Irredeemable

Draco appeared in one of the unused rooms of the Dark Lord's castle stronghold, cradling an unconcious Harry Potter in his arms. The other boy was so light! Draco privately wondered whether or not Potter had ever eaten a decent meal, and decided that he must not have.

A pair of Death Eaters moved as if to stop him when he came out of the small room, but stopped when they saw the figure huddled within the reach of Draco's arms. "Our master will want to see you," they told him, voices as expressionless as their plain masks. Draco nodded.

One of them moved to take Potter from him, but Draco resisted. "He's hurt. Moving him too much could injure him even more. I'll carry him." The Death Eater shrugged minutely and turned, leading Draco up through the bowels of the castle.

A few minutes later he was ushered into the Dark Lord's presence. Draco had never seen the man before, and he bowed deeply, almost dropping Potter as he did so. It was awkward to attempt to stand up after Voldemort told him to rise, but he somehow managed.

"You have done exactly as instructed," Voldemort hissed, eyeing Harry with an odd mix of longing and pride. "For that, you will be rewarded. You will be inducted into the ranks of my Death Eaters, young Malfoy. You have done your family proud."

"Thank you, my lord," Draco choked out, scared and exhilirated at the same time.

"Leave us," the Dark Lord commanded, gesticulating for all the Death Eaters to file out of the room, which they did dutifully. Draco peered up at his master through his thick eyelashes, chewing his lip subconciously and wondering what was to happen now.

"What condition is my young Harry in?" Voldemort queried, a quaint tone of possession in his voice.

"He... he doesn't seem to have been fed much, and his injuries were left untended. He... he was-"

"Spit it out, boy," Voldemort growled impatiently, "I do not have time to waste. I must know of his condition immediately!"

"He was bitten by a werewolf," Draco whispered in the closest thing to a squeak a Malfoy had ever dared utter. To his surprise, Voldemort did not seem the least bit upset; rather, he looked exuberant.

"This is better than I could have hoped!" he laughed, crimson eyes shining with an eerie light. "Draco, you will watch over young Harry. See to it that he recieves medical attention, food, and other nesecities. He is in your charge. Do not disappoint me!"

"I won't, my lord, I swear it!"

Draco kept a close watch on Harry as he slept, monitoring his love for any signs of distress. Harry was snuggled up against the taller boy, body relaxed and a slight smile playing across his face. Draco loved it when Harry was sleeping; he seemed so happy and at rest.

His head snapped around when he heard the door crack open and he glared at the familiar freckled face that appeared there. "Come to stare, Weasley?" he asked. "Couldn't wait to see him, could you?"

"What of it, Malfoy?" Ron snapped back, his face pale and looking freshly scrubbed. His eyes were red and swollen and a few tears lingered in them still. "He owes me an explanation for what he did."

"He owes you nothing," Draco spat, locking eyes with the redhead and silently daring him to argue.

"He killed my sister! He tortured Hermione, and me! You couldn't imagine what his betrayal has done to my family; it's ripped my mum apart. She blames it on herself! And all of this is his fault!"

"Harry is not the one at fault, you bloody bigot. He is the victim here, not you or your pathetic little excuse for a Pureblood relatives."

"Shut up, Malfoy!" Ron screamed, face suddenly flushed with fury. "Potter destroyed my life! He killed my sister, and she didn't even do anything!"

"Oh, he didn't just kill your sister," Malfoy taunted with a wicked grin.

"What the hell do you mean?" Ron demanded angrily. "Are you trying to tell me he raped her or something?"

"Please, Weasley, as if Harry would stoop to touch a little filthy thing like her."

"What are you talking about then?"

"The twins, Weasley, your twin brothers. They're dead too."

"No, no they're not," Ron denied weakly. "They're still hiding out in Diagon Alley, waiting for help to arrive. They wouldn't have gotten caught."

"I wish you could have seen their faces when Harry revealed himself to them. They were horrified. They chose to challenge him. And they died for it."

"You saw my brothers die?" Ron's voice cracked with despair. "You saw it?"

"I didn't just see it," Draco smirked, "I helped."

Ron shook, clenching his hands into fists and squeezing his eyes shut tightly. "You bloody snake," he managed, each word being ripped from his tongue as if it caused him pain to even speak to the Death Eater. "You deserve what you're going to get. I'm going to be there when the Dementors give you the Kiss, and I'm going to laugh."

"Ah!" Harry shrieked, curling into a ball and flailing wildly around the bed. "No, no, it wasn't me! I swear, I'm not- you've got to believe me!"

The insulting retort died on Draco's tongue as he darted towards Harry, wrapping his arms around him tightly. "Shhh," he soothed, rubbing his hands up and down Harry's back. "You're just fine. It's a nightmare."

This time, however, comforting words and motions were not enough to stop the horrors that Harry was seeing. His entire body spasmed, almost knocking Draco to the ground. "Wake up, Harry!" Draco pleaded desprately. "You've got to wake up!"

Harry's forehead was puckered in pain and a faint sheen of sweat began to shine on his brow. "Come on, Harry, don't do this to me!" Harry's mouth opened as wide as it could and he let out one loud bellow, somehow conjuring up all the pain and suffering he had experienced in his miserable life and letting it out in one terrible note. Ron covered his ears as tears plummeted down his face in icy rivulets, eyes wide with horror at the sight of the Boy-Who-Lived.

"I need my wand, damnit," Draco growled, knowing that he could help if he could do a calming charm. "Harry, why did you have do pick now?" Draco gave an exasperated sigh, though in truth he was not angry, at least not at Harry.

"Shhh, Harry, shhh," Draco whispered, pinning Harry beneath him in a last ditch attempt to stop his thrashing. Harry struggled feebly for a few moments before relaxing once again, though his brow remained furrowed.

"Leave us alone, Weasley," Draco commanded, gesturing towards the door. "Don't come back."

"What the hell's wrong with him?" Ron questioned, planting his feet stolidly in the door and refusing to comply with Draco's demands.

"You're what's wrong with him. You betrayed him, and it's all your fault that he's like he is today."

"I loved Harry," Ron argued, glaring at Draco. "I didn't betray him; he betrayed me."

"You couldn't love Harry," Draco snarled, feeling almost like a werewolf himself as an animalistic rage built up inside him. "You couldn't have loved him and still have done the things you did."

"And I suppose you think you love him?"

"I do," Draco answered succinctly, raising his chin in mute challenge. "You don't understand. We love each other."

"Monsters like you can't love."

"Then you know we're not monsters," Draco answered, fighting with himself to not throttle the other boy. Ron merely widened his eyes in a puzzled look and slipped out of the door, deep in thought. Draco turned back to Harry and settled down beside him once more, hoping that there would be no more interruptions that night.

Ron stood in the midst of his shattered family, tears streaming freely down his face. Snow drifted downwards from the oppressive gray clouds, coating the six remaining Weasleys in a blanket of white. Ginny's body lay before them on a funeral pyre, eyes closed and hands folded in the peaceful repose of death.

Around them, Ginny's yearmates, the faculty of Hogwarts, and family friends were tightly packed, the crowd trying to offer silent comfort while still crying to themselves. Neville stood close to the Weasleys, hands in the pockets of his pants and head hanging down. Out of all of them, he had taken her death the hardest, except perhaps for Mrs. Weasley.

For her, she was not only losing one of her children but her sole daughter and her baby. Ron had not seen her stop crying in the little over two weeks since Ginny's murder by that monster Potter. Bill wrapped his arms around his mother, holding the stout woman as she wept and wailed, face blotchy from her tears.

Mr. Weasley was almost unemotional, shocked from the untimely death of his youngest child. Out of all their children, Ginny had seemed the most safe; she still had two years at Hogwarts and, unlike Ron, had not made an enemy out of Potter, and, through him, the Death Eaters and Voldemort. Mr. Wealsey stared off into space, eyes blank and lifeless.

Percy seemed to have just the right mix of sadness and willingness to move on with his life, yet to Ron it came across as an act. Bitterly, Ron watched as Percy comforted his mother with an almost detached indifference, though his face was appropriately streaked with tears. His body was stiff and he looked occasionally at his watch as if counting the minutes before he could return to his normal life.

Charlie was distraught. To him, Ginny had been the favoured baby to dote upon and spoil. He had spent large portions of his childhood watching over her and entertaining her. As a result of the gap in their ages, Ginny was almost something of a child to him as well as his sister. Her death left a gaping hole in his life, one which he would never be able to fill completely.

Ron, however, focused his misery and frustration into an iron hard club with which he intended to pound Harry Potter. His brown eyes were narrowed and his face tight. He clenched his fists and held them low at his sides, thinking of when he had visited Potter last night.

Potter was suffering, and for that Ron was glad. He deserved to be tortured, to be put under the Cruciatus like Ron had been. Every once in a while a stray limb would twitch uncontrollably or he would descend into violent tremors. According to Madame Pomfrey, he had been under the curse for so long that it was unlikely that his body would ever completely recover.

It was all Potter's fault, Potter's and Malfoy's. The two of them had orchestrated the events that not only led to the deaths of his brothers and sister but also to the downfall of the Ministry and Diagon Alley and the unavoidable attack on Hogwarts. The two of them deserved to rot in Azkaban and to have their emotions sucked away from them. Privately Ron hoped, as he watched Dumbledore walk slowly towards the front of the crowd, that Potter still saw You-Know-Who killing his parents whenever the Dementors neared. It would serve him right to spend his life screaming as his parents were murdered over and over again before his eyes.

Dumbledore reached the front of the assembly, robed in a solemn gray that darkened his eyes and made him seem almost as old as he was. "Virginia Weasley was an exemplary student," he began in a calm, clear voice. "She had many friends and a loving family. She could look forward to a rewarding career after her graduation from Hogwarts in two years."

Molly Weasley let out a long, loud sob, painfully reminded that her daughter would never graduate from school. Dumbledore paused for a moment out of respect, and then continued. "She is, like so many others, a casualty in this war against Voldemort." Most of the crowd shivered.

"She died bravely and, without her assistance, there would be two dangerous Death Eaters on the loose once more. Today we honour her and mourn her passing." He drew his wand from a deep pocket and his robes and whispered a spell.

The crowds watched as white flames slowly engulfed the girl's body, setting her spirit free from its mortal constraints. After the last flames had faded completely, the assembly moved back to Hogwarts from the edges of the Forbidden Forest, a silent, morose group.

Dumbledore slowly approached the room of the two Death Eaters, thoughts whirling through his head on how best to approach them. When he stopped in front of the thick wooden door he still had not decided. He supposed he would just have to improvise.

Harry and Draco were staring at him hatefully when he entered their room, legs hanging off the cot and dangling a few inches above the cold stone floor. "Good afternoon," Dumbledore greeted cheerfully, a salutation that was ignored with stony silence.

"What do you want?" Harry asked finally after a few minutes of glaring.

"I was promised that the two of you would cooperate if you were allowed to see each other," Dumbledore reminded them.

Harry and Draco traded looks as if determining whether or not they should keep that promise. Neither of them looked as if they wished to be seperated again. "What of it?" Draco finally questioned cautiously.

"For now, I would merely be content with you talking to a few people. Later on, however, there may be more that you need to do."

"Who would we be talking to? And what about?" Draco demanded with an anxious glance towards Harry.

"Professors here at Hogwarts, perhaps a few of your old classmates. We would not ask questions that you would not answer. Your privacy, of course, would be respected. This is not an interrogation, merely an avenue for conversation."

Although Harry suspected it was anything but an attempt to win them over and find as much information as possible, he acquiesced with a slight nod in Draco's direction. "That's fine."

"Good." Dumbledore stepped out of the room for a moment and returned with several Order members. They conjured up manacles for the two Death Eaters and fitted them tightly around their wrists.

"You don't trust us?" Draco said wryly, a hint of a pout in his tone. "Why ever not?" The Order members merely glared at him and tightened his chains. Harry laughed, the first sound of pleasure he had made in quite some time.

They were led through the twisting dungeons to another out-of-the-way, unused room, though the House Elves had obviously spent much more time cleaning up this chamber. Two chairs with padded cloth seats were arranged neatly in front of a gathering of the most mismatched furniture Harry had ever seen. There was a mouldy couch well-chewed by rats, an impressive, high-backed leather armchair emblazoned with the Hogwarts crest, and an odd assortment of various other seats.

Draco snorted, amused by the miscellaneous collection. Harry and Draco were led to the wooden chairs and their restraints removed. Draco instantly sprang up and sat down on the floor at Harry's feet, much like he was accustomed to doing in the Dark Lord's throne room.

"Never thought I'd see a Malfoy be the lapdog of anyone short of Voldemort, much less a Potter," Mad Eye Moody snorted, chortling at the sight.

"Draco is not my slave," Harry denied firmly.

"If I have to sit and listen to you people prattle about for hours," Draco added bitingly, "I'm not going to be uncomfortable while doing so." He wrinkled his nose delicately in disdain, causing Harry to laugh.

A handful of people began to trickle in, joining Dumbledore as they sat facing the two Death Eaters. Harry recognized McGonagall and Snape as well as Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger.

Harry smirked widely at the sight of his former friends. "How was your stay in the hospital wing?" he inquired wickedly. "Did you enjoy the aftereffects of our little chat?"

Ron skewered him with an unrelenting glare. Hermione leaned in and wrapped her arms around Ron, burying her head in his shoulder. Harry could barely make out her whispers of why this was happening.

"Harry, you were invited to this room in the hopes that you could address your friends civilly. If you can not, you and Draco will be returned to your seperate cells." Dumbledore's voice was quiet with the sincere threat.

"I merely asked them a question, Dumbledore," Harry responded coldly. "There was nothing malevolent about it." His lips curved upwards and his eyelids lowered in a snarky expression. "There is no need to seperate us."

"Bet you'd hate that, wouldn't you, Potter?" Ron interjected cruelly. "Couldn't shag Malfoy then, could you?"

"Mr. Weasley!" McGonagall admonished. "There is no need for such profanity!"

"Oh, it's quite alright," Harry said with a dismissive wave of his hand. "It's not Ron's fault that he's jealous; after all, who would want to shag him, even a Mudblood like Granger?" Draco snorted appreciatively.

"You will keep a civil tongue in your head, Mr. Potter, or I will assure that you won't have one," Snape threatened.

"Severus," Dumbledore warned, eyes widening to signal that Snape needed to forestall any further comments. "All parties will treat each other with respect, at the very least."

"He killed Ginny!" Ron shouted, flushed with anger. "He killed Fred and George! And you expect me to just sit here and talk to him like old chums?"

"How do you know I killed Fred and George?" Harry demanded quickly. Ron's eyes widened as he realised he had said too much.

"Weasley's been sneaking about where he ought to not," Draco commented lightly with a sneer. "After all, I highly doubt that trip to torment Harry was authorized."

"That will be dealt with later," Dumbledore decided, shooting a firm glance at Ron to inform him that it would be so. The redhead sunk down in his seat and glared openly at Harry. "For now, I believe we have other things to discuss."

"Indeed. Why don't we start with how you betrayed me?" Harry suggested.

"I apologize again, Harry."

"I reject your apology again." Harry paused and inhaled, shutting his eyes as if to ward off the world. "Why can't you just leave me alone?" His voice was bitter.

"What would you have us do? Dump you on the side of the road? You would just return to Voldemort " Snape raised on thick eyebrow and gazed piercingly at Harry. For a moment, Harry almost felt as if he were back in his Potions class, but only for a moment.

"This is all your fault in the first place!" he accused, rising to his feet. Draco stood with him, lending Harry his silent support.

Hermione raised her head from Ron's shoulder and looked directly at Harry. "You're just placing the blame on others," she informed him, voice shaking with suppressed emotion. She seemed ready to collapse into tears but was still able to spout her knowledge of psychology at him. "You are refusing to bear the responsibility for your own actions and choices."

"What choice did I have?" Harry wanted to know. "What was I supposed to do, sit in Azkaban and wait until you figured out that maybe you'd been wrong? That's what Sirius did, and he's dead now."

"His sentencing to Azkaban is completely unrelated to his death!" Hermione insisted. "And now that you bring it up, how can you support You-Know-Who when he killed your godfather? Sirius loved you, and I know you loved him as well."

"My master had nothing to do with Sirius' death," Harry argued. "Bellatrix Lestrange was the one who killed him, and she has already been punished for her transgressions."

"What do you mean, Potter? Voldemort would not kill one of his own so easily, not when she was one of his most devoted followers. She did nothing wrong in his view by killing her cousin," Snape pointed out.

"Voldemort didn't kill her. I did. I avenged Sirius by killing her."

Draco smiled fondly. "She was your present from Voldemort when you joined him," he recalled nostagically. "That was a good day."

"That's barbaric!" Hermione spat with disgust. "How could anyone, even You-Know-Who, give away another person as a gift?"

"You do not understand the ways of the Dark Lord," Snape informed her harshly. "Practices like that are all too common among him and his followers."

"You would know, wouldn't you Snape?" Harry sneered.

"The days of my status as a Death Eater are long past," the greasy professor remarked.

"And it is unfortunate for you that you switched sides. The days of Voldemort's glory are coming, and you will be one of the first to die."

"Do you expect me to be frightened when threatened by a seventeen year old who is a prisoner?"

"On the contrary, I would be rather ashamed if you did. After all, you were a Death Eater once, even if you no longer follow that path. Even beyond being a Death Eater, you were one of Voldemort's top lieutenants. You would shame not only yourself but also me and my position were you to be scared."

"Do you even realise how twisted that statement is?" McGonagall questioned. "You're insane."

Draco laughed. "If he's insane, then it's your fault. After all, you were his Head of House. How is it that you bear no responsibility?"

"It was Harry's choices that led him to this very moment," Dumbledore cut in solemnly. "No one but Harry bears any responsibility or blame for himself. No one else can shoulder that burden."

"If you hadn't treated him-"

"We can debate the what-ifs all day, Mr. Malfoy. I'm sure you could produce plenty of seemingly legitimate reasons that would make it seem as if I alone am to blame for Tom Riddle's downward spiral into darkness."

"You knew that something was wrong with him," Harry pointed out. "And yet you did nothing. Moaning Myrtle died at this school, and yet you were content to have Hagrid shipped off to Azkaban for the imagined crime of setting loose Aragog."

"I did all that I could. I was not Headmaster at the time of his schooling."

19

"You could have killed him. None of this would have happened if you had simply disposed of him quickly and efficently."

"Killing off one evil man will not stop the actions of a dozen others. Even without Tom, there would surely be some new evil that we would have to face. Grindewald came about without my help, and a new Dark Lord could have risen just as easily were Tom dead. Besides, killing off anyone on mere suspicion that they are a wrongdoer would be completely reprehensible."

"That is why you will lose this war. You are not willing to do what needs to be done."

"Mr. Potter, Mr. Malfoy, you agreed to cooperate."

"We did. But we're Death Eaters. You shouldn't trust us, now should you? After all, we are evil, depraved individuals with no personality traits save for an unflagging allegiance and blind loyalty to our master."

"Passed the Quaffle right through the goal," Mad Eye Moody muttered quietly.

"I've always been good at Quidditch," Harry retorted.

"You insufferable prat!" Ron roared, bursting with rage. "You are so damn full of yourself-"

"Language, Mr. Weasley," McGonagall interrupted.

Ron ignored her, continuing. "You're just scum, is what you are. You're a heartless bastard, a monster. Just because you're powerful doesn't give you the right to act like a downright git! You're no hero or saviour or anyone special; you're just some damn traitor with an ego bigger than... than Malfoy's!"

Harry let out an obviously fake yawn. "If you're quite finished calling me petty names like a toddler," he remarked sharply, I'm really rather tired. And I'm sure you all have important things to do." Every word dripped with sarcasm and disgust.

Ron opened his mouth to continue his tirade but Draco cut him off sharply. "Don't even think about it, Weasley. You've said your piece. Harry isn't affected becasue you're an idiot with a poor choice of words. Don't call him a heartless bastard or anything else like that again. You couldn't be half the man he is if you tried."

"Harry," Hermione pleaded desprately. "Why are you doing this to us, to yourself?"

"I think I've made it perfectly clear that the guilt lies with you, " he responded, turning around to face the members of the Order in the back of the room. "Handcuff me back up and take me to my cell."

"We will finish this conversation another time," Dumbledore promised as Harry and Draco were led off.