Chapter three
Truths

***

Draco of course wasn’t going to mention the encounter with the other boy to his father. Lucius had made it very clear that he was going to be very displeased with him if he so much as looked at a muggle. And father being displeased was never much fun. He’d be forced to remind Draco once again that every time he disobeyed, he was shaming the Malfoy name, disgracing his noble family with his childish and stupid behaviour. Draco wasn’t likely to ever forget this, but every time his father told him it seemed less and less likely that he was ever going to be able to redeem himself for everything he had already done.

Luckily enough for Draco, Lucius was still inside, and thus hadn’t noticed his son wandering off. Lucius always took his time when he visited the lady in the house, Draco had noticed. Of course, he hadn’t known where his father went before. He had just noticed that his father started disappearing, usually with claims of having to attend to business. And mother started acting strange as well. She became irritable and restless, and sometimes had long spells of migraine and had to shut herself in her room. When Draco had asked his mother about this, she had said such strange things, things Draco didn’t understand. When he later had asked his father what mother had meant, it had resulted in that Draco now had to follow him on these errands of business. Always to the same house. Always to the same lady.

‘Adulterer’ and ‘hussy’ were words his mother had used. Draco didn’t know exactly what they meant, but he had a nagging suspicion that father wasn’t discussing work with the pretty lady at all.

However, Draco had other things to occupy his mind right now. Like muggles.
His father had forbidden him to talk to them, had said that they were ‘uncivilized and brutish’. Draco wasn’t sure what that meant either, but he had a hunch that it had something to do with bad manners. But this muggle had been… nice. Or at least more interesting than his own friends. Blaise was really boring most of the time, the only thing he liked was his stupid piano. Theo could be fun at times, but he did rather creepy things sometimes, like when he slammed his dog’s tail in the door. And Gregory and Vincent were just stupid. And Draco naturally didn’t play with girls. He was no sissy. Actually.

So maybe his father was wrong? It was unlikely, of course. His father was generally right about most things; everybody said so. His mother used to before too. No matter what it was about, her answer had always been, “Listen to your father, Draco”. And then father started going away on business with the pretty lady, and mother’s head started aching, and she no longer talked to Draco except to tell him to be quiet.

Except today. Today she had grabbed his shoulder when he was on his way to follow Lucius out and she had bent close to him, whispering through lips that had gone all white, “This is what it means to be a Malfoy, Draco. This is your honourable heritage. I hope you’re proud of it.’ And then father became angry and said something about asps and poison that Draco didn’t understand at all, but he understood the part of not involving Draco in whatever it was. And then they were both shouting at each other, and even though Draco put his hands over his ears and pushed as hard as he could, he could still hear them. Finally, mother burst into tears and fled, swaying on her high heels. Father said nothing for a while, just stared after mother looking grim, but then he shook his head and told Draco that it was time to go.

Draco didn’t like father when he shouted at mother, and he didn’t like him when he had to tell Draco what a Disgrace he was. He liked his father when he was proud of him, and when he told stories about his ancestors and about how great the Malfoy family was. He liked him when he talked about how they both were chosen to fight for the sake of the wizarding world, to rid it from the filth of mudbloods and half-breeds. He imagined himself when he was older, fighting terrifying beasts made of mud and snarling werewolves, and was proud to have such a brave father.

So what right did that stupid muggle boy have to not act like he was supposed to?

***

Narcissa walked restlessly through empty rooms, her wide black skirts making a melancholic, soft swishing sound as they swept over the cold marble floor. Everything about Malfoy Manor was cold. The walls may as well have been carved out of ice, the windows glittered like frost, the air was like a breath of winter itself, the fires never gave any warmth, and the colourful people that sometimes graced these halls with their pristine, gemlike beauty had minds made of the coldest hours of the darkest night on the most empty of all worlds.

She was no different.

She was a frozen flower among many, embracing the cold wind that killed it, for it kept her beauty perfect and unmarred forever. She never faltered, she never made so much as a false step in the intricate social dance that was the world in which she thrived.

Such a flower will fear the warmth of a beating heart, because with warmth comes the death of the frost. The hard, sharp ice turns into meek, yielding water, and the flower, no longer capable of standing on its own, weeps itself away and disappears, melting like the ice that killed it, the ice that it thought would make it immortal. And its beauty will slip into memory, until memory itself also melts away, and the winds in which the flower once swayed so flawlessly carries away the echo of its last dismayed cry.

Long she had tried to still her own beating heart, to bury doubts and disappointments under reasonability and rationality. But this humiliation was too much for even her to stomach. She could feel her heart beating painfully against her ribs, as rage chased her through the corridors of the manor; sooner or later, it was going to catch up with her.

And as the heat of rage melted the ice from her eyes – frozen tears that she had almost forgotten about – she started seeing things that stirred her traitorous heart even more.

Narcissa had never felt such pride as when her son, the Malfoy heir was born. But children don’t consist only of the hopes and expectations of their parents; they are living beings. Loud, cumbersome and dependant human beings. Narcissa soon found her son to be a lot of tiring and trying work, and thus did what she always did with such tasks. She handed him over to the house-elves to take care of. Sure, she sometimes talked to him when he got old enough to be interesting, and Lucius was quick to start teaching him all about being a Malfoy, and they both spoiled him outrageously. But now that her self-obsessed little world had crumbled, an uncomfortable truth lay before her eyes: They had neglected their son, ignored him until he was old enough to fulfil their dream of what he ought to be like. She more than Lucius. He had at least made an effort to raise the child, even if that might be caused by his never-ending craving for control.

And as she now watched her son, she didn’t see a happy child. This filled her with a guilt she couldn’t handle, couldn’t control, and she fled into her room only to discover that trying to escape from Draco just made it worse. Sleeping-draughts, however, would drown the ache for a while, and so she claimed headaches to be able to sink into blissful oblivion in the safety of her restroom.

She wanted to help the little stranger living in her house, but she didn’t know how to. And so her will to help turned into anger and frustration, like when she had lashed out at him today, or to distress and guilt, voiced in feverishly whispered prayers during the darkest hour of the night.

But there was no one out there to hear her prayers, for she had never believed in anything else than herself, and she never would. Still a selfish, angry woman, but a mother also, she would curse her faith and blame everyone but herself in one breath, then cry over her own flawed being in the next.

She sunk finally into a chair facing a window which twilight had coloured blue, closing her eyes to give rest to a mind which jealousy and guilt had stained in red and black. Suddenly she yearned for so much; her head was full of childish dreams that she had long since abandoned in favour of the life that was now hers. Another woman had taken that life from her, probably without even knowing it, and now Narcissa wanted all the things she had lost when she decided to be Mrs Malfoy.

One by one, the stars came alight outside the window. Soon they would be here. First the stars, then Lucius. Always trailing the scent of a stranger into her home, or so she imagined. And Draco would be tired and probably hungry too, but there would be food for him down in the kitchen and a freshly made bed waiting. The house-elves knew their job by now.

Always the stars first, Lucius second, ever since that other woman appeared. Narcissa had learned the routines of her new life, the waiting and the wandering. Pain is not a good teacher, but an effective one.

The house felt empty, even though she knew it wasn’t. The house elves wandered from room to room, making sure that everything was set for the arrival of Master Lucius and Young Master Draco. They had learnt as well. And they had also learnt the price of making even the smallest noise, anything that would upset the delicate Mistress, so they padded silently along and spoke only in whispers when they had to. And Narcissa suddenly wished that she could hear them; suddenly she was scared of being all alone in this big, empty building with its cold, echoing halls. She opened her mouth to call for one of them, but then closed it again, leaning her head against her tightly clenched hands. No, oh no, she couldn’t, her pride wouldn’t allow her; she’d die before she sought comfort with those miserable creatures. But she wished… she wished for noise from the kitchen, a chair scraping against floor in a far-away room, whispered voices conferring about some trivial, earthly matter… something, anything, if only a really expensive vase shattering against the floor, something she could yell at them for, something Lucius could get really upset about when he came home…

A wild idea few through her mind, and she sprung to her feet, grasping a Ming vase from its pedestal beside the window. She could crush it, crush it and blame the house-elves, they wouldn’t argue, they’d probably believe her… she could punish them and feel better… She was grasping the porcelain so tightly that her knuckles whitened, so tightly that she was afraid that it was going to shatter in her hands. She stared for some moment at the beautiful patterns, the exquisite handiwork, and she thought: This is me. This is all that I’ve become. Something beautiful standing parade in his home. And he doesn’t want that. He wants something that’s alive. That’s why he goes to her. But I did this for him! Can’t he see that I did this for him? I became what I thought he wanted me to be.

Suddenly blinded by tears and anger, she lifted the vase and hurled it against the wall. It shattered with an ear-splitting noise, porcelain flying everywhere like shell splinter, leaving faint white dust on the wall where it hit. Narcissa gasped as a real headache clenched her skull in an iron fist; there were tears on her cheeks, and she couldn’t remember when she had cried the last time. Maybe it was the tears that made her head hurt.

She wanted to run away from there, run like a frightened criminal from the scene of crime, but she didn’t. She walked. Slowly, placing each step exactly in front of the next, forcing her breath into a calm rhythm, painting a thin sheen of normality over her dishevelled hair and red-rimmed eyes, over cheeks that shone with moisture.

She finally stopped in front of the door to their room. She looked at it for a while. They both slept in this room, their breath and heartbeats mingling to become one; nobody could guess that behind this door, a rupture had opened in her life, effectively taking Lucius from her. She hadn’t even realised that she loved him until she felt the pain of not being able to do so anymore. And now she wandered the corridors; she waited; she hid in the heavy landscapes of induced sleep; she hurt the child even though he was the only thing she could love – because he was the only thing she could love; and now she was breaking vases just to know that she could still make Lucius feel something… A strange thought crossed her mind: I have crushed myself. And she started to laugh.

It was intended to be a laugh, anyway.

It would’ve been, if it hadn’t been for the tears.

***

He remembered, with difficulty, the word ‘darkness’, and he applied it to the room around him. He knew that this place was always shadowy, always dark, but this was the darkness of… something else. He couldn’t remember. The word ‘night’ had once been beautiful to him, and so he had forgotten.

His given name was difficult to remember. He thought he might’ve liked it, liked what it had meant to him, but whatever that was, it was too big to remember. However, he had clung to his name for a very long time now, repeating it to himself every day. And when it became too difficult to remember as a human, he changed into the other form, the one that he couldn’t remember the name of anymore, but that made the pain easier to cope with.

There were some things that he wished he could forget, though, things that floated to the surface of his mind every time he tried to hold on to one of the precious few things of beauty that he could still remember, drowning them out.
Like his family name, for example. Black. Black like the cold cell that was his whole world.

Yes, he used to be… something… light in their darkness…

For a moment, he could almost grasp something of his old self, of what he had once been, but the warmth of the thought flickered and died, fire without air to feed on, and it left him longing for more, hopelessly, vainly, for the security of memory and sense of identity, for the person he had been before this happened to him. The warmth never lasted for very long, and soon it was overrun by all the dark and painful things he tried to hold back.

Innocent!

Betrayed!

The thoughts echoed like thunderclaps in his head, and they brought with them a storm of memories. One of them seized him, forcing itself onto him, violating his mind. He tried to fight it away, to drown it out, for the memories were even worse than the dreams he dreamt here when he couldn’t stay awake anymore. But it was pointless, for there was nothing left to fight with, no strength in his mind.

First came the face of a man, and it was a man that he had once known and loved. He reached for a name, but it wasn’t there; just tantalizing hints of what this man had been. The colours red and gold, a piece of old parchment, a classroom, a ramshackle old building and, strongest of all, the round, pale face of the full moon.

He didn’t know what this man had been like, but imprinted in the memory was the knowledge that he’d never seen him like this before. So angry, so tortured, so full of endless sorrow. He felt emotions he didn’t understand; a terrible anger of his own and a hollow emptiness that he’d come to associate with the place he was now, with Azkaban. He could feel the shape of words in his mind, words he wanted to tell this man, but at the same time he heard himself laughing and knew he couldn’t stop. It was as if all the anguish that he felt took form in this laughter, hollow and screeching laughter that wouldn’t stop, and he knew he was laughing because whatever this sorrow was, it was too big and horrible for him to be able to cry. Crying was admitting that it was really happening, and he couldn’t do that. So he laughed and laughed in mock happiness over the hole in front of his feet, the smoke in the air, the people screaming, and the knowledge of being a killer.

Why? Why had he killed? Had he even killed?

It all had something to do with another face, a thin face with eyes that danced and a mouth that always had that half-smile pulling at the right corner of the lips. There were once again the colours red and gold, and a broomstick, that tantalizing piece of parchment, and the magnificent figure of a leaping stag. And... a woman. Yes. Red hair tied in a haphazard knot in the nape of her neck, green eyes that glinted mischievously, flowery robes that followed the curve of a bulging belly... she was pregnant...

These memories should be happy, but how could they be? These two people were lost. Dead the man he had admired and loved, faded the beauty of the woman that had been like his sister...

Peter!

The prisoner was suddenly shaking with fury in his cell; growling like a mad dog he flailed at the walls and floor with his hands, cutting and bruising them. Tears filled his eyes, but it wasn’t the pain he caused himself that brought them there. It was guilt.

My fault...

He remembered a young man standing facing him, the cold sun of autumn beating down upon their heads. He was blaming him, blaming Sirius, and at first he thought he had gone mad. But just when he was about to lower his wand, the man dropped his voice, and in a whisper only Sirius could hear, Peter spoke:
“I never asked for this! I never asked to fight in this war.” Though he was whispering, his voice was shrill and strained with emotion. “What was I supposed to do? Don’t you fear anything? You walk around with ‘Enemy of the Dark Lord’ written in your foreheads, waiting for him to kill you! I’m not stupid, Sirius! You were fighting a lost battle! You were all going to die. And I didn’t want to die. ” His face twisted in a snarl, tears leaking from his eyes. “I didn’t want to do this. But I’m not going to sacrifice myself.” Sirius raised his wand, and Peter backed away, still whispering. “I learned early that life isn’t fair, Sirius. Now it is time you learn that too.”

And then the world exploded, and Sirius knew he hadn’t been fast enough. He had his wand raised, but the words of the killing spell were still resting unspoken on his lips. And now he was going to die.

Before the light finally disappeared, he thought he heard Peter’s voice, whispering in his ear:

“Poor old Padfoot...”

And when he could see again, there was a huge crater before him where Peter had stood, and people around him were screaming in panic. The stench of burning flesh filled the air. He stared at the hole before his feet and saw something there; a finger resting in a pool of blood. And laughter came to him from the hole in the ground and the hole in his heart, seized his body and shook him like a toy in the hands of a reckless child. There were people shouting at him, people seizing his arms, people pointing wands at him, but he just kept on laughing. And there was that first face, and but somehow it was also the face of a wolf, for the eyes that were supposed to be golden-brown were bright yellow, the hands reaching for him had claws. The teeth that were bared in a feral growl were not the teeth of a human, and the anger that burned in his eyes was not human either, but the raw and uncaring blood thirst and vengeance of... of something else that... that... oh Remus...

The prisoner clawed at his own face, howling with grief, and he was crawling over the floor in a desperate attempt to escape; escape himself, escape the memories, escape the guilt, escape the pain of losing a life he couldn’t remember, escape the voice that even now whispered, whispered in his ear...

“Poor old Padfoot...”

But his howl of pain was only one of many in this god forgotten place, born and bred in the darkest parts of the human mind, nurtured both by the part of us that sees monsters in every shadow, and a selfish desire to be safe, cost whatever it may.

In Greek mythology, when Pandora opens her box, we learn that hope is the last thing that leaves a human being. But in truth, hope is what makes us human. And when you take hope away, we can no longer be. That is when our soul leaves us.
But the broken being that once was Sirius Black had one last resort, one last way of saving what was left of his mind; he changed it. He turned into a dog, a dog that could not dwell upon tomorrow and therefore couldn’t feel hope. What we don’t have can never be taken away from us. An animal knows only what is at the present, and will endure what is happening to it simply because it does not know of anything better.

But animals still feel pain, they feel loss, and it was a whining, trembling dog that crept on its belly to a corner of the cell to wait for sleep. But sleep seemed far away, and outside the prison of Azkaban, the wind howled with mad laughter, and the waters of the cold grey sea whispered endlessly.

“Poor old Padfoot...”

***

“Harry.”

At the edge of the garden, leaning against the fence that surrounded it, stood a man. He was quite tall and very thin, and his face had a waxy paleness to it that looked unnatural and unhealthy in the bright sunlight. But the smile tugging at his lips was warm and full of humour. Harry gave a cry of joy, jumping to his feet. The snake he had been talking to slithered away, deeply offended, and Harry made a mental note of putting out some food for her later, before promptly forgetting all about her.

“Uncle Remus!” he exclaimed, running to greet the guest. His eyes roved quickly over his uncle’s face, looking for the usual cuts and bruises, but while there were a few of them, Harry was pleased to see that they had a faded look about them, as if they were almost healed. This, of course, was a sign that the next full moon was approaching, and had Harry known what the state of his uncle implied, he wouldn’t have been so happy. But he was unaware of Remus’ condition, and Remus intended for things to stay that way for as long as it was possible. He didn’t want to burden the boy with more sorrows; god knew that there would be enough of them in his life.

Remus, who had put all thoughts of full moons and wolves far from his mind at the time being, lifted Harry off the ground in a tight hug, and while the boy squirmed and made perfunctory complaints, he still returned the embrace.

“You’re looking w...” But the words died in his throat as his eyes locked at something around Harry’s neck. His smile faded.

“What?” Harry demanded, a bit worried by this sudden change. Remus didn’t answer at first, but gently put Harry back on the ground, falling instead to his knees, so that his eyes were almost level with Harry’s. One hand stretched out to touch the pendant hanging around his neck, but then he winced slightly and pulled away from the touch. The whole time, he kept his eyes fixed on Harry’s face, and a small frown dug lines in his forehead and made him look older.

Harry suddenly remembered. “It was from you, Severus said it was,” he said. And then, anxiously, as Remus still didn’t answer, “You don’t think I should have it? I promise I won’t lose it, I really promise I won’t!”

Remus blinked, slowly coming out of his reverie. “What? Oh, of course you should have it. It’s yours, after all. I just...” He drew a deep breath, steeling himself for the worst.  “Severus talked to you, then?  About... about your parents?”

Harry nodded, smiling a smile conveyed both pride and worry. His eyes were wide and questioning, as if he expected to be told that he had done something wrong, but nonetheless, Remus felt that he needed to press on.

“What did he tell you?” He wasn’t sure he wanted to know, but he was sure that he needed to.

Harry thought for a moment, biting his lip as he concentrated on remembering and formulating all of it into a coherent sentence. “That they are dead,” he said finally, but this didn’t really cover it, so after a while he added: “They’re dead because a mean man killed them. And that he was a friend of theirs. And that they were nice.”

Remus smiled at Harry, and breathed an inward sigh of relief. He had actually been worried – no, more than worried; he’d been almost certain that Severus would’ve said something about them that would soil Harry’s memory of his parents for ever. Lily... well, Remus didn’t know what he thought of her; he supposed that he didn’t detest her that badly, but James... James was a completely different matter. He wondered what James would’ve said if he had been the one to take care of Severus’ child, and came to the conclusion that he would be noble enough to conceal the truth. But that Severus would show the same kind of decency was... unexpected.

But it’s not about James, he decided. It’s about Harry. And I know he cares about Harry. He doesn’t want to hurt him.

Standing up, Remus ruffled Harry’s hair. “Believe me, Harry, when I say that I never met better people than your father and mother. And I never met a pair of parents that loved their son more than they did.”

Harry fingered the amulet. “You were their friend too, weren’t you? That’s why I got this from you.”

“Yes, Harry. I was their friend.”

“Could you... Could you please, please tell me about them? Because I don’t think Severus wants to. I think he’s really sad about them. Not I don’t think you’re not sad,” he added hurriedly, anxious that he might’ve hurt Remus’ feelings. “But people are sort of different when they’re sad. And I thought maybe you could... But you don’t have to if you don’t want to.” Harry bit his lower lip, hope and anxiety mingling in the pleading gaze that he bestowed on his uncle.

Remus smiled, he couldn’t help himself. “I tell you what. How about we both sit down in the garden, you can go fetch something for us to eat in the kitchen, and I can tell you all you want to know about your parents? Good?”

Harry nodded and ran ahead, and Remus slowly followed. He knew this was going to be painful, even more so because he couldn’t let Harry see the pain it caused him. But Harry deserved to know, and James and Lily deserved to be remembered. So for the first time in a very long time, he allowed the memories to rush forward from the dark places in his mind where he usually bound them with iron and blood and tears.

This was the greatest gift he could give to Harry.

They sat for several hours, Remus recalling various anecdotes from his youth – always making sure to not mention Hogwarts or magic, and keeping Sirius as far from his mind and his stories as possible – and Harry listing in wide-eyed fascination. Remus saw Severus watching them from the window, his face unreadable and hard, but he didn’t interrupt him. And Remus realised that he actually must know how important this was to Harry, to hear the story of his parents so that he could learn to love them and be proud of them, even if he didn’t remember them. And since Severus couldn’t give this to Harry, he had to trust Remus, no matter what the two of them thought of each other.

Just as Remus trusted Severus to take care of Harry.

Maybe we’ve finally grown up, Remus thought, and he smiled wryly to himself.