A Stranger Garden

Chapter 2

2008

"Andromeda? Are you there?" Harry called from the front door of Andromeda's home. The door had been open, but an uneven energy flowed from the house and he felt it lacked manners to just walk in as if he lived there, so he settled for calling out.

Several seconds later, a gangly, ten-year-old Teddy emerged from a side door and headed for Harry. He appeared sombre, sporting hair and robes black as midnight, his pale skin ghostly, looking painted against the darkness. He managed a smile for Harry, though it looked like his face had lost the battle with his manners and wasn't terribly pleased about it.

"Hello, Harry. Come in."

"Teddy," replied Harry warily. "Is something wrong?" he asked, but Teddy had already returned from whence he'd come. Frowning, Harry followed him, trying not to let Teddy's behaviour and the sudden tense, expectant atmosphere of the house concern him.

Andromeda stood and hugged Harry tightly when he walked into the room. "Harry. Good of you to come, we appreciate it."

"Er...you're welcome?" What was going on here? Harry wanted to ask, but Andromeda looked so relieved and pleased to see him that he didn't have the heart to disappoint her by revealing his ignorance.

"Bit hypocritical, though, don't you think?" Teddy said from his chair by the window.

Andromeda gasped. "Teddy, that's uncalled for!"

Teddy turned eyes flashing steel on to Harry. "I don't care. He never cared when Draco was alive, why is he daring to show his face at his memorial service?"

This was Malfoy's memorial service? Harry looked around. They were the only people in the room. It made him feel unaccountably sad that Malfoy had no one to mourn his death and it explained the cloud of despondency over the house.

"I-I'm sorry, I didn't realise this was his..." he trailed off. He'd actually only come over to see Teddy, having forgotten all about wanting to find out how Malfoy died.

Andromeda's face fell. "It's all right, Harry, we didn't expect anyone to come but we left the door open, just in case."

"I'd like to stay, if I may," Harry said, turning to look at Teddy. "I know how much he meant to you and I'm sorry you lost him."

Teddy's face crumpled and his hair suddenly turned pure white, reminiscent of Malfoy's, and sprouted to waist length. Teddy promptly hid his face behind it and only by the shaking of his thin shoulders could Harry tell that he was sobbing.

His heart going out to the small boy, and hearing Andromeda's distress, Harry gathered him up in his arms, just as he did to James when he was distraught over something. He wasn't sure if Teddy was as amenable to being comforted as James was, but he had to try something. It was hardly fair that Teddy had lost so many people close to him. He didn't remember his parents, obviously, and Harry had tried to make up for that by being involved in his life, but now it was clear that Teddy had lost someone he loved dearly. Ten-year-old boys were not known for emotional displays like this unless they were deeply affected.

After several moments where Harry was sure that Teddy was going to push him away, the boy gave an anguished sob and clung to Harry, buried his face in Harry's shoulder and cried. And Harry let him, hearing Andromeda's quiet sniffles behind him.

When Teddy settled a little, Andromeda began to talk.

"He was like a big brother to Teddy. The days we'd see him, Teddy could speak of nothing else for a long time afterwards. Draco would take him exploring the mansion, you see. They must have traipsed over that mausoleum a hundred times, playing hide and seek in the secret passages, riding broomsticks along carpeted halls so Teddy wouldn't hurt himself if he fell."

This prompted a fresh set of sobbing from Teddy and Harry patted his back while Andromeda paused for a moment.

"In the summer they'd swim in the lake and go boating, although the lake was only tiny and they couldn't go very far. Draco stocked the lake with several hundred fish and they'd spend hours fishing and talking. Draco never spoke down to Teddy." She sighed deeply. "I suppose it was because we were the only visitors he had, apart from a visit from the Ministry once a month to check on his progress, but he grew to love Teddy and Teddy loved him."

Teddy's small, strangled sounding voice continued. "I was going to show him my house and my lake and how we'd made up a special room for when he stayed here. Oh, Harry, why did he have to die?" Teddy's words set him off again and Harry's own tears stung his eyes in sympathy.

He'd had no especially charitable thoughts about Malfoy, though he had to admit he was surprised at the way he and Teddy had obviously bonded. There must have been some good in Malfoy after all. And these two people were bonded in grief over their Malfoy with only each other to turn to. No one else that Harry knew of cared about Malfoy one way or the other. He'd been out of the public eye for ten years, confined to his manor the way he was, no one cared any more. They'd forgotten about him.

Well, Harry could stay and listen to them talking about someone they cared about, even if he'd hated him back in school.

"I don't know, Ted, sometimes things are unfair like that." Harry led Teddy to the couch and sat down with him, arm still around his shoulder. Teddy returned his hair colour to black and shortened it again so that Harry could see his red, blotchy face, distorted against the black hair and robes, like he'd been in a fight rather than crying. "Can you tell me what happened?"

He could feel Teddy shaking his head, but he was looking at Andromeda anyway, hoping that she'd be up to speaking of it. Harry had learnt the hard way that speaking about losing someone you loved helped in remembering those special times and you could focus on those every time you became sad about them being gone. He'd not done that when Sirius died and had spent a year dealing with random bursts of anger, lashing out at people that didn't deserve it. He'd done better after the war, although there had been so much death that it had been difficult finding a way to move through the initial loss. Especially since every time he saw Teddy, it roused that massive guilt within him about his argument with Remus and he experienced all over again the futile anger of wanting him to stay and take care of his baby rather than fighting. It had taken time and putting his memories of Remus and Tonks in a pensieve for Teddy later on to make him feel better.

He'd fared more successfully remembering Fred Weasley. Whenever Harry thought of Fred, he thought of the time that he and George made a swamp in the corridor at Hogwarts and their subsequent legendary exit from the school. It helped to remember him exhibiting some of that comic genius, rather than seeing him dull and lifeless, dead as a result of an explosion during the final battle.

Andromeda sat stiffly down in an armchair, wiping her eyes. "He'd just been released from his house arrest. We'd made plans to meet in Diagon Alley." She smiled weakly at Harry. Her eyes contained a soft warmth. "We were going to take Teddy to Paris for the day. Draco needed to see his favourite tailor and he wanted to show Teddy the reason he'd loved Paris when he was a child."

Teddy's shoulders still shook under Harry's arm, but it was periodic now and stuttered as if he were trying to stop. Andromeda's eyes caught his and they narrowed painfully. "While we were getting ready to use the Floo in the Leaky Cauldron, a man called to Draco and when he turned around, he shot him with a Muggle weapon. One bullet right in the head."

Harry could feel each one of Teddy's flinches when Andromeda spoke, like he was reliving the shot over and over again. No child should have to witness something like that. Harry was well aware of the damage a bullet could do to a face and how traumatic it would be to see happen - worse in some ways than an Avada Kedavra in that at least the killing curse left the body undamaged. His arm tightened around Teddy.

"Who was it?" Harry asked, hoping that whoever had perpetrated this cruel act had been caught.

"A wizard called Marsdon Corey."

At Harry's blank look, she added "He has a sister called Rosmerta who ran the -"

"Three Broomsticks," Harry finished, understanding now. Andromeda nodded.

"After he shot Draco and while the poor boy was lying there covered in blood, already dead, this shameful excuse for a human being stood over him, yelling that his sister had never been the same and that Draco had ruined her life and didn't deserve to live and..." She sighed. "You get the picture."

"That's awful," said Harry.

"It's all so pointless!" Andromeda exclaimed. "Another life lost to the war and for nothing! He'd done his time; he'd spent ten years shut inside that manor and the immediate surroundings. Ten years of being isolated and virtually imprisoned. Even most of the Death Eaters were given lighter sentences than that and they'd have been out by now if it hadn't been for the rampaging giants."

What could he say that didn't sound ridiculously inane? He couldn't change anything; if he felt any guilt it would be misplaced and hypocritical in any case, because he hadn't liked Malfoy, so why would he have gone to visit him? Even if Malfoy was Teddy's family and Harry Teddy's godfather. All he could do was sit and listen to their stories of him and try and offer them some comfort now and in the future.

He excused himself to Firecall Ginny and tell her he would be home later. She didn't mind as Molly was still there, spending a few days with them while Ginny and baby Lily settled in. Then he borrowed Kreacher and asked him to prepare them all some tea and a light meal. That done, he settled in to talk to these two grieving people that he cared deeply for.

.o0o.

Slipping through the portraits was decidedly odd, Draco thought. There was a strange feeling of disconnection each time he felt himself in the blank between one frame and another. Randomly the thought popped into his head that it would be a good way to get rid of a subject in a portrait - move the painting while the subject was in the gutter between the frames. He chuckled to himself; perhaps the anticipation of seeing Potter finally right where he wanted him was making him giddy. Portrait murder, indeed!

As he travelled from one frame to the next, he did peripherally notice that all the rooms he'd organised seemed to be just as he'd asked and he was glad he'd chosen the disused Blue Ballroom to set them up in. The paintings didn't take up all the white painted walls, not by a long shot, but the fact that he had paintings of his room, his bathroom, the kitchen, library, lounge, dungeon, and garden with his lake painted on a warm sunny day, meant that he had plenty of room to spread out. He'd thought of adding the stables, too, so he could ride, but he'd never liked riding all that much and it seemed pointless. And Potter would never need it, either.

Potter. Harry bloody Potter. Just the thought of his name made Draco's blood boil. Actually, he didn't know if he had blood anymore. That was one thing he could test out on Potter one day. It would be a waiting game again now, seeing as his original plan was in tatters with his untimely demise.

During his ten years of isolation, while his rage at Potter and the Ministry had been building steadily, he'd developed an untraceable poison that left no indication that it had ripped through someone's body; it left only death in its wake. His anger and sense of injustice had room to fester, plenty of room. He had no friends to counsel him into mediation, no elder to temper and control his resentment and so it found fertile ground.

He used to slip into the Blue Ballroom from time to time, when his latest potion had exploded in his face or corroded an animal's body before it was supposed to. Seeing Potter in his dungeon had reminded him why he started this in the first place. He'd paid Raul an exorbitant amount to use the legally controlled paint and the extraordinary spells required to ensure that when Potter died, no matter how many portraits there were of him, Potter would only wake up in this one.

Patience had never been a problem for Draco; he'd had to learn from an early age to wait for what he wanted. Despite what people said about him, he wasn't the spoilt Death Eater spawn they thought. Lucius had made him earn every single thing he'd ever had. And then some.

He'd been prepared to wait to join the Quidditch team until second year because they said first years weren't allowed a broom of their own and what was the point of playing Quidditch for his House on a school broom that vibrated more than flew? Potter breaking the rules and being picked on the Gryffindor Quidditch team in his first year and being given a Nimbus 2000 was like sticking pins in Draco's sense of fairness and entitlement. He'd hated Potter for that.

Fifth year, he'd patiently followed Potter's little sycophants around for a long time to find out the location of this secret society Professor Umbridge was sure was operating right under her nose. Catching that girl off-guard was a stroke of luck. And again in sixth year when he had no hope of success, he'd patiently and painstakingly worked hard on finding a way for the Death Eaters to get into the school. As patient as he could be living in fear for the well-being of his parents, that was.

Yes, he could be patient, he thought as he walked through to the dungeon portrait and saw Harry bloody Potter strung up against the wall. His wrists were bound by metal cuffs on a chain, which was attached to a ring in the ceiling. He was beautiful, really, stretched out and naked as the day he was born. Draco had been appreciative of the artwork when it had been done and now seeing it from this side, he wondered if Potter was actually gay and this artist knew Potter's body as well as he knew his own or whether the artist just had a good imagination. He rather thought that no self-respecting artist would dare draw Potter in a bad light, looking ugly or too damaged.

His hand itched to reach out and slap the soft curve of Potter's cheek. Hit it so hard it bruised. He wondered if Potter would actually bruise and if he did, how would it heal seeing as there was no blood flow to make the body work. And that raised further questions about how Draco's body was working now. He was breathing, could feel a heartbeat, see the fine blue veins under the skin on his wrists, but was that because he expected to breathe, expected to be able to feel his heart beating? If he stopped breathing would he die? He'd never actually spent enough time with a portrait to know how they 'lived'.

Draco remained where he was, several feet way from Potter and leaning against the doorway, the stone wall strangely warm under his shoulder. The temptation to hit and punch and kick and hurt Potter would be too strong if he ventured any closer. The bursting of the repressed hatred would be too much and he would be unable to stop once he started. And he wanted Potter to know what was happening to him. He wanted Potter on some level to experience this agony. If Draco could have managed this revenge while Potter was alive, he would have, but his plan of getting Potter to visit to speak about Teddy and then feeding them both the poison was dust in his memory now.

He knew this obsession with Potter would be considered illogical and irrational, but he didn't care and it was too late now anyway. After Potter saved him twice at the final battle he had hoped that there was some chance of moving past this hatred, for he had been really grateful that Potter had taken the time, but the lacklustre effort at his sentencing had reignited the hatred with a fiery passion. He'd been only sixteen years old and unable to get away from the situation his family was in. He didn't have the mark, having been considered in disgrace after his failure in sixth year - a fact for which he was extremely grateful now - and he didn't think he deserved to be shut away for a sentence longer than his mother and father received. Potter should have been able to help!

It was that day, when he arrived home to his prison for the next ten years, that he'd begun to plan his revenge. He'd commissioned the paintings the next day and set about working on his potion, just counting the days and hours and minutes until Potter was his to mess with.

Along the way, he'd discovered that he had a cousin or second cousin. Surprisingly, he'd fallen for the charms of the cheeky metamorphmagus and if there was one person he'd miss now he was dead, it would be Teddy. And Andromeda, of course, but Teddy had cemented a permanent little niche in his heart. His only fault was that he adored Potter to distraction and would talk about him all the time, rousing Draco's jealousy even further, because Potter got to take Teddy to the beach or the zoo or shopping. Anywhere but the Manor. Teddy never complained about not being able to go anywhere and Draco kept up a fine list of activities for them to do while Teddy visited. In the end Draco asked Teddy not to speak about Potter anymore because it made him feel bad that he couldn't take Teddy off the Manor grounds and do interesting things together.

He gave Potter's body a long, lingering glance, pausing over his groin area, smirking at the sheer averageness of Potter's dick and chuckled aloud thinking how hilarious it would have been to have Potter painted with a hard on. Those thoughts made Draco wonder if he could even get an erection here in the painting. If he remembered correctly, he'd had some decent porn magazines painted into his bedroom painting. He'd go there and test it out. It was good porn, men with massive dicks fucking pretty blond boys senseless in all sorts of contorted positions. Draco suspected he had a thing about big cocks.

Hmmm, just the thought of it made something in Draco's groin twitch. He guessed that answered that question. Now, would he be able to come?

Potter could wait; he wasn't going anywhere.