The Second Day - Part 1
Harry and Draco walked the length of the infirmary as the clock tolled midnight. At the door Harry stopped and looked back, watching as Hermione climbed back into bed. Crookshanks jumped up, walked in a tight circle between her feet, then settled into a furry lump, his yellow eyes reflecting the smoldering embers of the fire.
"I'm really sorry about …Crabbe," Harry said, as they shut the door and turned into the hallway. He realized with chagrin that he couldn't remember Crabbe's first name.
"Thank you," Draco replied. "It must be a terrible way to die. Give me a quick Avada Kedavra any day." Draco paused, debating whether to say anything more. "I'm very sorry about Fred. I won't say I liked him but he was a damn fine Quidditch player and the show he and George put on when they left Hogwarts was pure genius."
Harry looked down at the stone floor so Draco couldn't see the pain on his face.
"Look," Draco said, as they walked slowly up the main staircase. "I know you have no reason to trust me. Who knows why I've been given a second chance? But I have, and I'm going to take it. I spent most of last year at Malfoy Manor and I've learned a lot that could be useful to you. I want to help all I can, to make up, a little, for what I did before." Draco looked past Harry at the flames of the sconce on the wall just above their heads. His voice was so low that Harry could hardly hear him. "I could never have killed Professor Dumbledore. He was right about that. I wonder how he knew."
"He always saw the best in people. It was his greatest strength--and his greatest weakness," Harry answered. Images of his last meeting with Dumbledore flashed through Harry's mind, but he had no time to ponder the meaning of them now. He had to help Hermione, so he needed to reach an understanding with a boy he'd always seen as his enemy.
Harry took a deep breath and looked right at Draco. "I should have said this at the time, but I'm sorry for cursing you last year. I didn't know what the curse did-and I thought you were about to attack me-but that's no excuse. I should have just disarmed you, I know that now. I learned my lesson. Who would have thought a little Expelliarmus would finish Voldemort once and for all?" Harry shook his head and grimaced.
Draco nodded. "Thank you for your apology--although if it hadn't been for Professor Snape's skill, I don't think I'd be here to accept it. He knew of course that you'd used Sectumsempra, his own curse. Yes, he told me what it was. It's ironic, isn't it? Our Potions Master had a longtime fascination with the Dark Arts. The attraction of power is strong, Harry. My father couldn't resist it. Even you felt its power."
"What do you mean?" Harry said. To his surprise they had come to the door of the Slytherin Common Room. "Reconciliation," Draco said firmly, and the stone door concealed in the wall swung open. The Common Room was undamaged and appeared unchanged since Harry and Ron had paid their unauthorized, disguised visit in Second Year.
"Why did you bring me here?" Harry asked.
"I have some . . . artifacts . . . that might prove illuminating. I expect you saw my lovely Hand of Glory when you were staking out the Room of Requirement last year?"
Harry gasped.
"Oh yes, I knew. Let me explain. It will only take a few minutes-and knowing what happened to you last year might even help with our current task."
Back in his own Slytherin domain, Draco seemed to regain some of his former confidence. But he was still wary, as if he feared that Harry would strike him at any moment. He motioned to two black leather chairs in front of the fire, and Harry sat down, perching on the edge of the seat. Instinctively he reached out to the fire but the green and silver flames provided no heat.
"Our fireplace is always cold. Perhaps that's why we Slytherins are such a sullen lot," Draco said sardonically. "But that doesn't matter now. I promised Professor Slughorn and Professor McGonagall to tell everything I know, and I mean to keep that promise."
Draco sat back in his chair and steepled his fingers in front of his face.
"Tom Riddle-he was lord of nothing but fear and agony so I'm not giving him the name he took for himself," Draco began bitterly. "Riddle loved to awe and intimidate his followers by boasting about the people he'd tortured and killed-or controlled. He particularly delighted in describing how he could control you. My father told me how Riddle planted false images of Sirius Black in your mind to draw you to the Department of Mysteries two years ago. And this year, at one of our happy little meetings at the Manor I heard him exult about his complete penetration of your mind."
Harry shifted nervously in his chair.
"In Sixth Year then, as I worked furiously on the Vanishing Cabinet, foolishly thinking that I held the key to his victory in my hands, he had his own campaign against you, about which I knew nothing. He was very subtle. But did you never wonder where those sudden urges to jinx and hex people came from? When I found out you had hexed Filch, I strongly suspected that the idea had been planted by Riddle."
"But why? What was the point?" Harry asked.
"It amused him to make you dance to his tune. He wanted to prove that Dumbledore's golden boy could be corrupted like anyone else. But above all he wanted to make sure that you had plenty of distractions to keep you from discovering his weakness. He even provided a girlfriend for you."
Harry wanted to protest, but the words died in his throat. His mind raced through all the months of Six Year before he and Ginny kissed in the Common Room. Suddenly he was filled with a rage fiercer than he had ever felt before. He stood up and began walking violently around the room, kicking an errant backpack left behind in the rush to evacuate the school and sending it flying.
Countless times over the last three years Harry had felt Voldemort's anger-and his exaltation-but he had always known that they were Voldemort's feelings. This was more sinister than anything he could ever have imagined-his own feelings had been ruthlessly manipulated, his mind violated, his heart ripped out.
But almost as suddenly as his rage came another feeling, just as strong. Relief. Utter relief. He finally understood why he had avoided Ginny after the battle. His feelings for her had disappeared with Voldemort's death; he hadn't known what to say to her. More important-a small voice whispered in the back of his mind-he could now offer Hermione his heart free and unfettered and entirely hers.
"Shall I continue?" Draco asked. "I think you need to know."
Harry walked to the fireplace, stopped, and turned back to Draco. "So how did he do it-and why?"
Draco sat forward in his chair and looked not at Harry but at the fire. "Riddle knew-from Snape and my father and Pettigrew-that most of your success came not from your own abilities but because of help from Dumbledore-and your friends," Draco explained. "How better to divide you from your friends than to give you a girlfriend to occupy your time? Preferably a girl he could control. Fortunately there was already a girl at Hogwarts who had proved especially susceptible to his powers."
"Ginny," Harry said quietly.
"Yes. Riddle himself was able to possess you for a scant few minutes in the Department of Mysteries. While his Horcrux, a mere shadow of himself-possessed Ginny for almost a year. But you had destroyed the diary, so how was he to influence her now?"
Harry tried to think of all the people who had been close to Ginny in his Sixth Year, all the objects she routinely carried around, anything that could have been enchanted. Jewellery-she didn't wear any. A book, her broom, her wand?
"Crookshanks didn't much like him, I hear," Draco said. "Always trying to pounce on him."
"You are finding this altogether too amusing," Harry said in irritation.
"All right, then, I'll tell you," Draco replied. "In Sixth Year miniature puffskeins were quite the rage. Ginny purchased a particularly adorable purple one, which Riddle controlled and to which she was irresistibly drawn."
"Which I suppose you planted," Harry said.
"Alas no. I can't take the credit-or the blame, as you'd see it. I could never have got in the Weasleys' store. No, it was the new clerk, Verity. A peculiarly inappropriate name, don't you think?"
"You knew, though, what Arnold was," Harry said. It was a statement, not a question.
"Not at first but eventually, yes, I knew. I watched both of you struggle against Riddle's influence for
months. Perhaps you sensed somehow that your feelings were not as they should be?"
Before he could answer Harry heard a faint whirring, as a huge eagle owl burst through the open door and landed gracefully on the back of Draco's chair. Draco walked to the fireplace, where he found the stale remnants of an owl treat in a silver dish. He extracted the parchment from the owl's claws, as the magnificent bird nipped at his fingers, took the treat, and flew back out the door.
Draco read the message quickly. "Good. Professor Slughorn is ready for us now. I think I have everything we need," he said, as he turned to a small table at the side of the room. "My old Hand of Glory, a bit dimmer now, alas. Peruvian Darkness Powder, definitely. And this," Draco added, picking up a long coil of silken rope. He put the three items into a black dragonhide sack, which he slung over his shoulder. Then he picked up an ancient tome bound in thick black leather and ornamented in elaborate silver scrollwork
"The Malfoy heritage-an inventory of our family…treasures, shall we say," Draco explained. "Shall we go?"
Harry followed Draco out the door and along the corridor, whose dank walls produced the odd effect of a light mist. For the first time since Harry had awoken the previously afternoon, he was reminded of his dream and the strange events at a misty future Platform 9 3/4.
"Is Scorpius a star?" Harry asked suddenly.
"What an odd question. No, it's not a star. It's an entire constellation. Just like Draco, actually. Most of the Blacks are named after stars-my mother nurtured greater ambitions for me it would seem. Why do you ask?"
Harry had no intention of sharing the details of his dream with Draco, so he replied, unconvincingly, "No reason. I just heard it somewhere."
"Oh, I remember now," Draco said. "Fifth year. Professor Sinistra's astronomy class. The one time I bested Granger on a test. She wrote `Scorpio' instead of `Scorpius.' Ah yes, I remember it well. So do you, apparently," Draco said, looking pointedly at Harry as they reached the door of the library. "Here we are."
Draco's confidence and expansiveness seemed to shrivel as soon as they entered the library. Professor Slughorn was waiting for them, bent over a table covered with more than a dozen ancient books and instruments. Facing him, with his back to the door, was a powerfully built man with thick black hair that reached his shoulders.
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