Chapter Text
Draco stops mid-incantation and risks a glance at the clock. The knock comes again just as the minute hand noses its way past the top. His office is wonderfully secluded, with no windows, a large oak desk that keeps a good bit of distance between him and visitors, and uncomfortable chairs for everyone but himself.
It does not lend itself to interruptions. He carefully ties away the loose ends of his spell and removes his Reveliospecs. If Draco wants privacy, he’s chosen the wrong line of work. The knock is more insistent this time, so Draco flicks his wand at the heavy door, and it bangs open.
His secretary jumps back, startled. There’s always been a fidgety way about her. When Theia first applied, he thought she couldn’t be more than a year out of school, a dandelion waiting to be blown about by a strong wind. He has to admit now that he was wrong. For all her fidgeting, Theia is tough, never minces words, and remains the only secretary he’s ever had that he can roll up his sleeves around without thought.
“Yes, thank you, Theia.” He rises from behind his desk and grabs the manilla folder from her hand. “I’ll see to them now.”
“Hold on a minute, Mr Malfoy,” Theia begins in her lilting Irish accent. “I figured you could do with a warning, he’s—”
Draco has already crossed the shiny wood floors and pushed into the patient’s room.
He shuts the door behind him with a soft snick and scans the file. It’ll be a fairly standard case. The patient is middle-aged, male, and otherwise uninjured aside from the damage to his eye. Curse magic. That’s usually what brings them in.
“You’ve already been to St Mungo’s, correct? Usually, they try for reattachment before they send a case my way. So, how’d you sustain your injury, Mr…” His eyes jerk up. “Potter?”
Potter doesn’t look surprised to see him, which means Draco’s at a disadvantage. He wishes, for once, that his name weren’t carved into every door.
Potter holds up a pair of damaged Spectroculars, the lenses dangling from their frames, seemingly burnt to a crisp. He has on an eye patch, satiny black with a skull and crossbones emblem stitched into the fabric. Perhaps that’s meant to be ironic.
“Merlin,” Draco whispers. “What happened?”
“You tell me.” There’s hatred sewn so deeply into Potter’s words that Draco takes a step back.
“How would I know?” Draco asks.
“They’re your product.”
“I’m not responsible for how people use them.”
Potter reaches up a hand and tugs off his eye patch.
The skin where Potter’s eye used to be is unmarked. It’s as if someone smoothed his features away with their thumb, and left just a concave divot in his face. The eye itself is gone, and so are the lids.
Draco crosses the distance between them. He’s just about to tip Potter’s chin up to better access the light when Potter says, “Don’t.”
Draco waits, his hand hovering above Potter’s jaw.
“Wand on the table,” Potter says.
With great reluctance, Draco tugs his wand from his sleeve and places it flat on the counter. When he steps back in front of Potter, something jams just beneath his ribs. Draco lets out a startled exhale.
He doesn’t have to look to know that any wrong move will get him cursed.
“Okay,” Potter breathes. “Tell me what’s wrong.”
Draco fumbles in his pocket for a rubber glove and snaps it on. Then he reaches out a finger and brushes over Potter’s skin, feather-light. There isn’t anything unexpected.
“How did you get the Spectroculars?” Draco asks.
“Teddy. But you already know that.”
Draco shakes his head. “I had no idea.”
“You didn’t think it was odd that Teddy was buying them? He’s not an artist.”
“Neither are you.”
“I’ve been painting for more than twenty years,” Potter says. “I’ve been a professional for ten.”
“Since when can you even hold a quill correctly?”
Potter’s nostrils flare. “Why would I lie?”
“I’ll never attempt to grasp the workings of your brilliant mind, Potter. I’m just not smart enough.”
Potter’s eye narrows. “Luna would have told you.”
“Luna doesn’t tell me anything about your life.”
“You’d have seen it in the Prophet.”
“I avoid reading any papers that use my history to make their Galleons.”
“Someone would have told you.”
“Who?”
“Anyone.”
Good Merlin, Potter is exhausting. “We don’t exactly run in the same circles. I’ve been living in Ireland since my son started at Hogwarts. Now that I mention it” — Draco takes a step back — “that was ten years ago.”
“Then why did the Spectroculars malfunction?”
That, Draco doesn’t know.
“May I?” He holds out a hand.
Potter wavers, then gives him the spectrometry glasses.
The lenses are cracked and burnt a smoky brown. The screws have come loose at the hinges.
“You were using them to paint a moving portrait?” Draco asks.
“Yes. When I tried a Doubling Charm on the painting, they exploded. They’re defective.”
Draco raises the glasses to peer through them. The room looks like an old photograph: yellowed and fuzzy, sporting odd stains in inexplicable places.
“You should Vanish these,” Draco says. “In case they’re still dangerous.”
“No.” Potter shoots out a hand, startlingly warm, and plucks the Spectroculars from his fingers.
“What, keeping all your evidence to report me to the Aurors?”
“And what if I was? I’d have every right.” Something dangerous glints in Potter’s remaining eye, like a lion pacing in its cage.
“So you would. But I didn’t do anything. I thought they were going to Teddy.”
If Potter knew him, that would be enough.
Draco’s decision to go into this business had been entirely for Teddy. When he’d reconciled with his Aunt Andromeda three years after the final battle, Draco had finally been introduced to his young cousin, and — at Astoria’s urging — Draco had gotten involved in his life.
Three years later, when Teddy had just turned six, Andromeda said a sudden sense of wrongness pulled her from sleep.
She’d gone to check on her grandson at three in the morning, only to find his bed empty and the window smashed through, curtain blowing in the breeze. The light of the full moon had leaked onto the carpet, casting the room in a yellow-white haze.
She’d screamed.
Draco was the first person Andromeda called, followed by Potter and every last Weasley she could think of.
They looked for Teddy until the sun rose at dawn, when Granger finally found him lying in a creek, half-conscious. The side of his face had been torn apart by some animal that mercifully left the rest of him alone.
They hadn’t thought to make preparations ahead of time. Teddy was too young to be sure he’d even inherited lycanthropy, and most sources speculated that the first few times a werewolf turned, they’d be too exhausted to seek prey.
But it didn’t matter what sources said. They had the proof in front of them, small and battered.
Wizarding ocularists at the time didn’t know what to do. Never before had they considered fitting a prosthetic eye that would still work once the owner transformed into a wolf.
And they had to consider it, because Wolfsbane Potion — even though it vastly improved in the years following the war — would never eliminate Teddy’s need to hunt. A single dose would be enough to put him in his right mind, but his appetite would assure he was always in danger.
Draco had been terrified. If Teddy went out without peripheral vision, it was nearly certain something would attack him again, especially because many fellow werewolves didn’t like how “domesticated” Teddy was. He’d never found anything resembling a pack. So Draco got involved in every way he could, and eventually, the magic of ocularistry itself drew him in, even more than simple fear could.
But if Potter knows all that, he’s pretending otherwise.
Draco releases a slow sigh. “Are you here to get a prosthesis?”
“I’m thinking about it.”
Draco usually lets someone else handle this part, but … “Would you like to take a look at your options? Fit, style — that kind of thing.”
Potter gives him a slow nod. “Okay.”
“I’ll need to take your measurements.”
When Draco moves to pick up his wand, Potter raises his own.
“For Merlin’s sake, Potter. I’m not going to curse you.”
“As far as I’m concerned, you already did.”
Draco huffs and begins pulling open drawers at random. He’s used to Summoning the tape measure and having it do its job magically. He finds it in the last drawer he checks, rolled up at the very bottom. Draco also grabs a quill and parchment to take down notes.
He has to step far too close to Potter to loop the measuring tape around his head. Draco lines it up with Potter’s brow bone and takes down the circumference, then measures the distance between Potter’s nose and the outer edge of his face.
Potter looks up at him in a way that jolts something deep in Draco’s stomach. Potter’s eye is startlingly green. Draco pauses, then manages to pull his gaze away and focus on the numbers he’s jotting down.
He says, “Have you thought about what model you might like?”
“Not really. What’s Teddy got?”
“His is a unique make, but it’s considered extrinsic, because it’s held on with a strap. For someone that wears glasses, I usually recommend an orbital prosthesis instead. It’s more natural-looking, which is helpful if you spend time in the Muggle world.”
Potter frowns. “More natural looking how?”
“It blinks and moves in tandem with your other eye,” Draco says as he takes a few more measurements of the diameter of Potter’s eye socket, “unless you prefer to forgo those charms. Of course, the downsides are that you can’t wink or cross your eyes, and they can’t be charmed to allow access to more visual information, either. But regardless of the model, we’ll need to find one that fits under your glasses. Assuming you still plan to wear them.”
There are tiny wisps of hair clinging to Potter’s neck, soft curls as black as ink.
“I’ve thought about getting a monocle instead,” Potter says.
Draco can’t tell if he’s joking. “Oh?”
“It just seems like rather a lot of scrunching is involved to keep it in place.”
“There are magical ones that can stay up more easily,” he says. “I think you should go for it. I’m tired of people finding you attractive.”
Potter lets out a soft breath, almost like a laugh. It’s as surprising as the first taste of spring after months of cold. “I’ll keep that in mind.”
Draco looks down at his hands. He’s retaken the same measurement three times now. A simple thing like a laugh shouldn’t rattle him, not if he’s going to finish this appointment in one piece.
“You said you were an artist, right?” Draco asks as he finally steps back.
“That I did.”
“Well, it’s probably best to go with an orbital model, then. Colour differentiation is a binocular effort — it requires both eyes to notice more minute differences. Although, you may not like the way they feel. Some people don’t.”
“Why not?”
Draco opens a new drawer and pulls out a head-strap. “It’s a lot of work for one of your eyes to interpret all the information of two. It can cause strain, headaches, all sorts of things.” Draco stretches the elastic band around Potter’s head and begins to work it down until it rests at an angle across his missing eye. “But I’m very good at my job, so we can avoid most of that.”
He almost wants Potter to agree, to say that he knows Draco is fully capable.
It’s a ridiculous wish, and Draco is glad, in the end, that it doesn’t happen. Potter just keeps looking at him.
“The spells are complex,” Draco continues. “The pupils need to contract and expand with light, the lids have to respond to your brain signals … There's a lot that goes into making prosthetic eyes function properly.”
He takes a step back to examine the fit over Potter’s head.
“How do you like that size? Comfortable?”
“It’s making me dizzy,” Potter replies.
“Hm. Well, we can give you something adjustable, or a different material.” Draco removes the band. “Any looser and it would slide all over the place, though.”
He grabs a few prostheses that are set aside as models and brings them closer to Potter.
“Okay,” Draco says, “this first one is encased in titanium gold, with a leather strap.” He lets Potter take it and examine the finer details. “It isn’t great for peripheral vision, because the casing can get in the way. But it’s sturdier than all the others, so it’s less likely to need repairing if you ever drop it.” Draco eyes Potter speculatively. “Are you clumsy?”
“Not particularly.”
Draco must look doubtful, because Potter quirks a brow, the one above his missing eye.
“Never had much trouble with the Snitch, did I?”
Draco steps closer. “Do that again.”
“What?”
“Your eyebrow. You can still move it.”
“Er … yeah.” Potter wiggles it a second time.
“Can you feel my finger right now?”
“No.”
“Good, I’m not touching you. Now?” Draco brushes very delicately over the skin between the upper part of Potter’s nose and his missing eye.
“Yeah.”
“Any pain?”
“A little.”
“‘A little’ meaning, ‘I’m just a big, strong man being brave about it,’ or ‘a little’ meaning, ‘a little.’”
There’s a flash of amusement in Potter’s eye. “It hurts. But the Healers gave me plenty of pain potions, and they say that it should feel fine in a week.”
“Mm,” Draco says vaguely. “Well, this next prosthesis is the best model for taking enchantments. They won’t wear off as quickly, and I can stack more of them without running into problems.”
“There’s a limit?”
“Always. Magic isn’t a perfect healer.”
Potter shifts in his seat. “And neither are you?”
“I’m not a Healer at all. I provide … alternatives. Supplements. Not replacements, and not a restored version of the original.”
“Right.” Potter takes the second prosthesis from Draco. It has a thick elastic strap and an aluminium frame.
“Some people find this kind more comfortable,” Draco says, “but when the elastic wears out, they tend to slide around throughout the day, and the friction can become painful.”
“What’s this little symbol on the side mean?”
“It’s waterproof.”
Potter’s lips twitch again, and he gestures for the next one.
“Who would want a colour like this?” Potter asks.
It’s an offensive shade of green, most closely resembling troll snot.
“The strap becomes essentially invisible once you put it on. People like having the security of their prostheses being strapped to their heads, but lots of them still don’t want you to know they’re there. It’s our most popular option.”
Potter frowns. “Teddy’s isn’t invisible.”
“No,” Draco agrees, “it’s not. But Teddy’s been monocular since he was six. People who gain a disability later in life tend to have a different relationship with it.”
“Hm.” Potter flips over the prosthesis and examines the back. “And what about the casing?” He taps on the clear glass shell of the goggle, held in place with a ring of brass.
“Good peripheral view, but it can only take about three extra charms once I’ve added all the standard ones.”
Potter takes on a thoughtful look as he examines the eye. “You paint these by hand?”
“Yes. They have to be personalised to the wearer.”
“Reckon I could do it myself?”
Draco shouldn’t be surprised that Potter would come up with an idea like this.
“You couldn’t use just any paint,” he says. “It would have to be medical grade. And they aren’t easy to get right. Working from a photograph — plus the challenge of monocular vision — means the colours likely won’t match, and using a mirror would be … difficult.”
Potter shrugs. “I don’t need them to match.”
“You aren’t planning to…” Draco changes tack. “Look, I know you and Professor Moody were rather close” — this startles a bark of a laugh out of Potter — “but prostheses have come a long way since his time. Even if you don’t need them to match properly, surely it couldn’t hurt to make them both green. Or, at the very least, to not choose some atrocious electric blue that makes everyone feel as if you’re looking right through us.”
“Can I do it myself or not?”
Draco hesitates for a long moment, then lets out a sigh. “Fine. I’ll have to paint the pupil, but you can do the rest. Muggles will think you have a wicked case of heterochromia.”
For the first time, Potter actually looks pleased.
~
It’s over dinner that evening that Scorpius announces his campaign to be the official Ministry Liaison between wizards and magical creatures.
“No,” Draco says simply.
“Cheers! I wasn’t asking.”
Draco considers the prongs of his fork, which he walks back and forth across his plate. He exhales slowly. “What did your mother say?” There is no doubt Scorpius told her first. Draco has tried over the years not to be jealous that this ex-wife is Scorpius’s confidant instead of him, but he hasn't had much luck.
“She said you’d be a prick about it.”
Draco huffs out a laugh. “Maybe I should just ask her myself.”
Scorpius sulks. “She said that your reputation could create a barrier for me. But I think she’s wrong. I think you’re both wrong.”
“I’d love to be wrong.” But he knows he won’t be. Just as well as Astoria knows it.
Scorpius drops his head. He looks so much like Astoria when he’s upset. Scorpius got his mother’s bright eyes and deep russet brown skin, but also her smile, her frown, the way her dark brows draw together when Draco does something disappointing. Draco hates to let either of them down, but it’s better now than later.
The house-elf walks in, humming the tune to some Muggle song Draco has been struggling to pry out of his head for weeks, and sets down the next course.
When she’s gone, Scorpius turns his imploring black eyes on him. Crow-black, Draco had thought when he was born. Astoria called Scorpius Little Bird until he was nearly a teenager, and he finally grew out of it.
As a child, Scorpius had embodied the nickname. He seemed to always be fluttering about, full of boundless energy and enthusiasm, never wanting to stop long enough to look directly at you.
Draco’s parents had been troubled by this, when they were finally released from Azkaban and met Scorpius at age five. They’d tried to insist on Scorpius standing still and maintaining proper eye-contact while speaking, but they hadn’t gotten it.
Now, Scorpius sets Draco with a woefully unwavering stare, the kind he reserves only for moments when he’s determined to make a point. “She also says you’re better at this stuff than she is. That if anyone’s going to help me, it’s got to be you. I don’t think the family reputation is even as bad as you guys say.”
Draco is all at once grateful and sorry that they’ve shielded Scorpius from this. While Draco might have built himself a respectable business practice over the years — might’ve been mentioned in the paper a few times without the words ‘former Death Eater’ attached to his name — he will never be the Ministry’s darling. Campaigns for official Ministry positions are popularity contests more than anything, and all about leveraging your influence over others. They also involve a fair amount of blackmail, if his father was any indication.
Covert manipulation is not the kind of thing Scorpius excels at, bless him. He has far too much of Astoria in him.
Draco sighs. “What’s the job, exactly?”
Scorpius perks up. “I’d be handling public relations between wizards and other magical species, except for centaurs and goblins, of course.”
“What would you have to do to win?”
“It’s simple, really. I just have to get thirty or more of the fifty board members to vote my way.”
“Which requires…?”
“Well, there’s an interview.”
“No, I mean the important bits. Campaigning. Schmoozing the board members. Impressing the Prophet.”
“I don’t know. Is that kind of stuff really important?”
Draco exhales exhaustedly. “Only if you actually want to win. Haven’t you looked at any of the past candidates? Read about their charitable contributions in the year leading up to the vote, studied their connections and achievements?”
“I’m interested in the work, not the race.”
Draco massages the bridge of his nose. “Scorpius.”
“I’m serious about this. I am. Tell me what I need to do, and I’ll do it. The whole campaign. Schmoozing, politics, whatever.”
Draco gives himself a moment to sit with the idea. It would mean a big lifestyle change. He’d have to finally start catering to the Ministry’s ridiculous whims, donating to charities loudly rather than in private, networking with people who’d rather forget he wasn’t dead, simpering for the Prophet, and appearing out in public for the tabloids to photograph him to their fill. It’s everything he loathes about reformation, feeling like he’s performing good deeds for an audience rather than carrying them out because he knows they’re right. It’s the kind of thing that reminds him of his father in a painful, uncomfortable way.
But it would mean seeing Scorpius more often than once a fortnight, when they have their dinners. Not to mention that this — helping his son work towards a job in the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures — is something Lucius Malfoy would have never, ever done.
Draco caves. “All right.”
Scorpius’s answering grins lights up his face for the rest of the night.
Chapter Text
Despite Draco’s best efforts, campaigning is not going well. The papers are having a field day with it, wringing every dirty detail of his past over Scorpius’s head. He’s been reading the Prophet religiously for the first time in decades, but Scorpius is forbidden to do so.
Of course, Scorpius hasn’t listened. He’s his father’s son, after all. But at least he thinks he’s being sneaky, so he hasn’t demanded to speak with Draco about it yet.
Part of Draco thinks answering those questions would be too much to handle; the other part thinks Scorpius would take it harder than him. It’s one thing to know that your father has made bad decisions, and another to see them aired out in exquisite detail (photographs inside!).
Draco made mistakes during the war. He’s never pretended otherwise. But it’s harder to accept what he did afterwards, once the imminent threat was gone. His father’s principles still clung to his shoulders, steering Draco down a path that was so twisted he had no hope of not getting lost. There was nothing he wouldn’t do to recover the comforts his early life had offered him. He’d made deals with former Death Eaters to help them flee the country, he’d sold off dark artefacts to anyone who wanted to buy them, and he’d turned away from any bit of light the world offered.
Until he met Astoria. If there was any such thing as falling in love with someone you could never properly want — the way a man should want his wife — he’d done that.
When all of his misdeeds had tied him up so tightly there seemed no way of getting out, she’d found a path through. Then she’d let him hide that knot from their son, even though Astoria loathed dishonesty more than anything else in the world. Now that the papers are pulling at the thread again, he can’t stop worrying that Scorpius will turn away.
But he hasn’t, not yet. Draco just has to pray that Scorpius’s fiery determination to face their reputations head-on lasts beyond the campaign.
Astoria’s mottled little eagle-owl has dropped off letters a few times now, asking how Astoria can get involved. Draco’s never minded spending time around her, even during the first few awkward months after his coming out and their divorce, but he’s not certain he wants her help.
It will be messier than you think, Draco had written her. They’ll try to rip you apart.
I know that, she’d replied. I’m particularly good at dealing with messes. I married you, didn’t I?
She had. Not only that, she’d married him when he was twenty, when he was an absolute prat. He could not imagine asking someone to make that kind of sacrifice. So Draco had followed Astoria’s advice and ended up here, buying a copy of the Prophet on his lunch break to determine exactly how fucked he is.
Rita Skeeter had been at the Manor just a few days ago to interview Scorpius about his campaign announcement.
“And these,” Draco had said, walking backwards as he showed Rita around the grounds, “are the famous Malfoy peafowl.”
The largest of the peacocks had given her a sharp squawk as it strutted nearer, appraising Rita with a head tilt.
She’d been struggling to keep up, heels sinking into the dirt and low-hanging tree branches snapping in her face when she was too absorbed to notice them, but she’d straightened her clothes with a satisfied hum when he stopped walking.
“Well, aren’t you a doll?” she’d said, leaning closer and holding out a hand to the nearest bird.
“I wouldn’t,” Scorpius had warned.
“They’re rather territorial,” Draco had added.
As if to prove his point, the bird had nipped her on the finger and spread out its feathered back in a grand show.
“Ah ha ha!” Rita had tittered, shaking out her hand madly. “Well, I, well…”
She’d backed up, tripping over her own feet, and he’d reluctantly reached out to steady her.
She’d thrown Draco a dazzling smile. “You’ve handled these birds for years, have you?”
“Since the ownership of the Manor was passed to me. And Scorpius has been caring for them since he was seven.”
“Is it safe to have children around them?”
He’d arched a brow. “Quite. When they’re well-behaved.”
“And how do you make a peacock behave?”
“I think you’d find it’s far easier to entice good behaviour from the child.”
She’d given another loud laugh, one that Draco now knows was hiding the first juicy tidbit for her article.
This begs the question: what else has Mr Malfoy been training young Scorpius (pictured right) to do?
Draco slams down the paper in frustration, resisting the urge to bang his head against the office counter. Fucking Skeeter.
The slick marble is full of the scraps of open letters, most of them cancellations from his patients. It’s not that they don’t know who Draco Malfoy is, but the reminder of his misdeeds is never welcome.
“Tough go,” says Theia sympathetically. “That Rita’s a lyin’ old bitch.”
“You gave your hard-earned Galleons to buy a copy of that swill?”
“Sorry, Mr Malfoy, but it’s a grippin’ read. I mean no offence.”
It’s lucky for her he’s not offended. This anger should be directed at the person who caused it, not his bloody secretary.
“There’ve been people sniffin’ about all mornin’ — don’t know who they belong to,” Theia says. “One of them came up to me, this small fella, askin’ all sorts of questions about you and what we do here.”
He sighs, slumping down until his forehead finally does smack into the counter.
“I really can’t get my head around it,” she continues. “You really were one of them Death Eater fellas, weren’t you?”
“Yes.”
“Mad. I mean, I thought as much, but when you hired me I said to myself, ‘Theia, he hasn’t tried to kill you yet, so how bad could he be?’ and I was right, wasn’t I?”
“Mm.”
He’s never minded that Theia has so little knowledge of his past. He opened his clinic in Ireland for exactly that reason. Draco is sure, otherwise, that the beginning would have been rougher — between local publications not treating his adverts kindly and potential vandalism from wizards still nursing a grudge. Still, Theia being more than twenty years his junior means that she harbours none of the fear his prior secretaries had, and sometimes it’s jarring.
“You know, you don’t seem yourself today. ‘Course, if I were you, I’d be in bits, but I’m a very gentle soul. You know, just the other day, a patient said I ought to consider a new profession. I could barely manage my tea, and you’re gettin’ it left, right, and centre.”
“Yes, thank you, Theia, that’ll be all.”
“Of course, I didn’t mean to keep you.”
He lets out a premature sigh of relief.
“Only,” Theia starts again, and he does not bother to disguise his groan, because she can take it. “I haven’t even told you what he said to me yet, the small fella. He says to me, ‘Now look, that man in there is a dangerous criminal. Why don’t you come with us and we’ll make sure you stay safe until he’s apprehended.’”
She’d put on a thick English accent to mock the man, but now she drops it again.
“And of course, I laughed in his face, 'cause you weren’t even here yet, were you? No, it’s a Monday morning and you never come in early on Mondays. So I say to him ‘Look, I don’t know you, do I?’ and he says to me, ‘No, I don’t think we’ve had the pleasure,’ so I says, ‘I’ve known Mr Malfoy going on five years, and he’s never killed me — ’ I made sure to emphasise that point, not dead at all — ‘but I’ve just met you, and I imagine that, were I to go with yer men, I’ll end up in a wee grave by sundown.’ That certainly scared him off, didn’t it?”
He sighs. “They really wanted you to come with them?”
“They did indeed, offered me fifty Galleons for a story, too, so I told ‘em sometimes you wear yer nan’s knickers.” She’s fidgeting again, tapping both hands on the counter in a rhythm that will eventually give him a headache.
“I don’t have a nan.”
“Aye, that’s why I said it. Didn’t end up in there, did it?” She gestures to the Prophet. “At least they’ve got some decent fact-checkers, then.”
His lips twitch. “Have any of the patients who were supposed to come in today held off on cancelling?”
She looks over the schedule, running her finger down the list then licking it to flip to the next page.
“One at three, another at four. Two more cancelled straight out, but another only rescheduled. It’s that awkward fella, the one who can’t seem to speak above a whisper, so he probably just wanted to avoid ending up in the papers.”
Two cancellations for the afternoon isn’t as bad as he was expecting. Of course, the rest of the week might be worse, but he can work with this.
“You’ve got a plan for fixing it?” she asks.
He’s still working on that. He’d been putting his trust in what he built here to hold his reputation aloft, but he’s never tested it before — that wasn’t why he did his job, after all. Now that he knows the water’s deeper than he realised, he needs a new plan.
Draco fingers the gold embossing of the invitation he received in the mail a month ago, still pinned to the inside of the front desk, a reminder to RSVP. He’s never attended one of these horrid things before, but there’s a first time for everything.
If Pansy Parkinson taught him anything when they were young, it was that anyone’s reputation can be improved by enough charitable giving.
“How would you like to accompany me to a charity gala?” he asks.
Theia laughs, and laughs, and laughs.
~
Draco dares another glance over his shoulder. Scorpius is at the gala too, but he’s hiding somewhere. The fact that Draco can’t find him in the crowd is a testament to how truly heinous everyone’s wardrobe choices are. Astoria had sent him and Scorpius in nearly matching starched yellow robes that she assured them looked, ‘perfectly dignified,’ but would stand out like a doxy among fairies anywhere else.
The Ministry’s ballroom is a swirl of colours. The Rainbow Ball is held every year to collect funds for SAGA, the wizarding world’s premier organisation for sexuality and gender-based activism, and so everyone dresses in bright, solid tones that make it hard for anyone to stand out.
Draco tries to find some reserve of calm buried deep within him. Scorpius is smart. He’s charismatic — when he wants to be. He doesn’t need Draco trailing after him like a concerned mother goose. But it brings no comfort.
At least Theia is keeping up enough chatter beside him that he doesn’t look out of place. She’s shucked her standard-issue medical robes for the first time since he met her, and her sea of blonde curls springs merrily around her face. Something pink has been swiped across her pearly cheeks, and her blue tulle dress sparkles underneath the thousands of candles overhead.
The only schoolmate who acknowledges him is Lavender Brown. She raises her goblet in greeting across the gleaming white tables. Around her, people laugh and shout to be heard over the music. Her stunningly purple gown rises high on her neck, hiding a number of scars. She’s got her magical eye trained on Neville Longbottom, who is sitting beside her and gesticulating broadly as he tells a story, but the rest of her attention is focused on Draco.
He hadn’t been the first to treat Lavender’s vision after she was mauled by Greyback, but he’d apprenticed under the man who had. When Draco developed a new line of prostheses — one that allowed wearers to blend in, for the most part, and look more natural — she was one of the first to try it out. He’s not forgotten what a favour it was for her to trust her vanity to his hands.
He should catch up with her later. She does some sort of work with centaurs, which could make her a good contact for Scorpius. Unfortunately.
The things he does for his son.
“Well, have you nothing to say about how I look?” asks Theia.
“Hmm?” Draco hums distractedly. Theia is generous about the middle, but very short, so when he looks down, he mostly sees the top of her head and a swath of midnight blue fabric. “Let’s keep it professional.”
“I’m not accepting that. Have another go.”
“You look very nice.”
She pats him on the shoulder. “Just like a proper gentleman. Oh! I see canapés. Do you think they’ll have something with prawn?”
“Why don’t you go find out?”
She scurries away. At the centre of the food tables is a giant unicorn cleaved from ice, and it reflects all the lights. He recognises influence when he sees it: Luna. She’ll be here somewhere, then. His racing pulse slows just a bit.
He hardly has time to bask in the silence before someone is approaching him.
“Malfoy.”
Draco turns to find an inexpressive blond man standing just to his left. For a moment, he tenses, but then he takes in the eye patch and forces himself not to get worked up. It’s been charmed to match the man’s sharp, green suit.
A stranger knowing his name is never good, but someone in the market for a new prosthesis might have an actual reason to talk to him.
“Pleasure to meet you, Mr…?”
“Thomas Heffley.”
It could be an undercover reporter. They’ve tried to throw him off before. But Draco chose to be here. What’s the point if he doesn’t talk to people?
He’d set this train on its tracks and he’ll be damned if he’s going to let it crash.
Draco offers a handshake, and the man misjudges the distance, clasping empty air for a second before actually making contact.
That is either a very good sign or a very bad one. He is talking with a potential patient or he’s talking to someone who’s done their research well enough to mimic one.
“I haven’t seen you at one of these before,” Heffley continues. “Reason you chose to start with this one?”
“Just catching up with some acquaintances.”
“I’ve seen you in the papers a lot recently.”
“My son is running for a position at the Ministry. This kind of thing is cannon fodder for the paps.”
“You’re here to rebuild your own reputation.” Heffley does not look impressed. In fact, he looks like he might hex him.
“It’s not that simple. I’ve privately supported charities like this one for years. Now, I’d rather everyone knows. For my son.”
Some of the tension bleeds from Heffley’s shoulders. “Your son is here?”
“He’s around somewhere.” But then Draco sees a large hat moulded into the shape of a swan heading their way, and he takes the rescue. “Luna!”
She looks up, beams at him, and pushes through the crowd until she’s at his side. Though some might argue it doesn’t match the theme of the night, Luna is dressed in all white, looking a bit like she’s draped herself in one of the tablecloths. Her dangling earrings are made of garlic cloves.
“Draco, it’s so good to see you!” she says, pulling him in and kissing both of his cheeks. Definitely garlic.
She turns and gives the same treatment to Heffley.
“Hullo, Harry!”
The man blanches, and Draco pauses, taking in the familiar expression on unfamiliar features.
“Potter.” He laughs in disbelief. It’s bloody obvious all of the sudden.
“Er … yeah.”
“You know, for a moment there, I was worried you were chatting me up. Poorly.”
In retrospect, he wouldn’t have minded so much.
Potter coughs awkwardly, grimacing at Luna. “I hadn’t actually got around to telling him it was me yet.”
She blinks a few times and then lets out a bubbling laugh. “Why not?”
“I just … no reason, really.”
“Do you always come to charity events in disguise?” Draco asks.
“Just … just some of the time. Most of the time. Is that Scorpius?”
At first, Draco thinks it’s deflection, but he turns anyway, and he sees that Scorpius is, in fact, headed their way. His expression brightens when he spots them, pushing through the crowd until he gets to their sides.
“Evening’s been bloody fantastic!” Scorpius grins. “Have you seen all the reporters here?”
“I’ve seen a few. Don’t get in your head yet.”
“I know, I know. But the place is crawling with them. Hi, Aunt Luna, good to see you. I suppose you know why we’re here?”
She grabs his hands and holds them between hers. “I think you’ll make a wonderful liaison,” she says sincerely. “And it’s a good thing, too, that they’re replacing the old one. Daddy says the Nut-Hatted Larblers told him that Wallygagglers have been ever so cross with us recently.”
“Er…” says Scorpius.
Draco mouths, ‘Be polite,’ which earns him a grimace.
“Thank you,” Scorpius says stiltedly. “What are those, again?”
“Well, I expect you know all about Nut-Hatted Larblers, seeing as they’re such exhibitionists.”
Even though Scorpius is very clearly shaking his head, she continues.
“Wallygagglers are these lovely water sprites that live in moors across England. You haven’t heard of them? I’ve been saying for years that Hogwarts should update their curriculum, but they never seem to listen.”
“Well, I’ll … I’ll be sure to talk with the, er, sprites, should we ever meet.”
“Will you? Lovely.”
Scorpius looks even more confused at that, but he turns to face Potter expectantly, and Draco makes the introductions with barely restrained mockery.
“Mr Heffley, meet my son, Scorpius Malfoy. Scorpius, Thomas Heffley. He’s an old acquaintance.”
“Pleasure to meet you, Mr Heffley.”
“And you.”
Luna glances between them with a serene smile and tilts her head at Scorpius. “Dance with me?”
He does not look thrilled. “I thought you didn’t care for dancing.”
“Only because there are so few good partners. You always let me lead.”
Scorpius takes her hand without further protest, spinning her away in a sparkling cloud of white. There are few dancers, so far, but Draco supposes it won’t be too long before people join them, now that they won’t be among the first.
“He looks like you,” Potter says.
“Yeah? Everyone always tells me he takes after his mother.”
Draco’s never minded, but it’s still nice to imagine that there’s some trace of him one could see in Scorpius.
“He’s all Malfoy-pointy,” Potter says, which startles a laugh out of Draco.
“Yes, I suppose there is that.”
Potter’s eye is still trailing Luna and Scorpius across the dance floor, a tilt to his lips. “Good ol’ Luna. She always makes awkward situations … awkward in a different way.”
“Mm.”
It’s a moment before Potter says, “You didn’t tell him who I am.”
“No point in getting into it.”
“Still, I … appreciate it. I don’t like many people to know. Most reporters are aware I show up to these things, but they can never find me.”
Draco shrugs, not having anything to say in response.
“So,” Potter ventures, “creature liaison for the Ministry.”
“Surprised?”
Potter shakes his head. It looks almost fond. “Teddy’s mentioned before how interested Scorpius is in werewolves. He’s talked his bloody ear off about it a few times, so I’ve heard.”
“He has trouble telling when topics might be … sensitive,” Draco admits.
Potter’s eye shines with something resembling humour. Draco looks around the room, trying to wager how likely a rescue from his secretary might be.
“Anyway, the campaign isn’t going well,” Draco continues. “The Ministry isn’t a huge fan of me, as I’m sure you know. His chances of getting the position right now seem minuscule. I was hoping the evening would’ve gone better.”
“He certainly thinks you’ve done well. What were you expecting, a parade in your honour?”
“I suppose I should just be grateful we weren’t hexed out of here.”
“Yeah, well, there are a lot of witnesses, so I figured I should hold off.”
Draco lets out a laugh quite without his permission, and it seems to catch in the air between them, hanging there for the space of a breath.
“If you’re looking for a better opportunity,” Draco begins, “perhaps you’ll consider the charity auction we’re hosting?”
Potter’s eye performs a mighty roll. The Polyjuice has made it light blue, which looks distinctly odd on him. “I’m not going to do you any favours. Besides, the last time I agreed to show up at a charity auction, one of the items up for bid was me. I had to go on a three-hour date with a complete stranger, and she cried when I finally said I was leaving.”
Draco waves a hand dismissively. “Well, it doesn't have to be that extreme. A two-hour date should suffice.”
A smile flickers on Potter’s face before his expression turns appraising. “You actually want me to attend?”
“You might not have noticed, but most of the wizarding world loves you.”
“Do they really?”
“Oh, yes, even more than they despise me. So, you can imagine what it would do for Scorpius, if you were to demonstrate your support.”
Potter nods slowly. “I’ll think about it. I don’t show my face in public often — my real face, I mean.”
“A shame, that.”
He sees Theia coming their way across the floor, her face scrunched as she tries to spot him.
“My secretary is on her way over, Potter, and I’d bet you anything she’s set on leading me through an intensely painful waltz.”
“I’d hate to put her off it.”
“I don’t think you could. Anyway, I can start putting enchantments on your new prosthetic eye in a week, as soon as you get it to me.”
“Then I’ll be sure to get it to you. Enjoy your dance.”
“Hmm.”
Theia pulls up beside him a few moments after Potter walks away, out of breath and smiling keenly.
“Not bad, Mr Malfoy. Not bad at all.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“He was pretty, wasn’t he? Not my type, mind, but if you go for the serious-lookin’ sort—”
“Let’s remember that I’m your boss, please.”
“Ah, come on, don’t be a bore. I’m just pointing out that—”
“I’d rather you didn’t.”
“This is purely professional commentary. I have to know whether I should be turnin’ him away or not if he comes to the clinic, ’cause you wouldn’t be having with dating a patient, now would you?”
He sighs deeply. “Would you like to dance, Theia?”
Theia clasps his hand in hers, grinning. “And here I was thinking I’d have to ask you myself.”
~
“You could’ve just sent it with an owl,” Draco says. “Sit down. This will take a while.”
“I’m far less likely to be driven mad from boredom if I don’t sit,” Potter says, but he drops into one of the uncomfortable, leather-upholstered chairs across from Draco anyway and drums his fingers on the armrest.
Draco turns the prosthetic eye over in his hand carefully, checking for any potential problems with Potter’s paint job.
“Brown,” Draco says. “Wizardingkind will despair.”
“Well, like you said, they’d never match. I thought I should create something new instead of trying to replace it.”
Easy enough to say, harder in practice. He’s seen patients struggle with that before.
Draco grabs his Reveliospecs and flicks down the first lens so he can focus on the spellwork he’s weaving over the eye. “You don’t have to stay. I won’t have a good alibi if this ends up hurting you, so I’m very unlikely to curse it.”
“Are you kicking me out, or just letting me know?”
“The latter.”
“Then I’ll stay.”
It’s slow work. When Draco was first training for this job, he hadn’t imagined working on anyone he knew personally. He had been wary, too, of the complexity of the spellwork he’d have to learn. His hands had shaken for many years after the war — damage sustained from a few too many encounters with the Cruciatus Curse.
It had functioned as a sort of rehabilitation, to learn to master the soft, precise movements necessary to cast these enchantments. His father had been the first person to teach Draco magic as a child, and that had shaped the way Draco cast all throughout Hogwarts, but his techniques were too harsh for this line of work.
Your hands look just like your father’s, Draco’s mother had said. He still worries, sometimes, that hands like these can never learn how to be gentle.
He’d been scared to handle Scorpius when he was an infant. I’ll hurt him, Draco had insisted.
Astoria had bundled Scorpius into his arms and pressed a kiss to Draco’s cheek. It’s better to have a father that’s scared of dropping you than one that never picks you up.
Now, Draco can manage the kind of complicated, little motions these spells require. He just wishes they didn’t take so long. Potter watches him silently.
The paint job on the eye is impressive, all delicate strokes and cautious shading, nothing like Potter himself. The browns have been layered painstakingly to provide a sense of depth. Draco can’t shake the sensation that he’s weaving his charms over something that’s already a part of Potter.
Every time he closes a gap, three more appear. If he simply does this the way he usually would, his magic and Potter’s will feud. He has to introduce his spellwork like a fish to new water, letting it acclimate before he drops it in.
An hour later, Draco’s left hand cramps, and he has to stop to massage it. It’s always been worse than his right. The tail ends of Draco’s Colour Distinction Enchantment slither away before he can tie them off. He puffs out a breath of exasperation.
“You enjoy this,” Potter says suddenly.
Draco glances up to find Potter staring at him, and forgets whatever he was about to say.
Threads of magic shoot out from Potter’s body in every direction, a golden, buttery yellow. They climb up his torso like vines. For a second, Draco is watching him dive after the Snitch at Hogwarts again, wind pushing back his hair, drenched in sunlight and laughing. That Potter scarcely lines up with this one, but something about the moment sends Draco’s heart spinning. He’s never seen this much magic coming from one person before.
“Well, don’t you?” Potter prompts.
“I… hm?”
The snort that gets him is almost charming. “Don’t you enjoy it?”
“What makes you say that?”
“You get this odd little smile on your face every time you’ve done something you like. Hermione gets the same look when she’s working.”
Self-consciously, Draco forces the edges of his lips down.
“Sorry,” Potter says, “I shouldn’t have mentioned it. I knew you’d stop once I did.”
Draco frowns more severely this time, shaking out his wrist and picking up his wand again, turning away. “There’s nothing wrong with liking your job.”
“Of course not. I just didn’t expect you to, ’s all.”
“Don’t you like yours?”
Potter is silent for so long that Draco forgets he’s even asked a question until Potter says, “Yes.”
Draco does not dare to look up again.
It’s another half hour of pulling threads of magic together over the prosthesis — making sure there’s no visible space between the strands — before he nears the end. He’s just tied off the last two lines when Potter coughs, and Draco’s attention jerks upward again.
It’s the strangest thing, how he almost manages to forget Potter’s presence without losing awareness that he’s being watched.
“Are you almost done?” Potter rubs a sheepish hand at the back of his neck. “Only, it seems like you must be, from the way you’ve slowed down.”
“The enchantments are nearly there, but I haven’t added the pupil yet.”
Potter bends closer to inspect, and Draco shifts backwards.
“Why’d you wait?” Potter asks.
“The eye comes alive once you do, swinging all over the place but not connected to any brain signals. It’s hard to add magic over that.”
Draco pauses for a moment, then carefully removes his Reveliospecs and holds them out to Potter.
“Put them on. I don’t need them right now. Watch this next part.”
Potter looks confused, but he does as he’s told. He lets out an arrested gasp that presses intently at Draco’s mind, small and overwhelming.
Potter turns his head around the room, finally settling on Draco and the eye as he flips the golden clasp of the case of paint brushes beside him. Draco extracts one and gives the bristles a tiny flick to make sure they’re ready.
He then dips the brush into a small jar of black paint, holding the eye firmly between two fingers of his other hand and swirling a circle between them.
The eye starts to jerk beneath his fingertips and Draco applies more pressure, neatening the edges of the pupil he’s just made until he’s satisfied, nodding as he releases it. The eye goes haywire, spinning in its frame, darting to every corner, rolling around until all he can see is whiteness, and then fixing on him again, unblinking, quivering with restless energy.
He picks it up carefully off the desk and connects the straps, gesturing for Potter to come closer. He does, removing the Reveliospecs as well as his glasses and bending over.
Draco’s hands are unsteady as he presses the magical prosthesis to Potter’s eye socket and secures it, fingers fumbling with the leather.
Potter pulls back, fiddling with the goggle until he seems satisfied. “S’pose there’s a spell you’ve got to do now so I can see with it?”
“Right,” Draco waves his wand, tapping at the metal rim of the prosthesis, “Adjungo.”
The eye stops whizzing about and steadies on him, along with Potter’s other one.
Potter blinks, wobbling, and Draco reaches out a hand to steady him.
“Easy. It’s a lot to get used to. For the first couple of days, I recommend that you only put it on for fifteen minutes at a time and wait an hour between sessions. You can work your way up to wearing it longer after that.”
Potter lets out a sharp puff through flared nostrils. “And what if I can’t get used to it?”
“Then come back here, and I’ll fix you up another, free of charge. No enchantments on that one except to make it blink with you.”
Potter nods slowly. “Fine.”
“Don’t suppose you’ve thought more about the auction?”
Potter lets out an exasperated sigh. “Are you always working an angle?”
“It’s what I do best.”
Potter spends a long moment staring at him, so Draco sits back in his chair and crosses one leg over the other, unashamed to be looking too.
Potter’s stubble has grown out. It makes him look older, but not in a bad way. From here, the brown of his magical eye is a bottomless well. Draco imagines tumbling in.
“I’m trying to help my son,” Draco says. He adjusts his sleeves. “That should be abundantly clear. That’s my only angle. I wouldn’t be asking if I didn’t think you’d at least consider it.”
Potter studies him guardedly. “I shouldn’t be considering it, for what it’s worth.”
“You won’t hear me disagree. But you’re too noble for your own good.”
Potter opens the door and steps out, but he glances over his shoulder before he leaves. Both of Potter’s eyes close for a moment, and tension colours his face.
“Dizzy?” Draco asks.
“It’s like the world is flipping over backwards while I stand in place.”
“Give it time. Take plenty of breaks, but don’t stop practising. You’ll manage soon enough.”
Potter’s eyes open again. “If you’re right, I’ll be at the auction.”
“If I’m right? Of course I’m right.”
Potter frowns. “We’ll see.” The door slams behind him.
Draco picks up a quill and resumes the work Potter interrupted. “So we will,” he murmurs.
The empty office gives no reply.
Chapter Text
Draco’s only pretending to pay attention to the auctioneer as she speaks. He’s got his eyes locked on the entrance, waiting for Potter to walk through. Any minute now.
He feels a presence beside him and turns, letting out a startled breath.
“How the hell did you get in without me seeing you?”
Potter shrugs as he leans over the gilded balcony to look at the crowd. “Magic.”
It’s odd to see his real face in public. Draco doesn’t know why, but he’d been half-expecting Heffley, even though Potter had agreed to attend on the grounds that his presence would help Scorpius.
Potter’s intense expression eases when Draco rests his forearms on the railing beside him, his posture relaxing minutely.
“This is quite the turnout,” Potter says.
“Oh, yes, everyone’s quite eager to see what the Malfoys will offer up.”
“You’re auctioning your own things?” There’s a strange tightness to his voice as he asks.
“A few odds and ends. Mostly antiques we haven’t thought about in years.”
“Ah.”
The auctioneer shouts, “Sold!” and the wooden hammer hits the stand. Potter flinches, pulling back from the balcony, and turning around slowly. He begins a listless stroll down the attached hallway.
Though Draco knows it defies a thousand social graces — ones that his mother would be furious to hear he’s ignoring — Draco follows after him. He’s more concerned with what Potter’s thinking than keeping up appearances as the host … much as it pains him to admit it.
The lavish hall is lined with moving portraits on either side, and the end showcases a grand arching window through which he can see the sinking sun.
It strikes him as odd, at first, that Potter stops to talk to the portraits, until he remembers that he’s some sort of artist. A magical one, presumably. It’s a very strange thought, putting together the words, ‘Harry Potter,’ and, ‘art.’
The idea of magical portraits has always unsettled him. Draco told his mother as much when he was little, and she had shushed him. Don’t let them hear you, she’d said. They’re family.
He knows the portraits aren’t really alive, but they look it. Not to mention that being stuck in two dimensions would feel torturous, and — were it to have anything in common with him — his portrait would think so too. Doomed to a life of immortal misery.
Potter doesn’t have the same reservations.
When Draco catches up with him, he’s chuckling at something a painted knight has said, and Draco allows himself a moment to imagine what it might be like to have that easy, relaxed laugh aimed at him.
“You didn’t tell me there were so many portraits here,” Potter says when he turns.
“When, exactly, would I have slipped that in?”
Potter tilts his head in thought. “It’s how ‘Mione gets me to go places.”
Of course it is.
Draco shifts the subject so he doesn’t accidentally say what he’s thinking, which is that Potter’s ridiculous, and clearly his friends know it.
“I never imagined you as an artist at school. You paint, then?”
Potter nods. “Almost exclusively. But I sketch the subjects out beforehand.”
“Dare I ask how that started?”
He’s expecting at least a whisper of hostility, but Potter smiles.
“Luna dragged me to some art therapy sessions Dean Thomas was leading a few years after the war. I hated it. I was ready to quit by the third class, but then I struck up a conversation with one of the portraits on the wall.”
“You do tend to make the oddest friends.”
Potter’s eyes flicker over his face, searching for the intention behind his words. Draco may have misstepped. Potter’s magical eye quivers unblinkingly, and though Draco has experienced that plenty of times, it makes him feel inordinately castigated.
“I didn’t mean … that came out wrong. I like odd people too. I hear my son is extraordinarily odd. Multiple times a day.”
The edge of Potter’s mouth ticks up again. “Ah.”
“The … the portrait. You spoke to it?”
“I did.”
“And how did that make you an artist?”
Potter’s finger taps on his leg in a contemplative rhythm. “He was an old master painter who had been memorialised a few decades after his death by his granddaughter. So, that made me realise that posthumous portraiting was a thing. Kind of took off from there, I guess.”
“How do you mean?”
Potter looks at the painting beside him, where the knight is listening intently, and sighs. Then his magical eye rolls backwards in his head, and he must see that all the other portraits have turned their attention to him too, because when his eye looks at Draco again, Potter seems embarrassed.
“I wanted to commission Dean to make my godfather, at first,” Potter says. “But it works best if you had a personal connection with the subject. You can paint strangers, but they’re less like their real-life counterparts.”
“And then you just get a portrait who can parrot a few phrases, right? We have a few of those hanging at the Manor. Bloody annoying.”
“Exactly. So I tried to paint him myself. Again, and again, and again … I’m not a born artist. Eventually, I got him well enough that he could say a few sentences without prompting, and he looked a bit like a photograph that had been dunked in water for a week. I kept tweaking it until I got a version of him that felt … right.”
“But what made you keep going after that?”
“For a while, I just wasn’t satisfied with what I’d made, and I still had more paints to go through, so I made a few more. Once they got good enough to be lifelike, Sirius was sort of lonely. He said having a few different versions of himself wasn’t much better than being stuck alone all day. So I made Remus — er … Professor Lupin. They were friends. Then I made my parents.”
“Was that…” He cuts himself off, not wanting to say something wrong and stop Potter from talking again.
“Harder? Yeah. Obviously, I didn’t know them all that well. But I saw a … a memory of them, once. And Hagrid gave me plenty of photographs and stories. McGonagall helped too, once he told her what I was doing.”
“Wouldn’t it have been easier to just ask the portraits you’d already made? They were close, weren’t they?”
“That’s one of the trickier aspects. Portraits can’t actually know anything the artist doesn’t know, unless the subject casts a charm on them while still alive.”
Draco had never heard anything about this before. For all the art history lessons his mother had forced upon him as a child, and all the magical theory his father had drilled into his head, he hadn’t thought twice about the magic of portraits. They just were. Simple as the walls holding up a ceiling. Not worth thinking about.
Until now, catching the genuine excitement hiding in Potter’s words.
“What made you turn that into a career? You’re still doing it, aren’t you?”
“I don’t know … I just kinda fell into it. When I’d finished with my parents, I had some more people I wanted to paint. I made Tonks so Teddy could meet his mother when he was old enough — if he wanted. Andromeda helped a lot with that one, but it was hard for her.”
“I’ve met that portrait.”
“One of them. There’s another still at my house, keeping Remus company. And back then, I was still dating Gin, and she wanted me to make Fred.”
“She must’ve loved it.”
Potter barks a dry laugh. “She hated it. Loathed it. I didn’t get his smile quite right, his laugh sounded odd without George’s next to it … She had a million complaints — not that I blamed her. But about a year went by, and then she wanted to see it again, and I think maybe it didn’t hurt so much anymore, because she was finally able to talk to him. And she liked it enough to want a copy of her own, a small one to keep in her pocket.”
“Did the rest of the Weasleys ever…?”
“Just Ron and Percy. Mrs Weasley wanted to, but then she got outside the room and heard him speaking, and she couldn’t stand it. I think she might try again someday. It happens a lot with grieving people — that they hate it for a while. Just as many of them love it, though.”
He’s surprised. “You’ve made a lot of them, then?”
“Er … yeah. I mean, like I said, I fell into it. People heard about what I was doing and a few approached me asking if I’d be willing to paint one for them. Dennis Creevey was the first. He wanted a portrait of his brother, Colin, and when he brought up how chuffed Colin would’ve been to be memorialised by Harry Potter himself…”
“You couldn’t say ‘no.’”
Potter holds his hands up self-deprecatingly. “I know. You think that’s typical of me. But I swear, it surprised everyone I was close to, especially since I’d spent so much time complaining about all the work it took. Once I made the portrait for Dennis, Cedric Diggory’s dad wanted one, and there was no way I’d turn him down. That one ended up in the paper, and suddenly I was getting more owls than Hermione’s spam blocker could filter out.”
Draco can’t hide his surprise.
“Yeah,” Potter agrees, “right? If anyone could do it, it’d be her. But there were too many, and even though she’d blocked as many words and phrases as she could think of: ‘I’m your biggest fan,’ ‘I love you,’ ‘you’re my idol,’ ‘interview,’ etc., some still slipped through. We had to hire someone to start going through them all and adjust the charm so that only people I put on a list could owl me directly.”
Draco shakes his head. “Poor Granger.”
“Ha,” Potter says dryly.
“I assume you know she’s here somewhere tonight?”
Potter brightens. “She didn’t mention it.”
“Loves a charity auction, that one. And apparently she’s redecorating her office.”
Potter's dark eyebrows draw together. “Oh?”
“Yes, she wrote to me not too long ago about Scorpius’s campaign, saying her daughter — Rose, is it? — thought he was suited perfectly for the job. I knew they went to Hogwarts together, but I wasn’t aware they’d ever spoken. Anyway, she wanted to know if there was anything she could do, and—”
“Excuse me, I’ve got to go.”
“Wh — Potter?”
He’s disappearing down the staircase before Draco even registers that he’s moving.
Draco turns in a slow circle, surveying the empty hallway behind him.
“That was weird, wasn’t it?” he asks aloud.
The knight beside him hacks up into a handkerchief, startling him. He wipes his mouth when he’s finished and grimaces at Draco. “Couldn’t tell you where you went wrong, son.”
“He seemed to like talking to you,” a broad woman with hair stacked up twice the size of her head says.
A few other portraits murmur in agreement.
“Maybe he ain’t, you know, his sort,” a gruff, elderly man says. He’s situated just a bit away from the knight, only a vase of flowers between them.
“They don’t care so much about blood type these days, Herold,” says a young girl in a blue frock. She’s in a meadow of yellow daisies, her auburn hair blowing free in a strong wind that the rest of the portraits aren’t feeling.
“Aye,” the broad woman agrees.
“I wasn’t talking about blood type,” the old man, Herald, grumbles. “Maybe he isn’t, you know…
The broad woman crinkles her nose. “Do you think? He seemed the sort, all friendly like with this fellow.”
A studious-looking man painted in profile sighs, exasperated. “If he’d been a homosexual, he wouldn’t have been able to take his eyes off me.”
Draco blanches, finally catching onto the topic of conversation. “He’s not — I mean, he might be but we’re not—”
“Save it, lovey,” the broad woman says. “We saw you making eyes at him.”
“That, we did,” the girl agrees.
The knight hacks into his handkerchief again.
“Are you quite all right?” Draco asks.
“Black death,” the knight returns meekly. “They say I haven’t got much longer.”
“They’ve been saying that for 200 years now,” the girl puts in.
“So it really can’t be much longer, can it?” the knight despairs.
The side-portrait harrumphs. “All you do is give us hope, just to rip it away.”
“Don’t say that, Charlie!” The broad woman has her hands on her hips like an angry mother. “We don’t want him to die.”
“The end is nigh — I see the light!” Charlie mocks. “Day after day. Would you mind tearing him into pieces?”
Draco has a sneaking suspicion the words are directed at him. It gives him the opportunity for a timely exit.
“Maybe next time. I’d really better be off.”
A chorus of groans rises behind him, and he hears the gruff voice of Herald call from over his back, “We’ll hold you to it!”
On the floor below, people are mostly focused on the auction, mingling at their tables, or snacking on crackers he’s sure are slightly stale and cheese that’s seen better days. It’s how things always are at the auction house, but he hadn’t found a better option when they were choosing the locale. Merlin knows people wouldn’t have wanted to come to Malfoy Manor — not unless they were the morbidly curious sort — and it would only invite further speculation of Scorpius’s suitability for the liaison position.
Though he’s looking for Potter, it’s Granger’s bushy head of hair he sees first, tucked away in one of the less-populated corners. As he gets closer, he sees Potter with her, and they seem to be arguing.
He doesn’t expect Potter to storm off, but that’s just what he does. Draco jogs after him to catch up.
“Potter? Potter!”
They make it out of the auction house and onto the grounds. The gardens here are famous for their cultivation. He has to admit that, even in the darkness, the tall, arching branches of the trees overhead are riveting.
“Potter,” he says again, and this time, Potter turns.
“Bugger off. I’m not in the mood right now.”
Draco draws himself up. “Have I offended you in some way?”
Potter sighs. “No. I just need to get out of here, okay?”
“People will think you’re leaving because you disagree with Scorpius’s candidacy.”
Potter’s hands are clenched into fists at his sides. He grunts. “I don’t care what people think. And no, they won’t. They’ll think I ate something that disagreed with my stomach.”
“…Just come back inside, Potter. Whatever you and Granger were fighting about — you’ll make up.”
“Not tonight.”
The words are resolute. Draco grabs his shoulder before he can Disapparate.
“This is my son’s future we’re talking about.”
“Maybe he should consider alternative career plans.”
Draco baulks. “Are you actually leaving because you don’t—” Realisation strikes him just as the clock tower begins to chime nine bells. “You’re mad Granger supports Scorpius! I can’t believe this.”
“I’m not — Merlin, you’re so frustrating.”
“This is the best job for him.”
Potter throws his hands up, shaking Draco off and stalking away. “Maybe he’s not best for the job.”
Draco falters, then he picks up his pace again to catch Potter, who doesn’t stop. “What, exactly, are you saying? What changed?”
“Nothing, I just want you to shove off.”
“No, you’re not leaving until you tell me what you mean.”
Potter sighs, exasperated, pivoting to face Draco so quickly that he almost runs into him. “You mentioned he’s not the best with social niceties. I’d assume that extends to non-wizards too?”
“I didn’t mean — that’s different. Interactions with other species have clearly set rules. He’s brilliant at rules.”
But Potter’s just revving himself up. “He’s never had many friends. How is he going to get on people’s good sides when it’s important?”
“That’s not—”
“He was raised as a pure-blood so he probably internalised all kinds of stigma against magical creatures.”
“For fuck’s sake, you’ve got to know that’s nonsense. What’s your problem?”
“I want to leave, that’s my problem.”
“Well, far be it from me to stop you. No need to behave like an adult for once in your life.”
Potter glares at him as he raises his wand, and Draco really wonders if he’s going to curse him. The air itself seems to bend around them, and Potter disappears. The pop echoes in the night.
Draco stares for a long moment.
Energy courses through him, restless, and he doesn’t know what to do with it. Draco takes up a winding walk through the trees back to the auction house.
Potter’s wrong, of course he is. He doesn’t know Scorpius, and he doesn’t know what he’s talking about.
But still, Draco feels as though some of his words ring true. Not because of whatever Hippogriff-shite reasons Potter came up with, but because Scorpius has had a hard time with friends. A large part of that is because of who his family is, but Draco knows that a lot has to do with who Scorpius is.
Brilliant, wonderful, but not the most socially adept.
He and Astoria have known that since Scorpius could talk, and it isn’t going to change now, just because he’s got this dream egging him on.
Draco sighs. He releases the tension from his fists a few times. He knows Scorpius is ultimately capable of determining his own limits. But when he’s trying to get people to back him politically, fighting his way towards the next re-election, or networking at events, will Scorpius wish he’d stopped sooner?
It’s not Draco’s job to decide which battles Scorpius should fight. No matter how much he wishes he could.
When Draco reaches the doors, he still hasn’t made up his mind on whether or not he should go back in. His hands are shoved in the pockets of his robes and he doesn’t want to go through the whole routine of straightening himself out and looking presentable again.
The doors burst open, and for just a second, the noise of the auction tumbles out.
It’s Scorpius. The doors close behind him.
He cocks his head at Draco. His eyes are tired, but he sounds normal. “All right?”
“Fine.”
“You don’t look fine.”
Draco lets out a breath. “How do I look?”
“All, you know…” Scorpius twists up his face the way he used to when he was little and he wanted to look like the old hag in his picture books.
It startles a laugh out of Draco, a puff of white in the night air.
“For Salazar’s sake, Scorp.” Draco shakes his head.
Scorpius is still leaning back against the doors. If anyone else walks out, he’ll be pushed to the ground.
You see a thousand disasters before they even happen, Astoria used to say to him.
“If this goes poorly…” Draco begins. He waits for the protest, but it doesn’t come.
“Yes?” Scorpius asks cautiously.
The moon is blocked by the clouds tonight, but it must be bright, because he can see all the contours of their thick, grey shapes over a ribbon of blue. A few stars peek through, but not enough that he can name the constellation.
“You’ll be able to handle it, right?”
Scorpius seems to actually consider this.
When the answer comes, it’s slow. “I think the only thing I wouldn’t be okay with is not trying.”
He nods. That’s enough for him.
“Heading home?”
“No,” Scorpius says. “I just needed a break.”
Scorpius can handle himself.
“Right.” Draco steps forward and nudges him out of the door’s path. “I’m taking the Floo back to the Manor. Should I leave the connection open?”
“No. Mum’s expecting me.”
Draco opens the door. “Goodnight, Scorpius.”
Scorpius blinks away the sudden brightness and steps back to let him pass. “Night.”
Chapter Text
At a quarter to nine, Draco’s office door rattles in its frame as Potter bursts through. “You prat!”
“Can I help you?” Draco asks, utterly nonplussed.
“I don’t know, you miserable sod, can you?”
That’s when Theia arrives in the doorway, panting. She looks from Potter to Draco with wide blue eyes, waiting for some kind of instruction.
When Draco hired her, he’d made sure she wouldn’t be afraid to block indignant wizards from storming into his office to have a go at him. But it is one thing to be capable of handling oneself in a fight and another for that fight to be against the Saviour of the Wizarding World.
“You can go, Theia. He’s not here to kill me.”
“You can stay, actually, because I’m not making any promises.” Potter turns his glare on Draco. “Fix it.”
Draco stares blankly at him. “Sorry?”
“Fix it, Malfoy.”
“You’re really going to have to be more specific than that.”
Theia is still looking between them with her mouth parted in concern.
“My eye, would you fix my bloody eye? It was working perfectly and then I get into one argument with you and I start seeing things. I was actually starting to think you’d grown up, you tosser.”
Draco stands immediately, moving to Potter’s side to examine the eye at closer range. It swivels towards him.
“What are you doing?” Potter asks.
“I didn’t curse you.”
Everything looks normal, but when he tries to remove the eye to get a better look, the metal base is stuck on Potter’s face. “Why isn’t it coming off?”
“You tell me.”
He jerks at it harder, and Potter grimaces. “Would you fuck off, already?”
“Potter, I promise you this, I'm just as concerned as you are.”
“It’s my bloody eye.”
“It’s my bloody spellwork. What are you seeing?”
Potter grits his teeth in silence for a moment. Draco can see the tense working of his jaw back and forth. Then he says, “Words. At least, I think they’re words. I can’t read them, but they’re everywhere. Signs aren’t right anymore. My walls are covered. Everything.”
Draco looks at Theia again, and her eyebrows are drawn up in concern.
“Close the clinic for the day,” he says. “I need to have a look at Mr Potter’s eye.”
Theia grimaces. “You know what’ll happen. I do that, yer other patients will be furious with me.”
“Ask them kindly to reschedule, please. I’ll work overtime for the next month to fit them in if I have to.”
She seems to understand the gravity now, because she nods sharply and walks away, leaving Draco alone with Potter, who still looks like he’s pondering violence.
Draco pulls him into the office and shuts the door behind them, pressing Potter’s shoulders until he takes a seat in one of the uncomfortable chairs.
He looks haggard today, nothing like he had at the charity auction. His hair’s even more of a mess than usual, and his clothes look slept in.
“When did you say the problem started?”
“I didn’t. Yesterday afternoon.”
“Not immediately after the gala, then.”
Potter crosses his arms over his chest. “If you think that pathetic excuse for a defence is going to fool me—”
“I’m not trying to convince you I didn’t do it. I’m just putting a timeline together.” He takes a seat behind his desk, somewhere he can be farther away from Potter’s — everything. He shuffles around for a quill and some parchment to take notes. “Did you go anywhere else between the auction and the time you noticed the problem?”
“No. I didn’t see anyone else, either.”
Draco exhales slowly, resisting the urge to tell Potter to simmer down a little. It’s not as if hearing that kind of thing is especially helpful, in his experience.
“Did you eat anything unusual, try a new potion?”
“For Merlin’s sake, Malfoy, I thought of every last thing before admitting it has to be you. It has to be! No one else was chasing after me at the auction, pissed off about something I’d done. No one else has extensive, in-depth knowledge about the workings of magical eyes.”
“I need you to cooperate with me here. I have to figure out what’s going on.”
He doesn’t want to say it, but Potter is the third patient who’s mentioned a problem today. He’d told the other two to meet him at the end of the workday so he could take a look, but now it seems as if this won’t be such a simple fix.
“I’m not helping you,” Potter says. “You cursed me. Twice!”
If he were in Potter’s shoes, would Draco believe himself? Probably not.
He doesn’t have anything to disprove it, either. Except…
“You’re not the first patient reporting a problem today. There’ve been two more. I wouldn’t curse my other patients just to get back at you.”
Potter seems to defrost the slightest bit. “What problems were they reporting?”
“I didn’t get specific details. I thought they were just routine malfunctions.”
“But you’ve got proof that what you’re saying is true? I can see the letters?”
Draco taps a finger on his desk. “Well, they’re confidential…”
“Right.” There’s a tone playing in Potter’s voice that’s as sharp as the edge of a knife. “I’ll just be leaving, then. I can find some other ocularist to remove it.”
“There aren’t others. Not magical ones, at least, not in the UK.”
“I guess I’m fleeing the country.”
As Potter turns, Draco calls out, “Wait.”
Potter stalls, but his body is still strung with energy. He looks like he’s trying not to burst out of his skin. Draco recognises that demeanour from back in their school days. It usually means he’s about to do something extraordinarily ill-planned.
“Why didn’t you go to another ocularist first? Or a Healer, even?”
Potter does not turn around as he speaks. “I wanted to give you the chance to prove me wrong. Or at least reverse the spell yourself so whoever treats me doesn’t turn you over to the Aurors.”
Draco’s chest aches. It isn’t much, it isn’t real trust, but it would have saved him if he’d done this to Potter. It might still save him.
Why does he want so badly for Potter to believe him? The idea that Potter tried to find another explanation — even just for a second — is more important than anything he did to protect Draco from the law.
“Just a few more minutes,” Draco says. When that doesn’t feel like enough, he adds, “Please.”
“What will a few minutes get you?”
“I don’t know yet. But I’m going to use them the best I can.”
Potter finally turns. He looks at the wall clock, then back at Draco. “Five minutes. If you’ve still got nothing, I’m leaving.”
~
Draco rushes to the front of the clinic. When he gets there, he stops short. There are at least ten owls clustered on the ground, flapping their wings moodily at being ignored. Theia looks up at him, harassed, a stack of letters torn open on the counter. A few of them are Howlers, stains of blood red in a field of snowy white envelopes.
“Bit of a problem, Mr Malfoy,” she says.
“Malfunctions with their prostheses?”
She nods frantically.
A thought occurs to him all of the sudden, one he almost pushes away too fast to take a proper look at.
Perhaps Potter is responsible for the tampering, and he’s covering his own arse.
Draco has been an ocularist for nearly two decades now, but he’d never seen a problem this scale before Potter came along. Not to mention that the only thing holding Draco’s reputation together well enough to support Scorpius’s endeavours is his clinic — the trust his patients place in him.
No. It’s too diabolical to be one of Potter’s plans. Would he really do something that could negatively affect innocent people? How would he have even gone about it?
But if anyone would be capable of getting past tamper-proof magic…
Draco knows someone who might be able to quell both his and Potter’s doubts, though.
“Theia,” he says, “get Teddy Lupin here as fast as you can.”
Chapter Text
Teddy stumbles out of the Floo half an hour later, waving a jolly hello.
Draco had barely convinced Potter to stay for this, but eventually he’d managed. Potter’s standing in the corner, his arms crossed, his face a map of fury and discomfort.
“Wotcher,” Teddy says. “Don’t you two make a lovely pair.”
“Sit,” Draco says. “Now.”
“Er … okay.” Teddy’s magical eye stares at him sideways as he takes a seat in front of Draco’s desk, not hiding his concern.
“I get to look first,” Potter reminds Draco.
“Fine.”
For Potter, it’s a game of timing. If Draco gets to Teddy before him, it’s the perfect opportunity for Draco to cast another curse.
Draco only needs simple logic. Potter would not hurt his godson. If every other patient is badly affected, and Teddy isn’t, that’s basically proof. If Teddy’s having problems too, then the outlook is far grimmer. Draco will have no way of knowing what’s causing this, and no way of stopping it.
Potter tugs on the prosthesis, but it doesn’t budge. He tries again, and Teddy makes a face.
“Er, Harry?” Teddy says. “All right, there?”
“I don’t know yet. You can come check him now, Malfoy.”
Draco approaches and tilts Teddy’s face at a sharp angle. He begins prying at the edges of the metal goggle with his tools — traditionally used for taking prostheses apart when they need repairing.
Despite the unique making of Teddy’s prosthetic eye, and the fact that his model is far older than Potter’s, it does not separate from his head any more easily.
The band holding the prosthesis in place is still loose enough to wiggle around, but the goggle might as well be fused to the skin. Draco tries a few spells that all end in failure.
The placement doesn’t look uncomfortable, fortunately, but Draco imagines it will present quite a challenge if Teddy tries to sleep on his left side.
“Have you had any symptoms recently?”
“Symptoms of what?”
“Of anything, anything that might be related to your eye.”
Teddy shakes his head slowly. “I don’t…” Potter’s about to leap at the words when Teddy says, “Well, yeah, actually. I thought it was just from being around potion fumes for too long, but I saw some stuff on the wall of my lab earlier.”
“What kind of stuff?” Potter asks.
“Markings, I guess. Little black shapes on the walls. I really thought it was nothing. Sometimes staring at flames for too long can do that to you.”
Potter swears. “It’s everyone, then. Dammit, Malfoy, if you did this just to cover your arse—”
“I wouldn’t throw years of my life and all of my patients’ well-being down the drain just to cover up having done something bad to you. I’ve thrown hexes at you all my life without hiding it. Why start now?”
“Hold on,” Teddy says. “What’s happening?”
Potter stays silent, so Draco knows it’s up to him to reveal the news.
“Patients have been coming to me today with complaints. I thought it was something I could fix — or, at the very least, that I could buy some time to figure out what’s causing the problems before I tell everyone. But it seems that my prostheses are currently irremovable.”
Teddy frowns, tugging at his eye. Then his expression turns to dismay as he morphs the shape of his face again and again, and it still doesn’t budge. “I took it off just last night!”
“I know.”
“What the hell am I gonna do? Do you know how uncomfortable this thing can get?”
“I’ve been told.”
“Fuck.”
“Fuck,” Draco repeats, emphatically.
Potter’s glower grows dark as coals losing their last memory of fire. “You can’t stall anymore. You have to tell all your patients.”
Teddy nods vigorously. “If there’s even a small fraction of them that won’t have put their prostheses on for the day yet—”
“I know.” Draco picks up a quill from his desk, but he can’t make himself begin writing yet. “Everyone will panic.”
“That’ll happen either way.”
“But if I can figure out what’s happening before I tell people…”
He knows even as he says it that it won’t work. He has to contact the Prophet immediately, and he has to send individual owls to everyone that has ever received an eye from his clinic. Even they aren’t all cursed. Even if it sends patients running to other countries to get treated by competing ocularists.
Draco nearly keels over in panic, because he knows how this will go. His patients won’t trust him anymore. It won’t matter how quickly he figures out what’s happening and fixes it; this won’t be forgotten. ‘If it can happen once,’ they’ll reason, ‘it could happen again.’ Why would they bother with him in the future?
“How bad is this?” Teddy asks.
He wishes he knew. “It’s nothing to worry over.”
Teddy gets to his feet. “Incredibly bad, then.”
“Yes.”
“Really, really bad.”
Draco snorts dryly. “Ladies and Gentlemen — top of his class at Hogwarts.”
“We’ll stay to help,” Teddy says. “Right, Harry? We need to write the letters as fast as possible.”
Potter gives a tense nod.
“I’ll get Theia,” Draco tells them.
As he exits the room, Draco grips his quill like a weapon. It won’t protect him, though. He wishes he had something stronger to hold onto.
~
Draco pounds on Madam Pomfrey’s office door as at least a hundred owls swoop towards him at once.
Her arm shoots out just a moment before they reach him. “In, in—” She yanks him past the threshold and slams it behind them.
Thirty indignant squawks sound from the other side before Madam Pomfrey aims a Silencing Charm at the wood.
Her sharp eyes land on him. “Sit, sit, good heavens, boy!
She pushes him into one of her cosy red chairs and ushers him to take a sip of tea. He can tell that it’s been placed under a Warming Charm, which isn’t surprising, considering that he’s an hour late today.
He hadn’t known how best to escape his clinic without getting pecked to death by birds.
“Minerva told me about your announcement in the Prophet.
Draco winces. “Yeah. Yeah. I’m fucked, aren’t I?”
She thwacks him on the head. “Language, young man.”
Draco rubs his cheek in annoyance. “I think I’m entitled to a little cursing, seeing as I’ve just had what might be the worst day of my life. Which is saying a lot.”
“You’re entitled to what I saw you’re entitled to. Now, if you’re well enough to talk like that, you’re well enough to help me restock my storage shelves.”
She bustles about the snug little office she has just to the right side of the Hogwarts hospital wing, putting away jars of powdered moonstone.
Madam Pomfrey always makes Draco handle the top shelves because she can only reach them using magic, and she doesn’t like trying to arrange potions using a Levitation Charm. Apparently, it’s made a mess more than a few times.
“How much bloody powdered moonstone does one person need?”
“Hush. I won’t be reminding you about your language a third time.”
“I’m forty-four. Do you think I’ll ever be allowed to curse in front of you?”
“Hardly. By the time you’re not a young man any longer, I’d better be well beyond my death bed.”
He does not look up from his tea. “What a cheerful thought. Don’t suppose we’ve got long left?”
Madam Pomfrey clucks in disapproval, but her tone is fond. “Watch yourself, boy. You’re going to need people on your side through all this.”
He’d sent the last of the letters an hour earlier, after begging the Prophet to publish his official warning in a midday edition.
“Has anything like this ever happened to you?” he asks.
“You remember your second year, don’t you?”
“Too well.”
“I hardly slept for months. Do you think parents were thrilled when students were being Petrified left and right, and I had no answers for them?”
He hadn’t thought about all that in nearly a decade. But he could only imagine his reaction if he heard Scorpius had been Petrified when he was twelve. It wasn’t worth thinking about, but he’s sure he would have ruined whatever burgeoning friendship he and Madam Pomfrey had at the time.
“Exactly,” she continues, taking his silence as agreement, as always. “So don’t go thinking you’ve got all the world’s problems to yourself, now.”
“Yes, yes, that’s me told — but what do I do?”
“You just take it as it comes. No way to know what the response will be until it happens.” She levels him with a look. “Eventually you should stop hiding out in my hospital wing and go back to your clinic. And you should talk to Potter again, as well. He may be able to help you figure this out.”
He ignores the last bit. “But the owls. You have no idea how many Howlers and Floo calls and letters from ‘concerned citizens’ I’ll get.”
“You’re going to have to face it eventually. There won’t be as many right now as there will be later.”
“Right now?”
“Well.” She draws her wand from her sleeve, and a potion’s vial comes flying towards her. She tips a bit into both of their cups. “Drink up.”
He gives her a dubious look.
“Don’t judge me until you’re working with children all day, trying to keep them from escaping their hospital beds when they’re supposed to be regrowing limbs. A little Calming Draught can do all of us well, sometimes.”
It’s true. And it’s also a good reminder that his job could always, always be worse.
~
After several days and countless inquiries from reporters hellbent on draining his last dregs of dignity from him — as well as one from Blaise simply reading, “Yikes“ — Draco decides that maybe Madam Pomfrey was right after all. He should talk to Potter about all this. Because they need to figure something out. Right now.
Only, the sole evidence he has for Potter being at the centre of this is that Potter is always involved when something goes awry. If there’s a problem, he’s got a hand in it.
And yet he won’t respond to any of Draco’s bloody letters.
Potter doesn’t even answer when Draco tries to call over the Floo Network, resulting in Draco getting very rudely spat back onto his arse.
So, he goes to visit Granger.
And she says, “Why don’t I take you by his house?”
“… Sorry?”
She looks up from her desk, where she’s straightening files. “Promise not to kill him?”
In every twist and turn of events that he imagined, this wasn’t what happened. He’d sort of expected her to just … manhandle Potter into replying, or something. Perhaps trick him into arriving at a public location where Draco is waiting to swoop in. Not this.
“I was planning to see where the evening took me. But sure.”
“Brilliant.”
~
Draco stops her just outside the door. “Granger, why are you doing this?”
She gives him a considering look. “I think Harry keeps to himself too much. Every once in a while, he needs a bit of pestering.”
She knocks on the door and waits.
He stands there bouncing on his toes, feeling horribly out of place. There’s a cold nip in the air biting at his ears and he wishes it wouldn’t look so foolish to wear a hat at his age.
Potter probably wears hats.
No one answers the door, so Granger just walks right in.
He hesitates. This doesn’t feel right. It’s got to be a huge violation of Potter’s privacy. On the other hand, he doesn’t care.
Draco follows her into the house.
The foyer looks more like a storage shed than a human dwelling. The dark, wood-panelled walls are stacked high with boxes, leaving just a small path in the middle to step through.
Granger leads him to what must have once been the sitting room, a dank, musty place that leaves him feeling clammy.
“Harry,” she bellows into a doorway beyond, aiming her voice up a set of stairs, “someone’s here to see you!”
She turns back to him, looking flushed and a bit anxious, but already making her way to the front door to leave again. There’s a loud crash from above, followed by a fair amount of banging, and he looks to the ceiling, staring at it for a moment before shooting out a hand to stop her as she walks by. “Wait.”
Granger looks at the fingers clutching the arm of her coat, and he, self-consciously, lets go.
“Granger, what aren’t you telling me?”
“What do you mean?”
“Clearly you’re leaving something out. Why’d you really bring me here?”
She looks him right in the eye. “Because you asked.”
“But—”
“I’ve got to run.” She stops halfway to the door, turning back again. “Just don’t Vanish anything while you’re here, okay?”
“Don’t — wait, Granger, come back here!”
She wriggles her fingers at him in goodbye before slamming the door closed behind her. He can hear the pop of Disapparition through the wood. Then he’s alone in Potter’s house. Alone with Potter.
He’s going to get murdered, isn’t he?
A creak comes from the top of the steps, and it sends adrenaline racing through him.
A moment later, Potter descends the stairs, stopping at the bottom when he sees Draco.
“Malfoy. How the hell did you…? Where’s Hermione?”
“She left. I didn’t curse you, and I think I know why your prosthesis is malfunctioning.”
Potter looks at him for a long time, then sighs, stepping past him and through another doorway, out of the sitting room.
Reluctantly, Draco trails behind.
There’s hardly room to step, so crowded is the hallway with all manner of things. Potter navigates it with familiarity, walking with bare feet over countless woven rugs that Draco suspects he did not buy for himself. Even in the dim lighting, Draco can see that he looks tired and pale. His shoulders are hunched with unease, small under his ratty shirt.
“Did you hear me?”
“Heard you.”
“So?”
Potter shrugs, and they step into a small, sunlit kitchen. The windows are open, and Draco can hear the birds twittering away outside like it’s a sodding storybook. This room, at least, is free of the atrociously designed rugs, but no less cluttered than the rest.
Potter uses his hands to leverage himself onto the counter, then gives Draco an expansive, ‘go on, if you must,’ gesture.
“Well, it’s about the papers,” Draco says. He doesn’t feel comfortable sitting.
“Okay.”
“They got me thinking. If the result of the prostheses malfunctioning is damage to my reputation — and Scorpius’s by extension — maybe that was someone’s goal. Maybe people think he shouldn’t be allowed to get the job so easily.”
Potter’s quiet.
“My business was the only redeeming thing about me, in the eyes of the public. Reminding them that I’m not trustworthy… it’s the perfect plan.”
Potter slides across the counter until he reaches the hob. He sets a kettle over it and lights the fire wandlessly, without seeming to put any effort in. Draco’s never been able to do wandless magic like that, not even close.
“I didn’t mean what I said.” Potter doesn’t look at him. “It wasn’t a good night for me.”
“I thought things were going well. That’s probably the most civil conversation we’ve had.”
“It … for other reasons, it wasn’t a good night for me. I wasn’t thinking.”
“Even so, you wouldn’t be the first who’s had those thoughts. ‘No Malfoy will ever be fit to act in an official Ministry position, let alone one so necessary for magical cooperation,’ etcetera etcetera.”
“Still … your theory seems like a stretch.”
“How, exactly?”
“Well, the papers have made sure everyone knows about my eye. Whoever cursed your prostheses — if it wasn’t you — must be aware that you're treating me. How many people do you know that are anti-Malfoy and would still be willing to hurt me?”
“It’s not like the effects are extraordinarily painful, or anything,” Draco says. “Maybe they know that it’s worth it, to have a few people seeing things, if it means I suffer.”
“At least they’ve got their heads on straight.”
A loud clash makes Draco jump. “What was that?”
“Just the oven.” Potter shrugs.
“Doing what?”
“It talks sometimes.”
Draco blinks at him. Right. He’s got to get out of here as soon as possible. “Talks how?”
Draco hears a squeak and his eyes dart to the oven door. It’s partially open, and it wobbles for a second before closing again with a sharp metal bang.
“Like that.”
Draco gapes. “You have a magical oven?”
“Don’t think it’s really the oven, strictly speaking. The whole house is like that. Well, most of it, anyway. It started talking once I shut Walburga up.”
The cabinets give an agreeing creak.
Draco tries to process this. He knows that a sort of semi-sentience in magical buildings is no rarity — Hogwarts, for example, seemed particularly inclined to always move the staircase on him when he was about to be late to class — but he’s never heard of anything quite like this. “Do you understand what it’s saying?”
Potter looks strangely pleased with this question. “Give it a go. See if you do.”
Draco waits, and one of Potter’s drawers rolls out with a slow rumble. It’s a tentative, almost shy, sound. Draco looks up, amazed. “I’m not supposed to hear actual words, am I?”
“I’d be jealous if you did. Or maybe concerned.” Potter hops off the counter and hands him a mug of strong-smelling tea.
Draco can’t tell what the fragrance is, but his whole body feels warm before he’s even taken a sip.
Belatedly, he takes a seat at the kitchen island, perching on one of the rickety metal stools. “I got off topic.”
“I didn’t mind.”
His gaze snaps to Potter’s for a second, then Draco looks away. Some sort of inexplicable friendliness will do him no good here. Is it odd that he feels as though they’re on more even ground when Potter’s angry at him? It’s familiar, at least, and it doesn’t make him question where he stands the way this does.
Tea has never been part of their spats.
“So, say someone is going after you,” Potter begins. “What does that mean? Are you going to get the Aurors involved?”
Draco can’t hide his contempt.
“I was just asking, easy. What, then?”
Draco considers this. “Well, first I focus on finding a solution. Then, maybe I try to track the tampering back to a wand source.”
“You can do that kind of magic?”
“I have resources I can call on. Friends.”
Blaise, more specifically. He works with putting up invisibility wards on wizarding ancestral homes, mostly, but he has experience tracking down people who break through those wards too.
“What do you need me for, then?” Potter asks.
“You’re always at the centre of things. I want to know what you’re seeing, for starters.”
And Draco wants Potter to trust him, but he can’t say that out loud.
He takes a sip of his tea, then neatly spits it back out again. “What the fuck is this?”
“Tea,” Potter responds. His mouth tips into a frown.
“What the fuck is in the tea?”
Potter counts off on his fingers. “Er … there’s some orange zest. A bit of cinnamon. Some milk, maybe. A little lavender and honey.”
“That is far too many flavours. Am I meant to believe that you drink this monstrosity regularly?”
“Why would I drink the same tea multiple times?”
“Well, you wouldn’t if it tasted like this, I’ll give you that.”
“Most people would say thank you.”
Draco snorts. “Nobody who respects themselves. Back to the problem at hand, though — I assume you’re also trying to figure this out? Hopefully you’ve written down some of the things you see.”
Potter takes a sip. “A few, but I gave up. They’re everywhere. I couldn’t possibly get them all, so it’s not even worth trying.”
“Could you show me? Just the ones you already have down.”
Potter hesitates, then finally nods. “Yeah. Follow me. I left the drawings in the sitting room.”
So, once again, Draco trails after Potter through his improbably crowded house. Draco can’t imagine how one person could even acquire so many things, especially without any relatives to speak of.
It’s when they get to the sitting room that he sees the problem does not just extend to furniture, but to Potter’s work as well.
“It should be in here somewhere,” Potter says. Then, “A-ha!” as he bends awkwardly over a glass case containing what looks like several miniature squid swimming around in circles.
“What are those?”
“Hm? Oh! Meet Tilly, Uric, and Ignatia Potter.”
Draco frowns. “That’s got to be the worst assortment of names I’ve ever heard.”
“They’re very offended,” Potter says seriously as he passes the paper to Draco.
“Good.”
He begins to read, but then Draco feels the portraits’ eyes on him. At least twenty subjects, all staring directly at him.
“Potter, I’m not sure if you’ve noticed this, but you have rather a lot of roommates.”
“Oh, them?” Potter flops over onto the sofa. His next words come out muffled from his face being pressed into the cushion. “No, they don’t pay rent.”
The painting nearest to Draco sniffs disdainfully, eyeing Potter with a clear sense of superiority. She’s an underpainted young woman with pressed blonde curls and the kind of air that reminds him of his mother, minus the grudging affection.
“Pleasure to meet you,” Draco says, holding out a hand as if the woman will shake, then lowering it slowly when he realises his mistake.
She turns up her nose at him and crosses her arms. “Please tell this man that it is not proper to address me directly.”
Potter snorts. He turns his face to the side to look at them. “That’s Angelica Foghorn—”
“Fichthorn!” Angelica bellows, giving Draco a good idea of what might have inspired her nickname.
“She’s prissy because she was the heiress to a minor fortune before she died.”
If Draco were anyone else, he’d be stuttering out words like, ‘er…’ and ‘wow,’ but instead, he manages a comprehensible question. “Was she a commission?”
“Mmhm. Only one I’m working on at the moment. I’d already started it when my prosthesis got cursed. The symbols everywhere make it hard to see what I’m doing.”
“So the rest are ones you’re keeping?”
“They’re all personal.”
Draco peers closer at the portraits, which are now whispering amongst themselves. A few give him dirty looks, but none speak up.
“Dare I ask why a few seem to loathe me?”
Potter begins to smile. “Well, sometimes they pick up on the artist‘s inclinations.”
“Fascinating,” he says, turning to examine the one of Professor Lupin, who flips him off, and a man he thinks is Sirius Black, who sticks out his tongue at him.
On the far right, just at the corner of the room, there’s a picture of a couple he knows must be Potter’s parents. He’s seen pictures of them before, he’s pretty sure, in some paper or other preserved from the end of the first reign of Voldemort.
Looking at the man, it’s easy to see where Potter gets most of his features. The messy black hair, the coppery skin, even the horrid glasses. But Draco can see faint traces of him in his mother, too, in the slope of her smile and the jut of her dimpled chin.
“I say,” Potter’s dad declares, “has anyone ever told you you’re the spitting image of Lucius Malfoy?”
“More times than you’d believe.”
He turns back to Potter himself, who mumbles, “I’ve heard it all before, whatever you’re thinking.”
Draco levels him with a look he knows is all at once doubtful and derisive. Potter doesn’t know half the things he’s thinking. He himself has spent the better part of three decades quashing them down.
But maybe, the thought tickles at him, he won’t have to anymore.
“What’s with all the odd pairings?”
“Ah,” Potter says, “they sort of develop personalities of their own, after a time. Especially the ones I didn’t know too well. There are some … interesting relationships.”
“Surely you’re not implying that your magical portraits have affairs with one another.”
Potter grins. “Oh, yeah. Remus One and Sirius One are a thing. Remus Two and Tonks One are also a thing. Sirius Two keeps eyeing my dad. It’s as uncomfortable as it sounds. He asked me if I wouldn’t mind painting him a dozen roses, once.”
“Freud would have a field day with that.”
“You know who Freud is?”
“Of course I do. He was one of the most innovative magical minds of the nineteenth century.”
“Freud wasn’t magical.” Potter frowns. “Freud was magical?”
“Did you ever pay attention in History of Magic?”
“No.”
“It’s a wonder they let you graduate.”
“They didn’t.”
“Pardon?” The more he talks to Potter, the more he wonders how he could have missed so much about him.
Was it in the papers, ever? Would he have known if he’d allowed himself to give into the temptation and flip through the articles about public figures?
“I'm an artist, Malfoy. I don’t need my NEWTs.”
“But surely you … surely you could’ve asked McGonagall to let you come back?”
“Didn’t want to, really. You were going to be there, remember?”
“Ah.” Leave it to Potter to be so cavalier.
“And McGonagall told me that she’d write me a letter of recommendation anywhere I wanted if being Harry Potter alone didn’t get me in, but if I thought I was getting a diploma without finishing my studies, I could fuck right off.”
“She told you to fuck off?”
“I’m paraphrasing.”
“Hm. Are all your portraits dead?”
“Erm, no.” Potter’s face twists up in a distinct cringe. “No, there’s one set that isn’t. A rather large mistake on my part. I’d rather you didn’t meet them.”
“And we’d rather not meet him!” calls a sharp, female voice.
He spins around, trying to find the source but failing. “Do all of your portraits hate me?”
“You’d be hard-pressed to find one who doesn’t.”
“Delightful.”
“Give me a break. It was just a few years after the war when I painted most of them.”
“And when did you paint Angelica?”
“Last Tuesday.”
He snorts. “Charming.”
“Don’t get all prattish with me. You’re the reason my art is fucked up. You’re the reason my eye is fucked up. In one way or another.”
“Well, Potter … you’re a prick.”
“Says the biggest arse I know.”
“There’s a dirty joke in there somewhere, lads,” one of the Sirius portraits says, “you’re just not looking hard enough to find it.”
They spend the rest of the afternoon in silence.
Chapter Text
“Harry,” Weasley whines, you can’t honestly expect me to trust the prat.”
“We’ve got to test this out,” Potter responds. “I don’t like it any better than you.”
They’re sitting in Weasley’s office, along with Granger, discussing their plan for Potter’s big speech in support of Scorpius’s campaign.
“You’ll know that you can trust me soon enough,” Draco says. “It should already be clear. What could I possibly stand to gain from cursing Potter?”
“You don’t need a motive when you’re pure evil,” Weasley spits. “But fine. First, you cursed his Spectroculars, because you’re a prat. Then you got pissed that Harry left the auction early, and you just couldn’t resist. You cursed the rest of your patients to cover it up.”
They don’t have time for Weasley’s fit, so Draco doesn’t encourage him by arguing.
Granger seems to agree, because she brushes past her husband’s words. “All right. If we’re going to do this properly, we need a game plan.”
“Don’t we already have one?” Potter asks. “I support Scorpius publicly and see what happens. Anyone who knows anything won’t doubt that my influence will make his chances of winning higher. They won’t bother waiting to curse me.”
“And what if Malfoy curses you himself so we think his flimsy theory is true?” Weasley growls. “I don’t think he should have his wand.”
Draco’s mouth falls open. “No way. The perpetrators came after me, remember?”
“Your business, not you,” Weasley brushes off. “That’s hardly as concerning as you want to make it sound. You’ll be perfectly safe.”
“I’ll be without my magic.”
Granger tips her head to the side, thoughtful. “Well … it’s worth considering.”
“What?!”
“Just think about it. How else are we supposed to believe there’s no way you’re doing this?”
“You can’t imagine that I have self-preservation instincts? All of this is killing my clinic.”
“We could pair you with a tactical team of Aurors,” Weasley says. “They’d make sure no one tries to hurt you at the next event, and then you’d be tucked away at home, safe and sound with your absolutely ancient wards.”
“You think I want to be wandless around Aurors? No. You’re not to tell a single soul outside of this room I’ll be without it. That’s the safest way.”
Granger looks surprised. “You’re agreeing?”
Draco winces. This really is too much. “I want to figure out what’s causing this just as much as you do. If I don’t, my patients will suffer for it.”
“We’ll have to keep you locked up at the Manor until we know for sure whether or not Harry’s been cursed.”
“Fantastic.” He finally lets go of his last vestiges of control. “But I won’t be left alone during the event. And I won’t be leaving my wand in your care.”
Granger sighs, settling in for a long night of bargaining. “Where, then?”
~
“So, you’ll be sticking with me for the day, huh?” Potter asks.
Scorpius’s campaign booster is surprisingly well-attended. Everyone wants to know why he thinks he deserves a position like this, and why the papers promise Harry Potter will have something to say about it.
“Thrilled, aren’t you?”
“Oh, just tickled. Watch your feet.”
Draco sees the rock in the grass just soon enough to avoid falling and looking like a fool.
“That’s your outfit?” he asks. “Really, I thought you had some sort of fashion sense, after what you wore to the auction.”
Potter’s dressed in some atrocious Muggle garb that looks like a cross between a proper suit and a pair of red, tartan pyjamas.
“If I’d known you thought I looked so good, I’d have let Hermione choose my outfit again.”
Draco falters, his throat feeling strangely tight. “Well. You look like a prat, is all I’m saying.”
And he does. But Draco doesn't mind.
“Right.”
“Right.”
Potter grins at him, and Draco feels distinctly unbalanced, knowing he’s being made fun of but not sure he minds.
“So,” Draco starts, desperate for a change of topic, “what points are you planning to cover in your speech?”
“I was planning to wing it.”
His mouth falls open. “Wing it. You can’t wing it. You’ll sound like a buffoon.”
“I think best on my feet.”
“Erumpents think best on their feet! You sound half-awake even on your best days, and it’s only because you’re so bloody impressive that people don’t tell you so.”
They come to a stop in the waiting area at the side of the stage, a little bar that provides just enough shade on either side for them to be comfortable. “I never knew you found me impressive.”
“I — I’m not saying that you — you’re completely distracting from the point.”
Potter leans across the bar between them, chin propped on his hand. “Which is?”
“You should have planned a speech! This isn’t just about Scorpius, either, it’s about catching the bastards who are willing to harm innocent people to meet their ends. You have to prove your word isn’t just complete garbage!”
Potter taps his fingers on the counter, considering. “Hmm. Well, you make a good case for it. Maybe next time.”
“There’s not going to be a next time.”
“I think you could convince me to do this again.”
Draco turns the choke that strangles out of him into a scoff. Good Merlin, Potter needs to stop looking at him like that. “When would I have occasion to do that?”
“Beats me.”
He hears a roar of applause and says, “That’s your cue,” because all the other ridiculous things he wants to say are on the tip of his tongue, and he can’t let them slip free.
“Ah, so it is.” Potter pulls a set of notecards out of his coat pocket as he backs away with a little salute.
Draco gawps. “I thought you said you were winging it!”
Potter shrugs, bounding up the steps to the stage and casting an Amplifying Charm.
Draco shakes his head. He can’t believe Potter pretended not to have prepared to … what, to get a rise out of him?
He’s torn between the flush rising to his cheeks and the irritation thudding in his heart. Potter is not charming. He’s trouble. He’s a whole mess of feelings Draco’s never bothered to deal with and never plans to. Never, he reminds himself firmly.
Potter’s speech ends up being perfect. He shines on stage despite how much he hates it, golden and bright as the sun.
Draco is resolute. He will not fool himself into thinking Potter can do anything but burn.
~
At half past four in the morning, Draco receives a call through the Floo Network.
“It’s me,” Potter says, as if Draco cannot see his face perfectly well, lit up in flames.
“Good evening and what the hell?” he replies. “Someone’d better be dying.”
“Sorry to disappoint.”
“Well, there’s always next time.”
“I think I’ve got something you need to see.”
Draco tries to restart his brain, but it seems to be stalled in place. “At four in the morning?”
“Would you just get over here, already?”
Draco takes in Potter’s reddened cheeks, his wild hair, and his ratty shirt, and he sighs. Because he knows he’s saying yes.
Number twelve, Grimmauld Place is dark when he arrives, so he trips over the Floo grate Potter has carelessly pushed to the side. Heathen.
Potter emerges from a lit hallway with a pot of tea and a grimace. “Sorry.”
“It’s fine. Who needs all ten toes, anyway?”
“That’s what I’m always saying.”
Potter sets the tea on the coffee table and extracts his wand from his sleeve, lighting the tip with a quiet, “Lumos.”
He walks closer to Draco — which is entirely unfair — only to pass right by him and go to the wall upon which most of his portraits hang.
Draco turns with him, and it takes a moment for his fuzzy brain to register that anything is wrong.
Then it does, jarring as a slap.
The first portrait Potter had painted, the one of Sirius Black, is smudged down the middle by a blurry streak, the paint on the right half slowly melting off the canvas. On the left, Potter’s godfather is pulling at the skin of his face like putty, perhaps trying to see if it will start drooping down too. The paint is chipped in several places, revealing what looks like the man’s skeleton all up and down his head and arm.
Next to him, Remus Lupin and Nymphadora Tonks have abandoned their frame, leaving behind a red curtain that is steadily burning to a crisp over and over again. When the entire thing has blackened to ash, leaving the wall behind it bare cream paint, the process starts again.
“I can’t help you,” Draco says. “I don’t know anything about magical portraits. Have you asked Dean Thomas?”
Potter massages his brow, leaning against the wall with his eyes closed.
He doesn’t say anything.
“Are you … all right?” Draco asks.
“I’m not sure I’ve ever been so exhausted. Even during the war. At least I was running on adrenaline, then.”
“Well,” he sits carefully in the armchair a few metres away from Potter, pressing his hands between his knees, “interpreting all that visual information at once is a lot. And you don’t have any experience with it.” Without thinking, he adds, “And you’re not seventeen anymore.”
Potter huffs out a laugh. “That’s not what I mean.”
“No?”
“I was exhausted before, too. Before all this. I don’t know why. My life shouldn’t be exhausting. It’s easy. Easier than most.”
“Except for all those formative years.”
“Even including those.”
Draco frowns, leaning forward. “Potter, I’m not qualified to act as a therapist.”
“Oh, shut it. I just thought maybe you’d … understand.”
He shakes his head, even though he knows Potter is trying very hard not to see him. “Why?”
“I … don’t know, actually. But that’s what we’re supposed to do, isn’t it? We get to know someone and eventually we spill all our shit and hope they don’t leave.”
He clears his throat. “This has worked for you before?”
“No.”
“Okay.”
Potter moves away from the wall, plopping onto the sofa, far too close. He pours Draco a cup of tea without asking.
“So, is it all the portraits, then?”
“Yep. All different. Angelica is melting, Sirius One has lost all colour, Sirius Two won't stop screaming, and Remus One has turned into some kind of nightmare-haunting demon. Remus Two has lost sentience and just repeats the same few actions on a loop. It's a mess.”
“Why do you still have Angelica?”
“Haven’t you noticed? We’re twins.”
Draco shuffles over to where Potter’s easel is resting and peers more closely at the portrait. It becomes clear that, along with bits of her hair dissolving off the canvas like fairy floss and her nose dripping down her face, she’s missing an eye.
“What’d you do that for?”
“Eyes are bloody hard to get right, I’ll have you know. I was putting it off. She’s not pleased with me.”
Angelica makes an agreeing sniff that sucks about half of her nose back into place before dropping it again.
“I was going to get around to it, but then—” He gestures to his head, and Draco grimaces.
“Have any of your past commissioners reached out with complaints?”
“No. But I just noticed an hour ago. I talked to Ginny. She says Fred has gone silent.”
For a while, Draco doesn’t speak. Then, he says, “Scorpius needs to drop the campaign.”
“What?”
“My prostheses were cursed after his campaign started to pick up steam, right? Support for him was dropping, then you came in, and it picked back up again, and you end up with melting paintings. Whoever’s doing this isn’t doing it to ruin our public reputations — that’d do no good against you. They’re doing it as a warning.”
He watches his theory cloud over Potter’s face, his eye growing stormy. “But why would someone want to … Who cares so much about who ends up as Ministry Creature Liaison that they’re willing to hurt people?”
Draco’s fingers drum on the handle of his mug. He feels the precise moment each fingertip touches the ceramic. “Maybe it’s not about Scorpius. Maybe it’s because it’s … me.”
“But if they’re someone who hates you because of what you did during the war, would they really be willing to harm me too?”
“Maybe they only care about making sure a Malfoy doesn’t end up getting the job. You’re collateral damage. Screw anyone who gets in their way.”
“You’ve got quite an ego.”
“One would hope so, at this point. Otherwise I’d be a lost cause.”
Potter reaches out, stilling his fingers.
“It’s just one person. Scorpius can still win this.”
Draco looks up, meeting his eyes, swimming in brown and green. He can hear the tick of the wall clock, but nothing else.
He thinks Potter has combined something nutty with cardamom in his tea this time. It’s not bad.
“No logic says it must just be one person. And nothing could prove they won’t up their stakes. I won’t let him get hurt. Or anyone else who never asked to be involved in all this.”
“It might not be your choice to make,” Potter says.
“I won’t help it along.”
“You’ll hurt him if you make him give this up.”
“Sometimes you have to make sacrifices to protect your family.” The words, ‘not that you’d understand,’ are at front of his mouth. He bites them back.
Potter hears them anyway.
“Right. Sacrifices.” He glances at Draco’s forearm, the dark stain he can’t wash away from his skin. “I’m sure the ones you made were worth it.”
“I didn’t mean … My concern is keeping Scorpius alive, in good health. Not worrying about his career.”
“His dreams.”
The correction must mean something to Potter, because the storm in his eye is rattling the house now.
It’s also possible that the house is mad at him too.
“His life,” Draco repeats. Then, “I should go.”
At the same time, Potter says, “You should go.”
Draco opens his mouth to respond but stops, nodding.
He stands from the armchair, drains the rest of the tea, and hobbles back to the fireplace, foot still smarting. “Good night.”
He pretends he doesn’t hear the cabinets rumble like thunder on his way out.
Chapter Text
Draco’s getting frustrated. He sits in his office all day fielding letters, trying to comfort patients, and otherwise generally losing his grasp on professionalism. He’s never gone this long at work without having something to occupy him, something to tinker on or cast a web of complex charms over.
His hands itch for something to do. Even though he knows there’s no use in creating more prosthetic eyes right now, not when he can’t trust them to work properly, he takes a base model off the shelf.
Draco reaches for his Reveliospecs and flips the first lens down, studying the latent magic potential of the acrylic sphere in his hand. He rolls it around in a circle on the desktop with his palm, then casts the first spell of many.
A halo of green appears over the eye like usual, but as Draco watches, it splinters and fractures into broken pieces, leaving sharp, jagged edges.
He reaches out with a single finger, half convinced he’ll be able to touch the magic, but all he feels is a hot tightness to the space.
Draco flips down the second lens.
He flexes his hand, watching the lines of yellow winding towards the prosthesis again and again, only to snag on something invisible just a breath away.
He rolls the eye slowly, then flicks back to the first lens.
The halo is trying to re-knit itself, cracks glowing solid yellow as they close, only to split open again in new places.
He pushes the second lens back down, then the third and final one.
The room goes dark, until all he can see is the steady pulsing of something in a sea of nothingness. It would be wrong to call the nothingness black. It’s the absence of any colour at all. It would be wrong to call the something red. It’s more like the sensation of heat creeping up his fingers and in through his eyes, filling Draco’s head like an hourglass.
The pulsing gets stronger as he lifts the eye closer to him, until it’s barely a few centimetres from his nose.
Hand shaking, Draco raises his wand and casts.
“Profundus.”
A burst of heat floods his senses, then the darkness swallows it up so fast he feels dizzy.
Draco rips the goggles off, panting.
Potter. He needs to talk to Potter.
~
He is not expecting Weasley to open the door.
He does a double take, leaning back to examine the house number and make sure he has the correct address. Of course, he does, but that doesn’t make it any less strange.
“Oh,” says Weasley, “it’s you.”
He doesn’t know how to respond to that. He decides on addressing the topic at hand without any cushioning.
“I need to use my Reveliospecs to have a look at Potter’s paintings. And his eye.”
“Er…”
“I know you want to figure this out as much as I do.”
“More, surely.”
“Right,” he says, though he doesn’t agree. “So, may I please come in and look at the portraits? These glasses here” — he holds them up — “they can see magic. I can look at the spellwork behind the malfunctions, see what's causing them. It might even tell me how to fix it.”
“I don’t think Harry wants to see you.”
“He can close his eyes.”
Weasley gives him one more long, wary look, then shrugs, disappearing into the bowels of the house. He leaves the door open behind him, which Draco takes as an invitation. One issued from a person with atrocious manners, but an invitation nonetheless.
Potter is sitting in an alcove, legs stretched out on the bench by the window, still in a pair of pyjama pants with little flying Snitches on them. He looks up when Draco enters, eyes zeroing in on him and holding the stare.
Absently, Draco feels rather grateful Potter had decided to go with the brown paint, after all. He’s not sure he could handle all that green pointing at him at once. Not today.
Granger is beside him, but she straightens up from her sprawl when Draco enters, greeting him with a bright smile. It seems a little forced, though he can hardly blame her.
“Malfoy,” she says.
“Granger.”
“Malfoy,” Potter echoes. Then, “Did something happen?”
“No, but I’ve got an idea. I’ll need to take a look at your portraits using my Reveliospecs and see if I can tell what’s causing the problems.”
Weasley hasn’t sat down yet, and Draco finds the way he’s standing guard a bit unnerving. Not to mention that Draco can’t possibly deserve it, because he hasn’t done anything bad.
Potter gets to his feet and crosses to the other side of the room. Draco gets a whiff of faint, minty cologne as he passes.
He hasn’t done anything bad yet, Draco amends.
Potter begins pulling portraits out of a large metal chest that Draco suspects has an Undetectable Extension Charm while Granger and Weasley set them up all around the room. They work as a team without even needing to speak to one another. He’s almost jealous, in a way, of their easy camaraderie.
Which is silly. He’s a grown man. He shouldn’t be envious of Potter and his friends.
“Why’d you put them all away?” he asks.
“Couldn’t stand looking at them. It’s horrifying, seeing them all weird.”
Draco bites back an apology. This isn’t his fault. It isn’t. There’s something else going on here, and he’s going to fix it.
“Kreacher,” Potter calls, stopping his work and dusting off his hands.
With a crack, the ugliest house-elf Draco’s ever seen appears. He actually has to blink back tears as he tries to look directly at it.
The elf doesn't seem to have the same problem, staring him down with unflinching distaste. “Kreacher is not knowing the young Master Malfoy is here.”
“Do I know you?” Draco asks, because he’s fairly sure if he’d ever encountered this house-elf, the memory would be burned into his brain.
“Bad child. Ill-behaved,” Kreacher says.
“I was not ill-behaved,” he says, though, frankly, he might have been.
“Poor Mistress Narcissa, always caring for the boy, keeping him out of trouble. Why would Master let him into the house? He will dirty the floors, he will—”
“I need Regulus’s portrait, Kreacher,” Potter interrupts.
“Master promised he would not be messing about with Kreacher’s things.”
“Of course. But, see, this is a special occasion. He’s not working properly, remember? And Draco here is going to help fix him.”
Kreacher gives Potter a shrewd look. “Master will make sure his guest keeps his hands to himself.”
“Regulus won’t be harmed. It’s an order, Kreacher. Bring him to us.”
The elf rolls his eyes and disappears with a pop.
“Harry, I really think if you tried being nicer again—” Granger begins, and Weasley lets out a sharp bark of a laugh.
“Yeah, you’re not getting anywhere with that one, love. With either of them.”
“He doesn’t need me to be nice,” Potter agrees. Then, louder, “Kreacher, hurry up with it, would you?”
The house-elf appears again, letting out a big sigh, a large portrait in his hand. It’s not one that Draco has seen before. The subject looks vaguely familiar, a slight young man with dark hair and a haughty look.
Regulus Black. Draco’s heard his name before. He was on the family tapestry.
Kreacher places the portrait among the others grudgingly, then backs away. He does not leave the room, keeping a tense eye on Draco, who rather wishes he wouldn’t.
“I painted it for him so he’d shut up sometimes,” Potter says to him in an undertone. “He’s not perfect, since I hardly knew anything about him, but he makes Kreacher happy, and that keeps him away from me. Plus, he’s one of the only ones that hasn’t gone silent.”
The young man flicks his eyes up towards them, and Draco notices that there’s nothing odd about him at all. He’s not melting or burning. He’s not frozen or screaming.
“Hey, Regulus. We’re gonna have a quick look at you, yeah?”
Draco takes the cue and slips on the Reveliospecs. He gasps. The room is like nothing he’s ever seen before.
The portraits are inscribed with symbols that look as if they’ve been penned in black ink, only the shade of it is so dark that it has no depth, no texture, just sloughs of emptiness.
The colour isn’t a colour at all; it’s a bit of the nothing, stolen from the magic of the third lens.
He flips the slides of the Reveliospecs down until he reaches it, almost frightened of what he’ll see.
He can’t possibly put it into words. Where before the symbols had been black holes, now they are light itself, colours he’s never seen, never even heard of.
His ears feel warm, and he reaches up to make sure there isn’t blood coming out, which is how he knows there’s no one there when he starts to hear whispers.
It’s nothing distinctive, not at first.
“Can any of you hear that?”
“Hear what?” Granger asks.
The words come to him from a thousand miles above water, whereas the hissing is just centimetres away.
It’s like a steaming tea kettle decided to learn Latin. Utterly incomprehensible, even if he understood the language, but achingly familiar.
The portrait of Regulus Black is still in sharp focus, even through the distraction of the symbols on its surface. Not able to stand the light anymore, he flips back to the first lens.
The man in the painting makes an eerie grating sound, as though he’s chewing scrap metal in his mouth, and then his jaw begins to jerk open in tiny increments.
“Not perfect?” Draco whispers dully. He wonders if Potter can hear this sound.
The question is answered when Potter murmurs back. “He wasn’t like that before.”
“Go,” the man creaks out, voice thin as a gust of wind.
Draco pauses. He supposes they should leave it alone if that’s what the portrait wants, but he doesn’t feel good about the idea.
Then the words continue.
“To the North Moor.” A long pause. Regulus locks eyes with him, irises dark as tar, pleading for something he cannot name. “They are waiting.”
A chill spiders up his back. He steps closer to Potter without realising he’s doing it.
“Who?” Potter says.
“Go to the North Moor.” The portrait shudders. “They are waiting.”
“Who?”
“Go to the North Moor.” This time, the words spill like sand from a bag. “They are waiting. Go to the North Moor. They are—”
“Would you shut it with that already?” Potter snaps.
“You will not be shouting at Master Regulus in my presence,” says a croaky old voice Draco vaguely recognises as the house-elf.
“Fine,” Potter agrees, but the portrait has stopped talking.
Draco sighs, taking a long breath. On to the next order of business.
Draco looks at Potter and feels an intense yank, like someone pulling a plug out of his core. Just like last time, the air around him is lit up in buttery yellow, smoothing over his curls and glinting off of his glasses.
This time, though, Draco is looking at his eye, watching the ring of green light in front of it piece together and shatter over and over again.
He feels the pull towards Potter from the very pit of his stomach, asking him to do things he’s not let himself think about before, asking him to wonder what it might be like to press his lips against his and feel the soft lines of Potter’s body.
He forces it away, focusing on the symbols in the air.
“I need a quill and some parchment,” he says, and moments later, they’re pressed into his hands.
He suspects Granger is to thank.
He scribbles down the shapes as fast as he can, but most of them disappear and take a new form before he finishes. By the end, he has maybe five complete drawings he’ll be able to examine.
He finally rips off his Reveliospecs and almost tips over from sudden vertigo.
Potter grabs his arm to steady him. His grip is warm and harsh enough to pull him back to Earth.
Abruptly, the voices stop.
“You all right, there? It seemed like you lost yourself,” Potter says.
He doesn’t sound far away any longer, but the sudden closeness is hard on his ears, much too loud.
“I’m … fine.”
Slowly, the room comes back into focus. Potter pulls him to the sofa and lets go of his arm.
“The North Moor?” he asks gently. “What the fuck does that mean?”
“I’ve no idea,” Draco replies. “I mean, I’ve heard of it. It’s a very popular setting for stories about fictional creatures, but no wizards live on the land. I don’t know why we’d be summoned there.”
“What did you see?” Granger asks. “With the glasses?”
How can he even begin to explain it? “The magic that’s making the portraits act up … it isn’t anything like normal wizarding magic. The closest comparison I can make is house-elf magic.”
He glances at Kreacher, who has already grabbed Regulus back and is holding onto the portrait frame tightly, muttering to himself in the corner.
“It has different patterns than what I’m used to seeing,” Draco continues. Then, he remembers what he asked of Potter last time. “Have you kept writing down the words you’re seeing?”
He nods. “Ron, will you grab the—”
Weasley tosses him a leather-bound journal from a shelf on the wall behind him.
“Thanks.” Potter opens it, turning to the front page. “I’ve got a couple written down here, but I didn’t get all of them. There were too many.”
“Did they disappear as you were trying to get them down, too?”
Potter gives him a quizzical look. “Er … no?”
Interesting.
Comparing the journal and his sketches side by side, it’s hard to find anything in common. The symbols don’t look remotely similar, and he doesn’t think it’s a stylistic choice.
“Are they runes?” Granger asks.
“Idiot Mudblood,” Kreacher grouses. “Doesn’t even know what a proper rune looks like. Oh, if Mistress saw the filth allowed in her house—”
“Quiet, Kreacher,” Potter orders.
“They don’t look like any runes I’ve seen,” Draco says. “But that doesn’t mean they aren’t.”
“Reckon Harry’s finally started seeing what Luna does?” Weasley jokes, leaning over the back of the sofa to examine the papers. “This looks like an article in The Quibbler. I mean that in the gentlest way possible, mate.”
“I’m sure,” Potter returns. “But no, Luna’s never mentioned seeing any mysterious words, just creatures. Right?”
“As far as I remember,” Granger agrees, and it’s nothing Draco can contest.
“Well, we can’t just go to North Moor without knowing what we’re up against,” Potter decides. “Especially if it’s some kind of magical creature.”
Kreacher looks like he’s going to say something again, so Draco speaks over him.
“Perhaps we should pull Lovegood in on this,” he says. “Scorpius may be able to help too.”
“Good,” Potter agrees, “so we just—”
“Kreacher cannot believe Master and his friends are so dull,” Kreacher mutters from the corner. “Master and his friends do not even know of Wallygagglers, hideous beasts.”
Potter lets a long, drawn-out sigh escape. “What’s that?”
“Now Master has lost his grip on the English language. Kreacher does not think there’s much hope for him yet.”
“Tell me what Wallygagglers are, Kreacher.”
The name tickles some memory in the back of Draco’s mind, but he can’t quite grab hold of it.
“Master does not even hold the basic knowledge of a child. Kreacher is doing his best to educate him, but the gaps are far too numerous, and Master is far too unpleasant.”
“Kreacher,” Potter warns.
The old elf lets out a heavy sigh. “Surely Master has heard the children’s stories of the Wandering Wallygagglers of North Moor?”
“Afraid not.”
“Hey, I think I know those!” Weasley says. “My mum used to read us those stories until Percy thought he was too old for it.”
“They’re wizarding stories?” Granger asks.
“Oh yeah, some of the best, since Muggles never got to them. Er … not that — well, you know what I mean.”
Kreacher nods very seriously in agreement, and Granger shoots him a look.
“Muggles like to change things up until you can't tell what’s up or down anymore,” Weasley explains. He turns to the house-elf with an unabashedly curious expression. “But I thought Wallygagglers were all made up.”
“And now Master’s friends are speaking to Kreacher. Oh, if his Mistress could see him now. Of course, Master keeps her covered, but if Kreacher could just lift the edge of her curtain—”
“No, Kreacher. That is an order from the Master of this house.”
The elf harrumphs and disappears with a pop, taking Regulus’s portrait with him.
“Wonder what he does with that,” Weasley says. “Got to be something really nasty, doesn’t it? Do house-elves ever get their rocks—”
“Oh-kay,” Granger interrupts, forcing a laugh that does a remarkably good job of sounding like the words, ‘Shut up, Ronald.’ “That’s enough of that topic of conversation. You were telling us about Wallygagglers?”
“I was? Oh, well, that’s it, really. They’re fictional. They’re these little horned toad men that walk on two legs and make deals with wizards. And Muggles, on occasion, but they usually died by the end of the story.”
The description brings up an image in Draco’s head that he’s sure belongs to a picture book. Maybe one that the house-elf nursemaid had read to him as a child. He’ll have to do some research when he gets home.
“The first couple stories were about the Wallygagglers trying to find a new home. They live in these rocks that they can’t transport themselves, so they have to make deals with humans to migrate. But they’d always find really sneaky ways around the agreements, and that’s what made the stories good.”
“And you’re sure they’re fictional?”
He shrugs. “As real as Luna’s Blibbering Humdingers.”
Granger bites her lip. “Well…”
“You can’t be serious.”
“What if she’s right, Ron? She’s been our friend for decades now, and I find it increasingly hard to believe that there’s not something she sees that we don’t.”
“I’m sure she sees all kinds of things, ‘Mione, but that doesn’t mean they’re there .”
Granger scoffs, tucking her bushy hair behind her ear and fixing Weasley with a look.
“Harry, call Luna. Get Scorpius too. He’ll need to be a part of this.”
“Mate,” says Weasley, “be reasonable. It’s Luna. We won’t be able to tell what’s real once she’s involved. If you use that fireplace, I’ll … I’ll…” He falters.
“I’m very interested to see where that’s going, but I’m gonna just give Luna a ring while you think it up, yeah?”
And so Draco is left alone with a fuming Weasley and an inordinately pleased Granger, which is not half as uncomfortable as he’d have thought.
~
It takes Luna and Scorpius a combined thirty seconds to declare what had taken the rest of them several weeks and a disgustingly cranky house-elf to figure out. The markings do, in fact, look like an unknown species’ magic, though neither of them have seen Wallygaggler magic before.
“Definitely not from wizards,” Luna proclaims.
“Then we need to go out to North Moor,” he says. “Figure out what this is all about.”
“I don’t think we’ll be able to convince any of the Creature’s Council members to come with us,” Scorpius frets.
Draco dismisses this. “So what if the Ministry won’t send their own representative with you? We’ll figure this out. The first thing you need is a reliable eyewitness, right?”
“It’s got to be someone who works there,” Scorpius says. “Preferably someone from the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures.”
“Okay. So…” Draco thinks through his mental list of contacts, feeling his stomach twist up in unease as he keeps stumbling back to the same name.
Lavender Brown.
But no, no. She’s got to hate him right now. And getting her to tramp through a moor to take a look at some magical creatures that are supposed to be fictional? There isn’t a single pure-blood witch alive who wouldn’t laugh in his face at the idea.
So he keeps thinking. Doesn’t that Finch-Fletchley fellow work somewhere in the Ministry? He didn’t much like Draco, though. Goldstein? Last Draco heard, he was out of the country on business.
He returns to the one person that might work. Salazar, he does not want to do this. But Lavender is all he’s got. If she were a bad option, he’d throw it out and force himself to find something better. But he knows she’ll agree with a proper amount of grovelling, and he knows the Ministry will trust her with ease.
So there’s nothing more to it.
~
Draco had to ask at least thirty different people at the Ministry where the Centaur Liaison office was before he finally got an answer instead of raucous laughter.
It’s a piddling excuse of a workplace, hidden away on the fourth level, stuffed between the Goblin Liaison office and the beginning of the Spirit Division. He honestly can’t believe he was willing to come here to ask for favours, but he doesn’t have any better ideas.
He’ll do this for his son. He’d do anything for his son.
When Draco knocks on the door, there’s no answer, so he eases it open and peeks inside.
Lavender is hunched over her desk with her leg propped up on the top, struggling to paint her toenails.
When she sees him, her eyes go wide and she falls off her revolving chair. A bottle of nail polish clatters to the ground and spills baby blue across the carpet.
“Hello.” He clears his throat.
“Malfoy!” She springs up from behind the desk, rubbing a hand against her side like she’s hurt it. “For Circe’s sake, what are you doing here?”
He walks farther into the room, closing the door behind him and waving his wand to right the bottle of polish. He Levitates it onto the desk again and Vanishes the evidence of its fall. “I’ve come to … well, I won’t beat about the bush. I’d like to ask a favour.”
She sits back slowly in her chair, face impassive. Then, she gestures to the chair in front of her, and he takes it, tucking his hands between his knees.
“You can ask,” she says, beginning to straighten papers on her desk — half of which are Witch Weekly magazines — “but I’m really rather busy these days. Lots of work to do. Lots of centaurs to liaise.”
“Yes, it’s about that. You see, my son is running for the position of the Ministry’s Official Magical Creature Liaison. He’d be working with everything except centaurs, goblins, and dragons, I believe.”
“Mhm.” Distractedly, she opens a drawer and stuffs a few of the items on her desk inside, using some type of filing system he’s not sure anyone else could figure out. “And you want him to hear what it’s like to really work one of these positions?”
“Not … exactly.”
“It’s far more difficult than people think. You’re always ever so busy, but, well, we do it because it’s what we love. Best job in the world.”
He looks around the cramped office, the peeling edges of star charts Spellotaped to her walls, the moth-eaten curtains, and the single photograph sitting on her desk — a picture of her and one of the Patil twins waving at the camera, at least six years younger than they are now.
“It’s a shame you don’t have more free time. We were hoping you’d be able to vouch for the existence of a certain species that has remained hidden until now. They’re causing a lot of problems, trying to get our attention.”
She laughs softly. “Yes, well, as you can see.” She gestures to her desk. “Busy, busy, busy.”
He taps his fingers on the arm of his chair, thinking. This isn’t as easy as he wanted it to be. He’d thought the hardest part would be getting past his pride and asking for help from someone who could very well hate him at the moment.
“They’re the reason my prostheses have been malfunctioning. Whatever you’re seeing, it’s a message from the Wallygagglers, wanting to get in contact with us.”
“Wallygagglers, hm? I hope you figure it out,” she says tightly.
He looks at the photograph again, peering at it more closely. He could never tell the twins apart out of uniform, but he knows which one was in Gryffindor, and that seems like a better shot than any.
He takes the gamble. “All right, well, I’ll leave you to it, then. I suppose Parvati alone will probably be enough to prove to the Ministry the Wallygagglers are real.”
She looks up, Snitch-fast. “Parvati?”
“Yes, I’m planning to go by her office next.”
“As in Patil?”
“That’d be the one.”
Lavender suddenly looks very flustered. “Well, if she does say yes, er … rather, that is to say that if she is able to help you, but you do find that you can’t do it with just her, and you contact me and say that she can do it — and I happen to have a free moment in my schedule, which is very unlikely, you must understand, but all the same — I might consider joining you.”
“How considerate of you, Lavender. I do appreciate it.”
She waves him away, but the edges of her mouth are fighting a hopeful smile, and he knows he’s got her.
~
Draco and Potter stride through Diagon Alley at a pace uncomfortable for both of them. He’s not sure how many years it’s been since Potter last visited this part of the wizarding world, but Draco himself hasn’t been here in a decade.
Potter carries his squid tank against his chest, and the water sloshes as they walk. It’s only held off on spilling because Potter put a charm on it before they left Grimmauld.
They find Parvati Patil’s vet clinic tucked away in the crook between Diagon and Knockturn Alley. Draco’s stomach pulls tight as they open the door, and it’s only half to do with the smell. The rest is because he doubts the woman they’re coming to see will have many kind words for him.
It’s the main reason he brought Potter, so that at least he’ll have a buffer between himself and whatever Parvati thinks of him.
When Potter’s name is called, they’re shown into an exam room and told to wait for the doctor.
It’s small and draughty inside, but the little steel table Potter sets his tank on is clean, and crisp informational posters line the walls. How to Nurture your Niffler. Caring for Cockatrices, an 18 Step Guide. To schedule a routine talon trim for your owl, please see the front desk.
Potter enlarges the tank to the full size of the table, and the squids dash around in a bout of mad glee.
“What in the world do you own squids for, anyway?”
“Ink,” Potter says simply. He holds his finger to the wall of the glass and one of the squids shoots toward it, twirling around in a brilliant circle when it realises the intruder has not made its way inside the tank.
“Not because they make such excellent companions?”
“Well, you haven’t let me get to reason number two.”
There’s a chaste knock before the door pops open, and in comes Parvati in a set of Muggle theatre blues.
“Merlin,” she says. “I thought they were joking.”
She closes the door behind her. “What seems to be the problem, boys?”
“We have a project we’re working on,” Potter begins.
Parvati steps closer to the tank and squints at it. Her hair is tied back in a vicious coil, and she’s slung a leather strap diagonally across her chest, holding several colourful bottles about the size of one's thumb.
“Are those potions?” Draco asks.
“Oh, no. You won’t be finding anything like this in an apothecary.” Parvati pulls out a vial and holds it up to the light. A jagged green reflection falls across her cheek as she examines it. “Spell-Bombs, my own invention.” She squints at the bottle. “I might need to run back to the supply cupboard and get more, though. This one looks expired.”
Potter peers more closely at the bottle, pushing his glasses up his nose. “What were you planning to use it for?”
“It’s easier to examine aquatic animals outside of water, but obviously that’s hard for them to tolerate. This one” — she taps the vial — “is to keep them breathing, and this one” — she points to the bottle closest to her shoulder — “keeps them from drying out.”
Draco’s fascinated despite himself. “This is olfactory magic, isn’t it? I’ve done a little reading on the subject.”
Parvati looks surprised. “Yeah. Hardly anyone’s heard of it.” She turns to the squids. “So, what are you working on? An art project? These look like Krakenfry.” She turns to peer at the tank. “Hello, little ones. You’re gorgeous, aren’t you?
“Er — not exactly art,” Potter replies. “Those are Pygmy Kraken, actually, and there’s nothing wrong with them. We just needed to get in to speak with you.”
“Oooh.” Parvati crosses her arms over her chest and leans back against the table. “Any project that involves the two of you infiltrating my vet clinic? Well—” She laughs. “Colour me intrigued.”
Parvati waits, and Draco and Potter exchange a glance. It’s clear Potter’s saying, I did my bit, time for you to do yours.
“How would you feel about joining the team that’s going to uncover a new magical species?”
Parvati frowns. “Entirely new?”
“Wizards have thought they were fictional for 200 years now.”
Parvati quirks her head. “I’m listening…”
Chapter Text
Draco’s boots are sinking into the ground. The moon seems to rise in leaps and bounds as Lavender claws at his shoulder, heaving and groaning as she tries to get her heels unstuck.
“Why don’t you just take them off?” Luna asks.
“You’d want me to go barefoot in a moor?” Lavender asks, scandalised. “At night?”
“You could Transfigure them,” Rolf Scamander suggests politely as he uses his significant height to help leverage her out.
Luna brought him along on a whim, seemingly, but once Rolf heard what they were doing, he’d leapt at the chance to be involved. Draco is not at the point where he’ll turn down a Magizoologist’s expertise lightly.
“They’d never be the same,” Lavender complains. “You can’t honestly expect me to sacrifice a pair of heels like that.”
“You must not care about them too much,” Parvati says, “seeing as you brought them to a moor.”
Lavender goes quiet, gritting her teeth stubbornly and finally digging her way out again.
Draco’s not sure he wants to know what history they’re steeping in. He’ll be surprised if they make it through the night without coming to blows.
It seems that Parvati’s perspective on whatever happened is quite different from Lavender’s, given that she greeted Lavender with a scowl that marred her pretty face so severely she was nearly unrecognisable.
Lavender’s hesitant smile vanished a second after seeing that, and she’s been whinging ever since.
“How much longer?” Draco calls ahead.
Scorpius and Teddy look over their shoulders. They’ve been leading the pack, with the help of Potter.
Potter and Teddy are using their magical eyes to try to find the most concentrated source of Wallygaggler magic. Scorpius is helping them not trip over things they can’t see thanks to the magic.
“I think we’re close!” Teddy yells back.
Scorpius flashes a thumbs up at Draco before continuing on.
“So, what do the Wallygagglers want with you, anyway?” Parvati asks, adjusting the rucksack on her shoulder for about the hundredth time.
“That’s what we’re trying to find out.”
How many things could it be, really?
Maybe the Wallygagglers wanted world domination. Maybe they just liked seeing wizards suffer. He had no idea. He just knew that he had to see this through to the end. For his patients, and for Scorpius.
That was the crux of the issue. The Wallygagglers had found the very things that mattered most to him in this world, and if Potter’s lack of a social life and huge stockpile of portraits are any indication, they’ve done the same to him.
He doesn’t want to be toying about with omniscient beings, not in the slightest.
When they get a few metres from a small body of water that splits the land in half, Luna stops walking.
“It’s time you all see the equipment I’ve brought along, just in case we run into our future selves during the visit.” She pulls the chain of a Time-Turner out from the neck of her dress with both thumbs, displaying it to them all with deadly serious warning in her protuberant eyes.
“Where the hell did you get that?” Potter asks. “All the Time-Turners were destroyed, weren’t they?”
Luna blinks at him in her mystifying way. “Someone had to make them in the first place, didn’t they? What would stop them from making more?”
“Well, I … I’m sure there’s … something.”
She laughs until she’s nearly breathless, tucking the Time-Turner back beneath her clothing. “You’re always so sure of yourself, with no real reason to be.”
“Thanks.”
“You’re very welcome.”
“What do we need a Time-Turner for?” Lavender asks. She’s got her arms wrapped around herself like she’s worried the Time-Turner might leap out and attack them.
“Wallygagglers tend to interpret the conditions of agreements differently than we wizards do,” Luna says. “In most old stories, Time-Turners were used to fix miscommunications.”
“Miscommunications like what?” Potter asks.
Draco thinks back to the stories he’d heard as a child. “My elf read me a book, once, where the hero made a deal with a Wallygaggler: ‘I’ll help you as long as you don’t harm me or my sister.’ The Wallygaggler agreed, but then his friends roasted the sister alive. He believed that he’d upheld his end of the bargain because he hadn’t been the one doing any harm, but, obviously, the hero didn’t agree. Unfortunately, Wallygaggler magic is binding, nearly as good as an Unbreakable Vow.”
“They’ll be trying to trick us.”
“No,” Luna interrupts, “Wallygagglers aren’t malicious by nature. They’re just as variable as humans. The one in Draco’s story was a villain, but they aren’t all like that.” She looks at them each in turn, until she’s sure they’ve understood her message. “You just have to state everything explicitly, with no ambiguity, because they assume anything you leave out or misword is intentional, not because they want to pull one over on you.”
“So, the Time-Turners?” Rolf asks.
“If any of us makes a mistake in our wording, and the Wallygagglers take advantage of that, we have to be ready to go back and fix it. We might also be interrupted at some point during this evening by our future selves, which is why it’s important I tell you now.”
Teddy says, “If we make changes in the future, we’ll run into ourselves in the present, and our future selves would have also run into their future selves, which is how they’d know to come back for us. So how is making a mistake even possible?”
Draco thinks it’s a rather good point, but Luna shrugs cheerfully and says, “Let’s find out.”
Then she spins towards the water and approaches it, stopping in the grass just moments before her boots get wet. She reaches her toe out and taps lightly, creating ripples in the still, glassy surface of the water. He watches the stars reflected from the sky dance in the aftershocks for a moment before a huge bolt of coppery light shoots up, wrapping around the opposing side of the moor like a thin, transparent barricade.
They wait.
From the darkness comes the rustle of dead foliage and a deep, rumbling series of chirps.
Rolf steps forward, chirping back.
On the other side of the water, so low to the ground that he doesn’t notice it at first, a shape begins to take form.
It’s as inconsequential as water vapour, barely distorting the air, but it rapidly becomes something short and squat, vaguely resembling a toad about the size of a cauldron.
It’s tinted blue from head to foot, shiny eyes resting on stalks sprouting out of his head, with two huge tusks extending from each cheek.
Its eyes drag over the eight of them, first Scorpius and Teddy, then Lavender, Parvati, and Potter, then Luna and Draco. To Rolf, it gives something resembling a nod.
“You are the humans who received our messages?” Its voice is thin and rasping, and its mouth barely opens as it speaks.
“Yes,” Luna says. “If I have your word you won’t harm us, I’ll break the wards keeping us in place, and we’ll cross over to speak with you.”
All at once, Draco realises that he cannot pry his feet from the ground. Scorpius is squirming anxiously, wriggling his hips as though he’ll be able to work free, but the rest of them don’t seem to notice or care.
The Wallygaggler’s stout face pulls into a grimace, but it says, “I will not harm you wizards.”
Luna eyes him with surprising shrewdness. “Nor us witches.”
The Wallygaggler sighs. “Nor you witches.”
“No one will harm us, not just you.”
The Wallygaggler heaves an even greater sigh. “My species and I — as well as any allies — will not passively allow, nor be the cause of, harm to any of you wizen, on this night and any night henceforth.”
“And any day,” Luna says with rather too much enthusiasm, given that the Wallygaggler looks sorely tempted to break its oath already.
“And any day,” it repeats dourly.
“So mote it be.”
The spell on them releases, and Scorpius sighs in relief.
The water begins to glow a dull cerulean blue, and six golden-yellow stones surface, creating a pathway across.
Draco follows after Luna, the others behind him, Rolf taking up the tail.
“Why did it look so upset with all the clarification if it isn’t going to try to hurt us?” Potter hisses lowly, just loud enough for him to hear.
“Wouldn’t you be insulted if people always thought you’d weasel around your words to hurt them?”
Potter is silent the rest of the way as the Wallygaggler trundles ahead, leading them deeper into the knotted grasses of the moor.
They stop short behind a stack of round rocks that towers over the clearing.
It must be at least three metres tall. It reminds him of those pyramidal stacks of cannonballs at Chudley Cannons matches.
The ground begins to rumble, and Draco reaches back unthinkingly, grabbing onto Potter’s arm as if the earth will swallow them up. He braces his legs for support, but his attention is focused on the stones, now shaking with vigour, dropping off of the stack and rolling onto the earth one by one.
They shake, and shudder, and begin to split down the centres, wisps of colourful light shooting up from the glittering insides.
Thundereggs. And from the look of it, the legends were right, and this is indeed where Wallygagglers form.
Pellucid figures rise over the openings of the rocks, varying in colour and size but all clearly the same species.
The light streaming from the rocks, now cracked open like geodes, coalesces into one band of energy, illuminating the sky like the aurora borealis.
He looks over at Potter, taking in the same awestruck expression on his face he knows he must be wearing. Potter’s mouth is dropped open, his magical eye whirring around in a circle to get every detail, the other eye trained on the lead Wallygaggler. Potter looks startlingly beautiful at that moment, black curls glowing as blue as shards of lapis.
The light fades, and Draco looks away, facing the darkening clearing, watching as the Wallygagglers hop from the space above their stones to the ground. They land on their haunches and form a circle around a large basin in the grass, a cradle for a bed of water that reflects the half-moon in perfect clarity.
There is another pile of stones nearby that has gone undisturbed. They are as large and flawlessly round as the first ones were, but there’s something off about them. They seem … duller, somehow. The bottom ones, at least, have been lying there long enough for moss to grow on their sides.
“We are honoured by your presences,” Scorpius whispers. Then, he seems to recover himself enough to think clearly. “What should we call you?”
The lead Wallygaggler’s eyestalks swivel towards him, large and stolid. It opens its mouth and lets out a sound like a hollow click.
Scorpius echoes it, and the creature nods in acknowledgement.
“We have waited a long time to make successful contact with wizen,” it says. “Come, sit with us.”
Haltingly, they all move to fill in the gap in the circle the Wallygagglers left, sitting on the dewy grass with their legs crossed beneath them like schoolchildren.
Harry is on his right side, Parvati on his left.
Draco moves to spell the back of his trousers dry, but the lead Wallygaggler — Click — lets out a pained bawl.
“None of your magic here.”
“No magic?” he asks. He doesn’t tuck his wand away, not yet, and the Wallygaggler watches it like a loaded gun.
“The magic those wands produce is dangerous.”
“I wouldn’t hurt you,” he promises.
“You wouldn’t try to.”
Click nods to Scorpius, jerking his head at the water in the centre of them.
“Tell me what you see, wizardling.”
Scorpius scoots closer, peering into the milky black waters.
“Can I touch it?”
“Yes, but do not drink.”
After a moment’s hesitation, Scorpius dips his hand in and swishes it around.
The water lights up yellow around his skin, glowing and sparkling, utterly terrifying.
“Whoa,” Scorpius breathes. He leans back. “I’ve never felt this much magic outside of an Enchanted object before.”
Then he splashes a bit of water onto the grass. His brows draw to a furrow as it refuses to seep into the dirt, glowing without apology above the surface. “But I don’t understand. Don’t any nymphs live here? Or any other magical species at all? It feels sort of … empty.”
“There aren’t any magical aquatic species left on the moor, child. Nothing with more sentience than algae. What you felt is magical castoff. Wizen have been funnelling the after-effects of their spells into a nearby stream for the better part of a decade, and every time it rains, the land fills with water, and the stream infects our pond.”
“Nymphs can’t be around our magic?”
Click considers him. He makes a low, popping sound, and one of the other Wallygagglers steps forward, a pink one. It shakes its head in protest.
Click makes a series of noises ranging from a low, dull hiss to a sharp clang, and the other Wallygaggler responds in kind.
Potter’s making a face at them as if he can understand some of what they’re saying and is trying to catch the rest.
When the Wallygagglers quiet, Potter hisses, heavy and abrupt. Everyone looks at him.
Draco’s taken back to a memory of second year, hearing that same sound out of Potter’s mouth. Now it’s stilted instead of holding the hypnotic, melodious quality it had before, but the Wallygagglers seem to understand him well enough, eyestalks poised on his face.
Click hisses back.
“You speak Parseltongue,” Potter says in awe.
“Wallygagglers are natural polyglots. We pick languages up with ease. It’s been a long time since we’ve had cause to use Gobbledegook, Mermish, or Troll — let alone any human languages — but we converse with serpents from the earth land regularly.”
“But you weren’t talking in full Parseltongue just now, were you?”
“No. The language we speak is called—” He lets out a sharp, strangled choke. “You wizen call it Wallygaglen. It evolved from the same root as Parseltongue.”
“You were saying you wanted to show us … down?”
Click nods and turns to his companion. “Now that you know they can understand us regardless, might we speak openly?”
The other Wallygaggler’s tusks quiver as it considers this. Finally, it says, “Yes.”
Click pops his tongue — “is reluctant to let you in. He has never taken kindly to strangers.”
Draco realises the popping sound is the second Wallygaggler’s name.
“We don’t want to intrude,” Luna says. “But we’d love to see whatever” — she clicks — “wants to show us.”
Pop makes a low sound deep in his throat, and the assembled Wallygagglers respond in kind. This seems to go on for quite a while until, finally, Pop nods.
The humans follow the Wallygagglers through the grass and beyond the wall of rocks. They tuck and roll into a hole in the ground, no more than a metre wide.
When Draco lands at the bottom, his feet hit the dirt softly, ankles supporting his weight without issue. Any fall this deep should hurt, but it doesn’t.
The space is dark as pitch, so he grabs hold of whoever’s hand is in front of him and whoever’s is behind, letting himself pull and be pulled on a walk he cannot determine the length of. Time feels oddly flexible, minutes slipping and stretching, bending sideways when he isn’t looking. Hours are seconds just as surely as they are centuries.
He walks for a thousand years, but when light breaks at the end of the pathway, his legs have only just begun to hurt.
Slowly, the faces around him come into focus.
He’s holding onto Teddy’s arm at his back, Luna’s at his front. Scorpius is leading the pack, with Potter, Lavender, Parvati, and Rolf in order behind him. They step out into a cavern so quickly it feels as if he missed a step. He looks back over his shoulder, sure that the passageway will have disappeared, but it is still resting there, waiting for them to return.
The sides of the hollow are packed dirt, a huge cavity in the earth carved out to make a home. At the centre of it all is an overhang of soil and branches, compressed into a mass resembling a wasp’s nest. From within it, yellow light peaks out like a lantern.
There’s a loud, whooshing sound in his ears. It’s what he heard that day looking at Potter’s portraits with his Reveliospecs, the same feeling of being deep underwater, only now, when people speak, it’s as though they’re there with him.
The cave branches off into several other pathways, and he makes a careful, subtle mark on the ground pointing to the entrance of the one they came through.
“Welcome to Lightninglen,” Click says.
“Lightning?” Rolf asks.
“From which thunder is born, from which we arise.”
Draco spins in a slow circle, trying to take it all in: the towering ceilings, the drip of water from the mass at the centre of the room.
Click notices him looking. “This,” he says, shuffling closer and pressing a webbed, knobby hand to it, “is what I wanted to show you.”
“Is it the basin?” Lavender asks. “The one we saw above.”
“It is, indeed.”
“Wow,” Scorpius breathes. “You can see the magic.”
“Not just any magic, wizardling. The magic pulled from your kind.”
“Unnatural,” Pop adds. “Reckless and dangerous.” His words are even clearer than Click’s. Pop seems to have forgotten nothing of English, despite pretending otherwise. His voice also lacks the distinct croakiness of Click’s, making him sound entirely human.
“I don’t understand,” Parvati says. “What’s so bad about the way we do magic?”
Click is still looking at the bottom of the basin as if he’s lost in thought, but it’s he who speaks. “Many species have found ways to tap into magic. But wizen have taken advantage of it unlike any others, creating conduits through which to channel the energy.”
“You mean our wands?” Teddy asks.
“Mostly. Once you’ve got them, your wands, you cast spells that rip magic from the Earth’s core too soon. All that buildup means that, when the spell hits its target, the magic stays in the victim’s system for years. If you’re unlucky enough to run into the waterfall at the goblin bank, that washes it away, and it ends up here.”
“The Thief’s Downfall?” Potter asks. “The enchantment at Gringotts?”
Draco has gone underneath that a few times when he’s retrieved something from the Malfoy vaults. He’s never thought much of it. Obviously, the goblins would want to wash away enchantments on visitors, especially when the Imperius Curse and Polyjuice Potion exist.
“Yes. You wizen are responsible for the laws that dictate that the excess water must be delivered to our moor once it’s been used. Charms, jinxes, hexes, and curses — anything at all — they end up here.” He pats the side of the basin.
Draco thinks again of the untouched pile of rocks, and he can understand now the exquisite care with which they were arranged.
“How many of you have been lost?” he asks quietly.
Click looks at him for the first time with soft eyes, something Draco hadn’t even noticed was missing.
“One hundred and thirty. And we were not a large pod to start with. A local werewolf pack caused trouble as well. Once they drank from the streams, they couldn’t contain all the magical energy. We are not natural prey, but now they attack every full moon.”
Draco’s breath catches in his throat. One hundred and thirty. He feels sick, physically ill at the thought.
Beside Scorpius, Teddy’s eyes are fixed on the ground, his shoulders tense.
“You wizen have not responded to our distress calls until now,” Pop says. “We could not go any longer without forcing contact, so we used whatever methods we had to.”
Everyone is still, basking in the quiet horror of the moment. They were never trying to punish him, or Potter, or Scorpius. They were just trying to reach out to the only humans who might care.
“Why haven’t you ever left?” Rolf asks. “Gone to get fresh water, or tried to contact us in person?”
“We cannot leave the moor,” says Click. “This is where generations of us have made our homes. Not only that, we cannot travel more than one hundred metres from our shells. We are sorry for the distress we’ve caused, but we could not get your attention in any other way. And we wanted to connect with the next wizen representative.” He looks at Scorpius. “Will that be you?”
“Maybe,” he replies, voice hesitant. “But I don’t know if I’ll win. Your efforts to get in contact with us … they kind of complicated things.”
Click considers him impassively. Pop’s face scrunches in distaste.
“What would you even want him to do?” Lavender asks. “Even as liaison, I doubt he’ll be able to convince Gringotts to get rid of their protections. We can’t just funnel it to some other sorry sops, either.”
“We do not know the workings of your kind, your government. It has been many years since we’ve come into contact with wizen. I am one of the few among us who can still speak the tongue. But I come to you humbly to ask for help because this is a problem I cannot solve.”
Draco feels himself losing touch with the moment. He and the other humans can’t solve the problem either. This is beyond their reach.
But he hears Scorpius agreeing.
“We’ll help.”
He starts to protest the choice of words, but Luna beats him to it.
“We will try to help. We’ll endeavour to get an audience with the Ministry of Magic. That is all we promise.”
Click’s neck expands like a bubble, growing so large it looks as if it will pop, and then he lets out a low, bellowing sound that echoes through the whole cavern.
The rest of the Wallygagglers chirp excitedly, their throats filling and throwing cries magnified a thousand times into the air.
Scorpius presses his hands over his ears, trying to block out the sound, but none of the rest of them bother.
It’s over soon enough. Click thanks them heartily.
“We should take a sample,” Teddy says. “Of the water. We need to know what spells are inside it, or at least get a good idea.”
The Wallygaggler nods. “That’s agreeable.”
They’re dismissed in short order. On the way out, Draco scuffs away the mark he’d drawn in the ground, glad they hadn’t needed it after all.
The trip back through the tunnel feels quicker and slower all at once. They make the climb up through the hole with relative ease, but clumps of dirt break off beneath Draco’s fingers, and a furious beetle twitches its antennae at him after it struggles to stay standing on the edge.
Finally, Harry and Rolf help haul him up, and then they turn to help Teddy after him.
They walk in silence back towards where the basin sits above ground.
On the horizon, the foreboding edge of a forest shifts in the wind, large black smudges of a giant’s thumbprint against the sky.
Teddy looks at the rest of them helplessly. “I, er, does anyone have a bottle I could put it in? Usually, I’d conjure something, but I’m too worried that would contaminate the sample with other magic.”
Parvati digs around in her rucksack for a moment and straightens up, tossing him a small jar.
“What was in this?”
“Just some lip stuff. Will it do?”
He shrugs. “Guess we’ll find out.”
Carefully, Teddy unscrews the lid and sinks the jar beneath the water. A large glug of air rises to the surface, and he pulls it out again, capping it and stuffing it in his pocket. “I’ll start testing it as soon as I get to my lab tomorrow.”
The wind rises, nipping at Draco’s ears. The boughs of the trees seem to shiver, a few whispering leaves fluttering loosely to the ground.
They exit the moor in silence.
As if a spell is broken once they cross the water, everyone begins speaking at once.
“Werewolves,” Teddy says numbly. “We can’t possibly get the pack to leave an area they’ve claimed; it’ll never happen. And they’ll keep attacking until there are no Wallygagglers left if all that excess magic stays in their systems.”
“One hundred of them dead,” Rolf murmurs. He shakes his head.
“If someone could just find a way to treat the Wallygagglers after the curses are active, a way to neutralise the energy once it’s in their bodies, we could avoid this whole mess with the Ministry and the goblins, couldn’t we?” Parvati asks beseechingly.
Lavender frowns. “What’s the likelihood of that?”
“Slim to none,” Parvati says. “If I could invent something that neutralises all the spells in someone’s body, I’d be a legend the world over.”
“Will everyone’s prostheses go back to normal now?” Scorpius asks. “Now that the Wallygagglers have successfully made contact with us?”
“They never agreed to that,” Luna says lightly.
“But why would they want to keep doing it?”
Potter eventually pulls Draco to the side, his grip insistent.
“The goblins will go ballistic if we try to convince them to take down a protective barrier,” he whispers. “The second the Ministry hears about this, they’ll try to hush the whole issue. I don’t know precisely what that means for all of us, but I have a feeling it’ll be the worst for you and Scorpius.”
Draco nods. He was thinking the same thing.
“We have to be ready to go public with this once the Wizengamot denies our proposal,” Potter says.
“What? Potter, what would we even be proposing? We don’t have any ideas here. What we have to do is talk everyone here out of whatever ridiculous plans they’re crafting right now, plans that will put a target on every one of our backs.”
“No way. I’m not giving up.”
“It’s a bigger problem than you seem to realise! Perhaps in thirty years we could figure out a way to redirect the castoff or layer enough counter-curses and anti-jinxes over the water to make a difference, but not any time soon … it’s too much.”
From across the way, Luna is yelling for them. “Harry, Draco, are you ready to leave? I set the Portkey to depart in one minute!”
Potter looks at him hard, his face set. “I’m in this now, all in. Not just because of you or Scorpius, but because there’s a real problem that needs solving. There are creatures asking for our help, and I’m not letting them down. Step back if you want to, I’ll understand, but you’re not talking me out of this.”
Without another word, Potter turns away, joining the others, already toiling at their plans to solve a problem they don’t even fully understand the scope of.
Not just because of you.
It takes Draco nearly the full minute to remember to follow after him.
Chapter Text
Dear Mister Scorpius Malfoy,
We appreciate your letter and understand your concern. However, for more than 200 years, North Moor has been uninhabited by Beings. We also have no record of Wallygagglers existing in the magical world, though they have been featured in many wonderful children’s stories.
When the Ministry determined which creatures qualified as Beings in 1811, many until-then-unknown species stepped forward to participate in the shaping of laws in magical Britain. The Wallygagglers were not one of those species, nor have they made themselves known to any reliable source since then. Because of this, if they exist at all, Wallygagglers are officially classified as Beasts, meaning they have no legal right to the land which they inhabit.
If you would like to address the issue further, please take it up with Conservation of Magical Creatures in the Beasts Division.
Thank you for contacting the Wizengamot.
Undersecretary Prosymina
Slowly, Draco sets down the letter and removes his reading glasses. The light of a candle flickers at the slight movement, warping Scorpius’s shadow as he paces restlessly across the far end of the room.
Finally, he stops, looking at Draco expectantly. “Well?”
“Well … it’s very unfortunate. Have you contacted the head of the Conservation Department yet?”
“There is no Conservation Department! There’s a couple of blokes in overpressed robes who like to argue with the Committee for the Disposal of Dangerous Creatures all day — only to go out to a Quidditch match together after — but there is no Conservation Department!”
“I can hear you perfectly well without all the shouting.”
“Aghhh!” Scorpius says. “Sorry. I’m going to hex the bloody Undersecretary until her teeth fall out.”
“How innovative. You might want to aim a little higher than the Undersecretary, though. I highly doubt she’s responsible.”
“I’m less likely to be arrested if I don’t curse the Chief Warlock himself.”
“Of course. Carry on.”
“The Wallygagglers couldn’t make themselves known! They can’t leave the moor! And how could there be Beings when they smoked them all out with their enchanted water?”
“Well, you’ve got your eyewitness accounts now. I know you didn’t want to implicate them in the initial letter in case things took a turn, but I think it might be time.”
“Obviously, yes, I know. You’re not being helpful,” Scorpius grumps.
“You’ll have to forgive me, seeing as I’m not a Legilimens, and you haven’t told me what you want me to say. Have you asked your mother?”
“She told me to get stuffed.”
Draco holds back a snort. “Yes, that does sound like her. Just in case I decide to fact-check this later, what she actually said was…?”
“Go home until her headache potion kicks in.”
“Ah.”
“What do I do? I need to prove they’re real, then get them transferred to Being status, then—”
“One thing at a time.”
“They’re dying! I don’t exactly have time to waste.”
Draco sighs. Scorpius is right. He hates what that means: that Potter is right too. They have to do this. They owe it to the Wallygagglers to try, even if it blows up in their faces.
“Okay, okay. We’ll handle this.” He taps his quill on the desk. “How do we handle this?”
Scorpius shrugs.
“Right. Right. Well, send everyone an owl. We need the statements in writing.”
“Okay, I can do that.”
“And we’ll need to look into what it takes to get a magical creature declared a Being. I’m sure Rolf or Luna can help with that.”
By midnight, Scorpius has drafted all of the letters, and Draco has sent the very last one off. Their owl, Elara, had been very testy with him, giving him a nip on the finger as he tried to bribe her with one last treat to finish the deliveries.
When he’s done, he finds Scorpius is fast asleep on the sofa, looking utterly exhausted.
Draco rises, crossing to the other side of the room and Summoning a pillow, which he stuffs gracelessly under Scorpius’s head, and a blanket, which he lays over him.
Then, Draco goes to bed, and his dreams are full of horrible things — his mother is hit by the Cruciatus Curse, Luna dies in Fiendfyre, and a flash of green light strikes Blaise straight in the chest. He wakes in a cold sweat each time, then he turns over and goes back to sleep.
~
The next evening, it’s the people he’s least expecting to visit who knock on his door.
When the elf lets them into his study, Draco stares blankly at them before he can speak.
“Patil, Scamander. What are you doing here?”
Parvati flicks her dark eyes at Rolf, who raises his eyebrows in return. She shrugs at him, and he returns the gesture with a minute tilt of his head.
Really, this kind of thing is exhausting to watch.
“Will one of you speak, please? I don’t have all evening.”
Parvati scoffs. “I don’t know why he’s here. We didn’t come together, and your elf let us in before we spoke. But I’m here because we need a plan. I want to be involved in this.”
“Me too,” Rolf says. “I know all you wanted was for us to make statements to the Wizengamot, but I can’t stop thinking about this. I mean, Wallygagglers are actually living among us, and this is how we treat them?” He shakes his head. “This is incredible.”
“I keep getting stuck on the idea of treating their ailments somehow,” Parvati says. She walks farther into the room, like she’s perfectly at ease here. “I know it’s not a perfect solution, but it’d be better than nothing, right?”
“Undoubtedly,” he says.
“I was thinking the same thing.” Rolf follows her, quick and nearly breathless with excitement. He’s not a small man, stature broad and imposing, but between the little gold spectacles on the bridge of his nose and his fervent hand gestures, he looks like a pure swot.
“You're good with potions, aren’t you, Malfoy?” Parvati asks.
“I assume at this point I’m only passable. One must lose the talent after going so many years without it.”
“Wouldn’t you like the opportunity to sharpen your skills?”
He considers this. “You’d have better luck with Teddy.”
“You’re thinking potions?” Rolf asks her. “I was imagining some kind of a ward or a spell or something, maybe one they could cast after ingesting things.”
“I was hoping for some sort of draught that would counteract the effects of the spells.”
“It’s an interesting idea…” Draco says. “But it would be taxing on their systems to ingest cures for multiple curses at once, especially ones they don’t have.”
Her expression falls. “I hadn’t thought of that.”
“It could still work,” Rolf reassures her. “We just have to keep thinking on it.”
“Right,” Parvati says.
Draco really does feel bad watching the disappointment swim over her features.
“Teddy may be able to help, though. If we can figure out what latent magical spells are most common in the water, I might be able to find something that could cover most of them. Ideally, we’d try to treat the most dangerous ones first, of course, but the simpler place to start would be with ones they’ll all come into contact with at one point or another.”
Parvati sits across from him eagerly, long black plait falling over her shoulder. “Okay. I can talk to him at our next meeting.”
“Meeting?”
She and Rolf give him meaningful looks.
“We don’t have meetings,” Draco says. “We met once. End of story.”
“But it’s not,” Rolf insists. “We want to help here. I’m a Magizoologist, right? This is my life’s work. Everything I’ve done has been building up to this.”
Parvati nods fervently. “And I know I can be helpful if you just let me. You’ve been looking at this politically, through the lens of Scorpius’s campaign, but it’s a creature issue. I’m one of the best Magiveterinarians in the world. I was one of the pioneers of olfactory magic usage in my treatments. I’ve got skills you won’t find anywhere else, and I’m ready to use them.”
Draco hesitates. “I understand what you’re saying, but … It’s bigger than what we can handle. We can try a few things, sure, but…”
“You’re not working alone anymore. It’s all of us.” Rolf gives him a solid look. “It’s not bigger than all of us.”
Parvati nods. “And I don’t think I speak for myself when I say that if we have to do this without you, we will. But we’d like all the help we can get.”
Draco taps his fingers on his desk. The people in front of him aren’t who he would’ve ever chosen for something like this. They’re horribly Gryffindorish, the both of them — though Draco thinks perhaps Rolf went to Beauxbatons — and as ridiculously persistent and bull-headed as Potter, but something is telling him to agree. Not to give up the fight so easily.
“Fuck it,” he says. “I’m in. What’s a few months of my life devoted to a helpless cause?”
~
They meet the next day around Draco’s dining table, all eight of them.
Draco asks Potter if Weasley and Granger plan to show, but Potter says, “‘Mione’s been working all night and day lately, and Ron’s watching Hugo. I’m supposed to keep minutes.”
Potter gestures to a Quick-Quotes Quill scribbling furiously on some parchment.
Draco peers closer to get a look at what it’s writing. “Hey, I do not have a mournful look in my eyes at the thought of being ‘abandoned by my dearest friends.’”
Harry shrugs, smiling mischievously. “Looks pretty mournful to me.’”
Scorpius bangs an open palm on the table. “If everyone could focus, please. I’d like to call your attention to the meeting.”
Luna looks on very studiously. Rolf seems faintly amused by the young man bossing him about, and Parvati and Lavender appear disconcerted. Teddy, who is used to this kind of behaviour by now, is still fiddling with his pocket watch.
“It’s time to get started on a plan,” Scorpius says. “Everyone has ideas for how we can fix this, so let’s hear ‘em.”
“Shouldn’t we consolidate our efforts and work together towards a single solution?” Lavender interrupts. “We need to help each other as much as possible.”
“Of course we do,” Scorpius agrees. “But we have to explore every potential avenue, at least until we find a solution we know will work.”
No one protests. They understand that they don’t have nearly enough time. Working on just one thing and hoping it will be successful can’t possibly end well for them.
“All right, Teddy first, so the others know what we’re up against,” Scorpius says. “What did you find in your sample?”
Teddy grimaces. “It’s worse than I thought it would be. In just that little sample, there was more magical energy per millilitre than you’d get in your average Blood-Replenishing Potion. It was weird, though. I nearly got hit with a Stunner just trying to put a few drops under a magnifier.”
“Would there be a way to filter the water?” Potter asks. “You know, like a Brita, but on a larger scale.”
They all look at him blankly.
His eyes track across their faces one by one. “I’m the only one here raised by Muggles, aren’t I?”
They all nod with varying degrees of confusion.
“Perfect, well, I think Mr Weasley’s got one we could borrow. I’ll ask him.”
“Good,” says Scorpius. “Now, Ms Patil, you’re working on a way to neutralise the curses once they’re in the Wallygaggler’s systems already, right?”
“That’s what I was thinking. Have you got a list of everything you found in your sample?” she asks Teddy.
He slides her a slip of parchment.
“Thanks. I’ll get started on that, then. Say, Draco, I’ve been having trouble finding books about multi-use potions. I’m not even sure there are any, at this point, but you’ve got quite a library in your office — are any of those books potion-related?”
He tries to picture the shelves in his study, about half of which had been recovered from Snape’s office after his passing.
He’s probably got one of the best collections on rare potions in the world, and he’s never even used it.
“There must be. I’ll pull any that sound promising out for you, or you could have a look yourself if you’d like. I’m sure we’ll find something. I can’t promise anything on multi-purpose potions specifically, though.”
“Well, there’s nothing wrong with being the first to make one, is there?”
The first.
Draco considers this, laughs, and shakes his head. “Sure, right. We’ll see about that.”
The meeting moves on. Rolf announces that he’s looking at blanket counter-curses that could be applied to a broad spectrum of ailments. Luna says she’s drafting an article for The Quibbler to announce to the wizarding public that Wallygagglers have been proven real.
“Er … right,” says Scorpius. “Well, I guess we do need to get the word out.” It’s clear that he thinks an article in The Quibbler might not be the best way to do that. “Ms Brown?”
Lavender grimaces. “You can call me by my first name, you know. I’ll start feeling like a Hogwarts student again hearing ‘Ms Brown’ all the time.”
Scorpius grimaces sheepishly. “Sorry. Lavender.”
She smiles appreciatively. “Well, I’ve been looking into what it would take to get you a hearing in front of the Wizengamot. That’s your best bet at solving this by changing restrictions for Gringotts, though I don’t think it’s promising. This’ll just be an opportunity to state your case and tell them what our end goal is.”
Scorpius beams. “Brilliant. Do you think we can get a hearing by the end of the month?”
She pulls a face. “I can certainly try.”
“Maybe all you need to do is get someone else to cancel their hearing and free up a time slot,” Parvati offers.
Lavender looks at her far too quickly, as if she’s surprised to hear her speak. “Right, well. Maybe.” Her entire face has gone pink, and Parvati tilts her head in apparent concern.
“Feeling all right, Lav?”
“Never better!”
Scorpius, unsurprisingly, is completely oblivious to this, but everyone else looks slightly amused — with the exception of Luna, who is swatting at the empty air around Rolf’s head as if she’s trying to usher bugs away.
“Right then,” says Scorpius, “Mr Potter?”
“Well,” Potter shifts in his seat, “I asked ‘Mione to take a look at the laws surrounding the disposal of excess magic, but I don’t think she’s found anything yet. And I’m trying to look for other pods of Wallygagglers, but apparently, they really like to stay hidden … if there are any. I was hoping you might help, Malfoy, since you can use your Reveliospecs to see their magical signatures.”
“Couldn’t you just borrow them, or are you really that hopeless?” Draco asks.
Potter shrugs. “Can hardly see through them with my eye as it is, can I? Need I remind you whose fault that is?”
Draco shuts up.
“Has anyone been looking for other areas where the magic could be disposed of?” Lavender asks.
“We can’t push off the problem on some other species,” Rolf says.
“Well, no, but didn’t it take years for it to get as bad as it is now? Surely we could find someplace suitable to split it up, at least. Ideally, a place not populated by Beings.”
“We’re not poisoning Beasts either,” Rolf argues. He straightens his little gold spectacles with an anxious hand.
“Of course not, I’m only saying that—”
“I’ll look into it,” Draco interrupts.
She smiles at him. “Brilliant.”
“All right, well. That’s that then,” says Scorpius. “Teddy, would you mind giving Luna a hand with the article?”
“I can do that.”
Luna smiles serenely at Teddy.
“Then that’s all set, too,” Scorpius says.
“You haven’t said what you’ll be doing,” Draco reminds him.
Scorpius responds like it should have been obvious. “Working on my campaign.”
~
He and Potter don’t find anything, even with the help of his Reveliospecs. Sometimes he sees a concentration of what looks like Wallygaggler magic, but no matter where they look in the moors of England, or many times he taps his toe on a stream hoping a path across will appear, they don’t see any. Draco can’t be sure, but he thinks perhaps they don’t want to be found.
No one has anything close to a breakthrough until Granger bangs on the door to number twelve, Grimmauld Place early on a Tuesday. The knock is probably more out of courtesy than anything, because when Draco swings the door open, her hand is already reaching for the knob.
She looks like a small child caught with their hand in the Ice Mice jar.
“Malfoy!”
Teddy, who stands just behind her, waves cheerily. “I told her not to break in, but you know this one.”
Granger scoffs, crossing her arms. She’s got on a rather pink raincoat and her hair is cordoned into an array of very small plaits all around her head, pulled back from her face with a clasp.
Draco stares at the two of them for a long moment before calling back into the house, “Potter? I’m letting Granger and your godson in to burgle you, all right?”
He stands back and holds the door open for them, ignoring their curious glances. Teddy’s magical eye swoops to the floor to take in his bare feet, and he feels distinctly uncomfortable.
“Potter?” he calls again, aiming his voice up the stairs as he walks into the sitting room.
“It’s good you’re here,” Granger says with fake casualness. “We needed to talk to you, anyway.”
Harry’s voice booms down from the floor above them. “Which one?”
“Pardon me?” Draco bellows back.
“Which godson?”
“Tall, scraggly fellow! Green hair. Can’t recall his name.”
Harry emerges from the top of the stairs, still pulling down a fresh shirt over his torso. Draco notices that he’s wearing mismatched socks. He also notices that Potter’s stomach is far too attractive for anyone’s good, the last flash of smooth, tawny skin disappearing under green fabric as he descends to the last step.
Draco looks away awkwardly, clearing his throat, and his eyes land on Teddy, who seems highly amused. His eyebrow is quirked, and a smirk has settled firmly on his face.
The implication becomes clear.
“Potter slipped in the mud,” he clarifies, perhaps too quickly.
“I’m sure,” Teddy replies.
Granger’s eyes drift between them for a moment in interest, but then she seems to shake herself, moving on to more important things than whatever Teddy thinks happened. Which certainly did not happen. Unfortunately.
Harry really had slipped. And if Draco had perhaps taken a few moments too long before helping him up — too busy enjoying the way the fabric of his shirt stretched taut over wiry muscles as he struggled to his feet — well, that wasn’t a crime, was it?
Good Merlin, he hopes he doesn’t meet a Legilimens any time soon.
“I’ve been looking at the legislature behind dumping magic waste,” Granger says as Potter takes the seat next to Draco, “trying to figure out how it got started.”
“They just let you look at that kind of thing?” Draco asks.
Granger, who has now turned a rosy red around the cheeks, waves a hand dismissively. “It’s all in the stacks on the ground floor. Easy enough to find if you know what you’re looking for.”
Potter smirks. “You didn’t answer his question, ‘Mione.”
“It’s not illegal,” she insists shrilly. “If they really didn’t want you looking, they’d put more than one tired archivist in charge of vetting people, and they’d have better restriction spells locking the files.”
Harry does not look surprised in the least to hear that she’s done this, but Draco feels as if he’s seeing her in a whole new light. Hermione Granger, amateur criminal. Who knew? He has to respect it.
“Anyway,” she says pointedly, “I found this.”
Granger holds out a list to them and Draco takes it. Potter peers over his shoulder. Barafundle Bay, Morecambe Beach, Cringle Moor, the Kielder Mires … He recognises a few of the names.
“What am I looking at?” he asks.
“A list of all the waterways that Gringotts is dumping into.”
He falters. The list must be thirty places, at least, and he knows most of them are pretty huge.
“Wouldn’t someone have complained before, if it’s so widespread? Some of these are Muggle places. Surely they aren’t getting cursed left and right without anyone noticing.”
“I was thinking the same thing, so I looked deeper into the legislation, and I got Teddy to test a few more samples.” Granger’s getting excited now. “The spells are essentially the same everywhere, except Unforgivables. Occasionally a Muggle at the beach will get hit with a Cheering Charm, and they’ll think what a nice relaxing day they’re having, or they’ll run into a Stinging Hex and think it’s a jellyfish, but unlike a moor, those areas are tidal bodies, so they aren’t as concentrated.
Potter frowns, rocking back on his heels as he examines the sheet. “So, what — all the Unforgivables go to the North Moor?”
“Yes, but that’s not the core of the problem. With the stagnant water so overloaded, they can get grievously injured from something as simple as a Stunner. Plus, they’re drinking straight from it, every day. We wizards use Water-Making Spells, and humans typically filter it before consuming.”
“So a Brita would work!” Harry says triumphantly.
“Erm, no,” Granger corrects gently. “The parts that are filtered out have to go somewhere. If we tried a filter on the moor, they could drink just fine, but they’d get hit even more often while bathing and such.”
“So we should focus on redirecting the magic away from the moor?” Teddy asks. “Or at least finding a preventative for the Wallygagglers?”
“Seems that way.”
Potter looks like he’s swallowed his tongue. “Well. Fuck. The Ministry’s never going to agree to adjust where the output is if there’s a chance a wizard gets hit with a Killing Curse. North Moor’s gone unexplored for years. There aren’t many places like that.”
“Maybe we can get them to agree to direct everything but the Unforgivables elsewhere, at least,” Draco says, though he isn’t hopeful. “A place with more water, where accumulation will be less likely.”
“If we can find a place that really is unpopulated,” Potter says, “won’t that solve the problem? Gringotts would have no reason not to agree.”
“What happens when there’s too much magic in one area?” Draco asks Granger. “I mean, otherwise, why aren’t they already doing that?”
She grimaces. “The nearby land starts getting severely affected, and eventually, with enough evaporation, it gets in the air. People would get hit with curses just from breathing. Eventually, the spells dissolve back into the natural magic of the world, but we wizards cast so often, there’s a bit of a bottleneck effect keeping it from seeping under the surface.”
“Do you think Parvati’s potion idea could help?” Harry asks. “Or Rolf’s wards?”
“Containing the water would be tricky,” Granger considers. “Like I said, magic wants to rejoin Earth’s core. If you left enough space for it to do that, you’d risk it flooding out entirely. If you didn’t, you’d be affecting magic supply. It’s highly illegal, highly traceable, and very damaging. As for potions, there’s no way to know for sure, but it’s not a bad shot. We’d need a lot of trials.”
“I gave her some books to get her started, but I’m not even sure what I grabbed will be helpful,” Draco says apologetically. “Outside of ocularistry, I know nothing about traditional healing.”
Then he baulks, nearly smacking himself in the head for going this long without thinking of it.
“But I know someone who does,” he says.
“Would they be willing to help?” Granger asks.
Now, wasn’t that the million-Galleon question?
“I guess we’ll see.”
~
Madam Pomfrey is not very pleased to be roped into a big project at the last minute, but she says she’ll do it regardless, so long as he pays her off with lots of chocolate, tea, and free labour hours stocking her shelves like some kind of glorified house-elf.
“You’ll owe me, dearie,” she promises, before rushing over to coo at how grown Parvati and Teddy have got, both of whom seem wonderfully perturbed by this.
They spend the next few hours brewing their first trial for an experimental potion: Draco, Potter, Granger, Parvati, Teddy, and Rolf.
Of course, Potter decides that the best way to test the potion is to drink some of the moor water himself.
“Absolutely not,” Draco says. “Under no circumstances.”
“I agree.” Granger crosses her arms over her chest, doing a rather good job of looking threatening. “No way.”
Teddy shrugs. “I’ve got the water sample in my bag somewhere.”
“The potion should work at least a bit,” Parvati points out. “We have to test it somehow, don’t we? And I’m certainly not allowing any of you to try testing it on the Wallygagglers.”
“And what better place for it,” Potter says, “than right next to the best Healer we know?”
Madam Pomfrey does not do herself the discredit of batting away the compliment sheepishly, but she does give him a hard look. “Potter, don’t think I won’t do everything in my power to save anyone in this room, but if you poison yourself with that water against my guidance and happen to die, I won’t be losing sleep over it.”
Rolf, who has never met Madam Pomfrey before, blinks at her a few times in very quick succession.
Teddy removes the jar from his bag, holding it out to Potter and putting his hands up in surrender at Draco’s icy glare. “What? I checked it, remember? No Unforgivables in that bit, just a few mild—”
“Well,” Potter interrupts, “bottoms up.”
He downs the sample before Teddy can finish the sentence.
Immediately, his eyes go wide, and he turns stiff as a board, falling to the ground.
“Fucking hell,” Draco says.
“There he goes,” Parvati murmurs, seeming remarkably unconcerned.
Potter begins to writhe on the floor.
Rolf looks up at them and says, “Well, isn’t somebody going to help him?”
They all stare a while longer.
“In a minute,” Granger says, peering at him interestedly.
All of his hair falls out, then grows back in again, several times, leaving a pile to gather on the floor.
“You lot are really just going to stand around and watch me while I suffer?” Potter speaks very quickly, the words pouring out of his mouth. “You know, if Ron were here, he’d help me, or Luna, she’d—”
“That’d be the Babbling Curse,” Teddy says.
Draco snorts.
“I swear to God, Malfoy, if you start laughing at me, I’ll bury you in a deep, dark hole where no one can find you — and all your friends, they’ll wonder where you went, but I won’t tell them, oh no. I don’t care if I have this bloody curse for the rest of my life, I’ll never tell them where you are—”
Draco actually laughs this time, the sound escaping out despite himself, a high keen of amusement he can’t suppress.
“Kill him, Hermione. Won’t you kill him for me?”
“Sorry, maybe ask me again when you’re thinking clearly.”
“Teddy? Oh, Teddy please, you‘ve got to—” he begins to sing.
“Sure, in a tick.”
“I don’t think he means it,” Rolf assures them. “If he doesn’t keep talking nonsense, he’ll say anything that’s on his mind, no matter how personal. Or sing, rather.”
Well, that would certainly be interesting.
“I tell you I do mean it,” Potter croons. “I really do, because—” He tries to get up, but as soon as he makes it, Potter totters over again and lands flat on his face.
His words are lost to the floorboards.
“And another thing!” Potter cries, turning over with a jerk, but then all that comes out is unintelligible prattle, combined with a fair amount of strangled gurgling.
“What happened?” Parvati asks.
Granger squints at him. “Tongue-Tying Curse, I think.”
“Wicked combo,” Teddy says approvingly.
Potter begins to jerk as if he’s being hit with Stinging Hexes.
“I should do something about the poor dear, shouldn’t I?” Madam Pomfrey asks, but she doesn’t move, her frown small and considering.
Potter thrashes against the floor as a large bat flies out of his nose.
Parvati shrieks, ducking out of the way and taking Rolf down with her. What a brilliant animal Healer she must be.
The bat flies up into the eaves of the hospital wing and disappears. Luckily, there don’t seem to be any more forthcoming.
Granger and Teddy help the others to their feet and, seeing this, Madam Pomfrey sighs and nods to Draco.
They hoist Potter up and carry his quieting body to the first of the empty beds. He’s panting heavily, his eyes alight with energy, and Draco throws him a wink as they set him down.
“Buck up, champ, it’s nearly over. Probably.”
“Reckon we should try the potion now?” Teddy asks, and Potter makes a sound like, “MHMM,” among all his other grumbling.
Parvati scurries over with the potion in hand, tipping it against his lips for Potter to drink.
He does, gulping it down, not relaxing until the bottle is empty.
They all watch, waiting.
“Mmgheehmuhheheh,” Potter says.
“Yes, I see that,” Granger agrees. “But you’re not Babbling anymore, are you?” It is noticeably quieter. “That’s good. No more bats either, it appears. But it’s hard to know if that’s the potion or if it stopped naturally.”
“Blughrryughpol,” Potter says.
“You’re so right,” Teddy tells him.
“What’s he saying?” Rolf asks.
“He thinks I should get all his professional Quidditch jerseys.”
Speaking over what is mostly unintelligible groaning, at this point, Granger says, “I’ll just sweep this up, shall I?” gesturing to the hair.
Potter meets her eyes with frantic intensity, and she lets out a tired breath. “Don’t worry, I know what I’m doing.”
She swishes her wand over the hair, twirling it into a neat pile and then Levitating it into her bag, closing it with a snap.
She meets Draco’s raised brow with one of her own, a challenge, silent. ‘What?’
He studies her carefully, looking for cracks in her composure.
He doesn’t find any.
~
Scorpius steps forward, and his voice rings out clearly across the room. “I ask to speak on behalf of the Wallygagglers of North Moor.”
Though the court has already agreed to see him, Draco still finds himself a quivering knot of tension until a witch says, “The Wizengamot honours this request. Will you please state your case?”
As Scorpius begins to explain, Potter twitches in his seat beside Draco.
“Would you relax, for Merlin’s sake? No one’s going to recognise you.”
Potter sighs, but, forcibly, he stops his leg from jiggling. He’s used Polyjuice Potion to disguise himself as that Heffley fellow again, but he’s clearly still worried he’s going to be mobbed by rabid fans.
Lavender giggles on Draco’s other side. They’re the only two that came with him today, due to a combination of work responsibilities and prior commitments.
“Where’d you find this bloke, anyway?” Draco asks. “Aren’t you worried someone will recognise him?”
“Nah, I use him all the time. I’ve nearly always got a bottle on me. He’s a cousin of Fleur Delacour — Bill assured me no one will recognise him outside of France.”
“She was the Veela, wasn’t she?”
“What, can’t you tell I’ve got Veela DNA now? Aren’t I devastatingly handsome?”
Draco snorts. “I liked you better before.”
He doesn’t realise what he’s said until he notices Potter’s eye staring sideways at him.
“I’ll keep that in mind,” Potter says with an innocent smile.
“Don’t. I didn’t mean—”
Lavender starts laughing again, barely stifling it behind her hand.
“Oh, shut it, you.”
“That’s not how you should talk to someone doing you favours,” she points out.
“Fine. Thank you for your services, and shut the hell up,” he mutters.
She kicks him lightly with the heel of her boot. “Didn’t do it for you, Malfoy; it’s my job. Prick. I can’t believe I devoted my entire career to this, and it’s you and your son who discover a new magical species.”
He snorts, but then he notices that the crowd has grown angry, everyone speaking over each other in their rush to protest, and he starts paying attention again.
“Order,” the head witch commands. “Mr Malfoy, you may continue.”
“We can’t keep polluting the North Moor like this,” Scorpius says. “It’s uninhabitable. They risk hexes, jinxes, and curses every time they go for a drink. Not to mention that their natural food sources have diminished. It’s not just them, either. A nearby werewolf pack has been affected too.”
“If the situation is so bad, why haven’t they left the area?” a wizard from the panel asks.
“Wallygagglers come from the magical variety of thunderegg rock. They make pods wherever these rocks form, and they stay in the same area for generations unless wizards move them. They can’t travel more than one hundred metres or so from their resting place without being pulled back. Not to mention that it isn’t their fault we’ve messed the moor up.”
“That’ll be enough for now, Mr Malfoy,” the witch says. “Thank you. We’ll discuss your official proposal, which we have here,” she holds up a sheaf of parchment, “at the next opportunity. In the meantime—”
“But I haven’t given you all the information! They want to meet with Ministry officials personally to argue their case. They want you to go to the moor and see the situation for yourselves.”
“And we’ll consider that in our response to your proposal. We’ll get back to you in no more than a year’s time.”
“A year?!” he asks, even as audience members begin to rise and shuffle out the door. “They’re getting sicker every day! The entire pod will be dead before you even decide!”
“We ask that you please maintain composure, Mr Malfoy, and allow us to do our jobs. Meeting adjourned. If you do not wish to leave, we can have security escort you out.”
Scorpius looks like he’s ready to blow up, so Draco shoots to his feet and across the room in record time, grabbing Scorpius’s arm to pull him out the door.
They don’t speak until they are outdoors. The sun is shining brightly enough that Draco feels hot under his robes, breaking up the winter chill. He unbuttons his collar and casts a mild Cooling Charm just as he sees Lavender and Potter exit the building, and he waves them over.
“I can’t believe this,” Scorpius is saying. “Do they really expect the Wallygagglers to wait a year for any changes?”
“She said no more than a year’s time. That doesn’t mean it has to take that long.”
But Scorpius still looks miserable, and Draco knows he’s stretching the truth into something more palatable. The Wizengamot doesn’t do important things quickly, not for as long as he’s been alive. They’re too busy fucking about with things no one wants to happen.
“I’m sorry, Scorp.”
Lavender catches up with them first. Clearly, she hadn’t expected much better from the meeting, but she looks at Scorpius with sympathy, anyway.
“They’re always bastards. But you did very well.”
Potter comes to a stop a bit away, not intruding on their circle.
“Thank you,” Scorpius tells her stiltedly.
“Don’t give up on this, yeah? The Liaison Department would be lucky to have you as their head.”
“I’m not giving up. Don’t worry. I’m going to do something. Something huge. Something that will make them pay attention.”
Draco recognises trouble brewing. “Don’t you want them to hire you later on? Maybe that’s not the best idea.”
“What’s the point?”
“What do you mean?”
“If this is how it’s gonna be, what’s the point?” He looks to Lavender like she’ll have an answer, but she doesn’t. “If they’re going to ignore me like this once I’m hired, what good does it do?”
“You’d still be fighting for what’s right,” Draco argues.
“And, once you’re a Ministry Official, you’ll have the position necessary to get other people involved,” Lavender agrees. “Protestors, philanthropists, all kinds.”
“Yeah? And what luck have you had with that?”
Lavender bites her lip. “Well, centaurs are very different. They don’t want any human interference … they don’t even want to be considered Beings. I’ve made notable progress with a herd in Wales, though! They agreed to stop killing human children who accidentally trespass on their land.”
“Well, splendid, but I’d like to accomplish a little something more with my life.” He turns to Draco, who is just about to tell him off for being so rude, but Scorpius doesn’t wait for him to speak. “I’m going to mum’s.”
Then he Disapparates.
Draco stands in stunned silence for a moment.
Lavender lets out a small laugh.
“Apologies, truly,” he finally says. “He’s not usually so…”
“Oh, please, I remember being his age.” She doesn’t look as nonchalant as she sounds.
“He’s not right, you know. It sounds like you kept at least a few children from being murdered. That’s not nothing.”
She rolls her eyes. “In twenty-five years, one herd, a few children … What he said isn’t ridiculous. Look at me.”
He looks. Remembers the way she’d been boasting about how busy she was, how much good she was doing, just a few weeks before.
“Aren’t you … happy?”
She gives him a startled look. “Should my profession make me happy?”
“Mine does. Did.”
Lavender smiles. “Well, you’re welcome, then.”
“Much appreciated.”
“Happy?” She snorts derisively. “I don’t … I’m forty-six years old — which I’m only telling you because I know you know. I’m not married, I don’t have any kids, my friends … If my job is supposed to make up for all that, I picked the wrong one. I suppose when I’m actually doing something besides telling people who wander into my office that they’re probably fired and have been sent to me by mistake, it’s … all right.”
Then she focuses on him, and the intensity reminds him of Pansy Parkinson. Pansy stayed closer with Astoria after the divorce, and perhaps it’s through some sort of misplaced loyalty that she rarely calls on him now.
He misses her. If past trends are any indication, he’ll see her sometime around Christmas at one of Astoria’s holiday parties, and they’ll catch up and promise to do so more often in the future.
“Today was good, though,” Lavender says. “If my job included more consults and proving creatures I read about in storybooks as a child were real?” She laughs. “Well, then yeah, I’d probably say my job made me happy.”
He nods slowly. “If Scorpius hasn’t got his head completely up his arse, and I’m able to figure out what he’s planning to do here, we might need more help. If you want to get involved…”
“Owl me.” Lavender gives him one last grimace of a smile and backs away, disappearing with a little wave and a pop.
Potter joins him, and for a while, they walk in silence. The street around the Ministry’s entrance is crowded with Muggles. He sees a young boy flip a coin into a fountain, and it spins in a circle in the air, catching the light.
It’s not until they reach Big Ben that they realise neither of them had a destination in mind.
Potter gives a dull laugh.
“What?” he asks softly.
“Nothing.” Potter kicks at a loose stone. It goes skittering across the pavement. “Just, I’ve watched Kingsley spend so much time reforming the Ministry. I was with Ron when he began culling the Auror force and filling it with people he trusted to do good, and I’ve seen Hermione push for better legislation endlessly for the past two decades … I guess I figured that after all that, it wouldn’t be, ‘The Ministry sucks, sorry. Go home.’ You know?”
He does know. Still, he says, “In Lavender’s defence—”
“She doesn’t need any. It’s not her. At least she isn’t pretending.”
Draco thinks of her cramped office on the fourth floor, with the threadbare carpet and the moth-eaten curtains. He pictures the professionally pressed robes she dons every day, and the higher and higher heels that make her sink into the ground.
Maybe they’re all pretending a bit.
“I’m going to take Scorpius’s lead on this one,” Draco says.
Potter’s eye pivots to examine him.
Draco clears his throat. “It’s his project, so, whatever he wants to do … I believe him when he says he’ll make them pay attention. I’m not sure it’ll be the good kind, but I believe him.”
Potter nods. “When you figure out what the plan is, my letter filter has been modified.”
Draco raises a brow. They’ve made it to an Apparition point now.
“I had it set to burn up anything that came from a tall, blond prat for a while — got you and my cousin in one go, so it was pretty solid. It should let you slide through now, though.”
Draco pretends to examine the time “You like short blond prats?”
“Oh, yeah. Huge fan. Much more attractive.”
He does not let his amusement show. “I’ll see you around, Potter.”
“Yeah,” Potter says, and he raises his wand, “you will.”
Chapter Text
Scorpius has got his head completely up his arse.
For fuck’s fucking sake. Draco stomps over the dark cobblestone street. It is cold, it is wet, and Potter’s not here, even though he said he would be.
He tries not to examine which part is making him angriest.
Beside him, Astoria smirks, pulling her burgundy cloak tighter around her shoulders. “And you wonder where our son gets his temper.”
He glares at her. She’s looking particularly amused with him this evening, and a lot warmer than he is. Her black hair puffs up from underneath her earmuffs grandly.
“If I wanted a lecture, I’d be walking with my mother.”
“Yet you’re using me as a shield. How valiant.”
“I could unleash her on you, too. Don’t think I won’t.”
She’s here, somewhere, though he doubts she’ll last the whole evening. Her few years in Azkaban had done their damage. She is rarely well enough to leave the house.
It was a mercy he still isn’t sure he deserves that he’d been spared. Just eighteen, they’d said. Should they ruin his life?
Astoria wets her lips, biting back a smile. “You forget that I like your mother.”
“Can’t imagine why. Nobody likes my mother.”
“Except you.”
“Except me.”
“And Scorpius.”
“Him too.”
“Your father, when he was still with us.”
“This is getting old fast.”
“So was your father.”
He cannot help laughing. “Merlin, you’re horrible.”
She loops her arm through his, resting her head on his shoulder. “Are we there yet?”
“Why yes, this alleyway in the middle of nowhere, Muggle London was our destination.”
“Carry me the rest of the way?”
“If you’re so inclined as to be dropped in a puddle.”
“Puddles are cold,” Astoria complains.
“Mmhm.”
“And I’m cold, so that just won’t do.”
“A shame, really.”
“Yes, you were so kind to offer.”
“That’s what everyone says about me: how kind I am.”
“That’s why I married you,” Astoria sighs dreamily.
“Really?”
“It’s true. You saw me and you said, ‘Now, who did something horrid enough to make your face twist up like that?’ and I was love-struck instantly.”
“Good God, I was charming.”
“I could barely keep my clothes on.”
He laughs and presses a chaste kiss to her head.
They’re interrupted a moment later by Scorpius, who has jogged back from the front to meet them and is making all sorts of gagging noises.
“Can you two stop flirting — or whatever it is you’re doing? It’s ghastly. You’re supposed to be divorced.”
Astoria turns to Draco very solemnly. “Don’t listen to him, darling. I think we’re doing a wonderful job being divorced.”
“Could not agree more, my love. Did you need something, Scorpius? You’ve got your statement for the press, right?”
He mimes chucking up a bit more. “I’ve got it. I’m only telling you Luna says Mr Potter will be here soon. Try not to humiliate me into an early grave before he arrives, yeah?”
“Well, of course, we wouldn’t want him to miss it,” Astoria says agreeably.
Scorpius is off again with an eye roll, back to the front of the group he’s leading to the proceedings.
“So that’s why you’re so sour.” Astoria bumps his shoulder.
“Shut it.”
“You finally got your claws in the boy wonder.”
“I have no claws, he’s not the boy wonder, we’re not together — anything else I need to clear up before you do something horrible?”
Her lips twitch with a restrained laugh. “It would be good for you to have a life outside your family and career.”
“I have a life.”
“No, you don’t. Not since I” — she affects an airy, dramatic intonation — “stole it all away from you.”
“Well, I won’t be getting one from Potter.” He keeps his voice in an undertone, though no one is close enough to hear.
“No? Not even a quick shag?”
“Absolutely not.”
She’s always been able to pick apart his words too well. “Oh, love, I’m sorry.”
He doesn’t tell her she shouldn’t be, because once Astoria has decided how she feels about something, there’s no talking her out of it. “I think, once this is all over, I’ll be just fine.”
She stands on her tip-toes to peck him on the cheek, then uses it as an excuse to steal his scarf. “I’m going to go join Scorp. Do you mind?”
They’ve just arrived at the Muggle side of the Leaky Cauldron.
“Not at all. I’ll see you once we’re done?”
She smiles over her shoulder, disappearing into the small crowd that is pushing through the doors and into the inn. Draco pats his pockets to assure the pamphlets are still there. All good.
He ceases to exist amongst the dull murmurs until someone taps on his arm, two precise movements that draw his attention to the side.
“Granger,” he says in mild surprise. “Weasley … and you must be Rose, I take it?”
The young woman is the very picture of her parents, lanky and freckled with light brown skin, a long nose, and a whirl of frizzy curls. She has to be around twenty or so, since she was in Scorpius’s year, but she looks younger.
She greets him and sticks out her hand to shake tightly, even as her dad grumbles something about, “Not needing to play nice with Malfoy, Rosie.”
Granger elbows Weasley in the side. She’s bundled up in a coat today, cheeks flushed from the cold and her hair stuffed under a cap that looks hand-knitted. Not by a particularly talented hand, mind you.
“Malfoy,” Granger says. “I’m very impressed with what your son’s doing here.”
He feels faintly like he’s having an out-of-body experience. “I’ll pass along the compliments.”
“Oh, please do. I don’t expect I’ll get a chance to speak to him today, what with the nature of everything.”
“Is this going to be enough people?” Rose asks worriedly. “Only, it’s not going to disrupt much, just a few people walking around Diagon Alley passing out pamphlets.”
“All he’s trying to do right now is get the word out.”
“Wouldn’t that have been better suited for the day?”
She has a point, but Scorpius has always liked his dramatics, and even Draco must admit that the Prophet will give more attention to this than a couple of people passing out leaflets during the busiest shopping hours.
“I guess we’ll find out.”
Granger squeezes his arm reassuringly and brushes past him into the inn, leading her daughter with her.
Weasley stays behind for just a moment longer, bending down to mutter low enough for just him to hear, “I’ve got a small Auror team in front of Gringotts in case things get out of hand. Good luck, mate.”
Draco hides his surprise. “Thanks.”
As he passes the bewildered barman, Draco slides a few Galleons his way in apology.
The moon is high overhead when he steps outside, and, one by one, the gathered wizards light their wands, adding a few sparse stars to the sky.
“Lumos,” he whispers.
He gets out his stack of pamphlets and hands them to any passing witches and wizards who look interested, though there aren’t many.
The quiet of the night is imperfect, passersby unaware or uncaring of their goal, but it doesn’t matter. The determined silence of their group pulls a blanket of stillness over the street.
It’s not long before they’ve trooped all the way to Gringotts, stopping just outside the Daily Prophet offices, as planned.
The air still smells sweet, sugar and vanilla wafting out from the open door of Florean Fortescue’s Ice-Cream Parlour. He does not see Potter until he’s right beside him, wand illuminating his face, his scar standing out more starkly than usual.
He looks as though he’s about to speak, so Draco raises a finger to his own mouth. “Shh.”
The doors to the Prophet office open, and out comes a flurry of reporters. They start off trying to chat with everyone there, but the night eats up their words, and silence overtakes them again.
Scorpius finally breaks away from the crowd and ushers the reporters back inside, where he speaks to them for several minutes before pulling out a roll of parchment that contains his official statement.
The others watch through the window as darkness falls and keeps falling, spilling onto the street.
When Scorpius rejoins them, the press comes back out to snap a few pictures, and then most leave, their work done for the day.
They stay for another hour, and then Scorpius tells everyone to go home. Either they’ve accomplished their goal or they haven’t. Soon will come the moment of truth.
Chapter Text
Draco reclines with a happy sigh, watching Scorpius struggle with his tent.
“Sure you don’t want help?”
“Bugger off.”
Potter’s shoulders shake in silent laughter, only barely managing to stay neutral. He’s seated beside Draco, also enjoying Scorpius’s insistence that he can do this the Muggle way, thank you very much.
Potter’s tent has already been put up, because Teddy is not so bloody headstrong.
“Might be time to call it quits,” Teddy says. He’s standing up, which gives the illusion of helping, but so far, Scorpius has only let him read the instructions. “Gran taught me a spell that’ll have it up in seconds.
“Give the boy a chance,” Blaise protests, the last of their motley crew at the moment. He blows over his mug of coffee to cool it, a wide grin on his face. “He’s barely had time to get a hang of it.”
The sun is now tipping over into the west portion of the sky, which means they’ve been watching for over an hour.
“Thank you, Uncle Blaise. I’m sure I’ve nearly got it.”
Then, Scorpius sneezes, and he drops the top edge of the fabric into a heap on the grass once more.
They are not the only ones putting up tents — they aren’t even the only ones with party members set on doing it sans magic — but they are the only ones whom everybody seems to be watching from afar, confusion and captivation clear on their faces.
He’s glad the reporters aren’t paying them any attention yet. Well, except for Luna, anyway. She’d snapped a few pictures of Scorpius’s progress throughout the day, but right now she’s busy interviewing the other people on the moor, asking why they’re here, and encouraging them to stay for the evening, rather than leaving after the press conference.
“There!” Scorpius declares, finally satisfied.
He’s looped one pole through the fabric.
“Done?” Teddy asks hopefully.
“Don’t be ridiculous. We’re just getting started.”
“You tell him, boy!” Blaise chortles. Then, in a lower voice to Potter, “You know, I’ve always been a huge fan of art.”
Draco rolls his eyes. Here we go.
“Oh?” says Potter. He doesn’t sound nearly wary enough.
“If you’re flirting,” Draco interrupts, “you’d better up your ante. Else he’s not going to notice.”
“Got experience with that, do you?”
Draco snorts, but Potter looks scandalised. “I don’t need experience to know flirting with you is out of his repertoire,” Draco says.
Blaise beams, and he throws Potter a wink. “I’m a very good teacher. I could have you up to speed in no time.”
“Er…” says Potter. “No, thank you.”
Draco can barely hold back his laughter, so he has to distract himself from it. “Shouldn’t the press conference be starting soon?” he asks, loudly enough that the boys can hear.
“Blast it!” Scorpius says, then lets out a string of swears so creative, Draco’s disappointed his mother isn’t around to hear them. “Yes, all right, I’m going.”
He throws down the remnants of the tent, and Teddy sighs in relief, raising his wand.
“Don’t you even think about it,” Scorpius warns before stalking off.
They follow him towards the edge of the river, where he arranged for the Wallygagglers to meet them. The Wallygagglers wanted to stay on their side, and the witches and wizards would do the same, but this would be the first real look the wizarding world got of the species, proof that they were real, and a chance for the Wallygagglers to speak their minds.
There are more people here than Draco realised. Actually, the place is swimming with people.
Rose Weasley isn't too far away from him, and he can see the unrestricted awe on her face. Granger and Weasley flank her on either side, with a teenage boy who looks like another one of their brood in front of them.
Not too far away, he spots Astoria, her sister Daphne, and Pansy whispering amongst themselves. He thinks he even sees Hagrid near the back. In any case, North Moor is packed.
“Er…” says Scorpius. He’s cast a charm to make his voice loud enough for the whole audience to hear, and the chatter dulls to a low buzz for him to speak.
“As you all know, we’re here to visit the Wallygagglers of North Moor. For many of you, you’ll be seeing an until-now unrecognised magical species for the first time. Now the Wallygagglers want to speak to you all, and we hope you plan to listen, but we ask that you please refrain from speaking back to them directly. Best protocol is to keep quiet so you don’t accidentally make a deal you don’t understand.”
This causes a small bout of protests to rise, but Scorpius waves his hands to calm them down, and almost everyone quiets again.
“Thank you. This is the point where I inform you that large gatherings on this site are strictly forbidden by the Ministry, if you didn’t already know. The waters nearby contain dangerous amounts of magical castoff, something which could prove harmful and even — in rare cases — fatal, if directly interacted with. You’ll learn more about that soon. We ask that you please stay safe, and if you don’t leave now, your name will be added to this contract” — he holds up a roll of parchment that Granger had spent hours perfecting — “agreeing that we are not at fault if you are injured in any way by the water or the Wallygagglers, and that it is your choice to be here against the Ministry’s direction.”
He waits for a long minute. Draco doesn’t hear any pops of Disapparition.
Scorpius grins.
The rest of the afternoon and early evening is spent just as planned — for the most part. Everyone takes Scorpius’s direction very seriously, except for one woman who tries to cross the narrow stream midway through the Wallygaggler’s address and has to be escorted away by Weasley and a few of his Auror partners.
The frost fairies come out, twinkling in the trees surrounding the moor, which means it must have just dipped below freezing.
There are reporters present from all major wizarding publications, photographing the scene, spinning stories about how the Ministry has ignored the Wallygagglers for years. Everyone seems ecstatic.
He feels a spool of dread unwinding in his stomach.
“What’s with the face?” Blaise asks.
Blaise and Potter are the only ones who haven’t gone off in search of more fun activities. He thinks Scorpius and Teddy have a game of Exploding Snap going, but he’s not paid much attention to the rest.
“No face.”
“There’s a face,” Potter agrees. He’s keeping a close eye on the festivities, though his glasses are clouded with steam from his cider.
“It’s nothing. Nothing. I just…” They both stay quiet, caught on his words, as he hesitates. Blaise, in particular, has always been good at getting people to admit things they don’t want to. “Did Scorpius remind you of his grandfather this afternoon?”
There’s a moment of silence before Blaise claps him on the shoulder. “Relax. So what if he’s finally using a bit of that Malfoy genetics? He’s got plenty of Astoria in him, so there’s still hope.”
“I know, I just…”
“Ope! Speaking of: incoming.” Blaise stands swiftly, giving him another sharp knock on the arm. Draco spots Astoria storming their way. “Good luck with that, old man. Time to duck out. I’ll see you in the morning.”
“Bastard!” Draco calls after him. But, in a warning tone to Potter, he says, “You might want to run. That lovely woman coming our way is my ex-wife, and she doesn’t look pleased.”
“Too late for that, I would think.”
“Draco Lucius Malfoy,” Astoria seethes, stopping just short of where they’ve set up camp. “You are not letting our son sit in a soggy, freezing cold moor all night when he’s sick!”
“Astoria, this is Harry Potter. Potter—”
“Shut the hell up. I’m not letting you use him as a distraction.”
Well, there went that. “I’d never dream of it.”
“Why is Scorpius here when he’s got a cold?”
“Well, you see, my darling, he’s been over the age of seventeen for quite a while now, which means that in the eyes of wizarding society—”
“Don’t think I won’t sic your mother on you. I could call her right now.”
“She can’t make Scorpius do anything either.”
“Torturing you will be enough.”
“Be that as it may, it doesn’t resolve your issue. Could we get back to addressing that? I packed plenty of Pepper-Up.”
“You think I couldn’t tell that when he’s steaming from the ears?”
“It means he’s nice and warm, and he’ll feel better in no time.”
She’s still glaring at him something fierce.
“What makes you think I have the power to control him?”
“You’re both equally bloody stubborn and brainless; I figure that’s helpful.”
He scoffs. “If you think you can convince him to leave, be my guest. I won’t interfere.”
Her lips twist, and she taps her foot hard for a second before letting out a stark groan of relent. “Fine. Salazar. You’re impossible.”
He leans forward and extends a hand and, reluctantly, she takes it, giving him a squeeze.
“If Scorpius starts getting sicker, and I find out you didn’t send him home—” she says.
“I’ll have my head chopped off and sent straight to your door, love.”
A bit of relief flickers in her eyes, and she pulls her hand away.
“Potter, now that she’s not about to hex my balls off, may I introduce my ex-wife?”
Potter frowns at him, shifting forward in his seat and adjusting his glasses. “Erm … sure?”
“Astoria, I assume you haven’t heard of Harry Potter — he’s a very minor celebrity in wizarding Australia — but he’s got ever so big a head about it. You’ll have to act awed if you don’t want to offend him.”
She purses her lips, then nods at Potter, barely disguising her sarcasm. “What an honour.”
“Er … you too.”
She smiles far too pleasantly, then turns back to Draco and leans forward, taking his face between her palms, and patting him roughly on the cheek. It feels like more of a smack than anything else. “Best behaviour.”
“Of course.”
“I mean it about him getting sicker.”
He makes sure he’s meeting her eyes when he says. “Me too.”
She nods. “Tell Blaise he’s a coward.”
“The second I see him.”
“It was nice meeting you Mr … Porter, was it?” she says, finally dropping Draco’s face.
Potter doesn’t seem to know what to make of this.
Astoria draws her wand from her sleeve and turns neatly on the spot, disappearing with a pop.
“So…” Potter says. He shakes his head like he can’t quite believe what just happened. It’s a look Draco’s seen before. “That’s Astoria.”
“Yes.”
“Is she always that protective?”
Draco shrugs. Smoke from a bonfire at the other end of the moor wafts towards them. “When it comes to Scorpius’s health, yes.”
He means it to end the conversation, but Potter says, “Why?” in such a soft, winsome voice that Draco has to look away.
Draco pretends to be focused on massaging the edge of his palm. His injuries from the Cruciatus Curse have been acting up again, since he stopped working on his prostheses. The cold, too, isn’t helping. His fingers have gone stiff as the dead.
Draco isn’t sure why the words come up, because he’s never been brave enough to say them before. “Astoria has a blood malediction.”
He doesn’t have to look at Potter to know he’s shocked. Draco doesn’t give Potter time to ask the question he’s sure is coming.
“We won’t know if Scorpius inherited it until he starts exhibiting symptoms.”
“Oh,” Potter says quietly. “I’m sorry.”
Had he wanted Potter’s sympathy? If he had, this would be simpler. But Draco still doesn’t know what he wants. Maybe he needs Potter to trust that Astoria is not as unpleasant as she seemed, or maybe Draco is still a foolish boy who thinks there’s no problem too big for Harry Potter to tackle.
“We were always planning to separate eventually,” Draco tells him. “It was just a matter of getting our children off to Hogwarts first. Because of her health, she could only carry Scorpius, so the marriage ended more quickly than planned.”
“Fourteen years,” Potter says. “That doesn’t seem quick to me.”
“It wouldn’t. But when you’re raising a child together” — he gestures vaguely — “it’s nothing.”
Draco sees Scorpius chasing the Granger-Weasley children across the tall grasses, weaving between tents. They’re all so young.
Was Draco that young when he was twenty? Was anyone from his generation allowed to be?
He sees a figure walking towards them, a few figures, actually.
Granger, Weasley, Lavender, Parvati, Rolf, and Luna, it seems like … all coming their way.
“Goodness,” Granger says when they arrive, “it’s cold over here, isn’t it?” She’s running her hands up and down her arms.
“We brought hot chocolate,” Luna says brightly. “And we’re going to go run an article header by the Wallygagglers, if you want to come.”
He’s sure he would have said no if it were anyone else asking, but Luna is so earnest that he pushes to his feet and follows them to the stream. Potter is not far behind.
On the walk, he grabs onto Scorpius’s shoulder and steers him along with them. Teddy takes the initiative to follow after. Blaise must sense something more interesting is happening, because he catches Draco’s eye and decides to leave the card game he’s been locked in with a few strangers.
The hot chocolate cup, if nothing else, is keeping Draco’s hand warm.
“Now, why’s all the fun happening over here?” Blaise asks, slinging an arm around Draco’s shoulder.
“Official Wallygaggler business.”
“Thrilling.”
“Unfortunately, you’re not invited.”
Predictably, Blaise says, “That’s never stopped me before.”
Granger conjures a fire at the edge of the stream, looking at Blaise dubiously.
He holds one hand to his heart and the other in front of him, palm out. “Only here to support animal welfare, madam, I swear it.”
“You think you can do that without putting us in danger?” she asks.
“She means quietly,” Draco supplies.
Blaise mimes zipping his lips. “Won’t say a word.”
They set about conjuring chairs for themselves and form a semi-circle facing the few Wallygagglers that gather on the other side. Luna chooses to sit directly on the grass, her woollen blue skirt fanning out around her.
“I’ve got this article I want to run by you,” Luna says.
“By all means,” says Click, while Pop mutters something under his breath that they cannot hear.
Luna clears her throat. “Wallygagglers and ‘Wizen’ — Working Together or Entering War Times. I used your word, see?”
Click’s tusks quiver. “I do.”
“For as long as most of us have been alive,” Luna continues, “the Ministry has been under the Homunculus Curse, which dooms them to suffer from poor management.”
Weasley looks delighted, and Blaise positively cackles.
“ — Nowhere is this clearer than the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures. They’ve been failing to acknowledge the existence of certain magical species for years now, such as the Twisting Huskies, which—”
“Don’t you want to help, girl?” Pop asks.
Luna blinks at him owlishly. “Of course.”
“You’re not getting anywhere with insults to your government, and, and—”
Click interrupts him. “Now, hold on—” he makes a popping noise. “We haven’t heard the whole article.”
Pop squints at them. “Do we need to?”
Very quietly, Granger says, “Probably not.”
“Hmmph. That’s what I thought.” And Pop clomps away.
Click gives them a warm, apologetic look. “A second try, perhaps? We’ll reconvene in the morning.”
He gathers the other Wallygagglers and nods to the wizards before ushering them away.
“I thought it was brilliant,” says Weasley, once they’re gone.
Luna smiles vaguely. “There’s more, if you’d all like to hear it.”
“Am I allowed to talk yet?” Blaise asks.
Granger gives a grudging wave of her hand for him to continue.
“You have no idea how much I’d like to hear it,” Blaise says.
“You’re making fun of me, aren’t you?” Luna doesn’t sound upset, only curious.
“Of course not,” Scorpius says fiercely. “Right, Uncle Blaise?”
Back at Hogwarts, Blaise had started nearly every morning reading an article from The Quibbler aloud over breakfast, to roaring laughter from Pansy, Theodore Nott, and whomever Blaise was dating at the time.
“Well,” says Blaise, “maybe a bit.”
Draco thwacks him on the arm.
“I’d love to hear it too,” Rolf says. “And I’m not making fun of you at all.”
Teddy grins. “Merlin, me too. I’d love to see the looks on the Ministry’s faces.”
Potter laughs.
“Dare I ask what Twisting Huskies are?” Parvati adds.
“You shouldn’t,” Lavender replies in a low voice. “But she’s going to explain anyway.”
Luna does, and the rest of the evening feels as warm as the drink in his hand.
When the tent collapses on him and Scorpius in the middle of the night, Draco simply waves his wand and goes back to sleep.
~
Draco wakes to aggressive shoulder shaking early in the morning. Scorpius just barely blocks the sun coming in through the door flap.
“Dad. Dad!”
“Mm?”
“There are representatives from the Wizengamot here. A whole team of them, plus some testy-looking Aurors.”
He sits straight up, groaning at the strain in his back. He can hear others stirring nearby too, but he doesn’t pay them any attention. Draco gets to his feet and rushes after Scorpius.
They arrive at the edge of the stream, half-jogging in their haste.
One of the Ministry officials is there talking to a few reporters, but when she lays eyes on Draco, she frowns severely and dismisses them.
“Mr Malfoy,” she says as he approaches. “Leonora Gore, Chieftess of the Wizengamot. Am I to understand that you’re responsible for this?”
“Me?” he asks, then looks at Scorpius, who nods rapidly at him, wide-eyed. “Yes, I’m responsible.”
Draco hears someone come up behind him, and he can tell who it is without looking by watching Gore stretch her mouth into a wide, uncomfortable smile. “Mr Potter. So glad you could join us.”
All around, people are beginning to wake. Some look over and notice them, and they gradually move closer to hear the interaction. Teddy steps up behind them, going to his godfather’s side.
“We’re pleased to have you here too,” Potter says cooly. “Decided to support the cause?”
Gore’s smile grows strained around the edges. “Something like that.” She raises her voice. “Everyone feel free to gather ‘round! I have an important announcement, straight from the Ministry. We just reached a verdict this morning.” To Draco, she murmurs, “Pulling a stunt like this is a wonderful way to end up in Azkaban, like the rest of your worthless family,” smiling sweetly all the while.
Scorpius steps in front of him, almost protectively. Draco places a hand on his shoulder, serving both to hold him back and reassure him.
The crowd grows until almost everyone who stayed the night on the moor is waiting.
Gore casts an Amplifying Charm and greets them all cheerily. Across the water, he can see the Wallygagglers gathering, wary.
“We at the Ministry want you to know that we hear your concerns, and we’re going to act on them. We agree that the Wallygagglers have been suffering here for far too long.”
He observes the spark of hope that drifts through the crowd, but he doesn’t grab onto it. Not yet.
“That’s why we’re ordering the removal of the Wallygaggler pod from North Moor to Hexhamshire, effective immediately.”
He feels Scorpius’s shoulders stiffen under his hand and is grabbing him back before he even moves.
“That’s not what they want!” Scorpius calls, trying to be heard over the murmurs of the crowd. “You can’t just force them to move! It’s their home!”
Draco tries to pull him away, to talk some sense into him before the Aurors drag them off.
“Please hold all comments,” Gore says. “We’ll be having an open discussion session in one week's time. Now, we ask that you please evacuate the moor so that we can get started on this exciting project.”
“Dad, we have to do something!” Scorpius hisses. “We have to do something.”
“I know.” His eyes seek out Potter’s, then, across the stream, Click, his face etched with grave concern.
Draco pushes through the assembly, Blaise and Luna tagging behind him as he walks by. Then he sees Weasley and Granger approaching, the kids with them. From across the distance, he sees Parvati, Rolf, and Lavender making their way over too.
When he gets to the stream, Click meets him on the other edge.
“I don’t know if I can fix this,” Draco says.
“No,” Blaise agrees from his side, “but we can stall it.”
“What do you suggest?” Luna asks.
The others have arrived now, breathless, just in time for Blaise to give them a rundown.
“We have an idea.” Draco looks at the Wallygagglers, making sure they understand. “But it’s going to take a lot of magic to do this.”
Click confers with the others in a series of sharp, jittering sounds. Finally, he nods. “If you think you can keep us from being forced from our home, do what you must.”
“I don’t know how many of my team will agree to hold off the new Aurors,” Weasley says. “I might need some help.”
Draco nods. “We need everyone that has experience with wards with us. Everyone else, go with Weasley.”
Teddy, Scorpius, Parvati, Luna, and Lavender split off from the group, and the rest of them spread out around the barrier of the stream. Granger pulls her children aside and tells Rose to Apparate herself and her brother home. Rose doesn’t protest.
Draco turns to the Wallygagglers one last time. “The smaller the area we need to keep safe, the easier this will be.”
Click has a faraway look in his eyes. “From here to the basin, at least. That’s all that’s necessary.”
He nods. The others meet his gaze as he surveys them. They’ve got maybe a minute until the Ministry officials notice what they’re doing.
“On my count,” Blaise calls. “One … two…” They raise their wands. “Three.”
Five shafts of light shoot into the sky, calling everyone’s attention to them in an instant. The lines of light widen, spreading between each other until there’s a solid sheet of transparent yellow stretching from the ground in a dome shape over half of the moor. It keeps growing, feeding its way across the grasses towards the basin he promised they’d protect.
A team of Aurors is fighting against Weasley’s now, trying to push past and cast at them, but not a single spell makes it through. It turns out Weasley is surprisingly effective at his job.
The wizards who had stayed behind after the Ministry’s warning to leave are staring at the sky in open awe. He glances over at the others and nearly loses his focus, watching all of the power pour out of Potter, his teeth gritted, his hair whipping around his face.
Beside him, Blaise is the picture of calm — the most experienced at this kind of thing and the one with the least investment. He has a steady, technical kind of power that Potter cannot match with any amount of raw strength, and it’s doing them good.
Granger seems to be holding her own without problem too. Clearly, it wasn’t just studying that made her so proficient at Hogwarts.
Rolf, as it turns out, is also surprisingly talented, apparently having more experience with this than Draco gave him credit for. His hand is shaking something fierce, but it does not match the ferocity of his expression. Even when a wave of vertigo hits them all so strongly Draco’s knees buckle, Rolf doesn't let up, sinking to the grass but keeping his wand held high, buoying it with his other arm.
He feels a pull in his core, a sudden connection to everyone else there. Rolf’s heart beats in his ears, Granger’s thoughts race in his mind, ‘Come on, just a moment longer. Hold it, dammit!’ Blaise’s vision fills with spots of black, and Potter’s grip is aching and raw against his wand.
The ward solidifies, a glint of light sweeping across it, and then the colour in the air dissolves, and they all fall to the ground.
He feels his wrists being spelled together behind his back long before his ears stop ringing. It’s through a haze of half-sight and overwhelming nausea that he sees the others being led away from the stream as well, through the onlookers.
No one struggles against the bonds, not even Potter. Draco wonders if it’s perhaps because he’s as tired as the rest of them.
Blaise is the only one who doesn’t look half-dead, but even he is drooping, his head hung and his eyes shrouded by a film of exhaustion. Draco can’t believe that magic can take so much. He’s never felt like this after casting a spell. Then again, he’s never before had to cast a ward this large, nor one that has to be so impenetrable.
When his ears finally stop ringing, he hears the Auror at his back say, “Azkaban?” with a sort of greedy hunger.
Draco tenses up, but there’s someone in front of him he vaguely recognises that is shaking his head.
“House arrest. All of them.”
“Not enough guards for that bother.”
“Keep them confined to one house, then.”
“We’d be leavin ’em with access to their things. Be responsible, Shacklebolt.”
The man — Kingsley Shacklebolt, he now realises — looks directly at him.
“Not Malfoy Manor, I’ll grant you that’s as bad an idea as any. But Harry’s place should have enough room, and we’ll confiscate their wands. Got any problems with that?”
“Potter was helping ’im, I saw. He’s not innocent in all this.”
“There’s not much they can do stuck inside, is there?”
The Auror grumbles, but he pushes Draco forward with a rough shove between his shoulder blades.
“On your way, Malfoy.”
Chapter Text
“What about the kids?” Weasley demands. He’s pacing.
“Your parents will watch them,” Granger grumbles from the sofa. “They raised seven. I’m sure they can handle a few more.”
“’Sides,” Potter mumbles, yawning, “they’re too old to be dropped on their heads at this point, so what’s the worst that could happen?”
Weasley doesn’t seem comforted.
When Lavender despairs that she’s going to get fired, Weasley counters with, “Not as fast as I am.”
Everyone seems to have already accepted the truth of this.
“Are you sure we can’t send any letters until tomorrow?” Parvati asks. “Maybe we should try convincing the Aurors again.”
“They won’t let us get any letters through until they’ve got someone to check them all and make sure we’re not sending out sensitive information,” Weasley says. “That’s standard protocol.”
Parvati throws her head back against the sofa. “How am I supposed to tell the clinic I won’t be in for work? What’ll they do in the meantime? The pet owners need time to find a proper replacement vet.”
“Do you think I’d look good with long hair?” Blaise asks Draco.
“Ravishing.”
Luna sits on the floor beside Rolf, where he flopped down earlier. She runs a hand up and down his back.
“I think he needs a Healer,” she says quietly. “I think you all need Healers.”
“Maybe the Aurors will let one letter through,” Draco says. “If it’s for a Healer on staff. Do they have one of those?”
Weasley shakes his head.
“Pomfrey, then?”
“It’s not … impossible,” Weasley says. “It’ll be hours, but it’s not impossible. You’d probably have to dictate the message to them.”
“Can you do it?” Draco asks Luna. “We’ll need five Invigoration Draughts.”
She stands without hesitation.
“Will she send those over without seeing us first?” Granger asks. “That doesn’t seem particularly legal.”
“It’s over the counter,” Draco reminds her.
“And if the Aurors won’t agree to send the message?”
He hesitates. “Have you got the ingredients here, Potter?”
Potter turns his head towards him. “I haven’t even got a cauldron.”
“Let’s figure that out when the time comes,” Draco says.
While Luna doesn’t seem as concerned as she might, she isn’t her usual self, either. She hasn’t once told them to be proud of themselves or rejoice for the work they’ve accomplished. Still, she says, “It will all work out in the end.”
“What makes you think so?” Scorpius asks drearily. “We’re on house arrest. The Ministry will be working to turn the Prophet against us. All of our goals are dashed. We can’t even finish helping the Wallygagglers, because all we have to work with is right here.”
Luna says over her shoulder, “There are some things you just know,” as she leaves the room.
The rest of them stay quiet.
Teddy’s legs are drawn up to his chest, his pale cheek resting against them. He scans the room and seems to decide it needs a bit of brightness.
“I, for one, am just glad to have my eye back to normal,” he says.
That was the first thing they noticed once they were inside, Teddy, Lavender, and Potter all at once, it seemed. With the ward separating them so powerfully from North Moor, the Wallygagglers can no longer project their magic into the outside world. Everyone’s prostheses are working again, and the moving portraits are perfectly alive-not-alive once again.
He wishes it were more of a comfort.
“Cheer up,” one of Professor Lupin’s portraits says. He’s the only one paying them any attention. “It’s never as bad as it seems.”
~
That night, Draco tosses and turns in bed. The Invigoration Draught has had the nasty side effect of making it impossible for him to sleep. He should have forgone it like Blaise.
But he knows that’s not the real reason he’s still awake. Never before has he done something he’s so sure is right, only to feel so awful about it afterwards.
It unnerves him, too, to think about the letter Madam Pomfrey penned in reply. ‘Are you sure these are the only potions you need?’
Carefully worded, he’s sure, in case the Aurors read it. But why? What was she alluding to?
Besides all that, he’s still worried about Scorpius.
“We can best the Ministry,” Scorpius had said, in the late part of the evening, when everyone but the two of them and Potter had gone to bed. “It’s been done before.”
“We’re already in a load of trouble,” Draco replied. “Don’t go making it worse. I’d like to get us out of here with at least a sliver of our freedom left.”
Scorpius scowled, but his dark eyes still held that hopeful shine. Somehow, the day hadn’t beaten the stubbornness out of him. “That’s up to you. But I’m telling you what I’m doing, and that’s fixing this.”
“Don’t you still want the job? If you make them your enemy—”
“I have to show them that I’m not going to let anything stop me from helping magical creatures. Either they’ll respect it or they won’t.”
Potter’s magical eye had followed Scorpius as he left the sitting room. His other eye was trained on Draco.
“This is going to be bad,” Potter had said.
“I suspect you’re right.”
“You’re not going to do anything to stop it?”
Draco remembers then with great clarity how high Scorpius held his head as he exited the room.
He’d said to Potter, “The best thing I can do now is support him well enough that he’ll let me minimise the damage when the time comes.”
Potter hadn’t said anything, but his magical eye had swivelled to face Draco too, and Draco felt the weight of it pushing on him.
“It’ll be fine, Potter. It’ll be … it won’t be worse than anything I did at his age.”
Now, sleepless, Draco slams his hand into his pillow, adjusting it for the thousandth time. How can Scorpius honestly think he’s still got a shot at this job? How can he want this job? More importantly: what does Draco have to do to convince him this is a bad idea? Defying the Ministry might work out splendidly for people like Potter, but Scorpius is a Malfoy, through and through. If Draco had ever had a single doubt, it would have been quashed watching him schmooze people at the moor.
Draco rolls out of bed, finally giving up. He just wants to get away from all of this for a minute, but there’s nowhere to go.
Draco takes the stairs down to the second floor two at a time, stopping at the bottom only because he has no idea where to go. He can’t see very well in the dark, and since the Aurors confiscated their wands, he can’t cast a Wand-Lighting Charm. At the far left end of the hall, the knob of a door twists. Draco backs into the shadows bracketing the walls, waiting.
No one comes out.
He peeks around the wall once more. The door swings open entirely, but no one steps out.
After a moment, Draco whispers to the door itself, “Are you … talking to me?”
The door flaps on its hinges, and he jumps at the sound.
The rest of the house is quiet. He wonders if the house is laced with Silencing Charms or if everyone else is already asleep. It must be nearly three, so it wouldn't be that surprising.
Still, he keeps his steps soft as he pads down the hall.
Draco makes it inside the room and doesn’t check what’s there before shutting the door behind him with a snap. Darkness hugs every inch of the room until, one by one, the wall sconces come to life.
He leans back heavily against the door, the flicker of fear trailing away from his still pounding heart. Canvases sit spread out around the room, one after another. Some of them are clearly copies of works Potter made for other people. A few seem empty despite fully painted backgrounds, giving the appearance that their subjects left. The rest…
“Hello,” he says gently.
The woman from the largest canvas looks up at him. Her expression is less hostile than he remembers it — Ginny Weasley, at least six versions of her spread about the room, all beautiful. On the largest canvas, Ginny’s hair hangs off the edges. It’s a vibrant orange slash against the background, tangled with autumn leaves. Potter painted her in an emerald green jumper, one which the other Ginnys have foregone in favour of Quidditch leathers.
He steps closer, and she seems to sit up, though the angle doesn’t change. Her hair sweeps down around her face in layers, and her clever brown eyes follow him. The leaves do not fall out.
“Malfoy. I should have known.”
Ginny's older than he remembers her, but he doesn’t think it’s a recent portrait. She looks like she’s in her late twenties.
‘Are all your portraits dead?’ Draco remembers asking Potter.
‘No, there’s one set that isn’t. A rather large mistake on my part. I’d rather you didn’t meet them.’
“Should have known what?” he asks now.
“The other portraits mentioned a snobbish, blond man was visiting. I knew it was you that first day you came, but Harry hasn’t exploded yet, so I thought you couldn’t possibly be back.”
He spreads his hands wide. Here I am.
Ginny tucks a stray strand of hair behind her ear, looking at him for a long time without saying anything. He hadn’t been able to tell from farther away, but she’s got a light smattering of freckles covering her nose, something mirrored across the other portraits. She doesn’t seem nearly as irritated with him as the portraits in the sitting room had. Then again, he hasn’t heard anything bad from them, either, since they started moving again.
Ginny tilts her head to the side. “You’ve been good for him.”
“Who?”
“Harry. He’s doing better.”
It certainly doesn’t seem that way to Draco. “He is?”
Ginny twists her lips. “I don’t want to say anything he doesn’t want to tell you. But I think if you ask him properly, he’ll explain it all. If you could see how he looks at you, you’d understand.”
Draco’s heart thumps. “What?”
She raises a sardonic brow. “I recognise it, even if the others don’t. Even if you don’t.”
Draco stays quiet.
“And here I was, worried I’d be telling you something you’d use against him. Guess we’re not in any danger of that.”
“I don’t…”
She leans forward, resting an elbow on the edge of the frame like a desk. “Normally, I’d be rather jealous.”
“Jealous? Potter told me you broke things off with him.”
She shrugs lightly. “I couldn’t be what he needed, and he couldn’t be what I needed. That doesn’t mean we didn’t love each other. Sometimes people don’t fit.”
He thinks of Astoria.
“Right.”
Her smile is almost soft. “But you’re here, now, so I take it he’s making things fit.”
Clearly she’s made some wrong assumptions. “My circumstances for being here are … less than ideal. We’re on house arrest, the whole lot of us.”
“Who?”
He counts distractedly, still thinking about her words. You should see how he looks at you.
“Long list. Eleven, including me and Potter. What do you mean, ‘ask him properly?’”
“You know how he is. If it feels like too grown-up of a conversation, he ends it.”
“Ah.” That’s all he can manage.
“Say,” one of the portraits from the floor pipes up, “you went to Hogwarts, didn’t you?”
The boy is faintly familiar: mousy brown hair and a camera slung ‘round his neck. He’s sitting propped haphazardly against the wall.
Draco steps closer, squinting. “Do I know you?”
The boy tilts his head at Draco in consideration. “Definitely. I can see it now. I don’t much like you, you know? But I trust Harry’s judgement. If he likes you enough to let you be here, you must be a decent bloke now. Then again, Harry’s the charitable sort, so—”
“Creevey.”
The boy grins. “You should see your face.” He snaps a photo, and the flash is brighter than paint has any right to be. “Surprised you, didn’t I?” He shows Draco the back of the camera as though he’s supposed to see something there, but it’s blank. “Ha!”
Draco doesn’t remember precisely how he treated Creevey in school, but he imagines it wasn’t well. If Draco’s not mistaken, he’s a Muggle-born, and a Gryffindor to boot. Draco also knows he was killed by Death Eaters.
“I … I’m sorry. For lots, I’m sure. However I acted at school—”
The boy shrugs. “Doesn’t matter to me, does it? I’m dead. It’s pretty wicked being a portrait, you know. You might like it.”
“I … might.”
He’s about to say more when he hears the door open behind him and spins around, guilt already tugging at him.
Potter is standing there, his face set in firm lines. “What are you doing in here, Malfoy?”
“I just — your house called me in, and I stopped to chat. Only for a minute.”
“Harry,” Ginny starts, but Potter holds up a hand to stop her.
“Don’t. It’s not important. Just get out.” He aims the last part at Draco.
Draco hesitates, taking a slow step to the door and looking back behind him.
A few of the Ginnys shoo him off. The main one gives him a hopeless tilt of her lips. Creevey snaps another photo.
Draco leaves the room, letting Potter close the door behind them.
He’s about to speak again when Potter turns away without a word, but instead of going up the stairs like Draco expects, he heads towards the bottom floor.
Draco hurries after him.
“I didn’t mean to upset you.”
“You didn’t.”
He’s not sure how to respond to that. “Right. Of course not. But you seem upset, so let’s say for theory’s sake that you were, how could I fix that?”
“Leave me alone, for one.”
“It’s a small house, Potter, and I’m here for Merlin-knows-how-long. Avoiding you would be ridiculous.”
“For the night. Even just five bloody minutes.”
Draco stalls, but then he rushes forward and meets Potter at the bottom of the stairs.
“Why do you act like everything's fine when clearly it's not?”
“You want a cup of tea?”
Draco blinks at him. “Aren’t we going to talk about—”
“Let’s have a cup of tea.”
Potter flees towards the kitchen, and Draco braces himself for whatever’s coming.
~
When Potter sets the mug in front of him, Draco sniffs it carefully.
Potter frowns. “‘Thank you, Harry,’ you could try saying.”
Draco looks up. “Pardon me. Great and powerful Saviour, what an honour it is to sip your disgusting tea.”
Potter drops into the seat across from him, and the table feels like it’s not nearly large enough between them. Potter’s only turned on one lamp, and the moment feels too intimate in its dim light.
“It’s been a long day,” Potter says. “Why are you still awake?”
“I … I’ve been thinking over a plan for solving this mess.”
“Have you made any progress?”
“No. I’ll get there.”
He wants Potter to say he knows. That he believes this is something they can handle, no problem.
“You met Ginny,” Potter says.
“I did.”
The clock ticks. Draco glances at it. Nearly four.
“I made them right after we broke up,” Potter says. “I wasn’t thinking clearly.”
“You’ve kept them all these years.”
“I keep a lot of things.”
Draco hesitates. Then he asks it, “Why?”
Maybe Ginny isn’t right about him. But Potter’s words felt like an invitation, and Draco has to try prying them open.
“Most of it was my godfather’s,” Potter whispered. “And some is from my parents’ vault.”
“So?”
“What do you mean, ‘so?’”
“Why keep them? Why not shrink them all down, at least?”
Potter inhales, and his nostrils flare. “I get this … feeling, every time I think about it.”
“Feeling like what?” he asks quietly.
“Panic. Like if I let any of it out of my sight, I’ll … forget.”
He doesn’t ask what Potter’s scared of forgetting.
“I read some things about your childhood once — by accident … I never knew how much of it was real.”
“I don’t know. I’m not willing to go about reading all that rubbish to find out. If any of it’s true, I don’t know how they got the stories. Maybe they interviewed the Dursleys. I can’t imagine they’d ever speak with any wizards, though.”
“The Dursleys?”
“My aunt and uncle, the ones who raised me.”
“Ah.”
“Maybe raised isn’t the right word. They sort of tossed me in the air and hoped I wouldn’t land so badly they got the NSPCC called on them.”
Draco fights back a snort, feeling horrified when it slips through, but then Potter laughs too, so lightly Draco’s half sure he’s imagining the sound, except that he can see his chest shaking.
“God, they were horrible,” Potter says. “Every Mind Healer I ever saw said it wasn’t surprising, the way I … the way I get so attached to things now. Everything. I didn’t have anything at Privet Drive that was mine.”
“Nothing at all?”
“The food was theirs, the house, my clothes, even my cupboard. They gave me a hanger once, for Christmas, but I suspect they’d have taken that back too if they ever wanted it.”
Draco stays quiet because he doesn’t want to frighten Potter out of speaking. He’s certain that any big reaction — outrage, surprise, horror — would only remind Potter that he’s admitting something.
“The painting thing was supposed to be, you know, art therapy.”
“For what happened during the war?”
“And before.”
Draco takes a sip of his tea. He thinks it’s made with tomato juice. “You kept doing it even though it didn’t help?”
“It did help. But it wasn’t enough. Every Mind Healer I ever saw said I was a loaded gun.”
Draco worries at his lip. “What did they mean by that?”
“The ammunition was there: everything I went through during school, my childhood, the war … all I had to do was pull the trigger. And I did. The first time I kept a yoghurt pot because I was oddly attached to it, when I decided I wouldn’t get rid of Sirius’s things — all of it.” Potter shapes his fist into a little pistol and mimics firing.
“But … forgetting?”
“I don’t know.” Potter runs a hand over his non-magical eye, under his glasses. “Maybe I just want to be in control.”
Something about hearing it in Potter’s voice makes it click.
Everything Potter does, it seems, is for a little bit of control. Painting his own eye, disguising himself with Polyjuice, even joining their cause to help the Wallygagglers. Just a tiny bit of control in a world that’s never allowed him any.
“You think life is something that happens to us,” Draco says. He’s noticed it before, but never has it been clearer.
“Isn’t it?”
“Sometimes, yeah. Your parents, the Dark … Voldemort. But you didn’t fall into your career by accident. You aren’t living in this house, single, because ‘That’s just how it happened.’ At some point, you ran out of paint.”
Potter’s dark brows furrow. “Huh?”
“You said at the charity auction that, at first, you kept making portraits because you still had leftover paint. But it’s been over ten years now. It hasn’t lasted you that long.”
“Some of it has. I don’t think I’ve ever bought any more yellow.”
Draco sighs frustratedly. “At some point, Potter, you run out of paint. In life, eventually, you run out of paint. So you either go out and buy more paint, or you don’t, and that’s when it becomes a choice.” Draco shakes his head. “You made that choice. At least once. Obviously you bought those bloody Pygmy Kraken.”
“People expected me to … I couldn’t just stop. I had lists of commissions.”
“Sometimes, doing what people expect of us is the worst thing we can do.”
The lamp casts a dull yellow light across Draco’s tea, utterly still. Soft thumps and creaks echo through the walls of the old house.
Finally, Potter nods.
Draco taps a single finger on the rough wood table. “Control,” he says contemplatively.
“What about it?”
“Just … every time I had enough of it, I made bad choices.”
“You’re not talking about Voldemort?” Potter asks.
“No.”
“Hermione always says … she says there’s no point in beating yourself up over choices you wouldn’t make a second time.”
Draco looks down at his hands. “Do you think she’s talking about making them in the past or in the present?”
“What’s it matter?”
“I wouldn’t do any of it now. But if I was twenty again…”
He thinks of Scorpius. By the time Draco was his age, he was already married. Draco met Astoria when he was a year younger than Scorpius, just twenty to his twenty-one.
Draco had made a lot of mistakes by that point. But … “It all led me here, didn’t it?” Draco asks.
Potter nods slowly.
“I wouldn’t change anything that would ruin what I have. My son, my job, my friends … As much as I regret the choices I made, as important as that guilt is, it got me here. I’m not running away from who I was in the past.”
“You think I am?”
Draco is silent. He stirs his tea, watching the slow ripples. “I know you are. And I guess it’s hard for me to understand why when…”
“When my past was so good?”
“No. I—” He backtracks. “Look, no one who had a dark wizard chasing after them their entire adolescence and got coat hangers for Christmas led a pampered, gilded existence. I know that. But you made good choices, ones you can be proud of, and it got you here, didn’t it?”
Potter tips his head in acknowledgement.
“Don’t you like where you are?”
“I…” Potter shakes his head like he’s rattling away a thought. “Yes.”
“All of it?”
“The painting, my godchildren, my friends … being here.”
They lock eyes, and Draco fights to preserve the feeling in his chest.
“But it’s selfish,” Potter says.
“What is?”
“Knowing you’d hurt people again, if you had the choice, because it’s given you a good life.”
Slowly, Draco sets down his spoon. “You want more remorse than I’m giving you?”
“I don’t know. Yes.”
“Because you still feel guilty about your own choices — whatever they were.”
Potter exhales. He nods. “Yeah.”
“You won’t be getting it.”
“I know.”
Draco meets his eyes, then rises. “I’ll see you in the morning.”
“Okay,” Potter whispers.
Draco’s fingers brush over Potter’s shoulder as he leaves.
Chapter Text
Over the next two days, the tension in the house is drawn taut as a bowstring. No one’s sure if they made the right choice now that they’re here.
Draco and Harry are perhaps the worst. Scorpius asks if Draco’s done anything that deserves Mr Potter’s stilted silence whenever Draco enters the room.
Draco tells Scorpius he has nothing to apologise for.
Scorpius says, “Right. I’ll take that as a yes, then.”
On the third day, Shacklebolt tells them he’s still negotiating a reduced sentence, or at least keeping them out of Azkaban.
“I won’t pretend you don’t constitute a special case, Harry,” he says. “If you weren’t involved … well. The Ministry’s going easier on all this because they fear the public’s reaction to disciplining you too harshly. We can use that.”
“Do we have to?” Potter asks.
“Yes,” says Granger shortly, and that is that.
“You’ll all need personal references to vouch for you if this goes to trial,” Shacklebolt says. “And it’d be easier arguing your case if you took the ward down. I could probably have you out of here in just a couple of weeks.”
That, they do not agree to.
On the fourth day, they begin to workshop ideas. A storm is raging outside, rain lashing violently against the windows, and most of them have bundled up in the warmest, most comfortable clothing Potter could offer.
“We’ve forced the Ministry into a tight spot,” Granger says. “They can’t just ignore the Wallygaggler problem, but they’re not willing to make a real change either. I looked into the other moors nearby, just to see what they’re like. Did you know more than half of them have been turned into Quidditch pitches?”
“I could have told you that,” Weasley says.
“Could you have also told me that the reason Hexhampshire hasn’t been turned is because it’s a Site of Special Scientific Interest? They have breeding populations of birds there that are listed in the European Commission's Birds Directive as requiring special protection!”
“Which species?” Luna asks absently.
“Eurasian golden plover, short-eared owl, and merlin.”
“And what’s that got to do with anything?” Parvati asks. She and Lavender are huddled beneath the same large, tartan blanket on one of the sofas, both pretending they aren’t embarrassed by this.
“The place is under constant observation. The amount of charmwork that would be required to keep Muggles from noticing the Wallygagglers would be comparable to hiding Hogwarts, maybe more. Not only that, but it’s surrounded on basically all sides by other protected areas. We can’t just transport a new species there without issue!”
“What other sites?” Rolf asks.
“Is that really important?” says Harry,
“We need to know what other species are in the area. What’s it next to?”
“The southern side shares a boundary with Muggleswick, Stanhope and Edmundbyers Commons and Blanchland Moor,” says Granger, “and Devil’s Water river is to the east. Those are the only places rich in magical flora and fauna.”
“Luna,” says Rolf, “you think you can help me compile a list of all the creatures living there? Proven and unproven.”
“Oooh, yes, I’d love to.”
Granger smiles. “Brilliant, you two work on that, and Lavender and I will dig into the legislation, try to find anything that says this isn’t legal. Sound good?”
Lavender looks surprised, but she nods.
“What about the rest of us?” Teddy asks.
“You and Parvati will keep working on a potion to protect the Wallygagglers.”
“We aren’t getting anywhere with it,” Parvati says dejectedly. “I don’t think continuing will do all that much good.”
“Then look at other options. Spells, wards, divination — I don’t care. Just something. Blaise, you … what are you good at?”
“What am I not good at?” he returns.
“Right. Well, you and Ron can … Ron, what are you good at?”
“Oi! You married me, didn’t you?”
“Romancing hardly counts as an applicable skill, here.”
“She thinks I’m good at romancing,” Weasley says smugly.
“Oh, for God’s sake. All right. You and Blaise figure out what will get us out of here. Legally.”
“That’s our job? We’re fucked.”
“Agreed,” Blaise says. “But somebody has to do it, or I have a feeling the Ministry will keep us here till the New Year.”
“Ron, you’re the only one with a working knowledge of laws regarding Auror arrests,” Granger points out. “And Blaise thinks he can do anything, so you’ll be a perfect team. Now, Scorpius?”
“Mm?”
“For the time being, your campaign is the least of our worries. But we do need to get the public on our side in all this. The more outraged people are, the better our chances of emerging with no more than a slap on the wrist.”
“What do you want me to do? We can’t use the Floo, and we can’t send any owls the Aurors don’t approve. You aren’t suggesting some sort of coded message?” He sounds intrigued.
“No, no. I’m not. We daren’t do anything that could get us into more trouble. All I’m saying is that — when we get out — we’ve got to be ready to sensationalise this story. Really pull on their heartstrings. You can start drafting a statement.”
“That’s it?”
“When you’re done, you can … help Luna and Rolf look into, erm … some sort of alternative way to force the magic back underground. Or a storage container of some kind. The species list won’t take all day, right?”
Rolf doesn’t look like he knows how to answer that. “It will depend on how many species Luna names that I don’t know anything about. That could take an awful while.”
“Right. Well, we’ll figure something out as needed. Harry, you and Draco are going to read up on Wallygagglers, all right? There must be some children’s books in the library on them.”
Draco stares at her blankly. “Our job is reading fairy tales?”
“They’re our best resource right now.”
“But surely — I mean, you’ve got everyone else doing important work. Why are we the ones who have to go digging for books for toddlers?”
“It’s an important job. You’ll need to be very thorough. We haven’t explored the Black family library yet and there’s bound to be something useful inside.”
“You think Walburga read her boys sweet bedtime stories?” Potter asks.
“Just look.”
“It doesn’t sound like a two-person job.”
“Harry—”
“I’m just saying. Surely Malfoy or I could handle it on our own and the other could—”
“Library. Now. We don’t have time for whatever this,” — she gestures briskly between them — “is.”
“I don’t remember us putting you in charge.”
Granger’s eyes light with fiery defiance. “You didn’t need to.”
The next thing Draco knows, he’s locked in the library, and Potter is banging on the door.
“Let us out of here you prats!”
Draco turns away. Granger is quite frightening when she wants to be. And it’s Potter who’s still fixated on their conversation last night, not him. Even if Potter can’t be civil for a few hours, they’ll be let out eventually.
Hopefully.
Granger threw a tin of biscuits from Weasleys’ Wizard Wheezes at them on their way in, which implies she doesn’t plan to let them out any time soon.
Draco scans the shelves farthest to the left while Potter looks opposite. It’s not lost on him that, eventually, they’ll meet in the middle.
He breezes past the sections on Arithmancy and Astrology, stopping only briefly to pull Aquatic Wonders of Yorkshire: A Wizard's Field Guide and Bestiarium Magicum from their housing under Biology before moving onto Herbology.
Despite what Granger ordered, he thinks he’s got a better shot of solving this if he’s reading up on related subjects, rather than fictional stories.
He unshelves Magical Water Plants of the Highland Lochs and Winogrand's Wondrous Water Plants next, then focuses on the Charms and Spells section.
A Compendium of Common Curses and Their Counter-Actions might be useful, as well as the Updated Counter-Curse Handbook … Draco stops at a text on bezoars.
Could that be of any help? Traditionally, bezoars only work for potions, but maybe there’s a way the bezoars can be prepared that would stop spell effects too.
Then again, there’s no way the Wallygagglers can raise enough goats to slaughter one every time a member of their pod gets hexed. Maybe Draco can cultivate some sort of herb that will have a similar effect…
He’ll have to speak to Luna about it.
Potter’s voice calls his attention from the other side of the room. “I don’t know what I’m doing here.”
Draco looks up, then looks away. “Granger—”
“I don’t mean that.” His words come out roughly, but then he softens. “I mean I’ve never given a damn about interfering with magical creature livelihood before. If I’d shown even the slightest interest, Hermione would’ve kept hounding me to join S.P.E.W. But I’m here.”
“Right.”
Draco doesn’t add anything else.
“What I’m trying to say is that … maybe that was a mistake, a small one, to decide to do this, but maybe it’s still worth it. To be here.”
A laugh cuts its way out of Draco’s throat. “Okay. Does that mean you’re selfish too?”
“I think my life has been unique enough that I get to pretend you don’t have anything in common with me, thanks.”
“Go ahead. I won’t stop you.”
“Much appreciated.”
Draco can feel the edges of his mouth fighting a smile, and he just lets it go.
Potter is so … he’s so much, all the time. Draco doesn’t know what to do with all of it. How do you make someone understand something about themselves they’re hiding from? Harry Potter is everything in the world dialled up to a thousand. His magic, his emotions, everything.
Draco can’t keep ignoring that, trying to pretend Harry hasn’t already cracked every barrier he put in place, just by existing.
Harry tries to tamp everything about himself down, but it’ll just keep getting bigger. Draco wonders how so much of a person could have ever fit in something so small as a cupboard under the stairs.
“I had some bad reactions a few years after the war,” Harry says. “Mostly when someone would get rid of something without warning. Hermione Vanished a takeaway container once, and I just…” Harry sighs.
“If you think my reaction to learning that you’re human would be judgement, you’re wrong.”
Harry sucks in a breath. He shuts the tome he’s reading with a gentle, “Oh.”
“At the auction … What was that about?” Draco asks, because he’s been wondering, and because he’s not sure he’ll get another chance to.
“You mentioned that Hermione was redecorating her office. I knew that meant she was getting rid of some stuff, and I just felt … out of control.” He shakes his head. “It’s not her fault. She should get to make her own decisions without worrying about me. But knowing that doesn’t mean I’m any better at…”
Draco nods.
They’re only a metre or two away now. Harry must have been moving faster than him, not taking nearly so much time scanning over the titles, because they’re only at F, fiction, which is certainly not the centre of the alphabet.
Harry grabs for the boxed set of The Wandering Wallygagglers of North Moor and adds it to his stack.
Draco pulls a novel called Wacky Wallygaggler Wally’s Adventures in the Non-Magical World. Thrilling.
They reach for Wallygaggler Thieves and Other Exciting Bedtime Stories at the same moment, and Draco pretends not to notice that their hands brush, adding it to his stack when Harry’s twitches away.
They gather all their books and move to the armchairs. Harry starts a fire so they have better light to read by, and because it’s grown rather cold. It’s still raining outside, but now it has slowed to a steady thrum.
Draco begins at the top of his pile of books, poring through them with a concentration that Harry is trying his best to rival — though, if his tapping feet are any indication, he’s not doing a good job.
It’s a few hours later, judging by the way the winter sky outside the window has faded to the bruised purple of a plum, when he begins to feel peckish, and gestures wordlessly for Harry to pass him the biscuit tin he’s tearing through.
He finally selects a Ginger Newt with an appropriate amount of apprehension, considering that the source of these was a joke shop. Ginger Newts are always safe. And besides, Harry has eaten nearly half the tin now, and he seems fine.
When all is still normal a few moments later, he goes back to reading. Until, that is, Harry interrupts.
“Do you reckon we’ll actually find anything useful in these? I mean, half of what we grabbed, they’re children’s stories.” A smattering of crumbs falls from his lips to his shirt as he speaks. Harry seems surprised to notice this, and he brushes them off with an absent hand.
“The Wandering Wallygagglers of North Moor is all about this pod and their original search for a home,” Draco says. “There’s got to be something useful in there. If nothing else, a list of reasons why other places wouldn’t do.”
They keep reading.
There might be something to this bezoar-likeness idea. Granted, he knows nothing about breeding plants. Or what it’s like to add them to an environment that’s already functioning smoothly. It could be problematic.
“It says here they ended up in a moor once that was already occupied by Fenny snakes and had to leave,” Harry notes. “I can’t tell if they became prey or had to compete for the same resources.”
“What do Wallygagglers eat?”
Harry thinks. “Question for Luna.”
Draco pops a custard cream into his mouth.
“Potter,” he says, “do you think—” the rest of his words come out as a series of chirps.
Harry looks at him, startled, and his eyes go wide. He lets out a laugh so open and unguarded that Draco almost doesn’t care about what caused it.
“Holy shite, Malfoy. I had no idea, sorry.” But he’s still laughing, nearly sliding out of his chair.
“Fuck you,” he says, though all Harry hears is a bit of sharp, angry tweeting, which sets him off again.
“I didn’t know, I swear I didn’t know,” Harry chokes.
Draco isn’t amused, but that has more to do with the fact that when he tries to lift his hands, his wings rise up instead than it does Harry’s incessant laughter.
“You make a very fetching canary,” Harry tells him.
Draco does not preen; he’d rather die than give Harry the satisfaction.
“Oh, Merlin, if Ron were here.” Harry snorts. “I can’t believe he missed this. Merlin, I wish I had a camera.”
Draco lets out an indignant chirp.
“Oh, come on, Scorpius would get a kick out of this.”
Draco rolls his eyes. That’s certainly not enough reason to do it.
“First to fall over when the atmosphere is less than perfect,” Harry sings. “Your sensibilities are shaken by the slightest defect—”
Draco squawks in confusion. Merlin, Harry’s voice is grating. He was not made to be a singer. There are very few instances in which Draco would encourage him not to quit his day job, but this is one of them.
“You live your life like a canary in a coal mine!” Harry bellows, punctuating the line with a laugh. He tones his voice down. “You get so dizzy even walking in a straight line.”
“I hope you’re done,” Draco says, and for the first time it comes out like real words, although slightly warbled. He coughs sharply, surprised to have regained usage of his voice, and then he rejoices. “Show’s over. I’m not feathered anymore.”
Harry grins back at him, loopy and far too fond, and Draco feels his heart stutter.
“You’re a wretched singer, by the way,” Draco says.
“Now,” Harry replies, and though he’s stopped singing, his voice drips with humour, “if I tell you that you suffer from delusions.”
“And if I tell you to shut it.”
Harry shrugs. “Well, we reach an impasse, don’t we?”
“So it would seem.” Draco considers the tray of biscuits again. He’s still hungry, but he doesn’t fancy being turned into any other large, fluffy, yellow bipeds. “What is that horrible song even about?”
“Well, you know … coal mines. Canaries.”
“Mm, but what's the relation?”
Harry meets his look blankly. “You … Surely you’ve heard it. That can’t be just a Muggle phrase.”
Draco waves dismissively. “Of course it is. All the stranger ones are.”
“A canary in a coal mine,” Harry says again, like the problem might have been not emphasising which words were the important ones the last time.
“A Boggart in a broom cupboard,” Draco returns, equally meaningless.
Harry sighs. “Really?”
Draco smiles patiently.
“All it means is, like, a warning sign. Not too long ago, workers would take canaries with them when they were going mining. Because canaries are smaller or more sensitive, or something, they—” Harry cuts himself off, eyes going wide.
He jumps to his feet and races to the door. “Parvati?” Harry bangs hard on the wood. “Rolf? For fuck’s sake! LUNA? Someone who knows shite about magical — Kreacher!”
The elf appears with a pop. Draco, though he still isn’t sure what’s going on, curses himself a few times for not being as smart as Harry Potter. Of course the fucking house-elf could help them get out.
“Does Master want something?”
“Wallygagglers have a different magical composition than human beings, right?”
“Does this surprise Master? He does look remarkably similar to one of the beasts.”
“They also must have different physiology.”
“Is Kreacher needed here?” the elf asks.
“Yes! Kreacher, is it possible that ingesting magic could affect them differently than it does us? That they’re more sensitive to it?”
“Why is Master acting as if this is a revelation? Is he truly as simpleminded as Kreacher has always thought?”
“A-ha!” Harry yells, picking up the elf and spinning him around in a delighted circle.
“Master will not be—”
“Unlock the door.”
Kreacher does so with a begrudging snap, and Harry finally sets him down.
“Sorry! Got to run.” He bounds across the room and grabs Draco’s hand, jerking him along, all the way to the sitting room.
Granger is the first to see them, her mouth dropping open in a little ‘o’ of concern. Everyone else turns to them in surprise, and Teddy even looks quite indignant.
“Now, how did you—”
“The Wallygagglers aren’t the only ones affected!” Harry exclaims. “That’s why drinking the water directly still hurt me! It’s not because the water is so much more concentrated. They’re just more sensitive to it than the rest of us. They’re the canaries.”
“Er … mate?” Weasley says. “Did Malfoy hit you with a Confundus Charm in there?”
Ridiculous. He doesn’t even have his wand, and Draco is hopeless at wandless magic.
“The canaries! In the coal mine!”
Granger gasps, and her hand flies to her face as she’s the first one to grasp his theory. “Oh, Harry, that’s brilliant. I think you’re right. I mean, it makes total sense.”
“Explain it for the class, then,” Lavender says.
Granger sighs impatiently. “Before the late eighties, coal miners in the Muggle world would bring canaries into the mines with them to sense when the air was getting too full of carbon monoxide.”
“Er?”
“Basic science, Ron. I’ll explain in a moment. The canaries would be affected before the miners because of how sensitive they are to adverse conditions, especially toxic gases, and having that early warning time would save the miners’ lives. Actually — it’s fascinating, canaries have air sacs throughout their bodies like most birds, rather than the diaphragms so common in land mammals. When they exhale, they’re actually absorbing oxygen, whereas humans can’t even properly expel their carbon dioxide all the way. It takes canaries two full breathing cycles to—”
“Mione,” Harry whines.
“Sorry,” she mouths, miming zipping her lips embarrassedly.
“I thought it was interesting,” Weasley offers, and she beams at him.
“Anyway, they were affected before the miners. By the time humans felt ill, it would be too late.” She looks up at Harry. “You don’t think…?”
“I do.”
“You do what?” Parvati asks, like she already knows the answer.
“We have to come up with a solution quickly, before wizards start dropping too,” Harry says.
Everyone goes quiet.
“At least…” Scorpius hedges, “at least this gives us plenty of ways to convince the Ministry that displacing the Wallygagglers isn’t the solution.”
“If we’re lucky,” Lavender says. “If the prats will listen to a word we say.”
“We could go straight to the papers,” Luna suggests. “I could put an article in The Quibbler the moment we get out of here.”
“They’d call us alarmist,” Granger disagrees.
Rolf, who has been frantically flipping through a journal since the moment Harry announced his theory, finally looks up. “What do we reckon are the odds that they process other kinds of magic differently too?”
“What do you mean?” Draco asks.
“Potions, counter-curses, all the things we couldn’t quite get to work for humans. If Wallygagglers are more sensitive to the spells originally, what’s to say the solutions we’ve come up with so far wouldn’t work for them?”
Harry lights up. “Hey, you’re right!”
“But if eventually this is going to spread to wizards too…” Parvati says.
“We’ll have to be ready,” Rolf agrees. “We’ll keep working until we come up with something. Or until we can convince the Ministry to order Gringotts to find a better way to deal with the castoff.”
~
Sometime in the early evening, Granger pushes her work away from her and sighs. The fire is cracking brightly, but it’s the only energy in the room.
“Well, I’m done for the day,” she says, stretching her arms over her head. “Anybody else?”
“I thought you didn’t take breaks,” Parvati replies.
“We’ve been at this for days. Weeks, really. We’ll work better if we take some time to relax.”
“Couldn’t agree more. Suppose we could get some dinner out of Kreacher?” Parvati asks Harry.
“It’s doubtful.”
Ever since Harry picked him up, the elf has been making himself scarce.
“We can make do on our own, I should think,” Granger says primly.
They all crowd into Harry’s small kitchen and begin exploring. Weasley puts the kettle on, Teddy unearths a few tins of peaches, and Rolf goes digging in a cabinet under the sink.
There’s a clanging of pots and pans as the others get to work on dinner. Draco helps Granger chop vegetables while Blaise experiments with roasting dry spaghetti noodles directly over the hob, and Scorpius tries gallantly to stop him.
Lavender and Parvati are on their own mission. They giggle amongst themselves as they cream together butter and sugar and crack eggs against the bowl. Parvati swipes a finger covered in batter across Lavender’s nose and Lavender breaks out into a smile so bright her face practically glows.
Luna hums to herself as she adds spices to everything, seemingly at random. She shakes a bit of pepper over Rolf’s head, and when he spins around in surprise, she smiles daintily.
He sneezes.
Harry, for his part, is watching all this with restrained amusement. His eye sparkles as it follows his friends around the room. Draco doesn’t blame him. He wonders why he hasn’t bothered getting to know half these people before.
Maybe things couldn’t have been the same then, though. Maybe these people needed to grow just as much as he did.
Draco turns back to chopping, but it’s not long before he feels Harry’s presence behind him. He doesn’t turn. “Planning to benefit off our free labour, Potter?”
“Maybe.” His voice is closer than Draco expected, right next to his ear.
Draco stalls. He tries to think of anything to say, but can’t.
As Granger squeezes past them to dump her vegetables into a pot, Harry steps even closer to get out of her way, and he uses the opportunity to peer over Draco’s shoulder, his hand coming up to rest on the counter beside Draco’s own.
“That potion talent must come in handy, huh?” The heat from Harry’s body radiates onto his back.
“Mm.”
Draco turns so that they’re chest to chest, and then he slips around Harry towards the other end of the kitchen. When Scorpius leaves to help Teddy find some skewers — for whatever mysterious purpose — Blaise nudges him in the arm.
“What?”
“Nothing. You looked cosy. Glad to see you’re making open-minded acquaintances. There are very few wizards who would try to dry hump you in a kitchen full of their friends.”
Draco chokes on a laugh.
When everyone has finished their projects, they clatter back to the sitting room. Weasley stokes the fire, keeping it burning brightly and casting warm shadows over everyone.
Granger sighs, pleased with herself.
Draco takes another one of the horrendous kebabs Scorpius and Teddy created. They skewered peach slices in between bits of the cake Lavender and Parvati made and, surprisingly, they’re the most appetising thing in front of him.
He takes a distracted sip of his tea and winces. Weasley clearly allowed Harry to help. It tastes very strongly of lemon and smoke, and he’s fairly sure the milk inside has curdled.
Behind him, the portraits are having some kind of argument. One threatens to curse another until they fall out of their frame. It’s all very impassioned.
He watches Lavender and Parvati move a magnetised button back and forth across Harry’s squid container. The squids chase it eagerly, and Lavender and Parvati laugh.
Rolf is talking with Scorpius, telling him all about the books he’s written, and how he made his discoveries, and, honestly, Draco’s rarely seen his son so enthralled.
When Blaise finally conks out on the sofa — snoring enthusiastically — and Luna is slung over the back of the chaise longue with the ends of her hair brushing the ground, and Granger and Weasley have resorted to whispering sweet nothings in each other’s ears, he decides he’d better head to bed.
Harry looks up as Draco passes, and Draco thinks of their moment in the library, when Harry had called for Kreacher.
Had he known before then that the elf would be able to help them out?
And if he had … what made him stay with Draco?
“Goodnight, Potter.”
Harry smiles, a dimple peeking out on his cheek. “Night.”
~
When Draco wakes, it’s to frantic noises across the hall. He blinks blearily and gets to his feet, padding across the rugs between his room and Harry’s, then knocking softly.
The door swings open at the slight pressure from his knuckles, and Harry looks up from where he is digging through a pile on the ground.
“All right?”
“The entire room is covered with symbols again.”
Draco looks around at the soft moonlight dipping in through the curtains, painting the room a muted blue. It looks normal to him.
Then he realises what Harry’s saying and straightens. “Fuck. You think—”
“The ward’s fallen. I don’t know if the Ministry finally took it down or if it collapsed on its own. Either way, we don’t have time. We’ve got to get down there. Now. And I think Click’s been trying to get a message to me. I think he’s in danger.”
“We can’t leave.”
“We’re not allowed to leave. There’s a difference.”
“You think you can get us past twenty armed Aurors without our wands?”
Harry’s put on new clothes, something Muggle-looking with dark colours. He throws a black shirt and shorts at Draco next.
“Really?” Draco asks dubiously.
“We don’t have time to debate here and you need better clothes than that.” He gestures at Draco’s undershirt. “We’re getting our wands.”
At that, Draco pulls the clothing on without protest. He stops by his room for a moment to grab the Reveliospecs, just in case they’ll be useful, and then he’s outside Harry’s door again just as he’s exiting.
“Get everyone from the east hallway,” Harry says, before disappearing down the west.
Draco goes door to door, knocking first and then entering if no one responds. After thirty solid seconds of banging on Parvati’s door, he gives up and enters. Her bed is empty.
Draco steps back into the hallway, looking curiously both ways. Then, riding on instinct and feeling a distinct twinge of amusement, he knocks on Lavender’s door.
She answers it, robe pulled tightly over her body, eyes guarded. “What do you want? It’s late.”
“Tell Parvati it’s time to go. The ward fell. We’re going to steal back our wands and Apparate to North Moor, now.”
Lavender fumbles. “Parvati isn’t…”
He raises a hand to stop her. “Just be downstairs in ten. Put on something that’s better for sneaking around.”
He wakes Blaise, Scorpius, and Teddy next, then they troop down the stairs.
Everyone meets in the sitting room, but the lights stay off.
“How are we doing this?” Teddy whispers. “What’s the game plan?”
“We need to get to our wands without alerting any of the Aurors,” Harry says. “They’re probably under a pretty powerful locking spell right now.”
“The first problem is actually getting us out,” Granger says. “We’re locked up in here, remember? They’ve warded the whole place to Australia and back.”
“I might be able to help with that,” Blaise says. “I’m not just good at putting up wards, I can do a fair bit of damage taking them down, too.”
“Wandlessly, though?” Weasley asks.
Blaise slaps him merrily on the shoulder. “Let’s find out.”
As Blaise approaches the door, Harry whispers in Draco’s ear, “What exactly is he planning to do?”
“Just watch,” Draco murmurs back.
Blaise’s hands rise, a conductor priming his orchestra for the show to begin. His fingers flick at the air, but Draco sees more hesitation than he’s ever known Blaise to exhibit. He pries at the wards carefully, almost lovingly, even as his shoulders grow tense with strain.
Draco’s reminded of Quidditch practice back at Hogwarts. He saw Marcus Flint lifting weights one day and laughed in his face. Despite being younger and leaner, Draco could lift things twice as heavy, ten times faster.
Marcus Flint sneered at him, but then his eyes began to gleam with excitement. Draco wasn’t smart enough to be wary of that look, back then.
He took Flint up on his bet that he could win in a bench press competition. Same speed, same weight, just trying to outlast each other. Draco’s arms nearly broke as they shook beneath the bars. Flint had been able to hold his in place, slow and steady, until Draco’s elbows gave out and his bar dropped onto his chest.
It must be the same for Blaise now, trying to take the wards apart delicately and with enough precision to not alert the guards.
Even in the dark, Draco can see Blaise’s hands tremble and his eyes close.
Blaise wipes away sweat from his forehead. Draco tries to ignore the trickle of doubt in his chest. Seeing Blaise agitated is never a good sign.
Long minutes pass, and the air begins to feel stuffy, brimming with heightened anxiety from everyone watching.
There’s a small flash of light from outside and Blaise grunts.
“What?” Draco whispers desperately.
“They’re testing the wards — trying to make sure they’re — still secure,” Blaise pants.
“Fuck. Can you hold them up?”
“Not for — much longer.”
“Can we help?”
Blaise shakes his head, eyes squeezed closed. “Too — difficult. Wear yourselves — out.”
Blaise shudders as several Aurors at once press on the wards he’s propping up.
They must hold, because Draco hears a chorus of raucous laughter from outside a moment later.
Draco feels the last ward fall, the one tying them to this place.
Blaise gasps, and Draco barely manages to catch him as he drops to the ground.
“Thanks — mate.” Blaise pats his hand lazily.
“Did you get them all?” Granger asks in a low tone.
“There’s one more.”
“But they’ve stopped testing them?”
“For now.”
“The Invigoration Draught you didn’t take—” Rolf begins.
“Please. Yes.”
When Teddy volunteers to run and get it, Blaise laughs exhaustedly.
“You don’t look like you’re feeling much better.”
“I’m fine.” Teddy doesn’t seem fine, though. The late hour has his skin looking like it’s stretched thin over his face, dull and worn.
“Scorpius, could you…” Draco jerks his head meaningfully.
“What — the potion? Oh, sure.”
“You don’t have to—” Teddy breaks off in a sigh, because Scorpius is already gone.
He comes back just moments later and gives the potion to Blaise, who smacks his lips after he drinks, then flashes a smile and wraps his arms around Draco’s neck.
“Oh, valiant saviour.”
Draco rolls his eyes and stops supporting him. For a moment, Blaise simply hangs by his arms, then he hauls himself more firmly up.
“I think I know what the last ward is,” Blaise says, “but it might pose a bit of a problem.”
“Why’s that?” Parvati asks.
“It’s going to be loud when I knock it down.”
“Shite,” Draco says. “Is there a way we could keep them from noticing?”
“I highly doubt it.”
“What do we do, then?”
“Can we get out of the front door before the ward is down?” Granger adds.
“Definitely not,” Blaise says.
“We can make sure they’re as far from the door as possible,” Weasley suggests.
“How?” Draco asks.
“I dunno. A loud noise on the far end of the house, maybe?”
“No,” says Harry. “Not a loud noise. We need as many Aurors as possible at that end so they won’t have time to stop Blaise from getting through the door.”
Draco doesn’t like the look of an idea on Harry’s face. “What are you thinking?”
“There’s a window in the back parlour. I reckon I could attract the Aurors’ attention if I try to sneak out of it.”
“You won’t be able to get out until the ward’s down,” Draco reminds him. “And you’d be facing all those Aurors while wandless.”
Harry shrugs. “I can handle it.”
“Dear Merlin,” Blaise murmurs near Draco’s ear. “Perhaps Gryffindor courage is attractive. Who knew?”
Draco pushes him away. “Wouldn’t it be better if you had some help?” he asks Harry.
“Are you suddenly good at wandless magic?”
“…No.”
“Then you wouldn’t be any help. Hermione and Blaise need to stay here. I’ll be fine on my own.”
Draco hates that he can’t find a logical protest. The only one he’s got is a voice in his head begging Please, don’t make me worry about you. Draco wishes he’d asked for that a long time ago.
“Teddy,” Harry begins, “will you be able to see if the Aurors are coming my way or will the Wallygagglers’ messages be too distracting?”
Teddy’s magical eye roves from one end of the house to the other. “I can see well enough.”
“What’s the plan once we get out of the house?” Rolf asks.
“Disarm the Aurors, Petrify them, and get our wands back,” Granger replies.
“Well, when you make it sound so easy,” Weasley grumbles.
“I might have something that will help,” Parvati says.
She pulls four little glass bottles from her pocket and displays them to the group.
“Spell-Bombs?” Draco asks dubiously. “Why didn’t the Aurors confiscate those?”
“It’s not a particularly well known form of magic, and they haven’t been activated yet. The Aurors thought they were perfume.” Parvati rolls her eyes.
“Activated?” Granger asks. She seems more intrigued than anyone else.
“Each requires a spell. I can’t do them myself wandless, but one of you could. There is a little — er — issue, though.”
“What kind of issue?” Luna asks.
“There’s a different activation enchantment required for each type of Spell-Bomb. And the Aurors put the vials all out of order, so I’m not entirely sure which is which.”
Weasley groans. “Brilliant. Let me guess, they’ll blow up in our faces if you do the wrong enchantment?”
“Well, no. I’m not exactly sure what they’ll do, but they should be more stable than that. They won’t work properly, though.”
“Seems like a fine gamble to take,” Granger decides. “Can you tell any apart at all?”
Parvati frowns. “I think this little red one makes animals grow larger for a time. The other three all look too alike. One’s used for sedation, one’s for pain management, and the last will stop an allergic reaction.”
“Sedation sounds the most useful. I’ll do the correct spell on the red one and whatever you use for sedation on the other three.”
Granger does exactly what she said she would and then, much too quickly, Harry walks away.
They stand braced around the door, waiting for Teddy’s observations.
“Harry smashed the window,” Teddy whispers. “There’s just one Auror posted below that window, and they haven’t called for backup yet.”
“Don’t they see him?” Scorpius asks.
“I can’t tell. They — it’s really dark out, but they seem like they’re talking to him.” Teddy’s quiet for a long moment. “Oh, fuck. Now, Blaise.”
Blaise’s hands tense, flexing in the air in front of him in the shape of a triangle.
“What happened?” Hermione asks frantically.
“Harry threw some curse at the Auror. There are at least ten of them now, and I don’t know how long he’ll be able to hold them off.”
Blaise swears, and his arms jerk back, elbows drawing behind him as if he’s a Muggle magician performing a trick, yanking the tablecloth out from under your plates. Draco feels the ward fall, and Weasley is the first to burst through the front door.
There’s only one Auror still guarding the steps, and before he’s even finished whipping around to face them, Granger whispers, “Petrificus Totalus,” and the man is struck by a jet of white light.
He hits the grass with a hushed rustle.
They proceed down the steps with caution, looking both ways before gathering at the right edge of the house. They can hear yelling from the back garden.
“Who of the team do you think is most likely to have our wands?” Granger asks Weasley.
“If they even kept them here,” Draco points out. “They might have decided to use a bit of common sense for once.”
“Common sense?” Weasley snorts. “I like our chances. Go for Kilgharrah. He’s the bloke with the long hair and the shiny pins on his robes.”
They look around the corner as one. There are only two guards on this side of the house, and they don’t look worried. They’re grousing and stamping their feet to stay warm, breath powdering the night air.
“Is one of them Kilgharrah?” Lavender asks.
“No.”
Granger nods. “Then allow me.” She raises a hand, but Scorpius stops her with a hissed protest.
“Wait! Why aren’t they using Warming Charms?”
“Pardon?” Draco says.
“They’re cold. Why aren’t they using Warming Charms?”
Draco looks again at the Aurors stamping their feet. “I don’t know.”
“I do,” says Granger, and her eyes are lighting up. “It’s a Prisoner’s Curse.”
Draco’s never heard of it.
“They must’ve put a Spell Circle up somewhere … there! See that ring going through the grass? We didn’t run into it on the porch because we were technically still within the boundary of the house. But anyone standing between those lines will suffer terrible consequences if they cast. Potentially fatal. It’s different every time the Spell is put up, depending on what the creators want to prevent. Which, in this case, is anyone trying to get in or out who doesn’t know about the Curse.”
“So we can’t do anything at all? No Stunning? No Blasting? No Summoning?” Blaise asks.
“Not unless one of us can do it from the porch. The Summoning, that would be possible, in theory, because Summoning something without seeing it isn’t all that hard. But I don’t know if the object being within the rings of the Curse would trigger it. Even if it didn’t, we wouldn't be able to get what we want because they’re keeping it on their person, and it’s still locked up.”
“Well, I’ll call it a night,” Blaise says. “This has been fun. I’ll miss all your beautiful faces.”
“We’ll miss you too,” Luna tells him.
Granger shoots out an arm to stop him before he’s even taken a step away. “You’re not leaving. You can take down powerful Auror wards wandlessly without any help. We need you.”
“Wow, Granger, if I’d known you felt this way…”
Weasley snorts. “Stop flirting with my wife, mate.”
“Understood.” Blaise gives a little salute, then he winks at Granger discreetly, and she rolls her eyes.
“Hey, what’s that?” Luna asks.
A misty-white mink sprints across the street towards them.
“Who—” Parvati begins.
“Pomfrey,” says Draco.
The mink weaves through the grass and stops just in front of them. Draco spares a bit of worry that the bright light will attract the Aurors, but then the mink’s mouth opens wide and Madam Pomfrey’s voice is speaking quite hurriedly.
"Draco, I don't know what the chances are of you getting this, but if you do, I'd love the name of a powdered moonstone supplier. It's rather urgent. Aurors, if you're hearing this, I beg you to let the message through. I've got a student in very serious condition, a friend of young Mister Lupin. I have all the other ingredients on hand. Thank you. This is Poppy Pomfrey, matron of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry."
The Patronus dissipates.
“Do you know who she’s talking about?” Draco asks Teddy.
He shakes his head slowly. “All my friends graduated.”
"You should reply," Parvati says. "We can handle this on our own."
"What condition could possibly require a Draught of Peace?" Granger asks. "That's all powdered moonstone is useful for, right?"
"And Love Potions," Lavender supplies.
Draco doesn’t even consider the question. He's focused on the last time that he was helping Madam Pomfrey stock her shelves. "There's no way she's out of powdered moonstone. She had more than enough just a few weeks ago. I commented on it, so she knows that I know. It's code for something."
The yelling from the back of the house is louder now.
“We don’t have any more time to waste,” Rolf says quietly.
“Parvati, will your Spell-Bombs still work in the boundaries of the Prisoner’s Curse?” Draco asks.
“How the hell would I know?”
“Well,” Teddy says, “you’re about to. A team of Aurors is coming ‘round from the back.”
“But—”
“Parvati!” Draco snaps.
“Eep!” She frantically pats at her pockets until she finds one of the little green bottles. “Hold your breaths,” she says, just as the first guard rounds the corner.
Draco gasps in immediately. Parvati throws the bottle, and it cracks open with a loud snap as it hits the side of the house.
Fumes plume from the broken glass and twirl up the bodies of the two Aurors who’d been stationed on the side. In moments, the air around them turns a thick, soupy green, then the fumes snake away, seeking their next victims as the guards collapse, screaming.
The first Auror who comes from the back only has half a second to cry out, “Hey!” before his body jerks and he topples to the ground, floundering.
More guards come racing around the corner, and — one by one — they hit the grass with dull thuds, their cries tangling together.
The vial Parvati threw wasn’t for sedation, then. Whether it was the one for pain management or the one to increase size, he didn't know. But clearly it had a nasty side effect when you cast the wrong activation charm.
As the seconds tick past, the Aurors stop coming, and Draco watches Scorpius’s eyes bulge wide above his fingers, which are pinching his nose closed. His cheeks begin to take on a rouge tint, and Draco hopes he can hold on just a few moments longer.
Rolf seems to be struggling to not take a breath. Luna looks even more hazy than usual, and Weasley is pressing a closed fist to his mouth, his freckles standing out starkly on skin that is suddenly very pale.
Parvati finally gasps for air, then waves for them all to join her.
The burning in his lungs eases, and Draco grabs onto Scorpius’s shoulder and demands assurance that he’s okay before checking on the others.
No one is much worse for the wear except Teddy, who looks woozy, like he may have inhaled a bit of the smoke.
The air still smells of mouldy bread, a kind of cloying, dirt-like scent that leaves Draco feeling dizzy, but at least none of them are harmed. The Aurors have passed out from pain now.
“How long do we have?” Draco asks.
Parvati looks up from the ground. “I don’t know. Usually the Spell-Bomb relieves pain for thirty minutes. I’d assume the Aurors will stay unconscious for at least half of that.”
“First, we need to find Harry,” Weasley gasps. He’s leaning over his knees with his hands propped on either side, trying to catch his breath. “Has the Prisoner’s Curse fallen?”
Granger examines the grass tensely, then gives a tight nod. “Whoever cast it must be knocked out. It doesn’t hold well without maintenance.”
Once they’ve all recovered, they step past the pile of Aurors and make their way towards the back.
When they get to the edge of the garden, Draco hears an argument between two deep voices.
“What are they saying?” Granger whispers.
Draco puts a finger to his lips and everyone quiets. No one moves, and they don’t even breathe as loudly as usual. He strains to hear Harry’s voice.
“I don’t know what happened to them,” Harry is saying. “Maybe you should go check.”
“I’m not leaving you alone.”
“Fine. Take me with you.”
There’s a long beat of silence, then a grunt of approval.
He and Granger exchange a nod.
“If you try anything,” the Auror threatens just before he rounds the corner, “I’ll—”
“Petrificus Totalus,” Draco and Granger whisper as one.
The Auror falls to the ground, accidentally yanking Harry with him.
Parvati flips the Auror over onto his back without hesitation and says, “I think we found Kilgharrah.”
The man has gone completely stiff, his long brown hair hanging limply over his face. On his uniform are a set of three polished, shiny pins in a triangle.
“Check his pockets,” Harry says as he pries his arm from out of a steel grip. He looks tense, but no worse for the wear aside from a few darkening bruises on his cheeks.
Draco feels a rush of anger for whoever put them there.
Parvati pulls out a large, burnished copper box from Kilgharrah’s robes, and they all drop what they’re doing.
She tries the latch. “Definitely locked.”
“Alohomora,” Granger whispers.
Unsurprisingly, it does nothing.
“Think it’ll be a good bit stronger than that, love.” Weasley looks at it fretfully.
“I know, I know. But it was worth trying. Harry, anything?”
“Recludo,” he tries. The box lights up blue but doesn’t open. Then, “Resero.”
The lid glows red, but still doesn’t budge.
“What spell do Aurors usually use to lock things, Ron?” Granger asks.
“I dunno, really. I guess it depends on the Auror who’s on duty. Kilgharrah likes Seroportus.”
“What’s the counter-charm for that?”
“Clavis Omnes Portae. But it’s not really an unlocking charm, it—”
“Clavis Omnes Portae,” Granger and Harry say at once.
Instead of the box glowing, a key materialises in both of their hands. It’s long, milky-white, and skinny as a twig.
They look at each other.
“You first,” Harry decides.
“Me first? Why me first?”
“You probably did the spell better. Yours is more likely to work.”
She squints at him. “Real reason?”
“It might be booby-trapped.”
“Oh brave, powerful saviour,” Blaise guffaws.
Granger sticks her key in the lock and twists it open.
They all stare at their wands resting on the velvet lining of the box for a moment before snatching desperately for them.
“Wait!” Luna says, just before Draco’s fingers close over his.
To their credit, everyone freezes.
“What?” Teddy huffs.
“Boasting Disky infestation.”
“I’m grabbing my wand,” Teddy says.
“No,” Draco holds back his arm, “hear her out.”
Luna smiles vaguely at him. “Boasting Diskies feed on curse magic. They wouldn’t be congregating if there wasn’t something there. I think Harry’s right. It’s booby-trapped.”
“Can you tell what kind of curse it is?”
She looks very carefully, as if whatever she sees is microscopic. “They’ve put something dangerous on it that’ll hurt us if we don’t get rid of it, and some kind of trace. They’ll be able to locate us using the wands.”
“How the hell could she possibly know that?” Weasley mutters under his breath.
“So we have to dispel the curses,” Granger says. “Without even knowing what they are?”
“The trace will be easy. Incantation’s Investigabilis.” Lavender looks at their raised eyebrows briefly before staring resolutely forward, pinking. “What? My parents put tracking charms on me after I snuck out one night.”
“How do we dispel the other curse if we don’t even know what it is?” Rolf asks. “We’re sure it won’t be an alarm? I’d hate to alert more Aurors.”
“Not an alarm,” Luna confirms.
“One of us could always … try it out,” Blaise suggests.
They look at him.
“Well, not me, obviously. I’m necessary if we’re putting up more wards.”
“We aren’t,” Draco says flatly.
“Well, I’m still indispensable. One of you lot can go.” He waves vaguely.
Granger sighs. “I’ll do it.”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Harry says. “We need you. What about Ron?”
“Thanks, mate.”
“You know what I mean.”
“I could do it,” offers Rolf instead. “I’m not the most magically talented here, and I’d hate to slow all of you down.”
Draco shakes his head. “You wouldn’t be slowing us down.”
“But you hardly need a Magizoologist with you.” Rolf smiles feebly. “Besides, who knows what will happen? Might be nothing.”
They look dubiously at the wand box.
“I don’t feel good about this,” Harry says.
“We haven’t other options,” says Granger.
“Clock’s a-ticking,” Blaise adds. Then, “With all due respect, Scamander.”
Rolf’s mouth twists into an expression of grim amusement. “You know, that doesn’t really specify how much you respect me.”
He grabs his wand and is blasted back immediately.
“Rolf!” Luna gasps. She rushes to where he lies groaning on the grass.
Rolf gives her a bleary grin. “No worse for the wear.“ He tries to sit. “On second thought, I might have broken something near my shoulder.”
“Take him to Pomfrey,” Draco orders. “See what’s wrong with her while you’re there. Don’t Apparate to us — we have no idea what kind of trouble we’ll run into there. Send another message if you need help, something the Ministry won’t understand if they intercept it. Codeword is…” He tosses about for inspiration and lands on Harry’s face, “glasses.”
“Got it,” Luna says. “But I can’t create a Portkey without my wand.”
“That looked like a Snooper’s Jinx,” Lavender tells them. “The counter-curse is Resolvo.”
They look at her for explanation.
“Oh, would you get over yourselves? I used it on my diary.”
“That, you did,” Parvati agrees.
“Resolvo,” Granger murmurs. She follows it up with, “Investigabilis,” and they all reach for their wands in a hurry.
Draco’s hand shakes with repressed adrenaline as he finally gets it back in his grip. The magic feels warm and soothing, ready for him. He’s reminded of the urgency of their mission.
Scorpius tosses Luna her wand, and as soon as she casts the Portkey Spell on one of her earrings, she and Rolf are gone.
“Well,” Granger says, “to North Moor we go.”
The air seems to bend in every direction around him as it fights against the force of several spells at once.
He casts to Disapparate and feels the tight wall of energy suck in around him, squeezing him through an invisible tube.
He could not be less excited to see what’s on the other side.
Chapter Text
They land roughly at the side of the stream, and the stones to step across are lit up — but there’s no one there to greet them.
Draco feels a distinct uneasiness whisper across his skin.
They rush over the water and through the tall, miry grasses, heading towards the wall of stones. But it isn’t there.
The shucked husks of rock are still laid in a neat pyramid to the side, but there are no living members of the pod above the surface.
“Down the rabbit hole,” Granger mutters.
Draco gets on the ground after her and slides through the hole like it is a chute, his arms crossed over his chest. When he lands at the bottom, he’s comforted by the familiar softness of his landing, as if gravity takes a break for a moment whenever they fall through.
That, along with Harry’s hand grabbing his, is the last comfort he feels.
Draco lets himself be pulled through the cavern, the growing cries of the Wallygagglers echoing off the walls. He tries to tell himself it’s good that they can hear them. If nothing else, it means they’re still here, and they’re alive, but he recognises the mournful, throaty bellow as a distress call. He feels the emotion of it rise in his throat.
Draco remembers the canaries as they break into a sprint, their sweet twittering to the coal miners. His legs begin to ache as though they’ve been running for hours, but only minutes seem to pass until light sneaks its way into the tunnel.
Behind him, Scorpius, the last person in their group, has got one finger plugging his ear, and the other ear mashed up against his shoulder. Draco doubts it’s doing much to conquer the noise, but he doesn’t blame him.
Quite suddenly, their ears fill with muffled hissing, and it sounds as if they’re getting farther away from the Wallygagglers, not closer. Draco knows they’re moving in the right direction, because the sensation of being underwater strikes him again.
Finally, they make it to the mouth of the cave, and Draco’s startled when he bumps into Harry from behind.
The whole group has stopped moving.
Draco readies his wand immediately. He breaks away from Harry and Scorpius and pushes to the front, prepared to see Aurors waiting for them.
Then he hears Lavender whisper, “No,” and his heart falls out of his chest.
Oh, Merlin.
Draco forces his way around her, stopping short when he sees the Wallygagglers crowded around a thunderegg, its surface dull and lifeless.
Scorpius tries to peer around his shoulder, and Draco pushes him back, “Don’t,” but it’s too late. He’s already seen.
In the crowd of Wallygagglers, there is one noticeable absence. Click is nowhere to be found.
Harry is heedless to the dread holding the rest of them back. He takes one slow step forward, then another. Finally, he stumbles the rest of the way to meet the Wallygagglers and kneels beside the rock, head bowed.
The silence is ear-splitting.
“Leave,” a voice growls.
It’s Pop. He hobbles forward from behind the hanging basin, trembling with fury.
“We can help,” Harry whispers, and it’s only due to the Wallygagglers’ resolute silence that he can be heard.
“We do not want your help,” Pop claims.
“We’ve got a theory,” Scorpius says. “And potions you could try right now. Teddy—”
“We do not want your help.”
Teddy’s fist opens and closes at his side in indecision. He still looks sickly, but it’s impossible to tell if his pallor is from Parvati’s spell bomb or the sight before them. Finally, he pulls out a vial.
“If it can prevent even a single death, isn’t it worth it?” Teddy asks.
“You wizen don’t prevent death. You cause them. My brother believed in you. He said we should stay and wait for a solution. Look where it got him.”
Draco doesn’t want to, but he looks at the rock again.
“Brother?” Weasley whispers, not loud enough for Pop to hear.
Draco feels sick. “I read about that. All the Wallygagglers consider themselves siblings. Born from the same parents: Lightning and Thunder.”
“Which one is which?” Blaise asks, and it seems like an untimely and failed attempt to break the tension.
“Couldn’t tell you.”
Harry draws their attention again by cursing. “Don’t you owe it to him to—”
“Do not insinuate that you know anything about what I owe,” Pop hisses.
Granger takes a step forward. “What spell hit him? We’ll figure out a way to stop it from happening in the future.”
Pop’s face twists. “Even if I knew, I wouldn’t tell you.”
“Then we’ll find another way to help,” Harry promises. “You don’t trust the potions. That’s okay, but we’re not giving up. We’re going to help.”
Pop gets right in Harry’s face, using his entire height to get eye-to-eye with him. Harry is still on his knees. “If you want to help, you’ll make sure the Ministry doesn’t get into Lightninglen, and then you’ll leave, and you’ll never come back again.”
Slowly, Harry stands. “The Ministry is here?”
“Above. Waiting, searching. If they find us, we’ll lose more than one life tonight.”
Parvati lets out a shaky exhale. Lavender reaches out and squeezes her hand.
“I won’t let that happen,” Harry swears.
Pop looks at him cryptically, his tusks trembling with emotion so strong it cannot be reeled in.
“We’ll see,” Pop says.
It’s a clear dismissal. Harry rejoins them at the edge of the cavern, and Weasley throws an arm around his shoulders, all at once casual and concerned.
Scorpius has been quiet the whole time, Draco realises.
“Are you all right?” Draco whispers.
“How could I be?”
The journey back is speedy. Draco thinks he smells blood in the air, and he’s not sure he wants to know what it’s from. Weasley and Granger help haul him out of the hole and onto firm land.
He can already hear that something is wrong. The moor is not quiet with the sounds of nature. Human voices carry across the empty land to his ears.
Draco and the others keep low to the ground to avoid detection.
“We can’t let them find the entrance,” Granger says.
“So, some of us need to distract them while the others put the spells up,” Blaise says. “I do a wonderful job distracting people.”
“No. Obviously, we need your help with the wards. It’s got to be three people, at least, for it to be strong enough.” Her expression sours. “Oh, I wish Rolf were here.”
They don’t have time to worry about what they should have done differently.
“Parvati,” Draco says, “do you still have the other Spell-Bombs?”
She reveals three vials from inside her pocket. “Sedation, Allergic Reaction, and Size-Increase.”
“Try for Sedation again. We don’t want an altercation, and we don’t know how long we have left until the Aurors get here. Be ready to set it off on our signal.” He turns to the others. “This ward will be bright, so there’s no way they won’t see it. We need to finish the spell and Apparate away immediately.”
“Where too?” Weasley asks.
“Grimmauld Place. If there’s any possibility we can sneak back in before the Aurors still posted at the house recover…”
“Hang on,” Teddy says. “What do you think they’re doing around the water?”
He points to the basin, where half of the Aurors have formed a loose circle. There’s a great big splashing coming from within, and it sets Draco on edge.
“Someone needs to go check on that,” he decides. “The rest of us can focus on this part.”
“I’ll go,” Scorpius says.
“No,” Draco says immediately. “No way.”
“Dad—”
Astoria was right. Draco can see a thousand disasters in front of him.
“I’m not letting you go over there,” Draco says. “And certainly not by yourself.”
“We can’t just walk up to them, anyway,” Parvati points out. “We’ll be recognised.”
Harry’s expression flickers. “Not necessarily.”
He pulls a vial from his pocket and meets Draco’s eyes. “Told you I always kept some on me, didn’t I?”
Draco bites back his protest. If anyone here can handle that many Aurors alone, it’s Harry.
A moment later, Thomas Heffley is striding across the grassy field, brushing aside juniper bushes and calling greetings to the assembly.
“Now!” Granger whispers sharply.
Parvati chucks the red bottle as far across the field as she can, sending it skipping across the grass. Draco watches as it breaks open against a rock and a cloud of heavy grey steam pours from it. It shrouds the people in a dark, indistinct fog.
“You really use that on Crups?” Blaise asks.
“Never more than a drop or two.”
“Go!” Granger says. “While they’re distracted. If the light alerts them, we don’t want all of you getting caught too.”
Parvati, Lavender, Teddy, Weasley, and Scorpius depart.
“All right,” Granger tells him and Blaise. “I’ll start with a Disillusionment Charm. Draco, you use repelling charms, and Blaise, you’re in charge of shield charms. Ready?”
“Ready,” they say.
Everyone begins casting.
Draco focuses on his bit, first putting up a spell for hex protection, then muttering, “Repello Inimicum,” so enemies will be repelled.
Finally, Blaise casts, “Fianto Duri!” his wand pointed at the sky, and the spells are strengthened and secure.
“Will the Wallygagglers still be able to leave?” Draco asks.
“If they want.”
That’s all he needed to be sure of.
Draco raises his wand and casts to Disapparate, but the expected sensation of being squeezed through a tube doesn’t come.
Granger looks back at him, her expression grave.
They start running towards the edge of the moor, towards the forest.
When they make it to the first dense cropping of trees, they slow down. They can’t afford to attract attention by making lots of sound rushing through the underbrush. They clouds above part, the full moon providing just enough light for them to see.
Something in the air catches his attention. A large, blurry form hurtling towards them. It swoops down dramatically and dives towards the earth.
They all jump out of the way as the large, tawny owl lands at their feet. Draco recognises its sleek brown feathers and goggling eyes immediately: it belongs to Madam Pomfrey.
Granger scrambles to untie the letter from its foot, and Draco notices something else affixed just a little lower. It’s a small black paperweight, one he thinks he recognises from Poppy’s desk. He removes it quickly from the owl, giving it a cursory stroke before its wings spread and it takes off.
They keep walking as Granger reads the message aloud. “Draco, when you write with the name of a powdered moonstone supplier, would you mind sending along my reading glasses? I seem to have forgotten them. Please respond as soon as you get this. Love, Luna.”
They look at each other. Glasses. Madam Pomfrey, Luna, and Rolf should be able to handle anything the world throws at them. If they need help, Draco doesn’t want to imagine why.
“Should we—” Blaise begins, but then a voice comes from behind them.
“There!”
Draco turns just in time for a blast of light to hurtle past his shoulder.
He dives out of the way, and so do Granger and Blaise.
“Run!” Granger whisper-screams.
Draco hops to his feet, throwing up a Shield Charm as he rushes through the trees. Just a few more metres, and then he’ll be far enough away that the Aurors won’t spot him. Draco ducks beneath a low branch.
Twigs crack on the ground as Granger and Blaise pound after him, footsteps heavy in their haste. If they can make it to higher ground, they’ll have the advantage over the people chasing after them, but it’s so dark that he can’t tell where higher ground is.
Blaise stumbles behind him and Draco turns back to haul him to his feet.
What direction are they running? Hadn’t Granger said something about what was on either side of the moor — or was that Hexhamshire?
His feet hit cold water, soaking his trainers through. The icy chill is so shocking that he gasps, and he can barely feel his feet enough to keep moving.
They make it across and clamber onto the bank.
“I don’t think we’ll get to higher ground before they catch up to us,” Draco wheezes.
“Can you climb a tree?” Granger asks.
“No.”
“Me neither. Levicorpus!”
“Ah!” There’s a flash of light and suddenly he’s hanging upside down in the air. It feels as if a giant is dangling him haphazardly by the ankle.
He claws at the tree branches whacking him in the face, finally grasping hold of one just as Granger drops the charm.
She’s soaring through the air next, grabbing on with surety, and swinging around to straddle a bough. Finally, she casts to haul Blaise up, and he hits nearly every branch on the way as he struggles against the spell, cursing ardently.
When they’re all secure, they listen for the sounds of their pursuers.
Granger gives a small, complicated wave of her wand, and Draco feels hot air hit his ankles, immediately relieving the stiffness that had settled in.
“Thanks,” he says, unable to hide his surprise.
“Can you see anything from up here?” Granger pants.
Draco squints into the distance.
“I think that’s Potter.” Blaise points at the people still gathered around the basin.
They don’t look happy with him.
“And the others?” Granger asks.
“No sign of them,” Blaise says. “We could signal them somehow, but…”
“How could we do it without attracting the Aurors’ attention?” Granger finishes.
Draco thumbs the paperweight he’d stuffed in his pocket. He withdraws it and flips it in his palm until every side of its pyramidic shape has caught the bright moonlight, but he can’t make out a hidden message anywhere.
“What do you think Poppy might have sent this for?” he asks.
Granger puts a hand to her mouth. “Oh God, I’d nearly forgotten about the letter.” She bends around the trunk of the tree to get a better look. “Blaise, keep an eye out below, and make sure no one sneaks up on us.”
“Yes ma’am.”
There’s some rustling a ways off, but it’ll be a while till it nears them. They’d kept up enough of an irregular pattern while running to throw their pursuers off for a bit, at least, and the river might have helped break their trail, but they don’t have long.
Granger takes the paperweight from him gently. “Aparecium.”
Nothing happens.
“Try Revelio,” Blaise says.
“Really? I thought I might just chuck in the water next.”
Blaise grins, and Granger casts.
“It’s a potion,” she says, sudden understanding breaking on her face as she screws off the tip of one edge and sniffs the inside.
A faint blue smoke swirls from it until Granger caps it again. She shakes her head.
“No smell.”
“What’d the letter say again?” asks Blaise. “Urgent, wasn’t it? Something about responding as soon as you got it. I reckon we’ve got a deadline for this being useful.”
“We’re not taking it without knowing what it is,” Granger insists.
“You’re rather uptight, aren’t you? Fine. We can ask Pomfrey soon enough. Someone’s got to go help her.”
“I’m not leaving without Scorpius,” Draco says, “and I don’t feel good about any of us walking into a situation that Poppy, Luna, and Rolf can’t handle by themselves without bringing
backup.”
“Speaking of backup—” Blaise says, “looks like half of the Aurors are heading this way.”
Draco glances down. He doesn’t love their odds: three against seven.
He likes them even less when Blaise calls, “Hey, arseholes!”
“Damn you,” Draco curses. He aims several Stupefying Charms at the people below.
Between him, Granger, and Blaise, they take the team out in moments. Only one of them had enough time to try casting a spell, and the light veered just to the left of Draco as they were Stunned.
Blaise flips his wand in the air, catching it again with a satisfied flash of teeth. “Good work, team.”
“Would you mind terribly if I killed him?” Granger asks.
“Maybe wait until after tonight. I’m afraid we might need his expertise again soon.”
She nods, mollified.
They get down from the tree much the same way they came up it, and ensure the Aurors won’t be moving any time soon.
Granger aims an Impervius Charm at her feet, then Draco’s and Blaise’s, and they splash back across the river.
They’re almost to the edge of the forest when Blaise says, “Should we try shooting up sparks, or—”
He’s cut off by a pathetic whimpering that stops them all in their tracks.
“Was that—” Granger starts, and then they hear it again.
“Human,” Draco answers.
Granger’s eyes are wide and frightened. She holds a finger to her lips, and both Draco and Blaise nod.
They creep through the trees towards the sound, careful to keep their footsteps light. Blaise keeps checking over his shoulder, making sure no one’s following them. Draco understands the urge; he has the distinct feeling they’re being lured into a trap.
They’re almost back to the moor now, and Draco is growing steadily more anxious about their deadline. He stops when they can see dark figures through the line of trees. The people are crowded in a circle around several large animals that thrash in their binds.
He recognises a few of the people who are standing, including Chieftess Gore. The witch has her wand trained on the writhing bodies, strong red ropes of light shooting out to restrain them. Aurors flank her sides.
Draco hears the whimpering again.
He searches desperately among the people gathered for the source.
It’s a woman, held in place by a firm grip. He notes her golden blonde curls with alarm. The woman’s entire body is shaking. Though her hair curtains her face, he’s nearly certain it’s Lavender.
Draco checks immediately for the others and finds Scorpius first.
Scorpius has his arms wrapped around his body as he stares at the proceedings, nearly hidden behind the Aurors. No one seems to be restraining him.
A wave of black hair cascades down someone’s back, maybe Parvati. She’s on her knees, and he cannot see if she’s bound or not. He looks desperately for Harry — Heffley, whomever. Finally, he sees Heffley’s pale face clearly in the back, and a bit of the tension in his chest eases.
Granger’s got her eyes on a flash of ginger hair peeking over the heads of even the tallest of the wizards, so that must be Weasley.
Draco looks for a hint of teal anywhere in the crowd, but he does not find it.
Where’s Teddy?
Draco looks again at the scraggly forms in the centre of the makeshift circle, at their furry grey backs and long snouts. Wolves. Their movements are weak and tired, as if they’ve been struggling for a long time. He cannot make out any faces, nor can he see much of anything at all.
One more figure joins the group and says, “We haven’t got much longer.”
A few of the wizards look towards the sky, the stout, waning moon almost directly overhead.
Draco glances again. It’s not waning. The moon is perfectly, unambiguously full. He thinks of Madam Pomfrey’s first letter, ‘I’d love the name of a powdered moonstone supplier … I have all the other ingredients on hand.’ He thinks of Luna’s, ‘Please respond before midnight.’
The last time he saw Teddy flashes in his mind. Drawn out, tired, looking like he might faint … Draco’s eyes snap to Lavender again.
He knows what’s in the paperweight.
“Please,” Lavender wails. He’s sure it’s her now, by her voice. “Please, he’s not done anything wrong.”
“You’re grating on my nerves, woman. Shut it before I silence you,” one of the wizards growls.
Lavender quiets, but her hiccuping sobs are still audible.
“I’m telling you,” a skittish-sounding man says, “we’ve got to do it now. We’ve only a few minutes until the moon’s overhead and—”
“Don’t tell me how long we’ve got!” Gore snaps.
Draco smells something in the air again, metallic and rusty. He looks at Granger and Blaise. Granger is biting her lip. Blaise’s eyes are hard, glinting like jet stone, locked on Gore.
A voice, strained and gritty, speaks up from near the back of the circle. Draco knows that voice. Thomas Heffley.
He fights the rush of gratitude that threatens to overwhelm him. Harry’s okay. And his Polyjuice is still keeping him safe in disguise.
“You’re overestimating the strength of your enchantments,” Heffley wheezes. “There are eight wolves, only a few dozen of us. At least let my friends run.”
“I’ve already given you a warning. Don’t mouth off.” Gore shoots a bolt of white light at Heffley.
Heffley groans as it strikes him in the chest. “You’re gonna have to do … more than that … to keep me quiet.”
“Think you’re so tough, do you?” Gore asks. She smiles as she raises her wand, then pivots to point it at the wolves.
“I’d think twice about that if I were you,” says a voice.
Draco’s eyes jerk to Heffley, but he’s not the one speaking.
Harry, or someone who looks like him, appears from the back of the crowd, his wand pointed directly at Gore.
Draco falters. If that’s Harry, then who’s wearing Heffley’s face?
“Step away from them,” Harry says. “All of them.”
“Afraid I won’t be doing that,” Gore returns, but her voice is too high. Draco can hear the hysteria seeping into her words, the warning rattle of a viper about to strike for its life. “In just a moment, we're going to be less than a metre from one of the most dangerous species in the wizarding world. I’m not planning on letting them free.”
“You have time to flee. Don’t pretend your fear is the problem. I’d like to know the real reason you won’t let them go.”
Gore’s eyes dart right and left, to the wizards restraining her captors. Blaise raises his pocket watch for Draco to see. One minute to midnight.
“So, wait,” Gore tells Harry. “Just don’t get any ideas about interfering. “Incarcer—”
“Expelliarmus!” Draco shouts, finally stepping out. Granger and Blaise are right behind him, and they don’t hesitate to start firing curses.
“Stupefy! Depulso!” Blaise brandishes his wand with flair, and the wand Draco just knocked out of Gore’s hand skitters into the forest.
“Everte Statum!” Granger calls, but she has to jerk her hand away at the last second. The wizards they’re fighting aren’t fools. The ones who are busy restraining the people in the circle use their captives’ bodies as shields, forcing Draco and the others to try and aim around them.
A Stinging Jinx hurtles towards Draco’s head, and he conjures a smokescreen to obscure him from view as he ducks out of the way.
“Don’t let them go!” Gore roars, and for a moment he thinks she’s talking about him, but then he sees it.
The bodies at the centre of the circle have begun thrashing again, their heads stretching and their shoulders curling over as they fight against their bonds.
That’s why Draco’s not expecting Harry to shout, “Relashio!”
The werewolves break free, and the Aurors scatter.
Gore is still there, scrabbling for control, and she has her wand back. She’s firing hexes every which way, and Draco’s friends’ bodies have been dropped carelessly on the ground amongst a pack of werewolves.
“NO!” Granger screams, and several of the wolves go hurtling back. “Protego! Alarte Ascendare!”
“Where are your wands?” Blaise shouts to Parvati.
“Gore has them!”
Blaise is on the retrieval. Draco is focused on the wolf barreling at Scorpius.
“Deprimo!” he yells, running as fast as he can towards them. His spell blasts a hole in the ground, and he advances while the werewolf is scrambling up the side. “Flipendo!” The werewolf rears like it’s been struck, but it’s not enough to knock it backwards.
Scorpius is frozen. Draco doesn’t know if running would help him escape or get him caught. Every thought in his brain is focused on only one thing.
Scorpius doesn’t have a wand.
Blurry forms fly past him. There’s a moment when he thinks he sees Luna, but he doesn’t have time to figure out why.
There are still a few more metres between him and his son. The wolf charges again.
“Impedimenta!” Lavender’s voice cries — the wolf is flung back so hard it hits a tree, Draco has half a second to feel relief before he’s hit from the side with so much force that he feels several ribs break.
Draco tumbles to the ground, and he and the werewolf roll over each other until he’s pinned beneath it — but he gets his wand jammed up against the creature’s snarling throat. It slashes across his chest desperately.
Draco told himself earlier that as long as the wolf had no prosthesis, he’d be able to kill it if it came to that, but now that he’s here, he knows he can’t.
Even if this isn’t Teddy, it might be someone just as innocent as him.
Draco casts the strongest Stupefying Charm he can, which gives him just enough time to rip the paperweight from his pocket and pour the contents between the werewolf’s slack jaws.
Draco’s spell wears off just before the wolf nearly snaps off his hand. The wolf shakes its head wildly, then seems to realise where it is.
Slowly, it backs off of him.
They stare at each other for a long moment. The wolf’s eyes are amber-yellow. They don’t look away from his until a howl comes from their right, and then the wolf bounds away, a mountain of grey fur pelting towards one of its own, which is pinning Ron under its weighty paws.
Draco’s wolf sinks its teeth into the other wolf’s scruff, wrenching it away and throwing it onto its back. Blaise is there to grab Ron by the arm and haul him under a Shield Charm just as quickly. Draco knows it’s a more powerful enchantment than almost anyone else would be capable of, but it won’t last long if it takes the brunt of any werewolf attacks.
Gore is still in the middle of the grass, the last Ministry stalwart, but she’s squirming in a puddle of her own blood, gasping, and trying to reach for her wand, which has been flung half a metre away. Her throat has been slashed across by a mighty set of claws, and he’d be surprised if she can ever recite an incantation again.
Despite himself, Draco takes pity on her. He cannot stand, but he Levitates the wand into Gore’s grip, trusting her self-preservation instincts to win out.
He doesn’t wait to see if she disappears or not. He’s still focused on the wolves.
At first, Draco doesn’t know what’s happened, except that most of the snarling and screaming have stopped. Then he looks up and sees the werewolf he gave the Wolfsbane Potion to, biting and snapping at the heels of the others, shepherding all but one into the forest. The wolf looks back at them before it enters the trees, as if to say, ‘That one’s yours.’
Draco sees Scorpius not too far away, and he desperately wants to move, wants to assure that he’s okay. Scorpius is standing, still breathing, pointing his wand at Teddy beside the others — Draco’s the one torn open on the ground — but he’s not scared for himself, and his heart is still beating a mile a minute.
It’s only a second later that Harry is sliding to his knees beside him. He’s half Heffley, half himself, his face stretching, and his hair darkening as he speaks.
“Fuck, Malfoy, fuck. We need to get you to St Mungo’s. We’ve got to—” Harry runs a frantic hand through his hair, making it stick up. “Can you even Side-Along like this?”
Draco’s vision is blurring, but he can still see the lightning scar branching out across Harry’s forehead. He remembers that night they spent searching for Teddy after his first transformation. Draco hadn’t seen him since the Death Eater trials. Harry recounted before the Wizengamot what had happened at the Manor and throughout the final battle — every misdeed Draco had accrued. He’d laid it bare at their feet and then effectively disappeared from the public eye. People spoke about Harry differently once he was a man. If he ever ventured out into the world, their eyes tracked him with vicious hunger, with lust or a greedy desire to uncover every secret he had — Draco couldn’t blame him for hiding.
They’d avoided each other as well as they could that night, until Draco saw that Harry had dropped his glasses, and he was patting about foolishly on the ground. “You could just Summon them,” he’d said. Harry had looked up at him, then kept feeling around the grass like he’d said nothing at all. When Draco saw him again after they found Teddy, he’d been sure Harry would be angry, but instead, he’d met Draco’s eyes for just a split second, cocked his head, and nodded.
Now, Draco says, “Where are your glasses?”
“I don’t give a damn about my glasses, Draco.”
But he looks so strange without them.
“You can’t Apparate,” Draco says. “There’s … something’s keeping us here.”
Harry packs Draco up into his arms and lifts him. Draco thinks Harry’s running, because the movements jostle him roughly against Harry’s chest.
Draco keens as Harry nearly slips and struggles to keep hold of him.
“Take me to Pomfrey, not St Mungo’s,” Draco begs.
Harry exhales shakily. “This is a lot of blood. We can’t close werewolf injuries without powdered silver and dittany. Even if I get out of the moor so I can Apparate away, I still can’t get past Hogwarts’ barriers. So how am I going to get you there in time?”
“The tunnels,” he gasps. “Time is different there.”
Harry speeds up, and Draco can’t think of anything but the pain.
They get past the wards without issue, because they are not the enemies the wards protect against.
Harry slides down the wall of the hole, and then they are in complete darkness, and he’s still running.
“How do we get to Hogwarts once we’re outside of the moor?” Harry asks.
Draco can still feel the edge of the little pyramid in his hand. He whispers, “Portus,” and, for a moment, the darkness is broken by a swath of blue, and Draco can see Harry’s eyes, wide and desperate.
The Portkey doesn’t activate, so he knows that whatever is keeping them in the moor is stronger than a simple Anti-Apparition Charm.
The world rocks, and Draco shudders at the sensation. But Harry doesn’t stop running, doesn’t even slow until light finally shatters the darkness.
“Please!” Harry calls. He makes a popping noise several times in a row. “Please, which tunnel will get us out of the moor the fastest?”
They break into the main cavern. Harry spins right and left, searching for help from anyone.
Draco hears Pop’s voice, low and indistinct, muttering something Draco can’t make out.
“Please,” Draco hears Harry promising. “I’ll do anything. I’ll do anything.”
“You’d have to bring my brother back,” Pop hisses.
Draco doesn’t know what Harry says next, but then it’s dark again, and time slows and stretches around them, trying to swallow them up. Harry clings to him, keeping Draco from disappearing, but Draco feels like he’ll never see the other side of this.
He has to. Draco has to make it to Pomfrey. He has to tell Harry … something … What was it again?
The Portkey activates.
Draco feels the familiar hook-jerk sensation in his navel, and they leave the ground. The darkness swirls into a blur around them. Harry’s arms hold strong beneath him, but the wind rocks them into each other painfully. The paperweight pulls them forward until, at long last, they slam into the floor of the hospital wing.
“Pomfrey!” Harry shouts.
“Loud,” Draco says.
“Sorry, sorry. Hey, come on, don’t close your eyes yet, okay? Luna! Where’s Madam Pomfrey?”
Draco doesn’t hear the reply.
“Stay with me, Malfoy.”
“You called me Draco, before.”
“I’m sorry.”
He hadn’t meant for Harry to apologise. What was it that Draco wanted to say to him? He knows he has to find it, but the memory curls away faster than the edges of a dream.
“Hey, hey.” Harry’s hands are on his face. His eye is so green. The other whirls around in the goggle as it scans the surrounding area. “Look at me. Pomfrey!”
Now Draco’s got it. “I still haven’t thanked you for the tea.”
“For what?”
“The tea. I can’t remember if I should.”
Draco doesn’t know what Harry says in reply, because he cannot keep his eyes from slipping closed any longer.
Chapter Text
Draco wakes in fragments. He hears snippets of conversation, but none are riveting enough to rouse him.
“Good heavens! What has the boy got himself into now? Hand me the dittany, Lovegood.”
“Luna, do you still have the — well, where’d you get it then?”
“… Hello darling. My, my, what a nasty scrape you’ve got yourself into. Scorpius is all right, but I fear he may be a bit traumatised by all this. It’d be rather rude of you not to wake up. Our son would feel responsible for the rest of his life.”
“Hi,” the voice is quiet, and he doesn’t recognise it in his sleep-fogged state. “I’d really like for you to be okay. Please? It’s been so long since we’ve spoken, Draco, and I…”
“You won’t take him! You will not. I don’t care how many laws he’s broken; he is my patient and he’s staying right here until he’s recovered. Fully. No exertion, that’s my order. Being arrested sounds like exertion to me.”
The last thing he hears is. “That’s enough of that.” A potion pours down his throat, and then Draco is wide awake.
He blinks wearily. He’s still in the Hogwarts hospital wing. “Poppy?”
His clothes are drenched in sweat even though his shirt, at least, has been changed.
“There, now. You’re alive.” Madam Pomfrey’s face is a welcome sight. “Everyone else is fine. Let’s see about this new scar of yours, shall we?”
“New scar?”
She prods a finger lightly against his cheek, and it smarts. “Permanent, that.”
“What happened to Teddy?”
She helps him sit up and props him against the frame of the bed with a glass of water in his hand.
“Drink up. They brought Lupin here while he was still in wolf form — trust me, I gave him an earful about that once he was human again. Honestly. What would have happened if he’d still been locked inside with all of you? I knew he couldn’t have had any Wolfsbane Potion in there, what with the nature of your confinement. I gave him his potion and treated a few minor wounds, and, once the sun rose, he was back to normal. Exhausted, but otherwise all right.”
She gives him a menacing look. “You’re to explain exactly what happened. Right now. I couldn’t get a bit out of the others before the Aurors were knocking down my door.”
“Where are they?”
“Your friends? They’ve been locked away in a ‘secure, undisclosed location’ until their trial.” She harrumphs. “Whatever that means. Now start talking, boy.”
He tells her the whole story — everything that he knows. At the end, she pushes a small box closer to him on the bedside table.
“What’s this?”
“It’s from your ex-wife. She was very worried about you, but apparently, she had other matters to attend to besides waiting at your sickbed.”
He pulls away the ribbon and lets it drop on his lap. Inside the little box is an address he doesn’t recognise.
Write to her, says the note.
“Oh.” He thinks he knows who Astoria means, but he’s not sure Pansy wants to hear from him.
“Now, rest up. You’ve not got long until you’ll be joining the others.”
“Wait” — he stops her with a hand on her arm — “what have the Aurors and the Ministry said about all this? To the Prophet, I mean.”
“Nothing you need to hear.”
“That good?” He sees the edge of a newspaper peeking over the top of her desk and considers Summoning it.
“Don’t even think about it. You’re not to do anything that will stress you.”
“Come on, Poppy. I should be allowed to know.”
“It’s irrelevant. Because you’re not going to keep working on the project that got you into this state, now are you?”
“No,” he lies. He still wants the paper. “Have you got my wand?”
“The Aurors confiscated it. But you won’t be needing it, remember? Because you’re not fooling around with this business any longer. I don’t care if the Pollygogglers come and beg me personally for your help.”
“Wallygagglers,” he corrects softly.
“Hmmph.”
Madam Pomfrey putters away, humming softly to herself. It reminds him of Luna, which reminds him of the last few moments he saw her.
Boasting Diskies, he thinks. He wonders if they congregate around all curses.
~
He’s released from Madam Pomfrey’s care a week later. Apparently, the “secure, undisclosed location,” is once again number twelve, Grimmauld Place. Only, this time, a magic blocker is clamped around his wrist, and the wards are so strong that even entertaining the idea of escape seems futile.
Scorpius is the first to greet him. Though he’s always been more tactile than Draco was with his own father, the hug takes him by surprise.
“Dad! Merlin, you have no idea how worried everyone was.”
Part of Draco still hadn’t believed Scorpius was all right, until this moment. “I think I can imagine.”
“They’re all in the sitting room. Come on.”
Scorpius leads him to the others, and Draco drops onto the largest sofa with a groan.
Then, he sees Harry, and he remembers what he heard in Lightninglen.
“For fuck’s sake, Potter. What kind of deal did you make with the Wallygagglers?”
Harry looks down at his hands. “I said I’d help get their brother back.”
“But—” All at once, he remembers the Time-Turner Luna showed them that first day at the moor. “There were two of you.” He looks accusingly at Harry. “Do you know how dangerous it is to interfere with—”
“We saved him.”
“What?”
“Luna, Rolf, and I. We saved him.”
“Fuck,” Draco says slowly. “I mean…”
They know what he means.
“You’ll come to terms with it all,” Granger promises. We’ve had a week to adjust while together, and you’ve been busy recovering.”
“But what now?” Draco asks. “You saved him, but the problem isn’t gone. We’re locked up so tightly the Aurors outside think they’re on holiday, I hear the media’s completely turned against us, and the woman who’s going to be putting us on trial shortly is the one we helped get mauled by werewolves.”
“You forgot about your fetching new scar,” Blaise says cheerily.
Draco sighs. “Then let me. The last thing I need is to be mistaken for a bad Harry Potter impersonator.”
There are so many emotions warring within him that he can scarcely breathe.
It’s not until later that evening that he finds a moment to pull Luna into his room so they can talk privately.
“I have a question,” he says.
“Ooh, goodie.”
“What do you see when you look at Astoria that other people don’t?”
She considers this. “Well, she’s very beautiful.”
“I don’t mean that. Is there anything you see around her head?”
“Oh … well, it depends on the day, doesn’t it? Sometimes she’s wearing sun cream, and I don’t have to tell you how much that changes things.”
“Right,” he lies, “not at all. But the last time you saw her, for instance, did you notice any of your Boasting Diskies around her?”
She blinks her wide eyes at him. “You’re much more observant than people think, Draco.”
“Is that a ‘yes’?”
“She’s had an infestation for as long as I’ve known her. I offered to talk to her about how we could clear them away, but she wasn’t interested.”
“What about Scorpius?”
“Hmm?”
“Do you see Boasting Diskies feeding around him too?”
“No. He’s perfectly fine.”
It’s as if Draco’s breathing properly for the first time in years. “Oh.”
Then, another thought occurs to him, and hope overwhelms him. “Do Boasting Diskies ever completely consume Curse Magic?”
Luna frowns. “Well, I’ve never seen it happen. It would take a lot of time, and probably a lot of Diskies. You want to try to help Astoria with her Curse?”
“For a start. But I’m thinking there’s something else they could be used for, if we get enough of them.”
Luna catches on, and her eyes bulge. “Oh, Merlin. I’ve got to talk to Rolf and Parvati. They’ll know if breeding Boasting Diskies is possible.”
He pulls her into a hug before she can run off.
“Oh,” says Luna happily. “This is nice.”
Draco holds her at arm’s length. “Go talk to them. We can reconvene in the morning.”
When she’s gone, Draco strips off his shirt. He grabs the jar of ointment Madam Pomfrey gave him to help aid in scar healing and begins to unwind his bandages. Then he hears a knock on the door.
“Luna?”
“Er … no,” comes Harry’s voice from the other side.
Draco sighs. He considers putting his shirt back on, but the reality is that he doesn’t want more blood-stained clothes. So he opens the door.
Harry pushes into the room with frantic energy snapping at his heels. He takes one look at Draco, looks away, and goes into the en suite bathroom to splash water on his face.
“You all right in there?” Draco calls. He pulls away the last of his bandages and piles them on the desk. Then he picks up the ointment again and unscrews the lid.
“We need to talk over the plan for the trial,” Harry says.
“Can’t that wait? We’ve got time.”
Harry exits the bathroom again, and he’s silent.
“Potter?”
“I want to be prepared, is all. We have to be ready. This is where it all comes to a head.”
Draco knows. The strange part is that Harry is acting like this is new information. Which means he’s hiding something. There’s another reason he’s here.
But what is it?
“Okay. Talk me through it.” Draco begins working the ointment into his skin. His chest is the worst of it, and the most painful, so he does his shoulder first.
Harry doesn’t talk. When Draco looks up, he’s staring.
Draco doesn’t remember exactly what he said to Harry when he was bleeding out, but it revealed more than he was ready to show. He’s sure Harry’s thinking about it now.
Draco crosses his arms in front of his chest, a shield. He feels too exposed.
“You’re alive,” Harry says.
“You got your glasses back,” he returns.
Harry laughs. “That I did.”
He steps closer. Draco does not move.
“Madam Pomfrey said you’d still be treating your wounds for a while.”
“Yes, more dittany and silver. To aid the scars in fading a bit and to relieve itching.”
“Do you need any help?”
He meets Harry’s eyes, then looks quickly back down again. There’s not much he struggles to reach, but Harry’s offering, so he nods.
Harry steps close to him, and he takes the ointment from Draco gently. He swipes his fingers in it and brings them to Draco’s chest.
The cream is cold, but Harry’s hand is warm as he massages it in.
Draco’s eyes flutter shut.
Harry does not speak, and Draco is afraid that anything he could say to fill the silence would make it painfully obvious how he feels.
So he just stands there and lets Harry’s fingers play across his skin. Draco doesn’t stop him when Harry goes over the same spot a second time, even though it stings.
“Bandages?” Harry breathes.
“Hm?” His eyes open. Oh.
Draco doesn’t look at Harry as he grabs fresh bandages and places them into his hands.
He holds his arms up obediently the way Harry directs him. The pain is worse now, and Draco has to guide Harry to make sure he doesn’t wind the bandages too tight.
Harry ties a knot against Draco’s skin, his fingers brushing lightly over his ribs. He runs a flat hand down the plane of Draco’s stomach and then stops, keeping it there, just above his hip.
“Why aren’t you looking at me?” Harry whispers.
He can’t. Because if he looks, then Harry will see. He’ll know — every torrid thought haunting Draco’s mind, how it feels to see him so near a bed, how he imagines kneeling at his feet and kissing his way up bare thighs, every bit the worshipful fanatic.
Would Harry let him? Maybe he needs more control than that.
Draco looks up. Harry’s green eye is glittering, his cheeks warmed with red. Draco can see him breathing, the soft fall of his chest.
“I’m looking at you,” Draco tells him.
Now, all Harry has to do is tell him to look away.
Harry exhales softly, unreadable.
“Say something,” Draco demands.
“Why don’t you call me Harry yet?”
His stomach pulls tight. For Merlin’s sake. “Why should I?”
“I think I’d like to hear it.”
“I don’t … there’s nothing to it. I’ve always called you Potter.”
“Please?”
The light from the lamps is soft. It suits Harry, to be the brightest thing in the room.
“Harry.” It comes out as the barest whisper, broken. Draco meets Harry’s eyes and prays Harry can’t see the images pouring out of his head, the ones that keep him up at night; his finger tracing across the dimples at the base of Harry’s back, their hands twining together as he fucks into him, listening to his horrible singing in the kitchen during early mornings.
“Draco,” Harry replies, in just as low of a whisper — because he’s cruel, a sadist, he has to be.
“Don’t say it like that.”
“You want me,” Harry says. He sounds surprised.
“I…” Draco doesn’t know why he admits it. “Yes.”
“Why?” The question comes from a place of such honest curiosity that Draco falls just a little bit harder.
He’s gotten good at wanting, over the years. Wanting his father to be proud of him, wanting the war to be over, wanting to regain favour with the public, wanting his family to be safe. He’s never been all that good at knowing what to do with something once he has it, never been able to love the things he gets the way they deserve.
How do you make someone see all that they are?
“I don’t know.”
He does, but he can’t put it into words. Draco’s been wishing all this time that he had some sort of defence against the aching, gnawing feeling in his heart that he’ll fuck this up; that he isn’t good enough for Harry — not the Saviour, not the Chosen One, and not the man right in front of him.
“I want you to kiss me,” Harry says.
“I won’t be able to think clearly for the rest of my life.”
Harry steps closer, and Draco feels the soft breath of a laugh skate across his face. Their foreheads fall together, and the warm metal of Harry’s prosthesis presses against Draco’s brow. The tip of Harry’s nose brushes against his own.
“I want you to kiss me,” Harry says again.
And Dear Merlin, Draco must already be fucked in the head, because he does. He closes the distance and brings his hand up to the back of Harry’s neck.
Harry shouldn’t want him. But that doesn’t matter, because Harry was right. Draco is selfish. He’ll take anything Harry offers him, and he’ll take it greedily, hungrily — like a man who believes he deserves it.
He parts Harry’s lips with his tongue, and he pulls their hips together.
Harry sighs in the back of his throat, and Draco cannot help the way his chest seizes up, and he surges against him, kissing as though it might be possible to get past Harry’s physical body and burrow somewhere inside his soul. Draco was wrong, it turns out. He’s well versed in mistakes — he knows them like the grooves of his own wand, having made enough for a lifetime — and this can’t possibly be one. Not when it feels like this.
“Draco,” Harry breaks away. His voice is achingly breathless, and his eyes are still closed when Draco opens his. Harry’s mouth hangs open, just barely.
Draco’s chest feels tight. He threads his hands through Harry’s hair, grounding them to the spot.
Harry groans, and then he’s backing them up, stopping when his heels hit the bottom edge of the bedframe.
Draco pulls back. “I want — fuck, you have no idea how much I want this. But at the moment…” He gestures helplessly at his chest.
Harry kisses him again, then he sits on the bed and guides Draco down to sit lightly on his thighs.
It wouldn’t be impossible to get off like this.
“Let’s get some sleep,” Harry says.
He doesn’t have to say, ‘You’re staying here with me.’ Draco knows.
~
The day of their trial comes too quickly for anyone’s taste.
Everybody is there. The Wizengamot, the Magical Creatures Council, every member of the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures, several top reporters, and even Pansy Parkinson, who is hiding near the back next to Astoria.
At the centre of the head table is Chieftess Gore. Her injuries seem to have healed just about as well as his have — which is to say: slowly and painfully.
She calls the room to order in a harsh, rasping voice. “If the plaintiffs could state their case, please.”
He doesn’t know the legal team representing the Ministry, only that, as they speak, he feels a snake of anticipation and dread coiling in his stomach.
“The defendants directly disobeyed Ministry orders, broke out of their confinement, incapacitated several Aurors, and set werewolves free on the night of the full moon with intent to harm. They have interfered with the legislation of the species known as Wallygagglers at every turn. They should be given a sentence of no less than one year in Azkaban or five years under house arrest.”
“Thank you for that … opinion. Now, the defendants.”
They present everything from the very beginning — how the Wallygagglers contacted them and asked for help, all their efforts to develop a solution on their own, the necessity of involving the court of public opinion, the desperation that led to their wards, how they escaped, and what they planned to do once they were out. Then, they outline their proposal for fixing this, starting with the information that, before long, the water could affect humans too.
An Auror is questioned first. “You left a werewolf without Wolfsbane locked in a house with ten wandless wizards on the night of the full moon?”
“No one told us!”
“That is negligence, Auror Kilgharrah. Teddy Lupin has been on the werewolf registry since 2004.”
But they ask Teddy similar questions. “Why didn’t you alert the Aurors?”
“I lost track of time while I was there. I didn’t know it was almost the full moon. Then, once we were out, it was so cloudy from all the rain that I just didn’t think about it.”
“So you’re certainly not blameless here either, are you?”
They don’t allow Teddy to comment, but the reporters eat the words up.
Draco is next.
“This seems very convenient, doesn’t it?” Gore asks. “Perhaps a cover-up for the malfunctions with your prostheses.”
“Plenty of people saw the Wallygagglers when they were at the moor. That should count as definitive proof.”
“And yet, while locked away, wandless, your patients suffered no symptoms. Their prostheses returned to normal. As soon as you got your wand back, it seems, the problems began anew, and the pattern repeated once your wand was in Auror possession a second time. What do you have to say about that?”
The court positively riots.
“The ward we put up kept all Wallygaggler magic contained. Both times.”
“Once my Ministry colleagues arrived at the moor, they found no evidence of Wallygaggler habitation.”
“They’d gone underground. But there was still a stack of their rocks left above.”
“Like I said: convenient, isn’t it?”
“Half the people here saw them with their own eyes!”
“Are you not magically inclined, Mr Malfoy? Would conjuring a wispy phantasm be completely out of your ability? Surely you remember that we were not allowed across the stream to touch…”
For a moment, Draco is shell-shocked. “If the Wallygagglers weren’t there, then what were you planning to move to Hexhamshire?”
“We had no reason to doubt your claims at the time, did we?”
The gruelling line of questioning moves on, targeting them one after the other.
“Auror Weasley, is it true that you went against a superior’s orders when you set up the wards at the moor? Is it also true that you were partially responsible for the attacks against Aurors that occurred on the night of the full moon at number twelve, Grimmauld Place?”
“Now hang on — attacks?”
“… Ms Patil, you’re responsible for using a specific type of knockout gas — of your own invention — against the Aurors as well, are you not? A gas that has never been approved for use on human beings. Would you agree that that is a violation of your Hippocratic Oath?”
“It’s completely harmless. I knew that for a fact when I used it.” Parvati flips her plait over her shoulder. “Secondly, Magiveterinarians don’t have to swear the Hippocratic Oath, but I’m fairly certain it doesn’t contain anything you’re insinuating it does. Healers use non-standard experimental spells on patients all the time when necessary. The only oath I did take speaks solely about animal protection, which was my goal that evening. So … no.”
Gore looks at her for a long time before dismissing her.
“Ms Brown, as Centaur Liaison, surely you know the proper paths one must take when arguing for the rights of an endangered magical species. You’ve seen the system before, you know how things play out, and yet you chose to go against it. Why?”
“Your system wasn’t doing anything. You were planning to relocate the Wallygagglers to a new habitat for the first time in over 200 years. The species was already dying out. The move could have proved entirely fatal.”
“Do we not have proof of any other locations they’ve successfully inhabited? Surely this isn’t the only pod of Wallygagglers in existence — if they exist at all. That would be rather convenient, wouldn’t it?”
“We haven’t been able to find evidence of any more.”
“And yet you claim we’re at fault for not finding this pod sooner. Could it be that a similar situation is occurring?”
Lavender looks down at her lap.
“… Mr Scamander, you’re a Magizoologist, is that correct?”
“Yes, my Lady.”
“So you’ve spent your entire career researching magical creatures?”
“Yes, I have.”
“What can you tell us about Wallygagglers and their natural habitats?”
“Well, they live in moors, my Lady, which vary widely in terms of flora and fauna. Luna Lovegood may be able to give you more specific information, pertaining to them.”
“Is it not true that Ms Lovegood has been known to be an unreliable source of information? Certainly, half of the species of which she speaks cannot be assumed real.”
“With all due respect, my Lady, no one thought Wallygagglers were real either.”
When he takes his seat again, Luna gives him a peck on the cheek before she gets to her feet, and Rolf’s eyes grow large and moony.
“Ms Lovegood, have you anything to say about the status of Wallygagglers, what they need to survive, or the North Moor?”
“No.”
The crowd breaks out in titters.
“No?” Gore asks cautiously.
“All the evidence was presented beforehand. That’s the typical way of things. I’m only here to give testimony.”
“I see. Well. Do you testify that the evidence presented to us — that Wallygagglers are real and that their ability to thrive depends upon staying in North Moor — is absolutely, unequivocally true?”
“Yes.”
“You may take your seat.”
Granger is called next. There aren’t many more people to go through. The odds of Scorpius being next are high.
“Mrs Granger-Weasley, you presented evidence from our official legislation claiming that anything affected by dangerous, latent magic should not be left in the natural world.”
Granger pointedly waits for her to continue.
“How did you come by this information?”
“I work in wizarding law.”
“And did you use official means to obtain these records?”
Granger purses her lips. “I did not.”
“… Mr Zabini, you weren’t involved with this project as long as the others, you claim.”
“I certainly do.”
“And yet you were at the moor already on the day the wards were put up.”
He blinks at her slowly. “As were you.”
Draco feels Scorpius shake in silent laughter beside him, and he relaxes slightly. Scorpius has been panicked all day, but if he’s still capable of being amused by Blaise, there’s hope yet that he won’t freeze on the stand.
“Yes, Mr Zabini, that is true. But I did not end up collaborating with the accused.”
Blaise shrugs. “Whatever gets your rocks off.”
“Mister Zabini, I ask that you please not be vulgar in court.”
He smiles charmingly. “Simple mistake. Common turn of phrase, you understand.”
She moves on.
“Mr Potter, you released several adult werewolves from their bindings on the night of the full moon around defenceless wizards and many of my colleagues, did you not? Have you any justification for your actions?”
“I understood that the Aurors could leave the second the bindings were released. I still had my wand, and so did several of my friends. I knew we could protect everyone there who needed it.”
“But you didn’t do a very good job protecting them, did you? Mr Malfoy — that’s Draco Malfoy, for the record — sustained several injuries…”
Harry looks at him, and his face tightens.
“… not to mention that you disarmed the only Ministry employee who stayed behind to help, didn’t you?”
“To help? You were shooting curses at us!”
The crowd erupts into murmurs.
“Unsubstantiated claims, Mr Potter. If you’ll remember, it was very dark on the moor and it was a high-stress situation. You may have perceived the curses aimed at the werewolves as targeting you. Not to mention that Mr Malfoy conjured a cloud of smoke to further obscure vision.”
Heartless bitch. He shouldn’t have Levitated her wand back to her.
“By that logic, I might have been casting the Revulsion Jinx so you would simply let go of my friends.”
The audience gets louder, clamouring for more.
“SILENCE! Thank you. That’s quite enough, Mr Potter. Would Scorpius Malfoy please take the stand?”
Draco freezes.
“It’s fine, Dad,” Scorpius whispers. “It’ll be fine.”
“But—”
He’s already gone.
Gore gives Scorpius a thinly stretched smile. “Mr Malfoy, you became involved in this project through your campaign for the Ministry’s Official Creature Liaison — a highly coveted position, correct?”
“Correct.”
“Would you say that you’d do anything for the job?”
Draco leans forward in his seat. Beside him, Blaise squeezes his shoulder.
“Please clarify what you mean.”
“If fabricating a magical species could help you win, would you do it?”
“Objection!” a Wizengamot member calls. “Calls for speculation.”
“Sustained. Let’s talk about Gringotts for a moment, shall we?”
Scorpius’s brow furrows. “Okay…?”
“Now, you and your companions claim that Gringotts is using a certain curse as protection against thieves, correct?”
“The Thief’s Downfall, yes.”
“Isn’t it true that Gringotts has been in operation since 1474?”
“I don’t know the exact date, but that sounds accurate.”
“Can anyone confirm?” Gore nods to a few Wizengamot members who raise their hands. “All right, thank you. So, 1474 and this only becomes an issue now, more than 500 years later. That’s an awfully long time for something as dangerous as magical castoff to go unnoticed.”
“I’m not sure how long the curse itself has been in place.”
“Well, we got that information from the Goblins before the trial, thankfully. Since 1501.”
“Yes. That’s an awfully long time for it to go unnoticed. Unless it wasn’t being dumped in the moor yet.”
“Pardon?”
“As we said, Wallygagglers are more sensitive than humans. Their source of water is also more concentrated, and they’re drinking from and bathing in it. And even they haven’t completely died out. As we saw from the werewolf pack nearby, magical castoff affects certain species differently.”
Gore stiffens. “Please clarify for the jury what you mean by that.”
“Well, when the Wallygagglers are hit by curses and stuff, they get the direct effect of the curse. So, for instance, if it’s a Stinging Jinx, they get stung, et cetera. But the werewolves just started behaving differently. All the excess magic in their systems made them more vicious on the nights of the full moon, and they began hunting Wallygagglers even though they aren’t natural prey. But the werewolves weren’t harmed otherwise.”
Gore has gone very pale. “Right, well. Very lucky we survived, then—”
“Now, hold on just one minute, Leonora,” one of the other Wizengamot members interrupts. “You said the werewolves would be docile. You assured us they would be.”
“I didn’t — it was my mistake, Gregor, fully. I wouldn’t have recommended we stay, otherwise, and—”
“You knew,” Scorpius says. His voice carries clearly across the courtroom, and silence follows.
“Please speak up, Mr Malfoy. I’m not sure I heard you correctly,” Gore says tightly.
“You knew Wallygagglers lived in the moor, you knew it was hurting them, and you didn’t care.”
Her face grows red. “Of course not, I—”
“You expected the werewolves to be weaker, not supercharged.”
There are several gasps.
“You have no base to these accusations, you—”
“Leonora,” the wizard, Gregor, interrupts again, “I’d beg you to watch your words carefully. Half of us were there, and lying in court is heavily frowned upon.”
She jumps to her feet. “You cannot stand there calling me a liar!”
Several of the other Wizengamot members are trying to return to order. The reporters have ignored all instruction and are now openly photographing the scene, their flashes bright even in the lit room.
“All of us could have been hurt by going to the moor,” Gregor claims. “And that’s not to mention all the civilians who might have been attacked if the werewolves ever ventured out.”
“Are you accusing me of—”
“I’ve not made a single accusation yet, but I’m not afraid to start.”
Scorpius’s eyes are darting back and forth between the Wizengamot members locked in the exchange.
“If they’d attacked us, we’d have had to kill them, Leonora. It’s not their fault they’ve been turned, and they certainly wouldn’t have deserved—”
“Oh, who cares if a couple of mangy mutts die! Do you know how many people they’ve harmed? You should be thanking me for being the only person willing to do something about it.”
Scorpius’s mouth drops open. He gets to his feet. His voice is steel. “You’re the one who changed where Gringotts was directing their castoff.”
Gore sputters. “Why would I—?”
“Maybe you even knew the Wallygagglers were in the moor too, it didn’t matter. You had a goal.” There isn’t a hint of question in his tone. “You were planning to kill off the pack of werewolves.”
Gore lets out a strangled gasp of protest. “I didn’t want to kill them off — I wanted their blood!”
The courtroom goes silent.
Gore is panting, and she goes very pale. “I … I … Gregor — you know me, I didn’t…”
“Why?” Gregor asks, and his voice is cold.
“I didn’t … I didn’t…”
“Why did you want their blood?” Scorpius asks insistently. “What good would it do for you?”
But Draco has a few ideas. The blood of a changed werewolf is more than useful enough to risk a few deaths — and that’s just considering potions. He can’t even imagine all the other possibilities.
“This isn’t my trial,” she snaps.
“You’re exactly right Leonora, exactly right you are.”
For a moment, she beams at Gregor.
“We’ll schedule your trial for next Monday then, shall we? Clear her off, gentleman” — he gestures to two security wizards — “we can’t have any sort of a fair trial with her here.”
“Wait!” she cries. “Wait! None of you would have been in any danger at all if it wasn’t for Potter! We had a handle on them, don’t you remember? Wait!”
But she’s carted off before they can hear anything else, and Draco doesn’t know what Gregory says to Scorpius, but after he’s done, Scorpius lets out a relieved sigh and steps down from the stand. He looks a little dazed. Draco feels it too.
He’s half-aware of Madam Pomfrey being called next. She gives her explanation for helping them, and she’s dismissed in short order. It’s not until his name is called for the third time in a row, and Blaise hauls him up by his underarms, that the world snaps into focus again.
All of this — the Wallygagglers, everything, was some plot to … to do some sort of dark magic he couldn’t even comprehend. But their work isn’t over. Wherever the water from Gringotts was going before it went to the moor, it was building up. With enough time, it would’ve started hurting people.
If wizards were anything like the miners, they wouldn’t have noticed soon enough to do anything about it. Countless people could be jinxed, hexed, or maybe even killed. The Thief’s Downfall only washes off spells that have struck the wizards going underneath them, but very few wizards have been struck by the Killing Curse and lived to traipse through the Gringotts.
He looks at Harry.
“Mr Malfoy?” Gregor says.
Draco blinks, and his brain starts working again.
“Sorry, yes, sorry. I just seem to be a bit … Would you repeat the question?”
“Certainly. Since Leonora can’t be considered a fair judge, we’re calling everyone to the stand again. I’ve just asked if you have proof that there’s latent magic within the moor’s water. There doesn’t seem to be anything submitted in evidence related to that, beyond the lab results of Mr Theodore Lupin and a cursory examination by our staff — which revealed nothing conclusive. Could you shed some light on the issue?”
“I … yes, actually. Yes. If you’ll let me submit more evidence to the court.” Almost giddy, he pulls his Reveliospecs out of his pocket. “They’re my own design, but you can have someone else authenticate them. They allow you to see magic. Magical signatures, magical residue, all sorts of things. If you compare the water from Gringotts to water from an Aguamenti Spell, you’ll see a marked difference.”
“Thank you very much, Mr Malfoy. A few more questions…”
By the end of the day, he’s exhausted, but he feels like he’s floating on a cloud. He’s just left the main courtroom and walked into the Atrium when he hears a voice call for him.
“Draco, could I talk to you for a minute?”
He spins around. Pansy.
Draco bottles up his shock. He nods. She pulls him to a quiet alcove and doesn't look at him.
“Hey,” she says softly. Merlin, he has missed her voice.
“Hey, Pans.”
Unexpectedly, she throws her arms around him, and he stumbles a bit at the sudden change.
“Oh, fuck,” she says, stepping away and wiping her eyes. “Sorry, your injuries. I wasn’t thinking.”
“It’s all right. I … are you all right?”
She smiles weakly, but it doesn’t reach her eyes, and she drops it quickly enough. “When I heard you’d been attacked by a werewolf, I thought you’d died. Or maybe you’d been turned … Then I saw you in that hospital bed and you just looked so—” She cuts herself off and shakes her head.
Realisation dawns slowly, then all at once. “It was you who visited me. I thought … I had no idea. But I heard you.”
She wraps her hand around his bicep and squeezes. “You’re not allowed to leave me when we haven’t properly spoken in months.”
“Years,” he corrects softly. “I didn’t know you wanted to speak to me.”
Her face breaks. “Oh, Merlin. I bollocksed this whole thing up.”
“Bollocksed what up? It’s fine, Pans. You were closer with Astoria so you took her side — I understood.”
“No, fuck. Oh, dammit. Draco, I didn’t cut contact because I took Astoria’s side, okay?”
“Okay. Then why?”
She looks up at him, and he doesn’t try to escape all the emotion in her eyes like he wants to. He lets it roar through him. He’s feeling pretty emotional himself, these days.
“It was too hard trying to be your best friend when I was in love with your ex-wife.”
For a long moment, he says nothing. He doesn’t try to make it better or get more information. He’s not sure he even wants any, except…
“Does Astoria know?”
Pansy nods. “She … we’re … Look, I swear we never did anything before the divorce, and I’m sorry we kept it a secret. Astoria wasn’t sure how she felt about Scorpius knowing, and she didn’t want you to have to keep it from him.”
“Oh.”
He doesn’t know what any of this means, now. Will Astoria and Pansy officially declare themselves a couple? He doesn’t want to lie to his son, but he’s not going to force Pansy and Astoria to announce something they aren’t ready for.
He pulls her in again and rests his chin atop her head. She loops her arms loosely around his back.
“It’s fine,” Draco whispers. Pansy’s hair smells like the expensive rose perfume Astoria wears.
“It’s not fine. You thought I didn’t love you anymore.”
He closes his eyes. “No. I knew you…” But he hadn’t known. “I knew it wasn’t forever. I just missed you.”
“When Blaise called and said you’d been hurt, I swear I didn’t waste a second. Obviously, Astoria was pissed, at first, that you’d taken Scorpius somewhere so dangerous, but once she saw that he was okay, she cooled off. Listen—”
“Mr Malfoy! It’s time for you to get back,” one of the Aurors shouts.
“Ah.” Draco pulls back. “House arrest calls.”
Pansy smiles again, and it looks more steady this time. “Well, we wouldn’t want you to miss out on that. We’ll catch up soon?”
“Yes,” Draco promises, and he knows that, this time, he isn’t lying.
Chapter Text
The day the Wizengamot reaches their verdict dawns crisp and sunny. They will be allowed to re-enter the magical world again once their house arrest is over, with the understanding that — if they misbehave — the court will not be so kind a second time. It’s decided that due to the “extenuating circumstances“ — that is, the fact that the original judge for their trial was personally involved and couldn’t be trusted to provide any real evidence against them — the trial will be dismissed as a whole, with only a pile of Prophet articles stacked up in his office show for it.
“Very interesting stuff, Mr Malfoy,” Theia had defended.
Draco scoffs at the memory.
Luna, Rolf, and Parvati have decided they’re going to work together to breed Boasting Diskies, and to secure the necessary permits to release them in the Gringotts’ water storage room. Teddy and Draco agree to continue working on a potion that could be poured into bodies of water to rid them of excess magic, even if the Boasting Diskies turn out to do their job well enough. Parvati lets them know she’s happy to lend a hand on occasion, especially once they tell her they plan to experiment with olfactory spells as well.
One of the strangest friendships that develops over their confinement is between Lavender and Teddy.
He hears her and Granger whispering on the second to last night they’re all at Grimmauld together.
“It’s just … a big step,” Granger says. “Maybe I shouldn’t have an opinion on this, but—”
“You think I don’t know who saved me that day?” Lavender asks.
“… What?”
“The final battle. It was your voice, I know it was.”
Granger is quiet for a long time. “I’d nearly forgotten about that.”
“I wish I could say the same.”
“You were so brave. We heard you, in the trees, trying to argue for Teddy’s safety.”
“He’s just a kid,” Lavender says. “And he … I thought all werewolves must be evil. For years. But I knew Professor Lupin, and he was a good man. His son is too. So I want to be a part of the outreach programme. I really think I could do some good.”
He walks away before he overhears any more. It feels too private to intrude.
When he gets back to the sitting room, Harry is there. He’s talking to the portraits while he paints, and for a moment, Draco just watches him from the doorway.
The portraits notice him, and they say something that makes Harry turn around.
“Hi,” Harry says softly.
“Hello.” Draco knows how he feels, but he isn’t sure if Harry’s ready for all of it, so he does his best to keep it from pouring out. “Who are you painting?”
Harry smiles, running a hand over the back of his neck. “Er … no one, actually. I’m not making anything in particular. This one’s just for me.”
Draco takes a step closer. Harry’s got a streak of blue paint by his brow. The canvas, it’s clear now, is just covered with vague shapes in no particular pattern.
“Draco?”
“Yeah?” He turns.
“The Spectroculars…”
It threatens to pick at some insecure part of him that Harry has to ask.
“Things malfunction. Especially tricky, magical things.” Draco hesitates. “I pulled the stock the first day after you came to the clinic, after I saw what happened to your eye. I’ve been trying to improve them since then.”
Harry is just a breath away now, and he takes Draco’s hand in his, interlocks their fingers.
In Harry’s other hand, he holds the ruined spectrometry glasses.
“I guess they’re pretty useless now,” Harry says.
“Don’t discount them yet. They might make a nice weapon.”
Harry’s lips tick up. “Such a Slytherin. No, they’re completely useless. And someday I might not … someday I might be ready to let go of them.”
Draco brings his hand up to Harry’s face and brushes away the blue paint with the pad of his thumb. “Okay.”
Harry’s eyes blink closed for a moment, then meet his dazedly. “Erm … the portraits.”
“Hmm?”
“Well, I came in here because I missed them while they were all messed up, but — actually, that part doesn’t matter, what matters is…” Harry walks Draco backwards into the hallway and crowds him up against the wall.
It’s darker, and quieter, but when Harry grins, he really is as bright as the sun. Draco’s eyes trace the lightning scar. A little bit of sun, a little bit of storm.
“Oh,” Draco exhales.
“What matters is that they can wait,” Harry says. Then he’s kissing Draco, and the world rushes away.
Draco can feel Harry smiling as he draws back and trails kisses down Draco’s neck, stopping near his collar when his hand reaches Draco’s waistband.
“We’re not having sex in the middle of the hallway,” Draco whispers.
Harry kisses him again.
Maybe it isn’t such a bad idea.
“Why not?” Harry responds when he pulls away.
Draco’s almost forgotten what they were talking about. “It feels like your house is watching us.” The lights undulate in agreement. “And anyone could walk by.”
Harry slides a hand up under Draco’s shirt, and Draco lets him, his eyes falling closed.
“Merlin, you kill me,” Harry murmurs.
Draco smiles. “I could kill you a lot more pleasurably on a bed.”
Harry is jerking him up the stairs a moment later.
When they make it to Harry’s bedroom, Harry shuts the door behind them and locks it with a snick. A little thrill travels down to the base of Draco’s spine.
He’s never properly been in Harry’s room before. It’s bigger than he’d have thought, crowded with boxes and clothes and furniture. Draco wishes he could say everything he wants to without speaking.
Harry won’t be getting any judgement from him. Nothing here changes the way Draco feels.
Gently, Harry sits on the edge of the bed. He looks at Draco and says, “Come here.”
Draco drops to the floor in front of him and runs his hands up Harry’s thighs, parting them. Harry let’s put a little gasp that makes Draco’s cock twitch.
Draco leans in to mouth at Harry’s crotch, and feels distinctly satisfied when Harry swells beneath him. He’s overwhelmed by all the feelings, all the thoughts in his head, and the little gasp Harry lets out as Draco unzips him.
He moves to kiss along Harry’s neck, feather-light, as he takes him in hand over his pants. Harry thrusts his hips up, whining and letting out breathy exhales. Draco has to pause for a moment to fight the intense arousal licking through him. Then he lifts up fully onto his knees and pulls their hips together, grinding against Harry wickedly.
“I want you,” Harry pants.
“Want me to what?” This doesn’t seem like the time for talking, but he’ll never make things easy for Harry, and Harry might as well learn that now.
“In me.” Harry moans as Draco jerks his hips against him. “Fuck. Now, you bastard.”
“You could ask nicely.”
Harry laughs, and Merlin, Draco is a little bit in love with him. He wishes he could put this moment into a Pensieve and fall into it every day, no matter what other responsibilities were pressing at him.
Draco finally slides off the last layer between him and Harry’s cock, pushing his pants over it until it bobs against his stomach.
“Yes,” Harry whispers. He twitches in Draco’s grip as he thrusts his hips forward again. “Don’t stop.”
He kisses the head just briefly, then draws away. Harry whimpers.
“Merlin, I hate you.”
“We’ll see.” He presses against Harry’s hips so that he slides up the bed and guides him to lay flat on his back, then he finally tugs off Harry’s shirt, the last of his clothing, and straddles him.
“Fuck, I hate it when you’re right.”
Draco laughs, pinning Harry’s hands against the bedcover, inhaling his gasp.
He gives himself time to explore Harry’s mouth like he hadn’t before. He settles his full body weight over him, bringing every bit of them into direct contact, and fuck, does it feel perfect.
He’s waited so long for this. He’s pretty sure he would have kept waiting forever.
Draco rocks against Harry until they’re breathless, then pulls away because he knows they both want more.
“Selfish arse,” Harry breathes. “When do I get to touch you?”
Draco shifts up onto his knees again, and he’s about to search for some lube when Harry uses the leverage Draco granted him and straightens his arms, pushing until his face is beneath Draco’s parted thighs.
“What are you doing?” he whispers.
Harry frees his hands, unzipping Draco’s trousers and helping him shuck them off, then his shirt, then his pants, until Draco is totally stripped, and Harry gives him a look that reminds him how very long he’s been utterly lost for this man.
He guides Draco back into position over his face, fingers digging into his hips.
“What are you doing?” Draco whispers again. He leans forward until his arms are supporting him just slightly. The injuries don’t hurt anymore, but he feels the stretch of his scars.
Harry tongues the sensitive head of his cock, and it’s all Draco can do to not lose control. He swears and falls forward.
And then Harry’s hands are on his arse, bringing him in closer, and Draco’s length is disappearing into Harry’s mouth. So hot and tight and fuck.
Draco pulls back when he feels Harry’s throat catch, hovering over him and waiting for him to recover.
“All right?” he asks.
“Do it again,” Harry says.
Draco pushes his cock past Harry’s swollen lips, digging his hands in Harry’s curls, thrusting in, and in, and fuck. He could come down Harry’s throat. It wouldn’t take much.
Draco holds Harry’s head in place as his throat seizes around his length, gripping him so tightly. His cock throbs. He pulls out to let Harry breathe, thrusts in again, and grinds his hips as deeply as they’ll go.
Fuck, why hasn’t he done this before?
“You’re so hot, Potter. Wanna fuck your mouth until I come down your throat.”
Harry moans around him in approval, and it sends a jitter up Draco’s spine.
“You like that, huh? You’d want Granger and Weasley to know what happened next time you tried to speak to them?”
Harry groans then coughs, and Draco pulls back. “Okay?”
“Keep going.”
Draco damn near comes at the raspy sound of his voice. He fucks into Harry’s mouth harder, balls slapping against his chin, feeling the sharp scrape of Harry’s teeth against his skin.
Draco pumps into Harry’s mouth until he’s nearing the edge, and then he finally draws back, letting his cock brush over Harry’s reddened lips and dip in again for a second before finally pulling fully away.
“Why’d you stop?” Harry asks, breathless.
“I don’t want to come yet.”
Harry meets his eyes, a soppy grin growing on his face. “We won’t be done. You don’t have to drag it out.”
“You make it sound like that’s such a bad thing. Where’s your lube?”
“Drawer.”
Draco rifles around until he finds it as Harry turns over, sliding up the mattress on his belly. Draco watches the way his muscles strain, the soft dip of his spine, and his mouth feels dry.
Finally, because he can, he reaches forward and smooths his hand over Harry’s back, gliding over the muscles, stopping at his arse and massaging it.
Draco slicks his fingers up and presses one into him, going slowly at first, adding another when Harry’s ready.
It’s near hypnotising, watching the slow progress as he teases them deeper, hearing the steady panting exhales Harry lets out as he writhes against the bed.
He presses down until he finds that spot, and Harry cries out, pushing back against him desperately, hands twisting in the bedcovers.
“You have no idea all the things I want to do to you. A whole stockpile. I’ve had years to think them up, Potter.”
“Do them.”
“All of them? That might take a while.”
“You have places to be?”
Draco drops an amused kiss at the base of his spine. “Nowhere. Just here.”
He scissors his fingers, and Harry gasps, grabbing onto the headboard and bucking his hips back.
“You look so good,” he whispers.
“Yeah? Tell me.”
“You take my fingers so well. I can’t wait to get my cock inside you, stretch you open. I want to feel you squeezing around me when you come.”
Harry nods against the bed, his shoulders straining. “I want you.”
Draco waits, adding another finger, planning to do this until Harry is dripping with lube and rutting desperately against the mattress.
He looks so good, so ready, and Draco hurts with it.
Draco’s cock is heavy and full when he takes it in hand, already so sensitive he has to pause halfway through applying lube so he doesn’t come at the sight of Harry spread out in front of him.
He wants this to be perfect. He wants to be better than anyone Harry’s ever had. He doesn’t think he’ll last that long.
But we have plenty of time. We can learn how to drive each other mad.
He guides the head of his cock to Harry’s hole and presses in, just the barest bit. It throbs in his hand when Harry exhales and says, “Merlin, yes.”
He continues to press forward, sliding in with smooth, rocking motions, letting himself thrust once when he’s halfway and feeling his stomach flip with the sound Harry lets out.
He buries himself to the hilt, gasping at the overwhelming tightness. Harry is clenching around him as he tries to get off against the bed.
Draco stills his hips with a hand, breathing in sharply.
“Fuck,” he says. “Merlin, fuck. You look so good.”
“Feel so full. God, Draco, I want you to fuck me already.”
A bolt of energy travels through his whole body, and he jerks his hips almost involuntarily, grinding into Harry, who lets out a long, drawn-out groan. “More.”
“Yeah?”
Harry’s back rises and falls with a puff of laughter. His sweat is slick on his skin. “You’re such a bastard. Fuck me into the damn mattress.”
Draco shudders with pleasure, pulling out halfway and pushing back in again. “Good?”
“Shite, yes. Faster.”
He withdraws and thrusts in again, starting up a jerky rhythm. In, out, in, out. Harry does his best to rock back against him. His hips move in little, juddering shakes, and the bed quakes with their movements.
He’s pumping into him now without pause, knowing he’s nearing the edge but not caring. His forearms bracket either side of Harry’s head, his face the barest distance from Harry’s shoulders.
“Yeah, yes, fuck, Malfoy, harder.”
Draco grins against his skin, driving into him, going as fast as he can. His chest feels slick against Harry’s back. His hands are grabbing onto Harry’s, locking their fingers together, going all the harder.
“Come in me,” Harry says.
He gasps, feeling his cock pulse at the thought, and he has to pause. “Are you sure you—”
“Fuck, yes, just—” Harry jerks back against him, biting into his own fist. “You’re so beautiful.”
He laughs as the idea comes to him. Harry’s prosthesis. “Are you watching me?”
“Fuck yeah. This eye’s dead useful for some things. Might as well put it to work.”
Draco pushes back from his forearms, holding himself up with his hands again so Harry can see him better, and using the leverage to get just that little bit deeper. He moves his hips slowly, languidly.
He’s going to bury his cock in Harry’s arse and fill him with his release. He can feel it coming now, about to wash over him, building in all his limbs, so he speeds up.
Draco jerks one final time as he shoots into Harry, burying himself to the hilt, gasping as Harry starts thrusting back against him harder, rocking his hips until he, too, is groaning, grinding against the bed as he comes.
Draco lays, panting, against Harry as hazy, wonderful satiation overtakes him. He feels Harry shake with laughter underneath him, and he hits him lazily on the upper arm. “What?”
“I really, really like you,” Harry says, voice gruff.
“And that’s funny?”
“It’s just … your face when you come.”
“Oi! I’m sure I’m very attractive.”
Harry cackles, prodding at Draco until he pulls out with a hiss and gets off him. Draco turns on his side to face Harry, amused despite himself.
“You’re so rude. It’s definitely not proper etiquette to make fun of someone right after sex.”
“No?” Harry puts a hand on his face and kisses him briefly with a dopey smile. “Should we reserve times, then? Because I’m planning on having an awful lot of sex with you, and I don’t know how we’ll manage to balance that with insults if I don’t have a schedule.”
Draco leans into the kiss, smiling against Harry’s lips. “Planning on an awful lot, are you? That sounds like a challenge.”
“Maybe for you. I don’t anticipate having any trouble with it.”
Draco laughs. “Good to know.”
Harry kisses his neck, and Draco can feel him smiling too. “Prat.”
Draco sighs. “Any chance you can do Cleaning Charms wandlessly?”
“Magic blocker, remember?”
“You’d let a little thing like that stop you?”
Harry moves across the room, slow and sleepy, to throw him a flannel. When he gets back in bed, his hand comes up to cup Draco's face, and then slides down the length of his arm and stops to rest at his side.
He reaches up to tweak the edge of Harry’s prosthesis. “You shouldn’t sleep in that, you know. It disturbs REM.”
Harry slips it off with only a small moment of hesitation, then he lies back down. Draco strokes along the soft skin of his cheek, down to the cleft in his chin.
“I still haven’t gotten used to the way I look,” Harry whispers.
“You’ve got as much time as you need,” Draco returns. “I can’t imagine it’ll take all that long, being as devastatingly handsome as you.”
Harry nips the tip of Draco’s finger where it lingers over his parted lips. “Thought you were tired of people thinking I’m handsome.”
“Just when they’re not me.”
Harry smiles. “Goodnight, you prat.”
Draco doesn’t stop staring at him until Harry’s eye droops closed and his breathing slackens. Then Draco turns over carefully and shifts back against him, letting himself be held in warm arms as he falls asleep.
~
By their last night, Kreacher has finally forgiven Harry, so he serves up soup without complaint, and he brings out Regulus at their request.
“You helped us a lot,” Harry tells the portrait. “I don’t know how much of it you remember.”
“The magic that controlled me wasn’t like anything I’ve felt before. But I remember everything.”
His eyes find Draco’s unerringly. “I hear you’re Narcissa’s boy.”
“You knew her well?”
Regulus shrugs. “Well enough.”
“This is her grandson,” Draco says, pulling Scorpius forward by the shoulder.
Scorpius stands in front of the portraits awkwardly.
“Hello,” Regulus says.
“Hi.”
“I suppose Kreacher‘s already told you all the stories of your dear old dad misbehaving? My mother had thousands, it seemed.”
Scorpius’s expression morphs into delight. “No.”
“But I think we’d all like to hear,” Blaise says.
“Couldn’t agree more,” Parvati tells him.
They spend the evening hearing horrible stories, ones that make Luna collapse in laughter and inspire Teddy to try giving him several high fives. Once Kreacher takes the portrait back to his cupboard, Granger, Weasley, and Lavender reveal that they’ve all been let go from their jobs. Lavender — at least — doesn’t seem too broken up about it.
“What’s next?” Draco asks them.
“New things,” Granger says. “A career I can be proud of. I’m still looking.”
“Early retirement,” Weasley answers, and when Granger whacks him on the arm, “Bloody hell, ‘Mione. I’m only joking. Dunno, do I? I’ve been an Auror since I graduated. I guess whatever job’ll take me.”
“There’s still a lot of work that needs to be done with all this,” Blaise reminds him.
“Yeah, but that’s all brain stuff. Not for me.”
Blaise scoffs. “You’re underestimating yourself. We could use your help, mate. Just say the word.”
Weasley doesn’t respond, but he looks rather proud of himself for a while after.
“Werewolf outreach and rehabilitation,” Lavender answers. “I’m going to do something that makes a difference in the world.”
Scorpius grins at her, and she returns it with a small smile of her own. She peeks at Parvati.
“Oh,” says Parvati. “And — er — we’ve been meaning to say this for a while now. We’re together. Properly. So, we hope that you all can understand and—”
Blaise wolf-whistles, and Teddy whoops. Parvati rolls her eyes, “ — and act like mature adults about it.”
Granger positively squeals, wrapping Lavender up in a hug that seems to mostly go around her head. Lavender pats Granger’s arm indulgently, a flush colouring her cheeks. “Yes, yes, it’s all very exciting.” But she sounds like she means it.
Draco looks at Harry out of the corner of his eye, and understanding passes between them.
Not yet. But not never, either.
Excited chatter breaks out among them. Draco’s going to miss this.
Then again, maybe this doesn’t have to be the last time they meet. Sure, they won’t live at Grimmauld Place together any longer but … things seem possible.
It’s hard to imagine a time when they didn’t.
~
The moment their house arrest lifts, they’re back at the moor. They trail through the grasses in aimless loops for a while, trying to work up the nerve to go further. Lavender and Parvati are holding hands, Luna has hopped up on Rolf’s back, and Granger has her head leaned against Weasley’s shoulder.
He’s not ready for more, but when the littlest finger of Harry’s hand brushes against his own as they walk, his feelings begin catching up with him.
Draco is the first at the hole in the ground, so he’s the one that sees Pop just on the other side.
Pop’s guarded anger is clear, but he doesn’t banish Draco immediately. He jumps onto the land, and several other Wallygagglers follow.
Draco backs up when he realises that all of them are coming. Click climbs out of the hole last, his eyestalks swivelling to face Draco.
Relief crashes over him like a wave. It was true: Click’s really alive.
“Why are you here?” Pop asks.
“We have news. Gringotts let us put a colony of Boasting Diskies in their water storage room. The Diskies are going remove at least some of the curse magic before the water makes it into the natural world.”
A Wallygaggler so small he thinks it must be a child waddles towards them. It’s small and yellow and its tusks are just barely beginning to grow.
Draco cocks his head. “Hello.”
“Hello,” the Wallygaggler echoes.
Draco raises a brow.
“Many of them have picked up small amounts of human speech recently,” Click says, hobbling over. “She is only thirty, so your language will undoubtedly live on with her generation.”
Pop looks distinctly less pleased, but he mutters, “Perhaps it is not such a terrible tragedy.”
It might be the nicest thing he’s said in his life.
“And what’s your name?” Draco asks the little Wallygaggler.
She makes a snapping sound, and he repeats it.
Draco watches a team of Wallygagglers lead a procession, each of them carrying a single thunderegg. They’re rebuilding the stack, he realises. Apparently, they’d taken it below for safe-keeping, and now they feel comfortable again.
Snap bumbles after them.
“My prostheses,” Draco says. “When we remove the ward, will they stop functioning again.”
“For a time,” Click says. “Our magic is hard for us to reverse ourselves. You’ll be able to fix them, though.”
As they leave the moor, Draco calls ahead, “Harry?”
Harry looks over his shoulder, smiling unreservedly. “Did you need me?”
Yes, Merlin, yes.
“Just trying something out.”
Harry throws him a lopsided grin, his eye crinkling at the corner. Draco lets his feelings run and run until they finally overtake him.
~
He still has business to handle.
“I … I’ve never dealt with anything like this before, Poppy, and I don’t know how to treat it. I don’t even have my patients’ trust anymore, and I’m supposed to fix all their prostheses.”
She sighs, patting the seat beside her.
“I don’t really have time to sit.”
“You’ll sit if I say you’ll sit.”
He sits.
“Listen, boy, all you need is a bit of credibility.” She pats her chest with a flat palm, taking on a very proud look. “That’s where I come in.”
“You?”
“People trust me, don’t they?”
“Well—”
“Don’t they?”
“Of course.”
“See, there. So I come to your clinic, and I help.”
“It’ll be a complicated bit of wand-work…”
She wallops him upside the head. “You don’t think I’m capable of complicated wand-work?”
“Ah! All right, Circe. You know, it’s a wonder they let you care for children, disposition like that.”
She crosses her arms sternly. “Are you a child, Mr Malfoy?”
“No,” he says slowly.
“And you’ve not officially been my patient, either, for at least a few years — renegades don’t count — so I can do what I please.”
He’s still rubbing his ear, which is stinging something fierce. “My mistake.”
It’s a week before they come up with the right combination of spells. Theia helps a lot. It turns out that she’s been wanting an apprenticeship for a while now.
Draco certainly doesn’t mind.
Once they’ve fixed up Harry, Teddy, and Lavender’s eyes, patients come pouring in. It’s one of the most intense introductions to the field he can imagine, but Theia doesn’t complain. At the end of it all, she claps him on the shoulder soundly.
“That Harry of yours is a total ride, isn’t he?”
He tells her, very succinctly, “Piss off.”
~
Draco forgets all about the election until the day Scorpius arrives at the Manor looking dejected.
“I lost,” he says. He sounds a bit detached from it all.
“Oh.”
Draco leads him to the sofa and sits him down, not entirely sure how to be tactful about this. In most ways, it’s a relief. The last thing he wants is Scorpius getting further tied up in dangerous business.
“I don’t know what to do now.”
“What’d your mother say?”
“I haven’t told her yet.”
“Oh,” Draco says again.
He reaches out to pat Scorpius on the shoulder, falters, then does it anyway. Scorpius sighs, burying his head in his hands. Then he laughs once, sharply, and sits up.
“I don’t know what to do,” Scorpius repeats.
Draco doesn’t either. He’s never parented before without using Astoria as a guide, filling in the gaps she leaves him. He’s not sure he knows how. But this news isn’t the end of the world. Working for the Ministry shouldn’t be anyone’s goal, no matter how noble the cause.
“You know, you’ve already helped quite a few magical species without having the job. You don’t have to stop.”
Scorpius considers this, twisting his face. “Yeah, but I’ve got to have some sort of career. It would be hard to make time for this if I was working on other stuff.”
“Well, what about what Rolf or Parvati do? Magizoologist isn’t appealing at all? Veterinary care?”
“Not really.”
“Keep doing what you’re doing, then.”
“What do you mean?”
Draco shrugs expansively. “There’s nothing wrong with how you’ve been approaching this so far. You’ve made progress, haven’t you? Even unattached to the Ministry? You’d need to assemble a new team, of course, because you’re right — I really couldn’t help while holding down my job. But that’s not so bad. The official liaison might be up to collaborating, and the Weasleys will have a lot of free time on their hands. Rose might want to get involved.”
Scorpius tilts his head back and forth, weighing the idea. “Yeah, maybe. But, I mean, what about work?”
“That seems like work to me.”
Scorpius gives him a withering look. “I mean the actual, you know, job part of a job. The money part, the employment part.”
Draco looks around at the grand room of the manor. “We’re not exactly strapped for Galleons at the moment.”
“But I thought…”
“What?”
Scorpius turns away from him, examining his nails studiously. His voice is quiet. “It was a big deal when you started a career, wasn’t it? Mum told me grandpa hadn’t worked except for courtesy positions in the Ministry and at Hogwarts, nothing paid. And that his father hadn’t worked, and his father.”
Draco doesn’t want to consider how the family funds had been so well-maintained over the years, but he knows Scorpius must have caught on by now that his ancestors dealt in a great deal of dark artefacts, and that they planned very carefully which investments they’d buy into, ones that are still filling the coffers today. Astoria had helped Draco fix the worst of it, but there are still improvements he needs to make.
“That’s all true,” Draco says.
“So, how can I go and be a layabout like them? That’s taking a step backwards, isn’t it?”
Draco thinks he finally understands Scorpius, at least more than he ever has.
“You’re not responsible for what your ancestors did or didn’t do — or what I did and didn’t do, for that matter. You need to focus on what’s best for you. There are no steps backwards here. Our family tree is not a steady progression towards one end.”
“You wouldn’t be disappointed?”
“Never. But you’d hardly count as a layabout, either. If you were anything like Potter? Sure. But you — doing this kind of work — you'll be busy all the time.”
Scorpius cracks a smile. “Are you ever going to stop acting like you hate him?”
“Don’t be ridiculous.”
“So, even if you two get married—”
“We’re not getting married,” he says, mildly scandalised.
“Or move in together and admit to everyone that you’re definitely dating and horribly bad at hiding it—”
“Not happening, either.”
“You’re still going to be pretending you can’t stand him? It’s just uncomfortable, at this point. Everyone clearly knows. Even Luna’s caught on, for Merlin’s sake. We’re just pretending we haven’t noticed because you’re still convinced it’s working.”
“Well, you can go right back to pretending, thank you very much. Harry is my friend. I will admit that much and nothing more.”
“If I ever walk in on you snogging Uncle Blaise—”
“Don’t even put the thought in my mind.” Then, horrified, “You haven’t walked in on me and Harry snogging?”
“Of course not. You’re just friends, remember?”
Draco narrows his eyes. “Fine. We might, at some point in time, form a relationship. Now, do I need to pay for a Mind Healer or not?”
“All clear. Certainly glad I didn’t have to see any snogging for you to admit it.”
His son is not supposed to be good at manipulation.
But he is his son, after all. Draco sighs.
When he looks up, Harry is standing in the doorway, his head leaned against it. He’s smiling like he’s got a secret. Draco hopes he’ll be let in on it eventually.
He gives Harry a little wave and Scorpius twists around.
“Aha!” Scorpius cries. “See?” He turns to Draco. “I told you.”
Harry laughs, easy and relaxed.
It’s the kind of laugh that makes Draco think maybe he can learn — maybe he can learn how to love Harry the way he deserves, how to work his job like a man who knows how lucky he is to have it, how to give Scorpius the guidance he needs without smothering all the parts of him Draco doesn’t understand.
Maybe he can reach out with his shaking, selfish hands, and choose to treat the world gently.
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Shadowsofadreamer on Chapter 1 Mon 23 Jan 2023 04:45AM UTC
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dothechachaslide on Chapter 1 Thu 26 Jan 2023 03:37AM UTC
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Tedah on Chapter 2 Sat 31 Dec 2022 04:28PM UTC
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Tedah on Chapter 3 Sat 31 Dec 2022 05:19PM UTC
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Tedah on Chapter 4 Sat 31 Dec 2022 05:29PM UTC
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Tedah on Chapter 5 Sat 31 Dec 2022 06:44PM UTC
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khalulu on Chapter 5 Fri 06 Jan 2023 05:17AM UTC
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honeybeet on Chapter 6 Sat 31 Dec 2022 04:09PM UTC
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Tedah on Chapter 6 Sun 01 Jan 2023 08:52AM UTC
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Account Deleted on Chapter 6 Sun 01 Jan 2023 11:31AM UTC
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khalulu on Chapter 6 Fri 06 Jan 2023 05:27AM UTC
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Tedah on Chapter 7 Sun 01 Jan 2023 11:08AM UTC
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khalulu on Chapter 7 Sat 07 Jan 2023 03:53AM UTC
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dothechachaslide on Chapter 7 Sun 22 Jan 2023 11:17AM UTC
Last Edited Sun 22 Jan 2023 12:10PM UTC
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khalulu on Chapter 7 Sun 22 Jan 2023 05:19PM UTC
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honeybeet on Chapter 8 Sat 31 Dec 2022 04:36PM UTC
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Tedah on Chapter 8 Mon 02 Jan 2023 02:40PM UTC
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khalulu on Chapter 8 Sat 07 Jan 2023 04:21AM UTC
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Tedah on Chapter 9 Tue 03 Jan 2023 01:11PM UTC
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dothechachaslide on Chapter 9 Sun 22 Jan 2023 11:28AM UTC
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Micah1966 on Chapter 9 Wed 12 Mar 2025 08:06PM UTC
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Micah1966 on Chapter 9 Wed 12 Mar 2025 08:05PM UTC
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AnotherKingdom on Chapter 9 Wed 28 Feb 2024 09:19PM UTC
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dothechachaslide on Chapter 9 Sat 09 Mar 2024 02:17PM UTC
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