Note: Hi all, thank you for following this story so far. For real life reasons I might be moving the update day from Tuesday to Sunday some time soon. Just wanted to give you a heads up.

Chapter 25: Sunshine in the basement

Harry didn't mind that their ride back via public Portkey was boring and uneventful, in comparison. Now that there was no passport control and Draco did not need to be fitted into his satchel, he seemed to be enjoying his natural size and was taking advantage of all the available space. He shrank all their clothes to the size of a pair of folded socks and dropped them into the satchel. They would not shrink the trunk, though, as it contained invaluable organic material, whose well-being could not be endangered by shrinking. Even if, Harry guessed, they were just plants, the trunk sighed, shuddered, squeaked and sighed again. Harry's questions about its contents were consistently ignored, and he gave up asking. At least, this time they did not need to go through Muggle customs, luckily.

After the enlightened grandeur and the sheer size of Beauxbatons, Hogwarts seemed wistfully dark and poky, like the kitchen at twelve Grimmauld Place, and even the Slytherin common room felt like home.

When the classes restarted, Harry noticed a subtle change in the atmosphere. If until the Christmas break everyone treated him like an empty space, now he was being greeted by random male students, going down as far as the third year. Stewart Ackerley, fifth year, Ravenclaw. Hi. Dane Summers, a remedial Hufflepuff. Hmm. Interesting. Peakes? Really? No way! But the most surprising person on this list was Blaise Zabini.

"You're right, Draco. Women are absolutely overrated," Zabini said, when they were sharing their impressions of the Yule Ball. The very fact that they were having a conversation was quite remarkable, but Pansy's sudden silent treatment of them both made Harry suspect worse.

"Do you think he could be— you know?" Harry asked Draco on their way to North Tower.

Draco stopped. "What? Zabini gay?" He looked at Harry in total bewilderment. "I don't think so." He resumed walking. "More likely, he has an issue with ladies." Draco did the air quotes. "After the mysterious death of his father and six subsequent stepfathers, he might, understandably, be wary of the fairer sex."

It was the first Saturday after the holidays, Hufflepuff was playing Ravenclaw, and the weather sucked. The clouds were pressing down, like a cast-iron lid on the pot, and releasing that sort of precipitation that could not quite decide whether it was rain or snow.

Harry and Draco were not heading for the Quidditch pitch though. They were looking for Ewen, who had not made his appearance for the whole week since the beginning of the term. At first Harry thought that Ewen had made himself invisible. Was he embarrassed about their farewell kiss? Had he met someone in Brazil? But Draco told him that he had not shown up in Divination either, and Harry got worried. He checked the Marauders' Map every day and could not see Ewen's name anywhere, until finally, on Friday night after curfew, he spotted his dot in the hospital wing.

This was where they went first thing on Saturday morning, but Madam Pomfrey informed them that Mr Arling had been discharged not half an hour ago in the best of health.

"He's probably in the stands. Hufflepuff is playing."

"He's definitely not in the stands," Draco said, and confidently marched past the staircase that led down to the Entrance Hall. "Ewen hates Quidditch."

Harry didn't bring the map—no way he was going to show it to Malfoy—so they had to guess. As usual, the obvious choices were the Hufflepuff Basement and the North Tower.

"Hi!" Ackerley said, hurrying past, all wrapped in Ravenclaw crest scarves, a huge blue and bronze umbrella under his arm. He was visibly surprised that they were heading in the wrong direction.

"Hi."

Ackerley dived into the stairwell they had left behind, and the conversation turned to the positive changes in Harry's social life after the holidays.

"Why didn't you come out before?"

"I didn't come out, you outed me."

"With your consent, Malfoy!" Harry would have never done it without his consent! "So, why?"

"Isn't it obvious? I'm the last Malfoy and I won't have children. My father would have never accepted it."

"Why shouldn't you have children? Even Muggles have figured it out. A bit of a hassle, but—"

"This is not how it works in," Draco cleared his throat, "respectable wizard families, Potter."

"How does it work in respectable wizard families then?"

"When a couple marries, all sorts of bonding charms are put upon them. The bonding rings, remember? Then you don't want to father a child outside the bond, you just won't want to take the bloody risk."

"What kind of risk?"

"Haven't you read Granger's sex book? Oh no, you haven't." Draco let out an exasperated sigh. "Why don't you check out Weird Wizarding Dilemmas then?"

Harry could vaguely remember that it was one of the books where Hermione had not found a solution to his breathing under water problem for the second task of the Triwizard Tournament.

"If I wanted to have a child and not miss out on the customary protective charms, which my child shall not be deprived of, then I might just as well marry his mother, and after your smashing tango with Arling, no decent witch will marry me." Draco shuddered and walked faster. "Well. After I almost landed in Azkaban, no decent witch will marry me anyway, so it doesn't matter, I guess."

"And, erm, if you married a man? Haven't they come up with some magical solution to that wizarding dilemma yet?" Harry asked after a moment of reflection.

"Some have tried transfiguration. But you can't be on Polyjuice for nine months."

"It has been done..."

"If you mean Barty Crouch, his duodenum was beyond repair. There was a colourful report of his post-mortem in the Practical Potioneer. No, keep me out of that, thank you."

They had arrived at North Tower and climbed all the way up to the Divination classroom, but it was empty. They tried a couple of doors, which were locked. No, Ewen was not here, and they headed back.

"Actually, now thinking about it, that's an idea! Perhaps you could make some Malfoys for me. I would even agree to Weasley."

What? It took Harry a moment to get what Draco meant.

"Ginny will never agree to make Malfoys!"

"No?" Draco threw him a glance which Harry could not quite place. "Well then, we'd better hurry up with our advanced transfiguration project, or she might end up making Boots."

"Making what?!"

"Boots. She's been hanging out with Terry Boot the whole week. The throne is never vacant."

Harry couldn't quite tell how he felt about this piece of news. Perhaps, like he had lost something that wasn't even his. Like they had passed each other in a crowd, and only waved to each other from a distance, over the heads of bustling passers-by. Like he had woken up from a beautiful dream, to the reality of his erect cock and the thought of the unlikely object of his desire. What right did he have to be sad, after they had kissed? He had to be happy for Ginny, and wish her well, and he did. But he was sad. Yes. He was happy, but sad.

Harry had somehow missed the point when they passed the Entrance Hall and reached the basement, and only became properly aware of his surroundings again when they were brought to a halt by a stack of barrels in the hallway next to the kitchens.

"Do you know how to enter?" Draco asked.

"No, do you?"

"Nope."

Busy house-elves were hurrying around, pushing carts with vegetables, carrying piles of fresh laundry, and greeting them with reverent bows.

"Swingy!" Draco called.

Nothing happened.

"Swingy!" called Harry.

Thorny popped out of the air in front of them.

"Swingy apologises deeply. Swingy is fixing a little problem on the Quidditch Pitch. She will be here in a minute. Can Thorny help Masters?"

"Do you know how to get in?" Draco pointed at the barrels.

"Of course, Thorny knows how to get into the Quarters of the Hufflepuff house." Thorny said with an unblinking expression.

"Could you get us in?" Harry said. "Please?"

"Of course, Thorny could get Masters in. Under a number of conditions."

"What conditions?" Draco's voice fell in a way that did not suit a mere Master Potter.

"If Thorny were not currently in the service of the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry and were not bound by the School's statute four paragraph one, which rules that the loyalty of a house-elf commanded to serve the school is transferred entirely from their master to the School for the full duration of their service, which is in Thorny's case the school year one thousand nine hundred ninety-eight–one thousand nine hundred ninety-nine, as well as statute twenty-five paragraph three, which rules that house-elves entrusted with access to the School Houses will not grant access to third parties, including but not limited to students and teachers of other houses. If Master wanted to terminate Thorny's service to the School, he would have to address a request to the Headmistress Professor McGonagall," Thorny conjured a quill and a piece of blue parchment, "There is no set processing time for such requests, but with the Headmistress's present turn-around, two or three days would be a realistic estimate."

Draco let out a long breathy groan. "You should be a lawyer, Thorny."

"A lawyer, sir?" Thorny looked unsure but interested.

"Mr Knox, you know?" Harry said.

"Thorny has great esteem and admiration for the work Master Knox does for the Malfoy family," Thorny said with genuine appreciation, and a sparkle of hope in his eyes.

"That's an idea, actually!" Harry said. "When the school year is over, you should go help Mr Knox and learn some—"

"If your Master were to command you to Mr Knox's side," Draco interrupted, "would you think of some way for us to get in?"

"Of course, sir," Thorny said and held the quill and the parchment out to Harry.

"Master Draco! Master Potter! What's up?" Swingy emerged with a loud crack. Thorny almost dropped the quill. The fur, which had grown quite a bit thicker on her arms since the summer, stuck out in messy clumps, and her origami skirt was soaked to the point of disintegration. Thorny stiffened with a terrified look in his face. Swingy snapped her fingers, and was dry and crisp in an instant.

"Masters wish to visit the Hufflepuff House," Thorny said awkwardly.

"Oh! But all Hufflepuff students are out, cheering for their team! Hufflepuff is leading one hundred to seventy! If Masters—"

"One student will be here, I reckon," Draco said.

"Oh!" Swingy blinked. "Masters come to visit Master Arling! Oh!" Swingy clapped her hand on her mouth and looked warily at Harry, but was met with nothing but expectant silence. "One sec—" and she disapparated.

A few moments later, the barrels began to rumble and scratch heavily against the floor. They moved to the sides, the wall behind them crumbled like a piece of carrot cake, and a low round passage, like a rabbit hole, opened before them. Swingy's small silhouette appeared in the pool of sunlight that shone at the other end of the passage, followed by another silhouette. There was tapping of small feet on the planks that strengthened the earth floor, and the squeak of wood under a pair of bigger feet, Swingy jumped out of the hole, and Ewen stood in the opening, all tan and gorgeous, his eyebrows high aloft with surprise.

"Draco? Harry? Come on in!"

"Swingy, you are the best," Harry whispered, tapping her shoulder, and followed behind Draco into the rabbit hole.

The passage was dark and smelled of earth, fungus, and mushy apples. Harry had to bow down to avoid scratching its ceiling with his head, and brushed off an earthworm that dropped on his shoulder.

"—and missed the Portkey. My mum was all covered in blue pustules, and a day later I was, too," Harry heard Ewen say, when he finally got out of the hole into a vast sunlit room. "They didn't want to let us go back first, but then actually fixed it in two days. I'm fine now, but thought I'd stop by at Pomfrey's just in case, for her okay."

Harry lingered at the door opening while his eyes adjusted to the light. Something tickled him on his ear and he heard a soft giggle above his head. He looked up and saw a plant dangling down from its terracotta pot that hung under a low plastered ceiling. The plant hastily withdrew its tendril and turned an intense shade of red.

"Oh, this is Dorothy," Ewen explained, "She is ashamed to death every time, but still keeps harassing the visitors." Ewen gave Dorothy a reproachful look, the plant collected all its tendrils into a single bushy tangle and went from red to purple.

Dorothy was one of an impressive many peculiar plants that smiled, sniffed, whistled, and murmured in their pots all over the wide circular room. In one of the round windows under the ceiling, a cactus was reading the Daily Prophet. Rays of warm sunlight streamed into the room and even seemed to shine through the pages of the open newspaper.

"Hey, wait a minute! It's just been raining like hell," Draco said.

"It's still raining, I reckon," Ewen said. "But in here it's always sunny."

"Hm. Cute. But a bit fake, isn't it?"

"Why fake?"

"Well. It is raining outside. And in here you get the wrong impression that the sun is shining."

"Oh, but that impression is not wrong at all! The sun is shining all the time. It's the clouds that create the wrong impression that the sun is not shining. The room just corrects for some interfering atmospheric phenomena."

"Hm. By that theory, the sun shines at night, too. Do you get this twenty-four seven?"

"No," Ewen said, folding a colourful quilt that had been laying crumpled on one of the overstuffed sofas, "at night we get the stars."

Harry was revelling in the affectionate warmth of the room, and did not feel like thinking about stars, Louberts, Malfoys, and lockets, and all those other troubling things on their agenda. Fake or not, Harry really didn't mind. If he were to start Hogwarts all over again and the Hat were to send him to Hufflepuff, he would not protest.

Ewen made some tea and seated them on the sofa, which sighed contentedly as Harry sank into it, as if it had been longing to be sat on and was now truly grateful. Even Draco, who had been on edge the whole morning, seemed to relax a little.

"You like our room?" Ewen said proudly. "It is the best." Ewen sat in an armchair opposite them and filled three glasses in elegant copper holders with steaming chestnut-coloured brew. "You just come here, sit down, and feel loved!" He fell back against the cushions and closed his eyes. Harry picked up his glass. The holder fashioned into a pattern of oak leaves and acorns sat snugly in his hand. The bittersweet aroma pulled into his nose and all the way down to his lungs, filling him with warm and humid happiness.

"That's the reason why I wanted to be in Hufflepuff." Ewen said. "The Sorting Hat almost put me in Ravenclaw."

"Did you choose your house?" Except himself, Harry hadn't known of any other student so far who had successfully made the Sorting Hat change its mind. So Ewen was another one! "Cool! Good choice!"

"Well, 'choice' is a strong word. I prayed, and the Hat heard my prayer." Ewen cradled his tea glass in his hands.

"What about Benveniste?" Draco said. "She stalled the Hat for a whole quarter of an hour until she got what she wanted. Any insights into what was discussed?"

"I know nothing for a fact. The way I know her, I would've sorted her into Ravenclaw. But the way she managed to talk the Hat into putting her in Gryffindor, she must be a total Slytherin."

Harry and Draco sipped their tea silently, taking in the best common room in Hogwarts, until Ewen put down his glass and sat up, his gaze jumping between the two of them like a pendulum of a grandfather clock.

"So. How can I help you guys? You didn't come here to discuss houses, I suppose."

"Right. We have"—the expression of relaxed calm vanished from Draco's face—"a problem. And we wanted to ask—"

"Ewen, we first need to tell you something, and it is very serious," Harry said.

"Can you see into the past?" Draco said.

"We're not what it looks like," Harry said, talking over Draco.

"One at a time, please." Ewen's gaze stopped on Harry. "Draco, what were you saying?"

Draco cursed under his breath, and Harry put down his glass.

"I'm not Draco. I am Harry Potter, and this is Draco Malfoy."

Ewen raised an eyebrow.

"And I'm Tom Riddle, nice to meet you guys."

"No, Ewen, it is serious. We had an accident with this artefact," Harry produced the locket and put it in the middle of the table, "and we swapped bodies."

Ewen's eyes were now like a pendulum in slow motion.

"So you are Draco Malfoy?" he said to Draco.

"Yes," replied Draco.

"And you are Harry Potter?" he said to Harry.

"Yes," replied Harry.

"Speak Parseltongue!"

"Er. I can't anymore. I lost it when Voldemort was dead."

Ewen looked at Draco again.

"Where is my dark mark?"

Draco lowered his gaze, then raised it again.

"On your right inner thigh, two inches be—"

"Shape?"

"Bird."

"Your dark mark?" Harry said. "What are you talking about?"

"Oh, that's nothing, just a birthmark," Draco explained. "We used to joke that it was his dark mark."

"So Dra— Ha— How long?" Ewen held on to the copper handle of his glass. "How long have you been," he blinked, "like this?"

"Since August," Draco said and stared at the floor where the cactus with the newspaper cast its angular shadow.

"We should have told you earlier. I'm really sorry!" Harry said.

"So that means..." Ewen gave Harry a terrified look. "Oh no!" He buried his face in his hands and fell back into the depth of his armchair. The hushed stream of invective that issued from under his palms brought up God, Heavens, Merlin, the Holy Cow, and a few other bearers of supernatural powers, and Harry felt his hopes to kiss Ewen again get decimated with each expletive.

"So Ha— Dra— You creeps!" Ewen jumped up from his armchair, made one and a half circuits around the room, and stopped in front of the portrait of Helga Hufflepuff, who toasted him silently with a tiny golden cup.

"Okay, okay,"—He turned around, noticed the newspaper that the cactus had dropped, startled by his outburst, and gave it back—"why don't we have another cup of tea?"

Ewen grabbed the kettle, put it back again, went for his wand, stared at it in bewilderment, as if it was someone else's, then looked at the kettle again, locomoted it into the fireplace, added water as an afterthought, spilled some over the burning wood, sending puffs of grey smoke around, and cursed.

Draco dried the quenched logs with a wand flick. Harry set them back on fire with another. He wished there was a spell to clear the mess in which the three of them had landed. In Ewen's place he would have probably thrown them out into the downpour outside, the two liars, and would have had the tea all alone, even just to preserve his own sanity.

But Ewen didn't throw them out. He kept staring into the fireplace, where the deep hoarse hiss of the heating water mixed with the crackle of the growing flames.

"You're in deep shit, aren't you?"

"One could say so, yes," Draco said.

"I'm sorry, it's just so confusing."

"Please, don't say sorry," Harry said.

"But it's much worse for you two, I suppose."

Ewen busied himself with the tea. Finally, when their glasses were refilled, and Ewen sank back into the peaceful comfort of his armchair, there was that businesslike tone in his voice again, like they were going to make an appointment for dance practice:

"So, how can I help?"

Draco told how they had beaten each other up and it happened, how they had beaten each other up trying to reverse it, and how they had had to stop beating each other up and dive into Malfoy family history. Ewen made disapproving remarks about violence, both mutual and regarding the swans, but was completely fascinated by the constellations of the Southern Sky and the Tentirujus. Over a third round of tea, Draco claimed to have seen one of the latter during a visit to the greenhouses, but mentioned nothing of his herbological discoveries, and quickly got back to the Louberts.

"Is there a way to find out what Herman's parents knew about the locket?" Draco asked finally.

"And you want what? Talk to them?" Ewen said.

"I don't know. What is possible?"

"Pretty much nothing is possible. It's the eleventh century. It's too far back."

A dark cloud pulled over Draco and the room appeared less sunny.

"Pretty much?" Harry said. Pretty much nothing was more than nothing.

"Do you have a portrait?"

"No," Draco said.

"No, but," Harry said, "we don't know. Maybe there is one somewhere? Maybe we could find one?"

"All right, Potter. You go back to France and look for a portrait. Good luck!"

"What do you mean?" Harry asked.

"They didn't do portraits in the eleventh century. Even Sir Herman didn't have one," said Draco.

"But he was painted later! Maybe, maybe,"—now that Harry thought about it, he was quite convinced that Herman's parents would not have been forgotten—"if Norma and Circinus were so great that someone even wanted to name stars after them, maybe someone bothered to make a portrait!"

"He was painted after his death? Really? How did they make it?" Ewen asked. "I mean, Herman's portrait?"

"With a seer," Draco said. "And an artist, of course. Not the same person."

"And how did he turn out?"

"Violent. And not very talkative." Draco perched his chin on his fist and peered into the depth of his tea glass.

Ewen sighed.

"The portrait is probably an approximation at best. Portraits work best when they really look like the person. The more realistic, the more detailed, the better. If possible, painted when the person is still alive, or shortly after. Otherwise, it's almost like you force a soul into another person's body."

Draco must have tried to suppress a groan.

"Sorry guys."

"That means...?"

"Don't bother searching for portraits, D— Harry. It's not worth it."

They took a sip of tea, each in turn.

"What about that seer who helped paint Herman's portrait?" Harry said. "She must have got at him somehow, unless it was all a fake."

"She was good! No, it was not a fake, if they were able to enliven him at all."

"How did she do it then?"

Ewen set down his empty glass.

"I don't know, maybe— There is a method. You start with a living descendant of the person you want to get to, that would be Draco in our case, then from him you get to his father—no, we don't need to go to Azkaban, it's just—all you know about him, all you love and hate about him, all that that has become part of you, all that makes up a connection between your souls, which the seer can follow. And then from him one can get to your grandfather, and from your grandfather to your great-grandfather, and so on, provided there's continuity in the family."

"What d'you mean 'continuity'?" Draco said.

"First of all, no patricide!"

Draco nodded.

"Then, there must be just normal relations between generations. That is, parents bring up their children, take part in their lives, and don't die when their children are still babies. Sorry, Harry."

"Cassius's parents were kissed by a Dementor when he was a baby. That's Draco's great-grandfather," Harry said.

"But he was brought up by his grandparents," Draco said. "He used to tell stories about them, when I was a child."

"That's good. That means we could probably get from him straight to his grandparents."

"So, that means, you actually could do it?"

"I don't know. It's an error-prone procedure. Every step is less reliable than the previous one. There is a limit to how far you can get. How many generations is it between you and Herman's parents?"

Draco went silent, counting the fingers on his left hand, then on his right hand, but suddenly stopped at the ring finger.

"Hyperion! He knew Gerard, Herman's son!" And he went on to tell Ewen the story of Gerard's seven-hundred-year coma, and how Hyperion found him, and all the disasters with the Malfoy girls and the Muggle-born sparrow.

"Did they have a meaningful relationship? Hyperion and Gerard?"

"I think so. He used to visit him regularly, up to a point."

"If they did, that's a big one. That's a shortcut through seven centuries!"

"So... you could...?"

Ewen shrugged.

"I could try. But getting to them is one thing. Getting the information out of them is another. It's— It can be dangerous."

"Dangerous? Why?"

"Thing is, I don't know. Rebecca, I mean, Benveniste promised to take me through it a hundred times, but she always finds a reason to postpone it, don't ask me why. Maybe your case will finally convince her to blow the gaff."

"You're not going to tell Benveniste about this!"

"Oh yes, I am! Sorry, Draco, I can't do it alone! I'm not going to run some insane risks if there's a way to do it safely."

Draco fell back against the cushions, his hands in his hair.

"Okay, Ewen," Harry said, "if we need Benveniste, we'll have Benveniste. Another brain working on the problem, what could be better?"

"And what a brain, too!" Ewen looked at Draco, who was horrified. "You don't want to go public with it yet, right? Don't worry. Let me handle her. She'll be okay. She's a former Unspeakable."

The cactus in the window had put down his newspaper and was now having a nap. Dorothy, back to her natural light green colour, uncurled her tendrils, and was swaying them slowly above the entrance door. The snitch was probably giving the Seekers a hard time, seeing that the Hufflepuffs hadn't stormed their common room yet.

Harry put away the locket, and as he did so, he felt Ewen's gaze on his hand, and Draco's on Ewen. All of a sudden, there was an elephant in the room. Ewen's eyes went back to jumping between the two of them, tic-tac-tic-tac-tic-tac... Was it that he gave him a slightly longer tac, than the tic he gave Draco, but Draco stood up abruptly, offered his thanks, and closed the door behind him before Dorothy even realised what was happening.

"I should be going, too. Thanks for your time, and," Harry said, standing up, "for your help."

"Don't thank me for that yet."

Harry turned to go.

"Wait!"

Ewen's hand on his wrist made Harry's heart... skip a beat or two. His body went all excited about the couple of inches of Ewen's skin, but his mind was terrified of what he was going to hear. Harry turned around slowly to face his fate.

"About, um, what happened. I'm sorry, I—"

"Please, stop saying sorry. I should be sorry. I should have told you—"

"I should have guessed. I was so stupid, I—"

"No."

"—looked into you and I couldn't make sense of you, I thought it was one of your— I mean Draco's Occlumency tricks, I should have guessed, but it just didn't occur to me—"

"No. You shouldn't have guessed anything," Harry didn't dare move, not to scare away Ewen's hand, which was still holding his wrist, "This is too crazy to guess. We should have told you. We should have told everyone, in fact. But, it is a bit of a step..."

"It sure is. I don't blame you. I don't know if I'd have the guts." Ewen withdrew his hand. "But, about what happened before the holidays," he was all fidgety, "I thought you were Draco, I—"

"I'm not Draco, but—" Some wild spirit took over Harry's reins. He had to say it now that he had a chance. He had to do it now that Ewen was here in front of him. "I would like," Harry caught Ewen's hand, "no, I would love to," Harry closed the space between them, "kiss you again!" Now, before Ewen had a chance to move on, Harry's lips pressed on Ewen's and all his thoughts vanished in an explosion of sunshine in his brain. When he became aware of his body again, Ewen was still in his arms, shivering, and kissing back! Their lips and tongues melted into one another, Harry's hands were running all over the curves and angles of Ewen's body, and his insides burned with sweet pain.

He felt his back hit the soft cushions, and Ewen's weight on his abdomen, and hunger in every muscle screaming for touch. And when the first wave pulled back, and their movements became softer and more rhythmic, Harry dissolved in the sunny bliss. He had no way to know how much of it was Ewen and how much the Hufflepuff sofa under him, but he felt loved.