Happy birthday to me! As a gift, here is one of my personal favourite chapters. :D Also I would like to extend an extra thank you to my wonderful AlphaBeta TheBoxInWhichHeCats, who had to go over this chapter 3 times before the Harry&Drarry levels were acceptable.
The little starlights in the ceiling were lit though the stale sun peeked through the sheer curtains. Malfoy was in his bed, his knees pulled up, a book leaning against his legs.
He was wearing one of his long white sleep shirts.
Didn't he own any other sleepwear?
The air felt heavy with malicious chaos, a sensation similar to static.
Harry was about to lean in to see what Malfoy had been reading when Bellatrix's voice came from the sofa: "Get up."
Harry jumped towards it, wand raised, but she wasn't there.
Malfoy sighed and the bedroom door swung open.
"Get up," Kerry said nasally as she walked in without looking at him. She was in uniform today and casually undid a charm above Malfoy's bed - Harry assumed it was the signalling charm.
"It's eight o'clock," She said as she took in the room, "You don't want to be asleep when Harry Potter comes to clean your mess up."
She went over to one of the windows and moved the curtain aside to look out.
"Hurrah for Saint Potter in his benevolent glory!" Bellatrix's voice whipped around and Harry froze in alarm.
Her cackle followed.
Malfoy rolled his eyes.
Kerry didn't acknowledge it. "It's also rude not to say goodbye to Auror Himmelman."
"Aw…" Bellatrix said mockingly, "Rude…"
"I don't have to be present for shift changes," Malfoy croaked, bored, then suppressed a yawn. "I'm sure you can manage without me."
"Okay," Kerry said as she turned to him.
"Where is your suspicious letter." She didn't intone it as a question.
Harry tasted bile at the mention of it but Malfoy just sighed, looking miffed.
"Where is it." Kerry said shortly.
"Not here," Malfoy said with some sass as he sat up and stretched his arms.
Harry was somewhat relieved by his attitude, since he'd seemed so tense and stiff when he'd seen him this morning.
…and then he realised that Malfoy had stretched his arms.
Plural.
Harry watched in amazement; attached to the stump was an arm-shaped shadow.
The sleeve hung empty so there couldn't be any substance to it, but the shade was exactly the shadow of an arm.
Its hand was balled the way one might expect when stretching…
…was Malfoy remembering it like this because he'd forgotten that it wasn't there? Or was this a Residue thing?
"Get it then." Kerry commanded.
Bellatrix's disembodied voice softly hummed something.
She was still going when Malfoy began speaking:
"Auror Himmelman didn't consider it necessary." His voice croaked.
He'd leaned his shadow-hand on the side of the bed, beside his leg, as he went through his hair with the real one.
"That's because he doesn't care," Kerry said with a concerned frown.
"Aw…" Bellatrix crooned softly.
Malfoy smiled and shook his head.
"How is that funny." Kerry 'asked'.
Malfoy seemed to consider something. "You wouldn't get it," He then said with the smallest shrug.
He got his wand from underneath his pillow and pointed it at the bathroom door.
It opened and the tap began to run.
Kerry looked at him with friendly incomprehension. "You had a bath yesterday."
"So?" Malfoy asked with disinterest as he got up and went towards the bathroom.
"…here it comes…" Bellatrix sounded amused. A shadow in her shape faded into visibility on the sofa as Malfoy passed by it.
He promptly froze.
"The black won't come off 'cos it's under your skin." Kerry said in a pitying tone. "It's what happens when you make the wrong choices — you have to live with the results."
As she spoke, Malfoy's shadow-hand very slowly and steadily moved to flip her off.
The rest of him trembled. He looked livid.
Bellatrix laughed ecstatically.
Kerry wasn't done yet: "…and okay, you're disabled and you look a bit nasty, but it could have been worse. You could have died like your dad."
Harry swallowed and tried to read her face.
She didn't look malicious…
…Umbridge hadn't either…
Harry shook himself a bit: The back of his hand itched and he gripped his wand tighter.
Had she been like this the whole time?
Malfoy hadn't looked like he had expected her to behave this way… It was no wonder that he considered her a threat though.
"…still a little dirty…" Greyback's voice growled from the bathroom doorway, sending a shudder down his neck.
Kerry didn't seem to have heard that either.
Malfoy's shadow-hand had lowered and disappeared as it balled into a fist. The normal one still firmly held his wand, which quivered in his grip.
"You're lucky you know." Kerry concluded with a little smile.
"Ti odio… Tanto…" Malfoy said softly and swallowed hard.
He was as white as a sheet.
Harry tried to save the sound of the words in his mind so he could look them up later.
"Oh no…" Bellatrix said softly, sounding serious. Malfoy's eyes widened in shock and he turned a shade paler.
"Oh no," Kerry marched over to him. "No foreign; get dressed."
Something caught in Harry's throat.
The Dursleys used to change the channel whenever any 'foreign' was on telly, even if it'd been on the news.
Would Kerry really be that bad? She'd come from another continent, this didn't make any sense.
Malfoy's mouth was half-way a snarl. "Or what?" He croaked, haughtily if a little forced. "You're supposed to — "
Foul with determination she grabbed him by the neck, undeterred by having to reach up.
Harry watched, mouth agape.
This was textbook Excessive Force.
He tried to take Kerry by the arm to stop her, but went right through the memory of her actions.
She marched Malfoy into the bathroom, forcing him to stumble along; she closed the tap with one hand as she held him with the other, incidentally making him bow.
Aunt Marge and her dogs came to mind.
Harry followed them in, baffled.
He hadn't liked her and she'd obviously gotten on Malfoy's nerves, but could he have known that she was this bad?
Malfoy didn't make a sound and quickly raised his wand the smallest bit before slowly lowering it again.
The 'I must not tell' on the back of Harry's hand itched so badly that it burned.
…this whole situation could have been prevented.
He might not have known that she was 'like this', but he'd felt it.
In the scar on his hand.
She'd gotten on his nerves from the second he'd met her.
Why had he given her the benefit of the doubt?
Why hadn't he doubted more?
"Where are your clothes." Kerry demanded.
She'd parked Malfoy in front of the mirror where he scowled at his reflection. The black vein on his throat pulsed and his shadow-hand rubbed his neck.
The other gripped his wand so tightly that his knuckles were white.
She marched out of the bathroom and Harry looked at Malfoy's face. His eyes were round and he was breathing quickly, as if preparing to hold his breath.
This was so wrong.
Harry could hear the doors of the clothing cabinet open as the ogle-Chair took its usual place, and something in his neck prickled.
Malfoy's breathing calmed a little, his pale eyes now glittering.
"What is with this cursed chair." Kerry said offhandedly. "You need to hurry up, I don't know when Harry Potter will be here."
Was she doing this for Harry somehow? She'd said that she was 'a bit of a fan', hadn't she?
Did she think this shit was acceptable because Malfoy had been a Death Eater?
There were rules about how to handle charges, about when to use force, about what was decent — Harry'd thought some of them were almost nonsensical since they were so obvious, but here was a shining example of exactly how necessary they were.
Something big and black flew out through Harry's chest and hit Malfoy in the side of the head.
Harry'd seen him raise the shadow-hand, but it disappeared when the black cloth hit him and dropped to the floor.
On the white marble now lay his clothes, partially unfolded with the impact.
Malfoy turned from them to his reflection with a fixed stare and Harry just stood there, feeling lost.
It was as if the rug had been pulled from under him.
Weren't Aurors supposed to solve things? To make things better?
Harry'd wanted Quiesko out because Quiesko might have allowed Malfoy to do something to himself. He had not been prepared to see one of his direct colleagues actively treat someone this way.
Something inside his chest went cold.
The FieldScroll clicked behind him and turned to see that Kerry had taken the Chair.
She was writing in the log.
"Underwear too?" She asked distractedly. "Or are you one of those nasty types?" She snorted as she continued to carve the parchment with the quill.
…she was just humiliating him now.
Harry gripped his wand tighter.
"I'm not," Malfoy said nearly voicelessly.
He would not have deigned to answer a question like that when they were in school.
…but he didn't have a choice, did he?
He was in his home, in his personal bathroom, hardly dressed, and an Auror in uniform was asking him about his underwear.
There was nowhere for him to go.
Harry's blood boiled with the injustice.
Kerry sighed in annoyance and got up. Shortly after, a pair of black boxer briefs and a pair of socks landed on top of his shirt and trousers.
Kerry sat back in the chair, her feet only just beyond the bathroom threshold.
Where did she think she got the right?
She didn't have it, this was revolting behaviour, but why did she think this was acceptable?
Was it because Malfoy was a war criminal?
He was also a person, someone who adjusted the position of his cutlery before the food appeared, who quirked an eyebrow when they were served carrots and peas, who made sure he had an audience before he opened a package…
"I thought you were one of those who wanted to do everything himself," Kerry said conversationally as she absent-mindedly scrolled through the log.
"…I am." Malfoy said tensely.
Harry's heart sunk.
Malfoy was clever. Quick. Funny.
But everything he said that could be interpreted as 'hostile' was going to be stripped from context and logged with a timestamp in order to determine how much longer he was going to be watched, like this, for at least the next two years.
"Hurry up then." Kerry said dismissively.
There was a shudder somewhere in Harry's chest and he wanted to yank her from her seat. Scream at her. Do something.
…but this was just a memory.
So he just stood there, an inferno of righteous rage, trying to will himself calm with such force that it gave him a headache.
Malfoy trembled as he reached for the bottom of his sleepwear.
Harry promptly marched out of the bathroom, right through Kerry in the hope that she'd feel it somehow.
Greyback's low chuckle came from where she sat.
"It's just his eyes, Draco." Bellatrix said invisibly from the sofa. "Don't be scared."
…the presence of the Dark Magical Residue Manifestation of a dead and deranged blood-supremacist murderer was better to Malfoy than a Ministry-appointed Auror.
Harry caught himself becoming grateful for Bellatrix's presence and was sickened by that, knowing what else she'd done.
He raised his hands to his temples, trying to rid of the tension there as he uncomfortably wondered how much more there would be to this memory.
He spent about half a minute like that, glad that Kerry remained seated.
Then:
"Lost conscience due to disability." She said without context.
The sounds of moving cloth from the bathroom stopped.
"…excuse me?" Malfoy asked tonelessly.
"It says here 'charge lost conscience due to disability'," Kerry said conversationally.
What the fuck?
"…I have not… for any reason." Malfoy said, tense.
"You're calling Harry Potter a liar," She responded casually.
Hearing his name from her mouth made Harry's skin crawl. She must really be justifying her shit by thinking that she was doing this for him.
"Pot-ter is a li-ar!" Bellatrix sang shrilly.
Malfoy sighed.
Kerry continued, apparently oblivious: "Eleventh of — no the twenty-sixth. So two days ago, you lost your conscience."
That was the morning Malfoy'd bumped into his book case after the… stuff… with Tristan had happened…
…Kerry misread the word 'consciousness'.
Was that intentional? She had been a bit weird about words before.
Malfoy said nothing and the sounds of moving cloth recommenced.
"So you still had it when you like - tortured people?" She asked, her tone unusually enquiring.
Harry held his breath.
Bellatrix cackled, Greyback voiced an amused exhale, and Malfoy remained quiet.
"Are you confused? Or too tired?" Kerry asked with concern.
Malfoy said nothing and she tried to scoot the chair forward. It wouldn't cross the threshold and Bellatrix called "Eh-eh!" as if scolding a misbehaving pet.
Kerry got up and entered properly so Harry peeked around the corner, dreading what she walked into.
Malfoy was mostly dressed; his belt was still opened and the closed up sleeve of his unbuttoned blouse hung off his 'bad' shoulder, so the black tendril-like veins looked like part of the material.
They seemed bigger and more alive than Harry had gathered from the few half-glances he'd had the other day.
Had they grown?
There was no shadow-arm and the bandage was loosely wrapped around Malfoy's stump — apparently it had come undone when he'd put the shirt on.
His gaze was distant and unfocused.
Harry was unnerved by seeing that his ribs cast shadows, which created the illusion that a black jellyfish had him in its grip and was sucking the life right out of him.
Despite the grotesqueness of the sight, his attention was mostly drawn to the glittering silver slashes.
They seemed to cut through the squiggling lines like long staples, pinning them in place.
Tristan must have seen — …
Harry swallowed the thought away.
When was this memory going to end?
Kerry dismissively looked at Malfoy's torso but then focused back on his face.
She had the audacity to sound concerned: "When you hurt all those people, during the war… Did you still have a conscience then?"
Did she know that she was technically torturing him too?
Bellatrix's giggle came from the sofa at the same time as two hands reached up from behind Malfoy. They looked like they were made out of chipped and cracked soot-stained porcelain, and they moved slowly, as if not to startle anyone.
They were about to land on his shoulders as if to bolster him, but the moment they would have made contact they disappeared like smoke.
What the fuck was that?
"…apparently." Malfoy said flatly.
He stood as still as a statue.
Harry followed his example.
"…why does Harry Potter think you lost it?" Kerry asked in her usual tone.
Malfoy stared at her with no expression.
The silence was filled with Harry's heavy breathing.
"…ask him." Malfoy said stiffly after the time to answer had passed.
"No, he's got better things to do." She watched him curiously and blinked a few times.
No he doesn't.
Malfoy did not move, not even when the bandage slid down a little further and exposed more of the black lines on his stump.
"…I have two sons, and you know what" — Kerry didn't ask — "I can't imagine having one like you. They were raised right you see — not like murderers."
"I haven't killed anyone." Malfoy croaked tonelessly.
"DISAPPOINTMENT!" Bellatrix spat, so sudden and so foul that Harry jumped.
Malfoy flinched.
"You can be raised like something and not be it." Kerry said offhandedly, giving up, plodding back to the Chair.
Malfoy's eyes widened — slowly, as if he wasn't fully conscious, his gaze more distant than before.
"Hurry up," Kerry said as she sat down again, "I want to greet Harry Potter by the Floo."
Harry wished he'd shown up at 7 this morning.
Letter be damned, sleep be damned — none of this would have happened if he would have been here sooner.
"Hurrah!" Bellatrix called.
It seemed to snap Malfoy out of it, somewhat.
"…I can't go much faster," He said distractedly, turning to the mirror again.
He fidgeted with the bandage, glanced over at Kerry and then quickly cast a nonverbal sticking charm.
"There's a spell for getting dressed, you know." Kerry said conversationally.
"Is there?" He asked, croaking differently.
"Yeah they taught me when I was pregnant with Nicholas," She said. "Couldn't put my socks on."
Malfoy swallowed. "What is the incantation?" His voice sounded fuller than it had before.
"Ooh…" Bellatrix intoned invisibly from the sofa.
A spell flew through Harry and hit Malfoy, who let out a startled yelp.
His clothes adjusted themselves and his blouse buttoned up as quickly as a zipper, his belt closed, his shoes flew in…
Five seconds later he was fully dressed.
She didn't neglect a single opportunity to make this as shit for him as she could.
The drawing room floor had responded strongly to Harry not allowing Malfoy to decide whether to talk to him in the entrance hall… and here was Kerry, not allowing him to get dressed on his own terms.
Malfoy sleeved his wand and reached for the stump, adjusting the bandage through the cloth.
The vein in his neck pulsed and the one in his cheek squirmed.
"Could you tell me the incantation please?" He asked with a tremble.
This was hard to watch.
"No, it could go both ways and I don't want you stripping people," Kerry said as she shook her head. "I heard you bullied Harry Potter… I'm not going to assist that."
Malfoy nodded stiffly. "…all right."
Harry took a deep breath in an attempt to calm. down. as he followed the two of them into the hallway.
It extended far beyond the stairs and he caught a glimpse of someone entering a room in the distance, where her long black dress brushed the floor as she stepped over the threshold.
Narcissa.
Kerry was hardly two steps behind Malfoy and though they couldn't have missed it, neither of them acknowledged her.
Harry followed them closely, hoping that the worst was over.
There was a landing half-way down the stairs which made it possible to walk forwards and go up again, leading to a part of the manor that Harry hadn't yet seen.
They turned to the right though, down into the entrance hall, as the high windows behind them showed the bruise of dawn.
Harry knew the gap would appear on the sixth step from below, so as they descended, he became more focused.
Malfoy kept his hand on the railing as he glided down.
He hadn't made any unexpected movements, the stairs hadn't behaved oddly, and the occasional faint illusion of chalk-like dust at their every step was as present as it had been before.
Nothing seemed to be happening.
This very much felt like the eye of the storm.
Harry could of course watch this memory again later to see whether he'd missed anything, but —
Kerry dropped from his sight.
She let out a shriek and Harry looked down — She had sunk away to up to her chest and her arms were on the edge of the step in front of her, almost folded, as she held on for her life.
Narcissa and Himmelman sped towards them and Himmelman incarcerated Malfoy, who'd half-turned at the sudden cry behind him.
He stumbled when the ropes struck him and attempted to change the direction of his fall, so he could land into the railing.
Narcissa reached him just in time to help him down safely.
Himmelman helped Kerry out of the gap by hand.
The sight of her being dragged out like that brought to mind the imagery of paste coming from a tube.
It reminded him of aunt Marge blowing up like a balloon.
"Charge did it!" She yelled. "Charge weaponizes residue! There's precedent — he wants to trap me!"
Harry didn't blame him.
Her uniform was torn, shredded really, over most of her torso up to her chest. She was badly scraped but the injuries weren't deep.
It didn't look serious.
Malfoy, looking shaken and confused, watched her with wide eyes. Harry could see the red blotches appear on both sides of his throat as his mum discreetly tugged at the ropes to try to free the stump.
…and then, impossibly, Malfoy's silver eyes locked right into his.