The next morning Draco was gone.
He wasn't dead. That much I could tell. But he was gone, and the only thing left in the echoing part of my head that belonged to him was the faint feel of him and a vague sense of which direction he'd gone.
I went straight to Dumbledore.
* * *
"So young Malfoy is gone, you say."
"Yes, sir. He's missing."
"It's true that he has not appeared for classes today, and that his Housemates have not seen him since yesterday evening. But what exactly makes you so certain that he isn't on the Hogwarts grounds somewhere?"
I'd forgotten this bit in my fear, that I couldn't just say how I knew that Draco was gone. I desperately tried to improvise. "I've looked everywhere for him, Professor. I've asked everyone. No one's seen him, and I can't find him, and his father was very angry with him yesterday…I'm afraid his father has taken him from Hogwarts."
Dumbledore looked at me steadily. "It is within his rights to do so, Harry," he said gently.
"But—sir, I'm afraid he means to do him harm. And Draco would have told me if he'd gone willingly, I know he would have." I stared down at my hands, clenched white-knuckled in my lap. "He's in trouble, I'm sure of it."
"Harry, I understand your concern. Unfortunately there is simply nothing that can be done unless Draco is actually harmed, and we have proof of it." I swallowed hard, my vision greying out at the edges. Professor Dumbledore continued. "Have you owled him, Harry?"
"I—no—"
"Perhaps you should try that, before you allow yourself to become truly concerned. It is entirely possible that he is fine, you know."
"Professor—Lucius beat him yesterday—it only stopped because I came in and made him go—"
Dumbledore leaned forward over his desk, looking at me intently until finally I raised my head and met his gaze. "Lucius Malfoy has not survived this long by being foolish, Harry. He will not harm his son, his only heir. Of all the things he might do, that is not one of them."
―but he already HAS—
"But if he does—"
"If he does, we will retrieve Draco. But he will not. And as things stand, there is simply nothing that can be done. I apologise, Harry. I know that you care for Draco very much. But we cannot do anything at this point."
I squeezed my eyes shut tightly for a moment, then nodded and stood up. "I've got to get back to class, Professor." And I was out the door before Dumbledore could do more than nod.
Dumbledore wouldn't help me. There had to be someone who would.
* * *
I went to Ron and Hermione next.
"Draco's missing. I need you to help me figure out how to get him back." ...I'd never really believed in dancing around a subject anyway.
While Ron was still blinking, Hermione answered, knife-sharp as always. "How do you know he's gone?"
Dammit, sometimes I get tired of Hermione being so fucking bright.
"Because I've looked everywhere for him and he's not here, alright, he's not fucking here—"
"Harry! Language!"
"—and his father is going to hurt him and I've got to stop it, don't you see?"
Hermione put a hand on my arm and I glared at her, completely NOT in the mood to deal with her trying to settle me down. "Harry. Settle down."
"God damn it, Hermione, I fucking knew you'd say that." Ron snickered.
"Harry!"
"For Christ's sake, are you going to help me or just bitch at me about my language!?!" I shouted.
Hermione stared at me, shocked. I began to feel very, very bad for talking to her like that, and prayed she didn't cry. I couldn't bear that just now.
Fortunately Ron stepped in and saved me. "So Malfoy's gone. Is he in danger, do you think, Harry?"
"I know he's in danger. His father was here yesterday and beat him for being with me. And he left only because I made him, and he threatened Draco, and something is just fucking wrong, and I'm afraid for him, yes!"
Hermione had gotten past staring and asked, "Have you owled him?" For the love of God, I hate it when everyone asks me the same questions all reasonable-like.
"No. There's no time to owl him, he's in danger! You don't understand, you didn't see his father yesterday, he almost broke Draco's jaw and he was about to cast Crucio on him when I came in—"
"Alright. Where is he? Have you talked to Dumbledore?"
I scowled at my feet, disgusted. "Yes. He won't help."
This took even Ron aback. If Dumbledore wouldn't help—
Very gently, Hermione asked, "Do you have any idea where Draco is, Harry?"
I was about to shout 'Yes, he's over THERE, that way, let's go!' when I realised how incredibly stupid that would be. "I…I think Lucius took him back to Malfoy Manor." It was the most likely place. As long as I could just get off the grounds, if it felt like I was going the wrong way, I could think of something else—I just had to get started—
"Do you have any idea where Malfoy Manor is? Or how to get there? We can't Apparate, I don't know anything about whether the train goes there or what the schedule is—" Hermione had put her hand on my arm again.
I stopped, crushed. I'd not thought of how to get to him. Just getting to him was what mattered. "We could fly…"
"Ron and I don't have broomsticks, Harry." Hermione was being very, very careful with me now. I could feel it, and for a split second it made me want to scream at her and storm off, but then my brain kicked in and I realised that I was making a complete ass of myself.
And all of a sudden my legs couldn't hold me up and I crumpled to the floor with my head in my hands, trying very hard indeed not to cry. Hermione and Ron had their arms around me instantly. "I'm afraid for him and there's nothing I can do…"
"I know, Harry, I know." Hermione's cheek felt suspiciously wet against mine, and I didn't care whatsoever that I was on the floor in the middle of the corridor, all I cared about was that somewhere, somewhere Draco needed me and I couldn't be there.
It was just then that DRACO burst into my mind like a volcano erupting.
I leapt to my feet, sending Hermione sprawling, and Ron sat back hard and gaped at me; I knew, intellectually I knew that I was making a very large mistake, but I couldn't help myself; and I ran.
He was just below the Hogwarts gates and closing in fast. I pelted towards him, drawn to him more strongly than a compass needle pulls north, a mindless frenzy of relief/fear/love/fear/love/fury/love humming in my ears and burning along my skin.
Soon I would see him soon and he was alive and my pounding feet met the rhythm of my heart and soon he was okay and if I just ran hard enough he would be there
and he was.
There.
I flung myself at him so hard that he was knocked entirely off his feet and in a tangle of limbs we fell and I buried my face in his throat and tried to remember how to breathe.
Then I sat up and started examining every inch of his skin, shoving his robes off, checking his limbs, pushing his shirt up and searching every bit of that silken creamy skin that belonged to ME. :Where have you BEEN you scared the HELL out of me are you okay? Tell me you're okay tell me you're alright where the fuck have you BEEN?:
He was about to answer when I found it.
No bruises, no broken bones.
Just a burn.
A deep gouge of tortured flesh, a blistered, bleeding, blackened-on-the-edges burn running from the base of his throat down jaggedly over his heart to his last rib, just missing his nipple by a breath. My breath caught in my throat and between one blink and another my vision was blood-red.
Through grinding teeth I managed to ask him. "Who did this to you."
He seized my face between his hands and made me look at him. When my eyes met his he flinched and blanched snow-white. :Harry, you don't understand, it was completely unpredictable, oh god Harry don't look at me like that please.:
:I'll kill him. I'LL KILL HIM. It was him, wasn't it. Let me go, Draco, LET ME GO.: But he wouldn't; he wrapped his legs around my waist and his arms around mine and clung like a limpet. Even through my blood-rage I stopped, terrified that I'd hurt him more, afraid to have him pressing up against me with that ripping wound still bleeding down his lovely pale chest. But what wasn't held down of me was my mind tearing his father limb from limb.
:NO Harry listen to me it wasn't him, it wasn't!:
I stopped, froze entirely, blind to everything except his pain and the red haze that had flared over my eyes and mind, and held so still that I could feel exactly when the vein burst in my mouth from my jaw clenching and flooded my tongue with blood.
:Tell me what happened.:
:It was—I—Voldemort came, Harry.: He clenched his limbs tighter around me to hold me down, but all I could do was drop my jaw, blood still running along my gums and over my tongue, and try to keep him from pressing too tightly against me, to spare him. He went on. :My father came and got me early this morning and took me home and everything was just like I'd told you it would be, everything was okay, he wound down and had accepted it and he'd just called for Mother when Voldemort Apparated in.:
:Oh my god, Draco.:
A tiny part of my mind registered the blood seeping out to feather over my tightly-pressed lips. I swallowed thickly.
:He'd listened to us shouting through the door of my father's study and just when things were done and we'd finished and Father'd sent a house elf for Mother he came in and oh GODS Harry.:
:Tell me.:
:He was GLAD, Harry, he was PLEASED, but just to reinforce his dominance just because he COULD he hurt my father, he HURT MY FATHER, I saw him and when I realised what he was going to do I stepped forward and he just looked over and flicked his wand and I slammed back against the wall and I couldn't move and all I could do was watch and I saw my father looking at me before he screamed and oh my GOD Harry—:
:Oh my god.:
:—and my father screamed and SCREAMED and I couldn't do ANYTHING and then it was better because he let my father go and just held him there like he did to me and he came over to me and he said, he said—:
:Oh god, Draco—:
:—he said 'Well done, young Malfoy' just like Snape did he said it and then my mother came in and saw and turned around and left, thank all the gods, she LEFT, and then he told me to remember my loyalties, remember them and remember what was waiting for me if I faltered, and my father cried as he saw it it was his VOLDEMORT'S it was his it was his wand it burned white-hot at the tip his eyes were glowing burning red and he liked it he LOVED it I saw him smiling while he did it so twisted and almost sexual and so WRONG it made me afraid so afraid Harry I saw him smiling and it wasn't just a burn it wasn't it felt like it was tearing out my soul and I SCREAMED but it didn't stop it didn't it sliced like a knife and only burned around the edges it wouldn't even cauterise it just carved into me while I bled and my skin smoked I breathed my own flesh burning in a cloud around my head while I screamed and my father CRIED and he dragged it down so SLOWLY so SLOWLY Harry—:
:Oh my GOD Draco NO—:
:—my father CRIED, he CRIED, I've never seen him cry before but he CRIED—:
:Draco. It's over now, it's OVER, you're here now, it's over—:
:—and then he left, he just stopped out of nowhere like none of it had happened and he smiled at me and he smiled at my father and watched as my father slid down the wall and he just LEFT like it was all unimportant, and my father cried while he watched me bleed and oh GODS Harry he CRIED—:
I held him in my arms and rocked back and forth, tears streaming from my eyes and hate blazing in my heart.
:—and then my mother came back with her wand and all the hells that might ever have been in her eyes if she'd been there she'd have killed him or died but it was too late, it was too late—:
:Oh Draco. Shhhhhhhhh. It's okay now. It will be okay now. I swear to you, on my life, I will make things alright now. Shhhhhhhhhhhh.:
And he shuddered and cried into my shoulder while I bit the insides of my lips bloody, my lips already lined with my own drying blood, and my tears stained his colourless hair.
Whatever it might take, whatever I had to give, I would rectify this. I would fix Draco's world if it killed me. I would make everything right again.