Chapter Eight
Ravenclaw versus Slytherin
The Ravenclaw-Slytherin match ended in a Ravenclaw victory, and the students were milling around in an uproar. Harry had declared the match and nearly had his head taken off by Keeper Barry Knowles rushing over to the rest of his teammates. Harry was not in the best mood, and he'd ignored the excitement, just packing up the balls and delivering them to the equipment shed. Now he was heading back towards the castle. It wasn't raining, but it was cold and misty, and he'd left Charley inside with Bobsey. She'd woken up with an earache. He'd noticed that Headmistress McGonagall hadn't come out for the match, either, and he worried about her health. The woman wasn't getting any younger, and she'd lost the man she'd hoped would take over the school.
Speaking of health, he hoped his son had survived the day with no injuries. Sirius, he was sure, was running around somewhere near the pitch with the Gryffindor students and would follow his brother inside. Harry was exhausted and couldn't be arsed to go looking for him. Matt had promised to make sure Crash ended up in his room, and there was no reason not to trust Matt. Harry was planning to go to the hospital wing and try a few more countercurses on Quentin. Over two weeks, and nothing. He still lay asleep, tormented by something only he could see. Harry was torturing himself to try to find the cure, knowing that Dan was beside himself. Dan came to sit with Quentin whenever he wasn't watching Dudley.
Harry heard a weird noise that sounded like someone in pain around the side of the equipment shed. He frowned, and pulled out his wand. He peered around the corner, wand at the ready, but he didn't need it. He was too late. The body on the ground had already been deserted by whoever had attacked. He rushed forward and dropped to his knees and groaned. Barry Knowles, who'd been bursting with pride in his team's victory only minutes ago. Now he lay on the ground limply, his mouth twisted in a frown. Just like Quentin.
"Hey, Dad, what are you—" Matt's voice stopped dead when he saw the boy in Quidditch robes on the ground. "Oh."
Harry turned to see both of his sons standing there, staring.
"Dad, what's wrong?" Crash asked innocently. "Did he get hurt?"
"Matt, did you see who Barry left with?"
"No. He was hugging Faith, and they were talking to Douglas and Morgan . . . I didn't even know he was gone."
"Matt, you and Crash go tell Professor Milles and Professor Malfoy, okay? I'll be in the hospital wing."
"Okay," he said soberly, grabbed Crash's hand, and darted away. Harry really just wanted Claudette informed as the Head of Barry's house, and hoped Draco would realize that Harry was counting on him to handle everything else and get the right people organized.
---Break---
"Professor!"
Draco was talking to Roman, discussing a few of the moves they'd seen from the Slytherins they could turn to their advantage during their upcoming match. He spun around, instantly on the alert at hearing the title shouted with such panic. He saw the Potter boys running toward him.
"What's wrong?"
"My dad just found Barry Knowles behind the equipment shed," Matt said in a voice tight with fear. "I already found Professor Milles, but he said to get you, too. He took Barry to the hospital wing."
"What happened?" he asked, already on his way with an apologetic farewell nod to Roman.
"I think it's like Quentin, that sleeping curse."
Draco swore under his breath, but Sirius apparently had supersensory abilities, because he immediately started making a song of foul language with Draco's recent addition in a place of prominence.
"Crash, shut up," Matt said firmly.
Draco realized that Harry must have thought the same thing he was thinking: this was now not just an attack, but a series of attacks. "Matt, can you do a couple of other things?"
"Yes, sir."
"Tell Professor Thumbley and Kilburne to come, too. Then go to the Headmistress and tell her what's happened. She'll need to contact the Knowles family."
Draco looked around the swarming pitch and spectator stands, and cursed again. Sirius didn't repeat it, this time, seeming to realize that Draco was beyond caring. All these students could be in danger. He looked up to see that Quinn Sheffield, who'd been commentating the match, was still near the amplifier.
"But first, get Quinn to make an announcement. Everyone needs to go to their common rooms and wait there."
"Yes, sir."
Matt took Sirius and ran off. Draco hurried toward the castle, the things left undone spinning in his mind. With great relief, he crossed paths directly with Albert Branson. "Bran!" He waved him over. "Get the prefects organized. I want all the students in their common rooms immediately."
"Sir?"
"Bran, I want everyone inside. Please. Quinn should be making an announcement any second, and the prefects need to handle it. The house Heads are going to be busy for a few minutes."
"Yes, Professor," he said soberly, and ran back toward the pitch.
---Break--
The four Heads of the Hogwarts houses stood grouped around two beds, where two boys lay side-by-side, pale and tortured by nightmares. They looked at each other soberly. Harry had entered his crisis mode, and he was calm now. Things had to be taken care of, and he knew they would look to him, much as he wished they would look elsewhere. He was glad Draco had risen to the challenge so admirably, but he was, after all, the effing Chosen One.
"I think we have to assume this is a student," he said first. "Unless anyone seriously entertains the idea a teacher would do this?"
Four sets of eyes stared back at him.
"Okay, so a student. It's rapidly becoming obvious that Quentin was not a random victim, and we need to assume that there will be others after Barry. I'm sure none of us want to see that happen, so we need to figure out who's doing this as quickly as possible."
He could see that his rational speech was calming the two women down, who had come in crying in shock. Greg was rolling his eyes, but Draco seemed to notice that Harry was helping Dorcas and Claudette, so he gripped his Greg's arm in reproval.
"Now, I see two possibilities about the targets of the attacks. The first is that the person is targeting Quidditch players. This seems a little less likely than the other idea I have."
"Which is?"
Harry breathed deeply before answering, knowing what he was about to set off. "Both boys were last seen with Faith Forsythe."
As he'd expected, Dorcas cried out that she'd never believe it and Claudette started declaiming on her student's most wonderful qualities, in that thick accent that allowed Harry to understand only half of Faith's good points. Greg and Draco stood tight-lipped, both seeming to arrive at Harry's conclusion.
Harry held up his hand to quiet things down. "I never said it was Faith. I agree that Faith isn't that sort of person."
Claudette suddenly seemed to understand. "A boy. A jealous boy who is in love with her."
Harry nodded. "That was my thought. Now, what you need to do is think over the students in your house, try to remember if any of them spend a great deal of time with Faith. Keep your eye on them, see if any boy is watching her too much or acting hostile toward her friends."
He turned to look at the two victims. "We need to find the culprit now." He turned around again. "I can't help these boys," he admitted. "I can't wake them up."
"One other thing," Draco spoke up. "We should not ask help from the prefects. They might know better than us which students are interested in Faith, but . . . an older student did this. This curse took skill and knowledge. It might very well be a prefect."
"Our students don't learn curses like this," Claudette stated firmly. She looked at Greg, and Harry felt his heart sink. "Though I'm sure some of your students learn such things at home."
"No," Harry said. "No. We will not even begin that discussion."
So they didn't, but the damage was already done, and Harry could see it. They'd alienated Greg, and Claudette was acting decidedly cool toward Draco as well. He'd honestly hoped that Slytherin wouldn't get blamed for this, but apparently that was too much to hope for.
---Break---
Everyone left the hospital wing to go to their students and set some guidelines about future conduct, namely that no one would go anywhere alone for any reason. They'd decided it was useless to restrict them to their dormitories in the evenings, not if the attacks were taking place in broad daylight.
Draco stepped into the corridor and saw the Potter boys standing there looking anxious, waiting for their father. He knew Potter wouldn't come out for awhile, intent as he was on trying to figure this curse out. Potter was wearing himself out, looking up complex spells and poisons and trying to find their counters so he could try them on Quentin. Now he had the added motivation of Barry. Draco and Dorcas had both tried, too, thinking of every plant and potion they knew that could do this, but it was a really small number of possibilities, and they'd been exhausted a week ago.
"Your dad's going to be busy for awhile," he told the boys. "Come on," he addressed Matt, "let's take Sirius back to his room and then I need to talk to the students." As much as he was sure Matt wouldn't be in any danger, he didn't want to send the boy off by himself. So he walked with them to the little suite of rooms that Potter shared with his younger children. Charlotte was there with a put-upon house elf, crying because her ear hurt and because she'd been left alone too long. The house elf looked up hopefully when they came in, but its ears drooped when Potter did not appear.
Matt glanced at his younger siblings and sighed. "Go ahead, Professor. I'll stay here with them."
Draco nodded and left without another word. But the idea of those kids sitting in that room alone, waiting for their dad and worrying, stuck with him on the walk back to Gryffindor tower. He suddenly understood why Harry had been so miserable the last few months. There was just something indefinably not right about the whole thing. A part of their family was so obviously missing, and time hadn't closed that hole over. Ginny should be there.
So after Draco addressed the students and warned them about sticking together and keeping an eye out, Draco headed back out of the tower. He was stopped by Bear, whose face was pale and fierce.
"Professor, Matt's missing."
"I know where he is," he assured her. The way she slumped in sudden relief touched him, and he gave her a quick, one-armed hug. "He's with his brother and sister right now, he's fine. I'm going to go check on them." He pushed her gently back toward the other students. "Go on, don't worry. I'm sure you've got studying to do."
"Yes, sir," she muttered.
Draco came back to the Potter rooms to find Matt, looking harassed, trying to pick up Charlotte, who was hiding herself behind an armchair and crying in an exhausted way. Sirius was nowhere in sight. Matt looked up, and sighed when he saw Draco. He'd obviously been hoping for his dad. Charlotte, however, stopped crying and came out of hiding.
"You're Pepesser Malfoy."
"Uh . . . yes."
"Pick me up," she commanded.
Draco shot a please-help-me look at Matt, who raised one eyebrow and grinned. He looked down at Charlotte, who had her hands on her hips and thick red locks of hair hanging in her face, and reminded him alarmingly of her mother. He half-expected her to pull out a wand and hex him. With a sigh, he picked the girl up. She was heavy, the spoiled little brat. He sat down in the chair she'd been hiding behind, holding her in his lap. This wasn't so hard. He'd played with Bonnie before. Little girls were no big deal.
Her soft little hand grabbed his eyepatch and lifted it. He froze.
"Ew," she giggled, and pushed it back over his empty eye socket. "Icky." Then her giggles turned into whimpering, and she covered her ear with her fist. "Ow," she said pathetically.
Draco didn't know what one was supposed to do with ear aches, but he'd had one or two when he was younger, and he remembered that heat felt pretty good. He directed a warming charm into her ear, and she relaxed a little. Matt, he realized, had left the room, probably to track down his impossible brother. The house-elf appeared with food for the children, which attracted the two boys back into the front room, but Charlotte didn't want to eat and so Draco stayed in the chair with her.
---Break---
Harry dragged himself down the corridor to his rooms, feeling guilty for leaving Bobsey with the kids so long. He'd thought he had figured out a remedy, but it hadn't really worked. He thought it might have lessened the nightmares they were seeing, and if so the spell was useful, but he was no closer to waking the boys up.
When he entered, he stopped short and blinked. He was so tired that he was hallucinating, that must be it. For otherwise, this scene should not be in front of his eyes. His two sons were sitting on the floor by the fireplace, looking up at none other than Draco Malfoy, who was sitting in the chair with Harry's daughter asleep in his lap and telling them stories . . . about Harry. He was recounting, as far as Harry could tell, the tale of his first task in the Tri-Wizard Tournament twelve years ago.
Draco saw Harry and stopped mid-sentence. He got to his feet, still holding Charley carefully so as not to wake her up. "I didn't want them to be alone," he explained, his face turning a deep shade of red.
"Where is Bobsey?"
Draco obviously didn't have a clue who he meant, but Crash answered for him.
"She brought us dinner, but she didn't want to stay."
"Oh." He looked at Draco, and felt a fleeting impulse to revel in the man's obvious embarrassment. He quelled it. "Thank you, Draco," he said, and decided to leave it at that.
Draco looked surprised, but just answered, "You're welcome, Harry," with a stiff dignity, and handed the sleeping girl in his arms over to him.
She woke up in the transfer, and blinked up at Harry with confusion. "Daddy? You're not Pepesser Malfoy."
"Nope," he agreed with a smile, pressing a kiss to the top of her head. "How does your ear feel?"
"Pepesser Malfoy made it better," she murmured, snuggling herself against him and looking as though she meant to fall back asleep.
Now Harry's amusement had vanished, and he honestly didn't know how to react to feelings of true gratitude toward Draco. Last time Draco had taken responsibility for one of his kids, Harry had ended up risking his entire reputation on the man. This incident might not be such a big thing, but he had to wonder at how life had changed so much.
"Thank you," he said again, having no other words that would not come out all wrong.
"Good evening, Harry," the other man said, and exited quickly.
Harry took his place in the chair, holding Charley carefully so she could sleep off her pain and weariness. He wished he could do the same.
"He didn't finish the story," Sirius complained.
"I could finish it, if you like. I happen to know that one," he said, winking at Matt. Matt smiled.
"I like the way he tells it," Sirius pouted, but settled down to hear the rest.
Matt stayed with them that night, and Harry couldn't help but feel glad. On a day like today, nothing would convince him the kids were all right except their presence with him, where he could protect them. They passed the night untroubled. Harry woke up near dawn, startled into wakefulness by Matt yelling something in his sleep. It was only then that he realized Draco had used his first name the night before. He also realized that at some point during the night, Sirius had gotten up and crawled into bed with him. He kissed his son's messy hair and smiled, thinking that maybe the last of the war wounds, festering for so many years, was finally healing.