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Nothing’s lost forever. In this world, there's a kind of painful progress ... A longing for what we've left behind, and dreaming ahead. At least, I think that's so.
~ Harper Pitt, Angels in America
Darkness, Harry realized, has a way of hiding truths.
When nothing can be seen but the thick black cloak of nothingness, one may ignore the ugly realities lurking about and imagine that the world outside is safe and beautiful and perfect. One may fantasize that, whatever horrors have been witnessed before, the world is still somewhere untouched and unmarred by those sights. That the past, innocent and clean, can be reclaimed, exactly as it was.
The journey through the tunnel leading to Honeydukes was silent, save for the wizards’ soft footfalls and the occasional inaudible whispers between Hermione and Ron. Harry had postponed explaining his plan until they reached a safer place; it would be sickeningly ironic for Death Eaters to catch them lollygagging within the castle walls. They walked in near darkness, with only Harry’s dimly lit wand illuminating the path ahead, and Harry could almost pretend that they were simply sneaking out to Hogsmeade to buy chocolate frogs and butterbeer.
He could practically smell the rich aroma of chocolate and licorice in the air and see, under the gleaming sunlight, Hogwarts students milling around the streets of the small town on a lazy Saturday afternoon. Harry remembered how unfair life had seemed when he wasn’t allowed to go to Hogsmeade as a Third Year, and how terribly important the privilege had seemed.
But then, everything had seemed terribly important at the time, even when there had been no war and no Thestrals seen and no awareness of how much Harry stood to gain, to have, and to lose.
Harry brightened his wand, glanced at Draco’s tense face, and wished with all his heart that they could exit the tunnel into something better than where they had been.
They wordlessly climbed up the worn stairs and, after what seemed like forever, finally reached the trapdoor leading into Honeydukes. With only a moment of hesitation, Harry shoved it open and peered up into the dusty cellar.
“Is it clear?” Draco whispered from behind him.
“Yeah.” Harry climbed up into the cellar, holding up his wand to get a better look at the cellar. It, at least, looked unchanged. Crates and stacks of candy were piled around the dusty room, and the smell of mildew hung in the air as it was wont to do in cellars. Behind him, Draco, Hermione, Ginny, and Ron crawled out of the tunnel.
“So this is how you lot always managed to be everywhere at once,” Draco mused, brushing the dirt from his robes. “Secret tunnels and turning invisible.” He shook his head disdainfully.
“I can’t believe you let him use the Cloak,” Ron grumbled.
Harry ignored him and headed toward the rickety wooden steps. “Harry,” Hermione said hesitantly. “We could just Apparate from here …”
“I want to see Hogsmeade,” he replied firmly. “There’re no Death Eaters there, right? I mean, you came through it to get into Hogwarts.”
“Well, yes,” hemmed Hermione. “But where exactly are we going —“
“I want to see it,” Harry repeated. “And then I’ll tell you the plan.” And he began the ascent up the stairs. He could not explain exactly why he needed to see the town. It would perhaps be easier to simply Apparate away and pretend that Hogsmeade, unlike Hogwarts, hadn’t been destroyed by Voldemort. But he had to know.
Draco walked up the stairs behind him, placing one hand on Harry’s lower back. Whether that was because it was so dark or because in some small way, Draco was trying to comfort or be comforted, Harry didn’t know. He only knew that the presence of that hand made walking up into Honeydukes just a little bit easier. And maybe, Harry thought wistfully, that was all that love meant. Perhaps love, in its rawest and truest and most unbeautiful form, was not about flowery declarations or moonlit walks, but simply this: small comforts, shared dreams of something better, and walking through the darkness knowing that one is no longer alone.
Harry sighed and held on to that thought, clung to it and tried to memorize the feeling of Draco’s hand against his body.
Up the stairs and into the store, they walked cautiously. Harry’s heart sagged a bit when he realized he could not smell chocolate, and instead of seeing rows upon rows of delicious confectionaries, he saw only broken glass and smashed crates all over the floor. Part of the ceiling had been blasted, and the front wall was collapsed.
“Merlin,” Draco breathed, and his hand snaked around to grasp Harry’s.
“It gets worse,” Ginny said quietly from Harry’s other side, and he spared her a horrified glance. Her face was drawn tight and she surveyed the damage with tired eyes. She — and Ron and Hermione — had seen this already, Harry knew. They had come through this wreckage to enter Hogwarts, knowing that it would surely be more dangerous. Harry felt a swell of gratitude for them, as well as a small stab of guilt. They had risked their lives to come find him. If they had been captured …
Harry blinked away the flash of a vision (hanging in the cell, carved and bleeding, the stench of death pungent in the air) and walked with Draco toward what once had been the shop’s front door. They climbed over pieces of the wall and stepped out onto the high street, and Harry froze.
If he had truly believed that any part of the past, as manifested in the quaint storefronts of Hogsmeade, would remain as it had been, then he was dead wrong. Hogsmeade as they knew it was gone. Its buildings sat dark and damaged, some with burnt roves or broken windows or gaping holes in the walls. Others were collapsed entirely, covering the streets with debris. Shattered glass shined on the stone walkway like ice, while rubbish and ashes toppled along in the breeze under a hazy sky. It was a ghost town, but its ghosts were memories, and they did not speak.
Harry exchanged glances with Draco (remembered mud in his face, laughing, jeering) and walked on, examining the damage further. The Hog’s Head was partially collapsed; its bricks were spilled on the ground like children’s toys, and at the edge of the rubble, Harry felt sure that he saw a human arm protruding.
The grass was patched with brown and black, burnt and dry and dead. It crunched under Harry’s feet as easily as snow. Ahead, the burnt shell of a building — a store or a house, Harry could not tell — stood forlornly in the growing wind.
And over the horizon, faded and dulled by the green haze over Hogsmeade, the sun was rising.
“It’s lost,” Draco said, and Harry did not need to ask what he meant. It was lost — the town, its charm, its spirit … Their memories, their childhoods, their innocence. Nothing would bring that back, Harry knew. Not winning the war, not running away, not even love. That the sun would dare rise on this sight seemed cruel, for daylight couldn’t break through the darkness here.
“Yeah,” Harry cleared his throat and suppressed the pessimistic thoughts. The others had trailed behind him, and he spun back to face them. Dawdling and reminiscing would do not good. This had to end. “I need to you three —“ he looked from Ron to Hermione to Ginny, “ — to go to Godric’s Hollow and get the two Horcruxes that are hidden there.”
“I know where they are,” Hermione nodded. “Where the map was hidden, right?”
Harry grimaced. “I suppose I’m not terribly good at hiding things, am I?” He shrugged at Hermione, who smirked at him. “Right. And you know to be careful with the Hufflepuff Cup. Don’t touch it.”
“Yes, I know.”
“All right. Bring those — conceal them best you can while you’re traveling — and meet us at the Department of Mysteries at the Ministry of Magic.”
At that, Ron’s eyes widened. “Are you mad? Why would want to go back there?”
“The Department of Mysteries … Is that where that Veil is?” asked Draco, and Harry belatedly remembered that he was the only one of them who hadn’t been there … who hadn’t fought, who hadn’t almost died there, who hadn’t been there while Sirius fell backward into the Veil …
“Yeah,” Harry said quietly. “That’s exactly where it is.”
Ginny’s eyes narrowed. “Harry, what are you planning?”
And with a deep breath, Harry explained his theory about the Veil to the others. Ron and Ginny looked appalled when he recounted what Draco had said back in the Forest about old contraptions like the Veil being used to separate the soul from the body. But Hermione looked intrigued, and it was this alone that gave Harry the confidence to continue with his plan.
“I was planning on running the idea past Snape,” Harry admitted. “As I don’t know for sure that it’ll work. But since he’s not here …”
Hermione chewed her bottom lip thoughtfully. “If the Veil can detach the soul from the body — or the item, in this case — and then destroy that piece of the soul, then it makes perfect sense to use it to destroy the Horcruxes. There’d be no way for Voldemort to retrieve his soul.”
Harry smiled weakly. “That’s the plan.”
“What does Hogwarts: A History have to do with it, then?” asked Ginny.
“When I … well, when I was in Voldemort’s head,” Harry felt Draco shudder beside him at the words. “I saw Tom Riddle taking the first edition of the book into his old room at the orphanage where he grew up. He hid it there, under the floor boards.”
“But how do you know it’s a Horcrux?” Draco sounded distinctly uncomfortable with the whole idea, and his arms were folded tightly against his body.
Harry hesitated. “Well, I don’t, for sure.” At Draco’s exasperated look, Harry quickly continued. “But it makes perfect sense! He hid it, said it would be ‘safe’ there, and cast some charms around the area to keep anyone from accidentally stumbling upon it. Why would he do that with something as insignificant as a book unless it wasn’t insignificant … unless it was something he had to keep safe?”
“And it would make sense,” Hermione added slowly. “That he would pick that. Rowena Ravenclaw wrote the First Edition. It was her legacy, and the book itself, in all its incarnations, is an inseparable part of Hogwarts now.” She knitted her brow and paused. “But why the orphanage? If he was unhappy there … why would be put part of his soul there?”
“That’s the other reason I’m sure it must be a Horcrux,” Harry ran his hand through his hair. He was sweaty and dirty and bloody and exhausted, and he was sure it was pure adrenaline that was keeping him on his feet. “Voldemort keeps his Horcruxes in significant places that mean something to him or that represent some aspect of his power. Think about it!” He began pacing then, back and forth across the burnt grass. “The diary was placed in Lucius Malfoy’s care because the Malfoy name meant power and influence.”
“Still does,” Draco said detachedly, and Harry shot him an apologetic glance.
“The ring was in the ruins of the Gaunt House, where Tom Riddle killed his family — his first real murders,” Harry’s voice increased in speed as he went on, for it all made sense to him when he said it out loud. “And the locket was in the cave where he did something to those children from his orphanage. Probably some early Dark Magic.”
“And the Hufflepuff Cup was at Hogwarts, right?” Draco interrupted, his eyes now lighting up.
“Which was his first true home,” Harry agreed, though a stinging sensation rose in his throat when he said the words. “Perhaps his only home.”
Ginny looked at him sympathetically and opened her mouth to say something, but Hermione spoke first. “And the snake was always with Voldemort. She was something of a confidante to him, I’ll bet, since he was a Parselmouth.”
“Right,” Harry nodded. “And the orphanage is where he first discovered magic, and probably where he was first able to use it to get what he wanted. The book there has to be a Horcrux. I just know it!”
“Then let’s go get it,” said Ron, but Harry immediately shook his head.
“No, it’ll be easier with fewer people, since we’re going into a Muggle orphanage. Draco and I will go the orphanage. You three will get the other Horcruxes, and we’ll meet at the Veil.”
Ginny frowned. “Harry, it might not be safe for you to go to the orphanage alone —“
“They’re Muggles,” Draco snapped, glaring at Ginny. “I think Harry and I can handle it on our own, without your help.”
Ginny gave a short laugh. “Is that so? You certainly needed our help back at the castle, Malfoy!”
“We did not need your help,” Draco fisted his hands at his sides. Harry thought to interrupt, but he couldn’t seem to get a word in edge wise.
“Oh, so you could have handled all those Death Eaters on your own?”
Draco gave her a haughty look. “I’m sure we could’ve. Besides, we would have been out of there faster if you hadn’t have shown up and interfered —“
“We were trying to save Harry!” Ginny’s face had turned a shade of red that Harry had previously only seen on Ron. “From you!”
At that, Draco smirked, and his eyes glinted dangerously. “Funny, it doesn’t look like Harry wants or needs saving from me. In fact,” Draco gave Harry a deliberately suggestive look. “I rather think he prefers my company to yours, don’t you agree?”
Harry balked and, seeing a flash of grief in Ginny’s eyes, he took a step away from Draco. “Enough! Both of you!” Draco tilted his head at him, but Harry only stared back at him incredulously. It was such an entirely cruel thing to say that for a moment, Harry felt that he was looking at Malfoy instead of Draco. “I thought we agreed that we were all in this together!”
“I never agreed to anything of the sort,” Draco sneered, his eyes shooting daggers at Harry. A mask, Harry tried to remind himself. He’s afraid. But Harry nonetheless felt a familiar anger stirring inside of him.
“Good. Then leave.” Ron smirked.
“No one’s leaving,” Harry snapped. Above them, the sky had become a brighter shade of green; the sun was rising higher and Harry realized that he had truly lost all concept of time. Voldemort wouldn’t remain unconscious forever. Harry had seen into his mind, had seen the book, and there was a sickeningly good chance that Voldemort now knew where Harry would go. Time was running out. “This is stupid,” he said. “If we don’t get the Horcruxes to the Veil before Voldemort catches up with us, then we’re dead.” His voice cracked, and he shifted his glare from Draco to Ginny. “And if we’re dead, then none of this tripe matters. Anyone can walk away from this. I wouldn’t force anyone to do this. It’s dangerous.” He raised his eyebrows and looked to Ron and Hermione. “But no one’s quitting because of hurt feelings or old rivalries or stupid, petty differences.”
He turned to Draco. “Ginny, Ron, and Hermione are important to me, and we did need them in Hogwarts, and they can help us win this, and you have to understand that.” And then, just as forcefully, he looked at Ginny. “I know I owe you more than this, but believe me when I say that Draco is on my side, and …” Harry trailed off, for it seemed an awkward time to say something meaningful or important or even romantic. “He’s important to me, too,” he finished lamely.
“We understand, Harry,” Hermione said softly, and she nudged Ron’s foot with her own.
He blinked as if waking from a bad dream. “Oh, yeah. We can tolerate Malfoy.”
“Gee, thanks, Weasley,” Draco snarled.
And Harry looked at Ron levelly, seeing for the first time his friend as a man. “It’s not enough to tolerate,” Harry said to him. “If we’re going to do this together — and I think that’s the only way any of us are going to make it to see tomorrow — then there has to be more than tolerance. You can tolerate someone and still hate them. It’s not enough. There has to be respect, and understanding, and genuine compassion. If not … then we might as well give up now, because without each other, we’re all dead.” Harry let out a deep breath. The others were simply watching him — Ginny, Ron, and Draco with startled expressions, and Hermione with a knowing look.
The silence stretched on for a tense moment, and Harry thought that perhaps they would all give up, erupt into fights, and stomp off and leave him there. But then, Ginny looked up at Harry and gave him a sad smile. “We told you before that we were in this with you to the end,” she said quietly. “And that’s true no matter who …” her voice shook, but she swallowed and went on. “No matter who else is with us, or with you … we’re going to be there with you, fighting beside you, no matter what. Always.”
And Harry remembered walks by the lake and post-Quidditch bliss and secret snogs in the Common Room late at night, and it all felt like a hazy dream — something that he had seen and experienced once before, but that was never real. The curves of Ginny’s face against the backdrop of the ruined town were blurred; the haze had settled around them, had made everything seem a little less real, and Harry blinked. “Thank you,” he said, and he tried to smile.
He shifted his gaze to Draco, who was watching Harry with contemplative eyes. The mask was gone. “I’m with you, too,” Draco said, so softly that Harry barely heard him, and he — Harry searched that pale face, the high cheekbones and pointed nose and sharp grey eyes — he was the only thing that was not a dream, that did not blur in the haze. Harry’s anger dissolved, because this was the Draco he knew, trusted, and believed. He smiled and took Draco’s hand and squeezed it.
Ron sighed, but when Harry looked, he was watching Harry and Draco with something akin to resignation on his face. For now, that would have to do. Ron would come around eventually, Harry knew, in his own time, and in his own way.
Hermione cleared her throat. “All right, then. We’ll meet you at the Veil?”
“Yeah,” Harry let out a long breath. “Give us about an hour. And be careful.”
“We will be,” Hermione answered. “You, too.”
~*~*~
“I can’t believe he was snogging Malfoy.”
“Ron, I thought you agreed to drop it!”
“Sorry, Hermione, but it’s just … haunting me! I didn’t know he was a pouf!”
A bitter laugh: “That makes two of us.”
“See? Merlin, Ginny, I can’t believe he did that to you --“
“No, I didn’t mean it exactly like that.”
“I’d be furious if I were you.”
“Well, Ron, you’re not me.”
“Thank goodness.”
“Harry has to do what’s right for him.” Quietly, solemnly.
“Even if it means being with Malfoy instead of you?”
A long pause, then: “Yes. Even if it means he’s not with me. It’s his life, Ron, and I don’t know what happened with Malfoy. But I know he looked more comfortable, more confident, more … right with Malfoy than he has all summer.” A shake of red hair, a pair of shining eyes. “And I guess if I love him, if I really love him and not just the idea of him, then I have to let him have that.”
… “Maybe you’re just a better person than me.”
“You’re just being overly protective of your little sister. But you don’t have to be. I’ll be okay.” A tired smile, then: “Eventually.”
“ … All right, fine. Let’s get the bloody Horcruxes and be done with it.”
~*~*~
Harry wasn’t exactly sure where the orphanage was, but from his time in Dumbledore’s Pensieve and his own journey into Voldemort’s mind, he had a general idea of which part of London housed the old building. He also couldn’t say he was entirely sure that he would land them in the right place based on that vague idea, but there weren’t many other options.
“I might splinch us,” he warned Draco.
Draco snorted. “Just don’t leave anything important of mine behind, all right?”
“It’s a risk,” Harry added, but Draco only shook his head.
“Potter, I think just standing next to you is a risk.” When Harry’s face fell, Draco quickly went on. “I don’t mean you’re dangerous. Fuck, this whole world is risky. War sort of makes things dangerous, you know.” He paused. “I’ll take the risk. I trust you.” And his eyes blazed with such sincerity when he said it that Harry felt all the more nervous Apparating them.
He wrapped his trembling arms around Draco from behind and focused on the general area around the orphanage — tree-lined streets, cobblestone walkways, and a looming brick building …
… and the world jolted and screeched around them, and when Harry opened his eyes, they were there.
“Am I in one piece?” Draco muttered, scrutinizing himself carefully.
“Yeah.” Harry looked around at the clearly neglected area. An old church was at his left, and its windows were boarded up and the sign was hanging sideways by the door. The grass was tall and brown, and weeds were growing up between the stones on the path and twisting toward the sky. Nearby, a few small houses were set among the trees, but all of them appeared to be abandoned.
“Where is it?” Draco asked dubiously.
“Good question,” mumbled Harry, and he walked a few paces forward. The sky was overcast, but the early morning sun lit the area well enough. Where the road curved at a right angle ahead, a black wrought iron fence began. Harry reached it and peered around the corner. “It’s way up there.”
Draco jogged up behind him. “Where?”
“There.” Harry pointed at a large building some distance away. From where they stood, he could barely make out its large windows and dark brick walls and towering chimneys, but he was sure that was it. It loomed like a castle against the landscape, dwarfing the small houses around it, even though Harry thought it could only be a few stories tall.
“Think it’s still an orphanage?”
Harry shook his head. “I don’t know. Nothing around here looks too occupied.” He began walking toward the building. “Only one way to find out, I suppose.”
They trekked on in silence for a minute or so, though there was surely no one around to see them. Every house was darkened, and though a few Muggle artifacts littered the yards, it seemed to Harry that they might accidentally have slipped backwards in time.
The thought was chilling. “Do you get the feeling sometimes that we’re the only people left in the world?” he asked, and his voice sounded unusually loud in the emptiness of the street.
“Maybe that wouldn’t be all bad.” Draco quirked a smile. “No enemies, no annoying Muggles, no Dark Lords …”
“No friends,” Harry pointed out.
“Friends are highly overrated,” murmured Draco. “Especially yours.”
“Don’t insult them,” Harry cautioned, glancing at Draco out of the corner of his eye. “They’re everything to me, okay?”
Draco kept his eyes focused on the road and his voice steady. “Even the littlest Weasley?”
And that, Harry knew instinctively, was the heart of the matter. “Yes, even Ginny,” he said carefully. “Whatever else has happened, she’s still important to me.”
“She’s whiney,” Draco said. “And possessive, and she keeps touching you.”
Harry stopped. If the whole situation weren’t so dire, he would have laughed. “You’re really that jealous of Ginny?”
“No,” Draco said sullenly. “I just don’t understand why she thinks she has this claim on you.” His voice went high-pitched in a mocking way. “’Oh, Harry, nooooo, it’s dangerous!’”
Harry smirked and continued walking. “I know she loves me. And I love her.” Draco gave him a sharp look. “As a friend,” Harry added. “Come on, I’ve known her for six years. I’ve spent the holidays with her family. Of course I love her.” He stared ahead at the orphanage. “But … not in the way you think. Not in the way she needs me to love her. And I know she thinks it would be enough … and maybe it would be … but …” Harry pressed his lips together thoughtfully. “It’s not. Ginny doesn’t make me feel like there’s no tomorrow without her.”
He turned his head and met Draco’s eyes, and continued. “Ginny’s not the one who makes me feel like there’s still hope for the world … like there might be something worth hanging on for after the war is over.” Draco’s eyes softened, and Harry shrugged helplessly. “I love Ginny, but … it’s not the same thing. And I just … want you to know that.” That it’s you I love, he added silently. Maybe not in the conventional way or the “right” way or in any way that will mean anything to anyone else … but it’s all I have. Believe that. Let that be enough to save us all.
The words remained unspoken, but Harry thought maybe Draco could hear them anyway.
Draco finally looked away. "They really trust you,” he finally said.
“Who?”
“Your friends,” Draco rolled his eyes.
"Yeah. They do.”
"They’d run straight to their deaths if you asked them to, wouldn’t they?”
Harry furrowed his brow. "I’d never ask them to.”
Draco paused. "And that’s why.”
Harry waited, knowing there was more, and a moment later, Draco continued. "Father always used to say that power meant having people follow you and having people who would do anything for you.” He shoved his hands in the pockets of his robes. “Kill. Die.”
Again, Harry waited.
And Draco laughed mirthlessly. "That’s the kind of power the Dark Lord has. People follow him without thought, without doubt. They’d kill for him, die for him … and they do, every day.”
Harry let that tumble through his mind for a moment. "Er, are you saying I’m like him?”
“No.” Draco said resolutely. “That’s what I’m trying to say. Death Eaters follow him out of fear. But your friends ... Granger, the Weasleys ... they follow you out of …” Draco hesitated, seeming to search for the word. “… love.”
That Draco would say it like that … Draco, for whom love seemed to be something that was feared or mocked or treated with disdain … brought Harry up short. “It’s not that they follow me, necessarily,” he said carefully. “It’s that we walk together.”
This time, it was Draco who didn’t answer for a long moment. At last, he looked Harry in the eye and smiled slightly. “And I guess that’s the difference, isn’t it?”
“The difference between me and Voldemort?”
“No,” said Draco. “The difference between you and me.”
Harry looked sideways at him. “What do you mean?”
“I always wanted people to follow me — and some of them did. Crabbe, Goyle, even Pansy …” Draco sniffed. “But I think all I really wanted was what you had. Friends. You and Granger and Weasley were inseparable, and I wanted that. I just didn’t know how to get that.”
“It’s not something you get,” Harry murmured. “It’s something that happens, not to people, but between them. Friendship, it’s … kind of like love, I guess.”
Draco made a noncommittal sound and looked away from Harry.
The orphanage was getting closer, and Harry could now see the bars on the windows. It reminded him far too much of the Dursleys’ house. Family, he knew, was quite different than friendship or love. He thought Draco would agree with him on that point, at least.
Harry wasn’t quite sure Draco even had a family now.
"What you said to your father ...”
"What?” Draco’s head whipped around as if Harry had uttered a foul word.
"About ... that you’re where you’re supposed to be.”
“What about it?”
Harry shrugged sheepishly. “Did you mean that?”
And Draco gave him a wary look. “... Yes.”
“But you betrayed your father.”
“I know.”
“I ...” Harry chose his words cautiously. “I thought blood meant everything to you. That your family, your name, and those sorts of things were most important.”
“Family is important to me,” Draco said quietly, and his eyes looked haunted. "And perhaps it would be simple to remain Draco Malfoy, Death Eater. My father would be proud of me and protect me and maybe, maybe, if I squinted, that could look like love.” He bit his lip. "But after what he did ...”
When it didn’t seem like Draco was going to continue at all, Harry nudged him. “You mean, sending the Death Eaters after us?”
Draco blinked, as if he had been momentarily lost in a daydream. “Right,” he said quickly. “Exactly.” And he kept his gaze averted and shrugged. “It could have been different. I could have gone along with the way my life had been scripted. Everything handed to me, everything all planned out and certain. Like ... fate.”
“Do you believe in fate?” Harry watched the storm clouds gathering in the sky above them. It was going to rain again.
Draco paused. “No.” And he too looked up at the sky, as if their answers were in the heavy grey clouds. “I think my life began a particular way and could have stayed that way. But ... now it’s different. Everything’s changed. I’ve changed.” Draco looked mildly disturbed by the admission. “I’ve done things I never thought I’d do.”
Harry definitely agreed with that; Draco had done things that Harry never would have expected him to do, even a few weeks before. It was amazing how quickly life could change. “Dumbledore once told me that it’s our choices that show who we really are,” he mused aloud.
Draco frowned. “But I didn’t choose for any of this to happen. I didn’t choose for you to kidnap me.”
“But you chose to protect me,” Harry quietly said. “You chose to trust me. And you chose to save my life, even though it meant defying your father.”
“I guess,” Draco lowered his eyes.
“When you said that to him ... about being where you’re supposed to be ...” Harry shrugged helplessly. “I never thought I’d hear you talk about being on our side or in the Order. I thought you didn’t want to have anything to do with the war.”
"I don’t want to be a part of the war. But I don’t think anyone ever does. I ...” Draco trailed off, then cleared his throat. "All I know is that I want to be with you. However it happens.”
"You are,” Harry said firmly. "And you will be.”
Draco stopped walking abruptly. "You can’t know that.”
"I know I won’t leave you.”
"Nothing’s certain but this second, right now,” Draco grabbed Harry’s hands and squeezed them tightly. "This is all we have, okay? It’s all that’s guaranteed, right this moment. Harry, after today, after this is over —“
"No!” Harry looked away, refusing to let Draco imagine anything other than the future they wanted: the ocean, no war, and the two of them together ... "I can’t think about that yet. Okay? We’ll be together. We’ll both survive. And we’ll work it out.”
Draco looked pleadingly at him. “But what if life, the world, the war, all of it … what if it’s all working against us? What if there are things that aren’t our choices?” Draco kicked at a rock on the ground. “What if being together isn’t one of the choices?”
“Draco,” Harry narrowed his eyes. “Why can’t it be one of the choices?”
“I just …” Draco’s voice took on a desperate, panicked quality that made Harry’s heart constrict. “If it doesn’t, then … I just want you to know —“
Harry took Draco’s face in his hands, holding him roughly in place, forcing Draco to look at him. “Don’t talk like that. Don’t make deathbed confessions to me, all right? Because we’re not dying.” Harry dug his fingernails into Draco’s cheeks, not wanting to hurt him but wanting him to see that Harry was serious. Draco didn’t even flinch. “We will survive. I swear, I don’t believe in much anymore, but I believe this.” Harry’s voice shook, but he ground out the words and held on so tightly to Draco that he was afraid he might break him. “Fuck fate. Fuck the way things are ‘supposed’ to be. And fuck the war.” Harry pressed his forehead against Draco’s, looking into his eyes so intently that he was sure he could see his soul. “They can take everything away from us. But they can’t take away who we are and what we feel. That’s ours.” Harry shut his eyes. “And we are going to live.”
Draco nodded once, then tilted his head forward and kissed Harry hard. Harry met his lips desperately, pleadingly, as if he could pour everything he was feeling into that moment. He could taste the sweat from Draco’s upper lip, could feel Draco’s heart beating, could hear the soft keening noise in Draco’s throat, and Harry drank up every sensation. They can’t have this, his heart screamed, for this, finally, is mine.
And Harry would let nothing, nothing, take away Draco.
~*~*~
In the shadows, they lurked.
They fit well into the darkness with their black robes and hidden faces and auras of Dark Magic, and though the hours trickled by slowly, they did not leave. Their eyes, guarded and sharp, hardly blinked.
Nearby, the sound of running water masked the sounds of their breaths. A battle some week or two before had ruined the historic Fountain of Magical Brethren, and now its golden statues lay shattered on the hardwood floor. Pieces of ceramic and stone lay untouched where they had fallen, as if the entire place had been forgotten. Water from the broken fountain spilled across the floor, running like a river down the unlit corridors. And though it soaked their feet and lapped at the hems of their robes, they did not leave.
They had been commanded to wait, and watch, and they would not forego their orders.
The water slowed, and trickled, and stopped.
And then, after waiting for such a long time that they secretly felt sure there was nothing to see, the screech of a phone booth arriving broke the silence. Metal doors opened with a clang, and fast footfalls slapped against the wet floor.
From the shadows, the robed figures waited.
“Which way?” came a voice, breathless and young.
“Here!” said another. “Up to Level Nine!” And the intruders hurried toward the lifts, their young voices echoing through the Atrium.
Once they reached the lifts and were out of sight, the tallest of those among the shadows stepped forward. “Now,” he rasped, and he spared a smile at the others. “We must fetch the Master.”
~*~*~
The orphanage, Harry and Draco soon discovered, was indeed as abandoned as the rest of the area. Its windows were shattered and dark, and long vines had grown upward and curled around the window sills. One of the three chimneys had crumbled, and its lost bricks lay still upon the well-worn roof. It was an intimidating building, and Harry looked up at it with a vague sense of dread.
“This is where …” Draco gazed up at the old building, his hand still clutching Harry’s. “ … where he grew up?”
“Yeah,” said Harry. The wind blew dry leaves against his feet, and he shivered. “Let’s get the blasted book and get out of here.”
“Fine by me.” Draco stepped up onto the low concrete porch and pulled out his wand. A huge rusted padlock held the main door shut, though the massive spider webs were probably just as effective. “Alohomora,” Draco muttered, and the padlock broke open and fell to the step below, allowing the old wooden door to creak open. Draco gestured grandly to it. “After you.”
“Thanks,” Harry brushed past Draco and, after only the quickest moment of indecision, walked into the foyer with his lit wand held out.
Despite the dreary outside appearance, the interior was largely unremarkable. The foyer was a large room with wooden floors and faded yellow walls. A large desk covered with thick dust sat to Harry’s left, and above it, old candelabras protruded from the wall. The air was heavy with the smell of mold, and Harry scrunched his nose. “At least we won’t have to modify any Muggles’ memories, I suppose.”
Draco walked across the foyer daintily, holding up the hem of his robe with one hand, as if his mere presence in the room would somehow soil him. Harry thought to remind him that they had previously been sleeping in the dirt, but he bit his tongue.
Draco glanced around guardedly. “Do you know where his room was?”
Harry shook his head. “No. But I’ll know it when I see it.”
“Well, then,” Draco gestured to the adjacent hallway with his wand. “Lead the way, oh Chosen One.”
The task, Harry quickly realized, was more difficult than he had anticipated. The building was massive, and every hallway looked quite the same. The bedrooms, too, looked the same for the most part; some were larger, some clearly had held many children at once, and some were simply not right. They walked through the building wordlessly, up dark stairwells and through musty common rooms until they stepped onto the landing of the third floor, and Harry felt a sudden wave of dizziness.
“Little freak!” yelled a child’s voice. The little boy ran down the hallway, covering his ears with his hands, but he could not block out the taunts. He could not stop them, for he was too small, and too weak, and too afraid.
He ran, ran, until his lungs were burning, until he reached the fourth door on the right. He reached up to the door handle that seemed so far above his head and wrapped both of his tiny hands around it, begging silently that he was fast enough to get away this time.
And the door swung open - perhaps I’ll be safe here - and he ran into the room, but they followed, as they always did. “Freaky boy!” they sneered, and when they came toward him, he hated the tears that ran down his face. They were much older — at least eight or nine years old, he knew — and they knew he was a freak. They knew, and they would never let him go.
And then the screaming started.
“Harry!”
Harry blinked and saw, instead of tiny hands and angry glares, only Draco’s worried face. “Fourth door,” he whispered.
But Draco was grasping Harry’s elbows, keeping him from falling over sideways. “What?” he insisted.
And Harry took a deep gulp of air. “I saw … fourth door on the right. That’s his room.”
“Harry, what did you see?” Draco’s voice was shaking more than Harry had ever heard it. “Why do you see these things?”
“I … don’t know exactly,” Harry shook his head, trying to clear away the dizziness. “But this time was different. Before, he entered my mind intentionally. And I entered his unintentionally. But now …” Harry’s eyes widened. “I think I was able to see into his mind because I wanted to see into his mind! Because I needed to, in order to know which room was his. And even though I wasn’t consciously trying … the connection opened up.”
“Like when I was cursed by the Cup?”
Harry swallowed. “Yeah. I don’t know. I think so.” He shut his eyes. “I don’t understand it. But I know that was his memory.”
Draco gripped Harry’s arms tightly and gritted his teeth. “You fucking scare me sometimes, you know that?”
Harry choked out a laugh. “Yeah. I know.”
“Fourth door,” muttered Draco. He hung on to Harry’s arm tightly and practically dragged him down the hallway, which was frankly fine with Harry. He still felt a bit off balance, and he rather liked the idea of Draco guiding him anywhere, even if it was in pursuit of a piece of Voldemort’s soul.
And as they walked down the hallway (children’s footsteps, muffled sobs) toward Tom Riddle’s old room, the voices echoed in the back of Harry’s mind. “Boy! You’re a freak! I don’t ever want you to do freaky things under this roof!” … a hard shove, the sound of a cupboard door slamming, the acrid taste of blood … and everything was so dark, and there was nothing he could do, for he was too small, and too weak, and too afraid …
Harry stumbled but kept his eyes on the door ahead. That memory, he thought bitterly, was not Tom Riddle’s. Draco gave him a fearful look but kept going until they reached the door. Harry opened it slowly (was it still warm from tiny hands turning it, trying to get away?) and held up his wand.
The room was exactly as it had been in Dumbledore’s Pensieve and in Voldemort’s memory. But in person and by the light of Harry’s wand, it seemed smaller. The bed was bare, and the mattress was tattered and stained. The wardrobe stood exactly where it had been before, with a fine layer of dust covering its every surface. Harry stepped in stood still in the middle of the room. It was the same, but he had somehow thought it would be more. He expected the room of the most evil wizard to ever live to be more … ominous.
Instead, Harry thought the room only felt sad. It didn’t feel Dark, or dangerous, or even like something that ought to be destroyed, despite what had come from it. No. It felt quite to Harry like the room of someone who had died. Instead of resentment, Harry found that he could only feel a deep sense of grief for what could have been, and what never had been, and what would never be.
Harry felt Draco standing beside him, giving him space, and he crossed the room slowly to where he knew the book would be hidden. The floor was cool against his knees as he knelt beside the bed, and he pried up the loose board easily to reveal the sizeable storage area.
Harry half expected to find an Invisibility Cloak or a broomstick or a secret stash of rock cakes, but instead, he saw only the worn cover of the First Edition of Hogwarts: A History.
“Hand me something to pick it up with,” said Harry, and Draco — after a moment’s thought — tore off a piece of his sleeve. Harry used the fabric to scoop the thick tome out of the floor, and he set it carefully on the floor.
“There,” he whispered, looking reverently down at the book. “We’ve got it. We’ve got him.”
Draco’s eyes were bright in the wandlight, and he seemed transfixed by the book. “I can’t believe I’m seeing this,” he breathed, sounding once again too much like Hermione.
“First edition.” Harry looked down at its blue and bronze cover. A large eagle was etched into the fabric, and on the bird’s breast, the initials ‘R.R.’ were scrawled in a flowery script.
“It’s so …” Draco frowned slightly. “Thick.”
“Well, I guess there’s a lot of history, right?”
But Draco’s frown only deepened. “But it’s the first edition. There wouldn’t have been very much history to write yet, would there have been?”
Harry blinked. “No. I suppose not.”
“Seems a bit odd.”
“Perhaps,” Harry held his wand closer to the book, “she just wrote about the founding of Hogwarts in great detail. Seems like history people are always a bit obsessed with the details.” He snorted. “I mean, look at how much Binns had to say about the Goblin Rebellions!”
Draco kept his eyes locked on the velvety cover and shook his head. “That doesn’t fit either. From what I’ve heard, all of the subsequent editions are simply additions to Ravenclaw’s original manuscript. But the current edition isn’t even this thick.”
“Well,” Harry covered his hand with the material from Draco’s sleeve. “It doesn’t really matter, does it? We just need to destroy it.” And with that, Harry picked up the book and turned toward the door. “The others are probably already at the Ministry.”
“Right,” Draco said, and he began to follow Harry out of the door.
Harry had only taken a few steps when something squeaked and ran across his foot. “What the fuck?!” he shouted, jumping back. He fell straight into Draco, knocking them both off of their feet, and both the book and Harry’s wand went flying.
“Nice, Potter,” Draco grunted, maneuvering himself out from under Harry. “It’s just a mouse.”
Harry glared in the direction in which the mouse had disappeared. “It startled me, that’s all.”
Draco rolled his eyes and, holding out his one wand, moved to pick up the book. “Clumsy git,” he grumbled.
Harry stood up and brushed off his trousers. “You wouldn’t be saying that if it were a spider, now would you?”
But Draco didn’t answer.
Harry squinted at where Draco was stooped on the floor. “Draco?”
And still, though he was sitting up and breathing deeply, Draco said nothing.
Caught between annoyance and fear, Harry knelt down beside Draco. “What’s wrong?” he said, and then he followed Draco’s petrified gaze.
The book had landed on its spine and fallen open to a place near the end. The yellow parchment was covered with manual writing, and the ink looped and curled and smudged along the page. In the center of the page on the right, a doodle had been drawn. The art was crude, but what it depicted was clear.
A tall man was aiming his wand at a baby, and as the picture moved, a lightning-bolt shaped mark appeared on the baby’s forehead.
“What …” Harry’s mouth went dry, and he read the text beside the picture:
Hallowe’en, 1981 … The Dark Lord falls, and the reign of the Light begins.
“But that’s impossible!” Harry looked to Draco, waiting for him to explain this to him. “Ravenclaw couldn’t have known about that!”
Draco only looked at Harry with empty eyes, his mouth hanging open, as if a Dementor had sucked out his soul. “Turn the page,” he gasped.
But Harry shook his head quickly, insistently. “No,” he said, for he somehow knew what Draco was implying.
“How far does it go?” Draco asked, and his hand — frighteningly steady — moved toward the corner of the page.
“Don’t!” Harry said, but Draco’s fingers met the parchment, and he flipped forward in the book.
Harry held his breath, but nothing horrible happened. Draco didn’t collapse, Harry didn’t die, and the sky didn’t fall. The only difference was that Harry’s trepidation grew tenfold, and he knew he didn’t want to see what else was in that book. “We should just destroy it,” he pleaded, but his eyes, like Draco’s, fell helplessly to the page.
June, 1997 … The Head of the Light shall Fall, glory to the Dark, the reign resumes. And below it, nestled into the bricks of a lazy sketch of a tower, were a series of letters: D .. U .. M .. B .. L ..
Draco reached for the parchment again, skipping ahead a few pages to the last page. The last page.
“I don’t want to see,” Harry whispered.
Draco took his hand, linked their fingers, and made a helpless sound. “It’s impossible,” he breathed. “It’s been locked up here, it can’t have been updated by anyone, it’s impossible …”
And though his throat was stinging and his heart was sinking, Harry looked down at the last page and let out a strangled gasp.
7 October 1997 … The battle to end all wars shall rage, Light and Dark, so prophesied.
Under the words, a picture appeared as if it were just now being drawn: a stone archway, a fluttering veil, and a wand rolling along the floor …
“It can’t know,” Harry’s voice cracked. “It can’t! It’s just a book! It’s a trick, an illusion —“
Draco’s breath caught in his throat. “Wait. Look.” He nodded to the page before them. “It’s adding more.”
And as they watched, frozen, the swirling script continued on the page:
And when the Light One’s blood falls red
They’ll sing, they’ll sing, of green lit dread:
Enemies will come of friends
And though ‘tis love he shall defend,
The raging war of time will bring
A sacrifice as fine as Spring
And with that, the book snapped closed and Draco’s wand went dark, and the room around them seemed to close in on six little words: A sacrifice as fine as Spring. They spun around and around in Harry’s head until he couldn’t hear the sound of Draco whispering to him, couldn’t hear his own ragged breaths, and couldn’t hear anything but the roar of blood in his ears and the sound of the future crashing down around him.
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