Chapter 9: The Archivist

Potter was in the kitchen when Draco stepped out of the cabin's fireplace. He looked Draco over after he'd pulled the Cloak off.

"I told you nothing bad would happen," Draco said.

Potter rolled his eyes. "What did you find?"

"Nothing." Draco removed the Spacetime Turner and placed it back in its box on the kitchen table. "He wasn't at Malfoy Manor. He wasn't on the Black family tapestry either."

"He wasn't?"

Draco shook his head. "There are no other living Corbans anywhere on it. All the other living Yaxleys, I can vouch they're who they're supposed to be."

Potter furrowed his brow. "What the fuck, then?"

"My theory must be wrong." With a sigh, Draco dropped into his usual chair. "Maybe he isn't a Yaxley. Maybe he's not a Corban. Maybe he isn't even a pureblood."

"What if he's a Squib?" Potter asked. "That would mean he got blasted off, like that Marius."

"I didn't see any blast marks in that region of the tapestry."

"Hm."

"That doesn't mean he didn't get blasted, though," Draco mused. "Maybe he's not a good little pureblood in this universe. That could mean he belongs to a different family—one I wasn't paying attention to when I was searching the tapestry."

"Or one that just isn't on there, like the Weasleys aren't."

"That's possible." Draco watched Potter as he turned back to the range to stir something. "Smells good, by the way."

"It's just about ready. So what do we do now?"

"Regroup in the morning, I suppose." Draco rubbed his eyes. "It might not feel like it, but every elimination we make is getting us closer. Even if it is a little frustrating."

"Is it me you're trying to reassure, or yourself?" Potter grinned over his shoulder at Draco.

"It's a bit of a self-reminder," Draco admitted when Potter returned to his saucepan. "Perhaps you might benefit from it too. We won't be here forever, hitting dead end after dead end. Weasley's little impromptu holiday will end."

Potter agreed, and then the kitchen lapsed into silence. The dejection Draco experienced coming from Malfoy Manor subsided from a throb into a familiar, dull ache. Potter's mere presence facilitating that wasn't a good sign. Draco had quickly made himself comfortable with him. Going home—not just to their own universe, but to their respective lives—was going to make for a very difficult transition.

"Come dish up," Potter eventually said.

Perhaps because Draco's little mission had been successful (Potter deemed it that based on it going smoothly), an air of relaxation fell over the cabin after dinner. Potter had bled himself of all his nervous energy, and Draco in general just felt pliant. He also didn't feel very tired after sleeping in so late. Draco ended up in his hammock, and Potter in his, the two of them alternating between snickering and taking their turn at reading aloud from Hot Elven Knights.

"I hate how invested I am in this stupid story," Draco said when he tossed the book back to Potter. "Thank goodness there's almost something resembling a plot between all the weeping man-meters and quivering womanhoods."

Potter flipped a few pages of the book. "Is there?"

"Have you not been paying attention?" Draco drawled. "There's, er—the whole thing to do with. . ."

"Yes?"

Draco grunted. "Just read. It's an exciting part."

"Oh, yes," Potter sarcastically replied, flipping pages again. "Sylva spying on Viric while he bathes under a waterfall. Riveting stuff. Would you like me to recap the last little bit? I'm not completely sure I was able to fully imagine the dimensions of Viric's flaccid cock."

"You know what?" Draco suppressed a laugh. "If you wouldn't mind. Sometimes those sorts of things get lost, you know, when you're the one reading aloud."

"This wouldn't be such a problem if these books came with one of those things like at the beginning of Shakespeare's plays."

"A dramatis personae?"

"If that's what it's called, yeah."

"God," Draco said with a snort. "A dramatis personae of tits and cocks. You are something else, Potter."

A silence fell, after which Potter made a thoughtful sound. "You know, we're both adults."

Draco's face fell straight, eyes wide. Sudden nerves beat nausea into the lining of his stomach.

"You don't have to call me Potter anymore," Potter kept on. "Don't you think it's a bit juvenile, at this point?"

Draco still needed a moment to recover. "The hard consonants make it easy to emphasize when I'm cross with you."

Potter laughed. "So all the time, then?"

"You still call me Malfoy."

"I guess," Potter replied. "It was just a suggestion."

Draco didn't really know what to say, so he let the conversation go. Potter sealed that by picking up on reading where Draco had left off. The scene was thankfully ridiculous, with Sylva being so flustered by a starkers Viric that she went faint and needed to sit down. Laughter was exactly what Draco needed to come out of his spin. He grew rather annoyed with himself when he realized he and Sylva had that particular quality in common at the moment.

Draco let his mind drift when Sylva's pining through it all hit a little too close to home as well. God, Draco really was going to be in trouble here soon if he didn't get himself sorted. We're both adults. . .come on, really. Was Potter doing this on purpose?

He very well might be, come to think of it. Potter had acknowledged at dinner the night before that their banter frequently crossed the line into flirting, after all. It didn't affect him as much as it did Draco, but was it any wonder why not? There were no consequences for Potter once their job here concluded.

It was a little cruel, really. Did Potter think there wouldn't be consequences for Draco—that this was all just a game to him? Draco didn't want to think too deeply on that. If this wasn't a game, then what was it?

Don't answer that, Draco told himself. You already bloody well know.

An old helplessness draped over Draco like a thin blanket. He'd never felt like he had a choice in the matter. It was both maddening and dismal.

The meaning of the words Potter read aloud on the opposite side of the porch faded away, leaving only his voice. Draco let his head tilt enough to the side that he could see the faint points of stars beginning to appear behind a blue canvas tinged red toward the west. This whole situation was so utterly ridiculous. Draco shacked up with Harry Potter in a cabin, as if they'd taken a holiday together. Potter read a dirty story to him. He'd made dinner for Draco, and breakfast before that. The domesticity of it all was painful—out of reach, like when Draco had put a hand on his father's shoulder earlier. All of that—and all of this—was frozen in time.

On its own, this was rather lovely. As much it would likely come back to bite him in the arse later, Draco tested the idea that Harry, not Potter, lolled on the porch with him. Harry read to him. Harry cooked meals for him. Harry had worried about him earlier. Harry was relieved that he'd come back all right. Harry flirted with him, and Harry acknowledged that he saw Draco's reciprocation exactly for what it was.

"Ready?"

"Huh?" Draco snapped out of his thoughts.

"I'm throwing you the book. Were you not paying attention?" Harry mimicked Draco's earlier drawl. "Chapter's over."

"Oh." Draco held his left hand out. "Go on, then."

"So you weren't paying attention," Harry said. "All right?"

"I'm fine. Throw it, I'm ready."

The book didn't come. Draco sighed internally.

"I can hear it in your tone, you know," Harry told him. Draco could hear it in his too—that sternness. "What is it?"

"It's stupid. Can you just throw the book?"

Harry didn't. Draco sighed aloud this time.

"You sound down," Harry said.

"Probably because I'm down. Throw the book."

"What about?"

"Either throw the bloody book, or I'm going to bed."

The book hit the porch next to Draco. Draco's hammock creaked when he adjusted in order to reach it. He started flipping through to find where Harry had left off, although felt his ambition to keep on like everything was normal running dry. Once Draco found the page, it was like his mouth glued itself shut. He couldn't find the motivation.

"Well?" Since Harry asked quietly, it came off as gentle.

The stupid thing was that Draco doubted he would get out of this mood without addressing it. It wasn't just Harry that bothered him, so maybe if Draco lightened the load elsewhere. . .

"I was thinking about seeing my family earlier, was all," Draco said.

"Ah."

"I could hear them all talking and laughing from the gallery outside my chamber, like nothing in the world mattered. I couldn't tell you the last time any conversation was held there, back home. It's the same house. I just. . ." Draco shrugged to himself. "I hate the reminder."

"Who was all there tonight?"

"As far back as my great-grandparents, and then some aunts and uncles."

"Your parents?"

"Yeah."

"You've seen them before, like this," Harry said. "What's different this time?"

"It never really is, I suppose."

"How do you usually handle it afterward?"

Draco chuckled mirthlessly. "Get depressed, swear never to do it again, and then eventually do it again."

"That's healthy."

Harry's flippant sarcasm made Draco laugh more genuinely, although it still sounded bitter to his own ears. "Hardly."

"What's there even to do about it?" Harry asked. "It isn't like you came into this line of work intent to find a thousand versions of your dad so you could give them all shit about what our version of him did, right?"

"No," Draco answered in a soft tone. "I didn't really know what the Department expected from me, to start. It was a little overwhelming. It didn't help I was still reeling from the war, and especially from Azkaban."

Draco could practically hear Harry's grimace.

"I suppose there's always that," Draco mused. "If things seem bad, I can just think about the six weeks I spent there. Rock bottom, that, and trapped alone with my thoughts when all of this with my father was fresh. I didn't need the Dementors to find that place within me."

Saying things like that wasn't helping Draco feel any better as far as things between him and Harry. Draco never got to talk about this. It was one more thing that would be gone at the end of the job.

"Potter," Draco eventually said.

"Hm?"

"Do you remember after I was acquitted, I sent you an owl?" Draco asked. "I didn't actually read your reply. What did it say?"

"Not much," Harry replied. "Good luck, and that I wished you well."

Gaze skyward again, Draco worked his bottom lip. Merlin help him.

All Draco felt he could do at this point was pretend to be all right until legitimate recovery came about on its own. He didn't sleep very well again thanks to intrusive thoughts and a bothersome tingle to his skin, but he got up early anyway so that he could return the favour of a good breakfast.

Draco was sitting on the sofa when Harry's bedroom door opened. His hair was a bigger mess than usual, and his eyes still half-closed.

"Morning," Harry greeted Draco with a deep, gravelly voice.

"Morning."

Harry detoured into the bathroom. He ran a hand through his hair when he emerged to the kitchen. "Smells good."

"I won't be outdone in my share of duties." Draco only half-jested.

Harry dispelled the Stasis Charm keeping his plate fresh. "Didn't hear you whinging about that yesterday."

"That's probably because my mouth was busy."

Sausage already in mouth, Harry brought his plate to the sitting room chair. He glanced up at the board, which Draco had just been studying. "Well, you said we'd regroup in the morning. Here we are. Any ideas?"

"Yes, actually." Draco pointed at the addition he'd made to their To Do list.

Harry furrowed his brow. "'Speak to the archivist'? Who the hell is that?"

"A pet name, first and foremost." The corner of Draco's mouth twitched with humour. "You know Tomes and Scrolls in Hogsmeade, yes?"

"'Course."

"Elderly Mrs Hayden dies in the late eighties, but here and now she is a great collector of newspapers," Draco said. "The shop has preservation charms over it so that their stock doesn't wear out like old parchment normally would. A hundred years of news, right at our fingertips."

Harry hummed through a mouthful of toast. "I never knew that."

"You've always had more official ways to search for people or information, haven't you?"

"Yeah, true."

"You'll notice I didn't bother making you tea," Draco pointed out with a new smirk. "It'll be dribbling from your ears by the time we're done there."

"Joy."

"Oh, go on, Harry," Draco teased. "Don't you just love little old ladies? They're so charming, with their doilies and league of wretched cats."

Harry grinned before returning to his breakfast. "You think we'll find Yaxley in the newspapers, then?"

"We might as well give it a go," Draco said. "I find it very strange how difficult he is to track down, compared to how we literally stumbled upon Weasley."

"Yeah." Harry tipped his head back to down the last mouthful of orange juice. Draco watched his throat bob as he swallowed. "It is weird, isn't it?"

They left off on that while Harry went to finish getting ready for the day. Draco tended to cleanup, then fetched a jacket for the walk into Hogsmeade. Today had dawned overcast, and chilly to boot. Harry bundled up too, along with a hat. As they started off down the path, Draco wished he'd thought to grab one.

"Cold?" Harry asked.

"Just a little," Draco replied. "I'll be fine."

It was better in the trees, where the wind wasn't so insistent. The lack of sunshine had Draco burying his hands in his pockets. He shivered slightly as the village came into view, then one last time as a shudder after leading Harry into Tomes and Scrolls.

A little bell above the door jingled. The younger Mrs Hayden—Eleanor—looked up from where she read behind the front counter.

"Good morning," she greeted them in a strong, clear voice. "How might I help you?"

"We've just been to the Daily Prophet office in Diagon Alley, to see about finding old copies of the paper," Draco said as he and Harry approached the counter. "They don't keep them, surprisingly. We were suggested to try here."

Eleanor rolled her eyes good-naturedly, then smiled. "You lads would be in luck. I don't think my mother-in-law has missed a single issue since she started collecting in her Hogwarts days. I could ask if she's up for more company."

"More company?" Harry tentatively asked.

A small explosion of shrill laughter sounded above their heads. Eleanor glanced upward. "Monday morning cards with the ladies. Very important business, you know."

"We could always come back—"

"Oh, nonsense." Eleanor waved that off. "I guarantee she won't mind, especially if the reason you're looking for old papers is interesting. Gossip in the village has been rather dry lately."

She headed off. The laughter upstairs went quiet briefly, and then a ruckus similar to a flock of excited doves sounded.

Harry sighed. "What've you got me into now, Draco?"

"Don't worry, my cheeks are much more pinchable than yours."

"That so?"

Harry reached up for Draco's face. Draco smacked his hand away with a scowl, earning a laugh. They straightened themselves back out as footsteps returned down the stairs. Eleanor reappeared, along with Rosamond Hayden.

"Well, hello!" Rosa loudly greeted them. "Eleanor said she didn't get your names!"

"I'm Fox Mulder," Draco half-yelled as he extended a hand to her. She took it in both of hers. "And this is my partner, Dana Scully. We work with the Department of Mysteries."

"Ooooh, Unspeakables!" she cooed before taking Harry's hand next. "How exciting! Well, come upstairs, then! You just call me Rosa, okay?"

They all nearly tripped over a lanky Himalayan cat at the top landing ("That's Mischief, don't you mind him!"), and then voices filtered over from the kitchen.

". . .so I told her that she ought to mind her own business," one woman told the others in a matter-of-fact tone.

Another gasped. "Esmerelda!"

"She's had it coming, the way she sneaks over toward my recipe box every time she's in my kitchen—"

The conversation halted as Draco followed Rosa in with Harry behind him. Along with Esmerelda, Draco recognized Hermippe as the scandalized one. The fourth was Pallene. The three of them immediately descended into giggles.

"Who are these strapping young lads, Rosa?" Esmerelda asked, flicking her curly, silver hair over her shoulder.

"They're Unspeakables," Rosa loudly replied. "They're here to see about some old newspapers. You lads best take a seat. Help yourself to any of the biscuits—they're fresh from this morning. I'll pour you some tea."

Harry opened his mouth, looking ready to protest, but grimaced instead when Draco sideswiped his ankle.

"That's very hospitable of you," Draco spoke instead. "The tea we had at Ophelia's this morning was rather lacking."

All four of the women simultaneously blustered at mention of Diagon Alley's primary tea shop. Its proprietor, the so-named Ophelia, had left Hogsmeade decades ago to start the business. This group had never forgiven her for it.

"Not shocking, that!" Hermippe squawked. "I always found it rather weak, myself!"

They all roared with agreement. Through that, Draco caught 'and the milk is always slightly too warm' from Esmerelda.

Pallene adjusted her too-large spectacles as she studied Draco and Harry. "You're Unspeakables, you say?"

Draco reached for a shortbread biscuit, nodding. "That we are."

"My husband was an Unspeakable," she said.

"Oh?" Draco feigned ignorance. "Is that so?"

"Yes, well, I'm a widow now." She smiled weakly. "I hope you lads are more careful than he was, with whatever he got up to there!"

"We're very careful," Draco assured her. "Who was your husband?"

Pallene told Draco and Harry about Reginald while Rosa fetched two cups. The teapot on the table filled them by itself. The first cup floated in front of Draco, followed by the sugar and milk.

"So what do you lads need old papers for?" Rosa asked as she returned to her seat. "Is the Department of Mysteries really interested in that sort of thing?"

"It's confidential, unfortunately," Draco said. "I can't tell you. . .much, anyway."

That piqued their interest. When Draco leaned in conspiratorially, they mirrored him.

"Scully and I play around with time," Draco told them. "Our latest experiment went a little haywire, and we need to know about any potential ripples it may have caused."

"Ooooh, like what?" Hermippe asked. "Ripples in time, you say!"

"I can't say more. But that much stays between all of us, yes?"

They all clamoured to agree, and what followed was forty-five minutes of local gossip, tea, and more biscuits offered than Draco should have accepted. The four women carried on casually with their game of Abracanasta, at the end of which Rosa went up to the attic to fetch the last month's worth of Daily Prophet copies. The bundles floated back down behind her.

"You let me know if you need to go back any further!" she yelled over her shoulder as she walked them downstairs to the exit. "I would certainly appreciate those back once you're finished with them!"

"Of course," Draco replied. "We couldn't thank you enough for lending them to us."

Harry took over levitating the bundles as they stepped out of Tomes and Scrolls. Draco himself carried the two full tins of biscuits that Rosa had packed up for them.

"We ought to be set for a while, don't you think?" Draco asked.

"Work-wise, or biscuit-wise?"

"Both, I suppose." Grinning, Draco bumped their shoulders. "Perhaps even entertainment-wise, if we play our cards correctly—if you'd forgive the pun. I doubt any of them would mind dealing us in on a game if we asked to join."

"Maybe," Harry replied. "I never much cared for cards. Honestly, being around a bunch of little old ladies like that brought some things back."

Draco studied Harry. He didn't sound upset by it or anything, but Draco still got the impression from how quiet Harry had opted to be through their visit that it wasn't entirely positive. "Was your maternal grandmother nasty, or something?"

"Nah, never met her to know." Harry shook his head, then chuckled mirthlessly. "Just this older neighbour woman I'd have to stay with whenever the Dursleys wanted to do something without me. Sometimes her friends happened to come over for Bridge when I was there. She was nice enough and all, I guess. I don't know."

"Disappointment to be left behind?"

"I definitely wouldn't have had more fun with the Dursleys," Harry replied. "I could've had a great time if they'd just left me at home. Watch some telly, play on the computer. . .you know, do whatever I wanted for a while without someone—but my uncle thought I'd blow up the house. So that didn't happen."

"Your uncle is a coward. Blowing up one's house is a rite of passage for any young wizard. Who was he, to deny you?"

Harry laughed, tapering off into a grin. A warm gaze meeting Draco's melted his stomach a bit. God, Harry's eyes really were so bloody green. The two of them lapsing into comfortable silence as they headed out of the village didn't at all help to alleviate the lightness around Draco's heart.

After a few minutes, Harry spoke again. "I didn't want to say anything back there, but I got the impression that you knew who Pallene's husband was."

"Nothing gets past you, does it, Mr Auror?"

Harry lightly scoffed.

"I know who he was, yes." Draco returned to seriousness. "I flip through his old work here and there. He laid a lot of groundwork on dimension travel."

"Do I want to know what happened to him, if he died doing things like we're doing?"

"He wasn't doing this," Draco said. "To be perfectly blunt, he went the same way as Sirius. He disappeared through the veil."

Harry inhaled through his nose.

"Where did he go?" he asked, slightly breathless. "What happens, when you go through? Do you know? It sounds like you know."

Among the rustling leaves and twittering birds, Draco figured he could hear Harry's heart beating a steady rhythm against his rib cage. "Do you remember not long after we came here, I told you that if Weasley had landed himself in the seventh dimension or higher, he would be well-fucked?"

Harry's shoulders sagged with preemptive disappointment. "Yeah."

"Yeah," Draco quietly repeated.

"What happens?"

"Well, you've had experience now with the sixth dimension," Draco said. "The sixth dimension allows us to travel around the multiverse. In technical terms, we have access to universes within our brane that fall under similar natural law because they all sprouted from the same point of cosmic origin.

"In the seventh, that goes back one step further. The multiverses don't start the exact same way, because now you have access to different branes. It becomes less probable that physical laws like gravity, magic, and whatever else share the same constants. There might not be conditions for stars or planets to exist—or even atoms. Maybe these places don't have matter at all. Maybe there are laws that we don't have. The point is, it's not very likely that something as fragile and complex as a human being could survive those sorts of conditions when dropped back into the third spacial dimension post-travel."

Harry was quiet for a while. "What about ghosts?"

"If you've seen Sirius' ghost, he definitely did not survive."

"Yeah." Harry sounded disappointed again. "I guess I already knew that."

"It's not a satisfying answer unless you're interested in the theory of it all." Draco paused. "That veil is very interesting, for what it is. I won't lie that I'd once hoped for a chance to undo something like that. Now that's real power, giving life. Forget death. Decay is the natural order of everything. Creation, however. . ."

"Could you?" Harry asked. "Theoretically? What would it take to achieve it?"

"Well—theoretically," Draco emphasized, "anything is possible if you go high enough, dimension-wise. Each level higher you go is a new perspective of seeing the forest for the trees. Once you get up to the ninth and tenth, you see everything. And I mean everything. Every moment in time that ever happened here, or any other universe parallel to ours in the multiverse. You see every other brane, and all the histories of the multiverses they contain—the omniverse. You see the beginnings and the ends. Higher than that, you see infinity."

Harry slowly nodded, brow furrowed and jaw set.

"So yes, definitely at that point, you would see every single iteration ever possible of Sirius," Draco continued. "You would see where he wound up after the veil, and how his final moments played out. You could save his life, but I think you already know that you don't even need to go that high dimensionally. He exists in so many other places that are much easier to access."

"So I guess if someone didn't pop up in that room and save Sirius when we broke into the Ministry, it just didn't happen."

"Not in our universe, anyway." Draco shrugged. "It only takes a simple binary outcome to qualify a parallel universe's existence, remember. We just happen to live in the one where, no, Sirius was not saved. If you and I were to go back and alter it now, we would simply no longer exist in our own universe. We would then be located within the Yes universe."

"So why don't we?" Harry asked. "I'm not asking that like a suggestion that we do, but why wouldn't we do that if we could?"

"Are you going to do it every time someone you love dies?" Draco readjusted his biscuit tins. "Do you think you can outrun the natural order forever? If you fell into a raging river, would you try to escape it by swimming back upstream? If you were in freefall from a cliff, would you try to fix your situation by climbing back against gravity to the ledge?"

"I guess not."

"It's easy to hyperfocus on one slice of time like that, especially if it was traumatic," Draco said. "I've done it with the moment after the Battle when I realized that my father had left. Do you know what going there and telling my father to get his arse back to the castle did for me? Nothing. I'm still the same person. I still know that my father is the type of man who could do what he did. It didn't change my life when I went home."

Harry hummed.

"We are literally less than a mile away from Sirius right now," Draco pointed out. "When's the last time you gave that any thought?"

"It's different." Harry's next step brought them closer together. "This Sirius isn't my Sirius. He has no idea who I am. We don't have the same experiences together."

"But it's still Sirius."

"I guess."

"There's a certain nihilism that arises from experiencing dimensional travel," Draco said. "When you're dealing with infinity, nothing really matters. Sirius isn't gone, however. He's never gone. He's as infinite as anyone or everything else. Even in our own universe, he still exists. He just isn't in the current time-slice that we left off from. Looking in from the fifth dimension or higher, he's as alive as you and I. We just don't have easy access to when, but access is merely a human problem. It has no bearing on the objective truth of the matter."

With an idle nod, Harry fell quiet for a while. They walked around a bend in the path, and the cabin came into view.

"I dunno," Harry quietly said. "I get it. Saving Sirius wouldn't really. . .it wouldn't undo the mourning, or how much I needed him, or anything like that. The next time he died, I'd have to go through it all over again. I guess it's nice to wonder what all this time would have been like if I had him."

"Somewhere, you do."

"Yeah."

The porch steps creaked under their feet. Draco set the biscuits on the counter inside, while Harry put the bundles of paper on the tea table. Shedding his jacket, Draco couldn't help but smirk.

"Shall I put on tea before we get started?" he teased.

Harry laughed—genuinely, which pleased Draco. "No."