The Curse of Charon

Chapter Eleven - Christmas

Christmas Day had almost arrived, Christ was nearly born, but Remus didn't care. How could it matter that a baby would born when He had been born to die? When He had suffered cruelly, and had been snatched prematurely from the ones who loved Him. Rather like Sirius, actually.

Not that he was going to compare Sirius to Jesus Christ. That would have been one step too far, for although Remus was unsure where he stood in terms of faith, memories of his childhood, his first Holy Communion and his Confirmation still stuck at the back of his mind, and still influenced some of what he thought and did.

Like his conduct, for example. He didn't have to be a martyr, or a great example of piety, but he could still be kind and caring to people. He didn't have to preach, but he could still live honestly.

Nothing mattered now though. Not his job, not even Harry, who was technically his to protect for now. All he could do was lie in the bed that still smelt warm and friendly. He could stay forever on the sheets that felt like home. He was afraid to move, for fear of shattering the great silence and stillness that hung over him like a fragile sheet of ice. Any movement he made was one that disrupted the shrine to what Sirius had been and had meant to him.

Then his skin began to prickle, and the hairs on his bare arms stood on end. He felt a familiar twinging in his back and shoulders. The realisation of what was happening swept over him like a blanket of clammy coldness and nausea. It was a full moon, and he was stranded in London without Wolfsbane.

*

In another lonely part of Britain, there was a party. And Blaise was at the party, and she was laughing and dancing and talking with people who had made her very angry. She didn't mind at all, which surprised her somewhat. She found she could deal with it. So what if she was adopted. They were still her parents; they had still brought her up and cared for her.

Why shouldn't they have a little fun together?

*

"It's Christmas Day, Ron," Hermione sighed, as she saw the pensieve that he had in his cubicle. "Can't you give this a rest?"

"No I bloody well can't," he replied. "I don't care what day it is, I just want you to believe me."

Hermione rolled her eyes.

"All right, I believe you."

"No you don't. You're just saying that."

"I'm only saying it because I want you to stop going on about what happened, to stop dwelling on the past and to get on with getting better."

"I'm fine."

"You're not."

"Yes I am."

Hermione sighed again. She hated it when Ron was stubborn and difficult. It made every meeting into an effort, turned every conversation into a fight.

"What do you want me to do?" she asked finally, and found her voice to be more sharp than she had intended.

"I just want you to see what I saw. I just want you to believe me."

"All right," she said. "Show me."

He took his wand, and placed a few threads of thought into the basin that sat on the cabinet next to his bed.

"Come on," he said. "We're going in."

*

"Where is mother?" Draco asked, as he sat next to his father at one end of the enormous table that took up most of their dining room. The table was beautiful, of course, as was the china, and the silverware, and the crystal wine glasses, and the antique bureaux that leant against the well-crafted walls, which were feast of masonry in themselves. The carpet was red and velvety, and Draco suspected that it would have had a very pleasant texture, however he had never dared to walk on it barefoot, not while his father was around. A tapestry hung along one of the walls, a finely stitched scene that showed various generations of Malfoys raping and pillaging muggle villages, slaughtering various creatures in the name of sport and partaking in other ghastly activities. The ceiling was a veritable canvas of artex creations, so much so that it paid fitting homage to the Georgian ceilings of the stately homes featured in many television adaptations of classic novels, not that Draco had ever watched any television, of course. Even the curtains in the room, in every room in fact, were about as splendid as curtains could possibly be.

In past visits home, and when he had actually lived there, Draco had always admired the fine décor and furnishings of his house. He had strutted around the halls and corridors and rooms and various wings and garrets and basements and dungeons, smug in the knowledge that one day it would all be his.

Now, for the first time, he could see exactly how cold the building was. He had never noticed before, but then before, it had suited him. It had suited him to live in a cold house, a house that would never really be a home. It was only now that he himself had found warmth that he realised that the beautiful table was just dead wood, that the silver and crystal and china had probably been made by some poor slaving muggles, and it was unlikely that his ancestors had paid for them. In the old days, the days when Malfoy corruption was central to the workings of the Ministry, no one cared what they did. It was a little different nowadays, but as long as they hushed things up and paid Fudge off every few months, they could still get away with an awful lot, something Draco was increasingly sure his father did to his full advantage.

The fine tapestry showed evil men committing heartless acts, the beautiful curtains framed windows that let in only the weakest and most austere of light. Lucius had been pottering around in his draughty old mansion for God knows how long, and seemed not to notice quite how unfriendly the building was.

Lucius looked up from his paper and smiled, a nasty, deep smile.

"Your mother is busy...she is...otherwise engaged. I told you that last night."

"What are we going to do about Christmas, then?"

Lucius' eyes lit up with the same feverish, obsessive passion that they had shone with the night before.

"Who cares about Christmas, boy, when we are about to do the most exciting thing the modern world has ever seen? What does Christmas matter now?

Draco sighed.

"How about this, father. How about I go back to Hogwarts? I could get a head start on Potter. If I have to make him care for me, surely it's best that I begin when no one else is around. Else they might get suspicious."

Lucius stood up, the flush of his cheeks even harsher than usual in the bright light of the chandeliers. He clapped a hand to Draco's shoulder, and Draco winced.

"You are definitely my son. You are intelligent, that I will grant you. Of course you can go back to school it is a brilliant plan. I'll get O'Halley to take you."

"I think I can manage on my own, thanks," Draco replied, not at all desirous to spend another journey with the man in a small carriage.

He was walking to the door when he turned around and looked at his father. He felt almost sorry for the man; he was obviously not entirely sane, not as sharp as he used to be. Draco supposed it must be that he was ageing.

"Merry Christmas, father," he called, from the other end of the long room.

Lucius looked up.

"What? Oh, yes, Merry Christmas, I suppose," he muttered, and returned to his paper.

Draco began to pack immediately. All he really wanted was some human company. O'Halley and his father didn't really count as humans.

He took one of the portkeys his father kept for all sorts of locations, automatic ones that could be activated with a flick of the wand, and with his trunk and his broom he went out onto the lawn at the front of his house.

He stood in the darkness for a few moments, with the only noise being that of the birds and crickets and the only real light being that of the huge, full moon that shone above him in the clear winter sky, and studied the big empty building, in which every room had a fire going, and only one or two were being used at any one time. Really, it was no wonder that his father was a little crazy. He had lived away from people for too long. And there was still the question of where Narcissa was.

With a sigh, Draco touched the portkey, touched his belongings with his other hand and felt himself whisked off into the cold night air.

*

Hermione found herself in a strange sort of half-world, where the ground was hard and where the sky surrounded her completely. She realised it must be some sort of tunnel. The air hung around her, and Ron, who was next to her, and it was thick, stale, and seemed to be a deep shade of purple-black. The place felt wrong, very wrong.

"Stop it, Ron," she cried, and reached out for his hand. It wasn't there for her to take, although she could see he was only a few feet away. He was gazing around, his eyes narrowed. He looked strong, for some reason, and she felt very weak and frightened.

Then a huge bolt of purple lightning struck somewhere, and for a few seconds she could see everything. The wall of faces began to wail and scream in the blinding light, crying for freedom, crying that they repented, and when she looked up, in the ceiling of the tunnel, many feet above where she stood, there was a face. It was not like any face she had ever seen. The nose was long and wolf like, and reminded her in a way of statues she had seen of the Egyptian god Anubis. Except the face's eyes glowed bright red, and it's mouth was twisted into a cruel, sadistic smile, and on it's head were the twisted horns of a ram or a goat. It was a horrific image, and appeared to be controlling the little world.

She looked to Ron, and saw him still scanning the place. Then she heard a few sobs, looked over to where they seemed to come from, and saw what he had been looking for. Himself, himself when he had been living this, when this had been more than a memory. Then she looked up, just in time to hear the ruler of the tunnel shout 'Thou hast been judged, Ronald Weasley!'

Ron turned to her, his eyes sharp and brilliant through the dimness, and took her hand.

"Come on," he said. "Let's go."

*

Harry didn't know why, but he decided to take a walk at about ten o'clock, and in the end was glad he did. The first few minutes were quite unpleasant, as the thick snow soaked through his oldest, most comfortable jeans in seconds, and the harsh wind whipped through his jersey, but he could live with that.

He took a gentle stroll across the lawns, then wandered down to the Quidditch pitch, and saw the slightly thin patch of snow, the Ron-shaped patch. Then he meandered back up to the castle. As he was about to climb the steps up to the entrance hall, a familiar voice called to him.

"What are you doing out in the snow, Potter?"

Harry spun around, and saw Draco, who looked cold, tired and whose clothes had a light dusting of snow. Without pausing for thought, Harry ran over to him and flung his arms around him, nearly knocking them both over.

"Hey, hey, watch the coat! It was expensive!" Draco protested. Harry beamed, and kissed him on the cheek.

"Come on up to my common room and get warm. No one'll be there, not this late." Draco went to pick up his trunk when Harry stopped him.

"Leave those for the house elves. Come on!"

Draco smiled, and followed Harry, who was racing up the stairs three at a time in his enthusiasm.

*

Remus was glad when the dawn broke, and he felt a little more human. Just a little. He felt his own blood, warm on his arms where he had scratched at himself with his own claws. He saw the chunks bitten out of the skirting board. He saw the sun crest over the buildings in the distance and he sighed. It was the dawn of a new day. Christmas day.

There was no one to mop his up. No one to stroke his hair and tell him it would all be better soon. No one to hold him tightly.

He sighed again.

*

Neville didn't mind being with his grandmother. It was more that he disliked being itself. There had been a time when he had been happy; a very long time ago, so long ago that he could hardly remember how happiness felt. After that, there had been nothing, just a throbbing, pulsing emptiness, a numbness that made him feel hollow, and all the while he had tried to convince himself that he was going to be all right, that he would get through it, that he had not died inside, just fallen asleep for a bit, and the old Neville would reappear soon.

He lived for so long in this vain hope that something would happen to make him miraculously feel better that it came as a surprise when, late one evening when he was in bed, he felt a wave of sadness rush over him, and he realised that the old Neville, the one inside, the one he wanted to go back to being and the one he had clung on to for so long, as his last hope, was dead.

He was truly dead inside. The numbness ebbed and coursed away every time he breathed, but each time he did so he hurt more. His pain became physical, tangible. He started to ache from somewhere deep inside, an ache that was echoed by every joint and muscle in his body. He grew tired very quickly, and found himself crying over the stupidest things.

Now he longed for the emptiness, because that didn't hurt. When you were empty, nothing hurt. But it never came again, and his mind filled with darkness that before he could not have imagined. He could not focus on anything for very long before storm clouds rolled inside his head and their thunder cut through him like a thousand knives.

He wanted someone else to be able to feel how he felt, to sit up and realise that they should have noticed that he was behaving differently, realise that they were lucky he had not done something about the terrible hurt inside long ago, that they were lucky Neville still walked among the living.

But of course no one did notice. No one noticed his quiet withdrawal from life as he had once lived it, or the fear in his eyes, or how he looked when he was trapped deep inside himself.

And of course, since no one noticed, no one cared. And if no one cared, then no one had any particular attachment to him. So if no one had any particular attachment to him, no one would miss him if they woke up one morning and he was gone. Or so he reasoned to himself, alone in his room, on Christmas morning.

*

"Did you get my letters?" Harry asked, as he and Draco shared a sofa in the Gryffindor common room. He was leaning against the arm of the huge leather settee, and Draco was lying along its length, his head in Harry's lap.

"Yes," he replied. "But I didn't read them. I couldn't, not when you were so far away. Will you do me a favour?"

"What?" Harry asked.

"I have the letters here...will you read them to me? I can't get enough of your voice."

Harry smiled, and took the letters from Draco's outstretched hand. He noted the broken seal, and unfolded the parchment carefully. Scanning his eyes over his own handwriting, he felt the words come back to him, and echo a thousand times in his mind.

"Dear Draco," he began, then paused. "I mean every word of these, you know," he said thoughtfully.

"I know you do," Draco replied sleepily. Harry nodded in satisfaction and continued reading. The letters were frank, honest, and full of feeling and love, full of pure, raw Harryness, something that no amount of style or pretence could ever truly emulate. This was Harry at his most beautiful, despite almost a total lack of verbal eloquence, he could truly command a pen, and make sure that whatever he felt was felt by the reader.

Draco felt his stomach twist slightly. He had no doubt that every word was heartfelt and that every word was true, and that was what pained him. How could he possibly betray someone who gave themself to him blindly, and spared no emotion? How could he hurt so badly someone who loved him so much? And worse, how could he hurt so badly someone he loved like he had never loved before?

*

"The holidays are almost over," said Dean, more to himself than anyone, as he and Seamus lay together in the large bed in the Room of Requirement. He was feeling very pleased with himself, because finally he had gotten what he wanted. Seamus had slept with him.

He looked over to where Seamus lay, right on the other edge of the bed, a huge gulf of sheets and blankets separating their bodies, bodies which had only minutes ago been so close.

He expected to see a look of pleasure, or enjoyment on Seamus' face. Instead, he saw that he was crying. Small, velvety tears crept down his face, and Dean could see his lip trembling in an attempt not to break down entirely.

Dean moved across the bed slightly.

"Oh Seamus, what's wrong?" he asked, and put his arms around his boyfriend.

Seamus really started to cry then.

"Get off me!" he sobbed wildly. "Don't touch me!"

*

Back in the hospital wing, Hermione tried to hide her tears inside her handkerchief and sleeve, but she failed. Even though Ron's eyes were closed, and her tears were silent, he knew she was crying. It was almost as though he could sense her fear.

"It's awful," he said gently, making no attempts at I-told-you-so's.

"Oh God, I'm sorry. I can't believe I didn't believe you, I mean, I didn't know it was like that, I had no idea..."

Ron shushed her. She sat in silence for a moment, blinking back the tears on her eyelashes.

"It is awful, isn't it?" she said finally.

Ron nodded.

As much as she normally prided herself on her self-control, Hermione couldn't stop the convulsing sobs that took over her.

"It's all right," said Ron. "Come here." He took her in his arms, and stroked her hair as she cried like a little child.

"It'll be all right," he said, but as he spoke she shook her head fiercely.

"No it won't," she said. "I've done something terrible."