Disclaimer: This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by JK Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoast Books, and Warner Bros., Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.

"Lost Bastion" (5/?)
by Christine Anderson
aka Lilly Malfoy

Chapter 5: Prisoners And Prodigals

With a few sweeps of their wands, Sirius and the others had converted one of the smaller dungeon classrooms into a cell, complete with barred door. They warded it with anti-escape charms, and everyone pretended not to notice when Moody placed hexes on the door.

After one last going-over, Lupin dumped the still unconscious Peter Pettigrew inside and slammed the door behind him.

"The state he's going to be in when he wakes up," Lupin said, "we could probably keep him safely enough in any room with a lock. But I don't trust him."

"Peter's too much of a coward to really try to escape from us," Sirius said. "Probably. I'll agree to not taking any chances, though- Speaking of which...?"

"I'm getting good at this," said Hermione, who had just finished a spell of her own. "He won't be turning into Animagius form for a while, maybe not ever. The book Professor Snape finally gave me when I pestered him about it wasn't really all that specific."

"I wonder why he had something like that laying around," Sirius said, but he said it a little less darkly than he would have even a few weeks ago. Like it or not, things had changed- Or perhaps it was simply that he had bigger problems than a schoolboy rivalry that seemed to belong to another lifetime.

"Speaking of Snape, did any of you think to tell him we'd be putting that down here?" Moody asked, with a gesture at Pettigrew.

"We can tell him later," Lupin said. "He seemed a bit preoccupied when we left."

"Noticed that, did you?" Moody said.

"Oh, bugger off, Alastor," Lupin said, not unkindly. "Anyway, it's not like we had anywhere else we could realistically put him. And I can't deny that the idea of Peter being down here in the cold and the damp, in Snape's territory, appeals to me."

"Yeah, and in between classes, the Slytherins can come down here and poke at our old pal Wormtail through the bars," Sirius replied.

"They'd probably do just that if you suggested it to them," Hermione said. "But that's if we ever get any Slytherins back."

That shut them up, as it might have been intended to. Draco Malfoy and the others still had a day, but no one was really expecting them to show. And of all the absences amongst the Slytherin students, everyone remaining at Hogwarts was fairly certain that Draco's would bother Snape the most.

Not that he'd ever admit it. Not that they'd ever admit they knew the truth anyway. It was almost an unspoken pact, the kind of agreement they'd never have reached if they'd had to talk it out or write it down, but yet it was there, and all of them knew it.

"Hell." Moody said it for all of them.

"Nothing we can do," Lupin said, "except talk to Minerva and Snape, maybe see about getting Peter a cellmate or two."

"Or send Lucius some company in hell," Sirius replied.

The four of them traded looks. Those things, at least, they could manage. Those troubles, they could somehow fight. And perhaps, if they worked hard enough at it, and let that work carry them away from the school, none of them would have to be there to see the stricken expression cross Severus Snape's face when at last he realized that his star pupil and protégé wasn't coming back to them.

---

Later that night, the dark clouds that had been hanging about all day gathered, and it began to rain. Slowly at first, but within the hour it had begun to fall in sheets.

Lightening cut across the sky, turning the clouds a violent shade of purple. Thunder rumbled in the distance, gradually getting closer.

Draco Malfoy observed the storm from his window with a curious detachment.

It had been several hours since he had heard his mother scream in the library. Narcissa had probably expected her son to come running at once to see what was the matter, but he did not. And so she came to him, slowly climbing the stairs to his room. She sat on the edge of the bed and told Draco what he already knew- his father was dead.

He'd felt it when it had happened; a sudden gust of air through the room though it was sealed tight, then the untying of the knot of chilled anger and hate that had been Lucius Malfoy's presence within the house. Not a fading as if he had left and was moving away from the manor, but as if he were suddenly- gone.

Now there was only the black despair and grief that was Narcissa, and the usual gloomy feeling of his father's tools and projects- things Draco had once thought quite interesting, but that lost some of their appeal upon very close examination.

In his hands was a letter, delivered by owl, from Crabbe and Goyle. Draco supposed they'd had to put their heads together in order to write it, as one of them alone couldn't have done it. Their letter said that they would not be returning to Hogwarts- what a surprise that was -and asking if they couldn't drop by soon, since of course Draco wouldn't be there either.

Draco, though, felt an unexpected need to get out of the house, and a longing for Hogwarts in all its comfortable familiarity, the depth of which surprised him.

His mother had told him Professor Snape had been there earlier that evening, that very likely Professor Snape had killed his father. Draco supposed he should have been angry about this, but couldn't find any such feelings within him. It seemed as if it would take far too much energy to call them up.

And it was almost as if, really, some part of him understood that it had probably needed to be done, and that sooner or later someone was going to get 'round to it. At least it hadn't been the Gryffindors- though Draco supposed they must have been far more interested in Lucius' houseguest, Peter Pettigrew.

He tapped the letter against his palm and sighed, not knowing how to answer it. He supposed that Crabbe and Goyle had come to think of themselves as his friends, but Draco knew that they really weren't. They followed him because their fathers followed his; and with Lucius's death, who knew what would ever come of that? But the boys had little in common. They did not share secrets or dreams, they did not hold long conversations on any topic- True, Draco could tell them anything he wanted, and they would be too afraid of what might happen to them to ever tell his secrets or betray his confidences, but it was not the same as having real friends, people who understood him and cared for him, and really, truly listened to him.

For all that he was parentless and altogether frustrating, Draco found it very hard not to be envious of Harry Potter.

He thought of Potter and his Gryffindor friends, how close they were, and how they were always getting into interesting scrapes together. When Draco got detention at school, he usually got it by himself, as Crabbe and Goyle were far too clumsy and not nearly clever enough to risk bringing along. Aside from which was the fact that, again, their conversational skills were not particularly inspiring. They might laugh at his cutting remarks, but they would never understand what about them was supposed to be funny.

Draco's owl hooted, reminding him of the letter that still needed a response. He went to his desk and took up quill and parchment, biting the end of the quill as he thought over, once again, what to say. At last he began the letter without a greeting or preamble.

My father's dead. As the only thing keeping you two hanging around me was the fact your fathers were scared of him, this changes things. Since you're not going back to school, I suppose you'll be working with your parents now, learning all about the Dark Arts.
Do you two ever get tired of not being able to think for yourselves? No, I guess you don't, or you wouldn't have followed me around the way your fathers did mine. I don't think I can explain, but that's probably alright, as you wouldn't understand anyway. Try not to get yourselves killed in some stupid fashion; it would be very embarrassing.
Tell the Death Eaters hello for me, but don't bother to save me a seat at the table, as I won't be back.

It's been...charming.
Draco

He read it over, nodded to himself- it wasn't quite what he wanted to say, but it was as much of the truth as Draco felt he could really put to paper and send- and rolled the parchment. Draco placed it in a leather tube he tied to the owl's leg, so that it wouldn't get wet. Then he let the owl out through the window. She bit at his hand, clearly irritated, before vanishing into the storm.

His school trunk already mostly packed, Draco looked about his room slowly, taking stock of his possessions. Most of his things didn't really matter much, and it didn't take him long to pack the few that did along with the rest of his school things. That done, he fetched his Nimbus Two Thousand and One from its place under his bed and headed downstairs, the broomstick under one arm, lugging the trunk behind him. It hit each step with a loud thud, which was mostly muffled by the continued crashes of thunder.

And his mother, last he'd looked, had been having hysterics in her bedroom and was thus not likely to notice the sounds anyway.

Draco fetched his rain cloak from the closet by the door, threw the hood up, and gathered his things. What with trying not to drop the broomstick and shoving the trunk out onto the porch, he really didn't have time for last looks back or attacks of nostalgia.

It was a slow and slightly awkward trip down the road towards town, as the trunk- lightened though it was by means of a wave of Draco's wand- was still bulky and overbalanced, and kept threatening to fall off the back of the broomstick into the mud. Dodging the trap spells and other dangers set along the road proved to be more difficult than he'd thought, as well, and there was one rather close call with the quicksand which Draco didn't particularly want to dwell upon. But at last he made it to the paved road, and from there the going was easier. There were no more traps here, of course, and so he sped up.

Getting to London would be easy. Reaching Diagon Alley or Platform Nine and Three Quarters without attracting the notice of passing Muggles, that would be hard.

Fortunately, he wasn't planning to fly the whole way by broomstick.

In the village below Malfoy manor lived an old witch, who was hard of hearing. It was a simple matter to slip through the back door of her house, which was never locked, and appropriate a handful of Floo powder. "The Three Broomsticks," he said in a clear voice, throwing the powder into the fire with one hand and kicking his trunk forward with the other. But to his horror, the fire did not turn green.

Draco swore, grabbing another handful of Floo powder. He decided to try Hogsmeade Station, where he believed he had once seen smoke coming from a chimney.

His memory having proved accurate, Draco shoved the trunk through the now cheerily emerald flames and stepped through himself.

Several moments later he stepped out into an empty office, tugging the trunk and broomstick along with him.

It was still raining when Draco stepped out onto the streets of Hogsmeade; the storm seemed to have followed him north, though the rain was lighter here, and the winds calmer.

Draco threw his hood back up over his head and trudged out onto the path towards Hogwarts, lugging his trunk behind him.

Out of the corner of his eye he thought he saw light; Draco turned, to find the windows of The Three Broomsticks glowing. He dropped his trunk with a heavy thud.

"Did you hear that?" he heard a voice growl. It sounded rather like Alastor Moody.

"I didn't hear anything except the rubbish bins outside falling over, Alastor," another voice replied. "You can check it out if you'd like, but please don't hex anything."

Draco's heart had begun to pound. What would Moody think if he found him out here, a Slytherin, sneaking back in the cold and the dark like this? With a shake of his head Draco took up the weight of his trunk again, and trudged on towards the castle.

---

They were too tired to Apparate, and so they walked. Waiting until Lupin and Moody showed up to take over the watch, Snape and McGonagall gathered their cloaks and prepared to go out into the rain.

The two wizards approached the Three Broomsticks, jogging to get out of the rain. Lupin nodded and gave them a little wave; Moody just grunted a greeting.

"Severus, Minerva," Lupin said as they stepped inside.

"Hello, Remus. Is Peter-?" Minerva asked.

"He's settling in," Lupin said.

Moody laughed. "I don't think he's too comfortable, though."

"Pity," said Snape, not sounding particularly sympathetic.

"Yep, it is that," Lupin said in a quite similar tone. "Well, good night."

Minerva threw her cloak over her shoulders. "Good night." But as Snape went to guide her towards the door, she turned back, looked over her shoulder and Snape's arm that had moved so naturally to her back- "Remus."

"Hmm?"

"He's still in one piece, isn't he?"

"What-? Oh, yes, of course. He's just cold and miserable, that's all."

"Good."

"Go on, now," Moody said gruffly. "Go home."

Minerva nodded. "Good night Alastor, Remus." She stepped outside, and Snape, after giving both men a long, searching look, followed her.

---

"Huh," said Lupin, as they headed down into the basement. "I'm almost getting the feeling he doesn't trust us."

Moody shrugged. "Don't take it personally, Lupin. Boy's having a rough night of it. If Voldemort figured him for our eyes-"

Lupin shuddered.

"Just so. And, whatever Malfoy might've done to him- and knowing Lucius, it could have been a whole lot- whatever he did, man was his friend, and that weighs on a fellow, know what I mean?"

Lupin nodded. "Never thought I'd say this, Alastor, but I wish Peter had half the sympathy of a Slytherin who murdered his friend. And I know he never will."

"Rough sometimes, isn't it?" Moody asked. "Hell, that's life."

"I know," Lupin said, and sighed. "I know."

---

Snape and McGonagall walked along the streets of Hogsmeade, heads bent against the rain, making their way towards Hogwarts. They walked under the rain in silence; saying nothing, not needing to say anything.

They went their separate ways in the school's back halls, after a brief embrace.

"If you need me-" He sighed, wrung a bit of water out of his cloak.

"I'll be alright. But thank you." Minerva brushed a strand of wet hair back from his face. "Go get some sleep, if you can."

He smiled a bit. "I'll try. Good night, Min."

"Good night, Severus."

---

Hermione, unable to sleep after she'd come upstairs from getting Pettigrew situated in the dungeons, paced the entrance hall. She kept glancing over her shoulder as if she expected to see something or someone there, but there was nothing. Not even the ghosts, or Peeves the school poltergeist. And so Hermione continued to pace.

It's almost, she thought, as if I'm here waiting for something. But what?

As she paused in her pacing to consider that, Hermione listened to the sound of the rain coming down. From that sound she isolated another as it began; a tapping at the castle's door.

She drew her wand as she went to answer it, and held it at the ready. Hermione opened the door just a crack. "Yes, what-? Malfoy?"

He'd tried to keep himself clean and dry, she saw, but on a night like this it was nearly impossible, unless one could Apparate. Rain had plastered locks of hair across his forehead, and mud dripped from his cloak. The trunk beside him on the top step had been through a rough spot, and a fairly recent one if Hermione were any judge.

Malfoy gave her a tired smile. "'Evening, Granger." He paused. "Well, actually, I think it's almost morning. I've lost track of time, and my watch stopped somewhere along the way."

She gaped at him for a moment, then pulled wide the door. "Come in before you freeze to death."

Malfoy nodded and turned to tug at his trunk. Hermione flicked her wand, though, and the trunk sailed smoothly into the entrance hall. Malfoy followed, almost grinning now.

"Thanks," he said.

"I never thought I'd say this, Malfoy, but I'm glad to see you," Hermione said. She threw her arms around him and hugged him.

"Ugh- What's the matter with you, Granger? I know things have been a little crazy, but have you finally cracked?"

She pulled away and swung her fist at him. "And here I thought you'd changed. Silly me."

Malfoy scowled at her, and ducked the blow- which couldn't have been all that serious, as she'd been able to hit him the last time she had really wanted to. "I have changed, you stupid git. You can't know-" His expression was suddenly closed, his grey eyes dark as the storm beyond the door. Hermione sensed in that expression depths of hurt, of sadness, that she would probably never know anything of.

"Well," Hermione said. "Professor Snape will be glad to see you, at least. He'll never admit it, but I think he was afraid you weren't coming back."

"I didn't think I was," Malfoy said as they began to walk towards the staircase, his trunk trailing along behind. "Snape- is he here?"

"He's been in and out today," Hermione said, feeling uncomfortable. If he didn't already know, was it her place to tell him? And, even if it was, could she bring herself to do it?

Apparently she looked as uncomfortable as she felt, because Malfoy gave her a sardonic look. "I know already," Malfoy said. "Believe me, my house feels a good bit different with my father gone."

"I can't believe you're taking this so calmly," Hermione said.

"Probably it'll sink in later," Malfoy said. "Right now I'm just too tired to give it much thought. Can I see Snape, do you suppose?"

"Of course," Hermione said. "I think he's in the Slytherin common room. You'd know the way better than me."

"What, you don't want to come?" Malfoy asked dryly.

"It's not personal," Hermione said. "Well, actually...maybe it is in a way. It's just that Snape's- He's been more worried about you than I think he wants to admit, certainly more worried than he'd want anyone else to know. So it's probably better if I don't witness-"

"Right," Malfoy said. "Listen, Granger- The Slytherins. Am I the only one?"

"Not quite, believe it or not. There are others who came back, or who have said they'll be here tomorrow. Not many, but..." She shrugged. "More than we hoped for. Pansy Parkinson is one of them."

"Thanks, Granger."

"Sure."

Malfoy gave her a small smile. "Well... I'll see you around."

"Right," Hermione said. But she was speaking to the air, and perhaps the ghosts of Hogwarts. Malfoy had headed down a staircase, his trunk floating behind him still.

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