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Chapter Three—The Third Step
"Potter? Are you all right?"
There were a lot of questions like that in the next few days, after the party and after Harry's revelation, as he and Draco started working a complex case that would probably turn out to involve members of the Ministry who had taken bribes to conceal the existence of potions labs with human subjects.
"Harry? Are you all right?"
There were lots of questions like that in the next few days, from Ginny at home, who seemed to have noticed that something was wrong and spent time frowning at him with her head on one side. Harry knew that look. She used the same look on the crosswords in the Daily Prophet, and more often than not she figured them out.
He would have liked to fall down a deep pit and collapse the tunnel behind him. Or at least tell them to back off and have them accept that he didn't want to talk right now.
But that would be some ideal existence, Harry thought bitterly, some existence where he had been braver and better and hadn't married Ginny or lied to her. Instead, he had to live in the world the way it was, where he had made his own bed and would lie in it.
He wanted to hit himself in the head with a sleeping spell when he realized the pun he'd inadvertently made with that thought.
But Harry got through it somehow. He told Ginny about some of the cases he and Draco had worked, and confessed that he was having trouble sleeping. True, if not for the reasons that she thought it was.
He had begun lying. Begin as you mean to go on.
Ginny wrapped her arms around him and kissed his cheek and murmured into his ear. At her insistence, he drank some Dreamless Sleep Potion and spent nights without either the nightmares he did sometimes have or the wistful visions of what he could have had with Draco.
If Draco wasn't straight. If I wasn't married. If Ginny's happiness didn't have to be my first consideration, before everything else.
It was harder with Draco, because Harry knew how well Ginny knew him, but Draco had unexpected depths of insight, and sometimes peered at Harry with narrowed, intense eyes as if he could intimidate Harry into confessing all his secrets. But he had to have an explanation, and Harry was finally able to give him one.
"I think I'm getting distracted from my cases," he admitted quietly. "There's a private thing I suddenly realized, something that makes me out to be a lot less noble in my own eyes than I had always assumed I was. I had to deal with that, and with the fact that there's nothing I can really do to change it."
Draco gave him a sharp stare, and then tilted his head haughtily and looked away. "See that the distraction doesn't end up costing us our lives, Potter," he ordered.
Harry gave him an apologetic smile and did work harder after that, staying late to file reports and wrap up the business ends of cases until Ginny started to complain that he was never spending an evening at home. And then he started coming home and concentrating on Ginny: buying gifts for her, taking her out to restaurants where it required his scar to get them a table, defending her in a row against her brothers.
"Not that I'm not grateful, Harry," she said as they were leaving the Burrow, and she was leaning against his arm, her head on his shoulder. "But what is this about? You never did this before. You were a good husband," she added quickly. "But this is new."
Harry looked down at her and put a lock of her hair behind her ear. This would be so much easier, in some ways, if he was able to think she was stupid, or a substandard Auror, the way Draco had said she was their first day together. Or if she had turned out to be cheating or clingy or jealous. It would be a relief to tell himself that her character flaws were so great it was no wonder he had fallen in love with someone else.
But that wasn't true. Yes, she was dependent on him, but Harry had encouraged that himself, thinking Ginny would be happier if she had someone she could always lean on. It wasn't her fault. She had done nothing wrong.
"I realized recently that you're really the most important thing in my life," he told her soberly. That's true. It has to be true, no matter how much I wish things were different. "I think it's finally starting to sink in, what being married really means."
Ginny usually had wide, bright smiles. He had never seen the one she gave him now, small and grave, or felt the way her hand trembled on his arm. "I'm glad," was all she said. "It's a big commitment."
"Yes, it is," Harry said, unable to think of anything smarter.
"And everyone deserves someone who puts them first," Ginny went on. Her hand clutched down possessively on his arm, saying without words who was in that position for her.
Harry kissed her ear, and flung out a desperate hope into the spring darkness, hoping that someone, or something, would hear it and treat it as a prayer to answer.
I can do that. I've lied to her about so many things, and I married her under false pretenses, but no matter how much I wish I was with Draco instead, I can still put her first. One is a thought, the other is an action.
And I've always been good at actions.
"What's happened? You've become distant lately."
Harry leaned back against his desk and tried to look amused rather than folding his arms and glaring. He thought he was the one with the right to complain, since Draco spent half their cases now grumbling because he wanted to hurry back to Astoria. But Draco was the one who sounded like a jealous lover.
That doesn't do any good, he told himself, both about the thought and the images that filled his mind with the thought, and tried to respond calmly. "I realized that I was neglecting Ginny. I've tried to give her more of my time and attention lately. That's all."
Draco stared at him, mouth open. Harry frowned. Was the answer really that unbelievable? Maybe Draco thought he had never cared about Ginny at all, given that they didn't talk about her much.
That was one of the things he was trying to make up for, though.
"Why? She's a substandard Auror." Draco tapped his fingers one by one, slowly, on the desk, looking at Harry instead of past him the way he would if he was really angry. Harry tried not to admire the shape of his mouth. He should think about how well he knew Draco instead, and how that could be an advantage for them when they worked on difficult cases together.
"What does that have to do with anything?" Harry asked. "I'm talking about her as my wife, not my partner."
Draco worked his mouth into a sneer, but Harry didn't think his heart was in it. What's wrong with him lately? "It's nice to see that you've given up that fantasy you approached me with on our first day. It never would have worked out."
"No, I don't think it would have," Harry said mildly. He was trying hard not to be bitter towards either Draco or Ginny. Yes, he was only human, so it would happen sometimes, but it wasn't as though either of them knew they were tormenting him with their reactions. "Besides, Ginny is happy with her partner now."
Draco turned and stirred the papers on his desk moodily with one hand. Harry tore his eyes away from the length of Draco's fingers and reminded himself that he couldn't wank at work anyway, even if he wasn't married.
"I don't see why treating your wife better means that you have to treat me poorly." Draco sounded sullen and sulky, a small child.
Harry smiled, because he couldn't help it, but hid the smile before Draco glanced over at him. He didn't think Draco would find it amusing. "You're right," he said. "I'm sorry. What are the ways I've treated you badly?"
"Distant on cases," Draco said. "Acting as though you can't wait to get out of here in the evenings and go back to your wife. Remember that we're Aurors and here for another reason than just to make a living, Potter."
"It's no worse than the grumbling you do about wanting to go on dates with Astoria," Harry snapped. He glared, realized what he was doing, and looked down at the file in front of him. He couldn't apologize yet, especially when Draco was being so hypocritical.
Silence, to the point that Harry hoped Draco would let it fade away like most of their arguments tended to these days. But instead, he murmured in a subdued voice, "Have I been that bad?"
"Yes," Harry said. Just continue. You have to, now that he knows you resent her. "I don't mind sometimes, but God, does it have to be every evening? And if my going home to Ginny bothers you, then just consider that at least I was married before we were assigned to each other, while you dating Astoria is a new thing. I think I'm justified in worrying about how it might change our partnership."
More silence. Harry finally turned around again. Draco had sat down behind his desk and was staring at the piles of unfiled reports and scribbled memos as though they held the reason for his behavior.
He had something of the cool mask on his face when he looked up again, though more fragile than usual. "I think it would be a good idea if we didn't pry into each other's personal lives again," he said. "Agreed?"
Harry nodded sharply. There was a twist and a snap in his chest, as though someone had broken an elastic band there, but it didn't matter. Nothing mattered except balancing his marriage with Ginny and his partnership with Draco, and not losing either one—he couldn't bear to hurt Ginny, and he couldn't bear to give up Draco—because he was stupid.
Draco went home early that day. Well, he could, because they had finished a case last night and hadn't been assigned a new one. Harry sat there, looking at Draco's desk, and imagining him with his arm around Astoria's waist, laughing into her hair as they waited to be seated in some exclusive restaurant.
Then he thought about Ginny wounded, possibly dying, on her job. She was an Auror, too, and she wasn't always home when Harry arrived. Thinking and dreaming about Draco kept him from remembering that sometimes.
The image of Draco happily married to Astoria was still worse than the image of Ginny's death, which made Harry sick.
In the end, he rose and waved his wand to dim the fire burning in their office hearth. There was no reason to stay here. If he was going to wait by himself for someone important in his life to come back, he could at least do so at home.
Ginny arrived an hour after he did, flushed with excitement over a new case and chattering about it. Harry felt the elastic band snap in his chest again when he looked at her. No one needed to tell him why.
As time passed, it got easier to bear, if no easier to watch.
Draco did date Astoria, but he talked less about it, and complained less about Harry talking about Ginny. In return, Harry tried to make sure that he didn't do that too often, and that he stayed late to finish up reports when it was his turn and Draco had done it the night or the week before.
And time did its work, blunting the first revelation of his feelings. Harry began, cautiously, to relax. He could look Draco in the face without consciously admiring the shape of his jaw or his smile. He could laugh with him over jokes and not long to hear that laugh in other contexts. He could begin to accept that Draco would marry someone else.
That last part still hurt like fire, mind you. But it was better than it hurting like boiling oil, which it used to.
Harry thought he understood everything now, and that he'd been foolish and a liar, but was properly punished for it. And then came the morning when Draco rushed into the office with his mouth set in a tight snarl, his hands clenched, his shoulders hunched as if to ward off a blow.
Harry knew how to deal with moods like this by now, even though he didn't always know what had caused them. He murmured soothingly and charmed the cup of tea waiting for Draco warmer. Draco always liked it scalding, as if he needed the pain in his mouth to distract himself from whatever had angered him.
This morning, Draco tasted the tea and slammed the cup immediately back down, cracking the side. Tea rushed out across his desk. Harry said something wordless and snatched the reports lying there out of the way of the liquid. They'd have to do at least another week's worth of work if the tea smudged them.
"Nice to see that you're more concerned about the reports than about me."
Harry shivered as Draco's low, charged voice struck his ears. It sounded like the audible equivalent of lightning, and he could imagine other circumstances under which Draco would speak like that, so clearly that he nearly didn't mind if Draco was angry with him now.
"Good morning to you, too," he said, and laid the reports on his own desk, on top of another teetering pile that would protect them if Draco decided to try the same stunt again. "Did Your Majesty discover a tear in his silken sheets today?"
Draco's hands seized and spun him around. Harry went with the motion, knowing he could break free at any time he wanted. Draco was taller than he was, sure, but Harry was stronger. He ended up against the wall, and Draco leaned in and breathed hot fumes into his face. Harry wouldn't be surprised to find out they stank of brimstone. Draco pressed his belly against Harry's and glared into his eyes from less than an inch away.
No, Harry didn't object to this position at all.
Neither did his body, and Harry had to do something to distract Draco's attention from that before something unfortunate happened. So he interrupted the poisonous little speech Draco sounded like he was about to make, if his indrawn breath was any indication, and snapped, "I didn't make the tea too hot on purpose. That's how you always like it when you're angry. Now, are you going to forgive me and discuss what got you huffing, or are we going to shove each other around like schoolboys?"
Draco paused, and then exhaled hard and let Harry go. Harry stood back up and straightened his robes around the shoulders, but kept a wary eye on Draco. He hadn't expected that tactic to work; he had only wanted Draco to concentrate on his words and not anything hard he might feel against his stomach.
Draco turned his back and stalked to his desk, rattling his way so fiercely through the parchments there that Harry became afraid he would go to work in another office for the day. He didn't want that. Work was his one chance to see Draco.
But he kept quiet, because he didn't understand what was going on, and he would probably make things worse instead of better if he interfered.
Draco gathered his piles into shape and straightened the edges of the papers until they were perfectly aligned, then turned around again so fast half the piles immediately became disordered again. "I broke up with Astoria last night," he said.
Harry blinked. "I'm sorry," he said blankly. He was, or he must have sounded enough like it to fool Draco's ability to tell when he was lying, because Draco gave him one sharp look and then nodded acceptance. "What happened?"
"She wanted me to set a date for our wedding." Draco ran his fingers through his hair in a gesture that made Harry gape, because he'd never seen Draco do something so unsophisticated. Draco looked around and laughed at him. "Was there a particular reason that you wanted to show me your tonsils this morning?"
Reasons to show you them aren't few and far between in my imagination, Harry would have replied once, but he feared it would sound suggestive now, and he just wasn't good enough at lying to hold a determined Draco at bay. He shook his head. "Sorry. Go on."
"I don't know why," Draco said. "That's what I'd been working towards. She's the kind of wife I'd like to have. Beautiful, pure-blood, generous with her affection. I didn't want a marriage like my parents have," he added, as if Harry had asked. "Devoid of physical affection, because they're just as hard with each other as they are with the world. They love each other, I know that, but they act as if there's an invisible audience judging them on every show of it. I wanted someone poised, but also someone artless."
"Probably impossible to find both in one person," Harry said wryly, and told his stupid hopes to die one last death. "Poised" was the last word that anyone would use to describe him.
"Perhaps," Draco said, with a shrug. "But when she asked me about the date, I suddenly realized that I'd pictured our wedding happening years in the future, when I was promoted and Astoria was older. She's two years younger than I am, and apparently she wants to leave her parents' home. But I don't think that's a good enough reason to get married." He spun on one heel and stared at Harry again. "You probably think it is."
"You mean I probably expect you to think it is," Harry corrected mildly, but with a warning look. "I don't. Now that I know you, I don't."
Draco lowered his head and nodded slowly. "But my parents will think I should have taken what I could get," he said, "that I don't have many chances with our new reputation. They don't even think I should have become an Auror, that it was tempting fate in some way." He looked up, his eyes solid in a way Harry hadn't often seen them become before. "I refuse to give up. I have a different dream, but I'm still going to achieve it."
"You have my support," Harry said, "for what that matters. If Astoria couldn't give you what you wanted, if you want to marry for love, then you should."
Draco curled his lip. "Trust you to phrase my dream in a way that takes all the glow out of it," he muttered, but he slammed his shoulder into Harry's as he made his way out of the office to fetch another cup of tea.
Harry created many fantasies about that brush of shoulders, and even more about the moment when Draco had held him against the wall, in the days and weeks and months that followed. Draco's relationship with Astoria might have ended, but that didn't mean Harry's marriage had.
Or even would. Harry had vowed to be with Ginny for life, and he would have to.
"I feel like he's not listening to me anymore, like there's something else taking precedence."
Harry paused with his hand on his cloak. He had come into the house and shut the door behind him but hadn't called for Ginny yet, enjoying a moment of privacy before he had to see her. Thus he heard her voice clearly from the small room that she used as a study. She was leaning French, or maybe Spanish by now. She seemed to become interested in things rapidly and dropped them as rapidly.
"What else could be taking precedence except his job?" Hermione's voice asked sensibly. "Have you talked to him?" Harry heard a small clinking noise that made him blink. Was Hermione baking? That sure sounded like a wooden spoon knocking against a bowl.
"It's so impossible to talk to him about this," Ginny sighed. Harry, standing there with his hand still on his cloak and his head soft with guilt for listening in, could picture her sagging back on her heels and pushing her hair out of her face. "What am I supposed to say? That I think he's talking to me less than he did a month ago? That he stares off into space with this dark, brooding look on his face? All I do is feel like that. I don't know."
Harry sighed. It seemed that his best try at putting Ginny first hadn't worked, or else he had started to slip up without realizing it. Had he been thinking about Draco too much?
"It would still do you good to talk to him," said Hermione, in the tone that Harry recognized from her "do your homework now" speeches at Hogwarts. "Explain that you feel like he's distant even if he really isn't. That will at least force him to pay attention and think about what he can do to change things."
"No, it won't," Ginny said. "And anyway, that's my biggest fear, that he'll try, and it won't change anything."
Harry winced and stepped back, hanging his cloak up and opening, then shutting, the door as if he'd just arrived. By the time he turned around again, Ginny was coming rapidly out of her study, her face a little flushed but otherwise normal. On other nights, Harry thought, he would probably have attributed that to crouching a little too close to the fire.
Maybe she'd done this several times, talked to Hermione or other people about him, and he hadn't noticed. Was there anything he could do without admitting that he'd overheard?
Although maybe I should say I did. At least that would give us something real to fight about.
"How was your day?" he murmured into her hair as he pushed back the cloak she still had on, tangling his fingers around her ears. Ginny ducked her head and kept it there as he hung her cloak next to his own. Harry saw her twisting her hands over and over together out of the corner of his eye.
"Fine," Ginny said. "The case we worked today was boring. A thief, taking two bottles of wine, and oh, they thought he used Dark magic to do it, but it turned out he didn't." She rolled her eyes and looked up with a bright smile at Harry. "What about yours?"
"Normal," Harry said, which was the truth. He had worked with Draco, fantasized about Draco, eaten lunch with Draco, worried because Draco's eyes were dark and haunted and he had the weak step and pale face of someone who wasn't getting enough sleep, and then got into a row with Draco when he tried to ask what was wrong. It seems asking what's wrong with the people in my life is what's wrong. He focused all his attention on Ginny, and asked, "What would you like to do for dinner this evening?"
Ginny blinked. "I thought we'd decided that we were going to Diagon Alley. There was a new restaurant that you wanted to try, wasn't there?"
Harry smiled. "Yeah, but I thought I'd ask you. Are you up to that? You do look tired." That was the kind of thing he could at least say to Ginny without causing offense, even if the other questions were useless.
A slow smile made its way across Ginny's lips. "I'm tired," she said. "How about we stay home and you cook toast and eggs for me?" Toast and eggs was one thing Harry was good at after making breakfast for the Dursleys.
Harry nodded eagerly, and so they did, with Ginny sitting at the table and imitating the accused thief's voice for him. Harry found himself laughing more easily than he ever did with Draco since his revelation, because he would wonder if he really thought the joke was funny or was just basking in the sound of Draco's laughter.
They ate together, and Ginny told him more about her day, and Harry mentioned some of his, and then she fell asleep in front of the fire, her mouth wide and spilling a bit of drool on the carpet. Harry watched her and wished their lives could be like this more often.
Maybe they could be, if I made just a bit of effort.
"Potter. About time you showed up."
Harry took the file that Draco tossed to him with a little nod, deciding that he would just ignore Draco's bad mood. "What is this case?" he asked, because the file was thicker than the ones they usually tackled. He started to read, wincing when he saw that the top page carried a photograph of a corpse, a young man with his head sitting beside the body, the mouth stuffed full of what looked like fur. Blood spread around the shoulders and back in a large puddle. Whoever killed him had stabbed him, too, hard enough to barely leave any normal-looking cloth and skin beneath the red.
"That is a picture of Horatio Stegton," said Draco, folding his hands behind his head. Harry was an expert at watching him from the corner of his eye by now, and he could think about what those long fingers would do to him if they ever touched him. Could, but he wasn't going to, because he was loyal to his wife. "His family and friends claim that they don't know what happened to him. His body was found outside the junction of Diagon Alley and Knockturn Alley this morning."
"In a place where the magical signature of the killer would blend with a thousand others," Harry muttered, reading that on the page next to the photo.
Draco nodded. "Precisely. We have no witnesses, if you don't count the first people who found the body. We have no leads, other than the substance in his mouth, which isn't exactly common, and a few rumors about people who supposedly hated him with a passion. He was responsible for breaking up several relationships, it seems."
"What was the thing in his mouth?" Harry asked, but he saw the answer just then in an isolated line by itself, and read it aloud in the same instant as Draco spoke.
"Hippogriff feathers."
They stopped and grinned at each other. Harry could feel a spark catching in his chest and dancing in Draco's eyes at the same moment. It felt like old times—that is, a few months ago, before he had realized he loved Draco.
Draco surged to his feet and laid his hands on his desk. "Hippogriff feathers suggest several things. The Forbidden Forest. Experimental breeders. That Magical Zoo they started a few months ago on the outskirts of London. Potions brewers."
Harry frowned, running over the bare information that he remembered from his Potions courses in his head. "I thought hippogriff feathers weren't used for much. They…break apart easily in water or something? Something that makes them unsuitable for more than a few specialist applications, anyway."
"Exactly," Draco said. "But among their most common uses is as a base for love potions."
Harry whistled softly. "And that could be a good symbolic substance to put in the mouth of a man someone must suspect had used a love potion. There are people who can't accept that a relationship ends for natural and normal reasons."
Draco froze, why Harry didn't know, and gave him a glare so steady that Harry felt as if it would be burned on the back of his skull through his eyes. But then Draco shrugged a little and said, very softly, as if addressing someone else, "That's right. I think we need to look at his rivals and at people who might have felt scorned when he dropped them for someone else."
Harry nodded, trying to look as meek and harmless as he could. He didn't want to encounter another of those burning glares. "All right. But which should we do first? Go check on the hippogriff feathers or on his rivals?"
Draco put his head on the side. "Neither of those errands is actually dangerous, is it? And we would get more done if we split up and acted separately—"
"No!" Harry actually cringed at how sharp his voice was, at least the equivalent of Draco's glare, but he made no attempt to moderate it. "No," he said more quietly. "Regulations say that we stay together, and I know that you want to obey the rules."
Draco looked at him with a flat, neutral expression. "Right."
"Besides," Harry added, "as if I would let you dash into danger by yourself. You can get into trouble just walking down a corridor in the Ministry."
Draco gave him a softened look this time, along with a sweet smile, and nodded. "That's right," he said.
He was close behind Harry when they went out the door for some reason, hovering as if he thought there was already danger from this particular investigation. Harry shook his head in confusion. Draco was shifting from mood to mood, and he wasn't sure what would happen next.
The one thing he was sure of—how intriguing Draco's warmth was, so close to him—was something he didn't want, or need, to think about.
"I wish I could help yeh, Harry," Hagrid said, sounding regretful. He handed over another rock cake, and Harry carefully dipped it in his tea to soften it before he tried to take a bite. Fang, old and grey around the jaws now, thumped his tail hopefully on the floor and stared at the rock cake in case Harry was too stupid to take the hint. "But the baby hippogriffs are right in the middle of the Forest now, yeh see, and I haven't heard of any problems with the adults. So I don't think it's here."
Harry nodded, and glanced sideways to see how Draco was getting on. Draco was sitting with his legs hunched up until they almost touched his chest, glaring at every surface in the cottage where the dust, cobwebs, or sheer clutter of stone and wooden objects might creep up on him. He noticed Harry looking and fixed him with another burning stare.
Harry bit his lip and looked back at Hagrid. "Have you heard anything about hippogriffs elsewhere? If you could give us any help at all, that would really help—I mean, it would give us a clue." He could feel Draco's withering look for being so repetitive. He always received those, and over the last few months, he had done what he could to reduce them and sound more articulate.
Hagrid fidgeted in his seat, stared into his tea, and otherwise gave the poor performance he always did when he needed to lie and couldn't. "No," he said, completely unconvincingly. "I wouldn't know that, not at all!"
Draco started to say something. Harry made a little twisting motion with his wrist to warn him to shut up and smiled wistfully at Hagrid. "You're sure? It could be really important."
Beads of sweat started out on Hagrid's forehead. He looked at his tea, at Fang, and then at the walls, as if they would advise him. Even Draco was smart enough to sit quietly this time, and Harry went on trying to soften the rock cake enough that it wouldn't break his teeth.
"All right," Hagrid said hoarsely. He stood up and peered suspiciously out the windows before he shut them. Then he leaned close. Harry nodded encouragingly and glanced at Draco from the corner of his eye to make sure he would stay out of it. Once again, Draco was watching the threatened assault of the dust and appeared to notice nothing. Harry's heart swelled with pride. Draco was doing pretty well for being in a house with someone he feared and disliked.
"There's this new breeding program going on," Hagrid whispered. "In a warded compound in the Shetland Isles. But I didn't tell yeh."
"Of course not," Harry said. "And you couldn't tell us how to get there, either, could you? I'm sure it's knowledge not in your head."
That was too complex for poor Hagrid, who wrinkled his forehead and then stared at Harry as if he were speaking riddles. Harry sighed and gave in. "You could tell us the way there if you wanted," he said. "And in return, we wouldn't tell anyone else that you said it. Or anything at all," he added, looking at Draco. Draco grimaced, but nodded.
"Oh," said Hagrid, and gave them the Apparition coordinates.
They arrived on a mound of rock in the middle of a swift wind and swifter rain. Harry promptly drew his cloak around his face and cast spells that ought to warm them and shelter them from the weather. He shook his head wryly at Draco, who was fumbling for his hood with a look of shock. He didn't know if Draco hadn't ever heard about the Shetland Isles or just expected every place they were to conform to his will, which was that it be calm and sunny.
I find even that lovable. Merlin, I do have it bad.
"Come on!" he shouted, leaning in so that his words would make it to Draco. "We can't be far from the edge of the sanctuary, and once we're inside the wards, it should be calmer. They couldn't rear hippogriffs in this weather."
Draco's reply, something about how people who were mad enough to come here in the first place were mad enough to do anything, vanished in the wind. Harry took his arm and led him forwards, stepping carefully from one lump of stone to the other. He knew the Shetlands were islands, but it seemed as though this one consisted of a large number of very small and separate rocks.
They crossed what had to be the border of the sanctuary, because suddenly the wind was gone and the cloak around Harry's face became uncomfortably warm. He dropped it and stared around in wonder. Draco, beside him, gaped until Harry made a little shutting motion towards his jaw. It was fine for him to be undignified, but he knew Draco would hate it if he looked that way.
The wizards who bred hippogriffs here had not only warmed the air and cast spells to hold the storms at bay, they had changed the ground. This looked far too reminiscent of the Forbidden Forest and the field where Hagrid's hut stood to be a coincidence. Harry headed towards the cluster of small buildings nearby, wondering if they would find someone he knew there.
Then he realized Draco was still standing in one place and staring, and turned around to see what had frozen him.
The most enormous—herd? flock? Harry thought about it for a minute and decided to call them a group—of hippogriffs was feeding on a mixed pile of what looked like meat and grass not far away. Their flanks gleamed roan, chestnut, grey, and sometimes black. Their wings trembled over their backs, tipped with white and sometimes with blood. One of them pinned a haunch of animal flesh to the ground with a talon as Harry watched and ripped gobbets free from it, pausing to shake its head each time, so that bits of its meal flew away to coat the grass.
Harry thought he knew what the problem might be. He touched Draco's arm. "Are you going to be all right?" he asked softly.
Draco stared at him, and then asked, "What in the world do you mean? Why would this be any harder for me than you?" His voice adopted the sneer that he used when he thought someone was insulting him but he couldn't see how.
"Because a hippogriff attacked you once," Harry said, frowning. How could Draco have forgotten that when the incident was clear in Harry's own mind, clearer than ever since he and Draco had become partners? "I just wondered if bad memories were coming back to you now that you saw them."
Draco ducked his head so that he and Harry were more eye to eye. "No," he whispered, but his voice had changed and the sneer had vanished. "No. But it's good that you remember it," he added, still looking at Harry.
Harry nodded, feeling the same intensity that had crackled between them that day in the office when Draco held him against the wall, and not understanding why it would be here. They weren't alone, and there was no way that they could touch each other in some indecent way without it being remarked.
Not that that's the most important thing, Harry thought scoldingly to himself. The most important is, or should be, that you don't want to cheat on Ginny. He tore his gaze away from Draco and saw a tall witch with long dark hair approaching them from the nearest hut. A pair of boarhounds walked at her side. They were so similar to Fang that Harry was immediately sure they were his puppies.
"Greetings, ma'am," Harry said, the safest mode of address until he figured out who she was. "We're here because we learned that—"
"Draco?" the woman interrupted him, staring at Draco.
"Millicent?" Draco said, in the same tone, and then he and the woman were standing closer together and embracing. The boarhounds moved their tails in slow, confused patterns, then sat down and stared at Harry, because they seemed convinced that he was the main threat here.
Confused, Harry looked at the woman and finally noticed the resemblance in her nose and jaw to the Millicent Bulstrode he had known at Hogwarts. She had grown, and she was no longer as brutish or as stupid-looking. Harry had never known that she was that interested in Care of Magical Creatures, though. She had dropped it in sixth year like everyone else.
And, Harry thought, Draco was embracing her for far too long. He felt the familiar bile-like taste of jealousy invading his throat again, and coughed, while staring obviously at the hippogriffs. The black one feeding on the deer haunch, or whatever it was, looked up at them and then returned to its kill, horse tail lashing once.
Draco and Bulstrode separated, with a final smile from her and a touch from him that Harry could have done without. Draco turned to Harry and touched Bulstrode's arm as he presented her, for all the world as if they were at a formal party. "Harry, permit me to introduce Millicent Bulstrode. She was in Slytherin—"
"I remember her," Harry said.
"And you bear me a grudge of some sort, it seems." Bulstrode pushed her hair back behind her shoulders and reached out to touch the collars of the boarhounds, never taking her eyes from him. "But I can remember doing nothing to you that would substantiate such a grudge."
Harry noticed the way Draco was staring at him, and got his temper under control. They were here to investigate a case. They were not here to scowl at each other or think about things they could never have.
Or go on dates, he thought, but that was unfair for the way Draco was touching Bulstrode. From the way he hugged her, their last meeting had been a friendly one, and Harry had seen how hard it was for Draco to make friends among the Aurors. Though it felt as if he were forcing a piece of iron to bend, he managed to smile.
"Sorry," he said. "I was on edge, assuming the owners of the herd would be hostile." He glanced at Draco, and found his eyes bright and curious. Harry looked back at Bulstrode, and cursed the sensitivity that made every brush of Draco's gaze tangible to him. "Hippogriff feathers are involved in a murder case. Would you mind showing us a list of all your customers for the last month?"
Bulstrode gave him an amused glance. "Yes, in fact, I would, Potter. You'll notice that I've taken some precautions here. You couldn't have got through the wards at all if you didn't have accurate Apparition coordinates and a Slytherin with you."
"Former Slytherin," Harry said, and knew his voice was all wrong, quick and harsh. He looked down and said sharply, "Draco, you're her friend. Will you explain the situation to her and see if you have more success?"
Draco did so, while Harry kicked stones and kicked grass and kicked pebbles and wished that he could kick Bulstrode. But whenever he so much as glanced in her direction, the boarhounds, who had decided that he was definitely a threat, showed their fangs. Harry found he was better off fixing his gaze on his boots.
Somehow, Draco wheedled a small list of five names out of Bulstrode and carried it towards Harry, waving it in triumph. "These are the likely people who bought hippogriff feathers," he said. "She remembers that they were all connected to the man who was murdered, and she's sure that one of them must at least know what happened to the feathers, even if they didn't commit the murder."
Harry nodded, trying to cheer himself up. They had the names, and he'd only had to put up with Draco flaunting himself—
Unfair, he thought again, and the realization that he might be making Draco unhappy finally checked his behavior.
"Sorry," he muttered. "I know I acted like an arse back there."
"I never said I minded," Draco said.
Harry had time for a single startled glance before Draco seized his arm and Apparated him to a new destination.
By the end of the day, Harry had been through so many small and smoking houses, illegal gambling rooms, equally illegal Potions labs, and shops in Knockturn Alley that he could eagerly have gone home to Ginny, despite the loss of time with Draco that that would mean.
Part of it was feeling so absurdly stupid. Draco would ask questions that practically reeked of intelligence and follow the long, complicated answers that the brewers or shopkeepers or "talkers"—the term had some meaning in relation to Potions, but Harry didn't know what—gave with thoughtful nods. Then he would ask another question, often getting a smile of approval when he did so, or at least a look of surprise.
Usually, they traded roles more than once during the day. Instead, Harry just got to stand there, scowling, and trying not to let his scar show so much. Of course, people who were willing to talk to Aurors anyway probably weren't that much more intimidated by him, and he got more than one stare that said they knew who he was.
Scowling at them like I did at Bulstrode, Harry thought, kicking at the cobblestones as they made their way out of Knockturn Alley. I'm useless.
"Don't look so gloomy, Potter." Draco laughed at him, practically dancing at his side. "We've eliminated two of the suspects that Millicent gave us, and we're making all sorts of useful contacts."
"We are?" Harry asked without much hope. "And what do you mean, we've eliminated two of the suspects?" he added, with more energy. Draco hadn't told him about that when it happened.
"Yes," Draco said. "It has to do with the way the hippogriff feathers were crushed in the victim's mouth. Two of our suspects don't prepare them like that. Out of those who do, there are two who might have a motive, and one who I think is unlikely but might have passed the feathers on to the killer." He was smiling now and returned Harry's incredulous glance with a look so smug that Harry wanted to punch it off his face.
"I don't understand that," Harry said, scratching the back of his skull and hoping that boredom wasn't the sort of thing that would kill him by a slow process of itching.
"That was manifestly obvious," Draco murmured.
"How do we know that the hippogriff feathers weren't just crushed by the pressure of the victim's mouth?" Harry pursued doggedly. "They could have been. They were packed in there pretty tightly, the report said."
"Yes." Draco stopped to peer ahead, as if he were checking into Diagon Alley for danger. "But that wouldn't have damaged their veins, or darkened them, in the particular way the report said they had been darkened. They were used as Potions ingredients first." He turned his head to the side and smirked at Harry. "Of course, it took someone trained in Potions, and good at them, to spot that."
"I was trained in Potions, too," Harry muttered. He knew he sounded like a little boy and didn't care. This was one more example of Draco being smarter than he was, more learned, and Harry felt as though he couldn't compete or catch up.
"That's why I added that second qualifier." Draco looked at him again and burst out laughing, a rich sound that made Harry smile unwillingly in spite of himself. "Come on, Harry, drop that sulky look! I'm sure that a case will come along where you can help me as much as I've helped you today."
Harry had to admit that was true, and he sighed a bit less sulkily as he stepped up beside Draco. It helped that Draco had called him by his first name, something he still didn't do very often. "I sometimes wonder why you want to stay partnered with me. I'm not as consistently good as you are."
Draco stared at him with eyes that appeared to darken as Harry watched. "Do you really not know?" he whispered.
"Tell me," Harry said. He knew he shouldn't as he said it, and like the moment when Draco had him pressed up against the wall, he recklessly wanted this to continue anyway.
Draco bit his lip. "Well, because—"
A bolt of scarlet light cut the night from a roof near the end of Diagon Alley, and Harry was moving before it hit, rolling over, arms around Draco, and drawing his Auror robe over them both so that it could provide a measure of protection.
Someone laughed, above them, and Harry heard the murmur of another spell. But he couldn't deal with that right away, because he was a bit busy dealing with the fact that the edge of the cloak had caught fire and Draco was making grunts of pain beneath him.
Anger made the world clear. Harry tossed his robe off and cast a charm that would strangle the flames by taking away their air even as he drew Draco close against him with one arm. "How badly are you hurt?" he asked, hating the time the request took, but knowing that he would heal Draco first if he was in life-threatening danger.
Draco spoke in a voice shortened by agony. "My collarbone's broken, I think—"
Another bolt of scarlet light. Harry had thought the first one was a Stunner, but of course it couldn't be, not if it caught things on fire and curled like a whip when it first came down, instead of advancing as a straight line. Harry raised a Flexible Shield above them, not large but in the right position to catch the light and devour it.
Then he lowered his wand to touch Draco's neck and gave him the most powerful "healing" charm he could in the circumstances: the Whisper of Peace. Draco gasped as the magic flooded him with bliss to counter the effects of the pain, and he leaned back heavily on Harry, eyelashes fluttering.
Harry looked up at the roof where the spells had come from. No sign of their assailant, and his night vision had never been that good, even without the glasses spoiling things.
He had to crouch there, head already buzzing with fatigue and worry, and try to work out calmly what the attacker would do next. He'd laughed, which suggested that he didn't care about them figuring out where he was. Overconfident? Or just that powerful?
Harry set aside the question as something to figure out later, because he didn't have enough information for right now, and then thought about the magic he'd used. Quick, strong, unusual. That meant Harry should use the same sorts of spells to counter him.
Barely moving his lips, just in case they had a powerful criminal who could see in the dark and lip-read in addition to all his other talents, Harry set shields up around him and Draco. They would stay motionless and invisible until the moment when a hostile spell came near them, and then they had the ability to spread themselves across the air and absorb a blow if necessary. Then Harry enchanted the cobblestones beneath them, and the wall across from them, and the air above their heads.
That didn't take very long, but by the time he finished the last spell, he did wonder if perhaps that attack had been a simple opportunity strike. Maybe the wizard had run away after he was done striking at them.
Then the air next to Harry lit up with a sharp blast of what looked like white water, and he doubted it. Two of his shields reached out, touched, overlapped, and then sent the water leaping back in a rush and roar of light. The stones beneath it turned to slag. Harry swallowed.
"I can sense what you feel for him, you know," said a casual voice above them, and then another laugh followed.
Harry looked up. There was a figure in a cloak that made him look half-grey watching them from the nearest building. Harry held his breath. Come just a little closer to the edge of the roof, you bastard.
For the moment, at least, their attacker showed no compulsion to do so. He grinned—there was the flash of his own fading spell off disconcertingly bright teeth—and nodded. "I know that you love him," he said. "That's why I'm here."
Harry shivered, glad that he had given Draco the spell he had so that Draco wouldn't overhear or remember this conversation. Of course, that was a pathetic thing to think, and he rallied to respond, "Are you his old lover, then?"
Another laugh, and a second rush of white water. This time, two of the shields curving beneath and above them absorbed the backlash. Harry noticed nervously that the shields were already displaying cracks.
"Don't be ridiculous," the voice said. "I'm here because I can sense it, and once I kill you or him, then the buzzing will go away."
A madman. It would be. Harry would have liked to send a Patronus, and he probably should have done it in the first place, but he couldn't do it now without lowering their shields. And their retreat was blocked by anti-Apparition wards that Harry had helped set up himself a year ago, when he was still a trainee, to keep criminals emerging from Knockturn Alley from easy escape. It was a frustrating place to be caught.
And near the place where they found Stegton's body.
Harry stared up into the darkness again. He didn't know if this was a coincidence or really their murderer tipping his hand, but Auror training had taught him to disbelieve in that kind of coincidence.
"I came for him, I come for you, I sense it," the voice chanted from above, removing the last of Harry's doubt, and another spell struck the shields, though this time hard enough that Harry couldn't even see what it looked like; the crash against the shields made his head ring and his sight blur.
Harry bowed his head, shielding Draco with his body, and heard hisses over his hair, with flashes of heat passing near his face, but nothing actually landing and stinging. He wanted to capture this man, not kill him, if it was their killer, but protecting Draco was still the most important thing he needed to do.
How could he do both when he would need to break free of his defenses to launch an effective offensive strike?
Then Harry smiled. His training had taught him that, too. When a situation seemed impossible to handle in a normal way, what did you do?
You go in an unexpected direction.
He dropped flat, arranging Draco so that he lay draped over Harry's chest, and waved his wand. The stones underneath them creaked and groaned, disrupting the protections Harry had put on them, but that was only one layer. The shields were still holding out, and the voice was cackling and calling now from the edge of the building on which its owner crouched, meaning Harry could trigger the next trap.
He whispered the incantation that would do it at the same time as he wrapped his arms even more firmly around Draco and pressed his face into Harry's chest.
There was a shriek as coils of wire shot out from among the bricks and curled around the criminal's feet. That wouldn't hold him for long, Harry thought, especially since he knew unusual magic, but they would slow him down a bit.
Meanwhile, the cobblestones rose around them in a wave of churning mud and then sucked them under the street.
Harry had only cast this spell in training sessions, never with his life and his partner's hanging on it. That didn't matter. Once again, danger to Draco clarified and settled his thoughts, and he snapped the next part of it nonverbally, clenching his fingers around his wand as earth tried to flow into his mouth.
Draco whimpered against his chest. Harry intended to perform the spells fast enough so that they wouldn't have to spend long underground and Draco could breathe. He thought he was doing it quickly enough—
And then he was, because he felt the spell picking them up and whirling them along and sideways. And up.
The Moving Earth Spell depended on the fact that most things on the earth were connected to the earth. Trees ran their roots down into it. Water lay within it. Roads lay on it.
And so did the foundations of buildings.
Harry and Draco exploded out of the roof that their attacker stood on, right behind him. Harry aimed his wand as Draco groaned in discomfort, grateful to hear him take a breath of clean air, and the attacker gasped and whirled about.
He was a young man, with a long black beard and wild, wide eyes, and a stink like someone who hadn't bathed in weeks, and that was all Harry had time to notice before his Stunner knocked the man down.
He lay where he was for a minute, clearing away the dirt from Draco's mouth and nose with sweeps of his hand while he studied the man to make sure that he wouldn't suddenly revive again. Draco moaned. Harry pulled back to study his face, and found that his Whisper of Peace must have dissipated, because Draco was staring at him with dawning confusion and pain.
"What happened?" he whispered.
"Sorry," Harry said, because he suddenly realized that he was lying close to Draco and enjoying it far too much. He yanked himself back and rose on his fingertips, stretching his legs out, ignoring Draco's bright, almost ravenous stare. "I used the Moving Earth Spell to bring us up through the house and behind him. And it looks like this might just be the one who killed Stegton."
Draco smiled, then winced and touched his collarbone. "Only you, Potter," he said. "I'll need you to explain that to me again when we're both coherent." He sniffed and looked down at his robe sleeve, where dirt was ingrained along the cuff. "And clean."
"Only you, Draco," Harry retorted, and called his Patronus.
"From what we can tell, this man—called Garth Newnham, by the way—is a victim of one of Stegton's love potions."
Draco nodded as if he understood what Wellington was talking about. Harry didn't, and because he knew that people expected him to be less intelligent than Draco in the first place, he felt free to ask. "If he loved Stegton, whether by potion or not, why would he want to kill him?"
Wellington shook her head. "As I suspect you probably know, Auror Potter, having been a target of them yourself—"
Harry got a wry look from Draco, which he ignored. It wasn't as though he was unintelligent enough to eat the sweets or consume the "tea" that certain parties still insisted on sending him through the post. Give me that much credit, at least.
"Love potions cannot truly initiate love. They create lust instead. However, the problem with this particular potion is that it was badly-made, or else Stegton lost interest before adding a crucial last ingredient." Wellington waved her arm. "We can't learn much from Newnham himself. The potion has deranged him. But our brewers will test him and see what they can learn about the potion from his blood."
"I'll wager," Draco drawled, his eyes half-shut, "that you'll learn the missing ingredient was hippogriff feathers."
Wellington nodded to Draco, while Harry tried not to stare at him in admiration. "You are more than likely correct, Auror Malfoy. It seems that Newnham retains a bit of rationality. After he killed Stegton, he remained in the area, and he was carrying hippogriff feathers in his pockets. According to him, he was waiting for people he could 'sense.'"
"What does that mean?" Harry asked, feeling his pulse increase. Newnham had said several things during the fight that could mean the worst for Harry, and he didn't dare look at Draco.
"Apparently, he can sense people in love," Wellington said. "The botched potion gave him that ability, and since Stegton seems to have fallen in love frequently, it probably has something to do with how Newnham tracked him down. When he sensed true love, he struck." She gave Harry a gentle smile. "He probably felt your love for your wife, Auror Potter."
"Yeah, of course," Harry muttered. He was the only one who knew that couldn't be true, because he didn't want Ginny in that burning, passionate way.
When he looked at Draco, Draco looked totally normal. He asked a few more questions about potions information that Wellington answered, and then they could leave the office.
They walked slowly down the corridor, and then Draco put out his arm. Harry looked up warily.
Draco stared at him from less than an inch away, and his body vibrated with life. He looked as if he were close to reaching out and pulling Harry to him by the sleeves.
"I wasn't so unconscious or in so much pain that I didn't hear what Newnham said," he whispered, touching his Healed collarbone.
Harry hadn't expected his own panic to be so quiet. It was like being trampled by horses while he couldn't scream, couldn't run, couldn't do a bloody thing about it.
"He said that you loved him," Draco said. "Who is him?"
Harry wavered on the brink of destroying either his marriage—if he told the truth—or his partnership—if he lied about this, said the quivering vulnerability on Draco's face, then Draco would never trust him again.
Or maybe he would destroy his partnership if he told the truth, too. Why would Draco want to work with someone he couldn't completely trust, someone who had kept this secret this long?
Well, at least Ginny will get what she wants and the Aurors will break our partnership up, Harry thought with as much humor as he still possessed while he drew in a deep breath and took the only course he could.
"You," he said. "It's you."
Draco's eyes widened and blazed with something Harry couldn't name. Then he shut his face down and whirled around, striding in the opposite direction, away from Harry, away from the corridor that led to their office. By the time he reached the nearest corner, he was running, back tight with rejection.
Harry shut his eyes. The destruction of one's heart could be quiet, too.
That was the third step.
