Extra update! This chapter is quite short, hence the deviation from the update schedule ^^
Harry had intended to go straight to one of the Pensieves. He may not fully trust Malfoy, that didn't mean he wanted him to be in pain tonight.
…but then he'd run into Robards, who'd asked him how the Assessment had been going.
Harry'd been so worried about mentioning the Chair situation and getting Tristan fired, that he'd told him he'd come to Headquarters to take a course.
Robards had then jovially asked him if it was "the thing Simmons set up for today?", and Harry had said yes.
…and shown up to the Field Training session he hadn't signed up for.
Auror Simmons had seemed a bit annoyed, but that was to be expected.
Two of Harry's fellow Junior Aurors had been there too, and it'd been nice to catch up.
Tamsin had a bit of a lisp and a gap between her front teeth. She had an air of certainty about her that Harry found reassuring, and they had gotten along from the start. She wore her straight brown hair in a ponytail and she'd shown up in uniform today.
Harry hadn't gotten along quite as well with Greg, who had spent the past few months really getting into paperwork for some reason. He'd not shaved in about a week and the resulting …situation… was a few shades lighter than his salt and pepper hair.
It didn't suit him.
The way he dressed reminded Harry of Neville though, and he was glad not to be the only one not in uniform.
The three of them were standing in a thin layer of crunchy snow in a field.
It was surrounded by silhouettes of industrial structures in the distance, which looked hostile and alien against the pastel coloured sky.
A crow called.
Harry imagined Ron telling it to fuck off.
Simmons had been focused on his parchment from the moment that Harry had shown up.
Since he'd only missed a recap of some theory and there hadn't been any instructions yet, Harry's eyes had wandered as he chatted with his peers.
There was only one building near them, which was three stories high and had all the architectural charm that could be captured by putting three Lego blocks together.
It was drawn up out of bare slabs of concrete, which had been covered with a migraine of brightly coloured graffiti.
The windowless holes looked like hollow eyes and the rusty sliding door looked like a post-mortem scream of pain.
In front of it extended a yellowish concrete slab the size of half a football field, for which he couldn't pinpoint a purpose.
It reminded him of the basin of a shower.
…he did note that neither the building nor the slab had any snow on them.
Interesting.
Then Simmons had been done with his parchment, and told the three of them that suspicious magical activity had been registered in this area.
People had disappeared.
Greg had looked at Harry with some resignation, and Tamsin had put her hands on her hips and looked at him too. "You taking the lead then?" She'd asked.
After that, things had gone rather quickly.
They'd used the correct signals to communicate, they'd split up and reconvened with appropriate stealth, and the three of them had been well-coordinated.
The building itself had been a shell.
It had felt empty too, but not like the entrance hall in the manor where emptiness was a state of being.
No - This place felt empty as if it hadn't yet acquired any features.
No Residue.
So Harry'd been pretty sure that they were missing something.
And then there had been… figures.
Their features had been impossible to distinguish since they were so strongly glamoured that his eyes simply wouldn't land on them.
That had been fine.
What had not been so fine was that Harry had suddenly been sure that the people currently with him were Ron and Hermione.
He'd tried to look beside the glamoured figures and focus on them from the periphery of his sight.
They were transparent humanoids which disturbed the background visible through them as if they were made out of glass.
It helped, though the omnipresent graffiti still made them difficult to make out.
…so he'd shouted: "Ron; Night vision!"
It hadn't helped poor Greg much.
…and Harry would have sworn that it had been Hermione who'd hexed a figure over his shoulder, not Tamsin.
The moment Harry had realised that spells bounced off the figures too, he'd cast a Bombarda on the floor, to hopefully distract them.
Two of them had fallen into the unexpected basement. A third had managed to attach himself to the ceiling with something equally impossible to focus his eyes on.
He'd Bombarda'd right above him to get the three together in the black chasm below, and had called for 'Ron' and 'Hermione' to 'deal with the other two'.
Then he'd leapt into the blackness, cast a Lumos as he'd gone down, and he could have sworn he'd seen Fred's lifeless face underneath the rubble.
What happened afterwards roared like a thunderstorm in his mind.
Curses had whizzed by and he'd cast back, he wasn't sure what — he'd heard Hermione scream and Ron's arm was fucked and there had been Voldemort's laughter in his head as Malfoy lowered his wand, but some flashes had been green and then there'd been thousands of Prophecies crashing around him and the glittering dust of glass and predictions had reflected the flashes so he couldn't tell where they'd come from, and Bellatrix had cackled and it had been so bright —
It had seared through his eyelids, so intense that his nerves hadn't even tried to process the pain.
He'd been left with the hollow metallic knowledge that he was going to be numb for a while.
…and then Hermione's hand had been on his shoulder.
He'd turned to her, relieved, but it had been Tamsin who'd nervously smiled at him.
Two of the Aurors he'd Incarcerated had been conscious and had seemed okay, if a little winded. They had happily assured him that the third would be fine.
In hindsight, their smiles seemed more like grimaces.
Harry didn't remember what Simmons had told him afterwards as his mind had still been racing, but it had taken an awkward amount of time.
…so now he was in the break room of the Auror department, trying to write a report about the 'mission'.
Tamsin and Greg were doing the same elsewhere, and Greg was probably doing splendidly.
They'd been eager to get away from him.
…he'd called them the wrong names too, hadn't he?
Neither of them had corrected him…
Harry sighed as he dipped his quill into the inkwell again. He hadn't gotten beyond the date and wondered how to distill this bollocks into words.
Hermione would be able to help.
Last year, when they'd been at Grimmauld, Hermione had told Ron and him about 'the physiology of the eye'.
(Harry could hear her say it in his mind.)
Though Harry had forgotten the details of the rods and cones, he'd remembered that in the dark, it was easier to distinguish details by looking beside the thing you wanted to see.
Also, where the optic nerve was connected to the … whatever… - inside of the eye, there was a blind spot where the brain filled stuff in for itself.
After Hermione had demonstrated this, they'd spent some time making things 'disappear' by looking beside them.
Food, books, Horcruxes…
…and then Ron and Hermione had been so engaged in not-seeing each other that they hadn't remarked on Harry leaving the room.
He'd brought his lukewarm tea with him to the rooftop terrace and he'd looked beside the stars.
The cold of the stone had seeped into his back as he'd made the moon disappear.
Nobody had noticed.
Should he write to them?
No, fuck: This was his problem — and besides, what would he tell them?
'Hi, I know you've been through hell for me and are just trying to get on with life and all, but could you ignore your peace and love and N.E.W.T.s for a minute and help me out with this stuff I've signed myself up for?'
They'd put up with enough because of him… They deserved a break.
Besides — he was fine.
And it was almost December. He'd see them at Christmas.
He sighed and became aware of the mostly blank parchment in front of him again.
He'd taken the booth that was positioned so that people couldn't tell he was there unless they specifically checked.
It was his favourite.
His thoughts felt far away, as if pushed aside by something enormous and unfathomable.
It wasn't Voldemort though. It couldn't be.
He'd been dead for ages…
…maybe that was why the memory of his lifeless body felt like a dream he was about to forget.
The radio played something instrumental and easy to dismiss, which reminded him of why he'd even come here today.
Malfoy's memory.
He knew he had to get that sorted before night time, or his Phantom Mark would burn…
…but it was only early afternoon.
Besides, once he dove into the clusterfuck that was Death Manor again, he knew he wouldn't be able to focus on this dumb report anymore.
…couldn't they place a ladder to the side of the stairs so they could — …
No, fuck; what if it had been structurally affected?
What if it had become chalk?
And it wasn't clear whether the brewing room was safe either, was it?
Couldn't they just take the route through the dining room?
Then again, if the cabinet at the bottom of the ramp was smashed, or their potions ingredients would be 'affected', anything could happen…
…
The report, Junior Auror Potter…
The ink had dried on his quill and he threw it into the inkwell like a dart.
It petulantly didn't splatter.
Harry glared at it as he tried to get his brain to cooperate.
How had it run away with him like this?
"Coffee?" came a voice from above, and Harry'd pointed his wand at it before he'd processed the sound.
Tristan had peered over the dark wood backing of the booth and raised his eyebrows. "Right, British: Tea?"
Harry nodded as he sleeved his wand, too numb to be embarrassed, and resigned himself to having to socialise.
Maybe he could get some pointers on the report.
Tristan handed him a tea as he had a coffee himself.
He was in uniform, which looked too formal on him, and he'd apparently been put on standby duty.
"Someone's gotta do it," he said with an unenthusiastic shrug.
"I guess," Harry said, having just burnt his mouth on tea he didn't fancy.
He'd much rather drink something with a percentage.
"What are you up to?" Tristan nodded at Harry's blank parchment.
"…report on Field Training…" Harry sighed. He wondered whether to elaborate, and figured that if he was gonna tell anyone, it should be another Auror.
…preferably one who didn't think of him as The Chosen One.
"Simmons' thing?" Tristan asked.
Harry nodded and hesitated.
"I knocked someone out," He said softly.
Tristan nodded as he regarded his face. "Through skill or by accident?"
Harry hesitated again. "Neither? Both? I er — …" He sighed and glared at his parchment.
"What happened?"
"I'm not sure…"
"…huh." Tristan reached in his pocket. "Not goin' anywhere for a while?" He asked, as he shoved a Snickers bar towards Harry.
"…thanks," Harry said, oddly reminded of Remus.
He was relieved to be too numb to be sad, which made him feel like an arsehole.
"In your own time… can I look?" Tristan indicated the Residue Assessment FieldScroll box that Harry'd put beside him.
Harry nodded as he chewed.
He wondered how to phrase what bothered him without coming off as a mental case.
Other people probably didn't have their thoughts pushed aside…
Regardless, the Auror who'd gotten knocked out had been prepared for a fight with Junior Aurors, right?
…but none of them had been prepared for Harry fucking Potter…
"…did you know Draco wrote in your log?" Tristan asked, snapping Harry out of his gloom.
Harry nodded and gestured for the item as he chewed — he'd forgotten how much this stuff got stuck in his teeth.
Tristan shoved it over.
It was surprising to see Malfoy had written three paragraphs.
Harry had known that there'd been something, and he obviously remembered handing him the log, but the details had faded from his mind.
Yesterday felt like a dream.
He sighed as he looked over the writing, which was less tidy than the letter to Ginny:
'In the bedroom and en suite, my aunt appears when there is a threat (such as your pet lump of sugarcoated bile).'
…Malfoy had referred to Kerry as a threat yesterday?
Could Harry have prevented her fall if he'd just paid attention?
Fuck's sake - Why hadn't he even considered looking at this again?
He read on, chewing faster for some reason.
'She responds to what happens and we interact, to some extent. She does not always seem fully engaged with reality. And yes; in this sense, both sleeping and waking are also considered threats.'
If waking was a threat and Kerry, the threat, woke him, was that a double threat?
Had the echo of Bellatrix done something?
'Telaprendo renders the Residue attentive (vision goes both ways).'
Harry remembered the quivering figure of pitch he'd seen and shuddered.
'The air tightened and you stepped out of yourself and approached. My aunt danced the Sarabande and you stared with solid black eyes.'
Oh yeah…
Kerry had thought Malfoy'd been talking about her eyes, hadn't she?
'When I wrote that you watched me, Black Eyed You disappeared and You-you was still in the chair.'
Harry vaguely remembered being charmed by the glittering letters being written. They'd seemed peaceful in the darkness.
Like the moon…
He shook his head as he looked at the final sentence.
'Mother and Zachary already had doubles on the premises, and my aunt thinks you might have partially moved in :)'
"Partially moved in?" He asked out loud.
"…what?" Tristan didn't sound remotely alarmed.
"There are 'doubles on the premises' and I might have 'partially moved in'."
They looked at each other.
"Did he mention any of this to you?" Harry asked.
"No, didn't — … he didn't talk much…" Tristan awkwardly sipped his coffee.
Oh yeah, they'd been occupied with other things…
"There was an incident this morning…" Harry said slowly, willing his face to stop burning.
Where had the numbness gone?
Meanwhile Carter and an Auror Harry didn't know entered the break room.
"He tried somethin' else?" Tristan asked, tense now.
Carter looked over curiously and Tristan raised a hand in a dismissive greeting.
Harry got the vial out of his pocket, mostly to check that he hadn't lost it. "…still gotta watch Malfoy's memory of this morning… don't know yet."
"Why're you puttyin' with this culch when you don't know whether he tried somethin?" Tristan looked at him incredulously, then pulled the parchment towards himself.
Harry wasn't sure what 'puttying with culch' was, but reckoned it meant something like 'messing around'.
"I'll help with your report, okay, you can season to taste later." Tristan looked at Harry meaningfully. "I'll be here or in the office — off you go."