Chapter Ten - Discordia Curse

Work the next day was hellish. Malfoy was nowhere to be seen, and when Harry finally worked up the courage to ask Sarah where he was, she gave him a knowing look and asked if they'd had a lover's tiff.

"No, nothing like that! He was working for me, and now the job's finished I wanted to ask him something," said Harry, his cheeks heating at his somewhat over-detailed response.

"Right," she said, looking utterly unconvinced.

"I– do you know where he is?" Harry said. Whatever she thought, he needed an answer.

"He's gone to Kendal, to investigate the wild magic holes," Sarah said, after giving Harry a searching look. "I'm sure you'll end up there soon enough, everyone else seems to have gone."

Harry wasn't sent that day though, as Robards asked him to conduct a quick case review with Ron first, to see if he could work out who was behind the escaping magic.

"So," said Ron, as he looked through the collection of parchments lying between them, "You and Malfoy, hey?" Harry groaned.

"Not you too," he said.

"Harry, you followed him around like a lovesick puppy all of yesterday, and you brought him coffee. And it didn't help that you went home together, either."

"The coffee did stop him whinging though, didn't it?" said Harry.

"Yes, and for that we are eternally grateful," said Ron. "But that's not what's important here, is it?"

"It doesn't matter, anyway," Harry said. "He's decided that it's too complicated. You know, working together and everything..." he trailed off when he saw the way that Ron was looking at him. "What?"

"It sounds like there is a you and Malfoy," Ron said. "I guess I hoped that I was wrong."

"Thanks!"

"Oh, it's not that I don't want you to be happy, mate, you know that. It's just... Malfoy?" Harry shrugged. It didn't make sense, but Malfoy was just... exactly who he wanted. He was pretty sure that Ron wouldn't like the details, so he didn't say anything. Ron sighed. "We should probably get back to this," he said, unrolling a large map of the Lake District. "I've got a theory..."

The next two hours were lost to talking and thinking, sifting through reports and drawing on the map. Harry was too busy to think about Malfoy, and Ron became more and more animated as they came closer to solving the case.

o~O~o

There were green rolling hills as far as the eye could see, broken into parcels of land by hedgerows and stone walls and the occasional thicket of trees. Sheep dotted the landscape, but the field they were standing in only contained an oak tree, and an old shepherd's hut. It was falling down, but after two days out here, Harry and Ron together with Sarah and the others had decided that this was the key to the pattern of magical holes dotting the countryside around.

Ron was the first in, pushing the old, half-rotten door back with his wand. As Harry walked in, he saw air, thick and musty in the light coming in from holes on the walls, but also an area in one corner where there were scuff marks. He held his hand up, and everyone stopped. Harry looked again, and then he put all his will into a Finite Incantatem. The room shimmered, then the crumbling stone walls filled, becoming whole. Strong walls, a simple bed, a table and a chair made up the entirety of the hut.

"How did you know?" asked Ron.

"I just had a hunch," said Harry. "There were some isolated footprints in the dust, which made me think someone had Apparated in and out a few times, as if something was being kept here. And then I thought that if it were a hiding place, maybe it was somewhere for a person to hide too." Ron nodded, and Harry knelt by the wall where the footprints had been. "I think," Harry said, with a grunt as he pulled at stones, "that there is something hidden here." He grunted again as a stone slid out. Harry pointed with his wand, and Levitated out a small, dark amulet.

It was beautiful, carved from black jet, and shone with reflected light, despite its darkness. Harry could feel the hairs on the back of his arm rise from the powerful magic it emitted, even without touching it. The thought occurred to him that Voldemort would have coveted it to use as a Horcrux.

"Is Malfoy here?" Harry asked, his voice stretched tight. He heard Ron shout out of the door, asking for Malfoy, and before he knew it, Malfoy was blocking the light from the small window above. Harry looked up with relief: he trusted Malfoy, he felt safe with Malfoy. The amulet began to tremble.

"Shield?" said Malfoy, and Harry nodded, casting a Shield Charm. He watched as Malfoy cast his pink spell - which flared purple straight away – and then his blue spell. Harry's eyes flicked between the lights flashing at the object's edge, and Malfoy's tongue, peeking out between his lips, and the frown of concentration on his face.

Harry was just about aware that Ron was watching, and probably others, from the doorway. Mostly though, he focused on maintaining the shield as Malfoy set about destroying the Curse clearly embedded in the amulet. A high-pitched sound rose in volume until it filled the room, and the small black carving began to shake, a tremble at first but then a lurching which grew in violence until all of a sudden it stilled and the terrible noise stopped. A puff of indigo smoke shot out of the amulet into the now silent room.

"You can drop the shield now," said Malfoy. He looked up at Harry, his grey eyes wide. "Thank you," Malfoy said, his voice quiet. Just for Harry.

"I—" began Harry, but then he became aware of the bustle of voices from behind him.

"Is it destroyed?" asked Ron. "What was it?"

"The curse is destroyed," said Malfoy, turning his head slightly to look at Ron. "I tried to preserve the amulet for you though." Harry looked down at it: the shine had gone, and now it just looked like a dull piece of black wood. "It was an Eris amulet – a goddess of chaos. There was a powerful Discordia Curse on the amulet." Malfoy looked back at Harry. "I don't think it liked us working together."

There was a loud crack, and Nina appeared by the doorway. There was a small cut on her face, her usually neat robes were torn at the bottom, and flew around her in the breeze.

"The other holes are closing," she said.

"Other holes?" said Ron, looking up sharply.

"Yes, there's still one here," she said.

They hurried out of the hut. Next to it was a shimmering, whirling hole in the ground, with a six-feet radius. The edges were ever-moving, a bright purple-blue which reminded Harry of the red line of heat which ate at a piece of paper as it burned, silent destruction in its path. Within the hole was an absence that wasn't a colour, not even black. Looking into it Harry felt small, and he shivered.

"That was most definitely not here when we arrived," Harry said. "Maybe it's something to do with the destruction of the curse—" he said, but before he could say anything more, the ground began to rumble, and the edges began to move more erratically.

"Get back!" shouted Nina. "The others made this sound just before they collapsed." Everyone jumped away, except for Harry, who was frozen, looking for a head of white-blond hair but not finding it. He looked back at the hut: the undulating edge of the hole passed by the base of one of the walls, but it was the only place Malfoy could be. Without thinking about what he was doing, Harry ran to the door and looked in. Malfoy was still sitting on the floor, examining the amulet.

"Malfoy, we have to get out, right now," said Harry.

"Now you discover a sense of urgenc—" Malfoy broke off as the walls around them began to tremble. He looked up at Harry, and his eyes held Harry's as the wall began to collapse, bringing the roof down with it. Large stones rained down, as one end of a solid beam of wood began an arced descent towards where Malfoy sat, frozen amid the sudden chaos. To Harry it seemed as if the room moved in slow motion, and his attentions focused in on to Malfoy and nothing else, although he was dimly aware of a stinging sensation on the side of his head. A cold prickle of fear crept across his skin, his only thought to protect Malfoy, and he gathered his magic to him as he flung his wand arm out.

"Levimurus" shouted Harry, and the stones and rocks bounced in the air, their fall halted. They trembled, looking ready to continue their downwards flight at any moment. Holding his wand arm aloft, Harry dodged past the maze of stone and rock, the haze of dust, even as the remaining walls continued to shake, threatening to fall at any time. He reached Malfoy, and threw his free arm around him, pulling him in tight. "Hold on," he said, feeling heat and flesh and swaying into it with relief even as his body still vibrated with the urgent need to get out. Harry closed his eyes for a second, trying to see where he would Apparate them to: he knew he had to be decisive, as he had to release the other spell first. In the moment between making his decision and the whirling away of Apparition, the room filled with the creaks and thuds of collapse, and the last thing he saw before they were sucked into blackness were the stones once more raining down.

They landed on a bank of soft grass at the far end of the field, limbs entangled and still shaking; a crashing sound caused them to turn their heads, and they were in time to see a cloud of dust rise from the pile of debris which only a moment before had been a solid-seeming stone hut. There was a loud sound as the magical field drew in and collapsed, leaving a gaping, but non-magical, hole in the field.

"Are you okay?" asked Harry, turning back to Malfoy, who groaned. Harry looked down, and saw that the Malfoy's trousers had been torn: a rock must have fallen on him before they Disapparated. There was blood, and Harry felt a wave of nausea travel through him. Malfoy's skin was pale, too pale, and suddenly he was worried about where else he might have been hit by a falling stone. He looked up to see Ron striding towards them, and managed to shout out 'St Mungo's' before Apparating away.

Somehow Harry made it there with Malfoy – he normally wouldn't Apparate quite so far, and if he'd been thinking, Ron probably had a standard Auror portkey for medical emergencies.

A swish of dark hair caught his attention.

"Parkinson!" he called out, desperate, and she turned then came rushing over. Harry sat back, still shaking but needing to know that Malfoy was okay, as Parkinson examined Malfoy's leg, then ran a diagnostic charm over his whole body.

"He's hit his head, but he's fine. Please don't tell me that more of your house is falling down now," she said.

"No, no, it's nothing like that," said Harry, his knuckles white as his hands clenched the sides of the chair. "We were at work, with the Aurors, that is, and he broke a curse and a stone building began to fall on him."

"And you just happened to be there?" she said, looking up.

"Well, I was working too," said Harry.

"He's going to have a sore head and he'll be pissed off about the trousers, but apart from that he'll be fine," said Parkinson. "Now let me look at you."

Harry shook his head. "I'm fine."

"Oh, really? You do have blood on your face, you know." Harry reached up to touch his head, and it hurt when he touched it. His hand came away sticky with blood. "Let me get someone to clean you up, while I get Draco a bed," Parkinson said, but Harry shook his head again.

"No, I can wait. Just help Malfoy, you can do me afterwards."

Parkinson narrowed her eyes, but busied herself with getting Malfoy into a room. "Are you going to keep following me around?" she snapped, when Harry walked in after her.

"I just want to... Can I stay with him? Please? I'm just—"

"Pathetic," she said. "But I suppose so. Sit," she pointed at a chair, "and don't move or make a sound." She set up a monitoring charm, then set about healing Malfoy's leg.

Harry sat quietly as he had been told, while she got out a selection of potions, and wrote up some notes on Malfoy's chart. Malfoy still hadn't regained consciousness, and Harry felt on edge. He fidgeted where he sat, rubbing his legs, then holding his hands between his knees, before running his hand through his hair.

"Is he okay?" he asked in the end. "Shouldn't he be awake by now?"

"Yes, he should," said Parkinson, lowering her clipboard. "But I've kept him under because I really don't think that I can handle his fussing and your fidgeting all at the same time." Harry was just about to promise to keep still when the door opened, and Hermione stepped in. She took in the scene, then strode up to Harry with determined look on her face.

"There you are, Harry. Ron got here five minutes ago, and we've been looking for you."

"Please, Healer Granger, take him off my hands. It looks like he has a minor laceration on his head, but I haven't had a chance to look at it yet," she said.

"Ron wants to talk to you about whatever it is you're working on," said Hermione, actually tugging on Harry's robes by now. "Come on." Harry wanted to see Malfoy wake. He wanted to watch as those blond lashes fluttered up and revealed the grey eyes below. He wanted to hear his name being called. He hoped it would be. Instead though, he sighed, and hopped off his chair. He had work to do.

As he walked out, he missed the look Hermione and Parkinson exchanged: they looked a question at each other, and both nodded in response.