Chapter Three - Fenestra Charm

The next morning, Harry arrived at Grimmauld Place first. The late-summer morning sun warmed his face as he waited. When Malfoy strolled into sight, all straight lines flowing as he walked, Harry held out the cup of coffee he'd bought earlier, steaming thanks to a hastily whispered warming charm.

"Thank you," said Malfoy.

"Just meeting your basic physical needs," said Harry, and he was gratified to see a hint of a smile on Malfoy's lips. As they walked up the stairs, Harry felt hopeful that today Malfoy would be a little more... bearable.

It took approximately three minutes for this hope to be dashed.

"Every single thing?" Harry asked, shocked.

"Yes, Potter. I am going to have to inventory every single object in this house, and you are going to help me."

"But that's going to take days!"

"If you prefer, you can leave this house, never break the curse, and never return. The choice is yours," Malfoy said, his voice flat and uncompromising.

"Fine," said Harry, putting his coffee down on the mantelpiece with more force than was strictly necessary, and some of it sloshed over the side of the cup. Harry vanished it all with an angry flick of his wand. He could see that this was just going to go on and on.

Malfoy took a deep breath. "Look, it won't take too long, not with you helping. You've got the rest of this week off, right?"

Harry nodded. "Yes, but it's Thursday already," he said.

"Yes, I'm perfectly aware of which day of the week it is, Potter. My point is we have four whole days before you need to return to work, if you include Saturday and Sunday," Malfoy said, speaking slowly.

"You want to work through the weekend?" said Harry, aghast at both the thought of another four days cooped up with Malfoy, and of missing his traditional weekend time with his friends and Sunday lunch with the Weasleys.

"This line of work does not always follow office hours. And as you have already made clear, you have a limited amount of time to offer me. So in this instance, yes, I do want to work all weekend."

"But every single thing? Really, isn't that a bit much?"

"Do you always argue this much? Yes, I am going to examine every object. I will also perform any curse-breaking necessary on them, in essence 'de-Darking' your house," said Malfoy.

"Oh!" said Harry. Suddenly he imagined a home with no corners which refused to light up, no drawers snapping shut on his fingers, no strangely locked doors. "Actually, that sounds kind of... brilliant," he said, looking up and smiling at Malfoy.

"And during the process, I will be able to discover if any wider curse is associated with an object in your home. Or so I hope," Malfoy added. His face softened a fraction as he returned Harry's smile.

There was a moment of silence before Harry cleared his throat. "So, er, where do you want to start?" he asked.

"At the top," said Malfoy immediately. "We'll start in the attic then work our way down."

"The attic? Really? You do realise that will probably take us all day, right?" Harry said, groaning. Malfoy just shot him a glance which made it clear that this was too stupid a question to answer, and they made their way upstairs.

o~O~o

In the shadows of the attic, dark shapes were grouped in clusters, and Harry was reminded of the Room of Hidden Things, with its stacks of furniture and discarded treasures. He was aware that he had begun to sweat in the close heat, his t-shirt beginning to stick to his back, his jeans feeling heavy. Beside him, Malfoy's breathing became shaky, and the sound seemed to fill the room; for a moment Harry was sure that they both saw again the wall of roaring flames which had claimed Crabbe's life. Harry lifted his wand and whispered until the room transformed, bright sunlight streaming into the centre of the room. A single wide beam cut through air heavy with dust, and although outside the light shadows still lurked, they seemed a little less mysterious with the brightness of day beside them.

Malfoy blinked, then whispered, "Thank you," before peering up to see exactly what Harry had done to get the light to shine in.

"I charmed a section of the roof transparent," Harry explained, as Malfoy stepped into the circle of light on the old floorboards. He left neat, pointed footprints behind him.

"Transparent?" asked Malfoy, turning around. "Not charmed to show the sky outside, like at Hogwarts?"

"No, that takes a whole team to achieve. This is something a bit more temporary. Aurors use it sometimes, for surveillance."

"How long does it last?"

"I'd say... about five hours," answered Harry. The most he'd been able to manage before was four hours, but for some reason he felt the need to impress Malfoy. Which was ridiculous, considering that Malfoy didn't even recognise the spell.

"In that case, let's get going," said Malfoy. He raised his wand, and a minute later, every object in the room had a small white light attached to it, like a glowing button. Some digits hovered in the air by his wand for a second. "So we don't miss anything out," he said, "when we go through the... eighty-nine bits of rejected Black history stored here." He began to unroll what looked like an immensely long scroll, and brushed a small patch clear of dust, then sat cross-legged on the floor. He placed an ink pot before him, and prepared a quill for writing. "Bring me the first item, Potter," he ordered, without even looking up.

"I'm going to have to do all the fetching, again?" Harry asked, annoyed at being bossed around. Draco put the quill down.

"Not beneath you, I hope?"

"No! It's just—", Harry looked around the room: there were just so many things.

"Look, I need to perform between one and three spells on each item, and make a record of it here," Malfoy said, prodding the scroll in front of him. "As I explained before, I need to work in a methodical fashion, and if you can bring me each item it will take half the time it would if I was on my own."

Malfoy's explanation actually made sense, so Harry swallowed back his grumbles and went to fetch the first object, when Malfoy barked out "Stop!"

Harry jumped slightly at the sharpness of the cry, and pulled back his hand as if Malfoy had slapped it away. Unnerved, Harry turned to face him. "What now?" he asked. Malfoy shook his head in disbelief. He looked golden, in the bright sunlight. Golden and pissed off.

"Not with your bare hands!" Malfoy said. "I shouldn't have to explain something so basic to an Auror, surely. We're checking for cursed objects, remember?"

"Yes, in my own home," Harry said. He could feel himself stiffening up with his own anger. Who was Malfoy to order him around and shout at him like this? "I do usually touch the things in it, you know."

Malfoy stared at him. "Your home which has been, in your words, trying to kill you."

"Oh," said Harry. He felt a rush of embarrassment at not having thought of that himself. "Well if you put it like that... Fine, we'll do it your way." He turned back and shuddered when he saw what the first thing was: he wouldn't have wanted to touch this anyway. He levitated the dried up old house-elf head towards to Malfoy, and lowered it in front of him. Malfoy's eyes lit up.

"Is this the one which fell on you?" he asked.

"No," Harry said, and went back and fetched the other heads. He pointed at the one with the cracked mounting plate. "I think it was this one. And it didn't fall on me, exactly: it landed next to me. It didn't hit me."

Malfoy nodded at Harry's correction. "Thank you," he said. "I need to keep precise." Harry was mildly surprised that Malfoy didn't have more to say, but then he could see how caught up he was with the house-elf head, his wand already hovering. After a while, Malfoy picked it up, with his bare hands, and put it to one side.

"What happened to no touching?" asked Harry, surprised.

"I can't find anything on it," said Malfoy. "It's hideous but harmless."

Harry was quiet, remembering the crash as it fell down. He tried to look at it objectively, as if it were a case at work. "That makes sense, in a way," he said, beginning to feel the tug of an idea.

Malfoy looked up at him. "Go on."

"Well... if my house is trying to kill me, the objects themselves don't necessarily have to be cursed. I mean, I've been sleeping on the bed for a while now, and I've walked across that kitchen floor loads of times."

"Yes," said Malfoy. "I see," he frowned. "I still want to make a full inventory, to get an idea of what is in your house, and to what degree Dark Magic is tied to your home. I've only really tested for the intent behind any Dark Magic so far; but to be honest in an old house like this there's likely to be enough residual curses lying around that they might explain your predicament." Harry nodded, because that did make sense.

It was fascinating, watching Malfoy at work. Harry wasn't bored anymore, his fidgeting frustrations of the day before almost forgotten. Malfoy would make a neat record of whatever he was looking at, and then set the parchment aside and perform what Harry decided to call the Pink spell, which enveloped it in a pink bubble, then the Blue spell, in which a small ball of blue light entered the head, or chair, or portrait, rattling it around before exiting with a pop and disappearing.

Malfoy didn't explain what either spell did, but from watching Harry concluded that both tested for Dark Magic and Curses: sometimes, the shell of light would flash purple, or the blue light emerged flickering and weak, and then Malfoy would do his tongue-between-the teeth thing and Harry got to watch some Curse-Breaking first hand.

"Tricky," murmured Malfoy, when they were about halfway through the room. He was rotating a small statuette of a semi-naked woman in the air in front of him. "Potter, this one has the Cassandra Curse on it: anyone who touches it would speak the truth, and no one would believe them."

"How can you tell?" asked Harry.

"Look," said Malfoy, performing the Blue spell again, "see the pattern it makes as it flickers? I've learnt the key patterns for all the common curses." Harry hadn't noticed any difference between this series of blinks and any of the others. "Anyway, my issue is that I can remove the curse, but unfortunately it will probably destroy the statuette. If you prefer it can be stored, but the curse will remain."

Harry looked at it. He hadn't ever seen it before, and if he hadn't ventured up here he probably would never have known it existed. "Destroy it, I don't want to have anything cursed in my home," he said, and Malfoy nodded.

First Malfoy set up a small Shield Charm around the object, which gave everything inside it a slightly eerie silver sheen. He looked up once at Harry, then turned his attention back to the task at hand.

The wet tip of Malfoy's tongue made an appearance again, as he closed his eyes in concentration. Harry remained quiet, curious about whether Malfoy would just perform a spell to break the curse, or one to destroy the object. He got his answer when Malfoy opened his eyes and whispered a steady stream of Latin syllables, his wand gripped tightly in his fingers, almost touching the statuette. A black mist began to pour out from the top of the statuette, and to Harry it looked as if it were made of tiny moving particles, trapped in a beam by Malfoy's wand. A glance at Malfoy's face showed it closed down in a frown of effort.

Malfoy began another spell, and the mist separated into strands, forming a claw-like shape which scraped at the edge of the Shield Charm. Just when Harry was about to step forward to cast his own Protego, there was a high-pitched buzzing, the cloud became a dense spot of black, and then burst and fell as a cloud of dust, the statuette crumbling away to nothing at the same time.

"Wow," said Harry. His breath was coming just that little bit faster, and he could see pink in Malfoy's cheeks, his hair slightly damp and sticking to his forehead. "That was... incredible." Malfoy's eyes caught his, and they were bright.

"Yeah," he said, before shaking himself as if to clear his head. "It looks impressive, but it's quite tiring."

"I could help, you know," said Harry. "I'm pretty good with a Shield Charm."

Malfoy stared at him. A look of surprise passed over his face, a quick glimpse of vulnerability before he returned to his more usual aloof expression. He took a breath to say something, then seemed to change his mind. When he opened his mouth, Harry got the impression that whatever he was going to say wasn't what he'd intended.

"That would be great. I– I'm not used to having someone help me," he said. There was an awkward silence after this admission.

"Do you want to come with me to get some more coffee?" asked Harry, after the moment of silence had stretched out to become almost uncomfortable. "I mean, I could just go get some, but maybe you'd like a break? It's probably lunchtime now anyway." Now Malfoy was looking at him strangely, and Harry didn't know what to do. He felt his cheeks begin to heat with embarrassment. "Or, er, I'll just—"

"No, I'll come," said Malfoy. "You just surprised me. Most people aren't really willing to spend any time with me, if I'm not actually waving my wand at things and getting rid of Curses."

"I just thought... You look like you need some fresh air, to be honest," said Harry. "It's not like I'm asking you on a date or anything." As soon as he'd said the words, an image of the two of them sat close and talking over coffee sprang to mind, along with a stab of interest. Oh. Harry turned away to hide his confusion. Malfoy was annoying. He was not someone to— Harry stopped before he could finish the thought.

"Not a social thing then?" asked Malfoy.

"Sustenance," said Harry with a smile. "Meeting a physical need," he added, and quick as a flash, his mind had returned to the image of the two of them, heads bent together in an intimate tête à tête. He felt the flicker of another sort of physical need and shivered.

"Well come along, then," said Malfoy, already heading for the door. "Hurry up."

o~O~o

When they reached the street it became apparent that although Harry's Fenestra Charm had let through some light, the attic had still been gloomy enough to hide just how filthy they both were. Despite not handling many of the things he'd examined, Malfoy had a smear of dust and sweat across his forehead. Harry didn't quite know how to point it out, and there was something endearing about the impeccably dressed Malfoy with sweaty hair and a dirty face. He looked... freshly shagged, to be honest. Harry swallowed, and walked a little faster. Obviously being shut up in a dusty and airless space all morning had addled his brain.

The streets around his house weren't too busy, but as they walked, Harry realised with a start that they weren't heading to his normal sandwich shop; however fast Harry went, it was Malfoy who always seemed to be leading, long legs making confident strides. Within a few minutes they arrived at a café much nearer Wizarding London than Harry would normally venture. It was small, but looked cheerful enough with its overflowing noticeboard, with flyers for city beekeeping clubs and knitting circles, and a couple nursing cups of tea by the door.

"Relax," hissed Malfoy as they walked in. "No one will know you here." Harry was surprised that Malfoy knew how much he hated being spotted, but then he saw just how stiffly Malfoy was holding up his head; and it occurred to him that Malfoy thought that Harry didn't want to be seen with him.

"No– I–" Harry said, struggling to find the right words. It was important somehow, that Malfoy know that it wasn't like that for him. But he didn't get a chance, because Malfoy was already ordering a sandwich at the counter. He was very specific about what he wanted – he asked questions about the bread and even the provenance of the salami – and he rolled his eyes at Harry's request for cheese and ham on white bread. Harry had to force himself not to stare when Malfoy paid for his order: it felt a little obscene, somehow, seeing Muggle money in his hands.

It was such a lovely day, and the house so gloomy, that by unspoken agreement they had chosen to eat there, rather than take sandwiches back to Grimmauld Place. They found a table, tucked away at the back by a blue-painted window, the sash wedged open with a piece of wood. It managed to look cheerful even though it opened on to a tiny space which appeared to be mostly made of brick wall.

Malfoy had ordered a coffee, but Harry had opted for tea, which arrived shortly, strong enough to leave tannin stains on the mug. He took a perverse pleasure in stirring three spoonfuls of sugar into his tea, just to see Malfoy wince with each one.

"Honestly, Potter, you have the tastes of a true Plebeian," he said. Harry looked up and grinned.

"I try my best. Anyway, how much coffee do you drink in a day? You must be high as a kite by the evening."

"I drink a sufficient amount, not a ridiculous quantity, by any means: just enough to enjoy it. And besides," he added, slowing to a drawl, "I need to have something stimulating in my day to look forward to." The light from the window fell at an angle across their table, and Harry could feel his arm warming in the heat of it, but Malfoy's face was brilliant in the sunshine. The smudge was still there, and Harry decided not to mention it.

"Your job seems interesting enough," he said.

Malfoy smiled then, a real smile, and suddenly he didn't look snooty, he looked... well he looked normal. In that moment, if Harry had seen him for the first time, he wouldn't have assumed that he was a wizard or even a bit of a prick: he just looked like a man, relaxed and happy.

"Yes, it is. Never two days the same. Did you know that I worked at Gringotts, after the... well, at first?" Harry shook his head. "It was the dullest thing ever," said Malfoy. "Each day I'd come in, and do exactly the same thing, over and over. With Curse-breaking there's always a new challenge to meet."

"I like that about my job too," said Harry. "There are always different things to do, and I don't need to spend all day cooped up in an office. Although it would be easier without the paperwork," he added.

"Paperwork?" asked Malfoy, his eyebrows raised.

"Oh, I know it sounds awful – like I think a bit too highly of myself – but yes, paperwork. It's a bit embarrassing, really but when I used to go out on regular field calls, members of the public would only talk to me, or sometimes they froze up entirely, and we could never get any proper work done, it didn't happen every time, but often enough. But that's not the worst of it." Harry paused to run a hand through his hair and sighed. "The other Aurors and even Robards got a bit sick of it, so now I have a role as a 'Senior Auror', which seems to mainly involve reviewing cases, offering advice and signing off paperwork. And I don't have a regular partner anymore – I'm lucky to get out of the office."

Malfoy was silent, and when he did speak, he was quiet. "There are worse things in life than paperwork, Potter," he said.

"Really?" said Harry. "I had Voldemort as my sworn enemy, and I'm not too sure about that." Malfoy looked shocked, actually starting slightly when Harry said Voldemort's name, but then he shook his head and let out a thin laugh.

"You– you're not quite how I thought you would be," he said, his eyes not quite meeting Harry's.

"Thought I'd be a bit of knob, didn't you?" asked Harry with a smile. Malfoy looked up, his eyes lit with amusement.

"Oh, I haven't said that you aren't," he said.

"Well, I'm still trying to figure out if you're really the giant prick you come across as," countered Harry. The sound of a quiet cough made him look up.

"Sorry to interrupt all this talk of knobs and pricks, boys, but here are your sandwiches," said a woman bearing two plates. She bit her lip and put the plates down, then hurried away back to the counter, before either of them could say anything. Harry could just see her out of the corner of his eye, whispering with the other woman behind the counter, both of them looking over to Harry and Malfoy, while they giggled and looked pleasantly scandalised.

"Well, that wasn't embarrassing," said Harry, his face heating.

"Well if you must be so crude, Potter—"

"It was just a bit of fun. As well you know."

"Well, that's the difference between us then: you're happy to have a bit of fun, whereas I take life a little more seriously."

Harry stared at him. "You really believe that?" But then he remembered the way Malfoy's eyes had crinkled at the edges when he'd looked up before, and he shook his head. "I'm pretty sure that we're both capable of being serious, and of having fun." Malfoy's eyes slid away from Harry's gaze, and he made a non-committal noise. Harry didn't push it any further: he was pretty sure that if he did, he might start calling Malfoy a prick again. Which might not go down that well, even if it was true.

For a few minutes, neither spoke as they started on their sandwiches. Sorting through dusty objects in a stuffy attic helped build quite an appetite, it appeared. As did a touch of embarrassment and social awkwardness.

As Harry ate, he kept returning to the idea that Malfoy thought that he didn't want to be seen out with the two of them together. "Look, I know I called you a pr— that is, I just wanted to say that I– I don't care about being seen with you," he said. Malfoy gave him an unreadable glance. "I mean– when we walked in I thought you might– I just don't like being mobbed when I eat my lunch," he said, feeling a little pathetic. "But I don't mind that I'm with you."

"You were right: you clearly do think highly of yourself," said Malfoy. Harry's cheeks were burning again, but not with embarrassment. Malfoy just didn't make anything easy.

"Never mind," he muttered.

Malfoy paused, then reached out and touched his arm for the briefest of moments. "No, I know what you're saying, and thank you," he said.

They kept eating their sandwiches, both retreating into a safer silence; the brief moment of warmth they had shared was over, a more familiar awkwardness taking its place.

Harry mulled over the contradictions of Malfoy, and realised that he didn't really know much about him. He looked over at Malfoy, who was eating his food as methodically as he worked, all small neat bites and no mess, and had to hide a smile at the sight of the large grey-black smudge still smeared across his forehead. Harry ignored the sudden urge he had to lean forward, and wipe it away with a gentle swipe of his thumb. He could imagine the warmth of the skin, the way his fingers would brush past the sweat-damped hair above. He tore his eyes away, unsure what to do with the image. He took a large bite of his food, but the remainder of his lunch became almost impossible to chew and swallow, and in the end he pushed his plate away. Malfoy ate on, oblivious.

o~O~o

When they got back to Grimmauld Place, Malfoy caught sight of himself in the large silvered mirror in the hallway. Harry watched as he scowled and got his wand out, Vanishing the smudge.

"You could have said something," Malfoy said.

"Yes, but it wouldn't have been as much fun," said Harry.

"I've already expressed my opinion on you and fun, Potter," said Malfoy, and he marched up the stairs, leaving Harry smiling to himself. And not surreptitiously checking out Malfoy's arse – also neat – as it moved with each step, beautifully framed by his tailored trousers. Definitely not doing that.

The attic felt smaller and smellier than it had before, now that they'd had a walk outside. Harry was glad that they'd had a break though, because it was easier for him to cast a new Fenestra Charm than to have to maintain the first one all day.

Malfoy returned to his work with the same level of focus and attention that he'd shown before lunch. This time though, on the occasions when he discovered an object was cursed, Harry would set up a few Shield Charms. Helping felt good, and lessened his feelings of claustrophobia: the attic was not his favourite place.

The next couple of hours didn't fly by, exactly, but Harry didn't get bored either. He was glad, when Malfoy had finished, that there was still the rest of the house to do, and that there were still a few hours left before the end of the day.

Malfoy stood at the entrance to the bedroom. Harry knew how it looked, shabby and faded, the posters browning, empty eyes staring out at the room. But at the same time, this had been Sirius's room, and he didn't really think that he could bear to hear snide remarks about it. He felt himself tensing in anticipation.

Malfoy walked in and ran his hand over one of the posters.

"I wish I'd had the balls to do this. It would have driven my father wild," he said.

"Yes, I'm under the impression that it did the trick for Sirius," said Harry. And in a sudden moment of insight he realised that Malfoy's room at home must have been like the one next door: sterile, cold, the room of the child who toed the line.

"My cousin," said Malfoy, softly. "All this family I've never met."

Harry didn't know what to say. He probably saw more of Malfoy's family than he did, thanks to his regular visits to see Teddy. He knew that Malfoy had never met his aunt or his little cousin.

"It's just such a pity that he liked women," Harry said in the end, looking back at the posters. "These do absolutely nothing for me." Malfoy laughed in an almost-snort, and Harry grinned.

"I'm not sure that it would have made much difference to my father, as long as the posters were Muggle," said Malfoy, touching the yellowing paper again. After a moment he cleared his throat and took his wand out. "Fascinating as the topic of teen rebellion is," he said, "I'm here to work." He cast his little object-counting spell again, and began his Blue and Pink spell routine.

As it turned out, there really wasn't much of interest in either Sirius or Regulus's rooms, beyond old school books, a dented old set of gobstones, and a wizarding chess set with a missing knight and a huge crack across the board. Which only left another three floors to explore.

"We can continue tomorrow," said Malfoy. Harry nodded and shut the door to Regulus's room. They made their way down the stairs, but rather than leave the house, Malfoy stopped in front of the curtain-shrouded portrait of Sirius's mother. "How long have you lived here?" he asked, turning his head to look at Harry.

"Oh, about five years now," said Harry.

"Five years?"

"Yes," Harry said with a sigh. "Five years."

"And in that time you've basically done nothing to this house?"

Harry shrugged in response. Malfoy was facing him now, his face marred by a frown as he struggled to accept Harry's lack of enthusiasm about his home.

"Why do you live here, Potter?" he asked in the end. "This place is falling apart. The portraits hate you. I... I just don't understand."

It was the second time Malfoy had asked this question, and this time Harry decided to just answer honestly, tired of making excuses for his choices. "It's all I have," he said. "I've got so little from my past, and I like the idea that this house has a bit of history. I like that it's a wizarding house too..." he stopped, aware suddenly that Malfoy was giving him a strange look.

"Yes. I... I think I… a bit of history," Malfoy said, the words coming slowly as if he was reluctant to talk. "If I could, I'd go back to Malfoy Manor and live there, even with the bad memories, for similar reasons." They shared a moment of surprise at this odd little moment of connection, before Malfoy cleared his throat and turned back to face the curtains.

He reached out, to touch them for a moment.

"Goodbye, aunt dear," he said. "And you too, Potter! Enough with the dawdling, some of us have homes to go to."

Harry grimaced at Malfoy's little joke, and together they left the house.

o~O~o

The lake water was cold, but Harry still wiggled his toes in appreciation. His friends were both working, and he was grateful for the peace and quiet, for this chance to sit outside with his feet in water. He picked up a small stone and threw it in, watching as dark shadows rose in its wake. It disappeared from sight, and as it sank Harry returned to his rambling and confused thoughts about Malfoy.

He was still just as irritating, and yet there was also something... Harry closed his eyes and visualised the tight curve of Malfoy's arse. Ok, he could admit that he found Malfoy attractive, but that was just a matter of aesthetics. It was personality which counted and well, Malfoy's personality was just so prickly. Prick-ish, prick-like, a prick, Harry thought with a smile. He shook off the smile as he reflected on the fact that there was just so much history between them: history which for the most part they were successfully ignoring. Yet the fact that it existed was enough to mean that nothing could happen. Harry was faintly disappointed by the thought, and threw another stone into the water.

He'd just have to keep working with Malfoy, enjoy the view, and leave it at that.

A/N: (added 21 Jan 2013) I've just had a review informing me that Lomonaaeren (the well-respected and hugely prolifc HD/DM fanfic writer) has used the Cassandra Curse before. I just want to note that I wrote the curse in this chapter based on the ancient Greek myth of Cassandra's Curse, namely that she would only be able to speak the truth, and that no one would believe her. Quite a curse, in my opinion *shudders*. I was not aware that it had been used in any other specific fic, but I'm not surprised it has as it is such a powerful idea and well-known tale. I'm happy though to acknowledge that Lomonaaeren got there first!

I have to say, I did enjoy including a bit of mythology, as an affectionate imitation of JKR herself - who of course drew on many myths and legends in the HP books themselves. This story is all about my warmth for these characters and the HP world in general, and I do hope that this is what readers get from this fic. Omi x