That night, he goes to dinner at the Burrow. Molly and Arthur are thrilled about the baby and furious that everyone else found out before they did—“It was the Gryffindor pub night, Mum!” Ron protests in desperation, “we couldn’t move it, it’s not my fault you wouldn’t skip Great Aunt Agatha’s Deathday Party!”—and when Harry looks for the knot of bitterness and fear in his chest, he finds it isn’t there. Or, well. A bit of it still is; maybe Draco’s thing about emotional compost was more appropriate.
Just—just. Maybe it won’t be so terrible. He holds Rose on his lap, and Ron and Hermione talk to each other, of course, but they talk to him, too, and so does everyone else. It’s not like the Gryffindor piss-up, the rest of Harry’s life: he doesn’t feel abandoned or alone most of the time. Lonely, sure, but not in the same way; not like he’s stuck at a table with no one to talk to.
He smiles a little, that strange feeling from this morning stealing over him again, foxing the edges of his awareness. He had someone to talk to last night, this morning; so what, if Ron and Hermione’s lives are changing, filling up? Harry’s life is changing too. Harry’s life is fuller, just now, than he thinks it’s maybe ever been before.
He thanks Molly for a lovely meal. He goes home. He falls asleep grinning, laughing to himself, about Draco saying “Get thee hence, thief!” which his brain has held back from him all day, saved as a happy little gift on which to close his eyes.
He wakes up to the crack of a house-elf appearing in his bedroom door.
Chapter 7
For a disorienting, half-awake second, Harry thinks he’s at Number 12, somehow. He’s grown so used to the crack of Kreacher entering and exiting those rooms that to hear it here, now, disrupts his sense of place.
Then he realizes that Kreacher is crying.
He jerks upright, throwing the covers back, abruptly aware that he’s in his own apartment, and there’s only one reason Kreacher would come here like this. “Kreacher? What’s happened! Right now!”
“The thieves,” Kreacher sobs, barely intelligible. “They are hurting the house, they took Master Draco’s wand and—”
Harry doesn’t wait for the rest of the sentence, just grabs his own wand out from under his pillow and Apparates directly from his bed to Grimmauld Place’s front gate.
His feet land on cool grass; he remembers that he’s barefoot, in pajamas, in the same moment that he notices he’s managed to touch down on the lawn. Either Draco’s re-keyed the wards to let Harry Apparate in or the intruders have taken them down entirely—god, Harry hopes it’s the first thing. He shudders to think of what someone could have done to the old house, to Draco, if they’ve taken down all the wards. Draco’s told him a little about the complicated web of spells that makes up Grimmauld Place’s security; all Harry’s really taken away is that it’s ancient and crotchety and has had so much magical energy poured into it over the years that there’d probably be a fairly massive explosion if it was to be dissolved all at once.
“But no one could do that,” Draco said, rolling his eyes, when Harry pointed this out. “And even if they did of course there wouldn’t be an explosion, it’s all tied in with the—oh look, Potter, can’t you just accept that you are woefully under-informed and live in blissful ignorance, like any decent person would do? You don’t have to be Auror Potter every second of the day, you know, and I for one wish you wouldn’t. He’s really very obnoxious.”
Harry let himself be talked out of further inquiries by the alarmingly intense allure to the idea of not being Auror Potter all the time. He thinks that’s going to be a pretty fucking cold comfort, though, if this night ends with the house—with Draco—scattered in pieces across the lawn.
There’s an earsplitting crash, and then he hears Draco scream, either in rage or in pain, from one of the upper floors. Harry runs.
The front door is shut; Harry slashes his wand furiously across the air in front of him and it isn’t anymore, slamming back just in time for him to burst through. He takes the stairs two at a time, trying to think tactically, trying not to panic—there’s too many floors, too many rooms, that scream could have come from anywhere above the first floor and Harry doesn’t have time to search them all and—
He realizes, all at once, that he has stepped on the biting stair, and it is not biting him.
Harry looks down, shocked into a split-second of stillness. He knows it’s the right stair —the sign is standing up on its little stick right next to his foot and everything—and Harry wonders if the house is trying to work with him, the way it did in the kitchen the morning before.
Feeling a little crazy and not caring—too desperate and frantic to care—Harry closes his eyes and whispers, “Help me. Please. Show me where they’ve got him.”
When he opens his eyes, he sees that sconces are flickering on, one after another, in a long and inarguable path down the hall.
Harry runs. His heartbeat is loud in his chest, in his ears—there’s no damage on this floor, wasn’t on the first either, as far as Harry could tell. The museum in the exact pristine condition it was when Harry left it the day before, and it’s chilling, strangely. Harry thinks it’s more unsettling than carnage would be. Whatever’s happening tonight, the intruders have clearly taken a more targeted approach, and while that might turn out to be better for the house, Harry knows too well it means the worst for Draco. No good can come from being in the path of highly focused thieves, especially ones as extensively trained as the two, possibly three, who escaped them last time.
The house guides him to the stairwell up to Draco’s private floors. Harry draws in a deep breath before he takes his first step through the doorway, not sure if he’s hoping for the wards to be down or not—on the one hand, there’s the potential explosive disaster to think about, but on the other hand, Harry doesn’t have time to force his mind through a barrage of distracting thoughts, reasons he should be elsewhere. Both turn out to be baseless concerns; Harry feels the magic of the wards slide over him, and then blinks, surprised, when they let him through.
He’s not sure if that was the house helping him out, or if Draco—
“I won’t!” Draco’s voice, sharp with distress; Harry turns towards the sound with his whole body, not needing the sconces anymore, running up the stairs and down the hall towards it at a dead sprint. “I already told you I won’t and I meant it, I’ll die first, I’d rather die—”
“You never could figure out when to keep your fool mouth shut, could you, Mr. Malfoy?” A cool voice, unfamiliar but…known, too, in a way Harry can’t quite quantify. “There is, of course, a perfectly feasible version of this plan where that’s exactly what happens to you. I did all this out of the kindness of my heart, you see, to avoid that tragic outcome. But if you really won’t cooperate, I’m afraid I’ll have no choice but to—”
“Die bloodily?” Harry snarls, and throws open Draco’s bedroom door.
Draco is pinned to the wall, suspended about half a foot off the floor, his captor— glamoured, average build and height, not either of the intruders from last time—standing below him with a wand to his throat. Draco’s arms and legs are bound in rope that’s clearly been attached to the wall with a Sticking Charm, and Harry aches to see that his wrists are red and raw already, chafed from what must be an unbearably uncomfortable hold. How long had Kreacher waited to come get him? How long has Draco been in here, being subjected to this? There’s a long, thin cut bleeding sluggishly across his right cheekbone, a bruise already forming at the edge of his jaw, another at his temple—where somebody probably cold-cocked him, Harry realizes, so enraged for a second that he can’t think, can’t move. He just stares at Draco, breath coming heavy, and watches the wide-eyed looks of surprise-horror-panic flickering across his face as he turns toward the sound of Harry’s voice.
“Harry!” Draco shouts, but Harry’s already seen the warning in his expression. He whips around just in time to see the guy sneaking up behind him, wand raised. Harry casts a Stunning Spell with his wand hand and punches out hard with the other; the curse misses, but the punch lands in the center of the guy’s throat, and he staggers, choking. Harry uses his distraction to cast a Body Bind, and then, when he realizes that this is the slight guy from the first break-in, throws a Conjunctivitis Curse in for good measure. He hopes it fucking hurts.
There’s a strangled, breathless cry from Draco, and when Harry turns it’s to see his captor hitting him for the second time, hard, in the stomach.
Harry doesn’t even cast. He just waves his wand and steps forward, an intent, menacing advance, and the man flies away from Draco, slams against the nearest wall so hard the windows rattle in their frames. Harry grins, a vicious, unfriendly one; slashes his wand in Draco’s direction without looking around to cut his bonds clear of the wall; bears down on this filthy, foul excuse for a man, who has been hurting Draco, who must pay.
Harry holds his wand underneath the man’s throat, a purposeful imitation of the position in which he just had Draco, and jams it in hard enough that the man gasps, watering eyes visible even through the glamour. “And how the fuck do you like it?” Harry yells, an inch from his face. He lowers his voice, digs the wand into the flesh of his neck even harder. “Because I’ll tell you what, mate, this is the least of your worries right now. You should be thanking your lucky fucking stars for this moment, because this moment? This is the least your life is going to suck for a long, long time. I hear Azkaban’s a real hell-hole, now the Dementors are gone—nothing to keep scum like you from turning on each other.” He pauses, thoughtful. “Maybe we should carve up your face, too, what do you think? Write ‘Me First’ right on your forehead for when you get there?”
“Potter,” Draco gasps, and Harry stops talking, but doesn’t look away from his prisoner. “Not that I don’t appreciate the sentiment, but he won’t be the only one led off in chains if your team shows up and finds you engaging in Auror brutality.”
“I didn’t call the team,” Harry snaps. He wants to hurt this man, wants to make him do more than just choke and splutter for air. He wants every inch of the pain Draco’s suffered delivered unto this sniveling, sorry excuse for a person, and he wants to be the one to give it to him, wants to hit him and hex him until he is too battered and broken to lay a hand on someone else ever again.
But then Draco’s hand is on his shoulder, warm, alive; Harry can feel the ropes that are still tied around Draco’s wrists thumping gently against his back. “This isn’t you,” Draco says, softly, into Harry’s ear; when Harry snarls out an incoherent noise of very firm disagreement, Draco tightens his grip, his voice going sharp. “I swear to every god, Harry, if I have to watch you mope around for the rest of your life because you snapped and maimed somebody, I may just finish what this hideous little home invader started. This. Isn’t. You. You’re not going to hurt him; you’re going to take him in. Say it.”
It’s the use of Harry’s first name that breaks through the cloud of rage blurring his vision, his judgment. It startles him, and then he’s startled all over again to realize it’s the second time Draco’s used it—he shouted it, too, when he saw the other intruder nearly get the drop on him.
Harry wants this guy to bleed, wants it so badly that his fists and his chest and his teeth hurt, but—he wants him to bleed for Draco, and that’s not what Draco wants.
“I’m not,” Harry forces out, through gritted teeth, “going to hurt him. I’m going to take him in.”
“Very good,” says Draco, and lets go.
Slowly, Harry lowers his wand from the guy’s throat—not far, just far enough to cast another Body Bind, make sure the little fuck can’t go running off. The man coughs for a minute, and then he smiles at Draco over Harry’s shoulder, says, “Why, thank you, Mr. Malfoy. What an unexpectedly merciful spirit you’ve got.”
There’s a ringing pause, and then:
“Do you know what,” says Draco, voice flat and unyieldingly cold, “one punch couldn’t hurt.”
Harry hits the man so hard his own hand hurts, so hard he can’t quite control his follow through, scrapes his knuckles raw on the edge of the window frame just next to his face. It’s worth it; for the sound he makes, for the blood he spits out of his mouth, but for the satisfied little sigh from Draco, most of all.
“Tell me what the fuck you’ve been doing here,” Harry growls, low. “Right now.”
“Harry, Harry, Harry,” says the man, and there it is again—Harry knows he’s never heard this voice before, but he can’t shake the sense that he’s talked to the person underneath the shimmer of the glamour, knows him somehow. “You’re really not very good at this, are you? I know you don’t have backup coming, and you’ve already played the rest of your hand—poor child, it’s not your fault. All you ever knew was brute force and dogged persistence, wasn’t it? You weren’t supposed to be an Auror. You weren’t supposed to live long enough.”
Harry doesn’t really care about any of this, could give a shit about some criminal spitting up painful truths that Harry himself accepted long ago, but Draco snaps, “You shut the fuck up right now or I’ll let him murder you. There’s a lovely spot in the back garden where we could bury your body; no one would ever know.”
“Oh, this is interesting,” their captive breathes, looking to Draco and then back at Harry, a speculative expression on his false features. “Harry, you’re not even wearing shoes —what, did you Apparate straight from your bed to answer the Call? And Mr. Malfoy, if I didn’t know better I’d say you were more concerned with Harry Potter’s feelings than you are with exacting revenge. It’s hardly very Slytherin, is it? Most damning, boys, most damning, no matter which way you slice it.”
“How’s this for Slytherin,” Draco says, voice raised a little, the edge of hysteria in it, “shut up and answer his fucking questions or I’ll kill you myself!”
“You know,” says the man, “I don’t think I will.”
“Oh, you will,” Harry says. “Or, if you don’t, your friend in the hall with the crushed windpipe will—well, it’ll probably be a while before he can talk. Maybe he can write it all down on a piece of paper for us or something. Because when I take you in—”
“You won’t be taking either one of us in,” says the man, very calm.
