Now That Death is a Friend of Mine

By: The Villain's Vindication

Chapter One: The Opening of the Truth

Draco went through the motions, picking up papers from one Auror's office and setting them carefully in another for he knew if a hair was out of place he would fall victim to another merciless hexing from his so called 'coworkers.' Despite his official position as Auror, he was still less than nothing in the Ministry's eye. They had him doing grunt work, menial labor not suited for the assistant's assistant, yet he endured. He had to in order to give the life he wished he'd had to Scorpius. That was all that mattered these days.

But at least his most current assignment was not so uninteresting. He was find Harry Potter's Unplotable, top secret home built deep within the Forbidden Forest and take stock of any new dark artifacts and magical creatures he had acquired since the last inventory four years previous. Any normal person would have the top ranked Auror's breaking down their front door to confiscate such illegal possessions, but of course all the rules were brushed under the rug for Angel Potter.

Though Malfoy had to admit the other possibility might hold true that it was simply impossible to take said things from Potter. He had, after all, with nothing more than a disarming spell reduced the Dark Lord to naught but ash.

Still, he wondered as he look once again to the paper in his hand, he couldn't shake the feeling that something was amiss here. It had been quite some time since he had been sent on an errand even close to this important. I hopeful smile crept onto his face. Maybe they were finally beginning to trust him.

After trekking through the muck of the forest and being nearly killed by, he would swear to Merlin, the SAME goddamn tree no less than five times, Draco finally found himself on Potter's doorstep. The house was modest enough, he supposed. Years of growth from the forest made for natural camouflage as the faint wisps of smoke from the chimney and the bright red front door were really the only distinguishing characteristics from the surrounding flora.

He had yet to knock on the door when three ghosts, children he noted with a touch of despair, flew through the door and then through him. Instantly chilled to the bone and quite put off as it had been many years since his last encounter with a ghost, all the composure and false bravado he had worked up died instantly in his throat. And, of course, it was at that moment the door before him opened and a ghost of a whole different sort towered before him.

There hadn't been much heard about the Chosen One since the war, but according to friends he was just trying to rebuild and live a normal life like everyone was those days. So he seemed to drift out of the popular eye and more into legend as the years progressed, and the man who stood before him now was nearly unrecognizable.

Potter stood taller than him, taller than he remembered, in a dusty but perfectly cut robe. The cloth was most likely enchanted as to Draco's eye it looked more like a hole cut from reality in the silhouette of this man. It was so very black.

He sported a thatch of beard beneath his lip, naught more than a triangle pattern on his chin and a day's worth of stubble on his face.

His eyes were as beacons in the dark, a flash of murderous green looking at him over the rim of his glasses. They had also changed. Far more refined, they sat halfway down his nose, a gold frame and long rectangular shape that lent itself to the angle of his masculine face. His ash hair was in disarray just as Malfoy recalled, the only characteristic beside the infamous scar that lent credence to the idea that this was indeed Harry Potter.

Draco had been starring in silence so long that Harry raised an eyebrow at him. A sardonic smile spread across his face. Malfoy cleared his throat in response, his face flushing slightly with embarrassment. He held up his Auror badge, as if his robes hadn't already given him away. Just as he open his mouth to lay out the reason for his visit, Potter cut off his well rehearsed speech before its first breath.

"They've learned…," he began ominously, "Malfoy, it has been such a long time. Come in, come in, the basilisk will be making its rounds soon enough and we wouldn't want you to turn to a statue decorating my porch now would we?"

Draco's face fell stark white at the threatening invitation, and he wondered if it might actually be smarter to stay out with the monstrous snake. But the decision was made for him as the cracking of tree trunks sounded from far off behind him and his feet rushed him through the doorway. In his hast he did not catch the smile with too sharp teeth Potter sent his way as he entered.

Whatever it was he had expected of the Potter household it was not what he saw. The inside was massive, all of it expanded with Wizarding Space to levels he had never thought possible. Draco knew he was gaping but he couldn't stop himself. There were no less than thirty black robed people moving about silently and at least four more ghosts slipping between the walls. Goose flesh crept across Draco's skin as the chill in the air here spoke distinctly of death, but that was not the worst of it. As he turned to his left he felt his heart stop beating.

Astora stood before him, plain as day, smiling at him as if to welcome him home. "Draco…" she spoke softly, and all Malfoy had previously known was tossed from his mind as he dropped everything and fell at his wife's feet.

His long deceased, wife's feet.

"Oh my love it is so good to see you," she looked fondly down at him, "I hope you know I have been watching you and Scorpius every step of the way and helping out where I can. You are raising him to be a fine man, Draco, just like you." Draco reached out, his hand shaking terribly as he attempted to touch his lost beloved's ankle, but all he felt was air. "What kind of cruel magic is this?" he wondered softly. Surely this couldn't be real?

Her look turned pitying, "I am no trick, my love. I have just come for a visit," she knelt down beside him and gave his lips an unfeeling kiss, "just to tell you I love you, one last time." She began to fade from view as she knew her presence only caused her former husband anguish, as to all dead who linger with the living. "Goodbye Draco…"

"Wait!" he shouted, grasping at her ethereal robes, but it was too late. She had already disappeared from view. Tears freely fell from his eyes, he couldn't care less that his former rival was seeing him in such a state. "Potter," he whispered, still unable to draw his gaze away from where Astora had just appeared and vanished as both a blessing and a curse.

"Potter what just happened?"

"Isn't it obvious enough? Your dead wife came to give you a quick message. Maybe if you didn't lose your composure so easily she might have stayed a bit longer."

Malfoy was on his feet in a flash, turning a hateful gaze at Harry, "so EASILY? My love who has been gone for thirteen winters suddenly appears, alive and well, before me and you say so easily!"

An amused smile curled the edge of Potter's mouth, "still the same old Malfoy then, eh? So quick to jump to offence. And she was hardly alive you know. She's still dead."

Draco clenched his fists, fuming with anger so great he had not felt since Astora first died. "You. Will. Explain. This. To. Me." he forced out between clenched teeth. Potter merely shrugged, unaffected by his anger, "this is a magical place Malfoy. Here people come and people go, it is not by my doing that your wife appeared just now, but by her own will. She wished to see you, nothing more."

Draco relented at this, slouching over and giving in to his crying. He covered his face in his right hand and wept. Could it really be true? Had that been the real Astora? His Astora? He somehow knew in his heart that it was, just as he knew in his heart that she was always there with him.

Just moments inside his door and Potter had already given him a greater gift than he could imagine in all the world, and the man clearly thought nothing of it. Taking all he had within him, including the renewed strength from his wife, he attempted to regain his composure, to remember why he was here.

His smile was more of a grimace through his trailing tears, "so, a basilisk you said? Couldn't just have a Hinky Puff as a pet that the rest of us, eh Potter?" Draco's heart was still hammering against his ribcage from that threat, he hadn't thought it possible to be so rattled so quickly. To feel so many emotions in one go, "you know it's illegal to have one, don't you?"

He wiped the tears from his face, compartmentalizing as he had never before. He would have to process his wife's visit at a later time. He was coming to realize that this mission he had been sent on was not at all what it seemed.

Had the Auror office known all this?

"Oh of course," Potter spoke easily, "she is not mine, just another wild creature roaming the Forest as any other." And Malfoy felt ever more discomfited at the words.

When had Potter learn to lie so well?

He did not expect his school mate to be intelligent, though he supposed he should as it had been so many years. It was still a surprise, and, Malfoy was certain, not the least of the surprises that still awaited him. He reclaimed his badge, quill and parchment from the wooden floor. "Of course," Malfoy still had the fake smile plastered on his face, "how silly of me to think otherwise."

The two of them stood in oppositional silence while Draco put back together what he meant to say before. "I have been sent on official summons from the British Ministry of Magic to take down account of any newly recovered dark artifacts or creatures you have found since the last official record. You are to…" he trailed off with a scowl.

Potter was laughing at him.

Not just an amused chuckle, a loud and outright laugh in his face that had everyone, living and dead, turn to look in Malfoy's direction. He flushed bright red against his will. Would nothing go normally here? Would Potter not once let him finish a sentence?

"Oh Malfoy," Harry said after his laughter had made him breathless, "they didn't tell you a lick of truth did they? The Ministry's sent you on a fool's errand." He flick his right hand behind him and in front of him. Draco watched in abject horror as the walls vanished and libraries full of sinister books appeared before his eyes. He turned to look the other way and found halls of dark weaponry fit to arm a nation.

"You wouldn't have enough time in fifty lifetimes to 'record' all I've got. The Ministry already knows of most of it anyways as at least half has come from their own vaults!" he began laughing again, but more quiet this time and in equal measures more frightening. "You've been sent here for an entirely different purpose. You are a pawn, Malfoy, a peace offering." Harry shook his head then, almost pityingly. He snapped his fingers and the walls reappeared as before, and the rest of the people moved on from the room. Leaving the two men alone in a thick silence.

Draco turned to escape but found the door he entered through was gone, now nothing more than wall.

What had the Ministry done?

He stood there dumbly with his hand pressed against the hard wood. It wasn't just an illusion, there really was no longer a door before him. He couldn't bring himself to move.

What was going on? How was Potter so fast? The man didn't even have a wand for all Malfoy could see and even with years of Auror training he hadn't felt the magic that changed the house in the slightest.

"Who are you?" he whispered to the wallpaper, dragging his thumb nail over it slowly. He knew he could just blast the wall and be done with it, but he was so off kilter he didn't think he could even manage that. Potter would probably still be able to stop him anyway.

He looked down then at his own wand, seeing nothing different or unusual but recalling how Potter had once wielded it as his own. The wand was as loyal to Harry as it was to him.

It would not fight against its master.

Draco was defenseless against what Potter had become.

"Yes, you see you have no power here Malfoy," he spoke sympathetically. Draco cursed the devil that his Occulumency shields were not enough to keep the other man out of his head. He again hadn't felt a thing at the probing of his mind. He wasn't evenlooking at Potter.

"Who are you?" he shouted, finally ripping himself away from the wall. The man before him was more powerful than anyone he'd ever seen.

"Why, I'm Harry Potter of course." But when he smiled his teeth were too sharp, his eyes too frightening, and as Draco watched on, taunt as a bow string, awaiting an attack at any moment, he saw it. Focusing on Potter's eye, he saw a flash of red.

No.

All the breath left his body.

It couldn't be.

But looking again he watched the color bleed permanently into the shared gaze.

Potter's laughter filled the room, and Draco knew all was lost.

"So you have found me out Malfoy. I must say I'm impressed. Micheals and MeKinley were not so observant."

Draco backed up against the wall and slid down to the floor once again. He couldn't stop shaking his head in disbelief. Auror Micheals had been killed in an accident two years ago, pull apart by a rabid hippogriff. McKinley had fared no better, an inexplicable sickness had taken him to the grave just last year.

It seemed there was much the Ministry was hiding.

"What have you done with Potter?" Draco asked the floor this time. He could hear this false Potter's head shake, a whispering of hair against fabric, "Harry Potter died as an infant in his crib. It has been a long time since I've had any dealings with him."

"It can't be."

Potter rolled his eyes, "Oh don't be so boring Malfoy."

"I WATCHED YOU KILL HIM!" Draco had drawn his knees up to his chest and held onto them fiercely. He was only moments away from rocking back and forth in his panic, "I saw it."

Harry knelt down to his level, a parody of concern, "I did. He and I no longer saw eye to eye. When my bit of soul came to this body as a child the memories and feelings it held could not come with it. I grew up innocent, knowing the love and kindness of others, and as such I made different decisions when it came down to the wire."

He leaned in and tilted up Draco's chin with cold fingertips, "I am the same Harry Potter you knew. He and I were always one, but for the choices we made. However... do not mistake me Malfoy. My soul was made whole again from my war with him, my power and sanity fully restored. I can remember everything from my many lives and right now I can recall..."

He leaned in closer still, his breath ghosting over Draco's lips, "I can recall that once I had you... and now you shall be mine again."

AN: If it wasn't clear, Harry's house is built on top of the Resurrection Stone where he tossed it in book 7. It was difficult to decide what the listed two character would be Draco or Tom Riddle Jr. or Harry Potter since here they are really the same. Let me know if you think I should change it.

This story will contain slash.

More to come,

Vinidcation.