Chapter Text
The Problem of Malfoy Manor
Harry worked at the long table by the south wall, sleeves rolled, chalk dust worked into the grain of the wood. The line ran clean until it reached a knot that pulled the spell just enough to notice.
Above him, Noctua shifted on her perch, feathers ruffling once before she resettled. The alcove had been built into the stone when they rebuilt the upper floor, angled away from the prevailing wind and lined with old timber that held warmth.
The kettle whistled itself hoarse. Harry left the chalk where it was and crossed to the stove, lifting it off before it boiled dry again. He poured the water over tea leaves and set two mugs on the counter, nudging one into place with his knuckles rather than looking.
Draco came down from the top floor with a book under his arm and paused on the last step, hand resting briefly on the rail. He scanned the room without thinking, eyes catching on the chalk line, the windows, Noctua above.
“You’re fighting the eastern seam?” Draco said.
“It thrums when the wind shifts.”
“It’s meant to,” Draco replied. “It’s a cottage, not a vault.”
Harry handed him the mug without looking. “You say that like you haven’t reinforced half of it twice.”
Their fingers brushed and Draco leaned briefly into Harry’s shoulder, automatic, then stepped past him to inspect the chalk line.
“If you keep tightening it,” Draco went on, “the house will start answering you back. You don’t have to win against the weather.”
Harry’s mouth twitched faintly. “I’m not trying to win.”
“You always are.” Draco said mildly.
Draco’s free hand settled at Harry’s lower back as he spoke, a light pressure that stayed while he talked and then stayed a moment longer. Harry adjusted the chalk line again, pared it down instead of adding to it. The ward loosened, the house answering with a small, settling sound that ran up through the walls.
Draco took the book back upstairs, leaving it on the table with a scrap marking his place, then returned to the library instead.
Harry finished his adjustment, washed his hands at the sink, and stood there a moment with the water running cold over his fingers. He turned it off and dried his hands on the towel Draco had left draped over the chair.
By the time he joined him upstairs, Draco was seated on the floor with his back against the shelves, legs stretched out. Harry lowered himself beside him and leaned in, shoulder to shoulder. Draco shifted without looking and rested his head briefly against Harry’s temple, careful of the scar.
“How is it?” Draco asked quietly.
“Holding,” Harry said. “It’ll need watching.”
Draco’s hand found his fingers and squeezed once, steady. “Everything does.”
Harry sat beside him on the floor, he rested his hand on Draco’s leg as if by accident, fingers loose, palm open, letting the warmth register before he moved at all.
When he did, it was slow. His hand slid along the line of Draco’s thigh, following muscle with deliberate attention, until it settled high enough that Draco’s breath changed. Harry left it there, thumb pressing once, light but intentional, then stillness again. He felt the question land before he asked it.
Draco turned his head, he looked at Harry for a moment, eyes sharp and amused and already giving something away, then leaned in and kissed him.
Harry tipped Draco’s chin up with two fingers and deepened it, unhurried, thorough. When he pulled back, it was only to kiss along Draco’s jawline, then his neck, lingering where the skin was warmest. He felt Draco lean into it, felt the way his posture shifted without being told.
His hand moved again, slipping under Draco’s shirt with no hesitation. Warm skin. The immediate response there, muscle tightening under his palm. Harry pressed in just enough to feel it and smiled against Draco’s throat.
Draco’s fingers slid into his hair, tugged once, sharp and precise. “You’re enjoying yourself.”
Harry hummed and kissed his shoulder. “I pay attention.”
Draco vanished Harry’s jumper without breaking contact, wandless and soundless, the fabric gone between one breath and the next. Cool air hit Harry’s skin and Draco’s hands followed immediately, palms warm, confident, gliding over his chest as if he had always intended to do that.
Harry laughed softly as his other hand stayed firm on Draco’s thigh, grounding, unmistakable. “I guess I don’t need to ask if you want to.”
The humour in Draco’s expression softened. He met Harry’s eyes, held the look for a beat longer than necessary, then leaned in again, slower this time, deliberate. “Don’t stop,” he said, just as quietly.
Harry leaned in, mouth brushing Draco’s ear, and murmured something meant only for him. Draco stilled under it, breath catching, and then pulled Harry back into a kiss that left no doubt about the answer.
Draco did not bother getting up. He shifted only enough to flick his wrist, and a blanket answered the motion at once, drawn from somewhere upstairs and settling over them with quiet accuracy. Harry watched it land, still pleasantly disinclined to move, one arm tucked around Draco’s waist.
“Do you ever wonder,” Harry said, voice rough and amused against Draco’s shoulder, “where my jumpers actually go.”
Draco made a thoughtful sound and adjusted the blanket with two fingers. “Presumably the same place as your trousers.”
Harry huffed a laugh, the sound pressed into Draco’s collarbone. “That explains nothing.”
“It explains everything,” Draco said, smug without trying.
He shifted then, a small movement that would have been unremarkable to anyone else. Harry felt it immediately and moved with him, sliding an arm more firmly behind Draco’s back, adjusting his own position until the tension eased. Draco let out a slow breath and settled, the line of his body loosening as the support took.
“Better?” Harry asked.
“Yes,” Draco said, after a moment. Then, quieter, “Thank you.”
They lay like that for a while, the floor warm beneath the rug, the house steady around them. Draco’s fingers traced idle patterns along Harry’s hand, light and absent, following knuckles and scars with no particular intent. Harry responded in kind, combing his fingers slowly through Draco’s hair, darker now than it had ever been blond, soft where it curled at the nape.
“You know,” Draco said lazily, eyes closed, “most people would invest in furniture by now.”
Harry smiled and pressed a kiss to his temple. “We have furniture.”
“We are currently lying on the floor.”
“Very deliberately.”
They stayed there, trading small touches and smaller smiles, the sea audible but distant, the house content to hold them exactly as they were.
The next morning, Harry packed at the long oak table scarred by five years of chalk lines and hot mugs set down without coasters. His warding kit lay open like a surgeon’s roll: chalk worn flat at one end, copper wire coiled tight, a narrow-bladed knife nicked from use. He slid each piece into its leather wrap with habitual precision.
Draco stood by the stove, the kettle still ticking faintly as it cooled.
“It’s only a warehouse,” Harry said, shrugging into his coat.
Draco crossed the room and straightened the collar for him, fingers firm and efficient. “You said that about the archives in Bristol and that took you three weeks and you came back with a limp.”
“That was different, they were openly hostile.”
“You do seem to provoke architecture.”
Harry looked at him properly then. Draco’s hair had come loose at the temple, a dark strand caught in the wind that slipped through the chimney draft. Harry tucked it back without comment.
“No heroics,” Draco said quietly.
Harry kissed him once. Salt and tea and familiarity.
“I promise, only moderate heroics.”
Draco sighs. “I love you.”
“I love you too.”
Then Harry stepped out into the wind.
The wards flared briefly as he crossed them, a ripple of silver along the perimeter stones before they sealed again.
Draco stood in the doorway for a moment after Harry left, listening. The wards answered low and steady, a hum beneath the floorboards that had become as ordinary as tide and kettle and breath.
He walked the perimeter anyway.
Fingers brushed the seam where stone met timber. He pressed his palm flat against the northern threshold and felt the weave of the outer lattice, each thread distinct beneath his touch.
Upstairs, he changed to a dark wool coat, brushed free of chalk dust.
The letter waited on the hall table.
He slid it into the inner pocket of his coat, where it rested flat against his ribs.
The birds tracked him as he crossed the room.
Noctua shifted, feathers whispering softly against timber. Pluviam gave a low, almost conversational trill.
“I am aware,” Draco said.
Green flame rose fast and hot, swallowing stone and timber and Draco whole.
The pub spat him out into warmth.
Sirius’s pub was called The Black Dog & Quill, which Sirius claimed was a coincidence. The sign out front changed depending on mood and tonight the dog was reclining with a book.
It smelled of oak and old paper and something faintly sweet that might once have been apples and was now simply memory. The ceiling beams were dark with age, carved in places with initials that had survived three ownership disputes and at least one fire. The shelves climbed the walls in uneven ranks, bowing under the weight of books that had no business sharing space with tankards and salted nuts.
A volume near the fire snapped itself shut with mild irritation at the draft from the Floo.
The regulars ignored it.
An elderly witch in the corner sipped stout while annotating the margins of a first edition as though vandalism were a civic duty. Two wizards argued softly over a chessboard, one hand idly reaching back to steady a stack of parchment that had begun to creep toward the edge of the table.
The pub watched Draco.
A chair straightened itself.
The book nearest the bar slid an inch closer as if in anticipation.
Sirius stood behind the counter, sleeves rolled, polishing a glass with the air of a man who would deny any emotional attachment to this establishment under Veritaserum.
Sirius leaned his forearms on the bar. Close enough that his voice did not need to carry. “Harry gone?”
“Warehouse.”
“Mm.” Sirius nodded once. “And you? How are you, kid?”
Draco held his gaze for a beat longer than necessary, and with a discrete flick of his fingers, a muffliato charm settled over them. Then he reached into his inner pocket and placed the letter on the bar between them.
The Ministry wax seal caught the firelight.
He read the seal upside down, jaw tightening almost imperceptibly. “I’m guessing that's not a social invitation?”
“It arrived two days ago,” Draco said. “From an office that does not technically exist.”
Sirius straightened. “That’s never good news.”
“They’re conducting what they call a ‘record review,’” Draco continued. “Cross-referencing unresolved war crimes with genealogical registries.”
Sirius’s jaw tightened and the pub made a low, displeased sound, beams shifting as if settling its weight.
“They note,” Draco said calmly, “that Lucius Malfoy remains at large. No confirmed death and Malfoy Manor still remains unresolved. I am on record as Lucius Malfoy’s son. Fully indexed. Genealogy Books. Birth certificate. Wall-paper family tree.”
A chair scraped softly across the floor, moving away from the bar as if offended on Draco’s behalf.
“Malfoy Manor has been missing for over five years,” Draco went on. “Houses like that don’t vanish unless they are made to.”
Sirius leaned forward, forearms on the bar. “Listen to me, kid. Whatever that man did, whatever he built or hid, it does not belong to you.”
Draco’s smile was thin. “The Ministry disagrees.”
“Let it.”
“It’s enforceable,” Draco said evenly. “As long as the records stand, I will inherit it.”
“Look, kid” Sirius said, gentler now. “You’re a war hero. Public record. You’re engaged to the son of the Minister of Magic.” He paused, then added, “Which, by the way, when are we having a wedding, because the pub would like to start planning”
“It will become difficult, if I reject out of the claim that I have no familiar ties to Malfoy Manor” Draco continued, ignoring the wedding-request, “and thus, if anyone becomes too interested in the mechanics of how I dismantled the blood-ward at Hogwarts.”
The air seemed to pull tight around them.
Sirius straightened. “That information is sealed. Classified in ways that don’t even have names anymore,” Sirius said firmly. “No one is ever going to know.”
Draco’s mouth curved, faint and humourless. “Either they do,” he said, “or I remain Lucius Malfoy’s son and we return, inevitably, to Malfoy Manor.”
Sirius went very still.
“Neither outcome,” Draco added, “is particularly cheerful.”
Sirius scrubbed a hand over his face and looked down at the letter again, as if hoping it might rearrange itself into something less catastrophic if stared at long enough.
“Bloody hell,” he muttered. “What does Harry think?”
Draco exhaled, the sound thin but controlled. “He thinks it’s bureaucratic noise, we heard a lot of it after the War. He doesn’t see how I could be held responsible for an entire missing, magical manor.”
Sirius tilted his head, considering. “He does have a point,” he said gently.
Draco set the glass down and looked up, expression shifting, deliberate. “What was Lucius actually like,” Draco said. “During the First War?”
Sirius leaned back against the bar, the rag slipping from his shoulder to the counter. The pub quieted further, attentive in a way that felt almost respectful.
“Effective,” Sirius said after a moment. “ He cultivated influence the way other people collect books.” He frowned slightly. “Elegant duelist. Precise. Vicious when cornered. Very proficient in the Dark Arts, though he preferred not to look like it.”
Draco listened without interrupting.
“And obscenely wealthy,” Sirius went on. “Even by pure-blood standards. He used it well. Bought silence, bought time and bought credibility.
Draco nodded once, absorbing it. “Does that,” he asked calmly, “sound to you like a man who would simply hide in his manor?”
Sirius met Draco’s eyes. “Lucius Malfoy was not a man who waited for history to catch him. If the manor is gone, it’s because it was meant to be.”
Draco leaned back slightly, expression unreadable. “Then it’s unfinished.”
“Yes,” Sirius agreed. “Which is the part the Ministry doesn't like.”
The muffling ward held. The letter lay between them, inert and dangerous.
Sirius looked at the letter for a moment longer, then pushed the problem aside with visible determination and reached for a bottle Draco had learned to be wary of. “You’re trying the new signature.”
“I absolutely am not.”
“It’s called The Tail-Wagger’s Redemption.”
Draco closed his eyes. “That sounds illegal.”
“Only in three departments.” Sirius poured anyway, the liquid a deep, improbable blue that shifted as it settled. “Trust me, the pub likes it.”
The glass slid across the bar and stopped precisely where Draco’s hand would land if he reached out.
He sighed, took it, and sniffed cautiously.
“That’s elderflower,” he said. “And something smoky.”
“And a dash of courage,” Sirius said proudly. “Drink.”
Draco did. He paused. Took another sip.
“…damn it.”
Sirius laughed and reached for a cloth, wiping down a section of bar that did not need it. “How’s Snape?”
Draco’s expression softened in a way that surprised people who didn’t know him well. “He teaches NEWT classes only. Refuses anything younger. Says it’s for his blood pressure.”
“Liar.”
“He’s also cultivating a poisoned garden,” Draco continued, deadpan. “Heavily warded.”
Sirius snorted. “Of course he is.”
“With Neville,” Draco added.
Sirius froze. “Longbottom?”
“Neville has opinions about soil. Snape pretends not to listen and then follows them precisely.”
Sirius stared at him for a moment, then burst out laughing. “I leave for a year and this is what I come home to, which reminds me—.”
Sirius ducked under the bar and came back up with a crate, setting it down with theatrical care. He lifted the lid to reveal a collection of mugs and plates, all emblazoned with heroic poses, dates, and far too much gold leaf.
“Oh no,” Draco said faintly.
“Oh yes,” Sirius said. “Anniversary merchandise. The pub insisted.”
One mug featured a dramatically windswept Snape with his wand held aloft. Another had a stylised pose of Lily and Victory, At Last. A plate bore a scene of Hogwarts at sunrise that Draco suspected had never actually occurred.
“They sell well,” Sirius said, unapologetic. “People like souvenirs.”
Draco picked one up, examined it critically, and set it back down. “He’d hate these.”
“Which is half the appeal.”
Draco finished his drink, set the glass down, and the pub gently nudged it out of reach before he could decide to ask for another.
“I heard,” Sirius continued brightly, “that Harry’s finally finished his Animagus transformation.” He grinned. “I’ve got money riding on reindeer.”
Draco’s lips twitched despite himself. “He would have preferred that.”
“See,” Sirius said, ticking points off on his fingers “Practical. Seasonal. Dignified antlers.”
“He’s a dog,” Draco said.
Sirius froze.
Then his face split into pure, vindicated delight. “Yes. Excellent.” He pumped a fist once. “What kind? Don’t tell me. German shepherd? Belgian Malinois? Something fierce with teeth and opinions.”
Draco did not answer.
Sirius waited, grin slowly sharpening. “Well?”
Draco took a breath, already regretting this. “He’s a rough collie.”
Sirius stared at him. “A what?”
“A rough collie,” Draco repeated, calmly. “Large. Long-haired. Intelligent. Excellent spatial awareness.”
Sirius leaned back against the bar as if struck. “You’re telling me,” he said slowly, “that Harry Potter, vanquisher of basilisk, breaker of curses, terror of the Auror Office, turns into—”
“A collie,” Draco said.
Sirius closed his eyes. Opened them again. “Does he at least look heroic?”
Draco considered. “He looks earnest.”
“Oh Merlin,” Sirius dissolved into laughter again, the pub brightening, shelves loosening, a chair scraping happily across the floor. “I cannot wait,” he said, breathless, “to meet him like that.”
Draco’s smile softened, small and private. “You’ll behave.”
“I will not.”
Draco reached for his glass, the condensation cool under his fingers. “He’ll bite you.”
Sirius beamed. “Worth it.”
For the first time that evening, the letter between them felt distant.
By the time Draco was ready to go, Sirius had already wrapped a portion of dinner, tying the paper with string and adding a loaf without being asked.
“For Snape,” Sirius said, unnecessarily.
Draco took the bag. “He’ll complain.”
“Of course he will,” Sirius said. “That’s how you’ll know he’s alive.”
A witch from the back table came up first, glass in hand, and shook his hand with brisk sincerity. “For the effort,” she said, as if it were a title. A wizard followed, then another, each brief, each respectful, none of them asking questions or lingering.
Draco accepted it all with composed grace, a nod here, a murmured acknowledgment there, Sirius watching with a look that was equal parts pride and explanation-weary amusement.
Draco left the pub to a chorus of low farewells and the satisfied hum of a place that believed it had done something correct.
He Apparated cleanly to Hogsmeade, the cold biting sharper there, the air smelling faintly of frost and old magic. The village was one of the first to have been rebuilt after the war, and now the only sign of it, was the memorial statue where Albus Dumbledore died, and a curved wall etched with names and dates.
Snape’s cottage sat just beyond the village proper, warded into privacy without ostentation. Neville’s place was visible two doors down, warm light in the windows and something green climbing where it absolutely should not have been climbing this late in the season.
Snape opened the door before Draco could knock.
“You’re late,” he said, immediately taking the bag.
“You’re welcome,” Draco replied.
Snape sniffed the contents, suspicious, then grudgingly pleased. “Acceptable.”
They ate at the small kitchen table, Snape with the air of a man determined not to enjoy himself too visibly. They didn’t talk much. They didn’t need to.
When Draco stood to leave, Snape rose as well, hovering as if to say something and then deciding better of it. Draco collected his gloves, paused, and reached into the remaining parcel.
He left the mug on the sideboard, tucked neatly behind a stack of lecture notes and a jar of dried roots. The mug bore Snape’s face in a heroic profile, dated, gilded, faintly ridiculous.
Draco let himself out.
Outside, the night had settled fully. Lights glowed from Neville’s cottage. The path crunched underfoot. Draco paused once, looking back at Snape’s window, then turned away and Apparated home, leaving the mug to be discovered in its own time.
Home answered him as it always did, wards loosening just enough to recognise intent. Draco paused inside the threshold anyway, fingers brushing the stone, listening past the obvious.
The outer perimeter was steady.
Noctua watched him from her alcove, head swivelling with silent precision. Pluviam stirred on her perch, feathers fluffing once before she resettled, augury eyes half-lidded and thoughtful.
“I know,” Draco murmured, checking the brace, adjusting it a fraction. “I’m late.”
She glared harder.
He worked his way through the house methodically, reinforcing what did not need it. When he lit the fire in the living room, it caught cleanly, warmth spreading across stone and glass. The wind pressed at the windows and was turned away without comment.
Even so, the place felt hollow.
Draco stood there for a moment longer than necessary, then reached out with practiced ease and summoned, and Harry’s jumper arrived in his hands, warm as if it had been waiting for the call. Draco pulled it over his shirt, sleeves falling past his wrists, the familiar weight settling him more effectively than the fire.
He exhaled and sat.
The Genealogy Book was where it always was, heavy and self-satisfied, its cover unmarked by time or taste, Nature’s Nobility: A Wizarding Genealogy. The Malfoy tree sprawled across the page, ornate and unapologetic, branches looping and knotting back on themselves.
Draco traced it backwards.
Names slid past beneath his fingers, dates clustering and thinning, until he reached Armand Malfoy, 1066, founder. Wiltshire. The manor rising with the conquest, land claimed and kept.
Not, on the whole, a happy tree. Branches cut and diverged, people died young in various accidents and illnesses.
Abraxas Malfoy. Died 1996.
Below him, Lilith Selwyn.
A name. A date of birth. Nothing else.
Ten years younger than Abraxas.
Draco stilled.
There was no date of death. No marriage annotation beyond a thin line connecting her name to Abraxas’s, as if she had stepped into the record long enough to be counted and then stepped back out again.
Draco sat with that, fingers resting lightly on the page.
Could Lucius’s mother still be alive?
He turned the page instead and followed the Selwyn line outward. It did not take long. The tree was thin, brittle, the sort that had been pruned too deliberately to survive its own ambitions. Branches doubled back on themselves. Names repeated. Dates clustered uncomfortably close together.
The familiar fate of the so-called Sacred Eight-and-Twenty played out in careful ink: intermarriage, selection, extinction by degrees.
He traced it slowly.
Most lines ended abruptly. Some dwindled into marginal notes. A few simply stopped, as if the record-keeper had decided there was no longer any point in pretending continuity existed.
His finger paused.
Then went back.
Then forward again, more carefully.
A single surviving branch, barely dignified with one at all.
Dolores Jane Umbridge.
Great-great niece of Lilith Selwyn.
Draco sat very still.
Of all the possible survivals.
Of all the branches that might have persisted by accident rather than design.
It was her.
Draco closed Nature’s Nobility with care and rested his hand on the cover for a moment longer than necessary.
At least he didn’t have to wonder where Dolores Umbridge had ended up.
The atrium of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement went quiet in a way Draco recognised immediately. Eyes followed him as he crossed the floor, measured and unhurried, coat precise, posture immaculate. A clerk near the lifts startled visibly and dropped into a reflexive curtsey before remembering herself and flushing crimson.
James Potter reached him halfway across the room.
“Draco,” he said warmly, already smiling, and then Draco was caught in a quick, firm hug that knocked the air from him just enough to be startling.
Draco blinked once, recalibrating. “Good morning.”
“Good to see you,” James said. “You’re looking well. How are the birds?”
“Opinionated,” Draco replied. “Pluviam has discovered the concept of disappointment.”
James laughed. “That tracks. Heard from Harry?”
“Not since yesterday.”
“He’ll be fine,” James said easily, then leaned in a fraction. “He always is.”
They walked together toward the lifts, James chatting with the relaxed confidence of a man who knew exactly how much space he took up. “So,” he went on, “what can I do for my favourite not-yet-official, when-is-it-going-to-happen, son-in-law.”
Draco did not dignify that with an answer.
“I need to speak with Dolores Umbridge,” he said instead.
James’s smile did something complicated. It held, technically, but his expression tightened, as if he had bitten into something vile and was determined not to spit it out in public.
“That odious woman,” he said, very politely. “Whatever for?”
Draco hesitated just long enough to make the moment noticeable and then he reached into his coat and produced the folded parchment. “This arrived,” he said. “Regarding Malfoy Manor.”
James took it, skimmed quickly, and sighed. “Merlin’s sake.”
His jaw set as he finished reading. He folded the letter with care and handed it back. “They’ve been itching to make that someone else’s problem.”
“They have,” Draco agreed.
James glanced around them, took in the watching eyes, the listening silence. “Come on, son,” he said, already turning toward his office. “Let’s talk somewhere with a door.”
James’s office was larger than Draco had expected and plainer. A tidy desk, a filing cabinet, a table with a kettle and mugs. Draco took the offered chair and settled into it, posture precise. As he did, his gaze lifted and stopped.
On the wall behind James’s desk hung framed photographs of Lily, Sirius, Remus, Harry as a baby and a toddler, and then others.
It took him a moment to recognise it, partly because he had never seen it printed at that size. Hogwarts grounds, summer light. Graduation robes. Harry stood half-turned toward the camera, beaming, one arm slung around Draco’s shoulders. In the captured instant, Harry was leaning in, mouth pressed to Draco’s cheek, utterly unselfconscious. Draco, in contrast, was squinting at the lens, clearly mid-protest, surprise written plainly across his face.
Draco looked away before James noticed.
He was still reading the letter, brow furrowed, mouth set in a line that suggested long familiarity with this particular class of nonsense.
“It’s true,” James said at last. “Malfoy Manor remains something of a thorn in the Ministry’s side.” He glanced up briefly. “Nobody likes unfinished business. And nobody likes speculating about what Lucius Malfoy might have left in a house like that.”
Draco shifted in his seat, a small adjustment. “I have no means of locating it.”
James waved a hand without looking up. “I know, I know.” He set the letter down. “We can’t even identify the secret-keeper. Best guess is Voldemort himself, which means the secret died with whatever was left of that vile thing.”
Draco nodded.
“So,” James said, leaning back at last, folding his arms. “Help me understand what this has to do with Dolores Umbridge?”
Draco drew a breath and explained. The genealogy. Lilith Selwyn. The absence of a death date. The single surviving branch.
James listened without interrupting, expression attentive rather than sceptical.
When Draco finished, James let out a slow breath. “It’s a stretch,” he said carefully. “Are you hoping to find Lucius’s mother and have her do what, exactly? Come out of hiding and scold him into revealing himself?”
Draco’s mouth twitched, but he did not smile. “Mothers can be very fierce,” he said, quietly.
James studied him for a moment, then glanced again at the photograph on the wall. “They can,” he agreed.
James folded his hands on the desk. “Gaining access to Umbridge won’t be easy,” he said. “Even for you. Azkaban doesn’t like exceptions, and the committees that pretend they don’t exist like them even less. It’ll take time to persuade the right people.”
Draco inclined his head. “I understand.”
James studied him for a moment. “You’re not in a hurry?”
“I am,” Draco said calmly. “I’m also patient.”
James smiled at that, something approving and a little fond. He stood. “While we wait on bureaucracy to do what it does best, let me show you around. You’ve never actually had the tour.”
Draco rose and accepted it without hesitation.
They walked the corridors of the DMLE at an unhurried pace, James greeting colleagues as they passed.
“This is Draco Black,” James said more than once, hand settling briefly between Draco’s shoulder blades. “Yes, that one. And yes, before you ask.” He smiled broadly. “Soon, Merlin willing.”
Draco endured it with composure.
There were nods, handshakes, the occasional startled blink. James was clearly proud and entirely unashamed of it.
“Coffee,” James announced at last. “I promise it is not vile Ministry coffee. I have a source.” He gestured Draco toward a workroom. “Wait here. Don’t touch anything incriminating.”
“I wouldn’t dream of it,” Draco said.
James disappeared down the corridor.
Draco turned his attention to the room. One wall was dominated by a murder board, charmed to reorganise itself as evidence was added or removed. Photographs hovered in careful alignment. Threads of light traced connections between names, places, times.
He stepped closer without thinking.
Draco scanned it once, then again, more slowly.
He frowned.
Moved a photograph a fraction to the left. Adjusted a line of light with two fingers.
The answer was obvious once you stopped assuming malice.
James returned to find Draco standing very still, head tilted, one hand resting lightly against the edge of the board.
“You might want to look at the third witness statement again,” Draco said without turning. “The time stamp contradicts the ward log, but only if you assume the victim died where he was found.”
James stopped. “He didn’t?”
“No,” Draco said. “He collapsed there. He was poisoned elsewhere.” He indicated a photograph. “The residue pattern matches contact transfer, not ingestion. Whoever did this shook his hand.”
Silence stretched.
James set the coffee down carefully. “I’ll be damned.”
Draco stepped back, as if realising where he was. “Apologies. I didn’t mean to interfere.”
James stared at the board, then laughed quietly. “Interfere all you like.” He picked up one of the cups and handed it over. “Harry tells me you do this. Walk into rooms and rearrange the world.”
Draco took the cup. “I prefer not to.”
“But you can’t help it.”
Draco sipped the coffee.
It was, indeed, not vile.
Before he left, James walked him back to the atrium himself.
“Friday,” James said, pointing at him with mock severity. “Godric’s Hollow. Dinner. No excuses.”
“I’ll be there,” Draco said. “Provided the world behaves itself.”
James snorted. “We’ll cook anyway.”
Draco adjusted the collar of his coat against the draft and stepped into the Floo without ceremony.
“Diagon Alley.”
The green flame released him into noise, light, and the familiar press of commerce. He walked for a while before stopping, letting the movement settle him. In Flourish and Blotts, he browsed with intent, selecting a handful of slim volumes on updated atmospheric regulations and a thicker reference on coastal ward compliance. He placed an order for waterproof parchment and ink, specifying delivery with quiet precision.
By late afternoon, he turned toward a narrower street and into a place that smelled of bread, herbs, and something slow-cooked.
The smell hit him first.
The Golden Snitch & Spoon was loud in the way of places that fed people well and often. Chairs scraped. Plates chimed when set down. A family argued cheerfully over pudding portions near the door while a hovering Snitch zig-zagged overhead, narrowly missing a waiter who swatted at it with practiced annoyance.
Ron spotted Draco immediately.
“Sit,” Ron said, already pointing. “You’re just in time. We’ve got a fresh batch.”
“Of what,” Draco asked, though he was already sitting.
Ron’s grin widened. “The Dragon Chaser Stew.”
Draco eyed the bowl that appeared moments later, steam curling in slow, deliberate spirals. Thick slices of beef, potatoes that glowed faintly gold, carrots cut into flying broom shapes, all suspended in a dark, glossy broth that crackled softly at the surface.
“It keeps itself hot,” Ron said proudly. “And it tastes slightly different for everyone. Mum says it’s impossible and therefore irresponsible.”
Draco took a spoonful. Paused. Took another.
“That’s infuriating,” he said. “It’s excellent.”
“Right,” Ron said. “That’s the stew agreeing with you.”
Behind the counter, Fred Weasley and George Weasley were arguing cheerfully with a charmed ladle that refused to stop stirring on its own. One of them waved at Draco with a flour-dusted hand.
The door flew open hard enough to make the Snitch dart for cover.
Ginny Weasley swept in like a thrown match. Her coat was half undone, hair wind-tossed, expression already mid-sentence before she’d cleared the threshold.
Ginny’s eyes found Draco and lit. “There you are.”
She crossed the room in three strides and dropped into the chair opposite him, boots hooking around the rungs. “You look like someone who hasn’t eaten properly and is pretending that’s a moral stance.”
Draco swallowed another spoonful. “I object to the implication.”
“You would,” she said, pleased. “We’re still on for Saturday. Seats are obscene. Will Harry be back for it?”
“Maybe,” Draco said. “Depends on the problem.”
Ginny nodded once, accepting that with the same calm Ron had. “We’ll shout loud enough for him to hear anyway.”
She reached across the table without asking and stole a bite of his stew. “Still good,” she declared. “Ron hasn’t ruined it yet.”
“I’m standing right here,” Ron said.
“And thriving,” Ginny replied fondly.
The room surged around them, noise and warmth and magic held in careful balance. Children laughed. Someone dropped a fork and it bounced back onto the table on its own.
Draco ate, listened, let the sound of it all settle into him.
For now, this too was enough.
Draco returned with bags in both hands and a charm humming quietly to keep everything warm. Enough containers to last a sensible person a week, and him slightly longer, stacked with care on the kitchen counter.
He moved through the rooms on habit, checking the perimeter, listening past the obvious. Everything held. Satisfied, he shrugged out of his coat and rolled his sleeves, and lit the fire with a snap of his fingers.
Noctua hopped down at last, wings rustling softly, and climbed onto his lap with the assurance of a creature that knew exactly where she belonged. Draco adjusted automatically, one hand supporting her weight, the other smoothing along the curve of her back. She clicked once, satisfied, and tucked herself in.
He sat like that for a while, the house breathing around him, warmth seeping in where the day had left him hollow.
Food waited in neat stacks.
Work waited in careful piles.
Somewhere far away, Harry was doing something dangerous and necessary and irritatingly competent.
Draco rested his chin briefly against Noctua’s feathers and closed his eyes.
It was a strange life. Complicated. Crowded with loose ends and improbable connections. Full of people who chose him, loudly and without apology.
When he opened his eyes again, the fire was still burning, the wards still holding, the night kept politely at bay.
For now, it was enough.
Friday evening at Godric’s Hollow unfolded exactly as promised.
Sirius took over one end of the table with a glass in hand and opinions to spare, while James moved easily between courses and conversation, clearly incapable of sitting still for long. Lily watched all of it with the practiced calm of someone who had learned how to manage a room without ever raising her voice.
“So,” she said lightly, refilling glasses. “Have you thought about dates?”
Draco smiled and, without missing a beat, redirected the entire table by mentioning Harry’s Animagus.
James laughed so hard he tipped his chair back and had to be steadied by Sirius, who found this deeply gratifying. Lily covered her mouth, delighted despite herself.
Draco watched them all with fond precision and asked Lily about her term. The machinery of the Ministry.
By the time dessert appeared, the pressure had dispersed into warmth.
Saturday they went with the Weasleys to the pitch, the stands already alive with colour and shouting long before the teams took the field. Ginny took to the air like she had been waiting all week for it, sharp and brilliant and entirely unbothered by the weather.
Ron shouted himself hoarse within the first ten minutes. George and Fred yelled corrections at referees who could not hear her. Draco stood very still, hands clasped loosely in front of him, posture composed and contained, eyes tracking Ginny’s movement with careful focus.
When the Snitch was caught and the Harpies won, the roar hit like a physical thing.
Sirius was there immediately. “Come on, kid” he said easily, already angling his body to block the worst of the surge. “Let’s get you some air.”
Polite excuses were made, and the noise softened as they moved away, the edge of it dulling with every step until Draco could breathe again.
They stood together in the quieter stretch beyond the stands, the distant sound of celebration still audible but manageable now.
“You alright,” Sirius asked, not fussing.
“Yes,” Draco said, and meant it. “Thank you.”
He had no way of knowing that the stretch ahead would prove far more difficult than the ground Draco had already crossed.