The Haunting of Malfoy Manor, Part 1
“Am I disturbing you?” asked Lupin, rapping on the doorframe and leaning into the office.
“No,” said Harry, straightening up and smiling, simultaneously pleased and wary. It was always nice to see Lupin under any circumstance, but if he and Sirius just wanted Harry to dinner this week they’d have owled.
“Do you think you could knock off a bit early and come take a look at something with me? I’d like your insight.”
“Yeah,” said Harry, glancing down at his desk. He’d been doing his taxes, actually, just waiting for five o’clock. The convoluted tangle of math and logic and bureaucratic footwork created by his conversion this year of some of his holdings into Muggle currency for the securities market was oddly engrossing at the end of a long, dull day.
Lupin leaned in the doorway, chatting amiably about this and that bit of news. Harry gathered his cloak, eyed his briefcase, shrugged, and left it. He glanced right as they exited together - the Minister’s door was still closed, the floo call with the French dragging on.
“Where to?” Harry asked as they made their way down the lift and through the lobby, past the restored fountain complete with more politically acceptable statues, even to Hermione’s sensibilities.
“To see a classmate of yours, as it happens,” said Lupin, holding the door open for him. “Miss Parvati Patil.”
Harry came to a sudden stop. “Parvati? But I heard she --“
“She has,” said Lupin. “Quite the unsuspected entrepreneur, Miss Patil.”
“Huh,” said Harry, beginning to move again. “What’re we going to see, then?” He was relieved that his voice only squeaked a little.
Lupin cast him a sideways glance. “I’d rather not say, if you don’t mind. I’d like you to draw your own conclusions.”
Harry shrugged his agreement. He could make a guess now anyway - Lupin wouldn’t bring him for anything simple or easily handled. Or, he thought a little cynically, non-educational.
“The front garden,” said Lupin, as they reached the apparation point. He paused and touched Harry’s shoulder. “Is this all right?”
“Yes,” said Harry shortly, and went first.
He appeared just where he had intended, outside the mouth of the hedge maze, standing on the brick walk with his back to the house. The days were getting longer as winter bowed to spring, and Harry found himself standing in the deep shadow of the building, cast by the sinking sun. He turned on his heel, tilting his head back. Malfoy Manor looked just the same - gothic and stern, the stone façade a maze of carvings and ledges and balconies. Except, he saw, eyes tracking to the left, for the south wing. He’d never seen the ruins, having been unconscious at the time, but if half the Prophet’s awed enthusiasm was to be believed they’d been quite spectacular. That whole part of the building was gone now, a well-tended lawn in its place and the gaping hole in the main block of the Manor bricked over.
“She’s expecting us,” said Lupin, popping into existence at his shoulder. “Shall we?”
Their knock was answered by a hulking man who towered at least eight inches over Harry’s head. “Madam is expecting you,” he said when Lupin introduced himself. “This way, please.”
He led them straight back to the drawing room, where Voldemort had liked to hold court. Harry had seen it only the once and it didn’t seem to have changed; it was very much Narcissa Malfoy’s, all cool elegance. Which, Harry supposed, could be put to many a purpose.
Parvati rose from the window seat as they entered. She was dressed in blouse and slacks, looking almost indistinguishable from any Ministry witch on Muggle Friday. “Mr. Lupin,” she said, coming forward with hand extended. “Thank you very much for coming. And Harry, this is a pleasant surprise.” Her hand was firm and cool in his. They were exactly of a height, Harry saw; she tall for a girl - a woman, he amended quickly - and he on the short end for a man.
“I thought Harry might be of some assistance,” said Lupin adroitly.
“Of course,” murmured Parvati. She glanced at the hovering servant. “Tobias, please fetch some tea for our guests.” She beckoned them to a conversational grouping of sofas with a sweep of the hand. Harry had the sense, watching her settle, ankles crossed, of leashed theatricality, a purposeful deliberation of gesture and voice that could be turned to almost any end.
“Well then,” said Lupin, setting his worn briefcase at his feet. “Your note was most unexpected. And interesting. Tell me how you think I can help you.”
Parvati considered a moment, visibly organizing her thoughts. “I bought the house nine months ago,” she began. “You may have heard. The Ministry had seized it, of course, and then sold it when they were through digging. Quite a mess they left, too.”
Harry winced internally - that hadn’t all been the Ministry. It made sense, though -- he’d had neither the inclination nor the strength to closely scrutinize the news for the first few months after the war. With Lucius and Narcissa Malfoy dead, and Draco as good as, the estate must have been in shambles.
“Do you know what exactly the Ministry did?” asked Lupin.
“More or less. I did demand an inspection by a third-party hex and curse expert before I bought it, too. He swore it was as clean as it was going to get, after the Aurors and MLE’s were through.” She grimaced prettily. “As it turned out, I might as well have spent my money on a plumbing inspector and saved myself the grief.”
“Kingsley Shacklebolt was in charge of the investigation of the property,” said Lupin, speaking half to Harry. “And he doesn’t cut corners.”
Parvati shrugged. “Well, they certainly missed something.”
The tea arrived, and there passed a homey interval of pouring and stirring and sipping. Parvati poured as if she were, well, in the drawing room of Malfoy Manor.
“Tell me about the disturbances,” Lupin prompted, after a polite spate of inconsequential chatter.
She set her cup down, but kept her hands clasped around it. “There have been a number of things,” she said. “Though some I see only in retrospect. Fresh fruit left overnight in the kitchen was rotten the next morning. A painting of water nymphs on the first landing suddenly started spouting water out of the canvas at passers-by, and then stopped after an hour. I know,” she added, as Lupin opened his mouth. “That’s a very difficult trick to manage. I checked.” She began ticking points off on her fingers. “A mirror in the blue suite shattered with no warning. One of my girls saw it happen - she swore it just exploded, like someone punched it from the inside. Two weeks ago, Tobias went to fetch a bottle of wine from the cellar, and he found it full of bubotuber pus.”
“Hmm,” murmured Lupin. “It sounds as if you’ve been experiencing some disruptive bursts of mischievous or simply chaotic magic.” He paused, eyeing her. “Though I must point out that there is another possibility.”
“No one in the house is doing this,” she said firmly. “I’m certain. There’s been too wide a variety of times and locations and people present.”
Lupin nodded. “As long as you’re aware,” he said. “Tell me, have you spoken to anyone at the Ministry? The Committee on Common Magical Household Pests, for example?”
She laughed dryly. “The Ministry is generally uninterested in any trouble that might come to me and mine,” she said, shaking her head. “Unless it’s the sort they’re bringing. The MLE’s have been through here twice in the last nine months, looking for anything illegal.”
“I imagine they couldn’t find a thing,” said Lupin.
“Not a one,” said Parvati serenely. “And so I came to you. I heard that you sometimes offer your skills and expertise in troubles of a magical nature. I can pay you, of course.”
“Oh, that won’t be necessary,” said Lupin absently. He hardly needed the money now, Harry was sure, but he also suspected Lupin hadn’t been in the habit of demanding payment from witches and wizards in need even when he’d been one himself. “This is puzzling,” Lupin continued. “There are quite an astonishing number of things that could explain this sort of activity. A particularly shy poltergeist, though such a thing seems a contradiction in terms. The improperly neutralized remains of an old and powerful spell. I assume you’ve reinforced the wards yourself?”
“Oh yes. Though it wasn’t entirely necessary. The Ministry left some of the external magical defenses intact - the Muggle diversions, that sort of thing.” She cocked her head to one side. “It was my understanding that much of the magic about a place faded without the presence of a managing wizard, but that doesn’t seem to have been the case.”
“A keystone, yes,” said Lupin. “This is true. And in this house the keystone would be a Malfoy, of which there are none left.” He smiled gently at her. “But I think you also know that very old and very strong spells can take on lives of their own. The Hogwarts defenses held for nearly a year, with Dumbledore gone and no Headmaster in residence.”
“Yes,” said Parvati, who had probably learned to cast wards during that very time, through the long siege. Now that Harry thought about it, he could remember her walking the perimeter of the grounds in the student patrols, throwing everything they had behind the millennia-old battlements of the castle, real and magical.
“Well,” said Lupin. “This will require some thought.”
“You’ll help, then?” she asked, a tremble of uncertainty touching her smooth face for the first time.
“Of course,” said Lupin, smiling crisply. “Why ever not.”
“Of course,” murmured Parvati, and flickered a glance at Harry. “Do tell me how I can be of assistance, and when you’d like to visit again.” She paused, and a slow smile curved her mouth. “Would either of you care to stay? We’ll have a full house tonight.”
“No, thank you,” said Lupin equably. “I’m expected home for dinner.”
“Harry?”
“Er no,” said Harry hastily.
“The offer remains open.” She rose, extending her hand to each of them again. “Thank you for your time. It’s lovely to see both of you again.” She smiled into Harry’s eyes. “You look good.”
“Thanks. So do you. Erm,” he hesitated. “Can I ask you something?”
A flicker of wariness touched her face, then vanished. “Yes?”
“Why here? The house, I mean?”
She withdrew her hand from his and laughed. “Honestly? It came cheap. The Ministry seized the entire estate, and found itself with a handful of not much. They were pleased to sell cheap and get it all over with.” She paused minutely. “Rather makes you wonder about Draco’s hospital bills, doesn’t it?”
“Yeah,” said Harry, and stepped back.
“Also,” said Parvati, smiling with teeth, “I found the idea deeply amusing.”
Tobias appeared to show them out, leaving them on the front walk with a bow.
“Wow,” muttered Harry, as the door shut behind them.
“Quite,” said Lupin, eyes twinkling. “So?” he added, taking Harry’s arm and ushering him down the walk.
“I don’t know,” said Harry, shrugging a little uncomfortably. “This isn’t easy, you know.”
Lupin cast him a piercing look, and only then did Harry realize the double-meaning of his words. “It takes practice,” was all Lupin said. “Did you get anything, though?”
“I . . . maybe,” said Harry, who was unwilling to say that he’d been closed up as tight as a startled clam in there. “I need to think about it. It was . . . strange.”
“Well,” said Lupin, as they reached the hedge maze. “Why don’t you think about it over dinner. Come on.”
***
The wireless was on in the kitchen, and Sirius put his head around the door the moment they came in. “Remus - oh, hullo, Harry, even better. Look, I’m cooking dinner, but the mashed potatoes came out crunchy.”
“Oh for-“ muttered Lupin, though when Harry glanced back at him, he seemed to be smiling.
“I can’t imagine what happened,” said Sirius, peering thoughtfully into the pot on the stove as they hurried in to do damage control.
“I shudder to think,” said Lupin, pushing him out of the way. “Here, Harry, banish this, will you?”
“How was your day then, dear?” asked Sirius, relinquishing the stove with a shrug.
“Fine,” said Lupin absently. “Looked into an enchanted chimney stack in Shropshire, the one I told you about. Returned my library books. Took Harry to Miss Patil’s cathouse.”
“Oi!” yelped Sirius, outraged. “You took my godson where?”
“Miss Patil is having some . . . magical difficulties,” said Lupin, casting a mildly reproachful look over his shoulder as he apparently decided fried potatoes were going to be the order of the day. “Harry is helping me. I had no untoward intentions, I assure you.”
“It’s not that,” said Sirius, scowling. “You just ruined his birthday present.”
Harry, leaning in the doorway, cleared his throat and looked away.
“The wonder,” said Lupin, appearing to talk to the air, “is that though Mr. Black has never produced anything short of a culinary disaster, he continues to try.”
“Oh, a little practice will straighten out the kinks,” said Sirius, with the cheerful unconcern of a person to whom most skills came without difficulty. “Say, Moony, can we have onions in, too? And those little peppers?”
“Go away,” said Remus equably. “Entertain your godson while I keep us from starving.”
Remus had dinner on the table within twenty minutes. There was silence as they all dug in. Lupin had the metabolism of, well, a werewolf, and Sirius attacked every meal set before him with the single-minded focus of a man who didn’t anticipate seeing another for a long time. Harry didn’t know if this was an aftereffect of Azkaban or of resurrection, and didn’t particularly want to ask. Food made Sirius happy, though come to think of it, most things made Sirius happy these days.
“So,” said Remus, setting down his fork. “Tell me more precisely - what did you feel?”
“I’m not sure,” said Harry, sipping his pumpkin juice in thought. The truth was, he’d hardly dared crack the lid of his ‘internal magical eye,’ as Hermione had called it. Not there. But Lupin had asked, and so he had tried. “It was . . .” he trailed off, squinting as he searched for a way to describe the feeling. “Just out the corner of my eye, like . . .” he trailed off again. He never had words for this type of perception, for the things that came to him when he tuned something in his head like a wireless, reached through the buzz of static and found the eerie, wild music that was magic. His eyes fell shut and he did it almost without thought, surprised at the sudden ease of the trick. Time was, only a few months ago, trying this left him sweating and shaken, head pounding. But now it was as easy as turning the knob of a door and walking through, and suddenly it was as if the room, the whole house, all of London moved without moving, turning ninety degrees to let him see inside and behind and through. He could hear the low, watchful hum of Lupin’s carefully applied wards, see them as a delicate, springy latticework, tensile and strong like a spider’s web. The entire flat was a wash of magic - carelessly splashed spells for cleaning, for fixing, for summoning, for light, for dark, for sleep, for relief of pain. Lupin, across the table, throbbed with the slow, subdued beating of a great inhuman heart, and to his right Sirius was a marvel of magic, every vein and corpuscle lit by the fervor of restored life. Harry closed his eyes to them, to the distracting dazzle. Malfoy Manor had been like this, drawing room saturated with the magic of everyday wizarding life. But beneath that, so entrenched it had been nearly invisible, there had been something very old and very clever, something which, Harry could almost believe had looked back at him. “There’s someone there,” he said, hearing his own voice from far away and knowing the words were inadequate.
“What?” said Lupin sharply.
Harry blinked. The world snapped back into place and he found himself looking into their faces, flesh and bone again.
“What?” he repeated stupidly.
“You just said ‘someone,’” said Lupin. “Not ‘something.’”
Harry shook his head. “Did I?”
“So the place is haunted,” said Sirius, looking between them. “Can’t say I’m surprised. You remember the stories, don’t you Moony?”
“Which do you mean?” asked Lupin, frowning.
“Oh, you know,” said Sirius. “It was all over Hogwarts. Perditus Malfoy - Lucius’s grandfather,” he added, for Harry’s benefit, “used to summon up his great great great whatever to torment him. The poor bugger had besmirched the Malfoy name - I think maybe he shagged blokes or cured the Black Death or some such - and so the Malfoy ancestors knocked him off. But they wanted to keep him around a bit, for entertainment. He’s probably still lurking about, rattling the crockery for jollies.”
“That’s ridiculous,” said Lupin. “One cannot create a haunting. Ghosts, when they are made, are entirely a manifestation of the dead wizard’s will.”
Sirius shrugged. “I reckon if anyone were to figure out a way, it’d be the Malfoys,” he said.
“Hmm,” said Lupin noncommittally. “Any thoughts, Harry?”
“No,” said Harry slowly. “Not really.” Ghosts, thanks to Professor Binns, seemed an entirely dull prospect. “What do you think we should do?”
“Hmm,” said Lupin again. “Something that the Ministry chaps wouldn’t have tried, I think. Harry my lad, have you ever been to an exorcism? Just covering all my options,” he added as Sirius made a triumphant noise.
“No,” said Harry, startled. It had never occurred to him that magic for such a thing existed - he couldn’t imagine using it on the friendly hauntings of his acquaintance, like Nearly Headless Nick.
“Right then,” said Lupin briskly. “That’s where we’ll start. I’ll need to do some reading first - it’s a rather arcane undertaking, as I recall. Shall I owl you?”
“Sure,” said Harry, curiosity piqued despite himself. If Lupin wanted him to do some chanting and wand waving, he really couldn’t see clear to object.
He left soon after. Sirius was humming over the dishes, wand in one hand and scrub brush in the other. His hands were soapy, but Harry ducked beneath his arm and let his godfather hook an elbow around his neck. “You want to take in a game this weekend?” Sirius asked hopefully.
“Sure,” said Harry. “The Harpies are playing, I think.”
“Grand. I’ll check the papers.”
Lupin walked him to the door, standing quietly as Harry retrieved his cloak. “Have you been doing the exercises I suggested?” he asked, his quiet voice nearly drowned out by kitchen clatter.
“Some,” said Harry, back turned.
There was a small silence, and he fiddled needlessly with his cloak. Of all his small circle of informal teachers and guides, Lupin was the only one who seemed to have no need to chide him over his progress. Perhaps, Harry thought a little cynically, because he was the only one to also know what it was to fear something inside himself. None of which meant that his unspoken disappointment didn’t weigh heaviest of all.
“I will tonight,” said Harry, abruptly.
“As you like,” said Lupin, and squeezed his shoulder briefly before Harry apparated away.
Ron was lying on the sofa when he got home, big feet sticking out at one end and red head at the other.
“Post for you,” he called as Harry came in.
The post basket was on the dining room table, perched precariously atop an impressive pyramid of accumulated junk.
“I thought you were going to clean up today,” said Harry, poking gingerly through the bills and adverts for his letters. One from Ginny and one from - damn. Damn, damn, and bloody fucking hell to boot.
“Forgot,” said Ron sleepily. “Sorry.”
“Have you seen my diary?” Harry asked, unrolling Ginny’s note.
Harry - Sorry, but I can’t come with you to the Minister’s birthday ball. How about lunch next week? -G
“No,” said Ron, sitting up. “Try summoning it.”
Harry made a quick visual survey of the room, and not seeing his appointment book anywhere, pulled out his wand. “Accio diary!”
There was a subterranean rumble, as of a volcano about to explode. The dining room table seemed to heave and swell. The basket of post popped off the top of the pile like a cork, and as if this had been the first pebble of an avalanche roughly two tons of papers, books, Quidditch magazines, old dishes, scarves, and quills went tumbling in all directions, landing around the table in a mini Himalaya of stuff. Harry’s appointment book flew out of the maelstrom and landed neatly in his hand with a thump. Silence fell.
“Huh,” said Ron, scratching his nose and looking from the table to Harry. “Clean that, shall I?”
Harry opened his book without comment, flipping through to March. Yep, he’d forgotten all right. Damn and damn again. He turned to the letter with reluctance.
Mr. Potter:
As you are happily no longer my student, I am under no obligation to offer my time and energies for your edification. If you no longer wish to avail yourself of such, kindly inform me in a civilized, adult manner, rather than simply ignoring our arranged appointments. A letter to this effect will be sufficient, though if you do take such a course it will simply confirm that you are and will continue to be an addle-brained imbecile, incapable of seeing past the tip of his own rather unattractive nose to the wider world and its concerns. -Severus Snape
“Great,” muttered Harry, disgusted. Now he’d have to make up with the bastard. He’d pretty much rather put his own eyes out, but he suspected even Lupin’s patience wouldn’t stretch as far as canceling the twice monthly sessions with Snape.
“Is my nose attractive?” he asked suddenly.
Ron, kneeling on the floor half-heartedly sorting dirty dishes from clean, whipped his head around to squint up at him. “Sorry, mate,” he said, “that’s a bit kinky for my tastes.”
“But it’s better than Snape’s?” Harry persisted.
“That I’ll swear to,” said Ron, without hesitation.
“Good. Say, aren’t you supposed to be out with Hermione at that art thing?”
Ron turned back to the dishes, scowling. “Split up,” he said shortly.
“Again?” said Harry, as he began to make mental bets on how long this particular off in the continual on/off floorshow that was Ron and Hermione would last. “Oh,” he added, brightening. “That means I can ask her to the Minister’s ball. Thanks, mate.”
Later, dressed in boxers and T-shirt for sleep, Harry sat cross-legged on his bed. He shifted about for a few minutes, feeling rather foolishly that he ought to be in the lotus position or some such. At last he shrugged and settled down, hands uncurling on his knees. It was harder now, under the full spotlight of consciousness and intent, awkward to pace the corridors of his mind, unlatch the door, open it just a crack, allow awareness to quietly bloom. But that, of course, was the trouble - his magic was a force of instinct, wild and sudden and reactive, not to be governed by deliberation. He had never wielded it like a sword; it had always come from him as a tidal flood.
But yes, no doubt - it was easier now. Which, Harry thought distantly, was very strange. Because truth be told, he hadn’t been practicing at all. The idea never even occurred to him in between the occasional appointments with Lupin or Snape or Moody or even Hermione. But the seed had been planted, and he found now, coming back to see, that something was growing there, wild and untended but strong.
So. Chalk another failure up to the powers of just ignoring it.
He had cast most of the wards on the flat. The thrum of his own magic struck a major chord in his bones, a fundamental pitch, steady and true. Ron’s magic blended there, a temperamental harmonic. Beyond that was nothing of the same artificial complexity; this was a very Muggle neighborhood.
He shrank in on himself, turning the roving eye inward. His scar blazed, an umbilical cicatrix, now sparking faintly in disconnection. His wand hand was a marvel of channeled spells, veins and arteries lit up like fireworks with the ignition of will and wand. He’d broken his elbow when he was seventeen - the joint was still washed with a slowly fading bath of healing. His right hip was a fresh, vivid construction still, after nearly two years, the thigh a careful net of pain relief and regeneration.
Harry withdrew suddenly, closing that door inside himself. He did not want to see the rest, to examine the ethereal equivalent of spell-o-tape currently holding him together.
He rose too quickly, staggered, caught himself. He’d lost some time, he saw, glancing over at the clock. Hell. This was why he didn’t do the bloody exercises. His head wasn’t hurting, but it ought to be. This wasn’t how it should be - wizards were supposed to wave their wands and turn rats yellow or set the dishes to scrubbing themselves. They weren’t supposed to - to do the things he could do.
He thought about the dreamless sleep potion waiting in the medicine cabinet. He had a sudden horror of dreaming in magic, in that strange, senseless awareness of energy which his mind translated to color and texture and sound for simple helpless lack of any other comprehension. But no. He hadn’t taken the potion in nearly a month - it was becoming a point of pride, almost. The bottle promised no side effects, but Harry had found that an uncaring numbness clouded his body and mind for the months he’d used it. And now he wondered whether he was feeling better because he had stopped drinking the potion, or if he had stopped drinking the potion because he was feeling better. In either case, a pleasantly itchy restlessness had taken up residence as the winter passed, and Harry did not want to sleep it away.
He went to bed unaided, curled on his side, rubbing his face against his pillow to feel the real, grounded texture of the cloth on his skin. This train was running away from him, he thought as sleep crept in. It seemed his magic was rising again with or without him, as it had done two years before. Only it was coming slowly this time: it was the difference between the creeping rise of the water table in the spring thaw and a tsunami. But it was rising again, he could no longer deny, and the time would come very soon when he must either set his hand to the wheel, steady and certain, or get out of the way.
***
“Hi,” said Harry. “Been a while, hasn’t it? Sorry. I’ve been - well, erm no, actually, I haven’t been particularly busy.”
He reached out, took careful hold of Draco’s chin and turned his head on the pillow so the gray eyes were at least pointed in his direction. Draco’s skin was warm, preservative magic thrumming in his veins and through his muscles.
“I brought Quidditch scores,” Harry said, rattling the paper. “And Sirius and I went and saw the Harpies and Falcons on Saturday. It was brilliant - the Snitch kept popping in and out every ten minutes, driving everyone to distraction until Agatha Puddlebrooke finally caught it. Sirius says he went to school with her mum, and it’s funny because she couldn’t fly herself out of a wet paper bag. It’s nice. With Sirius, I mean. I don’t think I’ll ever get used to that, to him being here and free and all.”
He paused, staring sightlessly down at the paper in his hands. “I went back to your house,” he said abruptly. “Or your manor, I guess, but that just sounds daft. Lupin took me. Parvati’s bought it, y’know, or maybe you don’t. I reckon no one might’ve told you. But she’s got it and she’s turned it into a cathouse. You know, with girls and . . . things.” He stopped again, rolling and unrolling the paper. “I kept wondering, you know, what you’d think about it. I mean, you’d be furious, I know that much, despoiling the Malfoy ancestral home and all. But I also reckon maybe you’d think it was funny, just a little tiny bit, though you’d never let anyone see.” He huffed out a breath. “If you ever wake up, it’ll be one hell of a show. But I bet you’d laugh, just a little.” He shut his mouth abruptly. If Draco ever woke up, Harry would be the Queen of England.
And, of course, it wasn’t as if Harry really knew anything about him, right down to how Draco took his tea. They’d been in accord for all of three hours there at the end, and hardly in the mood to chat. And then it was all over, and when Harry woke up in St. Mungo’s, Draco was down the hall, face smoothed of rage and pain and disgust. Many of his reflexes were intact - he could blink, swallow, lubricate his eyes with emotionless tears. But everything else, all his snide superiority, jealousy, vicious cunning, and the pride that had saved Harry’s life, all that comprised Draco Malfoy was gone.
“I hadn’t been back before,” Harry said. “It gave me the creeping horrors, but not as much as I was expecting. A lot of it is exactly the same.” They’d found Draco in the drawing room, stretched out like an untouched sacrifice on the rug. That was probably all that had saved the emptied husk of his body; everyone who’d been in the dungeons or the south wing was not nearly so lucky. Except, of course, Harry himself - he supposed by mere dint of survival he’d been the luckiest there.
“I almost did something today,” he said. “There was this construction site downtown, across from the pub where all the Ministry - where we go after work. And they were tearing down this office building, twenty floors at least. And I looked at it and I thought ‘I could do that.’ Just thinking about it, I could break it into a pile of bricks. Or make it disappear. Or turn it into a giant tortoise. Or set it on fire.” He laughed mirthlessly. “I didn’t try, of course. But I could have.” Draco’s slow breathing didn’t change.
“You know,” said Harry suddenly, “you’re a lot easier to get along with when you’re in a coma. I bet, if you hadn’t been . . .” he paused, seeking for the proper words to name something that no one actually understood. “If you hadn’t been hurt, I bet we’d never talk.” But as it was, Harry could say whatever he liked. Draco already knew his secrets anyway - what a grim, unexpected pair he and Snape made.
“Anyway,” he said, and shook out the paper. “The game was good. I don’t know which you favor, but the Harpies won. Falcons took the Cannons though, of course . . .”
***
Harry stopped in the drawing room doors, waving Tobias away before he could be announced. The room smelled strongly of sage, aromatic clouds floating up from the enormous cauldron merrily bubbling away in the middle of one of Narcissa Malfoy’s antique rugs. Lupin leaned on the desk, book in one hand and wand in the other, absent-mindedly writing florescent words in the air as he read to himself. Asphodel. Ethereal. In spiritu. And, hovering over the cauldron like an elongated bat was Snape, sleeves rolled to the elbow and the muscles of his forearm flexing in that perfectly controlled stir that Harry had never quite been able to master.
“You’re late,” said Parvati quietly, rising from the sofa and moving to Harry’s side. Her dark hair was braided in a long, shiny plait down her back, just as she had worn it all through school.
“Sorry,” said Harry. “I didn’t mean to make you wait on me. There was someone I needed to tal-to visit.”
Snape straightened, back turned. “Lupin,” he said crisply, not stopping his movement. “Stir.”
Lupin received custody of the slender glass rod without comment, stepping in to smoothly carry on the motion. Snape hovered a moment, observing critically, then turned in a flare of black robes and strode across to Harry.
“Potter,” he said, in that way he had of dragging Harry’s name out for a solid five seconds of freezing displeasure. “You grace us with your presence. Tell me, are you actually going to be any use, or shall we send you upstairs to one of the young ‘ladies’ so she can write a book about her night of astonishing pleasure with the slayer of the Dark Lord?”
“Oh,” said Parvati, “There’s no need. I have a Harry look-alike who supplies Polyjuice material, and I’m sure the girls have already partaken.”
Harry blinked; she’d rarely been one for backchat at school. He didn’t know she had it in her. Of course she has guts, you idiot, look what she’s done with her life. Guts to spare.
Snape appeared equal parts irritated and nauseated. “Excuse us,” he said brusquely, and pulled Harry up the corridor with a firm grip on his upper arm.
“Hey,” said Harry, trying to jerk free.
Snape dragged him into the library annex, a small tiled alcove. The room beyond was unlit, a vast shadowed depth cloaked in the sort of holy silence that gathered around large collections of books.
“Well?” said Snape, sharp voice cutting through the peace. “Do you care to explain yourself?” His expression said he sincerely doubted it.
“Er,” said Harry. “Yes. I forgot about our appointment. And I was going to write but I got sidetracked. Sorry.”
“I have endeavored,” said Snape, “I have labored, I have expended countless hours of time and effort in order to instill the smallest degree of discipline in you, Potter. And you forgot. Do you think I do this because I enjoy your sophomoric company? Do you think I like you?”
“Heaven forbid,” muttered Harry.
“I do it, Potter,” said Snape, voice dropping to a hiss, “because a wizard of your caliber simply cannot be allowed to wander about the world, unrestrained. People will die, Potter. They already have, if you will recall. The Ministry may think they have you leashed, just by putting you behind a desk; none of them were faced with you in their classroom. You’re a bloody menace, boy, and I will not have you inflicting your ungoverned self on anyone unfortunate enough to cross your path the next time you take it into your head to start a fire.”
His face twisted, clenching in a momentary paroxysm of anger and . . . something else. Harry stared, aghast. This man had spent his life circling great wizards, close enough to get burned more than once. He had followed Voldemort and Dumbledore, hungry for such raw power, left only with the choice of which to serve. And now he was afraid of Harry Potter.
“I forgot on purpose,” Harry said abruptly. “I’m sorry. It won’t happen again.”
Snape eyed him suspiciously. “You give promises so carelessly, Potter,” he said coldly.
“No,” said Harry. “I don’t. I mean it. Set me a time. I’ll come. Two hours, I’ll try whatever you say until my head explodes.”
Snape stared at him, momentarily struck dumb. Harry stared back calmly, eyes wide open, unafraid of intrusion. Snape had never tried, not once since Harry woke in St. Mungo’s. It occurred to Harry for the first time now that perhaps it wasn’t revulsion, perhaps Snape simply did not want to know any of the very few things Harry still held close, even from him. Hell of a secret keeper you make, Snape. He’d never seen Snape’s face, after the very first day when they’d dragged Harry into Malfoy Manor, battered and snarling and terrified. Then he’d spat on Snape and called him traitor, and the potions master had stared back, stony and unblinking. Later, it was only his hands Harry was aware of, white and bony and cool, one cradled behind his head while the other worked a few drops of water between his lips. Snape had said nothing there in the dark of the dungeons, and Harry, three weeks into captivity, had not either. He had simply lain still as the disembodied hands, shaking only a very little, re-dressed him after Lucius Malfoy was through.
“Well,” said Snape, in the dryly-irritated tones of someone whose tirade had just been unexpectedly derailed. “That displays remarkably good sense, Potter. I imagine it shan’t last, but I expect you Thursday next, eight o’clock. Do not be late.”
He turned on his heel and marched out. Harry followed after a moment, trailing him back to the drawing room half a dozen paces behind. Parvati still lingered in the doorway, profile carved of warm ivory in the firelight. Snape paused briefly as he passed her.
“In future, Miss Patil,” Harry heard him say, “do please keep the details of your business arrangements to yourself.” He passed on, stepping out of his way to give her a wide birth.
“Hmph,” said Parvati, looking after him as Harry came to a stop beside her.
“Er,” said Harry, suddenly and inexplicably self-conscious. “Sorry. That he’s rude to you.”
Parvati cast him a bemused, slant-eyed look. “He’s always been rude to me,” she said dryly. “He’s not just doing it because I’m a whore.”
Harry opened his mouth, then hastily shut it before anything too terribly idiotic could fall out.
“He’s a classic Puritan,” Parvati continued serenely. “Hostile. Afraid.” She paused, and gave a tiny, mysterious smile. “Inexperienced.”
“Er,” said Harry, controlling the urge to flee. There was a quick, analytical look in her eye that made him want to go be somewhere else, out of sight.
Parvati laughed suddenly, dropping the unexpected richness of it into her elegantly cupped hands.
“What?” said Harry, startled.
“I was just wondering,” she said, glancing over at Snape again, “how many points from Gryffindor running a whorehouse is worth.”
Harry coughed, let himself laugh. He leaned against the doorjamb, struck suddenly weak by the unexpected surge of easy, uncomplicated mirth. Parvati laughed with him, dark eyes dancing and a faint flush high on her cheeks.
Lupin looked over and cleared his throat gently. “Shall we get started, then?” he asked, a quizzical tilt to his mouth.
As it turned out, Malfoy Manor had a truly mad compliment of windows and doors. Harry knew this as every last one had to be opened while the vapors from Snape’s aromatic brew were wafted about the house from small sensors. Harry worked his way through the second floor, knocking on doors and walking through darkened suites done up in every style imaginable, from gaudily trimmed in gold and velvet to sleekly modern. Most of the residents were out for the night, but a few answered his knocks, dressed casually or in robes. They were, Harry noted with no real surprise, a collection of extraordinarily beautiful people (he included in this tally the two men who answered his knocks at the far end of the north corridor). Parvati was probably the youngest in the house, he judged, though he was also certain that she reigned here, serenely unchallenged.
They gathered in the drawing room once again, pausing briefly to reorganize when it was discovered that, with all doors and windows open, Malfoy Manor could work up a comfortable wind tunnel down the central corridor. But once Lupin had regathered his parchments, the meat of the magic could begin.
Harry sat on the sofa as Lupin had adroitly directed, set to . . . observe. Snape, across the room, stared fixedly at him for a long moment, a cool challenge in his eyes. Prove it, he seemed to say.
Fine, thought Harry, straightening his shoulders with grim bravado. He watched Lupin begin the spell, voice smooth and strangely musical over the Latin, wand tracing intricate patterns in the mist from the cauldron. This was a spell of simple command, as Harry understood it, a straightforward exhortation to any lingering spirits to take themselves off somewhere else.
Harry took a breath and squinched his eyes shut. Somehow doing that made it easier to see. He tried to relax, and with surprising ease he began to perceive the spell taking shape around Lupin and reaching out wispy tentacles to wind through the rest of the house. Harry followed its strands from room to room, testing their vigor and finding them strong and vibrant with that strange, off-rhythm pulse of Lupin’s inhuman magic. Beyond Lupin’s spell lay the house, ripe with its own gathering power. Harry was aware of a great heat at his back. The old firebed, he realized, the south wing not cooled even after two years.
And then Harry’s courage deserted him. It was as if he had gotten onto a broom for the very first time, risen to hover sedately at waist level, and then come back down. The open sky lay above him, so close he could reach up and close his fist around the sun. It would be so easy to do, easy as flying and just as glorious to keep on reaching now, to invest Lupin’s spell with himself, feel each filament like a corpuscle of his own strange, ethereal body, make them pulse with the fire ready at his fingertips. It would be so easy, and he simply could not do it. Anywhere else. But not here. He began to withdraw.
Everything happened all at once. Harry was dimly aware, with a part of him that still heard with his ears, of Lupin speaking the last word, his voice coming down on the command, strong with the will to back it up. The spell flared to life, blazed with magic, as if the house were an electrical socket and the spell a plug.
And then the house shrugged like a horse with an unwelcome rider, and Harry was never able to tell after whether it had truly moved or if it was something indefinably magical. Because something was happening, a presence rising out of the darkness, shrieking and incoherent and furious.
Get me out get me out get me out!
And the house dashed the spell away like Hagrid slapping a flea. Harry leapt, stung, eyes popping open just as a crack filled the room. His head was still ringing with - what was that?
Lupin stood over the cauldron, one hand already at his temple, face working in pain. At his feet, the two halves of his wand lay, split cleanly and still sparking with magical overload.
“Oh,” said Lupin into the silence. “Bugger.”
***