Never A Memory

~Color Behind the Gray~

Part II





The next morning...

***



Harry woke with a start and blinked, his head turning this way and that as he tried to remember falling asleep. His eyes rested on the Pensieve and for a long moment, his thoughts of the previous night flooded his mind. Silently, Harry shook his head and dispelled the screaming war between his Gryffindor conscience and the darker part of him he refused to acknowledge.



Strange thing was, Harry had a distinct impression that both sides were screaming for the same thing even if he wasn't sure what it was exactly. Harry swallowed and ran a hand through his jet-black hair. Every muscle in his body hurt like hell for falling asleep on the floor and he stood to his feet, his legs shaky beneath him.



Harry fixed himself a small breakfast before resuming his seat in front of the Pensieve. Opening the journal to the third page, Harry nearly dropped the journal after reading the title of the page.



'A Visit to Dumbledore'.



Harry bit his lip and muttered the incantation, throwing himself into the memory with more vigor than before.



Harry followed an older Draco, perhaps twenty, through the secret stone passages of the Hogwarts castle. Draco glanced around him before turning the corner and quietly murmured the password that would lift Draco to Dumbledore's office. Once inside, Dumbledore looked up from his own Pensieve and they stared at one another for many minutes.



Harry glanced out of one of the windows and noticed first years being boated across the lake. It must be the first day of his sixth year.



That knowledge made his head spin.



Dumbledore finally nodded. "You found McGonagall's Time-Turner, didn't you?"



Draco remained still by the stairs, as if afraid he may have to flee at any moment, but his eyes gave the affirmation. "I did."



Dumbledore was quiet for half a moment longer before waving Draco to a chair. "Have a seat, Draco."



Draco stared at the chair like it was a vile thing ready to come alive and devour him, but he finally made his way over and sat down.



Draco Malfoy had taken on that wild, frayed look again, and Harry concluded that as he continued to live in the Tien Shen Pass, Draco gradually cared less and less about his appearance. His journey here with the Time-Turner must have taken an incredible amount of planning and Harry suspected he understood the device much better by now.



Harry wondered how old Draco actually was. If he was continually going back and forth through time to create the VCE, visit Dumbledore before his death, and who knew what else, there really was no telling how old Draco was now. If Harry had to guess, he would say somewhere between twenty-four or twenty-five.



Draco was staring at his finger nails like they were foreign things, the once vainly polished and kept fingers now cracked and dirty. Dumbledore gazed down at him with his soft eyes and the office grew extremely quiet.



Finally, the Hogwarts Headmaster cleared his throat. "I have first-years to sort, Draco," Dumbledore said gently. "I am assuming that you came here to tell me something."



Draco inclined his head and looked up; the dark smudges under his eyes making the gray irises look brighter and more fevered. "Voldemorte orders me to kill you this year."



Dumbledore sits back in his chair. "I see."



"He threatens to kill my parents," Draco continued in a hollow, miserable voice. "And so I use the Room of Requirement to let Death Eaters into the school. My godfather swears an Unbreakable Vow to my mother to protect me. And...I cannot bring myself to kill you so Snape does." Draco raised his eyes and met Dumbledore's. "But he's loyal to you, I swear it."



Dumbledore pursed his lips and breathed in through his nostrils. "I believe you, Draco," Dumbledore says finally. "Do you become a Death Eater this year?"



Draco laughed a dead, sardonic laugh, the sound pushing over the tips of his teeth like the rustling of dry, autumn leaves. "I receive the Dark Mark over the summer, I scratch it out with Myrtle as my witness, and Voldemorte re-brands me in the spring."



Dumbledore's sharp eyes fasten on Draco's and the Headmaster tries to decipher the hidden pain there. "And what becomes of your mother?"



"I do not kill you," Draco whispers as Dumbledore’s eyes bore into his own. "So, the Dark Lord punishes me with her death."



"Oh, Draco..."



"Don't pity me, Dumbledore," Draco bit out. "I believe I did the right thing by not harming you, Headmaster, but every day, I regret it."



Dumbledore's sharp eyes soften as he regards the near-adult version of Draco Malfoy; the tired hunch of his shoulders, the weary pull of his eyes.



"And what are you doing now?"



"I am exiled."



"The Order of the Phoenix will take you in."



Draco began laughing aloud, the pitch of his voice harsh and unforgiving. "As a refugee? I bet Potter would just love that."



"There's more to him than you realize," Dumbledore argued.



Draco snorted. "Like forgiveness? Really, Headmaster, Potter is better at pity and mercy. Forgiveness has never been one of his outstanding qualities."



Harry swallowed and glanced away, knowing it was true.



"All the same, you need to be protected."



"No, Dumbledore," Draco murmured, his voice taking on a quietness that chilled Harry to the bones. "This time, I will be doing the protecting. No more people will die for me."



"It's not your fault for being a good person, Draco."



Draco chuckled sarcastically. "It's amazing how much effort I put into trying to be the contrary, Headmaster. Why couldn't I just be like my father?"



"You are just like your father," Dumbledore countered. "You only differ in your choices, Draco. You will always be what you are and you will always suffer because you will choose what you feel is right in your heart. You are Syltherin and that choice will always be harder for you than for a Hufflepuff or a Ravenclaw, and especially a Gryffindor."



Draco looked away. "That is why I cannot go to the Ministry or to the Order of the Phoenix. They would never understand me as you do. They would never trust me. Potter is their hero, not I."



"Assumptions are the workings of a lazy mind."



Draco looked back at Dumbledore and smiled. "I suppose so. But I am stubborn."



"That you are."



"Good bye, Headmaster," Draco said softly as he and Dumbledore rose to their feet.



Dumbledore walked toward the staircase and paused before exiting. "You may visit me any time you like, Draco, if you would care for my boorish company."



Draco smiled and watched Dumbledore leave. The image shimmered and faded, leaving Harry outside of the Pensieve and staring at the footnote at the bottom of the page.



'~from this day onward, I met frequently with Albus Dumbledore. It wasn't until the winter that I realized that this was why Dumbledore had acted so strangely to me the night I let the Death Eaters into Hogwarts.'



Harry turned the page and read 'Being Re-Marked' at the tope of the page. Harry whispered the incantation, quickly becoming addicted to Draco's memories, and leaned forward into the Pensieve.



Harry found himself in a cold, stone room with minimal furniture. Harry turned in a circle and spotted a young, seventeen year old shivering Draco Malfoy huddled in the corner, his gray eyes bright and wild with fear. His eyes were red-rimmed and blood shot from recent tears and blood ran down the fingers of his left hand in thin streams and dripped on the stone floor to pool by his feet. Harry moved and crouched down beside him and looked up into his face.



Harry had an overwhelming urge to console him, to wrap the terrified teenager up in his arms and rock him to sleep. Draco looked so pathetic it pulled at Harry's heart and made him angry at whoever was doing this to him. A feeling that would have been most unwelcome during his own sixth year.



Draco's lips parted and his eyes glazed over. He began rocking back and forth as whispers fell from his lips. Harry leaned closer and found that the Malfoy heir was reciting poetry, probably in an attempt to calm his frayed nerves.



"Datta: What have we given?" Draco murmured in a shaky voice as he continued to rock back and forth. "My friend, blood shaking my heart, the awful daring of a moment's surrender."



Harry couldn't remember the poet's name, but the words sounded familiar. Harry had a sneaking suspicion that it was a Muggle poet.



"Which an age of prudence can never retract," Draco continued, his voice becoming clearer and stronger as he recalled the words. "The awful daring of a moment's surrender."



Draco closed his eyes briefly, letting the words resonate and echo off of the stone walls of the room. "Which is not to be found in our obituaries," Draco whispered, continuing his recitation with his eyes shut. "Or in memories draped by the beneficent spider...or under seals broken by the lean solicitor..."



Suddenly the door to the room swung open and Lucius Malfoy stormed into the room, followed soon after by Lord Voldemorte. They towered over Draco and watched him shudder convulsively in their shadow.



Draco opened his eyes and gazed back up at them, his gray eyes glazed and calm from the words he had spoken against the stone room. "In out empty rooms," Draco finished in a hushed voice.



Lucius reached down and clutched Draco's left arm, drawing back the sleeve of his son's robes to reveal the bloody mess that was once Voldemorte's brand on him, the Dark Mark scratched out and haggard.



Voldemorte lifted his chin and gazed cruelly down at Draco. "I see," Voldemorte murmured. "And this is your son, Lucius? I thought even you might do better."



"So had I," Lucius growled, glaring at his son.



"Why did you do this?" Voldemorte asked with deceiving gentleness. "I had thought you considered it an honor."



Draco looked at his arm. "I cannot Apparate to you when you call, Lord. The burning was driving me mad."



"So you defiled my Mark," Voldemorte said, his words falling on Draco like blows.



"Yes, my Lord."



"Stupid, stupid boy," Voldemorte hissed. "Remove your robes."



Draco blanched and pressed himself against the wall. "My Lord?"



"Do it, Draco," Lucius all but spat at him. "Do it now!"



Shaking so badly he looked like he was seizing, Draco unlaced the front of his robes and pulled them off.



"And your shirt," Voldemorte said.



Draco discarded his shirt near his robes and stood before the Dark Lord and his father in nothing but trousers. He shook as Voldemorte instructed him to turn around and kneel. Voldemorte drew out his wand and roughly pressed it into Draco's spine, the area on his back between his shoulder blades.



"Consider me merciful," Voldemorte said against Draco's screams as he dug his wand into the skin of Draco's back. "For I do not often afford second chances."



Leaving Lucius and Draco behind, when Voldemorte was finished he swept out of the room, leaving it colder than ever. Draco was curled into a ball and twitching on the stone floor and Lucius gazed down at his son impassively.



"You will finish your mission at Hogwarts, Draco."



"Yes, Father," Draco stammered.



"You will kill Albus Dumbledore."



"Yes, Father."



"And you will not disappoint me again."



"Yes, Father."



Lucius turned and walked towards the exit. He paused before leaving and glanced back his son, his gray eyes so cold they were nearly white. "You are a disgrace to me."



With a slam, Lucius shut the door behind him and Draco listened to Lucius' heavy footsteps as they marched back down the hall.



The memory came to an end so abruptly, Harry felt like someone had punched in the stomach.



***



Draco shouted as he woke from the dream. He was laying in his bed at St. Mary's, trembling so fiercely the mattress shook, and curled into a ball. His back was alight with the echo of pain rather than the real thing but his lightning bolt scar burned like fury. Hot tears leaked past his eyes as he buried his face into the pillows.



Confused sobs wracked his body long into the night.







***

~410, T.S. Eliot, The Waste Land
~





a/n: Such quick reviews! I love it!



wizli: Thank you. Yes, always the Slytherin. The Eagle Owl is pretty clever, isn't he? His part in this story is yet to be over, lol. And the rest...well, you'll see :).



snakevamp: Isn't that how it always happens? The second you think you're getting somewhere, the mystery just widens and gets more complex. Things will begin to fall into place soon though, I promise. This is probably my revenge for all those HP fanfics I've read on this site that just leave me with a cliffhanger every tme I get excited about an update. Mwahaha. I'm glad you're enjoying the Pensieve chapters.



thrnbrooke: Aaaaah. Why, indeed? But then, why not? You'll understand soon. I love that you pay attention to the minor details :).