AN: This is probably the angstiest this fic will get. Woohoo! TW for blood, weed, and general whoop-ass.

Chapter 25: Blackout

"Could you maybe for once in your miserable, pathetic life not completely screw someone over?" Harry begged of the man in front of him and was met only with silence.

Marcus Nott hadn't budged, and Harry had a half hour to accomplish his last-ditch effort in breaking him before Theo showed up. The whole 'family' (it was a loosely used term for their friends and relatives and all the people that couldn't seem to distance themselves from Draco and Harry Malfoy-Potter) would be there in a half hour as a barrier for Theo.

The man himself had agreed to talking to his father and had gone so far as to hush his boyfriend when Colin started talking about how he would be there for support. Theo was being eerily calm.

Harry assumed it was a defense mechanism, like when he lit a joint a few minutes later. Looking at Marcus, whose hair was slicked back even in prison, he laughed about that to himself.

The man could request to see his son, but he could never change him.

"Theo is a better man than you," Harry went on, this time with less desperation. "And he's so gay. Merlin's beard, he's gay. Gayer than me. Gayer than Draco."

That clearly annoyed the older man, so Harry pressed on. Even if Nott Sr. spoke in anger, it would still be speaking.

"In May at London Pride, he went shirtless. The year before that, he actually hitched a ride on a float and snogged one of the drag queens on it. That was before he and Colin got together, of course. Theo's a faithful man."

A hard, deep line of anger formed on the prisoner's forehead. It was one of the first signs that he hadn't been comatose the entire interview.

Harry grabbed the opportunity for all it was worth. He leaned across the metal table that Marcus was chained to so he was close enough to intimidate.

"I'm sure you've read about him and Colin in the papers. They've moved in together, Colin's cat gets along really well with his owner's boyfriend. It's a cute little tabby," Harry drawled. "There's this coffee shop that lets you bring your cat in so it can play with the other cats, and there are toys everywhere… Theo and Colin sometimes go on dates there. They love that cat."

Anger, but still silence.

"Are you really going to sit there and let me talk like this? Wow, this place really has defeated you. I guess I could just start detailing all the wild escapades he and Draco had when they were both single and you wouldn't even mind."

"But I bet you'd rather hear about how they settled down. Who really cares how much they screwed around from age eighteen to twenty-six? Or who they screwed around with? I certainly don't care. The past is the past, right?" Draco was screwing around with Harry now. That was all that mattered.

That little ramble had clearly cemented Marcus' hatred of Harry Malfoy-Potter. He looked on the edge of snarling something out even though it most certainly wouldn't be the location of the body parts of his murder victim.

"Anyway, nowadays Theodore has his Colin. Colin's a muggleborn, remember that? Yeah, they donate to muggle charities all the time, and Colin's studio holds benefits for muggleborn rights associations. Oh, did you know that Colin's a photographer? Yeah, so not only is Theo dating a guy who likes men and women, but he's an artist."

The word 'artist' struck something in Marcus. He shifted in his chair and swallowed down a lump of hatred.

"Yeah, an artist," Harry oozed out again like the two-syllables were chocolate lava cakes in his mouth. "And I'm going to give you one guess as to who his muse—"

An unexpected knock on the door of the interrogation room shook Harry out of what had turned into him just kind of torturing Marcus. Harry sighed and looked at the two-way mirror to see himself reflected back. On the other side, a small crowd could see in. Had everyone come early?

Harry huffed before leaving the room, forgetting to say a fond farewell to the man who he currently despised.

Carefully and quietly, Harry shut the door behind himself like he'd been trained to in the Auror Academy. The last thing everyone needed was a convict on the loose.

"Harry," Lucius said, half as a greeting and half as a request. "Do the lights in that room turn off?"

"What?" Turning around to see him, Harry wasn't half as scared of him as he used to be when he and Draco were dating. Not fearing Lucius Abraxas Malfoy would be his first mistake of the day. "Oh, hullo."

"Do the lights in that room turn off?" Lucius asked again.

"'Yes, hello Harry. How are you doing, son-in-law of mine? You're looking delightful—'"

Just because Harry was coming off a high from making a Death Eater miserable didn't mean that Lucius would let him enjoy it. "Harry, listen and listen well."

"Uh," he paused. "Alright."

"If Draco wasn't married to you, he'd be married to Theodore."

"What? That's insane—"

Lucius' glare silenced him. "Believe me, I could have made it happen if you weren't so damned persistent in your affections. Their combined blood purity is everything I wanted for Draco at the time and they were already friends. I could have made it happen." The Malfoy patriarch sounded a little bit like he resented Harry for not giving him the chance to test his matchmaker skills.

"Where in the hell are you going with this?"

"I'm going," Lucius clarified snootily. "To tell you that I have seen Theodore grow up. He spent a great deal of time at the Manor as a child for obvious reasons. He and Draco grew close, and he always got a mention in letters back home from Hogwarts. I consider Theodore family." They actually were second cousins twice removed, but Lucius figured mentioning that after his early marriage plans for Draco would be uncouth.

"Yeah, well, Draco considers him family too. I already feel bad enough about this," Harry huffed. The last thing he needed was an ethics lecture from his father-in-law who had housed Voldemort.

In a rare moment of softness, Lucius put his hand on Harry's shoulder. "I'm not trying to agitate you further, Harry." It was almost fatherly. "I know how having that muggleborn in your home must be driving you mad." And just like that, the Lucius he knew and kind of loved was back.

"She's doing fine," Harry sighed.

"What a rave review. You sound over the moon, my apologies. I hope you never accept my advice ever again because you clearly have so much more knowledge as a twenty-something than I do now."

Harry didn't even want to dignify that with a response. He knew where Draco got the sarcasm gene from, at least.

"Just let me in the interrogation room for five minutes," Lucius said, revealing what he wanted.

For the second time that day, Harry's conversation with a former dark wizard was interrupted. This time, it was by one very, very exhausted Theodore Nott. He looked like he hadn't slept in years and like Colin was at him side to prop him up rather than to be there for him emotionally. Colin didn't look well-rested either.

"Hey," Colin greeted Harry with that same chipper spirit, just a little wilted. "How are you holding up? How's Grace?"

Oh, fuck. Why did Colin have to be so nice? "I'm fine, and she's doing well. I should be asking you that question," he said without the ability to hide how his voice was wracked with guilt.

Theo picked up on it right away, so the shoulder that Lucius' hand had previously occupied was then replaced by Theo's. "Harry. I love you dearly. You married Draco, who is my brother. But if you give me one more pitying look I will not hesitate to clock you right in the fucking jaw."

"Point taken."

"Theodore," Lucius began, trying to talk some sense into the boy. "You're emotionally compromised right now." He was just trying to be every needy boy's father that day.

Theo wasn't having any of it. He put his free hand on Lucius' shoulder and shook his head. "Lucius, let's just get this over with."

With a sigh, Lucius backed down. His plan was still brewing in his mind, but if it was against Theo's wishes… Well, why upset him more? Lucius wasn't as heartless as the papers made him out to be.

Behind Lucius, the rest of the family filed in. Every Weasley in existence and their spouses and significant others along with Pansy Parkinson and that spitfire girlfriend of hers had shown up as if it was a damn dinner party. The only one not in attendance was Hermione, who not only didn't need to see more purists to stress her out, but was feeling faint with baby weight at home.

Leading the crowd, Draco came to pat his friend on the back once he lowered his vice-grips on Lucius and Harry. "Hey," Draco said as if they were meeting for tea.

"Hey."

"You look like shit."

"And you look like a go-go boy going through an Oscar Wilde phase in a muggle college."

"There's my Theo."

"Go fuck yourself," he told Draco fondly. That had put him in an infinitely better mood (as banter with best friends should). "I'm going to go talk to my father now."

Colin wasn't entirely sure how that exchange had helped Theo, but it had. "Love you," he offered.

"I love you too," Theo said quietly, turning to press his forehead to Colin's. "I'm fine, okay? I know it sounds crazy, but I knew this would happen. I just… I knew I'd see him again after the trial. I'm not giving him the power to affect me, and I'm taking you out to dinner after this."

Auror Weasley stepped forward, figuring their pints of firewhiskey could be swapped another day. They had all the days they wanted.

"Okay," Colin agreed as if there were any question in the first place. He was proud of Theo for handling this so well.

Without another word, the prodigal son entered the interview room. Ron quickly turned on the microphone that would allow the audience huddled in the prison hall to hear what was going on within. They all had front-row seats as Theo moved to use the chair that Harry had previously used to bother Marcus.

For what felt like one time too many, a hand was on his shoulder. When Harry looked up, he was relieved to see it was Sirius. "Hey."

"Hey," Sirius replied, Remus at his side. Olivia was at Alex's house so she wouldn't have to be dragged into all of the mess that was the two wizarding wars.

Both of the elder men quickly greeted Lucius and Narcissa when she finally worked up the nerve to enter the prison. She'd wanted Lucius to go in first, just to make sure nobody could see their faces from the prisoner's side of the glass. Only when Lucius had spent fifteen minutes waving at Marcus from the two-way mirror with no reaction had he sent his peacock patronus to Narcissa with the message that they were in the clear.

"Theodore," Marcus greeted him solemnly, voice crackling over the bugged room.

"Where's the skull?"

Marcus made a tsk, tsk noise with his teeth. "No. You answer me first, considering you never answered my letters."

"Because you're a sociopath, yeah," Theo nodded. He was feeling confident, and no matter how many times his father had threatened him with violence or actually used it against him, Theo had never seen him in handcuffs before.

Those cuffs and the ones on his ankles made Theo feel safe. Protected, at the least.

"Now, now, let's not name-call. That's not what I came here to do."

"You didn't even come here. You were walked here by guards because you're in prison." Nott Sr. was acting like a villain in a fucking superhero movie as if he had some grand plan. It was delusional and Theo didn't really like superhero movies.

Marcus dropped the cool demeanor when he realized Theo wasn't buying it. "You are ruining your bloodline. Your whole family, your ancestors, your history, you're killing them all when you don't take a wife."

"Don't care."

"What the hell do you mean you don't care?" his father snarled back. "This isn't about you. You're a child in a greater scheme of wizarding purity. You hold the blood of kings and conquerors in your veins, and it is your sworn duty to pass it on."

"Nah," Theo shrugged. "I think I'm going to do everything in my power to make sure this name and this blood dies out."

Marcus' breathing sped up. It had become clear to him that he had lost power over what Theodore said and did and would never get it back. It scared him more than he could say. "You—You listen to me or I won't give you the information."

"That's not part of the deal," Theo murmured, trying to keep in mind the point of this meeting in the first place. "I'm here, now quit fucking around. Where is Benjy Fenwick's skull?"

"The last time I saw you I wasn't permitted to speak. My trial was a farce—"

"Why, because I kept you alive?"

"Because I couldn't freeze your assets for betraying the family!"

Theo had seen that one coming, and spent the whole night preparing retorts. "You literally killed a member of your family. My mother. Are you forgetting that, or are you just mad after being locked up so long?"

"She was dying anyway!"

The shout struck Theo into silence. Knowing that this was the only moment that he could regain power, Marcus pressed on.

"The Dark Lord demanded I kill for him to prove my loyalty. Your mother was ill, Theodore. She couldn't serve me as a wife any longer."

"So that means," Theo spoke up, hands shaking. "That out of all the people in the world, you kill her?" He hadn't known his mum was sick.

"You weren't meant to witness it. That was why I sent you to your room."

"Is this supposed to make me feel better or something? Because you're doing a pretty shit job at it," the son remarked in a sad effort to keep his cool.

"Haven't I already told you that this isn't about you? This is about descendants. I see who you've become now, you selfish and unnatural boy. You're not the son I raised and you do not deserve your purity. The day you come to your senses and return with a wife is the only day I tell you anything," the elder growled. He'd gotten his message across.

From the other side of the glass, Remus and Sirius had to grip each other's hands tight to keep from launching themselves into the room and shoving a bottle of Veritaserum down his throat. They'd come so far in burying their friend, only to be stopped by homophobia. It was wrong on every level Remus could think of.

Calmly, Theo stood in the face of such blatant prejudice. It wasn't as if he had expected his father to have knitted him a sweater for inmates arts and crafts day. After all, the knitting needles could serve as a great shank.

"Well. I hope you die in your cell cold and alone, hoping that someday I'll come back," Theo told his father cheerily. How else was one supposed to respond to the person that murdered their mother? "Because I never will."

Just to be sure Theo got the last word, he walked out as fast as his long, pureblood legs could carry him.

xxxxXXXXxxxx

"Well, that was a disaster," Ron said once he'd ushered the last of his family out of the building. Blaise had taken Ginny out hand-in-hand, and only George had lingered around to see if he could slip a prank product under the door that would make Nott Sr. smell like a public toilet.

The only people who remained were Draco, his parents, and the two Aurors. Theo had gone off with his boyfriend to dinner as promised.

"Pretty much," Harry nodded. He'd taken a seat on the bench outside of the interrogation room and Draco had taken to rubbing his back soothingly.

"Not your fault," Draco whispered in his ear as he smoothed his onyx hair. "Let's go home."

Harry was about to give in and abandon the interrogation entirely before Lucius opened his mouth. "Harry, do the lights in the interrogation room turn off?"

"Yeah," he snapped, patience having dried. "There's a switch."

Lucius and his cane made their way from where he had rested against the wall. When he found the strange muggle switch Harry was talking about, he flipped it down.

The room where Marcus was being held went completely dark. A quiet and distant cry was heard from the room, but that was it since they turned the microphone off.

"Lucius," Narcissa hissed. Whatever her husband was doing, she had clearly argued with him before about it.

Harry and Ron both stood, confused. "What's going on here?" Ron asked, at least ten thousand percent sure that Lucius had flipped sides to being a Death Eater again. This was a shit time to do it and break his buddy out of jail, too.

"Five minutes," Lucius told Harry, their eyes locking. Somewhere in his mess of wedding memories, Harry remembered what Lucius had told him. Lucius protected his family, no matter what. It was his only drive, his sole purpose.

Harry knew what Lucius was going in to do for Theo, for his son's best friend, for Harry's case, and for Remus and Sirius' friend.

"Five minutes."

"Harry, what are you doing?" Ron demanded.

Harry handed Lucius a pen and paper from his pocket, not answering his Auror partner. Whatever weird Malfoy family connection they had left Ron out in the cold. Unbeknownst to Ron, Lucius and Harry had just agreed to break the law together with their respective spouses watching on. Narcissa was concerned while Draco seemed mildly amused by it all.

When Ron saw Lucius enter, wide-eyed and confused, Narcissa stepped in to explain.

She grabbed Ron's elbow and pulled him to the side. "This is what we liked to refer to when Lucius worked in the Ministry as a 'Temporary Blackout'. You didn't see anything, you didn't hear anything. As far as you're concerned the next five minutes didn't exist," she said sweetly in a mothering tone she'd mastered so well.

When Ron heard faint yelling and crunches from the interrogation room, he understood. "Oh, we are so losing our jobs over this."

"Pffft," Draco laughed. "They can't fire their best Aurors." Especially if everyone kept their mouths shut.

The next couple of minutes were filled with an array of sounds that made Ron cringe in sympathetic pain.

Crashes, thumps, muffled screams, the sound of spells firing. Lucius never said a word, but every metal clang, burst, and smash from the other room sounded like footsteps from where Harry and Ron were standing. Those brick walls sure were thick.

Narcissa had taken to keeping guard, eyes peeled for any pesky prison workers who could walk by and see them doing their dirty work. She kept her family safe, too.

Soon, the thumps died down.

Silence consumed their every nervous breath. Harry felt the tips of his fingers tingle. He hadn't been in the right frame of mind when he let Lucius in there, but there was no interrupting him without attracting attention. So, he was left to stare at the linoleum floor.

When Lucius emerged, not a hair was out of place. He still held himself tall as only a rich man with nobility in his heritage could.

Gingerly, he handed his son-in-law the paper back, an address neatly written in Lucius' handwriting. "Marcus is going to need a Healer," he said airily before holding his arm out for Narcissa to wrap hers around. Her blue velvet gown went fittingly with Lucius' crisp dressrobes and navy vest.

"I'll owl someone," Draco suggested. After all, he knew plenty of Healers that he wanted to make miserable by dumping this on. Augustus Pye was at the top of his list.

The prisoner just went wild after Theo left the room! He wouldn't stop thrashing, and hurt himself in the process. Pye, everyone here can corroborate my story.

"How did you…?" Ron asked before running to the light switch and flicking it on. He wished he hadn't.

The window into the room was smeared with blood. The table had toppled over and one of the chairs had snapped in two while the other remained firmly embedded in the brick wall. A crumpled man was still chained to the table, too.

"Merlin's left nut." At least Lucius was on their side for sure now.

Draco said goodbye to his mother and father with their traditional hugs and kisses. He even got to sneak one in on Lucius' cheek. Nothing said 'father and son bonding' quite like a father maiming someone who had caused his son and his son's friends trouble.

Harry ran into the interrogation room to furiously cast some cleaning spells while Draco made dinner plans for the following evening with Lucius and Narcissa.

Just as quickly as the blonde couple had appeared, they left with a regal air about them and with Harry to clean up after them.

"Bloody purebloods," Ron muttered to himself even though he was one. "Never going to understand them." After all, Marcus Nott didn't have a soul as far was Ron was concerned. How had Lucius managed to draw blood from a stone?

He watched the man and his wife strut away in utter confusion. "How…?"

"You don't want to know," Draco told him gently. He knew how Death Eaters had swapped spells during the war. Spells that slowed down time, spells that tortured, spells that burned every cell in the human body one by one… Severus and Marcus had actually come up with most of them.

When the room was finally clean and the chairs put back in their proper place, Harry stepped back out. "Well," he said, paper in-hand and sanity far-gone. Harry hadn't been able to save Theo from being hurt, and he hadn't even been able to get information from his father. Lucius had done it. He'd really, really done it from the look of the bruises that would blossom all over the broken man on the floor. "We've got one last place to dig."

xxxxXXXXxxxx

Remus and Sirius had three hours of sulking to kill.

"I hate him," Remus muttered as he collapsed onto their couch, not even needing to specify who the 'him' in the situation was. Harry would tell them of Lucius' coerced interview the next day, and how they had found the last missing piece of Benjy. Finally.

Sirius immediately began unbuttoning all those pesky clothes Remus had on until his scarred chest showed as he sat across from him on the couch. "Moony," he whimpered as he buried his face in Remus' chest for comfort. "I hate everyone but you."

"No, I'm pretty sure you hate me too."

"Never." Sirius kissed his collarbone before entwining their bodies entirely. Their muddy shoes were on and they were a veritable wreck, but they stayed still. "Never."

A little sigh escaped Remus. He had no idea what he'd do without his Padfoot, and no idea how he'd survived for twelve years without him. "I love you too."

"We need to get this off of our minds. Benjy wouldn't want it to kill us," he murmured against one of Remus' scars.

"Are you actually suggesting that we shag right now? Because if so, you have to be the horniest—"

"Not shag," Sirius told Remus with his bark of a laugh. "Just follow through on a little something we said we'd do again." Sirius shoved a hand down into his pocket before it closed around what he had been hiding at the prison all along. Prisons didn't scare Sirius anymore.

When Sirius brought the rolled-up blunt of Gillyweed to Remus' eyelevel, the lycanthrope could have cried. "It's beautiful. I forgot how beautiful these are. Where did you even get this?"

"Let's just say our favorite Nott knows some people who know some people." Theo and Sirius were strikingly similar in their way of dealing with sadness: drugs and sex. Sirius snuck a kiss in on Remus' cheek, because this would undoubtedly lead to shagging. "Now, would you like to do the honors?" he asked cordially.

He certainly didn't have to ask Remus twice. Remus pressed the tip of his wand up to light a small, simmering flame to get the smoke to puff up around them.

They passed it back and forth, taking in drag after drag. This was their home—formerly a home of strict pureblood tradition, which made it even better—and they would do as they pleased. Halfway in, it slipped their mind that they would be picking up Olivia in a few hours and were probably supposed to be sober for that.

Once they'd put the illegal substance away, shagged twice, and were as high as a pair of stupid, poofy kites, their muggle house phone would ring. Remus would run to it and panic that they'd somehow been late to pick up Olivia, but it wasn't Alex's parents. Sirius, in a paranoid burst of giggles, thought it was the Ministry coming to lock them up.

Who it really was happened to be Hermione Weasley, and it was coming from St. Mungo's.