"That woman did see me dumping a body."

Harry's head snapped up. Instinctively, he reached for his wand. Then, he cursed himself as he watched Draco's eyes follow the movement. He threw his head back and started laughing harder than he wanted to. Serious, his arse. "You got me. Maybe I do have trust issues. Of course, I could argue that all of this is Dumbledore's fault, for—"

"Are you even listening to me?" Draco cried. "I killed someone!"

The conviction with which he spoke wiped the smile off Harry's face. If this was a joke, it had ceased to be funny. "No, you didn't. This is just some sick test you want to watch me fail." He started unpacking his bag, tossing his badge onto the table. "I'm not going to justify myself any more. I was doing my job. And I'd do it again."

"Then do it!" Draco snapped. He was sweating uncontrollably. "I'm not lying. I did throw a corpse in the dumpster."

His voice didn't waver as he spoke. He didn't blink or tremble. That scared Harry more than the words Draco spoke.

"There wasn't another body. Besides, you're not stupid enough to dispose of a body thirty feet from the Ministry."

"I know." Draco turned away, putting his hand on the staircase as his voice grew softer. "I don't usually."

Usually? Harry's hand trembled. The whole house seemed to shake with it—surely he wasn't doing that? "Draco, stop it! I said I was sorry."

"What is there to be sorry for?" Draco whirled around, his eyes red with tears. "You were right! I killed someone! It's not the first time!"

"Merlin…" Harry felt like throwing up. The Draco he knew— the versions of Draco he knew—none of them were killers. Not the sarcastic janitor, not the teenage bully, not the frightened child. That left two options. For some unfathomable reason, Draco was lying.

Or this wasn't Draco.

Time to put that theory to the test. "What do you mean, it's not the first time?"

Draco lifted his chin defiantly, wiping a tear off his nose. "I killed five people in my bedroom."

If someone was impersonating Draco, they hadn't done their research. "You couldn't have. It would have come out in your trial."

"Not if it happened after my trial."

Harry slammed his fist into the wall, smashing a hole in whatever portrait had the misfortune to hang there. A nun. A headless nun, now. "You didn't kill five people in your bedroom."

"Five people after my trial," Draco corrected. "Before… at least twenty."

Twenty-five people. Merlin. "Veritaserum says otherwise."

"Then the Veritaserum is lying," Draco said. "I know what I did. I even Finite'd my wand afterwards to make sure." A calm hysteria bled back into his voice. "I cast the curse. I killed twenty-five people."

Harry folded his arms, deciding to play along. Maybe by pretending to cooperate, he'd figure out what was wrong. "Fine. Who did you kill?"

Draco seemed confused. "Twenty-five people."

"Not how many, who?" An inability to remember details—could be signs of a Confoundus, or even the Imperius…

"Why would I bother learning the names of a bunch of Mudbloods?"

In all the months Draco had been there, he had never used that word. Resorting to it now wasn't an instinct. It was a deliberate choice. Or a poor impersonation. His mind flashed to George. Could he have tampered with Draco's mind? Even after their conversation yesterday, Harry couldn't rule it out.

"So they were all Muggle-borns?" Harry emphasized the word, unintentionally making it sound like the filthiest thing in the world.

"Muggle-borns, Death Eaters, it doesn't matter. They're dead. I killed them."

"Why?"

Draco didn't answer immediately. He furrowed his eyebrows, betraying his consternation. Harry repeated his question. That seemed to send Draco over the edge. For the first time since his confession, he moved forward, fire in his eyes. "I'm a Death Eater! What did you expect?"

Cutting his interrogation short, Harry summoned Draco's wand and in the same motion handcuffed the Slytherin to the staircase. Unlike that afternoon, Draco didn't make any move to resist.

"Did you really think I would fall for that?" Harry pointed his wand at the blond. "Tell me who you really are."

Draco glowered at him. "Do I need to spell it out for you? I. Am. A. Murderer."

"So I heard the first three times. Who are you? And what did you do to Draco?"

Draco stared at him incredulously. "What did I— I'm right here, you moron!"

"Sure." Harry glanced at his watch. "Any minute now, that Polyjuice is going to wear off, and you are going to wish you were never born."

Two hours later, Draco was still chained to staircase in front of him, looking bored. "You're right," he said. "I do wish I was never born."

Harry let out a roar of frustration. The Slytherin had passed every test Harry had thrown at him. He'd answered questions only Draco would know the answer to. He'd produced the right magical signature. Harry had even brought Toothless down to smell the blond, hoping the beast would sense something out of place. The Crup had licked Draco's face (much to Draco's displeasure), then promptly thrown up on him (which was a considerable improvement what the Animal Artist had initially trained him to do). Put simply, the person sitting in front of him was indeed Draco Malfoy.

Moreover, Draco wasn't enchanted in any way Harry could discern. Other than his stubborn insistence that he was a mass murderer, Draco displayed no signs of having been possessed or having had his memory tampered with. When Harry administered Veritaserum to him, he answered the test questions perfectly, then confessed to murdering twenty-five people in his bedroom. Harry accused him of contaminating the Veritaserum supply. Draco accused him of being a stupid scar-faced Gryffindor.

Harry tried to entertain other possibilities, but the truth was, they had reached a terrifying impasse. He couldn't believe Draco. But he couldn't not believe him either.

"I have a pensive," Harry said at last. He was sitting against the wall a safe distance away from Draco, who hadn't stopped staring at him for the past hour. "Show me the memories, and I'll believe you." He didn't know if he was lying or not.

He was almost relieved when Draco refused. At least, as relieved as he could be when his lover had just admitted to being a mass murderer, and he couldn't entirely disprove it.

"Where are you going?" Draco called as Harry grabbed his coat off the rack.

"Gathering evidence."

"For the prosecution or the defense?"

Harry paused at the doorway to answer honestly, "I don't know."

Draco knew better than to complain about being left chained to the staircase. If what he said was true, then it was the most comfortable he'd be for a long, long time.

~D~H~

Veritaserum (taken with a dose of explosive gas tonic) confirmed George's innocence in the matter. Harry added the elusive Animal Artist to his list of suspects, but considering that could be a pseudonym for any one of them, it was hardly progress. The sun rose over the sleepless night, leaving Harry no better than where he'd began. Wondering if he had been dating a murderer all along.

"Harry?"

He looked up to find Brian hovering over him, two cups of coffee in hand.

"Is everything okay?" Brian asked.

Seeing the concern in the intern's eyes, Harry stopped himself from saying yes. Deep in thought, he tapped his quill against the table. "You want to make it up to Draco Malfoy?" Brian nodded. Harry summoned an extra chair. "Here's your chance."

Ron was surprised to find Harry hunched over a stack of files when he came into the office that morning. "You're here early."

Harry gave a noncommittal grunt.

"I didn't see Malfoy today," Ron continued jovially.

The file Harry was currently reading burst into flames, making Ron jump. Harry was slow to douse it with his wand. "Wonderful," he replied, picking up the next file. "Why don't you go get us some coffee?"

Oblivious to the exasperation in Harry's voice, Ron peeked over his shoulder. "What are you working on?"

"Nothing," Harry snapped.

Ignoring Harry's warning, Ron sifted through the stack. "Cold cases? Did something raise a red flag?"

"No. I'm just going off a hunch."

"Okay." Ron waited.

"So it's nothing you need to waste your time with," Harry said, stretching out the words in the hopes that Ron would finally take the hint and leave him alone.

"Since when has helping you been a waste of my time?" Ron sat beside him. "Seriously, what's wrong? And if you say nothing, I'm getting Hermione."

Harry groaned. At eight months pregnant, Hermione was supposed to be confined to non-stressful deskwork. As such, she was currently re-writing three controversial statutes. Harry did not want to be responsible for sending her into labor early. "I appreciate the offer, but it's something I need to deal with on my own."

"You've been doing a lot of that lately," Ron said, folding his arms. "You've been awfully close-lipped these past few months. Don't think I haven't noticed."

"Don't you have more important things to worry about? Like your pregnant wife?"

"Hey! Don't think I haven't noticed that either. Just because you're one of the few people who actually listens to that stuff doesn't mean I'm an idiot." Ron wheeled his way next to Harry. "So. What's eating you?"

Harry sighed. If it were Hermione, he might have confided in her. But this was Ron. As well-intentioned as he was, Harry could not count on him to be unbiased in this case. Hell, Ron would probably go running straight to Robards—or worse, Kingsley—as soon as the words "Draco Malfoy" and "murder" fell from his lips, much less "boyfriend." "I— Last night, someone—a friend of mine—sort of— told me they'd murdered someone. Multiple someones."

At the last part, Ron sat up straight. "Do we have them in custody? I know we're not supposed to investigate cases we have personal ties to, but if we pull a few strings, we could make sure that I'm the one interrogating—"

Harry interrupted his friend before he could concoct an elaborate plan. "He's not in custody."

"He got away? Is there a manhunt underway? How come I didn't know about this?"

"He didn't get away, per se. I sort of, er, have him, uh, handcuffed to my staircase."

It took Ron a good thirty seconds to regain his voice. "I'm sorry. You have him handcuffed to your staircase?" Wincing, Harry nodded. "He confessed to murder, and you didn't bring him in?"

"I know, I'm breaking a million protocols doing this, but it's an unusual situation. He can't escape," he added before Ron could completely explode.

Unsatisfied, Ron folded his arms. "Define unusual."

Harry spread the files across his desk. "First, there aren't enough missing persons or unsolved murders that fit the parameters. One or two could have slipped through our grasp, but we would have noticed if twenty-five—"

"TWENTY-FIVE?"

"Shhhh!" Harry cast a quick silencing spell over their office. "Yes, I told you, it's unusual."

"Someone killed twenty-five people, and you didn't think it was fit to bring him in? Yes, I would say that's unusual."

When Ron phrased it like that, it did sound rather stupid. Harry felt his cheeks heat up. "There's more. I know exactly where and when one of the bodies was dumped. Only there's no body and no missing people." Harry had triple-checked the crime scene from yesterday. Draco had been in custody the entire time their men had swept the scene yesterday. He couldn't possibly have moved the corpse from the dumpster. Yet they had found nothing.

"Then he's messing with you," Ron said. "Giving you false information to make him seem innocent."

Harry shook his head. "I'm positive he didn't murder anyone." At least, in front of Ron, he had to be. "And bringing him in at all would completely ruin his reputation. Something else is going on."

Ron gave him a skeptical glance. "I'll admit, that does sound strange. But if he is innocent, then bringing him in might be the only way to prove it. If he's been enchanted or something, our teams will uncover it."

"Remember when Sirius was sent to Azkaban without a trial?"

"Come on, Harry, that was a completely different administration!"

"Not so different." While no one would send Draco to Azkaban without a trial, he certainly wouldn't get a very good one. Naturally, Harry would be banned from working on the case, and Draco's confession would ease the consciences of anyone who had ever wished he'd ended up like his father. No one would bother searching for complicated conspiracy theories when what they wanted was right in front of them.

But how to show Ron that? An anecdote floated to Harry's mind. "When I was researching finger-printing, I came across a story about a woman in America. The federal government wanted to take her children away because DNA evidence—er, think magical signature— showed that they were not her biological children. Her doctor testified that he had watched the children being born. A government agent even watched the birth of her third child, but when the DNA results came back negative yet again, he still threatened to take her children away. All because DNA evidence was infallible." He scoffed at the word. In Draco's case, it would be Veritaserum. "Scientists found out later that the woman had an incredibly rare condition where she had absorbed her twin in her mother's womb, making the DNA in her uterus different than that in her blood. That one 'infallible' piece of evidence almost broke up a family, even with overwhelming evidence against it."

Ron stared at him. "When were you researching finger-printing?"

Harry buried his face in his hands. "That's not the point!"

"Maybe it should be! You haven't told me anything the past few months! And now you want me to go along with this? Without even telling me the whole story?"

"I'm sorry."

"Damn right you are!" Ron let out a deep breath. "This… someone— is it someone I know?"

Harry swallowed. "No."

It was true. Ron didn't know Draco. He knew Malfoy, but he didn't know Draco.

Ron sighed. "I'm not going to lie if anyone asks me about this. And if you haven't found anything by tomorrow, you're bringing him in. Or I'll break into your house and do it for you."

Harry nodded. "If I find anything at all, I'll let you know. It's just, the more I research, the more impossibilities I run into. At this point, the only thing I have against him is his own word. Which I clearly can't trust."

Ron didn't look too pleased by this agreement, but he stayed silent. Harry made a mental note to offer unlimited babysitting services when Hermione finally gave birth. He truly did have remarkable friends.

~D~H~

Ron didn't bother inviting Harry to partake in their usual tradition of Waffle Wednesday. Just in case Harry didn't feel sufficiently snubbed, he made a show of asking Brian to dine with him, whispering loudly about "taking him under his wing." To Brian's credit, he declined, making the briefest of eye contact with Harry, or maybe the Order of Merlin framed on his desk.

Harry was left to enjoy Stale Cracker Wednesday as he poured over case after case, filling in the details in his head: Draco with the candlestick in the ballroom, Draco with the lead pipe in the parlor, Draco, Draco, Draco…

"Auror Potter."

Of all people, Harry did not expect to see Blaise Zabini, standing in the doorframe.

"My client informed me I might be needed," the lawyer said, shutting the door behind him.

There was no need to ask which client that was. "Did you know anything about—" Lost for words, Harry gestured at the heap of files. "—this?"

"Client-attorney privilege," Zabini replied ambiguously. He took a seat at Ron's desk and crossed his legs. "I'm only here to remind you that, as someone who is currently intimate with my client, you have no business investigating this case."

"You didn't believe me last time either, but this isn't about business."

"Then you don't deny being intimate with him?"

Harry groaned. "I hate Slytherins."

"I have evidence to the contrary," Zabini said, although his smirk ruined the professional tone. "Took you long enough. I was getting tempted to actually do what you accused me of and send a certain note his way."

Harry snorted, thinking of the "blackmail" he'd given to Zabini months ago. "Apparently, Veritas paper doesn't work."

"You didn't think you were falling in love with him?" Zabini was mocking him. "Perhaps because you were already in love with him?"

"I'm not talking about that," Harry said. Which, he realized too late, wasn't a denial. "I'm talking about this." He held up Draco's confession from yesterday, in which he denied the woman's accusations. "If this is true, then everything he told me under Veritaserum is a lie. Which can't be true. Conclusion: Veritas paper doesn't work."

"Do you believe it's true?" For once, Zabini didn't sound like he was in the middle of a prosecution that he had orchestrated down to the second. Harry suspected this was as sincere as the Slytherin got.

"I don't know. I haven't found any evidence that it's true. But why would Draco lie to me—if he even could?"

"Oh, good," Zabini said, back to his normal superciliousness. "I was hoping I wouldn't have to talk you down to this point. I have an appointment at two that I really must keep."

The way he lingered over the word "appointment" convinced Harry that said arrangement had nothing to do with the legal branch—the exact opposite, most likely. Did his friend mean nothing to him? "I'm not looking for reasonable doubt. I need to know!"

Zabini removed a nail file from his pocket and began scraping. "I'm not sure even Draco knows."

Harry had to restrain himself from shoving a bottle of Veritaserum down the man's throat and demanding answers. Patience was always the best policy in these situations. Besides, he was used to catering one Slytherin's ego; what would one more matter? "But you do?"

The grinding slowed to a halt as Zabini looked up from his nails and gave Harry a short nod. "I think so."

Harry waited.

"Just so you know, I charge…"

"Fine," Harry interrupted. Zabini looked amused. "Yes. I know. You could charge me a million galleons an hour. But you won't."

"It would be like stealing candy from a Hufflepuff." Zabini settled back in his chair. "About five years ago, the first time Draco— the first time it happened after the war, Draco called on me. It was the night of his father's execution. I doubt he'd have called me otherwise."

Harry nodded. Watching his own mother die had been traumatic as a one year old. He couldn't imagine how it would have affected him as a young adult, especially with the stigma of execution.

"He wasn't particularly coherent about what he'd done," Zabini continued. "The way I understood, there was some intruder, and instead of subduing him like a rational person, he went and used the Killing Curse." Zabini shook his head. "It could have been self-defense. I couldn't tell. Certainly, he could have pled insanity, with the trauma, but…" For the first time, traces of defeat shadowed Zabini's face. "They'd just executed his father. Can you guarantee he wouldn't have been next?"

Harry's heart sank. "Then… you saw the body?"

"No. He'd already disposed of it. But…" Zabini studied him carefully. "We're off the record, right?" Harry nodded. "I used the Imperius. I made him tell me where the body was. After all—" Zabini shot him a meaningful glance. "—he didn't seem to be in any mindset to properly dispose of a corpse."

So that was why Zabini wanted this off the record. Not because he'd used an Unforgiveable Curse, but because he'd used it with the intent to cover up a murder. Harry found he didn't care a whit. "Did you find it?"

Zabini looked uneasy. "This is where it gets weird. I went exactly where he told me and found the freshly dug hole. But when I dug it up, there wasn't a body."

"Could you have missed it?"

Zabini shot him a dirty look that made Harry remember exactly how many fathers Zabini had had in his lifetime. If there was one thing he was familiar with, it was dead bodies. "I found the tarp he used to wrap around the corpse. But it hadn't been used. I'm sure of it. He buried an empty tarp."

That didn't make sense. "Could someone have stolen the body?"

Zabini rolled his eyes. "Theoretically, a hippogriff could have swung down from the sky and plucked it out of the ground."

"But that's not what you think happened," Harry concluded.

Zabini didn't bother nodding. "What's more, the murders always happen at night."

"This last one didn't," Harry pointed out.

"He doesn't sleep at night anymore, does he?"

The weight of Zabini's argument hit him. "So you're saying…"

Zabini nodded. "Nightmares."

Harry's breath caught in his chest. Nightmares. It seemed impossible that something as simple as a dream could cause Draco so much trouble. Yet the facts fit. Harry had seen the scope of Draco's nightmares firsthand. Often, the blonde did forget when and where he was, crippled by disorienting fits. It took lots of coaxing from Harry to get him to believe that the nightmares weren't real or, if they had been, that they had happened years ago.

Moreover, that explained how Draco could get past the Veritaserum. If he truly believed he had committed the murders, the potion would let him say yes. If he was too afraid to admit to the crimes, as he had been during the trial, the potion would let him say no.

It wasn't absolute proof. Draco could be unthinkably talented at choosing victims beyond the Ministry's radar, and Zabini could be feeding him a tall tale to protect his friend. Harry chose to believe otherwise.

He chose not to believe Draco but to believe in Draco.

Harry glanced up at Zabini, who was staring at him with a smirk in his eyes. "How much did you say you charged an hour?"

~D~H~

He left a note on Ron's desk clearing up the matter of the "mystery murderer." He'd told the truth for the most part—that the alleged murderer was really just an active sleepwalker, that there was a witness to back up these facts, that Harry would never again ask his friend to cover for him like that. He'd also left a drawer full of red vines with a post-it, "For father-daughter bonding."

Call it a post-baby shower present. Not bribery. Just like the coffee he brought for Draco wasn't bribery. As he approached, Draco pretended to be engrossed in a fashion magazine Kreacher had fetched for him. "I brought you coffee."

Draco didn't look up from his page. "I normally take it without the Veritaserum."

Harry took a sip out of it, then held it out for him. "I know what you're like when you haven't had coffee all day. Drink."

Flipping the page, Draco jingled the handcuffs against the railing, as if to say, My hands are full. Responding to his problem, Harry grabbed the magazine and threw it over his shoulder. "There. Now you can reach."

Reluctantly, Draco took a small sip. Harry waited until he swallowed to speak. "Don't you think it's strange that the Ministry hadn't picked up on this before? Twenty-five murders. No wonder you think we're incompetent."

Fittingly, Draco chose to give him the My Peacocks Are More Competent Than You glare. "You left me handcuffed to a staircase with my tool kit within reach. Would you prefer I call you stupid?"

"You didn't run," Harry pointed out.

"I packed my suitcase five times."

"And yet you're still handcuffed to the staircase."

Draco shrugged. "I guess I'm a little stupid too." A mixture of mortification and relief crossed his face as he realized what he'd just admitted.

Harry smiled and sat down next to the blond. "Draco, did you murder twenty-five people?" Draco opened his mouth to answer, but Harry interrupted him. "By the way, I want you to say no."

Draco frowned. "But…"

"Humor me."

His tone was anything but humorous. Draco searched his expression for any sign of a trap. Finding none, he answered in a flat voice, "No."

"Say 'I have never murdered anyone.'"

"I have never murdered—this is ridiculous!" When Harry didn't wilt under his gaze, Draco sighed. "Fine. I have never murdered anyone."

"Good." Harry removed the handcuffs.

Draco stared at him like he'd lost his mind. "That was all it took? How are there any prisoners in Azkaban?"

"You were right," Harry replied, tossing the handcuffs aside. "The coffee was laced with Veritaserum."

It took Draco a moment to realize the implications. "That can't be true."

"What's the name of the song you sing in the shower when you think I'm asleep?"

"Danke Schoen." Draco immediately flushed. "But… I… you weren't asleep?"

Harry certainly wasn't going to admit that the first time he'd heard it, he'd thought a girl had broken into his house. "The point is, you're innocent. If you'd killed anyone, you wouldn't be able to deny it."

"I killed people," Draco said. "If I'm innocent, how can I say that?"

"You know how Veritaserum works. It's a mind game. It only lets you speak the truth. Or what you believe is the truth." He met Draco's eyes. "That's why you can say both."

"So you're saying—what, I hallucinated it all?"

"Not exactly." Quickly, Harry explained Zabini's nightmare theory. As he predicted, Draco didn't take it too well.

"You've seen my nightmares. Do they look like that to you?"

"It doesn't matter what they look like to me. It's what they look like for you."

Draco shook his head. "They can't have been nightmares. I wasn't asleep." Even so, weariness had seeped into his tone as his mind latched onto the idea. There wasn't so much an internal battle as an armistice, a conditional surrender, a lie to set him free.

Harry wasn't about to let him off the hook that easily. "Just because they were nightmares doesn't mean that I forgive you. You still lied to me. You should have told me earlier."

"When was earlier? The first time we kissed? The first time we had dinner?" Harry inhaled sharply, remembering vague snippets that suddenly took on a new meaning. Draco gave him a pointed stare. "Remember that? You didn't believe me then either."

"You didn't tell me the full story."

"What if I had?" The stoniness in his tone told Harry this wasn't the first time Draco had asked himself this question. He could have asked it a million times and come up with a different, equally possible answer for each. Not many of them were good.

A calculated coward. That's what he had called himself days ago. Draco wore the title better. He rarely acted in malice. Fear or selfishness motivated his heart. That was his mistake: acting with his heart over his brain. Harry had made the same mistake in trusting Draco.

A mistake he was bound to repeat. "I don't know." He let out the breath he'd unintentionally bunched in his chest. "I don't know if I want to."

"I don't either," Draco said. "But I wish I did."

They stared at each other for a long time, lost in imaginary worlds where Draco had come clean earlier, where Harry had rallied the Wizengamot in his defense, where he had kissed him in front of the stand as the jury delivered a Not Guilty verdict. Where Draco had packed that suitcase a sixth time, dropped a letter on the porch, and ran off to Nice, or Palo Alto, or Antarctica. Where Draco had ended up in the same cell his father had occupied years earlier and Harry ended up in an empty bed. Harry couldn't say which of them had it worse.

"I really did dump bodies," Draco said softly.

Harry put his hand over Draco's. "Draco…"

"During the war, I mean. Once he was through with them." Draco shuddered. "Once, he came with me. Made me do things. Cut a skull on the arm. Piss on the body." He swallowed back tears. "It made me vomit. But he thought that was just part of the act." Draco clenched his teeth. But his mouth refused to remain shut. "The boy. He was twelve. Twelve, Harry…"

Draco looked up to find tears flowing from Harry's eyes. Harry didn't know when they had started. Only then did the blond stop fighting his own, burying his face in Harry's robes. Harry didn't know how long they sat there, sobbing over a nameless boy who had been dead for years. It was this boy, Harry realized, that Draco had been thinking of when he had spared Brian. One good deed, fueled by an incomprehensible evil.

The mutilated peacock was nothing compared to the truth. Yes, Voldemort had been breathing down his neck then, but he wasn't now. Draco had sincerely thought he'd killed five people, yet he hadn't turned himself in.

The crying made his head hurt. Harry cleared his throat. "I really hate to say this, but do you think we should get some rest?"

Draco shrugged and joked without smiling, "Worst case scenario, someone ends up dead."

Harry refused to read the unspoken words behind Draco's eyes: Maybe it will be you. "On second thought." He tossed Draco a blanket. "Ever camped out in the backyard?"

Thanks again for all the lovely reviews! (And to NobleAndAncientLineBlack ( for inspiring that last scene.)