Teddy was quiet, and it was all wrong. Teddy was an energetic, rambunctious, smiling child that never stopped moving except to pass out each night. He wasn't meant to sit and stare listlessly into his food.
Narcissa shared a concerned look over the table with Draco. "Teddy, is there anything you want to do this afternoon?" Teddy shrugged, poking at his fish. Narcissa looked up at Draco again. "Would you like to see the gardens?" He just shrugged again.
Draco caught his mother's eye and nodded. Teddy needed to be outside again. When the boy pushed his half-full plate away, she got him up and led him outside by the hand.
"How's Harry going with the investigation?" Charlie asked quietly.
Draco frowned, rubbing his forehead. "Not…too well, I think. I get the impression that his contacts don't stretch that far into the remaining would-be Death Eaters." He sneered at the last words. "He isn't all that keen on sharing."
"Not even at the best of times," Charlie agreed with a sigh.
"No, and especially now." He pushed back from the table and stood. "I'll see you at dinner, Charlie."
"Yeah, I'll see if I can't find something to do."
"Feel free to use the library," Draco said from the door. He heard Charlie grunt in acknowledgement as he left, climbing the stairs to his father's study.
He felt like the world was weighing down on him with every step.
A glint of scales caught his eye as he passed a window. A massive Hungarian Horntail was curled up in the back garden, half behind the ivy screen. Draco changed course to go sit with it.
"Harry?" he said softly, coming up on the dragon. Harry puffed smoke out of his nostrils and shifted one wing to the side. Draco sat and leaned against his flank, so Harry shifted the wing back to cover him like a leathery tent. "Nothing new?"
Harry hummed, his flank vibrating against Draco's back. Draco ran a hand across his scales, feeling the shift from hard, sharp amour to the softer, smoother scales of his belly. Thunder rumbled faintly through the sky and raindrops began to fall. Harry lifted his wing to cover Draco entirely, curling further so his head was by Draco's legs.
"We'll think of something," he said quietly, rubbing the bony crest over Harry's eye. "We'll never give up on Reggie."
Harry hummed deep in his chest again.
Harry shifted, unable to sleep. Everything touching him was too much. The sheets, his clothes, Draco' head on his chest, it itched and burned. He moved Draco gently to the side and sat up, moving to stand by the open window. The cold October air should have chilled him quickly, but it barely felt cool.
Shit. Not now.
"Harry?" Draco murmured, half-asleep. "What's wrong?"
"Are the glowing?" he asked suddenly, turning on a heel to face him.
"What?"
"My eyes. Are they glowing."
"Um," Draco shook himself awake and peered closely at him, "a bit?"
"No," he groaned as he ran his hands through his hair, clenching and pulling. "I can't deal with an overflow right now!"
Draco gasped. "An overflow!" He stared at Harry with wide eyes, the kind of expression that appeared in the middle of a sudden revelation.
"What?"
"Reggie's magic," Draco breathed. "It was unstable already when-"
"When he was taken," Harry finished, going stock still. Fuck! He leapt into action, snatching Tom's portrait from the desk and ripping it open.
"Harry, what the hell!" Tom exclaimed indignantly.
"Could unstable magic rip wards?" he demanded in a rush. Tom stared at him, and Harry growled. "Unstable, untrained, mixed magic, in an overflow, could it rip wards?!"
"What are you talking about?"
Fuck, Tom! Harry growled and threw the portrait across the room, where it thumped into Draco's chest as he scrambled to catch it. He barely noticed Draco explaining as he paced.
"Harry has all your magic, I think, or your Horcrux's magic, but it's all Dark and it doesn't react well with his all the time," he was saying. "It destabilises and overflows once a year, and he has to burn it out as Fiendfyre. Reggie has the same problem, it just started last year. He has too much magic and he can't deal with it all."
"How did you handle it last year?" Tom asked, all serious now.
"Harry?"
Harry took the portrait back. "I took it into myself. It triggered my overflow. Would his be enough to break wards?"
Tom frowned, deep in thought. "How much damage would yours do?"
"I could flatten the Ministry if I wanted to."
"And if you didn't control it?"
"I would obliterate Hogwarts," Harry said flatly. He could hear Draco choke in the background. "I…don't know how much power Reggie has," he admitted. "I wasn't really thinking about it at the time."
"He probably could," Tom said slowly, "as long as he isn't anywhere with ancient wards. But Harry," he looked up, "you'll probably need to be there when it starts. Before he hurts himself."
SHIT! He rubbed his forehead, hard. "There has to be some way we can find him!"
"Do…would you object to using a Dark ritual?" Tom asked carefully.
"Do…would you object to using a Dark ritual?"
Draco watched Harry closely. He knew Harry said that he sometimes used Dark magic, but basic spells and the rituals were entirely different beings.
"Just tell me," Harry growled.
"Draco," Draco startled when Tom called him and beckoned him closer. "I left a few books in your father's study. In his Dark Arts collection. Show Harry, you will need his wand and your blood."
Draco took Harry by the hand and tore off through the Manor, Harry hard on his heels. He threw open the door to the study and dragged Harry over to the far bookcase. Grabbing the letter opener off the desk, he cut open his palm and pressed it to the top shelf. Harry tapped it with his wand, and the bookcase disappeared, creating a doorway to a small room full of ancient tomes.
"Find Rituals of Families Ancient," Tom ordered, pointing to the back of the room. "Look for the ritual called 'Returning the Childe.'"
Harry tore through the book, searching for the right page. He paused, scanning the page, then reading more carefully.
"Harry?" Draco asked.
"Damn it Tom," Harry hissed. "You'd better have left something else around here, because we might find ourselves a little short on your blood!"
"Back shelf," Tom gestured to a silver ring, shaped like a coiled cobra, tucked away in the corner. "It was one of my favourites, it will work."
"Good." Harry slammed the dusty book shut and grabbed the ring, dragging Draco out of the hidden room. "Now I have to destroy half your garden."
Harry stood on shaky legs at the end of the ritual, his bare chest covered in blood and slowly healing cuts. Draco stared at him, a slash of pale on the scorched ground, nearly grey with fear and he clutched Tom's portrait.
None of that mattered. Not now that he could feel Reggie's magic, attached to his like a tether. He sank into it, touching Reggie's core and consciousness, feeling what he was feeling.
He was in a smallish space, surrounded by Dark magical cores. Motionless but not dead, they must have been sleeping. None of them were weak, but all of them together couldn't hold a candle to Harry when he let go. Powerful wards surrounded him, but they were all made to defend against outside attacks, not internal pressure. He could already feel the boy's magic roiling inside him like a storm. If Reggie went into meltdown mode, the building would be vaporised.
It wouldn't get that far. No, Harry was coming to get him, wand blazing, and woe be to any that stood in his way. They would soon learn why Antonin Dolohov's remains had been delivered in a jar.
"I know where he is," he said, and he did, even if it wasn't exactly Apparation coordinates. He would find his son. He looked at Draco carefully. "Kreacher," he called.
"Master Harry called," the elf said, bowing as he appeared.
"Bring me the wands from the family artefact room," he ordered.
"All of them, Master?" the elf questioned, looking at him curiously.
"No, just the-" he began, but Tom interrupted him.
Harry, take it, he said. You need it.
Harry glanced at him and nodded. "Yes, Kreacher. All of them."
The elf popped away for an instant before reappearing, three wands in his hand. Harry handed over his holly wand and accepted the Elder Wand in its place. He took up the next, a length of hawthorn, holding it gently before handing it to Draco.
"Harry, I can't-" Draco stuttered, but Harry just shoved it into his hand.
"Take it. You're coming with me and I won't let you be unarmed." Draco nodded, his expression going hard as he wrapped his hand around it.
Harry hesitated at the third wand. It was one he was never quite comfortable with keeping. He had never wanted to use it. He hadn't even wanted to use the Elder Wand, much less this one.
Take it, Tom insisted. It's already tainted with Death.
Harry picked up the last wand with a shudder, feeling the taint of it creep over his skin. The part of his magic that was Voldemort's roared through him, overjoyed at being reunited with his wand. The bone-white length of yew looked so wrong in his left hand, the Elder Wand in his right, but he gripped them both tightly and dismissed Kreacher.
Draco met his eyes with determination. "Ready?"
"Let's go," he replied. He closed his eyes and dropped into his core, feeling his magic burn and boil around him, wrapping himself in dragonfire and scales, fanning his wings as he settled into his Horntail body. Draco hauled himself up, strapping himself into the harness Harry wore, slapping his neck as a signal.
Harry roared and launched himself into the air, painting the night sky with a column of fire.