Title: Survivor's Joy
Disclaimer: J. K. Rowling and associates own these characters. I am writing this for fun and not profit.
Word Count: 24,000
Rating: R/M.
Pairings: Harry/Draco
Warnings: DH spoilers (ignores epilogue), language, sex, some violence.
Summary: Harry works for the Aurors. Draco works for the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures. There's not much reason for them to meet—until someone starts selling diluted Wolfsbane potion, and they find out just how much the years since the war have moved them both on from simply surviving.
Author's Notes: This is an extremely belated birthday fic for aldebaran1977. Her request was: H/D (of course!), first time, mystery plot or at least any plot, one or both of them working as auror(s) or some rare occupation, flangst, ferret!Draco. Here's hoping I managed to hit them all.
Survivor's Joy
"What does this button do?"
Harry sighed and captured Máire Dobson's hand as she tried to press the lift button that would take them to the ninth floor of the Ministry instead of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement. "Don't do that," he said, and pressed the right one.
"I only asked what that button did," said Máire, and leaned against the back of the lift, grinning at him, as it clunked and began to rise. "That's not a crime."
"Unlike some other things you've done, no," Harry said, fighting against the very strong urge to roll his eyes. No one had told him about criminals like Máire when he went through Auror training. They had studied famous cases involving murderers, rapists, kidnappers, Dark wizards who became addicted to the Unforgivable Curses, and, of course, incidents during the war with Voldemort. (Harry had put up with the way the other trainees stared at him by invoking the name of Voldemort loudly and often. Watching the entire class flinch soothed him).
And then there were people like Máire, who committed small crimes often and regularly, but with such a lack of evidence or consequences that it was easier to let them go than take up cell space or paperwork by retaining them. This time, Máire had practiced sleight-of-hand in front of a crowd of Muggles, and perhaps she had used magic to aid herself. Harry didn't know for certain if she had, because nothing she said should be trusted. When the report of the crime had come in from a team of tense Obliviators and he'd heard the description of the woman committing it, he'd sat with his head in his hands for several minutes.
Now he sourly studied the woman across from him, who lived to be a nuisance. She was utterly ordinary, with dark hair and brown eyes, save perhaps for her height; she stood only five feet tall. But her gaze wandered restlessly around the lift, trying to find something she could break, steal, cast a spell on—even though her wand rested firmly in Harry's robe pocket—or ask questions about. And she would, inevitably. This was the fifteenth time Harry had arrested her, and every time she caused more trouble in custody than she had out of it.
"Why is the Ministry so ugly?" she asked suddenly. She turned around and blinked at Harry. "You'd think they'd want people to visit, not be kept away by the horror of what they might see if they venture here."
"Actually, there are certain visitors we want to discourage," Harry said, giving her a pointed look as the lift doors opened. He caught Máire's arm. She promptly went limp. Harry shrugged, Body-Bound her, and levitated her in front of him. She frowned reproachfully at him; Hermione could manage a Body-Bind that froze even the muscles of the face, but Harry had never acquired the skill to do so.
"Sorry," said Harry, with total insincerity, and then herded her into the small, crowded office where all captured criminals were brought when first entering the Ministry. Olivia Stone, the witch on duty, looked up with a frown when she saw him; she and Harry had taken an instant dislike to each other from the first day they'd met in Auror training. Stone probably thought she was entirely innocent, of course. Harry didn't take to her because she taught like Umbridge minus the Blood Quill.
Then Stone saw Máire, and her face changed. She disliked constant criminals even more than Harry did. She nodded and shoved the relevant paperwork across the desk to Harry without fuss. Harry bent down to fill it out, idly aware that Máire was making faces at Stone, who sat stiffly and stared at her. Since he absolutely did not care who won that contest, he didn't bother looking up.
He'd just signed his name when the door rattled behind him. Harry turned, wand lifted to float Máire out of the way. From the sound of it, someone was bringing half-a-dozen criminals into Stone's office. Maybe Ron had returned from that raid he'd been sent to help on this morning, which involved an illegal potions ring.
It was Ron, all right, but his face was pale as it never was when he looked at a Dark wizard's handiwork, and he was staring directly at Harry. And, by the sound of his breath, he'd run most of the way from their office.
"Harry," he gasped, leaning on the door. "Andromeda just firecalled. She—something's wrong with Teddy. He took a new kind of Wolfsbane—"
Harry began running. Ron had already prudently ducked out of the way, and a moment later Harry could hear his voice rising, soothing Stone, who had begun to complain about Harry's exit. Harry smiled briefly. He knew he could trust Ron both to make his apologies to Stone (who liked him for some reason) and to take charge of putting Máire in a holding cell, doubtless temporary.
Then he put all such considerations out of his mind and headed to the office he shared with Ron, which had an illegal fireplace and an even more illegal bowl of Floo powder on the mantle. They had glamour spells to conceal its existence from most of the Aurors, but the spells were transparent to anyone who actually belonged in the office. Harry tossed a handful of powder into the flames and called out, "Tonks home!"
He was doubtless going to arrive battered and singed, with holes torn in the elbows of his robe, because he had never mastered Floo travel. But that didn't matter. Something was wrong with his godson.
Harry was not going to allow something to be wrong with the people he loved.
Draco had long since decided that he must have been an extraordinarily evil person in a past life, and that was the reason he had paid such a price for his sins in this one. In his spare moments, he liked to try and divine that person's identity. Had he been Gerald Bellingham, who had killed twelve Muggles at once at the end of the nineteenth century and very nearly started a new witch hunt? Or perhaps he'd been Jessica Cutting, a madwoman who had taken ages to be discovered because she was so pretty and smiling and sane in public, not at all like the straggle-haired incarnation of the stereotype his Aunt Bellatrix had been.
Today, he was certain he must have been Grindelwald.
The wire cage he clung to the underside of wobbled on its small wheels, and Draco tightened the hold of his claws. He was tempted to close his eyes, but unfortunately he needed to be sure of their destination in order to collect evidence. So far, this particular illegal potions ring had been tracked and lost by Aurors, the Hit Wizards, and at least three other divisions of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement. Draco was determined that the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures would be the one to actually catch them. That meant staying awake and not vomiting.
Come to think of it, he'd never been sick in his ferret form. He wasn't sure what would happen if he was. But the very thought of getting vomit on his fur made him tighten his claws again and fight back a squeak. The wizards pulling the cages around and in and out of dilapidated buildings at a rapid pace might not hear him, but the large dogs riding in the cages almost certainly would, and they would bark. And then the wizards might search hard enough to find him.
No, thank you.
The cage swerved to the left, nearly throwing Draco off, and he laid his muzzle parallel to the bottom and rolled one eye in that direction so he could see what was happening. From what he had discovered in his scouting, this was a wizarding estate, one of the many places abandoned when the taxes got too high for it to be attractive anymore, but warded under anti-detection spells so strong that the Ministry couldn't find it in order to assert some ridiculous claim over it. So far, they'd proceeded from potions laboratory to potions laboratory in orderly fashion. Where were they going now?
It was one of the many questions Draco wanted to discover the answer to, along with why wizards were using wire cages instead of levitation spells, how they had found this estate in the first place, and exactly what they thought they were brewing.
His irritation increased when he realized the cages were heading towards a wide field, crowded with weeds and the remains of what might once have been handsome topiary hedges. The greenery had been clipped enough to leave a patch of absolutely flat and open grass in the middle. Not good hiding ground for a ferret who needed to take cover suddenly, let alone a white ferret.
Yes, definitely Grindelwald.
On the other hand, the wizards were calling something to each other about testing the potion now. If Draco could observe enough to construct a Pensieve memory, he could leave now, and hand over the evidence to his Department Head, Sarah Cullingford. That would garner him the acclaim he wanted and end the danger at once. That sounded good to Draco.
And really, could it be any harder than the mad dash he'd made in the first place, in order to catch one of the wizards' robes and be Apparated along with him to the estate?
The cage stopped rolling. Draco stretched warily, muscles tensed to run at a moment's notice. But the wizard who had pulled this cage shouted something, and then the wire doors above him swung open as they removed the large gray dog riding in it, who of course struggled and barked frantically. They never even thought of looking under the cage itself. Draco twitched his whiskers—that always happened when he was in ferret form and tried to smile—and crept forwards as far as he dared to see better.
The wizard he had named Hook-Nose, who looked like Snape but less attractive, seemed to be the leader of the project. He jabbed his wand authoritatively here and there as the other wizards, five in all, ran about, setting the dogs up in the middle of a circle made on the ground with white dust.
Draco narrowed his eyes and wriggled his nose cautiously, twisting his neck back and forth to try and catch the scent of the dust that formed the circle. The wind wasn't blowing strongly enough for him to be certain, but he thought it smelled like a mixture of rotten eggs and rose petals.
His irritation grew. An illegal potions ring playing with Morganna's Debris was cause for concern, even if they were only using it to confine animals, as it appeared they were. Morganna's Debris got everywhere and caused disasters in the end. It was made of the ground fingers of women stoned to death for adultery; it would be stupid to expect it not to cause trouble.
Hook-Nose barked out an order that Draco was too far away to hear clearly, but it had the word "dogs" in it. The others quickly backed out of the white ring and scattered a last bit of dust to close it. Draco winced, his fur bristling from the sudden crackle of power in the air. And yes, the scent of rotten eggs and rose petals was coming to him strongly now that the wind had shifted.
The dogs in the circle—a mixture of Alsatians, Crups, large gray dogs that looked part wolf, and small fluffy white dogs like the kind his mother had once talked about getting after his father put peacocks in the Manor gardens—milled around, barking at each other. Two of the larger ones started wrestling, snapping their jaws hard enough to make Draco wonder if perhaps the wizards he watched had decided to take up dog-fighting as a sideline to their illegal potions brewing. Then Hook-Nose raised his wand, collected the eyes of the others, and cast a spell that Draco recognized the motions of at once. It would trigger any time-delayed potion in the body of the person it was cast at.
Or animals, in this case.
The dogs stiffened. Some fell over. A few barked as though the sound was being yanked out of their guts with fishhooks. The wrestling dogs dropped to their haunches and began to nip frantically at their flanks.
The large gray dogs who looked to be part wolf stood calmly, panting and staring at the chaos around them with bewildered eyes. None of them moved to attack, however, even when one of the barking dogs ran into them.
Hook-Nose shouted triumphantly, and two of the witches next to him actually started dancing. Then they began holding an excited conversation in which the word "Wolfsbane" featured prominently.
Draco narrowed his eyes further. He'd watched every movement and every ingredient they'd used in the potions laboratory. Whatever they were brewing, it wasn't Wolfsbane.
And of course, he had no way of finding out what it was just from the reactions of the dogs. They were such careless brewers they could have produced a potion that did nothing, and mistaken the mixed reactions from the dogs for what they actually wanted to see, whatever that was. Their conversation on the topic had proven spectacularly unenlightening; they weren't like the sorts of criminals in wizarding war novels who always explained their plans to each other just in case there was a hidden hero who needed to overhear them. Had they actually produced an illegal potion? He had no way of telling.
One thing was certain, however. Draco didn't think he could do anything more here. He had tracked the brewers to their home estate, and he could at least have them arrested for using Morganna's Debris. Once they were in custody, they could be interrogated on other matters.
Now he only had to decide how he was going to get out of here.
A sharp crack came from behind him. Draco froze, his body tensing, and barely controlled the instincts that were urging him to make a spring into the open. He managed to turn around instead, by hooking his claws carefully into the bottom of the cage, and see a woman rushing towards them across the field. He sneezed in contempt. Whoever she was, she wasn't very skilled at Apparition.
She halted in front of Hook-Nose and babbled something, too fast for Draco to make out most of it from this distance. Once again, though, he heard "Wolfsbane," and then "sick.' And then one whole sentence:
"It harmed a child who's close to Harry Potter!"
Before Draco could sneeze again at the fear that filled their faces at the sound of that name, Hook-Nose whirled around and lifted his wand high. He shouted, with the sound of desperation in his voice, "Flagrare immortalis!"
Draco felt every single part of him freeze in dread. Then he leaped free from the cage and raced towards the edge of the nearest building, his body flat and parallel to the ground. He counted the pops of Apparition behind him for a moment, trying to determine the time when he would be free to resume his human form and Apparate himself, but the sound of them was overwhelmed by the roar of the fire that Hook-Nose had called.
A blast of superheated air traveled past Draco's head. Then he felt his tail singe, and the ground became hot under his paws. He squeaked and ran faster, looking for a hole before he remembered that he was not a true ferret.
And he would have to risk changing back, because there was no way he could survive the fire of this spell—the fire that would destroy the Morganna's Debris, the dogs, and every other piece of evidence Draco had—without his magic.
He reached inwards and twisted the imaginary dial that pointed to "ferret" at the moment to "wizard." He had envisioned that dial from the first time he made the Animagus transformation, and it had never failed him.
Nor did it now. He came back to himself between one step and another, awkwardly running on his fingers and toes. He collapsed for a moment, then rolled to his feet and seized his wand, turning briefly, just to make sure nothing could be salvaged.
The middle of the field was one towering column of white and blue flame, striking for the sky in such a way that anyone who could actually see it beyond the anti-detection spells would probably think it was a forest fire—or a rogue dragon, if they were wizards. A few white flakes, all that remained of the Morganna's Debris, drifted high, then fell low and were sucked into the flames. Draco heard the screams of dying dogs, smelled burning grass and hair, and felt the air around him turn desert-like.
And he saw Hook-Nose standing next to the fire, waving his wand as though to fan it on. He caught sight of Draco and stared, eyes widening, then lifted his wand and aimed a curse at him.
Draco knew the better part of valor. He Apparated out before the curse could hit him, and sagged against the gates of the Manor, swearing under his breath. No evidence except for his own memories—which wouldn't be enough if no one recognized the wizards in question—the wizards' hiding place destroyed and no idea of where they would go next, and the ringleader recognizing him. Not good.
I have nothing more than a few accusations that probably won't do much good in the first place, he thought, running a hand through his hair in agitation. And Cullingford won't authorize me to continue with the case if I can't prove that it has some connection to magical creatures. Draco had planned to use the rumor that the ring was brewing Wolfsbane as his connection if his superior asked him exactly what he thought he was doing, but he had seen them not brewing Wolfsbane with his own eyes.
How am I going to continue working on this, and prove I'm not a failure?
Then Draco's head came up, and his eyes widened.
They made a child Potter cares for sick, somehow. He'll be on a hunt for vengeance. I could do worse than go to him and offer my—services.
Potter might still refuse, but Draco had learned something about civility in the seven years since the war, in addition to what he'd always known about flattery and feigning respect. And he doubted that Potter would have changed as far as angrily trying to revenge himself on those who hurt his friends went. It could be that he'd be desperate enough to accept Draco's help with it.
Draco relaxed, and smiled up at the clouds spitting rain on him. Yes, it had been worth it to go back into the world and work to redeem the Malfoy name instead of spending all his time hiding in the Manor. His biggest schoolboy rival might yet help him to redeem that name further. And was that a chance he ever would have had if he'd been hiding?
There was, of course, Potter's reaction when he found out Draco's Animagus form really was a white ferret to consider. But Draco considered that a minor enough price to pay, next to keeping his job and the respect of his colleagues in the Department.
"I'm hot," Teddy said fretfully. His hair was changing colors so rapidly it almost made Harry sick to look at; one moment it was Weasley orange, then purple, then pink, then brown, then gray, and then brown again. He reached out a hand and clasped Harry's, staring at him with bloodshot eyes. "Make it not be hot."
Harry used Aguamenti to conjure a glass of water for his godson and held it against Teddy's forehead and cheeks for a moment before he held it to his lips. "Sip it slowly," he cautioned Teddy. "We don't know what might react with the potion you swallowed." Maybe it was a little silly to talk to a seven-year-old so seriously about potions, but Harry had hated how no one had ever explained things to him when he was a child—not the causes of his illnesses, not why his relatives had hated him, not who his parents had really been. He could at least talk to Teddy about it, even if he didn't understand.
Teddy gulped the water, then lay back on the pillow and found Harry's hand again. "The potion looked just like the other potion," he muttered, closing his eyes and trembling. Harry felt his forehead. It was hot as if he had a fever, but enormous beads of sweat kept forming at the corners of his temples and then rolling down his face. And he couldn't stop the shaking. The beginnings of convulsions, Andromeda had told Harry, or at least she feared they were. "The other potion never hurt me. Why did this one?"
"I don't know," Harry said quietly, and cast a spell that stroked the sweat from Teddy's forehead and cheeks. "But I'll find out."
Teddy opened his eyes and smiled at him. They didn't change color nearly as often as his hair; right now they were the bright, calm brown Harry first remembered seeing eleven years ago in Remus's face.
Harry swallowed hard and kissed Teddy's forehead, then cast a little charm that should make him sleep. And so it did, but not until he had gone through another three minutes of shivering and murmuring. Harry took a deep breath and squeezed Teddy's hand again.
Teddy had, it turned out, been left with some werewolf characteristics after all: a tendency to grow more irritable as the full moon approached, thick hair that appeared on those full-moon nights and then disappeared again, an appetite for barely-cooked meat, and a truly impressive growl. He took a small dose of Wolfsbane every week to control the more annoying symptoms, and he had taken the latest one just this morning.
And now he was sick and shivering as if he might have a seizure. Harry thought the tremors were worse than they had been a few minutes ago. He gritted his teeth and forced his anger back under control. Three years of training and four years' work as an active Auror had given him plenty of practice; Harry had had to learn that not everyone would obey or be impressed by the Chosen One.
Andromeda came into the room, moving quietly in the full black mourning robes she always wore. Her face was haggard. Harry reached out and gave her the hand that wasn't holding Teddy's. He could only imagine what it must be like to watch her grandson shiver and sigh in the grip of an intense sickness after losing her husband, daughter, and son-in-law. It didn't help that the connections she'd tried to re-establish with the Malfoys after the war had come to nothing through Narcissa Malfoy's haughty refusal to be in the same room with her sister.
"It was definitely the potion," she said softly, and handed him a corked vial that Harry took carefully. It was filled with a brilliant red liquid which collected into crumbling sediment at the bottom of the vial. "I broke down the rest of that sample with Athena's Universal Dissolving Solution. Ordinary Wolfsbane breaks down into violet liquid with no sediment."
Harry hissed between his teeth. "And was there anything unusual about the Wolfsbane when you bought it?" He could not accept the idea that Andromeda would deliberately hurt Teddy, but there was still the possibility of a bad batch of the potion, and in that case, he would make sure the seller was turned over to the Ministry as soon as possible.
Andromeda frowned and said, "I was using a new seller recommended to me by Roberta. Do you remember her?" Harry nodded. Andromeda had mentioned the other witch before as someone who had a young son infected with lycanthropy. "The Wolfsbane was cheaper than normal, and they provided more. Roberta said they would be driven out of the market soon if more people didn't start buying from them, and of course they have an excellent reputation, with satisfied customers, in other areas." She sighed and stared down at Teddy. "I was stupid. I should have been more suspicious."
Harry rose and hugged her. "You were only trying to do the best you could by him," he said quietly. "And I'm surprised that someone hasn't tried selling fake Wolfsbane before now." The potion was expensive, and not every family with a werewolf member or a child, like Teddy, who bore the consequences of having a werewolf parent, could afford it. Of course someone could easily exploit the market, and of course the potion they sold would be cheaper.
"I don't think it was fake," Andromeda said grimly, and cast the spell that would banish the sweat from Teddy's face as he began to shiver again. "I smelled it and had Teddy smell it—" Harry nodded; Teddy's nose was also sharper than normal "—and he said it seemed normal. And it certainly looked normal."
"Diluted, then," Harry said, thinking of the case he and Ron had handled last year that had involved a Healer from St. Mungo's selling diluted pain-killing potions on the black market. "Which means they knew what they were doing." His hand tightened on his wand, and he had to set the vial of red liquid down hastily on the table beside the bed, so he couldn't crush it. "Which means I am going to destroy them."
Andromeda's hand rested on his arm at once. Harry blinked away the haze defining his vision and saw her staring at him seriously. "I would prefer it if you didn't go after them," she said. "Or not alone, anyway. You know Teddy depends on you." She lifted her chin and licked her lips. "And I—I like having you here, too."
Harry hesitantly hugged her. Andromeda was a proud woman, and though she had made it perfectly clear she appreciated his help with and love for Teddy over the last seven years, she didn't often make her own emotions towards him known. Now, she stood stiffly in his embrace for a moment only before she cleared her throat and stepped away.
"I promise," he said. "But this needs to be brought to the Ministry's attention at once, anyway. They've been tracking an illegal potions-brewing ring for some time now, and this is probably connected. Certainly the last laboratory of theirs we discovered had ingredients in it that could have been used to brew Wolfsbane."
Andromeda nodded. "Then go into this with the full force of the Aurors behind you," she said. "No lone heroics."
"I've changed enough not to consider that," Harry said, and kissed her cheek. "I like company." He stroked Teddy's hair back from his forehead once, then looked at her. "You'll let me know if something changes?"
"At once," Andromeda promised, and took his place in the chair, casting a spell that soothed Teddy back to sleep as he moaned softly. At least his shivers had calmed and it didn't look as if he'd have convulsions, Harry thought.
He had barely arrived at Andromeda's fireplace when something hammered on the window. Frowning, Harry turned around and saw a post owl hovering there. It drummed on the glass with its beak again and looked at him pointedly.
Rolling his eyes, Harry opened the window. He would take care of the letter for Andromeda, since he doubted she would want to leave Teddy any time soon.
But the owl pushed the letter insistently at him, with a grumbling noise in its throat that reminded Harry painfully of Hedwig for a moment. He still hadn't got an owl of his own, feeling guilty for trying to replace her. He blinked away the memories, opened the letter, and raised his eyebrows.
Potter:
I'm sure a letter from me will surprise you, but I promise this isn't an evil Death Eater plot to try and kill you. I've been tracking a ring of illegal potions-brewers we thought might be brewing Wolfsbane, and heard one of them say that they'd made a child near you sick. That was apparently enough to cause them to destroy their latest hiding place and all evidence of their illegal activities—and nearly me with it.
I'd like to speak with you about this. Solving the mystery of exactly who these wizards are could benefit both of us. I'd be willing to share my memories with you, in the hopes that you'll recognize one of the people I observed. I can tell you that, whatever they were brewing, it wasn't Wolfsbane, even if they thought it was. The Floo at the Manor is open to you.
Draco Malfoy.
Harry stared at the letter for some time. Then he carefully drew his wand and cast several spells that made the paper glow red, blue, and finally white. He leaned back on the fireplace and regarded the parchment once again. There were no hexes on it, no Dark Arts curses, and no Confundus Charms. But it was from Malfoy. Surely that meant it had to be a joke or the first step in a trap?
Then Harry closed his eyes. He could feel cool stone beneath his fingertips if he concentrated, the way he always could nowadays. He had spent enough time sitting beside his parents' graves, and Fred's, and Lupin's and Tonks', and even Snape's, to know it very well. How many times had he rested his hand there, and swore that things would be different from now on, that he would do what he could to stand against the prejudice, fear, and hatred Voldemort had drawn on to make himself strong?
The war didn't stop when Voldemort died. He had said those words in the cemetery at Godric's Hollow, his voice strong and sure and quiet. He had thought the words up the night before, but they sounded even better in the light of day. Maybe the last enemy that shall be conquered is death, but I promise you, I'm going to conquer a lot of them before then.
If he became sure Malfoy was tricking him and discarded this letter, that would be giving into the same prejudice he had condemned in others. Maybe it was a minor instance of it, but many minor instances could grow into major wounds if left to fester untreated. And it was true he had heard no evil of Malfoy in the years since the war.
And if it turned out Malfoy could have helped him help Teddy, and Harry hadn't listened to him about it, he would never forgive himself.
Harry stood and cast the Floo powder in the flames, but this time, he called out, "Malfoy Manor!"
Draco chose to wait for Potter in his mother's conservatory, the most open and cheerful room in the house. Perhaps it was wasted effort, considering the size of the grudge Potter had against him, but still, Draco wanted to appeal to the man's Gryffindor sensibilities if he could.
Besides, he liked being in the conservatory. Narcissa had recently taken to breeding bluebells, which Draco enjoyed much more than the thick, sweet, cloying roses that had come before them. He wandered around the room, peering into pots where the flowers twisted without a wind, or rang like actual bells, or stared back at him with small black faces adapted from pansies. The smells, both natural and added, danced around him in a sweet invisible cloud, and by the time a house-elf finally escorted Potter into the large glassed-in room, Draco was as relaxed as he could be when confronting his old rival.
Potter paused in the doorway, as if he had his doubts about the sincerity of Draco's invitation. Draco turned to face him, leaning one hand casually on a shelf full of seedlings behind him.
And nearly choked on his tongue.
The Potter who stood watching him thoughtfully from across the room looked much the same as he ever had—except for the eyes. Those eyes could have been the ones Draco confronted in the mirror every morning, and asked stern questions of, searching them for signs of shadows, greed, envy, pure-blood pride, and the other things that had driven him into the war. Draco had decided the rest of the world could be like that if they wanted, including his parents, but he was not going to be. He hadn't enjoyed being that way. So he had done what he could to strip those qualities out of himself, and if he had to bite his tongue hard sometimes, well, that was a small price to pay. He could always keep up a sarcastic running monologue in his head, after all.
Potter looked as if he had done the same thing. Draco recognized that wary gaze, cautious both about judging and being judged.
It's probably coincidental, Draco argued to himself. He's probably got a bit of dust in his eye and blinked the wrong way, or exactly the right way. Just because you've changed doesn't mean Potter has. But the delusion made his voice softer than normal when he nodded and said, "Potter. Welcome."
The other man relaxed his taut stance and nodded to him. "Malfoy," he said. There was no emotion in his voice, which made him sound far less unfriendly than Draco had expected.
What's changed him, I wonder? Or is just being polite for the sake of finding out what I know about the false Wolfsbane? Draco managed a smile nevertheless, and was more than astonished when Potter smiled back.
Damn. That—really does something for him. Draco searched his mind for memories of times Potter might have smiled at him in the past, and couldn't come up with anything. It didn't really count when your rival was gloating triumphantly about having bruised half your body.
Draco felt his muscles tense with the pain the memory brought along in its wake, and turned his mind promptly away from it, envisioning a stone garden wall the memory couldn't cross. He'd had to do that often, too, in the past few years. He knew he had a tendency to react stupidly if he got angry, and he was determined that no one would make him look stupid anymore.
"There's a Pensieve waiting for you with the memories of what I observed," he said, and gestured towards a table on the other side of the room. From the way Potter flicked a glance at it, Draco was sure he had noticed it already, but he nodded as if he hadn't and moved forwards.
For a moment, he stood above the Pensieve, looking down with an expression Draco couldn't read, as if the mere sight of a Pensieve held evil memories on its own. Then he ducked his head down and plunged it beneath the surface of the silvery liquid inside. Draco was left in the uneasy half-state that he always fell into whenever his parents were reading the Prophet at the breakfast table: they were still in the room, and would notice him and perhaps snap at him if he moved, but they weren't present and able to be addressed as normal.
He studied Potter's bent body idly for a moment, then frowned when he realized his eyes were focusing more on the set of Potter's shoulders and the tightness of his arse than anything else. He turned away with a little shudder. What is wrong with you? Potter's not going to want to think about things like that even if he's gay at the moment, thanks to this child he likes who's endangered.
Draco let his eyes go out of focus staring at the bluebells instead, and waited for Potter to be finished in the Pensieve. Things had changed between them, yes, but not enough for him to think physical admiration of Potter would pay off in any way.
Harry blinked slowly when he realized that Malfoy's Animagus form was a white ferret. I wonder if he was subconsciously influenced by the way Moody transformed him? he thought, amused for a moment.
Then he winced as he remembered that had been Crouch, not Moody, and that Malfoy couldn't have been happy when he discovered his form. McGonagall had told Harry often enough during the training necessary to pass his NEWTs that the animal chose the wizard, not the wizard the animal. No, Malfoy couldn't have liked it, and Harry didn't think he would have, either, if someone had turned him into that animal and bounced him about the school.
He stared intently at the face of the hook-nosed wizard who sneered at Malfoy before Apparating away, but he didn't look more than vaguely familiar. Nor was his voice, though Harry closed his eyes and listened during the part where the wizard cast the Immortal Flame spell instead of watching Malfoy dash along with his little ferret nose to the ground.
Damn, he thought as he pulled his head out of the Pensieve. So we have one suspect at least , but not one I know. And the place where we might have stood the best chance of gathering evidence is destroyed. And they know one person is tracking them.
But even this much information was more than Harry would have had if he had gone straight to the Ministry and tried to raise the investigation there. Incompetent brewers or not, Hook-Nose and his minions were awfully good at hiding. Ron had managed to track them down in their laboratories, but always after the fact.
And after what he had heard the witch say, Harry was in no doubt that they had sold the Wolfsbane that had led to Teddy's illness.
But how did they hear of it so fast? Harry frowned for a moment, then put the mystery away for later. He thought he could be certain, after he had watched the memories, that Malfoy was not part of the group, and there would be no one else with them to serve as informant if they were investigating this together, just the two of them.
Well, that was unfortunate phrasing, Harry thought, as he turned and saw Malfoy pivoting on one heel to face him expectantly. Malfoy looked far different when it didn't seem as if he would turn every line of his mouth to a sneer in an instant. He looked at Harry intently now, as though trying to fathom what he had thought of the memories, and that was another difference. Harry couldn't remember a Malfoy who was interested in what he thought, rather than one who was interested in what his own bigoted mouth would produce next.
"The potion they made was enough like Wolfsbane to be sold as such," he said quietly, "and to fool the nose of a child whose father was a werewolf." That much, he owed to Malfoy after what he had seen. Besides, if they were to help each other, there was no point in lying to him, even by omission.
Malfoy blinked for a moment in what looked like surprise, then said, "My cousin?"
"Yes," said Harry, and couldn't help a frown. "Teddy Lupin. My godson," he added. The Malfoys had never made any attempt to initiate contact before now. He wanted to show that Teddy mattered to him in his own right, not simply as part of the Malfoy family.
Malfoy blinked again, but this time his emotions didn't show so clearly on his face. "Yes, that explains their panic," he murmured. "But how did they learn the news so fast? That happened, what, a few hours ago?"
Harry nodded, relieved by the quickness with which Malfoy's mind moved. At least he wouldn't have to explain things to him the way he did with slow Auror trainees. "But it was announced in the Ministry. Someone could have heard it and passed on the information to Hook-Nose. What?" he added, because Malfoy had abruptly grinned.
"That's what I called him, too," Malfoy said, and shrugged. "It'll do as well as anything until we learn his real name. And if we're out of the Ministry, I suppose we have to spend less time worrying about informants."
"That's what I thought," Harry said, involuntarily. He was in a bit of a daze. Not only hadn't there been a single disagreement so far, there hadn't been a single hex flung, or a single statement spoken that caused him to want to hit Malfoy.
Some moments passed in silence. Malfoy surveyed him with narrowed eyes, then moved a step nearer. His hair was brilliant in the sunlight through the conservatory windows, and his face was serious, as was his voice.
"Look, Potter. I want to stop this bloke and his ring of followers. If they can brew something that looks enough like Wolfsbane to pass the scent test, that's bad news for the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures. Who knows what effect it'll have on a werewolf? And then they'll probably buy that instead of what we offer, to avoid registration, and there could be incidents with rogue werewolves." Malfoy shook his head firmly. "My Department does not need that."
"Neither does anyone else." Harry folded his arms and leaned back against the conservatory wall. "I've hunted enough people who refused to take the Wolfsbane Potion or register with the Ministry, and I've seen the havoc they caused." He spoke as cautiously as he could, as neutrally. No, he didn't want to alienate Malfoy, but neither did Harry know where he was going with this.
"So." Malfoy lifted his upper lip in a gesture that looked like a smile, but Harry could sense the tension behind it and didn't think it was. "You can trust me. I won't step up to your side and tell you what a hero you are, but I won't try to turn on you for having a godson who's my cousin, either. I need to examine the potion he drank, or at least look at him and his symptoms if there's none left. Do you trust me enough to let me do that? Or will you give me your memories in return?" He nodded to the Pensieve.
Harry hesitated, trying to decide what would be the greater intrusion. Then he took a deep breath and reminded himself, Teddy. This is for Teddy. And you're not the one who has the right to say if Malfoy gets to visit him. Besides, what if you missed something vital? Take Malfoy to the house and see what Andromeda says.
"Yes, all right," he said. "You can visit him. But one remark about blood traitors or—"
"I don't use that sort of language anymore," Malfoy said. Astonishingly, his voice was dignified and quiet, his face utterly composed, as if he disdained even the thought of the words. "I find it vulgar and unhelpful." Then he smiled, and it was a real smile this time, enough to make Harry stare blankly in astonishment. "And if you know one thing about me, Potter, you ought to know that a Malfoy never does anything he thinks vulgar."
Harry nodded hesitantly, wondering what had happened in the past few years to change Malfoy so completely. Well, perhaps it was his own caution and the situation that created the impression of change. If they had simply met over drinks in a pub, Harry doubted Malfoy would have been so accommodating.
He felt cool gravestone under his fingers for a moment. And I thought you weren't going to be so judgmental anymore?
Harry grinned ruefully. It would be easier to keep an eye on Malfoy just in case and a hand on his wand than it would be to keep himself from judging, but he was determined that he would manage the latter somehow.
"Why are you grinning?"
At least Malfoy sounded properly suspicious of that. Harry raised his eyebrows. "Because I've decided to trust you, and God knows what Andromeda will say to that. Come on. We're Apparating, not Flooing."
