geoviki | Spirits are using me; larger voices calling

When you see the Southern Cross for the first time, you understand now why you came this way.

I've adored the CSN song, Southern Cross, for just years and years. Today I bought the CD. Go me. I will spare you all the recollections it calls up in me. But I'll mention that today it occurred to me that I have more years of memories than I have years to come. Well, isn't that just effing cheery? I will say I came to this enlightenment while cleaning the bathroom - so maybe it was the fumes.

I bought wine, too. I promise not to become maudlin.

Think about how many times I have fallen.

I almost posted a rant this week. Then I thought...naah.

And my love is an anchor tied to you, tied with a silver chain.

Okay, I've got to get a grip and get this albatross sequel fixed up and sent out, before it drives us all crazy. Betas? Loves? This week would be a great time to hit me with your best shot.

I'm putting this cookie out to get myself motivated tonight.

Who knows love can endure...and you know it will.

Harry Potter hadn't bothered dressing before he came down to the breakfast table. Draco had already gone off to his studio a good hour earlier – not that Harry's sleep had been disturbed. Draco was surprisingly considerate that way.

"Good morning, Harry Potter," Sully said warmly.

"Morning."

He took an idle minute to watch her at the window, disarming the morning's crop of Howlers. She was actually quite skillful at the trigger-and-disintegrate method that Malfoy house-elves had apparently perfected over the years. He picked up two pieces of piping-hot toast, juggled his plate and his teacup while grabbing a bowl of fruit, and plopped down at the table.

The rest of the morning mail was sitting beside the spot he normally took. His own letters always showed up here, although Sully never remarked on it. Not for the first time, he wondered about the complex social communication among owls that must accompany that kind of service. Did Hedwig get the word out to her fellow owls – don't bother flying off to Potter's flat, he's at Malfoy's nearly all the time – and did they shake their feathered heads at the news and twitter that things had certainly changed, and not for the better, since they were chicks?

He thumbed through a flashy advert from Weasley Wizard Wheezes, an overlarge envelope bedecked with childish writing and a flock of pink hearts, and a complimentary copy of Witch Weekly – gratefully noting that for once his face wasn't staring back from the cover.

The bottom of his pile was anchored by a thick packet, which he lifted cautiously, even though he knew that Sully always rigorously checked for spells before he touched a single item. Inside was a fat sheaf of loose papers, but no cover letter offered an explanation. Tea in one hand, he took up the top sheet with the other and glanced over it.

The first thing he noticed was the Ministry of Magic emblem, and below that three symbols – Harry recognized the stylized phoenix feathers and sat up in surprise. He hadn't seen anything with that level of secrecy since the end of the war. He scanned the page more closely, but there was nothing to show who the sender might be.

Setting down his cup, he began to read.

This report details the activities of Draco Malfoy (son of Lucius Malfoy), covering the period of time he spent amongst Death Eaters, and was compiled from the preliminary testimony and subsequent interviews of Severus Snape.

His tea had long grown cold when Harry took his next sip, more to settle his stomach than from any genuine thirst. He examined the cup with sudden intensity as if seeing it through the eyes of a studied collector – admiring its hard-edged frailty, its bowl as thin as an eggshell. His hand shook only a little as he set it down in its saucer, jostling aside a beautifully polished silver spoon. It, too, was finely made, and Harry could almost see the countless Malfoy hands that had curled around this very spoon, before reaching across the breakfast table to caress a waiting lover...

But Harry wouldn't let himself think of them; he wanted to study all the things in this room, because they were fascinating, weren't they? Nothing at all like the Dursleys' commonplace clutter. The matched crystal candlesticks – what a nice contrast they made, with their ivory candles stark against the dark wood of the sideboard. And the still life above it – vivid, colorful, and certainly worthy of his attention. He supposed it had been a part of this room for decades, long before the first stirrings of war, before the events that followed had brought down the prestigious Malfoy name. Before Draco had been forced to do the things Snape had recounted in unadorned words that Harry desperately wanted to forget.