Irredeemable

"Harry Potter."

"Tom Riddle."

Emerald eyes clashed with ruby ones.

"I'm not going to kill you, Harry," Voldemort assured him.

"As if that made any difference last time. I would have rather been dead. I don't exactly enjoy being tortured."

"If you cooperate, there will be no need for torture ever again. You could be great Harry, powerful and strong. Dumbledore has been holding you back from your true potential. I, on the other hand, would encourage you to reach and even surpass it."

"Why should I trust you?" His voice quivered even as he fought to keep it still.

"Because I've never lied to you, have I, Harry? I never told you that I was your friend only to turn on you at the slightest opportunity."

"No, you haven't..." Harry admitted reluctantly. Voldemort, sensing an opening, pressed the advantage.

"And I never will," he promised smoothly. "After all, where else do you have to go, who else will take you in? The Ministry would just as soon see you out of the picture, especially that blustering Fudge. As for Dumbledore and Hogwarts, they were quite willing to send you to Azkaban without even a semblance of a trial. Your relatives despise you and you have no other friends."

"I could support myself!" Harry claimed hotly.

"How do you plan to do that?" Voldemort hissed, eyes narrowing as Harry shifted uncomfortably on the fine bed. "Your Gringotts account will be inaccessible; it is, after all, carefully monitored by Dumbledore. You have no marketable skills and are still underage. You would end up begging on the streets."

"That would be a better life than being your slave!" Harry raised his chin in defiance, though he remembered long nights with an empty stomach, especially the recent ones, and had no desire to repeat the experience.

"Would it really? Besides, I do not ask for you to be my slave. If that was all I wanted I could have merely put you under the Imperius or brewed a mind-controlling potion. No, Harry, that is not my objective. What I want is for you to obey me of your own free will." Voldemort smiled with his lipless mouth at the shocked expression on Harry's face.

"Why?" he asked. "Why do you want me? I'm nothing special." Years of abuse at the hands of the Dursleys had taken their toll on the fragile boy. "I'm good for nothing except for getting myself into trouble." He was a freak, plain and simple.

"Would I have hunted down your family if you were not important?" Voldemort shook his head in answer to his own question. "I'm not that much of a murderer, Harry. You have great power, power that can not be fully explored and utilized if you were to remain with the Order of the Phoenix."

"I didn't ask for any of this power!" Harry shook his head wildly. "I don't want it!"

"You have it, Harry. Now the only question is what you're going to do with it."

"What the hell did you think you were doing?" Draco ranted, pinning Harry down to the bed. Harry blinked groggily and tried to squirm out from under the other boy, but Draco kept him firmly beneath him.

"What are you talking about?" he asked sleepily, rubbing his eyes with his one free hand and moaning at the pain that shot through him where Draco was bearing down on his bruised skin.

"You tried to kill Albus-bloody-Dumbledore! Now, under normal circumstances, I would fully approve, but we're prisoners in case you've forgotten! Do you want to have us sent off to Azkaban?" Draco's blazing silver eyes bored into his emerald ones and held his gaze.

Memories of the night came rushing back to him, dim and half-formed as his wolfish memories always were, but with enough strength that he remembered his hunt. "Bloody hell," he moaned. "I'm sorry, Draco, but it's not like I could help it!"

Draco glared at him for a moment longer before sighing and conceding the point. "You're right, of course." He paused for a few seconds, studying Harry intently. "But don't think I'm any less mad."

"Maybe I can help with that," Harry purred with a suggestive smirk. He grabbed Draco by his pale, long locks, and brought the other boy's head close to his, catching his red lips in a kiss. Their lips remained locked for as long as they could last without breathing. They broke apart and gasped for air, then quickly descended into the passionate embrace once more.

Without consciously realizing it, Harry and Draco rolled over so that Harry was now pinning the pale, handsome boy beneath him, ravishing him with his mouth. Harry moved his face to Draco's neck, kissing him enthusiastically.

"Harry," Draco moaned in between breathless gaps. "I'm not mad anymore."

Harry stopped his snogging for just a moment. "Then I'm forgiven?" he asked with wide eyes.

"Yes!" Draco sighed, pouncing on Harry and proceeding to snog him senseless.

After an immeasurable time the two stopped, entwining their arms about each other and holding the other close. "When are we going to get out of here?" Harry almost whined. "I don't know if I can put up with Dumbledore for much longer, especially when he knows that I'm a werewolf."

"Soon, Harry," Draco promised soothingly, rubbing the others' forearm comfortingly. "And don't worry about that Muggle-lover anymore. He can't do anything to you anymore."

Harry's brilliant pools of bright green shone up at him with liquid light. "You don't understand, Draco. He was the closest thing to a father I ever had. And then he..." His eyes hardened into crystal gemstones capable of slicing diamonds. His fists curled into balls and his breathing pattern roughened. "He tossed me aside just because I wouldn't tell him everything. What was I supposed to do, tell him he was perfectly justified in tying me up and treating me like a murderer? He didn't even have any damn proof!"

"And for that he will die," Draco solemnly swore. "All you have to do is last long enough for us to get out of here." Draco kissed Harry again, a deep and lengthy embrace that comforted Harry more than a thousand words of reassurance could have.

A sharp clearing of a throat interrupted them. Flushing a dark rose, the two boys sprang apart, neither having grown up in a household where public displays of affection were acceptable. They gazed sheepishly at the floor for a moment before raising their eyes to meet the intruder.

"Professor Lupin?" Harry asked, astonished. The former Defense professor and only remaining Marauder smiled sadly, his years weighing heavily upon his face. His honey coloured eyes were surrounded by premature wrinkles and his hair was beginning to thin noticeably. His shabby robes, quite possibly the ones Harry had first seen his father's friend in, hung loosely about his thin form, a testament to the hardships the werewolf had faced.

"It's good to see you again, Harry." Harry did not respond, unsure of how to act. Lupin had never accused him of being a Death Eater, but he had never risen in his defense either. He had been away at the time, and Harry had no idea of how to gauge his reaction.

"I heard about what happened a few nights ago," Lupin remarked hesitantly after seeing that Harry was not about to make a move, "and I'm sorry about it."

"I don't need your pity," Harry spat, fed up with apologies that meant nothing.

"I don't pity you. I'm empathetic towards you. After all, I'm in the same situation myself, aren't I?"

"I suppose," Harry answered, fighting the frown that appeared on his face and furrowed his brow.

Draco fidgeted, losing his patience. "Harry, remember that Dumbledore must have sent him. You can't trust him."

"Mr. Malfoy, while Dumbledore did indeed request that I talk to the two of you, I am not serving his interests. He did not tell me to say anything or do anything specifically. I come as the friend of Harry's father."

"Do you really?" Harry queried silkily. "My father would not be pleased with who I am now, and I doubt that you are either."

Lupin shook his head sorrowfully. "It is not the path I would have foreseen for you, true. But that doesn't stop me from caring about you. Life has many unexpected twists and turns along the way, and who can say that this is not your destiny?"

"I don't give a damn about destiny or fate or any of that nonsense!" Harry exploded. "It's that prophecy that landed me where I am in the first place!" He trembled with barely controlled rage. He breathed deeply in an attempt to calm down, trying to remember that he was no longer a willful child any longer.

"The path of our future is not set, for we haven't walked down it yet," Lupin recited calmly.

"I've forgotten how philosophical you could be," Harry mumbled dryly.

"I've had little much else to do but think," Remus muttered bitterly. "No one will knowingly hire a werewolf, especially in these dark times."

"You could always join Voldemort," Draco suggested, though his tone was hard as if he did not really expect the older man to even consider his offer.

"I have thought about it," Lupin admitted, shocking both young men, "but I don not think that is the answer for me. I am too entrenched in my ways to consider changing my alliance now. I would not enjoy being sent off to kill, especially innocents."

"How do you survive?" Harry wondered quietly.

"What?"

"How do you survive?" Harry repeated, cupping his chin in his hands and leaning forward to study Lupin intently. "You're a werewolf, a dark creature, and yet you still fight for the side of the Light. Why haven't you succumbed to the darkness? I know it must pull at you."

"I don't know. I suppose that for a time I was fighting for you, to keep you safe and out of Voldemort's grasp. Now I think I must be fighting in the memory of James and Lily."

"Would you kill me, Lupin?" Harry whispered so softly that he was nearly inaudible. "If we came across each other on the field of battle, would you be able to slay me?"

"Harry..." Draco warned, stiffening at the desperate tone in the raven-haired boy's voice. Harry ignored him, focusing entirely on Lupin.

"No. I... don't think I could."

"Because of who my parents were to you, what they meant." It was a statement and not a question, laced deeply with biting sorrow and bitterness.

"No. I couldn't kill you because of who you are. You may be fighting for the man I hate, but I couldn't kill you. Even were you not your parents' son I would not be able to slay you. Taking you out of this world would be a crime. Even with the horrible things you've done, you were still a good boy once. And whatever drove you to be as you are now, I'm sure you had good reason."

Harry launched himself at Lupin, hugging him tightly and causing Draco to growl, even though there was nothing more than friendship in the embrace. "You wouldn't have doubted me when I came back, not if you had been there."

"No. I wouldn't have. And I don't understand why Dumbledore did-" The joyous expression on Harry's face closed off immediately, leaving a blank stone mask. He stepped back and regarded the man with icy green eyes.

"You forget yourself," he warned coldly. "I am not the boy you knew. Dumbledore did not trust me because he is a paranoid, patronizing old fool whose only purpose is manipulation. It is because of him that I am who I am, but I have no regrets."

"Oh, Harry. I'm so sorry about all this-"

"I don't want your pity!" he screamed, taking a step forward and causing Remus to flinch involuntarily. "I sit at the Dark Lord's right hand and have no need of anything! I was forced into this path a long time ago, and it destroyed who I was. There's no going back."

"You can only travel forward," Lupin agreed sorrowfully. "The only question is what path you will take. You have an opportunity here, Harry. You can change, make things better."

"That's what I'm doing!" Harry roared with blazing eyes. "I'm ridding the world of filth, trash like Dumbledore and Muggles like the Dursleys. I'm righting wrongs and setting things back the way they should be!"

"You have no right to judge us!" Draco joined in, rising to stand next to Harry. "You don't know enough, don't understand enough, to see the full picture. There's more to this war than the senseless torture and slaying of Muggles and Mudbloods!"

"How is killing ever right?" Lupin questioned softly, sadness causing his amber eyes to grow.

"You wanted me to kill Voldemort! From the time I entered the Wizarding world I was expected to eventually face him and kill him. How is this any different?"

"There is a difference between putting down one evil man and slaughtering thousands of innocents!" Lupin lectured sternly, adopting the patronizing, condescending tone of a teacher.

"You make it sound as if the Dark Lord is a rabid dog!" Draco interjected.

"He is like one!" Lupin sighed heavily and paused. "This is not working out the way I had intended it to; perhaps we should start again?"

"Whatever. We'll just end up in the same position again. Why don't you just leave Harry and I alone?"

"Because I care for Harry!"

"Do you really?" Harry interrupted quietly. "How can you care for me? I can see the look in your eyes, Lupin. You think I'm a monster, just like the rest of them. Something that needs to be quietly drowned in a pond like a bad puppy or collared and controlled. So I ask you: do you truly care for me?"

"Of course! I told you! I couldn't kill you! I would have helped defend you if I had-"

"But you weren't. So we'll never know."

Lupin closed his eyes and his face crumpled in despair. A small, almost unnoticeable crystalline tear plummeted from the corner of his right eye and splashed against the dusty flagstones. "Why are you doing this, Harry? Are you so determined to drive everyone who's ever loved you away?"

"Open your eyes, damn you! I'm not the one pushing anyone away; they are shoving me out of their sight. Draco still stands beside me! He doesn't just pretend to care about me, he truly does!"

"Why do you think that you are the only one with a claim to Harry?" Draco demanded. "Why should he be yours, to shape as you please? Why should he have to follow your orders and act like a Gryffindor?"

"He is a Gryffindor!" Lupin shouted, beginning to lose control.

"Only because I was manipulated into believing that all Slytherins were bastards," Harry whispered snarkily. "I'll bet Dumbledore never told anyone, did he? Well, Lupin, the Sorting Hat wanted me in Slytherin."

"That's not true! You're the son of James and Lily, both Gryffindors to the core!"

"I am not my parents! I never even knew them! How am I- why should I- base my life around a pair of people whom I've never even met?"

"They died for you!"

"Why didn't they live for me? They could have joined Voldemort! If they had, I would have been safe for at least a little while longer! I wouldn't have had to live with the Dursleys!"

"You can debate what-ifs all day but that doesn't change the way things are now!"

"No, Lupin," Harry stated quite calmly, regaining his temper so quickly that Remus was left staring at him in shock. "We can't change a damn thing about the past. It's too dangerous to meddle around with time anyway. Even if I had a Time Turner, I would not change anything. The consequences would be too-far reaching, too catastrophic."

Draco nodded wisely. "If all of life on Earth forms a great tapestry, Harry's thread is clearly one of the strongest. If it is changed, the entire weave changes with it."

"I'm not saying that we should alter the past," Lupin clarified pleadingly, "only that we should work to improve the future."

"And I already told you that's what I'm doing! I told you that we'd merely end up having the same conversation again!"

Lupin groaned in defeat and massaged his eyes with the heels of his hands. Without a word he left the room.

"That went better than expected," Draco announced to break the silence that descended in the wake of Lupin's absence.

"We weren't expecting him at all, so how could it go better than what we expected?" Harry commented irritably. "I hate him! I hate them all!"

"What do you want me to do about it?" Being locked in a small room with no amusements and constant badgering by their enemies was beginning to irk both of the boys.

"I don't know!" Harry whined, whirling around and banging his fists against the wall. He kept his arms above his head and leaned forward until his forehead was resting against the cool stone.

"Damn it, Harry," Draco snapped, "there's nothing that I can do!"

"I know that! It's just I hate this! I hate being locked up and I hate having to see all these people and I hate Dumbledore!"

"We need to get out of here," Draco said, casting about the plain room glumly.

"What's he doing here?" Ron asked, glaring at the professor at the front of the Defense Against the Dark Arts classroom.

"I don't know," Hermione admitted, one of the few times Ron had ever heard her say that. "I thought he was still in St. Mungo's."

"Wish he'd stayed," Ron muttered, wrinkling his nose in disgust. "Why can't we ever have a decent Defense Against the Dark Arts professor?"

"Well, it gives our lives a sort of running gag. You know, when we're thirty years old we can look back at our Hogwarts days and laugh over how the Defense position was cursed and whatnot."

"If we live to be thirty! Honestly, how are we supposed to be able to face Death Eaters if we don't even have a regular professor this year?"

"There's always the D.A.," Hermione reminded him. "And it's not like Dumbledore didn't try to get us someone. But all the eligible candidates are dead or busy fighting. We're just lucky that most of the teachers lived through the last war and can take turns teaching us."

"Yeah, but what's Lockhart got to teach us except how not to throw a curse?" Ron asked, for in the front of the room in all his nancing glory was Gilderoy Lockhart, resplendent in his favourite lilac robes, blonde hair crimped and curled and perfectly arranged.

"Good morning, class!" he simpered with a roguish wink. "I'm sure you all remember me. After all, I'm rather hard to forget!"

"Unfortunately," Ron murmured, causing Hermione to elbow him sharply. "Ow!"

"That leads me to our lesson today! Memory charms!"

"Should you really be attempting one?" Hermione queried with false saccharine sweetness. "After all, Professor, what if it backfires? I mean, you could forget everything!" Ron stared at Hermione in shock.

"Did you just...?" Ron was utterly flabberghasted. His ears twitched sporadically as he gawked at his girlfriend. Hermione held a forced smile on her face with considerable effort.

Lockhart, however, completely missed the sarcasm. "Not to worry, miss," he answered with a shake of his long pointer finger, "I'm quite an expert at these sorts of things."

"But, professor, when is this going to come in useful? After all, the only purpose that I can think of for them would be illegal. I mean, what would happen if these fell into the wrong hands? Someone could alter another person's memories and take credit for their work!" Hermione adopted a fake expression of horror, opening her mouth into a small "o" and clasping her hands over her lips dramatically.

Ron chortled, trying to turn his laughs into a hacking cough but failing. He ended up gasping for air, watching smugly as Lockhart paled slightly and waved one hand in dismissal.

"Oh, well, I'm sure that won't happen," Lockhart confided, flustered. "Anyway, they are quite useful! When applied correctly, memory charms can completely change a person."

"Are you trying to say that if we cast a memory charm on You-Know-Who he'll prance around like a schoolboy and forget all about being evil?" Dean Thomas snorted, earning him reproachful glares from most of the class. You-Know-Who was not one to be joked about.

"It is certainly an interesting possibility!" Lockhart enthused, causing the students to roll their eyes at the stupidity of the man.

"Why can't you teach us a practical lesson? After all, with all your exploits, I'm sure you have a vast library of spells that would be useful against the Death Eaters." Hermione smiled sweetly, but her eyes shone with the light of challenge.

"Now, I can't go giving away all my secrets!" Lockhart replied with a lopsided grin which he must have practised in front of the mirror for hours. All of his perfectly white and exquisitely shaped teeth glinted in the pale winter light emitting from the stained glass windows. Seamus Finnigan gagged loudly and wrinkled his nose in disgust. The class snickered and rolled their eyes, preparing for a period of nonsense and posturing. They were not disappointed.

Draco deftly maneuvered his fingers, slipping them through loops and pulling, forming a complex web of string cleverly strung between his fingers. To a Muggle it would have appeared as if he were playing a child's game of Cat's Cradle, a view that would have caused the blond wizard to scoff at the foolishness of such lesser creatures.

The intercrossed strings formed a complicated pattern only recognizable to someone trained in the art of the ancient magic, a symbol for protection. Draco twirled his thumbs, watching as the mass shifted and writhed to form a completely different picture, this one standing for true love.

Draco lifted the loops off his pinkies casually, twining the threads instead about his wrists and inverting his hands. If he squinted he could just make out the form of a dragon breathing fire in the nest of fibers. He smiled fondly down at his namesake and began to pick apart his masterpiece.

He was just about to rethread the string about his fingers when he heard a moan coming from the silk-covered bed.

"What now, Potter?" he asked irritably, heaving a long-suffering sigh. Harry did not respond except to thrash around a bit and groan deep in his throat.

"Just having another nightmare," Draco said, leaning back in his seat and returning to his contemplation of his string.

Harry screamed, a sound so tortured and terrified that Draco had trouble believing a mere human was able to pour such emotional depth into a single, keening wail. "Ha... Potter? What's wrong?" Draco noted the concern in his voice and wondered why he was caring for his nemesis.

Harry's back arched and he lifted himself off the mattress in an almost impossible feat of flexibility. He continued to scream, shaking violently with his hands spasming intermittently.

Draco leapt onto the bed, attempting to settle Harry down. After all, the Dark Lord had entrusted Harry to his care and he could not fail his soon-to-be master. He ignored the stirring in the pit of his stomach that hinted of a deeper, personal reason for his actions, focusing on snatching at Harry's flailing limbs.

"Stop moving!" he commanded in exasperation. Finally he threw himself on top of the slight boy, stilling his body through the weight of his own. Draco panted lightly, struggling from the effort of maintaining his hold on Harry.

Emerald eyes blinked up at him. He had never really noticed it before, for the thick, ugly glasses had always been in the way, but Harry truly had the most amazing eyes. "What are you doing?" Harry shrieked.

Draco shook his head to clear the thoughts that those eyes conjured and focused on Harry. "What?" he asked stupidly.

"Why the hell are you on top of me? Get off!"

Draco narrowed his eyes and pursed his lips. "For your information, I was stopping you from killing yourself from your little seizure." Now it was Harry's turn to ask what idiotically. "You were having a nightmare!"

Harry chewed his lip and rolled his eyes. "I know that, Malfoy. That doesn't explain what you're doing on top of me."

Malfoy stared at Harry's lips, fascinated by the way they moved. His brain, feeling the rush of hormones that had been building up over the last several minutes, closed down completely. "Just shut up, will you Potter?" he suggested, lowering his mouth and kissing Harry on the lips.