The row, when it happens, is great and terrible. Ginny and Mum are too alike for it to go any other way: Ginny hurls lamps and vases, Molly throws teapots and slams doors. They scream and quarrel and cry for hours, while Dad only punches Charlie and tells him to get out. The fighting can be heard from any point in the house, and there is no room left unscathed by their fury. Ginny chases Harry out of the sitting room, and Mum cries so loudly in the parlor that Hermione feels uncomfortable and leaves the room. When Ron runs into Ginny in the hall, she slaps him so hard his ears ring and Hermione has to pull her off of him before she can do it again. He doesn't bother thanking her but only moves on to another room. Mum is too distraught to cook dinner, so everyone has to fend for themselves. It isn't until breakfast the next morning, as Charlie stands in the kitchen scrambling eggs with his suitcase next to him that everyone finds out what is going on.
At first, Hermione can't believe that it has been happening. She's never had brothers or sisters, but even so she can't imagine something like this happening in her family. Something like this, she says, and Ron can almost see the disgust in her eyes as she talks about his family. Harry is stunned, as well. With only his porky cousin and that ghastly aunt and uncle of his as family, Ron can't imagine that incest is something that comes up in his life a lot. Which isn't to say that it comes up in Ron's a lot, but the chances of it coming up are a lot better with a girl like Ginny in the family than the thought of anyone ever wanting to shag Harry's elephant of a cousin.
It soon comes out that Charlie was the one hitting Malfoy, too. The spying git had caught them at it one day and Charlie'd had to keep him silent somehow. As much as he hates Malfoy, the thought of big, manly Charlie smacking that little walking skeleton that he'd been when he'd first showed up makes him queasy. Harry apologized, of course, and even Ron has to admit that he seems far likelier a choice than Charlie, who always seemed so cool with his long hair and dragon tooth earring. This doesn't mean that Ron accepted, but he cannot keep a row with Harry going in the face of a disaster like the one between Mum and Ginny.
Even at seven in the morning they are already at it again, and the two of them blow into the kitchen in a storm of horrible names and ghastly insults. When they see Charlie standing there, the room goes silent. This is the first time they have been in the same room since Ron walked in on them, and even though they refuse to admit it, everyone wants to know what they will do. Ginny takes a step tentatively toward him, and he turns away from her, back to the eggs he is making.
"Charlie," her voice is quiet, and the nervousness in it strikes Ron as odd. He wonders if this might not be the first time they've let themselves see each other the way everyone around them sees them; he is older, taller, wiser. Her brother. He should have known better. She is young, pretty, and impulsive. The baby of the family, and the only girl. She touches his shoulder with a shaking hand and his shoulders droop. He lets himself be turned in her arms until they are face to face and there, in front of everyone, he catches her lips in a kiss. Her arms tangle behind his head and she pulls him closer. The kiss is deep, passionate, and final. When she steps away, his hand lingers on her waist for a moment and he stoops to get his bag. Charlie leaves everything behind him—family, friends, even the food he'd been cooking—and walks up the stairs. They can hear the door open and when it closes, Ginny falls like a marionette without strings.
Ginny's inconsolable for days after, and it's this, rather than anything else, that draws him slowly back to Hermione. Ginny is like the shining example of a relationship gone wrong. As long as you don't do this, it seems, you will be fine. As long as you don't commit incest. He wants so badly to make things up with Hermione, but he can see that a clear step in that will be to make things up with Harry. It helps a lot that no one thinks he was the one beating Malfoy, but Ron isn't sure that it helps enough.
Harry and Hermione are planning to get smashed in Harry's room, to deal with the drama going on in the house. Ron doesn't know if he's invited, but he knocks on the door anyway. The rest of the house is silent, sleeping, but Hermione opens the door and she looks startled but pleased to see him there. When he comes into the room, it is clearly divided between Harry's mess and the eerie neatness of Malfoy's area. Harry's bed sheets are tangled and practically falling off of the bed, but Malfoy's bed is neatly made. Ron remembers that Malfoy hasn't slept there for two weeks, and for the first time an odd feeling clenches in his gut. He wonders if Malfoy is okay, but only for a minute.
Hermione sits on the floor next to Harry, whose eyes are rimmed red, and pats the spot on the ground next to her. "Harry," Ron feels his throat constrict, but Harry looks up at him and smiles.
"I didn't think you were coming," Harry says, offering him the bottle of firewhiskey. He accepts it, and several hours later the three of them are curled in a warm stupor on Harry's bed.
"Is he," Ron finally lets himself ask, "your boyfriend, Harry?"
Harry seems to understand who Ron is talking about, but lounges on his bed, thinking. "No. I don't think so," he answers finally, his tone firm.
"How can you not know?" Hermione asks, her breath rushing warm along the side of Ron's face. They all smell like grain alcohol.
"I've never asked him," Harry's reply is simple. "Plus, I think he hates me."
"How can he hate you? You're just Harry," he wheedles, letting his voice whine. Hermione laughs and settles her head into Ron's stomach.
"Ron, do you have a crush on Harry?" she asks playfully, tugging his arm over her shoulder to meet Harry's hand. "It's okay if you do. I think."
The room is filled with the quiet sounds of breathing as Ron thinks hard. He lets himself pore over everything he can remember about his life with the Boy Who Lived. His fingers tangle in Harry's while he thinks. He thinks about everything that has happened in the last seven years, and somewhere between basilisks, Dementors, Tri-Wizard Tournaments, Death Eaters, the Department of Mysteries, and horcruxes, he realizes several things at once: no, he does not have a crush on Harry; he can barely stand Harry's presence at times; and Harry is probably more like Malfoy that anyone ever lets him be. The revelation stuns him, and he stares at the ceiling trying to work his way through this new information.
"No," he says finally. "I don't have a crush on Harry. I don't think Malfoy hates you, though, Harry. Evil, smarmy git that he is, I doubt he hates you."
"Really?" Harry asks, and for a long moment he thinks that Harry is asking about Malfoy, but Harry's hand wraps around the back of his neck and there is suddenly a pair of lips pressed wetly to his own. "You don't like me, even a little bit?"
"Mate, I can hardly stand you at times," Ron corrects, flopping back down to the bed. "Plus? You're pants at kissing. Sorry. You had to know." Harry laughs and falls back to the bed. Ron notices that Hermione is almost asleep and he moves down to curl around her. On the other side of the bed, Harry also curls around her, and this is how they fall asleep, a trio again.
::
Remus doesn't understand how everything in his life could go pear-shaped so quickly. One minute everything is going well—everyone is getting along, and all is right with the world—and then the next he finds the Weasleys screaming and tearing at each other's hair, Malfoy has run away, and Tonks is…
He doesn't see what would have led her to do this. Has work been too difficult lately? Has she been put off by the chaos going on in the house? What could motivate someone to drink an infusion of rue and yarrow? The tenuous balance needed to make the potion work for…the potion is so dangerous that it is usually only used by midwives. It had taken several mediwitches several hours to find an antidote, while Tonks bled out in the examining room. The warm, coppery smell of new blood had mixed with the rank, rotted smell of old blood, and together they'd filled the hospital. When Remus had entered, the smell had almost overwhelmed him. He'd been terrified.
And then she made it through safely. It had been miraculous that she'd survived it, and with time the overpowering scent of coins had faded until it was only an undercurrent. Tonks's smell, like wild flowers and the scent that said "mate" to Remus, had slowly grown in strength, though the smell of sickness pervaded. When she'd woken, the smell had returned to normal enough that Remus could smell that something was missing. There had been an added sweetness to her lately, something that shouted "mate" more strongly, but now it was gone. He'd pressed a hand to her stomach gently and felt the full impact of what she'd done.
Now, back at the house, he feels like he is floundering. Nothing is the way it is supposed to be. Moody has called together a meeting of the Order, and as he sits at the table looking at the group that's supposed to defeat Voldemort, there are more absences than people present, it seems. This meeting feels like he did after Lily and James' deaths—slow, hesitant. The biggest hurdle to get over is the very obvious empty chair where Dumbledore once sat. Next to him, Minerva's chair is empty because she is busy trying to rebuild the school for opening next year, and Severus's chair is painfully stark, as well. Kingsley is away doing reconnaissance for the Aurors and Charlie has been banned from the house. Tonks is of course still lying down from her recent illness, and Remus wonders if it isn't perhaps time to allow the others in. He feels they're too young, of course, but even as chair fillers, Ron, Hermione, and Harry, Luna Lovegood and Neville Longbottom would all be welcome. Anything to distract from the immensity of their loss.
The Order feels lame, toothless and powerless. They look at each other sitting around the table and see nothing but a wash of tired faces. The history books never show this, Remus thinks as he stares into the glass of water between his hands. They never show how tired someone can get during war. This is how mistakes are made; this is how battles are won and lost—by who's the most rested. He wonders briefly if this is Voldemort's plan, to tire them out and suck away their will to fight. Now that there are no more spies, they find themselves scraping for knowledge. Whereas before they always knew in advance that something was going to happen, now they often don't know until several days after the fact. Everything has changed since June, and there is no way to stop the world, like a time turner, and spin it backwards until it hasn't happened again.
There's no way to move backwards, and with nowhere to go ahead of them, they are stalled, perpetually existing in the same dreary day, over and over again, while Harry screams over Dumbledore's stiffened body and somewhere Voldemort laughs.
::
Standing there in the doorway, Draco looks like a ghost. He is dressed as he always was in school, with long robes covering him and not a strand of hair out of place. Molly is standing at the door bawling, and Harry is watching the events play out from the bottom stair. Even across the room, the tension is electric, and Harry can feel the hair on the back of his neck rise as he looks over the other boy. There is no mistaking this boy for Alexandre. This boy is Malfoy unerringly, from the top of his white blond head to the soles of his dragonhide boots. There is no kind hearted quirk to the mouth and no sad eyes peer out from beneath greying hair that is slightly too long.
Malfoy stares back, his eyes challenging and the slight lift to his chin is haughty. For all appearances, he is the Great Ferret-Faced Git of lore, taunting the Weasleys because they are poor and dressing up as a Dementor to make Harry fall off of his broom. But Harry can see the slight nervous twitch hidden in the corner of his mouth, the way he wants to smile but doesn't dare. He can see how the boy twists his robes between fingers to wipe away nervous sweat, and how he stands on the sides of his feet in his expensive boots. When Harry smiles shyly at him, the illusion breaks and he is just Draco again, rushing into the room and throwing his arms around Harry.
They clutch at each other desperately, as if they've been apart a hundred years, but when Harry tries to kiss him, Draco pulls away. He tugs his robes into place and coughs awkwardly, smiling slightly at the other people in the room. "Hello, everyone," he says, and Ginny stares blankly at him before leaving the room.
"Erm," Harry mutters, and a hot blush works its way all the way to the tips of his ears. "Don't mind her. She's just…"
"Well," Draco's voice is crisp. "Anyone—besides Harry—miss me?"
Draco won't tell them where he's been; only that he was found and taken care of by well-meaning Wizard ken. He refuses to tell them what happened to him, even when Moody and the rest of the Order come into the room and begin asking questions. All he will do is roll his sleeves back to show that he is still unmarked.
Molly puts him back in Harry's room with a laughing comment to keep their hands to themselves, but Draco is suddenly skittery in the room alone with him. He tries to calm him down, but it irritates him, this lack of trust, and he eventually just turns his back, gets dressed for bed, and crawls under the blankets. Trust Draco Malfoy to disappear for two weeks and act like an arse when he gets back, Harry thinks as he turns out the light whether Draco's ready for bed or not. He feels a dull, aching numbness crawling into his chest where the butterflies have been all day, and he screws his eyes up, trying not to cry.
"I did miss you, Harry," Draco's voice is quiet in the dark, but Harry doesn't trust himself to turn around, so he just listens as the other boy's breathing fades to sleep.
::
Bellatrix has two doses left, and then she has to be gone. That gives her one hour, because she needs one to travel. She could have had three, but she gave one to the boy when she let him go. She hopes that no one notices he is gone, and that he was smart enough to go where she told him to.
As she looks around the little cottage she'd grown up in, she knows she will never see it again. Pettigrew knows she was here, even lived here for a while, and will probably raze it to the ground. For a moment she chides herself for losing both Spinner's End and the cottage, but muses that if everything does not go as planned today, she won't have a need for a house anymore. Her makeshift potion lab lies open on the table, the little bowl of black beetle eyes spilled. The tiny eyes sparkle darkly in the light from the fire beneath her cauldron as she starts one last potion.
For months she's been tainting the supply of potions Pettigrew keeps in his valise. She's added newt's tongue to his sleeping draught, rendering it a toxic sludge. She's replaced his headache potion with an infusion of wormwood and cowslip, with just enough belladonna to make it hallucinogenic. His pain potions have been tainted with essence of mandragora. Anything she can do to make him miserable, but never enough to make him suspicious of her.
He suspects her now because of the boy. He'd wanted blood from the moment she'd brought him back to the cottage, and her unwillingness to kill her nephew had made him vindictive. Then when the boy was not killed by the Dark Lord, he'd been on edge, almost raving in his jealousy.
The potion is almost done. It is to be her last contribution to the cause. She will leave it by itself, sitting on the table with nothing on it but a tag. She decants it into one of her favorite phials: green, cut glass. A gift from the Dark Lord after her first successful kill. There is no way that whoever finds Pettigrew, the phial still clenched in his hand, will not know what has happened. The worst part is over, she reasons with herself. All that is left is the rest.
She sets the phial carefully, then slips out the door. There's no time to pack, nor any reason to. However these next few hours go, she'll never need the things she brought into this house again. She is already wearing the large, concealing robes that she will need once the transformation takes place. They are too big for her and the tall, starched collar bothers her chin, but they will fit well enough when they are needed.
She cannot travel through the Wizarding world. Both of her faces are too well-known for that. She covers herself with a notice-me-not and leaves under cover of darkness, hoping it will be enough. It will have to be, she thinks darkly, as she dares not do more. She swings the broom between her knees as she walks out the door, and though she has not flown in years, it all comes back to her easily.
She knows that her flight will be a long and perilous one, but it is the only option left to her and as she whistles through the air on her way over Bristol, she takes the potion for one last time.
::
Hermione Granger is standing outside Grimmauld Place for the first time in more than six months. She is inside a phone booth in Muggle London, debating whether or not to call her parents. Outside, Ron and Harry are horsing around, throwing snowballs made of the dirty, icy London slush. She's scolded them, but she was laughing as she did it, so it had little effect.
The dial tone on the other side of the line is harsh and grating. She hasn't used a phone in so long she wonders if the number will go through, or will she end up calling someone else on accident? With shaking fingers, she carefully presses the numbers. At the first ring, she almost hangs up. She feels ill, suddenly, and shakes so bad that she has to lean against the side of the booth. She clings to the phone and when the tinny voice on the other side wafts up from her hand, she drops it. The phone hits the side of the booth with a loud clang. She quickly slams it onto the receiver, listening to the coins slide through the machine to land on a pile of other phone calls. She shudders, tugging at her gloves with weak hands before pulling them away. With a cold hand, she digs through her pocket for another fifty p.
This time, the line is picked up right away. "If this is a joke, so help me…" her father's voice is strange on the other side. It's both older and younger than she remembers him, and she wonders if he still looks the same. Hermione is overcome by the need to hear her mother's voice and feel her warm hands press against her hair.
"Dad?" she says in a small, little girl's voice. "It's me, Hermione."
They talk forever and ever, until the machine prompts her for another fifty pence and another, until she cannot find any more and her hand is shaking from the cold. The line is severed sharply in the middle of a word, and she searches frantically through all of her pockets for change before she collapses against the wall. Ron rushes to the booth, pulls her out, and wraps her up in his arms, but she has never felt so little and alone. The walk back to Grimmauld Place is long and silent, and the boys throw no snow, but all she can think about is how she never got to hear her mother's voice.
::
Draco is in the sitting room when he hears footsteps approach from behind. He has a moment of wild panic when he thinks that it must be Charlie, here to teach him a lesson again, but when Harry coughs slightly, he relaxes. Harry sits next to him and they look out the window at the snow together.
"It'll be spring soon," he says, and Draco nods absently. The January snow is melting already, and soon it will be February.
"Not too soon," Draco replies. "There's a lot of winter yet."
"We've been through the worst of it."
"No. The worst of it is always that part at the end, right before you think it's over," Draco turns to look at Harry, who is already gazing at him with something like longing in his eyes. "Don't let yourself be fooled. There's always more to come."
"I just call that part March. It doesn't count as winter," Harry's voice is quiet, and Draco feels him shift on the sofa.
"So what did you do in London today, Harry?" he keeps his tone light, and the hand that covers his sends a shiver up his back.
"Nothing, really," Harry's eyes are still fixed on him. "Are you well?"
"No more so than any other day." Harry smiles and he feels the corners of his lips lift in response. His hands fist at his sides with the desire to run his fingertips over the scar sitting nestled between those brows. His lips tremble with memories. Harry is different now, he thinks, than he was before, and all Draco has done is come back the same. "No less so than any other day."
Harry takes Draco's hand in his own, looking down at it in concentration. "What are you doing?" the question dies on Draco's lips as Harry begins to rub his thumbs into his palm.
"Divination. Let's see what I remember," Harry murmurs, studying the pale hand that shakes with emotion in his hand. They sit, frozen on the sofa until Molly calls for dinner. "I've got nothing," Harry admits, grinning, and Draco tries not to feel warm at the knowledge that they've been holding hands for hours.
After dinner, Draco decides that if they're going to be doing the whole romance thing, he is going to be the one in charge, and he pins Harry to the wall in the hallway, their lips mashed together. He pants as Harry leaves a love bite the size of a walnut shell on his neck, just below his ear. As he clings to Harry and groans as their lips tangle, he is stunned to find himself dangling on the edge of orgasm, and lets himself go when he feels Harry grinding into him, hears the shocked cry of pleasure that escapes when Draco slides his thigh up Harry's leg, and tastes the beginnings of tears as they escape from the fanned half moons of Harry's lashes. He wraps his arms around Harry's shoulders and mewls until Harry picks him up and puts him in bed.
Harry treats him gingerly, but like a boy; he pulls Draco's boots off, stuffing them under his bed, and unclasps the robes he is wearing over his clothes. He toes off his own scuffed trainers and curls around Draco, pressed against his side. For the first time in a long time, he feels warmed through and as he dozes off, he feels Harry's hair brush lightly against the side of his face.
::
When Harry wakes up, he finds himself sprawled across Draco's bed. Draco is standing over him buttoning the cuffs of a shirt he has borrowed from Ron, a tiny smirk forming in the corner of his mouth when he notices that Harry's awake. "Oh, you're up now, my little hedonist?" Draco's tone is playful, and he stoops over Harry to give him a lingering kiss. "Get up. I want breakfast."
Harry merely pulls Draco to the bed with him, where they are still kissing when the door opens and Hermione enters. She clears her throat, but her eyes sparkle with laughter. "Molly says if she finds one of you has run off again, whoever it is will be getting cold eggs."
"We'll be there in a moment," Harry tells her. As the door closes behind her, he presses another kiss to Draco's lips. The blond draws away with a firm slap to Harry's leg, then tugs on the jumper Molly made him for Christmas.
"Hurry up," Draco smiles at him, and Harry smiles back.
After breakfast, Harry and Draco sit in the parlor with their backs to the door. Harry is gently coaxing Draco to hardness again, his hand resting high on Draco's thigh and his lips pressed softly to his ear. He whispers little things about how glad he is that Draco's safe and how happy he is that he came back. His fingertips are pressing circles on his inner thigh and Draco can feel his face is flushed.
Draco leans over ghosts his lips over Harry's, but just before they touch, Harry finds himself pushed back onto the sofa and Draco is rushing out the door. Stunned, he stands up to follow and finds Draco standing at the front door. The door itself is thrown wide, and Bellatrix Black Lestrange is standing in the doorway, a broom tucked under her arm.
Harry feels something awful twist inside him as her dark eyes sweep over Draco to him and she smirks.
::
Ron is standing in the kitchen waiting for Hermione to finish helping Mum with the after-breakfast dishes when he hears footsteps pounding across the floor upstairs. He glances back at them, with their sleeves rolled up and their arms up to their elbows in soapy water, and smiles fondly. He heads upstairs to see what all of the ruckus is, and as he comes into the room, he sees Malfoy standing at the front door. His stomach lurches as he recognizes the other figure, and he pulls his wand out only to have it knocked out of his hand by a flying disarmament spell. He opens his mouth to say something, but what comes out is, "Dad!"
"How cute," Malfoy sneers, but his eyes dart over to the hallway, where Harry looks like he is going to burst into tears.
"Be quiet, Draco," Lestrange tells him, and Ron realizes that she has not lifted her wand. It was Malfoy who'd used the spell before. He can hear his mother's footsteps coming up the stairs and he realizes that his father has already gone to work.
"Mum! No!" he shouts as he sees her come up the stairs, drying her hands on a dish cloth. She brushes by him calmly, taking the broom from Lestrange and leading her in.
"I was wondering when you'd get in."
::
They're all sitting in the room reserved for Order meetings when the potion begins to wear off. Ronald Weasley's face is white and his hand keeps drifting over the scars on his arm. Hermione Granger is somber, her face earnest and thoughtful and more than a little bit afraid. Harry Potter has folded himself into a chair and is pouting at everyone, especially Draco. They're waiting for Arthur to come back from work, and for the rest of the Order to arrive.
It begins slowly, a classic case of polyjuice potion: her stomach clenches, her limbs shudder and twitch. Her hair flattens and becomes greasy, her teeth lengthen, and her nose stretches outward. The bountiful curves of her body melt slowly until she is flat, planar, and pointy. She can feel her facial structures reshape until finally, she sits at the table in her true face. It is the first time Severus Snape has been at this table in almost a year.
The first reaction is visceral: Weasley knocks over a chair as he stands up and Granger faints. The secondary reaction is much more subtle: Weasley growls slightly, Potter turns his face away in disbelief, and Draco's knowing smile fades. Tertiary reactions are explosive: Potter shoves back from the table, almost tipping himself over in his hurry to get away, and storms out of the room. Weasley grabs Severus's collar, hauling him out of his chair. Molly pulls at her son's arms and looks imploringly at the girl Weasley, who stares at him as though he has grown an extra head. Draco makes a quiet noise and follows Potter out of the room.
::
"I can't believe you, Malfoy!" Harry rounds on Draco as soon as they get into their room.
"Oh, so I'm Malfoy again?" the boy's tone is bitter and he knows it. "I couldn't tell you, Harry. It was too dangerous."
"How was it dangerous? I might have felt safer knowing your crazy aunt was really only the man who murdered Dumbledore, in disguise?" Harry's voice is raised, and Draco can't believe the self-righteousness he hears in his voice.
"It was too dangerous for him! If anyone had known—" he is cut off.
"Which is why everyone knew but me, isn't it, Draco" Harry sneers his name, making it sound like some sort of vermin.
"No one knew, Potter," he replies. "I wasn't allowed to tell anyone but Molly and Lupin."
"Oh, really?" he wants nothing more than to smack Potter's stupid face right now.
"Get this through your thick skull, Potter: I told no one. It wasn't safe," Draco speaks slowly as if talking to a small child or an idiot. "It was not out of some deeply ingrained distrust of you, or even out of a desire to protect you, to baby you, or keep you from the truth. It was safer for him the fewer people knew about the situation, and I told the people who really needed to know. You're not going to find out I was gossiping about Professor Snape's impending arrival disguised as my 'crazy aunt,' as you so tactfully put it."
"Why couldn't you tell me, though?" Potter's voice is plaintive now, and he takes off his glasses to clean them on the hem of his shirt. "Didn't I deserve to know?"
"Potter—" he starts, and suddenly liquid green eyes are turned on him. "Harry," he says gently, "It's not that you didn't deserve to know. It's that Severus could have been caught out there—killed—because I was careless with the information. With things like this, you can't just go around telling everyone everything they want to know, you know?"
"It's just…they never tell me anything," Harry's voice is sharp-edged now. "Everything's on a 'need to know' basis with them, and I'm never on the 'needs to know' list. They didn't even tell me how Dumbledore was injured last summer, or that he was at all. Dumbledore himself didn't tell me anything until it was too late."
"What do you mean?" Draco breathes.
"I don't know. I don't mean anything," Harry slumps onto his bed and stares at his scruffy trainers. "They just…they never said that he was sick or anything. They never bothered telling me that he was in a lot of pain. I mean, I guess I would have noticed if I'd just paid attention better, but if I'd known I wouldn't have acted a prat the way I did." Draco sits next to him, sliding his hand up his arm to comfort him.
"You were a prat?" Draco laughs a little, pressing his forehead to Harry's shoulder.
Harry sighs. "I always feel like everything's my fault, and maybe I wouldn't get so many people hurt if I knew what was going on."
"Harry, no one thinks these things are your fault. More than a healthy share of them are my fault," the words taste bitter on his tongue, but he knows they're true, "but none of them are yours."
"Of course it bloody well is my fault. I'm the one who believed those dreams from Voldemort that got Sirius killed. I'm the one who was so eager to do my hero thing that I didn't bother stopping to ask questions. I'm even the one who didn't tell anyone I had a strange textbook that told me to use spells I'd never heard of on my enemies," Draco can hear the wry twist of Harry's mouth as he says this, and smiles.
"So I'm your enemy, eh, Potter?" he presses his lips against the nape of Harry's neck and delights in the shudder it produces.
"I thought you were."
"I was at the time," Draco admits. "But I was a fool at the time."
"You've gained a great deal of wisdom since then?"
"In some ways, yes."
"Draco, tell me why you ran away," Harry's voice is soft, full of an emotion that sounds like guilt. Draco pauses, and Harry waits.
"No," he says finally, closing his eyes.
"Why? Was it because of what happened?"
"I don't want to talk about it," Draco says firmly, and Harry pulls away from him. As Harry stands at the door looking back at him, all Draco wants is to tell Harry what happened. He opens his mouth to tell him the truth, but Harry just walks away.
::
When he tells the story, all eyes are on Severus Snape. It was his decision to tell it well after dinner, and when they see the greenish cast to Tonks's face, everyone soon agrees. He tells it simply, with no flash or color, but the words are chilling as they sink into the crowd circling him.
::
Bellatrix is excited. She carefully combs the dark curls out of her eyes, skims her eyes over the curves of her breasts and belly and hips, flattered in the mirror by her robes. Narcissa's, really, but the stupid bint won't notice after today, if Bella has her way. Her long fingers come up to pinch her cheeks pink and she bites her lips bloody red. Her teeth look all the whiter for the pinkish smears on them. She has to look as pretty as she can for her Lord.
Today is the day she is to be tapped to join His inner circle. Now she'll get all of the information He gave that half blood and her Muggle loving sister. Now He'll pull her close to His body and…a shiver ghosts down her back. Anticipation. She doesn't care what she'll have to do, she'll just do it. Her Lord must know the depth of her love for Him. He must. She will show Him, anyhow, and He'll never forget or doubt her again.
She hopes He wants her to kill those failures in the next room. That half blood and his whore, who stay up at night worshiping at the altar of adultery while the little coward sleeps in the next room. Lucius; he had his faults, but not even he deserves this, this flagrant flaunting of his terrible fate. His pretty, pretty wife—she always got all the attention from the boys—and his troll of a conspirator, his ratty little son who never did anything but whine, oh, even Lucius deserved better!
Lucius, pretty and long haired, who liked to look at Narcissa with his silvery eyes but touch her sisters under their skirts, who wouldn't talk to Andromeda, wouldn't fuck Narcissa, and wouldn't marry Bellatrix, he was worth ten Severus Snapes. He was a pathetic man and he had a small prick, and now he's brain dead and soporific, lingering, clinging to life in his cell at Azkaban—nasty, dirty place!—like an opium addict, chasing the dragon forever. He isn't pretty anymore, Bella sneers at her reflection, with his hair shorn off and the marks of his own fingernails scarring his shit-smeared arms and legs. His belly is spotted with bruises where he is beaten every day by some guard who's lost his friend, his cousin, his father, his son to this war. Lucius is a pariah, the figurehead elected by the Wizarding world for crucifixion, but she remembers him as he was when they were young: pretty, powerful, rich, and perpetually horny.
A quick check to see if the robes flatter her arse and she is reaching for the bottle of perfume on the nightstand. Narcissa's, but bought with Lucius's gold, so it ought to be hers as well. It smells like paper whites, though, and it's far too pretty for her, but she supposes that it will just have to do. As she glances back to the mirror, she sees them in the doorway, looking at her. You're ugly, his eyes say. You'll never please our Lord. You're playing dress up again, her eyes say. You'll never be me, no matter what you take from me. I'm beautiful, Bella's reflection says, and she knows who to trust.
"There's a meeting tonight," Bella tells them, her lips curling triumphantly. "I know you didn't know. You," her eyes flick to him, the traitor, in the mirror, "aren't invited anymore. You," her eyes narrow at her, the fool, "were never devoted to the cause in the first place." You didn't offer him your soul the way we did, your husband and I, she smirks at the reflection.
"Don't tell him where we are," Narcissa's lips move, but all Bella hears is noise.
"Tell who, darling?" Bella reaches for Narcissa's pretty diamonds, but selects black pearls instead. She doesn't wince as she forces the tiny studs through the skin of her earlobe. Warm blood drips onto her bare neck and she watches it spatter on her skin.
"You're mad," he sounds like he's reading the weather report. Bella smiles at him, still watching the trickle of red that contrasts so prettily against her black hair and white flesh.
"You know who, Bella," Narcissa sounds desperate now, and she reaches for Bellatrix's sleeve with dirty hands.
"I'll tell Him if He asks," Bella's smile falls. How could the fool ever think that she could keep something from Him?
"You won't go out that door," Narcissa's eyes have widened and she looks afraid. Good. She should be. Bella shoves her out of the way, walking calmly toward the door. There is a sudden, searing pain on her scalp and she turns to find her sister clutching a hank of dark, long hair. I won't be pretty for him, she thinks for a wild moment before launching herself at Narcissa. She almost crows in triumph as she feels her fingernails grab purchase in Narcissa's delicate flesh and she pulls, reveling in the flow of warmth that pours from her sister's arms onto her face. Narcissa's screams are animalistic and Bellatrix can barely make out that she's talking. "Won't let…hurt! I won't...him! Draco!" her sister pants as Narcissa elbows Bellatrix sharply in the collarbone, toppling them over. There is a triumphant screech from Narcissa, who begins to scratch almost ineffectually at Bellatrix's eyes and face. All it takes to unseat her is a solid punch to the jaw and the blonde woman is sprawled on the floor, sobbing with breath and spitting blood. Her robes are torn, but Bellatrix feels that He would appreciate her more like this—bloody, battle-stained—than He would a dozen Narcissas with perfect hair. Speaking of, Bella reaches for her sister's pretty golden hair, grasping for a handful of that perfect blonde. Narcissa fights weakly against her, but Bella manages to tear free a solid chunk that scatters over them both as Narcissa finally breaks free. The wind rushes out of her lungs as Bella feels Narcissa's pretty ringed fist rammed into her diaphragm. The world goes hazy for a moment, and Bella vaguely feels herself falling onto the floor. Narcissa continues the onslaught, punching and clawing wildly at Bella's face and head. She distantly feels her left ear get caught in one of the diamond rings on Narcissa's hand, and when she tastes blood she knows it's her own. Narcissa looks like a wild woman now, kneeling over her smeared with blood, her hair flying around her and her teeth bared in fury. This, Bella thinks, this is something I could be proud of being my sister. This is something that would make Lucius hard. This thought makes her laugh, blood burbling in her throat. Narcissa's eyes could kill as she snarls, "What's so funny?"
"I fucked him, you know," Bella hears herself say almost casually, as if every day she lay beneath her enraged sister and was pummeled. "Lucius. He was a bad fuck, but he said I was the best he'd ever had. We fucked all the way up to the day I went to Azkaban, and again as soon as I got out. Just so you know," Bella laughs again, and it sounds like a bloody sob tearing free from her throat, "You weren't the only one who slept around."
Bella sees very clearly the switch being flipped in Narcissa's mind. She sees her frenetic movements calm to a deadly still. She sees the candlestick and smells the blood, hears the traitor shout and feels the heavy clang of old silver meeting and cracking her skull. It's odd, she thinks as the world begins to fade out, how her tongue could not taste anything, as if finally, after twenty three years holding back the secret and finally letting it go, her tongue has completed its job.
::
Hermione isn't quite sure what to make of the story. She suspects it's true, but she can't really imagine the world that Draco and his family were living in. On the surface it seems similar to the one that she, Harry, and the Weasleys have been enveloped in, but it strikes her that in the Malfoys' case, the danger is very real. She feels childish suddenly, and selfish, when she thinks of all of the people in the Wizarding world who've lost someone or had their house attacked while she hid from nothing. Looking back on it now, she sees that she's spent the last several months playing at prisoner of war with her friends while other people in the world suffered for real.
She looks up to see how Draco has taken this new information about his family, but she cannot see him in the crowd stuffed into the room. A feeling like a cold fingertip drags down her spine and she rushes up the stairs to the room that Harry and Draco share. The door is closed, but there is no sound coming from inside. After knocking, she opens the door carefully, but only Draco is inside. She feels Ron come up behind her, but the minute he sees Ron, Draco's eyes go hard.
"I didn't tell him, Weasley," Draco says, and Hermione doesn't understand what he means. Ron's grip on her arm tightens and something inside her tightens with dread. "I didn't tell him what you did, and now he thinks I ran away. Because I hate him."
"Ron, what is he talking about?" she feels as if the air in the room is growing thinner. She feels all of the oxygen rushing out of her lungs. He blinks. It takes him a very long time to answer, and when he does, it's unsatisfying.
"I…he," Ron can barely string two words together.
"What did you do?"
The family and the Order search the house for Harry, but he's nowhere to be found.