Chapter 7: Kreacher's welcome

"So, Potter," Draco said with a conclusive sigh when they stood outside the restaurant. "Your place or my place?"

"What d'you mean?" Harry said, affronted.

"I mean, erm." Draco ran his eye over his Harry Potter body. "I can't go back to the Manor looking like this without you at my side. And depending on who you share your household with, you might have the same problem."

"My place," Harry said and started off towards Grimmauld Place. Malfoy might try to curse him in his sleep, but at least, that would be a home game.

Harry forgot to warn Draco to be very quiet entering the house. When Draco closed the door behind him, the curtains covering Walburga Black's portrait flew open and she took a deep breath to scream but froze with her mouth wide open. Harry had silently cursed and was prepared for the usual fight with the curtains. But there was no need to fight.

"Hm," Walburga uttered, staring at Harry and paying no attention whatsoever to Draco. And she pulled the curtains closed again.

"Was this Walburga Black?"

"Yeah. She normally greets me and my guests with 'filthy mudbloods' and the like. Don't know what she's got tonight." Harry shrugged. "She must be charmed to see you."

At the end of the hallway stood Kreacher, looking at them with an equally charmed expression.

"Hi, Kreacher!" Harry said. "Do we have any tea left?"

Kreacher raised his eyebrows, as if Harry had said something awfully unusual. "Kreacher is pleased to welcome Master Malfoy, the son and heir of Mistress Narcissa Black." He bowed deeply.

After a few seconds of confused blinking, Draco said: "Treat him as your master, Kreacher. Draco will stay the night."

Kreacher's eyebrows climbed another inch up.

"Should Kreacher prepare the second floor bedroom where Miss— er— for the guest?"

Draco gave Harry a questioning look.

"Sure," Harry said, trying to catch up with the change of perspective.

As Kreacher set his foot on the first stair, Draco added: "Give me some fresh sheets, too."

"Of course, Master." One more word and Kreacher's eyebrows would slide down the back of his bald skull.

"Please!" Harry whispered to Draco. "Elves are treated with respect in this house!"

"Please!" Draco shouted up the stairwell, but Kreacher had already disappeared upstairs.

Harry had rarely seen Kreacher work with such zeal. He could hear him rumble enthusiastically on the second floor and could even catch fragments of a sweet melody he was humming when he ran up and down the stairs. He rushed into the kitchen when Harry had just made some tea and placed two cups on the table.

"The bedrooms are all ready. Kreacher has also replaced the towels, cleaned the first, the second, and the third floor bathroom, hung up Miss Cissy's favourite—" He broke off when he noticed the bruises on Draco's face, and with loud lamentation, jumped onto the table and helped unswell his lip with a couple of finger snaps. Harry silently mouthed "Thank you!" behind Kreacher's back.

"Thank you," Draco said.

"Would you like some tea, Kreacher?" Harry asked.

"Master Malfoy is a guest! Master Malfoy should sit down and rest, and let Kreacher make tea." But seeing that the tea was already made, he just summoned a jar of biscuits with a tear in one eye, and disapparated.

"So, this is good old Grimmauld Place?" Draco touched the railings and the occasional holes in the wallpaper with his fascinated fingertips as they walked upstairs after finishing their tea.

"Have you been here before?"

"I think so." He stopped and eyed a nail sticking out of the wall. "There used to be—"

"Yes." Harry hadn't bothered to pull out all the nails after he and Ginny had removed the plaques with the shrunken heads of the house-elves, executed by way of retirement in accordance with the old custom of the noble house of Black. Kreacher was allowed to keep all of them in his den, which somewhat assuaged his disappointment at the inglorious end of the exhibition. "I don't miss them, do you?"

Draco shrugged and stared at the cracks in the stairs instead, as they continued climbing. Finally, they arrived at the second floor hall, which prompted a change of subject.

"Look," Harry pointed at the closed door. "This is my bedroom. And it remains my bedroom, no matter whose body I'm currently operating. And you, you stay away from it as far as you possibly can. Is that clear?"

"Clear enough."

"I will put every protective charm I can think of on it, so if you go astray sleepwalking and end up in there searching for your wand, don't be surprised to wake up short of one limb or other."

"Those are your limbs, Potter. You don't want to end up with a permanent handicap."

"Point taken. I'll think of something less permanent, but equally painful."

"I will stay away from your bedroom by all means, don't worry."

They walked to the other end of the landing and Harry opened the door of another bedroom. He didn't enter it but could see immediately that it looked way more inviting than all the countless times he'd been there before. A silk cover over white satin sheets faintly gleamed like greenish old gold. Above the bed there was a painting, which Harry hadn't seen there before. A pair of daffodils were glowing yellow in deep velvety darkness, a small patch of starry night sky above their tilted heads. The flowers seemed to shudder, as if touched by a breeze, and Harry wondered whether the gentle gusts of fresh scent were also coming from the painting.

"You will sleep here."

Draco walked in and looked around. While he was taking in the painting, Harry's eye fell on a crystal jug filled with water and a glass standing next to it on the bedside table. Kreacher had even thought of that. How considerate!

"And here," Harry shifted his weight from the door frame back to his feet and invited Draco to follow with a broad gesture, "is the bathroom."

He opened another door and let Draco in.

"This is my bathroom. Feel free to use it, but if you want a separate bathroom, there is one on the first, and another one on the third floor."

Draco froze staring at Harry's toothbrush, which stuck out of a mug by the mirror.

"Potter?"

"Malfoy?"

"You are not sticking that toothbrush into my mouth!" He pointed at now Harry's mouth.

"You want to have it?" Harry was gradually getting the taste of it. Draco choked.

"Two options. You either give me my wand and let me get us some new toothbrushes the normal way, or you give me my wallet and let me go and buy some."

"Or I take my wand and use a scouring charm straight on your talkative trap," Harry pulled one of the wands out of his breast pocket. Incidentally, it happened to be his own, eleven-inch-long holly. He pointed it at Draco's face.

"Don't you dare!" Draco backed off.

Harry enjoyed it for another couple of seconds, but then concentrated on the image of two toothbrushes in his mind. He waved his wand, but nothing happened. He tried again, to no effect. Did he unlearn conjuration? Could he do magic at all in his Malfoy shape? He tried vanishing his old toothbrush, vanishing was supposed to be easier. Two white sparkles fell on the floor out of the tip of his wand, but the toothbrush still occupied its usual place in the mug.

"Accio toothbrush!" That was the foolproof method. But the toothbrush didn't budge.

"Let me try!"

"No way!" He was not giving Draco's wand back to him. Draco's wand. Right. What if—? Harry stuffed his holly wand back in and pulled out Draco's ash.

"Accio toothbrush!" And the toothbrush surged out of the mug and hit him in the chest. Luckily, it missed the locket. The mere possibility of exchanging appearances with his toothbrush gave Harry goose bumps.

"Your wand responds to me," Harry said looking at Draco's wand, "and mine does not any more."

Harry tried the conjuring charm again and two toothbrushes dropped out of nowhere onto the tiled floor. Draco picked up one with reserved relief. Harry vanished his old toothbrush and heard Draco exhale the rest of his tension.

After a tour of the remaining bathrooms, Harry left Draco to his own devices and returned to the second floor. When he entered his bedroom, he was surprised to see crystal and silk again. No new paintings, but for the rest Kreacher was giving him and Draco the same treatment.

What was that supposed to mean? Harry felt— No, it was not jealousy. It was frustration. SPEW member or not, redefining your relationship with a house-elf was a hard undertaking. With Kreacher it was a lost cause. Not 'please', not 'thank you', but the presence of a Black scion in the house was worth the trouble of putting a jug of water next to his master's bed. Kreacher, seriously...

Harry sat on the edge of his bed and tried to concentrate.

"Protego horribilis!" he whispered, pointing Draco's wand at his bedroom door. Not that he knew exactly what the charm would do to a wandless intruder, but all his distrust of Malfoy went into that one spell, and it felt right. He stuck both wands under his pillow, took off Draco's clothes, slipped into his own pyjamas, and as soon as his back touched the white satin, his mind switched off.

When Harry woke up the next morning and the memories of last night reassembled in his consciousness, he hoped it had all been a bad dream. He stretched and sat up in bed. His eyes fell on his hands and his stomach twisted. His skin was too pale, his fingers too long, the sleeves of his pyjamas too short, and, now that he turned his hands palms up, he saw it: A large lightning scar was carved into the inner side of his left wrist. It had not been a dream.

Harry felt under his pillow. Both wands were safe in place. He heard footsteps behind his bedroom door followed by the squeaking of the stairs. Draco was on his way to the third floor.

The thought of Draco seeing him naked in the large mirror of the third floor bathroom made him angry. He could not do anything about it, but he could take revenge. He took off his pyjamas and looked down at himself.

He had never felt so particularly naked. At places where by now he was used to seeing patches of black fur, there was nothing. Well... Harry touched himself just above the aftermath of his morning wood. There was something. Thin translucent fluff, like that of a young piglet.

Harry let his gaze slide further down, looking for signs of anything which could be used against the regular owner of the body under scrutiny. But it all looked fairly normal. Very pale indeed, with a spot of rosy pink at the tip of— But for the rest, not so different from Harry's own naked appearance. His gaze slid back up. A dozen of short thin scars were barely visible on his chest. Holy shit.

Harry took off the shield charm and stuffed both wands into the deep pocket of the bathrobe he had swung over himself. On his way to the bathroom, he immediately stumbled over Kreacher, who was already going about dusting and removing invisible cobwebs.

Kreacher hiccupped, dropped his duster, and Harry was now vividly aware of what it was that Kreacher saw: Miss Cissy's son coming out of his master's bedroom wearing nothing but his master's bathrobe.

"It's not what you think—" Harry started...

"Kreacher thinks highly of Master Malfoy no matter what." Kreacher lowered his gaze, and was about to pick up his duster, but the squeaking of the stairs, the smell of sandalwood soap descending like a cloud from the third floor, followed by Draco with a towel around his waist scared the last wits out of him, and he vanished.

"Good morning." Draco stepped over the lonely duster.

"Good morning." Harry's hand sank involuntarily into his pocket, feeling for the right wand. Draco stopped in front of him.

"I could do with a change of underwear. And some fresh clothes would be splendid!"

Harry went back to his room, pulled a pair of trunks, a pair of jeans, and a T-shirt at random out of his wardrobe, and returned to his demanding guest. Draco eyed the clothes with suspicion, if not disgust, but after some inner struggle accepted the offer.

"Thank you?" Harry reminded Draco of the missed line.

"Thank you." Draco sighed with resignation.

Harry hid the wands, and after breakfast, they moved to the drawing room and got down to business.

"So. Hit me," Harry said taking a stand in the middle of the room, the locket protruding slightly from under his T-shirt.

"With pleasure." And Draco's fist landed heartily on the locket. Nothing happened. "Did you feel anything?"

"No. You?"

"Me neither."

"When I hit you yesterday, it was kind of an electric shock. Did you have that, too?"

"Yeah."

"Try again."

Draco hit Harry in the chest again. Harry staggered back.

"Anything?"

"No," said Harry.

"It was your knuckles on the locket right?"

"Yes."

Draco tried again, with more force but less precision.

"Ouch! You almost missed the thing. Try a bit higher."

Draco's fist hit the side of the locket sticking out of the neckline, and Harry felt a sharp sting.

"Did you feel that too?" Draco said.

"Yes!"

"Take off your T-shirt."

Seconds later, Harry's T-shirt lay on the floor, and Draco's fist hit the unprotected surface of the pendant. The prickling intensified and spread in a circle over Harry's chest.

"Oh! That was different!" Draco said, looking at his hand.

"It was!"

Encouraged by the first success, Draco continued hitting Harry, they could reproduce the effect but would not get much further. When his chest was thoroughly bruised, Harry reluctantly agreed to try and switch roles. Draco's T-shirt dropped to the floor and the necklace with the locket went around his neck. Harry hit him. The locket tickled the skin of Harry's fingers, when a modest cough sounded at the open door of the drawing room.

"Kreacher is sorry to interrupt, but would like to ask if Masters are planning to dine out tonight. If not, Kreacher would be delighted to cook this evening for Master and the honourable guest."

"Sure! Thank you, Kreacher," replied Harry and gave Draco a stern look.

Kreacher gaped at the scene he had walked in on.

"Thank you, Kreacher, it is really very nice of you," Draco said, "but please would you be so kind and get out of here? Now, if possible." Draco was getting better at it, but there was still way to go before he would strike the tone approved by the Society for the Promotion of Elfish Welfare.

When Kreacher left, they continued. They replayed the scene of yesterday's fight again and again, trying to reconstruct the smallest details. Then they let the details be and tried around at random. The bruises were multiplying and the locket kept travelling from one chest to the other.

Around lunch time, they were interrupted by the arrival of Douglas with a card from Ron and Hermione. Harry stretched out his arm to greet him, but Douglas screeched at him, fluttered over to Draco, and was not satisfied until Draco took the card.

The worst began when they resumed their experiments with the locket after lunch. Douglas charged at Harry with his beak and claws, no matter whether Harry was the one hitting or the one being hit, adding scratches to the bruises Harry was already covered with. It was only after they managed, in joint effort, to get Douglas inside his cage, that they discovered that violence was not essential. The prickling was released by as much as simultaneously touching the locket with their little fingers. But nothing more than that would result from their versatile attempts.

When tempting smells of the upcoming dinner started rising from the kitchen, they took the rest of the wind out of their sails. Harry and Draco were stretched out on the sofas, struggling to find a conversation topic that would last more than five sentences, when Kreacher finally returned to announce that dinner was ready to be served.

Fully clothed again, they entered the dining room. What they saw made Harry gasp and Draco chuckle. The dining table was clad in finest table linen covered with sophisticated embroidery. Gold rimmed plates and glasses, encrusted silverware... Harry wondered where Kreacher had kept all those treasures hidden. The crest of the house of Black above the mantelpiece was flanked with two banners: a broad stripe of black, green and silver on the right, and another one on the left, with barely perceptible traces of gold and blue and what must have once been white, but had turned greyish yellow.

"A bit old-fashioned but touching," Draco said, taking his seat. Elven wine, another crystal jug of water and a starter of olives and fresh herbs appeared on the table.

"Those are Malfoy colours, if you were wondering." Draco pointed at the right hand side banner.

"And the other one?" Harry said, staring at the left side.

"No idea. Kreacher!"

Kreacher emerged out of thin air with a click.

"We were wondering: What are those colours?"

"Oh, those are the colours of the old family of Peverell, Master."

"Peverell? I didn't know Peverells had colours." Draco looked at Harry, but Harry had nothing to add. It was all completely new to him.

"The Peverell heraldry is among the less well known," Kreacher said.

Draco gave Kreacher a sceptical look. Kreacher lowered his gaze, but continued with badly concealed pride:

"The descendants of Cadmus Peverell used to bear arms. My long since deceased father was in the service of Mistress Telephe Peverell, Master Cadmus's great great granddaughter, until she married into the noble house of Gaunt, and kindly released father, whereupon he could join the house of Black and reunite with my long since deceased mother. The banner Masters can see was Mistress's gift to father upon his release."

"Telephe Peverell?! But that must be like thirteen hundred something! How old are you, Kreacher?" Draco said.

"Kreacher is very old. Kreacher lost count."

The cold starter was followed by cauliflower soup, and Kreacher went back to the kitchen to give the main course a finishing touch.

"You are descended from Ignotus, not Cadmus, right? So your claim to the Peverell coat of arms is not stronger than mine."

"If that makes you happier." Harry was both surprised and not that Draco was so well informed about his ancestry.

What came after the soup made even Draco hold his breath. On a silver oval dish rested a sea creature, a fish, whose beastly shape was left entirely intact by cooking. Its pointed flat snout and the ridge of spikes at its back reminded Harry of the Chinese Fireball Viktor Krum had fought in the first task of the Triwizard Tournament.

"Merlin!" Draco breathed out. "Kreacher!" He called doubling the volume.

The elf popped up in the doorway.

"Master called?"

"How many Muggles did you have to kill to get hold of this beast?"

"Kreacher killed no Muggles! Kreacher would do no such thing!" He sounded as though he was not sure whether to be proud or ashamed of it. "Too risky, too risky for a house-elf," he added, looking at Harry.

He skillfully pulled away the dark skin, cut down pieces of juicy fillet, and placed one on Harry's and one on Draco's plate. Draco continued staring at him, waiting for an explanation. Kreacher looked embarrassed.

"This individual spawned and lived as cod," he said, transferring the baked fruit and vegetables that garnished the said individual to Harry's and Draco's plates, "and became sturgeon under the wand of Master Letsie of the Cachet 'n Letsie Magical Fishery at Wixham two hours before preparation."

A shade of disappointment pulled over Draco's face, but after Kreacher poured a coating of thick sauce over their portions and Draco finally tasted the first piece, his eyes opened wide.

"Never mind! It's just like the real thing."

Fish was not Harry's cup of tea, he'd always believed, but when he also tried a piece of the fake sturgeon, he thought he might be changing his mind about it.

"When Kreacher was young, we house-elves used to prepare real sturgeon for our masters. Not these days. All our sturgeon has gone to the Muggles. Too many Muggles these days, too many.

"But the manner of cooking—that's just like in the old days! Like the kings had wished it, like the witch had fished it, and like the elf had dished it!" Kreacher's old croaky voice took on a proud note again. "The recipe Kreacher has cooked for Masters is the Jersey style Dragon of the Sea."

"My absolute favourite. Did you know that?" Draco said.

Kreacher beamed.

"Kreacher believed it to be Master Malfoy's preference," he gave Harry a loving look, "but Kreacher is happy Masters have similar tastes."

Kreacher's last remark apparently brought Draco from the fantastic realm of exquisite cookery back to bitter reality. He looked at Harry, then at the locket which was hanging on Harry's chest, and then at Kreacher again.

"Thanks. It's good," he said, and Kreacher disappeared with the happiest smile ever.

"Ten points to Slytherin, for not forgetting to say 'thank you'."

"Learning to be Potter, but hoping sincerely it won't take too long before there's no need. We'd better think of what to do next about our problem."

"It doesn't seem like we're getting anywhere by trying blindly."

"Right. We'll have to do some research, and don't even think of involving Granger!"

This was indeed Harry's first thought upon hearing the word 'research', but he let it pass. After finishing his second helping of the Jersey-style Dragon of the Sea and feeling guilty about cleaning his hands with a napkin that felt like it belonged in a museum of decorative art, Harry leaned back in his chair and took off the locket.

It was the first time he examined it properly. If anything, it looked expressly non-Malfoyish: it was not made of gold, it was not beset with gems, and even the fork with which Harry had just moved the last piece of the transfigured cod into his mouth looked more valuable. It was just a small sturdy iron disk. A miracle the Malfoys hadn't disposed of it as scrap metal.

Harry pressed carefully at the edge and opened it. He was momentarily blinded by a warm beam of light, before he realised that it was just a mirror reflecting the light of the chandelier above their heads. The inside of the locket was inlaid with two mirrors, which would be facing each other when closed. Harry saw dark lines running across the shiny silver surface. Upon a closer look, the lines formed an image. Starting from a tiny circle at the top two straight lines ran in an acute angle thinning out towards the bottom, like needles. The other mirror showed the outline of two broad stripes forming a right angle.

"Does it make any sense to you?" Draco asked.

Harry looked at the first mirror again.

"Looks like a drawing compass," he said. He remembered vividly how Dudley got one of those for maths, but mostly used it to prick him.

"A drawing compass?" Draco leaned in and peered at the locket across the table. "What's a drawing compass?"

"Muggles use them to draw circles." Harry demonstrated the idea with his knife and fork leaving a circular trace in the sauce on his plate. There were still things he knew about the Muggles that Draco didn't.

"Ah. And the other one?"

The other image was less suggestive, but thinking of Dudley's maths tools, it looked like a set square, a triangle with the long side missing.

"Could be a set square," Harry said. "For drawing right angles."

"Circles and squares..." Draco looked twice as puzzled as before and fell against the back of his chair.

Harry closed the locket, and something gleamed at its edge. An inscription was running across the line where its two halves met, but the letters faded again quickly. Harry opened and closed the locket one more time, the inscription shone for a couple of seconds but then blended with the dark metal before Harry could discern more than the first three characters.

"It says coniunctio aeterna," Draco said. "Something like 'eternal bond'."

"Do we have an eternal bond now or what?" Harry would give anything for that inscription not to mean what the most straightforward interpretation suggested.

"Whatever it is that we have, I pray it's not eternal."

"I'm with you on that."

The plates with the leftovers of the main course had left the dining room by now, and Harry was picking distractedly at the dessert. As they put down their forks, Kreacher rematerialised at the door and offered them a choice between tea, coffee, and firewhisky. Draco ignored his offer.

"Speaking of heraldry, have you seen these anywhere before?" He opened the locket again, and showed it to Kreacher.

Kreacher bowed over the locket and furrowed his eyebrows.

"These charges... are unknown... completely unknown to Kreacher." His long ears flapped sadly against the sides of his neck.

Draco closed the locket and held it up. "In your long life, have you seen anyone wear it?"

That was a nice try, Harry thought, but Kreacher only shook his head. Draco fell back into deep thought, but Kreacher still stood at his side waiting.

"What is it?" Draco said.

Kreacher's eyes jumped from Draco to Harry and back like a quaffle between the hoops. Finally, he took a breath to speak.

"Masters have taken interest in the artefacts of the old days." He hesitated. "Master Cygnus Black, the grandfather of my beloved Mistress and the great grandfather of Mistress Narcissa Black," Kreacher gave Harry a small bow, "left a remarkable collection of whips. Should masters feel so inclined, Kreacher can bring those exquisite implements down to the drawing room."

Draco refused with a poker face. But as soon as Kreacher vanished, his mouth formed a suggestive 'Oooooh'.

"What was that about?" Harry said.

"Well, well. Apparently, good old Cygnus had a liking for strong sensations."

Harry didn't dare think quickly.

"And," Draco continued, "after seeing us beat each other up half naked all day, Kreacher thought this is the way we express our mutual affection."

An amused grin shone on Draco's face.

"So he— Oh no." Harry buried his face in his palm. "What a dirty mind."

"Dirty? Now, don't insult the memory of Cygnus the second!"

"But we're not—" Harry had an impulse to call Kreacher and explain it to him once and for all.

"No, we're not. You're not Malfoy and I'm not Potter. But there's no harm in him thinking that. He's just a house-elf. Look!" Draco indicated the Malfoy and the Peverell colours above the mantelpiece. "It even makes him happy! Weren't you and Granger so concerned about house-elves' happiness?"

Harry wouldn't say no to a firewhisky after all. When he lay in bed and his tired mind was slowly letting go of its daytime controls, a vision of Ginny, half naked, with a whip, formed before his inner eye. Harry hastily dismissed the vision with what was left of his conscious will. Developing such fantasies in his present condition was a very bad idea.

Note: Oh by the way, I forgot to mention: Feel free to leave comments in languages other than English, whichever you feel most comfortable with. I can manage a few languages, and for those that I cannot manage there is google translate &co. All your comments are very very much appreciated.