The Curse of Charon

Chapter Nine

Draco was alone, in a dark, cold and unfriendly compartment, the last compartment of the last carriage of the Hogwarts Express. The only thing he could see was his own breath, warming the frozen air a few inches in front of his face. He could have taken his wand from his bag in the overhead compartment, but had neither the energy nor the spirit. The only light in the sad and lonely little room came from under the crack of the door, light that flooded the corridor from the compartment next door. Where the rest of the sixth-year Slytherins sat.

He wasn't alone by choice, though. He had poked his head around the door of the other compartment, asked if there was a spare seat. It had been Blaise who had spoken. She sat at the far end, on a bench seat that had been hastily installed along the wall where the window was, and faced him directly. For some reason she had sat upon a pile of bags and other assorted things, and rose above her classmates like their queen.

"May I join you?" he had asked, above the noise and rowdiness of his peers. It was obvious they had been trying to ignore him, as Blaise was the only one who even turned around. She had cleared her throat, and immediately the crowded room had fallen silent.

"I'm sorry," she had told him, her voice soft yet clear, quiet but firm. She showed no sign of actually being sorry. All of the other Slytherins had turned to face her, waiting for instructions from their leader. "There is no room." Draco had nodded, appreciating how unwanted he was, and had slunk away, into the only empty compartment, which was the only one left. A few minutes after he had left, he heard the sliding door of the Slytherin compartment bang open once again. The noise had died, as it had when he had tried to join them, and Blaise's voice had rung out, loud and clear and happy.

"Of course you can come in, Theo! Everybody squish over a bit so Nott can sit down!"

She had become everybody's queen, now that he had lost her as his own. He had had her. For a few sweet months she had been his, and he had wasted her, and ultimately he had lost her. But in doing so he had gained the affection of the most beautiful man he had ever met. It was impossible not to feel both a little sad and a little glad.

*

At the other end of the train, where the lights were brighter and the air a little friendlier, a little less cold, sat another person, alone as Draco was, in just as much dark despite the warmer surroundings. Had she known he was at the other end of the train, she might just have felt a little worse. If that was at all possible. She didn't think it was.

Here she was, Ginny Weasley, another Christmas coming, another term she had survived.

It was funny, she thought, how your first few experiences anywhere can shape the rest of your time there. Other people marked their school terms by how well they had done in exams, or whether or not they had made any progress in a particular class. Not Ginevra Weasley, oh no. Any term that she lived through was a term well done. Damn that Chamber of Secrets.

Luckily, before she was swamped too much by her own thoughts, there came a knock at the sliding door of the compartment and a person slipped inside.

*

Harry had the common room to himself, and had been sitting for the last twenty minutes with his quill poised above the sheet of parchment that lay before him on the desk in the corner of the room. He had no idea where Ron or Hermione were, although he guessed they were not together. They hadn't spoken since Hermione had stalked off the night before. In fact, he hadn't seen Ron since then

He was very glad that neither was around. Ron would have persuaded him to play chess or exploding snap by now, and then during play he would have tried to get Harry to tell him anything Hermione had said, whilst Hermione would have taken one look at the quill in his hand and the empty page and then would have launched into a lecture about good spells to 'unlock the writer within you,' and then moved on to the subject of what Ron had said to Harry lately. It would have been even worse if they had both been there. Each made such obvious attempts to ignore the other that Harry felt he could have cut the tension in the air with a knife. If the fire went out, neither would make a move to re-stoke it since that would be showing the other that they were cold and being cold was a sign of weakness. If they dropped something they wouldn't pick it up, just to prove to the other that they didn't need it, that they didn't need anything. Technically this was a waste of time, since ignoring generally entailed paying no attention whatsoever to the other person, but both knew that the other was watching them.

But Harry didn't want to 'unlock the writer within.' He wanted to write Draco a letter, even though they had spoken only hours ago, even though in the last day they had been closer than Harry had ever been to any other person. They had already discussed the system with letters. Harry couldn't send more than one a week, and he had to use a different owl each time in case Lucius became suspicious. Harry had thought of a way in which he could express everything he wanted to but with no more than one owl a week. He would write down everything he wanted to tell Draco, as and when he wanted to say it, and then bundle everything he had written into a large envelope at the weekend.

The only problem was that now he had a way of saying everything, and he had so much to say, he found he couldn't express it in words. He couldn't transpose what he knew he felt onto a sheet of parchment. Paper and ink were so unforgiving. The thoughts and fears and feelings sounded fine in his head, but on paper they became stupid, overly sensitive and meaningless.

He wanted desperately to be able to share everything, but somehow he couldn't. It probably cam from sixteen years of bottling things up and keeping them to himself, at first because the Dursleys would probably have beaten him if he had told them how he felt, and later on in his life by choice. He knew how completely unhealthy it was, and how, when it finally came out, the best part of sixteen years' anger was not likely to be pretty. The only blip had come in his fifth year, when everything had become too much. That had been bad enough then, whatever he had stored up until now would probably be much worse.

*

"Can I sit down?" the figure asked, in a voice that sounded familiar but that she was unable to place. Ginny nodded, but then realised that the darkness meant the person probably couldn't see her movements.

"Yes," she said, "Why don't you turn on the lights?" The half-stranger did as requested, with a flick of his (for she was sure he was male) wand. The compartment burst into light, and she saw the blonde hair and silver-grey eyes, eyes that had haunted so many of her dreams, gleam in the seat opposite.

"I was just passing," he explained before she had a chance to ask. "And I didn't think anyone deserved to be alone at Christmas. Not even a Weasley. And especially not a pretty one like you." She blushed at his words, hardly caring how forced, how rehearsed they sounded. Then the smile that has formed on her face disappeared.

"You couldn't have been passing. This is the last carriage before the driver. The toilets are two carriages back, and the snack trolley witch isn't due for another hour yet." Draco pondered her point carefully.

"That is true. If you'd prefer the truth, I was shunned by the other Slytherins and forced into a cold dark carriage on my own. I was sick of being so lonely, so I went to look for signs of intelligent life elsewhere. Now I'm wishing I came earlier, I've been missing out on a treat." Ginny did not blush this time.

"I'm sorry, Draco, but you can't keep doing this," she said firmly, with the air of one who had put her foot down.

"Doing what?" he asked.

"Finding me when I'm alone and flirting with me. Look where we ended up last time. Remember? In the common room?" He thought back to a time not that long ago, but which seemed lightyears apart from here and now, trying to remember all that had come before.

"I do remember," he said, his misted eyes peering into the tiny part of the past that they had shared. There was something about her that had changed, something in her eyes that hadn't been there before, when they had last met.

"Do you know how long it took me to get over you?" she said, although it came out as more of a cross between a choked sob and an angry shout. The words hit Draco like a series of unexpected knives, each one expertly tossed in order to hurt him the most.

"I'm sorry?" he said, in true bewilderment.

"You know exactly what I mean," was her scathing reply. "Do you know what you took from me that night I the common room? Do you know how long I had a crush on you for?"

"I'm sorry," he repeated. "I had no idea."

"Well of course you didn't," she continued, shouting louder and louder as she went on. "And it seems that you still don't. So I'll tell you what you took from me, and what it meant. You took away the only glimmer of hope I had. Those couple of words, I'll never forget them as long as I live. I asked you if that was where we ended. 'Yes it is,' those three cold, soulless little words. You basically told me we had no chance. You crushed me, Draco. You built my hopes up and then you knocked me down. Thank God I'm over you now, though. Did you hear that? Over you. I am over you. Which is lucky for me, since I hate you, you bastard." She got up, grabbed her bag and stomped out of the compartment.

"That went well," he said to himself with a sigh.

*

It is nearly Christmas, Sirius. Last year was my first proper Christmas with you, this time around. This year is my first Christmas without you. The first time you haven't been here, on this same Earth with me. However far away you were in prison, I could still feel you next to me. I feel you still, but know you're not here.

Do you remember the Christmas before that year, Sirius? The last one we spent with James and Lily? Little Harry's first Christmas. He's not so little any more. He'll start asking me questions soon. Now that you're not here to tell him these things any more, he'll start to ask me. I'm the closest living thing to you, to his parents. I'm not even sure I can tell him what he wants to know. I don't think I can do it.

When I first started teaching him, the year you escaped, it wasn't so bad. I'd had thirteen years to get over you, I was starting to accept things as they came again, rather than question everything. I found a way to balance my insatiable curiosity about the unfairness of everything against what I actually needed to know, and found my own questions diminishing.

Then you came back to me, we were together once again, and Harry wasn't a problem then either. I had you, and he had you, and everything was fine. But now it's different. I never thought about it before, but he looks so much like James it hurts. I can hardly look at him, it hurts so much. It wasn't like this before, but with you both gone, looking at him reminds me of what I've lost. How alone I am.

I can't keep writing you these letters. I say the same things every time. I just need so much to tell you everything, all the things I never got a chance to tell you whilst you lived.

I want to get on with my life, and I want to be with you forever. I'm going to have to choose one of these days, and it'll be you who makes me. Please don't make me choose, Sirius.

I don't think I can take any more.

*

There came a time, at least that was what Neville thought, where he sat down and didn't really know himself. Of course, he didn't just sit down, that would have been a ridiculous provocation for a session of soul-searching. He sat down to write a letter, to take up time on the long train journey. Not any ordinary letter. Two letters, in fact. One was to a person he would have called a close friend six months ago, the other to a person he had hated for as long as he could remember. Surprisingly, he found the two letters were very much the same.

Neville had never been a vicious boy. He had never been competitive, or angry that other people seemed to have many more things than him, far superior qualities in his opinion. No, Neville had never been a jealous boy.

He had been quite happy to bumble along after his classmates for as long as anyone could remember. He had his good points, he knew that; many friends, talents in Herbology, an easy-going nature. And he was generally a fine-tempered fellow.

It was all of these things that made him wonder why he was sitting down to send the particular letters he had in mind. He knew that there must be something beyond all that. Something dark and desperate, skulking around in the depths of his conscious. He just didn't know what exactly. It was all very puzzling. Lots of things were. Like why he found Harry's trousers homoerotic, when Harry was one of his oldest friends and he had never had a problem with the trousers before. Or why it angered him to see Harry kissing the other recipient of a letter, Malfoy. The blonde creep, who saw it as perfectly acceptable to go around kissing people he was supposed to hate.

The thought of Malfoy sent the familiar flushing sensation through Neville's body, he felt his blood almost boil in his veins. Who cared if anonymous letters were nasty? Nothing was nastier than a Malfoy, and if Harry had chosen to go along for the ride, well that was his fault.

*

'I'm very sorry Miss Granger, but I don't think we can let anything come from what happened the other night.

Fondest Regards,

Severus Snape.'

Snape put down his quill and screwed the parchment into a ball, which he then flung into the waste-paper basket in the corner of the room. For some reason he found this kind of letter easier to write in his empty classroom than in his private office. Maybe it was something to do with the fact that anyone could come into the classroom at any point, and this made him less likely to dwell on things, and quicker and more effective in his writing lest he incriminate himself. Of course, no one ever did come into his classroom outside of school time, and if someone was going to disturb him then they were just as likely to disturb him in his office, but he tried not to think of it like that.

As luck, or maybe fate would have it, someone did knock at the door, and he bade them enter. As bad luck, or maybe Murphy's Law would have it, it was the very person that the letter he had been trying to write had been intended for. Hermione Granger was dressed entirely appropriately, and for this he thanked God. She was not attired sluttishly, but still looked awfully pretty.

"I just wanted to apologise, Professor," she began, looking at her shoes rather than the man that sat before her.

"Please don't," he said sweetly. "It was just as much my fault, if not more. I'm your teacher, and it was most unfair of me to take advantage of you like that. Would you like to have a seat?" He indicated towards a nearby chair, and she sat down.

"I just feel so bad about doing something so stupid." He nodded sympathetically.

"Well if you want, we can look upon it as a kiss, completely meaningless, and we can both pretend it never happened." She looked at him, for the first time in the whole conversation.

"I tried to do that," she said softly. "But there was a small problem with that."

"What?" he asked.

"It meant something."

That was when it struck him. She had a very valid point. Although he had tried to dismiss it as a strange fluke of nature, an accident, he found his mind drifting back to what had happened all the time. Maybe, he thought for the first time, maybe it was an accident waiting to happen. After all, he had always found her attractive, much as he had tried to resist his urges, and there was always a chance that even if she had not been attracted to him, a series of situations, including being in the wrong place at the wrong time, could mean something that neither of them were willing to comprehend.

But he wasn't going to tell her that. She was still his student, what they had done the night before was still inappropriate, and no amount of anything could change that. They would just have to forget it.

"I don't think we can even consider what you've said. It's not even an option. I'm sorry about it, even more so if it meant something to you, but that doesn't change the fact that any continuation of what happened here last night would be immoral and entirely wrong."

"Are you saying it didn't mean anything to you? Are you saying it didn't feel so good, so damn right?" Snape sighed. That was exactly what he was trying to say, but when it came down to the actual saying of it he found he was having immense difficulty in getting the words to come out right.

"All right. I can't lie to you any more. I've always found myself attracted to you, as much as I've tried to fight it. I suppose there are about a thousand lost Gryffindor points that answer to my attraction. Over the last four or five years I have done all I can to make you detest me, even if I can't make myself dislike you. It's my way of stopping things from going anywhere. As it turns out, you have too much faith left in human nature to let me being a bastard for six years get in the way of anything. The faith you have in people like me is commendable, but entirely misplaced. In short, what I am trying to say is yes. Yes it did mean something to me. It meant a lot more than I should have let it mean. Yes it felt so good, so right. But oh so wrong as well."

"Don't blame you," Hermione said, and reached out to touch her teacher's hand. "It was as much my fault as it was yours. I had just broken up with my boyfriend, you see, and I felt so alone, I needed to talk to someone who wasn't sixteen. Then I remembered you'd been acting strangely in the lesson so I went to see if there was anything we could talk about. Just to have a conversation with someone who cared about things other than Quidditch."

"I have a liking for Quidditch," he said with a smile.

"But you also have likings for other things. You're a man of the world." This made Snape laugh.

"Hardly," he replied.

"Well, more so than Ronald Weasley."

"Do you know what, Miss Granger? I think we can come to an agreement here. If you ever want to talk to someone other than your friends I'm here. And if I ever want to kiss someone I'll go down to Hogsmeade." It was Hermione's turn to laugh.

"That sounds lovely. Thank you, Professor."

"Please, call me Severus."

"Only in private," she said with a smile, and left the room.

*

Draco spent the remainder of the train journey in the lonely discomfort he had become accustomed to in the first part, and was thankful to leave the red vehicle. His thanks, however, faded fast when he remembered his ultimate destination. Home.

Home, where his mother waited. Home, where his father hated. Home, where his future waited silently for him.

With the disheartened stare of a man bound for a place he left as a boy, he scanned the platform for the familiar blondeness of either of his parents, but neither were there. Puzzled, he stood for a few moments until a tall man with chestnut hair approached him. He wore plain black robes, as Draco's father often did, but despite his stature he failed to command the respect that followed Lucius almost everywhere.

"You must be Malfoy's boy," said the man, in a strong Irish brogue.

"I'm Draco Malfoy, if that's what you meant by 'Malfoy's boy'," Draco replied with a snarl.

"Sure, sure y'are," the man said, brushing aside the coldness in Draco's voice. "I'm Simon O'Halley. I think ye know my boy."

"I know Michael, if that's who you mean by your 'boy'."

"'Tis. I'll be accompanying ye back to the Manor."

"Wonderful."

*

There was one thing that Ronald Weasley prided himself on: his ability to run. Though his schoolwork was passable, his flying skills fair and his looks average, he could outrun most people. In fact, there were only two people he knew of that were faster than him, and it mattered very much that these people were the people, if you see what I mean. Had they been any other people, he might not have cared so much. He would still have cared, just not quite as much as he did.

After Hermione had left the common room, he had gone outside to the front of the school, walked down the steps at the entrance like any ordinary human being, and then he had taken off like a shot across the lawns. He had pushed himself to the limit. He had run faster and for longer than he had ever done before. When the lawns had ended he had pushed on towards the Quidditch pitch. When the path to the Quidditch pitch had delivered its final yard he had entered the stadium, dark and silent as an empty stretch of moorland, and had run a lap. Then another lap, and another, and another, until he stopped. Not because he wanted to stop. Because he knew that if he didn't his heart or his legs would give, and he didn't care to found out which was weaker.

Then he fell onto his knees, and the shock of the frozen December earth was enough to send the rest of his body forward, and onto the hard and unforgiving ground he fell, for miles and hours it seemed though only a spilt second actually transpired. Silently and with utter stillness he laid, making no move to get up, or to do anything for that matter.

What was the point when Hermione hadn't spoken to him in days and Charlie and Harry could run faster than he could?

*

Blaise liked being home. There was no one to judge her. Her muggle parents left her to do what she wanted, and that was how she preferred things. Of course, they were there for her if she needed them, but else they kept their distance.

Today she had decided to have a little cleanout of the attic. Just to keep herself busy.

*

"So why are you here instead of my father?" Draco asked. "Why didn't he come himself?"

"Oh, I don't suppose he thought ye were important enough," Simon O'Halley replied.

"You're very blunt," said Draco, and then muttered something about 'underlings' and 'dirty work'.

"Will ya ever stop yer whining and shut yer arse? We're nearly here!" Draco peered around the curtains of his father's carriage, and saw that beyond the sickly gleam of the thestral's neck were the gates that lead to the place he had, for the last sixteen years, been forced to call 'home'. When they pulled up on the vast gravel driveway and exited the carriage, Roger turned to Draco.

"Mister Malfoy, I wonder if ye'd be so kind as to sort out the thestral for me. I was never too good with 'em. Mainly 'cause I can't see 'em."

Draco sneered.

"You're not in the potato fields any more, O'Halley. We have servants to do that." As soon as he spoke, two headless groomsmen appeared and began to attend to their ghostly charges.

"Anyhow, what do you mean you can't see them? Have you never seen a person die?"

"Ah...no."

"What, are you not a Death Eater?" O'Halley blushed.

"Well, y'see, we don't go in fer much o'the killin' side o'things in Ireland."

"So how do you deal with a troublemaker then?"

"How we deal with all our enemies. We take 'em down the pub an' get 'em plastered!"

"I can see how we conquered you," Draco muttered, although not quite as quietly as he had hoped, since O'Halley heard him.

"Just like yer father, y'are. Lordin' over everyone. Strutting around like ye own the place!" Draco looked around.

"Apparently I do," he said, pointing to the brass plaque next to the front door which read 'Malfoy Manor'. This seemed to shut O'Halley up.

The door opened in a gust of magic, it's smooth movement untouched by human hand, and Lucius strode out onto the front steps. The only thing missing, Draco noticed, was a fanfare.

"Draco. How...pleasant...it is to see you," he said, wrinkling his pointed nose slightly.

"Stop lying, father. It does nothing for your colouring."

"Shut up and come inside."

*

Harry was mildly worried. He hadn't seen Ron in two days He hadn't come into the dormitory even to sleep, and he hadn't been around the common room since he and Hermione had had an argument. Hermione had only been around to collect some books and to go to bed, but there were no prizes for guessing where she was. The library; her usual haunt.

Ron was more the type to stay around and try and analyse every line of conversation that had taken place before the argument, and then find himself stumped as to why the other person had reacted so badly to his insensitivity. Of course, he never admitted to insensitivity. He preferred to blame the oversensitivity of the other person. He was stubborn like that.

But that hadn't happened this time. He had just gone off, soon after Hermione had, and hadn't been since.

Harry didn't know where Ron could be. There wasn't anywhere that he could think of.

*

Harry had been wrong, actually. Although she had spent some considerable time there, as was her wont, she had actually been with Snape. Well, not technically with Snape, just in the company of the man.

He was surprisingly good company for a hermitic ex-Death Eater, and she found that for the first time she could have an intelligent conversation. They talked of developments in potion-making, of politics, of hate and love and peace and war. Of shoes and ships and sealing wax, and cabbages and kings.

They had also talked of something particularly interesting to her, the subject of her latest research. She hadn't forgotten the promise made to Draco before the holidays. She had agreed to look up as much information about Charon, and he had left her a note containing other subjects that might be relevant.

The fact that Snape was at all knowledgeable in the areas she had been studying had come as a complete surprise. In fact, it had been him who had brought it up.

For some reason they had been discussing Death Eaters, and the recent activity of Voldemort and his supporters, and then they had moved on to the Malfoys.

"Of course, Lucius has some awfully nasty stuff tucked away at his manor. Like the Magnanimatis Adnecto, for example. Horrible book, that is. I mean, no one's seen the effects for centuries; it was locked away by the Ministry at one point. God only knows how Malfoy ended up with it. Unfortunate, really. He's the only person around here with the guts and the brains to use it. I don't think even the Dark Lord knows of it's true powers, but then again Malfoy would." Hermione pricked up here ears at the mention of the book she had found on the research list.

"What exactly does it do?" she asked, a question that she had yet to answer. Draco had a vague idea, but no real knowledge of the intricacies of the mysterious book.

"Well, have you heard of Charon?"

"Which Charon?" she asked, thinking back to the evening she and Draco had shared in the library with a definite sense of déjà vu.

"Good answer," he replied, just as Draco had. "As you know, in Greek mythology, Charon was the one who ferried the souls of the dead across the river Styx, but also a medieval sorcerer of phenomenal power. Very clever, very strong, but unfortunately also very evil. When he died, instead of leaving this world entirely he left a little part of himself bound in a book. He was a strong believer in the importance of pure or 'clean' blood, as it was known at the time, and since he didn't want the book to function on the magic of muggle-borns he enchanted it so it would only bind to a pure blood."

"Bind?" she said, confused.

"The book's properties mean that it will essentially stick to a wizard or witch of pure blood. Not physically, of course, but the longer they spend with the book the stranger they begin to feel. At first they think they're mildly ill, then after a week or so they begin to wonder if it's all in their minds. This can be fatal, as it's usually only a few weeks after this that the book really starts messing with them. They drain their magic, and then eventually their life. Of course, it hasn't happened in years."

"Well then how do you know that this happens?"

"We didn't. Not for a long time. It was only when someone uncovered a book from the fifteenth century that contained detailed chapters on the book, and stories of what had happened to the witches and wizards that had been affected."

"So what happens exactly after the book drains you?" asked Hermione.

"Well, if you're found in time, for example you tell a mediwizard with knowledge of the book about your symptoms, or someone finds you in time, then you can be helped. There are ways...spells that can break the tie that the Magnanimatis formed between itself and you. Luckily there have been few people who've suffered from the effects, but this also means that most practising Healers today have little or no knowledge of it. The last known person that the book bound was the wizard Castrato, back in the 1480s, and he unfortunately was not as lucky as the previous victims of Charon's legacy, and the book managed to completely drain him of both his magic and, inevitably, his lifeblood. He died, and Charon became reincarnated, a soulless parasite living off of Castrato's powers. Thankfully, some of the best witches and wizards of the time were able to capture him, and re-contain the reanimated Charon in the book.

It fell into Malfoy hands then. They were descendants of his, and it was the family connection that prevented them from being bound. A Malfoy can quite safely be in the same room as the Magnanimatis, they can touch it and even read it. Only they know the secrets hidden within, and only they have any control over the immense power of this seemingly inanimate object. Any other pureblood to even attempt to do so would be effectively killing themselves. You see if a pureblood touches the book, it speeds the process up a great deal. It would normally take weeks to kill them, if they touch the book it can be a matter of hours."

*

Lucius had ordered that Draco dine with O'Halley and himself that evening, and although the food was good and plentiful, it could hardly be said that the heir to one of the biggest wizarding fortunes in the country was enjoying himself. For a start, his father had been quizzing him mercilessly about the school term.

"So Draco. Did you bring the Magnanimatis as I instructed you to?" Draco nodded, and thought of how his father's most prized possession was lying on his bed, amongst his socks and the other contents of his trunk.

"Did you read it?"

"Yes father," he replied. This wasn't a lie...exactly. He had gotten the gist of it.

"Cover to cover?"

"Yes father," he repeated, thanking God his father was no legilimens.

"Why are you lying to me?"

"Because it's easier than telling you the truth."

"You see, Simon, my son has a nasty habit of telling lies. I apologise for him, and I would hate for you to think that it was my wife and I who taught him to."

"Actually it was," Draco interjected. "You'd beat me if I told the truth and beat me if I lied. Lying just saved my skin for a few more seconds, whilst you tried to work out whether or not I was telling the truth. From where I'm sitting, you taught me to lie."

"Shut up. I know you lied about the Magnanimatis. I set a charm on page 307, in the middle of chapter thirteen, to send me an owl when you got there, and you never did."

"I skimmed it."

"That's not good enough. Simon, do you have any objection to me cursing my son over the dinner table?"

"Oh not at all, Mr Malfoy. T'would be a pleasure to see a master such as yerself at work."

Bloody spineless Irish, Draco thought.

"Excellent," Lucius replied. "Crucio."

And Draco was on the floor once more.

*

Ron had been missing for a week by the time Harry told someone. He chose Professor Lupin, who had been very worried, and ordered a search party almost immediately. For some reason, the fact that Hermione had no idea Ron was missing had slipped Harry's mind while he had been recounting the strange week, which explained her surprise when Professor Snape greeted her that afternoon with strange news.

"Miss Granger, it seems we've found Mr Weasley. You can have him back once we've defrosted him a bit'." Hermione looked shocked.

"Found him? Was he missing?"

"Yes," replied Snape. "Didn't you know?"

"I haven't spoken to him in a week. What happened?"

"We found him outside on the Quidditch pitch, almost frozen to death. He was buried in the snow."

"I hope you understand, but I have to go and see him."

"Of course, Hermione." She flinched as he spoke. "What's wrong?"

"You called me Hermione."

"I'm sorry."

"Don't be. I liked it." Then she left, and headed to the hospital wing.

*

There was hardly a box in the Zabini's attic that had not been searched through, cleaned out and replaced in some sort of order by Blaise. In fact, there was only one box left. The one that most people would consider to be the most boring of all was the one she had purposely been saving until last.

The one marked 'Paperwork and Documents'.

There had not been anything of interest at the top of the pile. A few old piano pieces, printed lovingly on yellowing paper, her Hogwarts letter. It was the two certificates right at the bottom, their edges frayed and slightly mouldy from years of burial beneath thousands of other pieces of paper, that had caused her hands to tremble, her knees to give.

A certificate of adoption, announcing that Michael and Kate Honeymore became the proud parents of a small female child of the surname Zabini, and a document marking that a month after the adoption of said female child, both Michael and Kate Honeymore had changed their name to Zabini.

Something was going on. And Blaise didn't know what.

*

Draco was ok. His hair was slightly ruffled, his pride slightly injured, his legs and arms still slightly twitchy, but he was ok. His father had been practising the Cruciatus Curse on him since the age of seven, and he reasoned that a resistance of sorts must have built up. It no longer made him scream in agony for hours afterwards, it no longer made him pass out. But it still fucking hurt.

That O'Halley bastard didn't care, did he? Sucking up to Lucius like he was the Dark Lord himself. Draco knew his father was stupid, but he also knew he still packed a punch in Death Eater circles. He had gained a certain notoriety for being second in command during Voldemort's heyday, and although Draco knew that the glory had long since faded from that relationship, his bad name had lasted much longer. He was still a feared dark wizard, despite having remained inactive for years, preferring to pursue other interests such as badminton and the occasional game of lawn bowls. Neither of which were remotely frightening.

Unfortunately, the meal was still dragging on. Even though O'Halley was nobody as far as Lucius was concerned, he had still gone to the trouble of ordering the house-elves to produce a seven-course spectacular. It was all wonderfully cooked and presented, although Draco felt the jelly moulded into the shape of the manor was rather taking the piss.

"Where is mother?" he asked his father whilst trying to flatten down his still-ruffle hair.

"Fine woman...fine woman..." muttered O'Halley into the tablecloth. He had begun on the gin on the way back from the station, and hadn't stopped since. Lucius looked from the house elf who was collecting the fingerbowls to the chandelier, and then to his son. He looked unusually flushed, which could have been from the firewhiskey, or from the question he had been asked.

"Your mother is busy."

"Busy doing what?" Draco asked.

"Busy doing things," his father replied.

"What kind of things? Making tapestries? Serving tea and cake? Having energetic sex with a selection of Swedish lovers?"

"None of those things. Just things." Draco gave up. When Lucius was in this kind of mood it was no use asking him anything.

Eventually the stream of food slowed down and eventually stopped, which was good since everyone had stopped eating several courses ago.

"Would you like to join me in the billiards room for a brandy, Simon?" Lucius asked. O'Halley looked up from his plate, where he had been dozing for the last twenty minutes or so. "On seconds thoughts, perhaps you don't need a brandy. You...elf...take Mr O'Halley up to his room," he ordered of a passing house elf. "Draco, go and freshen up, and meet me in the library in half an hour."

"Father, it's long gone midnight. Must I?"

"Just do as you're told, and you'll remain as pretty as you are today. I'd hate to think what would happen to you if you disobeyed me..." Lucius stroked what Draco knew to be the compartment in his cloak where his father kept his wand, although to anyone else his father might have looked like a very dirty old man.

*

Blaise knew to pick her moment wisely. She wanted pure, hard facts, and she also knew she wouldn't get them if she was too angry. She had to be calm.

"So, I'm adopted, huh?" she asked casually of her parents, her normal muggle parents, her parents who had been so proud when she had gotten her Hogwarts letter, her parents who obviously hadn't been surprised that she was a witch, since they had adopted her straight out of a Ministry department.

Her parents stared at her, and then each other. Neither knew what to say.

"Why would you be adopted?" her father asked, loosening his tie.

"Because these papers say so!" she screamed, forgetting any attempts to be calm, and thrusting the yellowing pieces of paper at her 'parents'.

"Calm down, honey," he mother asked, placing a hand on her forearm gently. Blaise pulled her arm away abruptly.

"Get off me! How do I even know who you are?"

Then she ran up the stairs to her room, two at a time, trying to blink away the tears that came.

*

"So what did you want to see me for?" Draco asked with a sigh. He had washed, changed and felt a lot fresher than he had during the long, boring meal. His father had also changed apparently. His robes were now a rich and beautiful shade of green, and his hair, which had been loose at dinner, was now tied by a ribbon of some silvery material, that blended so exactly with his hair that it could have flown as part of it. Draco knew that his father was beautiful, and hated him for it. It was true, though. In as far a sense of the words as a man could be, Lucius was. And somehow he was so lovely to look at, and so elegant, that it surprised people when he turned nasty. Even Draco himself found he was almost surprised whenever his father's mood blackened. Almost.

Lucius set down his empty brandy glass and strode over to the fireplace, above which hung one of the thousands of family portraits that hung on the walls of the manor. This one happened to be Lucius' favourite. It was of his grandfather, a man he had been told he resembled, although the hard, masculine features of his forbear told of only half of what Lucius had grown to become. He loved the picture because to him it symbolised everything a Malfoy should be. Cold, proud, reserved.

It was also the portrait that Draco hated the most. He had grown up in a house full of oil paintings of the same men, blonde and powerful, and the same women, blonde and cowering. Each afraid of her respective husband. And this to Draco symbolised everything a Malfoy shouldn't be.

"I have somewhere to show you, Draco," Lucius sighed, and leant against the mantelpiece.

"It's not a secret lair, is it?"

"Actually yes."

He pulled on a wall-mounted candelabra, and the fireplace spun around, revealing a set of poorly-lit stairs, which they descended swiftly.

To Draco's disappointment, the lair was nowhere near as good as it should have been, considering his father's money and taste. But there was little time to criticise the décor. Lucius obviously had an agenda.

"Draco, I hope you realise that I have a purpose in bringing you home, in making you read the Magnanimatis. That there is a point to my madness."

"I had guessed," Draco replied.

"I'm sure you had. You're an intelligent boy. I can trust you to make the right choices. My son, your hour of glory has arrived. Your chance to prove your worth."

"To the Dark Lord? Father, we've been through this before."

"Not to the Dark Lord you know of, my boy, but to a far greater one still. This Dark Lord could curse Voldemort into oblivion in one round. No, although his powers seem to have returned, he is still weak. This is your chance to do what even he could not. This is your chance to serve two wizards, two wizards who together can be more powerful than anyone could ever envisage. And one of them stands before you in this very room."

"Lair," Draco interjected.

"Room, lair, whatever," Lucius continued. "Where we are doesn't matter. Only you, I and the Magnanimatis are of any real importance now. Just think, together we can rule the world."

"How?"

"Do you know of the powers that the book wields?"

"I have an idea," said Draco, thinking back to the letter from Hermione Granger he had found waiting for him after dinner. The one that foretold the correct use of the Magnanimatis as the dawn of a new and more frightening era than any wizardkind had ever seen before. And now it seemed he would be entering this era in a pact with his father and the most powerful sorcerer the Middle Ages had produced. "It involves the resurrection of Charon, does it not?"

"It does. And since he is our forebear, we can succeed in doing something no other wizard has ever purposefully done before. We can unleash the power of the Magnanimatis Adnecto!"

"Who would we use for the book to leech off?" Draco asked, out of interest more than agreement with his father's plan.

"It has all been planned, while you were being educated. I know exactly who we need. That's where you come in."

Draco's mind was racing. Him? How? And who? There was only one person he could think of. Harry. But no. It couldn't be Harry. Hermione had stated that a pureblood was needed, and Harry's mother was muggle born. Who else? The Weasel? One of his teachers?

"What do you need me to do?" he asked, his voice oddly strangled by the panic he felt rising in is throat.

"I need you to bring our most vital component here. I need you to bring us our energy source."

"Who?"

"Who else? The only person that Lord Voldemort failed to finish off. The only one with the power to sustain Charon. Harry Potter, of course."

All the good feelings of the previous few weeks suddenly disappeared. All of the restless energy that he had stored up melted away into nothing. Whatever had made him stand up to his father since he had been home was all gone, it drained away from his head along with the rest of the blood that was now rushing to his feet. When Lucius said those two words, now fatalistic in so many new and gruesome ways, Draco had felt his stomach and heart plummet as far as they could go. He had felt a wrenching inside of his chest, a choking strain in his throat. And yet, it was only if someone looked closely at him that they would notice a change.

Around the eyes, eyes that had truly opened themselves to the world around them in the last few weeks, eyes that showed more than they had ever shown before, were dark and bitter as the tarnished blade of an old knife. They had frozen over once again. Gone was the newly thawed heart that belonged to Harry, and now once again ensconced in his ribcage was the blackened cesspit that had once ruled supreme.

He spoke in a voice that sounded far away, cold, reserved and nothing like his own, the voice that he had come to know recently. The words that came out were equally alien to his newfound compassion.

"You can count on me, father. I'll get him."