Walk of Shame (14/?)
Title: Walk of Shame (14/?)
Author:
dracogotgame
Word Count: 6,000
Rating: R
Warning: Angst.
Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter. This was written for fun, not profit.
Author's Notes: Part of the Walk of Shame Series.
And so, Draco talked. Now that he had someone to listen, the words came easily. He told Weasley everything he could think of, from the night of the Yule Ball and Harry’s conversation with Kingsley to his meeting today. He did skim over the parts about eavesdropping on Harry and Weasley that one time though. Weasley was an Auror, and he had little reason to trust Draco at the best of times. And Draco really needed this man on his side. He couldn’t handle this alone anymore.
Weasley, for his part, was quiet. Every now and then, he asked a question but other than that he kept his silence and listened to Draco.
Finally, when Draco winded down, he spoke.
“So he’s been talking to an informant,” he muttered, half to himself. He looked up at Draco. “You said you were watching them under a Notice Me Not Charm. Did you hear anything?”
Draco’s heart sank and he shook his head. “No. I tried but I couldn’t get close enough.”
Weasley looked disappointed, but not exactly surprised. “Probably wouldn’t have made much difference even if you could,” he offered. “Harry would have used a Muffliato at the very least. He’s…” Weasley paused there for a moment. When he spoke up again, he sounded tired. “He’s bloody good at what he does. Maybe too good.”
Draco thought back-trying to separate the Harry he knew now and the forthright boy he’d known at Hogwarts so many years ago. It hurt that they felt like two different people in his head.
“What else?” Weasley pressed. “You said something about a map.”
“He paid the…informant. I don’t know how much. But they talked for a while after. I think he had a specific location in mind. He kept pointing at a spot on the map and Harry kept nodding.”
“Did you get a look at it?”
Draco had never felt more useless. “No,” he admitted bitterly. “When I tried, I bumped a table. The whole thing went pear shaped after that. I barely got out without getting hexed.”
“Damn,” Weasley cursed. “I’m not going to lie, that would have been helpful.”
Draco chose silence as Weasley got up to pace.
“So here’s what we know,” he said. “Kingsley ordered the Devon case closed. That was about two weeks ago. Harry thought something was off. That’s when he started researching Hallucinogenic Potions with you, right?”
Draco nodded. He couldn’t talk around the lump in his throat. Had Harry only spent time with him because it would have made his research easier? Or was it the other way around? Did it even matter anymore when he had clearly lied about everything else?
“Then the scene at the Yule Ball,” Weasley went on. “He suspected that it was a follow up to the Devon incident.”
“He had a row about it with Kingsley,” Draco added.
St Mungo’s just reported back. The potion composition is an exact match to the sample we retrieved from Devon.
Harry had said that, he remembered.
“Right. So Kingsley wanted to brush it under the rug, but Harry thought differently. He decided to resume investigation…”
“Illegally?” Draco contributed dryly.
“Let’s call it ‘unofficially’, for now. We don’t know if he’s done anything illegal,” Weasley corrected, with a sharp look. Ever the loyal friend, Draco thought. It was an admirable trait, despite being a Weasley hallmark.
Say what you will about Harry, but his friends would move the world to help him. That kind of loyalty could only be inspired by something good, right? It helped a bit to think that. Even if Harry had done this all wrong, maybe his intentions had been good.
“Malfoy, come on,” Weasley chided. “Quit zoning out on me, will you? Help me through this. He started meeting informants. Well, one informant at the very least. We don’t know how many times they met exactly. You only noticed that one visit because Harry told you the bloke didn’t show up. That’s when you started getting suspicious, yeah?”
He thought back to eaves-dropping on Harry at the DMLE. He’d had his suspicions for longer, but that meeting was the first concrete evidence he could think of.
“Pretty much,” he told Weasley instead. There was no need to show all his cards. Not just yet.
“And then, the night after, you saw him using a two way mirror. Why did you think he was talking to the same person? He’s an Auror. He could have been investigating anything.”
“He said ‘you didn’t show up’,” Draco answered. “And he sounded…upset. I just made the connection and ran with it.”
“That’s fair,” Weasley conceded. “And then you saw him in Hogsmeade, followed him to the inn and saw him with this bloke.” Weasley went silent and mulled it all over in his head. His blue eyes were sharp and wary when he turned back to Draco. “Why go through all this trouble?” he asked. “Why follow him and spy on him? It has nothing to do with you. The attack at the Yule Ball wasn’t directed at you. Ten other guests succumbed to the same potion. Technically speaking, you’re in no more danger than anybody else. So, why bother?”
“Because I’m worried about him,” Draco snapped. Logically, he knew Weasley was just trying to get all the facts, but was it really so hard for him to believe that Draco might actually care about someone other than himself? “Do you think it’s easy for me-asking you for help? If I could fix this myself, I would. But I can’t! He’s not…he’s not letting me. He’s…he’s lying to me and he’s going to do Merlin-knows-what and I can’t…I have to stop him, damn it! I can’t just…”
“Malfoy.” Weasley’s voice was sharp, but he looked at least a little apologetic. “I wasn’t…I didn’t mean anything by it. I mean, it’s obvious that you…” He shook his head and trailed off. “Look, there are things you don’t know about Harry. And maybe you should.”
“Like what?” Draco demanded.
Weasley looked pained for a moment. “He’s…struggling. With the War.”
Draco blinked in surprise. Struggling? But the War had been over for years. And Harry always seemed so confident and sure of himself. Cocky, almost. All easy smiles and boyish charm. Was it all a façade? If he was struggling with the past, he was doing a damn good job of hiding it.
“He’s good at hiding pain,” Weasley continued, as if reading his mind. He sounded bitter now, and frustrated. “Had to be, I guess, with his childhood. He ever mention any of that?”
Draco shook his head numbly. His childhood?
“Well, I won’t go into it. It’s something he should bring up on his own,” Weasley said. “The point is, he learned how to act like everything was just fine at a very young age. It…I think it used to go away at Hogwarts, for a while. But then shite would happen and if it didn’t, he’d have to go home again. And then the War…and we…we lost so many. We tried, me and Hermione, to get him to talk to a Mind Healer but he wouldn’t have it.”
Draco grabbed the glass of water and drained it. He dearly wished he had something stronger. How could he not have known any of this? Why hadn’t he seen? Surely, there must have been a sign…
He’s good at hiding pain.
Yes, but that good? And now…now Harry was caught up in something dangerous…
“We have to stop him,” he whispered. “He can’t…he can’t be out there like this! He’s going to hurt himself, he’s going to get…”
“We’ll stop him,” Weasley cut into his panicked rant. “We will, Malfoy. But I need you to work with me.”
“What can I do?” Draco asked bitterly. “I told you, he’s not listening to me. He lied to me, Weasley, and he didn’t even think twice about it. You do it. Talk to him. Maybe if he heard it from someone he cares about…”
“You think I haven’t tried?” Weasley demanded. He stopped short all of a sudden, as if just catching up with the rest of Draco’s words. “And seriously? You really think, after all of this, that Harry doesn’t care about you?”
Draco looked away and Weasley let his head drop in his palms.
“Merlin, you’re thick,” he muttered. “The bloke’s fancied you since Sixth Year, you loon.”
Draco scoffed. From now on, he wasn’t going to believe anything until it point blank smacked him in the face. Especially where Harry was concerned…
“It doesn’t matter,” he replied firmly. “Right now, I just need a way to stop him. Before he does anything stupid.”
Weasley nodded sombrely. “Yeah, you’re right.” He stood up and waved his wand. Draco watched as a filing cabinet slid out from the wall, coming to rest behind Weasley’s desk.
“What are you doing?” he asked.
Weasley started leafing through the files with a grim expression. “Retrieving everything we have on the Devon case. I should warn you though, this might take a while.” He grunted as he struggled with the stack of folders.
Draco rolled his eyes and headed over to the cabinet. “Step aside, Weasley, and let the Archivist through.”
****
They went over the folders for hours. Draco glanced at the clock. It was nearing ten. He wondered what Harry must be thinking and promptly pushed the thought away. This was more important. He was doing this for him.
“Devon was the biggest hit but it wasn’t the first,” Weasley explained, flipping open a file. “There were four other incidents before that, over seven or eight months. It was all pretty quick in retrospect.”
He jabbed his finger at a page and Draco leaned forward. He frowned as he scanned the photograph.
“Jesse Macdonald,” Weasley explained. “Used to work in International Relations. He was heading home one night when he just collapsed in the street. Started screaming about people attacking him and killing his family. Turns out Macdonald was taken by Snatchers during the War. When they got him to Saint Mungo’s, they found an almost lethal amount of hallucinogens in his bloodstream- crudely brewed, the report said, but effective enough. The Potion had jogged his worst memories.”
Draco stared at the bright young man in the photograph. His throat went dry as he remembered the Yule Ball, how his own nightmare had come alive. The same thing had happened to him.
“Then, Barbara Jones,” Weasley went on. “Same thing, different circumstances. Worked in Games and Sports. She was with her boyfriend when she suddenly attacked him. Apparently, she was convinced he was going to use the Cruciatus Curse on her. Jones was at Hogwarts when the Carrows took over. I don’t think I need to tell you what might have happened to her. The Healers found traces of the same Potion in her bloodstream.”
Draco closed his eyes. He felt a little sick.
Weasley shut the folder and tossed it away. “There were two others. Same profile. Ministry workers, prior bad experiences during the War. They were all slipped the same damned hallucinogenic draught. If it makes you feel any better, they all recovered well enough.”
It did not make him feel any better.
“Why didn’t you people do anything?” he demanded shakily.
Weasley gave him a sharp glare. “There wasn’t enough to go on,” he snapped. “We work inside the system, Malfoy. It’s not like the War when we could just…break into Gringott’s and fly out on a dragon. I mean, don’t get me wrong, I’m glad that sort of thing is behind me now but believe me, it was a whole lot easier to get shite done back then.”
There was nothing in that story Draco even remotely understood and he didn’t want to.
“So, no arrests?” he asked instead.
Weasley shook his head. “No evidence, no suspects. All we had was the potion composition. It was the only thing connecting all the attacks. And what were we supposed to do with that?”
What Harry had been doing, Draco realised suddenly. Researching the composition, separating the ingredients and…possibly tracking suppliers. You couldn’t brew potions without ingredients. He was backtracking the attackers from where they’d got their supplies.
It was the only logical thing to do.
“Anyway,” Weasley went on, “after the fourth attack, the Minister’s Office got involved. The big-wigs panicked. They figured once the press got involved, the public would descend into hysteria. And, in the end, it came down to the Minister’s interests versus four relatively unimportant nondescript Ministry employees. Kingsley fought as long as he could, but in the end, they ordered the investigation closed. And then, Devon happened.”
Draco sat up, suddenly alert as Weasley retrieved another folder.
Weasley took a deep breath and flipped a few pages. “Here we go. Three weeks ago, the Department of Magical Transportation held their annual conference to discuss the issue of new licenses for Floo and Portkey Travel. The conference was scheduled in the Wizard District of Dawlish village, in Devon. There were approximately twenty three attendees accounted for at the event.”
Draco nodded. He’d heard about that conference in passing. At the time, he’d paid no mind to it. Why would he? It was just something DMT did every year- an utterly dull and unremarkable waste of time.
“But something went wrong,” Weasley continued. “It was the same thing all over again. Only this time, the targets weren’t chosen individually. Thirteen guests succumbed to intense hallucinations and started a panic. Four sustained serious injuries, along with a couple of bystanders. The rest went hysterical. They were convinced they were going to die. A few managed to break into the Muggle district and…well, things got violent.”
Oh, Merlin.
“Were any Muggles…?”
“Killed? No, but that’s just luck. Some were hexed, others got hit with some pretty nasty curses. The Aurors made it in time to restore order and cover their tracks. Harry was the Auror in charge of that mission.”
It’s all under control, Head Auror. We shouldn’t have any more…incidents in Devon.
That’s what he was talking about, that day in Kingsley’s office. Draco wrapped his arms around himself, feeling lost and overwhelmed.
What had they stumbled into?
“It was a horror,” Weasley sighed. “Muggle Relations got involved. They smoothed things over, kept the press at bay. And of course…that’s when the Minister’s Cabinet showed up.”
Weasley paused and made a face.
Draco stared at him. “Are you serious?” He couldn’t help the disgust that laced his tone. “Even after all this, they wanted to keep it quiet?”
Weasley shrugged. “It’s what people do, isn’t it? I think they were hoping if they ignored it long enough, it would go away. The victims were taken to St Mungo’s, everyone involved had to sign a magically binding non-disclosure contract. The whole thing was glossed over. They made excuses- there was a glitch in the wards, someone had a bit too much Firewhisky…but our investigation showed something else.”
Draco kept silent. His fist clenched. He felt scared all of a sudden, and he didn’t know why.
“For one thing,” Weasley went on, “St Mungo’s reported that there were traces of an unidentified Potion residue in the drinking water. They matched samples from the previous attacks and sure enough, they were identical. Hallucinogens in the drinking water. Same strategy, same group.”
A group that had already attacked four people before. And then targeted an entire conference. A group that was getting bolder…
“What was the other thing?” Draco asked.
Weasley’s expression turned even grimmer. “This time, the attackers left something behind. A sign. They’ve become confident. They wanted to show us who they were.”
The office seemed colder all of a sudden. The buzz of the Sound Proofing Spell was pounding away in his head.
Weasley gave him a hard look. “What I’m about to show you is strictly confidential, Malfoy. Four people- including the Minister- know about it. I need hardly tell you that I could lose my job by showing you this.”
“Nobody’s going to hear about it from me,” Draco replied immediately. He was almost afraid of knowing, but he had to. “You have my word, Weasley.”
Weasley nodded uneasily, and flipped the dossier to the last page. “Take a good, long look,” he said, “and tell me if you recognise this.”
He knew. Even before he took the folder with trembling hands, deep down inside he knew what he was going to find.
And there it was.
The picture was grimy and blurred, clearly taken in a hurry. But Draco knew what he was looking at. In the picture, etched on the doors of the building- presumably the place where the attack had taken place- a familiar insignia had been burnt into the doors. The Dark Mark grinned at him from the photograph, a misshapen skull with a snake coiling out of its mouth.
No. Please, no. Not this…
Draco felt the bile rise to his throat. He was sure he could feel his arm burning, despite knowing the Mark had faded years ago. He tossed the folder as far away as he could, vaguely aware of Weasley watching him carefully.
“Death Eaters,” he rasped.
But how? They were all gone. He knew this. All those bastards were dead, in exile or safely locked up in Azkaban.
“Neo Death Eaters,” Weasley corrected grimly. “It’s not the old outfit. They don’t have the resources to pull off something like this, not anymore. But a new group? One with no prior record to its name? It’s possible. Likely, in fact. We’re not looking at a resurgence here. We’re looking at a new strain.” His blue eyes glittered and he turned back to regard Draco. “I think you understand now.”
He did. He understood perfectly.
“How do you know?” he asked in a hollow voice. “That it’s not the old group? What makes you think it’s a new band of lunatics?”
“Simple,” Weasley answered confidently. “The Mark. The original Death Eaters- the ones who actually branded themselves with the ghastly thing- knew how to Summon it magically. You remember the Quidditch World Cup, yes? The one right before Fourth Year.”
The memory made him sick with shame. He remembered watching as the Mark floated into the sky, grinning down at them all as the Death Eaters stormed the campsite and torturing Muggleborns. He had laughed then, like it was all a game.
How stupid he’d been, he thought bitterly. Stupid and selfish and cruel.
“Yes,” he replied, forcing himself to meet Weasley’s eyes. “I remember. They cast it magically. It was…floating. Not drawn or etched into anything.”
Weasley, to his credit, didn’t seem interested in bringing up his misspent youth. Unlike Draco, he was clearly over it.
“Right,” he said, brushing past the awkward moment efficiently. “Now, look at our little souvenir here. They clearly didn’t know the spell to cast the Mark. If they had, they would have used it- no question. The best they could do was carve out a cheap imitation on the front door. So, that’s my conclusion. A new group trying to revive the old ideology. Targeting the Ministry and trying to divide us from within. Pulling stunts to stoke old fears and disappearing without a trace. And there you have it-textbook terrorism.”
Draco nodded. It all made sense. Despite everything, he couldn’t help but be impressed by Weasley’s deductive reasoning. It must have shown in his expression, because Weasley offered up a half smile.
“Chess,” was his succinct answer to the unspoken question.
Despite the flash of levity, Draco felt his heart sink again. His mind went back to Harry and his eyes prickled.
“This is why,” he whispered. He understood now. What must this be like for Harry? People getting hurt. The Dark Mark. The Ministry being less than useless. Neo Death Eaters. The whole thrice damned thing happening all over again.
He must be going out of his mind.
Draco swallowed painfully. “He won’t stop,” he whispered. “He’s going to go after them.”
He could feel it in his bones. And…and how would that turn out? He imagined Harry, in his mind’s eye, going it alone with no back-up. Facing a horde of faceless lunatics who wanted him dead, for the sake of a madman who’d been dead and buried for years. He imagined Harry fighting, determined and stoic, until he was overrun…
“No.”
The word escaped him without his consent, an instinctive denial to the horrific prospect. This couldn’t happen. Harry couldn’t do this. Not alone, not again. It was too dangerous. There was too much at stake.
“You need to stop him.” He turned back to Weasley, desperation clear in his eyes. He wasn’t above begging, not if it meant keeping Harry safe. “Please. You’re an Auror, you could do something. Detain him. Arrest him if you have to!”
“On what grounds, Malfoy?” Weasley asked, his tone gentler than he’d probably intended. “We don’t have a thing to hold him, not a shred of evidence. And no offence, but your word is definitely not going to hold up in a formal hearing.”
“But…”
“Look, panicking isn’t going to help. We need to work with what we’ve got. We can’t stop Harry from going after them. But we can beat him to it.”
Draco stilled and frowned. “What…”
“I don’t just sit here on my arse all day, you know,” Weasley interrupted him. “I’ve been working on something, in case of a situation like this.” He was rummaging in his desk drawer as he spoke, sifting through papers and assorted rubbish. Finally, he seemed to find what he was looking for. He emerged with it, his eyes firmly on Draco again. “I know this is starting to feel like overkill, but I need you to understand that this is extremely confidential. I need your word that you won’t speak of it, not to anyone. And especially not Harry.”
Draco nodded impatiently, wishing Weasley would just get on with it. The man pulled out an ornate envelope from the desk drawer. Draco’s eyes widened as he spotted the Ministry’s crest emblazoned on the envelope.
And right below it, in sharp red letters the word ROAR was stamped.
“A Request for Official and Accurate Reinvestigation,” Weasley supplied. “Signed by the Minister himself. I’ve been petitioning for the past week, finally got the old git to see sense.” He held it out to Draco. “With this in the bag, we can relaunch the investigation through official channels. It might take longer, but at least everything will be in the clear. I’m assembling a team right now.”
Draco was only half listening, still staring at the envelope. “I thought you said the Minister wanted to brush the whole thing under the rug. How did you get him to agree to this?”
Weasley sighed, looking tired and worn out. “It wasn’t easy. Definitely would have helped to have Harry on our side. But in the end, I reminded him that the last time a Minister ignored the Dark Mark rising, he wound up resigning in disgrace. That got things moving pretty quickly. Long story short, he signed it, stamped my name on the letter and told me to ‘make it go away’.” He snorted and tossed the envelope away. “Some things never change.”
Draco’s mind was working a mile a minute, processing what he’d just been told.
“So, that’s it,” he offered finally. “You can tell Harry that you’re looking into it and it will be over. He’ll finally stop.”
The stirring of hope and relief quickly faded in the face of Weasley’s expression.
“Will he?” Weasley challenged. “Or will he try to beat us to the punch?”
“He…”
Draco trailed off, suddenly unsure. Would Harry step back? The Dark Mark floated through his head again, along with Harry’s words. The last time Weasley had made this offer…
Maybe it shouldn’t be so difficult to do the right thing.
Draco’s shoulders slumped.
“He doesn’t trust anyone right now,” Weasley said softly. “Not the Ministry. Not the Aurors. Not even me. Trust me, I know my best friend. He thinks this is his job, his responsibility.”
“But it’s not!” Draco burst out. “It’s not his job to keep putting himself in danger just because…”
“He won’t see it that way,” Weasley said firmly. “I guarantee you, the second he finds out that the DMLE is looking into this again, he’ll take off. Go after them. And right now, he has a head-start. He knows more than we do. He’ll get there before us, and…I don’t know what he’s up against but I know he shouldn’t be facing it alone.”
“So what do we do?” Draco asked in a small voice. Every turn seemed like a dead end. He’d never felt this helpless before, and he hated it.
“Proceed,” Weasley said firmly. “We’re looking into things. We just have to keep doing that. It might take time but our only option is to collect all the information we can. In the meantime, we need to make sure Harry stays put.”
He cast a meaningful glance at Draco, who sputtered incredulously.
“What? You want me to stall him? How am I supposed to do that?”
“You’re the only one who can,” Weasley replied, tapping his fingers against desk impatiently. “You’re the only one he listens to these days.”
“But I can’t…”
“Malfoy, do you want to help or not?”
Draco fell sullenly silent. Of course he wanted to help. He just didn’t think he could.
“Look,” Weasley went off again. “Here’s the situation. Harry’s got everything he needs for a stakeout. Specifically, a location and a time to strike. He knows where they’re holing up, and he knows when he’s going to take them out. We need both of those if we’re going to pull this off before him.”
“And how do you plan to get this information?” Draco demanded snidely. “Unless you’re suggesting Legilimency, he’s not going to give you a damn…”
“That won’t work,” Weasley replied, with all the confidence of someone who’d already considered rifling through his best friend’s head before deciding it won’t do any good. Draco stared at him, absently wondering if it had come to this because the situation was that dire, or if all the Gryffindors he knew were just cleverly disguised Slytherins after all.
It was all very disorienting.
But the thought- random as it was- sparked something in his mind.
“The informant,” he blurted out. His eyes widened. Weasley stared at him. Draco leaned forward as an idea sprung to his mind- one that just might work. “You don’t need to look into Harry’s head,” he explained, slowly, carefully, almost daring this plan to fall apart. “You can look in mine. I didn’t see the map, but I did see the informant.”
Weasley sat up, suddenly alert. “If we can identify him…”
They could find him and make him give up the location of the attackers. He might even be able to tell them when Harry planned to go after them.
Location. Time to strike.
Draco was already standing up, eager to get this moving. This could work, he thought with a dazed sort of conviction. This might actually work.
“No Legilimency,” he declared firmly. Even after all of this, there was no way he was letting Weasley root about in his head. Besides, Legilimency required a certain amount of skill. He doubted that Weasley- capable though he may be- could pull it off. However, there was another option. “But I’ll submit to using a Pensieve.”
Weasley nodded. Apparently, it was good enough for him. “Come on,” he said, joining Draco and leading him out, to a smaller room at the back. “The sooner we find this bloke, the better.”
****
He had only used a Pensieve once before. It was right after the War and right before his Trial. The Aurors had made him sit him down in a chair, just like this one, and ordered him to empty his memories into a marble basin. As if it was that easy. The process- invasive and uncomfortable though it was- had helped in the long run. His memories had helps clear him and Mother. Father- who was looking at a sentence in Azkaban at the very least- proved to be acting under duress. He was exiled instead.
It had been helpful, yes. But it was definitely not pleasant.
He tried not to think about it as he peered into the basin with Weasley. Draco’s lip curled as the unidentified wizard’s face floated and rippled in the basin- grubby, wrinkled and pockmarked.
“I don’t recognise him,” he said.
“I do,” Weasley replied grimly. “That’s Mundungus Fletcher.”
The name meant nothing to him.
“You wouldn’t know him,” Weasley explained. “He’s a shady character, spends most of his time in Knockturn Alley. Probably involved in all kinds of illegal shite, not that we’ve ever pinned anything long enough to stick.”
Draco nodded speculatively. A man who knew his way around Knockturn Alley…if anyone could trace back illegally purchased Potions ingredients, it would probably be this Mundungus character. “Why haven’t you arrested him before?” he asked curiously.
He raised an eyebrow when Weasley went slightly red.
“He was…loyal to Dumbledore,” Weasley admitted reluctantly. “The Order tolerated him, but only just. Still, he got the job done. My guess is that’s why Harry went to him. Probably knew Dung wouldn’t give him away.” He sighed and ran a frustrated hand over his face.
Draco could only share the sentiment.
“Do you know how to find him?” he asked. “And if you do, what then?”
Weasley shrugged. “I’ll figure something out. It shouldn’t be too hard to hold him for, at least for a while. He’s always involved in something or the other.”
Draco nodded. It was a sound plan. And to be frank, it was all they had. If Fletcher didn’t come through…
“In the meantime,” Weasley continued, “you’re going to have to stall Harry. Keep him here. The second Fletcher talks, we’ll move out. And that should be enough. Harry won’t like it, but it should be enough to get him to back off.”
And once that happened they would talk, Draco decided. About everything.
“I don’t want to lie to him,” he mumbled. It was stupid and childish, and he didn’t have another choice. This was how it had to be, he knew that. But he wanted someone to know anyway- even if it didn’t matter.
This…was not how he’d hoped for things to go.
“I know,” Weasley replied. To his credit, he sounded sympathetic. “I don’t either. But we have to, Malfoy. If we don’t, if he goes through with this…he could lose his job. Or worse, get hurt.”
There were worse things that could happen, Draco thought. He pushed the thought from his mind. He wasn’t going to let this go on. He would hold out, if it meant keeping Harry here. Where it was safe.
It’s just a little lie, he told himself firmly, desperately. It will be over soon.
Just as soon as they had Fletcher.
As if on cue, Weasley nodded and reached for his cloak. “I’m heading out now. You best get back. And remember, Malfoy, he can’t know. If he finds out…”
He trailed off.
Draco turned the ominous implications of the unspoken warning over in his head, until Weasley gave him one last parting nod and left the office.
Draco followed soon after, his heart growing heavier with every step.
****
It was midnight by the time he made it home. The light was on in the kitchen.
Draco swallowed and took a shaky step forward, wondering just how he was supposed to do this. He hadn’t thought this far. He hadn’t prepared for this.
Somehow, he just knew he wasn’t half the liar Harry was. He was going to give it away. He was going to fuck it up, and it would be all his fault…
“Draco.”
He started. His head jerked up, he took a step back in retreat.
Harry emerged from the kitchen, looking tired and worn out. Draco’s heart clenched at the sight.
“Hey,” he croaked. A part of him wanted to rush forward, wrap his arms around Harry and hold him close. He couldn’t make himself do it.
Harry’s brow furrowed. His eyes roved Draco’s body. Draco could imagine him cataloguing everything- his exhausted expression, his wrinkled clothing…
“Where were you?” Harry asked. “I waited all night.”
This was it. Lie, he ordered himself firmly. You can do it. He did it. You can too.
“I know,” Draco found himself saying. “I know, I’m sorry. There…was an emergency. At the Archives.”
It was weak. Too weak to hold. He could imagine Harry turning his story in his head, poking holes in it. Suddenly, he didn’t want to deal with it. He turned away abruptly, focusing on sorting his bookshelf.
“Oh,” was all Harry said. “Is that all?”
Draco nodded tersely, ignoring the prickle in his eyes and the tight set of his jaw. “Someone messed up my whole filing system. It took hours to put it all back together.”
“I see.”
What the hell was that supposed to mean? He turned back to Harry, only then noticing the stiff set of his shoulders.
“You couldn’t call?” Harry asked, deceptively casual. “To let me know you were busy?”
As if you tell me everything you do.
It was a spiteful thought, and it hurt. Draco exhaled sharply. “It slipped my mind.”
Harry nodded, tight and angry. “Fine,” he said coolly. He shifted on one foot, uncertain for a moment, but then he turned his back and started walking away. “Well, obviously you’re still preoccupied. I’ll just go to bed then. Goodnight.”
The door to the bedroom shut with a soft click. Harry was gone.
Draco swallowed painfully before making his way to the kitchen. He needed a drink, he decided.
And maybe, after he fell asleep next to Harry, he would wake up tomorrow and this whole thing would just turn out to be one big nightmare.
Part 15
Author:
dracogotgame
Word Count: 6,000
Rating: R
Warning: Angst.
Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter. This was written for fun, not profit.
Author's Notes: Part of the Walk of Shame Series.
And so, Draco talked. Now that he had someone to listen, the words came easily. He told Weasley everything he could think of, from the night of the Yule Ball and Harry’s conversation with Kingsley to his meeting today. He did skim over the parts about eavesdropping on Harry and Weasley that one time though. Weasley was an Auror, and he had little reason to trust Draco at the best of times. And Draco really needed this man on his side. He couldn’t handle this alone anymore.
Weasley, for his part, was quiet. Every now and then, he asked a question but other than that he kept his silence and listened to Draco.
Finally, when Draco winded down, he spoke.
“So he’s been talking to an informant,” he muttered, half to himself. He looked up at Draco. “You said you were watching them under a Notice Me Not Charm. Did you hear anything?”
Draco’s heart sank and he shook his head. “No. I tried but I couldn’t get close enough.”
Weasley looked disappointed, but not exactly surprised. “Probably wouldn’t have made much difference even if you could,” he offered. “Harry would have used a Muffliato at the very least. He’s…” Weasley paused there for a moment. When he spoke up again, he sounded tired. “He’s bloody good at what he does. Maybe too good.”
Draco thought back-trying to separate the Harry he knew now and the forthright boy he’d known at Hogwarts so many years ago. It hurt that they felt like two different people in his head.
“What else?” Weasley pressed. “You said something about a map.”
“He paid the…informant. I don’t know how much. But they talked for a while after. I think he had a specific location in mind. He kept pointing at a spot on the map and Harry kept nodding.”
“Did you get a look at it?”
Draco had never felt more useless. “No,” he admitted bitterly. “When I tried, I bumped a table. The whole thing went pear shaped after that. I barely got out without getting hexed.”
“Damn,” Weasley cursed. “I’m not going to lie, that would have been helpful.”
Draco chose silence as Weasley got up to pace.
“So here’s what we know,” he said. “Kingsley ordered the Devon case closed. That was about two weeks ago. Harry thought something was off. That’s when he started researching Hallucinogenic Potions with you, right?”
Draco nodded. He couldn’t talk around the lump in his throat. Had Harry only spent time with him because it would have made his research easier? Or was it the other way around? Did it even matter anymore when he had clearly lied about everything else?
“Then the scene at the Yule Ball,” Weasley went on. “He suspected that it was a follow up to the Devon incident.”
“He had a row about it with Kingsley,” Draco added.
St Mungo’s just reported back. The potion composition is an exact match to the sample we retrieved from Devon.
Harry had said that, he remembered.
“Right. So Kingsley wanted to brush it under the rug, but Harry thought differently. He decided to resume investigation…”
“Illegally?” Draco contributed dryly.
“Let’s call it ‘unofficially’, for now. We don’t know if he’s done anything illegal,” Weasley corrected, with a sharp look. Ever the loyal friend, Draco thought. It was an admirable trait, despite being a Weasley hallmark.
Say what you will about Harry, but his friends would move the world to help him. That kind of loyalty could only be inspired by something good, right? It helped a bit to think that. Even if Harry had done this all wrong, maybe his intentions had been good.
“Malfoy, come on,” Weasley chided. “Quit zoning out on me, will you? Help me through this. He started meeting informants. Well, one informant at the very least. We don’t know how many times they met exactly. You only noticed that one visit because Harry told you the bloke didn’t show up. That’s when you started getting suspicious, yeah?”
He thought back to eaves-dropping on Harry at the DMLE. He’d had his suspicions for longer, but that meeting was the first concrete evidence he could think of.
“Pretty much,” he told Weasley instead. There was no need to show all his cards. Not just yet.
“And then, the night after, you saw him using a two way mirror. Why did you think he was talking to the same person? He’s an Auror. He could have been investigating anything.”
“He said ‘you didn’t show up’,” Draco answered. “And he sounded…upset. I just made the connection and ran with it.”
“That’s fair,” Weasley conceded. “And then you saw him in Hogsmeade, followed him to the inn and saw him with this bloke.” Weasley went silent and mulled it all over in his head. His blue eyes were sharp and wary when he turned back to Draco. “Why go through all this trouble?” he asked. “Why follow him and spy on him? It has nothing to do with you. The attack at the Yule Ball wasn’t directed at you. Ten other guests succumbed to the same potion. Technically speaking, you’re in no more danger than anybody else. So, why bother?”
“Because I’m worried about him,” Draco snapped. Logically, he knew Weasley was just trying to get all the facts, but was it really so hard for him to believe that Draco might actually care about someone other than himself? “Do you think it’s easy for me-asking you for help? If I could fix this myself, I would. But I can’t! He’s not…he’s not letting me. He’s…he’s lying to me and he’s going to do Merlin-knows-what and I can’t…I have to stop him, damn it! I can’t just…”
“Malfoy.” Weasley’s voice was sharp, but he looked at least a little apologetic. “I wasn’t…I didn’t mean anything by it. I mean, it’s obvious that you…” He shook his head and trailed off. “Look, there are things you don’t know about Harry. And maybe you should.”
“Like what?” Draco demanded.
Weasley looked pained for a moment. “He’s…struggling. With the War.”
Draco blinked in surprise. Struggling? But the War had been over for years. And Harry always seemed so confident and sure of himself. Cocky, almost. All easy smiles and boyish charm. Was it all a façade? If he was struggling with the past, he was doing a damn good job of hiding it.
“He’s good at hiding pain,” Weasley continued, as if reading his mind. He sounded bitter now, and frustrated. “Had to be, I guess, with his childhood. He ever mention any of that?”
Draco shook his head numbly. His childhood?
“Well, I won’t go into it. It’s something he should bring up on his own,” Weasley said. “The point is, he learned how to act like everything was just fine at a very young age. It…I think it used to go away at Hogwarts, for a while. But then shite would happen and if it didn’t, he’d have to go home again. And then the War…and we…we lost so many. We tried, me and Hermione, to get him to talk to a Mind Healer but he wouldn’t have it.”
Draco grabbed the glass of water and drained it. He dearly wished he had something stronger. How could he not have known any of this? Why hadn’t he seen? Surely, there must have been a sign…
He’s good at hiding pain.
Yes, but that good? And now…now Harry was caught up in something dangerous…
“We have to stop him,” he whispered. “He can’t…he can’t be out there like this! He’s going to hurt himself, he’s going to get…”
“We’ll stop him,” Weasley cut into his panicked rant. “We will, Malfoy. But I need you to work with me.”
“What can I do?” Draco asked bitterly. “I told you, he’s not listening to me. He lied to me, Weasley, and he didn’t even think twice about it. You do it. Talk to him. Maybe if he heard it from someone he cares about…”
“You think I haven’t tried?” Weasley demanded. He stopped short all of a sudden, as if just catching up with the rest of Draco’s words. “And seriously? You really think, after all of this, that Harry doesn’t care about you?”
Draco looked away and Weasley let his head drop in his palms.
“Merlin, you’re thick,” he muttered. “The bloke’s fancied you since Sixth Year, you loon.”
Draco scoffed. From now on, he wasn’t going to believe anything until it point blank smacked him in the face. Especially where Harry was concerned…
“It doesn’t matter,” he replied firmly. “Right now, I just need a way to stop him. Before he does anything stupid.”
Weasley nodded sombrely. “Yeah, you’re right.” He stood up and waved his wand. Draco watched as a filing cabinet slid out from the wall, coming to rest behind Weasley’s desk.
“What are you doing?” he asked.
Weasley started leafing through the files with a grim expression. “Retrieving everything we have on the Devon case. I should warn you though, this might take a while.” He grunted as he struggled with the stack of folders.
Draco rolled his eyes and headed over to the cabinet. “Step aside, Weasley, and let the Archivist through.”
****
They went over the folders for hours. Draco glanced at the clock. It was nearing ten. He wondered what Harry must be thinking and promptly pushed the thought away. This was more important. He was doing this for him.
“Devon was the biggest hit but it wasn’t the first,” Weasley explained, flipping open a file. “There were four other incidents before that, over seven or eight months. It was all pretty quick in retrospect.”
He jabbed his finger at a page and Draco leaned forward. He frowned as he scanned the photograph.
“Jesse Macdonald,” Weasley explained. “Used to work in International Relations. He was heading home one night when he just collapsed in the street. Started screaming about people attacking him and killing his family. Turns out Macdonald was taken by Snatchers during the War. When they got him to Saint Mungo’s, they found an almost lethal amount of hallucinogens in his bloodstream- crudely brewed, the report said, but effective enough. The Potion had jogged his worst memories.”
Draco stared at the bright young man in the photograph. His throat went dry as he remembered the Yule Ball, how his own nightmare had come alive. The same thing had happened to him.
“Then, Barbara Jones,” Weasley went on. “Same thing, different circumstances. Worked in Games and Sports. She was with her boyfriend when she suddenly attacked him. Apparently, she was convinced he was going to use the Cruciatus Curse on her. Jones was at Hogwarts when the Carrows took over. I don’t think I need to tell you what might have happened to her. The Healers found traces of the same Potion in her bloodstream.”
Draco closed his eyes. He felt a little sick.
Weasley shut the folder and tossed it away. “There were two others. Same profile. Ministry workers, prior bad experiences during the War. They were all slipped the same damned hallucinogenic draught. If it makes you feel any better, they all recovered well enough.”
It did not make him feel any better.
“Why didn’t you people do anything?” he demanded shakily.
Weasley gave him a sharp glare. “There wasn’t enough to go on,” he snapped. “We work inside the system, Malfoy. It’s not like the War when we could just…break into Gringott’s and fly out on a dragon. I mean, don’t get me wrong, I’m glad that sort of thing is behind me now but believe me, it was a whole lot easier to get shite done back then.”
There was nothing in that story Draco even remotely understood and he didn’t want to.
“So, no arrests?” he asked instead.
Weasley shook his head. “No evidence, no suspects. All we had was the potion composition. It was the only thing connecting all the attacks. And what were we supposed to do with that?”
What Harry had been doing, Draco realised suddenly. Researching the composition, separating the ingredients and…possibly tracking suppliers. You couldn’t brew potions without ingredients. He was backtracking the attackers from where they’d got their supplies.
It was the only logical thing to do.
“Anyway,” Weasley went on, “after the fourth attack, the Minister’s Office got involved. The big-wigs panicked. They figured once the press got involved, the public would descend into hysteria. And, in the end, it came down to the Minister’s interests versus four relatively unimportant nondescript Ministry employees. Kingsley fought as long as he could, but in the end, they ordered the investigation closed. And then, Devon happened.”
Draco sat up, suddenly alert as Weasley retrieved another folder.
Weasley took a deep breath and flipped a few pages. “Here we go. Three weeks ago, the Department of Magical Transportation held their annual conference to discuss the issue of new licenses for Floo and Portkey Travel. The conference was scheduled in the Wizard District of Dawlish village, in Devon. There were approximately twenty three attendees accounted for at the event.”
Draco nodded. He’d heard about that conference in passing. At the time, he’d paid no mind to it. Why would he? It was just something DMT did every year- an utterly dull and unremarkable waste of time.
“But something went wrong,” Weasley continued. “It was the same thing all over again. Only this time, the targets weren’t chosen individually. Thirteen guests succumbed to intense hallucinations and started a panic. Four sustained serious injuries, along with a couple of bystanders. The rest went hysterical. They were convinced they were going to die. A few managed to break into the Muggle district and…well, things got violent.”
Oh, Merlin.
“Were any Muggles…?”
“Killed? No, but that’s just luck. Some were hexed, others got hit with some pretty nasty curses. The Aurors made it in time to restore order and cover their tracks. Harry was the Auror in charge of that mission.”
It’s all under control, Head Auror. We shouldn’t have any more…incidents in Devon.
That’s what he was talking about, that day in Kingsley’s office. Draco wrapped his arms around himself, feeling lost and overwhelmed.
What had they stumbled into?
“It was a horror,” Weasley sighed. “Muggle Relations got involved. They smoothed things over, kept the press at bay. And of course…that’s when the Minister’s Cabinet showed up.”
Weasley paused and made a face.
Draco stared at him. “Are you serious?” He couldn’t help the disgust that laced his tone. “Even after all this, they wanted to keep it quiet?”
Weasley shrugged. “It’s what people do, isn’t it? I think they were hoping if they ignored it long enough, it would go away. The victims were taken to St Mungo’s, everyone involved had to sign a magically binding non-disclosure contract. The whole thing was glossed over. They made excuses- there was a glitch in the wards, someone had a bit too much Firewhisky…but our investigation showed something else.”
Draco kept silent. His fist clenched. He felt scared all of a sudden, and he didn’t know why.
“For one thing,” Weasley went on, “St Mungo’s reported that there were traces of an unidentified Potion residue in the drinking water. They matched samples from the previous attacks and sure enough, they were identical. Hallucinogens in the drinking water. Same strategy, same group.”
A group that had already attacked four people before. And then targeted an entire conference. A group that was getting bolder…
“What was the other thing?” Draco asked.
Weasley’s expression turned even grimmer. “This time, the attackers left something behind. A sign. They’ve become confident. They wanted to show us who they were.”
The office seemed colder all of a sudden. The buzz of the Sound Proofing Spell was pounding away in his head.
Weasley gave him a hard look. “What I’m about to show you is strictly confidential, Malfoy. Four people- including the Minister- know about it. I need hardly tell you that I could lose my job by showing you this.”
“Nobody’s going to hear about it from me,” Draco replied immediately. He was almost afraid of knowing, but he had to. “You have my word, Weasley.”
Weasley nodded uneasily, and flipped the dossier to the last page. “Take a good, long look,” he said, “and tell me if you recognise this.”
He knew. Even before he took the folder with trembling hands, deep down inside he knew what he was going to find.
And there it was.
The picture was grimy and blurred, clearly taken in a hurry. But Draco knew what he was looking at. In the picture, etched on the doors of the building- presumably the place where the attack had taken place- a familiar insignia had been burnt into the doors. The Dark Mark grinned at him from the photograph, a misshapen skull with a snake coiling out of its mouth.
No. Please, no. Not this…
Draco felt the bile rise to his throat. He was sure he could feel his arm burning, despite knowing the Mark had faded years ago. He tossed the folder as far away as he could, vaguely aware of Weasley watching him carefully.
“Death Eaters,” he rasped.
But how? They were all gone. He knew this. All those bastards were dead, in exile or safely locked up in Azkaban.
“Neo Death Eaters,” Weasley corrected grimly. “It’s not the old outfit. They don’t have the resources to pull off something like this, not anymore. But a new group? One with no prior record to its name? It’s possible. Likely, in fact. We’re not looking at a resurgence here. We’re looking at a new strain.” His blue eyes glittered and he turned back to regard Draco. “I think you understand now.”
He did. He understood perfectly.
“How do you know?” he asked in a hollow voice. “That it’s not the old group? What makes you think it’s a new band of lunatics?”
“Simple,” Weasley answered confidently. “The Mark. The original Death Eaters- the ones who actually branded themselves with the ghastly thing- knew how to Summon it magically. You remember the Quidditch World Cup, yes? The one right before Fourth Year.”
The memory made him sick with shame. He remembered watching as the Mark floated into the sky, grinning down at them all as the Death Eaters stormed the campsite and torturing Muggleborns. He had laughed then, like it was all a game.
How stupid he’d been, he thought bitterly. Stupid and selfish and cruel.
“Yes,” he replied, forcing himself to meet Weasley’s eyes. “I remember. They cast it magically. It was…floating. Not drawn or etched into anything.”
Weasley, to his credit, didn’t seem interested in bringing up his misspent youth. Unlike Draco, he was clearly over it.
“Right,” he said, brushing past the awkward moment efficiently. “Now, look at our little souvenir here. They clearly didn’t know the spell to cast the Mark. If they had, they would have used it- no question. The best they could do was carve out a cheap imitation on the front door. So, that’s my conclusion. A new group trying to revive the old ideology. Targeting the Ministry and trying to divide us from within. Pulling stunts to stoke old fears and disappearing without a trace. And there you have it-textbook terrorism.”
Draco nodded. It all made sense. Despite everything, he couldn’t help but be impressed by Weasley’s deductive reasoning. It must have shown in his expression, because Weasley offered up a half smile.
“Chess,” was his succinct answer to the unspoken question.
Despite the flash of levity, Draco felt his heart sink again. His mind went back to Harry and his eyes prickled.
“This is why,” he whispered. He understood now. What must this be like for Harry? People getting hurt. The Dark Mark. The Ministry being less than useless. Neo Death Eaters. The whole thrice damned thing happening all over again.
He must be going out of his mind.
Draco swallowed painfully. “He won’t stop,” he whispered. “He’s going to go after them.”
He could feel it in his bones. And…and how would that turn out? He imagined Harry, in his mind’s eye, going it alone with no back-up. Facing a horde of faceless lunatics who wanted him dead, for the sake of a madman who’d been dead and buried for years. He imagined Harry fighting, determined and stoic, until he was overrun…
“No.”
The word escaped him without his consent, an instinctive denial to the horrific prospect. This couldn’t happen. Harry couldn’t do this. Not alone, not again. It was too dangerous. There was too much at stake.
“You need to stop him.” He turned back to Weasley, desperation clear in his eyes. He wasn’t above begging, not if it meant keeping Harry safe. “Please. You’re an Auror, you could do something. Detain him. Arrest him if you have to!”
“On what grounds, Malfoy?” Weasley asked, his tone gentler than he’d probably intended. “We don’t have a thing to hold him, not a shred of evidence. And no offence, but your word is definitely not going to hold up in a formal hearing.”
“But…”
“Look, panicking isn’t going to help. We need to work with what we’ve got. We can’t stop Harry from going after them. But we can beat him to it.”
Draco stilled and frowned. “What…”
“I don’t just sit here on my arse all day, you know,” Weasley interrupted him. “I’ve been working on something, in case of a situation like this.” He was rummaging in his desk drawer as he spoke, sifting through papers and assorted rubbish. Finally, he seemed to find what he was looking for. He emerged with it, his eyes firmly on Draco again. “I know this is starting to feel like overkill, but I need you to understand that this is extremely confidential. I need your word that you won’t speak of it, not to anyone. And especially not Harry.”
Draco nodded impatiently, wishing Weasley would just get on with it. The man pulled out an ornate envelope from the desk drawer. Draco’s eyes widened as he spotted the Ministry’s crest emblazoned on the envelope.
And right below it, in sharp red letters the word ROAR was stamped.
“A Request for Official and Accurate Reinvestigation,” Weasley supplied. “Signed by the Minister himself. I’ve been petitioning for the past week, finally got the old git to see sense.” He held it out to Draco. “With this in the bag, we can relaunch the investigation through official channels. It might take longer, but at least everything will be in the clear. I’m assembling a team right now.”
Draco was only half listening, still staring at the envelope. “I thought you said the Minister wanted to brush the whole thing under the rug. How did you get him to agree to this?”
Weasley sighed, looking tired and worn out. “It wasn’t easy. Definitely would have helped to have Harry on our side. But in the end, I reminded him that the last time a Minister ignored the Dark Mark rising, he wound up resigning in disgrace. That got things moving pretty quickly. Long story short, he signed it, stamped my name on the letter and told me to ‘make it go away’.” He snorted and tossed the envelope away. “Some things never change.”
Draco’s mind was working a mile a minute, processing what he’d just been told.
“So, that’s it,” he offered finally. “You can tell Harry that you’re looking into it and it will be over. He’ll finally stop.”
The stirring of hope and relief quickly faded in the face of Weasley’s expression.
“Will he?” Weasley challenged. “Or will he try to beat us to the punch?”
“He…”
Draco trailed off, suddenly unsure. Would Harry step back? The Dark Mark floated through his head again, along with Harry’s words. The last time Weasley had made this offer…
Maybe it shouldn’t be so difficult to do the right thing.
Draco’s shoulders slumped.
“He doesn’t trust anyone right now,” Weasley said softly. “Not the Ministry. Not the Aurors. Not even me. Trust me, I know my best friend. He thinks this is his job, his responsibility.”
“But it’s not!” Draco burst out. “It’s not his job to keep putting himself in danger just because…”
“He won’t see it that way,” Weasley said firmly. “I guarantee you, the second he finds out that the DMLE is looking into this again, he’ll take off. Go after them. And right now, he has a head-start. He knows more than we do. He’ll get there before us, and…I don’t know what he’s up against but I know he shouldn’t be facing it alone.”
“So what do we do?” Draco asked in a small voice. Every turn seemed like a dead end. He’d never felt this helpless before, and he hated it.
“Proceed,” Weasley said firmly. “We’re looking into things. We just have to keep doing that. It might take time but our only option is to collect all the information we can. In the meantime, we need to make sure Harry stays put.”
He cast a meaningful glance at Draco, who sputtered incredulously.
“What? You want me to stall him? How am I supposed to do that?”
“You’re the only one who can,” Weasley replied, tapping his fingers against desk impatiently. “You’re the only one he listens to these days.”
“But I can’t…”
“Malfoy, do you want to help or not?”
Draco fell sullenly silent. Of course he wanted to help. He just didn’t think he could.
“Look,” Weasley went off again. “Here’s the situation. Harry’s got everything he needs for a stakeout. Specifically, a location and a time to strike. He knows where they’re holing up, and he knows when he’s going to take them out. We need both of those if we’re going to pull this off before him.”
“And how do you plan to get this information?” Draco demanded snidely. “Unless you’re suggesting Legilimency, he’s not going to give you a damn…”
“That won’t work,” Weasley replied, with all the confidence of someone who’d already considered rifling through his best friend’s head before deciding it won’t do any good. Draco stared at him, absently wondering if it had come to this because the situation was that dire, or if all the Gryffindors he knew were just cleverly disguised Slytherins after all.
It was all very disorienting.
But the thought- random as it was- sparked something in his mind.
“The informant,” he blurted out. His eyes widened. Weasley stared at him. Draco leaned forward as an idea sprung to his mind- one that just might work. “You don’t need to look into Harry’s head,” he explained, slowly, carefully, almost daring this plan to fall apart. “You can look in mine. I didn’t see the map, but I did see the informant.”
Weasley sat up, suddenly alert. “If we can identify him…”
They could find him and make him give up the location of the attackers. He might even be able to tell them when Harry planned to go after them.
Location. Time to strike.
Draco was already standing up, eager to get this moving. This could work, he thought with a dazed sort of conviction. This might actually work.
“No Legilimency,” he declared firmly. Even after all of this, there was no way he was letting Weasley root about in his head. Besides, Legilimency required a certain amount of skill. He doubted that Weasley- capable though he may be- could pull it off. However, there was another option. “But I’ll submit to using a Pensieve.”
Weasley nodded. Apparently, it was good enough for him. “Come on,” he said, joining Draco and leading him out, to a smaller room at the back. “The sooner we find this bloke, the better.”
****
He had only used a Pensieve once before. It was right after the War and right before his Trial. The Aurors had made him sit him down in a chair, just like this one, and ordered him to empty his memories into a marble basin. As if it was that easy. The process- invasive and uncomfortable though it was- had helped in the long run. His memories had helps clear him and Mother. Father- who was looking at a sentence in Azkaban at the very least- proved to be acting under duress. He was exiled instead.
It had been helpful, yes. But it was definitely not pleasant.
He tried not to think about it as he peered into the basin with Weasley. Draco’s lip curled as the unidentified wizard’s face floated and rippled in the basin- grubby, wrinkled and pockmarked.
“I don’t recognise him,” he said.
“I do,” Weasley replied grimly. “That’s Mundungus Fletcher.”
The name meant nothing to him.
“You wouldn’t know him,” Weasley explained. “He’s a shady character, spends most of his time in Knockturn Alley. Probably involved in all kinds of illegal shite, not that we’ve ever pinned anything long enough to stick.”
Draco nodded speculatively. A man who knew his way around Knockturn Alley…if anyone could trace back illegally purchased Potions ingredients, it would probably be this Mundungus character. “Why haven’t you arrested him before?” he asked curiously.
He raised an eyebrow when Weasley went slightly red.
“He was…loyal to Dumbledore,” Weasley admitted reluctantly. “The Order tolerated him, but only just. Still, he got the job done. My guess is that’s why Harry went to him. Probably knew Dung wouldn’t give him away.” He sighed and ran a frustrated hand over his face.
Draco could only share the sentiment.
“Do you know how to find him?” he asked. “And if you do, what then?”
Weasley shrugged. “I’ll figure something out. It shouldn’t be too hard to hold him for, at least for a while. He’s always involved in something or the other.”
Draco nodded. It was a sound plan. And to be frank, it was all they had. If Fletcher didn’t come through…
“In the meantime,” Weasley continued, “you’re going to have to stall Harry. Keep him here. The second Fletcher talks, we’ll move out. And that should be enough. Harry won’t like it, but it should be enough to get him to back off.”
And once that happened they would talk, Draco decided. About everything.
“I don’t want to lie to him,” he mumbled. It was stupid and childish, and he didn’t have another choice. This was how it had to be, he knew that. But he wanted someone to know anyway- even if it didn’t matter.
This…was not how he’d hoped for things to go.
“I know,” Weasley replied. To his credit, he sounded sympathetic. “I don’t either. But we have to, Malfoy. If we don’t, if he goes through with this…he could lose his job. Or worse, get hurt.”
There were worse things that could happen, Draco thought. He pushed the thought from his mind. He wasn’t going to let this go on. He would hold out, if it meant keeping Harry here. Where it was safe.
It’s just a little lie, he told himself firmly, desperately. It will be over soon.
Just as soon as they had Fletcher.
As if on cue, Weasley nodded and reached for his cloak. “I’m heading out now. You best get back. And remember, Malfoy, he can’t know. If he finds out…”
He trailed off.
Draco turned the ominous implications of the unspoken warning over in his head, until Weasley gave him one last parting nod and left the office.
Draco followed soon after, his heart growing heavier with every step.
****
It was midnight by the time he made it home. The light was on in the kitchen.
Draco swallowed and took a shaky step forward, wondering just how he was supposed to do this. He hadn’t thought this far. He hadn’t prepared for this.
Somehow, he just knew he wasn’t half the liar Harry was. He was going to give it away. He was going to fuck it up, and it would be all his fault…
“Draco.”
He started. His head jerked up, he took a step back in retreat.
Harry emerged from the kitchen, looking tired and worn out. Draco’s heart clenched at the sight.
“Hey,” he croaked. A part of him wanted to rush forward, wrap his arms around Harry and hold him close. He couldn’t make himself do it.
Harry’s brow furrowed. His eyes roved Draco’s body. Draco could imagine him cataloguing everything- his exhausted expression, his wrinkled clothing…
“Where were you?” Harry asked. “I waited all night.”
This was it. Lie, he ordered himself firmly. You can do it. He did it. You can too.
“I know,” Draco found himself saying. “I know, I’m sorry. There…was an emergency. At the Archives.”
It was weak. Too weak to hold. He could imagine Harry turning his story in his head, poking holes in it. Suddenly, he didn’t want to deal with it. He turned away abruptly, focusing on sorting his bookshelf.
“Oh,” was all Harry said. “Is that all?”
Draco nodded tersely, ignoring the prickle in his eyes and the tight set of his jaw. “Someone messed up my whole filing system. It took hours to put it all back together.”
“I see.”
What the hell was that supposed to mean? He turned back to Harry, only then noticing the stiff set of his shoulders.
“You couldn’t call?” Harry asked, deceptively casual. “To let me know you were busy?”
As if you tell me everything you do.
It was a spiteful thought, and it hurt. Draco exhaled sharply. “It slipped my mind.”
Harry nodded, tight and angry. “Fine,” he said coolly. He shifted on one foot, uncertain for a moment, but then he turned his back and started walking away. “Well, obviously you’re still preoccupied. I’ll just go to bed then. Goodnight.”
The door to the bedroom shut with a soft click. Harry was gone.
Draco swallowed painfully before making his way to the kitchen. He needed a drink, he decided.
And maybe, after he fell asleep next to Harry, he would wake up tomorrow and this whole thing would just turn out to be one big nightmare.
Part 15