Chapter 3
"Tell me your secrets. Ask me your questions."
Cold Play – The Scientist
His sturdy form was sprawled half across her legs, half in his chair, as he snored lightly, worn down from his endless vigil. Harry and Remus had taken turns, been by her side for days, just in case the mediwizards and witches had discovered something, anything, or Hermione's sheer perseverance shrugged off the unknown curse. Since Remus was still attempting to hold down a job, it fell to Harry to spend most of his time in the hospital room. The wait proved fruitless.
The cute, young mediwitch came in, startling him from his nap, eyes only darting in habit to his scars instead of lingering there like they had when she first realised who her patient's guest was. She didn't bother delivering her flirty smiles and engaging wit anymore after the few short words he'd exchanged with her. She knew a lost cause.
After Ginny it hadn't taken him long to realise he really wasn't that interested in women. That for the young redhead it was her fire and self-assurance he had been attracted to more than anything else. Ginny and his friends were shocked by Harry's confession to being gay, but they accepted this about him as they did everything else. Not that he'd had much time for romance during those years back in school with Horcruxes to find and a Dark Lord to destroy.
Only yesterday, on one of Harry's many leg-stretching laps of the hospital, a young man glanced at him, immediate interest sparkling in his eyes as they crawled up and down Harry's toned body. Harry flushed, rose colour climbing from his collar up to his hairline, doing nothing to the double scars on his forehead which stood out like an ashen brand. He let his own gaze return the casual invitation and then immediately felt guilty. He shouldn't be picking up men while Hermione was comatose from a Dark Curse.
He had no time for a one night stand let alone romance.
He easily turned away without regret, returning to Hermione's room. He wasn't going to find love in a hospital waiting room and casual sex really wasn't his thing.
They had contacted Ron immediately, of course. He'd Flooed in from Mexico, petting Hermione's hair with worry in one moment and in the next boiling with righteous anger about how nobody on this end was doing anything about it. Harry withstood three hours of Ron's berating words for quitting the Auror Program and when he finally burned himself out, they sat in sorrowful silence together. But since Ron was knee deep in his mission and he knew there was nothing he could do, he was forced to return to work and Harry returned to useless pacing and avoiding attractive young men and curious medical staff.
Mediwitch Periwinkle busied herself with diagnostic spells and finally left him alone with his best friend again. Harry gazed at Hermione, her skin pale and thin, the vibrant life faded away. He slowly traced his fingertips along the back of her hand, mind searching, seeking for anything he knew about curses. Being neither a curse breaker nor a healer, Harry realised he had wasted far too much valuable time waiting in the hospital room and pacing the halls. He was loathe to leave Hermione's bedside but knew his strength was in getting out there and tackling the problem, searching for leads, not in his beside manner. So kissing Hermione lightly on her forehead, he Flooed to her place, fed the neglected Crookshanks, and lost no time in ransacking her apartment, his mind scolding him for his maudlin waste. There had to be something here, some clue about why Hermione might have been a target, and even if there wasn't, at least this kept him busy.
Hermione always was a well organized person. It did not take Harry much time to find her files and lay them out on her large kitchen table, pushed up against the side of a brightly painted wall below a rather obscure painting full of geometric designs, grids and half faded phrases, far too abstract for Harry's own tastes. After brewing a pot of coffee and toasting himself a cheese sandwich from Hermione's mix of Muggle and wizarding appliances, he settled down to find that one piece of information that would make the entire jigsaw fall into place.
After a full night attempting to categorize the piles of parchment and paper, filing, organizing and attempting to decipher Hermione's short hand—neither an easy nor enjoyable task, Harry knew he could not tackle this project without help. He had jumped into the job with such enthusiasm, finding a worthy hole to dump his vast energy into, positively sure there would be something immediately helpful and gratifying to be discovered in Hermione's notes, but his hope and energy were again wasted.
He wasn't having a good track record.
He couldn't do this alone.
Tucking some of the more promising notes into his robes, he Flooed to Blumgeower Books to meet with Remus.
For once sober, Remus was helping a customer, so Harry quietly waited, wandering through the isles of the decrepit, depressing store. Standing almost to the ceiling the bookshelves were heavily bowed and rotting in some sections, victims of termites and he was sure some wood eating relative of the glumbumble. The books, covered in layers of dust, didn't look like they had been read in ages, let alone moved or even dusted, and as Harry perused the titles, Sam Marmy's Guide to Cooking with Cheese, Basic Fire Spells to Wow Your Neighbours, and The History of Muggle Gambling, he could see why.
But as he explored further back he did notice a few titles of interest, Tactics of Shield Casting and Natural Antidotes to Poisons and Diseases, and he grudgingly acknowledged that this craphole did hold a few treasures. He picked up a small leather bound pamphlet on charmed potions and flipped through it, deciding to buy it for Hermione as a 'You Made It' gift once she was cured.
"Harry, free and clear," Remus called. Harry made his way back to the front of the store.
"Remus, how're you with Arithmancy?" He placed the book, and a few others he picked up, down on the counter and Remus counted up his purchases.
"I did pretty well with it back in school, but really my main experience is in Defence, and I bet you know more than I do on that subject by now." He smiled. It was a warm smile, the type that Harry used to earn from Remus often, so many years ago. Their time together watching over Hermione had drawn them close once more; at least they owed the curse that. "Why? And what dragged you out of St. Mungo's?"
"This." Harry pulled out a pile of scrolls and notebooks and dumped them unceremoniously on the counter. "I found these at Hermione's flat and honestly, they don't mean squat to me. Half of this is in some cipher that I don't recognize and can't break, the rest is probably basic stuff but I just never studied Arithmancy much. I was wondering if it meant anything to you." He gestured helplessly at the shifting tower.
Remus grabbed a rolled up scroll and unfurled it. In very fine, intricate lines a set of mixed numbers, letters and magical glyphs were written out, scrawled in a swirling design over most of the surface of the scroll. In the bottom, right corner in very neat, block script, was a simple algebraic equation: 2x + 5y 27.
Squinting his eyes, he continued to study the parchment, his gaze caressing each line, each symbol and word. Letting out a soft sigh, he lifted his wand and with a flourish said, "aperio."
Nothing happened.
With a slightly stiffer flick of his wrist he incanted "specialis loquor." The scroll glowed a faint pink, but still the text remained lines and glyphs.
"Don't you think I would've tried those?" Harry asked.
With an 'I am not amused' look, Remus said, "Well I don't know what you have and haven't tried, Harry. Basic revealing charms are a good place to start."
Harry plucked the scroll from Remus' hand and stared at it. Sometimes things just came to him in a fuzzy mist of awareness and he continued to gaze at the numbers, hoping some insight would allow everything to just make sense, the numbers to morph into some hidden language he didn't even know he knew. But nothing happened, just as nothing had earlier. He became perturbed.
"Damn it! Hermione is rotting away while we sit here on our arses wasting time. Shite." The parchment hit the table hard where Harry threw it.
"So what, Harry, you think I don't give a damn? You, Hermione and Ron are all I have left. I want to see her safe and well as much as you do. Everyone else I cared about died in that war against that Dark prick…" He stopped in mid sentence, a dumb, dazed look on his face, and in a dash of movement he clumsily groped for the parchment, looking it over once more.
"What is it, what…" Harry halted his questioning at Remus' lifted hand.
"I thought this was familiar. Harry, see this equation."
"Yeah. Algebra, right? I never studied Muggle math at that level. What's it mean?"
"Well it looks like x is 1 and y is 5, or x could be 11 and y could be 1, or…" Harry looked at him shocked. "I did study Algebra. Anyway, Hermione used this type of mathematical code in some of her encrypted messages to our spies and other operatives after she developed Equacrology." Harry listened intently, he knew Hermione developed a new cryptographic code that was used during the war but he didn't know the intricacies of her system. It never interested him enough for him to ask her about it. "I only knew about it after we won, if you call a field full of dead friends a win…" Remus growled, then cleared his throat to continue, "because it was so top secret. Not sure what it means though, but I know it is the key to unlocking what this message says." His eyes were lit with excitement.
"Great," Harry ground out, "we have to break a secret code created by Hermione. One that not even Voldemort or his minions could break." He sat down in a huff. "Good luck to us."
"Well someone from the Order must know about it," Remus argued.
"Who do you think she was sending these messages to?" Harry asked, eyebrows raised, watching his friend.
Then an expression crossed Remus' face, a brief flash of sad enlightenment, "Severus. The receiving end was Severus Snape. Who is…"
"Who is dead," Harry finished for him flatly, not allowing his remorse through, remembering the moment in vivid, three-dimensional colour; almost slow motion. Snape rushing to stop two Death Eaters Harry hadn't been prepared for, sacrificing himself so Harry could cast the final curse that ended the Dark Lord's existence without any doubt. He would play it over and over on dark, lonely nights when he would catalogue all of his losses.
"But Harry," Remus pulled himself together, "there had to be someone else on our side within Voldemort's ranks. There had to've been because Severus wasn't always there to receive or send the messages we were passing."
Harry scowled and looked hard at Remus. "Remus, what do you know about the final battle, about the Order's role in the war? I still don't know all of the facts…" and it pissed him off. He'd resented being kept in the dark and not just because it was he who had to take down the Dark Lord. He felt betrayed. Why didn't they trust him? And did they only need him for the final death blow and nothing else? Even after the war trials he didn't know everything, such as why Draco Malfoy was acquitted, why another half dozen known Death Eaters were casually allowed to go free, why certain cases and evidence remained sealed and why the reports given to the public about the final confrontation were slightly massaged, spun to distort the actual events.
While he acknowledged that some of it probably had to do with their people infiltrating Voldemort's followers, still wishing to remain anonymous for their own safety, they couldn't have all been on their side.
It was moments like these when he really wished Dumbledore had been there for those final years of the war. Harry would not have been kept in the dark, fewer people would have had to be sacrificed and the public would know what occurred and who died to make it happen.
After Snape killed Dumbledore at the end of Harry's sixth year the Order had been a mess, totally disorganized, a hydra with too many heads trying to figure out which would wear the crown. Finally Kingsley Shacklebolt came out as the best choice to lead the Order against Voldemort. Practically everyone agreed he was the one, the strong arm to lead them into war, and the other senior members, such as Arthur and Molly Weasley and Remus Lupin, supported the decision.
Kingsley, through his sharp mind and Auror resources, as well as a few agents imbedded within other Ministry departments, not to mention Knockturn Alley's black market, had led the Order and the wizarding world to victory. His position lent to a shaky cooperation between the Order of the Phoenix and the Ministry of Magic which turned the tides in the final months before Voldemort's demise.
But Harry knew the truth. It was a handful of people who really pulled it off. It was not with an inflated ego that Harry knew if it wasn't for himself, Hermione and Ron, they would have never won. He was key, not only in the final curse that took down the worst dark wizard of the age, but it was he and his friends that found the Horcruxes. It was their sacrifices that lead them down the path towards triumph.
With vague amusement, Harry recognized Kingsley, not he, portrayed the shining figurehead the wizarding population needed. Kingsley was the charming hero everyone expected Harry to be, with his bright smile, deep voice and shining gold loop. Harry only offered scowls to the praise and 'no comment' when asked about his actions against the Death Eaters and the Dark Lord. None of it meant anything. His Order of Merlin First Class sat tucked away in the bottom of a trunk in his flat.
Kingsley, by then the Chief Auror, worked closely with Minister Scrimgeour and the Wizengamot through the trials, convicting captured Death Eaters and bringing a sense of closure to the conflict. Everyone thought he might be next in line for Minister. Harry wished his friend luck, but couldn't understand why anyone would want to willingly walk around with a target on their chest.
And he couldn't understand why his friend had kept things from him.
It wasn't just his problem with the Ministry, their muddling of facts, their dispensation of certain Death Eaters from trial or sentencing, it was the fact that Kingsley, after all they had gone through together, still hadn't come clean. Harry learned patience through the years, but it'd finally run out.
However, even if he couldn't stand being kept in the dark, he knew he couldn't totally alienate his friend and ex-boss. He still needed to attempt to get whatever information he could from the man.
So, it was with loyal optimism towards Kingsley Shacklebolt that Harry explained his plan and bid a hasty goodbye to Remus, walking out of Blumgeower Books to meet with his old boss.
"Harry. Good to see you. Change your mind? You coming back into the fold?" Kingsley asked, grinning broadly, leaning across his desk for Harry's hand.
"Not on your life, Kingsley." Harry gingerly shook with him.
"Well, what can I do for you? We still haven't found out anything about Hermione's attack." He looked apologetic.
"Oh, thanks for letting me know. Actually, I wanted to ask you about… the war."
Kingsley sat down hard in his chair, freeing a weary sigh. "What do you want to know?"
Harry did a double take and slowly lowered himself to the seat across from the drawn man. "Everything you haven't already told me. The things you kept from me. Who else did we have buried in Voldermort's ranks? Was Snape always on our side or just playing the best hand?"
At the last question Kingsley almost looked insulted. "Harry, the man died saving your life. Why would you question him now?"
Harry winced, unconsciously rubbing his scars. "I guess you're right. It just seemed he always hated me. I didn't really… understand him."
"Nobody did." Kingsley leaned back in his chair, steepling his fingers in front of his face, staring deeply at Harry. "Harry, Dumbledore was the only one who knew and understood Snape. To this day I have no idea what it was that connected those two. Why the Headmaster trusted Snape so thoroughly. Why he let Snape kill him. But he got us valuable information—if he had ever been outed as a spy, we wouldn't have won as cleanly as we did, if at all. He was too important. Perhaps he was even more crucial than you."
Harry started at this, leaning forward in his chair. Perhaps it was his already uncertain impression of his position in the Order or his current sense of being an after thought to the war effort, but Harry didn't appreciate being doled out as second to an ex-Death Eater, even if he had repeatedly saved his life. He began to interject when Kingsley cut him off.
"Oh Harry. There was so much cloak and dagger going on, even if I tried to spell it all out for you now I doubt it would make any sense. Hell, I didn't know everybody who might have been on our side. Snape was on our side. We couldn't have won without him. But we couldn't have won without you, either. I know you always hated being kept in the dark. And it wasn't that I didn't trust you… Nobody knew everything. Those were hard times. People didn't trust their own friends and family. There were Death Eaters everywhere and you'd vanished for a while, hunting down Horcruxes, which we didn't find out about until later."
"McGonagall knew," Harry murmured.
"But the rest of us at the time didn't. So you can see—we didn't know what you were up to." He took a deep breath. "Some people didn't even trust you, the Boy Who Lived, because anyone could be a traitor."
The wind slowly died in Harry's sails and he sat there, deflated.
"I always wondered why you kept me in the dark," he said in a quiet voice.
"So did we." Harry's bright eyes darted up to Kingsley's dark ones. "Was there anything specific you wanted to know?"
"Yeah. Who else did we have planted? Planted deep? Who was Snape's second?"
"I thought you would've figured that out on your own," he chuckled stiffly, a dry sound that held little amusement.
"Malfoy?" The word was spoken quietly, tinged with awe.
Kingsley nodded thoughtfully.
"Wow, does that explain things."
"Yep."
"Shite."
"Yep."
Standing outside of the brightly lit, electric blue wizarding club, Harry felt incredibly undressed. Luckily for him it was early enough that nobody was there, the sun a muted orb behind the thick layer of gray clouds. The mist rolled about, a constant wetness that clung to the air and saturated everything if you didn't use a proper water repelling charm. Harry hadn't bothered and he stood at the entrance to Rain looking like a damp rat, his hair slightly mollified by the weight of the fine moisture. He hadn't known exactly what he wanted to say to Malfoy when he arrived and he tried to gather his thoughts, to organize his demands before he barged in there and demanded to see his arch-nemesis from school without any legal backing behind him.
Damn he hated needing that pointy-nosed, cold-hearted Slytherin.
Pulling himself up to his full height, he walked with purpose towards the entrance of the club. He pulled open the door, immediately accosted by deafening music and blinding, flashing lights. It forced him into a battle ready mode, senses tuned, eyes quick and encompassing, magic tingling. He scanned the scant people at the bar and, recognizing no one, he walked up to the barmaid. She had long brown hair and wore a mix of trendy Muggle clothing and wizarding wear.
"I need to speak to Draco Malfoy," he half-yelled over the din.
She smiled sweetly at him and said in a calm voice that seemed to be delivered directly into the bones of his inner ear, "I am sorry, I don't keep track of Mr. Malfoy. You will have to speak with Mr. Bledsoe." She nodded to a man Harry recognized, coming down the translucent stairs.
It was Malfoy's crony.
With a look of grim determination harbouring an attitude that he had all of the authority that he needed, he walked over to the enormous man.
"Mr. Bledsoe?" The man nodded, recognition in his eyes. "Harry Potter. I need to speak to Mr. Malfoy."
"Do you have an appointment, sir?" he asked not impolitely, though far too smoothly for such a rough looking man, and certainly not with the attitude one addressed an Auror. His wand was strapped to one leg, in easy grasping distance, but the big man made no move towards it.
Crap, he knows I am no longer on the squad. "No, but this is important."
"As are many things that Mr. Malfoy must attend to." Harry took in a deep breath, ready to begin a long tirade on why he had to see Malfoy, but Tyrone Bledsoe cut him off. "But I will let him know you are here. If you will excuse me," and the man returned upstairs.
Harry stood around, agitatedly fiddling with the frayed sleeve of his winter robes, pacing like a caged griffin in the brilliantly lit club when the deep voice alerted him. "Mr. Malfoy will see you, sir."
"Yeah, thanks." He followed Bledsoe upstairs, through a soundproof door, down a long hallway and to a very stately office.
Draco Malfoy was sitting in a high backed chair at an elegant mahogany desk that probably cost more than the combined total of items in Harry's flat. On his lips sat the typical Malfoy sneer, utterly condescending, completely snide. Harry wanted to punch it right off his self-righteous face.
"Malfoy, I need to talk to you," he eyed the huge bodyguard standing inside of the doorway. "Alone."
"I trust Mr. Bledsoe with anything you might have to say to me."
Annoyed, Harry decided to lay his cards on the table. "2x + 5y 27"
Draco looked momentarily stunned, but the emotion was quickly shuttered away behind a steel wall of control. "Math? You came here to discuss Muggle math?" Disdain dripped from his words.
"I need to know about the code." Harry leaned over the desk, edging closer to Malfoy, scanning for the tiniest hint in the stony man's features.
"I'm afraid you came to the wrong person. What code?"
"Come off it, Malfoy!" Harry swiped his hand across the desk, scattering papers and pens, tossing an elegantly framed picture across the room. Immediately, strong arms wrapped around him, an unbreakable force to hold him in check. He struggled against Malfoy's bodyguard.
"Get your hands off me, you ape. What's wrong, Malfoy? What happened to Crabbe and Goyle? Had to replace your little Death Eater friends with more mindless Neanderthals? Don't go anywhere without your pet thug?" Harry's wild power started to rise within the room, but Bledsoe did not release his strong grip.
"Get him out of here."
"Yes sir."
As Bledsoe dragged Harry out of the office, who continued to demand information about the code, Draco called out. "You have no power here, Potter. I have broken no laws. You are no longer an Auror. You seemed to have quit, or perhaps you have already forgotten. I suggest you ask nicely if you require something of a personal nature."
A sharp crack echoed through the hallway as a rift cracked up the wall, running from floor to ceiling. With a strain of effort, Harry pulled his power in, reigning in his anger and frustration. The arms around him tightened. "Holy crap," rumbled the deep voice.
"I can find my own way out," Harry said with false calm. The bouncer released him followed by the breath he had been holding as Harry walked out.
"Mr. Malfoy."
Draco looked up at Tyrone standing in his office entrance, hoping with all his heart he wasn't bearing anymore news of bodies in his alley or ex-Aurors on his doorstep. The look on his bouncer's face made him uneasily aware of an avidity to lock himself away from the world for the unforeseen future.
"You have another visitor. Kingsley Shacklebolt from the Ministry."
A forlorn sigh escaped Draco's lips, causing Tyrone's eyebrows to lift.
"I can inform him you are busy, sir."
"No, send him in. But make him wait for a while, though. I want to finish some things." Tyrone nodded, his expressionless face lifting slightly with amusement, and left Draco's office.
Draco stared at this collection of pens, one of the few Muggle items he found he had a predilection for, picking one up and weaving it between his slender, dexterous fingers. He found the action calmed him, helped his mind to clear. The pen was compact and like a magical quill, it never needed refilling. And it danced so gracefully in his hand.
A good fifteen minutes passed before the polite knock on his door alerted Draco to his guest. Kingsley Shacklebolt, dressed in thick burgundy robes, strode into the room in casual confidence, as if he was on his own timeline, directed by nobody but himself.
Draco hated that about him.
Sturdy in frame, elegant with his gold hoop earring, Shacklebolt smiled down at the younger man. He advanced to the desk and laid a hand on the top, a casual air that strung Draco's nerves tight.
"How you been, Draco," he greeted. Any more familiarity and Draco was certain he would crack, without any preamble or warning. He placed the pen down on the desk and smiled thinly at his old ally, without sincerity or any hint of camaraderie.
"Fine, considering. Is there anything I can do for you, Mr. Shacklebolt?"
It was late afternoon. Overhead, the jackdaws cawed as they flew across the pallid blue sky. He was striding down the street, tilting every so often to avoid bumping someone as he quickly made his way to the coffee shop on the corner.
After his disastrous meeting with Draco Malfoy, Harry had gone back to Kingsley and convinced his friend to help him. Harry knew he had to speak with Draco, that his childhood nemesis knew something that was important. Harry knew this because his gut was screaming at him, telling him that Draco held the answer. His gut rarely proved false. So with an hour of begging, pleading, threatening and finally whining, Kingsley agreed to talk with Draco.
Apparently his old boss had something up his sleeve, because he sweet talked the ferret into meeting with Harry to discuss, civilly, whatever it was Harry needed.
Civilly.
Harry almost chuckled when Kingsley told him that and he promised his old friend he would do his best to be civil to Draco Malfoy. He practically sniggered over that as he left the Head Auror's office, heading towards the meeting place.