The Curse of Charon

Chapter Two

"Does anyone know what's up with that Zabini kid?" asked Remus Lupin, who had returned to teach Defence Against the Dark Arts, mainly because he had been the only person willing to take the job. It was a decision that worried several parents, although most were happy with him when he had agreed to be locked in his chambers for the duration of the full moon by Dumbledore. Of course, this never happened, but the Headmaster always came to check on Remus just before his transformation, and left shortly before it was completed. It had become a sort of ritual and Remus found it less painful if he had somethin to focus on, such as the long philosophical discussions they shared.

No one in the small but cosy staff room offered any answer to his question, as they were all engrossed in the morning edition of the Daily Prophet - except for Severus Snape, who was reading from a small brown leather volume which looked as though it had a nasty bloodstain on the front. Remus recognised it as one he had lent the Potions Professor a few weeks ago.

"Do you know anything, Severus?" he asked. "Blaise is in your house." Snape glanced up from the book.

"I haven't seen her for a week. I have the sixth years after break. I'll report back to you if I notice anything odd." Remus could see the self-indulgent sneer, resulting from his own successful sarcasm, that lingered in Snape's sallow face after he had finished speaking.

"Are you enjoying the book?"

"It's fascinating!" Snape said suddenly, with more enthusiasm than anyone had heard from him for a long time. Remus sensed that any further interruptions could incense the other man to the point of physical violence.

"Poor child," piped up Professor Flitwick, sitting in an armchair that further dwarfed him, from over by the fire. Remus looked at him and nodded slightly sadly, his eyes full of memories of long ago.

"Yes. Does she even know about it all?" Flitwick shook his head.

"No. The Muggles who took her in after it happened were adamant that she should be considered their natural daughter, a Muggle-born. They knew that they couldn't stop her from coming to Hogwarts, and that she was free to make her own way in the wizarding world when she left here, but they forbade anyone from telling her what really transpired."

"What if she sees the monument one day? What if she finds out?" asked Professor Sinistra. Flitwick shrugged.

"Be it on her parents' shoulders."

"That was a terrible year. It seemed to be turning out so well, Severus and the Zabinis came over to our side and joined the Order, but then April came, then the Potters later that year, and finally the Longbottoms shortly after," said Professor McGonagall, her eyes watering ever so slightly.

"It was indeed a tragic year." Everyone turned around at the sound of the Headmaster's voice, and saw him looming in the doorway. "But it was then and this is now, so if you'd all care to return to the present I would be very much obliged." Everyone returned to their newspapers and there were a few mutters of "Sorry." When he looked around, everything seemed to be normal, until Remus noticed that Severus had slipped out while Dumbledore had held the attention of the room. He sighed slightly. What were the chances of coaxing Severus Snape to talk about his thoughts, his feelings, and his experiences? The man had a cork in a vital emotional valve. That's if he has an emotional valve, thought Remus unkindly for a second. Then he banished all thought of that. Severus was still human, and although he was far from perfect, as long as he was human there was still space for hope. Remus had always known that there was more to Severus than met the eye.

*

Blaise lay on her bed and exhaled slowly, feeling the coolness of the air in her room slowly drift over her still body. She felt a lot more like herself than she had the previous night, although still far from whatever part of her personality was home. But then, she thought, it was a lot easier to believe yourself crazy at three in the morning than at lunchtime, even just after you've had Potions. She sighed softly, and wished herself back at her Muggle school, where she had learnt things like History and Geography and Biology. Nice, easy, logical things that weren't hard to grasp if you set your mind to it. Anyone could learn Maths; it took something more to master Charms. Although she didn't fare too badly considering she had had no idea of her strange powers before the age of eleven. Not like some of the purebloods in her year. Crabbe and Goyle for exampleIt wasn't their fault that they were stupid, but it was their fault that they never tried and thus appeared even more stupid than they actually were. She supposed it must be a Mudblood thing. Look at Granger, for example.

Damn, she thought, I'm doing it again. Thinking of myself as a pureblood, calling others Mudbloods. Stupid Slytherin pride.

The last of her thoughts struck her suddenly. Slytherin Pride. The rest of her year, possibly even the rest of her house, were purebloods. Of course, no one knew she was Muggle-born - she had known enough about Slytherin to keep her mouth shut when she had been Sorted. It just struck her as odd that she was the only Muggle-born witch she knew of in Slytherin. All of the rest came from long lines of wizarding families, most of which had intermarried, and even married inside themselves so frequently that half of her house were inbred. No wonder the house was full of anomalies like Crabbe, Goyle, Derrick, Bole and all the rest. Even Draco was touched with the famous Malfoy (or was it Black?) insanity. Although, she still considered him perfect.

She knew that she was drifting into deep, dark and dangerous water when she thought about Draco, and she didn't want another episode like last night. That had been too scary to deal with. It was bad enough when Draco had a psychotic moment, but this was worse. That had been the same thing, but inescapable, pounding against the inside of her head like particles of some distant nebula whizzing around in a tiny confined space.

She didn't really want to think about Draco, or last night, or any of that now. She wanted to lie back and let sleep come to her, to be slowly...softly...there.

*

It was midnight, the bleakest hour for the lonely, the unrepentant, the grieving and the damned. Halfway past the old day and halfway towards the new. It was at midnight that Harry liked to think about Sirius. Thinking about Sirius still hurt, but it was getting easier. He was learning to see past the mass of guilt that the thought of hisodfather evoked in him, and concentrate on all the good times they had shared, all the wonderful memories.

It had been hard at first, very hard. He had tried not to think about it all, tried to conquer the nightmares that haunted him by stopping sleeping. He thought back a few months to a time where he would go twenty-four, thirty-six, forty-eight, sometimes even seventy-two hours without sleeping. It was then that sleep found him, an uncomfortable but blissfully dreamless sleep. Nevertheless, it was a sleep that left him feeling equally, if not more, tired than he had been when he eventually gave in to it.

He was learning to cope now, learning to pick up the pieces of his life and rebuild it around himself. And he was succeeding...mostly. The only problem with rebuilding his life around himself was that it was, well, around himself. Whereas before his life had been a random jigsaw puzzle with pieces that fitted but made no sense, now that he could see the puzzle pieces and was in control of them he was trying to make them work, trying to close some of the gaps in the puzzle. That meant he pulled things and people he loved closer to himself and formed a barrier from everything else. He was not just closer to his friends, he was more protective. Stiflingly so. And he knew he was. He just didn't want to risk losing them. Like he'd lost Sirius.

He could deal with thinking about Sirius, but thinking about losing Sirius was just too much, so instead Harry concentrated on looking out the window. A lone figure darted across the lawn, like it had so many nights before. His curiosity getting the better of him, Harry pulled on an old Christmas jumper and put his shoes on.

In five minutes, with the help of the Marauder's Map, Harry was walking across the moonlight lawns. He couldn't help noticing how pretty everything looked at night. He went slowly over to the big tree, careful not to make too much noise in case he frightened off the person sitting there. He was anxious to know who it was, although he already had a strong suspicion.

The mysterious person was sitting in between two of the large branching roots of the old tree, their hands clasped around their knees drawing them to their chest, looking out onto the lake. The squid was performing it's usual routine, a cross between synchronised swimming and gymnastics but with tentacles. Harry sat on the other side of the tree, breathing in the slightly moist night air and looking back up to Gryffindor tower. Someone was still in the common room; a faint glow was coming from the fireplace.

"It's a lovely night for looking at the stars. Nice and clear," Harry said softly but audibly, careful not to surprise the other person. He was almost certain who it was, the same person he had felt so connected to a few nights before.

"Fuck off, Potter," replied Draco angrily, at once confirming Harry's suspicions.

"You come out here every night," said Harry distantly, in a voice very reminiscent of that of Luna Lovegood. He was aware that Draco was something of a livewire. "I can see you from my bedroom window."

"Oh very nice, Potter. First you spy on me, then you come down here and laugh in my face!"

"You might want to keep your voice down. I don't suppose you'd want to wake the whole school up."

"Shut the fuck up, Potter. You'd like that, wouldn't you?" said Malfoy, affecting a feminine voice. "Hey everyone, come on down here and laugh at Malfoy, he's sitting under a tree."

"Nothing wrong with sitting under a tree," said Harry, choosing to ignore Draco's anger. "I am."

Draco made no reply, he merely snarled through his clenched teeth. Harry moved around the edge of the trunk until their knees and arms were touching. To his surprise, Draco did not flinch away.

"I always wondered about you, Malfoy. There always seemed to be something missing when I looked into your eyes. But it's there tonight. It's not gone. And I suspect it's there every time you do this. Perhaps the moonlight completes you."

"I said fuck off."

"Okay. Just let me tell you this. I think we're more similar than either one of us likes to admit. We're both searching, searching for the same thing. Neither of our childhoods were satisfactory." Draco looked slightly puzzled.

"Oh, don't act so surprised. I can tell from how you behave, from the way you interact with your father, that your childhood was far from happy."

"It's not that. I know you know that. I always saw pity in your eyes when I caught you looking at me. It's just I don't understand how your childhood could have been unhappy. You're Harry Potter! People worship you like you're some sort of second god."

"Don't remind me. It pisses me right off."

"But I don't understand how that can have had no impression on you whatsoever when you were younger," said Draco.

"It had no impression on me because I didn't know about it until I was eleven. I was brought up with people who were like gross caricatures of ordinary Muggles. They thought I was a freak, that they could beat the magic out of me."

"That's funny. My father thought he could beat the magic into me. Every other word was 'inadequate' or 'disgrace'. He used to talk about how he should have left me on a mountaintop to die. Mother was hardly better. She wasn't as bad as father, but she was still a Black. They're not easy to live with, purebloods."

"We both experienced two extremes, each as bad as the other. I think that it's stupid that we should be enemies. Regardless of our houses, our families, out friends, we have something that we share. Something special can be made from that," Harry said, choosing his words carefully.

"You sound like such a wimp, Potter." Harry's face fell. "But that's better than me. I am a wimp. I spend all my time trying to look, talk and act tough, but I'm weak inside. I mean, look at me. I can't speak to my worst enemy for ten minutes without launching into a spiel about my emotional self. You may sound like a wimp, but at least you do things. Like the Triwizard. I'd have been knocked out by the first dragon."

"You can talk about how you feel. I respect that. When I try to think about how I feel, I can only come up with one word."

"Empty," said Draco softly, and Harry nodded.

"It's not so unusual for me to feel that way as well. It's only when I get out here that I can even put my feelings into thoughts, let alone words. Everywhere else, I can't concentrate on anything. My head spins."

Harry looked straight at Draco, looked through the mask that he hid behind, looked past the cold and the desensitised barrier that had been all he had ever seen before, looked straight into his heart. Draco's cheeks flushed pink. It was uncomfortable, having those eyes boring down into your soul. Those open, honest, ceaseless eyes, greener than all the fields of Ireland, greener than limes slowly rotting on a tree in a pacific paradise. Greener than all the oceans of the world, the oceans that were ceaselessly pounding within his heart, pumping it with life once again, saving it from a future as the useless muscle it had become. Something stirred inside him, like a lost memory from long ago, reawakening and yawning slightly. It felt...good. Like what he had had with Blaise, but twice as special, twice as intense, twice as wonderful. He felt like celebrating, like setting off fireworks to match the frantic explosions deep inside of his self. With Blaise it had been different. He had gone to her, it had been right, but had taken time. This felt right, oh so right. But so wrong. Oh so wrong. This was Harry Potter, his sworn enemy and rival, the one person he had focused all of his hate onto for six long years.

He couldn't be, but was he? Was he really falling for Potter? Falling in love? Love. Love was such a strong word. Even what he had felt for Blaise had not been as much as love. And here he was, having talked to Potter for about fifteen minutes, toying with such strong and frightening things. Things like love, like affection. Like the raw, unpolished, animal attraction that Potter inexplicable possessed despite his slightly goofy appearance and total lack of charm.

Draco looked down, down towards his left arm, away from the eyes to his right that would haunt him forevermore. Should he act on his insane impulses? Or should he cast them aside, for get he ever even dared to think them? Dared to dream.

"I'd like to be alone please, Potter," he said finally, although every single pore was gasping for that wonderful feeling he had had when their souls had connected. Even though it felt like he was a dehydrated man refusing water. Even though he knew he could be saying goodbye forever.

"That's ok. I can understand that. But I want you to know that if you ever need to talk to anyone, I'm here. It can be totally private and secret if you want." Harry eased himself to his feet and set off across the lawn, which was now lightly coated with dew.

"Thanks, Harry," Draco replied quietly, although he knew there was no chance that Harry could hear him. He preferred it that way.

*

By the light of the fire that Harry had seen burning slowly in the Gryffindor common room, Ginny Weasley was writing in her diary, frantically scribbling down her thoughts so quickly that the pages contained little more than messy scrawls. Her bad experience in her first year had put her off diaries for a while, but Harry had assured her it was a Muggle one when he had given it to her for her birthday. The only magic involved were the locking and page-wiping charms that helped to keep her thoughts her own.

I don't know why I like him, she had written. There's just something about him. Something so distant and aloof, something that sets him apart from the crowd and makes him so unobtainable. Which is why I want him even more. This lust inside is killing me. When people see Ginny Weasley, they see a sweet little ginger kid. No one's noticed that I've grown up. Especially not him.

I mean, I know I used to be like that with Harry, but it was never this bad. I get the chills if he even looks at me.

Why am I so desperate? I'm pathetic; I'm such a worshipper. Too afraid of what might happen even to talk to him. Too afraid of rejection. I hate myself and he hates me too.