At last the afternoon which would see the press conference to announce Andromeda Tonks as the new head of Slytherin House and spokesperson for issues affecting young Slytherins had arrived.

"Will you be coddling them?" one reporter jeered, half-jokingly and Andromeda turned her fiercest Grandmother look on him.

"I will be keeping them in line, rest assured of that. I feel what they need most at this time is encouragement, but that doesn't mean I'm incapable of discipline." Andromeda flicked her eyes up and down the reporter's body. "Would you like a demonstration?" she said sweetly, batting her eyelashes in a way that forty years ago would have stopped traffic.

The reporter spluttered in a way that made his colleagues jeer him in their turn, and Andromeda winked at Harry. Al smiled at him, and Harry did his best to return the smile. Neither smile was quite sincere; Al had seen blood for the first time in his life and Harry had finally realised that he wouldn't be able to protect his son.

Ginny had been right, after all. But Al would never leave Hogwarts now, and she'd been right about that, too – Al was going to do what Harry would have done.

Harry tried to focus on something else, but that wasn't much better. Draco and Astoria were on the other side of the room, projecting an air of the perfect couple which Harry just didn't quite believe. It made sense for Astoria to support her husband at a time like this, Harry supposed, but if she had wanted to get out of the way of all the publicity, this was rather counter-productive. And where had she been? No one had ever answered that question to Harry's satisfaction.

"Hey, Harry!" said Rhiona, approaching him from nowhere.

Harry snapped to attention, and greeted her gladly. "Rhiona! I never thanked you properly for the flowers."

She blushed a little and smiled. "The least I could do for someone who gave my career such a huge break."

"Thank Pansy," Harry said, Rhiona making him smile despite all the turmoil. "Al, this is Rhiona Henngan."

"You wrote that article?" Al asked.

"That's right," Rhiona smiled. "I hope you liked it."

Al shrugged, a little lifeless.

"I heard you saw what happened," Rhiona said softly.

Harry frowned. "Are you trying to get a quote from my son?"

Rhiona's eyes widened. "No, Harry, no! I just… I'm sorry."

Harry ruffled his hair in frustration.

"I'm sorry Rhiona, I'm just on edge."

"Of course," Rhiona said, but she didn't smile again. She looked away for a moment and then said, "Did you see the statement the Auror office released about the Pinewood girl?"

Harry shook his head. Ron wouldn't have thought to send that to him, having already told him the gist of what had happened. "I'd like to read it."

"Of course," Rhiona said. "Here, we've got a dozen copies in the office." She handed him a piece of paper from her briefcase. He took it, but she didn't let go for a moment until he looked into her face. "I'm just trying to help," she said softly, and then she left.

Harry sighed. Al was getting restless and finally said, "Dad, I'm going to the toilet."

Harry had already been accused of smothering his son twice since the sobbing of the previous day had subsided, so he said simply, "All right, Al."

It was lucky that Al wasn't there when Harry stared to read the press release.

All the information Harry already knew was there, of course, plus statements from the Head Auror (Harry had never liked Dawlish) and Minister for Magic, who "supported the swift, decisive action of the DMLE", which Harry recognised as politician-speak for, "They never bloody asked and now I'm stuck with it."

At the bottom of the page was the picture of Rosemary Pinewood's mother. And there it was, the siren going off in his head – he'd seen that woman before. In the corridor at the DMLE and, now he remembered, in Draco's office.

Marcus Flint, Daniel's father, was an old friend. Astoria had reappeared. The Pinewood family had vanished into the Muggle world, untraceable.

All these tiny things were coming together and blowing the roof off Harry's mind, and he was sick to his stomach with just the thought of it. But he knew it the way he'd always known who was guilty and who wasn't, his lie detection honed from years and years in the Auror office, and he knew.

"Draco," Harry said, smoothly interrupting Draco's conversation with Kingsley Shacklebolt, even smiling politely at Astoria in her champagne-silk robes, "could I speak with you for just a moment?"

Draco said immediately, "Of course, Harry."

Even the use of his first name was a lie.

Harry led Draco to an empty office to the side of the main hall and closed the door behind them. "iMuffliato/i."

Draco looked at him. "I'm not sure what…"

"It was you," Harry whispered.

Draco frowned a little. "I don't…"

"What happened. What happened at Hogwarts." Harry swallowed, desperate not to have to continue but unable to stop. "I don't know how, but… it was because of you."

"Harry?" said Draco softly. "What are you talking about?"

"The woman in your office. Marcus Flint and Pansy Parkinson. All the people you know, and now this and you're involved in the clean up." Harry swallowed against the rising bile and when he spoke again he was pleading. "Tell me you didn't do this."

Draco opened his mouth, but Harry had seen the truth in the split second it took for his face to deny it. "How could you do it?" Harry felt sick again. "Innocent students – what about the girl Rosemary, she…"

"Innocent!" Draco exploded suddenly. "Yes, you would think a student who fired a spell marked 'For enemies' at a fellow student was innocent."

A stunned silence followed.

"Don't you dare," breathed Harry. "Not after all this, don't you dare…"

"Why not?" Draco snapped. "The scar hasn't faded, you saw it. And you never said you were sorry, you were so damn self-righteous."

Harry's head ached. He felt like he was back in that horrible conversation with Ginny, the one that ended their marriage; he felt bewildered and as though his inability to grasp something essential was why everything around him was collapsing. The only difference was, this time he wasn't miserable so much as furious.

"Do you really think," he forced out, "any of that justifies hurting a child?"

"No!" Draco practically screamed. "I think the fact that eleven-year-olds are suffering for things we did before they were so much as conceived justifies anything that makes it stop!"

Harry had no answer for that.

"Oh, that motive isn't Slytherin enough for you?" Draco spat. "I've got plenty of selfish reasons as well, if that helps. I want to be respectable again, I want being a Malfoy to be a blessing to my son and not a curse, I want being Slytherin to stand for something other than self preservation. Pureblood is an epithet now, Slytherin doubly so, and I helped cause that and I'm the only one with the slightest chance of undoing it! And if I can, if I manage it, then I didn't roll over and let the last wizarding traditions die. So you tell me what that isn't worth!"

"It isn't worth destroying a child's life-"

"Which child? The 'victim' will have all his medical expenses paid, and a lovely career as a spokesman and poster boy for standing up against discrimination – and he gives his housemates a shot at a future. The perpetrator will get a ticket to Durmstrang and her parents a fat bag of Galleons. And both of them will still have more of a future than they ever did before."

"The perpetrator was your wife!" Harry snarled.

The words shocked them both. Harry hadn't realised until he said it, but it was true, he could feel it. That was what they had been hiding.

Draco's face slipped into a mask. "That's ridiculous."

"Is it? A third year student did it and she's been away just over two years, she never told anyone where." Harry spat and he felt now like he was throwing up, an endless torrent of words that would never stop, "All your talk of how it was hard but you were doing the right thing - don't lie to me, I'm tired of it."

"She is my wife and I will not betray her," Draco said quietly.

Harry ignored him, his fury rising. "But how, how did you do it? You'd have to confound the Hogwarts registry, the Sorting Hat, you'd have to fake all of her records and then you'd have to be sure that the lie wouldn't ever be found out. You must have been setting this up for iyears/i, perpetrator and of course the victim…" Another thought and now Harry couldn't contain himself; he crossed the room in two strides, grabbed Malfoy by the front of his robes and shook him. "Was it supposed to be Al? iWere you going to do this to my son?/i"

"No!" Draco forced out. "To mine."

Harry stilled. He dropped Draco and forced himself to take a step back. "You were going to…"

Draco righted himself as best he could. "This was all for Scorpius. I was so sure that he'd be a Slytherin and that along with the Malfoy name would mean his life would never even start. He would have no chance, ever. And so we talked about it and he agreed and then we Obliviated him. And it turned out it was for nothing," he laughed, hollow and dead. "But Astoria said we should do it anyway, for all the others and that bit of damned Gryffindor thinking got us here."

Harry couldn't believe Draco would be so cold. "There were other ways…"

"I was working in the system – what have I achieved?" Draco's lip curled; he was trying to sneer but he just looked more desperate with his mouth twisted out of shape, pulling at his robes where Harry had grabbed him. "In fifteen years nothing I've tried has worked. Even you, you didn't give a damn about Slytherin until it affected your precious family!" Draco spoke in the tone of one who knows how deep words can cut and is choosing the sharpest in his arsenal. "And when you realised you didn't know what to do, who did you ask for help? Your passionate-with-a-cause Granger or her lapdog? No. Your wife? Did it never occur to you that working together for something to do with your children might revive your marriage? No, you came to me. The one person you knew would get results and wouldn't balk at what needed to be done. See that's the real trick with us Slytherins," Draco hissed, stepping towards Harry. "If you need something, we know how to apply the pressure, we know who to bribe and who to blackmail and you don't have to get your hands dirty. Because you knew, you knew I would do anything short of murder." Draco looked at him with accusation and spat, "Unlike you."

Killing Voldemort was hardly comparable. "You were going to torture your own son!"

"I didn't want to!" Draco screamed. "I didn't want to – the plan was he and I would change places but then everything else happened and there wasn't time."

Harry wiped his mouth. "And you think I'm a murderer? I'm beneath you?" He spat the pronoun the way he'd said Malfoy's name at Hogwarts – a dozen epithets and a declaration of hatred all in one word.

"No," Draco said quietly, all his fire gone. Now he just seemed exhausted, the way he always did when his passion had burned out and there was nothing to animate him. "But don't you see, there's never going to be an enemy like Voldemort again – one kind enough to be outright evil and stupid enough to let you point a wand at him. Now there's just red tape and paper work and bureaucracy and a whole world hating a quarter of itself. What I did," he concluded, not looking for understanding, just saying it, "it's going to help."

There was no solid ground in all the world. a Harry had never understood anyone he had ever loved. There was nothing that could make sense of this new, abominable discovery that Draco had betrayed him and he could almost understand why.

"I could tell them," he said, changing the subject, Draco's exhaustion contagious and seeping into his bones. "I could tell the papers it was all you."

"You could. But then it would all be for nothing." Draco's eyes searched Harry's. "The backlash will hit the Slytherins harder, all the steps towards understanding will be undone."

"It was a lie," Harry said hopelessly.

"Are you that naïve?" Draco asked, and he wasn't amused, wasn't mocking for once. If he'd looked smug at all perhaps that would have tipped Harry's answer but he just met Harry's eyes with a blank kind of curiosity. Harry held his gaze until he couldn't bear it any longer.

"I didn't think so," said Draco, his voice gentle.

A knock at the door. "Draco?" came Astoria's voice. "Scorpius is asking for us."

Harry looked back at Draco whose face was as composed as though they really had just been discussing their next step, who was smiling at his wife with tenderness in his face. "Just one minute," he said.

Astoria glanced between him and Harry, and said, "Of course, my love." She closed the door quietly.

Draco turned back to Harry. "I knew it would cost me you, if you ever found out," he admitted. "But there was too much else at stake." He laughed, hollow in his throat. "If I had just waited or if I had come to you before we decided this…" He shook his head and reached out with both his hands. "Harry, please."

Harry said nothing. He crossed his arms across his chest and couldn't bring himself to look at Draco again.

Draco swallowed. "That's what I thought." He didn't try to touch Harry again; he crossed to the other side of the room and opened the door.

"Goodbye," Draco whispered as he left the room.

Harry can honestly say that at this moment, he never wants to see Draco again. He is watching him with Astoria, playing the perfect husband. And maybe he is. Maybe he and Astoria understand each other.

Draco has turned everything Harry stood for into lies and Harry can't even hate him for it because Harry knows him now. He sees Draco with Scorpius and knows that he can't even fathom that kind of love. And then he looks at Al and he hopes like hell he never has to find out if he can do what Draco did.

Andromeda is talking now about the qualities of Slytherin house that have been overlooked since the second war. The reporters are taking notes and smiling, but Harry is remembering Andromeda saying, even the best of Slytherins will crawl over everyone else to get what they want.

Harry is holding onto Al's shoulder and looking at Draco Malfoy and he's thinking that his son might become this. He's helping change the reputation of a house that gives the world people who do whatever it takes, and although what Harry has done might make people think differently, make them more eager to trust, Harry doesn't think he'll ever be able to again.

Draco looks over at him with a deep sadness in his eyes. Harry feels nothing but revulsion.

Harry squeezes Al's shoulder again and Draco turns back to his wife and son and Harry knows that they both made their choices a long time ago.