Acts Infernal

"Build me a dome," said Aladdin,
"That shall cause all young lovers to sigh,
The fullness of life and of beauty,
Peace beyond peace to the eye."
Vachel Lindsay

In St. Mungo's, Draco lay asleep in a spare white bed, head propped on pillows. Nearby, on a hospital bench, Remus sat, one leg drawn up against his chest, cheek resting on his knee, breathing deep and even. Curled up next to him, paws resting on his tail, Sirius also slept, sharing the bench space with Draco's stray.

"Excuse me, sir?"

Remus opened his eyes, lifted his head stiffly, and stared at the Healer's apprentice, blinking.

"Are you the boy's father, sir?" the young woman asked. Remus smiled slightly.

"I'm a family friend," he replied.

"You're not supposed to bring pets in here," the woman continued. Remus nodded.

"I know, but they're all the family the boy has here, and I thought..." he gave her the most charming smile he could -- something he'd learned, he recalled, from Sirius. She smiled back.

"Well, I won't tell," she confided. "The Healers think he'll be all right. His physical injuries are already taken care of."

"But...?" Remus prompted.

"They're not really sure why he won't wake up," she admitted. "Did he take a sleeping potion? Was he enchanted at all?"

Remus glanced at the sleeping Sirius.

"I don't know what happened to him," he answered. "You might want to owl his moth -- "

"No need," said another female voice, from the doorway. Narcissa Malfoy stood there, framed dramatically -- no doubt planned that way, Remus thought, a trifle bitterly. If nothing else, the woman knew how to make an entrance.

"The hospital sent an owl when he was brought in," she said smoothly. "You can go," she added, to the Apprentice, who opened her mouth, thought better of it, and hurried away.

"Stop pretending you're asleep, Sirius Black," Narcissa snapped, and Sirius opened one doggy eye, warily. "I was told you were dead. As usual, a pack of lies."

"No, Narcissa," Remus corrected. "He really did -- "

"I wasn't talking to you," Narcissa snapped. "Werewolf filth."

Remus caught Sirius by the scruff of the neck just before his jaws fastened on Narcissa's leg.

"Down, Sirius," Remus commanded.

"Haven't gotten him killed yet, eh?" she asked, turning to the bed. "Not like you, Sirius, to leave your friends alive."

Remus struggled to restrain the dog, muttering invective under his breath. Narcissa, seemingly unaware, touched Draco's cheek.

Having finally subdued his friend, Remus looked up, and saw just a hint of the Dark Mark on Narcissa's arm.

"Doubtless, he failed in his assignment," she murmured. "Well. There are others."

Remus watched, stunned, as she turned and left, quickly and without a single word more. Sirius whined, and Remus released him.

"You can't going around ripping out the throats of relatives, Sirius, it's impolite," Remus scolded. Sirius sat on his haunches and yawned, changing back to human form almost idly.

"I'm going to find us something proper to get a bit of shut-eye on," he said, ducking out the doorway. After a moment, Remus shook his head, and turned back to Draco, sighing.

"So," he said softly. "What's it going to take to wake you up, Draco?"

There was a long moment of silence, and then a knock on the door. When he turned to look, he saw Harry and the boy named Tom tumble into the room, looking windblown and gritty, but immensely self-satisfied. Remus was tempted to ask them how they'd gotten to the hospital.

"How is he?" Tom asked, coming to stand at the bed. "Been fixed up, has he?"

"As much as they can," Remus sighed. "How'd he get those scars?"

"Magic."

"Yes, I'd gathered that," Remus said dryly."If I can ask, by the way, who the hell are you?"

Tom grinned. "I came from the Lower Way. I helped Harry and the others get out, and decided I wanted to see the world. I'm an angel," he added, and Remus watched in horrified fascination as two large bat-wings extended from his back. Tom glanced at Harry and shook his head slightly, and Remus wondered what he was warning the boy against.

"Tom helped us find a way back. We wouldn't even have known we had to escape, if he hadn't been there," Harry said.

"Then I'm indebted to you, Tom," Remus murmured.

"Wasn't anything. If Draco hadn't been there we'd have been dead just the same," Tom said lightly.

Remus turned to Harry, and rubbed his eyes with one hand. "You brought Sirius back," he said quietly.

"Yes -- where is he?"

"Finding something to sleep on, he said he'd be back soon. Harry..." he looked at him, and almost broke, there, on the spot.

Harry was watching him, a mixture of pride and shy hope on his face. The boy wanted to be praised for doing well, wanted to be approved of for bringing Sirius back, not because he was Harry's Godfather -- not because Harry had mourned for Sirius Black -- but because Remus had as well.

Harry had thought of it because he wanted his Godfather back, but he'd gone out and done it because Remus had lost Sirius too.

"You could have brought your parents back," Remus said softly.

"No," Harry replied, equally as quietly, and his face filled with a sort of shame. "I knew I couldn't bring them. And Sirius told me so," he added. "But I never went there to bring them back...it was Sirius. It was always Sirius."

"Thank you," Remus managed. Harry gave him a small smile. "You did more than most mortal men achieve in a lifetime."

Tom tousled Harry's hair, breaking the tension between the two. "Orpheus and Christ, my friends, and Harry Potter. Well done, Harry."

"Indeed," Remus agreed quickly. "Well done, Harry. Well done indeed."

He realised he was slightly incoherent, but then Sirius arrived, carrying a folding cot, and all four of them were distracted with how to get it through the door and set it up. When they finally had, Draco's mangy cat leapt onto it, curling up in the centre.

"Typical," Sirius sighed, and lifted the cat off the cot, onto Draco's bed.

"If I can ask..." Remus said thoughtfully. "Why did you kidnap a cat from hell?"

"Draco brought it," Harry said. "It's his cat."

Tom shook his head, and smiled. "Harry, you don't learn."

"What?"

"It's not a cat. Literal is symbolic and symbolic is literal, remember?"

"So?"

Tom pointed to the cat, kneading the blankets with its claws. "It's his conscience."

Harry blinked. He looked at the cat, who regarded him with calm amber eyes.

"This is entirely too strange for me," Remus sighed, dropping onto the bench. He rubbed his cheeks.

"Bit strange for all of us," Sirius added. "Harry, you'd best get some sleep."

"I'm not -- "

"You haven't slept," Sirius said. "Did you resurrect your Godfather only to be disobedient to him, Harry?"

Harry laughed, a sound Remus felt he hadn't heard in too long -- real laughter, without the bitter edge it normally had. The boy let them help him out of the armour he wore, and removed the boots, sitting on the edge of the small bed.

"You won't go anywhere?" he asked plaintively.

"We'll wake you if Draco comes round," Remus promised. "Tom, if you'd like to sleep..."

"I think I should," Tom replied, "though I'm not terribly tired. I don't normally sleep you know, but perhaps in the Aboveway..." his words were interrupted with a yawn, and he laughed. "I think that was my answer," he grinned. "Harry, budge over," he said, nudging Harry in the small of his back. "And no cuddling," he added, curling up in one half of the small cot, his back to Harry's.

"You wish," Harry mumbled sleepily.

Remus, satisfied that nobody was going to kill anyone for the time being, or die of exhaustion, leaned back, pressing his head against the wall. Sirius sat beside him, hunching over, resting his elbows on his knees and his chin on his clasped hands.

"You've new scars," Remus said.

"Deep magic," Sirius grunted.

"Are you all right?"

Sirius turned to regard him. "Are you?"

"I don't know what happened. I'd very much like to. I'm frightened this is going to be another dream. And I don't know why Draco won't wake up," Remus said, his voice so low that even Harry and Tom, only a few feet away, couldn't hear. "Other than that I'm all right, I guess." He paused. "I missed you, Pads. I'm so sorry I wasn't -- "

"You couldn't have known. Stupid grandstanding of me, up on the platform," Sirius said, cutting him off. "Don't let's talk about it."

"All right." Remus let silence settle over them, until Sirius drew a breath.

"Harry said I've been gone over a year," he said sleepily. "I don't even know what day it is."

"July thirty-first," Remus replied, yawning. "Harry's seventeenth birthday."

***

When even Remus' shallow breathing slowed and deepened, Draco risked opening his eyes; he lifted his head, propping himself up on his elbows, and looked closely at the pair of men asleep on the bench. Then he turned to Harry and Tom on the cot, and watched them for a while; satisfied, he pulled his legs up, and slid to the floor cautiously.

The room tilted and spun, for a moment, but he swallowed his bile and tried taking a step. When he didn't fall, he took another. Things seemed slightly skewed, as though the proportions weren't quite right, but that was probably the result of the knot of pain in the back of his head, throbbing insistently. He'd been hit, hadn't he? One of the giant freezing wings had knocked him forward.

He was wearing the thin white hospital robes, and he saw the armour and clothing he'd been wearing, piled with Harry's and Sirius' armour.

He'd been awake for some of it. He'd heard Lupin convince the Apprentice to let Sirius and the cat stay; heard Tom and Harry arrive. Tom almost sounded like he admired him -- Draco Malfoy, of all people to admire.

Tom was going to hate him, after this.

He bent carefully over the cot, and saw the dagger in its strange, triangular sheath, laced to Tom's belt. He picked at the laces slowly, pausing every time Tom or Harry shifted in their sleep, and lifted the thing, sheath, laces, and all, away from Tom. Next he found his wand, lying in the jumble of armour, and his clothing; he didn't dare put on the armour itself -- the buckles would snap loudly even if he could do it on his own. He settled for the bound animal-hide trousers and grey-white military tunic. He laced the dagger-sheath to a loop on one side of the trousers, and once out in the hallway, pulled on the boots.

It was still early, and the hospital staff was changing shifts; nobody noticed him as he strolled down the hallway, and out into the crisp morning air.

Outside, he pressed his thumb to the Dark Mark on his arm.

"I have it, Lord," he said quietly. Voldemort did not speak to his supporters directly, but Draco felt the familiar tingle of a query in his mind. "No, not here," he said softly. "The Ministry. Yes, in that place. Appropriate, I think."

There was a satisfied spark behind his right ear, and he reeled -- normally the sensation would have been little more than a confirmation of his plans, but he was put off balance, and nearly fell.

When he managed to stand upright again, he looked down at the Mark. No mortal device could remove it, once placed; it could be faded, but Voldemort's power could bring it back out instantly.

He took out the dagger, and pressed it to the skin above the Mark, lightly. The blades didn't look sharp -- if anything, they seemed worn and blunted -- but he could feel it against his skin like a razor.

He pressed down.

***

And in this place...

Death, though no-one has truly died here; despair though the voices through the veil are naught but hope; the end of all things in the promise of another beginning.

Draco let himself into the grand room, amused at how simple it had been to find it -- his mother, still privy to some Ministry secrets though his father was in prison, had told him how he could reach it, should he ever have to. Hide in plain sight was the Ministry's new policy, a stupid one when dealing with eternally curious Death Eaters. There was a touchstone and a portkey he could Apparate to -- his father'd had him Apparating since he was fifteen -- and then it was simply a matter of opening a door.

He redoubled the makeshift bandage around his arm, which was still bleeding; he should have done it in the hospital where he could get proper bandaging, but the torn strip off the bottom of his tunic would have to do. And his sleeve covered it neatly, when he dropped it.

He mounted the stairs to the platform slowly. Half of it was shadowed, and it was to the shadows that he turned.

"I'm here," he said, to the emptiness.

Eyes glowed in the dark.

"Well done, Draco," said a soft female voice. Bellatrix, he thought. "Do you know why the Dark Lord asked you to fetch such a thing?"

Draco pulled the dagger from its sheath, and let it rest in his palm as he studied it. The voice was too even to be Bellatrix, far too sane.

"Don't play with me, Lord," he said. The eyes flared. "You're speaking through her."

"Perhaps."

"I saw what it did in the underworld," Draco continued. "It's powerful, isn't it? Sever a man's soul from his body."

"And so much more," said Bellatrix, emerging from the shadows. "Trustworthy and clever. Your father was -- is -- the same. But he is not here, and that means that there is an opening in my Circle. Where your father once stood."

She stood facing him, eyes occasionally darting to the Arch directly behind him, and he knew that she and the Dark Lord were thinking -- if he doesn't accept, one shove will complete him.

She stretched out a withered but surprisingly strong-looking hand.

"Take your father's place," she said. Draco felt unsteady. "Then give me the Dagger."

He took her hand, and she smiled.

And then he pulled.

It nearly overbalanced him, but it had the desired effect; as he turned, she stumbled forward towards the veil that hung from the arch. Not far enough, though -- her clawlike fingers scrabbled on stone, and she pushed herself away.

Draco stepped backwards. Fire danced in her eyes.

"Foolish, stupid boy," she growled. "Push me through in her body? Am I not cleverer than a child of seventeen?"

Draco danced away from a lunge she made, pain exploding in his head.

"Now I'm going to leave," said the horrible, sane voice. "And she's going to kill you. Why did you do it?"

"I've seen what's waiting for me if I don't," Draco replied, through the stabbing pain behind his eyes.

Bellatrix grinned.

"That's why I plan to live forever," she said, and her face seemed to settle into the insane rictus of a madwoman.

"Cocytus was where I belonged," Draco grated, as they circled each other. Bellatrix lunged, and he darted away again. "Because I was planning to betray. To be a traitor to the Death Eaters."

"And now you're going to die," Bellatrix cackled. "Ahaha. Ahahaha..."

She raised her wand, and cried, "AVADA KE -- umnh....?"

Draco had moved forward in the moment her arm was raised, and driven the dagger up to the hilt, into her ribcage, with a sickening cracking noise. She gurgled, curiously. He drew back his sleeve, makeshift bandage falling away.

"Everyone thought there was going to be a war, you see," he said softly. "But wars are for fools who don't know how to end things quickly. I am not a pawn anymore. For anyone."

He twisted, and she shrieked. "Do you hear me, Voldemort?" he asked, to the empty room. "And neither is she. I could say a single word and send her to any hell I pleased, with this..." A twist of the blades. Blue light began to crackle around the handle. "But someone else can judge her. Just like I was."

He pulled the dagger back, and Bellatrix screamed. The electric blue energy danced over her, lighting Draco's face.

"Just this once," he said, as she collapsed, "I'm going to be the hero."

He stabbed again, this time into the stone buttress of the arch, and there was an explosion of light.

***

Harry was waiting for him.

"I felt it," he said, as Draco walked tiredly into the hospital's receiving room. Draco nodded, and checked the signs, passing through the hallway towards the ward he was supposed to be sleeping in. He took a roll of Gauze-Aide off of a supply cart, trying to hold it against his chest and open it one-handed. Harry took it out of his hands and flipped up the cardboard top. "Tom did too, but he didn't know what it was. We both woke up in a cold sweat, and your bed was empty. I had a time talking him out of calling the others."

"So you know," Draco said dully, leaning against the wall outside his room. His shirtsleeve was stained with blood, now, and he rolled it back, holding out his uninjured hand for the bandages.

"I know," Harry agreed, ignoring the hand and pressing the gauze against the wound. It burned as it began to heal the raw, bloody gash where his Mark should be, and Draco hissed.

"You never would have done it. And it had to be done," he said, over the pain. "I wanted to kill him. But I'll settle for having killed her."

"I don't approve of it," Harry said, wrapping the bandage around the blond boy's arm. "But I'm glad you did it."

"This doesn't mean I like you at all," Draco replied. Harry pulled a loose end and tied a knot, tightly, and Draco let a tremor of pain pass over him. "I only did it because I don't want to go back to Dis. I'm not on your side, Potter."

"Sure, Malfoy," Harry said vaguely, tucking the rest of the bandage back into the box.

"And I still hate you."

"Course you do."

They stood there, not meeting each other's eyes, until Harry jammed his hands into his pockets and leaned against the wall next to Draco, closing his eyes.

"It's not over," Draco said.

"It never is, for us," Harry answered.

"That's going to take some getting used to."

"You'll have to give Tom's dagger back."

"Yes, you will have to do that," said Tom's voice, and they both looked up. He stood there, arms crossed. "Spoil my fun, Malfoy."

"Your fun?"

"Well, someone had to go destroy the arch," Tom sighed. "I wanted to be there to see it burn."

"It didn't burn," Draco mumbled, offering the dagger and sheath to their rightful owner, flushed with shame. "It exploded."

"You could at least have brought me along," Tom sighed, tying the sheath to his belt once more. "Come on, let's get Black and that Lupin character -- here, Harry, are you sure that one's all right in the head? Seems a bit slow to me -- and get out of here."

Harry grinned. "I want to see the look on Dumbledore's face when he sees you, Tom," he said. Tom threw back his head and laughed, a clear boy's laugh, filling the hospital ward.

"There's great days ahead, my lads," he said, with a grin. "Don't let anyone tell you otherwise."

***

-- And that is the story of the Harrowing of Hell, says the old man. The children sit watching him.

He smiles; he has been a Scop for many years, and he can see it in their eyes, that he has done his job well. He sees them lift themselves up out of the story, now that it has ended, and place themselves within the real world once more.

It was not a gift, this telling of stories. It was a skill he earned, with many others, in dark places where fear and courage were sometimes indistinguishable.

-- But what happened next? one of the smallest children asks. What happened to the sable boy and the silver boy?

-- That is a story for another time, child, the old man says. That is another story. And see? The sun is setting.

They turn to see the last red rays wash over Diagon Alley, and the spell is fully broken. They go about their way, some rising to run to their parents, others being led away by friends, the older children congregating and conspiring about their plans for the evening.

-- It was a good story, Scop, says one of the oldest children, and presses a Galleon into his hand. He has no need of their money, but a Scop is only a Scop because he does not tell his stories for free. Otherwise he is simply an old man rambling on.

-- Thank you, child.

-- But how do you know it? Is it true?

-- Every word I speak is true, because I make them so, says the Scop, but in this case the words are true because they are true. Have you not heard of Sirius Black and Angel Tom? Did they not fight alongside the Boy Who Lived?

-- Yes, they did. The boy furrows his brow. How could you know?

-- Because I was there.

-- All Scops say that, the boy scoffs, but respectfully. The old man glances at the boy's bright red hair, and smiles.

-- You're a Weasley, aren't you?

-- George Weasley's grandson, says the boy proudly. George Weasley was a boy-warrior as well, and is a wealthy man.

-- I should like you to carry a message to your great-uncle for me, if you would. The old man pauses, composing it in his head. If you would learn to be a Scop, or understand us, memorise this as your apprenticeship.

The boy nods wide-eyed, and waits.

-- To Ron Weasley, and to his wife, and to his friends, who are of the Phoenix, the old man says. I am in England again, after many years being without it. Come to hear my stories, if you would, and tell me yours. I salute you as the Storyteller.

-- Is there no name? the boy asks.

The old man's slate-grey eyes glint in the dying sunlight, and he curls his fingers around the Galleon. The movement makes the muscles of his left arm ripple, and the sleeve shifts slightly; a vivid brown scar stands out on the skin of his forearm. The boy's lips tighten, and he stares in open shock.

-- There is no name, says the old man. There is merely the Storyteller, and the story.

END