"Just eat, Ronald," said Luna, ever calm despite the cast on her wand arm. "There'll be plenty of fight left after breakfast. Your tummy's rumbling." Ron, still bleeding from a gash on his scalp dutifully picked up the spoon and shoveled in porridge as fast as he could. Truth be told, he was starving, but none of his brothers had come in for breakfast, and eating seemed, well, wimpy.
Luna saw the guilty look in his eye as she awkwardly buttered herself a roll. "Don't be fooled. Fred hauls out a bag of scones every time he brings in someone wounded. And Bill keeps grabbing carrots and celery, although all he seems to do is sniff them."
Presently Charlie walked into the Great Hall, hauling Bill and Remus Lupin by the arms. "I could eat dragon chow!" he announced, yanking over a plate of ham and gobbling slice after slice. "Ron, quit playing the hero and get someone to Consutum your head. And help me mind these two, will you? Apparently losing your lycanthropy turns your brain to mush."
"That's not fair!" said Lupin. But he immediately lost his train of thought and began twiddling Luna's hair.
"They're just in withdrawal," chided Hermione, joining the group. "They've lost a lot of pent-up aggression. It'll take a few days to be back to normal." She tossed a book down on the table to emphasize her point: a very dusty, small tome titled Unmakyng of Werebeests. "Did you know vampires were classified as were-bats until this century? In other words, wizards infected with chiroptery. But now the Ministry considers them magical beasts!" Her eyes blazed.
"One war at a time, Hermione," said Ron.
She screwed up her face impatiently, but apparently saw the wisdom in that statement and munched, brows furrowed, on a piece of toast. "Honestly, I intend to have a long chat with your father once things--" Her voice cut off with a sharp breath.
"What?" said a chorus of voices, following her stunned gaze to the Marauder's Map, where it lay half open on the table. Using the crust of her toast as a pointer, she indicated the cause of her concern. The name "Lucius Malfoy" skittered under a fold of the map, moving quickly through the passage behind the boys' bathroom on the sixth floor.
"The Horcruxes," said Remus, suddenly coherent. He charged out of the Great Hall, followed closely by the rest of group.
Lupin outpaced everyone on the marble stairs. Ron, Hermione, and Luna were all proficient climbers, having hiked to their respective towers many times over the years, but Lupin was an entire level ahead of them by the third floor. Hermione fell even further behind, trying to maneuver the map as she climbed. "Seventh floor!" she wheezed from a landing.
Ron rounded the next twist in the stairs, only to come screeching to a halt. "We're cut off!" he bellowed down the staircase, lest any more take the corner at full speed. "Stairs have swiveled," he panted. "We need another way, Hermione!"
Lupin ran on, not caring that he'd lost the others. As he neared the seventh floor, there was no sign of Malfoy or, indeed, any other living being. He shouted out to the Fat Lady from the top of the marble stairs. "Sirius! Where?"
She peeked out from her hiding place behind her frame. "The Come and Go room!" she yelped. Lupin barreled down the proper corridor without slowing.
He stopped short before the last turn to the Room, knowing that Malfoy was most likely stuck outside the entrance and would undoubtedly Stun him if he plowed on into the corridor. Jamming his back against the wall, he poked just his nose around the corner, shouting, "Lucius!"
Malfoy was there, all right. A bolt of red light shot past his face, so close it singed his mustache. He could hear the other wizard scrambling about the corridor, undoubtedly taking cover. He risked a peek around the corner, but Lucius was in peak form. Lupin barely dodged the spell.
"Stand down, Lucius!" he shouted, the side of his face pressed against the cool stone. "You'll never get in."
"I think not," Malfoy said breathlessly. Lupin reckoned he'd probably climbed all the way from the dungeons.
"I captured your wife," Lupin called, trying a new tack. He sensed the other wizard recoiling, but Malfoy recovered immediately and resumed whatever incantation he was muttering. "She surrendered," he added, trying to think of his next ploy. He heard something that remarkably resembled a sigh of relief.
Lupin risked another peek down the corridor, and was promptly struck by an Expelliarmus. Well, at least it wasn't an 'AK', he thought with relief, waving his stinging hand while his wand skittered over the flagstones. "You can't hope to get out of here with them," he shouted. "The whole castle knows you're here. We're warded against Portkeys."
"Lupin, if you'd be so kind, would you either shut up, or duel with me like a man? This conversation is tiresome!"
Lupin shook his head, smirking. "Always the gentleman," he muttered. A new thought struck him. "He won't help you, you know. He's renounced the Dark."
"Do go on," Malfoy snarled sarcastically.
"It's true. His Dark Mark was burned from his throat. He won't--"
"Draco?" gasped Malfoy. Lupin's eyes widened in comprehension. Malfoy didn't know his son was behind that wall.
"That's right. Draco's in there, with Sirius Black. They're destroying the Horcruxes. When your master gets wind of that betrayal, the Malfoy name will be a death warrant."
"Horcruxes?" Malfoy squeaked, his cockiness evaporating.
"Horcruxes," Lupin affirmed. "All of them. They'll all be destroyed as of today. We're making him mortal again, Lucius." He could almost hear the gears whirling in the Death Eater's mind.
"I knew the objects in the photograph were valuable, but I..." Malfoy said, barely loud enough for Lupin to hear. He paused, then resumed speaking in very measured tones. "I'm ordered to bind Potter, then summon his Lordship. If what you say is true, then if Potter's binds were to slip..."
"Harry's not here. Harry's in Tunguska." Lupin bit his tongue as soon as he said it. Malfoy may have hinted at treachery, but it could easily be a trap. All this Slytherin gamesmanship was an affront to his blunt Gryffindor sensibilities. "It might end today, Lucius," he said simply, hopefully. "Your son will be part of the blow. Think, man. Think."
Malfoy was already speaking under his breath. Lupin strained to hear what he was saying. "... my son, I need to see my son, I need to see my son." He bolted around the corner and charged at full tilt toward the door, jamming his wand into the crack to keep it from closing. His wand cracked, but held together long enough for him to get a fingertip between the door and its post. One fierce pry, and he was in the Room of Requirement.
The room was barely lit with a purple gloom that made everything white glow like ghosts. Malfoy was already behind his son, who knelt before... was that the Pensieve? No time for mysteries, though; Sirius was also on his knees, an arc of magic like violet lightning spanning from his wand to the gold cup. His teeth were clenched, also glowing, as though his very skeleton was embattled with the Horcrux.
Remus dashed to his aid, though he had no idea what spell this was or how to augment it. He slammed into his friends' back, willing his magic to pass from his body to Sirius's. Nothing happened, not that he expected anything, really. Dark magic was entirely outside his repertoire.
But not Malfoy's. Draco's eyes were glowing violet, but the minute his father's hand gripped his forehead, they were restored almost to normal. Malfoy pointed his own wand in parallel with his son's and uttered a spell in a language unknown to Lupin, a harsh, glottal tongue.
The locket of Salazar Slytherin melted into a puddle of slag, releasing a puff of sickly green steam that faded and disappeared.
The Malfoys slumped into a loose, blond heap on the floor. Sirius seemed locked in time and space with the golden cup (and where was the red book? some quiet part of Lupin's mind wondered), but stalemate was not an option. Lupin glared angrily at his wand, the center bent at a useless angle, then at Malfoy's. He stretched out his arm for it, but soon gave up the attempt. He couldn't hope to duplicate the spell Malfoy cast, and a failed attempt might make things worse. Wake up! Wake up! he urged in vain.
The lacquer of the wand that was once James Potter's began to crackle and tiny wisps of smoke escaped from it. Lupin recalled Dumbledore's blackened, withered hand and suddenly had a very vivid image of what lay in store for Sirius. He scanned the Malfoys desperately, but they showed no sign of consciousness.
Light defeats darkness. Love defeats hate. All fine in theory, but the situation called for a heaping dose of both, and not in an abstract sense. Lupin gripped his oldest friend more tightly, placing his hand over Sirius's heart. He had an inspiration.
"For Regulus," he murmured beside Sirius's ear.
Harry Potter and the Heirs of Slytherin by fawkes_07
Chapter Notes: Finally, the website stopped balking at the rest of this chapter! I kept getting a 501 error. I tried posting it as plain text (no HTML). Still did it. I finally posted one paragraph at a time and found the sentence that was throwing it off. No HTML, no hyphens--apparently I used some sort of magic word that sent the computer into a frenzy. I removed half of the sentence and voila--the chapter posted. Sheesh.
Well, anyway, NOW you can enjoy the end of Chapter 43.