Shades of Truth

Shades of Truth

Chapter 5

*****

“Potter, I’ve been thinking,” Draco started in on the words he’d been rehearsing since the last time he saw Harry, “we already know these people are dead. If we’re assuming that I didn’t kill any of them, can’t we just get some neutral third party to check out the memories for verification? Not that seeing the battles bothers me or anything, but no one is going to believe me at my word, and we’re going to have to display the relevant bits to the Wizengamot in any case to get me freed, so there’s no reason you should have to watch all your friends get killed from a front row seat. I understand that you want to get closure or whatever it is, but if you ask me, it’s rather twisted, forcing yourself to stand there helpless and watch it all happen. Are you just a masochist, or is there something else you aren’t telling me about all of this?”

“Draco,” Harry had been caught by surprise when the speech started, but by the end he had decided it was best just to let Draco say everything he’d been wondering about since this investigation had started. “I want to do this right, and it seems to me that if you’ve got all these fake memories of killing people, the only way for your mind to really accept that those are lies is for you to see what really happened first hand in each case. Some of the cases are a bit difficult to find surviving witnesses for, but I’m confident that we’ll be able to do it. As for my own feelings…” he trailed off, losing his thread, and Draco reached across the table. At first, Harry had the bizarre thought that Draco was going to pat his hand, but he was simply making a grab for the memory he had gotten from Blaise.

“You know what’s in here. I know what’s in here. Face it; we know that I didn’t pop out from under my table just to knock off Ginny Weasley. If I was feeling so poorly that I wouldn’t even make an attempt at you, I wasn’t about to risk myself against her. You remember how strong she was. Whoever did kill her either got very lucky, or they were damn powerful. I’m guessing with the chaos that it was the first thing. So she was killed by a Death Eater other than me. Chances are that person is dead, since almost all of them are, unless you count the people my age, none of which stood a chance against her, to tell you the truth, and none of which were very big on the whole Avada Kedavra idea. My father’s generation was willing to kill for the Dark Lord, but we weren’t really doing anything for him, we were just going along with what our parents wanted. They had to threaten to kill me and my whole family just to get me to make an attempt on someone’s life, so clearly, we weren’t that motivated.” Draco paused before moving on, “With all that said, her killer’s probably dead, so let’s just skip this one, for both our sakes.

“No.” Harry shook his head, his voice solid and strong as if he didn’t think it would nearly break him to watch Ginny die. “If I were willing to skip watching every other case, I would never skip hers. A lot of these victims were my friends, but Ginny…”

“Please, Potter, if you start crying, don’t expect me to comfort you.” Draco cut in, “You’re doing this to yourself. Is it going to make it any better? Do you just need to know that there was no way you could have saved her, nothing you could have done differently if you had it to live over? Because you’re never going to think that, no one does. We all make mistakes, we all feel regret, and nothing ever ends the way it should.”

“This will.” Harry’s voice was husky with emotion. “Dammit, Draco, whatever I’ve failed in, I won’t fail here. I will see this through to the end, and you’ll be there with me when we get there. I don’t care if I have to drag you kicking and screaming through the rest of this appeal, I want to do this right. I want to know that I made a difference to you, I want you to be able to live your life.”

“Because my life will be so wonderful out there?” Draco sneered, “I’ll still be in prison, whichever way this goes. Either I’m locked in here, or I’m locked in Malfoy Manor, not able to leave the house without something to protect me from being hexed by nearly every witch or wizard I come across. Please. It’s not so bad in here, honestly. I won’t be your symbol of salvation.”

“I won’t let you give up on yourself.” Harry stood up, his face flushed with anger. “Are you honestly saying you want to die in Azkaban? Do you want me to go and forget about all this? And don’t say yes just so you can make yourself a martyr, tell me what you really want, and I’ll do it. Right now.”

Draco wanted to tell him to go, if only to spare him any more pain, but Draco had never been a very selfless person. “Alright, you win.” He handed over the memory, and in the space of seconds, they were back in the Three Broomsticks.

----------

“I still say this is stupid.” Draco grumbled as Harry yanked him by the hand across the room to get as close as they could to the whirl of red hair that was easily identified as Ginny Weasley. “No sane person wants to watch their girlfriend die.”

“She was not my girlfriend.” Harry shot back, “Well, not during this. Now shut up for ten seconds.”

“No need to be crabby with me. I’m still under the table. I’m not the one that killed her.” Draco folded his arms and pouted slightly.

“Actually, you’re out from under there, see?” Harry pointed across the pub to where Draco’s past self had crawled over to Pansy’s prone form and was struggling to lift her with no small difficulty. Finally, he started dragging her across the floor toward the doorway. “You’re not much of a hero, are you?”

“Hey, she’s no pixie.” Draco answered snappishly, “and remember, I was living in the dungeons, what, two weeks ago? Father doesn’t feed prisoners well, even if they’re his only son.”

“Uh oh,” Harry went pale. “I’m dueling Nott, it’s about to happen.” He indicated his own image across the room fighting Theodore’s father, “I remember, I’d nearly got him, and then I heard Ginny…”

Sure enough, Ginny Weasley was herself in the midst of a duel. She was matching Lucius Malfoy blow for blow, but Draco’s father was clearly not enjoying meeting his equal in a much younger Weasley girl. His attacks were becoming more desperate and stronger, and it was clear to Draco that something was going to have to give soon or Lucius might just throw a chair at her head in frustration.

Suddenly, Draco saw someone creeping behind Ginny, someone he most definitely recognized. “Well, it’s clear how he’s able to remember what happened.” Draco was able to speak after a moment of shock, “He was part of it, wasn’t he?” and as if to confirm his suspicions, Blaise shot off a hex, but Ginny was faster than him, and she whirled to face him, casting a Shield charm in the same instant, and causing his hex to bounce away harmlessly. However, Lucius took the opportunity to fire off a curse that Draco was all too familiar with, having been the victim of it in his sixth year, during his last duel with Harry Potter.

It seemed as though her hair was no longer quite as bright next to the blood spraying in every direction, and the pain in her eyes was so great that Draco recalled for himself what it had felt like to be on the receiving end of Sectumsempra. Had he bled this much? Had he screamed so loudly? He could not recall, though maybe all his memories were compromised by his father’s tinkering. And just then, there was the sound of a great heaving sob, and Draco remembered his companion, who was having a much harder time of this memory than Draco, as they’d known he would. He was pale as death, paler even than the girl that wavered on her feet, trying to get off one last curse before his own father’s Avada Kedavra silenced her for good. Draco realized that there was something wet on his face, and it took a moment for the connection to be made.

He was crying. But why? For Ginny Weasley? For Potter’s suffering at his own expense? For himself and his cowardly escape from this fight mere moments ago? For the anguish on the face of the past Potter, who was now at her side, far too late to do any good? Harry of the past was crying, as was the Harry beside him, both lost in the futility of their own regret and rage, but at least the Harry at Draco’s side knew the truth of what had happened.

Seeing how much she meant to him, seeing how he carried her corpse to safety when he had not paused to aid the escape of any of his other compatriots, dead or alive, Draco realized now how truly Harry must have believed in him to have done this thing, to have gone to so much trouble already and to be working so hard still to clear his name. If Harry had ever suspected that Draco really had done this thing, then even if he knew Draco to be innocent of every other crime laid down at his feet, he did not doubt the other man would have been content to let him live the rest of his days in Azkaban, waiting for death, should it come from age or from Harry himself, come in the night to avenge this sweet, martyred heroine he had cared for so much. Draco wondered if the deaths of Hermione Granger or Ron Weasley would have affected him so strongly, and he wondered what it would be like to truly love someone, to care for them so much that you would give your life to protect them. He’d had friends, he supposed, that he could trust. A handful of Slytherins that were more than just followers or lackeys, that he honestly thought would follow him to death’s door. But when he tried to imagine them feeling this way on his behalf, mourning his death so passionately, he could not imagine it. Perhaps he lacked the creative vision to see it in his mind’s eye, or perhaps, like Potter had said, he underestimated his own worth. Perhaps Gryffindors were all unable to control their emotions.

But it would be nice, he thought, to know someone loved him so strongly as that.

Bending down to help up the man that had led him here, saying he would be fine, saying he would be able to handle it, and now a sniveling mess, Draco recalled telling him that he would offer no comfort, should Harry start to cry.

It wouldn’t be the first time I’ve lied to him, nor is it likely to be the last.

“Come on, then.” His tone was soft, but his grip was firm as he lifted the other man to his feet. “No need to linger, is there?”

“I came as soon as I could,” his breath was catching as he wiped his nose on his sleeve, and Draco couldn’t help thinking it made him look about five years old. “But I was in the middle of a duel. So was Ron, or he’d have…”

“My father wouldn’t have hesitated to kill two as quickly as one.” Draco sighed heavily, using his own filthy sleeve to mop up the mess Harry had made of his face. “No offense to Weasley, but my father’s nothing to laugh at in battle. Bad enough for you to suffer one death. My father was not an easy man to kill.”

“Someone managed it.” Harry’s tone was serious now, and in his mind, Draco saw himself casting the killing curse, heard his mother screaming in grief and rage behind him, saw her swoop toward him in a wave of pale hair and dark robes. But he could remember casting the curse on all those others. No surprise, really, learning he hadn’t done any of that. How could he hope to best Lucius Malfoy in a duel, much less Ginny Weasley or Remus Lupin or any of the others?

“I suppose so.” Draco gave him a faint smile, “Now, are you ready to leave this?” he had given up on scrubbing the tears from Harry’s face and indicated their surroundings.

“Yes please,” and in moments they were back in the interview room. Harry all but fell against Draco, who was barely able to support the other man’s weight, what with the atrophy of unused muscles and the one sparse meal a day afforded to inmates at the wizarding prison. “I’m sorry.” Harry’s voice was muffled and weak as he spoke with his face pressed against Draco’s neck. The other man wasn’t sure what else to do, so he let his arms wrap around Harry’s lean frame.

“Now you’ll smell like me.” Draco whispered. “We only get to bathe once a week. I’m rather ripe with it.”

“I thought…I’d do better.” Harry had no intention to move until he had his emotions well in hand. He didn’t want the Azkaban guards to see his face tear-streaked and splotchy, no matter the cause. “I miss her.”

“You loved her, didn’t you?” Draco asked a curious hand going to Harry’s messy hair and finding it almost as soft as he remembered his own being when he’d had access to regular showers. “Were you engaged?”

“No, I broke up with her,” Harry snorted in derision at himself, “So no one would hurt her.”

“Brilliant plan.” Draco answered immediately before wincing, “Sorry, I couldn’t—“

“No, you’re right.” Harry countered Draco’s apology. “I thought if she wasn’t my girlfriend nothing would happen to her because no one would be able to see that she meant anything to me. I remember Hermione laughing at that, saying I could send her to live in Bulgaria, but no one would forget that I had dated her, that she was my best friend’s sister if nothing else, and anyways, it made Ginny pretty angry.”

“If she was still alive, would you two…”

“I try not to think about it, but yeah, maybe.” Harry pulled back finally and scrubbed at his face in an effort to rid it of the dirt left behind by Malfoy’s robes. “Does it really matter anymore, though? She’s dead, so no intentions I could have or had amount to anything.”

“You’re not the one that’s dead.” Draco replied immediately. “You’re not the one that killed her, either. I think you forget that.”

“The same goes for you,” Harry gave him a tired, crooked grin, “What a pair we make.” He packed away his Pensieve and turned to Draco again. “Here.” He reached up with his clean, soft sleeves and wiped away the tears that Draco had forgotten about, still glistening on his cheeks. “I’m glad you were there with me, even if I totally lost it anyway.”

“I told you it was stupid to go.” Draco tried not to blush in embarrassment at having Harry see him cry, even though his own reaction had been rather reserved next to Potter’s. “We know what happened to all of them, and most of the murderer’s are already dead.”

“That’s where you’re wrong.” Harry told him in a soft voice. “I know for a fact that at least one is still alive.”

“What do you—“

But Harry had nearly flown out of the room after dropping this little bit of news.

“Bastard.” Draco sulked.

----------

Knockturn Alley was one of the few places a former Death Eater or affiliate of Voldemort’s could walk about in daylight without being harassed by most of the passers by. Therefore, Harry was not surprised that Theodore Nott requested that they meet there, in a shady little hole-in-the-wall pub that he had never been to before.

When he arrived there, Nott was already waiting for him, drinking from a cloudy glass of liquid that could have either been something alcoholic or some of the most disgusting looking water Harry had ever seen. Harry ordered a glass of the house ale, wanting to seem more confident than he actually felt, and sat down to join him.

“Their ale tastes like piss.” Were the first words Harry heard out of Theodore Nott’s mouth, and as far as he recalled, they were the first words the man had ever addressed to him aloud. “Though maybe I just find all ale tastes that way.”

“What are you having?” Harry asked, trying not to be thrown off by his opening words.

“Cat piss.” Nott answered readily, swigging some of it down. Harry was confident from the alcoholic scent that it was not in fact what he claimed, but he thought it better not to argue with the strange young man.

“So,” Harry took his first drink of the ale and realized that Nott was not misleading him about the quality. He hurriedly set the tankard down and tried again. “So, I gather you’re aware of why I called you out to meet me.”

“Eh,” Nott shrugged noncommittally.

“That is, I’m trying to clear up what actually happened to certain people during the war.” Harry plowed onward. “Specifically, those people that Draco Malfoy confessed to killing.”

Nott finished his drink and then blinked at Harry. “Are you paying?”

“Er, what? I mean, I guess so, I didn’t—“

“One more round here,” Nott waved his empty glass at the barkeep, who grumbled quite a bit before coming over to gather the glass and refill it.

“So, as I was saying…” Harry scratched his head, what had he been saying, anyway? “Um, where was I?”

“You were saying you were going to pay.” Nott replied readily.

“No, before that.” Harry heaved a frustrated sigh as the bartender left Nott a new drink and went back to whatever he occupied himself with behind the counter. “I was saying that I was here…about Draco, and the people he admitted to killing.”

“I guess.” Nott was poking at a piece of ice in his glass with much more interest than he was showing Harry.

“Well, the truth is that I can already prove beyond doubt that his memory was being manipulated, and he was led to believe that he had done those things, when really he hadn’t.” Harry tried to regain his stride. Even Blaise had been easier to talk to than this. “A plot of his father’s, you see, to force him into—“

“Do you think that’s a crack, or is there a spider in this?” Nott interrupted, holding up the piece of ice he’d been investigating.

“I…I’m not sure.” Harry responded, thrown off his stride again.

“It looks like a spider.” Nott set the cube down. “Were you going to finish your piss?” without waiting for an answer, he smashed the tankard over the ice cube, leaving a crack in the glass, but shattering the cube as well. “Eh, just a crack, I guess.” He pushed about the bits of ice with his fingers for a moment before sweeping the lot to the floor in one swift motion.

“So,” Harry needed to regain control of this conversation, or he’d never get to the point. The glass of ale was now slowly leaking onto the table, and he wasn’t sure what to do about that, so he just took a large swig, which he immediately regretted. “So, I’ve been trying to get proof, in the form of memories of the actual deaths of those victims in question. And I recently spoke with someone who advised me you’d seen Lavender Brown killed at the Three Broomsticks.”

“Did Blaise charge you extra for that bit?” Nott asked, for the first time seeming to pay attention to what Harry was saying. He was actually thrown off by the sudden attention, and it took him a moment to answer.

“Er, no, I don’t think so.” He licked his lips and watched the growing puddle of ale. “But the fact remains that I need your help if I’m to help Draco. The two of you were in school together, in the same house, and I’m sure he’d appreciate—“

“Draco doesn’t appreciate anything anyone does for him.” Nott cut him off. “You should know that now if you think he’s going to be your loyal little lapdog. He thinks everyone owes him favors and they’re obligated to risk their own lives to help him out. He’s a selfish prat, and a coward to boot. It’s laughable that anyone even believes he killed all those people, considering he’d practically wet himself at the mention of actual battle.”

“He wasn’t the bravest person in the war, but he doesn’t deserve what’s happened to him.” Harry was shocked at how casual Nott’s tone was through his declamation of Malfoy. “You’ve known him since you were children, and I know as well as you that he can be difficult, but he has his good points as well, Theodore—“

“Don’t call me that!” suddenly, the tankard flew from the table and into Harry’s chest, glass shattering all over his lap and ale spilling down his front. Nott had not raised his volume, but the anger in his tone had been much more effective than any screaming would have been. “Theodore is dead.”

“Casualties of war aren’t always the names on a memorial, or the etchings on a gravestone. Many of them walk among us.”

The words came back to Harry’s mind, and he saw more than ever the truth in them. He gazed at the stringy man with dirty-blonde hair sitting across from him. He did not, in truth, look so different from Draco. He was taller, to be sure, and his hair darker, his features a bit more masculine, and his voice was heavier, as though even his words carried the weight of his past. But the similarity was there. Had Nott killed anyone during the war and gotten away with it, Harry wondered. Did the memory haunt Nott the way Draco’s constructed memories haunted him? Or was it something else that both of them shared. Nott senior had not survived the war. Harry had killed the man himself, to his shame. He had never forgiven the other man the distraction that he had provided during the battle that had been Ginny’s last. The next time they met, Harry had been the clear victor; casting a Stunner so strong it blasted the man right out a window, sending him to his death. Surely, Nott knew that it had been Harry Potter who had killed his father. Undoubtedly he had loved him. He probably had come to this meeting only in the hopes that he could find an opportunity to get his revenge. Suddenly, Harry felt the need to grip his wand where it lay hidden in his robes, but before he had a chance to close his fingers around the familiar piece of wood, Nott surprised him.

“Here,” he pulled a bottle from his robes, containing the already extracted memory, and tossed it into Harry’s ale-soaked lap. “I don’t need money, but you’ll need to do me a favor in return.”

“What do you want me to do?” Harry was too wary to agree to anything without first hearing what the conditions were. He had doubts as to whether this bottle actually contained the memory he was after.

“Save him.” And Nott was gone in a flurry of robes, leaving Harry to pay for the drinks and the broken glass. Harry thought it was a bargain.

*****

To be continued…