Picking up the Pieces

Draco had been gone nearly two hours when Harry heard a soft knock on the door. Sighing, he moved away from his spot by the window, pulled on another long-sleeved shirt and went to pull it open. "So, Malfoy came running to you, did he?" Harry asked Remus with a glare.

Remus looked confused. "Actually, when I ran into Mr. Malfoy, he merely asked me where Karissa was and he's been with her ever since. Why? Is there something I need to know?"

"No. I just guessed that's why you were here." Harry knew he sounded rude but really didn't care.

"Well, I wanted to talk to you for a few minutes before dinner, if that's okay? We haven't had a chance for a talk lately. May I come in?"

"Yeah, sure." Harry backed away from the door and crossed back to his sit on his bed again, not caring if Remus was following or not, but he waited until Remus was sitting beside him before he spoke again. "So what do you want to talk about?"

"For one thing, I know that you are not fine, as you stubbornly insisted in putting in your letters. If there is anything you want to talk about, you know you can come to me. I want to help you."

Yeah, like you could, Harry thought miserably. "What's the deal with Malfoy?"

"That's his story to tell, if he wants you to know. But he told Professor Dumbledore that he does not want to follow his father. Professor Dumbledore said he's to stay here with us until the start of term next week. I have to trust his judgment on this, I guess, but he failed to verify that Draco wasn't marked, so watch yourself around him."

"He's not marked. He showed me. Besides, I'm sure Dumbledore told me the wards would not allow anyone to enter Grimmauld Place if they meant me harm, right?"

"The wards will not allow someone to enter if they intend to directly harm you, true, but that does not mean they cannot put their proximity to use against you. Look at what happened with Kreacher. Mr. Malfoy can always gather information to take back to his father. I would not trust him completely. Not yet, anyway."

"What about Karissa? She's the girl you were talking about this morning right? Her aunt and uncle are dead? And she's Malfoy's sister?"

"Yes, yes, and yes. She's going to stay here with us also. Professor Dumbledore is working out arrangements for her since she has no legal guardian now."

"Do she and Draco know?"

"Draco knows. Apparently that was the catalyst for the incident in the drawing room. Karissa does not know, and we have not yet decided on how best to tell her."

Harry mumbled something that Remus didn't quite catch.

"What was that, Harry?"

"I said, it's my fault. If I had killed Voldemort that night in the Ministry, last night wouldn't have happened and Karissa would still have her family."

"Harry, you can't feel that way. You are not responsible for what happened last night. You can't blame yourself."

"Who am I supposed to blame then, Remus? I am the only one who can kill Voldemort, right? And until I do, he's going to keep killing innocent people! How is that not my fault?"

"Harry, please, don't think that way. I repeat, you are not responsible! Not for any of it!" Remus stood up and patted Harry's leg. "Come on, now, let's go down and eat."

Harry reluctantly followed Remus down the stairs to the kitchen, wondering why Remus had bothered to ask him to talk to him if he wasn't actually going to listen to Harry talk. He sat down at the already set table, waiting for Draco and Karissa to join them as Remus pulled plates of roast chicken, carrots, and mashed potatoes out of the warmer and set them on the table. Just sitting here at the table was enough to make him want to cry. Last summer he had sat in this room, in this very chair, Sirius right there and had taken it all for granted.

Draco and Karissa came in and seated themselves across from Harry. Remus made to sit beside Harry and Harry glared at him, causing Remus to roll his eyes and move his plate to Harry's other side. The one that Sirius hadn't sat on. Draco's raised eyebrow was the only indication that he noticed the byplay. Harry noticed that Karissa was now out of her pajamas and wearing a Muggle t-shirt and jeans that fit her too well to have been left by Hermione or Ginny. Harry pushed his food around his plate, hoping he could fool Remus into thinking he had eaten something. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Draco doing the same thing. Karissa was actually eating, thankfully. It was the quietest meal Harry had ever endured, especially here at Grimmauld Place.

If Remus noticed that neither boy had eaten anything, he didn't say a word about it. He finished most of his plate and smiled at Karissa, who had done the same. "Well, now, Karissa, how about some homemade strawberry ice cream? Molly sent some over earlier with Tonks--"

"Tonks was here?" Harry interrupted with a slight whine to his voice. "She was here and she didn't come up to talk to me?"

Remus appeared startled by Harry's reaction. "Well, yes, she came by with some clothes and things she retrieved for Karissa, and with some things from Molly. She was in a bit of a hurry. She was getting ready to go on duty. You'll see her before you leave for school."

"Does Mrs. Weasley know I'm here then?"

Remus gave him an indulgent look. "You know Molly as well as I do. After last night, do you think she would give anyone in the Ord--I mean, the old group--a moment's peace until you were somewhere she considered safe? As it is we had quite a row about you staying here instead of going straight to the Burrow where she could see for herself that you're okay. I'm sure she'll find an excuse to come by tomorrow; you know she thinks you are one of her kids."

Harry mumbled something, pushing his plate away from him and getting up from the table. "I'm going to bed."

"Um, me too," said Karissa, looking at Remus apologetically. "The ice cream sounds good, but I'm really tired."

Draco noticed that no one said anything to him when he got up and prepared to follow the others upstairs. Not that he had expected them to, but still. Harry and Karissa had paused between the two bedroom doors to say goodnight. When Draco reached them, Karissa reached up to give him a quick hug. He returned it stiffly. "Thanks for earlier," she whispered, smiling shyly before turning to give Harry a hug too. He seemed surprised and returned the embrace almost as tensely as Draco had, and Draco noticed him wince when Karissa's hands brushed his back. "Good night."

It wasn't until Draco and Harry were in their room and Harry was looking through his trunk that Draco realized that he had nothing. Nothing to change into, no clean clothes, no sleepwear. Not even a clean pair of boxers. And now that his father had surely disowned him, he had no money to replace anything. He felt a hysterical burst of laughter building up inside him and bubbling over his lips.

Harry straightened and turned to study Draco quizzically. "What the fuck is wrong with you, Malfoy?" he asked slowly, enunciating each word like he was issuing a challenge.

"Well, Potter," Draco sputtered, "it's like this: I've betrayed my father, getting myself disowned and on the Dark Lord's bad side so I'm probably marked for death, and now I'm stuck here in Merlin-knows-where with my biggest enemy, a werewolf, and a half-blood who happens to be my sister, and I have nothing to wear to sleep in, or any other time for that matter, except these filthy Death Eater robes!"

Harry stared at Draco solemnly. "You really think you're marked for death?"

"Leave it to you to pick out the least important part of that, Potter. I need something to wear to sleep in!"

Harry dismissed that with a wave of his hand, "That's fixable. I can lend you a t-shirt and shorts to sleep in. Won't be the silk pajamas I'm sure you're used to, but they'll do. How can you think being marked for death is the least important thing right now?" He waited for an answer that wasn't coming. "Malfoy." More silence. "Draco. I'll make you a deal. I'll give you something to sleep in, you tell me what happened last night. Okay?"

Draco considered his offer. "No," he finally replied. "You give me something to sleep in and let me cast a healing charm on your back and I'll tell you about last night." Just not all of it.

"Deal." Harry grinned. "I'll even let you shower first." He quickly went back to his trunk and retrieved the promised t-shirt and shorts, tossing them into Draco's lap. "They'll probably be a little roomy, but they'll work."

A short while later, Draco was sitting in a chair beside the window, thinking he actually had gone mental, when Harry scurried in the door, wearing only a pair of sweat pants and a towel draped over his shoulders to cover his back. "I didn't want to put my shirt on if you were going to do a healing spell," he explained. "The shirt sticks to my back." The unspoken words were that he didn't want Remus to see and had to use the towel to cover up with, just in case.

Draco gestured for Harry to lie down on his stomach on the bed. Removing the towel, he paled at the ugly red slashes across Harry's back. Some were oozing blood where the shirt Harry had been wearing had stuck to them and pulled off the meager scabs when it was removed. Most were raised welts with a slight purplish tint to them, attempting to heal but failing miserably. And beneath it all were faint traces of scars, memoirs of beating past. Draco had been beaten and abused numerous times, but rarely had he been forced to suffer. His abuse was never viewed as punishment, but was considered "instruction." When he was very young his mother had cast healing charms on him after the "lessons" with his father, but he had soon been taught to cast them for himself. It wouldn't do for the Malfoy heir to have scars marring his perfect body. Draco quickly shook away the thoughts of his parents and his past and kneeled on the bed beside Harry. Grabbing his wand, he set about casting healing charms on what appeared to be the worst of the marks first. "Merlin, Potter," he exhaled, "what the hell did you do to piss them off?"

Harry snorted into the pillows. "What do you think? I didn't die with my parents. Doesn't that seem to be the general reason for someone to want to hurt me?" Harry was really curious about what had happened the previous night, but was hesitant about doing so while Draco was trying to perform a healing charm. "What did you and Karissa do earlier?" he asked instead.

"Nothing. We sat downstairs in the parlor and talked. Well, she talked. I listened. I'm good at that, by the way. She was telling me all sorts of things that I never wanted to know about Muggles. And about her family, and how she feels about what happened last night." Draco finished his quiet incantations and ran his hand over Harry's back. The marks were still visible but were now completely closed and considerably less raised. He Quickly cast a separate enchantment over the bruise on Harry's wrist. "There. All done. The marks should be completely gone before the start of term." He started to roll off the bed when Harry grabbed his arm.

"Last night?" he prompted.

Draco sighed and sat down on the edge of the bed as Harry sat up beside him, pulling his shirt on. "Last night my father took me to a Death Eater meeting. He wanted me to take the Dark Mark, but first I had to pass the Dark Lord's test. The Dark Lord said we were going to convince this Muggle family that it was a bad thing to have a witch in the family. We all Apparated to Surrey and woke them from their sleep. The Death Eaters formed a circle around the Dark Lord and tortured the Muggles in the middle of it, passing them around and taking turns, first with the husband and then with the wife. They wanted me to help with the attack on the husband, but I just couldn't do it. My father was so mad. I could feel it. Then they brought out this little girl. Karissa. And it made me feel so sick because she's just a child, just like the hordes of first years we're going to have to face next week. The Dark Lord said he wanted me to have her, to prove what I was capable of. My father shoved me at her and she looked up at me and I knew I couldn't hurt her. I knew I had to try to get her out of there. I happened to see the first Auror appear, even though I still don't know how they found out, and it gave us the chance to run. And then we ended up in the park where we met you." Draco shrugged, as if it was no big deal, but Harry knew that this version of events was considerably trimmed down. "I've betrayed my father, Potter. That makes him and the Dark Lord my enemies. Which in some convoluted twist of fate puts me on your side. That's not to say we're going to be friends, but we can't be enemies anymore. I guess I should start by saying 'thank you' for believing me in the park, and for helping us."

"You're welcome. Thank you for the healing charms."

"Well, then, I guess we're even." Draco crossed to his own bed and crawled underneath the covers.

Harry crawled under the covers on his own bed and extinguished the light. After almost five minutes of silence, he blurted out, "Hey, Malfoy?"

"What?" came the irritated reply. Draco had been almost, but not quite, asleep.

"I'm sorry."

"What are you on about now, Potter?"

"I'm sorry I didn't kill Voldemort at the Ministry. If I had, your father would not have been pushing you to take the Mark, and last night wouldn't have happened. You would still have your life."

"Merlin, Potter, do you really believe that?"

"I know, I know, you don't have to say it," Harry sighed. "I shouldn't feel that way. It's not right to feel like everything is my fault."

"Actually I wasn't going to say that. Your feelings, no matter how irrational, are yours to keep. No one should tell you not to feel what you feel because you really can't change that. I'm just asking if you really think you could have stopped last night, or any of the other incidents you're apparently feeling guilty for."

"Oh. Sorry. No one ever listens to me when I try to say how I feel, they just tell me not to feel that way. But I do feel guilty that people are dying because of me."

"Don't forget that the struggle between you and the Dark Lord concerns the fates of everyone. You're not responsible for the people who die in that struggle. It's for the preservation of our entire society." When he didn't hear anything from Harry, Draco continued. "And don't let anyone tell you what you can and can't feel. If you deny that you feel them, you can't work through them."

Harry laughed. "What are you, a shrink?"

"Huh?"

"That's like a Muggle healer who helps talk people through their problems."

"Oh. No, I read a book about it once when I was bored. Now, are you going to tell me more about your feelings, or can I go to sleep now?"

"Go to sleep. Good night, Malfoy."

"Night, Potter."