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Ernest Hemingway once wrote, "The world is a fine place and worth fighting for." I agree with the second part. - Det. William Somerset, Se7en
The world isn't split into good people and Death Eaters. - Sirius Black, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
Harry could tell it was bad news before Ron even looked over at him. His shoulders were tight and his usually relaxed posture had been worn away into something that was closer to military-perfect. It had only been a few weeks since Ron had been promoted to lead Major Crimes and the transition had been too smooth. Harry and the rest of his field team had wrapped up an illegal potions ring case, narrowly avoided causing an international incident, and even earned a commendation under Ron's leadership.
He supposed this was the sound of the other shoe dropping.
Ron was hovering next to Harry's desk, alternating between staring down at the file in his hands and glancing toward the door. His eyes met Harry's and he gave a grim nod, then tilted his head toward the door of his office. Harry had taken great pleasure in teasing Ron about finally having a "posh" office where they could stash their illicit snacks and the occasional pint of firewhisky.
As he settled down in the stiff, Ministry-issue chair across from Ron's desk, he rather suspected this wasn't going to be the kind of meeting where they could split a package of biscuits and spike their tea. For one thing, Ron didn't lock and ward the door during those meetings (even though he probably should).
Unable to help himself, Harry asked, "How bad is it, mate?"
He knew they'd been lucky in the years immediately following the war. There had been a sharp drop in violent crime once most of the Death Eaters were either dead, locked up, or on the run. It had steadily climbed back to what passed for "normal," as the DMLE worked to round up the remaining fugitives, and Harry had gotten a bit of a rude awakening when he worked his first non-Death-Eater-related murder case.
It had been what Robards described as "run-of-the-mill" domestic violence. A confrontation between a husband and wife where the husband escalated with his fists and grabbed his wand when fists weren't enough. He hadn't resisted arrest. Harry found out later that he'd called the aurors himself.
He'd gotten life in Azkaban, though it barely mattered because he'd snapped his own wand before they arrived. Examination of the pieces told them that the last spell he'd cast was a barrier spell. When asked about it, the man had explained, in an eerie monotone, that he didn't want his kids to come downstairs and see what was left of their mother.
Harry was torn between wanting to deck the man and wanting to charge up the blood-slick stairs of his house to get the children out. In the end, Ron's steady hand on his arm kept him from doing more than casting an Incarcerous that was firmer than it needed to be. When he'd asked about checking on the kids, Robards had scoffed and said, "We have people for that, Potter. Save kittens up trees on your own time."
It had stung then and it still stung three years later, both the idea that being a decent human was something to scoff at, and the reminder that some people would never see him as anything more than a hero complex wearing a Saviour suit. Though, he reflected bitterly, he preferred that to people who only saw him as a Saviour.
Ron sighed and leaned back in his (equally stiff and Ministry-issued) chair. "Bad. It's bad. I mean, I've got good news and bad news, but even the good news is probably going to turn your stomach a little."
Harry felt his heart rate jump. Bad didn't always mean exciting, but the way Ron was saying it told him that whatever this was, it wasn't going to be anything that could be called "run-of-the-mill."
"Hit me." He tried for a grin and almost managed it. Ron gave him a weak almost-smile in return.
"There's been a murder in Azkaban. Actually, there's been two murders in Azkaban."
Harry's eyebrows shot up. Azkaban might not have dementors anymore, but its security was still unparalleled in the Wizarding World. "We're certain it wasn't one of the guards?"
Ron shook his head. "They were all questioned under veritaserum. Didn't see anything. Didn't hear anything."
Harry hummed. "Okay, so I'm guessing your good news is that this is a massive case?"
Ron nodded. "Massive, career-making, unprecedented, you name it. We've got not one, but two murders in what's ostensibly the most secure magical facility in Western Europe, no witnesses, and to top it off, the murders are really fucking weird."
"Got it. What's the bad news?" Harry tried to pretend the fizzy, sparking sensation in his chest wasn't excitement. There had been a murder⏤two of them. But, maybe…
Maybe he'd be able to do something good for once, something that mattered.
Ron exhaled slowly, flexing his fingertips one at a time. "You're taking point on this. Obviously, that's not the bad news. You're a stellar auror; everybody knows it. The thing is, normally something like this would go to a more seasoned detective. Our ranks are a little depleted, but even so, I could pair you up with someone like Moor or Stevens."
"But you're not going to." Harry hoped his relief wasn't too obvious. He hated the cases where he had to take a subordinate role.
Ron shook his head. "I'm not. We're pairing you with an analyst from Mysteries. They have a couple of flunkies that they lend out to other departments on an as-needed basis. According to the preliminary report from the warden, it's looking like these murders probably have a ritual component to them and we'll want someone with specialized knowledge in that area."
Harry sighed. "You haven't actually gotten to the 'bad' part of the bad news yet, have you?"
Ron huffed a laugh, but his grin was more of a grimace. "Nope. It's not the ritual bit that we need you for. It's the Voldemort bit."
"Fuck." Harry's heart sank, the burgeoning excitement in his chest dropping down to churn in his stomach.
Ron pushed the file across the desk for Harry to take. "It's early, but we have every reason to believe there's a connection to Voldemort, or at least to the War. They've got both crime scenes under stasis for us. Apparently the first one actually happened a couple of days ago, but they were looking into it as a suicide until the second one this morning. We're meeting the analyst and the crime scene team in ten and heading over there."
Harry swallowed, wishing he could tell himself from two minutes ago to take his excitement and choke on it. "No problem. I'll get my stuff. Do you know who the analyst is that's going with us?"
Ron's lips twisted in a wry not-quite-smile. "So that wasn't technically part of the bad news, but⏤"
Half an hour later, when he was standing on the deck of the ferry to Azkaban, willing the frigid sea air to quell his nausea, and staring at the dark circles under Draco Malfoy's thunderstorm-grey eyes, Harry wondered why he had even bothered being surprised.
Malfoy spent the majority of the boat ride reading through the sparse case files, occasionally speaking to Ron in low tones. Harry knew he should be over there with them, but he comforted himself with the knowledge that he wasn't the only member of the team avoiding Malfoy. Alicia Spinnet was the forensic magipathologist assigned to their case and she'd taken one look at Malfoy and placed herself as far away from him as was physically possible on the relatively small ferry, as had the crime scene techs trailing behind her.
He made his way over to the small alcove they'd congregated in, noting that it housed a sad-looking coffee dispenser. He poked at it for a minute, but it seemed to have died sometime in the early 1990s. He'd just about resigned himself to wandering back to Ron and making an attempt to be cordial with Malfoy when he knocked his elbow against something hard that turned out to be a camera case.
The case in question was clutched in the arms of a wide-eyed young man that it took Harry a moment to place. "Oh, sorry! It's Dennis, right? Dennis Creevey?" Dennis nodded, offering a small smile, and Harry mentally choreographed an entire victory dance because now he had a legitimate reason not to go and talk to Malfoy. He was catching up with his fellow Gryffindor alums. "I didn't realise you were a photographer. You're here working with Alicia?"
Dennis flushed a deep red. "Yeah, I got into it after Colin. I don't have the skill he had for portraits, but I'm good enough for CSI. Plus, it feels good to be doing something that makes a difference, you know?"
Harry nodded. He did know. It was what kept him on the job. In fact, he'd wager it was what most of the aurors who fought in either of the Voldemort wars would cite as their reason for staying on the job.
Dennis followed Harry's gaze over to where Malfoy was pretending not to notice that they were all pretending not to notice him. "It's kind of weird, isn't it? I don't mean⏤obviously, he was just a kid when all the Death Eaters business was happening, but it's got to be weird for him being on this case since his dad did time in Azkaban and all."
Harry didn't really know how to pick up that thread, so he just nodded again. Dennis took that as enough encouragement to follow up with, "Also, he was really mean in school and he still⏤" He swallowed hard and dropped his voice as if Malfoy was going to hear him over the roar of the waves and the wind. "He still looks kind of mean, honestly."
Alicia rolled her eyes. "Shake it off, Dennis. Another six months or so in CSI and you'll look mean too. The rest of us certainly do." As if to prove her point, she grinned at them, but it was mostly just a show of teeth. They were brilliantly white against the plum colour of her lipstick and Harry wondered what charm she used to ward off coffee stains.
Another technician, a stout, serious man whose name was something like Roger or Randall, said, "It's probably good he's on this case, actually. Isn't he supposed to be really smart?"
Alicia nodded, though it looked like it pained her to do so. "Yeah, he's one of the best analysts that Mysteries has got, but they won't let him in on any of the high clearance research on account of 'all the Death Eater business,' as you put it, so they mostly lend him out to other departments."
Some of Harry's surprise must have shown on his face because her expression softened and she said, "My wife works in Accidents and Catastrophes. He helped them with the rollout of a new filing system a few months ago. She said he ran circles around Ops guys ten years his senior, then fucked off back to Mysteries before they had time to do much more than scowl at him. I think they would have tried to keep him, but no one wants to fight to have him moved to their team and risk taking responsibility if he goes all "the Dark Lord shall hear about this" on them."
Harry frowned. "I don't think he's likely to do that. It doesn't surprise me that he's still kind of a smug, swotty arse, but he wasn't a very good Death Eater when they were around and I don't think he misses 'the Dark Lord' any more than I do."
Alicia sighed. "Between you and me, I think you're probably right. Working this case with MLE might be just what he needs to convince the top brass at the Ministry that he's paid his dues. From the sound of it, this is the biggest case to come around in years."
Harry found out just how right she was when he was hovering in the hallway outside Dolores Umbridge's cell in Azkaban and holding Dennis' camera out of the way while he threw up. He could practically hear Robards' gruff admonishment. Save kittens on your own time, Potter.
Before he could do more than conjure a ludicrous mental image of Dennis as a human-sized kitten, a quiet, ragged voice interrupted his hallucination. "You don't have to go back in there. I can take the pictures if you don't mind lending me your camera."
It took a few moments before Dennis stopped retching long enough to answer. In those moment⏤exceptionally long moments judging from Harry's perception of time⏤Malfoy and Harry made uneasy eye contact. Harry had already half extended the hand holding the camera, mostly because he suspected it was expensive, and holding expensive things that belonged to other people made him nervous.
From the floor, Dennis groaned, "Do you know how to use it? It's a Lightswitch," which confirmed Harry's suspicion that he was holding an exceptionally expensive piece of equipment. The Lightswitch was a brand of camera touted for its Magi-Muggle functionality. It had charms baked in that would allow it to function as whatever high-end Muggle brand the observer was expecting, but it retained its full magical properties as well.
Harry waited for Malfoy to scoff or snap at Dennis, but he just replied in that same soft tone, "I've used them before, on assignments for the Ministry."
Dennis mumbled, "That's okay then," so Harry handed the camera over. Malfoy gave him a quiet thanks and the two of them walked back into the grim scene.
Ron's eyebrows shot up when he saw Malfoy holding the camera, but he called for the med team and the warden to step back so they could get pictures of the scene.
"So, this is weird," Harry murmured to Ron, covered by the clicks and whirrs of the Lightswitch.
"Look, I know, but he's the best we could ask for, and if you think this scene is bad, wait until you see the one that made Azkaban finally call us." Ron's eyes tracked Malfoy as he moved carefully around Dolores Umbridge's body, only pausing to spell his trousers and shoes to repel blood.
"Yeah, I actually meant the scene. Well, the whole situation, really. It's weird, even without the Malfoy of it all. Although, watching him be actually decent to Dennis was surreal on its own." He exchanged a grim smile with Ron as Alicia walked up to join them.
"I don't know how they could possibly have thought this was a suicide." She twitched her fingertips like she wanted to run her hands through her hair, but she was wearing gloves and a hair cover. "There's blood on her hands, but not nearly the amount that would be there if she'd torn open her own throat. Plus, there's no flesh under her nails."
Ron nodded. "I think that was just their excuse not to look into it very hard. She doesn't have any next of kin and⏤"
Harry finished the thought for him. "And she's not somebody that very many people would miss. They wouldn't want MLE sniffing around Azkaban and calling their security into question if they could avoid it."
Maybe he would have been surprised earlier in his career, but he'd had enough run-ins with the guards and warden to know what they thought, both of aurors in general, and of him specifically.
Alicia grimaced. It wasn't news to her either. "Well, they don't have a choice now. This was definitely a murder, and it was a fucking weird one. My charms are giving me two times of death, about fifteen minutes apart."
Ron frowned. "How is that even possible?"
Harry allowed his eyes to roam over the body in question and the room at large. Umbridge was splayed out on her back with her head bent at an unnatural angle to display the gaping ruin where her throat used to be. If one really tried, he supposed it was possible to believe she could have inflicted the injuries herself; there were deep gouge marks that seemed to originate around her breastbone and climb up to her throat, as if she'd dug in her nails and then pulled.
"The blood on her hands. Can you tell when it got there?" Something was lingering like an itch in his mind, but he couldn't quite snag it.
Alicia shook her head. "Not reliably. Maybe once we've got the body back at the lab. What are you thinking?"
"The blood." Malfoy stepped back to let Alicia's team begin prepping the body for transport and joined them. "That's what's bothering you, right?"
Ignoring the part of his brain that still felt eleven and wrong-footed under Malfoy's direct address, Harry nodded. "Yeah, that's it exactly."
There was blood spray in the cell. They would have noticed immediately if Umbridge's throat was ripped up and there just wasn't any blood. The spatter arced out over both of her shoulders, almost like a cape. There were tiny droplets on the sad, little cot that passed for a bed. As Ron had noted, there was blood on her fingers, probably from trying to stem the bloodflow from the first couple of wounds on her throat.
There just wasn't any blood on the floor.
"At first, I thought it was just the stasis spell and the wards reacting against each other and drowning out any ambient magic. That's not it though." Malfoy's eyes were wide and clear, fixed on Umbridge's body like it held some kind of secret. "I think we're going to need to wait until Spinnet's team has cleared the body, then I can try a couple of things to take down whatever's been cloaked in here."
Ron nodded like he wasn't surprised, which rankled Harry a little bit, because he was very surprised. Although, he probably shouldn't have been since the little voice that lived in the part of his brain reserved for Malfoy Thoughts helpfully reminded him that Malfoy had always been smart⏤really smart.
"While they work, we should head over to the second crime scene. It's one floor up." Ron grimaced as he said, "It's worse than this one, if you can believe it. Malfoy, do you mind?" He pointed to the camera. "I think we should tell Dennis to sit this one out."
"Of course." Malfoy maintained his sombre expression, but Harry was watching, so he could see the exact moment that Malfoy wished he could roll his eyes.
The woman on the floor of the cell had once been beautiful. Draco knew this because he'd seen her, never in the flesh, but in the thick photo albums unearthed from Merlin-knows-where by the mad, gleeful, sadist that called his mother her sister. Akvila Snyde was about a decade older than Bellatrix and carried herself with an elegance that his aunt could never have hoped to replicate.
Still, madness had its perks, he supposed. The decades in Azkaban had been far kinder to Bellatrix than they had to Akvila, whose hair had gone completely grey, thinned out, and lost its lustre, hanging from her scalp in limp tendrils like a particularly invasive fungus. Her pallor was almost as grey, although that might have had something to do with the present state of her body.
Feeling as though his limbs were moving underwater, Draco began to methodically photograph the scene so that Potter and Weasley could come closer and inspect the body. While he did so, their conversation filtered in from his periphery.
"Kind of feeling like Umbridge was a walk in the park compared to this one."
Potter made some noises of agreement and vague reassurances. Draco wondered if he was going to be mumbling for the entirety of this case.
"I guess I'm grateful we didn't have to see Umbridge in her altogether. Fuck, I regret saying that already. Can you obliviate the last five seconds from my brain?"
Weasley was trying to make Potter comfortable. Given their auror track record, he was almost certainly trying to make Potter comfortable because Draco was there and not because of the exsanguinated woman lying spread-eagled on the ground with her legs bent in such a way that at least one of her hips was dislocated. Maybe both of her hips.
Draco swallowed against the bile threatening to come up his throat and briefly marvelled at being in position to empathize with a Creevey.
He finished taking pictures and handed the camera to Weasley so he could take out his wand and cast some of his lighter detection charms. "Something's cloaked here, same as in the first cell."
Potter exhaled through his teeth, but for once, Draco didn't take it personally. Potter was glaring at the back wall of the cell. "It can't just be about blood, then. We know where all the blood from this one went."
He wasn't wrong. Akvila Snyde's blood was certainly in evidence. Small spatters decorated the patches of her skin that weren't sporting words carved into them. The majority had been used to paint more writing across the wall above her.
La paura si trasformi in desiderio
Di qui non passa mai anima buona
"Fear turns into desire; no good soul ever passes through here." Draco spoke without thinking, then flinched when both men snapped their attention from Akvila to him. "It's Italian, from Dante's Inferno, I think."
To his surprise, it was Potter who relaxed first. "So it's a message, rather than an incantation?"
Draco nodded. "That's what it seems like. If we're looking for the same person for both murders, I suspect we'll find a similar quote in Umbridge's cell once we remove the cloaking spells. The other writing though…"
"It's in English." Potter's forehead creased as he squinted, then gave up and knelt gingerly by the corpse's thighs. "He let me touch him today. I've never felt such power. Reads a bit like a journal entry."
Draco gestured to a section on her belly that had caught his attention. "I think that one's a love letter."
Potter leaned over to read, "Even if I never ⏤ oh, yikes. Even if I never feel your body inside me again, there is a part of me that will always feel your soul. I know…" He cut himself off, unwilling to move his face closer to her butchered vulva.
Draco cast a charm he'd learned in Mysteries for parsing damaged correspondence. "I know you say you do not have one, but I feel you in me all the same. Fuck." He made himself stand and wobble back to the door frame of the cell before he collapsed against it.
Potter stayed kneeling on the floor. Draco wondered if it was because he couldn't get up. After a few seconds, he whispered, "So these are about Voldemort."
Draco nodded, doing his utmost to pretend that the door frame wasn't doing the lion's share of keeping him upright. "The Snyde family were quite active in the First War. Akvila was somewhat acquainted with Bellatrix and Crouch's lot."
Weasley groaned, though he tried to cover it. "Of-fucking-course. I should have remembered that."
From his position on the floor, Potter asked in a small voice, "Sorry in advance, but I have to be sure⏤ we don't think Umbridge also fucked Voldemort, right?"
Weasley made a noise in his throat that was probably a stifled scream. Draco lost the battle with gravity and slid down to sit on the floor, putting him at eye level with Potter, who looked like he was trying not to laugh, but also to not throw up. "So, I don't think so, but I suppose we'll find out when we check her cell for messages."
To his immense relief, his uncloaking spells revealed nothing that implied that Umbridge had ever been a sexual entity of any kind. As he had expected, they did reveal another ominous quote in a foreign tongue. To his not-insubstantial dismay, they also revealed the words FILTHY MUDBLOOD painted beneath the quote.
"Do you know this one? Oui, tu connais le prix du mal. Et si tu dis que je suis un lâche, c'est en connaissance de cause." Weasley's french pronunciation was surprisingly tolerable, though Draco refrained from telling him so.
"I know what it says, but not what it's from." Off Weasley and Potter's expectant glances, he translated, "Yes, you know the price of evil. And if you say that I am a coward, it is in the knowledge of the cause."
"Oh, huh." Draco couldn't discern what Potter's tone meant. It sounded like a mix of surprise and satisfaction. His eyes had even brightened a little and he was rubbing the back of his hand like it was helping him work something out.
Weasley seemed to know something Draco didn't. He was looking at Potter with a mix of hope and concern. "Harry?"
"They're calling her a hypocrite. She was a half-blood who hated half-bloods. She was a government minister whose loyalty could be sold to the highest bidder. She was…she was a liar." He tilted his hand toward Draco and the sickly white light of the prison caught on a row of thin, jagged scars above his knuckles. I must not tell lies.
He dropped his hand back to his side once he seemed sure Draco had read it. "I'm not the only one with the scars, but I think mine are the easiest to read. From the look on your face, I'm guessing the Slytherins didn't have to write lines with a Blood Quill during detention?"
Draco tore his gaze away from Potter's wry smile and stared back at the walls and floor that were painted with Dolores Umbridge's blood. "It's personal for this killer. Something happened to them in the First War or the Second and they're out to settle a vendetta. They're taking their time, planning out the retribution and its symbolism for their victims."
He stopped to take a shaky breath. Now that he could see the blood on the wall, he couldn't stop thinking he could taste it in the air. "They're methodical, but they're angry too. It's a dangerous combination, a perfect storm."
Potter bit his lip, then said, "Angry could be good for us. People make mistakes when they're angry."
Weasley's nostrils flared. "That's true, but with this amount of planning and pageantry, I'm worried about how angry they would have to get to slip up."
"Or how tired." Weasley and Potter looked at him like they already knew what he was going to say, but he said it anyway, so that maybe it would stop rattling around in his head. "Our killer is just getting started."
When they left the prison, it was already dark. Harry started casting warming charms as they boarded the boat and only stopped when Ron rested a hand on his shoulder and said, "I think that's good."
So, they weren't freezing as they watched the inky water melt into the equally black sky and swallow up the dull gray spectre of the prison, but Harry felt cold and nauseated enough that he may as well have been drinking it. Ron didn't look much better and Malfoy's eyes had the thousand-league stare that Harry remembered from sixth year.
He forced himself to break the silence. "We won't get the photos back until tomorrow, but do you want to grab some dinner and go over what we know?"
The abject shock on Malfoy's face when he realised Harry was addressing him was enough to warm Harry up a little bit.
Ron smiled weakly, like he knew what Harry was doing. "I know better than to tell the two of you to call it night. Want to come to mine? 'Mione's not one for cooking, but we've got enough leftovers from Sunday lunch with mum to feed an army."
Malfoy went from startled to startled and nervous, which would actually have been kind of cute if Harry wasn't bracing himself for some obnoxious comment about how Malfoys didn't lower themselves to eating leftovers. What came in its place was a shaky inhale, then, "That sounds lovely. It'll be nice to see her again."
Ron's smile brightened, then widened to a grin when he caught Harry trying to hide his own surprise. "They worked on a case together, what was it⏤eight months ago?"
Malfoy nodded. "Almost nine at this point. The trial only wrapped up last month though."
In theory, Hermione worked for the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures as a legal advisor. In practice, Hermione was a war hero who graduated at the top of her law school class and then set about becoming the most competent and professional thorn to ever pierce the Ministry's proverbial side.
"Was that the class action about the business licences?"
After spearheading a campaign for greater House Elf protections, Hermione had gone on a warpath after discovering the hoops that sentient creatures and creature hybrids had to go through in order to open and operate businesses in the magical UK. The complexities and legalese had made Harry's head spin, but he loved seeing Hermione wipe the floor with old-guard bigots.
Malfoy nodded. "We pulled records as far back as the sixteenth century. The restrictions and regulations were maddeningly inconsistent, but there was a clear pattern of discrimination. Actually, there were several clear patterns of discrimination. Creatures and hybrids had it the worst, but muggleborns, daughters, and second-born sons et cetera all faced more challenges and greater penalties than the first-born sons of pureblood families."
Ron snorted. "Bet the Wizengamot loved hearing that."
To Harry's immense shock, Malfoy smiled. "I do wish I could have seen their faces. The data was quite damning." He looked over at Harry and gave him a slow blink through absurdly long lashes. "I do appreciate the irony in my position. Fortunately, Ms. Granger also appreciated it. We worked quite well together after a fashion."
Off Harry's raised eyebrows, Ron translated, "He gave 'Mione sort of a blanket apology and then opened the floor for her to air out all of her grievances to get them out of the way. The way she tells it, she started out calm with the Death Eater stuff and then gradually escalated until she was full-force yelling at him for being a twat in class. He finally snapped and yelled back when she called him a know-it-all and a teacher's pet and then they both laughed until they cried."
"Those weren't the exact words she used, but they were close." Malfoy rolled his eyes, still smiling. "The laugh-crying bit is absolutely true though. It ended up being one of my favourite assignments."
They have a couple of flunkies that they lend out to other departments on an as-needed basis. "How often do you get to work outside of Mysteries?" Harry asked the question before he could think better of it.
"Get to?" Malfoy's smile was still soft, but his eyes had sharpened. "I've been there for almost six years and I still don't have a designated desk. If I didn't need a place to store copies of my reports and notes for any ongoing research, I doubt I'd even have my own drawer in the filing cabinet. So, I suppose you could say that I get to work outside of Mysteries quite often."
Harry winced, but there was no reproach in Malfoy's measured tone. There wasn't even bitterness, just the barest hint of resignation. He was saved from having to come up with a reply by the jolt of the boat docking.
"Either of you need to grab anything from the Ministry?" When both he and Malfoy shook their heads, Ron ran a hand through his hair and sighed in relief. "Great. Let's get back to mine and crack the expensive bottle of apology firewhisky. I'll side-along you."
Harry would have been hard pressed to explain whatever expression flashed across his face when Malfoy took Ron's arm at the apparition point. Fortunately, they'd already apparated away and no one else was paying much attention to him when there was a medical team carting two dead bodies off the boat. He sighed, closed his eyes, and focused on Ron and Hermione's bungalow in the countryside.
He arrived on their garden footpath and was greeted by the sound of laughter and the smell of lilacs. He allowed his shoulders to relax and shook himself off, trying to banish the day's grotesquerie. There would be time enough to dwell on it. For now, he was at the home of his two best friends in the world and listening to a laugh that he hadn't heard in over a decade.
When he rounded the corner to the back patio, Hermione was already waiting with a tumbler of Ogden's 1781. "I was just catching Draco up on why it is we call this the 'apology whiskey.'"
While Harry was still processing the reality of Hermione calling Malfoy by his first name, the man in question laughed again and said, "It's moments like this one that make me grateful that I never had any siblings."
The tradition of the apology whiskey had begun a few years earlier when Ginny had pointed out that Percy had almost limitless access to vendors of items like rare alcohol and other luxuries, mostly thanks to his position overseeing magical imports and exports. This observation was immediately followed by the declaration, "So, next time you're a twat to me, I expect a bottle of the fanciest shit you can get your hands on."
Percy had taken the declaration to heart and thus was the tradition of "apology alcohol" born.
Ron scoffed and said, "You know what's ridiculous? I can't even remember what this bottle was an apology for."
Hermione smirked. "That's because this one wasn't actually an apology to you. This was from the time Percy accused me of trying to court favouritism ahead of the vote on my proposed procedure for House Elf grievance submissions."
Malfoy's eyebrows shot up. "He has met you, hasn't he?"
Harry grinned. "We've never officially confirmed that he was sore because someone said that her documentation process made the ones he'd created under Fudge and Scrimgeour look outdated and inefficient, but the rumour is that they said it to his face."
Malfoy raised his glass and toasted Hermione. The twinkling witchlights in the garden lit up his face and caught on little smile lines that Harry had never noticed before. Maybe, he reflected, they had never been there before.
They couldn't elude the spectre of their case for long. Over a cozy meal of roast and potatoes (courtesy of Molly's Sunday lunch), they caught Hermione up on everything they'd seen thus far.
"A serial killer with a connection to the Voldemort Wars who abhors hypocrisy and has an affinity for obscure literary quotes." Hermione grimaced. "There are moments when I question the decision to turn down the DMLE offer, but this isn't one of them."
"Do you recognize the second quote? I have a theory, but I'm hoping to be wrong." Malfoy's face had grown serious and he kept his focus on Hermione, though he must have been aware of Ron and Harry's curious looks.
Hermione sighed. "I don't recognize it exactly, but I've got an idea. You said it was painted on the wall in French?"
Malfoy nodded and Hermione got up from the table, gesturing for them to wait there. They watched her go, then Malfoy asked, "You won't get in trouble with the DMLE for telling her about the case?"
Ron shook his head. "She's on record as my legal counsel and Harry's. Plus, no one in the DMLE is foolish enough to get cross at Hermione for helping them."
"Probably for the best. The only equivalent to apology alcohol that they could offer would have to be scavenged from an evidence locker." When Harry barked a laugh at his joke, Malfoy's eyes glimmered and he smiled like a cat with a canary.
Ron hummed noncommittally. "I think Pence actually is dipping into the evidence lockers, but that's neither here nor there. If Robards doesn't care, I'm not going to waste my breath."
Harry frowned. "Wait, which one is Pence?"
Both Malfoy and Ron shot him incredulous looks. Ron answered, "Harry, he's on our team. You were with him on the smuggling ring case. His desk is like four away from yours."
Malfoy supplied, "Greying hair, sort of vacant eyes?"
Harry furrowed his brow. "The bloke that always smells a little of chowder?"
Before the conversation could devolve further, Hermione returned with a book clutched triumphantly in her hand. "Sorry, that took me a minute. I had to dig through a couple of storage trunks to track this down. I've never really been much for theatre, but I did go through a brief period of fascination with existentialist theory."
Harry and Ron exchanged a smile, but Malfoy just nodded as if a brief period of fascination with existentialist theory was something everyone went through in their teens or twenties.
Hermione sat back down and waved her wand over the book. The pages began to flip on their own and then a small number of them glowed yellow. Hermione skimmed the first couple of glowing sections and dismissed them, then made a small noise of satisfaction. "Does this sound right⏤'Yes, you know what evil costs, and when you say I'm a coward, you're speaking from experience'?"
Malfoy's eyes lit up. "That's it! What is it from?"
"It's a play by Jean-Paul Sartre. It's called No Exit, or Huis Clos in the original French. Three people find themselves in a room together and gradually realise that they've died and they're in Hell."
Harry felt his eyes widen. Suddenly, he knew what Malfoy's theory was and the knot in his stomach told him it was correct. "The author's Muggle?"
Hermione bit her lip, but nodded. Malfoy groaned and let his head drop into his hands.
Ron's eyes narrowed. "You think our killer is Muggleborn."
Since Malfoy was still trying to become one with the table, Harry answered him. "It makes sense. Muggleborns would have both the motive and the body of knowledge required to execute the Azkaban murders. Even targeting Umbridge first tracks; she spearheaded the Muggleborn Registration Commission."
"Even though she was a Muggleborn," Hermione continued. "Hence the quote about how it takes a coward to know a coward."
Ron swallowed hard. "Right. Okay. I follow. Where does this take us then?"
Malfoy finally sat up, brushing his shoulder-length hair back. "It means we have a massive suspect pool⏤basically every Muggleborn person in the UK, possibly in Europe. It also confirms something I suspected initially, which is that they're making up their ritual as they go along. There's no magical significance to what they're doing, but it's symbolic to them. It's an indictment."
"An indictment?" Harry was starting to feel a little lightheaded.
"Of the system that allowed Voldemort to thrive, not once, but twice. Right?" Hermione's eyes were bright despite her troubled frown.
Malfoy nodded. "Umbridge wasn't a Death Eater, but she may as well have rolled out the red carpet for Voldemort. Akvila Snyde is an interesting choice since she was given a life sentence during the First War, but she's one of the few Death Eaters confirmed to have been intimate with Voldemort, so that's maybe something we can work with."
"Oh. Oh no." Hermione pushed the book she'd been looking at to the side and stood up again. I just thought of something. I'll be right back."
Ron watched his wife disappear down the hallway again and then flicked his wand to gather their plates and silverware. "Anyone up for another drink?"
Hermione was only gone a few minutes, but when she returned, it was to a clean table and a mostly empty bottle of 300-year-old firewhisky. She summoned her glass and poured herself the rest of the bottle. "I might have an idea of what the killer is doing, but just like Draco, I very much hope I'm wrong."
She took a long sip of her drink, then raised her wand to write in the air:
Envy
Gluttony
Greed
Lust
Pride
Sloth
Wrath
Malfoy tilted his head. "I've seen these before. Why are they familiar?"
Harry had seen them too, at church with Aunt Petunia. "It's the Seven Deadly Sins. I think it's a Catholic thing, but basically it's the worst sins a person can commit, or maybe the categories of worst sins. Something like that. I didn't pay a ton of attention in church, but that's the idea."
Hermione nodded. "They've become a fairly well-known concept, even among secular Muggles. Artists, poets, and philosophers have created works based around the idea for hundreds of years."
Malfoy inclined his head. "So if our killer is using Muggle writing about Hell and punishment to call out those he believes had a hand in the proliferation of the Voldemort regime, he might be using these Seven Deadly Sins to choose his targets?"
Ron murmured, "I hate to be pedantic, but it might not be a he."
Malfoy hummed an agreement, but Harry thought for a moment and said, "Maybe not, but the first two victims were women and they were killed pretty viciously. The humiliation and mutilation of Snyde specifically is uncharacteristic of female murderers."
Malfoy nodded. "If we're assuming that she represents Lust and not something else, I would be more inclined to assume that the lengths the killer went to shame her⏤leaving her spread-eagle, dislocating her hips, and carving all the way to her genitalia⏤would lead me to guess that our suspect is male. If we thought she represented Envy, we'd probably be looking for another female Death Eater." He paused, then sighed. "Even then, I'd still call what was done to Akvila overkill."
"Leaving the question of gender for now, does this mean we're anticipating five more murders?" Harry knew the answer, but the question needed asking.
Malfoy stared at the glowing words Hermione had sketched in the air, then sighed. "That's what I'd say based on the evidence we have so far, assuming they haven't already happened."
That was Harry's cue to drain the rest of his glass. "It might be worth asking Alicia if there have been any unusual deaths in the last few weeks, but given the element of spectacle in the two we saw today, I'd hope we'd have heard about them."
Malfoy nodded. "I don't think there's much more we can get done tonight. Let's regroup in the morning?" When Harry and Ron both agreed, he stood smoothly and walked over to rest his hand on Hermione's shoulder. "Thanks for your help. We'd still be bumbling about in the dark without you."
Harry snorted. "Story of my life."
They walked out together after bidding Ron and Hermione goodnight. Harry tried to mentally compose a goodbye that adequately communicated both an acknowledgement of their history and the assurance that he was looking forward to working with Malfoy on this case.
Malfoy got there first. "When Weasley told me I'd be working with you, I thought he was mad. When he told me that he'd requested me specifically, I knew he was mad." He gave Harry a slightly crooked smile. "Today was surprisingly tolerable, at least as tolerable as a day where I had to read a love letter to the Dark Lord written on the vagina of my awful aunt's awful mentor."
Harry laughed hard enough that he lost his footing on the path. Instead of landing face down in Hermione's catmint, he felt a strong arm catch him by the waist. "Careful there, Potter. I'll not have the tabloids saying that I was doing nefarious things to you in the Weasley-Granger's bushes."
"Don't worry. You wouldn't be the first." Oh. Yes, that would be the second round of firewhisky hitting him.
"Potter, are you fine to apparate?" There was a faint, rosy flush across Malfoy's cheeks, but the rest of him looked a little nervous. He was still holding Harry's waist.
Harry smiled, the faint hysteria of oversharing while tipsy fading against the warm glow of the garden lights and the way they turned Malfoy's eyes from storm-coloured to molten silver. "I'm always fine."
That seemed like the right answer, or maybe the wrong one, since Malfoy looked relieved, but he also let go of Harry and stepped back. "I suppose that's true. Goodnight then."
Then he was gone, the crack of his apparition barely louder than a leaf crunching underfoot.
Draco was a goddamned adult, so he did not apparate directly into his own bed and scream into a pillow.
He apparated into the entryway of his East End flat, put his things away, brushed his teeth, changed into pyjamas, climbed into bed, and then he screamed into a pillow.
Don't worry. You wouldn't be the first. Of all the hazards of working with the DMLE on a Major Crimes case, Potter being both a flirty drunk and a bit of a lush had never crossed his mind. He imagined explaining to his father that he'd quit his job at the Ministry because it was that or die by drowning in a heady combination of shame and sexual frustration. It didn't help.
He summoned a hangover potion to keep by his bed for the morning, then he summoned a paper and pen.
Dearest Pansy,
I'm drunk on Ogden's 1781, Britain has a new muggleborn serial killer, and it turns out that I never actually got over my fight/flight/fuck reflex when it comes to Harry Potter. On a completely unrelated note, guess who I'm working with on the serial killer case?
I hope Bern is treating you well. Don't come back to the UK until we catch the serial killer, okay? I'll tell you. Maybe write Theo and tell him to keep Greg with him in Austria. Don't tell them why though. I'm not supposed to say this much but since I'm not an Unspeakable, their rules don't apply to me (or at least their wards don't).
I miss you. I love you. Please write me another of your "stay away from Potter" lists. Focus on his cock if you can. There's been plenty of media speculation about it and also that one interview from the touring bassist for the Weird Sisters.
I miss you. I love you.
⏤Draco
He folded the letter and set it off to the side for Magnus to pick up, then allowed himself to slip into unconsciousness.
Pansy's reply came when he was sitting across from Potter at a conference room table going over the crime scene photos from Azkaban. Both of them were nursing large cups of coffee and pointedly not talking about anything except the case, which meant neither of them acknowledged how embarrassing it was that they both jumped when Magnus swept in through the charmed owl portal and dropped a small pink scroll in front of him.
Draco sighed and unfolded it.
Draco love, I'd ask what the hell you're doing, but I've known you too long. Be safe. I love you. I miss you. I'll never forgive you if you die while I'm in Switzerland stuffing my face with rosti.
I'd tell you not to fuck Potter, but honestly, I rather think you should. Fight and flight never really worked.
Blaise and Millicent say hi. I wrote Theo and Greg. Don't die.
Love, Pansy
When Draco looked up from the letter, Potter was watching him with a small smile and a raised eyebrow. Against all reason and good judgement, Draco smiled back.
They were saved from having to attempt a conversation about anything other than work by Alicia Spinnet tapping on the conference room door. Her face was pale, but her jaw was set and her shoulders were squared to military perfection. "Ron sent me to get you. We've got another crime scene and it's rough."
Rough might have been an understatement. While the Umbridge and Snyde crime scenes had perhaps shown more raw brutality, nothing could have prepared Draco for the sight of his former classmate seated at the dining table in his ancestral home with galleons spilling out of his open mouth and rupturing his throat from the inside.
"His house elf found him like this. Ron's having her stay down at the precinct until we've cleared the scene. She's pretty upset, understandably so." Spinnet grimaced as she gestured to the tableau before them.
Zacharias Smith had been dead long enough that rigour mortis had begun to set in, but not so long that his limbs couldn't be manipulated to allow Spinnet and her team to examine the mess the killer had made of him. Draco was relieved to see that she'd brought a new photographer this time, a tall man a few years older than them, who had chestnut coloured hair, blue-green eyes, and introduced himself as Klaus.
Under different circumstances, Draco would have found Klaus quite attractive. Unfortunately, not only was Draco deep in the throes of a whole new level of Harry Potter obsession, he and the object of his obsession were currently trying to find places to stand on the Smith's expensive carpet that didn't risk getting blood or bits of teeth on their shoes.
Smith's wand had been left on the table, quite close to his right hand. Potter picked it up gingerly with a gloved hand and asked, "Will it mess up anyone's spells if I cast priori incantato ?"
As it would happen, the answer was yes. Spinnet gently shooed Potter away from the body and Draco followed him out into the hallway where a number of Smith family portraits were watching them curiously. Draco thought about asking if Potter was fine with an audience, then decided against it and just spelled curtains over the portraits.
Potter gave him a curious look, but muttered a quick, "Thanks," before he tested Smith's wand.
When the result came, it was so obvious that Draco was kicking himself for not expecting it. "Fuck, he did it to himself. The killer made him put a galleon or two in his mouth and then forced him to cast geminio."
"They would have doubled fast enough to cut off his airway almost immediately." Potter grimaced. "Or, at least, they would have if they hadn't split his throat open first."
Draco nodded, feeling lightheaded. "Spinnet will probably tell us the cause of death was blood loss, like in the first two. We should ask her if there's any sign that he fought the Imperius."
Potter's expression darkened further. "If the killer is muggleborn, they might not have even used Imperius. They could have had a gun."
He glanced at Draco as if confirming that he knew what a gun was. Draco gave what he hoped was a reassuring nod. "I think the act of consuming the money, coupled with the positioning at the table and the fact that the killer made him commit the acts upon himself points to this one being Gluttony. What I don't understand is what made Smith a target. He works for Games and Sports. He was in Hufflepuff. He was even part of your little army during Umbridge's tenure."
"Yeah, he was. He was a bit of a nightmare, to be honest, and⏤oh." Potter's gaze grew distant and he was silent for long enough that Draco was about to prompt him. Before he had to, Potter said, "He ran. During the Battle of Hogwarts, when the rest of us stayed to fight, he ran. I remember watching him do it."
He ran. During the Battle of Hogwarts. Trying to ignore the bile threatening to rise in the back of his throat, Draco managed to reply, "Oh. That makes sense then."
Potter's grim expression softened into more of a confused frown. "Are you⏤"
Draco waved him off. "Yeah, I just⏤well, it wouldn't have been so bad to run. If I had, or if I had just told Vince and Greg to, then maybe they'd have made it out okay."
Some of Potter's confusion seemed to turn to surprise. "Oh, hey. No. Don't go there. You couldn't have known what Crabbe was going to do. He cast the spell and he lost control of it. You got Goyle out and he was fully unconscious. Is he⏤he's not okay?"
Draco shook his head. "We sort of take turns looking after him. Vince was his other half. I don't know what they would have become to one another if given the chance, but in any case, Greg didn't have a plan for what to do with the rest of his life beyond 'Go where Vince goes.' It would be like you losing Weasley⏤either one, I imagine."
He couldn't quite bring himself to say, well, actually, it would be like Weasley losing Granger and it being your fault. He felt like maybe Potter got the point anyway.
They stood in silence for a long moment in the hallway, Potter looking utterly wrong-footed and ill-equipped to offer a comfort that Draco neither deserved nor knew how to accept. Draco finally cleared his throat and said, "I don't think we can afford to indulge my melancholy when we have a crime scene to examine."
Potter gave him a wry smile. "Maybe there will be a nice, horrible message written in Smith's blood somewhere using a language no one except you speaks."
Draco rolled his eyes. "I'm quite certain that plenty of people besides myself speak both Italian and French."
Still, Potter's silly quip worked as intended. Had he always been somewhat funny? Charming even?
Draco pondered the question, right up to the moment his uncloaking spells revealed a quote written in blood, just the same as the other scenes, but this time on Smith's table.
We are each our own devil, and we make this world our hell.
"I have to say, I'm both relieved and a little disappointed that this one is in English." Potter gave him that crooked smile again, and Draco mentally composed another letter to Pansy demanding that she portkey in for a few minutes to beat some sense into him using her cutting rhetoric or her toughest pair of high heels.
"It's Oscar Wilde. He's a muggle writer, so you might not know him. Kind of a queer icon as well." Klaus' tone was casual, but the tilt of his lips and the crinkle of amusement around his eyes said he was fishing, maybe even outright flirting. Wildly inappropriate for a work setting, let alone a crime scene.
Draco wondered how he could discreetly convey I like your vibe, but I'm terribly sorry to tell you that I'm currently enmeshed in the resurrection of an unhealthy obsession that I've had since childhood. Perhaps I could get your floo address and give you a call when I've recovered from the inevitable implosion of my head, heart, career, and sense of self?
While Draco was still pondering the question, the bulldozer formerly known as Potter replied to Klaus, "Yeah, we got it. Thanks."
Klaus' eyebrows went up and he glanced between Potter and Draco with a questioning look. Draco shook his head and reiterated, "Yes, thank you. Potter's familiar, but I wasn't."
Klaus relaxed and smiled at Draco. It didn't escape his notice that Potter's scowl deepened when he did so, but what was Draco supposed to do⏤ not smile back?
Spinnet came up to them, blithely unaware of the testosterone tidepool she was wading into. "We're about ready to wrap up and take him back to the morgue. You've got what you need?" Draco nodded and Spinnet turned to Klaus. "Did you tell them what your friend said?"
Klaus shook his head. "I was just about to." He pulled a small, metallic object from his pocket and held it up for them to look at. Draco stepped closer to him under the pretense of looking at it, mostly so he could body-block Potter and whatever face he was making.
Klaus flicked his wrist and the object opened up to reveal a glowing screen and buttons that Draco recognized as being used on telephones. "Your…mobile phone? Cell phone?"
Klaus laughed, not unkindly, and one of his front teeth was a little misaligned. It gave him a devil-may-care kind of appearance. Draco could feel Potter's eyes boring holes into the back of his head and he leaned a little closer than was necessary to listen to Klaus explain what he was showing them. "I've got a mate that works in Games and Sports. I texted him to see if he knew of anyone that might have it out for Smith and apparently it's an open secret that he's been skimming funds."
He tilted the phone so Draco could read the exchange. "I mean, that matches up with what we know of Smith's general ego and entitlement. You're thinking that's the reason for the galleons?" He addressed the question to Spinnet, who nodded.
Draco sighed. "Well, being a twat doesn't usually carry a death sentence. Thanks for your help today. Potter and I will be in touch if we have any questions."
As they prepared to leave, Potter asked suddenly, "How did you get your phone to work in here? Usually magical houses mess with electronics."
Klaus gave Potter a sharper version of the smile he'd given Draco earlier. "I didn't. I took it outside. You two looked quite busy when I walked past you in the hallway."
It was difficult to tell against Potter's dark complexion, but Draco could swear he was flushed. "Right. Well, thanks again. We'll be off."
He spun on his heel and didn't look to see if Draco was following. After a brief pause, he shrugged at Spinnet, gave Klaus a cheeky wink, and caught up with Potter in time to enjoy the view as he descended the stairs.
Harry made some excuse that he was sure Malfoy saw right through and then stormed straight into Ron's office, warding the door on his way in. "I don't like that Klaus bloke."
Ron looked up from the report he was reading, saw Harry's expression, and gave a resigned sigh. "Sure, mate. Come on in. Tell me all about how the second most seasoned crime scene photographer in the DMLE has offended your sensibilities."
"He⏤" What? Inserted himself into a case he was assigned to? Gave valuable intel to the aurors working the case? Was too bloody good-looking to be trusted? "He was kind of flirty with Malfoy at the scene today."
The thunk Ron's head made when he dropped it down onto the desk sounded painful. "Harry. Really."
The wind gone from his sails, Harry gave in to gravity and settled into the chair across from Ron's desk. "Well, it's unprofessional."
Ron just looked at him.
"Fine. Okay. Klaus Anderson can flirt with whomever he wants. As a matter of fact, so can Malfoy. Obviously. I don't own him and I don't know why I care." Harry took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes.
"Mate, it hasn't even been 72 hours." Ron's tone was achingly gentle. It was the same gentleness that he'd used when Harry had stumbled his way through explaining that he and Ginny were splitting up and Ron had assured him that Harry would always be part of the family.
"I know. It's just⏤all of a sudden I'm seventeen again, you know? The responsibility, the dread, the loneliness, the Malfoy of it all." Ron scoffed at the last one.
"Harry, I think you mean the confusing, angry horniness of it all." Without his glasses, Ron was a ginger blob floating some immeasurable distance away from him, but Harry could picture his wry smile perfectly.
"Sure. Maybe I mean that. I think if it was just that, I'd still probably be fine. There's something else though, something that hit me at the crime scene today, and I need to talk it through with you before I say anything to Malfoy." Harry put his glasses back on, willing himself to focus.
"So, based on what we saw today, Hermione's Seven Deadly Sins theory holds water. Smith was made to force feed himself galleons, so Malfoy and I were thinking this one is gluttony, and we're also thinking that means we're going to be looking for four more potential victims." Ron nodded and Harry went on. "The thing is, we also know these murders are connected to the Voldemort wars. Snyde was a supporter, Umbridge was complicit, and Smith was a deserter.
"What I'm saying is⏤this killer has studied and they've planned. Symbolism is clearly important to them and I think that along with invoking the Seven Deadly Sins, they're also…" Harry trailed off, feeling sick.
Ron's blue eyes were wide. His voice was heartbreakingly soft when he finished Harry's sentence. "They're also invoking the seven horcruxes."
Harry swallowed around the lump in his throat. "Snyde had diary entries and love letters carved into her skin. Smith was killed using the geminio curse, like the cup had on it. And Umbridge⏤"
"Umbridge had her throat carved out, where the locket would have sat." Harry nodded, relieved that Ron saw the same things he was seeing, but wishing desperately that he'd been wrong.
"The horcruxes were never public knowledge, but if someone dug deep enough, was obsessive enough, they could have found the information." Harry leaned forward, resting his elbows on Ron's desk, and tried to pretend that the room wasn't spinning in his periphery. "The thing is, I don't think Malfoy knows about them. He's an analyst specialising in rituals. If he knew about them, he would have clocked the same things I did."
"And now you're trying to figure out how to tell him." As usual, Ron cut right through to the heart of the issue.
Harry made an aggrieved noise in the back of his throat, trying not to sound like a petulant teenager. "I don't want to tell him at all. It's dangerous knowledge to have and a massive burden to ask him to shoulder, especially while he's working in Mysteries. Not to mention, it could put him in danger on this case specifically." He sighed, ignoring the way his chest was aching. "And if I tell him everything…"
"If you tell him everything, then you'll both have to contend with the fact that this killer's final target is most likely you." Slowly, the dizziness, the aching, and the nausea subsided. He wasn't crazy. He wasn't wrong. He was just fucked. Ron continued, "We also have to be open to the possibility that the killer could target him, not because of his Death Eater past, but because he's your partner on this case."
"Using that logic, he could just as easily target you or Hermione." Ron's expression didn't change and Harry realised he'd already thought of that.
"We'll be on our guard, but if he has a grudge held over from the First War or the Second, you and Malfoy make more likely targets. You need to talk to him, and soon." Ron folded his hands, twisting his wedding ring in a nervous habit he'd picked up over the last couple of years on the force. "The other option is to take both of you off the case entirely, hand it off to a new team, and put the two of you in protective custody until this killer is caught."
"No!" Harry was conscious of Ron's flinch when he shouted and he made an effort to steady his voice. "No, we need to stay on it. There have been three murders in less than a week. The killer moves fast and he's got an agenda. Another team would be at a massive disadvantage. I'll talk to him. I'll get him up to speed."
Ron studied his face for a long moment, then inclined his head in a solemn nod. "Okay. Keep me posted on how it goes. You're not in this alone. You've never been in this alone."
Harry felt a small, broken smile flick over his face. "I know, Ron. I know."
As he turned to go, Ron said, "You might think about talking to his parents too. He keeps a flat in London to be closer to the Ministry, but they're still at the Manor. They're some of the only former Death Eaters still in Britain."
Harry's breath caught in his throat. "Which means they're probably targets."
"Or they can point you to who else might be. Hell, maybe they'll even have some ideas about who this killer is." Ron stood and walked with him to the door. "I'm not saying tell them everything. Obviously, I don't want to live in a world where Lucius Malfoy knows all about horcruxes and Merlin-knows what else, but we have to explore any advantage we might have, and you're right⏤we don't have a lot of time."
Malfoy was already gone by the time Harry left Ron's office, so he owled him an invite for drinks, feeling like liquid courage might yield an easier conversation. They met up at Harry's favourite dive bar, a dingy spot with strong cocktails, low light, a collection of rare whiskies, and privacy charms built into every booth.
Malfoy sipped his tumbler of Ogden's 1800 and looked around with begrudging appreciation. "I have to admit, Potter, you've got a gift for ambiance. I never would have guessed."
Harry shrugged. "It was the first bar in magical London that didn't make a fuss over my name, plus I like that if I forget to cast muffliato or something similar, the built-in privacy charms mean that whatever I'm talking about won't end up splashed across the gossip rags."
"You know Severus invented that charm, yeah?" Malfoy's expression was unreadable, eyes like a steel trap.
Harry didn't know how to respond except to tell the truth. "Yeah, he did. He was…really brilliant. More brilliant than he got credit for, I think. If he hadn't spent his life being forced into shapes that didn't fit him, he probably would have been unstoppable."
The naked shock and grief on Malfoy's face now was almost worse than the ambiguous expression. His voice was soft when he said, "I was under the impression that you were never very fond of him."
Harry drained his glass and signalled to Dan, the bartender, to bring him another. Dan looked at his face, and at Malfoy's, and he just brought them the bottle. Harry thanked him quietly and topped off both of their glasses before he answered.
"I wasn't, at least, not during school. He never should have been a teacher. I just understand now that he had a lot of choices made for him and he spent pretty much his entire life paying for some of the ones he made for himself when he was young and angry and hurting. I'm not foolish enough to think it's my place to pass judgement on mistakes someone made when they were an angry teenager in pain."
Malfoy took a long sip, nearly draining his glass. He set it down delicately and looked at Harry for a long moment with another of those unreadable expressions. "You know Severus invented sectumsempra too? I found that out later."
Harry's throat burned and it wasn't from the whisky. "I didn't know, at the time. I didn't know about him and I didn't know what the spell did when I cast it. I was⏤"
"You were angry. As a matter of fact, you were an angry, hurting teenager, as was I." Malfoy slowly smiled, bitter, broken, and beautiful. "Do you know the first thing I thought about when I woke up in the hospital wing? When you cut me open, I was relieved. I could give up. I was in pain and I was scared, but I had been both of those things for so long that bleeding to death on a dirty bathroom floor was a gift."
"I'm sorry." Harry's voice was barely over a whisper. Malfoy just shook his head and poured them both more whisky, still smiling.
"It was a long time ago." He swirled his glass and watched the light refract through the crystal and the liquid within. "I don't think you asked me here to dig up old graves and we're not in the Weasley-Granger's garden, so obviously this isn't a date. What did you want to talk about?"
Harry was nowhere near drunk enough to talk about the horcruxes, so he started with Ron's other order. "Have you talked to your parents about the case at all?"
Malfoy drew back, looking startled and a little offended. "Of course not. I know better than to share details about an ongoing DMLE investigation with a convicted Death Eater."
Harry shook his head, vigorously enough that his glasses went a little askew. "No, that's⏤ I think⏤ Okay, actually Ron thinks, but so do I."
Malfoy reached forward and set his glasses to rights with a featherlight touch. "Slow down, Potter. I'm listening."
Harry took a sip of his drink to buy a moment to get the words in order. "Your parents might be in danger, and even if they aren't, they might know something we don't about who could be behind the killings since they were there for the First War." When Malfoy didn't immediately respond, Harry pressed on. "You might be in danger too, maybe more because you're on this case with me."
Malfoy stared at him, grey eyes going wide and clear, like a calm, cold sea. Harry opened his mouth to⏤what? To babble reassurances at him? To word vomit the whole story about the horcruxes and the Deathly Hallows?
Before the answer made itself apparent, Malfoy was standing up from the booth. "I need some air. Don't follow me, Potter."
He spun on his heel and he was out the door by the time Harry had scrambled up out of his seat. He turned to Dan with a helpless look and Dan shooed him out the door. "I know you're good for it. Go get your man."
Night had fallen while they were drinking, but fortunately, Malfoy hadn't gone far. He was sitting on a bench in the small parklet half a block from the bar. He was leaning forward with his head in his hands, but he looked up at Harry's approach. "I told you not to follow me, Potter. I would have come back."
"Would you have? Really?" Harry tried to keep the incredulity out of his voice, but it was a lost cause.
Malfoy smiled like he had a fondness for lost causes. "Well, of course. We didn't kill the bottle after all and it's not like there's an active serial killer that could be after me or my family at this very moment."
Harry reached for his arm, but Malfoy stood up and stepped away from him. "Potter, I said I need a moment."
Harry dropped his arm and put his hands in his pockets for good measure. "Actually, you said you needed air. You've got that."
Malfoy rolled his eyes, but his lips were still curved in his lost-cause smile. "Are you truly so incapable of leaving well-enough alone?"
Save kittens on your own time, Potter. Except, no time was his own time. It belonged to the DMLE; it belonged to the public; it belonged to Voldemort or it belonged to the Saviour, the amorphous, Harry-shaped entity that existed only in the minds of people that needed him, but didn't know him.
Fuck it. Tonight, it belonged to Malfoy. "Yes. Yes, I am."
Harry closed the distance between them, wrapped his hand around the back of Malfoy's neck and crushed their lips together. He walked them back until they were pressed up against the brick wall of the nearest building and somewhat shrouded by the guelder roses planted along the perimeter.
Malfoy tasted like expensive whisky and bittersweet magic, not dark, not light. He tasted like the Elder Wand had felt when Harry used it. He tasted like Harry imagined outrunning death would feel. His body was all long lines and restrained power; Harry had imagined him to be the type to leave bruises, to draw blood with his teeth, but his lips were soft and his hands had the same featherlight gentleness they'd had when he'd touched Harry's face earlier.
Harry was suddenly, painfully aware of the way his fingers were digging into Malfoy's shoulders, the way his expensive shirt was snagging on the brick, the way his hips were bracketed in by Harry's own. He was shaking.
He couldn't get away if he wanted to.
Harry broke the kiss, dropping his head down to rest against Malfoy's neck. He forced his grip to relax and shifted his weight back. Malfoy's⏤Draco's pulse was beating against his mouth. "Do you want this? I thought… I'm sorry. I just⏤"
"Oh, for fuck's sake, Potter." The feeling of Draco's hands tightening around his back was the only warning Harry got before the dizzying squeeze of apparition.
The room they appeared in was dark, with a plush carpet that muffled their steps. Harry blinked, trying to will his eyes to adjust, even as he felt Draco's arms steadying him and then gently directing him.
"Where are we?"
Abruptly, Draco's hands dropped from his shoulder to his chest and he was shoved backwards, landing on what was unmistakably a bed. The duvet was some kind of plush material that both cushioned and enveloped him and something told him that if he slept on a mattress like the one he'd landed on, maybe his back wouldn't ache after a long night.
"Draco, is this your bedroom?"
"Honestly, Potter. An interrogation, now?" Draco stalked toward the bed and dropped down onto his knees on the mattress, crawling forward and nudging Harry backwards like a wolf cornering its prey. When Harry reached the absurdly large pillows propped against the headboard, Draco straddled his lap and sank his teeth into the juncture between Harry's neck and shoulder, then murmuring in his ear, "We're in a guest room. Mine's not convenient and I won't have us interrupted. Have I answered your question yet?"
Harry, whose brain had abruptly lost its connection to his mouth, just nodded before tilting his chin up so that he could capture Draco's lips with his own.
Time and space melted into soft hands and hard kisses. Their clothes went…somewhere. Harry couldn't be sure he hadn't just vanished them some time in between discovering the sensitive spot just under Draco's collarbone and Draco rasping in his ear, "Do you want me to ride you until you forget your own name or do you want me to fuck you until you scream mine?"
Harry canted his hips up, wordlessly summoning the lubricant he assumed was somewhere in the wing of Malfoy Manor that served as Draco's fuck palace.
What he got was a crystal vial filled with an oil that smelled like coconut and probably cost more than a year of his salary. Draco took it from him with a wicked smile. "Answer my question."
Harry exhaled through his nostrils, not quite a huff, but enough to convey that he'd made it abundantly clear what he wanted and Draco knew it. Meeting his smile with a smirk and a challenge, Harry did as requested. "Make me scream."
Draco started with one finger, massaging his hole slowly, then slipping inside, driving Harry crazy with sensation as Draco's teeth scraped his jaw and his fingertip grazed his prostate. He groaned and flexed his thighs, trying to urge Draco to move faster, harder, maybe both at once. True to character, Draco slowed down.
"When I said to make me scream, I didn't mean with frustration," Harry muttered. Draco laughed, his breath tickling Harry's ear, then shifted his weight and kissed Harry hard, stroking his prostate until Harry's hips were jerking and he had to break the kiss to moan.
"Fuck, Potter." Draco's voice was shaky and Harry felt a sharp satisfaction. "I can't wait to be inside you."
"Do it. Do it now." It would be tight, but Harry wasn't willing to wait.
Draco's breath stuttered and his strokes lost their rhythm. "Are you⏤"
Harry ran his fingers down Draco's sweat-slick back and palmed a handful of his muscular arse. With his other hand, he picked up the vial of oil and tipped some into his hand. "I'm sure." He reached down and slicked Draco's cock himself, reveling in the way his eyes fluttered closed.
"Potter⏤"
"Harry."
Harry stroked Draco's cock once more, then let the rest of the oil on his hand drip down to where Draco's finger breached him. Draco laughed, breathier this time. "You've made your point. Harry."
He slipped his finger out, and wrapped his hand around Harry's. Together, they lined up his cock, the head slick with precum and the ridiculous, expensive oil. Draco leaned down to kiss him one more time, then pulled back just far enough to meet his eyes.
As Harry looked up into the grey eyes that his mind had come up with a thousand colours for, another one struck him like a blow. Stardust⏤like the scientist's quote that Hermione had framed on her wall. We are made of stardust.
Draco pressed inside him slowly, giving him time to adjust. Harry wanted to tell him that he didn't have to be careful, that it was alright if Draco tore him in half, that he could split him into thousands of fragments of stardust, but he couldn't actually make his mouth form words. Draco seemed to see it in his face anyway. He pulled back and began to move, gently at first, then quicker and deeper on each thrust. "Okay?"
Harry nodded, conscious of the way Draco was still being careful with him. He shifted his hips, urging him deeper, and Draco groaned low in his throat and obeyed, picking up his pace until Harry could feel his balls slapping against his thighs. He couldn't tell if the shakes reverberating through him were coming from his body or the bed.
Draco ran his still-slick hand over Harry's neglected cock. "Fuck, you're perfect. Taking me raw, so deep, and you're still so hard." He ran his thumb over the slit and murmured, "And so wet."
Harry shuddered and bucked underneath him, wordlessly begging Draco to give him more. Draco laughed against his mouth, then kissed him sweetly and set a punishing pace, letting his hand drag over Harry's cock as he fucked him into the mattress. Every few strokes, he would tighten his grip and twist his wrist, sending shockwaves through Harry's body.
Too soon, Harry felt himself trembling on the edge of orgasm. "I'm⏤I'm gonna⏤"
Draco bit his neck, just below his ear, then whispered, "Come for me."
Harry did. He arched his hips with a loud cry, come spattering across his stomach and Draco's, all while Draco drove into him with the force of a man possessed. "You're so. Fucking. Beautiful." The words came out in stilted gasps as Draco gripped his hips with bruising force and shuddered through his own orgasm.
The next few moments were hazy. At some point, Draco must have pulled out, because he'd gotten his wand and cast a cleaning spell over both of them. He'd also summoned water from somewhere and pressed the glass into Harry's hand, holding it steady as he drank.
The water was cool and refreshing on his dry throat, and Harry's forsaken mind wanted to relate it to Draco's eyes. Except. "Did you know that we're made of stardust?"
Draco set the glass on the bedside table and pulled the blanket up over both of them. As Harry sank back into the pillow nest they'd ended up in, Draco slung his arm around Harry's waist, hips slotting against his back like they were made to fit there. He didn't balk when Harry wrapped his own arm around Draco's to hold him there; only pulled him closer, like he knew it was what Harry needed without having to be told.
"Sleep," he murmured. "I'll let you talk to my parents in the morning."
Draco woke in the small hours of the morning to the sound of screaming and glass shattering. Before he could get his bearings, Harry was out of bed and running toward the sound. Draco grabbed his wand and the nearest article of clothing, which happened to be Harry's discorded boxers, and ran after him.
His mother intercepted him on the first floor landing and he pulled her to him in a quick embrace. "Are you hurt? Where's father?"
Her hair was dishevelled and her dressing gown had been hastily pulled over her negligee, but her wand was out. "He's in the conservatory. It's where he goes when he can't sleep. The wards alerted me that something was wrong, but the door is locked with a spell I can't break. Hatty and Bexly are trying now."
"I'll get him. Don't worry." Draco took off running in the direction of the conservatory, praying that he wasn't too late.
When he was still one room away, he heard Hatty and Bexly shouting, and he arrived just in time to hear Harry say, "Yeah, I don't think so. Stand back!"
Draco skidded to a stop at the enormous oak door that led to the conservatory and threw a shield up over his family's house elves as Harry squared his shoulders, lifted his wand and blew the door apart. Then he jerked his hand to the side and cleared them a path through the shards of wood.
Draco dropped his shield and the four of them ran into the room to be greeted by the horrifying sight of his father kneeling on the floor, blood running down his face and his hands bound behind him, as a masked man in a hooded cloak stood over him. Harry fired off an incarcerous as Draco threw a stupefy, but the man dodged them both and grabbed at an object chained around his neck, a portkey as it turned out.
Draco heard Harry's shout of frustration, but as soon as the man disappeared, his attention was on his father. Without whatever spell the man had been using to keep him upright, Lucius had slumped forward onto the carpet, his eyes glazed. Draco fell to the floor next to him, tearing off the bindings and feeling for a pulse. "Father? Dad? Please, please, hold on."
His father's pulse was weak, but it was present. At the sound of Draco's voice, his eyes sharpened and he tried to sit up. "It's okay, Dad. Don't try to move. You're badly hurt, but it's going to be okay."
From behind them, Harry said, "The killer got away, but I talked to Hatty and Bexly about the wards and he won't be able to pull the same trick twice. Let's get your dad to St. Mungo's and we can regroup there."
Lucius' lips moved, though it took him a couple of laboured breaths to get the words out at a whisper that Draco had to lean in to hear. "Why…is…Potter…naked?"
Draco's head snapped up. Somewhere in the back of his mind, he must have made the connection that him wearing Harry's boxers meant that Harry wasn't wearing them, and Harry hadn't exactly stopped to go through the pile of their clothes on his way to save Draco's father's life. He just hadn't processed the implication of those facts. In fact, he still wasn't processing it.
"Oh. Um." Apparently, this was an observation that Harry was only just now making as well.
Bexly and Hatty exchanged a look that said they weren't entirely sure why this was a priority at present, but Bexly snapped his fingers and Harry was dressed, albeit in Draco's clothes, dark blue linen trousers and an ivory button-down that sat a bit snugly on his frame.
"Thank you, Bexly. Would you please stay here and mind the wards while Hatty apparates us to St. Mungo's? The emergency department, please, Hatty." When had his mother gotten here? She was dressed in a set of casual robes, though casual for his family meant something a little different than it did to most. When had she had time to change?
Draco was aware that his internal monologue was growing increasingly hysterical. His only saving grace was that he hadn't said most of it out loud. Probably.
He remained kneeling and held his father steady as Hatty transported the four of them to the St. Mungo's emergency receiving area. The healers and staff swarmed them like oddly calm, lime green hornets, and once his father was safely in their care, he allowed Harry to help him up off the floor.
Hatty, still hovering nearby, waved her hand and gently cleaned the smears of Lucius' blood from his body, before summoning a pair of neatly folded trousers, a jumper, and a pair of shoes from his closet and handing them to him. "Hatty is being so, so, very happy to see Young Master Draco." She glanced up at Harry, who was still holding onto him, while pretending not to notice the thorough once-over he was receiving from Narcissa. "Hatty is wanting to say that we is also very happy that Harry Potter is being here and we is happy for Harry Potter and Young Master Draco. But Hatty is also wanting to say please, please be careful. Young Master Draco must be careful, because he is loved. He is love by many people, more than just Harry Potter."
Before Draco could react, she padded over to his mother, who gave her leave to return to the Manor. While that was happening, Harry squeezed his shoulders. "She's right, you know. You do need to be careful."
Draco scoffed, turning to glare at Harry's shit-eating grin. "Out of all the people in the known universe, you are the last person who should be telling me to be careful."
"Well said, darling. Now, perhaps we could move to a more private space, and you could explain to me what in Mordred's name is going on?" His mother's tone was light and even, but her eyes were cutting straight into both of their souls.
As they made their way to the private visitor's lounge, Draco began composing a mental list of questions his mother would probably ask, but that Harry could absolutely not be allowed to answer. They included: how long they'd been working together, when did this relationship start, and was Harry going to be a regular visitor at the Manor.
The topic of the case was probably safe. Harry had been concerned for his parents and he had been right. Perhaps his mother would have ideas as to where they could look next. Once they were safely ensconced in the lounge behind a number of privacy spells, Draco began to haltingly explain the case, while Harry made tea for the three of them.
He didn't get more than a couple of sentences in before Weasley⏤Ron, maybe⏤was knocking on the door. Draco waved him in and he awkwardly pulled up a chair to the loveseat where he and his mother were sitting. Harry joined them, handing Narcissa a cup of tea with barely a tremble.
To his surprise, Ron addressed his mother first. "Mrs. Malfoy, my team has taken statements from your house elves and the physicians that are treating your husband. I want to assure you that we will have a detail posted on your home and here at the hospital to ensure your safety."
She nodded, but slowly, her lack of confidence plain on her face. "Thank you, Auror Weasley. I appreciate your assurances. I would also appreciate any insight you might be able to offer as to how it happened in the first place."
"I can answer that." Draco swallowed, throat going dry as the gazes of everyone in the room fell on him. "I was waiting until Weasley or Robards arrived, because it's highly sensitive information and I wanted to avoid any appearance of impropriety."
He didn't miss Harry's face colouring slightly or his mother's small smirk, but he forged on. "I recognized the cloak and mask that the killer was wearing. They're rejected prototypes from the Department of Mysteries. They were intended to provide the wearer with both cover and access during espionage work. There are spell repelling charms built in and cloaking charms that will allow the wearer to slip past basic wards undetected."
Harry's brows went up. "Right. He was able to get past the Manor's wards, but they're complex enough that he still triggered an alert."
Seeing a small frown of irritation cross his mother's face, Draco rushed to continue. "Exactly. The thing is, he shouldn't have been able to get past them at all, except⏤
Narcissa cut him off. "Except that, with your father on parole, there are provisions built into the Manor's wards to allow Ministry access when necessary. So, either your killer was able to exploit those vulnerabilities, or…" She trailed off, the irritation gone from her face. In its place was a calm so absolute that it couldn't be anything other than rage.
Harry finished the sentence for her, his voice barely above a whisper. "Or he works for the Ministry."
Draco nodded miserably. "It would explain his access to Azkaban, how he knew where to find Smith and how to get at him, and how he got ahold of a Mysteries prototype that's been sitting in a sealed storage locker for years."
Ron sighed and rubbed his palms over his eyes. Draco was surprised to realise that he knew the man well enough to recognize that he was quashing the impulse to swear because Narcissa was present.
Before they could take the conversation any further, there was a knock at the door and a mediwitch entered. "Excuse the interruption. Mr. Malfoy is out of surgery and he's been moved to a private room to recover. You should expect a few days in hospital, but he should make a full recovery. He won't be awake for at least another twelve hours, but I can take you up to see him if you'd like."
Draco stood so quickly that he went lightheaded and Harry slipped an arm around him to steady him, though he stepped back as soon as Narcissa was on her feet and able to take his place. Through the roar of blood pounding in his ears, he made out something about a memo being left at the desk for them and Harry tapping his wand to a folded piece of standard issue Ministry parchment.
He shook off the last of his dizziness and asked, "What is it?"
"Robards wants an update, both about the attack at the Manor and our case progress." He looked up from the parchment and met Draco's eyes, giving him a gentle smile that made Draco wish for all the world that they were alone in the room, just for a moment. "I'll go talk to him and be back before you know it."
It was probably a blessing that Harry immediately turned to check with Ron about staying until he got back, because otherwise Draco would have done something mad, like kiss him. Ron, the only person in the room oblivious to Draco's inner turmoil, heartily assured Harry that he wasn't going anywhere. "In fact, 'Mione's going to come by as soon as she can get free. We can go over the new intel and workshop some of our theories."
Ron and Harry apologised again and thanked his mother profusely for any help she could offer. She took in their emotional displays with grace and kept her arm around Draco as the four of them followed the mediwitch out of the lounge and parted ways with Harry at the elevators.
When they reached his father's room, Ron and the mediwitch stayed outside to give them their privacy. His mother squeezed his shoulder once and then let him go so she could settle into the chair at Lucius' bedside. She brushed his hair back from his face and trailed her fingers across his cheek. Up close, Draco could see that there was bruising around his eyes, and a charmed salve applied to clear bandages along his hairline.
"We were very fortunate that Mister Potter was there this morning." His mother's smile was teasing, but there was no irony in her voice. Harry saved her husband's life.
Draco moved the other chair in the room from its place against the wall and sat down next to his mother. "I know you must have questions."
"Only two." Her smile brightened. "Would you like to tell me how Harry Potter came to be running through our house in the altogether or would you rather tell me more about the case the two of you are working on?"
Draco cast muffliato and spent a glorious half hour telling his mother all about his work with Harry and absolutely nothing about his personal life. She listened intently, occasionally interjecting with clarifying questions.
"The challenge is that we think this person is making up their own ritual. Obviously they're not making it up as they go; it's a massive amount of planning, but they're drawing from Muggle cultural references, there's no consistent method of execution, and they've got an agenda that's only obvious to them."
Narcissa hummed under her breath and spent a long moment examining the injury on his father's face, before asking, "The victims were all killed in different ways, but the ultimate cause of death was always blood loss?"
Draco nodded. "We've been wondering if there's significance there. You think they could be crafting some kind of blood ritual?"
Still looking at his father, she replied, "It would make sense. Blood rituals and vengeance often go hand-in-hand. You think the person is planning for seven victims overall?"
Draco sighed. "That's the prevailing theory. Seven sins. Seven sinners. I know there's something we're still missing though."
His mother was silent for a long time before saying, "Seven sins. Seven sinners. It would make sense." She turned to look at him, blue eyes wide and sombre. "What has Harry said about the horcruxes?"
Harry knocked on the door of Robards' office and was mildly surprised when it swung open for him. Looking back, that would be the first red flag he had ignored. His mind was back at Mungo's, with Draco, Narcissa, Ron, and Hermione. His mind was a little cloudy with the pleasant ache from the night before.
His mind was a little busy trying to repress the knowledge that both of Draco's parents had seen him in their home, flushed, sweaty, and bare-arsed, and that Draco was probably in the process of offering some sort of explanation to Narcissa. If he was especially lucky, Ron would be within hearing distance.
The door slammed shut immediately after he walked through it, jarring him out of his reverie. He thought about turning around, grabbing the handle and trying to force it open, but his feet kept on course for Robards' desk. Robards was facing away from him, seated in his chair with the hood of his formal uniform cloak pulled up. Harry's gut twisted as he got closer. "Sir?"
Robards didn't move. At this point, Harry wasn't expecting him to. His eyes scanned the office for blood, but he didn't see any. As he drew closer to the desk, he could smell it though. He drew his wand and used it to push back the hood of Robards' cloak.
His scalp was gone. The skin of his face from the bridge of his nose to the back of his neck was stripped off and there were markings on his skull like someone had tried to carve runes or draw some kind of picture. "Fuck," he breathed.
"Well, that's honestly a little underwhelming. I was hoping for a bigger reaction, maybe some shouting or tears."
Harry spun around to find the masked man from the Manor standing barely more than a foot behind him. He shot a stunner at him, but the man dodged it easily and threw a spell over Harry's head that brought Robards' floor-to-ceiling bookcase crashing down onto Harry and the corpse. Harry ducked to the floor and cast a shield that managed to block the worst of it, but as he did so, he heard a loud crack behind him. At first he thought it was the sound of apparition; then he felt the sharp, burning sensation spreading through his back and chest.
"It was you who gave me this idea actually. I'd have preferred something a little more vicious, like a taser or a cattle prod, but a vintage revolver will have to do. You know it was my grandfather's?" The man laughed as if he'd made a very funny joke. "How silly of me. Of course you don't. Incarcerous!"
Harry groaned as the ropes snapped around him, squeezing his injury and bending his limbs at unnatural angles. The killer used the ropes to lift him up and turn him to face Robards' corpse. He wordlessly cast a spelt that caused the facade of the blank wall behind it to melt away and reveal words written in blood, just like the other crime scenes.
Hell is empty and all the devils are here.
"It's a little on the nose, but in my defence, I didn't have an abundance of time, and I wanted to give you another one in English since it seemed unlikely that you'd arrive with Young Master Malfoy." He said the last part in an exaggerated, high-pitched voice that might have been an imitation of a house elf.
Harry wanted to respond, but the incarcerous was slowly cutting off his air supply. He heard the man say something that might have been "time to go," and then there was another crack and everything went black.
When Draco walked into the auror offices, he found a cluster of junior aurors inspecting the locked and warded door to Gawain Robards' office with curiosity, but no urgency. He brushed past them and made his way down the hall toward the forensics offices, only not running because if someone stopped him or he drew too much attention, he might be too late.
As he reached the tinted glass doors that led to forensics, pathology, and CSI, they opened and Klaus walked out, grinning as he saw Draco. "Hey there! Fancy seeing you down here."
Draco tried to school his expression into something polite. "Yeah, hey. Harry isn't down here, is he?"
Klaus shook his head, smile going from bright to quizzical. "No, I don't think so. I saw him head into Robards' office a little while ago, so if he's not still there, he's probably in the building somewhere."
That was exactly what Draco was afraid of. "You're sure it was Robards' office?" Klaus nodded, smile fading entirely. "Robards' office, which is currently locked, warded, and completely inaccessible?"
"What?" Klaus' mouth dropped open in a way that made him look so foolish that Draco didn't think it could be faked.
"Tell Spinnet she needs to get her team up there and send a patronus to Ron Weasley or have someone from your team do it. Don't run. Don't make a big scene. If Weasley or Spinnet ask where I am, tell them I am at my desk. Do you understand?"
He waited for Klaus' acknowledgement, then turned back the way he came and tapped the wall panel that led to a stairwell. Drawing his wand, he traced a series of runes on the door, and then opened it again and stepped out into the Department of Mysteries filing room. When he closed the door behind him, it was covered in dozens of runes from several different alphabets. When the new hire probationary period for Mysteries employees was up, they were granted access to the entry codes to their pertinent department. Draco had been there long enough that his research had required him to learn all the major ones.
Acid burning the back of his throat, he tapped his wand to the series of runes that would spell out Drømde mik en drøm i nat. I dreamt a dream last night. After an agonizing moment, the door swung open revealing the Death chamber.
Kneeling in the center of the floor, hands bound behind him and blood pouring from his nose, was Harry.
Draco lunged forward, knowing even as he did so that it went against all of his training. Even after the shield around Harry blew him backwards and sent him slamming into the wall, he knew he wouldn't have been able to do anything differently. This was Harry.
He pulled himself to his feet and shook himself off, trying to get his bearings. As he did, he realised two things: the door had disappeared as soon as it closed and there was a third person in the room with them.
The masked man stepped forward, a hazy light seeming to follow him. "I must admit, you work fast. I had to really push myself to keep up with you and Potter. Why⏤I bet you didn't even see my work in Robards' office, and that's such a shame. It's what I was going to do to your father."
Draco grit his teeth and refused to give the man any satisfaction. He seemed content to keep talking anyway. "It really is remarkable, all these things they have down here in the Department of Mysteries. Secret passageways, ancient secrets, modern weapons, even uniforms." He laughed as he gestured to his mask and cloak. "Do you know why this design was rejected and the project ultimately scrapped?"
Draco did, but he didn't answer. The man tutted at him as if he was disappointed, then pushed the hood back and reached for the straps of the mask, tugging them free. "It's because they were too reminiscent of the Death Eaters."
Round-faced, angel-eyed Dennis Creevey was standing in between him and Harry. Dennis Creevey, who had thrown up in an Azkaban hallway and been replaced on the case by tall, confident Klaus, was responsible for carving up Akvila Snyde, slitting Dolores Umbridge's throat, force-feeding Zacharias Smith galleons, and murdering the Head Auror.
Dennis must have seen his thoughts writ large on his face, because he laughed again, and said, "You wouldn't believe what you can get away with when no one notices you. It's how I learned about the horcruxes, you know? Harry was debriefed by Kingsley Shacklebolt, then Kingsley ordered the Unspeakables to find out who else in the world knew about them and what they knew. There are records of everything, if you know where to look and you know how not to get caught."
Draco, who had spent years in the Department of Mysteries keeping his nose clean, minding his business, and working desperately to prove himself, flinched. Dennis saw it and grinned, His smile was too wide and there was blood on his teeth. Draco prayed it wasn't Harry's blood.
"I thought it was so poetic; seven horcruxes, seven Deadly Sins. Don't you think so?" He didn't wait for Draco to answer this time. "Of course, I'm impressed that you figured it out as quickly as you did. I'm guessing that was probably Hermione though. She always did the hard parts for Harry. Well, except for dying. He took up that cross all on his own." Dennis cocked his head, still grinning his manic grin. "Do you understand that reference?"
"Robards was Pride." Dennis' eyes went wide and he seemed delighted that Draco was finally playing. Draco edged toward him, holding his gaze, and meeting his mad smile with a grim one of his own. "Isn't that right? Robards was all ego, but if anyone could be said to be guilty of the sin of Pride, it's Lucius Malfoy. You cut into his head⏤to represent the crown, I presume? It's fitting, considering how vain he is about his hair."
Dennis giggled and a little bit of pink spittle flecked his lips. "I thought linking the crown to Pride was particularly clever. What's more prideful than thinking you have wisdom or thinking you have any right to it?"
Draco slowed when he was within a few feet of Creevey. "So, what's Potter then? He can't be Envy. Everyone wants what he has. If anything, I'm Envy. I spent seven years nipping at his heels and he still saved my bloody life." And let me fuck him senseless almost a decade later.
Creevey's smile dimmed. His eyes still held their mad gleam, but the glee was giving way to something wholly darker and all-consuming. If you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you. That was a Muggle quote, wasn't it? If he killed Creevey, Draco was going to write it on his file, maybe on his grave if he got one.
"I know you don't have Harry pegged for Sloth. The man has never taken a break a day in his life. That leaves Wrath, which I guess can be fitting. He's a thing of glory when he's angry. What I don't understand is why he's here. He won the war for you. He fought for Muggleborn protections. He's Harry-fucking-Potter. I know you're invoking Voldemort's horcruxes for your mad little imaginary ritual, but you don't actually need any of them, nor do you have them."
Creevey rolled his wand between his fingers, mouth twisted into a snarl that was still pretending to be a smile. "So close, and yet, so far, Malfoy. See, this is why they'll never let you be a real Unspeakable." Draco flinched again and Creevey bared more of his bloody teeth.
"Of course Harry is Wrath. He's the Chosen One, the Saviour, the seventh horcrux⏤he's basically a bloody avenging angel. Plus, he's never been very good at controlling his temper. Oh, especially not where you're concerned.
"You got the other one wrong though. You're not Envy. I'm Envy. Because, while Harry got to keep his girlfriend, his best friends, his cushy job and his three bank vaults, and you got to keep your parents, your home, Christ⏤your fucking FREEDOM, Death Eater⏤while you two bastards got to step over all the bodies and sail on into your new lives, I lost everything."
As he spoke, Draco inched forward, barely moving, which meant that he felt the exact moment that he crossed the threshold of a spell matrix. Tendrils of magic wove around him and then burrowed into his body, paralyzing his muscles. Creevey tried to laugh, but it came out more like a wet, hacking bray.
"Still so arrogant. Could've swapped you out for your dad. No, Malfoy. Harry is Wrath. I'm Envy. And you? You're just easy to manipulate."
Draco's stomach clenched as his lungs fought for air, every breath feeling like it was shredding him from the inside. Creevey kept talking.
"You might be thinking 'Not Sloth?' No, absolutely not. You're too much of a try-hard for Sloth to be applicable." He smiled, leaning close enough to Draco that he could smell the metallic sourness of old blood and dark magic. "Besides, Sloth was dead before I ever stepped foot in Azkaban.
"You see, in the magical world, there are regulator charms, there are alarm wards, and hell, there are Foeglasses and Sneakoscopes to root out liars and thieves. But in the Muggle world? In the Muggle world, a care home worker can get away with forging her inspection paperwork for months, maybe even years. Do you know what happens then?"
Draco couldn't move, but Creevey took hold of his chin and cocked his wrist, shaking his head from side to side.
"Of course you don't. Little posh princeling probably doesn't even know what a care home is. Well, I'll tell you. It's a place where pipes rust, water heaters break, and paperwork gets falsified. And sometimes, it's a place where the showers pump out boiling water, nurses skip their bedtime check-ins, and 87-year-old grandmothers are left to fall out of their shower, crawl across dirty tile with broken bones and third-degree burns, and then pass out facedown in a pool of their own blood, naked and alone."
At first, Draco thought it was the anger that was bursting the blood vessels in Creevey's eyes, but as he watched more and more blood seep into his sclera, he realised that Creevey had never intended to walk away from this spell. This was his last act, his blaze of glory.
He'd said it himself. He had nothing left to live for.
"I got to watch my big brother die like chattel in the name of Harry Potter and then I got to return home to discover that my grandmother had been dead for months, and maybe someone sent a notice to my school, but it was being run by the Carrows, so I'll never know. Meanwhile, everyone else gets to march forward into their brave new world and celebrate all of their freedoms and their joys and their love and happiness, while I am never going to see my brother again."
Creevey seemed to collapse in on himself, and he backed away from Draco, turning to look at Harry, then at the ceiling. Draco breathed and bled and begged the universe to let him move. Creevey's next words came out in a sticky mumble under his breath. "Fuck it. What's the fucking point? None of you will ever understand."
I do. Draco tried to say. I do understand. I lost my brother too. I watched him die.
He felt a tear squeeze itself free from the corner of his eye and he knew without needing to see it that it was more blood than salt water. Creevey didn't notice. He was still staring at the ceiling.
"I don't know why I'm even⏤get it done. It's got to be done. I need it to end. I need it all to end." He pulled his wand and pointed it up at the ceiling, aiming toward something Draco couldn't see. "Sicut scriptum est in sanguine sic fiat! EST IN SANGUINE SIC FIAT!"
The rush of magic tore through his eardrums and ripped the air from his lungs. The last thing Draco heard was Creevey's voice inside his head. "You should die like she did, on the ground, in a pool of your own blood."
He thought Creevey might have been kicking his knees, knocking him down, but the world was already going dark.
Harry woke up to bright light, full-body aches, and the heartfelt conviction that he was either hallucinating or he was dead and this was Hell. He was lying in a hospital bed in a room that probably looked similar to the one Lucius had been put in after he was released from the ICU. He had no idea what time it was or what day (or if day and night were even still relevant concepts), and the only person in the room with him was his cousin, Dudley.
Dudley (or the entity wearing Dudley's face) broke into a huge grin when he saw that Harry was awake. "Hey! Wow, you were out for a long time. I almost rang Mum to have her add you to the prayer circle at Church, but your friend Harmony told me to give it a few days."
Okay, this was definitely Dudley. "Hey, Big D. It's, uhm…it's good to see you. Do you know where…Harmony is? Or maybe her husband?"
If he noticed Harry's bewilderment, he ignored it. "Yeah, Ron! I can't believe I never knew how cool he was. Head of Major Crimes at the magic cops. They went to get some lunch, but they should be back soon and they always stop in here as soon as they get back."
Always implied that Dudley had been here long enough to establish a routine with Ron and Hermione. "How long has it been? Has anyone given you any trouble about being here?"
Dudley shook his head. "Nope. It's been four days and nobody's given me any guff since the first day. I think Ron talked to somebody in charge, but to be honest, it could've just been that they're all scared of the stacked blonde smokeshow that came and got me."
There was only one person Dudley could be talking about who made sense in context. Harry squeezed his eyes shut and tried to will the world to make sense again. "Narcissa?"
Dudley beamed. "Yeah, that's her name! She showed up at my flat and said you were in trouble and you needed my help. Then she did some magic and we were here and Harmony took some of my blood and said to stay put and they left me with some bloke named Klaus while they went and got you." Dudley paused and thought for a moment. "You know, I think he's probably queer? Seems like an alright one, so if it doesn't work out with your boyfriend now, maybe you could take a run at him."
Blithely unaware that he was playing havoc with Harry's sense of reality, Dudley said, "Oh, that reminds me! Let's see if this works." He rummaged around on the bedside table, which seemed to contain an abnormal number of car magazines, until he found a small paper crane. He pinched it carefully at the base, watched it begin to glow softly, and then yelled, "HE'S AWAKE."
The crane took flight and winged its way out of the room, briefly compressing itself to be two-dimensional to slide past the door frame. Dudley watched it go with a satisfied smile, then turned back to Harry and asked, "Say, I haven't had a chance to ask since everyone's been so busy. Is she seeing anybody?"
"She?" Again, there was only one person who made sense in context. Harry desperately hoped he was wrong.
He wasn't. "Yeah, Narcissa! She's a real spitfire."
"Um, yeah, she is. It's her husband." Her husband, who was probably also somewhere in this hospital and was never, ever, ever going to find out about this conversation.
Harry was saved from finding out what Dudley was going to say next by the door sliding open to reveal a sight so beautiful that Harry's heart stuttered in his chest. There were cavernous dark circles under Draco's eyes, his hair was down and free of product, falling in loose waves around his face, and he was wearing a pair of soft, plain cotton pyjamas that almost certainly matched the ones Harry was wearing. "Hey you."
Dudley flushed bright red and scrambled up out of his chair. "I'll just give you two a minute yeah?"
Draco gently shut the door once the Dudley-shaped-blur had disappeared into the hallway, then padded over to the bed. "How are you feeling?"
He climbed in next to Harry without waiting for an answer. Harry tried to move over and make room, but the bed was barely big enough for one person. Draco huffed a laugh and wrapped his arms around Harry, shifting him so that he could wrap one leg over Draco's and rest his head on Draco's chest. Harry sighed, relieved of a tension he hadn't realised he was feeling. "Better now."
Draco kissed the top of his head. "I missed you. How much did Dudley tell you?"
Harry looked up at Draco and there was a wry twist to his lips. "Only that your mum came and got him so that 'Harmony' could take some of his blood. Oh, also he asked if your mum was seeing anybody, but I think I shut that down pretty admirably for someone who thought they woke up in the afterlife twenty minutes ago."
Draco's eyes went a little distant. Harry snuggled closer and tangled their fingers together. "That's the very barebones gist of it. I left to go find you and Mother waited here for Ron and Hermione. They knew where to find us, so then it was just a matter of breaking the spell before it killed us, which required our blood, freely given. Since we obviously couldn't do that, they used people with whom we share blood."
He sighed and it sounded like it hurt. Harry squeezed his hand. After a moment, he continued. "It turns out that we were only half-right. The individual crime scenes weren't part of any particular ritual, but the final one was. Properly executed, it would have made us feel any pain the caster had ever felt, plus the pain that all of his prior victims felt. As I understand it, both physical and emotional pain were meant to be translated into neurological stimuli. It would have been excruciating."
"But it didn't work?"
Draco hesitated before answering. "No. No, it didn't. It might have trapped us in an endless loop of our own pain, but by the time the ritual activated, we were both so close to bleeding out that we weren't conscious for the actual effects." He sighed. "The ritual itself is ancient and incredibly difficult. It's meant to be used in the context of human sacrifice, not whatever the killer was doing. It was…it was one of the first rituals I diagrammed after I passed my probationary period."
"Draco, you can't think⏤"
"I don't." He slumped back against the pillows and Harry brought their joined fingers to his lips and kissed Draco's hand. "But it did give me a lot to think about."
Before Harry could ask what he meant, there was a knock at the door and Ron called, "Are you decent?"
Draco answered, "We're decent. You can come in," and Harry took his distraction as an opportunity to slip one of Draco's fingertips into his mouth and suck hard. Draco made a scandalised noise and swatted at Harry, so when Ron and Hermione entered the hospital room, they walked into what probably looked like a bizarre, horizontal slap fight.
"Really, you two?" Hermione was going for stern, but Harry knew her well enough to know she was trying not to laugh. Ron's face was almost as red as his hair and he looked like he regretted every moment of his life that had led up to this one.
Too quickly, Draco grew sombre. "Did you find her?"
Ron nodded. "We did. Agnes Whitaker, thirty-seven, care facilitator at the Golden Apple care home in Surrey. As far as Muggle authorities could tell, she'd passed out in her flat due to carbon monoxide, hit her head, and died of a brain haemorrhage."
Draco inclined his head in acknowledgement. This close, Harry could feel his heart racing, but his outward countenance was calm. "Was there a quote?"
This time Hermione answered. "There was, though it took an uncloaking spell and some luminol to find it. 'Per me si va nella citta` dolente; per me si va ne l'etterno dolore; per me si va tra la perduta gente.' It's Dante again."
"Through me you go to the sorrowful city; through me you go to eternal pain; through me you go among the lost people." Draco shivered and Harry squeezed his hand again. "Fuck."
Ron nodded and Harry saw him reach for Hermione's hand. He asked, "I'm missing something. What is it?"
Draco kissed his head. Harry would normally have felt a little shy in front of Ron and Hermione, or at least prepared for some gentle teasing, but neither of them seemed to notice. "Later, okay?" Draco murmured. "We'll talk it all through later."
"That's a good idea. Harry should rest. Both of you should." Hermione gave them a weak smile, kissed Ron on the cheek, and stepped out.
Ron watched her go and sighed. "It probably won't surprise you that the DMLE is a mess. Actually, the whole Ministry is a bit of a mess right now. It's nothing you need to worry about right now and it'll still be a mess when you get back, whenever that is."
Still bemused, Harry just said, "Thanks, Ron," and watched him follow his wife out.
Draco stayed quiet, running his fingers through Harry's hair, working out tangles and gently scraping his short fingernails on Harry's scalp. Harry let his mind drift into a dreamy, half-awake state, and that was when he got the courage to ask, "Are you okay?"
Draco's fingers stilled for a moment, then started up again. "My mother told me what happened in the forest." Harry tried to sit up, but Draco stroked his hair and shushed him. "I won't say I don't wish you had told me, but we've done a number of relationship milestones out of order and looking at it chronologically from the outside, there is no rationale for you to share your deepest secret with me less than a week into working together."
Harry knew Draco was deflecting, but he laughed anyway. "When has anything with the two of us ever been rational?" He traced his fingers down Draco's side, fiddling with the hem of his pyjama shirt. "I was going to tell you. I wanted to, and even if I hadn't wanted to, you needed to know. It's just something I had to work up to and I thought I had more time."
"I know. I'm beginning to realise that we're more cavalier with time than we have any right to be." Draco's voice had gone quiet.
Harry wanted to ask if this was one the "things" he'd been thinking about, but he left it for the moment and asked instead, "When you say we…"
"Us. People. All of humanity, magical and Muggle. We're socialised to expect that there will always be more time, that things and people will be there waiting for us if we leave and come back. It's not…that's not really how anything works." Harry stayed quiet, listening to Draco's heartbeat and processing his words. While he was thinking, Draco said, "Your cousin asked if I was your boyfriend. I told him yes. He was very supportive. I hope that's…acceptable."
Harry laughed and some of the weight that had settled over them dissipated. "You absolute numpty. Of course it's acceptable."
"Good. Now, I recognise that you're not very good at rule following, but I have one non-negotiable rule for my boyfriends. Are you ready to hear it?" Torn between amusement and apprehension, Harry nodded, making sure his hair tickled Draco a little when he did so. "You're cute, but it won't change the fact that this rule is ironclad." Draco took a deep breath and said, "When my boyfriend is walking into a life-threatening, life-altering, or otherwise self-sacrifice situation, I go with him. No exceptions."
Harry pushed himself up on his elbows, effectively straddling Draco so he could look him in the eyes. "Draco, that's not⏤"
Draco shut him up by pulling him into a bruising kiss, and then tipping him back onto the bed, explaining, "Let's not start something we can't finish." He traced his knuckles along Harry's cheekbone. "I love the way you blush. I'm going to find so many things about you to love. One of the ones I already know is that I love how strong you are for other people. Now, like I said, this is non-negotiable. You have me to be strong for you."
Harry turned his face into the crook of Draco's neck so Draco couldn't see whatever his face was doing. Draco indulged him, stroking his hair while he finished his thought. "You walked into the forest alone. You went to face the serial killer alone. Next time you're walking into danger and basically certain death, you're walking into it next to me."
Whatever weak, slightly misty argument Harry was going to put up next was cut off by the faint sound of a woman shouting. Draco sat up a little straighter and tilted his head to listen. The shouting grew closer and Harry was able to make out, "⏤let me see him NOW or I swear to⏤" and then she was drowned out by more people shouting.
Draco's eyes brightened, though his overall expression was apprehensive. "Speaking of walking into certain death, now might be a good time to tell you that I'm fairly certain my mother owled Pansy."
Outside, the shouting reached a fever pitch. Harry grinned. "We should introduce her to Dudley."