Triumph Out of the Bitter Taste of Ashes

AN: My profound apologies for the length of time I\'ve been away. Internet service interruptus kept me away. :( But, I\'m baaa\'aaack. : ) I just want to thank *everyone* that reviewed in the interrum, logging back in to those was a heart lifter beyond belief.

On a good note, the time offline has had me writing. This story has been slow going, but I have a rough draft of chapter 32 completed and half of 33, so there shouldn\'t be any huge waits for the next few chapters. Things are going to speed up a bit here with a time jump between chapters 32 and 33. Chapter 32 will go up Friday. I\'ve also got 7 chapters of a new story done up, which I\'ll begin posting when I finish either Ashes or Mother\'s -- whichever comes first.

Again, apologies for the appearance of having dropped off the face of the planet.

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Chapter Thirty One
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Draco sat bolt upright as a scream rent the night. Blinking rapidly, his heart trying to pound its way through his ribcage, the blond Slytherin tried to scan the area around him. Not a single thing came into focus, no fuzzy shapes in the shadowy distance came into view. For that matter, there was not even a \'shadowy distance\'. Shadows implied at least *some* light, and there was none here. He was surrounded by complete and all-encompassing black. It was frightening to a degree that Draco would not have believed beforehand. His breathing was harsh, coming in tiny pants that didn\'t seem to be getting any air to him at all.

Forcing himself to slow and deepen those breaths, Draco carefully eased his way out of the bed and edged toward a remembered wall. The room he had fallen asleep in wasn\'t very big, so when he *still* hadn\'t reached it after taking more than 30 -- yes, he counted them -- steps, he really began to worry, that cold feeling in the pit of his stomach returning with the force of a bludger. Where the bloody hell was he? And who had screamed?

\"Panicking will not help,\" he muttered to himself, saying the words aloud more to have something to hear aside from his own raspy pants for breath than for any real need to do so.

Suddenly, a train\'s horn sounded, startlingly loud a long, sounding oddly lonely in the darkness surrounding him. Draco gasped, jumped at the unexpected sound, but automatically began heading in its direction -- an action that was in direct contradiction to his gut instinct that was screaming at him to run the other way.

\"Where there is a train, there are people,\" Draco reasoned.

\"End of the line,\" shouted a deep male voice, startling Draco into a jump yet again.

\"I\'m getting *very* tired of this!\" he mumbled, sudden irritation helping hold the growing panic at bay . . . barely. There was a nameless, unreasoning fear growing inside him, one he couldn\'t put a source to. He frowned, puzzled. The voice *was* familiar to him, however. Unfortunately, it was not quite familiar enough that he could put a name with *it* either.

\"End of the line!\" it shouted again, though Draco could not quite make out the direction it came from. \"All passengers must debark! End of the line!\"

Suddenly trembling so hard he could barely stand, Draco quickly backed away from the disembodied voice. Why did it sound so terribly ominous?

Before he could make heads or tails of it, the terrified scream sounded again, this time from behind him. Draco spun around, heart thudding in his chest, and it was all he could do not to yelp in response.

Shaking, sweat beading on his forehead, eyes as wide as he could make them, he desperately tried to see around him. *Still* he could see nothing, absolutely nothing. It didn\'t matter how hard he tried.

\"End of the LINE!\" the voice shouted for the fourth time, this time seeming to come from all directions at once, and the very darkness began closing in on him, blanketing him in its sightlessness. Suffocating slowly, Draco\'s chest seized, locking into a stillness that wouldn\'t allow him to suck in air. He couldn\'t move, he couldn\'t breathe.

Letting loose a long keening wail, terrified beyond reason as the nothingness around him continued to close in, pressing ever closer.

\"Draco!\"

Draco let out a shout of pure terror, jerking his head up. Suddenly there were *shadows*, blessed shadows! His body trembling uncontrollably, he gradually became aware of the grey light of false dawn, and with that awareness came also the fact that a very strong pair of arms were holding him tightly, a soft voice murmuring encouragement and safety.

\"Ron!\" he breathed, swallowing convulsively.

\"I\'m here,\" Ron whispered encouragingly. \"I\'m here.\"

Unable to do anything else, the nightmare still lingering within, Draco grabbed hold of the only reality he was certain of.

Several minutes passed before the tremors running the length of his body calmed and he felt comfortable enough to release his tight hold on Ron Weasley. Of course, as soon as he did so, he jerked away completely, embarrassed beyond belief that he had reacted so baldy to what was obviously just a bloody dream.

\"I\'ll be right back,\" he muttered quickly, not even trying to meet Ron\'s questioning gaze. Without a backward glance he strode toward the nearest bathroom, and as soon as the door closed and was locked behind him, Draco sagged wearily against it.

In the harsh reality of wakefulness, Draco couldn\'t figure out what had been so blasted frightening about the dream in the first place. He moved on automatic, his thoughts centered around the dream. So it had been dark; so what? It wasn\'t like he was afraid of the dark or anything. Frowning, Draco took a deep breath, still trying to stem the slowly fading tremors in his body. Finally, splashing a bit of cold water on his face, he turned back toward the door. He didn\'t open it immediately, however, wondering just how he was going to manage to come out of this without humiliating himself further.

**Pretend it never happened,** came the immediate thought, heavily laced with sarcastic overtones of *obviously*. Rolling his eyes at the impertinent thought, he braced himself and left the dubious sanctuary of the bathroom.

**

**Pretend it never happened?** Draco thought to himself humorously. **What happened to that plan?** Here he was, Mr. I\'m not going to talk about it, sitting with *both* Ron and Potter-- **And just when did I start opening up in front of *that* prat?** --spilling everything about the stupid dream.

\"Seems pretty obvious to me,\" Ron replied easily.

\"Really?\" Draco asked drily.

\"Yeah,\" Ron answered shrugging.

Irritatingly, Potter nodded, as if he too \'knew\' what the dream was about. Firmly ignoring the dark haired prat, Draco focused on Ron. \"So? Are you going to impart you\'re dream wisdom?\" he asked snidely, impatience equally mixed with the snarling sarcasm.

\"It seems to me that you\'re feeling pressured about something, and if I\'m not wrong, very much alone,\" Ron began quietly, \"which came out in your dream as the suffocating darkness around you and it all \'closing in\'.

Eyes narrowed and thoughtful as Ron\'s words actually made sense to him, Draco listened instead of blowing off the red-headed Gryffindor\'s explanation as he\'d originally planned.

\"The conductor\'s words are also pretty obvious, once you think about it. You\'re the last of the Malfoy\'s, and considering the incredible amount of time you\'ve been thinking about your future lately, *and* the subject matter of our *oh-so-fun* winter project. . . .\" Ron\'s words trailed off.

An awkward silence fell, reigning for several minutes . . . until Potter broke it.

\"You\'re not alone,\" he said softly.

That drew Draco\'s attention. He frowned at Potter. \"I\'m well aware of that, Potter,\" he snapped.

\"Harry,\" Ron interrupted -- trying to prevent an argument, Draco was sure, \"you know better than anyone how alone it makes you feel when no one around you that you can trust can really understand what you\'re going through.\"

\"Alone in a room full of people,\" Potter murmured.

**Yes!** Draco thought, eyeing Potter in a new light, wondering if hades was freezing over. He almost agreed out loud, but was saved from *that* embarrassment by Ron, who turned back to face him.

\"I know I\'m not in a position to come even close to knowing what it\'s like. I\'ve got five brothers. Even if I don\'t have kids, ever, it\'ll still be bloody likely that there\'ll be Weasleys in the future.\"

That got a snort out of both him and Potter.

**Likely?** \"Try inserting, definite in place of likely, *Weasley* and you\'ll blittlittle more accurate,\" Draco retorted, some of the old taunting bite visiting for old time\'s sake.

Potter chuckled, and Ron grinned wryly. \"Good point,\" he replied, surprisingly not taking offense at Draco\'s words.

**Well, bloody hell!** Draco thought. **I can\'t pick a fight even when I want to any more.** Before he could think up a new tactic to change the subject, however, Potter beat him to it.

\"And just when did you get to be so perceptive?\" he asked with a teasing grin.

Something dark flashed through Ron\'s eyes, but it was gone before Draco could identify it, replaced by amusement. \"Since I started having to think for myself instead of getting Hermione do it.\"

\"And just *what*, I wonder,\" Draco drawled, smirking, \"would Granger say if she knew you could do it all along, and it was just your laziness that made her do all the work?\"

Ron\'s crooked grin widened. \"She\'d say she knew it all along.\"

Potter burst out laughing, Draco chuckling right along with him, the mood lightened considerably.

\"Not to be indelicate,\" Potter said, frowning slightly, \"but going back to the original topic, it *does* look like there\'s going to be another Malfoy.\"

Draco\'s jaw dropped, he felt it go, but couldn\'t quite work up the where-with-all to do anything about it. \"How do you know about that?\" he demanded sharply, once he moved past his initial shock. **And why isn\'t he trying to beat the crap out of me?** he continued silently.

Wincing, Potter slowly, hesitantly, explained the nightmares he\'d had before Granger\'s return -- apparently quite separate to the ones about Miss Weasley -- and about going to Professor Snape, believing he might be going insane.

Draco wondered why the idiot hadn\'t brought up the Weasley dreams to Snape at the same time, but didn\'t ask, not with Ron right there.

\"Bloody hell!\" Ron exclaimed, looking a little green.

Privately, Draco agreed, and was *very* grateful he wasn\'t the one who\'d seen it. He had enough nasty mental images just *knowing* about it, thank you very much.

Ron worried his lower lip, looking very torn. \"Don\'t you think Hermione\'s going to . . . um . . . well, you know?\"

\"Abort it?\" Draco asked bluntly, tired of being so bloody vague about everything.

Ron nodded hesitantly.

\"Wouldn\'t she have done it already, if she was going to?\" Harry asked.

\"I would have thought so,\" Ron said. \"I mean. . . .\"

\"It\'s too late for that,\" Draco said.

\"What?\"

Draco almost chuckled at the blended response from both of the other two. He didn\'t, though. It might have been taken very wrong. He did, however, explain to them why it was too late, his late night research finally coming in handy. He hadn\'t known at the time why he\'d been so determined to know everything about the situation, but now he was glad he\'d spent the time looking up everything he could. It was worth it, just to see the shocked looks on both their faces.

\"I don\'t know about you two,\" Potter said suddenly, jumping to his feet and heading for the door, \"but I\'m hungry. How does breakfast sound?\"

\"At five in the morning, Potter?\" Draco asked and the same time Ron grinned and jumped to his feet.

\"I\'m in,\" Ron agreed.

Shaking his head, Draco stood as well, following the two downstairs. Unfortunately, he couldn\'t clear his mind of their conversation as easily as Ron and Potter had -- apparently. It wasn\'t the first time he\'d thought about the baby that his father had . . . sired. But until this very minute, it wasn\'t something he\'d considered very seriously. After all, it was . . . tainted. It had *muggle* blood. Every one of his ancestors would roll over in their crypts if that child were accepted as a Malfoy.

**Reason enough to do it right there,** Draco thought with a vengeful smirk. The mood didn\'t last though. Like he\'d told Ron, seemingly eons ago, as much as he had changed from the self-centered prat he\'d been before, he still cared about the purity of his bloodline. But, as he turned the thoughts over in his mind, he was discovering that he didn\'t actively *dislike* the idea of a sibling . . . \'tainted\' or not -- and that was downright confusing.

**Why can\'t life be simple anymore?**

He was jerked out of his thoughts by a thud at the table in front of him.

**And just *when* did we reach the kitchen?** he wondered, disturbed by how distracted he\'d become.

\"Those,\" he said with overblown distaste, \"are raw potatoes.\"

Ron smirked at him. \"Yes,\" he replied, \"they are.\"

Draco frowned, especially when Potter chuckleom hom his position by the cooler. \"Well, why are you setting them in front of me?\" he snapped in irritation.

Ron chortled as he set a knife down beside the *huge* pile of potatoes. \"Did you hear *anything* we said since leaving the bedroom?\"

\"Apparently not,\" Draco replied, eyeing his friend dubiously.

\"We\'re going to make everyone breakfast, and you are going to help.\"

\"I am?\"

\"You are.\"

\"Why?\"

\"Because I asked,\" Ron suggested, grinning that crooked, impish grin.

**Not fair.**

Draco sighed. Why was it that he couldn\'t refuse *that* look? He could easily recall a time when he thought it was stupid. He had to make one last effort, though.

\"Won\'t we wake everyone up?\"

\"It\'s called a silencing charm,\" Ron smirked. \"I\'m sure you\'ve heard of them.\"

\"Oh, ha ha,\" Draco replied sourly, embarrassed that he\'d been caught not remembering they were all \'of age\' now -- not that he planned on admitting any such thing. Instead, he glared, but sat, eyeing the vegetables and tools. He could figure them out, should be obvious . . . right? He sighed and stepped forward. Besides, even *this* was better than thinking about that dream. Anything was better than that, he thought as he sat with exaggerated slowness, using the time wisely. By the time he was seated, he had them both figured out. The grater, of course, was obvious; it didn\'t look much different than the ones used in potions class. It was the other odd looking . . . blade? . . . that had him momentarily confused. Double bladed, both blades facing inwards, it was only a matter of putting his attention to it to figure it out. He laughed. He certainly had never expected his skill at potions to come in handy in the *Weasley* kitchen of all places.

TBC
Kiristeen
Feedback: Food of the muses and authors alike. : )
Kiristeen@kiristeen.com

AN: I got the idea of the silencing charm used in the kitchen during the making of breakfast from the story \"Deatheater Takes a Holiday\" (A great Snape/Harry story by LeeLeePotter -- I recommend it.) Tips hat to that author.