One's True Nature

One’s True Nature

Chapter 5


Harry was already feeling guilty long before this, if he was honest, he had never considered Draco a person. He was only an enemy, no one like him deserved any definition he had told himself. He had seen the boy in the tower and then the man in the tower, they weren't anything that Harry understood. He felt his chest clinch up and he had to breathe several times before entering the pub, his face angry, his features tired.

"Tyyran!" Harry growled the words through his teeth. Harry watched as the man looked up from his drink as if he was completely innocent. Harry sneered. Only Gaudin, the barkeep had remained, they had the pub all to themselves. Harry took a seat on the other side of Tyyran and looked at a man who was dirty but defined and definitely could command respect, it must have been that reason, Harry had thought, that he was still alive.

"So?" Tyyran smiled looking at his shot glass which still had amber liquid in it. "You want to know what I know?" Tyyran smiled again, this time as if in deep thought. "Potter, I like you, you're a very fair man." He looked Harry dead in the face. "I will tell you what I know, I ask nothing in return." Harry didn't have to search the man's features he knew the man was telling the truth.

"Why?" Harry said coldly. Tyyran made no move to signify distress at this question, but his eyes gave an odd sparkle.

"Because, I may be an absolutely horrid man, as you might put it, but I have children Mr. Potter." Tyyran drain the rest of his drink and set the glass down against the table, wincing as it burned his throat. "These men are Death Eaters, at least they claim to be." Harry noticed that the man seemed very determined to avoid his gaze. "I don't know them by name, they hide well under their cloaks, they needed my services to move someone. They seemed very afraid, like they needed to do it quickly." Harry watched as Tyyran continued to fidget. "They said that they were afraid they would be tracked by aurors. The story didn't fit after I saw what they were transporting."

"Get to the point." Harry's voice was violently sharp.

"I didn't question it, but I didn't like it either." Tyyran gazed to his right out a window where the stars showed their light on his warn face. "I stayed once we reached our destination, it took two days, but eventually, I discovered who the kid was. I was shocked, I was amazed at their audacity." Tyyran's features weakened. "I told him he would be alright before I left."

"How touching of you." Harry glared bitterly at the man, but suddenly lost the anger he had at him.

"Potter, these new Death Eaters, they're dangerous, they've killed and moved against the ministry. I heard them talking. Kidnapping Draco Malfoy's son was essential to their plan." He finally looked into Harry's eyes.

"Why is that?" Harry said, now nearly as curious as he was disgusted.

"Because they knew you'd come for him." Tyyran's eyes were piercing deep.

"They can't possibly-" Harry bit out in fighting the deep agony that had slipped like fingers over his heart.

"But they do, and you're here. You are with Malfoy yes?" Harry's head sank. "They know you'd be the one they needed to topple, they also know that Malfoy has no allies in the ministry and that you'd be the only one he could ask for help. This was all a plot to draw you out." Harry ran his hands through his hair and cursed under his breath.

"Draco thought it was because he had something they wanted." Harry almost groaned the words, feeling more guilt rush against his shoulders.

"You are what they want, if they can knock you out of the way, there isn't anyone with the power to stand against them." And Tyyran breathed out. "You have to go, you have to help the kid."

Harry pounded his fist on the table. "I know that you son of a bitch." Then he looked at him straight in the face. "How did you know to find me here?" His eyes were deadly. Then he drew his wand and Tyyran cringed, he knew what was coming. "No more questions.” Harry muttered very quietly and pointed the wand at his eyes. When he opened them Tyyran shriveled at the utter blackness of them.

"Your thoughts, your memories, I want them!" Harry snapped. Then he felt the fire start as their eyes met. Then the strange sensation of draining the man's thoughts, memories, emotions, specific to the kidnapping. He felt his mind fill, this wasn't an ordinary memory search, it was much more violent and often left the person without a coherent thought for several minutes, making him effectively a zombie. Harry shuddered as his mind pushed against a memory of a frightened boy trapped in a cage. A dirty man spoke softly to him. Then another memory of the same man, frightened and running for his life. Harry knew that Goyle was the one giving chase as he watched Tyyran fall, he held his breath as if he were the one on the ground.

'You will find Potter and you will direct him to us!' Goyle’s words were spoken as if through water and then Harry understood that Goyle had planted an order in the man's mind. His head throbbed as he continued to push into thoughts, he held the man against the wall. He heard him whimper, but he didn't care. Then he saw the pub and a desperate Tyyran tried to tell Gaudin what happened, but Goyle's magic somehow bound him only to speak when Harry could hear him. Harry pulled away from the man's mind as he left him to slide to the floor. He took the spell off and threw up.

Gaudin came over to help Harry to a seat. He set a glass of water on the table. Harry was devastated. Then Harry heard the most awful words come from Gaudin as he set a hand against his shoulder. "You must care for him a lot, this Draco Malfoy, if they thought this would draw you out alone."

"I didn't really, but I should have." Harry felt guilt attack his heart more forcibly than ever. "I have to go." He left the pub, a barkeep confused, a man's mind raped.

Harry couldn't avoid going to the inn for long, it was winter and he hadn't dressed properly for a walk. He came in as quiet as possible. He heard Draco moan and he had thought the man woke up when he had come in, but when no voice came to him, he continued his trek inside. He sat on the side of his bed looking at a sleeping Draco, who looked to be having a distressing dream. Harry watched captivated by how Draco, an obviously tortured soul had lived so long with no one in the world being his friend, except perhaps his wife.

Harry stood up and approached the man's bed and pulled the blanket more securely over his body. When Draco stirred slightly, he jerked his hand away and stared at it as if it were new to him. He felt pity, or was it more, he didn't understand it, he decided to push the thoughts away as he stretched out on his own bed. He was unaware of just how tired he was until his head hit the pillow.

He didn't escape in his dreams either, however. He traveled the long spiral staircase, he knew where it led. He hadn't had this dream in years. Draco was at the top of the tower staring out into the night sky. Harry heard him, he was crying, This Draco never had aged a day in Harry's mind since their time at Hogwarts. He walked slowly to the boy's side.

"Draco?" He called as he came to the boy's side, seeing the tears escaped swelled red eyelids. "Draco, why are you crying?" Harry said softly, not daring to touch him in any way.

"Do you really want to know?" Draco's voice was cold and almost instantly, all trace of tears and vulnerability was gone. "Does the golden boy really want to know the truth?" Draco smirked, but his eyes were still closed as he turned to Harry.

Harry gulped and shakily said, "Yes, I want to."

Without warning the boy's hands shot up around Harry's neck, but he wasn't choking him, no, it was worse. Harry tried to remind himself it was a dream as he felt Draco's fingers pierce his flesh. The fingers grabbed his neck bone. Harry was terrified. He looked as Draco smiled at him.

"Now you won't look away." Draco's voice was angry and bitter. Harry tried to close his eyes, he tried to calm down. "LOOK POTTER, LOOK WHAT YOU DID TO ME!" The words boomed in his ears and he wanted it to stop, then the eyelids opened, to reveal nothing. Harry was horrified, he looked at two completely empty eye sockets. The eyeless Draco smiled as though he could see Harry's reaction to it. "Now, the truth Potter, you can't pretend not to see it now!" And those words were an icy whisper against his flesh.

Then the empty eyeholes pierced his brain. Then he was in a small room at Hogwarts. He watched Draco hitting someone with a whipping spell, but he couldn't see who. Again, this Draco was crying. Two figures stood at his sides. Harry knew them as the Carrows. Harry watched as Draco whipped again and then pulled back.

"Please don't make me hit him again, he's so, I just-" Harry burned in trapped state. He watched as the Carrows laughed at Draco, who had now slumped to his knees and was shaking. "Please, just beat me instead, don't ask me to do this any more."

Harry watched as the scene moved forward, it seemed several minutes. Draco was throwing up by a crate in the room. He was so near to Harry, Harry thought he could smell him, feel his pain, then his neck exploded in pain as fingers forced him to look. "I'm sorry N-" Draco said, but before he could finish, Harry was in a park. He was beside Draco. He saw the terror on the boy's face as a spell burned past them and nearly hit Yaxley. Harry knew where this was going.

"No Draco, don't make me see, please, I can't, stop it! Stop it!" He was panicking, he tried to wake up, but the fingers seemed to keep his eyes from shutting. He watched as Draco pointed Yaxley to two figures running away from the direction of the spell. Draco raised his hand and pointed it, shaking. Yaxley muttered the killing curse. Harry saw the two children slump to the ground. Then the scene went forward a few hours and Draco had come back, he wanted to survey the battlefield. He wanted to know what he had done. Harry watched as this small, skinny boy bent down, tears streaming down his face as he embraced the girl against his chest.

"No please, I-" Harry fought with all his might.

"LOOK AT IT!" Draco's voice shouted. Harry didn't have a choice anyway. He watched as Draco dug them a grave, he marked it with something and then began to say something in another language that Harry didn't know. He stood up and Harry could see the emptiness in his eyes. Harry couldn't turn away now, it wasn't fair. He'd condemned Draco for his actions in school, but he saw how wrong he was.

Then the dream changed, so did the eyeless Draco. He spoke softly and no longer did he force Harry to watch the scene in front of him. Harry was in the great Hall of Hogwarts again. He watched as several kids seemed to be picking on Draco, but something was off. The words the children were speaking began to hit his ears like raindrops. Harry watched as the boy slumped down further and further in his seat from their taunts.

"What is this?" Harry asked his guide.

"My worst nightmare." Draco slumped down to his knees. "My sins aren't his!" Then Harry understood, that must have been Scorpious. "Please." The Draco guide wept. Then Harry watched as the younger Malfoy came over and knelt in front of him and spoke ice cold words.

"I hate you father."

Harry was ice cold and pale at how simple those words were to say. He wanted to say something before the moment passed, but then, with a violent jerk of his body, he woke up. Draco was still asleep when Harry collected his senses, but he heard soft cries coming from him. Harry tried desperately to stop them, but tears came and he, as he had learned to do long ago, escaped to the bathroom and slumped to the floor, back pressed up against the wall, he pulled his knees up against himself and he wept. Like a child who'd lost a best friend.

He knew the most important fact of the nightmare was that it was somehow all true. He had taken some of Draco's most private thoughts when in his head back in the auror office, they must have been looming around his head. The eyes had bothered him the most, he knew what they symbolized. Draco's eyes were gone. Windows to the soul, but Draco believed his soul was gone. Harry didn't need Draco to blame him, he already blamed himself.

"I'm so sorry." He whispered to no one. He'd failed Draco so many times. And now, he'd gotten the man's son kidnapped because they wanted to get to him. Harry felt himself gag and then heave. He couldn't live with himself.