Shades of Truth

Shades of Truth

Chapter 2

*****

“You came back.” Draco’s voice was flat, but contained the slightest hint of shock.

“I said I would.” Harry replied, sitting down across from the other man again after setting down his bag and unpacking parchment, quill, and ink. “Did you still think this was all a joke?” Draco only shrugged in answer to his question, so Harry pressed on. “In any case, I thought we could work through all the cases individually and see what turns up. The first death would be Fleur Delacour’s.”

“I think she and I could have got along famously in different circumstances.” Draco offered, “She had impeccable hair.” Harry gave him a pained smile before moving along.

“According to the file, you tortured her for information, and then you used Avada Kedavra on her.”

“Yes, a shame, that.” Draco sighed deeply. “I suppose she might have lived if she just hadn’t been captured in the first place.”

“Who captured her?” Harry asked in an almost casual tone.

“My father spotted her when he was secretly meeting with a Ukrainian Death Eater who had some information for us. He was well disguised and was able to catch her unaware.” Draco answered easily.

“Your father caught her and you tortured her?” Harry continued his line of questioning, scribbling down notes on the piece of parchment in front of him. Draco opened his mouth and shut it again as he searched for a viable explanation of when the prisoner had changed hands. “What if I told you I have seen Fleur’s murder, and that you weren’t even in the room when it happened?”

“But…who would set me up as Fleur’s killer, and why?” Draco finally asked.

“Have you ever seen an angry pack of veela?” Harry asked. “That’s reason enough. But I think there’s something else. Here,” he dug into the bag he’d set on the ground when he first came in and pulled out a large bowl with runes all around the edges.

“A Pensieve.” Draco recognized the object at once, “My father had one of those, though I don’t know what’s come of it now. Where’d you get that one?”

“Dumbledore left it to me.” Harry had a flashback then of Remus Lupin, his eternally sad smile in place as he handed Harry the precious magical object.

“It was in his will, Harry, he was quite specific. And here,” Lupin produced two vials of silvery-white memory from his robes. “He told us these were yours as well. For your eyes only, so I can’t tell you what they contain or even whose mind they come from. He wanted you to swear you would show them to no one.”

He’d sworn, of course, and watched both memories enough times that he felt as if they were his own. But he’d told no one what he’d seen. It would make very little difference now, in any case. Some people refused to be saved. But Draco would be different.

“And here’s my proof,” Harry pulled a memory from his pocket and emptied it into the Pensieve. “Come along, then.” And with one last searching look at the other man, Draco plunged into the memory of the last moments of Fleur Delacour.

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“Bring her out.” Draco’s eyes flew open wide at the voice, a voice he never thought he’d hear again.

“Father,” he gasped, but then shook his head sharply and turned to see Harry Potter beside him, solemn, silent, and just as much a spectator as Draco was. He offered no comment on Draco’s disorientation, his momentary total lack of composure, and Draco felt grateful for that.

“You fiend,” he turned as a girl, stunningly beautiful even with grime in her hair, blood on her hands, and bruises on her cheeks, was led out by a silent, masked Death Eater. They were all of them concealing their faces, but Draco could still recognize most of them by their voices or postures. There was Nott senior, wiry and somber as his son. There was the cruel laugh of Macnair, the constant mumbling and fidgeting of Avery. In the early days of the war, strong caution had been exercised, as most of them didn’t fancy another trip to Azkaban if things went sour once more. Most didn’t have to worry, because Draco knew that most of the people in this room would die before having a chance to be captured and go to trial. “You weel never get away with zis! You believe zose masks hide your sins? Even if I die, I die with a smile knowing I was on ze side of good! You fight for nothing! Voldemort weel die, and you weel all fall!” Some of the Death Eaters shifted uncomfortably as her passionate tirade continued, and Draco was impressed by how a bound, beaten, and filthy prisoner still could so resemble an avenging angel.

“Enough, Miss Delacour.” Lucius Malfoy’s voice overpowered hers, and she turned to him, her eyes flaming and her chin tilted upward in pride. “I will give you one last chance. Be sensible. You have veela blood in your veins, and you must know a great number of your kind have already joined the Dark Lord. You have no Muggle blood, and yet look at how you protect them so fiercely. If they knew what you were, they would despise you, torture you, and tear you apart to learn all your secrets.” There was a pause as he awaited her reaction and she only continued to glare at him haughtily. “Well? What do you say to that, Miss Delacour?”

“I say you may address me as Mrs. Weasley, you slimy piece of filth!” and she spat a spectacular shot right on his mask.

“I don’t believe you will be able to attend your wedding, Miss Delacour, if you continue to resist us. Don’t make this hard on yourself, my dear. Would you really put those blood traitors above your own family?” Lucius stood over her as some lesser Death Eater wiped the spit from his mask.

“You dirty ‘ypocrite. You expect me to be touched by ze sentimentality of a man ‘oo would not hesitate to cast aside his only child in favor of his master?” furious tears spilled down her cheeks, etching pristine tracks in her porcelain skin. Draco was not sure whether she was sad she would be dying, afraid no one would save her, infuriated with Lucius, or possibly a combination of all three.

“There may be hope for Draco yet, despite his failings. Do not look down at me as though you are faultless, Miss Delacour. It is not always as simple as black and white. All of us must spend time in the grey. Think of your sister, Fleur.” Lucius leaned closer to her, as though he would kiss her through his mask. “Do you not worry for her wellbeing?”

“I fight to protect Gabrielle and all zat is good, fool! Zere is no grey area in zis!” Fleur’s tears were still streaming, but though Draco was sure she had given herself up for dead, she continued to fight.

“After the Ministry sees how many veela have joined our side, your family will risk persecution unless you let the Dark Lord take you under his wing.” Lucius sounded almost as though he cared, but Draco knew better than that. His father had never cared about being thought of as a kind man.

“My sister weel be glad I died a ‘ero, my name in books and songs. You die a coward, too stupid to see money and power weel not protect your soul!” Fleur hissed, and she turned her powerful gaze on the other seven Death Eaters present in the memory, all of them Draco knew to be dead except for his mother, the only other woman present, her fair hair just visible under the edge over her hood in the flickering torch light. None of them seemed to realize how very near their own ends they were. Only Wormtail was shivering as though chilled to the heart, but he had always been timid. “I regret nothing! Can any of you face death as bravely?”

“Foolish girl, none of us shall die.” Lucius laughed at her, and deep chuckles echoed from Crabbe and Goyle senior, as much his shadows as their sons had been Draco’s. “We devour death and spit it out. Only those who oppose us die.” And then his wand was out, and without further delay, he struck her down with the killing curse.

“Oh dear, I thought you’d let Draco have another go at it. I’m sure he just needed to concentrate a bit more.” His mother’s voice always sounded sweet to Draco’s ears, though he realized that most people heard it as cold and hard.

“No, I think that a beautiful girl full of poetic lies was really too much for him as a first kill. She inspired too much sympathy.” Lucius nudged Fleur’s crumpled form with one toe. “But I believe our son will soon find himself cured of such weak-hearted hesitance to do the Dark Lord’s bidding.” The assembled group began to disperse, and with a sharp nod, Harry pulled Draco back out of the memory swirling harmlessly within the Pensieve.

“Whose memory was that?” Draco finally asked after a long silence. “And who modified my memory?”

“As for the first question, I can’t tell you the answer for sure. It was given to me by a friend who told me that it was true, but who would not tell me where they had gotten it from. I have my suspicions, but nothing more than that. I have something else you should see, though. It should answer the second question for you.” And Harry produced a second vial, a very small one. After rebottling the memory of Fleur’s death, he emptied this new memory into the Pensieve, though it made a very small puddle, being as it was such a short memory. Draco was very curious to enter it, and did not even wait for Harry to prompt him this time.

He found himself in a cold, dank place, and by the time his eyes adjusted to the lack of light, Harry was beside him. Something about this memory made Draco break out in a cold sweat, though he though it might be because he recognized the setting. He was in the dungeons below Malfoy Manor. When he was a child, he had been sent here whenever he misbehaved. He particularly recalled a fortnight spent in a cell living off bread and water as punishment for breaking n heirloom vase while playing in the dining room. He had been six, and still terrified of the dark at the time.

Malfoys don’t play.

As he had grown, so had the severity of the punishments as Lucius attempted to find new ways to imprint lessons indelibly on Draco, who found himself becoming colder and less affected by the simplicity of solitary confinement after some time. He still recalled that throughout his career at Hogwarts, Lucius would lock him in a cell and cast the Cruciatus Curse on him each day, for a number of days that equaled the number of exams he did not finish first in.

Malfoys are never second place.

Doubtless, this particular punishment bred within him a hatred for Hermione Granger above and beyond what he was raised to feel toward people of Muggle parentage. It had taken him years to forgive her for being smarter than him, and it would doubtless take many more years before he could bring himself to admit it.

“Are you okay, Malfoy?” Harry’s breath was hot on his ear, the only bit of warmth in this horrid place. “We won’t be long.”

“I’m fine.” He told the other, regulating his breathing and thinking of how he suddenly missed his nice cell in Azkaban. But now he saw a torch and heard voices, and there was his father with Severus Snape and that horrid Wormtail. And Draco saw in the new light that they were just outside a cell, and inside, cowering, gibbering, sobbing, was a lump that horrifyingly, undeniably himself. But Draco could not recall…

“Whose—“ he began, but Harry shushed him so he could hear the words of the approaching trio.

“—seems to have backfired, and now he’s less useful than ever.” Snape’s droll voice finished.

“The Dark Lord has no use for sniveling cowards.” Wormtail offered his opinion eagerly.

“I don’t know about that, he seemed to find a use for you, Wormtail.” Lucius’ voice was sharp and venomous, a snake strike. “But then, being Severus’ handmaid is hardly the most crucial of tasks.”

“I’d do better to buy an old mutt. It would eat and speak less, and do more, I’m sure. Certainly the smell would be an improvement.” Snape snickered. “And I could certainly trust its loyalty more readily.”

“And there he is,” Lucius sighed as though full of heavy disappointment. “Draco, I had such hopes for you, and yet you lie quivering, in such a mess over a pretty face. You had to kill her, there was no choice.” Lucius rested a gloved hand on the bars and looked down at his son before turning to Snape. “I’ll simply have to wait until he calms and wipe the memory of regret from him. I’ll paint him a memory of commendations, of glory and praise. He is a simple boy, after all. I know what he wishes for most deeply.”

“If I may, Lucius, too many modifications could cause the boy permanent damage if you are not cautious and precise.” Snape interjected as the trio turned to leave and the sound of their conversation faded until it left only the broken sobbing of Draco.

“Let’s leave,” Harry’s voice was subdued as he grabbed Draco’s hand and he realized suddenly that he had moved, as if drawn to this past version of himself he had no memory of, his hands clutching the bars of his own cell as he stared down at himself in shame and regret, wondering why it had been this way, wishing his father had known him better.

The thing I wanted most was to be loved.

*****

To be continued…