A Dream For The Dead

WARNING: GRAPHIC AND VIOLENT IMAGES AHEAD.

A Dream For The Dead

Chapter 21

The Monsters That I’ve Been

The key to Occlumency is compartmentalizing. In order to block someone from your mind entirely, you must first learn to block yourself. By placing each of your thoughts and memories into their own, carefully crafted boxes and then shutting the lids, you can organize your mind and empty it of unnecessary thoughts. Compartmentalizing is a useful tool to have when focus is necessary to solve a particularly complex problem. It is also helpful for studying.

But most importantly, by closing your mind off to yourself and, consequently, others, you can look at the world more objectively. Emotions that stem from experiences, from memories, no longer rule your actions. The world might perceive you as cold and calculating. This is what you are.

Calculating.

One cannot calculate without clarity.

Draco had learned, from a very young age, the important of controlling his emotions, of hiding his thoughts and closing off his mind. His father had believed it to be the single most important lesson, above knowing about blood purity, above knowing about magic. It was even above learning manners and traditions. It was the basis of control and the epitome of discipline.

Bellatrix –or Aunt Bella, as he used to call her –had taught Draco Occlumency, but Lucius had taught him to compartmentalize.

The problem with this whole theory of being was that, when asked to open one of the boxes containing particularly painful or frightening memories, Draco was no longer in control of his emotions. He was unprepared for the onslaught of pain and terror. He was inexperienced at actually dealing with his feelings.

He had pushed them away, cast them aside and bound them in magical compartments for so long that there was no telling what might happen if he were to revisit them.

He never looked at them for longer than a moment and even that was sometimes too much.

But life was cosmically unfair. Draco knew that very well.

Life had somehow brought danger back upon his family and, with it, Harry Potter. Now, said Potter was demanding that he go back and relive each of his memories to try and eradicate the aforementioned danger.

Draco did not like the idea of it at all.

He gripped the arms of his chair tightly but tried to keep his face unchanged. He had long since looked away from Potter, unable to hold the gaze of those piercing green eyes. They had never seemed quite so bright, quite so painful before that moment. Even as Draco stared into the hearth, he saw them staring back at him. He knew he always would.

The hole in the ground pulsed and shifted, sometimes growing larger and sometimes shrinking before him. The pull it exerted on him, however, never faltered. The problem was that he felt himself being pulled in two directions at once: both toward the hole and toward Potter.

Draco swallowed as he felt Potter’s light grip on his wrist shift. The hot hand made his arm ache but he could not pull away, either. He wanted to. He knew he should. But he couldn’t.

“Draco,” Potter said quietly, his voice suddenly soothing and kind. Draco had never heard it sound that way before. He refused, however, to look back into those eyes. “It’s alright.”

Draco tensed immediately. His jaw clenched and he glared into the eye of the black hole before him. He was filled with inexplicable rage.

“It is not alright, Potter,” he snarled, his words slow and deliberate. The hand on his wrist did not falter but applied slightly more pressure. As the pressure increased, Draco realized that the hole in front of him shrank. He felt the pull from the chasm lessen and soon he was only being tugged toward Potter. He shut his eyes, trying not to think about it. “You don’t know what you’re asking of me.”

Again, the pressure increased slightly. The pain was like fire all over again, but Draco ignored it.

“I do know what I’m asking,” Potter answered, his voice slightly harder but still more soothing than Draco had imagined it could be when directed at him. “I don’t like to go back there either. But we don’t have a choice. I need to know so I can keep you safe.”

Something long and distant rose in Draco then. He had not encountered it for years. He felt himself warmed from the inside, very slightly. He hated himself for it but he couldn’t deny the thing as it uncurled within him. He had missed it.

He felt a flicker of Hope.

“I…” he closed his mouth, refusing to protest any longer. He needed to simply do it. He had no choice. It was for his son. For Scorpius. Draco closed his eyes and tried to relax his hands on the armrests but couldn’t quite manage. The hand on his wrist did not move.

“Voldemort,” Draco began, his voice thick and slow. The simple name immediately released the latches on hundreds of tiny boxes in his mind and he was flooded with memories he wished deeply to bury. He spoke softly, perhaps too softly for Potter to actually hear, but it did not matter. He was speaking. “Liked to kidnap people. He seemed to find it endlessly entertaining. Sadistic bastard.” Draco grimaced at the images behind his eyes. “Before Seventh Year, he sought out,” Draco stopped, unsure if he could actually speak the name. His throat closed and he choked for a moment. “Charity Burbage. She was –”

“The Muggle Studies Professor at Hogwarts,” Potter finished for him. Draco found himself nodding without really intending to. He was lost now in his memories. No longer in control. He felt Potter’s thumb smoothing over the soft skin of his wrist. It was slow and deliberate. It was comforting.

“She had written a couple articles in the Prophet,” Draco went on, forcing his tongue to work. “About how we should embrace Muggles and the Muggleborn… things like that. How we owe them… our survival or something. I can’t remember the details…” There was an edge of panic in his voice, he realized, and the thumbstrokes increased in pressure. “He brought her to the Manor. And called a meeting. He was always calling ridiculous meetings. Like it was a business, instead of a war. He had her hovering over the… the dining table. Upside-down. By her ankle.” The grip on his wrist tightened suddenly as Potter twitched oddly. Then it relaxed and resumed stroking. “She was unconscious and…I couldn’t stop staring at her. I couldn’t stop looking because… I knew her. I… She was just an old woman. She wasn’t any kind of threat. Just a teacher who thought differently than he did.”

“That was threatening to Voldemort,” Potter said suddenly, though his tone was quiet and contemplative. Draco was jarred by the wisdom in his words. His eyes opened briefly, just long enough to look up at the man next to him. Potter was staring at him with understanding. Draco couldn’t believe it and nearly pulled away from the necessary touch. He nearly forgot what he was saying.

But then, just as quick as it had happened, Draco turned back to face away from Potter and shut his eyes. He couldn’t keep them open for this.

“Yes, well,” he started again, still disconcerted by the words. “He woke her up just to see her panic. He watched as she pleaded with us, with him, with Snape to let her go. She was terrified. I couldn’t look at her anymore. I couldn’t watch her die like I watched…”

“Dumbledore,” Potter whispered. There was anguish in his word and it stabbed at Draco’s heart. He actually winced and turned his head further away from Potter, but the grip on his wrist tightened. Draco didn’t understand the action.

“He tortured her first,” he explained, still more quietly. He suddenly felt himself shake slightly. “And then killed her and… and fe–” The words were choked off by an uncontrollable gag reflex. He lurched forward without actually vomiting at all and then shook more visibly. “He fed her to the snake.”

Suddenly, the weight on his wrist shifted and he heard something move. When he looked up he realized that Potter had moved from the other chair and was now sitting on the table in front of Draco. He adjusted his one hand on Draco’s wrist to grasp his hand and then placed the other on his shoulder to brace him. Potter’s eyes were wide and unreadable. Draco felt himself pulled forward by something unseen. His face was contorted in disgust and horror. Potter’s touch was almost too much for him to deal with. He couldn’t try to understand it. Not now.

He dropped his gaze and shut his eyes again. The world was spinning now for a much different reason than usual.

“It’s alright,” Potter said again, though the words were meaningless. He squeezed Draco’s shoulder. “Go on. I’m here.”

Draco wanted to gnash his teeth and yell until he was hoarse. He wanted to throw a tantrum and destroy everything in the house. He wanted to throw himself at Potter and beat him to a bloody pulp. He wanted to curl up and cry out everything he had ever felt. He wanted to break down, collapse into Potter’s arms and be held. He wanted to be stroked and told it was all over now. He wanted to die.

But Draco was an adult now. He was a grown man and he could push these thoughts away again. He could get through them and survive. He had survived this long. He would continue to do so.

“Voldemort decreed that all Hogwarts students should provide proof of blood status,” he said hoarsely, his carefully constructed façade steadily crumbling around him. “Most students didn’t return that year. Mu--… Muggleborns and Half-Bloods mostly stayed away. Even some Purebloods refused to attend. Hogwarts wasn’t safe for anyone.” Draco swallowed bitterly, remembering the handful of faces that did return and wondering why they had. “I still don’t know why your precious wife was sent back to school. Your Order should have known that Hogwarts was under Death Eater control. Blood Traitors were a prime target. As bad as Muggleborns.” His tone was bitter for this part and he knew it. He didn’t care. The thumbstrokes stilled briefly. “But this isn’t about her.” He tried to find himself again. He could never fully explain why he hated Potter’s wife so deeply, other than the fact that she was another annoying Weasley. Actually, the most annoying Weasley. Worse than, well, the Weasel.

“No, it’s not,” Potter agreed quietly. Draco snapped back to the point. He realized he that the shaking had stopped momentarily.

“Well, not everyone was properly warned,” Draco went on, his throat constricting slightly. He knew where this thought led and he did not want to tread there. This was his most painful memory of all and he hated himself for even having it. “There… there was a boy.” He stopped for a long moment, trying to find some courage so that he could say what he needed to say, what Potter needed to hear. “He was only eleven. First year at Hogwarts. He was so excited that he showed up at the platform already dressed in his robes.” Draco’s throat closed completely for a few moments and he struggled to breathe through his nose. He felt tears stinging his eyes but forced himself to breathe away the pain. He couldn’t cry. Not in front of Potter.

“He was a Muggleborn,” Draco whispered, unaware that he was doing so. He could see the boy running down the platform and headlong into two dark figures. Alecto and Amycus Carrow. The boy had sandy brown hair and honey coloured eyes so bright they looked yellow. “His parents had just left the platform when they thought he got onto the train. The Carrows caught him and… tested him.” Draco tried to swallow but couldn’t. “When they found out he was a Muggleborn, they picked him up and threw him back down, to the ground. His… his head snapped back against the pavement.” Draco was panting now, unable to stop it. His lungs expelled any small gasp of air he tried to breathe. It was as thought his body was trying to suffocate him.

He was shaking again, more violently than before. He probably looked like someone suffering from hypothermia, if not for the fact that his skin was burning hot. Potter did not move his hands at all but tried to steady him. It wasn’t working.

“There was blood,” he tried to go on. “Not a lot, but there was blood.” Draco shuddered and bit down hard on his lip. He felt the metal tang of blood in his own mouth and was almost pleased. “I wanted to go to him but… I couldn’t. I couldn’t move. I couldn’t even breathe. I… and then they lifted him with their wands and disappeared with him.”

“Draco,” Potter tried to say, but it was garbled in Draco’s ears. He couldn’t hear properly. There was a strange ringing. He shook his head and set his jaw.

“They took him to the Manor,” he spat suddenly. Potter seemed surprised by the abruptness of his words. He jolted slightly. “They took everyone to the Manor. Every prisoner, every Muggleborn, Blood Traitor, half-breed, Order Member. They filled the dungeons and lower levels with the poor sods they caught. The halls echoed with screams all the time. All the bloody fucking time.” Draco’s voice was harsh and venomous now. The shaking was worse, punctuating some of his sentences with jerks. “The grounds were littered with bodies and ash. There were bones strewn everywhere where the snake had left things to rot. It ate everything it wanted and was just as cruel and sadistic as Voldemort. I tripped over a… a severed leg once. It was oozing blood and rot.” He was completely out of control now. He could not support the power of his memories. They shook him and tore him and caused him more agony than the explosion had. Potter’s touches were no longer helping but Draco was too frightened that they would stop. There was no telling what would happen then.

“They brought the boy there,” he continued. He spoke without meaning to. It felt as though someone else was forcing his hand, making him talk. He was a puppet. A ventriloquist’s dummy. “They put him in the dungeons and tortured him for… for months apparently. I… I wasn’t here. I was at school, watching them torture people there.” He shuddered again and realized he was dry sobbing. His stomach muscles ached from the effort. Potter said nothing and, if it wasn’t for the constant stroking on his wrist, he would have worried the man had turned to stone. “They used the Cruciatus curse sometimes, I was told. But… but preferred… other things. Other spells that wouldn’t… kill him so quickly.” Draco gagged again and realized that he was drenched in a cold sweat.

“I don’t know what those spells were,” he admitted, sinking into the panic he felt when he had been told of the boy’s plight. Greyback had been laughing, barking and shrieking as he told Draco. He relished in the way Draco had tried to seem unperturbed by the information. He delighted in the way Draco failed and had forced to run from the room and vomit. “Not… all of them, anyway. But… I… I know what they did to him.” He reached up to push Potter away suddenly, but found himself grasping the Auror’s arms like a lifeline. He knew his grip was too tight, that his fingernails were digging into Potter’s skin, but Potter said nothing. Draco almost wanted him to thrash about and yell back so he could feel some catharsis. He wanted Potter to fight with him so that he could let it out properly. But Potter wouldn’t, and Draco hated him for it. Hated him for being too kind.

“I came home for… for Christmas,” he explained, his voice uneven. “Not because I wanted to. I wanted to just… just run away. But he called me. And I couldn’t… couldn’t leave my mother and… father. When I got back… they… they told me go get the boy in the dungeon. Voldemort told me to.. to ‘fetch the swine’ and bring him up for the feast. I… I couldn’t… not do it. I… I went and saw him. He was so… so small. Half his face was gone and his hair was matted in blood…” Draco felt the darkness swirl in around him and threaten to engulf him. He fought it back. He couldn’t let it happen now. He wouldn’t let himself pass out again from the knowledge. He needed to bear it. He had to.

“I had to drag him upstairs,” his tone was somewhere between a growl and a whisper. He couldn’t decide whether to be angry or disgusted or frightened. “They wouldn’t let me use my wand at all. I don’t… know why. His blood was all over me. I… brought him through the halls and into… the d-dining room. I put him on the table and tried to leave but Voldemort… forced me to stay. He bound be to a chair and… made me watch.” He shuddered violently again and finally looked up at Potter. His face was wet now but Draco wasn’t sure if they were tears or sweat. Or both. Potter looked determined as he had during the final battle at Hogwarts. His eyes were still piercing but they had softened somewhat. He gripped Draco tighter than before. They both seemed to be fighting an impending storm. “He ate him, Potter. Greyback ate the boy. While he was conscious.” His throat closed once more and he choked.

Draco felt the tears falling from his eyes now. He felt the wave of agony and anguish as it tore through him and wrung him out. He dropped his head and felt Potter lean his forehead against Draco’s. Draco could hardly protest or care or wonder. He was consumed by the image of the boy.

“He was only eleven, Potter,” Draco cried out, unable to lift his head again. “He was Sc-… Scorpius’ age. He was… he was just as young as my son.” Draco fought the typhoon of panic that threatened to drown him. “That’s who they were talking about in the letter you read. That’s what they meant, that’s why they want to kill Scorpius.” He forced himself to look up and stare into Potter’s endless orbs. “I couldn’t bring myself to do a damned thing to save the little boy from… from that. I didn’t stop anything. I was a fucking coward then and I still am. I can’t even protect my own son from my past. From my stupid fucking mistakes.” He shook so violently Potter was shaking. Potter gripped his hair roughly as he wrapped his hands around Draco’s head to steady him, or to throttle him. It was unclear.

“You were just a boy, Draco,” Potter told him roughly. He tensed and fought the urge to punch him. He glared and grimaced and continued to shake. His stomach churned inside of him and he felt the world crash down around him. His memories began to consume him entirely. The hole opened in the ground again and pulled at them both. “You can’t hold yourself responsible for every death, for everyone Voldemort tortured and killed. You were scared and being threatened. Your family was being threatened. You were just a boy.”

Draco thrashed suddenly and tried to push Potter away but his hands gripped Draco’s head tighter and Draco found himself fisting Potter’s robes instead.

“So were you,” he breathed, his throat too raw to speak properly. “But you still stopped him.”

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A/N: That was a very dark and messed up chapter. Of course those were only some of the things Draco lived through. Just meant to be a small glimpse into what it was like for him during the war.

polka dot: You will find out exactly what is happening with Harry's marriage soon. :) I'm glad you're enjoying this and I hope your writing goes well when you get back to it! *hearts* And, yeah, Harry kind of is his personal, 24-hr bodyguard, lol. XD Well not 24-hr, but close! He wishes he could be hahaha.

Camatie and Ley: You two are hilarious. I love you. Also, you will find out soon what the darkness and all that is, I promise. But I might not have been fair because half of the information you need to figure it out isn't given to you. >:D Oops *runs away* :D Also, more info on Harry's ring later too. Buahaha.

hieisdragoness18: thank you! I'm glad you like it! I do hope this was as interesting as you had hoped! XD

Brynja: I'm glad you are enjoying it! It means a lot that you think they are believable 19 years later. :D *hugs*

DrarryForever-x: YAY! someone else noticed the MCR! :D They have awesome songs. *hearts you*

I swear, I must have missed someone here. I'm very sorry if I've missed you. *hangs head* I fail.

Also, I just noticed that some reviews include the person's email address. You see, I'm a complete idiot and never noticed that before. *headdesk* Just ignore me...