down against the wall, his legs unable to hold him upright any longer. He had sent a woman who had lived Hell every day straight to the Dementors.

Giles´ was leaning heavily against the wooden dresser, staring at Alexander in disbelief, as if he couldn´t believe it had been kept from him. "W-w-why didn´t you tell us, Xander?" he asked. "We-we could have helped."

Alexander shook his head. "Mom wouldn´t want that," he said quietly. "I used to beg her to call the cops, but she said she could handle it," He sighed. "After my real dad, I guess she thought she could handle anything..."

"She said something about one of Voldemort´s boys trying to get her before she was pregnant too and the wizard that kidnapped her..." Ethan´s green eyes darted to Draco, who was looking grey. "I think it might have been someone else..."

"No..." the blond wizard whispered. "It...it was probably my father." He lowered his head. "Xander, I´m sorry...as if sending her there wasn´t bad enough...I´d never have done that to my own mother..."

Alexander made a dismissive gesture with his hand. "You couldn´t know, Draco."

"We have to get her out of there," Giles said, determinedly, replacing his spectacles.

Ethan nodded. "Our meeting with the wizarding justice board is in half an hour," he said, after glancing at his watch. "We just have to wait for our last two witnesses to show up."

"I´m coming, too."

Ethan scowled at the boy, looking very much like he would happily tear the boy´s head off and use it as a bowling ball. "You´re the one that put her in there, you little prick and now, you want to get her out?"

"Ethan, don´t," Alexander said quietly. "We need all the back-up we can get."

An uncomfortable silence fell, several minutes passing before there was a knock at the door.

"Who´s there?"

"Snape."

Crossing the floor, Ethan opened the door, motioning for the Potions Teacher and his companion to enter, neither of them noticing the blond boy sitting on the floor near the door.

"Good to see you again, Sev. And you..."

The smaller robed figure wasn´t paying attention to him. Instead, she had pushed her cowl down and was staring at Alexander, who stood as tall as, if not taller than, Snape, eyes wide.

"You´re him, aren´t you?" she said in a tremulous voice. "You´re Alex."

Alexander nodded and immediately found himself with an armful of small, red-haired witch, who reminded him a whole lot of Willow. And what made it worse was that small, red-haired Willow-like was crying.

"Hey," Awkwardly patting her back, he looked down at her. "Don´t cry! I´m not that bad, am I?" Ginny just sniffed and hugged him tightly, leaving Alexander with a very confused look on his face. "Uh...Ethan? What did I do?"

Ethan smiled. "She knows your mother, Xander," he explained, the girl clinging to the young man. "Ginny became almost a surrogate daughter to her, after your father abused her."

"After my dad abused my mom?"

"No, Xander," Malfoy spoke up quietly. "After your father abused her."

Snape and Ginny both spun around at his voice, staring at Draco in horror, the girl flinching against Alexander, who was looking down at her with sympathy and pain etched in his eyes.

"What is he doing here?" Snape´s voice was ugly with fury.

"I asked him here," Alexander was the one to answer Snape´s question. "And he´s staying, okay? We have an arrangement to keep." That said, he turned his attention to the girl in his arms. "Um...hi down there..." Ginny looked up at him, her brown eyes large. "Yeah... hi..." He tried to smile, but it faltered. "Is...is he right? Did my...my father hurt you?"

Ginny nodded, lowering her head.

"Um..." He touched her on the head gently. "Yeah...girl-down-there..." Her eyes came back to him, rimmed with tears. "I..." he sighed, shaking his head. "I just kinda wanted to say sorry for what my dad did to you...I know it won´t mean much, but for what it´s worth, I´m sorry..."

Severus Snape was staring at the youth incredulously. "You are truly telling me that this boy is the son of You-Know-Who?" he directed the question to Ethan, who was smiling proudly at his Godson.

"Why does everyone have so much trouble believing I´m Snakeman´s son?"

"You´re nice to people," Ginny whispered. "Y-you didn´t hurt me..."

Giles nodded. "You´re a decent human being, Xander."

"You apologise for crimes that aren´t yours," Snape added.

"You bought me a drink." All eyes went to Malfoy, who grinned apologetically with a helpless shrug. "Um...that was meant to stay inside my head, but it´s a valid point. You-Know-Who was a stingy git."

Alexander shook his head and started to laugh. "And this is why we keep Draco Malfoy around," he said between chuckles. "To make sure we have laughing-at-totally-the-wrong-moment since we don´t have Willow-babble."

"Willow-babble?" Snape looked dubious. "Is that some kind of narcotic substance?"

Both Giles and Alexander snorted with laughter.

"And that would be a big no," Alexander replied. "Willow is a friend, who babbles and makes a lot of accidental funnies, because she´s nervous, ergo Willow-babble for laughs-at-bad-times. It´s usually when we´re in a easily-be-killed scenario."

"Could someone please translate whatever he just said?" Malfoy inquired.

"You wanna make me go Dark-Lord on you, Malfoy?" Draco paled and Alexander looked surprised, when Ginny immediately pulled back from him and Snape´s jaw tightened. "Whoa! Whoa! Kidding!"

"That is really not a good thing to joke about," Severus said grimly.

Alexander looked at the girl who had just stepped away from him and closer to the creepy-looking Snape. The panic he had seen in her eyes had apparently finally brought home to him just how feared his father was.

"Uh..." Looking around, he shrugged. "So, what´s the plan? When do we go and bust mom out of Azkaban?"

Ethan glanced at his watch again. "We could go down now. The Justice people have a room downstairs, if I remember right..."

"And we do what exactly? I walk in and say `I am Alexander, son of Voldemort, Heir of Slytherin. You jailed my mother. Prepare to die.´? Something tells me that won´t go down to well with the panel of judges."

"I would suggest missing out the `Prepare to die´ train of thought," Ethan said. "But other than that, what else can we do? We need to show them that you´re nothing like him, tell them what we know...it might mean all of us being under veritaserum..."

"Huh?"

"Truth potion." Snape elaborated.

Alexander shrugged. "I can do that. I don´t have anything to lie about." His eyes went from face to face around the room. "What about you guys? If you wanna back out, now would be the time to do it."

No one moved.

Not even Malfoy, despite suspicious looks from Snape and Ginny.

"Okay," Clapping his hands together, Alexander started towards the door. "Let´s mount up and save my mom from the overgrown zombie-monk-happy-suckage-demon-guys." As he opened the door, he glanced back at Giles. "G-Man, do you think Buffy could kill them?"

"Dementors?"

"Well, she killed Death before..."

The Watcher looked pensive. "I would have to research it."

Alexander smiled broadly. "There´s the Giles we all know and fear," He looked out into the Hall. "And nerves start kicking in right about now..."

"Don´t worry, Xander, they can´t do anything to you."

"Seeing as how I´ve never been in the wizard-world before?"

Ethan shook his head. "Seeing as if they try to lay a finger on a single fibre of your body, I´ll tear their god-damned arms off and shove them up their arses," He smiled a strange, determined smile. "No one is taking you away from me or your mother, Alex, even if I have to rip them limb from limb to keep you safe."

"Force..." Alexander pulled a face. "Good...great...suddenly just walking in there and telling them to prepare to die is seeming like a good idea..."