Be Careful
34: When You Make Your Move
By Anne B. Walsh
"So you got them to start holding DA meetings again, you stopped Ginny going mad from the Cruciatus, and the rest of the school still thinks you're the same stuck-up git you've always been," said Harry, ticking off points on his fingers. "I'd call that a successful week."
"Week and a bit," Draco corrected, scooting backwards to get the most out of his patch of sun. It was Saturday afternoon, and in a few minutes he'd be off to his first Animagus session, but for now he was lazing about with his friends, and he wanted to enjoy it to the fullest. "How about Potter and company?"
"Oh, they're hopeless," said Hermione, her tone rich with scorn. "Sitting around that little tent all day talking in circles. I wish I knew when they were going to get a move on. And she says, the other me, that she doesn't dare do anything for Ron's arm because she might make him worse—with that and how much trouble they're having finding food, he'll be so weak pretty soon that the Horcrux will be able to take him over, at least partly, and then what are they going to do?"
"You calling me weak?" said Ron, tweaking one of his wife's curls where she lay with her head pillowed on his hip. "And you can't say it's just the other me, because we're a lot alike, more than you or Harry, so if you're talking about one of us, you're probably talking about the other too."
Hermione sighed. "What I'm saying is, you're far and away the biggest of us," she said, flicking Ron's hand away. "You need the most to eat, and you like it the best. Then, too, he lost a lot of blood when he got splinched, and he's not going to get it back any time soon with the way they're living. So physically, not morally, he's weak at this moment in time—it may bleed over into morally, it's hard to be brave when you're hungry and hurt, but just now it's physical. It's like he's missed two questions before the test even started."
"I'd’ve said he was down two goals before the whistle blew." Ron returned to his investigation of how far a brown curl could be stretched before it lost its shape. "So would he, probably."
"It's interesting to think about," said Luna, curled up against Ray's chest and running her fingers up and down the carpet as if it were a piano keyboard. "How much are we like our counterparts, and how much are we different—and why? Is it because of our parents, or our upbringing, or both?"
"I'd tend to think both," said Neville, who was carefully replaiting one of Meghan's braids. "When you're talking about people, you have to use the opposite of the usual rule. The most complicated answer is the true one."
Draco sat up. "I bet I can prove that," he said, looking around the group. "With four examples. One—" He pointed to Ron. "Two—" Harry. "Three—" Hermione. "And four." Himself and Ray. "One for each way it can be the same or different."
The group murmured confusion for a moment, until Ginny shook her hair back with a chuckle. "It's not that hard," she said, favoring Draco with an open grin that reminded him forcibly of the wicked look which, a year and a half previously, had been the last thing he'd seen before a horde of bat-bogeys descended. "Ron and I are a lot like the others of us—I'd imagine Fred and George are too, and the older ones—because we have the same parents in both worlds, and both sets of us grew up magic at the Burrow. Right?"
"Right." Draco waved a hand at Harry. "Same parents, different upbringing—Potter in my world grew up with a Muggle aunt and uncle and cousin, and you've got your parents still, and a load of brothers and sisters…"
"And there are times I'd swap them all for a nice quiet cupboard," Harry put in. "But I see what you mean. One part the same, one part changed, still adds up to more alike than different."
Draco nodded. "That goes for Hermione too, but the parts are the other way around. I can't be sure, I've never met them," he said to the drowsy girl resting against Ron, "but I think your grandparents here are your parents there."
"So there's a whole half of me that she doesn't have?" Hermione murmured. "No wonder she always looks so frantic."
"But your argument doesn't hold up there," Meghan objected. "That other Hermione grew up Muggle, not magic, and she was an only child."
"Only and oldest are a lot alike," Ray jumped in before Draco could answer. "And I think his point is that other-Hermione had a good home, she was happy there, her parents loved her and she loved them back. That's what matters, and what makes them so much the same."
"Well, that and the half they share." Draco spread his hands grandly. "And finally, the main event—the two counterparts no one would ever expect, who have absolutely nothing in common except the house they were born in—"
"No, we share blood," Ray objected. "It's pretty far back, but it's there. The Manor accepts you."
"Yeah, well, maybe it shouldn't." Draco turned around, ostensibly to tilt his face into the sun, really so no one would see what he was feeling. "I'm descended from your ‘weird cousin’, remember? The one who tried to murder your however-many-greats-grandfather?"
"He didn't succeed," Luna pointed out in her most rational tone. "Not here. And you can't be responsible for what someone did a few hundred years ago. You have to live your life, not his. Besides, we like you, no matter whose blood you have."
Draco snorted a reluctant laugh and turned back to face the group. "I should stop wallowing, shouldn't I?"
"You should," said Harry, flopping over on his stomach. "But even if you don't, we love you anyway."
"Gah!" Draco sprang up and backed away in mock horror. "Stay away from me, Potter! I have a wand, and I know how to use it!" He glanced at his left wrist while his friends laughed. "And I'm going to be late. See you after class."
"Bye," called several voices after him as he took off at a jog.
At least now I know what I'm supposed to be learning how to turn into…
He'd been rereading The Jungle Books in between classes at his own Hogwarts the day before and had turned idly to "Rikki-Tikki-Tavi". The facing page of the opening of the tale bore a glorious illustration, featuring the mongoose protagonist standing up on his hind legs, turning his head back and forth to take in the whole of the garden, then scuttling into the nearby bungalow and out again before the sequence repeated.
Draco's only question had been how he'd missed seeing the picture for three full weeks.
Rikki moves just like the animal the Manor, Malfoy Manor, said was me, and an animal that's me is my Animagus form, of course. Not too bad a one, either. Long and thin like a ferret, but known for killing snakes. Draco ran his tongue over his teeth, imagining them sharp as knives and ready to pierce scales. Too bad mongoose bite isn't one of the ways you can kill Horcruxes!
His feet speeded up their pace, carrying him faster and faster into his future.
I'll kill Horcruxes myself if I have to, but I'd much rather set it up and let Potter do it. Meanwhile, I can keep dancing my little dance, distracting the Dark Lord. Then, when he's not expecting it, wham. Draco flashed a brief, savage grin at a passing third year, who jumped back, startled. Knife in the back, just like Lucius always taught me. Or maybe I should say teeth above the hood…
He adopted a little boy's saccharine tones inside his mind. Look, Daddy, I'm all grown up, and haven't I learned my lessons well? Will you be proud of me now?
Draco's low laughter filled the halls behind him as he continued on his way.
Elsewhere in the castle, a door creaked. One bright hazel eye peered around it and surveyed the room beyond. Empty, except for the tall boxlike structure to one side with the bowl perched atop it—the TVP, unattended at this hour.
Abby slid through the small crack between door and jamb, then pulled the door shut behind her. "I can't use you like Ray and Neenie do," she said to the magical artifact, walking over to it to get a closer look. "Or Harry and the others. I don't have a counterpart in the other world, so it wouldn't work for me. Meghan tried, and it didn't give her a picture at all." She sighed, thinking of all the fun people the other world was missing.
But if I can't use it that way, I might be able to use it another.
Abby rapped the podium with her wand. "Box, please," she said in the brisk-yet-polite tone she used with house-elves and her younger siblings and cousins. A cubic section slid out of the podium, its top at her knee level, and she smiled. "Thank you!" Climbing nimbly onto it, she surveyed her new kingdom.
Hand goes there. Picture comes here. It looks simple enough.
Tucking her wand away, Abby swallowed. "I'm not sure I want to do this," she admitted aloud. "Draco's world is very dark, especially right now. I'll See a lot of things that will hurt me, and I won't be able to fix any of them."
But that wasn't precisely true. Anything Draco could reach to fix, without putting himself in harm's way, Abby was sure he would, once she told him about it. And even the things he couldn't fix, he might be able to make better.
There will still be a lot of hurting for me to See. A lot of people hurting other people on purpose, and liking it. She shuddered, hugging her arms tight around her middle. And Mother said if I Saw too much that was bad now while I was young, I might forget how to see the good that might happen, and that would be worse than if I couldn't See at all…
But with Draco fighting for the Light, and the other Harry and Ron and Hermione and Neville and Ginny and Luna, there was really no way the Dark could win, Abby reminded herself. There would be hurting and pain and crying, but in the end, good would win, because that was the way it always was.
Bad can win for a little while, or even a big while, but life is a good thing, so as long as people are alive, good always wins in the end. Abby smiled a little. We just can't always see when the end is.
Her mind made up, she pressed her hand to the outline, which shrank until the line seemed to have been drawn around the delicate fingers that encompassed it now.
Pictures flickered into life in the depths of the bowl. Eagerly, Abby leaned forward to watch.
Draco was just mastering the peculiar turn-and-flick motion needed for his first Animagus spell when he heard the cry. It began as a rising shriek like a banshee's scream, then turned into a child's heartbroken wail, and in that instant he placed a name to it.
Abby.
He was on his feet and out the door before Professor McGonagall had more than looked up, running flat-out towards the room on the fourth floor where he somehow knew he would find her. Ray and Hermione pounded up from the opposite direction, Moony was a few steps behind them, but it was Draco who wrenched the door open and darted inside in time to catch Abby as she fell limply from her perch. Her eyes flickered open as their skin brushed together, and she stared uncomprehending for a moment before recognizing him.
"Draco," she gasped, reaching out blindly. Draco freed a hand and grasped hers, holding it as tightly as he dared. "Draco, don't move, don't move! You have to promise, you have to swear you won't move!"
Draco froze in place, his eyes scanning the room. What does she see—or See?
"Abby," Moony said calmly, going to one knee to address his daughter. "Is this for now, or for another time?"
"Another time." Abby's hand tightened around Draco's. "The last day. The last minute. You have to promise, Draco. Promise you won't move." Her voice lost a little of its terrified quality and became demanding. "Promise right now, or I won't tell you what else you need to know."
Moony quirked an eyebrow at Draco, who had to stifle a laugh. "I promise," he said, shifting Abby's weight on his arm. "I won't move."
"Good." Abby let out a sigh and seemed to become twice as heavy. "Saint Luke's Day," she murmured, her eyes drifting shut. "Christmas Eve. Good Friday, and Walpurgisnacht…"
"What?" said the four adults in the room at the same time.
Abby opened one eye and smiled sweetly. "Neenie wanted to know when they'd get a move on," she said with a yawn. "That's when. Those days." Another yawn, and she nestled her face into the crook of Draco's elbow. "When I wake up, maybe I'll remember… what they do… then…"
The last word trailed off into silence.
Draco met Ray's eyes first, then Hermione's. The same wild anticipation lurked in both of them that Draco could feel rising in his own chest.
We have dates. We know when they'll move. And if we can just get a good enough look at where they are the day before, I can Apparate there out of Hogsmeade—I'm sure I can get permission to go out even if it's not a weekend, being Draco flipping Malfoy might as well work in my favor for once—and leave what we know where they'll find it…
The Headmaster did say he expected the war—pardon me, the ‘present unpleasantness’—to be over by the end of this school year. Draco grinned, hoisting Abby into his arms. Let's see if we can't oblige him.