now. He thought of the others, sitting before the fire, calm in each others company. The firelight on Ginnys hair, Hermiones laughter, Harry quiet as always.
Enough. Draco brushed the wet grass from the knees of his trousers, and made his way over to the side of the mausoleum. Into the side of it block-carved silvery letters had been cut: Lucius Malfoy 1958–1997. Arte Perire Sua.
'Hello, Father,' said Draco softly, placing the flat of his hand against the cold stone. He stood for a moment, hearing the sound of his own voice, chill in the silence, feeling the beat of his heart. 'Its been a long time since we?ve talked. At least, it feels that way.'
Silence and the cold night answered him. He turned slowly until his back was to the marble wall and he was staring out at the darkness, punctuated by the coolly glowing lights of the Manor in the distance.
'I?ve thought about you a great deal lately, Father. You might be surprised to hear it, but its true. Maybe not consciously, but you were always in the back of my mind. I think he wanted to be a sort of father to me, Slytherin I mean, only he wasn?t any better at it than you were. He just wanted the same thing you did — a tool, something use, to advance his own power. You played at being God, made me in the image the Dark Lord wanted. Never really wanted a son at all. Well, you?re not God, Father.' He heard his own voice rise and sharpen, cutting the warm summer air. 'And I?m not weak. You told me I?d break like a clock wound backwards. But I didn?t break.' He closed his eyes then against the flutter of images which whipped past like a deck of cards falling, randomly upturned: saw himself standing in his fathers cell at the asylum, backed against the wall, saw the top of Slytherins tower scorched clean by flame, saw Harry lying as if dead while the blood ran out from under him like costly dye spilling over the floor, saw the black demons who rose out of Hell to reclaim what was theirs. Out of Hell. Hell, where you are, Father. Hell, where you would send me.
He heard Lucius? voice. You are, after all, only what I made you to be.
The words seemed spoken inside his brain. He heard them out. And then it came, what he had waited for, half-expecting, half-dreading: grief like a roiling black wave. It rolled up and over him; he didn?t feel the wall of the mausoleum until he fell against it, and he only half-saw the shape of the great black dog as it crested the hill, looking at him with its great pale eyes like jewels in the darkness.
Sirius saw Draco fall against the wall of the crypt, and hesitated.
Draco had his hands up over his face, his shoulders tensed and shaking. Without knowing exactly its cause, its impetus, Sirius recognized this kind of grief, these stifled gasps that seemed to push the boy down the wall like the weight of an enormous fist, so that eventually he sat on the ground with his arms wrapped around himself, head buried in his hands. He himself had wept like that in Azkaban, dryly, in sorrow and rage.
It was enough. He straightened up out of his canine form and stepped forward. Never having done anything quite like this before (not even for Harry, although he would have, if he had been called upon), he went over to Draco, knelt down next to him, pried him firmly from the wall, and took him in his arms as if he had been a child of six and not a boy of seventeen.
Draco didn?t struggle, just grasped onto Sirius tightly, and Sirius realized to his surprise that in fact Draco wasn?t crying. Something else was happening to him; something more complex and harrowing than tears. His body trembled, the gasping paroxysms tearing through him, but no tears came, and Sirius remembered Narcissa having told him that her son didn?t cry. But that was impossible…everyone cried. He held onto Draco as the boy shook, rubbing his back a little awkwardly, but soothingly, as he would hold and soothe an injured animal. 'Cry,' he said. 'Cry, if you have to, if you can,' but Draco pulled away from him and sat back against the cold dark marble of the mausoleum, shaking his blond head. His face was blank, and dry of tears.
'No,' he said. 'I can?t.'
'Theres nothing wrong with it,' said Sirius gently. 'Enough has happened to you; you?re more than entitled.'
'No,' Draco said again, more urgently this time, 'I can?t,' and he turned his head back towards the mausoleum, and fell silent. And Sirius sat, silently, with him, until the sun came up and its light broke over the Manor, and it was Harrys birthday.
'Where are Draco and Harry?' Sirius demanded, as the sixth post owl of the day landed on the library desk, depositing a heap of parcels labeled H Potter and D Malfoy on the polished rosewood surface. 'This is getting ridiculous…presents…fan mail….more pairs of leather trousers….'
'They?re upstairs,' said Ginny, who was sitting on the window-seat with Hermione. Dresses for both of them had been delivered by the previous owl, and they were deep in conversation on the topic of what they were wearing that evening. 'They?re getting all sweaty.'
'They?re fencing,' Hermione corrected, looking stern.
'I stand by my terminology,' said Ginny loftily, poking at a shiny length of taffeta with her wand and turning it from blue-green to scarlet. 'There, that looks better.'
Hermione made an approving noise. 'Good color for you, Ginny.'
The door banged open and Draco came in, followed by Harry. Both boys were flushed and sweaty with exertion, both grinning. Harry had his arms crossed over his chest and was arguing some finer point of fencing etiquette with Draco, whose silvery hair, Ginny noted, was mussed appealingly all round his head. Draco was telling him that he should consider himself blessed that he had at least finally mastered the knowledge of which end of the sword to poke into the enemy.
'Enemy?' echoed Harry, grinning over at Draco.
Dracos mouth quirked. He looked down at himself — he was dressed in worn jeans and a t-shirt that shuck to his shoulders with sweat -
and then back at Harry. 'Opponent,' he corrected himself.
'Git,' said Harry, determined to have the last word, winked over at Sirius, and went to sit by Ron and Hermione, who hastily shrank the dress in her lap down to hand-size with a Reductus charm, and shoved it behind her. She grinned up at Harry, who bent and kissed her upturned face.
'Don?t think I don?t have the perfect retort for that, Potter,' said Draco loftily, perching himself on the edge of the desk and poking curiously at the pile of parcels. 'Oh, yes I do. And its day will come.
But I will let you off the hook on account of today being your birthday.'
'Listen to this,' said Ron, rolling over on his back and holding ther Prophet open above him. '?Happy Birthday Harry: The interest of the wizarding world, so long riveted on the mysterious disappeance of the Boy Who Lived, will tonight center around a much happier event: his seventeenth birthday party, held this year at Malfoy Manor,
