Chapter 18

A/N: God, I'm so stuck. My mojo has left me! (crying). What do I do next?

A/N 2: This is going to be so bad… I have no idea what to write; I'm just trying to get something out before I go on holiday tomorrow.

A/N 3: And another week later… sorry for the wait.

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By two thirty, his sister's continued absence was starting to worry Harry. They'd argued before, loads, but they had never had a row like this one. Things had never got this personal. And they'd been getting on well recently, so this had come as something of a surprise.

He knew he could probably have coped with it if Deb hadn't made that dig about him and Draco being cowards. But he couldn't take that calmly, hearing her say that about his boyfriend. He'd never really noticed it, but thinking about it now, he felt a surge of protectiveness for Draco, all because of what happened to him at his last school. He was determined to stop that happening again.

Harry glanced at his watch. It was twenty-five to three, and she still wasn't back. She'd just stormed out without telling Lily or James where she was going, and that wasn't like her.

He fought himself for a moment or two, but eventually went out to the hall, picked up the phone and dialled her cell. It was switched off. That was pretty rare too.

Okay, the time had come for action. He dialled again.

"Hello?"

"Hey Sirius, it's Harry."

"Oh, hi Harry." He noticed his godfather's voice was a little distracted. Actually, he didn't even want to think about why that might be. "What's up?"

"I just wondered if Deb's been over to yours. We had a fight and she ran out, about midday. I haven't seen her since then."

Sirius's voice suddenly focused. "No, I haven't seen her. Did she just leave?"

"Yeah, she didn't tell mom or dad where she was headed."

There was a pause. "Okay. Are you going to go look?"

"Yeah, thought I would."

"Right, you do that. We'll get the car and drive around, see if we can spot her round town."

"We?" Harry's voice took on a tone of slight puzzlement.

"Um, 'we' would be me and Remus; that okay?"

"Yeah," Harry answered. "The more eyes the better."

"Alright then, keep your cell on; I'll call you if we find her."

"I will. Thanks Sirius." Harry hung up and debated for a moment. It would be pretty unexpected if she had, but it wasn't impossible that Deb might have turned to Draco. He dialled again.

"Hello?"

"Oh, hi Izzy, is Draco there? It's Harry."

"Yeah, he is, I'll just fetch him. Is everything okay?"

"Yeah, everything's fine thanks," he lied. No point in trying to explain things to Draco's mother at this moment in time. The phone was silent for a minute, until Draco's voice broke the quiet.

"Harry? What's up?"

"I'm sorry to call you so soon –"

"It's fine. What's wrong?"

"My sister," Harry replied a touch grimly, realising from Draco's response that she hadn't contacted him. "We had a fight when I got home. As in a really big fight, about some important things. We both said some nasty stuff, and then she ran out. She was crying, Dray, and she hasn't come home or called or anything, and I'm worried."

Draco detected the tiny hint of panic in his tone. "It's okay. Are you going to go and look for her?"

"Yeah. Sirius and Lupin are out looking already. She's probably fine, it's just…"

"It's natural to worry. I'll get my bike out and be right over."

"Are you sure?"

"I'm certain. I'm guessing that the subject of us was raised, after this morning, so I'm involved, whether you like it or not."

"Thanks."

"Not a problem. I'll be there in a bit." The line went dead and Harry put the phone down. He was beginning to wonder if he was overreacting to this. Surely he could have just told James and Lily and left it to them?

He voiced his concerns to Draco when he arrived about fifteen minutes later. The blond's reply was laced with suspicion.

"It's true, you could have done that. What did you say to her that you don't want them finding out about?"

Harry, sitting on a chair in his room, leaned back against the wall, closing his eyes. "It's not so much what I said as what I did."

Draco sat down on the floor, crossing his legs under himself. "What did you do?"

For a moment, Harry didn't reply, hiding his face behind a hand. Then he answered. "I slapped her."

"That would explain it pretty well," Draco said reflectively. "I'm guessing it was a rather unpleasant argument that made you do that."

"You know what's been going on with her and Ginny, right? All the faking and that stuff?"

Draco nodded.

"I told her I'd worked it all out. I threatened to tell Ginny that she'd been tricked."

"No need." Draco smiled in understanding. "Deb told her already."

"Yeah, she did. But it was still a sore point. She said she was still sure she and Ginny would be out before you and I were, because… she said we were cowards. That was when I hit her." Harry was now feeling thoroughly ashamed of himself.

"Well, now I get it," Draco said. "Shall we get out there and look for her?"

---

It was nearly four o' clock when they left, on account of Harry discovering that his bike tyres were under-inflated. Draco's presence was doing wonders for reducing his panic, though he was still more worried than he'd felt in ages.

They reached town and started to circle the outer streets, scanning around for any sight of her. The first time they stopped, Harry tried her cell phone again. Slowly, they made their way around most of town.

"We haven't been down there yet," Draco told him at last, pointing down a side street.

That was enough to remind Harry that Draco hadn't been living in Minster for that long; if he had he'd know about that part. "That's the roughest area here. She won't be down there."

Draco sighed. "I'd love to be idealistic like you, but she's not anywhere else around here. Sirius hasn't called you yet, and I called Ron before I came over to yours, so we know she hasn't gone to see Ginny." He paused. "I really think we should try it."

Harry looked down the road, his heart sinking. "Okay."

They turned down the street and quickly found themselves in what Harry had accurately deemed the roughest part of Minster. In this case that meant several interlinked roads with nothing but grimy bars, clubs, tattoo parlours and a couple of shops that most people of the boys' social level would avoid like the plague.

Harry was metres ahead when he heard the soft screech of brakes and turned back to see Draco stopped outside one of the bars. "Dray, what is it?"

The reply was quiet and none too cheerful. "Your sister's about 5'4", right?"

"Yeah…"

"What's she wearing?"

Harry pushed his bike back to stand beside Draco before answering: "She's got her hair in a ponytail, and she was wearing ripped jeans and a black T-shirt. Why?"

Draco just pointed. Squinting through the dirty window, Harry spotted a girl at the bar with her back to the window. Sure enough, she exactly fitted Deb's description. As he watched, she picked up what looked suspiciously like a wine glass, and drained it. "Shit, that's her. What do we do?"

"I don't know," Draco murmured with a hint of dread. "I didn't really think any further than finding where she was, did you?"

Harry shook his head. "I thought knowing her she'd be somewhere like a bookstore, you know, somewhere we could just lead her out of or let her get out by herself!"

There was silence between them for a few moments before Draco spoke again. "Call Sirius."

"What?"

Draco turned to face him. "Harry, we have two grown men helping us on this search, okay? We are not going into some skanky bar when Sirius or Lupin could do it and not risk getting lynched!"

Harry didn't even bother answering, just taking out his cell and calling Sirius. It wasn't Sirius who picked up, though.

"Harry?" Thank god for whoever invented caller ID.

"Um…" It's just a shame you can't get it on the other end of the line. "Who is…"

"Oh, sorry. It's Remus. Sirius is driving."

"Okay." This had to be the weirdest experience Harry had had since reassessing his sexuality. He was sharing a family emergency with his geography teacher… "We think we found Deb."

There was a quick muttering on the other end of the line as Lupin relayed the information. "That's great! Where?"

Harry bit his lip. "That's the problem. It's this bar on Riddler's Road."

"You're kidding."

"No, I'm not. Where are you two?"

"Not far." The businesslike tone of Lupin's voice suddenly reminded Harry of school. "We'll be right over. Don't go in."

Harry pressed End Call and looked back at Draco. "They're on their way."

Five minutes later, Sirius's car pulled up behind them. Sirius and Lupin emerged. Harry had never been so relieved to see his godfather, especially when he immediately got a grip on the situation. "She's in there, right?"

"We think so," Draco replied.

"Okay then." Sirius walked straight up to the door and went in, Remus just a few steps behind. A minute later, they reappeared, supporting Deb. "Congratulations Draco, you successfully recognised your best friend's sister from behind, in a totally incongruous location,"Sirius said, andglanced at Harry and Draco, who were both looking a little worn out from worry and excessive cycling. "Do you two want a ride?" His eyes narrowed briefly. "Actually, scrap that. Do you want to come back to mine for a while? I think Deb needs to recover." He shot a glance at her; she was looking distinctly the worse for wear.

It was only a few minutes before the bikes were fastened on the back of the car, and the five of them were all en route to Sirius's house.

Draco, who was sitting in the back seat on Deb's left, looked over the now sleeping girl at Harry. "She doesn't usually drink much, does she?"

"Nope." Harry glanced at her. "I'm not even sure it was just drink that did this. When you're emotional, half a glass can take you to Nirvana."

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A/N: I started this so long ago, I can't believe I finished it at last! My apologies for the dialogue and boring-ness. The focus will soon go back to Harry and Draco, and there will be more slash. I hope. On the bright side, Deb is now just another OC; the way she acts in this chapter is nothing like me, so she's no longer a self-insert.

Note: I'm now branching out into fanart! It will be appearing on my new LiveJournal soon. The link is in my profile. If anyone wants to see it, review or PM or something so I know whether it's worth putting it on there or not.