Nightmares and Nocturnes

The Soul Jar

Chapter 24: The Soul Jar

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1998

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"I hate being back here," Theo said, shivering a little at the early onset of winter as the portkey deposited them just outside the Three Broomsticks. "It's fucking eerie," he muttered under his breath, and Draco found he couldn't disagree.

Theo rubbed at his left wrist, grimacing, and Draco forced himself to look away from the motion, though he didn't know what would bother him more - the silhouette of the broken castle in the distance, or the Mark on Theo's wrist.

It seemed that everywhere Draco looked, the landscape was ruined.

"I could have taken Goyle, you know," Draco offered, clearing his throat as they walked towards Hogwarts. "You didn't have to come."

Theo snorted loudly. "As if I'd let that happen," he grunted disdainfully, rolling his eyes. "You know Goyle's useless."

"Still," Draco protested weakly, though the festering guilt in his intestines was hardly about this; this was only one errand - one menial task - amidst a foaming sea of regrets. "You didn't have to take it, you know," he said, his attention returning uneasily to Theo's concealed wrist.

Theo glanced up, meeting Draco's eye with a grim, unfailing certainty. "I didn't have a choice," he started to say, but Draco cut him off with a scowl.

"You had a choice, Theo," he snapped gruffly. "You did. I did." Draco forced a swallow, shaking his head. "Everyone always has a choice."

Theo waited a moment, his thumb stilling against his wrist before letting both of his hands drift to his sides. "Well," he murmured, shrugging. "I guess I chose not to let you do this alone, then."

Draco sighed at that; he felt gratitude bubble up in his lungs but when words failed, he nodded mutely. They walked in silence the rest of the way to the castle, listening to the sounds of their feet over the slush of a half-hearted snowfall.

"Zabini," Theo said with surprise, catching sight of him first in the castle courtyard. "Didn't know we were meeting you."

Blaise turned over his shoulder, nodding once at them. "Malfoy, Nott," he offered amiably. "Amycus is otherwise occupied."

"Doing what?" Draco asked, but Blaise shrugged.

"Nothing I feel like asking questions about," Blaise supplied carelessly. He drew a hand up, nudging an itch from his forehead; Draco caught a glimpse of scarring on the inside of his arm, but chose to say nothing.

"How is he?" Draco asked quietly. "Are you - " okay, he wanted to ask, but it didn't seem right. The question would have only invited lies; Blaise seemed to grasp his intent, though, and offered him a listless shrug.

"Amycus isn't the most stable of taskmasters, but he's hardly the most attentive, either," Blaise said with a grimace. "It's this or be a Snatcher, really, and I'm hardly cut out for that."

"What's Carrow got you doing?" Theo asked, and Blaise shrugged again.

"Working on the castle, mostly," he supplied. "There's one room in particular that's fucking burnt to a crisp, but for whatever reason he wants me to salvage it."

"The Room of Requirement," Draco murmured, recognizing the reference, and Blaise looked up, surprised.

"You know it?"