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Chapter Ten—Plunging Forwards

“But, Harry, don’t you think you should wait—“

“No, because that’s how rumors get started,” Harry snapped, kneeling in front of their fireplace. He’d already tossed the Floo powder into the flames and called out for Malfoy Manor, and now it remained to be seen if the connection was open. He tensed in irritation as Ginny put a restraining hand on his arm, and shook her off. “If I firecall him, he’ll find it harder to ignore me than he would if I just hid in silence and let everyone assume that it’s the truth, that I feel he’s guilty.”

“But would that really prevent you from—“

The Floo connection wasn’t open. Harry narrowed his eyes and stood. “I’m Apparating to the Manor,” he said. “If I’m not back by the afternoon, Ginny, it’s because Malfoy and I have killed each other, and you should tell Mrs. Malfoy to send my body back to you.”

“Harry, for God’s sake, at least send an owl first.”

“What, and give ignorance another chance to breed?” Harry said, and burst into motion, hurtling out of the house and into the August heat. He winced as it clanged onto his head, but that didn’t change his determination. He would go to the Manor, and he would make Draco understand that, for all the tensions that might lie between them, he would never do something as stupid as this. If they knew each other well, he would trust Draco to have accepted that already, but they didn’t know each other well, and that was as much his fault as Draco’s.

Ginny called out one more time behind him. Harry couldn’t tell from the tone of her voice if she was worried that he was walking into a trap, or just that he would embarrass himself. Neither was a worthwhile motive to stay where he was, especially when he had his wand with him. He would like to see the Muggleborn supremacists who could outfight him.

His blood hurried through his veins, and his hands formed into fists even as he prepared to Apparate. These enemies had attacked him directly. He would not permit that. He would not. He would not let these people, whoever they were, foul things up more than they already had—not for him, not for Draco, and not between them.

This was the reason that Hermione had wanted him in the Blood Reparations Department, and insisted that he would be wasted as an Auror. He could fight violence and cast defensive spells well enough, but there were lots of wizards who could do that. There weren’t as many who would grow so ragingly angry when they found an injustice being done to someone else. And since Harry had grown somewhat wiser since he was a student at Hogwarts, he no longer thought that only those people he approved of could be wronged.

It didn’t hurt that Draco had become a friend, of course. But he still wasn’t going to let something this unjust happen, no matter whom it affected.

He vanished with a crack that he hoped his and Draco’s mutual enemies could hear, wherever they were.

*

The signature was genuine.

Draco had known that before he cast the spells to test it, of course. A signature couldn’t be feigned, not one made with a wizard’s free will. It contained their magic. If someone had found a way to get around that protection, they’d be using it to undermine the entire wizarding world’s legal and financial system, not to strike at the obscure son of a Death Eater.

So now he had to sit here with this letter from Harry expressing his opinion of Draco’s guilt, signed with a damning rush of ink, and cope with the loss of the friend he’d thought he was making and the one person whose support he’d most counted on when facing these pure-blood supremacists, or Muggleborn fanatics, or whoever they were.

It hurt more than he had thought it would.

But beneath the hurt burned anger like the coals of lava, smoldering and ready to burst into flames the moment it was appropriate. The thought of Harry suffering was very pleasant to Draco right now.

Of course, he would not put harming Harry ahead of finding out whoever had written him those threatening letters, and cast that blood magic. Those people had threatened his son. Harry was just a disappointment, and the best revenge Draco could get on him was finding out who had really murdered Goldstein and throwing the truth in his face.

But when the time came…

When the time came, what delight he would take in that.

Draco flexed his hand once, and then stood up, with a little shake of his head. He probably should have guessed something from Harry’s manner at breakfast this morning, the way that they hadn’t actually started researching the life-debts, but drifted into personal matters. Harry had probably lied about the dreams he was having, too—anything to make Draco think more about sexual attraction than the truth staring him in the face.

But what about the mirrors? And the fact that Harry’s touch changed those cuts into mere scars? Can you really solve this without him?

Draco shrugged stiffly. He hadn’t tried solving it on his own yet. And if it turned out, in the future, that he required Potter’s help, there was no reason that he had to deal with him face-to-face. The Malfoys had employed house-elves for even more distasteful purposes than this before.

And will when I’m gone. Think of Scorpius. Think of your ancestors lying in the vaults, all those bones that were clad in living flesh once, and thought different things than you do, but had the same purpose—to preserve the Malfoy line. Whoever they are, they won’t drag me down, and end it, and put me in Azkaban. There’s still Scorpius, and I’ll secure a future for him.

He nearly missed the twinge in the wards, his attention so centered on his son. Then he recognized Potter’s presence at the edge of them.

Draco sneered. Come to tell me he doesn’t mean it? Come to play more games with my trust, and convince me to take him back, and then betray me again, to see how loudly he can make his cronies laugh? I don’t think so.

He drew his wand and cast a spell that would make his voice emerge from the air next to Potter’s head, where he stood banging on the gates that would no longer dissolve for him. “Fuck yourself sideways, traitor.”

*

“Fuck yourself sideways, traitor.”

Harry hissed between his teeth. He had expected something like this. And the enormous wards shimmered around the Manor, protecting it so thoroughly that he knew not even the savior of the wizarding world could break through them.

Not that I want to break them, not when I know that someone is hunting Draco’s family.

He stood there fuming for a moment, contemplating turning his back and going home. But then he shook his head and stood upright. His jaw clenched as he thought of the times in the past when he had argued with Ron and Hermione. Not talking had made everything worse. It had taken dragons to repair his and Ron’s friendship in fourth year. He didn’t want the same thing to happen this time—especially because this danger might be of the kind that would kill Draco and leave Harry alone with regret and guilt.

He couldn’t get through the wards.

But he could make himself incredibly annoying until Draco opened them of his own free will.

*

Draco gritted his teeth. He should be reading about life-debts and what was acceptable to fulfill them and what wasn’t. He should not be counting under his breath, wondering if Potter would throw up another distraction on time.

He did. Precisely five minutes since the last one—the prat must be using a Tempus charm—the wards rang in Draco’s head, letting him know that someone was casting hexes at the border of the gardens. The hexes couldn’t penetrate the wards, but they roused the alarms, as Potter’s mere presence would not.

And Draco couldn’t silence the alarms and cause Potter to leave him alone that way, because then he might not hear his enemies the next time they showed up.

Five minutes later, another round of hexes and another round of silent screams of protest in Draco’s head. He slammed his book down and glared through the walls, as if Potter could feel his eyes and would stop his obnoxious behavior at once.

He didn’t. Of course, he’d been at it for three hours, so there was no sign that he would get tired of his little game any time soon.

Another round of alarms, shrieks in his head that troubled no one else, since the wards were linked to him alone, and Draco jerked to his feet. He was grinding his teeth, which wore the enamel off and which his mother had got after him about more than once, but he didn’t care.

He would go out and scream his consciousness of the truth into Potter’s face. That would be satisfying in a way that waiting patiently and coolly for his revenge wouldn’t be. He could always be patient and cool with his revenge later, once he had proven that he didn’t need Potter.

His pace quickened as he neared the library doors, and he was vaguely surprised to find himself running by the time he reached the front entrance of the Manor. He dismissed it as eagerness to make Potter leave him the fuck alone. How was he supposed to get any work done, and get rid of this curse that plagued them both, if Potter wouldn’t let him research?

And no, he didn’t mourn the loss of their new friendship. And no, he didn’t want any of Potter’s “help.”

*

Harry had planned carefully. He saw the doors of the Manor open, but he didn’t bother to stop casting his hexes until he saw Draco hastening towards the iron gates. Then he lit the feathers of an albino peacock that had strayed past the wards to stare at him on fire. The bird squawked and ran away into the hedges, forcing Draco to stop and smother the flames before he turned towards him.

And that gave Harry the chance to speak first.

“You’re going to listen to me for five minutes,” he said.

Draco gave a jagged sneer. The expression saddened Harry; it made his face look so ugly. “And why should I—“

“I’m claiming one of my life-debts, Draco,” Harry said, lifting his head. “Five minutes of your time.”

Draco rocked on his heels. Harry wondered what had taken him more aback: the use of his first name, or the notion that the curse might be solved the sooner if they could dissolve one of the ties binding them.

“All right,” Draco said at last, in such a supremely ungracious tone that Harry wished the wards were down so that he could smack him. “Five minutes, Potter. And no more than that. I already know what you think of me, so I see no need to let you declaim at length.”

“You’ll be the one to ask for longer,” Harry told him, and, as Draco’s face shifted towards incredulity, he drew out the vial of Veritaserum from his pocket and placed three drops onto his tongue.

He shivered in involuntary revulsion as the potion’s haze settled over his mind. He had never liked the effect. But he needed the guarantee. He threw the vial at the gates before he could change his mind, though it bounced and rolled away from the wards—but not far enough for it to get beyond Draco’s reach, as he snarled an oath, dissipated the protective spells with a wave of his wand, and lunged through the empty space to snatch the vial.

“This could be water, for all I know,” he said.

“My name is Sev—Harry James Potter,” Harry said, and he knew Draco would hear, as well as he did, the lie twisting in his mouth like a hooked fish, transformed into the truth in spite of himself.

Draco just stared at him, then shook his head. “Why?” he whispered. At least a good portion of the wind had gone out of his sails, which gratified Harry.

“Because I wanted to talk to you,” said Harry, the Veritaserum forcing him to interpret the question as a literal inquiry after information. “And I didn’t see any other way to make sure that you’d listen to me.”

Draco kept on staring. Harry felt an odd sensation as those eyes examined him. It was as if no one else had ever really seen him before. Of course, that was probably his triumph at having made a stuck-up prig like Draco listen talking.

“Did you write that letter?” Draco asked.

Harry smiled, because he could answer simply, and Draco would have no choice but to believe him. “No.”

Draco clenched his hands at his sides, but his eyes didn’t waver. “But—there is no way a signature could be feigned.”

“That doesn’t mean they couldn’t have got hold of it some other way, and decided to use it as they liked,” Harry said. He spread his hands when Draco stared at him. “I’ve asked myself, the same questions, Draco. Would you think I’d come here if I’d really written the letter? I mean, what would be the point?”

“To get me to trust you again.” Draco’s face was screwed up in an odd way. If he had still been a schoolboy, Harry would have said that he was trying not to cry. “So that you could laugh when I did.”

“That would be something you would do,” said Harry, the Veritaserum forcing him to speak the truth he honestly believed.

Draco scowled.

“You would,” Harry told him. “You completely would.”

“I did plan to take revenge on you, yes,” said Draco. “But—“ He blinked a few times, and seemed to wrench his attention away from the letter to the implications of the letter. “Was that what they intended to do when they sent this? Estrange us completely, shut me off from you, because they knew how hurt I would be?”

“I can’t be sure, but I think that’s the reason, yes.” Harry folded his arms and regarded him evenly. “And you did almost turn me away. I Apparated here the moment I realized the Floo connection was closed, because I wasn’t about to send owls and give you an excuse to ignore me.”

“I would have sent a Howler.”

“And that was probably what they counted on,” Harry murmured, his mind knocked into a new track. “Whoever sent that letter, they know us fairly well. They know our way of relating to each other—if you can think of punches and insults as a way of relating.”

Draco snorted, but didn’t make his opinion clear one way or the other. He was peering at Harry now as if he’d never heard him use reason before.

“I would have got angry about the Howler, and either sent another one or decided there was no point in reconciling to you,” Harry explained. “At least, that’s what I would have done ten years ago, before I got to know you. And I have the feeling that our enemies know what we used to be like, but have no idea about this new friendship.”

Draco’s eyelids lowered. “Then it might be better not to disillusion them, mightn’t it?”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about, Draco.” Nor did he have the slightest idea why it made Draco look so distressed, whatever it was.

“Maybe we should pretend to anger in public,” Draco suggested, reluctance dragging at his words. “Make them think their trick worked. That way, we can meet in secret and not have them suspect anything.”

“That’s a stupid idea,” said Harry, and Draco glared again. He shrugged. “What can I say? I’m less diplomatic when I’m on Veritaserum.”

“Explain to me why caution worthy of my father is stupid,” Draco said, in exaggeratedly patient tones.

“Because I can’t lie that well,” said Harry. “Because they’d watch us, and sooner or later they’d catch us meeting. Because if I don’t protect you, the Aurors might use my supposed disapproval as an excuse to descend on you and arrest you. After all, if the Savior of the Wizarding World—“ he spat the words, so that Draco could hear how much he despised the title “—is convinced you’re guilty, why should they keep you free? And this time they might decide that lack of evidence doesn’t matter.”

“I don’t need your protection, Potter.”

“Yes, you do, you stubborn idiot,” Harry told him, and was a bit horrified to note that his voice sounded almost…affectionate. At least he really did think Draco was an idiot. “They sent copies of the letter to the Daily Prophet, too. A wider storm is about to fall on you than you realize. But I still have some influence with the press. It’s not enough to prevent harassment, but it’s enough to outface the Ministry people who might do stupid things because of what the papers are saying.”

Draco frowned at him. “This is going above and beyond what the fulfilled life-debts ask you to do.”

“If you wanted the bare minimum of help, then you should have picked someone who wasn’t me to owe you a life-debt.” Harry faced him. “I like to think I’ve learned something about adulthood in the last decade—and honesty, too. It’s better to follow the honest course, no matter how hard it is.”

“There speaks a Gryffindor.”

“There speaks someone who’s lived in the world for the last ten years, instead of staying cooped up in his house because he thinks he’s a useless fool.”

Draco’s expression drifted through a complicated mixture of emotions before it settled on outrage. “And you—“

“You’re not a useless fool.” Harry was grateful for the Veritaserum all over again. This might be the only chance he’d ever have to say these words and have Draco believe him, and it was clear, now, that they needed to be said. “You’re someone I’d be proud and glad to name a friend if you’d just get over yourself. You aren’t as much of a coward as I thought, and you love your son.”

“That’s a ringing endorsement,” Draco said dryly.

“Shut up a moment,” Harry suggested. “It is an endorsement, yes. But it’s based more on what I think you could be than what you are right now. I’m going to need help to protect you and solve this curse at the same time, not to mention solving the mystery. I’d rather not have you hiding your head and moaning every five minutes.”

Draco straightened his spine and gave him a molten glare. Harry controlled his expression, which threatened to break into a grin. Everything he’d said was the utter truth, but he’d chosen the words he had because he knew they would sting Draco into reacting this way. Who said that you couldn’t manipulate someone else when you were on Veritaserum?

“I won’t hide my head and moan every five minutes.” Draco spoke those words between gritted teeth.

“Not every ten minutes, either. My tolerance doesn’t extend that far.”

“Goddamn it, Potter, I hate you.” But Draco belied that a moment later by waving his wand. The iron gates dissolved. He hesitated one more time, then stepped forwards and extended his hand.

Harry clasped it. Draco met his gaze, and Harry could see the fire he’d lit burning there, whether or not Draco wanted it to burn.

“Shall we show them that they’ve just earned themselves a new, united pair of enemies?” Harry said softly.

The signs of Draco’s enthusiasm were to be found in the flex of his cheekbones and the corners of his eyes, Harry thought—not the usual place to look for such an emotion, but he didn’t care. “Yes,” Draco breathed.

That one word was all Harry really needed.

*

Ginny was waiting for him when he stepped out of the fireplace, swatting at the soot on his robes. She said nothing. Her folded arms and the absolute ice in her gaze, worse than anything Harry had seen Draco muster since that day they’d faded together, were all the words she needed.

Harry met her gaze calmly. That made her falter. She’d expected him apologetic or defensive, he knew, the same way that Draco had expected him to come whinging and claiming that there was some good reason behind his writing that letter. Harry was almost amused to find that he’d hopped over his wife’s expectations the same way he’d done to Draco’s.

“I need to know what you’re angry about,” he said quietly. “My spending time at the Malfoys’? My leaving longer than you expected? My staying with Draco overnight? Let me know, Ginny. You say that you’re afraid I’m going to leave you. I won’t leave you. But I won’t let you dictate my friendships, either.”

Ginny nibbled her lower lip, as if she were considering her options in the face of his open honesty. Then she said, “I’m afraid that you’ll come to prefer his company to mine. That he’ll come to mean more to you than your family. I’ve never seen you take to someone so fast, Harry. Usually you’re more guarded than this, you know.”

Harry smiled and walked over to embrace her. “Well, most of the time new people I’m meeting are strangers who might want to use my name and fame for something,” he murmured into her hair. “Malfoy isn’t really a stranger.”

“He still wants to use you.”

“I owed them a life-debt.” Harry shrugged. “That makes it different.” He hesitated, then decided that they had gone long enough without talking about the mirrors and the visions. “And if we fulfill the life-debts that hang between us, Draco and I, we might be able to stop seeing visions in mirrors.”

Ginny drew back from him, at the same moment as her arms tightened. She had wanted to watch his face, Harry realized, when he saw the incredulity and hope slowly growing in her eyes. “I would love that,” she whispered.

And he knew, then, how hard it must have been for her, seeing this strange magic wreaking damage on him but never talking about it, because they had agreed that they wouldn’t. She hadn’t wanted to acknowledge it, but it had forced itself more and more into her awareness. And perhaps she hadn’t been as asleep as he assumed she was during those dreams when he woke panting with fear or arousal, or shaking with pleasure.

“We’re both working to ensure it goes,” he said, stroking her back gently. “I don’t expect you to welcome Draco into our home any time soon, but he’s your ally in this, I promise. We both want it gone.”

“Then I can endure him, I think,” Ginny whispered, her voice thick with emotion. “If he gives me my husband back.”

Harry, well-pleased with everything in the universe at the moment, kissed her hair.

We’ll right everything. Whoever our enemies are, they’ve underestimated us. And I’ll be able to spend quiet evenings at home with Ginny, as well as noisy evenings out with Draco. I’ll have everything I want, too.

Chapter 11.