Yup. It's the other Draco's turn...

SIXTEEN: Brothers

It was funny, Draco Lucius Malfoy reflected, how much chaos could be caused by something so natural and common as a baby, if it were to appear out of nowhere. The little creature was dark-haired and black-eyed and pale-skinned and also very vocal. Before now, Draco had been certain that babies didn't actually say 'goo' or 'gah'. He'd just been proved wrong at high volume.

The baby sat up with enormous effort and a great deal of squirming, and stared at Draco with huge eyes. It flapped its hands up and down on its thighs in sudden, energetic movement and babbled a blue streak of nonsense while Draco knelt in front of it, gobsmacked.

"…brought back with you!" Draco's otherworldly counterpart was hissing a little ways off. It was dim out, dawn's fingers creeping westerly. So far as Draco could tell from the soundless moor, everyone else was still sleeping, which was just as well; at least the other him wasn't able to play the martyr now, not without an audience.

"I couldn't very well leave him there," said Potter, scrubbing a hand through the back of his hair. "You wouldn't understand."

But of course, they could. They could both feel the injury in Potter, the squirming in his gut at the thought of abandoning a baby in – if one gave Potter's own babbling any credence – the Land of the Dead. Draco could feel it in his bones, the wrong of it, and he could feel Potter feeling it and the other one feeling it, and it bounced around in his skull and his ribcage until he half wanted to snatch the small creature up and cradle it against his chest and promise it never, never, NEVER, which was – which was mad, but there it was.

The baby blinked at Draco and slapped him atop the nose. Draco hadn't realized he was leaning so close.

"Leaving aside what I may or may not understand," the otherworldly, creepily mature version of himself said in a tired, very grown-up voice, "have you considered what you should do with a baby once you rescued it? Or did you simply suppose that, as card-carrying Hero Extraordinaire, your job was merely to pull the baby from the jaws of danger?"

"Shut it," Potter ordered, which wasn't really an answer at all, and they all three knew it.

Something strange and hot and a little bit mad felt like it was beginning a slow boil in Draco's chest. The baby fell forward on its fat little hands and crawled right up to Draco. It was a new, innocent human thing and he, with the help of Potter and someone who looked a great deal like him but wasn't had plucked it from the Land of the Dead like… like a bloody head of cabbage from a garden.

"Wasn't there anyone there," his counterpart went on, gaining steam, "wasn't there anyone there who was responsible enough to keep it? Or did you suppose you were uniquely qualified somehow? I've got to hand it to you, Harry. You've done some bloody selfish things before, but this tops them all."

Draco could still feel them both, and that was its own sort of madness, each in perfect accord and still furious with one another. When the other said uniquely qualified, a resounding YES pounded down the course of Potter's thoughts, and Malfoy's older-brother disappointment, while out of place in so, so, so many ways, was really – somehow – uncannily apropos.

"Snape said we should keep it."

Draco would have liked to transfer his entire attention to Potter, because that statement was ridiculous, but the baby had reached him. It stood, shakily, pressing one small hand into Draco's thigh to push itself upward. Then, it flung itself forward with such abandon that Draco was forced to catch it.

He was holding this baby from nowhere, now, in his arms. It smelled good in a primal, baby way. It babbled into his ear and put its head on his shoulder with a sigh.

Draco's brain must have short-circuited, because when he looked up, the two other boys were staring at him.

"Are you all right?" Malfoy said, but he certainly didn't have to. He was broadcasting his worry so loudly that Potter, beside him, twitched like he wanted to hold his hands up over his ears.

Draco shook his head. He had an armful of squirming, deceased, possibly Lord Voldemort infant, and it was drooling on his robes at the shoulder. He wished, irrationally, for Ron which, well – how many brands of madness could one exhibit before one toppled under the pile? The simmer was up to a rolling boil. Any moment, now, he was going to explode and take possibly Lord Voldemort with him. Or else he was simply going to unravel, like an old cloak with a loose thread.

He was off down the moors, then, towards the camp, before the others could stop him or say a word, though he could feel their worry beat-beat-beating at the back of his mind, like unwelcome callers hanging on the bell, knowing you are at home. The warm baby-weight in his arms had gone entirely limp… traversing realities must have been tiring work for an infant. He clutched the thing closer to him; he needed something to clutch.

The thing was – the thing was, it was entirely natural to feel indebted to someone who had nursed you back to health in wartime, it was some kind of Stockholm Syndrome or something worse, but he felt that if he didn't hear Weasley's voice or, failing that, his mother's or Severus's, telling him that things were all right he might actually take a little vacation from his senses.

Again.

When Draco had pelted down the rocky fields around Hogwarts, towards the Lake, towards Hogsmeade, away from the grinning skull that stretched across the sky, he had been able to feel his heart beating in his fingertips and thrumming in his ears, a persistent thump-thumping that almost drowned out the sound of screaming and cursefire. Away, away, he'd had to get away. Once beyond the wards, Snape would Apparate him away; Snape would protect him. There was still no Apparating at Hogwarts, despite what he had done with the Cabinet, but he would be away from here soon, and it would all be over.

He had come to awhile later with a start, blinking rapidly. The sky was still sickly-green; there was shouting and madness and the thump of running feet. So he couldn't have been lying down for long, but he couldn't imagine why he should have stopped running in the first place.

It took that long before he felt the pain, and instinctively probed with shaking fingers at the back of his skull. His hands came away wet, and at first he thought that some animal had pissed in the field – disgusting, disgusting, as if I don't have enough troubles – because it hadn't rained, but when he held his hand up to his face, it gleamed black in the light of the winking skull in the sky.

Draco stared at it for a long moment, watched as it shimmered wetly when he tilted his wrist this way and that. It took longer than it should have for him to recognize what must have happened, that the blood was his. Icy panic set in. That was too much blood – surely that was too much. His stomach churned with sudden nausea, and he turned to retch into the grass.

Leaning over a wet patch of his own blood and coughing out the last of the disgusting mess in his mouth, Draco considered his options, if the mad thoughts chasing their tails in his mind could be so kindly named. He recognized right away that it was harder to hold on to them, that this was what people meant when they said losing my grip, because every coherent thought he pushed for seemed to slip just out of his grasp, and that made him panic even more, which made it even harder to think.

There was a warm trickle running down the back of Draco's neck, now – perhaps it's raining after all – no, no, you've had that thought already, you useless idiot – and he had to go, he had to get somewhere, someone was waiting for him.

Professor Snape was waiting for him. And that must be at the Castle. Anyhow, Draco reasoned, he would know what to do.

But Hogwarts is dangerous, part of his mind insisted.

That was fine. Draco was very good at being sneaky. He'd get into one of the secret passages, that was all. Snape would find him there; Snape could find him anywhere, and meanwhile he would be safe.

Decision made, Draco stood, and though he wobbled, he persevered. He pushed past people running in the opposite direction a number of times, people who gave him barely a second glance. He saw Flitwick herding a group of third-years into a quiet classroom; and once, Ginny Weasley darted past him, wand extended. It was odd, as though he were a ghost or out of his own time, as though he weren't one of them at all. Then he remembered he'd been feeling that way for months.

Draco didn't recall opening the statue of the Humpbacked Witch, but he must've done because here he was. Snape would come soon, and take him… someplace. Somewhere safer and quieter and less green.

Draco entertained a brief fantasy where his mother was the one who found him. She called him brave and brilliant and clasped him to her. Perhaps he could be forgiven, then, for supposing Ronald Weasley to be an hallucination, at first.

"Draco. Draco! Bloody fucking hell," the apparition swore. It Vanished the vomit on Draco's shirtfront and the flagstones and fell to its knees before him.

"…Weasel?" Draco said, because, well. It was that unlikely. He must've been more twisted than he'd thought, to conjure Weasley of all people.

"Merlin's arse," Weasley said, with more conviction this time. "Listen, just trust me. I'm going to help you," he went on, casting a basic diagnostic spell. "How do you feel?"

Draco swallowed past bile and rolled his eyes. He immediately regretted it – even that much shifting of his gaze caused the now-familiar roiling in his stomach. He refocused on the image of Weasley, which wasn't hard – the redhead was staring at him with an unfamiliar intensity. "What do you think?" he demanded, then shivered. "I – it's very cold here. I'm very cold. You don't look cold," he tacked on, staring at Weasley. One more tick in the hallucination column – Draco felt like he should be able to see his breath.

"You're in shock," Weasley said. "Pretty bad, I think. We need to get you to the Hospital Wing."

Coherent conversation, even with himself, was causing Draco's thoughts to sharpen – or maybe that was the way the Weasel kept running his wand over Draco, again and again. He remembered, in a flood of sound and color, why he oughtn't to be here. What he had done. He was freezing and he – he couldn't get enough air, no matter how hard he gasped.

"Fuck, fuck, bloody fucking…" the Apparition said, and cast something else.

Draco didn't remember the Weasel cursing this much. But maybe it was his vision of Weasley, or his version thereof, and his version cursed. Loads.

Draco's lungs seemed to be inflating and compressing completely without his permission. After a moment, the panic eased. Weasley was leaning in close, now, and it took Draco a moment to realize that the other boy was pulling Draco's cloak out from where it tangled under him. Draco felt nimble fingers draw his hood up about his ears and tighten the stays; he felt warm hands re-settle his cloak around him, and finally…

Draco's mind shied away. No, he thought, and no, I don't want this, I wouldn't imagine…

Weasley wormed his way beneath the cloak, until warm boy was pressed to Draco from shoulder to hip, burning through Draco's shivering. Weasley opened up his left arm and tucked Draco under it, and why had Draco invented a snuggling version of Ronald Weasley.

He was twisted. Twisted and sick.

But when Weasley rubbed at Draco's shoulder and muttered, "you're freezing," Draco sighed and admitted to himself that his subconscious probably knew best.

"That's nice," he said drowsily, "but I must hate myself, seeing as it's you. Or maybe you're about to turn me in, maybe even I don't think I deserve…"

"Maybe you'd prefer Harry or Hermione," Weasley said, tone cautious. "They're better at this sort of thing."

Draco snorted, lips twitching against his better judgment. "No – no, you'll do," he assured Weasley hastily. Granger would spit in his face and Potter would stand over his shaking form and shout accusations. This imaginary version of the Weasel was surprisingly good. Draco thought that if he were to die right now, at least he had saved his family, and at least he could feel… kind of peaceful, just now. The thought terrified him the moment it was over, but still, he had to call it his own.

"You don't want to go to the Wing," Weasley checked in an even, calming voice.

"Mmm," Draco agreed. At some point, his eyes had fluttered shut. He had no interest in opening them.

"Well, why in Merlin's name not?" His imaginary Weasel sounded exasperated.

Draco wondered where the redhead got off asking. Perhaps Draco just enjoyed torturing himself. "They think I killed Dumbledore, I can't exactly waltz in." Draco kept his eyes tightly closed. He didn't understand why the apparition wanted him to say it.

"Go back and tell them you didn't do it, then," Weasley returned, supremely confident.

"How do you -? Well, of course you'd know," Draco dismissed a moment later. The Weasel would, of course, know that he hadn't got the stones, would know everything Draco knew. "D'you think they'd really believe me?" he scoffed.

Weasley paused, fingers ceasing their motion against Draco's shoulder. "I'm not sure," he said. "Everything's gone all arse over teakettle. Everyone thinks Snape's gone all double, triple, quadruple-cross–"

"I don't think he knows words like 'quadruple'," Draco muttered, turning his head sleepily into Ron's shoulder. He trembled less and less under the dark cloak. "I don't think he knows words more than two syllables, actually."

"That's… well. I'm not sure if I should be insulted or flattered, seeing as how I do."

"You're hysterical. Really."

Weasley let out a huff of breath. "Can you tell me what happened to the Professor? Where he would have gone?"

When Draco didn't respond, Weasley bumped shoulders with him. "Professor Snape? Draco."

Draco's eyes blinked open with great effort. "Dunno," he slurred. Weasley re-cast the diagnostic charm; Draco did suppose he sounded miles away from his usual, cultured self. "We got – separated." Draco frowned at the thought, but he felt so tired, and keeping his eyes open, even for this quietly accommodating hallucination of Ronald Weasley, was proving to be a challenge Draco wasn't up to facing.

Ron jostled Draco lightly with the arm wrapped around him. "We'll figure it out."

"That would be nice," Draco replied as he teetered on the brink of sleep. "Just – like this. When things go wrong." A tiny pause. "Things have gone really, really wrong."

Ron sighed. "Yeah, mate, I know." His hand had settled, of all places, on Draco's hair, and pulled at the messy, tangled strands. "We'll take care of it; you'll see."

And with that, Draco had felt a small measure of his burden shift off his shoulders. That sensation, of even a small measure of his obligation lifting, had been indescribable after being bent under that burden for so long. He'd made a small noise and descended into the blackness of a dreamless sleep.

When the baby shifted in its own restless slumber and babbled a half-formed word, Draco realized was standing silent over Ronald Weasley's sleeping form in the glow of early morning. To wake him first was as good as admitting he needed Weasley to ground him, to tell him it was all right.

Draco reached out a shaking hand and pressed it to Weasley's shoulder.

Ron uncurled from sleep like some giant cat, all long limbs and lazy attention. Ron saw immediately that he was not the Draco Malfoy from… over there. Funny, that. Draco thought the other Ron could do it too, just on sight. No checking anything, just look in his face and say, yes – that's him.

"There's a baby," said Ron.

And Draco felt a blinding gratefulness because he'd grasped the problem so quickly, so effortlessly. Yes, there was a fucking baby. It was asleep on his shoulder. It had come from the Land of the Dead. It possibly housed the Dark Lord's soul, or at least a tiny piece of it.

"Merlin, Malfoy – where did you find a baby at this hour?"

A laugh was bubbling inside of Draco's chest. It was a bad sort of laugh; he was pretty sure it oughtn't come out. But leave it to Ronald Weasley to talk as if Draco had come back to Ron's flat with exotic takeaway.

"Whoa, easy." And there was the thing that Draco needed. Ron had gone all serious-eyed, and rock-steady. He reached out to Draco's shoulder and squeezed. "Start from the beginning."

Draco did. By the time he was through, Ron's expression was a thundercloud. "Why in Merlin's name did you let them talk you into that?" he said, voice rasping with the early hour and – something else. "I don't know what my Draco was thinking, but…" Ron ran a rough hand through his red curls. "…trying to prevent Harry from doing something unforgivably stupid, what is he always thinking?" he growled.

"You have a younger sister," Draco blurted, hand to the back of the baby's head. His arms were aching and he could see – and feel – two figures approaching the camp. "You've at least seen a baby changed, before. Which is more than Potter and the Boy Saviour could say." He realized he'd referred to his alternate self as the Boy Saviour and blinked. Everything was getting all turned around.

Ron seemed to think so, too. "I'm only a year older than Gin," he said, apology in his tone. "I was a baby myself when mum was seeing to her. You know as much about babies as I do." He frowned. "Merlin, this isn't good."

The baby was still asleep, but Draco couldn't help but think that this holding pattern couldn't last forever.

"We've little cousins, but Gin always watched them," Ron babbled, running a hand through his wild, overgrown hair again. "But I know they need milk and nappies and that we've got neither one."

Draco nodded. The first step then, was to somehow conjure milk and nappies.

What was he thinking? The first step was to think about where they could leave the baby, and with whom.

"Nappies, nappies…?" Ron was muttering, fumbling about in the cold light of dawn. "I need something like cloth."

"Cloth-like," Draco repeated, and then he was searching around obediently, fingers slipping over Ron's bag until his fingers crashed into the other boy's; Draco's hand jerked away. He brought his hand up over the back of the baby's head, as though he were worried about supporting it, and hoped Ron didn't notice.

"Here, lay him down a mo'," Ron said, pressing some grasses flat. He laid his cloak over the crushed greenery, and Draco leaned down slowly, by centimeters, until the baby lay in the warm summer air. When Draco let go, the baby frowned and flailed its fists; but it did not, mercifully, awaken.

"Are we going to talk about it?" Ron said, not looking up. His long, shaggy hair swept across his eyes, and Draco couldn't read his expression.

"I suppose that perhaps we could entrust a House Elf to the caring of an infant," Draco said in a high voice. "I was looked after by House Elves until I was three years old."

"Which explains a lot," Ron said, yanking a towel out of his travel bag and ripping it into sections. His voice was still calm, and the words were belied by the gentle teasing behind them. "But I'm talking about why you ran off to the Manor. While I was asleep. After we both agreed that you might as well take it into your head to sit on a hornet's nest."

Draco marveled at how his mouth felt entirely empty of words. He watched while Ron stretched the thick terrycloth until it was fine and loose, like muslin, then folded it into squares. Meanwhile, Potter and Boy Hero were clambering down like a pair of small, Wizarding elephants. If he waited much longer, any chance of explaining himself, of making Ron understand, would disappear. He knew the other boy would not ask again.

After some maneuvering, Draco lifted the baby up by its legs with one hand and scootched the makeshift nappie underneath with the other. Ron pulled the other half of the nappie up over the baby's stomach, and tied the edges together with none-too-strong-looking knots. But it looked like it'd do.

Draco looked up to smile at Ron, but the smile felt twisted on his face.

"My mum," Ron said suddenly. "My mum, of course my mum. She'll know what to do." He stood, as though his mum were on the other side of the moor, and all he needed to do was fetch her.

"I just," said Draco, while Ron transfigured one more bit of cloth into a light blanket to cover the baby's tender haunches, a little bit red with what looked to be a fading rash.

Draco didn't say: There's something about home that reminds you of being taken care of. It reminds you of that myth of childhood, that certainty that you are perfectly safe, long after you should know better.

I thought, Draco didn't say, that if I went back home things would go back to normal, and I'd understand what to do next.

Draco absolutely did not add, it horrifies me sometimes, the way I keep looking to you first, and I wanted to be away from you, just for a little while, just to see how it'd feel.

Ron sighed. "Look, just – don't do it again. I don't fancy chasing after you anymore, especially not through He-Who-Must-Be-Ashamed's fortress with a war on."

Draco nearly choked on not saying, but that's my house, I live there, because as angry as Ron's words made him feel, they were true. It was because they were true that he was angry, and that was as sideways and crooked as everything else, two of him and Potter living in his head and Weasley living in his pocket, and his father living in Azkaban.

Ron turned to stare at him, and Draco wished he could say for certain that Ron didn't know Legilimency, but there was his luck, again. For all he knew, this Ronald Weasley had learned it at Snape's knee. And then there was the Necto fiddes, which had to have been working subtly between them for some time, Draco realized with a jolt. With the way spells cast on the other Malfoy seemed to bounce back to Draco, it made sense – not to mention the fact that the nature of Necto fiddes conscripted Draco's entire family into the service of every Weasley. He wondered if Ron had put that all together, yet.

"Just swear you'll come to me, first. Let me know that you're going, and where. I'll understand if you can't keep on with this. It's all mad, isn't it?"

Draco squirmed. Ron's eyes on him felt too heavy, he felt smothered, he wanted to shake off that regard. "I'll come to you first," he said.

Ron Weasley smiled, relaxed, so it must've been the truth. "Okay. Good. I just – like you where I can see you," he said with a frown, as though that puzzled him as much as Draco. "It wasn't so long ago you were really very ill, and you still look a bit –"

"Shut up," Draco said. "I know that."

Ron scrubbed the back of his neck. "It's not just that..."

"For Merlin's sake, I know that, too," Draco growled.

"Hey," interrupted another voice, and Draco was shocked to realize that in the heat of the argument he'd missed Potter and the Boy Hero arriving.

"Hullo," Ron said, standing up to meet the other one, all friendly lines and relieved smile.

Draco wanted to slap it off his face. The force of the impulse shook him.

It shook Potter, too, who looked towards Draco in surprise. Draco quickly schooled his features to arrogant impassivity. Default.

While Ron and the other one were talking, Potter knelt and blinked at the sleeping baby. "Wow," he said, "you two work fast."

Draco's gaze darted up to Potter, but the words seemed genuine and so did the feeling behind them. Potter was observing the new blanket with clear admiration, and when his gaze lit on the baby's face, he smiled. Potter looked up to share that smile with Draco, shedding quiet joy like sunlight. Like the baby was his, really, and if Draco felt a little bit of the same way, that was only the remnants of his madness talking.

"Weasley thought we'd take the baby to his house," Draco said.

Potter blinked, then blinked again in the face of this news. The happy glow in his head dimmed to a dissonant jangle of sound. Then, steel blocks fell all around him, as though he were building a shining, impenetrable wall, brick by soldered brick. "That seems best," he said with a mature little nod.

Which made Draco wonder if he were surrounded by madmen, or if this was what the inside of everyone's head looked like. The thought felt more profound than it should have, because if Potter were like this, Potter – the hope of the Light, the Hero of Gryffindor – then maybe he wasn't so strange after all, even if his life had been upended entirely. "Can you hear me thinking?" Draco wondered aloud, surprised at his own daring.

Potter turned to him, that wall shimmering as if it had been coated in ice. "It's faded, mostly," he said slowly, thinking. "But if you have a strong reaction, I can still…" He shrugged.

"But what is it like?" Draco pushed, slipping past the uncomfortable thought that, at least for Potter, the sensations were fading, where for Draco they seemed to be getting stronger.

"It's like…" Potter shrugged, shoulders close-in: uncomfortable, then, and no wonder, Draco supposed. "It's like noise through water." There was a small pause. "Listen, er… I'm sorry."

If there hadn't been a sleeping baby nearby – and if the prospect of that baby awakening to alertness hadn't terrified Draco past all reason – he might've shaken Potter until his teeth rattled in his head.

"For, you know… pulling you into the mind-thing. I really didn't mean to – we really didn't. I didn't think it'd be that way, you know – that magic done on him would come to you."

Draco stayed stonily silent, mostly because Potter was apologizing for entirely the wrong things. The mind-bond was horrible, a breach of privacy of the most unimaginable sort, but it was hardly the worst thing that had happened to him in the past year, not by a mile.

"And… I should've listened to you."

Draco looked up in surprise.

Potter's eyes were dancing to Draco's face and then away, across the moorish distance, as though he were looking for someplace to hide in this featureless landscape. "At Hogwarts, when I found you with Moaning Myrtle, I – I should've asked you –"

"Maybe you should stop speaking," Draco rasped.

"I shouldn't have cast Sectumsempra when I didn't know what it was," Potter blurted, features milk-white. "You don't even know, when I thought I'd killed you –"

"Merlin!" Draco shouted. "Shut up!"

The baby opened its eyes and wailed.

Draco's first instinct was to snatch it up, but Potter beat him to the punch which was just as well. Granger was the first to stir, and Draco didn't fancy explaining to her where the baby had come from.

Draco blanched, and looked back at the baby in Potter's arms. What if Lupin wanted to kill the thing, or Granger wanted to study it, or Weasley wanted to – who knew what? And what would Snape say, when he returned?

It was only when he felt Ron's hand on his shoulder that Draco realized he'd been falling back.

"What was that?" Ron whispered. "What did Potter say to you?"

Draco shook his head. "Nothing. Or exactly the wrong thing – it doesn't matter."

"What are we going to say?" Potter whispered, rocking the baby and bouncing it a bit in his arms…

And everyone looked to him. The other one. Draco still marveled, whenever he had the spare energy.

"We'll say you brought it back from the Land of the Dead, that it couldn't pass on and that there was no-one to take care of it," the other Draco Malfoy replied with thoughtful confidence, and Potter nodded, relieved.

Draco wondered if part of Potter remembered yielding in the past – remembered orders given and accepted, at the deepest level, even if those memories were not quite his own. But then he realized Potter had been following after his counterpart long before their bonding spell took hold.

Granger sat up, hair frizzier than ever in the early-morning moisture, eyes blinking sleepily. "Good morning," she said, clearly still operating from pure instinct. "What are you holding? Oh; it's a baby."

Draco waited.

"It's a baby," Granger repeated, more slowly this time, as though she could manage to make those same words make more sense if she said them just the tiniest bit differently. "Why is there a baby?" she tried.

Meanwhile, Weasley was stirring just across from her. He stood, pulling Granger to her feet. "What?" he tried. Then, "where?"

Draco looked to Potter to find that the Gryffindor was holding his bundle oddly close for somebody facing his two best friends.

"It's from the Land of the Dead. No-one could look after it, and Potter, being the Hero he is, snatched it up and brought it back with him."

No one was more surprised than Draco himself that he had said those words. But the grateful, confused look Potter shot him was almost worth it.

"Land of the… Dead?" Granger stammered. "…Harry?"

"Why were you in the Land of the Dead?" came Lupin's voice.

Draco whirled. Well he remembered the man's uncanny ability to creep about unseen. Lupin had once come up behind him when he was doing a full-on impression of the Defense teacher, complete with patched cloak and fraying cuffs.

Potter, the sod, looked as though he'd forgotten the answer to that question entirely. "Getting rid of my Horcrux," he said, like a man said 'dropping off my laundry', or 'off to bed for a quick kip'.

There was an ominous silence.

"Oh my god," Granger said, went white and sank quite abruptly to her knees. "Dead. You mean you were dead."

The other Malfoy was at her side in a minute. "There, Hermione," he said. "It wasn't quite like that. Me and… Malfoy were there, to look out for him."

"You and Malfoy?" Weasley echoed.

Ron broke in, with a glare in the other boy's direction. "You said you'd wait for Professor Snape," he reminded Potter.

Granger and Weasley looked devastated, and Draco wondered, more than a bit uncharitably, if it wasn't from fear for Potter's life, but because they'd been left out. For once, they were the two coming to the adventure just a bit too late.

"I know," Potter said, looking genuinely upset, "I know I promised. I'm sorry. But I couldn't let Professor Snape be the one to do it again, I couldn't. The Headmaster made him – so I couldn't."

Which was more than a little funny, but Draco supposed that if he were really going to panic every time someone turned his world on its head, he'd never see straight again. He did notice that Granger's expression had softened, as though Snape's feelings meant something to her.

"So you decided to ask one of the Malfoy boys?" Lupin inquired. "Harry… the Killing Curse is an Unforgivable. If one of them…"

"Neither of them did a thing," Potter replied, and Draco felt as though a strange fire had been kindled under the other boy. His steel walls were reflecting gold and amber and garnet, now, as though there were a glow just behind them. "The Malfoys helped me stay anchored, just like we planned. I cast the curse myself."

Draco wondered how many uncomfortable silences one group could stomach before they stomped off in opposite directions.

"You cast the Killing Curse…" Lupin echoed.

The fire in Potter's core flared like someone had dumped lamp oil on it. "On myself," he hissed.

The other one reached up and placed a firm palm on Potter's shoulder. "All right, there, Harry," he said in a low voice – Draco thought he was the only other one who could hear it – and Potter relaxed by inches.

"We decided we're going to take the baby to Mrs. Weasley at the Burrow," the other one said to the group at large in that quiet, sure voice of his. "She'll know what to do."

Lupin looked relieved for the first time, and nodded, cautiously.

"None of us know the first thing about babies…" Hermione conceded, slowly approaching the small creature in Potter's arms. "Oh!" she said, when the baby's wide, dark eyes and cottony, black hair was revealed. "He's so small."

Potter looked up at her with a tiny smile, and Granger reached out for the baby's hand.

Lord Voldemort grasped her finger in his fist and waved it about.

"Ooooh," Hermione cooed. "Look at you!"

The irony might have been physically painful, if that was possible. Draco saw the other one making an identical face to his own, and strived to blank his expression.

"Very well," Lupin said. "But it's not as though even a hungry baby takes precedence over our larger quest." He turned to Weasley. "In case you're forgetting, Ron, your mother believes you were abducted by Death Eaters. Neither you, nor Harry nor Hermione is going to escape after a few moments of discussion."

Weasley turned a funny colour, and Ron folded his arms across his chest. "Why would my mum think that?"

Malfoy turned to face Ron. "It was my own idea, and I'm sorry. But we thought, the longer everyone believed we'd been kidnapped, the better. Mister Weasley knows."

Ron's features relaxed into familiar lines. "He's probably told Mum, then. There isn't anything he could keep a secret from her for long."

Potter looked up over the baby's head, bouncing it as it fussed. "We're not abandoning our larger quest, Remus," he said dismissively. "We'll Apparate to the Burrow, that's all. If it takes an hour or two to explain things to Ron's mum, it's only an hour or two. Draco bought us weeks when he and Ron spirited us out of Hogwarts before the school year ended."

"It doesn't mean we have time to spare," Lupin said, "or we lose the advantage we have gained." When Potter said nothing in return, he sighed. "I shall send my Patronus to Snape to tell him where we've gone."

As if he had any say in the matter, Draco thought, watching his counterpart press his right hand to Potter's shoulder and his left to Granger's, before going off to talk to Weasley, who still seemed nonplussed. That was, until the other one got to him. They leaned their heads together – silver and copper – and a minute later, Weasley had nodded, his jaw firmed.

"It's very strange, isn't it?" Ron asked, arms crossed over his chest.

"Yes," Draco said, without thinking. "I mean – what?"

"He's a natural diplomat," Ron replied.

"He's a bloody snake charmer," Draco shot back, then paused, unnerved by his choice of words. "Bloody. I've been spending too much time around you."

Ron laughed, clapping Draco's back hard enough to make him stumble forward. "No, that's just you, Malfoy," he said. "You pick up everything, natural as breathing. "

"And that's a good quality."

Ron frowned. "I mean, usually. Though I guess that's why you stayed such a raving prat for so long. You surrounded yourself with raving prats."

"You're saying that if I were introduced to the right crowd? That you could help me there?" Draco raised his eyebrows, prodding.

"I'm always shocked how much you remember that speech. Like, word-for-word, the both of you. It's mad. Or genius."

"It's neither. I'd practiced it before that first train ride to Hogwarts. A lot."

"Oh," Ron said, sympathetically. "Ouch." He ruffled Draco's hair. "And I reckon I've already gone and introduced you to the right sort, haven't I?"

Draco found he wasn't really sure. "That depends. Is 'the right sort' stupid enough to save their worst enemy from Death?"

Ron shrugged. "It's the good sort, anyhow. Potter – both Potters – they're the same. Give him a minute to think and he picks… well, not the right choice, but the good choice. Rush him and he'll choose whichever's the hardest path. That's why he likes having Draco around so much," he said, nodding over to where Draco – the other one, Draco swiftly corrected – was helping secure the baby in a sling around Potter's shoulder. "Draco can make the swift decisions, but he second-guesses himself if he gets to thinking about things too long. Reckon they balance each other out."

The baby secure, Potter looked up at Draco with a grin so huge and full of relief that it could be seen from space. And suddenly Draco saw the relief for what it really was.

"Draco's no snake charmer. He just knows everyone here better than they know him. It makes him seem smarter than he really is," Ron said. "An' it's the same with me. I know I can get away with ruffling your hair because you've secretly always wanted an older brother, ever since you read Kosopeia Tales when you were nine."

Draco swallowed, and wondered why he was so often out of words when around this particular iteration of Ronald Weasley.

"Ready," Potter announced, slowly releasing the baby. When the baby stayed firm and snug against his chest, he nodded.

"I don't fancy explaining this to Mum," Ron told Draco and his counterpart, as the other approached. He blanched. "Don't reckon she'll think it's mine, do you?"

Draco snorted. "With that hair? More likely she'll think it's Potter's."

The other snorted. "Suppose we pass him off as Snape's?"

"That's presuming Snape's capable of –"Ron began.

"Oi!" the doppelganger interrupted. "Enough out of you."

Ron grinned at him, nodding towards the baby. "Nah, after all, it hasn't got that big a nose."

Draco – the other – Malfoy… Draco's brain shriveled up in sheer defeat… the other one laughed aloud. "The poor man isn't even here to defend himself."

"And if he were, I couldn't say it," Ron replied. "Ready?" he asked Draco.

"That's right," Draco said, turning towards Draco –

He was doing it again. The other, the other one…

"…you haven't been to the Burrow, yet. Or I suppose not. Neither have I."

"I'll have to Apparate with both of you, I suppose."

"What's the problem?" Granger said, approaching them.

"The Malfoys haven't ever visited the Burrow," Ron said.

"Oh!" she exclaimed. "I've been loads of times. I'll take you, Draco. I mean – you, Draco," she said, eyes scanning them for a moment before picking out the other and hauling him forward.

Draco noticed the boy took it with good grace, and held out his arm for her to slip into his. Odd – he hadn't thought a Mudblood would understand such a gesture, but Granger followed Malfoy's lead with more grace than Draco had expected. "The Malfoys," he muttered, "like we're long-lost twin brothers, or something."

The other one shrugged. "I thought it sounded that way, too. Odd, isn't it, even the suggestion of having a brother?"

"If we're all through," Potter interrupted.

Draco saw that the baby was getting just slightly fidgety. Probably it was hungry. Though it could be sleepy or gassy or need a change or have a fever or a million other little things he didn't understand and never thought he'd need to suss out.

"Ready," Granger and… Malfoy announced together. Malfoy shot her a smile that was… clearly warm and affectionate. Draco thought his features might relax like that when he regarded his mother, but Hermione Granger? It was too much to even look at, so he turned to Ron.

Ron was offering his own arm.

Draco shoved the offending appendage away. "I'm not a lady, Weasley," he scoffed.

"Would you prefer I hold you in my manly arms?" Ron returned. "We're Apparating; you're going to have to latch on somehow. But if you'd rather…"

Draco slipped his hand into Ron's. "This is fine," he bit off.

Potter was wrapping both arms around the sling full of baby and closing his eyes; Granger and Malfoy popped out of existence a moment later.

"Ready?" Ron inquired.

"Yes," Draco said.

"These people will not like you," Ron warned.

Draco could feel Lupin listening to them, even while the werewolf pretended to compose his message to Snape. "I'm well used to people not liking me," Draco said. "I can handle it; I'm not a child."

"I'm well aware you're not," Ron said lowly. "I'm also well aware that you mouth off when you feel threatened. Keep in mind that no one can touch you. I'd hex anyone who tried, and whatever you may think of Potter, he would, too."

Draco frowned. "You didn't mention him. Malfoy – the other one."

"I thought that part went without saying."

"He doesn't think very much of me."

"Don't be a prat," Ron replied. "Draco's hero-thing is almost as bad as Harry's, now. Wands away and on our best behavior."

"Yes, master," Draco replied, rolling his eyes.

Ron's expression had gone intent. "I didn't cast Necto fiddes," he said, slowly, "and Necto fiddes can't make you obey me."

Draco blinked. "Yeah. I mean – yes. I know that."

"Good."

Draco was suddenly, uncomfortably aware that they were still holding hands. "I'm ready," he said, and before he'd taken another breath he was Elsewhere.

The Burrow was well-named, Draco thought uncharitably as he peered out over the chicken coop and levels that weren't level, and the peeling shingles, and the winding way that led to the front(?) door. A large, rusty cauldron sat in the front(?) yard and a pair of offensively pink Wellington boots with animated roses climbing up the sides sat by the door, which was cracked open.

Draco's first instinct was to sneer, but the curl of his lip was arrested by the look on Ron's face.

"It's not much," he said.

"It's… different," said Draco.

"…not what I was expecting," said Malfoy.

"Brilliant," Potter breathed, blowing out a gust of air. That relieved smile was on his face, and he bounced the baby just a bit on his hip in what seemed to be sheer joy. Even Lupin looked more relaxed than his usual wire-thin, panicky self, so Draco gave the house and grounds a second look, trying to discern what was so special.

He supposed that the listing northern side had a peculiar artistic flair to it, if one were so inclined. The cauldron outside had all sorts of unmentionable things clinging to its outsides, as though it had been used for experiments or play, or possibly both. The smell of eggs cooking was wafting from an open window, where a cat, or possibly a kneazle, lay sprawled out in the early morning sun.

Potter took a deep breath and headed for the front gate.

It happened so fast that Draco wasn't quite sure what had happened, at first. One minute, Harry was walking towards the Burrow at a good clip, the next he was flying back and Lupin's wand was out, and ohnoohnoohno –

Potter froze five centimeters from the ground, eyes squeezed shut, body curled around the infant in his arms.

Hermione let out a cry and ran towards them. "Harry, Harry, it's all right, you're fine, you're both fine," she babbled, as Potter slowly uncurled from around the baby.

"Merlin, fuck, what was that?" Weasley babbled, reaching Potter only a second behind Granger.

Draco looked up to find Lupin's face white as a sheet. "It's the wards," the older wizard said while Weasley helped a shaking Harry to his feet. "They're rejecting the baby, Harry… or you."

"All right," Malfoy said, wiping his hands on the front of his trousers as though he had been the one who had nearly fallen to the dirt. "All right, we'll go inside and, and Harry can stay here, with the baby."

"Don't you want to find out if it's Harry or the baby?" Weasley hissed.

"No," Malfoy replied, "I do not," and for once Draco and Malfoy were in complete agreement with one another, and wasn't that some sort of existential joke?

"Come to think of it, I think I should stay right here too," Draco said. "And so should you, you idiot," he hissed to his counterpart. "How likely is it that a Malfoy is going to convince Mrs. Weasley of anything?"

Malfoy blinked, as though he'd forgotten this fact, then grinned. "Actually, I'm the perfect one to go. She owes me a favour; she said so."

The entire party save Weasley turned to stare.

"She did," Malfoy went on. "And you should come, too," he said to Draco. "You're going to help me prove an important point."

Author's Notes:

Whew! This was a hard one.

For one thing, I have promised myself to never write flashbacks unless I need to: they're overused, and where they're used, they're most often very badly done. But Malora, with whose blessed help this was beta'd, insisted that it was TRULY necessary here. So I researched and wrote and wrote and wrote. She also corrected some really important points, and it is only with her help that this chapter presents itself as well as it does.

Here's where I say: thank you for betaing! FOR SERIOUS. And that any remaining mistakes are mine and not hers. :)

Writing from Malfoy's POV was rough because he is such a strange character; he feels so conflicted that he can sometimes seem like two different characters at once. Also, making him distinct from the other Malfoy right away was a challenge.

As always, reviews really help me write! Let me know what you think of the chapter and where the story is going and how you liked the characters and how your day has been. ;)

-K