Family Album: The Photographs

The Photographs II

Draco saw her photograph in the morning paper and he remembered. Her face stared out at him from the newspaper's front page and the Hogsmeade shop windows. She looked... older, of course, but his heart leapt. She was free. He would see her again.

He had woken to the sound of rain. The storm that had surrounded the castle for several days had still not blown itself out - or had been succeeded without interval by another wrack of gale and cloud. Draco was not very keen on storms. He had never been afraid of thunder and he didn't care about getting wet, but nonetheless he found the weather somehow unsettling. His mother didn't like storms, either. Sometimes at home for the Christmas holidays he caught her staring out of the window of the drawing room before supper. Then Lucius Malfoy would forego his evening walk around the shrubbery and stay indoors with the fire and his wife and son and a glass of whisky. Sometimes Draco and his father made an attempt at Narcissa's crosswords, failing dismally through lack of patience and any aptitude whatsoever for the task until they gave up and read or listened to the WWN or played wizard bagatelle. Even so, sometimes Lucius would have to leave the room and then Draco tried not to look too curious as his mother walked to the window and slipped behind the heavy curtains the better to look out into the night. The sea will be so rough tonight, she whispered to herself. The wind is so strong. It will be so cold out there.

On this morning Draco dragged himself out of bed as usual and down to the bathrooms, emerging ten minutes later in a cloud of steam and looking innocuously cherubic, albeit in a manner that suggested said cherub had indulged in too much port. Pink-faced, with his damp hair pushed roughly back behind his ears, Draco was making his way back to the dormitory when Millicent Bulstrode came hurriedly clumping along the corridor and called him in a harshly projected whisper.

'Draco!' He turned round. Millicent had her finger to her lips. 'Draco, Professor Snape was in the common room looking for you. He wants to see you in his office now.'

'Now?'

'Now. He said you're to get dressed and go down straight away. And not to talk to anyone.'

'Not talk to anyone?'

'Not talk to anyone. God knows what you've done, but I'm glad I'm not you. He was in such a strange mood.' No change there then, Draco muttered to himself, though that wasn't wholly fair. Professor Snape was rarely angry for no reason, assuming Potter and Longbottom's mere existence to be reasons, of course. But was it fair to drag Draco out of the dormitory before breakfast? He was almost sure he hadn't done anything to deserve it. Perhaps it would be a task for the prefects, but he could think of nothing that might not have been told them the night before or have otherwise waited until after breakfast, and Millicent had said not to talk to anyone and hadn't even mentioned Pansy. Draco wondered vaguely whether his parents had been in touch, but it didn't seem likely. Now that he was older, his father had become stern on the subject of not confusing home and school relations.

'It was different when you were younger,' Narcissa had said at the beginning of his third year. 'Then we were glad to know you were well looked after. But now you need to stand on your own two feet, and Professor Snape has lots of things to keep him busy without having to keep an eye on you for us.' So it was with some surprise that with his school robes on and his blond hair neatly combed Draco Malfoy entered Professor Snape's office to see the teacher tying an envelope to the leg of what looked very much like one of his father's owls.

'Was that - ' The expression on Snape's face as he turned drove all thought of questions from the boy's lips. The head of Slytherin was even more sallow than usual, his eyes heavily shadowed, and he had the characteristically careful movements of a man a mere missed breakfast away from being terribly sick.

'Draco. Sit down.' Snape lifted out his own chair from the desk and sank into the green leather. He rested his chin on his interlaced fingers and stared at Draco through narrowed eyes. He looked uncharacteristically anxious and when he spoke there was effort behind his neutral tone.

'You don't know why I have summoned you, do you Mr Malfoy?'

'No, Professor.' Snape lowered his hands and looked straight at Draco.

'When you go into the Great Hall for breakfast this morning, Draco, you will find your fellow students reading the Daily Prophet. I don't believe that you take it?'

'No - but I read it in the common room,' he added hurriedly.

'Hmm.' Snape sighed and paused as if searching for words before giving up and pushing something across the polished wood. 'You'd better look at his.' Then he sank back again into his chair, resting his fingertips on the edge of the desk. Draco unfolded the newspaper.

'Why - ' he began, but no sound came out. He had seen the front page, and he knew why.

MASS BREAKOUT FROM AZKABAN

MINISTRY FEARS BLACK IS 'RALLYING POINT'

FOR OLD DEATH EATERS

Ten black-and-white pictures filled the front page, nine wizards and a witch, and under the photograph the words, as if he would need them, as if anyone ought to need them. Bellatrix Lestrange. Draco sat and stared. It was her! She was there, just as he remembered her! Just as she was in the old family photographs, bold and dark and drawing all eyes to her. Just as he saw her in those dim scenes that were his earliest memories, glowing with the passion in her voice, the intensity of those eyes, and the swirl of her long dark hair. Oh, he had seen her so much over the years, in the photographs, in his memories, in his nightmares and his dreams. And now he would see her again in the flesh, his glamorous, magical aunt, Bellatrix Lestrange, his mother's sister who had escaped from Azkaban. Draco examined the photographs more carefully. His uncle was there, too, and his brother, Rodolphus and Rabastan Lestrange, convicted of, of what Draco didn't care. He barely remembered his uncle at all. He had been a kind but vague presence, tall, thin, and calling Bellatrix away to attend to something other than her nephew. Draco peered more closely at the pictures. The family resemblance between the two Lestrange brothers had grown stronger over the years. When they were younger they hadn't looked alike at all. Draco's eyes drifted back to the witch. She looked tired, he thought. Probably she hadn't been sleeping very well, not in Azkaban. Twelve years was a long time not to be sleeping very well. But now she was free, and he would see her again. Across the table, Snape shifted in his chair. Draco looked up.

'Thank you, sir.' The Potions Master nodded.

'Your father will be at the Ministry all day, but your mother wishes to speak to you at one o'clock. Come down here. You may use the fireplace.

Again a whispered,

'Thank you sir.' Draco hesitated. He was sure he ought to be saying something else, but he couldn't think what. Of course, his mother would have to make the old rooms ready. His chest felt hollow, as if his ribs were being pulled in to fill the space where his lungs used to be.

'There's no need to worry, Draco. The Ministry' and now Snape's lips had gone very thin, 'The Ministry are certain that all the escaped Death Eaters have rallied to Mr Black. Your parents will be quite safe.' Draco nodded and clamped his mouth shut. He thought of his mother ordering the house elves to air the rooms, pulling the best linens out of the cupboard for the beds. She would be so happy, Dad too. He felt Snape watching him across the desk as Draco put his hand to his mouth to wipe away the grin that threatened to plaster itself there. Snape tactfully looked away as Draco folded up the paper and pushed it back across the desk.

It didn't feel right. It was too easy to control himself. His aunt was free, and he knew that he wanted to shout aloud, to shove back his chair and run into the common room and cry out to his friends that Bellatrix was free, and though he hadn't said a word he knew that Professor Snape knew all this, and thought that it was a very bad idea, and indeed Draco didn't really want to tell people after all, because he never had talked about his family much, apart from mother and father of course, and never, never at all about Bellatrix. It didn't feel right to talk about her, even his mother didn't talk about her, only showed him the photographs in the great leather bound albums in the drawing room, look, that's mummy, and that is Andromeda and that is Bellatrix. But now there were these other pictures and it didn't feel right. He wanted to gloat and shout and he knew that he wouldn't, and that it wasn't going to be fun after all. People were going to look at her, and people were going to talk.

'Will there be posters like before, Professor Snape?' Draco knew the answer, but he asked it anyway.

'I expect so. Not around the school, of course, but in the village. And you must expect some talk, although I don't imagine many students know of your...connection, even within this house. So you shouldn't worry.' For a moment Draco thought that Snape was going to say something else, but he appeared to think the better of it and the black gaze slid away. Draco wished the teacher would say something else, but he knew from experience that the professor was the master of charged silences. As a prefect this year, he had found it enlightening to see how Snape's silences alone could bring out confessions from the most defiant wrongdoer. Fortunately Draco himself had worked out a tactic to deal with being on the receiving end of Snape's silent stares. He simply changed the subject. He thought it was the sort of thing his father would do, and was rather proud.

'I'm not worried, sir.' Snape nodded firmly, but said nothing as Draco went on. 'Only, sir, what do you think will happen if they're caught? The Prophet said they'd, the Ministry, that they'd give Sirius Black to the Dementors to kiss, and I, I wondered if people who'd -'

'Associated with Mr Black would also be subject to such punishment?' Snape interjected. Draco nodded. It wasn't quite what he had intended to say, but it would do. Snape shook his head brusquely. 'No, Draco. I think that will not happen.' Snape rubbed his thumb and forefinger over his eyes and down his long hooked nose.

'I will not permit talk, Mr Malfoy. I do not like gossip and innuendo, and I will not have Professor Umbridge hearing this house have any part in it. I will not have rumours spreading in the corridors and common room. You may answer your friends' questions, but otherwise I shall expect the prefects to take the lead in subduing any effort to make this into an occasion.' The thin lips twisted in distaste.

'No sir. I don't want people talking about it either.' Not about her. Not the way they would talk, all chatter and you know what I heard.

'Good. You may go to breakfast.' Snape stood up and Draco followed him and paused. The newspaper was still lying on the desk, Bellatrix's picture uppermost. She leaned against the frame, the heavy lids fallen over her dark eyes. Draco reached forward and picked it up.

'May I take this, sir?' Snape looked round.

'What? Yes, yes, take it, go on.'

'Thank you.' Draco was almost at the door. He reached out reluctantly for the handle. It was odd; he didn't want to go. The vile things in jars stared down at him from the shelves as creepily as in his first year, the great black bat of the Potions Master loomed over him, cold and forbidding, and Draco desperately wanted to stay, to listen to the Professor's warnings. His mother wanted to speak to him at one o'clock, but that would be different. His mother was family. His mother wanted to talk about her with him, but Draco wanted to talk about her with someone else, someone outside who hadn't grown up loving her, but would still say something about her. Something nice. It was odd. Draco had thought he wanted to see her again more than anything else in the world, but now it would be soon he wasn't sure. It had been so long ago. She would think he had changed, and he didn't know whether she would like it. He wondered whether she had ever thought of him, in Azkaban. He had thought of her. Her sweep of long black hair, her rich raw voice clotting with blood and fear and screaming. He turned around to face the Professor and found the black eyes fixed upon him and he had to say something.

I used to dream about her. I still do. He did not say it aloud, but the black eyes widened nonetheless, and the severe face seemed to soften the tiniest bit, and Draco said staring,

'Did you know each other, sir?' Snape blinked once and stretched his hand out against the door for a moment so that Draco could not open it.

'Yes, we did,' he said softly. 'She knew me quite well for a while, a long time ago.'