Chapter Text
The characters are the property of J.K. Rowling, not me. No money is being made from this story.
A chalet in the Swiss Alps...
“Father?" Draco called, as he entered the remote building hurriedly.
Lucius Malfoy turned slowly to face him, and Draco gasped. Lucius' face was scored by the marks of fingernails, with one eye swollen shut, and his lower lip was split.
Of course, Draco thought numbly. No time to cast a glamour.
“How long has this been going on?” he managed.
“It was my fault. “ Lucius turned back to the window to stare down the hillside at the red roofs of the village below. “I provoked her.”
Draco closed his eyes. “It can't continue. We can't continue!”
“We must.” Lucius' voice was implacable. “What choice is there?”
“Perhaps St. Mungo's...”
Lucius shook his head, his mane of silver hair whipping around his battered face. “You know that will be useless! They can't heal a curse, even if they were willing to try.”
Draco took a deep breath. “What if there was another way?”
“There isn't.” It was a sign of Lucius' despair that he allowed his son to hear the bleak hopelessness in his voice. “We've tried everything!”
Draco put his hand on his father's arm, covering the faded Death Mark that had meant the destruction of all their dreams.
“But...not every one!”
The slim dark-haired young man moved along the London streets with the elegant feline grace of a cat; that was something new in the last four years, Draco decided.
His target's eyes resembled a cat's also...a hypnotic green gaze.
He wore very ordinary Muggle clothes: jeans, trainers, a faded red sweater. Yet every single one of the people he passed invariably paused to glance back at him.
Not good, Potter, Draco thought, as he trailed along after. Should have cast a glamour if you didn't want to be noticed. Otherwise, no matter how shabby the clothes, how battered the shoes, they're going to look. And look again. And try for your attention.
Potter ignored the stares, the same way he always had. He crossed the small verdant square and entered the main door of the Tavistock Hotel. Draco knew of it, an unpretentious hostelry that mostly catered to a business crowd.
He hesitated, then hurried in, glad he'd thought to wear Muggle clothes.
There was no sign of Potter in the lobby, so Draco strolled over to the desk clerk.
“Hello,” he said pleasantly. “Legilimens!”
He wasn't as adept as he might have wished, but Potter was nothing if not memorable, and Draco soon had the room number: three twelve.
The child, a little girl about four or five, was perched on the edge of the bed, with a young man kneeling in front of her.
“Potter.” Draco said the name like something out of memory. “Leave her be, Potter.”
Then the child turned towards him, and Draco felt a spasm of vindication: he had been right all along!
Even as Potter scrambled to his feet, Draco felt a wand tip against the back of his neck.
“Don't move a muscle, Malfoy,” warned a familiar voice.
Draco smiled. “Hello, Granger.”
There was another woman in the room, plump, blonde, desolate. She'd been taken aback by his sudden appearance, but now she flared into life.
“No!” she shrieked. “This is our one chance; you can't take it away!”
Draco let his eyes flick to her, ignoring Granger. “Don't be afraid, I won't.”
He looked at Potter. “Why don't you go ahead? What's one more secret among so many?"
Potter's mouth hardened. “I don't know what you mean.”
“No?” Draco let his voice take on a tinge of mockery. “I mean...go ahead and fix her!”
The wand pressing against his neck faltered, but the woman fell to her knees, seized Potter's hand, and kissed it. “Yes...Please! Please, oh please, fix her.”
The little girl's big brown eyes filled with tears as she looked from her mother to Harry. She really was a beautiful child, Draco admitted, if you looked at her from the eyes up.
But below...
Her nose was a jagged hole above her harelip and receding chin. She probably couldn't talk much from a mouth so damaged, but she could cry, and the tears gathered and fell from the lovely eyes.
“Do it, Potter!” Draco ordered, his voice a harsh rasp.
Potter sank slowly to his knees, his hands on either side of the child's misshapen face, and closed his eyes.
Draco heard him sigh, and then he was staggering to his feet, and Granger had dropped her wand.
“Here you go, sweetheart.” Granger handed the little girl a lolly, then turned to the mother and captured her gaze. “Your daughter is tired and you want to take her home,” she intoned. “You went to Harley Street, not to any hotel. Now you want to go home, to Dorset.”
Draco watched Granger work with a sense of admiration. There was no crude mind wipe; instead she blurred the mother's memory with a delicate hand. The woman would remember taking her daughter to see a specialist, of course. A specialist who was a short, medium, and tall man with an accent that might have been Scottish, Australian, and German. The story would change with each repetition, until no one could be sure where the truth resided. But Draco knew.
“I want to go home,” the woman repeated obediently. She grasped her child's small, sticky hand and led her to the door.
The child was busily sucking the lolly, but just before the door closed behind her and her mother, she glanced back to where Potter slumped, exhausted, against the bed.
“Bye,” she called, from a perfect little rosebud mouth.
She blew him a kiss.
Then they were gone.
“Well-done, Potter,” Draco said softly.
Harry glanced up wearily. “What do you want, Malfoy?”
Draco nodded slowly. “I'll tell you,” he vowed.