Shades of Truth

Shades of Truth

Chapter 12

*****

“So,” Hermione had insisted they go out for coffee after Harry rejoined her outside the interview room, and had remained casual and friendly until they finally received their drinks, at which time she switched into interrogation mode. “What was that all about? What did you need to tell Malfoy that I couldn’t be allowed to hear?”

“I didn’t want him to go through with it if he didn’t want to, so I thought I’d check that he wanted to do the Legilimency one last time before we did it…just in case, you know.” Harry didn’t know why he even bothered to try and keep his secrets. She’d find this out, just as she’d found everything else so far.

“That’s very sweet.” She gave him a terse smile. “Now tell me what it was really about. Is there something else going on here? It’s not like you haven’t kept enough things hidden from me that I’ve found out in due time anyway¬.” Her words eerily echoed his concerns. “What, more dead people you’re harboring? Perhaps you’re planning on starting up a tea shop with Pansy Parkinson? Or maybe you never killed Voldemort, and you two plan to take the British countryside by storm with your hit vaudeville show? Seriously, Harry, nothing you can tell me is going to be more preposterous than the things I’ve already found out in the past month, and you’re only going to irritate me when I have to figure it out on my own instead of having you tell me straight out, so why don’t you just come out with it?”

There was something to be said for that, Harry considered. Now if he could just think of an easy way to say what there was between Draco and him. He took his time emptying a third packet of creamer into his coffee before he offered any response. “You know how you and Ron are?”

“What?” Hermione was thrown off by his words, so he pressed onward.

“What if you hadn’t always been friends, because you were in different houses or something like that, and you didn’t really see him as anything but a schoolmate or a rival, and then you weren’t even on the same sides during the war, and you got to know each other later, but it was under circumstances where even if you still started to have feelings for him, it wasn’t really technically appropriate, do you think you two would have still ended up together?” Harry had barely paused during his drawn out hypothetical question, but now that he’d finished, he buried his face in his coffee.

“That’s the weirdest…” Harry could literally hear the penny drop, and could imagine precisely the look on Hermione’s face as she made a horrible rasping, choking noise. He glanced up once to check the quality of his imagination and found it to be rather accurate. Her face was flushed, her nostrils flaring, and he couldn’t tell whether she was embarrassed, enraged, confused, or just settling for aspects of all emotions. She leaned forward so far Harry thought she was actually going to bite his head off. “You’re sleeping with Malfoy?” she hissed in scandalized shock.

“No!” his reply was so vehement that he garnered the attention of most of the café. It was a few moments before he felt comfortable continuing. “No, we haven’t even mentioned…we’ve only kissed.” She stared at him expectantly. “Several times.” Her eyebrows raised almost into her hairline. “But nothing else, really.”

“I can’t believe you’re sleeping with Malfoy.” She shook her head and took a sip of her coffee as he buried his face in his hands in frustration.

“I told you, we haven’t!” he hissed, but she didn’t seem to be listening to him.

“If this gets out, your case will be lost before it gets to court. No one’s going to believe you if you’re sleeping with him.” She heaved a deep sigh. “I’m helping you as best I can, but you can’t expect miracles, Harry. And like things aren’t already going to be rough enough with Ron as it is, how do you expect me to tell him that?”

“Firstly, it won’t get out; it’s not anyone’s business. Secondly, we aren’t sleeping together, so stop saying that. And thirdly, if Ron still wants to talk to me after the trial, and things go well with Draco and I after that, I’ll tell him.” Harry told her firmly.

“No, yeah, I’ll tell him.” She replied after a moment. “That way no one gets throttled. And even if you really aren’t sleeping together, you still shouldn’t be carrying on a torrid love affair in the Azkaban interview chamber. Especially not when you should be working on the prisoner’s appeal.”

“I know that, of course I know that.” Harry countered. “After we first kissed, I felt so guilty, like I was taking advantage of him, I put everything with him on hold for a week, but Hermione, he wants to be with me, he’s said it plainly. And it’s still really new and all, but he just…it seems so right.”

“Harry,” Hermione sighed deeply before reaching forward to cover his hand with her own. “I know you wouldn’t do anything that could hurt someone else, but think about this carefully. Even if you get out of the courts before this gets out, it will get out. You’re Harry Potter, Hero of the Wizarding World. You don’t get to have secrets, not for long. I know you aren’t concerned with your own popularity, but Draco will suffer more than you anyway. His mother will disown him. You know what sort of woman she is.”

“I know.” He nodded heavily.

“And his friends will all turn on him.” She continued. “If you care about him so much, can’t you see he’s better off without this?”

“Maybe.” Harry took a deep drink and set his cup back down, staring into the murky liquid for a long moment before he looked up at Hermione again. “If Ron was better off without you, would you leave him?”

“No.” she admitted. “And that’s why whatever you choose to do, I’ll be behind you.”

“Thanks.” He smiled at her warmly.

“I still think it’s stupid of you.”

----------

Harry just wanted to go straight to bed when he went home, but he saw immediately that his hopes would be fruitless.

“We have a guest.” His housemate greeted him, and Harry barely suppressed a groan as he hung up his cloak.

“We seem to have a lot of those lately.” He replied instead. “At least you aren’t tied up this time. I’ll take that as a good sign.”

“I let her in.” was his only response as they went to the kitchen, where a pale woman sat with a ramrod straight back, sipping tea delicately from her cup. She was dressed all in black, and Harry couldn’t tell if she was still in mourning for her husband or if she was just trying to be fashionable.

“Narcissa, I’m pleased you’ve come to visit.” He made a polite little bow for her, knowing how she valued such niceties. “I have something I need to ask of you.”

“I know what you want, but there’s only one that I have left to offer.” She reached into her robes and produced an elegantly thin vial of shimmering memory. “I simply wasn’t present for most of their activities.”

“I understand.” Harry sat down across from her, happily accepting the memory. “It’s still very kind of you, and I’m sure it will be just as helpful as the Fleur memory. Thank you.”

“You knew?” she tilted her head to one side and smiled lightly. “I suppose we fancied ourselves unrecognizable in our robes, but you, of all people, would be able to see what was hidden under the hoods.”

“I suspected,” Harry shrugged noncommittally, pleased to know that he had identified the situation successfully. “May I ask which death this one records?” he patted his robe carefully where he had stowed the vial.

“My niece’s.” she answered with a sharp nod before taking a short sip of tea. “It was tragic, how many families turned on each other during the war, though it was certainly no surprise to see a disowned Mudblood take your side of things.”

“Quite.” Harry tried not to be upset with her. This was Draco’s mother. He was certainly not his father’s son, so he had always thought that in a private interview, she would resemble her son more strongly in behavior and temperament.

Remember what a bigot he was in school, especially toward Hermione. He had to have learned that somewhere.

Draco had not often spoken of his mother since they had begun working toward his freedom. Once he had referred to her ability to delude herself, but Harry had assumed that was mostly a jest. She did not seem very much like him, now that he was able to speak to her face to face, but at the same time, he wasn’t acting very much like himself in the interest of gaining her assistance.

“Well then, I should be going, I suppose.” She stood up, and Harry rose as well, wondering momentarily if Draco would laugh to see how politely his mother was being treated.

“If you have anything else to offer me, I would certainly appreciate it.” He told her as all three of them walked to the door.

“I would be happy to help my son, certainly. He is all I have left, tragically.” She dabbed at her eyes with a lacy kerchief, though Harry did not see any wetness at all. “You are so kind to help him, I would like to say, that despite your birth, I would quite like to think of you as a friend of our family.”

“How thoughtful of you.” Harry took nearly a full minute to respond to the barbed offer. What was wrong with this woman?

“Think nothing of it.” She smiled brightly as though he had begun weeping with gratefulness at her offer. “It would not be the first Mudblood my family took in.” Harry tried to force a smile as she let her hand be kissed lightly by the third member of their party before she took her leave. As soon as the door closed he turned an incredulous face toward his companion.

“What is she?” was all he could manage.

“A Black, a Malfoy, an antiquity of sorts, surely, but her heart is good beneath all the prejudice ingrained in her.”

“I just don’t understand how Draco could be such a…well, he’s obviously not normal, but I don’t see where he inherited his conscience from. His father killed as many people, if not more, than Voldemort himself, and his mother is such a self-righteous bigot.” He made a face as though he’d been force fed a lemon, and the other shrugged as they returned to the kitchen.

“I think disparity is easy to spot when you have one whose faults you’re so quick to gloss over, and then a pair whose faults are the only things you can see. It isn’t a fair comparison unless you look at all of them from the same point of view.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Harry asked, helping clear up the tea and biscuits Narcissa had been nibbling at when he came home. “He’s completely different from either of them.”

“And yet he shares many qualities with his parents as well, if you look in the right places. His mother, for instance, never killed a single prisoner or Muggle in either war. She never went into the battles if there was any way to help it. She may think that Muggles and Mudbloods are lesser beings, but she still doesn’t want any part in their deaths. She became adept at watching them die, but that was the most Lucius could get out of her. Lucius may seem a bloodthirsty wretch in comparison, but he is exceedingly clever and charismatic. He inspired loyalty in his comrades with very little effort, even though he had something of a temper. Both are instances of traits the Malfoys passed to their son, though in him, they seem different to you. It is hard to compare those we do not care for with those we hold dear without making some gross errors.”

“Wh…was Hermione here before?” Harry tried to figure out how she could have come back here and gone before he’d even arrived home and had a hard time seeing how it was possible.

“No, I’m able to figure some things out for myself, as antiquated as I myself have become.” There was a long pause. “I think it may be a good thing.”

“From you, I’ll take that as a full blessing.”

*****

To be Continued…