In which Evil faces an insurrection, Good faces an unexpected betrayal, and Harry means to find out which side Draco is on. H/D, R.

August, 2005

"I'll answer that question," Lucius said thoughtfully, regarding Percy over loosely clasped hands, "but you must promise to answer one of mine first."

When Percy had arrived, the setting sun had still filled the room with red light, tinting everything in it; now there was a candle lit on the table between them, holding back the twilight like a warding circle. It was disconcerting sometimes, how fast the sun set. "It depends on the question," he said cautiously.

"Fair enough," Lucius said, and resettled his hands on the table in front of him. "Why didn't you sleep last night, child?"

Percy looked down at his hands. The feather end of the quill he was holding was vibrating just a little, barbs shivering as though in some imaginary breeze. There were dark circles under Percy's eyes, he knew, and he looked awful; the mirror had made a point of telling him that. "Is that the question?"

"Yes."

He didn't want to answer, but he wanted an answer from Lucius. The Minister hadn't sent a list with him this time - maybe there'd been no time to prepare one - and Percy's questions were his own.

"Let me tell you a story," he said in a thin, brittle voice, and Lucius tilted his head to listen.

"Once upon a time," Percy said, "there was a family called the Abberleys - a husband, a wife, two little girls and a boy. I don't know their first names, any of them. All I know is that they lived in the woods, on a parcel of Unplottable land on the isle of Skye, and that Mrs. Abberley was a Muggle."

The flicker of disapproval in Lucius' face was gone so quickly that it might have been a trick of the shadows.

"Well, no, that's not all - Mr. Abberley was a very junior Auror during the Dark Lord's second rising. Shortly after you were sent to prison, he left the Ministry. He…" Percy paused, looking down at his parchment, making idle, aimless marks on it with his quill. "He was one of the Aurors who captured Bellatrix Lestrange, you know, and he saw what was in her cellars."

"I'm guessing that this story isn't going to end happily for the Abberleys," Lucius commented.

"No, it doesn't. Because it ends with their nearest neighbors owling the Ministry in a panic when the Dark Mark appeared over the forest. When the Aurors and… and a representative of the Minister got there, it was just after dawn; it was all misty, the way Skye gets, and at first they didn't see what was hanging from the trees."

Lucius was silent, listening.

"They wouldn't let me get close," Percy whispered, staring at his hands. "Not close enough to really see. And I was glad of it at the time, but I see them anyway. The Death Eaters didn't bother with blindfolds or bags over their heads, they just put out their eyes. I… I thought there were loops of rope hanging around their feet, but it wasn't rope."

He raised his eyes, meeting Lucius'. "Why?" he asked simply. "Why like that? The Slytherins pride themselves on their political machinations, so why not talk the Ministry into keeping Muggle-borns out of our world? Why do they need to do things like this?"

Lucius gaze was sober and tinged with something that was almost understanding. "There are a hundred pat answers I could give you, child, and you know them all already," he said. "I could tell you how fear makes people angry, and anger makes them cruel; or that it's easier to be cruel to people one doesn't quite think of as human. I could tell you what it was like in Voldemort's service, how his followers both dread his attention and crave it, how he's fed on blood, death, and torture until the air around him stinks with it, how he rewards people when their cruelty finds favor in his eyes. But the best answer I can give you, I think, is this: they do it because they can."

Because the Ministry wasn't stopping them. Because no one was stopping them. Percy stared blankly at Lucius, his thoughts churning.

"When were they killed?" Lucius asked.

"Last weekend."

For just a moment, Lucius looked thoughtful. No, more than thoughtful - he looked as if he were examining a chessboard and playing a score of moves through to the endgame, all at once, lightning-fast. "There isn't much time left," he said finally; sounding not urgent but resigned, melancholy, a seer reading a storm on scythe-bright trails of wind.

"You think Voldemort will make some open move soon?"

"It isn't Voldemort I'm thinking of. Cornelius can't keep activity like this hidden for long, though bless him, he'll try. You don't have long before people begin to be afraid - really afraid, the kind of fear that clamors for new laws and wants faces and names to put to its terror. That kind of fear does more damage than Voldemort could do if left to his own devices. He at least is only one man, with acknowledged authority over only a few." Lucius drew his fingertips through the candle's flame, watching it waver. "But you've answered my question, and I said I'd answer yours in return."

Percy's hand made an abortive movement toward his quill before he realized that he hadn't taken the inkwell out of his briefcase. He should take it out, he knew, and didn't bother.

"Remember as I tell you this that the study of the Dark Arts didn't begin with Tom Riddle, and it won't end with him either," Lucius began. "As much as the Ministry likes to conflate the practice of the Dark Arts with the practice of being a Death Eater, it's entirely possible to spend one's entire life studying dark magic while deep in the conviction that Voldemort is a rabid madman who should be put down for the good of the wizarding world - or to be a Death Eater with no greater knowledge of the Dark Arts than how to cast an Unforgivable."

Percy nodded.

"There are societies for the study of the Dark Arts all over the world, existing in secret - the Árnyék Király, for instance, which began as a teaching order and is now a sort of cross between a guerrilla underground and a group of particularly bloody-minded museum curators. They believe, as many of us believe, that knowledge should not be lost, and certainly should not be forcibly suppressed, just because it happens to conflict with the declared morality of the prevailing government." Lucius passed his fingertips through the flame again, watching meditatively as it wavered. "On their training grounds they have - or so I'm told - a mural, very lovely and very old, of the Muggle library at Alexandria, which unbeknownst to most of its librarians possessed the largest collection of dark magic texts in the ancient world. It was burned to the ground, and almost all of its collection as well. The bonfires of burning parchment turned the sky black for days. The Árnyék Király keep the mural on their walls as a reminder of the price of failure."

Percy couldn't help thinking of Hermione, and wondering if she knew about the library.

"When Tom Riddle left school, the first thing he did was kill his Muggle father - a gift to himself, to make up for eleven years in a cold orphanage where children quite literally lay down and died for want of care. A small enough gift, I suppose, when one looks at it that way."

"Because it was only a Muggle?" Percy asked dubiously.

"Because it was only a death, over in an instant, and Riddle had to live in that orphanage every day of his childhood. But I think I've got ahead of myself. I don't know that Riddle actively studied the Dark Arts when he was at Hogwarts, but if he didn't, it was only because he'd never come across a good practical text. He wanted power, and ordinary magic in the right hands and with the right intent is every bit as potent and devastating as dark magic; so it isn't really accurate to say that he was a student of the Dark Arts, per se. He was - and is - a student of everything, of every scrap of knowledge, every crumb of power. That makes him all the more dangerous, especially given that under that snakelike visage is the finest mind I have ever been privileged to meet. If he weren't also as mad as a cockatrice, Harry Potter would never have stood the smallest chance against him."

"Harry has a lot of power of his own," Percy argued. "And a large dose of luck."

"Potter was, and as far as I know still is, a sledgehammer - a malleus maleficarum, if you will," Lucius said. "Brute force and a tenacious refusal to die will get one surprisingly far, but he hasn't the intellect to match against Tom Riddle's; which is why it's fortunate for him that there's even less of Tom Riddle left in Voldemort now than there was when Potter's parents were killed. As I was saying, though - Riddle came out of Hogwarts not versed in the Dark Arts but certainly well aware that they existed, and probably aware that what Hogwarts teaches to children in its Defence classes is to the Dark Arts what a child's fingerpainting is to a Titian. Things will be different, of course, with my son teaching there."

Percy glanced down at the parchment in front of him, carefully smoothing back the corner. It shouldn't hurt, after all these years, to know that his father hadn't had the same easy faith in him that Lucius had in Draco, but it did.

"Riddle always wanted power," Lucius went on. "And I think he was always terrified, really terrified, of dying; well, we all are, I suppose, but Voldemort seems to view death as a personal affront, a poor reflection on one's strength of will and purpose. But when one comes down to it, I believe that what turned him toward the Dark Arts to begin with was the knowledge that if one wants power, real power, one must play to one's strengths where few others are strong."

"And what was his strength?" Percy asked, half suspecting that he knew the answer already.

"Hatred," Lucius said. "Bitterness. Resentment. Rage. That sounds like the other side of that terrible cliché about the all-transforming power of love, but it's really not - even fewer people are capable of real, strong, sustained hate than are capable of strong and sustained love. I believe that Riddle resented having been left to wither in that orphanage for eleven years, and I know that he resented being sent back there every summer. He hated Dumbledore for not trusting him, hated his father for leaving, hated his mother for dying, hated the Muggles whose world had been so harsh to him, bitterly envied the children who were born into the wizarding world, bitterly resented the Muggle-born children who compared to him had been privileged enough to begin with. And he was canny enough to know that hate could make him strong if he wielded it properly, or make him weak if he did not. Even more, he was canny enough to understand that others' hatred could make him powerful as well."

"Hatred of him, or hatred of who he told them to hate?"

"Both. Tom Riddle never wanted to be loved. He wanted to be repaid - and he wanted us, all of us, to go on paying until we had nothing left."

"But why us?" Percy asked, and meant purebloods.

Lucius looked thoughtfully out the window at the moonlight glimmering on the ocean. "Do you know," he said softly, "I think he hates the wizarding world - all of us, purebloods, mudbloods, and half-breeds - most of all."

 

November, 2005

It was a long time before Harry let himself think about whether he was asleep or awake. For a while, it was enough that there was hair finer than his own falling into his face, soft-firm heat wound around him, coverlets piled warmly on top of him. He could hear the fire crackling in the fireplace and thought dimly, Dobby's been. Outside the sound of water ebbed and flowed against the windows; the air smelled of rain and the ocean.

Draco stirred a little against him, sighing softly but not waking, and Harry could have woven a Patronus from this moment to shield the entire world.

He let himself drift again, drowsing in the shelter of warm blankets and warm Malfoy, idly watching disconnected thoughts pool and ebb until Draco shifted again and jostled Harry out of the dim, still space between sleep and waking. The rise and fall of his chest stopped under Harry's hand, then started again, faster and shallower.

"You're awake," Harry whispered.

"Mm," Draco said, sounding as though he would have argued that assertion if he'd been a bit more conscious. "How long have you been?"

"Not long."

Draco moved back a little to look at him. His eyes were cool and wary for just a moment before they warmed, answering whatever he saw in Harry's. "You look awful," he noted, running the tip of his finger gently over Harry's forehead; it stung a little, and tingled where it brushed against his scar. "I told you you'd have a bruise. What happened?"

"I don't know. The last thing I remember is seeing torchlight and thinking I'd be able to see better from closer to." Harry slid his hand around and tilted Draco's chin up. "You've got one too."

"I can try to heal yours if you want."

"No, that's all right," Harry said hastily - a little too hastily, if the rather severe look Draco gave him was any indication. Apologetic, Harry moved forward and kissed Draco lightly, then kissed him again, and kept going until they were wound around each other again, moving slowly and lazily against each other.

If I'd known it was this easy to get him to forgive me I'd have done this years ago, Harry thought; and a small, cold voice inside him answered, Years ago it wouldn't have been too late.

"Don't," Draco whispered.

"How did you know I…"

"You went stiff in all the wrong places and stopped kissing me, Harry, it was a bit obvious."

Harry sighed and shifted closer, trying not to think. "It's going to storm."

"It looks like it," Draco agreed, between light licks to Harry's chin

"Probably cold in the rest of the house, too," Harry noted, slipping a hand up the inside of Draco's thigh.

"Mmm," Draco sighed happily, sucking on the line of Harry's jaw. "Probably."

"We should stay in bed today," Harry opined as his leg slipped in between Draco's. "Not worth getting up, really, is it, with the filthy weather and all."

"Lovely morning, then, is what you're really saying."

Harry laughed and felt something inside him uncoil, willing, as he was, to pretend for just a while longer. He climbed on top of Draco, covers shifting around their waists, and dipped his head to nibble at Draco's ear. "Really lovely morning," he whispered. "God, you're so…"

"Fit?" Draco offered, running his hands possessively up Harry's back. "Gorgeous? Incredible in bed?"

"Modest," Harry snickered in between kisses, working his way down Draco's neck.

"But right."

"Okay, fuck, yes." Harry ran his tongue along Draco's collarbone, tasting sweat and sleep and himself. "Fit, gorgeous, incredible in bed, and always right."

"My God, Potter, the things you'll say to get laid first thing in the morning," Draco laughed, then pulled Harry closer and nuzzled softly against his hair. "You're beautiful, Harry," he whispered.

Harry swallowed hard and forced his voice to come out light and teasing. "I'd have to be, wouldn't I? Malfoys don't seem to do 'ugly'."

"Touché," Draco said, amused. "Mm, come here…"

Harry let himself be pulled back up, raking kisses up Draco's chest to his mouth, claiming Draco's mouth in a sudden flare of possessiveness and desire. Draco caught him close and rolled them over, pale hair falling into Harry's eyes to screen them from the light -

Harry landed on his back at red alert, both of them tensed and braced, whispering Accio wand into each other's mouths. Fuck, what a position to be -

The presence he'd sensed cleared its throat apologetically; Harry slid his wand up along Draco's back under the sheets and looked toward the door, then relaxed with a sigh. "Morning, Dobby."

Draco slid off him and shifted to rest his chin on Harry's shoulder, spooning them together facing the door.

"Dobby is most sorry," Dobby said wretchedly, wringing the long trailing scarf that was wrapped around his neck so many times that it looked like an immense plaid goiter. "The Headmaster is sending Dobby to tell Harry Potter and Master Draco that they must come back today."

Harry froze, and felt Draco do the same, and suddenly every inch that their bodies touched burned like a brand.

"All right," he said finally, carefully, proud of the steadiness of his voice. "Please tell the Headmaster we'll be back soon."

"Dobby will. And Dobby has brought breakfast, when Masters are ready." Dobby snapped his fingers and disappeared with a small pop.

Harry was silent for a long moment before he could bring himself to ask. "Do you think he'll…"

Draco took a shaky breath, and his arm tightened around Harry's waist. "No. He might have hated my father, but Dobby's family has served mine for generations. He won't say anything."

"I just, I don't want you to be hurt by this." Fucking fine time to be thinking of that now, Potter, why didn't you think of it last night and keep your dick in your pants?

"Harry." Draco's fingertips slid under his chin, lifting and tilting. "I'm a grown man. Let me worry about what I'll be hurt by."

Harry lifted a hand and stroked Draco's cheek with the back of his fingers. Then, steeling himself, he nodded and began to move away.

Draco's hand came down onto the bed in front of him. "Not yet, szívem választottja," he whispered, nuzzling the hair behind Harry's ear out of the way to press a light kiss against his skin.

Harry closed his eyes, and oh God he was trying but… "We should -"

"We should," Draco whispered, and tugged lightly at Harry's earlobe with his teeth. "And we will. But not yet."

Wordlessly, Harry turned back, twining around Draco again, fitting their bodies together as if they'd never been apart. Draco's weight pressed him back down into the soft mattress, one knee easing Harry's legs apart as Draco's mouth left his and travelled down the line of Harry's neck. Harry stretched and moved under him, running his hands through the soft fall of Draco's hair and down along the slim line of his back, pressing his palm flat against Draco's tattoo and feeling the magic wound into it flare with the sharp intake of Draco's breath. Mine, mine, he whispered in Parseltongue, gliding sibilants and flowing vowels winding slowly around his tongue, almost blending with the sound of the rain outside.

"Fuck, that's hot, Harry," Draco whispered against his throat, sliding his hand up along Harry's forearm. He lifted a little and caught both of Harry's wrists, pushing them gently down onto the bed beside Harry's head, winding their fingers together. "Trust me a while longer?"

"Always," Harry said, and meant it.

Draco's eyes darkened a bit, but he bent to kiss Harry anyway, a long, slow kiss that narrowed Harry's world to the mouth moving softly against his own and the fingers that his own wrapped around, stroked, intertwined with, slowly enough to memorize every touch, every movement. Then Draco's hands were catching at his own, pushing, guiding them up toward the headboard.

"Ligote," he whispered against Harry's lips, and something soft but very strong slid around Harry's wrists, pinning them down to the bed. Harry made a soft sound of protest and tugged at the bonds, wanting to touch but unable to free himself.

"Shh, it's just for a minute," Draco breathed. Smoothing Harry's hair back, he lifted his chin and kissed Harry's forehead, then drew a rune there with his tongue, carefully avoiding the scar. The rune warmed Harry's skin pleasantly as Draco slid back downward to press his fingertips against Harry's lips. Harry opened his mouth and drew Draco's fingers inside, winding his tongue around them.

"Hold still for a minute," Draco murmured, and fit his mouth over Harry's, sliding his tongue inside to trace another rune inside Harry's mouth. It warmed as well, and - bizarrely - tasted rather like strawberries. The rune on his forehead shimmered and shifted along some imperceptible harmonic line, snapping into alignment with the one in his mouth, and Harry gasped at the sudden rush of heat and sensation along his skin.

Draco levered himself up on his elbows and stretched over Harry to lick runes into the palms of both his hands, humming in contented pleasure as Harry took the opportunity to tongue his nipples. More magic snapped somehow into alignment, and now Harry could feel it swirling around him, making his skin hum with power, turning every brush of Draco's body against his into a soaring rush of sensation that woke every nerve ending in his body.

"Wow," he said shakily.

Draco gave him a smile that didn't quite reach his eyes and worked his way downward - more runes that Harry couldn't quite tell apart, at the base of his throat, on his nipples, on his stomach, leaving his cock untouched and making him squirm in frustration; runes on each of his hipbones and behind his knees, drawing that tingling web of magic down Harry's body as he went, and by the time Draco began to move back up Harry was whimpering. The swirl of magic over his skin was just this side of too much, a slow burn that was rapidly pushing him to the brink of coming without anything touching him at all, and if Draco didn't touch him soon he was going to be very, very unhappy.

Touch him Draco did, but not where he wanted; cool hands slid along his sides, over his face, along the sides of his neck, along his hips, as Draco's soft voice whispered incantations that blurred from liquid French into some harsher language so smoothly that Harry didn't notice until the cold touch of dark magic slid over him like oily water closing over his head.

Harry's eyes flew open. "Draco?" he said uncertainly.

"Hush," Draco said, and kissed him. "Trust me for just a few more minutes."

"I do," Harry answered, unable to keep from tugging a little at his bonds. "Just…"

"You don't like it, I know," Draco answered, working his way down Harry's chest with soft kisses and light nips, and oh God it felt so good. "Pay attention to me, Potter, not the magic."

"Don't I always?" Harry asked softly, and thought he'd managed to keep the bitterness out of his voice.

Draco gave him an unreadable look and settled between his legs. "This is going to sting a bit," he murmured.

Harry couldn't help thinking that when one was tied to a bed naked, wandless, and hard as a rock, with dark magic swirling in oily tendrils all around and the heir of the House of Malfoy hovering right over one's cock, was really not the time one wanted to be hearing things like This is going to sting a bit.

Draco's mouth touched lightly just above his hipbone, lips and soft breath giving way to a warm tongue and the swirl of magic. Harry shivered a little, waiting, and after a minute Draco settled on a spot, nipped lightly at it and then sucked, rather hard. Harry drew in a quick, hissing breath - it did sting more than hickeys usually did, but not enough to really be painful, only a sharp, tingling, pricking sensation that moved with Draco's mouth over his skin. He found himself arching into it, wanting the soothing touch of Draco's tongue; Draco's hands on his hips held him down, held him still, and Harry heard himself make a soft sound of protest.

Then the stinging vanished suddenly, leaving behind only a mildly uncomfortable oversensitivity, and the taint of dark magic faded with it. "Open your eyes," Draco whispered; Harry wondered when he'd closed them.

He glanced down as Draco moved back up to stretch out beside him. On the skin just above his hipbone where Draco's mouth had been was a tiny black dragon, no more than two inches long, a monochromal mirror of Draco's with magic shimmering around it. "Draco? What does it do?"

Draco banished the bonds around his wrists with a touch and a whisper and pulled Harry's hand to his mouth, dropping a soft kiss into the palm. "No one says my name quite like you do, do you know that? There's almost a lilt to it, like you're holding the first syllable just half a beat too long and cutting the second half a beat short."

Harry raised an eyebrow, waiting.

Draco let out a breath, not meeting Harry's eyes. "It… tells me if you're badly hurt. If you are, and only if you are, it'll lead me to you. There's a simple spell to remove it - I'll show it to you, in a while."

Harry closed his eyes and pulled Draco to him, nuzzling like a cat against the hand that stroked his hair out of his face. "Do I get to put one of those on you?"

"You're the one who needs it, O Saviour of the Wizarding World and poster boy for poor impulse control," Draco said waspishly.

"How are those ribs feeling?" Harry asked pointedly, and Draco had the grace to look abashed.

Glancing down, Draco trailed the tip of his finger along the tattoo. "Should I have asked?"

Harry shivered and arched into the touch; that skin was hypersensitive now, every inch tingling at Draco's touch. "If I say yes, will you ask next time?"

Draco smiled, glancing up at Harry through his lashes. "No."

"Is this…" Harry swallowed hard as Draco's thumb pressed against his skin. "Is this what yours feels like when I touch you?"

"No," Draco answered, bending to kiss along the line of Harry's shoulder. "I'm not that skilled in this particular area. Mine is… a bit more sensitive."

His thumbnail pressed into the tattoo, following it idly downward, and somewhere in the back of Harry's mind he had the vague idea that they'd been talking about something important but he had no idea what it was. He caught Draco to him and rolled them over, shifting in mid-roll so that they came to rest with Draco on his stomach and Harry braced on his elbows over him; fascinated, Harry drew a finger over the dragon and watched Draco shiver underneath him.

"So," Harry whispered, and blew a thin stream of air along the tattoo. "Why's it on the back of your shoulder?"

"Take a guess, Potter. Our current position might give you a hint if you pay very close attention."

Harry smiled and made his way up the tattoo with small, sharp bites that made Draco squirm in a very interesting way. "I think you like being fucked, Malfoy," he purred, snapped his fingers, and slid his slickened hand down to ease a finger into the tight heat of Draco's body.

Draco sucked in a breath and moved with him. "Very good. Five points to Gryffindor. You're… certainly good at that lubrication spell."

"My hand and I get a lot of practice," Harry said dryly.

Draco laughed and arched, rubbing back against him. "You aren't telling me that Harry Potter couldn't have his pick of groupies and hangers-on."

"Yeah," Harry murmured, mouthing between Draco's shoulder blades. "Harry Potter could."

"Ah." Draco wriggled a bit more pointedly, and Harry moved his hand and lifted so that Draco could turn over underneath him. "And probably from the same pool that the heir to the Malfoy fortune could pull from, if he were so inclined."

"You too, huh?" Harry nudged Draco's thighs apart with his knee and went back to what he'd been doing, leaning down to drift soft kisses across Draco's face from ear to mouth.

"You're so beautiful," he whispered, shivering as Draco touched him. "So bloody Slytherin. I always thought you'd leave a trail of broken hearts all the way across the wizarding world."

"Mm, I must be a sad disappointment to you," Draco said breathlessly. "Not only am I not… oh, God… not an evil Death Eater, I haven't even managed to break dozens of hearts."

Harry lifted up a little and brushed Draco's hair out of his face. "No," he said softly. "Just mine."

Not giving him time to react, Harry brought his mouth down hard on Draco's and entered him with one powerful stroke, swallowing both their cries as Draco's fingers closed like vises on his biceps.

The runes Draco had drawn on his body flared into life, flooding every inch of his body with blinding pleasure and driving him with dizzying speed to within an inch of coming. Harry gave a strangled cry and jolted back upward, unable to maintain that much contact with Draco's skin and still hold back.

Draco whispered smooth French and ran his fingers into Harry's hair, and the desperate need to come ebbed a bit, leaving behind a frantic craving for Draco's cooling touch against the heat of his skin. He held still, gasping, trying to ride through whatever it was without doing anything he was likely to regret.

"Forgot about that, didn't you?" Draco whispered, sounding unforgivably smug and as soon as Harry could move without coming so hard his balls turned inside out he was going to do something about that. "Ideally, of course, you'd still be tied to the bed, but…"

Harry squeezed his eyes closed and groaned at the mental image. "Malfoy, I'm going to -"

"Do anything I want you to, really, as long as I don't leave you hanging, won't you?" Draco said softly, and Harry's eyes flew open again, alarm stabbing through him because, fuck, it was true. Draco smiled, amused and affectionate, and tilted his head up to kiss Harry; Harry whimpered and let his mouth be gently taken, feeling the touch of Draco's tongue all the way down to his cock.

"But fortunately for you, what I really want you to do is get on with fucking me, so…" Draco pressed his fingertips to the center of Harry's forehead and whispered a spell. The sensations battering at him receded, leaving his skin fever-sensitive but no more.

Harry swallowed hard and shook his head clear, looking down at Draco. "You are entirely too coherent for a bloke on his back," he whispered. "I think I should do something about that."

Draco smirked, eyes dark with arousal. "Yes, let's," he said - and a second later Harry was on his back, the sheets a sudden and almost painful shock against his skin, with Draco's hands pinning his shoulders to the bed. Harry began to protest on sheer principle… and then thought better of it, because Draco was easing down on him, taking him in with a moan, and Harry wasn't about to do anything that might put a stop to his temperamental Slytherin's movements -

But he isn't yours, is he? said a small, unpleasant voice in Harry's head. And he's never going to be.

"Draco," he whispered, and felt Draco's thumb trace gently over his lower lip. Without opening his eyes, he caught Draco's hand and pressed a kiss to the palm, nipped at the tips of his fingers, licking and sucking as he thrust upward. Draco's other hand traced maddeningly lightly over his chest, drawing another rune on sweat-slick skin and activating it with a whisper; Harry bit down involuntarily on Draco's finger, arching up and slamming into him with a wail, fucking him hard and needing, oh God, every inch of his skin felt like it was on fire and he needed more contact, needed to touch and claim. "Fuck, what did you -"

Draco's mouth came down on his, silencing him, brief white-hot flash of his body against Harry's making Harry shudder and jolt upward; then he was moving back again and Harry couldn't let him, not now. He pulled Draco back and moved, pinning Draco underneath him again, slamming into him, whispering Fucking need you, God, don't do this to me and he wasn't going to be able to hold back. Draco wound around him, his touch the only thing Harry could feel, bracing his hands against the headboard and thrusting up against him, and Harry gasped "Fuck, I'm, please," and bit hard into Draco's shoulder, biting to mark, to own, and when Draco came the spell he'd wrought into Harry's skin flared just enough to send him over the edge so hard and fast that he thought it might break him.

When he could breathe again, more or less, Harry found himself running his fingertips down Draco's arm where it curled around him, his whole body almost painfully sensitive until Draco breathed a hoarse Finite Incantatem against his forehead. He sighed with relief and rolled to lie back against the pillows, pulling Draco with him, trying to catch his breath and listening to Draco do the same, running his fingers through soft, thick hair. It wasn't enough; his nerves were still singing, wanting more already. For a dismal moment he wondered how he was ever going to be satisfied with anyone else, and wondered if those spells had been Draco's way of making sure he never would be. It would bloody well be like him to do something like that.

Draco shifted against him, pressing increasingly insistent kisses against Harry's chest and up to his throat, his jaw, his mouth; and Harry might not know sex magic, but by Christ he could make it so that Draco wouldn't sit without thinking of him for a week.

 

They showered together, after, touching slowly in the steamy air; silent even when Draco was on his knees with Harry's cock in his mouth, as if speaking would break some spell that kept an invisible hourglass from running out.

 

Harry pulled his robes on slowly over his shirt, not bothering to use a drying charm on his hair. Draco was in the sitting room, already dressed; Harry had no idea what he was doing.

He glanced around the bedroom one more time, carefully avoiding looking at the bed, to see if he was about to leave anything vital behind. Dobby would come and get their clothes, he knew, and anything else they'd managed to forget, but he checked again anyway.

"Why the long face, dear?" the mirror asked sympathetically. "You look like someone died."

"No," Harry said, eventually. "No one's died."

He turned and left before it could say anything more. His broom was on the sofa, and Draco was standing by the window looking down at the cut-crystal tumbler of scotch in his hand.

If there had been sunlight, Harry thought, it would have filled Draco's hand with refracted color and glowing amber; would have lit his hair like a clear aura and turned his eyes the color of glass.

"We should go," Harry said.

Draco nodded and gulped down the rest of the scotch.

"We can Apparate to the Forbidden Forest just outside where the wards start and be through them and into the forest before anything can touch us. If we go fast enough -"

No one would ever be able to find us.

" - we won't run into any trouble in the Forest and we can be at the school inside of twenty minutes."

Draco glanced up at him, eyes shuttered, and gave him a small, polite smile. "You're driving, Potter," he said cordially, and pretended not to notice when Harry flinched a little.

Harry reached out a hand to his broom and swung up onto it when it floated to him. It wasn't until Draco was on the broom behind him, hands resting lightly on Harry's waist, that he realized that in three days it hadn't occurred to either of them to ask Dobby to bring a broom for Draco. Well, it was a bit late now. "Ready?" he asked.

"Ready," Draco said, and Harry Apparated.

Draco was half a second behind him, jolting the broom a little as he materialized on it. As soon as he felt Draco's weight behind him Harry kicked the broom into motion, speeding through the wards and into the forest, angling northward to avoid the centaurs and the spiders. It was still pouring rain in Cornwall but in Scotland there wasn't a cloud in the sky; at any other time Harry would have enjoyed the flight, would have loved darting between falling leaves and through and around shafts of sunlight streaming down to the forest floor. At the moment it was all he could do to ignore the light, impersonal touch of Draco's hands on him, to keep pushing the broom ahead instead of landing and making a fool of himself with stammered, incoherent pleas and promises. Only the certain knowledge that he didn't have a hope in hell of success kept his hands on the broom - that and the fact that he'd given his word to Pansy before he'd learned the feel of Draco's body under his hands.

He pushed the broom faster, and managed to keep it moving until the trees had thinned around them and the castle loomed close. Harry coasted to the edge of the treeline and came to a halt, looking out at the stone bulk of Hogwarts, following the spires with his eyes as they soared toward the scattered clouds. He could see the courtyard from here, empty at this time of day.

Draco's hands shifted just a little on his stomach, flattening against his skin, through some imperceptible alchemy becoming the hands of his lover and not of his co-worker. Harry closed his eyes, still seeing Hogwarts against the inside of his lids, and one of those hands slid up his chest to cup his chin with soft, gentle fingertips. Despairing, he let Draco pull his chin around, opened his mouth to the touch of Draco's, reached back to thread his own fingers into silky hair and press Draco closer. Set free from Harry's control, the broom lifted and spun slowly in the wind; ebbing and flowing gusts tangled their hair together, blew it into their mouths to brush against their entwined tongues, and the air was full of the sound of fluttering leaves.

The silence between them was too loud in his ears when he drew away. Not meeting Draco's eyes, Harry turned and pushed the broom into motion again, soaring down toward the courtyard. By the time they were halfway there, there were people gathering in the doorway - he would have mistaken Pansy for a student if it weren't for the vivid green of her robes. His stomach felt as if the bottom had dropped out of something, and his knuckles went white on the broomstick. Numb, he searched for something encouraging to tell himself, some aphorism, some talisman he could recite against the fact that he was about to watch Draco walk away from him, and found nothing. He'd brought Pansy's fiancé home to her, as she'd sent him to do, and everything, everything was out of his hands.

He landed lightly in the center of the courtyard, feeling the balance of the broom under him tilt and unsettle as Draco slid off and headed for the doors.

"Draco!"

Pansy flung herself down the steps and into Draco's arms. Draco caught her up and hugged her close, spinning her around and laughing, and their robes blew together in a banner of silver-green and black.

Harry looked past them to see Neville standing on the steps, his face pale and carefully emotionless, a small sea of ostentatiously uninterested Slytherin children massing behind him in the hall. Neville's eyes rested on Pansy and Draco for only a moment before flicking up to meet Harry's.

They held each other's gaze until Snape and Minerva came to herd them all inside.

 

Well, this is cozy, Remus thought sardonically.

Severus had called a meeting in his office immediately when Harry and Draco returned. Pansy and Greg had invited themselves along, earning an exasperated look from Severus but no rebuke; now Pansy was standing behind Draco's chair, hands resting protectively on the back, while Greg, having apparently decided that Draco was in good hands for the moment, investigated the tea table. Remus felt rather as though he and Harry were a small island of Gryffindor in a rather tempestuous Slytherin sea.

Not that Harry had probably noticed, or would have cared if he had.

Harry had got better at hiding his feelings over the years, but whatever this was, there was no hiding it; Harry looked as if he'd be happy enough just to weather its storm. He was standing in the middle of the carpet, gaze fixed on Severus' right shoulder, answering questions in a monotone; his grip on his broomstick was so tense and white-knuckled that Remus expected something to crack at any moment and wasn't sure whether it would be the broomstick or Harry. He didn't look at Draco at all, not even when Draco interrupted him to fill in details that Harry was apparently leaving out simply because he couldn't be arsed to put them in.

Remus had woken one morning in the Shrieking Shack exhausted and bleeding, whimpering with pain when he tried to move; that early, his senses were still wolf-sharp, and the smell of fear, shame, and misery had hit him so hard that he nearly choked. Hush, James had said, and wrapped a blanket around him; too tired to care, Remus had pillowed his head on his folded arm and said, What did I do?

Nothing, James had said, petting Remus' sweat-damp hair. You didn't do anything, Remus. Anything. I won't let anything happen to you.

Harry smelled like his father.

Remus set his teacup down on the table and took advantage of a momentary pause to say, "Severus, Harry and Draco have just got here. Maybe it would be better to let them rest and get a good meal in their stomachs before we go any further with the questions."

Severus raised an unimpressed eyebrow at Remus. "You make it sound as if they've been on the run for months and living in ditches, Lupin. They've been in an Order safehouse with house elf service. I'm sure they've had plenty to eat and all the sleep they needed."

Harry's face went dead white.

Mildly alarmed, Remus glanced past Harry to see that even Draco had paled. Oh, damn, Remus thought with a sinking heart, and thought several other things along the same lines when he saw Pansy looking back and forth from Harry to Draco.

"I'm fine, Remus," Harry said, not looking at him, and was clearly so far from fine that God almighty couldn't have Apparated between the two with a magic booster and a kick in the arse.

"You should probably see Madam Pomfrey about your head," Remus said, and Harry lifted an absent hand to his forehead as if he'd forgotten all about the bruise discoloring his skin from his hairline to halfway down his nose. "Severus, she should probably check both of them over."

Severus opened his mouth again, then closed it with a pained sigh and made a gesture at the door. Remus heard the staircase descending and turned to look, and it was only moments before the door burst open and the Weasley twins tumbled into the room.

"Harry!" Fred crowed.

Remus caught George's eye and gave a tiny, quick nod toward Pansy and Draco; so smoothly that it looked as if he'd only stumbled a bit, George changed his course and skidded to a stop between Draco and Harry, blocking their views of each other and getting in the way of Pansy's view of Harry. "Have we got things to tell you, mate," he exclaimed, throwing an arm around Harry and mussing his hair.

For just a moment Remus saw Harry's control flicker; then it was back, a little stronger than before, and Harry relaxed just a little as the twins draped themselves around him like bulwarks.

"We came to fetch Harry for lunch," George said, fixing clear and ingenuous eyes on Severus. "Is that all right?"

Severus pursed his lips, clearly weighing the advantages of pursuing the discussion without a room full of boisterous Gryffindors. "Perhaps that would be as well," he conceded. "I'll speak to Mr. Malfoy now and call Mr. Potter in later. Potter, go and see Madam Pomfrey now so that she can see Malfoy when he's done here."

"I believe I'll go with them," Remus said. "I'm starving."

Severus looked as though he would have paid money to make a snide remark at Remus' expense, but only nodded.

"C'mon, Harry," Fred urged, tugging Harry toward the door; George followed, steadfastly staying between Harry's line of sight and Draco.

Once out in the hallway, Remus caught hold of Harry's arm and steered him toward the hospital wing. "Better safe than sorry," he said. "You're no mediwizard yourself, you know."

"Bloody hell, Harry, what did you do to yourself?" George asked, sounding a little impressed.

"Told myself I could spy on a bunch of Death Eaters with nothing more than a disillusionment spell and blind luck," Harry said. "My luck hasn't exactly been golden lately, as you can probably tell."

Fred snorted. "We could tell. Cooped up in a safehouse for three days with Draco Malfoy - it's a wonder we didn't have to scrape the two of you off the walls."

Harry stopped, not looking at any of them. "Look, I'll - I'll go see Madam Pomfrey later, I've been away and I should…"

Fred and George looked at each other, then back at Harry. Looking exasperated, they flanked him and caught an elbow each, steering him kindly but firmly toward the infirmary. "Come on, princess," Fred said cheerfully. "No avoiding Madam Pomfrey."

"Princess?" Harry spluttered indignantly.

"He's right, Fred," George said blithely. "Clearly our Harry is a top."

"Well, I just thought, since he likes to ride broomsticks and all -"

"Hm, you're right there, the symbolism is pretty clear. But he rides them very aggressively. Maybe he tops from the bottom."

"Fred! George! Jesus!" Harry protested.

"Yes, you've found us out, Harry," George said. "Jesus is the lost Weasley twin."

"Triplet," Fred corrected.

"He never firecalls."

"Never writes."

"Breaks Mum's heart, really."

"And after all we did for him, transfiguring his feet into inflatable rubber ducks so he could walk on water and all -"

"Ungrateful bastard."

Harry was laughing helplessly, and Remus' smile was part amusement and part relief.

By the time they'd chivvied Harry to the hospital wing, Harry was looking much better and Remus was starting to flag a bit. Thinking of the invigoration potion on his bedside table and the logistics of feeding three healthy young men in the smallish confines of his rooms, he stood back and watched as the twins handed Harry over to Madam Pomfrey.

"Here he is," Fred reported. "He's cracked his skull open."

"Good thing there's nothing inside it," George commented.

"Thank you, gentlemen," Poppy said rather sternly, ushering Harry inside.

"Harry, we'll be in my rooms when you're done here," Remus said. "I'll have lunch waiting."

Harry nodded, and Poppy closed the ward doors between them.

"Do we want to know what that was all about?" George asked, eyes on the doors through which Harry had disappeared.

Remus sighed. "I'm not sure that I know what it's all about. I have my suspicions, but…"

"He didn't sleep with Malfoy, did he?" Fred asked. "Only Ron really will kill him if he did, and Mum might not stop him this time."

"I'm not going to speculate on Harry's love life," Remus told them. "Listen, I'd like the pair of you to gather up all the notes and drawings you've made of the tunnels and meet me back in my rooms in an hour. Will you do that?"

"We'll be there," the twins said in unison, and Fred went on, "We'll walk you back."

Remus restrained himself from rolling his eyes and started down the hall. "Boys, really. I'm not an invalid."

"But you usually are, aren't you, for a few days past the full moon," George pointed out, keeping pace with him.

"Anyway, George and I figure that if we lurk about in your rooms long enough, eventually we'll see you naked," Fred informed him cheerfully.

"Oh, my God," Remus muttered under his breath in utter mortification, feeling a headache beginning to throb behind his eyes.

 

"Sit down, Harry," Poppy said briskly, pointing to a bed in the middle of the ward. The hospital wing was empty for once, no students recovering from falls or hexes or measles; sunlight spilled in through the high windows, glowing from white starched sheets and the pristine floor. Harry sat obediently down on the bed, remembering how he'd felt lost in a sea of white as a child.

"Now," Poppy said, sliding off his glasses and bending to peer at his pupils. "What happened to your head? Face this way and open your eyes wide… that's right."

"I don't know," Harry told her. "I ran across a group of Death Eaters near the safehouse. I remember thinking I'd get closer and see what they were doing, and then next thing I knew someone was hitting me with an Enervate."

Poppy's lips thinned. "Death Eaters. What else did they do?" She aimed her wand at Harry's head and muttered a complicated-sounding spell.

"Punched me once or twice, that's all."

"That's all?" Poppy asked skeptically. She began tapping on his head with her wand, making him yelp a bit; where her wand hit, his skull rang with a high, clear chime as if she were tapping her wand against glass. Harry really hoped that his skull wasn't fractured, because that sound was bloody nerve-grating.

"Almost all. I got caught with the edge of an Avada Kedavra. It made me a little ill for a while -"

"Ill how?"

"Weak and shaky. A bit nauseated. Like I said, though, it went away."

"Hm," Poppy said absently. "Finite Incantatem. Here, lift your head, I'll get rid of that bruise and you can have your glasses back."

Harry did as he was told and felt the light tingle of a healing charm washing away the bruises on his face.

"Lie back and unbutton your shirt," she ordered when she was done healing his face. Resigned, Harry settled back on the bed and began unbuttoning.

"While you're here, you'd better tell me what you had to heal on Draco," she said, holding her wand out parallel to his body and drawing it slowly up and down his torso a few inches above the skin.

Harry settled his glasses onto his face and watched the world spring back into focus. "His ribs were broken, these ones here along his right side -"

"Hold still!"

"Sorry. There were bruises, bad ones, all over his torso."

Poppy's wand came to a halt over his hips and hovered there, then moved over the tattoo under his trousers. Raising an eyebrow, Poppy looked up at him, waiting.

Harry shifted uneasily. "It's… it's all right. It's only temporary. I'll take it off later."

Poppy pursed her lips in disapproval and drew the wand down over his legs. "Where were Draco's bruises the worst?"

"On his sternum. Those blows might have cracked the bone and I just didn't catch it; God knows the bruising was bad enough."

"Just on his torso? All right, sit up and button your shirt. You need sleep desperately, but you're fine other than that."

"There were a couple on his upper arms and one down toward his hip, but nothing else."

"None on his face?"

"No."

"And he said his father gave them to him?"

Harry nodded.

"Has his father started making a habit of beating him since he left Hogwarts?"

"Goyle said no. He said that Lucius had never laid a hand on Draco before, but he really hurt him badly this time and wouldn't let them call a doctor."

Poppy was looking rather grim, even for her, and Harry shifted nervously. "Is something wrong?"

Poppy tapped her wand against her chin. "Let me see if I have all this straight. Lucius Malfoy has never raised a hand to that child in his life until now, when Draco is old enough and strong enough to fight back if he wanted to. He covered Draco's torso in bruises - bruises, mind, not cuts or burns or any of the dozens of other injuries he could have caused the boy - but didn't bruise anywhere else, including Draco's face, which is a logical target to aim for when you're angry enough with someone to beat them half to death. He wouldn't let them call a mediwizard, when surely the Malfoys must keep at least one or two on retainer who are competent healers and won't ask questions. From the sound of it, he wouldn't let anyone else heal the bruises either, and he knows Draco can't. Is that a fair summation?"

"I think so, yeah," Harry said uneasily.

"What was the argument about? The one that ended in Draco being thrashed, I mean."

"It was… wait, I don't really know what it was about. All I know is that Draco's father wants to do something that Draco doesn't think he should do, and they had a row about it. Draco says Lucius hexed bruises all over him because he - Draco, I mean - told Lucius that he'd left me a note, and Lucius knew that I'd come and get Draco. And Lucius figured that word of that would get back to Voldemort, and if it looked like he'd disowned Draco and nearly killed him then Voldemort wouldn't think he could get to Lucius through Draco -"

"Oh, balderdash," Poppy said impatiently. "Is that what Draco thinks?"

"Well, that's what he said, anyway. I don't think he has the foggiest idea why his father did what he did, to tell the truth."

Poppy was looking out the window, sunlight falling into her eyes and turning them luminous green. "He's a clever one, isn't he?" she said angrily. "That Lucius Malfoy."

Harry went cold. "What do you mean?"

"Wait here."

She went back down the long floor of the ward, shoe soles squeaking just a little on the shiny linoleum, veil belling behind her in a drifting white train. Harry watched after her, feeling uncomfortably bereft, and watched the ward doors open when she returned with a thick, elderly book.

It didn't have a title on the cover, he saw as she sat down next to him - only twin snakes wound around a winged staff, one symbol that crossed over between the Muggle and wizarding worlds. To Harry's discomfort, he found that the reminder of the world in which he'd spent the first eleven years of his life - his mother's world - was unsettling, as if he'd suddenly come across some dust-covered rune that would open doorways best left closed.

I've been at Hogwarts too long, he thought.

"M, m, m," Poppy was muttering under her breath, flipping through the pages. "Malfoy. I know you didn't see all of him, Harry, but -"

Harry looked away.

There was a brief, taut silence before Poppy said "Ah," with a wealth of meaning and brisk sympathy in the word. "Look here, now. Did you at any time see something on him that looked like this?"

Grateful to her for not dwelling on the matter, Harry turned back to look at the book. Poppy turned it right-side-up for him and pointed at a stylized M wreathed in vines. Looking closer, he saw that the lines of the letter were thick enough to contain runes written into them - damned complicated spell-casting, or the original creation of the charm must have been, at any rate. "No. He has a tattoo, but… but it's not that."

"A dragon on his left shoulder, yes, I know," she said rather disapprovingly.

"This other one - what is it?"

Poppy closed the book and set it on the bedside table. "It's a charm that's handed down through the old Pureblood families, the ones in which everything revolves around primogeniture and keeping the family estates together. It's used…" She stopped and gave a short, harsh laugh. "Well, appropriately enough, it's used to rein in recalcitrant heirs."

"What?"

"It's a spell placed on an eldest son by a father, or as close to a father as the child might have. It isn't harmful, not if certain conditions are fulfilled, but it ties the child to the family lands."

"Wait, how? What conditions?" Harry demanded.

"Do be quiet for five minutes and you might find out, Harry," Poppy said sternly, and he bit his lip to keep his mouth shut. "Once the spell is cast and activated, the child can't stay off the family lands for very long. If they do, if they try to live elsewhere, they grow… ill, after a while. Desperately homesick, at first; then they won't eat, then they can't eat, and they grow weaker and weaker until they come back home. Or, well, until they die."

Harry stared at her, his heart pounding in his throat.

"The spell's strength depends a great deal on how far away from the family home the son is when it's activated; a child who is on the estate at the time might only feel a mild lifelong preference for that particular house, but a child who's on the other side of the world will be drawn home almost immediately, and irresistibly. I suppose one might say that the length and strength of the leash are inversely proportional to the child's apparent aversion to the family home."

"But it's a moot point anyway," Harry reminded her, proud of the steadiness of his voice. "Draco doesn't have anything like that on him. I would have seen it."

Poppy sighed. "Well, that's why I say that Lucius is too clever by half. The mark is very small, no larger than it is on the page, and it's only visible until it's activated; it's black, but not so dark that it can't be hidden by a bad bruise. Only the father can cast the spell, but it can be activated by anyone at all - relatives, the family solicitor, someone passing by in the street. Before it's activated, a mediwizard can remove it if they know what to look for; afterward, the only thing that can lift the spell is the caster's death, or the caster himself."

"And what activates it?" Harry asked tightly.

"Healing charms," she told him.

Harry said a word that made Poppy tut reflexively at him and raked his hands into his hair. "Because there are hundreds of places that are warded against some type of spell or other, but almost nowhere is warded against healing spells. Fuck, that's good. How very Slytherin." He glanced back up at her. "That's why he wouldn't let Goyle call a doctor, isn't it? Any doctor who knew the family would have put two and two together, found the mark, and told Draco."

"Probably," Poppy said.

"Fuck, no, let's not call a doctor for the broken ribs, because the fucking spell needs to be activated when he's off Malfoy land. We'll let Harry Potter do it, because he's too ignorant and not pureblood enough to have any idea that he's set a time bomb ticking," Harry ranted, struggling to keep his voice down and failing. "I was this close to him, Poppy. If I'd got any closer I'd have been sitting on him. My fucking hands were on him. Why didn't I feel the mark?"

"Let's not forget, we don't yet know for a fact that it's there," Poppy reminded him. "If it was… well, it's a powerful spell but it's tuned to the Malfoy family. It's crafted to resonate with their blood and their magic. If you were using healing charms anyway, it might just have slipped past you and quietly activated while your attention was on something else, and it might have felt too like Draco to catch your notice."

"God damn it!"

"The question, of course, is if Draco knows whether it's there or not. My guess would be no - it's awfully hard to keep track of the exact spells someone is casting at you when they've just broken your ribs."

"He said he didn't try any healing charms. He didn't say why."

"Probably because he's rubbish at them," Poppy said tartly. "I don't know if it's interference from his Dark Arts training or if he's just inherently got no knack for them, but if it had been him trying to heal your arm in your second year I'd probably have had to regrow the whole thing and make sure it didn't come back as a tentacle."

Harry laughed dismally. "Yeah. How long does he have before he starts getting sick? If he does have it, I mean."

"Given that he would have been in Cornwall when it was activated? A few months, maybe, at a guess," Poppy told him. "Once he'd got used to it he'd be able to hold his teaching job here without endangering himself as long as he went home over the holidays."

"So if this war that's building isn't over come the spring, Draco's going to have to go back to his father whether he wants to or not."

"I'm afraid so," Poppy answered. "If the spell was cast on him."

"Is there a way to tell?"

Poppy pursed her lips. "Yes. I'll have to draw blood, though, and he's always such a baby about it. I've seen him hit the Quidditch pitch head-first and come in covered in blood with all his complaints and fussing just for show, but get a syringe near him and he goes as white as the Grey Lady and starts telling you he has homework to do."

Harry wondered, exasperated and fond, if any of them ever grew up in Poppy's eyes.

Poppy patted his hand. "Harry, listen. I might not have found the mark either; and if I'd treated him here and not found it… well, Hogwarts is farther away from Malfoy land than Cornwall is, and that leash tightens very quickly. You might have bought him a few weeks more than he would have had otherwise. Now, I'm going to tell Severus that you should take tomorrow off, so that I can be sure there aren't any lingering side effects from that Unforgivable, but other than that you're fine. Off you go. Get some rest."

Harry slid off the bed and straightened his robes. "Poppy… can you tell me if -"

"You know I can't," she cut him off kindly. "And don't you dare pester Severus either. If Draco wants you to know, he'll tell you."

"I don't think he'll tell me much of anything," Harry said, and left before he could see any more sympathy in Poppy's eyes.

 

Remus sat down, poured himself some tea, and eyed his expanded table and the food covering it - lunch brought by house elves deliriously happy to have Harry Potter back in his rightful place. The twins hadn't got there yet; Harry had, and was pacing back and forth across the room like a caged panther. The third time the vase on the mantel trembled alarmingly when Harry passed it, Remus decided he'd probably better say something.

"Harry," he said gently. "For what it's worth, I'm sorry."

The vase exploded.

Harry swallowed convulsively. "Sorry, I'm sorry, I…" Closing his eyes wearily, he turned and folded his arms on the mantel, leaning his head against them. His breath was coming in quick, sharp gulps.

"The minute he saw her, it was like I didn't even exist anymore," he said tightly.

"What else did you expect?" Remus asked pragmatically.

"I don't know. Not that. Not for him to just walk away without a backward glance."

Remus was rather glad that Harry wasn't a hormone-ridden adolescent anymore, or by now that rage coming through in his voice would have been the death of every stick of furniture in Remus' rooms. "The two of you made a mistake, that's all. You weren't the first to make it and God knows you won't be the last. This too shall pass."

There was a long silence before Harry gave a shaky sigh. "Yeah," he said. "A mistake. You make a mistake, you get over it and move on."

"Yes, but you also give yourself time to grieve if you need it." Remus pushed out one of the chairs. "Sit down, Harry. Have some tea."

Harry's face was emotionless when he sat down, and Remus couldn't help but think of the child whose anger had blazed bright enough to burn everything and everyone who came near him. Well, Harry had learned a damn harsh lesson from that, all right, and that lesson had begun with Sirius' death but hadn't ended with it by a long shot.

Harry reached for the teacup, fumbled it, and missed when he tried to catch it, Seeker reflexes failing him for possibly the first time in Remus' experience; the cup fell onto the saucer, cracking the saucer in half, and for a moment Remus really thought the table was going to go flying across the room.

"Harry," he said firmly, catching hold of Harry's wrist. "Stop."

Pale and trembling, Harry scrubbed his hands over his face, trailing up to rake his fingers into his hair. "I killed Dennis Creevey last night, Remus," he said thinly.

Remus blinked, his memory scrambling to produce the image of a small hamster-like boy. "What?"

"He was one of the Death Eaters who attacked us. I should have told Snape, but I couldn't, and I don't even know why." He made a sharp, miserable sound that might have been either a laugh or a sob, but was worrisome either way. "He… we were fighting over his wand, and he tried to cast Avada Kedavra on me. I turned his wand on him right when he was finishing the incantation."

"Harry, my God," Remus said, stunned. "Why would Dennis Creevey have joined Voldemort? And why would Voldemort have let him?"

"I don't know, but he was Marked, I saw it myself." Harry swallowed convulsively. "I thought I knew it was going to be like this. For God's sake, it's a civil war. But I suppose somewhere in the back of my mind I still thought it was going to be all the people I was friends with fighting all the people I hate, Gryffindor against Slytherin like we were playing for the House Cup. I didn't… I didn't think it was going to be me killing Dennis fucking Creevey. Or him trying to kill me. I'm not sure which one bothers me more."

"My vote goes to him trying to kill you," George said from the doorway, making Remus and Harry both start.

"Bloke aims an Unforgivable at you, he deserves what he gets," Fred put in, brushing past George to dump an armful of parchment rolls on the couch.

Crookshanks wandered out from the bedroom and jumped into Harry's lap, twitching ears and sharp eyes just visible over the edge of the table; terrified, the creamer scuttled behind the teapot. "Come and have some tea, boys, if you can catch the crockery," Remus said over his shoulder.

"Remus, this is Hermione's cat," Harry said, lifting Crookshanks by the underarms to frown at him from eye level. "What's he doing here?"

"Looking for you," Remus answered, liberating some watercress sandwiches from the plate near him. "I can't talk to him when the moon isn't full and he wouldn't say anything to Minerva, so I still don't know how he got here from St. Mary Boniface or what exactly he wants. He seems happy enough here, though."

"He's taken a liking to Remus," George said as Harry settled the cat back into his lap.

"Have you?" Harry asked Crookshanks, scratching him behind the ears. "Maybe you should stay here until…"

Until, Remus thought. But from what he'd heard, it didn't look like Hermione was going to get better. Harry didn't finish his sentence, and looked suddenly miserable.

"Dennis Creevey, huh?" Fred said thoughtfully. "Isn't Colin still a photographer for the Prophet? Creepy little bugger. Up you get, Harry, go sit on the couch so we can show you these."

"I don't -" Harry began.

"George, get him some tea," Fred ordered. "And don't put anything in it, either. I know you've been dying to try out the Parchment Powder."

Harry blinked. "The what?"

"Don't worry, Harry, we're almost positive it's safe," George told him. "We tried out the last version of it on that little bastard who's always trying to steal things from the shop."

"He was only stuck in the air vents for a few days," Fred said reassuringly.

Remus watched with a small smile as Fred and George manhandled Harry onto the couch and sprawled around, against, and over him. It was too bad Harry was so besotted with Malfoy; the relentlessly tactile twins would have made a good match for someone who as long as Remus had known him had desperately craved other people's touch and had no idea what to do with it when it was given to him.

"You lot have been busy," Harry observed, leafing through pages of notes. "So everything really is sealed up except for the paths through the humpbacked witch and under the Whomping Willow?"

"As best we can tell, with two caveats," Remus said. "First, the tunnel in the Dungeons that runs under the lake."

Harry's eyes snapped up to his, and Remus didn't need Legilimency to know what he was thinking - anything that came through that tunnel was going to hit Slytherin House first and hardest.

"Remus said it smelled like necromancy," George said. "We warded it all up, though."

"How strong?" Harry asked Remus.

"Like something tried to get through and didn't quite manage," Remus answered. "Or like some sort of very minor spell had been cast down there. Wait until you've rested to go and check it, but check our wards while you're about it."

"The way through the water's blocked up, though," Fred told Harry. "George and I made sure."

Harry nodded. "What's the other caveat?"

"The Chamber of Secrets," Remus said, and Harry swore under his breath.

"I knew that bloody place was going to bite Hogwarts in the arse one of these days," he muttered gloomily. "George, I don't even want to know what you were about to say. What about the Chamber?"

"Myrtle says there are tunnels out - she thinks they're impassable but someone will have to go down to see for sure," Remus answered.

"Someone meaning me," Harry noted with a mild grimace.

"And us," Fred put in. "And Bill."

"We owled him already," George said. "He can come out tomorrow if he needs to."

Harry nodded. "Tomorrow night, after curfew? I know none of the students use that toilet but there's no sense risking it."

"I'm going to let you lot have the pleasure of that adventure," Remus said. "But Myrtle will show you where the tunnels are."

"Good," Harry said absently, looking over a surprisingly well-rendered drawing of the tunnel in the Dungeons. Having something to do suited him, Remus noted; he was much calmer now, and things around him no longer seemed on the verge of exploding. Well, if the rumors about Voldemort's activities were true, Harry would have quite enough to do very soon. Remus hoped he was ready.

He couldn't help wondering how things would have gone if the final conflict with Voldemort had come while Harry was still at school. There was a time when Remus would have had faith in Albus Dumbledore's ability and inclination to keep Harry from simply chucking it all and disappearing in a cloud of bitterness and rage… or to keep anything worse from happening, either to Harry or to the wizarding world. That time was over long ago, and Dumbledore was dead anyway; and Harry was a man, but a very young man, and still rather worryingly prone to simply taking what he wanted.

Remus wondered if things along the Malfoy-Parkinson axis could be rearranged a bit more to the satisfaction of everyone involved, probably including Malfoy and Parkinson, then caught himself speculating on Harry's love life and winced. He was either turning into Albus Dumbledore or turning into Lavender Brown, and all things considered he was happier turning into a wolf.

There was a sudden earsplitting series of crashes as Crookshanks pounced onto the table and skidded full-tilt into the tea set, slapping things out of his way in single-minded pursuit of the creamer. Remus grabbed for him and missed; the creamer leaped off the table, covered a truly impressive distance to the back of the couch, and pelted across it at a multi-jointed sprint, with Crookshanks hard on its heels. A sudden cacophony of yowls and indignant squawks exploded from the couch; when the dust had settled, Fred had Crookshanks, George had the creamer, and Harry had cream dripping into his eyes and down the back of his neck.

"You know," Harry said, "Muggle creamers stay put."

"What fun is that?" Fred asked placidly, scratching the ruff of fur at Crookshanks' neck.

Remus sighed and made some more tea.

 

I'll just go and rest for a minute, Remus thought as soon as his room was empty of its tumble of unnervingly energetic boys.

When he opened his eyes again it was full dark. He was annoyed with himself for having slept so long, but he'd apparently needed it; his head was clearer now, his bones less painful, and he didn't feel quite so much like he was trying to walk around wrapped in a waterlogged quilt. Rubbing at his eyes, he swung his feet onto the floor and reached for his wand to light the candles. It was past dinnertime, he saw; he'd have to get something from the kitchens later.

A peremptory rap on his window made him look up with a frown. One of the school owls was perched on the sill outside. Stretching stiffly, Remus got up and went to let it in. It fluttered to the armchair by the fire and extended an impatient leg.

"What's the rush?" Remus asked mildly, and the owl shook its leg sternly at him. "All right, all right, let me see…"

Lupin,

I find that I have a free hour this evening and would appreciate a report on the efficacy of the new wolfsbane potion. Please come to my office at your earliest convenience.

SS

Remus raised an eyebrow. "Good heavens, Severus, that was almost polite," he murmured. "You're slipping a bit. Soon you'll be calling me 'old chap' and inviting me to play snooker."

The owl ruffled its wings and he glanced up at it. "There's no response needed. I'll go along and see Severus now."

With a satisfied hoot, the own flew back out the window. Remus closed the window behind it, took his time straightening himself up and putting himself back together so he didn't look like he'd just rolled out of bed, and set out for Severus' office.

It was strange how little that office had changed since Albus Dumbledore's time, he reflected as he tapped lightly on the door and pushed it open. Some of the books along the walls had been changed out for potions texts; the chair behind the desk was different, accommodating Severus' greater height and taste for the spartan; there was no longer a bowl of sweets on the desk, and the curtains were rich green and silver now, an unsubtle statement of Severus' priorities. Other than that, Remus might have felt as if he were arriving for an audience with Albus if Severus hadn't been seated behind the desk looking every inch the Headmaster.

And looking rather distracted, and, if Remus looked closely, a bit worried.

"Good evening, Severus," he said cordially. "You wanted to discuss the new potion?"

"Have a seat, Lupin," Severus ordered, gesturing to the chairs in front of the desk. Remus settled into one, feeling oddly cozy in the amber light of fire and candles. "Did you have any difficulties?"

"The control isn't as absolute as I'd like," Remus said, rather wishing Severus would offer him a drink. "If something startles me, the wolf takes over very quickly and it takes me a minute to get control back. The change was much easier, though, both during and after - I'm still tired and sore, but I feel much better now than I generally do."

Severus scrawled a note on the parchment in front of him. "No unusual side effects?"

"None so far." Remus examined Severus curiously. "Is something the matter?"

"Has Potter got over whatever he was upset about when we met this morning?" Severus asked abruptly.

Remus raised an eyebrow, wondering exactly how much Severus knew. "I… should think it's going to take him a while to get over it completely, but he's doing much better. Why?"

Severus set his quill down and pushed the parchment to the side. "Directly after I sent off the owl asking you to come here, the wards at the front gates let in three people, adults. I strongly suspect that it's Ronald Weasley, here with reinforcements to attempt to arrest Draco."

"Oh, God," Remus said. "Harry's going to tear him apart."

"Which is exactly what this school cannot afford," Severus said irritably. "One professor with the threat of Azkaban hanging over his head is quite enough. Fortunately, the school is not without assistance in this matter, but -"

"Severus, you have to put them off," Remus said. "You can't let them arrest Draco tonight."

"Believe me, I'll do my best to stop them. And I require you to do your best to keep Potter under control, should he find out about what's happening before it's come to some sort of conclusion."

Oh, this could be bad for a large number of reasons, starting with Dennis Creevey's body off the coast of Cornwall and including but not limited to Ron Weasley making an extended stay in the intensive care ward at St. Mungo's. "Severus. Harry may well be one of the most powerful wizards in the world. When one of the most powerful wizards in the world is a twenty-five-year-old boy with a broken heart and a hair-trigger temper, it doesn't do to piss about and back him into a corner like a cockatrice with a wand held to its mate's head. I'll do what I can, but for God's sake send Ron away, with or without a flea in his ear."

Behind and below him, there was a sharp pounding on the door to the staircase. His mouth set in a grim line, Severus waved the staircase down; Remus listened to it descend, pause, and ascend again.

"We shall just have to hope that Potter has enough self-control, or enough fondness for Weasley, to prevent any potentially unpleasant occurrences," Severus said without much hope. "And that Weasley has enough sense not to provoke him beyond endurance."

There was a peremptory knock on the door. Remus rose and moved to stand by the tea table where he could be out of the way and see what was going on.

"Come in," Severus called.

The door swung open and Ron Weasley strode into the office, followed by Tonks and Kingsley Shacklebolt. "Headmaster," he said curtly. "Professor Lupin."

"May I help you, Mr. Weasley?" Severus asked coolly.

"We're here for Malfoy," Ron said, and did not sound likely to take no for an answer.

"Indeed," Severus said mildly. "Are all three of you here to question him?"

"We're not here to question him on his own ground. We're here to take him in to the Ministry for questioning."

Tonks shifted uncomfortably, caught Remus' eye, and then looked away.

Severus folded his hands on the desk. "You'll talk to Mr. Malfoy here or not at all."

"Bullshit," Ron said evenly. "We're taking him to London with us. Now are you going to go get him or are we?"

"I'm afraid that won't be possible, Mr… Weasley, is it?"

The voice was unfamiliar, smooth and silky; somewhere inside Remus, the wolf's hackles rose and it bared its teeth in a long, low snarl.

Ron stepped back and glared up at the upper level of the office. "Who the hell is that? If you want to be part of this conversation, you can bloody well come out here and do it."

The shadows stirred and a thin blond man stepped out toward the top of the stairs, holding a large book in his hands and looking down at Ron through wire-rimmed spectacles. He smiled without even a token effort at sincerity. "Gerald Price, solicitor-at-law. I've been retained on behalf of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, its faculty and staff, and the students to which the school stands in loco parentis."

Severus, Severus. What have you been up to? Remus thought grimly.

"And your job is to keep me from taking Malfoy in," Ron said between his teeth.

With a quick puff of air, Price blew an immense cloud of dust off the book he was holding and started down the stairs. "I'm afraid, Mr. Weasley, that the 1274 amendment to Hogwarts' charter, which is a legally binding agreement between the school and the Ministry, is quite clear on the matter: the Ministry shall not forcibly remove any member of the faculty, staff, or student body from Hogwarts grounds without showing sufficient probable cause for the subject of the inquiry to be charged with some offense and brought immediately for trial before the Wizengamot."

"Bullshit!" Ron exploded. "Then why was the Ministry able to waltz in and send Hagrid to Azkaban when there was no evidence that he'd opened the Chamber of Secrets?"

"I assume that the former Headmaster had his reasons for not invoking the Charter at that time. The fact remains, however, that the provision has never been withdrawn, and the present Headmaster is fully within his rights to invoke it. You may, however, interview Professor Malfoy on school grounds." Price's smile was small and wintery. "In my presence, of course, and the presence of the Headmaster."

Kingsley stepped forward. "May I see that provision, please?"

"Certainly." Price set the book down on Snape's desk and stepped back. Kingsley bent over it for a long time, reading thoroughly over the small, crabbed writing, and for a while there was only the dry sound of turning pages. Finally he looked up at Ron and shook his head grimly.

"He's right, Ron. Unless there's a later charter that explicitly nullifies this one we can't take Malfoy in, and with more than seven hundred years to work through, if a nullifying charter exists the Ministry isn't going to find it tonight."

Ron went white around the nostrils; but when he finally spoke, his voice was calm and steady. "We'll interview Malfoy here, pending a review of the Hogwarts charter drafts from the thirteenth bloody century up. Let me make clear that if I do find a later charter that revokes this provision, I'm going to have Malfoy in Azkaban so fast he'll think he Apparated in his sleep."

"I wonder, Mr. Weasley, if you are the right person to head up this investigation," Price said softly, examining his fingernails. "As kin to both victims and one of the offenders, of course you can't actually be removed from it - but I worry that in your haste to send Draco Malfoy to the headsman's block you'll overlook something more pertinent to the investigation… or that you will violate procedures in some way that will make a conviction legally impossible no matter who you arrest."

"Was that a threat, Price?" Ron asked evenly.

"A word of friendly advice," Price answered, and flashed that small, cold smile again. "Free of charge, of course. We know, do we not, who killed your sister? And it wasn't Draco Malfoy. As far as I know, no one has yet managed to establish who was responsible for the attack on your late wife -"

"She's not dead!"

"Your former wife, excuse me," Price corrected himself smoothly. "But we can, if necessary, produce witnesses to testify that it could not have been Professor Malfoy."

"What witnesses?" Ron demanded.

"Gregory Goyle, to begin with," Severus answered, and Ron turned to stare at him.

"Oh, yes," he said levelly. "And I'm meant to just take his word, because there's no way he'd lie for Malfoy."

"You could always give him Veritaserum too," Severus snapped. "I assume that you've brought some."

There was a flicker of surprise in Ron's eyes, but nothing more. "As a matter of fact, we did, and a warrant authorizing its use as well."

"Professor Malfoy is under no obligation to take it," Price warned.

"He damn well will if he knows what's good for him."

"Be careful, Mr. Weasley," Price said, and Remus looked hard at him - suddenly it felt ten degrees colder in that room, and the shadows crept outward in the corners where the candlelight no longer reached. "The Ministry gives its Aurors a great deal of latitude indeed, and many things are overlooked that probably shouldn't be; but should a proven charge of coercion and human rights violations actually succeed in getting into your permanent record, it could well be the end of your career."

"Don't threaten me, Price," Ron said tightly.

"Then I suggest you not threaten my client." They watched each other for a moment, and then Price made a small gesture that in anyone else would have looked conciliatory. "Come, Mr. Weasley. The storm is coming. If we allow ourselves to bicker like schoolchildren we'll be caught unprepared by it, and we have a very great deal to lose. You may interview Professor Malfoy tonight if you wish. You may even request that he take Veritaserum, though I will strongly advise him against it. A reasonable concession, don't you agree, given that legally we're under no obligation to let you speak to him at all?"

There was a strained silence before Ron finally gave a curt nod, and Remus let out a breath he hadn't known he was holding. The oppressive shadow lifted from the candles and they grew almost imperceptibly brighter; Remus wasn't sure he'd have caught it farther away from the full moon. He rather hoped that Price was merely very good at incredibly subtle wandless magic.

Severus clapped his hands and a house elf appeared in the middle of the room, nearly unrecognizable underneath a teetering stack of hats, a first-year-sized uniform shirt that pooled on the ground at his feet, and a large plaid scarf. Clearly, Remus thought, a house elf who had been given clothes in no uncertain terms; that must be Dobby, then.

"Yes, Headmaster?" Dobby asked, peering out from underneath the brim of the newsboy's cap at the bottom of the stack.

"Dobby, please tell Professor Malfoy to come to the large staff conference room on the third floor. Mr. Weasley would like a word with him."

Remus didn't spend much time around house elves, and had never before been witness to the sight of one putting two and two together with impressive speed. Dobby's eyes widened with momentary panic, then narrowed. Bollocks, he's going to tell Harry, Remus thought, and had just opened his mouth to order discretion when Dobby squeaked "Yes, Headmaster," and vanished in a dim sparkle.

"Shall we, gentlemen and lady?" Price asked mildly. Remus couldn't hold back a small, humorless smile - he knew where that conference room was located, knew that Draco would reach it well before they did, and was a bit amused at the show of ostensible cooperation.

He wondered if Price had been there, in Severus' study, the whole time they'd been talking.

 

The meeting room was full of shadows, lit only by the waning moon and a candelabra in the middle of the staff table. Draco was sitting at the far end of the table, sprawled lazily in his chair and still somehow managing to look tense. Harry was bending over him, one hand braced flat on the table and the other on the back of Draco's chair, clearly in the middle of delivering some sort of urgent lecture. Both their gazes snapped to the door when it opened, and Harry moved back just a little too quickly, straightening with whiplash speed but not moving more than a step away from Draco's chair. He looked as wary as Draco did, and also stubborn and angry, and Remus gave a small sigh.

"Harry," Ron said, in a tone that said clearly, I might have bloody known.

"Hello, Ron," Harry answered, both affection and warning clear in his voice.

"You can't stay," Ron told him.

"I'm afraid he can," Price said mildly. "The Wizengamot Charter of Rights, which also applies to investigations undertaken by Ministry officials acting in a law enforcement capacity, places no strictly defined limit on the number of advocates permissible -"

"In other bloody words, you're going to exploit a wording loophole -"

"- nor on the number of witnesses for the defense," Price finished smoothly. "I rather think Professor Potter falls under both categories."

"Tonks, where's the damn Veritaserum?" Ron asked tightly.

"Right here." Tonks pulled a small phial out of her pocket. Draco snapped his fingers peremptorily and held up a hand; Tonks tossed him the phial, then turned away to hide a grudging smile as he caught it out of the air.

"Professor Malfoy, you should know that you're under no obligation to take Veritaserum at this time," Price warned.

"At this point I'll drink bobotuber pus if it'll get Weasley off my arse," Draco said irritably, making Remus wince. Well, tact had never been this particular Malfoy's strong point, after all.

Harry was staring at the Veritaserum in Draco's hand, and he might have been doing a better job than usual controlling his expression but his scent reached Remus' still-heightened senses in an acrid wave of fear. Remus saw Price's eyes flick toward Harry and immediately away, noting and cataloging.

Ron sat down at the other end of the table and gestured Tonks and Shacklebolt into seats beside him. "Bottoms up, then, Malfoy," he said.

Draco popped the phial open with his thumb and tossed the Veritaserum down his throat. Harry let out a slow breath and slid into the chair beside him.

Remus moved forward to sit too; they were likely to be there for a while. Severus took the chair on Draco's left, Price the seat next to Severus, and they all waited for the potion to take effect.

Kingsley rummaged in his pack and pulled out a large roll of parchment and a Quick-Quotes quill. Harry shot the quill a dark glance.

"Do we get to review the interrogation record to be sure it's accurate?" he asked sharply.

"Mr. Price will be able to," Kingsley answered. "Assuming he's Professor Malfoy's counsel of record."

"I am," Price concurred.

"How accurate are those quills?" Harry persisted. "Because they weren't any too damned accurate when that bloody Rita Skeeter was interviewing me."

Remus covered a grim smile. Harry had to know that he couldn't keep them talking until the Veritaserum wore off; but then again, he had to have known when he went into the Chamber of Secrets that he couldn't outfight a full-grown basilisk and it hadn't stopped him then.

Unfortunately, that same knowledge hadn't stopped Ron Weasley either. "Harry, we'll answer any question you want when we're done talking to Malfoy; for right now, unless Price wants you to make some formal contribution to the proceedings, stay bloody quiet and stop trying to stall us."

Color flared in Harry's cheeks, visible even in the candlelight. "I'm not -" he began angrily.

"Harry," Draco said softly, and after a long, tense moment Harry backed down and settled back in his chair.

Oh, bugger, Remus thought, looking at the expression on Ron's face. If they weren't damn careful, Harry was only going to wind up making things worse.

Draco looked away from Harry and back to Ron, blinking slowly in the candlelight. His eyes were glazed and sleepy; and when he lifted a hand to brush a stray tendril of hair out of his face, his movement was as languid and graceful as a courtesan's. Only Draco Malfoy, Remus thought sardonically, could make going under Veritaserum look like the afterglow of truly spectacular sex.

"State your full name for the record, please," Kingsley said.

"Draco Lucius Malfoy," Draco answered in a slower drawl than usual; Remus wondered if it was the Veritaserum slowing him down or if he was adopting Harry's stalling tactics.

"Let the record show that Mr. Malfoy is being questioned in connection with the escape of Lucius Malfoy from Azkaban Prison; the murder of Ginevra Molly Weasley, a human being; and the assault upon Hermione Jane Granger which took place on or about 26 October 2005," Kingsley said, and Remus watched Ron's jaw tighten.

"Let's get the obvious questions out of the way first," Ron said, and Remus had to admire his control. "Did you kill Ginny Weasley?"

"No," Draco answered.

"Did you have any prior knowledge of anyone's intent to murder her or any plans made that might have resulted in her death?"

Draco looked a little dubious. "How far back should I answer that? Because there was the time in our fourth year at school when Millie Bulstrode -"

"I don't think we need go back quite that far," Price interrupted.

"No, then."

Ron shot an unreadable glance at Price and then turned back to Draco. "Did you have any part in the attack on Hermione Granger on the night of October twenty-sixth?"

"No."

"Did you have any prior knowledge that such an attack would take place?"

"No."

"Did you play any role in your father's escape from Azkaban, or have any prior knowledge that such an escape was being planned?"

"Well, I always assumed he'd get out eventually; but if you're asking if I had any prior knowledge that your brother was preparing to break him out, or worked with your brother in any way to effect that breakout, the answer is no."

"Where is your father?"

"I don't know," Draco answered, and Remus watched Harry try hard not to react.

Ron was silent for a long moment before he said, in a dangerously low, even voice, "What the fuck do you mean, you don't know?"

"Ron," Kingsley said, warning.

"Where have you been for the last bloody week, then?"

"For the last three days I've been in an Order safehouse in Cornwall. For three days before that I was at my family's summer home in Ireland with my mother."

"Did you leave Hogwarts of your own accord?"

Draco gave a wry smile. "Not entirely. As I said, I was visiting my mother, who is not best pleased with me right now."

Ron snorted disbelievingly. "Malfoy, you threw the whole fucking school into an uproar. You're telling me you left with no word to anyone just to visit your mother?"

"I left a note for Potter."

Looking as though he would rather ask anything else in the world, Ron said, "Can you state for the record your relationship to Harry Potter?"

"Ron, for God's sake -" Harry began, then stopped and colored.

"Potter and I co-teach Defence Against the Dark Arts. And have rather smashing sex," Draco said, and then winced. "Damn. Veritaserum is a bit inconvenient, isn't it?"

Harry and Ron both looked as though they were wishing that the ground would open up and swallow them.

Ron rubbed a hand over his eyes. "How long have you been romantically involved? Or sleeping together, take your pick."

"It only happened once. Well, when I say 'once' I suppose what I really mean is - "

"And how long ago was this?"

"Ron -" Harry said through clenched teeth.

"Last night, actually. And this morning."

"Does your fiancée know?"

"Yes," Draco said tightly. Harry leaned his elbows on the table and raked his hands into his hair, closing his eyes, smelling so strongly of guilt and misery that Remus wondered if even a full human could avoid catching the scent.

"I believe my client's relationship to Professor Potter has now been established," Price put in. "Let's move along to something more relevant to the incidents under investigation, shall we?"

"Yes, Weasley, do back off. No abusing your position to get the prurient details of my sex life."

"Draco!" Harry snapped.

Draco looked at him in surprise; quietly, he said, "Sorry, Harry," and then looked rather appalled at himself for saying it. Harry gave him a wan smile.

Dear God, had Minerva been right. Remus hadn't thought it was possible for anyone to be more besotted with another person than James had been with Lily, but his son was certainly giving him a run for his money.

With Lucius Malfoy's son, who was apparently sleeping with Harry while engaged to Jack Parkinson's daughter. James would have hit the roof and exploded like a Founding Day firecracker, and Lily wouldn't have been far behind.

"When was the last time you saw your father?" Ron asked.

"My client declines to answer that question," Price said as Draco was opening his mouth.

"Oh, he bloody does, does he?" Ron said grimly. Draco kept silent, eyes flickering back and forth between Ron and Price, chewing absently on his lower lip. "Malfoy, to the best of your knowledge, does your father intend to rejoin Voldemort?"

"I don't believe that he does, no," Draco answered.

"Why did you leave pro Quidditch?" Ron shot at him.

"My client declines to answer," Price snapped.

"Jesus, Ron, what does that have to do with anything?" Harry asked, saving Remus from having to ask it.

Ron gave a grim, satisfied smile, and suddenly Remus suspected that asking had been a bad idea. "You want to know? Take a look at this." Ron dug out a file from the stack in front of Tonks and sent it skimming down the table to Harry, who put out a hand to stop it but didn't open it. "From the Hungarian Ministry, by way of the Sűreté Sorcičre in Paris. Open the fucking file, Harry, it's a list of indictments in abeyance against one Draco Lucius Malfoy. Eight counts of trafficking in Dark Artefacts. Forty-seven counts of possession with intent to use of highly restricted and unlicensed potions ingredients -"

"Let me see that, please," Price murmured, and Harry slid it across the table to him, his gaze never leaving Ron's. Remus winced at the look in Harry's eyes and wished that someone had taken the boy's wand away before the questioning got started. Draco rubbed his fingertips wearily across his forehead, not looking at Harry.

" - fourteen counts of use of an unlicensed Unforgivable, three counts of manslaughter, and six fucking counts of premeditated murder, Harry -"

"Accessory to premeditated murder," Price murmured.

"Does that tell you why it's relevant?"

"No," Harry said flatly. Ron stared at him in open-mouthed astonishment; Draco lifted his head and looked sharply at Harry, startled into reaction.

"No?"

"No. It tells me that the Hungarian Ministry thinks they've run the Árnyék Király to ground and they're trying to turn on the heat by targeting a high-profile athlete for his connections to them." Harry shook his head, frustrated. "Ron, I heard the damn rumors too. I knew he was studying the Dark Arts with a sect that every government since the Founding has been trying to wipe out for good reason. I knew the Malfoy name and its connections to Voldemort bought him entry. I've seen the magic he came back with. What the fuck did you think I thought he was doing over there, helping little old ladies across the street?"

"If I may interrupt…" Price said, looking at Harry and Ron over the tops of his glasses. "These indictments are in abeyance for good reason. Unless there's much more going on than is shown in this file, there's very little hard evidence to support any of them, none at all for the more serious charges, and after this many years witnesses will be hard to find. A bright law student could have kept Mr. Malfoy from being extradited and tried on these grounds - and also, I might add, cut the feet out from under any attempt to use these indictments as just cause to remove Professor Malfoy from the grounds of Hogwarts. I'm afraid I must concur with Professor Potter - the charges are an inconvenience to Professor Malfoy but unrelated to the cases at hand, and you have no authority to pursue investigation of the charges on British soil. Let's move on to something else, shall we?"

Draco was starting to flag, clearly finding it harder and harder to hold the Veritaserum fog at bay. Remus wondered if it would wear off before he found himself saying things he hadn't meant to say. It was a strange thing to realize that he wasn't sure whether to hope that Draco's resistance held or hope that it gave out.

"Is that why you came back here, Malfoy?" Ron asked. "To hide out until the heat died down?"

"Partly," Draco answered.

Ron eyed him narrowly; then asked, almost gently, "Getting tired?"

"Yes," Draco said shortly.

"It takes a hell of a lot of energy to do an end run around Veritaserum, Malfoy. I've never seen anyone manage it over the whole course of an interrogation. In the end they always crack and start talking, and it's like floodgates opening. They tell us things they didn't even know they knew."

Draco gave a short, weary laugh. "You can't be the good Auror and the bad Auror at the same time, Weasley. You should have delegated one or the other to your minions."

Kingsley looked, Remus thought, rather amused at being called a minion. If Remus knew Kingsley, he was probably tempted to have it put on his business cards.

"I'm just warning you. Look at you, your hands are shaking already. Let it go, it's too damn much work. If you're as innocent as you say you are, what do you have to worry about?"

"Jesus Christ, Ron, how can you say that?" Harry exploded. Price made a small, calming gesture and Harry subsided unwillingly, clearly furious, angling his body toward Draco in an unconscious, protective gesture.

"Don't try, Malfoy," Ron pressed. "In five more minutes you'll be so far under that you won't even be able to lie by omission. Cut your losses and stop trying to get around it now, and maybe you won't wind up saying as much later."

"What makes you think I'm trying to get around it?" Draco asked, rather ironically.

"You're a Slytherin and a Malfoy. You'd do it for the fun of it even if you weren't facing down a stretch in Azkaban."

Remus had a sudden vision of Slytherin children playing at who could outwit Veritaserum the longest.

"Your father left you spinning in the wind a bit, there, didn't he?" Ron observed. "Why are you here and not at least out looking for him?"

"My client declines to answer," Price said.

"He can't decline to answer," Ron snapped. "That question doesn't require knowledge of criminal intent."

Price pursed his lips in disapproval, considering. "I'll allow him to answer on the understanding that if his answer is incriminating I'll have it purged from the record."

"You can try," Ron said sourly. "Answer the question, Malfoy. Why are you here and not looking for your father?"

"Because of Potter," Draco said, clearly unwillingly, and equally clearly not the answer Ron had expected.

"Because of Harry? You're telling me you've chosen Harry over your father?"

"No, I haven't," Draco answered sharply. "I'm only saying that Potter can on occasion be very persuasive."

"And he persuaded you to leave your mother's house for a safehouse in Cornwall how?"

Draco sighed and raked a hand through his hair. "I left my mother's house because Greg Goyle asked me to."

"Why did he ask you to?"

"He didn't think I was safe there."

"Why not?"

"You're going to have to ask him that, not me."

"Was Percy there?" Ron asked, switching tracks abruptly.

"My client declines to answer," Price said.

"What's today's date?"

"November first," Draco answered, and didn't look happy. Remus wouldn't have been either - scattershot, topic-hopping questions were going to tax Draco's ability to keep control of the Veritaserum and wear him down very quickly.

"Do you remember your sixth birthday?"

"No."

"Was it sunny today, or cloudy?"

"Sunny here, storming in Cornwall."

"Ron, I thought you were here to question him about Lucius," Harry said sharply.

"He's trying to boost the effects of the Veritaserum," Draco told him. "Skipping from subject to subject makes it harder for suspects to prevent themselves from answering automatically."

"You seem to know a hell of a lot about this, Malfoy," Ron said.

"Of course I do, for God's sake," Draco snapped. "Veritaserum is a potion, Weasley, in case it had escaped your notice. I'm a Potions master. I make the stuff for my seventh-years, to demonstrate highly advanced techniques."

"Have you ever given any to Harry? With or without his knowledge."

"No," Draco said, sounding so wistful that Remus had to disguise a snicker as a cough. "Pansy and I were going to while we were at school, but we couldn't quite make the serum come out right. We didn't have access to flash-frozen toad eyes and couldn't find the spell to freeze them ourselves, and fresh ones don't work right with the other ingredients -"

"Have you ever at any time used dark magic on Harry without telling him what you were doing or gaining his consent beforehand?"

"Is this relevant?" Harry demanded. "You can't ask him that. What does it have to do with -"

"Harry, shut up. Malfoy, answer the question."

"But you can't -" Harry persisted.

"I'm afraid he can, Professor Potter," Price said rather grimly. "If Professor Malfoy has ever committed a serious, actionable offense against you then you can't be called as a witness in his defense. Because of the possibility that you might be under Imperius, you see."

Harry went white. "Ron, you utter fuck. You know damn well I can throw off that curse."

"Answer the question, Malfoy, or I'll take you in to the Ministry and have you answer it there," Ron said.

Draco closed his eyes, fought visibly with himself for a minute, and finally, unwillingly, said, "Yes."

"He's wrong," Harry said immediately. "I knew what he was doing, and I didn't stop him."

"Well, Potter, you were rather tied to the bed at the time," Draco pointed out, making Harry turn scarlet, Ron turn green, and everyone else at the table wince in horrified sympathy.

"I could have stopped him," Harry pressed on. "I didn't. He showed me the counterspell to remove the spell he cast. I haven't. If that's not bloody consent then I don't know what is."

Ron pointed his wand at Harry and muttered a spell Remus remembered having taught him, one that tested for the presence of dark magic - not a strong spell, not enough to illuminate something cleverly disguised, but enough to throw a soft glow up underneath Harry's face as it reacted to something below the line of the table. Looking as if he'd found himself caught between fiery death and marriage to Hagrid, Harry pushed his chair back and stood. The light was fairly clearly coming from off-center underneath his trousers, causing everyone no small amount of relief - a relief that lasted only the time it took for Harry to begin angrily unbuttoning his trousers.

"Potter!" Severus protested in tones of strangled horror.

"Ron brought this up," Harry snapped. "It's his own damn fault if he gets more information than he asked for."

He shoved his trousers aside, tugged his pants down and his shirt up, and revealed a small black dragon on his hipbone. "There. That's all it is. It tells him if I'm hurt and helps him find me if I am, that's all."

"That's all?" Ron asked, deceptively quietly. "Then why did it require dark magic? Enlighten us, Malfoy."

"I don't know how to do that kind of spell without it," Draco answered.

"And?"

Draco sighed, rubbing wearily at his forehead with a hand that was beginning to shake. "It's dark magic for two reasons, and I'm only going to list them once, Weasley, so do pay better attention than you did in class."

Harry began putting his clothes back together, watching Draco.

"First, I cast a link between us without Potter's prior knowledge and consent. Dark magic is the only kind that can forge a link like that without the target's participation. Second, the spell is… well, similar in its basics to the spell used to implant the Dark Mark. It's not as crude, of course - Voldemort is largely self-taught, and it shows - but the spell can, if there's enough power differential between caster and castee, be used to control the target via something similar to the Imperius curse. It won't work in this case, though, because even if he weren't immune to that particular Unforgivable, this kind of spell couldn't control someone with Harry's level of power without exerting enough force to break him. I don't flatter myself that I have enough power to break Harry Potter," Draco said, sounding rather resentful of the admission.

"He told me what he'd done," Harry said stubbornly. "And showed me how to remove the spell. I'm a bloody Defence expert, I know damn well that the counterspell he showed me would have removed the tattoo and every one of its effects."

"How long did you wait to tell him the counterspell, Malfoy?" Ron asked.

"I told it to him as soon as he was done fucking me," Draco said between his teeth, looking as though he'd have given ten years of his life to hit Ron with an entrail-expelling curse. "So unless things like more, harder, and don't stop count as dark-magic-related evil influence, I'm afraid you're going to have a bit of trouble edging Potter out as a witness for the defense."

"We'll see about that," Ron said, not looking at Harry. "If you were your father, Malfoy, where would you be right now?"

"Fr-France," Draco answered, and Remus caught a flash of Oh, shit in his eyes at the stumble.

"Why?"

"We own land there, and if I hadn't said anything about it the Ministry would probably never have thought to look across the Channel. And the extradition procedures are unclear when the subject has dual citizenship."

"Where's this land?"

"In Navarre."

Ron glanced down at the file in front of him. "Your paternal grandmother's land?"

"I don't know exactly who it belongs to."

Draco's eyes were clouding over, and his voice was becoming more and more distant. Remus wondered how long he was going to be able to evade the serum's effects.

"Are you almost done, Weasley?" Severus asked in no friendly voice. "I really don't want you damaging my professors."

"Being too hung over from the Veritaserum to teach class in the morning is the least of your professor's worries," Ron informed him. "When was the last time you saw my sister, Malfoy?"

Draco opened his mouth to answer, then frowned, clearly having to stop and think. "I don't… no, wait, it was the year France fell out of the running for the Cup right before the quarterfinals. I went to the World Cup that year, myself and some of my teammates. Your family was there. I remember I kept seeing her with Potter."

"Keeping an eye on Harry, were you?"

Draco settled back into his chair and leaned his head on his fist, giving Ron a languid smile; he looked sleepy, a bit dishevelled, and frankly well-fucked, and Remus wondered if using beauty and sexuality as a weapon was something all Slytherins were trained in or only Malfoys. "Potter repays inspection, don't you think?" he said idly. "Surely even you must have noticed at one point or other. Quidditch showers and sharing a dorm room and all that."

"Do the two of you mind?" Harry snapped.

"You sure you want to be defending a bloke who'll shove you and your sex life out in front of himself as a shield, Harry?" Ron said.

"Ron, you're the one who keeps fucking bringing it up!" There were high spots of color in Harry's cheeks now, and the table trembled a little bit under Remus' hands. He could sympathize with it. "Yes, all right, I slept with him. We've established that. And if my sex life has a goddamned thing to do with what happened to Ginny and Hermione, I'll hand in my wand and spend the rest of my life helping Gilderoy Lockhart answer his bloody fan mail."

"Don't be sodding naďve, Harry," Ron snapped. "That's Lucius Malfoy's son. You think he's not buying protection for the Malfoys by fucking Harry Potter?"

Every ounce of color drained out of Harry's face, and Remus reflected that whatever else Lucius Malfoy's son might be angling for, he'd done a pretty efficient job of setting Ron and Harry at each other's throats and deflecting the heat from himself.

"Well," Price said suddenly, making everyone at the table start. "If you have no more relevant questions, Mr. Weasley, I believe that this interrogation is at an end."

"Malfoy, do you know what your father's planning to do now that he's out?" Ron snapped.

Caught off-guard, Draco said "Yes," then closed his eyes in clear self-recrimination. Remus rather wondered, out of all the people apparently playing that scene for their own benefit, who had come out on top.

"Tell me what it is, then."

Draco swallowed convulsively, paling. He was shaking now, fighting the Veritaserum with sheer brute force. "He's planning to avoid the bloody Ministry for a while and stay out of Azkaban," he said hoarsely.

"Not good enough, Malfoy. There have been a rash of disappearances since your father broke out of prison, disappearances of people who were very close to him before he was sent to Azkaban. He's building up an army. What does he want with one?"

Draco caught his lip between his teeth and gave a sudden, sharp flinch, hissing in pain.

"Ron, you're hurting him!" Harry protested.

"He's hurting himself, Harry," Ron answered quietly, his eyes on Draco. "All he has to do is answer and it'll stop. And if his father's not planning to go back to Voldemort, maybe what he is planning isn't something we'll want to prosecute for. Maybe it's something we can do together, Lucius and the Ministry - maybe it's something that'll clear Lucius' name, or at least clean some of the mud off it. Your father's not a saint, Malfoy, but he's not stupid either. Maybe we can work together, but you have to tell us."

Draco gave a short, bitter laugh. "You're full of shit, Weasley. The Ministry wouldn't help my father if he were hanging off the edge of a cliff."

"I can help him," Ron said. "But I have to know what he's doing. What has he got planned?"

"You can't help him, Weasley," Draco said thinly. "And you wouldn't if you could."

Ron rubbed a hand over his eyes. "Malfoy, what are the potential effects of resisting Veritaserum?"

"You fucking well know them."

"Tell me anyway."

Draco swallowed convulsively. "Nausea. Cold sweats. Shakes."

"Go on."

"Cardiac arrhythmia. Damage to the heart and liver. Seizures."

"Jesus Christ," Harry said.

"Hallucinations."

"Ron!"

"Brain damage."

"Ron, for fuck's sake!" Harry shouted.

"Death, in extreme cases," Draco finished hollowly - or Remus hoped he was finished, anyway.

"Stop this, Ron!"

"I'm not doing it, Harry," Ron said. "You don't want him to be hurt? Tell him to bloody give in and stop fighting the serum."

"Stop fucking asking him questions and he won't have anything to fight!"

"This is an interrogation, Harry, not a fucking tea party. He knew what he was doing when he took the serum."

Draco gave a short, strangled laugh. "Well played, Weasley. Did you ever really want Potter to leave or were you just putting on a show so that he wouldn't suspect anything when it came to this point? Come on, now, you can tell me. Aren't we being honest with each other?"

Harry was so ashen-faced that Remus began to ponder the logistics of summoning a house elf and sending for Poppy. "What the hell does that mean?" he demanded.

He was looking at Draco, but it was Severus who answered. "It means, Potter, that Weasley feels he's learned all he can from Draco. He's no longer trying to get information from him. He's now trying to get it from you."

Harry looked as if he'd been slapped. "Ron," he said unsteadily. "Tell me that isn't true."

Ron, Remus was profoundly relieved to note, was looking rather horrified himself. "No, I'm not - look, Harry. Malfoy's no good to me dead or brain-damaged. He needs to stop fighting the goddamned serum and talk, and he won't do it for me but he might do it for you. I don't want him hurt badly. You don't want him hurt at all. For fuck's sake, work with me!"

Harry looked helplessly back at Draco. "Ron, he won't betray his father for me."

"Sorry to butt in, but one of you is going to have to give," Tonks said, and everyone turned toward her. Her wand was lying on the table, pointed toward Draco, and the tip had begun to glow reddish-amber. "His heartbeat's getting erratic. We can't take this any further without Madam Pomfrey standing by."

"Stop being so fucking stubborn, Malfoy," Ron said between his teeth.

Draco laughed breathlessly and closed his eyes, leaning his head back against the high back of the chair. "I… no, it's all right. I didn't… I thought I'd have more time, that's all…"

Harry slammed his chair back and rose. "Ron. I need to talk to you in private."

"Later, Harry," Ron said. "Kingsley, go get Madam Pomfrey."

"No, Ron," Harry said between his teeth. "Not later. Now."

"Potter," Draco said. "Don't."

"Ron, look," Harry said desperately. "You want information. I've got it. I'll tell you where Lucius Malfoy is. I'll tell you how to get there and what wards to expect -"

"Potter, for God's sake -"

"How to get past the wards, how many guards there are, the layout of the grounds and the building, I can tell you all of it but you have to put a stop to this and let Draco go to the hospital wing."

"I don't fucking need the… I need you to shut up before I have to hex you into St. Mungo's," Draco snapped.

"I'm sorry," Harry whispered.

"Potter, do not do this. Don't. I trusted you."

Something flickered in Harry's eyes and was gone before Remus could identify it. "You say that like negotiating is a sin and not a tool," he said, and Remus knew him well enough to know that he was answering some question Draco hadn't asked - or hadn't asked outright.

There was an answering flicker in Draco's eyes. "There's negotiating and then there's rolling over and taking it without lube, Potter."

"Now, gentlemen," Tonks warned. The glow of her wand was a deeper red now, casting a strange, steady glow onto her face.

"Let's take this somewhere else, Ron," Harry said evenly.

"I don't advise that, Professor Potter," said Price.

"It's all right," Harry said.

"Mr. Weasley," Price said coldly. "I strongly suggest that you be very careful what you say to Professor Potter, and even more careful what use you make of anything he might say to you. I'm very close to deciding that this school's decision to cooperate with the Ministry was a grievous mistake, and I can and will tie up your entire investigation in so much red tape that it will take you a year of just-cause hearings to owl your mother on her birthday."

"Be careful, Potter," Draco said.

Harry glanced back at Draco, then looked quickly away, coloring a little. "Come on, Ron. There's a staff room down the hall."

The door closed behind them. There was a moment of dead silence before everyone seemed to let out the breath they'd been holding and the atmosphere of the room shifted subtly. Remus relaxed a little, but only a little - all they'd managed to do, it seemed, was split up potential explosions into two rooms instead of one.

"That doesn't seem to have gone well," Draco commented dryly.

"Are you all right?" Severus asked him.

"No," Draco answered, and looked extremely annoyed with himself for saying it.

Tonks got to her feet and went to the other end of the table to bend and peer into Draco's eyes. "You've been fighting it all along, haven't you?" she said disapprovingly. "And you haven't been winning, either. Didn't Professor Snape ever teach you that you can't beat Veritaserum?"

Remus had no doubt that Severus had at some point told Draco exactly that, and also told him that what couldn't be beaten head-on could be outmaneuvered.

"No, I haven't, and yes, he did," Draco answered.

Looking exasperated, Tonks hoisted herself onto the table in front of Draco, crossed her legs underneath her, and leaned forward. "All right, Draco, listen," she said crisply. "If you keep fighting it you really will hurt yourself. You're safe now. Your solicitor is here, your Head of House is here, Ron's gone, and Harry will be back soon."

Draco gave her a rather resentful look for that last bit. "I don't -" he began, then couldn't get any farther.

"You won't be able to lie until it wears off, you know," Tonks said gently, and Remus remembered that she was Draco's cousin. "But listen. I want you to close your eyes for me. You and the Veritaserum are at loggerheads right now and you aren't going to win. I'm going to talk you down a bit."

"Couldn't you just stun me until it wears off?" Draco grumbled.

"That's not safe either. C'mon, now, eyes closed, there you are. Relax as best you can. I'm going to count backward from a hundred and I want you to focus on my voice. Whenever I say a number, take a deep breath in and breathe out slowly. Understand?"

Suddenly Tonks' voice was very far away, and the candlelight jolted when Remus blinked. The tension had exhausted him again, and much as Remus wanted to stick around and see where all this went, if he didn't start back to his rooms now he might not make it. Catching Severus' eye, he gave a brief nod and slipped away from the table and out the door.

Even then, he wavered for a moment, glancing down the hall toward the room where Ron and Harry were probably having it out. Then the world slipped a little sideways and he had to shake his head sharply to bring it back into focus; annoyed with himself, he turned and headed back toward his rooms. Harry knew where to find him if he needed him, after.

He'd just have to hope he didn't die before James and Lily, wherever they were, had had a chance to cool down a bit.

 

Ron lit the candles and the wall torches with a flick of his wand and then stuck his hands in his pockets, watching as Harry paced toward the counter, considered making tea, and decided against it. It would have been something to do with his hands, something that would have given him an excuse not to look at Ron, but best to get on with this and get it over with.

"The manor I got Draco back from," he began, turning around to face Ron. "It's in Ireland, on the Channel. I can tell you how to get to it -"

"But you and Malfoy think Lucius is long gone," Ron interrupted, and Harry felt a cold stab of wariness.

"Draco might. I'm not so sure. He has a hell of a lot of people to move, kids playing at being guards, elderly aunts hitting the sherry… he might have decided to sit tight and bet on us assuming he'd moved. Or he might have closed the security holes that I got in and out through."

"Or he might have cleared out and left nasty surprises strewn all over the place. It'd be stupid for him to stay there now that you know where it is, and Lucius may be an evil bastard but he isn't stupid." Ron rubbed a hand tiredly across his face. "Harry, will you just tell me something? Will you tell me what the fuck you're playing at?"

Harry closed his eyes and shoved a hand through his hair. "Ron… it's still me, you know? I'm still the one who has to get rid of Voldemort. Him or me, just like the prophecy says. It hasn't gone away. He hasn't gone away."

"I know," Ron said softly.

"If I could call him out and settle this one on one, I would. But that's not how it's going to work. I've had years to think about this, Ron, and if the wizarding world doesn't pull together, if they keep milling around like fucking sheep waiting for Cornelius Fudge to stop dithering and tell them what to do, there's going to be slaughter on a huge scale - again. There's no Albus Dumbledore for people to rally behind anymore. There's only me, and half the bloody wizarding world still thinks I'm a pathological liar and mad as a blast-ended skrewt."

"Harry, that's not -"

"Yes, it fucking well is true, Ron, and you know it. And now I've not only got a Dark Lord to contend with, I've got a Dark Lord in training too. As much as I know, as much as I've learned, I don't know enough and it scares the hell out of me, because if I try to wing this by the seat of my pants people are going to die for it just like Sirius did. If I don't do anything at all, even more people will die, and I'll have to live with that for the rest of my very short life. I have to do this right, I have to, because there isn't anyone else. And God help me, now I have to figure out how I'm going to stop Draco's father doing whatever the hell it is he thinks he's doing, without splitting what forces I'll be able to muster and without losing Draco."

"Give that one up, Harry," Ron said grimly. "Even if Malfoy would ever in a million years choose you over his father, you can't lose what you don't have. Fine, you had a fling with him, but now you're back in the real world where Malfoy's got a fiancée and a father who's a Death Eater, and none of them are on your side."

Harry looked away, stung. "I know what I have, Ron. And what I don't. I just want to keep what's left."

Ron made a frustrated sound and rubbed at the bridge of his nose. "Harry. You know what Slytherins fancy themselves as? The powers behind the throne. Any throne. They know that half the time the person pulling the strings isn't the poor bastard sitting there with a crown and a target on his back, it's the bloke standing behind him whispering in his ear. Malfoy doesn't want you, dammit, he wants to be the power behind Harry Potter, and you're fucking handing him the position!"

"Don't," Harry said between his teeth. "Fucking. Presume to tell me what Draco feels about me. You think I haven't lived twenty-five years as Harry fucking Potter without knowing what it looks like when someone's using me? How the hell stupid do you think I am, Ron, and when did you start thinking I couldn't find my own arse with both hands and the Marauder's Map?"

Ron reddened. "That's not it and you know it, Harry. And I don't think you know what he feels about you. Has he left Pansy Parkinson for you? Is he going to?"

Harry swallowed hard and forced himself to hold Ron's gaze. "No," he whispered. "And don't you think that'd be the first thing he'd do if all he wanted was to pull my strings?"

"Harry, for fuck's sake!" Ron exploded, throwing up his hands. "This isn't Colin bloody Creevey you're talking about! He's Draco Malfoy, Harry! He's Lucius' son, he was raised in a Death Eater creche, he lived in Budapest for a year learning how to hex people's intestines out their ears, and he's a Slytherin to the core. You can't trust him!"

"I have to, Ron," Harry said flatly. "Maybe I've been stupid, but it's too goddamned late now. I have to trust him because it'll break me if I don't."

Ron closed his eyes and rubbed a hand over them, looking unutterably weary. "So that's it, then. Bastard lifts your shirt and whispers a few sweet nothings and all of a sudden it doesn't matter that he bloody grew up trying to bring you down in the most spectacularly humiliating way he could."

"Ron, you've been my best mate for fourteen years but you're crossing a huge fucking line," Harry said, and his voice was shaking with the effort to keep from tearing Ron apart.

"You think anyone else is going to trust him? He can't fuck everyone, you know!"

"So don't fucking trust him!" Harry shouted, and Ron's head snapped back as if he'd been slapped. "I'm not asking you to trust him! I'm not asking you to go down the goddamned pub with us and stand him a round! I'm asking you to trust me, Ron, remember how you used to do that? Remember when you didn't think I was so sodding naďve that I'd hand over my wand to Jack the Ripper if he was blond, gorgeous, and a mind-blowing fuck? Why is it so hard to believe that I might know what I'm bloody well doing?"

"Harry -"

"Look, I didn't ask for this, all right? I didn't ask to have to take single-handed responsibility for being the salvation of people who've spent twenty-five years believing every piece of libellous bullshit the Daily Prophet prints about me! But there's no one else, so fine, here I am, but I want something back, Ron. I want something in exchange for having my whole goddamned life taken away from me. And the thing I want most is for the wizarding world, apparently starting with my best fucking friend, to decide once and for all whether they're going to trust me to do what they expect me to do without having someone standing over me telling me I'm doing it wrong. I'm fucking sick of people telling me I don't know what I'm doing until it's time to shove me out in front of a murderous, batshit insane Dark Lord, pat me on the head, and tell me I'm on my own!"

"Harry, listen to me," Ron said evenly.

"I don't know if I can, Ron, you've pushed a hell of a lot of buttons."

"Then I'll apologize, because this is important and you need to hear it," Ron said tightly. "We've all changed since we were eleven years old. Hell, we've all changed since we left school. But there's one thing that's always been true about you, and that's that you never love or hate anyone by half measures. When you give your heart to someone, they walk on water, and when you don't like them, they could save a dozen orphans from a burning building and you'd still find a way to see it as some sneaky tr