Black Sheep

Chapter Three
In Which A Sacrifice Is Made

HARRY CHOKED ON THE CHEESE and bread, which suddenly felt like ashes in his mouth. He forced himself to swallow them and then wasted several moments running his tongue over his teeth. Finally he asked, "Do you really need to know?"

Malfoy turned those bright grey eyes on him and said simply, "Well, yes." He cocked his head to the side and reminded Harry, "After all, I got you the horcrux, didn't I? And sacrificed myself for it."

Harry winced, not wanting to remember that night, not wanting to remember how Malfoy had screamed... He was only momentarily drawn away from the memory by the present Malfoy telling him calmly, "I should think that my sacrifices rather entitle me to hear what happened afterwards."

Harry cursed to himself. This was exactly what he had hoped to avoid by getting rid of the other man. He swallowed uncomfortably and continued to stare fixedly at the hills opposite them. He whispered woodenly, "Couldn't you just forget it all?"

Draco half-smiled and replied unhesitatingly, "No, you'll find that I really couldn't. Not that."

It had been nearly a year after Dumbledore's death when Draco Malfoy had suddenly shown up, bedraggled and alone, before Harry. Although 'shown up before Harry' was perhaps not as accurate as saying that he had in fact 'snuck up on, accosted and stupefied Harry'. Harry had been furious when he had been ennervated and found himself bound to a chair and wandless before a desperate-looking Malfoy.

"You bastard, Malfoy," he'd spat into the pale, drawn face. "What the hell do you think you're do-" He rather unwillingly broke off, as suddenly no sound was coming from his moving mouth. The ragged-looking blond was gripping his wand with a shaking hand, his knuckles white. There was something crazed and desperate in those grey eyes and Harry was disgusted to realize that he was reminded of Sirius.

"Here's what the hell I think I am doing, Potter. I am helping you."

That would have shocked Harry into silence if the Silencing spell hadn't already done the trick. Malfoy almost managed a tight smirk when he saw Harry's expression, but it quickly disappeared in his grim face. "This is last thing Severus Snape told me to do before he..." the boy's voice faded to almost nothing and he swallowed hard. "He told me to find you. And then to take you to the horcrux."

Harry might have thought that he couldn't be more shocked, but that last bombshell blew out any synapses that might have still been flickering weakly in his brain.

Snape...

...the traitor, Snape...

...knew about the horcruxes?

They were all fucked.

As Malfoy removed the Silencing spell, one half of Harry's mind was already hatching ways of blocking Voldemort before he could make a move. But then the other half of his mind caught up and said reasonably, Look, here's Malfoy. Malfoy knows where a horcrux is. He narrowed his eyes up at his captor and started talking. "What horcrux is that, then?" They'd already gotten back the real locket and the snake and Hufflepuff's cup. But Harry had no leads on the last horcrux. Could Malfoy really take him to it?

The blond glared hatefully but revealed what he knew, "It's the last horcrux of course. Something of Ravenclaw's, as you should know."

"Do you understand what a horcrux is?"

Malfoy looked away, his usually light grey eyes suddenly dark. "Yes, Potter, perhaps even better than you yourself do. They are pieces of the soul."

The Death Eater really did know what he was talking about. If this was all a trick on Voldemort's part, would he have trusted the boy enough to reveal the truth about his 'immortality'? Harry chewed on his lip for a moment, then asked, "How do you know about the horcrux?"

"Snape told me."

"Yes, but how did Snape know?"

Malfoy's eyes back to meet Harry's and they were full of some unreadable emotion. He said flatly, "Dumbledore told him about them. Just before you two left to try to collect Slytherin's locket."

"He would never," Harry snarled, straining against the magical bonds that held him to his chair. But then how would Malfoy know? Harry hadn't told anyone but Ron and Hermione about the locket. He'd refused McGonagall; he'd refused the Ministry of Magic, even. How would Malfoy have found out where they'd gone, unless Dumbledore really had...

"Why did you trust him?" he muttered, as if Dumbledore could still hear him. "Why tell him about the horcruxes?"

Surprisingly, Draco seemed just as infuriated as Harry had moments before. It was his turn to spit angrily at the other boy, "You have no idea what Snape went through or just how much he gave up for Dumbledore. And you'll never be able to understand." He gripped his wand threateningly and seemed barely able to keep from striking out at the Gryffindor. "You biased piece of shit. You'll never see what he did for you. What he did for me. For all of us."

Harry was speechless. And not because of a spell this time. Where had this come from? He refused to accept it and growled, "Oh, yes, he did loads for me. Like when he murdered my mentor and threw him off the astronomy tower!"

"He only did what he promised to do! You weren't there - you couldn't understand how much it hurt-" Malfoy stopped and bit down hard on his lower lip.

But Harry remembered. Remembered how Dumbledore had pleaded. He said flatly, "You're wrong. Dumbledore begged Snape. Begged him to spare his life."

Draco looked at him like he was an idiot. "Dumbledore beg for his life? I didn't like the old man, but even I know he'd never do that. I don't know where you heard about it from, but he was begging Snape to kill him."

"No. No, that wasn't how it happened," Harry practically shouted at the other boy. It had been over ten months, but the pain and the betrayal hadn't faded at all. He'd been begging Snape. Begging just like he begged you, a cool voice in his mind reminded him. Just like he begged you to kill him.

His eyes filled with painfully burning tears and Harry had to stare up at the ceiling to stop them from overflowing. He whispered what he'd always half-known, "He was dying."

"Yes."

Harry bit his teeth together so hard that it hurt. He wanted to hit something. Or himself. "It was my fault - because he drank that potion..."

Draco looked at the Gryffindor with something like... well, it couldn't have been pity. Perhaps understanding - as if he could understand what it meant to have your mentor die for you. He explained rationally, "This is only what Snape told me. Even if he had found an antidote for whatever it was Dumbledore drank, the old man was still dying. That curse in his wand hand. The one that made it all black and shrivelled. Well, it was spreading, Potter. Whether that night or another weeks or months from it, Dumbledore was going to die."

Harry didn't want to hear these rational explanations from Malfoy of all people and he spat wretchedly, "Why didn't you just kill him, then? When you had the chance."

"Well, obviously I didn't know all this at the time, genius," he scoffed and turned away to address the wall. "Honestly, this can't be worth it. I should've just gone to get the bloody horcrux on my own."

Still bound to his chair, Harry was shaking his head. "I don't believe this. I won't believe any of it." He glared at Malfoy a bit madly and told the blond, "You might as well put me back where you found me, because I won't go with you. This is just one of Voldemort's traps."

Malfoy was giving him the idiot look again. He said incredulously, "Hello, Potter? Is there anything in that scarred head of yours? If this was a trap for Voldemort to get you, why on Salazar's green earth would I take you traipsing out and about to get the horcrux? Voldemort would be here and you'd already be dead, if that were the case. The fact that you are alive means that this is quite patently not one of moldy Voldie's plans."

"Aren't you being a bit light-hearted about your master?" Harry sneered at the Death Eater.

"Well, as I see it, Snape is off getting tortured and murdered as we speak and I'll be next up on the menu, so I'm not too worried about titles at the moment."

"But... your family..." Harry broke off, embarrassed to allow Malfoy some human feeling, but then finished what he was saying, "I thought you were trying to protect your family."

Draco's lips twisted into something painful and he gripped his left arm, where the Dark Mark was burning under his shirt. "Yes, and I would still be playing Voldie's lapdog if there were anything left to protect. But they are all long gone, Potter. Glad to see that you've kept up on current affairs."

He smiled bitterly. "It was just me and Snape." His eyes hardened on Harry. "And now it's just me and you."

Harry tore his eyes away and stared at his lap. He wished Hermione and Ron were with him. Not that they'd be any help, the way they were now. He tried to get off the subject of Dumbledore and back onto what was truly important: the horcrux. He said softly, "So what do you know about the horcrux?"

Malfoy struggled for a moment, but forced himself under control as well. He replied dully, "It's an item of Ravenclaw's. An ancient model of the solar system." The blond seemed to warm for a moment as he amended, "Well, not the solar system, actually, since we were still using a geocentric model back then. It shows the Ptolemaic system, rather, with the earth at the center. Arranged around the Earth are her Moon, Mercury, Venus, the Sun, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn and the fixed stars." He shrugged and said, "If the descriptions that we've found of the artefact are accurate, that is."

The description didn't mean a lot to Harry, but he did remember something from his school days about how it used to be believed that the earth was the center of the universe, not the sun. The important thing wasn't what the bloody thing looked like, though, rather where it was and how to destroy it. "Are you sure that it's the horcrux?"

"Quite so. Snape and I spent the last several months researching it."

Harry had to ask, "Why?"

Malfoy shrugged and there was a hint of a mocking gleam in his eye as he explained, "Snape figured that you and your little gang would be able to sort out the other horcruxes well enough, since Dumbledore practically handed them to you. But he thought this last one would be beyond your feeble powers of deduction and so took it upon himself - and me, really - to find it for you."

"And you know where it is?"

The blond boy had been relaxing slightly into the conversation but now he looked uncomfortable again. He hedged around his answer. "Well, yes. In a manner of speaking."

Harry glared at the other boy and said coldly, "What does that mean?"

Draco glared back at him unhappily and admitted, "Well, we don't have a precise location, but we know what building it is located in. Or possibly the grounds around the building."

Giving the young Death Eater a withering look, Harry asked flatly, "Just how big is this building?"

"Erm..."

"Not a good answer, Malfoy."

"Well... It's an orphanage."

Harry started. An orphanage? Could it be the one he had visited with Dumbledore, in the pensieve? But where else would it be? All the horcruxes were located in places where something significant had happened to Tom Riddle. What could be more significant than first discovering that he was a wizard, that he was special? He looking measuringly at Malfoy for a moment and then told him, "I think I know where it might be." He thought he could still remember the path that he and Dumbledore had taken, up to the small room where Tom had stayed.

Sliding his wand between his fingers, Draco stared critically at the dark-haired boy. "Do you now? Well, I suppose there's no sense in prolonging this partnership then. Let's get the damned horcrux." He waited for a moment, expecting the other boy to say something. When Harry just nodded grimly, he couldn't help asking, "That's it? No more accusations of this being a trap? Not even a request for your Muggle-loving cronies?"

Where his arms were tied behind his back, Harry's fingers twitched angrily but he spoke with flat detachment. "I think we established the likelihood of this being a trap already. And Ron and Hermione... would be little help." His breath caught slightly for a moment. "They aren't who they once were."

Draco chose to ignore the annoyingly cryptic statement and instead waved his wand at Harry, releasing the bonds that held the him. Harry rubbed his aching wrists and asked simply, "My wand?" Draco drew it from his pocket and tossed it back to its owner.

"We should be able to apparate there," Draco explained briskly. "There oughtn't be any anti-apparition wards, since it is a Muggle area, but just in case, we're going to aim for a nearby shop. The shop name is Madame Tuffertop's Tea Shop and it's abandoned. That's our destination."

Harry looked down at his well-worn wand. He didn't want to have to tell Malfoy that he wasn't sure he could apparate to an unknown location. It was of course part of the apparition test, but he hadn't taken the test, had he? He swallowed uncomfortably and Malfoy seemed to notice. Once again, the Death Eater didn't choose to embarrass him, but explained in a flat tone, "All you have to do is think of the location. Madame Tuffertop's Tea Shop in London. Just repeat it to yourself and the magic should do the rest for you."

Harry felt a distinctly uncomfortable gratitude and quickly turned on the spot and apparated. MadameTuffertop'sTeaShopMadameTuffertop'sTeaShopMadameTuffertop's- He landed on a hard surface and stumbled. Prying his eyes open, he found himself inside of what looked very much like an abandoned shop. The air was thick with dust and the room was echoingly empty. Shafts of afternoon light filtered through the boarded-over windows. A moment later, Draco apparated in next to him.

The blond went into a coughing fit, after sucking in a lungful of dust, and when it finally subsided, he looked around himself in distaste. Muttering to himself, "Disgusting," he walked past Harry and wrenched the front door open. Peering around the frame cautiously, he apparently didn't see any cause to worry, as he gestured for Harry to follow him. They stepped out into a mostly empty road and headed away from the little muggle shop, barely glancing behind themselves.

There was no conversation between the two boys as they walked along the side of the lonely road. Both were tense and jumpy, constantly looking around at some real or imagined sound. And they looked at each other mistrustfully even more constantly. The tension between them grew as each held on tightly to his own wand and just before they might have drawn those wands on each other, a bleak grey building loomed into view. The orphanage.

They stopped short of it, crouching amongst the hedges in the garden. Harry asked softly, "So how do we get in unnoticed?"

Draco pointed out, "You're the one who supposedly knows where we are going. Will we be noticed wherever that is?"

"Yes," Harry said firmly, "We'll have to pass through the main entrance and several main halls and stairways."

The blond thought about it for a while and Harry was happy to let him. Figuring out these aspects of the plan had always been Hermione's job. After Hermione had been put out of service, it had fallen to Ron - which might explain why their last mission had been gone so horrifically awry. Clever spells were neither boy's strong point.

"Invisibility probably won't be much use," Draco spoke suddenly, interrupting Harry's reverie. "There's too much chance that we would bump into someone and cause a commotion."

"But do we care if we cause a commotion?" Harry asked seriously. "Couldn't we just run in there, grab the thing and run out? They'd probably just think it some prank."

But Draco was shaking his head. "If we were absolutely certain on where the horcrux was, that might be an option. But what if we're wrong? We won't be able to search effectively if we're being chased and set upon." Harry thought he should be mad for some reason, but rather found himself listening to the Malfoy's cool logic. "We need stealth, not speed."

Harry shrugged, since his only ideas had been limited to dashing in wildly or summoning his old invisibility cloak. Stealth was not often his forte. Malfoy continued to think about the problem, murmuring to himself. Harry half-listened to the oddly familiar voice going through ideas and then crossing them off. If this worked, he realized, he would have the last horcrux. After he destroyed it, the only thing left would be Voldemort himself. Was the dark lord getting any weaker as the pieces of his soul were destroyed? Had Harry gotten stronger since the last time they had fought, in the Department of Mysteries? Would he be able to beat him?

Draco's mumbles had stopped. He said to Harry, "We'll just have to weave a Confundus charm around ourselves. After all, we don't look that old. We'll just have to make the Muggles believe that we are part of the orphanage."

"Can you do that?" Harry asked frankly, before catching himself. He had no idea how to do such a thing.

Malfoy lips curled up into his first real smirk and he said, "Yes." He looked down at his pale wand and amended, "I think."

He pointed the wand at himself first and muttered an unfamiliar spell. Harry watched him critically. The blond didn't appear any different to him. But how should he know what the spell ought to do? Malfoy was turning the wand on him now and Harry stared straight into those unreadable grey eyes as the magic hit him.

He wriggled his fingers and toes. He was still alive. And functioning. Perhaps Malfoy really wasn't trying to kill him. Now the only question was whether the spell would do what Malfoy had hoped. Taking deep breaths almost in sync, the two boys looked at each and then headed up to the dreary building in front of them.

They walked up to the front door and Harry tried to recall the exact path he and Dumbledore had taken. Of course he hadn't been paying much attention at the time - he'd never imagined that he would have to come to this place in real life. But imagining the halls and corridors was helping keep him from hyperventilation. God, he hoped this worked.

Malfoy reached his thin hand out and wrapped it around the front door's handle. He pulled. It didn't move. Frowning briefly, the blond glanced at Harry and then decisively rapped his white knuckles smartly on the door. Nothing happened for several moments, but then the heavy black door slid back a few scant inches. A scared little white face peered around and appeared to jump when it saw the two teenaged boys.

"What are you two doing out?" the small boy hissed nervously, pulling the door open just enough for them to squeeze through it. "Oh, we're all going to be in trouble now. We're supposed to be at dinner, you know!" Draco and Harry looked at each other with the briefest shared smile. Dinner time. That meant everyone else should be in the dining hall and the two wizards should be undisturbed in their search.

Harry leaned over the orphan boy and whispered, "Don't worry. Just say you got sick and couldn't make it to dinner." He flicked his wand behind his back and felt a weight fall into his left hand.

Draco plucked it from his fingers and then pushed the huge sandwich into the boy's bony hands. "Here," he said in a surprisingly soft voice, "Eat it up in your room before anyone notices."

Staring at them for a moment with huge eyes, the boy quickly nodded and ran silently away. One obstacle was gone. Harry said quietly, "Spell's working."

Draco nodded. "Let's go."

Harry led the way, moving cautiously through half-remembered halls and narrow staircases. After only one close encounter, when the two boys had to duck into a closet to avoid a matron, they arrived at what Harry sincerely hoped was the right room. "This," he whispered unsurely, "should be the room where Tom Riddle stayed."

The death eater seemed to recognize the name and nodded again. Harry wondered if Snape had filled the boy in on Voldemort's history or if Malfoy had already known about it. He was never sure how widely Voldemort was known to be Tom Riddle.

Trying to stop his mind from these tangents, Harry brought himself fully into the present. He had no idea what they would find behind the door but he had no choice but to turn the handle and push it open. It was almost a disappointment when the door opened with no resistance and revealed a dusty, unused room. There was a gaunt metal bedframe, with no mattress or bedding on it, against one wall. At the opposite side of the room was a wardrobe, which Harry still recognized, fifty years later, as the one that Dumbledore had enchanted. Everything was covered in dust and Harry hazarded, "I guess they don't use this room any longer."

"No," Malfoy agreed, immediately casting a silencing spell on the room, just in case, "I imagine they don't. Whatever protections there might be on the horcrux probably make this a distinctly uncomfortable room to stay in." He turned to Harry. "Where do you think it is?"

Harry didn't hesitate to nod towards the wardrobe. "That's where he kept all his collection. The things he stole from other children at the orphanage."

Draco moved towards the piece of furniture consideringly. He reached out and let his fingers graze the wood with an impossibly brief touch, but nothing popped out or went through him. Emboldened, he actually grasped the knob next and tried to pull it open. The wardrobe's doors wouldn't budge. He gave an interested hum and said, "I think you might be on to something, Potter." He ran his fingers over the wardrobe curiously and continued, "I would guess that no one's been able to open this wardrobe for years. Probably twenty years or more. "

"Wouldn't they just try to smash it then? Or move it?" Harry asked.

Draco gave another little half-smirk and suggested lightly, "Try it for me, won't you?"

After that, Harry really wanted to not try it, but he stepped up to the wardrobe. He glanced around and found an old broken pencil on the floor. He picked it up and transfigured it into a heavy sledgehammer, with which he wasted no time. He swung it around at the flimsy-looking wardrobe and when it struck with a heavy thud, it sent him reeling backwards. There was not a dent on the thin wood, though.

"I think that's enough demonstration. Though I'd love to see you try to move it as well, we're wasting time." He resumed his study of the ancient wardrobe. "We have to find a way in."

"Do you think there's a password?"

Malfoy was giving him that idiot look once again. Harry shut his mouth tightly. From behind the blond, he pointed his wand at the wardrobe and silently cast alohomora. Nothing happened. He stealthily slid his wand back into his pocket and waited for Malfoy to think of something.

The death eater walked around the wardrobe thoughtfully, flicking his wand at it from time to time and setting off little sparks. As he worked, he goaded Harry with, "How ever did you manage to get all the other horcruxes?"

"Well," Harry said retrospectively, "the first was an accident. I was twelve at the time. The second, Dumbledore took care of. The third and fourth, Hermione was around for. And the fifth... well, it was a great bloody snake. There weren't too many puzzles to solve there."

Malfoy stopped what he was doing to stare at Harry with something that made his previous 'you're-an-idiot' looks seem positively warm and fuzzy. "That was a rhetorical question, you know." He turned back toward the wardrobe and muttered as he waved his wand, "And you're going to save the world. Priceless. Bloody priceless." But then something gave a loud cracking sound and Malfoy's tone became brisk again. "I think that may have done it."

Harry stepped closer and they both reached out to yank the wardrobe's doors open. This time they gave way with surprising ease. Flung back, they revealed an innocuous-looking model of the solar system, which was silently spinning and rotating, still obviously buzzing with magic. Harry reached out to grab the fragile construction but Malfoy pulled him away with a sharp, "Wait." The blond was pointing his wand at the little model now and as he started waving his wand around again, he ground out, "I hardly imagine that old Voldie would have left it with so little protection. I'd guess that if you were to touch it, something decidedly unpleasant would happen."

"Oh. Right." Harry kept his hands to himself after that. He watched as once again Malfoy did mysterious things with his wand. Why did Malfoy know how to do this stuff when Harry didn't? Had he missed some class on magical code-breaking or something? He noticed the other boy frowning and asked quickly, "What is it? Did you figure it out?"

Waving Harry off distractedly, Malfoy continued to wave his wand around for several seconds. He stopped and looked down at his wand thoughtfully. Then he slipped it into his pocket and turned to Harry. "This is the last horcrux, right?"

Harry was puzzled but nodded. "Yes."

"After this, you'll go beat Voldie?"

"Well, that's the plan."

"Good," Malfoy said and then took a deep breath. "Make sure you kill him proper this time."

And then he reached out and picked up the spinning model by its base. As soon as his fingers touched the gold, he fell screaming to the ground, the model rolling away across the room. An instant later, Harry felt an incredible pain of his own, as Voldemort apparated into the room and seized the screaming blond. Apparently he had noticed his horcruxes being targeted. Harry stared wide-eyed for a moment and then dove for the last horcrux, ducking down to snatch it from the ground. He spun on his heel, already falling, and apparated away.