The Curse of Charon

Chapter Seventeen

There was a flash of green light, and it was all over. Draco looked at the two bodies in the room, one of which still lived and breathed, and wondered how he could have even contemplated being the person that stopped the other from doing the same. He felt sick, the idea of killing disgusted him, but he also felt relieved. Relieved that it was all over and done with.

*

Dean was enjoying walking around the castle. Seamus (who hadn't yet mentioned the fact that they were trespassing) was yawning slightly, because Dean had woken him up too early and because, frankly, he had seen it all before. He had already shown Dean around the dining rooms, the drawing rooms, the libraries, studies, bedrooms, bathrooms and kitchens, and had tried to coax him back home afterwards, but Dean was still desperate to see as much of the house as he could. Which meant traipsing down a stone staircase into the dungeons.

They were fairly boring, all empty cells, and Seamus was ready to leave when Dean spotted something in one of the small rooms. It vaguely resembled Narcissa Malfoy, who he had seen once at school when she had accompanied her husband on business.

"Hey," he said. "Isn't that Malfoy's mother?" He pointed to a small figure that lay hunched in a corner of one of the cells, and although the cell door was open she was chained to the wall. Seamus yawed again, but he went over to where Dean was standing and looked in. What he saw woke him up immediately.

"Christ! It is! What the hell is she doing here?"

"I don't know," Dean replied. "But she's in a bit of a state. We should help her really."

Seamus looked over his shoulder.

"What if it's a trap?" he asked warily.

"Does anyone know we're here?" said Dean. Seamus shook his head. "Well it's not going to be a trap if no one knows we're here, is it?"

"Good point."

Nevertheless, they entered the cell in a rather more wary manner than they ordinarily would have. Seamus stood by the door, watching in case people same, whilst Dean knelt down by the woman on the floor. Her hands and clothes were smeared with dirt and her nails were ragged and broken.

"She's alive," he told Seamus. "Just. Are there any Healers in the area?"

Seamus shook his head.

"Right then," Dean continued. "We need to floo her to Hogwarts. Madam Pomfrey will know what to do. Got any floo powder?"

"Yeah. Me mam makes me take some with me wherever I go." He blushed slightly.

Just as they began to carry Narcissa back up the stone steps, some commotion arose in one of the cells down the corridor. There was some shouted, a voice that sounded a lot like Harry's talked about being fooled. Then they heard a low utterance, and saw a flash of light. A singed, burnt sort of smell filled the air, and there was a little smoke.

Two people left the cell where these events had taken place, but through the smoke neither Dean nor Seamus could see who they were. They only saw that they headed in the other direction.

"That sounded like Harry, Dean said as they continued to carry Narcissa Malfoy upstairs. "Do you think he's in trouble?"

"I don't know," Seamus replied. "But I think we ought to tell someone when we get to school."

They got to the dining room of the old house, where a fire was already burning, and Seamus put some of the powder he carried in a little packet in his pocket into the flames.

"Hogwarts School," he said, as he and Dean stepped into the fireplace, Narcissa hanging between them.

*

They had no idea which of the many fireplaces in Hogwarts they would end up in, still, they were slightly surprised to land in the Headmaster's office.

He did not seem at all perplexed by the fact that two students and the mother of another had just arrived in his office, but the people he was having a meeting with looked startled.

"I'm awfully sorry Mr Longleaf," Dumbledore said. "But I think we will have to reschedule. How is 11 o'clock on Tuesday for you?"

The man nodded, shook Dumbledore's hand and left the room.
"Now," the Headmaster said. "What can I do for you, boys?"

Seamus spoke.

"We were in a castle by my home, in Ireland, just looking around, and in the dungeon we found Mrs Malfoy chained up. I don't think she's well, she hasn't woken up yet."

Dumbledore looked at her for a moment, and then shook his head.

"I will call Madam Pomfrey, tell her to make up a bed."

He pressed a button on his desk, then, with a wave of his wand, conjured a stretcher.

"Can the two of you wait here for a minute?" he asked. Dean and Seamus nodded. Dumbledore waved his wand again and a plate of fairy cakes and two mugs of coffee appeared on the table. "Help yourselves," he said, then left, the stretcher following.

After about ten minutes had passed the Headmaster returned. He sat at his desk and faced the two boys.

"It seems that Mrs Malfoy will be all right, and Madam Pomfrey is perfectly capable of providing the kind of treatment needed to return her to health. It's lucky that you found her, though, another few days and she might not have survived. Now, is there anything else I can do for you gentlemen, or are you keen to get back to your holiday?"

"There is one thing, Professor," said Dean. "When we were in the dungeon, just after we found her, something strange happened in one of the other cells down the corridor. There was a voice, talking about fools or being fooled, and it sounded like Harry. Then there was a lot of bright light and a burning smell."

Dumbledore suddenly looked very interested.

"What colour was the light?"

"Green," Seamus replied.

"Hmmm," Dumbledore replied. "Did anyone leave the cell afterwards."

"There were two people, but we couldn't see who they were."

"I'll look into it. Thank you for your information, Mr Thomas, Mr Finnigan."

He stood, bowed, and ushered them towards the fireplace, where they flooed back to Seamus' house.

*

"I can't believe I did that," said Draco. "I can't believe I just murdered."

"You proved yourself," said the other man.

"Proved myself as what exactly?" Draco replied, running his hands through his hair, tugging at the roots slightly.

"You proved that you are stronger than I ever thought you could be. You proved where your heart lies, you proved that you really care about what you care about, and that you'd put me above all other things.

"What does any of that matter now?" Draco asked. "I'll probably end up in Azkaban."

"The thing that matters most is that you did what you knew was right."

Draco looked up, looked into the eyes of the man he had killed for, and smiled.

"I love you Harry."

"I love you too."

*

When Narcissa woke up she was in a strange place. It had curtains, it had freshly-laundered sheets, it felt soft beneath her aching body, in a sharp contrast to the hard stone she had become accustomed to over the last few months.

She tried to sit up in the bed she had found herself in, but was unable to. It felt like she was bruised all over, and when she looked down at her arms she found that she was.

"Lucius," she said to herself. "He did this. I'll kill the bastard."

*

Draco's memories of Lucius weren't very nice ones.

Where are my slippers? Where are my slippers? What have you done with my slippers you little bastard?

Draco hadn't even touched the slippers, and it turned out that a house elf had taken them, but that hadn't mattered to Lucius at the time. He had been thirsty for the power, desperate for the feeling of superiority over a small child. It was like a drug to the man, the feeling of being in charge.

Lash.

A single stroke.

Lash.

Another.

Lash,

Lash,

Lash.

Another, and another, and another.

He had walked out of the room, his whip in his hand, a sadistic smile painted across his face. He left his son, his only child, alone and bleeding in a cold bedroom. Lucius had felt no remorse, no sympathy, no compassion for his six-year-old boy. The only thing he could feel was pleasure, gained from the pain of others. Lucius Malfoy was a sick man, a sick, sick man.

*

As he stood on the lawn outside the castle, Harry still could not believe what had happened to him. He had been locked up for eighteen hours, then almost killed by the one person he loved above all others.

Those eighteen hours had been some of the worst of his life. All throughout his incarceration, he had thought that Draco did not love him. He had thought that he did not even have love to sustain himself. Then, when the morning had come, he had been sure that Draco was going to kill him, right up until, at the last minute, he had pointed his wand at Lucius instead.

That had been one of the best moments of his life. He had seen, first hand, where Draco's loyalties lay. He was in no doubt of the love that they shared now, because, as Draco had explained afterwards, he had never stopped loving him, even when he was supposed to kill him.

And in the end, he had not been able to kill Harry. He had taken one look into his green eyes, eyes that were filled with hatred and loathing, and had known he could not be the one responsible for extinguishing the powerful life force that burnt within.

Draco had been entirely prepared for Harry to hate him afterwards, to hate him forever for giving him doubt as to whether his feelings were reciprocated, but he found Harry to be kind, welcoming, loving. Harry had comforted him afterwards, had apologised forever doubting him, had been so nice it was hardly fair. Draco himself hadn't really thought about anything other than Harry and Lucius in the few hours that had passed since the incident in the cell.

Draco was still glad that he had done what he had done, though. He had realised at one point, when they all stood together in the cell, all still alive, that if he did not kill one he would have to kill the other. If he killed Harry, his father would have been happy. Had he not killed Harry, Lucius' wrath would not have been bearable, especially with Harry dead. So he knew that if he did not kill Harry, Lucius would have to die.

Now, although the one he loved was alive, his father was dead, and although he had killed him with his own hands and wand and mind, he still felt some grief. He had never been able to tell his father how much he hated him, or how he had made his like a misery. Now he never could.

It takes a lot of emotion to power and Unforgivable curse. Draco knew which emotions would have powered Harry's death and which ones powered his father's, and was relieved to find that they were different. In his own eyes, this made his crime far less bad, because it meant that he had not killed his father in bloodlust. If he had attempted to kill Harry because he wanted the feeling of taking life from the living, then he knew he would have killed his father for the same reason, and vice versa. Because he had not killed Lucius out of sheer desire to murder, he knew he would not have killed Harry for the same reason...and that made what he had done less of a crime. It meant that he had not killed wantonly, which made sense to him at least.

The emotion that would have powered the curse that he would have killed Harry with would have been fear, fear of what Lucius would have done to him if he had not. The emotion that had powered Lucius' death was anger, anger that his father had expected so much of him, anger for every time he had been beaten, or treated as though he was worthless. Anger for all the crap his father had put him through over the last sixteen years.

He walked over to where Harry stood, a few yards in front of him on the lawn, and put his arms around Harry's shoulders.

"I'm sorry," he said. "I'm so, so sorry, about all of this. It was all my father's doing, although I shouldn't have brought you here. It was always his idea. I never wanted to kill you. I always loved you, even when I was waving my wand in your face."

Harry smiled, and stroked Draco's hand slightly.

"It's all right. It doesn't matter. He's dead now, Draco, he's dead and we're not. That's all that matters."

*

"My Lord," said Wormtail, bowing before his master. "I have news."

"What is it this time?" the Dark Lord asked boredly. "I hope you're not wasting my time again, Wormtail. I'd hate to have to...punish you." Voldemort stroked his wand and smiled nastily. Wormtail shuddered, the memories of his last bout of the Cruciatus curse still fresh in his mind.

"Lucius Malfoy has been killed, my Lord," he said.

"Killed?" asked Voldemort. "By whom?"

"By his son, Draco," Wormtail replied.

The Dark Lord looked perplexed.

"Young Draco was supposed to join our ranks next year, and serve alongside his father."

"I fear that he will not, my Lord. He has fallen in with the wrong crowd. He is friendly with the Potter boy."

Wormtail cowered, expecting his master to be enraged, but he was not. Instead he laughed, slowly and silkily.

"That is excellent news. Lucius, of course, will be sorely missed, but if Draco is a friend of Potter's, I don't doubt that we can kill two birds with one stone."

*

Draco was sitting at the window-seat of the drawing room when a knock at the door disturbed him from his thoughts. There was a click as the handle opened, then Harry entered the room.

"We have to go now, he said quietly. "Dumbledore is here."

The Headmaster had decided to escort them back to school in case they attracted any undesirable attention on the journey back. Harry was almost glad to be leaving, too much had happened for him to really feel anything for the place, although he suspected Draco enjoyed the peacefulness and quiet that they had only really experienced in their last few days there.

Draco did not turn around, but he started to speak, his voice sounding dreamy and far away.

"I used to come here every summer as a child," he said. "Before the O'Halleys lived here it was my grandmother's house. When she died, my father inherited the estate and sold it to O'Halley, but that was only a few years ago. Up until then, I spent two months here each year. I used to have a wonderful time; the gardens were large enough to allow me to run almost wild. I used to make dens in the woods, and play games in the maze. It was wonderful, because it meant that not only was I free from my father's presence, but I was free from his rules too. My grandmother was a wonderful woman, very much like my mother, and like my mother she was trapped in a loveless marriage to a horrible man.

"My grandfather is now dead, and so is my father. The last of the cruel, sadistic Malfoys, who thought they owned their wives and children, is gone. I'm not going to be like him. I'll be my own person, instead of trying to live up to some grotesque caricature of greatness that he has tried to force me into."

"Did you really hate him?" Harry asked. Draco nodded.

"I hated him when he was alive, and although I wish I hadn't been the one who killed him, I still hate him now he's dead."

"Are you glad he's dead?" Harry asked.

Draco nodded again.

"I hate what he did to me, and what he did to my mother." Professor Dumbledore had explained about Narcissa when he had first contacted Draco and Harry, and Draco had been disgusted.

Harry walked over to the windowsill, sat down next to Draco, and kissed his neck gently.

"I'll always be here for you, no matter what happens."

"Even if I'm facing a murder trial when we get back to school?" he asked, his voice tinged with shades of worry. He realised how unfair it was to expect Harry to support him all throughout a trial, with lifetime incarceration a possibility on the horizon.

"I don't care what you're facing, Draco. I would still stand by you even if they sentenced you to a lifetime in Azkaban. I would look after you if they performed the Dementor's Kiss. If you died, I would go every day to your grave, and sit, and cry, because I love you, and I don't know about you, but I want my forever to be spent by your side."

"But what if...?" Draco began, but Harry but him off.

"I don't care if I don't get a happily ever after, but I know I'm going to get an ever after, and no matter how long it lasts, no matter what the circumstances are, I want to share my ever after with you. If they put you in Azkaban, I'll do anything to follow you. I'll volunteer to spend a lifetime in the cell next to yours. Just so I can be by your side, so we can always be together."

Draco looked at Harry, but did not speak. He could not say a word, but he felt tears forming at the corners of his eyes, eyes that over the last year had seen so many new things, eyes that had learnt so much.

Harry smiled and hugged him tightly. He felt the blonde boy's body next to his, the body of the strongest person he had ever met, the only person he had ever felt so much love for that he was sure his heart would explode into a cacophony of glitter and stars.

"I love you, Harry," the blonde boy said. "So much, I can hardly believe it."

"One thing I've learnt," said Harry "Is that you don't have to believe it. You just have to know that it's true."