Draco sat on the ground as the ropes wound around his helpless wrists and ankles, staring up at the Animagus with the smoking hand. He could only pant for breath and wait for Black to kill him, just as Severus had warned him he would. But Black didn't say anything.
Draco realized once Black shoved his singed hand in Draco's face that it was a question, one that Black could not ask with a cursed tongue. The Langlock still held, but Black could do wordless magic, at least of the less complex kind under stress. Black couldn't lift the Langlock, though, not that he seemed concerned right away about that. Instead, he gave another wave of his hand, which looked much like Mother's after their visit to Ollivander's. Except it was darker, closer to black than red after the moment of impact.
When Draco didn't give an explanation, Black got his own wand back, leaving the talon wand behind on the ground and magically dragging Draco back down the hall. At least Draco did not have to slide far over the unforgiving ground before they reached the living room, where Black hauled him onto one of the less rotted armchairs.
Draco might still have protested the besmirching of his holly-green silk robe and mint-green cashmere jumper, by touching the faded old red velvet upholstery, but for the state they were already in, so sullied and wet and scorched that any green color they'd once had was unrecognizable. So much for his second-best Christmas robes, and the jumper his mother had given him just that morning. She'd be lucky if she had a son to come back to her in it.
Black tied the ropes to the chair in impressive-looking knots before turning on Draco again. He held up his palm, then jabbed his wand into the underside of Draco's chin. Black seemed to have been lucky enough, like Mother, to at least pick up the talon wand with his non-dominant hand. His gaze and the gesture were eloquent enough, demanding healing.
"I don't know how to reverse it," Draco said, the first words he had ever spoken to his first cousin once removed. "I've tried before and it didn't work. This wand just has a will of its own."
Black scowled at him, looking about as likely to believe that as anyone would under the circumstances. He shook his hand, with pain visibly riddling through his body from it. Then he pointed to his mouth instead, like if he couldn't get his hand fixed, at least he wanted to yell at Draco about it. That, Draco could address. And his natural inclination was to be contrary, but not against a murderous madman. "That I can fix with just a counterspell, but it has to be by me. And I can't do it without a wand." Draco tried to look innocent and helpless. "I've never been any good at wandless magic."
Black squinted at him with that lined haunted face, seeming to take a good look at his captive for the first time, and then waved his wand in the air in a dismayingly impressive wordless Flagrate charm. Of course not. Child. Draco nodded vigorously in agreement, though usually he would have protested the sentiment. His thirteen-year-old body had no doubt already led Black to underestimate him, and maybe it would make him more merciful. I give your wand, you undo, give wand back, Black wrote in flaming letters, and Draco nodded again.
Black brought back the talon wand with trepidation, floating it before him and dropping it onto Draco's lap, where he seemed surprised not to see it burn. He jabbed his wand right into Draco's forehead before loosening the bound on Draco's right wrist, and slowly, carefully, to show he meant no disobedience, Draco reached for the wand, and cast "Finite incantatem." Black reached up to touch his tongue, marveling at it, and his wand went up enough to make Draco seize the chance and yell, "Sectumsempra!"
Black dodged the curse with ease, and slammed his fist right into Draco's face.
"Enervate," Draco heard, waking some interval later, his head pounding for so many reasons. His right eye had once again swollen shut, though honestly this time. His bonds were more secure than before, his wand sitting untouched on the floor just out of reach of his feet, and Sirius Black had his wand on him, waking him. Behind Black, there was a large scorch trail and cuts in the floorboards that extended all the way to the opposite wall, where there were half a dozen wide dark cuts still smoking black, shaped like great talons had raked across them.
"I shouldn't have been surprised," were Black's first words to him that were not a spell. "You're part of this family."
Draco wondered if he was going to be interrogated before he was tortured and killed. His goal went from survival, which his aching head had to assess as laughably unrealistic, to spitting at Black before the madman killed him. Or at least getting an ankle free enough to kick at the bastard once or twice.
"Aren't you?" Black laughed, putting his wand back in his pocket, if it could be called a pocket, hanging off his tattered garments like a sack grafted on. There was an uncertain sort of viciousness in that laugh that made Draco more fearful than outright threats. "Come on, boy, I didn't curse your tongue. I know you can talk."
"You know who I am, then," Draco said neutrally, and only just managed to keep a quiver from his voice. Stop that. You are Severus Snape's godson. Do you think he would let this ghoulish shell of a man see him squirm, even if he knew he'd be murdering him in minutes? You are Severus Snape's godson, and you will not let him see you are afraid of him.
"Draco Malfoy," Black agreed, "Narcissa's son, it's the only thing that makes sense. You have her sister's wand. And you have Narcissa's look. Her and that pompous jackass Lucius." He sat down with a groan in the armchair beside Draco's, pulling it in front to face him before wincing and feeling at his burnt palm. "Your father teach you that curse you used on my hand, Draco Malfoy?"
"It wasn't a curse," Draco told him with a long roll of his eyes, harder with only one eye in commission but he managed. He trained his voice to be contemptuous after, to hide his fear. "I already told you that, it's just the wand. Which I didn't choose, for the record... really, I think its previous owner should be held culpable for all damages..." Black's nostrils flared at the reminder. "If you want to blame someone, blame my lovely Aunt Bella. But if you want to hear about any of the other curses I used on you, I'd be happy to educate you on their provenance."
"You can use Bella's wand. You are a Malfoy, and a Black, aren't you..."
"Redundant," Draco sighed, "And obvious. You saw me before, didn't you? On the street outside Grimmauld this summer, and at the Quidditch match. You're an Animagus, clearly, Padfoot. But you chose to wait until Christmas to assault me. Should I attribute that to just another instance of the Black family charm?"
Sirius's face twisted at that name. "You talk a big game for the one who lost."
"You're not going to do anything to hurt me," Draco said with more confidence than he felt, lifting his head defiantly, "Let alone kill me. Because Harry Potter would never forgive you."
That name made Black's face react with some complicated mix of longing and regret. "You know Harry Potter?"
"You saw me play Quidditch against him," Draco said impatiently, "And even if you hadn't, surely you can do math. We're in the same year at Hogwarts, and I hate to criticize, dear cousin- or should I call you Uncle Sirius? I think that's not uncommon for a first cousin once removed- not to be overly harsh, Uncle Sirius, I know you've been indisposed for some years, but I've been subject to much more efficient interrogations-"
Draco wasn't surprised when Black grabbed his mouth to cover it, though it stung his lip more than he expected. Maybe he'd bruised it as well as bit through it, falling about trying to get away.
"Shut up, Malfoy. Just shut up!" Black spat, sounding like his godson, and got up from his chair and began to pace, both his hurt and unhurt hands going to his head. "Bloody hell..."
Either he was at a loss what to do, or was doing them both a favor and mentally plotting out that more efficient interrogation. "Oh, come on, Uncle Sirius, I have to be more pleasant company than Dementors. Marginally," Draco drawled, and Black whirled on him.
"Stop calling me that! I don't know you!" he snarled, sitting down hard in his chair, before leaning forward to regard Draco with uncertainty still. "Think, Padfoot, think," he said, seemingly to himself. "This isn't a disaster. No, this is an opportunity... but he can use Bella's wand, he must be like her- except that girl, and Harry... no, this is an opportunity...."
"I would agree. You're the one who fired the first spell, you know. We needn't have gone at it like that. I would have been open to discussion, at least as a preliminary to cursing. Really, Uncle Sirius, just because you've been on the run for so long, it isn't an excuse to be uncivilized-"
"Why do you remind me of someone?" Black asked abruptly, and Draco fought the urge to snap, My godfather, Severus Snape, you might remember trying to murder him, back when you were far, far better-looking. "It's not Bella, except for how savage you duel. And your father wasn't ever this good with a wand, that I remember for sure."
Draco preened, fighting to maintain the pretense that he was the one in control, despite being a tied-up, bruised, wandless thirteen-year-old with one working eye, against the man the entire wizarding world was hunting. Maybe in retrospect, it hadn't been the best idea to take up the man's ancestral home as his newest hang-out. Still a better choice than Myrtle's bathroom.
"I'm an imposter," Draco deadpanned. "I'm the Dark Lord risen again, disguised with Polyjuice as the impressionable young Malfoy boy. You've uncovered my secret, Black, now bend the knee and swear your fealty to my noseless glory. I promise my snake is even bigger this time."
Black looked at Draco like he was the most inexplicable creature he had ever come across. Rich from a man who'd been friends enough with Wormtail to willingly put their names on a powerful magical artifact together. Draco wouldn't put his name and Wormtail's together on a restaurant bill.
That reminded him. "So will you just stare at me like the illiterate wastrel I'm beginning to suspect you are, or do you want to talk about Wormtail?" Black's mouth fell open, and Draco shifted in his bonds. "Also known as Peter Pettigrew? Ever heard of him?"
"I didn't kill him," Black said with a long shudder, hands flexing before him like he had no idea more what to do with them, any more than anything else. It was hard to see much more than the twisted shadow of the boy who had goaded Severus, or even much of the deranged swagger of Aunt Bella anymore. He just looked adrift, a man forsaken by the world up to even his own shadow.
"I know," Draco said, and yawned, leaning back as far as he could in the chair. "I'm parched, incidentally. And given that I'm your only nephew and by default your favorite, do you think you could give me something to drink? Interrogations are thirsty work. For the questioner as well as the subject- you might want to get some water for yourself, hydration is important-"
"Do you ever shut up?" Black asked unsteadily, before stomping off and returning with two glasses of water he charmed colder. Draco gulped greedily at the water Black poured in, feeling his first moment of non-homicidal sentiment towards the man, even if it was only for interrogation purposes.
Black finished his whole glass before asking another question. "What do you mean, you know? You know I didn't kill Pettigrew?"
"You didn't, did you?" Draco said, and Black's eyes went alive then with a new expression, the most disconcerting and maddest of all: hope.
"No one believes me," Black said faintly. "No one has ever believed me. He's still alive..."
Oh, Draco realized belatedly, I'm irreparably altering the blue loop, aren't I? Still, having managed not to kill either his dear new Uncle Sirius or himself, he had to count this as a win. "He staged it too well. Did he cut off his own finger that they found?" Draco asked, remembering the stories of Wormtail cutting off his own hand for Voldemort's blood ritual.
Black nodded. "But why... why on Earth would you believe me? Draco Malfoy... what are you doing here? What do you want?"
It would have been a good question if Draco knew what he wanted. "I don't want us to be enemies. I know that much. I don't want us to kill each other. Maybe we can, like, not do that again?" He gestured vaguely in the direction of the destruction they'd wrought, as best as he could with both wrists bound. "I don't think Potter would be too pleased. I mean, granted, right now he thinks you're a meandering schizoid, but it's not like he has any other family, is it? Those purple-faced Muggles don't count. Even a meandering schizoid godfather is better than no godfather at all-"
"You know Harry," Black said, face softening for the first time. Oh, Merlin. Paternal affection. Gross. "You do, don't you? Right, because you play Quidditch against him, and you're in the same year, though you're in different houses..."
"We have a friend in common," Draco explained. "Hermione Granger. She's a Gryffindor. You might have seen her with me the first time I came here. Girl our age. Big brown hair." That should be more concrete evidence than just wild claims of attachment to the man's godson, when anyone might have made anything up to get out of this situation. Up to and including his belief in Black's innocence, but Black didn't seem to suspect that. It seemed he wanted very badly for it to be true, that someone believed him for the first time. Especially if that someone knew his godson. "Her and Ron Weasley, they're Potter's two best friends-"
"Ron Weasley," Black snarled out of nowhere, violently enough to make Draco shrink back in his chair. "You know Ron Weasley too? Do you know his rat?"
Draco might never have been asked a more bizarre question, if one took into account the circumstances. "You mean Scabbers?"
"Scabbers?" Black echoed, then shook his head with a bitter smile. "No, I mean Wormtail."
Draco wasn't going to get involved. He told himself that from the moment he left Grimmauld Place on the night of Christmas, even as he raced right to his third notebook and strained the capacity of the empty pages in it, recording the saga of Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot, and Prongs. His own memory seemed his enemy, so it was more urgent to get everything down than heal the many injuries he had sustained against Black. He didn't mean to involve himself one way or another, whether it was telling on Black or, of all the lunatic ideas, helping him, whoever Ron's rat happened to be. Not that Draco could bring himself to believe it about Scabbers.
It would be a lot easier, though, to figure out what he should be doing, and whether he had already altered the blue loop past recognition, if he had any idea how it had gone the first time. He'd been so distant from these events, he didn't know what the active approach should be to ensure the loop's dictates followed. He knew that one day in June, Black was captured at Hogwarts, somehow escaped, and that there was no Dementor presence for the final days of term or the next year. His name had never been formally cleared before he died, and Draco had no idea how Potter had become close enough to Black to mourn him.
He should have asked Aunt Bella more on the topic, but that whole being mortally terrified thing of her thing hadn't encouraged him to spend more time around her than forced to. Maddening to think she'd had the answers he needed. And she had been everywhere inside his mind- a mind that had never quite healed from her intrusions, to judge by the dismal indecisive chaos it broke into on Christmas night...
He could barely sleep, wondering why Black had undone his bonds and let him run out after he was done telling the story. It wasn't what Draco would have done in his position, that was for sure. Obliviate at the very least. But Black had just watched him flee, expecting him to do what? Keep it to himself, thanking his lucky stars he had survived their encounter? Go tell Potter or his parents or the authorities? In that case, Black would likely never be seen near Grimmauld again...
Merlin, why hadn't he tried to find out what Black planned to do next? Presumably more attempts to find, expose, and kill Ron's imposter rat. He told himself he had learned exactly enough to know to stay well away from it. He hadn't had anything to do with the remaining Marauders the first time, and so it would remain, whatever mistakes he had made that led him to the other end of Black's wand. That was his policy going forward, and the question of whether dealing with Pettigrew would prevent the Dark Lord's rise entirely... that had nothing to do with him. Ancestral property that was arguably his or not, he would never set foot in the wreck of 12 Grimmauld Place again.
He didn't last until afternoon tea on Boxing Day before he was Apparating back.
Black wasn't there, and the place seemed as wrecked as Draco had left it. He looked all around for Black, then for any other useful clues as to Black's actions or whereabouts, but he couldn't find any signs Black had been using this place as a hide-out, though it would be logical. In fact, there was no evidence Black had set foot in here anytime other than following Draco in yesterday. Draco learned nothing useful in his visit other than his success in blasting Aunt Bella from the tapestry, the fact that his parents could not indeed find it out when he Apparated to and from the Manor, and one more small proof of Black's story checking out.
He found it in Black's old childhood bedroom, one of the few places in the house completely untouched by their duel. Up on the topmost landing, it was marked by a nameplate that said only Sirius, though its carved silver design reminded Draco of the one he'd made Severus last Christmas. It reminded Draco strangely of his own bedroom once he entered, although less childish and weighted down with a Pompeii-like gloom, as if it been abandoned exactly as it was the day that Black ran away from home. The very wax hung down from the candles on the dusky chandelier as if petrified in midair, spider webs all about that Draco had to use his wand to clear to feel comfortable there, and floorboards where every step sent up an eruption of dust like it had awoken a ghost. And then there were the posters and pictures on the walls, stuck too securely to be taken with him, as he found when he tried to remove the picture of the four Marauders.
He was glad he'd brought Hermione's Christmas present, a Muggle camera called a Polaroid with extra slips to refill it, which produced images with white frames almost instantly. Since Muggle pictures never moved, it was a simple thing to take a picture of a picture, and so the wizarding one on Black's childhood wall was turned to a frozen moment: four boys together in their Gryffindor uniforms, James Potter barely distinguishable from his son save the uncanny dark color of his eyes beneath the glasses, beautiful young Sirius Black and awkward young Remus Lupin caught in a moment of looking at each other, with a boy arm-in-arm with the three and yet visibly out of place with his shorter height and uglier looks, the already rodent-like visage of a perfectly contented-looking Peter Pettigrew. Recognizable as Wormtail-to-be, if the nickname hadn't given it away already.
In the moment Draco had frozen on the Polaroid, all four were laughing. Draco could only detect the slightest hint of misgiving in the eyes of Lupin, as if he alone had some idea of what was coming for them.
Maybe the full moon had been nearby.
He tromped around taking pictures of the worst damage, then began attempting his best magical reconstruction, or at least patching the most gaping holes and sweeping the debris away. That gave him the excuse to make visits to Grimmauld every day of break, making very little progress on repairs in the truth, with memories of Dumbledore's ease at wordless instant repair serving for nothing other than to frustrate him. He made some half-hearted attempts to research in the Manor library, easy to hide from his parents when they were angry enough about him about the gala anyway, but ultimately that frustration led him to leave a note for the other party at fault for the destruction, and put it in one of the few undestroyed places in Grimmauld, the kitchen table:
S.B.,
I have been attempting to clean Grimmauld Place in the aftermath of the duel you launched in our ancestral home, and hold you equally if not more responsible for these damages. If you wish to discuss this unfortunate state of affairs, leave a message in this location specifying a time and date of meeting here, before my return for spring term at Hogwarts on the 2nd of January.
D.M.
Draco received no response in the next several days from Black, but the disappearance of the note made him wonder if Black had been back to see it. What he did receive was an offer of assistance from Dobby, who had been keeping tabs on him from a distance, to an extent that made Draco fear for the continued employment prospects of his favorite Gryffindor elf.
Dobby had enough after a few days of watching him slave away on his own and popped in to begin assisting with his own elf magic, waving aside Draco's objections. He proved far more adept than Draco at this kind of work. He claimed no one noticed or complained about his absences, but refused to answer Draco's questions about the structure of the elf hierarchy at Hogwarts. "You know so much more about me than I know about you, Dobby," Draco complained, and Dobby looked shifty.
"Dobby is not liked by the elves at Hogwarts. They do not talk to Dobby."
"What the hell, Dobby? I told them about you saving me before you came, and they all listened. I thought they ate it up like you were a hero to them, and now they don't even like you?"
"At first, they were thinking Dobby was a great elf. Dobby was friends with a brother and sister called Wooky and Nissy. They would tell Dobby stories about their old household. But they would fight with Dobby about Dobby's beliefs. Dobby's friends could not understand how Dobby thinks. They think Dobby is a reject and strange for liking to be free and taking money. Dobby's existence would seem very low and menial to you, Draco Malfoy..."
Draco shoved at Dobby's shoulder collegially, much in the way Ron often pushed at his. "Hey," Draco said. "Who's right down here in the trenches doing manual labor with you?"
Granted, Draco had been the one to actually cause the ludicrous amount of damages to the ancestral home they were bent on fixing together, but Dobby had the kindness not to say so.
New Year's Eve had never been a holiday celebrated at Malfoy Manor, all of the energy going into the Yule and leaving this newer, more arbitrary date of the calendar shifting as a matter for less old families to make much of. In the blue loop, Draco had spent most New Year's at the Notts', most memorably a truly desperate bout of marathon sex on New Year's in seventh year, upon the close of which Theo had informed him he never wished to speak to him again for the rest of their natural lives, however long or short that should be.
And the red line's Theo had committed the similar offense of not wanting to dance with him.
So even if the Notts had invited Draco, he would have probably chosen to spend it in his room by himself, playing with his wand in a non-innuendo sense, tossing the talon wand in the air murmuring Periculum every now and then to make fireworks, in anticipation of the ones he could later go watch at his window. He'd never been supposed to look at the show that the nearest Muggle town made with their vulgar fireworks each year, and every year he always had. Maybe this year, he'd go Apparate to watch it high on his practice hill.
He ended up Apparating to Grimmauld instead, when Dobby appeared with a flash beside the window, looking nervous to spend even seconds back in Malfoy Manor, for both practical and emotional reasons. "Draco Malfoy wanted to know if Dobby saw Sirius Black," Dobby said fitfully. Dobby had proclaimed himself not afraid of meeting the famed fugitive by chance in the man's old home, and from someone as brave as Dobby, Draco had believed it, but he looked shaken up by it now. "Dobby saw him and told him Draco Malfoy wanted to speak with him, and he is waiting!"
Draco's watch told him it was just past a quarter to midnight when he Apparated to the front of Grimmauld Place and cut his palm to get in. He'd tried saving blood in a vial, but apparently it had to be fresh every time. That meant he was going through a suspicious amount of healing potions, and the skin of his left palm was feeling distressingly numb, after the seventh day in a row cutting and healing it. But he did what he had to. Soon he was stepping inside a house that was already lit up from the inside, resisting the urge to lead with his wand out but keeping his right hand stroking over it in his pocket.
Black was sitting there waiting for him in the living room, in the chair he had tied Draco to. He cut no less ragged and disheveled a figure than last time, though he pushed his wild dark curls out from his face at the sight of Draco. It was painful, the contrast their two figures cast, with Draco's young frame well-groomed despite the hour, in a sleek tailored button-down, tailored slacks, designer robes, and designer boots. The Azkaban-withered Black was beyond filthy, in clothes that looked a few sharp movements away from falling apart entirely. Potter had called Draco the opposite of a Dementor, but Black could not have seemed any more the opposite of Draco in that moment.
And there was still that new talon wand-shaped brand on Black's palm, which Draco doubted would ever fade.
"You didn't write back to me," Draco began, which proved the wrong opener.
Black's brow creased. "Did you expect me to send you an owl?"
Draco felt his wand spark in his pocket. He stroked his fingertips down it soothingly, though his insides felt as wary as it did. They were under some truce, but nothing formal enough to feel secure that hostilities would not soon erupt worse than before. "The note I left in the kitchen..."
Black stared at him blankly, and then shook his head with a bleak laugh. "Kreacher."
"Excuse me?" Draco said, drawing back affronted, wondering if Black meant to refer to Draco or Dobby as a creature, and found himself taking offense at either.
"Kreacher," Black repeated. "He was my family's house elf here when I was growing up. He should still be living here, though I haven't seen his ugly mug. Must be, if things like that are disappearing. Never too fond of me, that miserable old rag. Why do you think I haven't used this place more? Can't trust him not to try and get me caught or done in. He was loyal to my mother-"
"Wouldn't like me much either, then," Draco said grimly. He wished Black could have mentioned that last time, with the amount of time that Draco and Dobby had been spending here, blissfully unaware they could have been observed. "Dobby didn't say he'd noticed another house elf. I didn't think there could have been, with the disrepair this place has fallen into."
"Kreacher was elderly," Black said, "Very elderly, even when I was a lad. He'd be half in the grave by now. Not much more life in him than those heads you enchanted against me. Not like the Malfoy elf I spoke to. I came for supplies, and your elf insisted I wait to meet you."
Black sounded resentful towards more than this old elf Kreacher, but Draco was irked again on Dobby's behalf. "Dobby? He's not my family's elf. He used to be, but he doesn't serve them anymore. And he's not my elf either. He's a free elf, he works at Hogwarts. He chooses to help me."
Black eyed him like an imposter, as strange as if Draco really was a Polyjuiced Voldemort.
"Didn't get much out of Dobby. Only that I had to wait- he was very insistent on that- and that I shouldn't fear you, that you were like Harry Potter. What does that mean?" He took a deep breath. "Malfoy, my mother's portrait... it was in tatters. I went into Grimmauld after your first visit, and found it bleeding and dead. That was you, wasn't it? Why? Why would you do that?"
Draco's throat caught. "She called my best friend a Mudblood."
"What do you want, Malfoy? The way you ran out of here on Christmas, I got the feeling you'd be happy if you never had to see me again."
Draco made a face, gathering himself to seem as fearless as he could against this formidable, unpredictable, desperate man. "If you're wondering, the note I left was about the damages to Grimmauld Place. I hold you at least partially responsible, and although Dobby and I have been returning daily to work on their repair, I do expect you to take some kind-"
"Malfoy," Black said slowly, "I'm on the run from the entire Ministry of Magic, every Dementor in Azkaban, and half the Muggle world too."
Draco crossed his arms and shifted from foot to foot. "That doesn't mean you don't have responsibilities, Black. Do you think Kreacher is here right now?"
"If he hasn't turned me in yet, he's not going to," Black said with a wince, looking around. "I can't think of anywhere safer to talk, and we're already here. It seems like my mistake, then. I was thinking you might be interested in offering me your help after all." Draco's mouth went dry, and Black gestured to the chairs. "You might as well sit down. Malfoy, if you're friends with Ron Weasley, you could get to Wormtail- Scabbers- if you wanted-"
"I'm not with them in Gryffindor," Draco said, "It's not like we share dorms," before remembering to add, "And we're not friends. We just have a friend in common. And I'm not here because I want to help you-"
If I could take out Wormtail...
Will I ever have a better chance to stop the Dark Lord from rising again?
"I'm not," Draco repeated to convince himself.
If I clear Black's name, will Severus ever forgive me?
The question shouldn't be that. It should be whether it was the right thing to do, to try and take Pettigrew down rather than let the blue loop play out, to make sure Voldemort fell for good in the end. Draco should probably just replicate what had worked the first time. Except he didn't want to play out the part where Severus died, or Vince either. And honestly, it would crush Ron if Fred died. Not to mention, he didn't want to let Death Eaters into Hogwarts again. And he was also the reason Severus had to kill Dumbledore...
The years to come hung there in the air of the tomb-like house, daggers poised to strike in the dark at both their undefended throats.
"Malfoy," Black said with a heavy sigh, "I know I haven't given you any reason to trust me. Only not to, and I don't know why you even believe me- but you do, and no one else does. I've tried to get to Peter in Hogwarts and it isn't working, I don't have anywhere else to turn-"
"What about Remus Lupin?" Draco heard himself say. "You don't think he'd believe you?" Black looked gobsmacked. "You know he's the Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher, right? And he told Harry he was friends with his father..."
"I saw him at the match," Black said slowly, "In the Gryffindor section. But I thought he was just there to watch Harry. Like me." There it was on his face again, that embarrassing paternal fondness. "Remus- he won't believe me without proof, it looks too bad for me, he'd never believe I changed the Secret Keeper and didn't tell him. I have to show him Peter to make him believe. I want so bad to prove to him it wasn't me to turn on James and Lily, you don't know what I'd give to have him know it wasn't me- I could almost die happy, if I only knew he knew I didn't betray them- didn't betray him-"
This was colossally uninteresting. "So you expect me to what, turn rat thief for you? If Pettigrew's been sitting tight this long, he's not dangerous, unless idiots interfere. What's so special about you that I shouldn't just let the Dementors suck your soul out and save everyone the trouble? How could you ever deserve for me to show you the pity to-"
Explosions.
Both Draco and Black drew their wands, pointing them at the same moment.
But the light filtering in from the window was more colorful than bombs, more brilliant than ever over the Manor. Because, after all, they were in Islington.
"Oh," Draco said, putting away his wand, and Black did the same, a few long moments later. "Happy New Year, dearest uncle. Don't suppose they have fireworks in Azkaban for that. Another thing that place and Malfoy Manor have in common."
"Sorry," Black said, taking the blame even though they'd both drawn. He dropped his wand on his lap and raked both hands through his wild hair like he was going mad. "I didn't think of- I'm not civilized, I don't know how to be around people anymore, of course I could never convince Remus-"
"Dementors aren't the most enthralling conversationalists," Draco drawled, making it a joke. But he felt a stab of some of the most unwanted affinity he had ever known, right in his chest, as the booming went on outside like London Bridge was falling down. He wished he didn't know personally, what Azkaban did to your ability to function socially. To function at all. "One can begrudge you a paucity of social graces, given your... peculiar circumstances."
He realized he sounded like Severus, whom Black had already seemed in danger of recognizing in Draco. Though if Black didn't even know his old school friend was teaching at Hogwarts this year, Draco doubted he could guess Severus was Draco's godfather. Maybe he thought Severus had just been at the match to watch as well.
"You really are out of touch, aren't you? What a boon to you I would be. Not just for access, but for everything I know about Hogwarts. I could save you quite easily, couldn't I, Uncle Sirius? It's a pity you had to try and murder me-"
That you had to try and murder Severus.
"I took it easy on you," Black said, glaring, "Because you're a child."
Draco leaned back with false insouciance, while the sound of fireworks went on and on, like the voice of an outside world that could not be appeased. "Go on telling yourself that," he drawled. "Though it might help with the begging that you ought to have already launched upon for my help, to acknowledge that if it weren't for your status as an Animagus- unregistered, I may stress, so it wasn't my fault I wasn't prepared- that I had you beaten..."
"Oh, I won't deny," Black said, "You're almost as impressive, Draco Malfoy, as you are annoying. I won't beg for your help, it wouldn't do any good. If you help me, it won't be for my sake, it will be for Harry Potter's. You can say you're not his friend, but I saw the way you reacted when he fell. You didn't even care you'd caught the Snitch. I saw you talking to that girl- Granger, you called her? I saw how you stood there in the rain, like you wanted to help him but you didn't know how. I'm his godfather, Malfoy, and you were right, I'm the only family he has left. Help me clear my name and I can be his family. There's nothing I wouldn't do for that boy."
"Don't act like he's your son," Draco said, uncomfortable at the intensity of Black's desperation, pleading despite saying he wouldn't beg. Severus might as well have been there in the room with him, for the way Draco felt that dark stare on him too, condemning him for yet another betrayal to even consider this. "You don't even know Harry Potter."
"I want to, though," Black said, grabbing Draco's arm. Even after Draco wrenched back from his touch, Black didn't stop his awful plea. "I want to know everything about him. I want to be there for him. If I hadn't been so stupid- if I hadn't let them talk me into switching it to Peter, if I had just been the Secret Keeper, I never would have turned on that family. If I weren't such a fool, Harry wouldn't have been left alone. I want those years back, Malfoy, and I can't have them. But we can have what's left. I want to know who my godson is. I want to love him the way he deserves."
"You're saying," Draco said, hearing his voice come out despicably weak, "That you want a second chance at life. To turn back time and rewrite all your mistakes. You can't bring your friend back from the dead, though, Black. You can't change the past. Dead is dead. James Potter is gone."
And good riddance, too. You and Lupin and Wormtail should have followed for what you did to Severus-
"No one gets a second chance like that. You'll never be anything but a traitor and a failure-"
"Not unless you help me, Malfoy," Black said quietly. "Not unless you help me."