Disclaimer: Harry Potter and all characters,places et al.are owned by J.K. Rowling
A/N: And another one :) shorter, but a bit of a transition. Hope you enjoy!
Chapter 13
Harry breathed heavily as he sat down on the old bed upstairs in the Shrieking Shack. Draco lay on the bed, still weak from his torture.
After Draco's torturer had seen his end, Harry had tried to remove any signs of their presence. Draco was too weak to walk alone, so Harry supported him as he walked away, always careful to remove their footsteps so no one could follow. He couldn't go back to Hogsmeade, not with Draco and the way he looked. People would ask questions. So he made for the Shack, a place he knew to be quite deserted. It was a tedious walk – especially since he had to cover their tracks - but they made it without being seen.
He sighed and fell backwards on the bed. "Are you alright?" he asked Draco, who breathed weakly.
"Getting better," he whispered. "Just give me a few minutes."
"Sure…" Harry breathed out and got up again, taking out his wand out. "Don't move, please. Just patching you up again." He cast a simple repairing spell on Draco's clothes. The rips and cuts merged and healed until they looked just about new; if he only could say that about Draco, as well. Luckily, only a few bruises in the face, a cut lip and some cut on the temple. He would be able to explain it away with a simple stumble and no one would ask questions. Draco looked up and watched his clothes.
"Thanks…" He tried to get up but only managed to stabilize his head on his hand. "How do you feel?" he asked, his breathing getting steadier.
"Feel?" Harry just looked at him. "I don't know. Relieved you're still alive?"
"I mean...You killed him. Just so, cold-blooded." Draco said.
"He hurt you," Harry answered with a cold voice. "He deserved to die. All Death Eaters do."
"But what did you feel?"
Harry was silent. He tried to say he did feel something. Anything. But he didn't. There was just a cold, dark spot in his mind. "Why should I feel something for this – this creature?"
"It would be human, I guess," Draco frowned. "You used an Unforgivable, just like that."
"Yes, I did. Learning to fight fire with fire. He would have killed you. Why should I be nicer to him? Are you afraid of me?"
"No," Draco quickly answered. "No, I just never thought you changed quite that drastically. But I'm not afraid of you. You saved my life, and I love you, come what may. Darkness is no stranger to me. It's part of my life."
Harry bent down and kissed him on his forehead.
"I love you, too," he smiled, for the first time since the forest. "But we have to be careful. There certainly will be some sort of investigation. It's not every day dead Death Eaters just lie around in forests. I tried to cover our tracks as thorough as I could. But if anyone asks you, we were here, and you accidentally stumbled and walked against a door. You should be used to this kind of reasoning." Draco actually chuckled as he remembered the clash with Ron in the school corridors.
"It'll be our secret."
Yes, it will," he smiled again and lay down again next to Draco, just holding his hand.
She really hated this part of the job. Tightly clutching her cup of coffee, Elizabeth Banish walked through the shrubbery behind Hogsmeade. Her boss hated her, of course. So she always got the weird cases not deemed important for real Auror presence. Arrogant pricks. The morning was exceptionally cold, and not even the sun could warm her up. Why can't murderers observe some time schedule? Afternoons would fit her perfectly. She took another sip of coffee before her assistant, Phil, came walking for her. Her assistant, a good-looking brown-haired man just fresh from police training, looked again stunningly fresh and relaxed for this time of the morning. One of these days he's got to tell me how he's doing it…
"Good morning," he smiled. He damn well knew she was no morning person. She mumbled something unintelligible before she asked him, "What we have here?"
"A killed Death Eater. Very strange thing," he answered her. Phil wasn't easily spooked or clueless, but it seemed this one was special.
He showed her a small clearing in the woods, and there, in the middle of it, a older man lay still, a sleeve of his robes rolled up to reveal the Dark Mark.
"Inspector," the small pot-bellied coroner wizard walked up to her before she could ask more questions. "For a moment?"
"Of course," Inspector Elizabeth Banish politely answered and pulled out her notepad. "What did you find out?"
"I have made some tests, and it is true. He died by the Killing Curse."
"Anything else?" she asked as she wrote it down on her notepad.
"He's been through a Cruciatus Curse, but apart from that, no. Nothing on him. There's some other magic around here, but I haven't seen anything like it before. No clue, I'm afraid."
"Thank you so far. You'll send the report to my office?"
"Of course, as always."
She turned to the young man standing next to her. "What you make of it, Phil?"
Her assistant consulted his own notepad, then said, "It is very curious. Erad Nalfayn, a suspected-"
Inspector Banish cleared her throat.
"A confirmed Death Eater, killed by the Killing Curse. The whole scenery is weird. From the look of it, Nalfayn was not alone her. Someone hung from that tree there, so much is sure. But we haven't found any footsteps, and it seems someone did a very good job of getting rid of any traces. Would He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named be so stupid and kill one of his followers so close to a huge concentration of wizards? And not even making a show of it?"
"My questions exactly."
Before she could go on, a guard came hurrying towards her position. "Inspector," he shouted exasperated. "Over here!" He pointed in the thick of the woods. She quickly walked over there. "What is it? Found anything?"
"Yes, Inspector," another guard excitedly answered. "Footsteps, from around the time of the murder. The way it looks, that person came over from around Hogsmeade, stopped here, and then moved on again."
"Can you say anything more detailed about it?"
"Sneakers, and most likely male, from the size of it. Not too deep a footstep, and not very large. If I was to tell, a slight man, or a boy. For more, we have to get the specialists to work."
"Do it," she said and slowly walked from the position towards the habitat of the body.
"I don't understand that. Even if he carefully hid himself between trees and shrubs, he couldn't have made his way completely undetected. Or he is a master of silent moving."
"It really doesn't fit together," Phil murmured from behind her. "One question, though. What would you think of getting a diviner to find out about this mysterious magical aura found here?"
"Yes, good thinking," she nodded. "Get one. Maybe this will give us added information. And we need to get into contact with Hogawarts."
Phil looked puzzled."Why Hogwarts?"
"He said it could be a young man. And Hogwarts had its Hogsmeade weekend."
"You don't think-?" He gasped. "It can't be possible."
"It happened before, remember…"
No light from the outside pervaded the dark and gloomy dungeon. The only sounds were the cackling of fires and the shuffling of feet and robes.
When he spoke, it was as if a bomb shell exploded. "Fools!" Voldemort hissed. "Do I have to do everything myself? How hard can it be to kill a single boy?"
No one dared speaking up and all were busy looking down.
"Bellatrix, come here!" He said into the silence.
A hooded person stepped forward. "Yes, My Lord?"
"I hope you will not disappoint me," the Dark Lord said dangerously. "Kill the Malfoy boy. And find out who killed Nalfayn. And don't disappoint me," his voce dropped several grades of coolness.
"I won't, My Lord," she bowed and slowly walked back to her position.
"And," Elizabeth addressed the old wizard, "found anything of interest?" He was tall, but thin as a stick, and looked quite frail. But he was the best expert on magical auras they could get their hands on in the short time.
"Yes, I have," he answered her with a deep voice that belied his stature.
"Then, what is it?" She was beginning to get frustrated. He took his time for the simplest things. Time she didn't have, and so far, he seemed impervious to her agitation.
"Something very dark, very old. Magic of the Shadows," he sounded ominous.
"Should this tell me something?"
"No, I guess not," he said deep in thought. "It's a very ancient field of magic. And very dangerous. It is not…fashionable nowadays."
"Could you elaborate? Is it Dark Magic?"
"No," he shook his head avidly. "No, it's something else entirely. It was used in ancient times, and only obscure references exist today. Most people wouldn't even know it."
"But why?" she asked curiously.
"Dark or Light magic. It's just a subjective thing, what we choose to label dark. Using it has no real influence on you. Even the purest of peopel could use a Dark spell without consequences to his body. But this magic…" He fell silent for a second, like he couldn't believe his own words. "It consumes you, physically. You get torn apart, eaten from within by a darkness, the very shadows this magic evokes. As more and more people became afraid to use it, to pay the price, the less people knew about it. To my knowledge, the last user died some three hundred years ago in this country."
"Someone obviously uses it now," she silently said. "It is no good news, is it?"
"If you get consumed, you become something else. Great battles were fought because of it. Interesting times may be ahead of us." He looked away from them and was about to walk away to his transportation.
But before he was out of sight, she shot another question at him, curious. "Do you know anything more about it? It's powers?"
He turned around, his eyes deep in thought. "Only stories and obscure references exist, really. No manual, if you will. It was reported to grant you control of the shadows, manipulate them, use them. If some rumours are true they are not from this world, once the magiker touches them with his mind. Truly horrific things have been done. Not even He-Who-Is-Not-Mentioned must put up a fight to equal these dark times." He slightly shivered and turned his head away. "You are free to visit me in my study if you need more information, or if you have some information for me."
"Thank you, I will keep it in mind."
After he was away, her assistant stepped to her side. "Do you believe him? It sounds so strange…"
"Well, no one else knew about it. Not that I like what he said. Interesting times indeed."
"But it didn't get us any step forward, did it?"
"Well," she slowly turned her head, "at least we know it's someone with extraordinary knowledge. And possibly a student at Hogwarts. The Headmaster won't be too pleased."