Chapter Twenty-Three

. . . And the Proud Have Fallen

Harry followed the slight, limping figure of Drew Stevens up the street of a quiet but very rundown Muggle neighborhood, full of trepidation but eager to get whatever information would lead him to Matt as quickly as possible. Dan and Kingsley were directly behind him. As they walked, Drew explained the whole story, turning his head over his shoulder so they could hear his hushed tones.

"Lucius Malfoy wasn't content with his wife, you see. She was a pureblood and well-mannered, and everything he needed in the wife of a Malfoy, but she wasn't very satisfying to him. He happened to meet a Muggle woman, Merlin knows how, that he took a fancy to. She was, by his account, quite a vivacious woman. Narcissa Malfoy was never aware of his affair, of course; Lucius was capable of being very discreet. However, this Muggle woman, Carol Cross by name, became pregnant and refused to give up the child. It was a son, less than a year younger than his legitimate son and heir, whom Carol named Maximilian." Here Stevens let out a snort of what appeared to be amusement. "There are many things I don't know, I'm afraid. I don't know if Carol Cross was ever aware of Lucius' true identity. I also don't know how much Maximilian inherited from his father. I can only assume, because he has connected to Thomas Tyrell, that he is a wizard, at least marginally magical. Furthermore, I don't know if he is aware of how he got this magic."

"I've got a question," Harry grated out, nearly twitching with the effort not to grab hold of Stevens and shake him until he revealed the source of this information. "Does Draco know of him?"

There was a very slight pause. "Yes," Stevens answered. "He does."

"Somehow I can't see Lucius letting it slip to him," Harry grumbled, mostly for Dan's ears, but Stevens picked up on it.

"Oh, devious children have been known to look through their father's private correspondence from time to time. I did it myself as a child."

"I don't like this," Kingsley rumbled, taking out his wand as if he did not care a whit about the Statute of Secrecy. Well, he'd certainly done enough to change it, bringing Muggle police into the loop. "He shouldn't know so much."

A thought struck Harry, and he grabbed Stevens' arm. "Do you know him?" he asked in his most intense voice.

"Maximilian Cross? No."

"Not him. Do you know Draco Malfoy?"

"Of course not, Mr. Potter. From what I hear, Malfoy is in hiding."

Harry's frustration was at the boiling point. "Do you honestly think I don't know that? I've been looking for him for years! If he's in America, Stevens . . . you know what? Just send along a note telling him to stay there. If he's happy there, so be it. I only wanted to send him away to begin with."

Stevens was staring at him, looking horrorstruck. "Do you mean that?"

"Yes," Harry said impatiently. He'd deal with the fact that Stevens apparently had known Malfoy's whereabouts for years and never passed that along, after he got his son back. "Now can we go see this Maximilian Cross? I want my son, and I want him now."

"We're here," Stevens said, and pointed.

---Break---

The house was ghastly. It was old and tarnished, the paint was peeling, the grass was overgrown and browned, and there was old rubbish heaped by the front door. The inside was even worse. The inside contained Carol Cross.

Objectively, Drew supposed that the woman might have been attractive once, in her youth. Her hair, which was frizzy and full of gray, must have once been a lush and shiny strawberry blond. Her teeth, which hadn't received the attention of a dentist—or a toothbrush—in quite some time, were at least straight. She was of medium height, and though heavy and dumpy now, must have been sensuously curvy with very nice breasts before she tacked all the weight on. Her eyelashes still knew how to flutter, and she was employing that technique on Auror Waverly, who looked slightly disgusted by the attention.

"You said you're looking for my boy?" she asked in the sweetest voice she could muster up—not very sweet, considering the smoker's rasp and the fact that her mouth was full of chewing gum.

Drew shuddered. He'd thought the idea of Lucius Malfoy fathering a child on a Muggle was repugnant. Now he thought it was beyond repulsive and straight on into horrifying. He was suddenly very sure he'd rather search for information anywhere else, no matter how much less efficient it might be. He probably would have been out the door by now, but Harry had taken charge. Drew was still reeling from their conversation just outside. Just send along a note. If he's happy there, so be it. Salazar's balls, there was no way he was serious. Once they got Matt back, he'd come to his senses.

"Yes, ma'am, Maximilian Cross is your son, isn't he?" Harry asked warily.

"Yes, that's my Maxey," she said, trying to flutter. It was grotesque. It was obviously not the first time someone had come looking for her son. Drew suspected it had been the police last time, and suspected that her flirtatious technique had not worked any better on them.

"Where can we find him, ma'am?"

"Oh, call me Carol, everyone does. Maxey hasn't done anything wrong, though, not since he got out a year ago." She didn't look too convinced of her own words, but Drew had just had his suspicions confirmed. Ugh. Not only was this the woman that Lucius had cheated on Narcissa with, the boy himself was a common thug. Well, common when you took out the magic part.

"I have reason to believe otherwise, ma'am." Drew was very glad when Harry steadfastly refused to call her "Carol." He gave her a very serious look that Drew would have found menacing if he hadn't been facing Harry at wandpoint not an hour ago. "Has your son been keeping any . . . odd company recently?"

The woman's face went completely blank, as though she'd taken an eraser to it. Her expression revealed nothing but slight annoyance.

"Get out of my house. I don't have to tell you a thing. You don't have any reason to be here, Maxey didn't do anything wrong. Out, out, out!"

She tried to herd them toward the front door, but with Kingsley's bulk standing quite placidly in the way, it didn't work. She seemed to have forgotten Drew, who was standing behind her.

"Your son," Harry said slowly, "has been keeping some very odd company, hasn't he?"

She went white. "Oh, god. You're one of them, aren't you?" She spun around to include Drew, her eyes wild. "You're all, all of you are . . . you're like him, like Maxey's daddy!" she wailed.

There no longer seemed any point in pretending. Not that Drew had thought there was much point in the first place.

"Yes, we're all wizards," Harry told her.

She sat down in a lumpy, badly upholstered armchair, breathing wheezily. "Shit. What's he done, then?"

"Catch on quick, don't you?" Drew murmured.

Harry shot him a frustrated glare, then looked at her gravely. "He's gotten in with a bad crowd, and we need to find him. Do you know where he is?"

She nodded weakly. "He went looking for his father's house."

Harry frowned. Drew closed his eyes. Of course. Malfoy Manor. He didn't necessarily know anything about Tyrell then. Nor Matt. This was a huge dead end, and now everybody knew something that had taken a great deal of effort to keep quiet. Not that it truly mattered at this point, with both Lucius and Narcissa dead. Still, it was rather a disappointment to realize they were back at square one.

"His father's dead," Harry said, trying to sound gentle.

Carol flapped her hand impatiently. "He knows that. He just wanted to find the house. There's things in there that he wanted. A friend of his wanted to see them."

"A friend?"

They all came quickly to attention.

"Boy called Thomas," she nodded. "A wizard." Then she shuddered. "I didn't like him much."

"No," Harry murmured. "I suppose not."

"He's been very odd since he got out of prison," she muttered to herself. "Someone in there told him what he was, that he was magic. I never wanted him to know, myself. There was a police officer, though, who said something to him . . . He said he owed so much to that man. I think he meant . . ." She shuddered again. "I don't think he meant he'd like to thank him. I don't think that Officer Dursley broke the news very gently."

"Dursley?" Harry repeated anxiously.

She nodded slowly. "That's what he called him."

"Well, that's just perfect," Harry said, throwing his hands into the air. "Now the little delinquent is after my cousin as well. And he's only just had the nerve to come out of hiding."

"At least we know he's with Tyrell," Drew pointed out, trying not to sound as though his chest was as constricted as it actually was.

"True. Well, come on, everybody, back to the office, we've got to work out a plan to trap him."

---Break---

"I want a word with you privately," Drew muttered in Harry's ear as they reentered the Auror office. Harry nodded and they withdrew to the empty corridor. This late, there weren't many people at the Ministry—mostly just the Aurors coming off duty from patrolling the watched sites and trying to track down any word from the underworld on Matt's kidnapping.

"I have a plan to get our hands on Cross."

"This ought to be good," Harry said, arms over his chest.

Drew shot him a narrow look out of his one good eye and hoped it was effective.

"Call a false alarm on one of your other locations. Say you've had a sighting at the Riddle house or something, and draw your guards off Malfoy manor to go there. Cross will be there in a heartbeat."

"Don't you think he'll know it's a trap?"

"Not if he sees someone else go inside. Someone who might be able to gain his trust."

His breath was coming up short now. He had no way to break the news gently, but this was his only plan for getting Matt back any time soon. And with what they knew of Tyrell—and what he'd gleaned about Cross from the conversation with his mother—getting Matt back now was the only way to ensure they'd get him back in one piece.

"There's no one on my side who can do that," Harry frowned.

He gritted his teeth and steeled his nerves. Which amused him very slightly. He really had been a coward, once.

"There's one person. Draco Malfoy could do it."

Harry squinted at him. "So you are in contact with him. Well, if you think you can get him over here quickly enough, and get him on my side—not likely—then do it. If it helps, tell him I'll see he receives a full pardon for his services."

He felt his lips trembling slightly as he tried to smile. "And here I thought you were more likely to kill me on sight," he said. Then he used his wand to Vanish the brown dye from his hair.

Harry stared at the suddenly blond man in front of him in complete and utter shock. His mouth was hanging open most unbecomingly.

"Malfoy?" he whispered.

"Really, Potter, if you've any reflexes at all, you'd have had your wand out by now," he said, trying for the drawl he'd affected in his teenage years.

"You— all this time, you've—"

"Been teaching at Hogwarts, yes." He rolled his eyes, then rolled up his sleeve. "Look, it's me. See? Here's where I burned off the Dark Mark, just like I told you when you came for Voldemort. You remember how sore I was?"

Harry nodded like a marionette or a mechanical robot. "I remember."

"This may be very hard for you to believe, but . . . I'm sorry. I care very much about Matt, and I am on your side."

Harry looked like he was trying to get his head around that. At least he was making the effort.

"Now send out the false alarm, Potter. I'm going to my house to convince my illegitimate brother to tell me where your son is."