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Part Three

"What if they keep us from seeing Harry?" Hermione whispered, as she and Ron stepped out of the Floo in a room that looked like it might be the center of Malfoy Manor.

Ron darted his gaze around, but didn't say anything. This wasn't the room they had Flooed into when they'd visited Harry before. It was a huge, tomb-like place, with alcoves along the walls that held busts or jewelry or other small, random things with silver light glowing down on them. Ron snorted. Showing off. Just like Malfoys.

But then he really took in what Hermione was saying, and shook his head firmly. "They wouldn't do that. They wouldn't have let us come here at all if they were just going to block us from seeing him."

"But they could."

"Yeah, but what sense would it make?"

"I just don't like," Hermione said, and studied the room around them instead of finishing her sentence. Ron waited more or less patiently for her to finish it, and she finally whispered, "I just don't like that they took Harry away from the school and that was the last time anyone outside his family saw him. He needed Healers. He needed to talk to people at the school."

"He has us now," Ron said, and slapped her on the back. "Come on, we'll see him and cheer him up if he's moping, you'll see."

"Henry has had Healers. And frankly, Granger, your speculation that he needed to talk to people at the school is insulting, when it's those people who let him get kidnapped in the first place."

Ron scowled as he saw Malfoy—Draco—leaning against the side of the doorway, his eyes fixed on them with disdain. Why had the bloody Malfoy parents sent him? Where was Harry?

"He needed to talk to Madam Pomfrey, and Professor Dumbledore needed to tell him about Moody escaping, and—"

"Madam Pomfrey isn't the kind of Healer who could do anything for him," Draco said dismissively. "And we know about Moody escaping. It was all over the Prophet, if nothing else. Come on, if you want to see my brother."

He started walking out of the room without waiting to see if they would follow. Ron cursed and scrambled after him. Hermione did the same, for once not scolding Ron for the language. He was grateful. Maybe she was feeling the same way herself.

They were at least of one accord in glaring at Draco's back, and trading dark glances.

What does he mean, not the kind of Healer who could do anything for him?

Draco led them down another corridor Ron had never seen before, and into a large room with huge windows that let in lots of light. Ron had to squint to see the small figure who stood near a green chair in the center of the room, smiling hesitantly at them. But then he made out the Gryffindor scarf around his neck, and ran straight towards him.

"Harry!"

"Mate!"

Harry grabbed both of them and hugged them desperately. Ron didn't think it was his imagination that Harry's arms were shaking. Then he took a step back and smiled again, more fully this time. "It's great to see you."

Hermione hadn't let go of Harry. "Have you been walled up here all this time?" she demanded. "Oh, Harry, we would have sent Howlers to the Malfoys if we'd known—"

"I was not walled up here all this time."

Ron jumped. Harry's voice was cold and sharp and slid into them like a knife between their ribs. Ron exchanged a wary look with Hermione and saw her studying Harry as if he had taken Polyjuice when they weren't looking.

"Where were you, then?" Ron asked. It seemed it was his turn to ask, since Hermione was biting her lip and flushing.

"Here and in a few places where I could fly and not have to encounter anybody." Harry breathed out. "I didn't want to give interviews to the Prophet about my kidnapping or have a meeting with Professor Dumbledore or any of that. But my family wasn't keeping me prisoner. Okay?"

"Okay," Ron said quietly, and he could feel himself flushing. This was the kind of thing that Harry had told him off for before, he realized. Acting like a prat and jumping to conclusions. It was still hard sometimes to think that Harry was a Malfoy, but Ron wanted to be his friend, and he wouldn't get there if he just argued with Harry all the time.

"I think you should meet with Professor Dumbledore, Harry," Hermione said. "He has important information about the war."

"Then why didn't he send that in a letter?"

"It's not safe. He warned us about writing to you, too, but I think it was important for us to do it."

"Not safe? What does he think, that a Death Eater is going to intercept the owls?" Harry made a scornful sound. "He's the one who never noticed something off about a man everyone says is one of his best friends for months and months!"

"Harry!"

Hermione started talking about how no one could possibly have expected Professor Dumbledore to know Moody was really a Death Eater and had put Harry's name in the Goblet, but Ron kept quiet. He kind of agreed with Harry. Professor Dumbledore was a great man, and he probably did have important information about the war, but…

He had allowed someone into the school disguised as one of his friends. He had allowed Harry's name to be put into the Goblet and not really tried to stop it.

Professor Dumbledore was powerful. But one of the things Ron had decided about powerful people was that it meant you had to be more careful, and take more responsibility for things. If Dad was responsible when someone screwed up in the Misuse of Muggle Artifacts Office and could be punished because one of his subordinates made a mistake, then Professor Dumbledore could be held responsible for his mistakes, too.

"You owe me something nice for keeping my mouth shut while she was shrieking at you."

"Hermione doesn't shriek."

Henry's response was mechanical, dry. He sat down in a chair near the fire and stared into the flames. Draco came over and sat beside him.

Henry was his twin, of course, but besides the fact that he was shorter than Draco because of what those Muggle beasts had done to him and he had the lightning bolt scar on his forehead, he almost never had the same expressions Draco did. Right now, Henry looked impossibly tired, and upset, and he kept rubbing his hand over his lips. Draco had seen that before, but never as much as he was right now.

"You're upset with them," Draco said at last.

"Yeah," Harry whispered. "I can see why they would believe I was shut up here, because they hate you and Mother and Father. But I told them that wasn't the case, and Hermione just wouldn't let the idea of me seeing Dumbledore go. What information could he possibly have? We know all the pertinent information about Moody escaping. Or, well, not Moody. Whoever he really was."

Draco nodded. Part of the problem was that while they knew now that Professor Moody hadn't been Professor Moody, the real man hadn't been able to provide them with any hints. He'd been taken off-guard and Stunned, and then kept unconscious for months while the imposter used his hair in the Polyjuice Potion. He had probably only survived because a dead person's hair would have been useless.

So now there was a Death Eater out there somewhere, helping the Dark Lord, and they didn't know who to watch for or guard against. Draco knew his parents had been using blood and darker things to strengthen the wards, and it had been hard for them to lower them for the few hours that Henry had wanted to visit with his friends.

Looking at Henry, still pale from the argument with Granger, Draco wished fiercely that the visit hadn't happened.

"Did you get any enjoyment out of that?" he finally asked.

Henry jerked his head down. "Yeah. Ron just stayed quiet and asked questions. You saw him. He learned from last year when I called him a prat and said I didn't want him around if he was just going to get upset all the time." A small smile crossed his face. "And we had that half-hour near the end there when I got Hermione off the scolding and lecturing and we managed to talk about other stuff."

"How can you stand her?" The question burst out of Draco, and he ignored the way Henry turned and glared at him. "I despise her, and it has nothing to do with her blood status. She nags and picks and scolds and assumes she has the right to do that! She doesn't! How can you just—I would murder her inside three weeks if I had to put up with that!"

Henry laughed, unexpectedly. Draco blinked and shut up. That sound had become so rare in the past few weeks that it was something to savor.

"Hermione is honestly great most of the time," Henry said, a gentle tone in his voice. "She's brave and loyal and knows that she doesn't know everything. But when she gets worried or upset, she reverts to this. I think she believes that if she can just nag me into taking care of myself better, than nothing bad will happen to me."

"That's nonsense."

"I know. But it's the way her worry manifests." Henry laughed again, but it trailed off into a sigh. "The other thing is that she's very certain Professor Dumbledore's a great man. He's the reason she wanted to go to Gryffindor."

Draco blinked. "What? Did he visit her when she got her letter or something?"

"No. But she read all about him, and Gryffindor seemed like the best House to her because that was where Dumbledore was."

"Please tell me you weren't that appallingly stupid and didn't choose Gryffindor for that reason."

"No." Henry looked at him, his eyes glinting in a way Draco had already learned to dread. "I didn't choose Gryffindor. I just didn't want to go to Slytherin because the arsehole who murdered the Potters was there and because this stuck-up blond wanker on the train insulted my first friend."

"Wanker," Draco muttered back, flushing. It hurt to remember that he had done that and had probably prevented his family from finding his brother a whole year early. Surely Henry would have spoken Parseltongue in Slytherin, if only because the common room was covered with carved snakes, and that would have meant Draco and then Mother and Father finding out.

"Yeah, whatever." Henry turned and stared into the fire.

"What—what was the ritual that you and Mother and Father and Aunt Andromeda did yesterday?" Just asking about it made heat crawl up Draco's face. Even though he was as much a part of the family as anyone else, and even though he cared about Henry just like their parents did, he hadn't been invited.

"A ritual to find the Horcruxes."

"You know where they are?"

"We were trying to figure out how many there were. And whether this book that Father had was one. The beams of light the ritual created didn't last long enough for us to track them all down."

"Oh." Draco frowned. He couldn't see any reason that he had to be left out of that ritual. "And what did it tell you?"

"Five, counting the one in me but not counting the book that Father had. Which was a Horcrux." Henry sighed and slumped back against his chair. "Seven altogether, given the snake. What are we going to do?"

"Fight him?" Henry should know that, really.

Henry shot him an unimpressed look that made Draco clear his throat and struggle against the impulse to bow his head. Yes, all right, maybe that had been a bit of a childish answer. "I mean," Henry whispered, "just that it sounds so impossible, to track down seven Horcruxes that could be hidden anywhere and destroy them. What if they're little Transfigured stones that he threw into the sea, or something?"

"You think the Dark Lord is that smart?"

Henry blinked. Then he said, "When you put it like that, not really."

Draco nodded. "I think they're more likely to be significant objects, like the snake, or like the diary. Father talked about how important it was to him. We'll still have to search hard to find them, but when we do, it shouldn't be that hard to be sure that they're Horcruxes. Or to destroy them."

Henry gave him a wan smile back. Then he said, "I think I'm going to go lie down for a little while," and stood up and wandered out of the room.

Draco followed him, but turned towards the sitting room where he knew his mother would be this time of day. Sure enough, she was sitting with one of the Black family's ledgers open in front of her, writing quick notes about what were probably large-Galleon transactions or investments. She glanced up, saw Draco, and patted the stool next to her without a word.

Draco sighed and slumped down next to her. Mother stroked his hair in silence for a moment, then went back to doing her notes. Draco watched the dance of her quill and wondered about how to phrase his question.

In the end, simple seemed best. When Mother pushed her ledger aside and looked at him, Draco took a deep breath and asked, "Why didn't you let me come into the ritual room with you and Henry and Father?"

"The ritual that your father used is one that is little understood," Mother murmured, and traced a pattern on Draco's forehead. Draco caught his breath when he realized it was in the shape of a lightning bolt. "We didn't know for sure what the consequences would be, especially when Henry is a living Horcrux and that is supposed to be impossible. I thought—I thought it might affect the Horcrux in his scar and make him scream. I did not want you to see your brother in pain."

Draco blinked slowly. Then he said, "Oh," and leaned his head against his mother. Again, she stroked his hair, and this time, he could feel the fine tremor in her fingers.

He had never once thought that might be the reason. He had known that Mother would have left Henry out of the ritual if she could have, but then it wouldn't have worked. Draco had simply been indignant that she didn't seem to consider him mature enough, or hardened enough, or whatever it was, to stand with Henry.

But no.

It was as simple as not wanting him to get upset.

Draco turned his head a little to the side and let Mother stroke his hair and thought, I'm going to make sure that he's in as little pain as possible in the future.

"Are you all right, Harry?"

Healer Letham's voice was gentle. She asked the question once and left it there. Harry knew that he could have sat with her for an hour in silence and she wouldn't repeat it. She didn't want to press him.

At the same time, she has to press me, or I won't actually heal.

Harry breathed out slowly, then looked up and said, "I'm so tired of getting lectures from Hermione."

"Ah, your friend. Yes, you did tell me that you'd had one visit with her and it hadn't gone well. You had another one?"

"Yeah, yesterday." Harry shook his head and kicked the stool in front of him. Since it was the one that had a tray from Dobby on it, full of small sandwiches, that just made the tray overbalance and fall on the floor, spilling food everywhere.

Harry closed his eyes and clenched his jaw. Everything in him hurt, spiraling grief and rage and upset. And now he'd caused a mess that he couldn't even use his wand to clean up.

"Here, permit me," Healer Letham murmured, and waved her wand. Harry heard the tray reassembling. He didn't open his eyes to see it. It had hit him all over again that his wand had the bloody Trace on it, and that he couldn't even draw it to defend himself if Voldemort or his pet Death Eater who'd impersonated Moody showed up knocking at the Manor gates tomorrow.

"Do you wish to discuss the visit?" Healer Letham asked. Harry opened his eyes to see that she had tucked her wand away and was calmly focused on him, the way she always was when they were in the same room.

"Yeah," Harry said. "Yeah, I think I have to."

"I would not wish to force you."

"It's not you forcing me. It's me forcing me."

Healer Letham looked as if she might protest for a moment. Then she nodded. "All right. What did you want to say? Or ask?"

"I told Hermione I want her to stop lecturing me," Harry said. "I told her I want her to stop nagging me to talk to Professor Dumbledore. And Professor Lupin. Somehow, he's back in there. I don't know, maybe he's coming back to be our Defense professor again." Harry didn't see how that could be, when most people seemed to know Lupin was a werewolf now—that had slipped out—but maybe Dumbledore could pull strings around that. "She got upset and said the war was important." Harry stopped.

"What you said sounds reasonable to me," Healer Letham murmured, "though of course it would depend on tone and wording. What did you say then?"

"I told her that my family and I were fighting the war in our own way, and Dumbledore and Lupin already tried to offer me training and I turned them down. She said I had to talk to them. That it was important. So I asked her what was so goddamn important, and she got upset and started to cry. And then Ron jumped on me for upsetting Hermione, and I fought with them both and told them not to come back."

Harry stopped again. He was breathing hard, he realized, as if he was back in that room with his best friends who—he didn't understand. They might have thought the Malfoys were holding him prisoner, but now they knew that wasn't true, so why did they and Harry keep arguing?

He didn't understand.

"There are only a few weeks until Hogwarts begins again," Healer Letham said. "That is not so long. Are you upset because of what you said to Hermione? Because of what she said to you? Because she wouldn't stop lecturing you when asked? Because Ron became involved?"

"Any. All." Harry shuddered and sank back in his seat. "I don't want to yell at them. But Mother and Father don't want me to tell them all about what we're doing to fight the war, either, and I understand that. Ron might blurt it out because he got upset. And Hermione might take it to Dumbledore, and I don't want him learning it."

"So you do not trust them."

"I trust them with my life!" Harry said hotly. "Just not with this."

"It is all right, Harry," Healer Letham said. Harry would have given a lot to know how she was so bloody calm all the time. "You can have different levels of trust for different people. You can argue with them and make up. You can have different friends and family outside the ones you used to have, without giving the old ones up."

"I sort of have given the Weasleys up," Harry muttered. He hadn't seen Molly Weasley as more than a nervous, distant face on the platform since second year. He hadn't been invited over to the Burrow during any holiday or summer. Of course, Mother and Father might not have let him go, but he hadn't been asked, either. "Even Ron's sister Ginny avoids me now. She had a crush on me at one point."

"Do you mourn that?"

"I really liked Mrs. Weasley," Harry muttered. "I don't—I mean, I don't really miss having a little girl with a crush on me in the same House, but it's sort of sad that she decided I was a bad person just because I'm a Malfoy."

Healer Letham nodded as if that made sense to her, even though it didn't really to Harry, and he was the one who'd said it. "Have you exchanged any owls with Ron or Hermione since you fought with them?"

"Just one. Hermione said it wasn't safe to send letters, according to Dumbledore, and she wouldn't be writing back to me after this. And then she said again that there was important stuff happening in the war and I should go to Hogwarts and talk to Dumbledore."

"Has he sent you any letters?"

"No. But he could say it was for the same reason that Hermione's saying. That it's not safe."

Healer Letham was silent for a while, probably thinking. Harry sat there and wondered if he was supposed to feel better just because he'd confessed to fighting with his friends.

Well. He did. A little. Healer Letham's words about how he didn't have to trust Ron and Hermione with everything and he could make up with them if they argued circled in his head. He could wait until they went back to school and see how things stood then.

And he didn't have to apologize for getting kidnapped or not meeting up with them right away. He'd been kidnapped. That was something they could understand. They probably would. He'd had fights with Ron and Hermione before, and they'd always made up in the end.

"Do you think it would help to write to them?" Healer Letham asked quietly.

Harry started. He had wandered far away in his own mind and hadn't even noticed her turning to look at him again. "I don't see how. Hermione said she wouldn't answer, and Ron didn't say that, but he's probably still upset with me for swearing at Hermione."

"Not letters that you send. Simply letters that you write, to lay out your feelings, for yourself, and keep. Perhaps someday you'll show them to your friends. Perhaps not. But it might be a way for you to let go of some of your own anger and decide what you'll say when you see them again."

Harry smiled hesitantly. "Like keeping a diary?"

"Yes, if you'd like. Perhaps you can write letters to other people and see what you would say in them." Healer Letham half-smiled at him. "I don't pretend this is an instant cure, but it is something I have seen work for other people in similar situations to yours, where they have fought with friends and are confused."

Harry thought about it for a little while, his legs swinging. He ended up taking a sandwich from the tray and eating it, then offering the tray to Healer Letham. She took one, too, and ate it while watching him.

"Yeah," Harry said. "I think I'd like to try that."

And he could think of lots of people he'd like to write to. Ron and Hermione, sure, but Mrs. Weasley, too. Remus Lupin. Dumbledore. Even his parents. Even Sirius Black. He definitely wouldn't send those last few, but he would like to try.

And something inside him that had felt stirred up like a whirlwind since the fight with Ron and Hermione calmed at last.