Empty Chairs at Empty Tables

EMPTY CHAIRS AT EMPTY TABLES

He offered her an orgy in a many mirrored room
He promised her protection for the issue of her womb
She moved her body hard against a sharpened metal spoon
She stopped the bloody rituals of passage to the moon

--"Death of a Ladies' Man," Leonard Cohen

Thirteen

"Thirteen. Anyone know what thirteen means?" Draco asked. "The number thirteen? Come on, not one of you is Muggle born?" Timidly, a boy in the back raised a hand. "Yes," Draco said, glancing discreetly at the seating roster on the desk. "St. John Carmichael?"

And he stuttered, in addition to his unfortunate name. "B-b-bad luck?"

"Excellent!" Draco did his best to keep his impatience in check. He must have been successful; the boy gave him an enormous smile, revealing a mouth full of silver braces and red and gold rubber bands. It baffled him that Dumbledore made speeches about cruelty and unity and did not condemn this one's parents. Surely they must have known what they were doing to their son?

He wrote the number on the blackboard, checking it against his notes to be sure he'd not drawn it backward. "Thirteen. It means bad luck in a number of cultures; it can also mean new beginnings, and not only bad ones. Thirteen is a gateway. Anyone know any other numbers with magical or mystical significance? Some of you must have at least glanced at a book once or twice?"

Another hand, and a tentative voice calling out. "Seven?"

"Seven it is! Seven stands for perfection. This is Biblical as well, for those of you familiar with the Christian faith. Any others?"

"Six hundred and sixty six!" Not even a hand this time, but that was okay this first class.

"Right. But arithmancy deals only with numbers from one to ninety nine, so make that sixty-six. What does it symbolize?"

Several hands this time--that was an easy one. He picked a student at random. "Yes, you in the middle?"

"Voldemort!" Draco's generation had said He-Must-Not-Be-Named; his father might have answered Grindelwald. Or not, given Lucius' propensities. Lucius would have been more likely to give Dumbledore's name. These students were respectful of the old man, but they did not revere him the way Draco's classmates had--the way Potter and company had.

He took the stack of papers from the desk and divided them, passing a stack to each row of children. "This parchment contains arithmantical definitions for the numbers one to ninety-nine; you will be expected to have memorized these definitions by the end of term. Every year one person loses his or her paper and I urge each of you to take precautions not to be that person. There will be no second chances. Now, I will need a volunteer--." A dozen hands went up. He looked down at the seating chart. "Willard Weasley."

The boy who bounced to the front of the room was the image of Ron at his age; Draco suppressed a surge of dislike. Ron really had been a horrible child. This must be Fred's son--he was too old to belong to any of the others. His eyes were, perhaps, a shade closer together; other than that he showed no hint of his mother's heritage. Draco had always suspected the twins at least had reproduced asexually.

"Willard? Or do you go by Will?"

"Bill," he answered, shifting from foot to foot. This was the second Weasel Draco had taught and he'd found they were generally almost pathetically grateful for attention.

"Bill, do you have a question you want answered?" It would be easy--desperately easy--to humiliate the kid there and then; Draco resisted the temptation, knowing that no one, even a Weasley, deserved to be punished solely for heritage. If the kid turned out to be too much like Fred (possibly George, now Draco thought about it) it would be easy enough to destroy him later on. If not...if not, there was a possibility he could be useful.

Bill, clearly, was at a loss. In the end he asked, "Will I fail arithmancy?"

Draco laughed and after a moment the other students did too. "We hardly need to calculate that, I'm afraid," and Bill grinned at him. At least the boy was a better sport than his father.

"Okay," Draco continued. "We need to pick a number to represent Bill. There are a couple of choices here, and it isn't significant which you choose, only that you understand how and why you've made your choice. Now, Bill, for himself, will always pick the number one. Same goes for each of you; if you're asking a question regarding your own destiny, you as the querent are represented by one. I, on the other hand, might choose ninety--the student, or even seventy-nine, the fool. You might choose sixty-four if Bill is your friend--it means ally--or twenty six, the flame, if you know Bill well enough to make judgments about his temper. For today, we'll take ninety.

"This is a very simple question--it can be answered by a yes or no. Therefore we will need only a simple equation to solve it. Bill plus arithmancy will equal what? How would you all define arithmancy?"

A chubby girl in the front row called out, "Prophecy," and Draco smiled. These kids were so predictable he might as well be feeding them the lines.

"Not prophecy, exactly," he replied. "There are no mysteries solved by arithmancy. All it does is spell out for you what you already know. So arithmancy can be defined as knowledge, thirty-six, or truth, forty. I generally use forty. So, ninety plus forty equals?" He wrote it on the board. 90+40=130
"One hundred thirty. But arithmantical definitions go up to ninety-nine. Fortunately, this is an easy situation to rectify. Only the first two numbers are significant. Therefore, the answer to Bill's question is our old friend thirteen. Arithmancy is a gateway for him; he'll have bad luck if he fails at it, but if he succeeds it will open up a whole new set of options for him." He glanced at the clock. "Thank you, Bill for volunteering. Time's just about up for today. Next class on Tuesday, and I expect you to have memorized the definitions for one, thirteen, twenty-four, twenty-six, thirty-six, forty, sixty-six, seventy-nine and ninety."

When the last of the students had gone he locked the door and began to erase the board. The voice from the general direction of his desk took him by surprise even though he had been half expecting it. "So arithmancy's bloody useless, then?" Potter asked, pushing back the chair and standing up, letting the invisibility cloak fall to the floor.

"Don't swear or I'll have to keep you after," Draco answered.

"Ooh, Professor Malfoy. I'll miss Quidditch practice. Wouldn't you rather just spank me?"

"I might, at that." Draco moved to pin him against the desk, already half hard at the thought. He kissed Potter roughly and thoroughly, and when they were both out of breath stopped for a quick feel.

"It's a good thing we didn't have masters like you when we were at school," Potter said, his voice dripping with false indignation. "I'd never have learned anything."

"You didn't learn anything anyway," Draco pointed out, pushed his hips against Potter's.

"Stop it," Potter protested a little regretfully. "We're going to be late for dinner at Hermione's as it is. You know she likes to eat early these days."

"I'll be done in a moment," Draco said hopefully, "you just stand there and don't move."

"Nice try." Potter pulled away, moving to unlock the doorway. They walked slowly, shoulder to shoulder, through the school and toward the front gates. There was something pleasant about being so well matched; no need for one of them to adjust his stride to the other's, and no need to bend one's head to kiss the other. Sometimes Draco felt as if Potter were part of himself, the other side of a coin he had been trying his whole life to see. Sometimes, of course, he felt exactly the opposite.

On the quidditch pitch the first year students were having their first flying lesson. Draco glanced over at them and nearly had a coronary; the student nearest them was small, pale, blond and looking curiously their way, damn him. And Potter, of course, was looking back, and if the situation had not been so desperate Draco might have laughed at his stricken expression. It answered a question Draco had been afraid to ask for three years and more.

"Malfoy," Potter demanded as they drew clear of the children. "That boy--." Draco lifted an eyebrow, and lit himself a cigarette, buying them both time.

"That boy is enough like you to be your son!"

They were through the gates. Draco took a last drag from the cigarette and said quietly, "Harry, he is my son." And Apparated. He landed, stumbling, in the hallway of Hermione's apartment building just outside the door of the flat she shared with Ron. Potter, a second behind him, caught him by the shoulders and threw him against the wall.

"Don't lie to me, Malfoy," he panted. "You don't have any sons! Three daughters, that's what you have. And none of them is--none of them--. What in hell do you mean, he's your son! Eleven--twelve years ago you weren't even in this country. Twelve years ago you were in Russia--. He's her son, then? Your Russian mistress's son? But Draco, why didn't you tell me?"

The door to Hermione's flat swung open and a tiny blond head poked out. A head as fair as the boy at Hogwarts had, as fair as Draco's own. Draco said gently, "Potter, we cannot have this conversation here. We'll have a nice dinner, all right, and go home." And, to his daughter, "Rain, darling, how have you been?"

Rain squinted gravely up at him. "You're late," she announced. "Have you been fighting?"

"No," Draco lied. "Are you going to let us in? Your Uncle Harry's not feeling very well."

"He's not my uncle," Rain answered, and slammed the heavy door in his face. She was fast, for a child her age; by the time Draco had caught the doorknob it was too late to stop the door closing. It clicked and locked with a jerk that nearly dislocated his shoulder. Regretfully Draco let go the knob and turned to face Potter. Out of the mouth of babes indeed.

Before either of them could think of anything to say the door swung open again. "Sorry," the Weasel said with a trace of a smirk. "Were you two in the middle of something?"

"No," Draco answered, and Harry shook his head vehemently.

"Well then." Ron stepped back to let them in. "I'm sorry about Rain, Hermione's been teaching her not to talk to strange people or something and I think she's found it a bit confusing." He was smiling as he said, though; he could not have loved a child of his own blood any more than he loved Rain. Hermione, Draco rather thought he still had doubts about.

"Harry, Draco, come in. You're late; you must know we eat early so that Rain can join us."

The trouble with Hermione, Draco thought, was that she had no sense of humor at all. He handed her the loaf of bread Harry'd bought and pressed a kiss in the general direction of her cheek. "You look well," he lied, not bothering to keep the insincerity out of his voice. The Mudblood had gained weight and her eyes were puffy and dark. The Ministry officials were under tremendous pressure; Hermione more than most. She'd managed to push through Dumbledore's Muggle Reconciliation Bill, and in doing so had lost the trust of the people. The shadow government was trying to force an election; if they managed it she would almost certainly lose her job. She deserved to.

He was taking his bad temper out on Hermione because he was worried about Harry. More importantly he was doing it in front of Rain, who despite being a spoiled brat was still his daughter and Hermione's. Draco put on his most pleasant smile--after all his own father had been a politician, it was in his blood--and said, "Introduce us to your guests, Hermione."

She stepped back, with a smile that didn't reach her eyes, and Draco remembered that while she might not be the most sensitive girl in the world, she was smart enough to recognize tension when she felt it. "Of course, Draco. You remember Fred and Angelina, don't you? They were ahead of us at Hogwarts. Angelina works for the Foreign Service, they only get leave every five years, it's brutal isn't it?" Draco shook the woman's hand and exchanged nods with Fred Weasley. He was not sure whether to worry more about being beat into a pulp, or about the Johnson-Weasleys mentioning Russia.

Fortunately, Angelina seemed capable of carrying the conversation by herself. Draco took a glass of mediocre red wine from Hermione, helped himself to some cheese and crackers, and sat on the edge of the couch beside Potter. He avoided meeting anyone's eyes, kept his leg from touching Potter's, and watched Rain smear pâte on the rug, the cat, and herself. She really was terribly spoilt, he thought; his own parents would never have let a three-year old stay up for dinner with company. Hermione fancied herself an intellectual, despite her plush government job--but thinking about Rain led him back, inexorably, to Alexander.

Alexander, conceived in Russia in the snow all those years ago, the child of his exile. Draco had left Moscow the day Iliana had come to him, face glowing, to tell him of her pregnancy. Draco had left her because he did not want a child, because he was afraid that the Aurors were closing in, because the longer he stayed the harder it got to leave. He had left her and the unborn baby and he had not thought of either of them again until the day he saw Violet Devonshire's Peerage, and the name Alexander Ivanovitch.

It had not occurred to him, then, that Potter did not know of the boy's existence. It had not occurred to him that it would matter, because he had never meant what he had with Potter to be permanent. When his daughters had been born, one after the other and all of them fair, Potter had made rude remarks about his manhood and Draco had ignored him. It had not been necessary to defend himself, not then. Somewhere along the line it had started to matter to him what Potter thought, sometime in the last three years. It had not happened all at once, but it had caught him unaware.

Once he could have told Potter about Alexander quite easily; yesterday when he had seen the boy for the first time, and realized who he must be, he had been quite unable to. How do you admit to your lover that you abandoned your child? That in eleven years you have not spared him a single thought? What kind of man leaves his only son to be brought up by Muggles, and in a foreign country? There were no words to explain such a sin, not to Potter. Potter still believed in families. Sacha Ivanovitch, and the Hogwarts Sorting Hat had put him in Slytherin, because it knew a Malfoy when it saw one. His son, and Draco hated him for what he was going to do to his relationship with Potter.

Dinner was interminable (usually the case at Hermione's) and Ron and Draco snuck off to the roof for a quick cigarette. Ron produced some marijuana, but Draco turned him down a little regretfully. It would have helped his nerves, but he would need to be sharp to talk Potter 'round. He leaned against the railing and stared moodily down at the sidewalk.

"What's wrong with you and Harry?" Ron asked. "I haven't seen you two like this in a long time. I thought you never fought any more."

Draco put on his best Harry Potter, Boy Hero, voice. "Oh heavens, yes, Ronald Harry and myself are just two ordinary blokes after all. Nothing special." But it never did to forget that Ron had been Potter's friend twenty years before he'd ever spoken to Draco. "Merlin, Ron, I don't know; it's the same old story, really. He expects so much from me, and I want to be the person he thinks I am. And I can't be."

"You know what they say. You can take the DeathEater away from the Devil, but you can't take the Devil out of the DeathEater. Or something like that. If it's any consolation, Dray, I've always thought Harry would be terrible to live with. He's like my father, you know? Everything is either black or white." He threw the end of the joint down into the street, and waved to the old lady with the umbrella who scowled up at him. "The older I get, the more I appreciate shades of gray."

Draco laughed. "My father was like that too," he admitted. " 'If they do not stand with us, Draco, they stand against us!' He could never see that he didn't have to fight with Voldemort to fight against the Muggles."

"That whole thing is kind of scary, isn't it," Ron sighed. "I keep hoping Hermione knows what she's doing..."

"Don't we all," Draco answered, a little sadly. He watched the other man fumbling for a cigarette. Ron was only thirty-four, young for a pure-blooded wizard, but in the moonlight he looked much older. There was a curious innocence clinging to him still, despite the darkness in his eyes. It was funny; often they discounted Ron altogether. It was so easy to forget that he had the best mind of all them, that often he was the most perceptive. "What do you think will happen?" he asked.

Ron lit the cigarette with a flick of his wand. Ignoring Draco's question, he asked softly, "What did you want to be when you grew up, Draco? I wanted to play Quidditch for the Cannons, and after that I wanted to be an Auror."

Draco hated to play Let's Pretend, but there was something about the night, the warmth of Indian summer, that made him go along. "I wanted to fly Muggle planes," he answered. "When I was seven or so. And I wanted to be a pop star. And after that--after that, I wanted to be Voldemort's second-in-command."

"It's funny, isn't it, how some people's dreams have a way of coming true," Ron said pensively. "How you dreamed of glory on a white horse under a black flag and Harry dreamed of Voldemort dying and I dreamed of marrying Hermione, and she dreamed of being Minister of Magic, and it all came true? What Dumbledore wanted--it was beautiful in theory, but I don't think he'll like it much once it comes true."

"Your brother, Fred? His wife'll be posted abroad again?"

Ron nodded. "Why?"

Draco turned away. "I have a feeling," he said very quietly, "that it will be good to have friends in foreign countries soon. Friends with--contacts--in the Muggle world. Friends who're not unfamiliar with methods of making people disappear."

Ron said, lightly enough, "It's always good to have friends like that, I think." But Draco had seen his face change, and knew he understood. He would remember, and if things went badly, he would be prepared.

You saved the ones you could--that was what Draco remembered from the war. You saved the ones you could, and tried not to feel too guilty about the rest. You tried not to remember that Greg had wanted to be an Auror, too, or that Blaise had picked out names for her children, or that Pansy had dreamed of doing research on Muggles. You tried not to remember that while you did your best to get your own family and friends clear, there were a thousand and one families for whom the storm would break without warning.

He followed Ron back down to the living room. Hermione and Angelina Johnson-Weasley were arguing loudly about isolationism and the wizarding world while Potter and Fred looked on bemusedly. Draco slipped quietly into the room and sat down on the sofa, so close to Potter that their arms touched. Potter turned to him and smiled, that rare, sweet smile that Draco loved, and turned it unconvincingly into a frown as he remembered he was meant to be mad. Hermione paused to shoot Ron an evil glare (she hated him smoking because she felt he was a bad influence on Rain) and Fred took the opportunity to pull Angelina toward the door.

After that, the party broke up quickly. Rain was curled, asleep, on the hearth rug. Ron scooped her up and Draco bent to kiss her good night, having learned long ago that it was no use objecting she was sticky. She took after him and not her mother, but thankfully she was far prettier than he had been, a fragile, steel-willed little monster with the face of an angel. She was spoiled and rotten and loved, sure of herself the way none of them had ever been. It made him wonder about Alexander--Sacha--growing up without a father and unaware of his heritage. Had he been so confident, so young? But what would his life have been like, if his mother had come to England twelve years ago, pregnant with a war criminal's child? Surely his life had better in Russia, and surely Potter would believe that. Even twelve years of distance had not made Draco popular; he knew that he wore his reputation like an albatross around his neck. He was a killer, a traitor, and a sodomite, and worse he'd dragged Harry Potter down to his own level.

Silently, side by side, Draco and Potter walked home. It was not very far: perhaps six of the city blocks Muggles used to measure distance. It still made Draco laugh (although it would have cruel as well as imprudent to have said so), that they were so close to living Potter's dream. A cozy flat up the street from his married best friends, a child that belonged to all of them, a plush job with all the advantages. And, of course, Draco in his bed.

Though he'd been at Hogwarts only three days the flat was already a tip. Draco threw the armload of books from Hermione on the couch and willed the candles lit. It was warm for September, a comfortable, dry heat unexpected for England. In the golden starlit glow Potter watched him, and his eyes were the dark angry green of the sea in a storm. "Why, Malfoy?" he asked, the first words he'd spoken to Draco in hours. "Why didn't you just tell me? I don't blame you for it! You did what you had to, to survive, and anyway it was years before I had any claim on you at all."

From there, of course, it went steadily downhill. They spent the night screaming at the top of their lungs; Draco broke all the glass in the apartment and Potter turned it into sand. Draco threw all of Potter's clothes into the fireplace and Potter threw Draco's books out the open window into the street. They screamed accusations and nasty names until the upstairs neighbors came down and joined in and the downstairs neighbors summoned the police. They put up a silencing charm and continued until their voices were gone.

Finally, just before dawn, there was nothing else to do but tell the truth. "I don't know," Draco said hoarsely, all his fancy logic deserting him. "I really don't. Merlin, Potter, haven't you ever done anything stupid before? It wasn't because I don't trust you. It wasn't because I don't respect you. I just--I didn't--I don't. I mean, I do, of course I do." He hated being wrong. He hated being in the wrong, and this would have been so easy to avoid. Sometimes he thought he was his own worst enemy. "I wanted you to be proud of me," he said at last, looking up at Potter through his lashes. And when had Potter become a substitute for Lucius Malfoy?

It didn't matter, because Potter had fallen for it. Hook, line, and sinker. Draco couldn't decide whether he felt more guilty or pleased. But it occurred to him that if Potter had been displeased about his secrecy regarding Alexander--a matter that, realistically, was none of his business--he was going to go ballistic when he found out about the Order of the Phoenix.

A.N. This is the beginning of the third and final arc of the story (roughly divided into past, present, and future). As such, it begins in the future--roughly three years after Draco's return to exile. Thank you to everyone who reviewed; I'm sorry I'm not quicker getting chapters out. *Ishafel