Chapter 14
Christmas Holidays pass agonisingly slow. Sometimes it felt as if time wasn't moving at all, to Harry, when he became aware of every second that ticked down to its end; every second he feared for Draco and Narcissa's life. He is stuck. He cannot owl Draco, for fear it will cost him his life. He cannot owl anyone else who might know anything because their parents may be involved with Voldemort, for fear it might cost their lives, or if somehow the owl is intercepted, Draco's life as well. He sends messages through the Galleon, with no response back.
The Dursleys make his life a miserable, living hell, yet another thing that makes him count down his minutes until they feel like eternity.
Then he is standing at the train station. Draco is with his uncle. His mother is nowhere to be seen. Harry can't see his face because his back is to him. Rodolphus' hand is on Draco's head, a caricature of a kind relative. His smile is as hollow as the first day Harry saw him.
They never get a chance to talk. There is nowhere they can talk without being seen by someone that they don't want to be seen by except the room of requirement, but Draco never accepts meeting him there anymore, spends too much time there alone by himself when Harry checks his name on the Marauder's Map at night. When Harry tried to follow him into it, he couldn't.
Not long after they return to Hogwarts, Harry is taken to break the Horcrux, Regulus's locket, with Dumbledore.
Standing beside Dumbledore on Hogwarts' ground again, he can feel the weakness of his Headmaster against his side.
When the footsteps are heard coming up the stairs, Dumbledore petrifies him and hides him away before he can react.
It was a split-second of relief and joy that he felt at those footsteps, before the shock and confusion erased this joy away. He doesn't understand.
It's him. It's just Draco. Harry will know him anywhere; just from the way his feet fall to the ground, the sound of his breathing. Perhaps Dumbledore suspects it to be someone else dangerous, but he can't tell him it isn't. He is frozen, all his muscles locked up.
Harry has tried to tell Dumbledore about Draco so many times, how exhausted and sick and downtrodden he seemed, that something horrible is going on but he doesn't know what. He waited for Dumbledore to speak to Draco, to offer his help, but all year he has been absent from his office.
"Expelliarmus!"
Through the invisibility cloak, black oxfords appear in his line of vision.
There is a wand in Draco's hand.
And it is pointed at Dumbledore.
And he looks...
His eyes are sunken in, haunted and red-rimmed.
But above all -
Above all, they are hollow, as if his soul has been sucked out of him by a dementor. His eyes are so far gone it's as if he is not even there; there is nobody behind them. He moves like a ghost. He moves with weight in his joints, as if something is trying to pull him to the ground.
What is happening?
What happened?
Something happened, that day Draco didn't show up through the floo. Something happened. It's all Harry has been able to think about.
For a moment, there is silence.
"Draco," Dumbledore whispers, as if it took time to find his voice. His whisper is sad. "You look terrible, my boy."
Draco's eyes are empty, like a zombie from a muggle movie. Above them all, the Dark Mark glows green across the sky.
"Do you have someone with you? Or are you alone?"
"There's Death-Eaters," Draco answers. He sounds as if he has been imperiused, but there is no mist in his gaze as typical of the curse. His eyes are his own shade of grey. His eyes are his own but somehow they are not his at all.
"In the school?"
"Yes."
"How?"
"I fixed the Vanishing Cabinet."
"And it has a sister?"
"Borgin and Burkes. They form a passage."
"That is quite the achievement. Very good."
Silence.
"Draco... you are no assassin."
"I've already killed... more times than you know."
"By choice?"
"I was imperiused at first. But then I wasn't... I was Imperiused to kill while I was aware of every second, over and over and over. When I was released... I wasn't crying anymore because I had taken lives. I was crying because I couldn't feel a damn fucking thing about it."
"Then it seems to me you do still feel."
Draco's face twists; only the slightest.
"If you cry, even if that is for the loss of feeling when you have taken life... is that not a kind of remorse?"
"Don't you understand?" The stone of his face cracks more, with a ripple of desperation. "I can't... I can't lose her any more than I already have. I have to learn... I have to learn..."
Harry's heart is pounding fast and hard. He does not understand. He does not understand what Draco is saying. Learn to what? To kill? Is it -- is it Narcissa that he has lost?
What does he mean, that he can't lose her more than he has?
Harry feels sick to his stomach and he wishes he could move. He wishes he could stop him. He wishes he could hold him and take him and Narcissa far away from it all.
"Let me help you, Draco," Dumbledore says softly.
"You can't help me." There it goes again. His voice is nothing all over again. "No one can."
"That is not true."
"Did you know?" His voice tightens, "What was happening to me?"
"I had an idea... but I could not have dared speak to you of any of it, knowing who was with you, and what he was capable of." Dumbledore stares at Draco. "Draco... it is not too late. The things you were made to do... they were not you. Please let me help you.
The silence is long. The footsteps sound from the stairs. Harry feels sick. There are gaps in his understanding.
Draco's hand begins to tremble.
Then there are footsteps running up the stairs behind him.
***
"Draco!" Harry yells his name. Everything around them is chaos and fire. Everyone is running, fighting for their lives. They stand in the middle of ruin, and Harry's world is crumbled at his feet.
Harry's chest heaves for air, his shoulders tense. It's shocking that Draco stops at all at the sound of his voice. He has not stopped like this for Harry in months, whenever Harry tried to get him alone, to talk to him, to figure out what was happening —
Harry's call for his name was loud and desperate.
When Draco turns to look at him with those grey eyes, all Harry can do is whisper, heartbroken, "Draco..."
Draco doesn't answer. There is something at the edges of his expression that Harry can't fathom. Once, there was nothing Harry couldn't fathom of him; the smallest twitch of a hand, a waver in his face. Now he can't fathom anything at all when it comes to him.
Harry reaches for him, stepping towards him.
It's only then that something breaks across Draco's face, and whatever was hidden underneath comes full force.
Draco jerks back violently, shoving Harry away. "Don't touch me!" he yells. His face is contorted in the most bizarre fashion, eyes glistening and red-rimmed, and brows tight in a way that speaks of anger as well as sorrow. Harry freezes, hands in the air in reach of Draco.
Draco's hand is also in the air. It twitches towards Harry. It curls loosely, stuttering back.
"Stay away from me." His eyes are wide, hands are still held in the air as if they want to reach for him, and yet his face - it is the strangest conflict of expression, as if he can't quite decide what he should feel; a confusion of overwhelming emotions, bordering on hatred (of whom? Harry? Himself?
Both?)
He looks as if he is in pain, on the verge of tears.
As if his heart is cut in two, and they are warring inside his chest.
Harry's hand falls away only because he understands, suddenly. He understands Draco's hatred and anger towards him. It was his plan that had caused whatever happened to happen. He had failed in some way, and Draco and Narcissa suffered because of it.
There are Death-Eaters all around them, and he shouldn't have even tried to reach for Draco but right now all Harry can think about is grabbing Draco and running away. He can't. Draco cannot seem to stand him.
Severus comes, and all of Harry's rage comes bursting forth.
"Go forth, Draco."