Empty Chairs at Empty Tables

EMPTY CHAIRS AT EMPTY TABLES

Falls the Shadow

He used Michael Conway´s money to bribe his way aboard a transport ship loaded with horses, bound for France and slaughter. He spent the night in the shadows, watched by dull, uncomprehending, and resigned eyes, large and beautiful as those of starving children or sacrificial virgins. The horses, crammed into far too small a space, were quiet as only those beyond hope could be. They stood as still as broken toys: heads low, ears flattened, delicate legs broken or bleeding. Not for the first time, Draco wondered if Voldemort had been so wrong. Surely a people who could do such a thing as this deserved genocide.

From France he fled north to Germany, and then to Russia. In Moscow he ran out of cash, and a young Muggle medical student took him in. Iliana was like no one he had ever encountered, strong and brave and capable but desperate for affection. After a few months he began to feel trapped by her, and after a year he moved on. His shoulder had healed as much as it was going to and he was worried he had been far too long in one place.

He flew south and east from Russia, and stopped to rest for a night in the desert, still in hawk form. There a young Arab prince caught him, and though he did not know what Draco was he knew that he was special, and he bound him in jesses of adamantine studded with emeralds. For three years Draco slept in his mews and ate from his hand, and was content to be nothing more than he appeared. When the prince died he was set free and it took him a very long time to remember that he had once had another form. He made his way on foot to India, his mind half a hawk´s and more than half mad.

He had forgotten what it was to be human, to be among humans. Calcutta took him by surprise in all its noise and disorder. He was forced to steal food, and when he grew ill, to beg for it. And there in the gutter, where his beauty and his pride and his brilliance had all deserted him, he found a copy of the Daily Prophet, shredded and crusted with mud and smelling strongly of fish. "Five Years After Voldemort´s Death," the headline announced, "Draco Malfoy Still Missing." His own face stared up at him, eyes wide with shock and a smear of blood on its chin. Even as he watched it turned away, disgusted by what he had become.

Draco had never meant to go home, but for the first time he wondered about those he had left behind: his mother, Lestrange--new lord of Malfoy House, Pansy, Malcolm and Vin, Harry Potter. What had become of them all when he was gone? He was afraid to know. After a long time he mustered the energy to walk to the missionary hospital and have his fever treated. The missionaries were kind, if rather too saintly for his taste; they gave him clothing and money, and did not ask him awkward questions about anything but his faith in Jesus. He found that he had rather missed hearing English accents, being around people who thought he was of them.

The missionaries got him a job as a deckhand on a huge private yacht. It didn´t pay much, and it wasn´t pleasant working for a spoiled, rich playboy, but it took him to Australia, where he promptly deserted anyway. It was sheer bad luck that the first job he was offered (a job he´d promptly accepted) turned out be on a wizard´s ranch. He was not recognized, though he´d long ago given up disguising anything but his coloring. He was not recognized as Draco Malfoy, anyway; they knew he was a wizard, but they seemed to believe Luke Conway´s patched-together story.

Ironically, he was happy there, for a month or so. It was exhausting being a cowboy, but at the end of the day he had no trouble getting to sleep, and he did not dream. After work they played Quidditch sometimes, disorganized games that usually ended only when it was too dark to see. That was what got Draco into trouble: that, and kindness. All it took was one person remarking that he was good enough to play professionally. After that they were all after him to try out for one of the state-sponsored local teams. He invented a long and tragic tale in which he was injured in the war and dropped from the English team, and got carried away and added some rather touching (he thought) bits about his faithless sweetheart and poor disappointed dad.

He had thought that that the matter was over, but one day they brought in a visiting assistant-to-the-assistant-manager of the Chudley Cannons, a friend of a friend fortuitously in the area and open to bribery. It was had to say whether Draco or Ron Weasley was more surprised, that moment when their eyes met across the Quidditch pitch and time slowed to a crawl. But before Ron could fumble out his wand, Draco felt the Snitch drop into his open palm and he flew until the Weasel and the game and Australia were far behind him.

On a tiny island in the shining sea he caught a little commuter plane bound stateside to Los Angeles, and in the bathroom he did some cut and pasting to put together a very credible American passport and driver´s license. In L.A. the sun burned like a martyr´s fire, but no one came for Michael Drake and Draco found work: loading boxes on the dock, and later driving an enormous truck on a lonely highway. He waited for Harry Potter to catch up for a long time, because he was growing tired of running.

From England came news of an amnesty for Death Eaters, but to Draco it sounded like death and he did not go. Once or twice he cut his wrists with a razorblade and watched the blood run down his tanned skin, but something always stopped him from letting the blood run too long. One night he used the razorblade to scrape away the fading Dark Mark on his left arm, and the wound that resulted grew infected and for a long time he did nothing.

He did not die, though the pain his arm worsened gradually. Slowly he drifted east toward England, doing odd jobs when he could and whoring himself to strangers--businessmen, truckers, fellow refugees--in cars or cheap hotel rooms when he could not. The fever he had had in India returned, and he burned from the inside out. Voldemort was nearly eight years dead.

There were a thousand thousand small towns between California and New York and after a time they all blurred together in his head. In one such town, he spent his twenty-eighth birthday. He had a little money in his pocket: enough for a drink, at least. Slumped in a booth in one corner of a deserted bar, he was startled when a young and very pretty girl slid into the seat across from him. He was even more surprised when he realized she was not a girl at all. He recognized the spell; it was as variant of the simple glammerie that the Dark Lord had favored--it made the beholder see only what was desired.

Something--some long lost stirring of pity--held him back from revealing what he knew. The troubled child across from him needed the illusion more than he needed to break it. He let himself be picked up, taken home; he made love to the boy as if he were with a girl and afterwards he held him and let him cry. In return the boy Trishelle cleaned the wound in his arm and bandaged it, treated his malaria with bartered antibiotics, and cooked meals to watch him eat. He wept when Draco left him, but he pressed on Draco a wad of Muggle dollars and a few Galleons from his coin collection.

In New York Draco found a job as a bouncer outside a Muggle club, rented a small dirty apartment. It was not a bad job, not a bad life: he could always pick up extra money rolling drunks in Central Park or selling his body; he even got his pick of the beautiful, desperate boys and girls trying to get in to the Blitz. For a man who balked at nothing short of murder there were always opportunities.

New York was the most magical city he had ever seen--here the boundary between the worlds was so thin as to be almost nonexistent. Draco learned that Harry Potter was still after him with all the fury of Arawn´s Wild Hunt and none of its success. He stayed low, kept himself to himself, and thought of England surprisingly infrequently until one day he read in a month-old, coverless Prophet that his mother was dying.

A better son might have caught the first available flight back to England to be with Narcissa in her time of need. A better man might not have been where Draco was in the first place. Draco had no pride left, and precious few illusions. He doubted his mother would want to see him if she were dying, and he rather suspected the whole thing was a trap. It was just what a noble orphan like Potter could be expected to think up: the fugitive returning home to comfort the last of his family.

In the end Draco decided to go home. Death, or the Dementor´s Kiss, could be no worse than a century more of waiting. Potter would never give up until one of them was dead. He scraped together enough money for an economy ticket to England, packed what he had that was worth taking, and left America forever. And when he stumbled off the plane, Potter was waiting for him, and Draco gave himself up.

Hermione said, "We´ll take a short recess for lunch, and meet back here in half an hour. I assume you all still have a few questions for Mr. Malfoy. Harry, if I could have a word with you privately, please?"

Harry started as if she´d woken him from a dream that was ten years long. "Of course," he told her, and Sirius squeezed his shoulder reassuringly. Dumbledore and the jury filed from the room, carefully not looking at Harry. In the hallway Hermione stared up at him as if she were seeing him for the first time. "I´m sorry," he whispered. "I never meant for you to find out this way."

Hermione pursed her lips. "Didn´t you?" she asked finally. "You must have known there was a chance this would come out now. Christ, Harry! All those years, all those girls I set you up with--you couldn´t have told me the truth? You couldn´t have trusted me?" Her eyes began to fill with tears. "Oh, Harry, I thought we were best friends! I thought you--."

"I´m sorry, ´Mione," Harry stammered. "It was only the once, I swear it. I know it was wrong..."

"Harry Potter!" Hermione sniffled imposingly. "You must know that I don´t care about that--I don´t care if you love women or men, or hippogriffs! Honestly Harry! You must know that I´m the Minister of Magic, I can repeal that law. It should have been repealed years ago anyway. If you want Draco, than I want you to have him."

"I´m not--." Harry was having trouble thinking, much less talking. "Well, not with a hippogriff anyway! I don´t know what I want, and Malfoy--he has bigger problems. I just, I´m so glad you´re okay with this, Hermione. I was so afraid you´d hate me."

"Harry, I could never hate you," Hermione said solemnly, standing on tiptoe to kiss his cheek. "I´m going to go fix my makeup--I must have mascara all over my face."

Harry watched her go, fighting back tears himself. Acceptance was something he´d never dared hope for. Only when Hermione was completely out of sight did he turn back. Malfoy was still slumped at the table, his head on his arms, and Sirius still guarded him. There was no judgment in Sirius´ kind dark eyes, and only a hint of sadness. They were all of them taking this better than he´d any right to expect.

He cleared his throat as he crossed to the table, and Malfoy sat up with a jerk. His face might have been carved from marble, for all the warmth in it, and from that angle Harry could see the strands of silver-gilt mixed with gold in his hair. But Malfoy had his own worries: his very life on the line, and his soul almost certainly forfeit. He would be lucky if the Commission kept him as a stud; for all his high birth and fallen angel´s face and tremendous powers, he was the most hated man in England. A better man than he would still have trouble feeling happy for Harry.

Malfoy said, "Is there somewhere we can go to smoke? I´d kill for a cigarette." Harry must have flinched, because he added, a little bitterly, "Not literally, Potter."

Harry and Sirius untied their prisoner from his chair and led him down a dark maze of hallways to a small balcony jutting out over what had become a car park. Malfoy, when they let him go, went at once to the railing, and gulped for air. Harry fumbled out a crumpled pack of Marlboros and handed them `round, and Sirius lit them with a flick of his wand. Harry took a drag of his cigarette and wondered if, forever after, tobacco would taste like celebration and fear and wind.

Draco, leaning out into the sky, was aware of the two men behind him. He knew that there was something they wanted him to say, though he could not imagine what it was; he knew that once again he was failing Harry on some fundamental level though he did not really care. "What would you do if I jumped?" he asked idly, all the while calculating. Six stories, no broom, no magic, no way to Transfigure, nothing but a freefall and a hard landing.

After a moment of frantic silence, Black said to him, "You won´t jump, Malfoy; suicide is not your style and even if it were the purebred houses frown on it, and I´ll wager your father thought it was a foolish weakness."

"Can I have another cigarette?" Draco made his voice as plaintive as he could, and was surprised to hear Black laugh. Surprised to realize he could like this man his mother had chosen over his father.

This time it was Potter who answered, and Draco could hear the anger in his clipped voice. Potter would not take any mention of suicide lightly--not today and not from Draco Malfoy, on whose wrists the scars gleamed numerous and ugly as acid raindrops. Potter was ready to go inside, and that meant they all must go.

The jury assembled to hang him was already in their seats when Draco was led in. He looked more closely at them, this time, now that the greater part of his ordeal was over and he could begin to think again. Roan Atkinson was fiftyish, perhaps a little younger--short and dumpy with long snarled gray hair and bad teeth, but kind eyes. Sturbridge was tall, lean, and distinguished, beautifully dressed in a plain dark suit. Dumbledore. Dumbledore looked the same, maybe a little older, a trifle more careworn; all too clearly the same smug bastard that he had always been. They did not any of them look inclined to mercy. He wondered if it hurt--the Dementor´s Kiss--did it take a long time, or did you lose all awareness of time as soon as it began? Even the thought made him shiver: that he could spend the rest of his life aware that something was missing, and not know what it was, not have any way to communicate or even to scream. At his back Sirius Black stood like a man turned to stone, Black who had been to Azkaban and emerged pure, stripped to the bone but sane. Black would be more than willing to save Draco for his mother´s sake, if there had been anything left to save.

Draco did not look at Harry Potter, but it was like being in a room with a loaded gun and not looking; Potter was always at the edges of his awareness--had always been. "I have a few questions for Mr. Malfoy," Sturbridge said mildly, and Draco turned his head so quickly that his neck cracked. Sturbridge was fiddling with a silver-plated pen, taking notes on yellow paper pad. He seemed to be a prototype for a better breed of Muggle: cleaner, more elegant and polite, sharper than any Muggle Draco had ever met, as if Dumbledore had bred and raised him in captivity only to produce him for the wizarding world to see.

"Yes?" he asked in the tone one might use to quell a servant (if one were Draco Malfoy) making it clear that he at least did not consider the man an equal.

Sturbridge seemed more amused than offended, but no doubt he could afford to laugh at Draco now. "I´d like to know why your family became--involved--with the Dark Lord."

"I see," Draco answered, even though he didn´t. He marshaled his thoughts. "My father--." What as it Lucius said? A Malfoy did what must be done and the devil take the hindmost. Much luck it had brought either of them. "My father knew Tom Riddle a long time ago; my mother´s family is related to the Riddles in some way, though it goes back about thirty generations. Riddle was--one of those uninvited cousins. The sort you´d like to forget, that stands by the punch bowl at parties and no one talks to. He and my father were at Hogwarts together but they did not get on then. Riddle had been brought up in a Muggle orphanage and he had strange ideas."

"One of them--one of them was that Muggles possessed some kind of new technology so powerful as to be capable of ending the world. He called it an "atomic bomb," and he was obsessed with it. He believed that Muggles were stockpiling the things and planning some sort of final apocalyptic battle from which no wizard would walk away. My father--Lucius did some research into the thing, mostly with the goal of humiliating Riddle, and discovered that there was a certain amount of truth in Riddle´s lies; Muggles did have the capability to destroy the world something like thirty times over. There was no conspiracy--worse, there were a handful of unstable governments, trying to prove themselves by force. Lucius allied himself with Tom Riddle because Riddle was the only one who believed in this thing."

"When it started out, they were going to find out how to stop this disaster--to defeat death. And they--they were kids, you know? They wanted to be heroes, to save the world and redeem themselves and all that sort of thing. But Riddle, Riddle turned out to be the Heir of Slytherin, and people died who shouldn´t have, and then they were scared and they kept covering things up, and digging themselves deeper into the hole in the process and somewhere along the line they went from heroes to madmen. But my father meant to save the world when he started."

Atkinson made a small noise that might have signified assent or disapproval or any of a number of other things, and Sturbridge noted something on his pad. Draco just barely held back a sigh. They were taking notes, as if what he said might be useful someday. How can we avert another holocaust? Well, let me check my notes, maybe Draco Malfoy said something relevant.

Atkinson asked, "When your father wrote that, "the land itself might rise in your defense," what did he mean?"

Draco looked at her carefully from beneath his eyelids before he answered. "That´s an old legend, ma´am; I´m not sure how accurate it is. But Lucius believed that a long time ago the six wizards who were companions to the Conqueror made some sort of covenant with--with each other that they would maintain a certain balance. And somehow they bound their destinies to England´s, and swore that they and their heirs would rise forever to defend the land, and in return it would defend them if it were called upon. But it only works for the last of a house, and only if the cause is just. To the best of my knowledge it has not been tried in years, but the wizarding houses have kept their part of the bargain and England has never been invaded. Somehow for my father it all got mixed up with what Voldemort was trying to do."

"Which houses were involved in this pact?" the Mudblood breathed. He might have known: she might have been political now but she was just as much a bookworm as ever.

"Slytherin," he said. "Malfoy, Plantanaget, du Parc, Devereux, and de Michel. Slytherin´s line is ended, now; the Plantanagets have been dead for five centuries. The Malfoys and the Parkinsons, you know; the Devereux family intermarried with just about every house and finally with Muggles and Merlin knows who their heir would be; de Michel became Weasley. But we have stood for England, all of us, though we do not always agree on the best way to serve."

"Interesting. Thank you, Mr. Malfoy." Atkinson made another note and looked around. "Professor Dumbledore, did you have any questions?"

Dumbledore looked Draco full in the face when he answered. "No." His voice was soft, even. "There is no explanation or apology for what I have done, and I require neither explanation nor apology from Mr. Malfoy. I am prepared to render judgment."

"Judge not let ye be judged," Draco said flippantly, and probably unwisely. All those miles, and all those years, and Dumbledore could turn him back to a sullen thirteen-year old with nothing but a glance.

"Indeed," Sturbridge´s voice was heavy, polite. Draco wondered if he could be some kind of machine. "I believe some discussion of the charges is in order, before judgment is given." The Mudblood raised her wand and worked some sort of silencing charm or spell Draco didn´t know. It hid the three members of the jury behind a sheet of wavy glass, so that even if he had been inclined to read their lips and learn his fate he could not have.

He and Potter and Granger and Black sat quietly staring at the flat silver surface of the mirror still lying on the tabletop. Granger caught his eye and smiled at him--a small, nervous smile, but a real one. Draco felt one corner of his mouth lift in response, and the Mudblood blushed and looked away. Potter was staring at the table, at his hands, no doubt looking for traces of blood. He had short, blunt fingers, bitten nails, inkstained and tanned and work roughened: the hands of a farmer, Lucius would have said, and not a nobleman. Blood did tell, in little things like that.

Abruptly the glass vanished and Draco blinked. "Dracofel Malfoy," Dumbledore read, "You have confessed to the following crimes: Use of an Unforgivable Curse to commit murder, nineteen counts. Use of an Unforgivable Curse to commit grievous bodily harm, three counts. Use of an Unforgivable Curse to commit grievous mental harm, six counts. Sodomy, four counts. Treason, one count. Use of magic in the presence of Muggles, thirty-seven counts. This Council has agreed to drop all charges of treason on the grounds that your actions were provoked. The statutes of limitations for sodomy and illicit use of magic have been exceeded and so those charges have also been dropped. In addition, we have determined that on three occurrences the Avada Kedavra was used in self-defense and in the best interests of the state and so those charges have been revoked. Therefore this Council charges you with sixteen counts of murder, three of battery, and six of torture. Mr. Sturbridge will now read the sentence."

Sturbridge glanced around as if to make sure that everyone was paying attention, and then recited, "Each of these charges is punishable by not more than eight years of time in Azkaban, or one hundred years total. However, the Ministry of Magic has granted to this Council the power to recommend that in certain cases the Dementor´s Kiss be effected if it is in the best interest of the people of England. In this case, we do so recommend. It is our belief that Mr. Malfoy poses a serious risk of escape. This decision has been reached unanimously and has been found to be in accordance with national and international Muggle and wizarding laws. Minister, do you concur?"

The Mudblood sighed soft as a headsman´s axe swishing down, while Draco stared at his face in the mirror and wondered if he were supposed to be grateful or sorry not to die here today. But the Kiss was a fate worse than death, worse than lying down in the snow and feeling his body slow, worse than bleeding his heart out on a concrete floor, worse than the oblivion found in a needle, in the bottom of a bottle. Granger said, "I do concur," and Draco felt himself let out a breath he had not even known he was holding.

Harry Potter stirred, and stood. "Before you give him the Kiss I´ll know why you did what you did, Headmaster. I loved you like a father once, and I´ve kept silent all these years for that, and because with Malfoy gone there was no one left to speak for. But I want the truth."

Dumbledore raked trembling fingers through his beard and stared at Harry. To Draco he looked like one of those Muggle drawings of God, an old and troubled man, bearing the weight of the world on hid shoulders. "Potter," he forced himself to say. "Stop. I´m tired and I want this over before I lose my nerve. Whatever he says won´t change what I did--what I deserve. Don´t ruin more lives over this--." Potter glared and Draco stopped. He too wanted to know how Dumbledore had justified this to himself. Had he truly believed some lives were worth less than others, that the lives of the Slytherins were worth nothing at all?

And Dumbledore was saying, "I did what I must; I did what was foretold. I did what anyone would do, Harry Potter, and I need not justify my actions to you. It is by my results history will judge me."

But Harry looked the older man square in the face and said, "No. It is not only history that can judge you, and your results cannot justify your actions if Malfoy´s do not."

"Mr. Potter." Atkinson´s round face was worried. "Professor Dumbledore is not on trial here. Please, these are questions that must be asked, but not today."

"Wait," Draco could not keep the bitterness from his voice. "My life is on the line today."

"Not your life," Sturbridge pointed out mildly.

Draco let himself sneer at the man. "Do you want to know what I think?" he asked the room at large. He closed his eyes and let the words come to him. "I think that you did what you did because--because--because you wanted me dead. Not us, all of us, but me specifically. You thought--you knew that I would betray you. You needed me to betray you, and you need me dead now. You went back in time. Not with a Time Turner, either. You wrote a letter, or put the memories in a Pensieve, and you--you worked an Hourglass spell, the Tiempo one! You went back and told yourself how Voldemort would be defeated, and you told yourself something else, too, something else I´m meant to do, that you want to prevent me doing. You could have undone us all, playing with time like that! What is it I´m supposed to do, that was worth risking that?"

Dumbledore whispered, so that they all leaned in to hear him, "I don´t know. The spell only lasts an hour--there wasn´t time. I only know that the world will be better without you." His voice grew firmer, more commanding. He sounded once again himself, only desperately tired. "You yourself, Mr. Malfoy, believe that hundred dead is not too small a price to pay to save a hundred thousand. Can you say honestly that one life is worth more than hundred thousand?"

"If it is mine..." Draco drawled.

"Shut up," Potter hissed at him furiously. "What you´re doing is wrong, Professor! You can´t play with people´s lives like that. It isn´t--."

Draco inserted, "Fair?"

Potter countered, "Ethical. It´s no better than what Riddle and Malfoy were trying to do. You can´t give him the Kiss because he might commit a crime some day. You have to take your chances on him like everyone else, and hope for the best."

"I know that there is truth in what you say, Harry," Dumbledore sighed. "Yet how can I be responsible for what might happen?"

No one said anything for a very long moment, and then Draco asked sweetly, "Why should you be responsible for it, Professor? Shouldn´t responsibility fall to the Ministry? Isn´t this meant to be a democracy? As far as I can see you don´t operate any differently than Voldemort did. We were supposed to be able to trust you. We gave you our lives and you threw them away; you all of you treated us like trash--it´s no wonder that Slytherins go bad. You get what you expect!"

"Mr. Malfoy! Not another word from you, or I´ll turn you into a horse and use you to pull my carriage!" Draco shrunk down in his seat at Atkinson´s words. He was tired, tired of all of this, and he wanted suddenly to fly away, to fly into the sun until his wings gave out and he fell forever.

"If we don´t give him the Kiss, what can we do with him?" Granger was asking. "We dare not put him in Azkaban and we cannot let him go free."

"As to that..." Heads turned as Sirius Black spoke for the first time in hours. "I have an idea. If you´ll permit me to summon a few colleagues?" He strode to the door, put two fingers in his mouth, and gave an enormous whistle. A moment later two men and a woman appeared in the corridor. Draco, having grown unused to casual magic, was startled until he realized they must have Apparated at Black´s signal.

The man was Charlie Weasley. Potter stood, clearly expecting trouble, and Draco sank further down in his seat. "The Minister for Sport, everyone," the woman, an aide of some sort, announced cheerfully and withdrew. That left Weasley and the chunky older man. Draco felt a twinge in his ribs, but he knew quite well that this Weasley was above such things. If Charlie Weasley wanted him dead he would die.

"Ladies and Gentlemen," Weasley began. "I would like to introduce Terry Jamieson, coach of the British National Quidditch team. Terry has a proposal for the Council."

Jamieson, clearly unused to public speaking that did not involve screaming obscenities at players, looked a little bit lost. "I, we, that is, England has, the World Cup is in a month, and we haven´t got a Seeker for the team. I´ll be damned, er, dashed, if I know where we´re going to get one now. So I, we, were wondering if you could spare Malfoy to play for the team, put off his execution for a while is all. You could still take his wand and keep him you know cuffed or whatever."

"But--." Potter looked like a child that had just seen a bowl of candy snatched away.

"Yes!" Granger´s voice was excited. "Harry, it could work! He could stay in your flat, you´ve got a spare bedroom! Oh, that would be perfect!"

Black, visibly amused, cautioned her to slow down, but Draco could see that the proposal was finding favor. He turned his most charming smile on Atkinson and Sturbridge, doing his best to project innocence and altruism. Look at me, he thought, Draco Malfoy, who needs a second chance desperately, if some one would only have faith--."

"After all," Atkinson said obligingly, "We do always seem to get what we expect. Perhaps if we had more faith, we would be rewarded." Thank you, Draco thought, bless all liberals for their willingness to be kind when the cost is unclear.

Sturbridge nodded solemnly. "If we take suitable precautions, I do not see why we should not take advantage of Mr. Malfoy´s skills. He can always be given the Kiss when he is no longer of use. What do you think, Professor?"

Dumbledore´s shoulders sagged. "Perhaps," he said at last. "If Mr. Potter is agreeable than perhaps something could be arranged. Yet this does not mitigate the danger waiting in the future." You owe me, Draco thought very hard at him, willing his eyes to widen in delight. It was not the same without magic, but Dumbledore was bending. And Potter--Potter wanted Draco´s body, and what was a few nights work compared to an opportunity like this one. He had dreamed, once, of playing Quidditch for England.

"Yes," Potter said reluctantly. "I agree."