Chapter Twelve of 'A Series of Malfoy Events'- How to Cope with Madness
Chapter Eleven.
Title: A Series of Malfoy Events (12/?)
Disclaimer: J. K. Rowling and associates own these characters. I am writing this story for fun and not profit.
Pairing: Harry/Draco, others mentioned
Rating: R
Warnings: Light angst, brief violence, rather crack-ish humor
Summary: Harry saves Draco’s life. That should be the end of it. Except it isn’t, because Draco keeps coming up with crazy things-and Harry goes along with it because he can’t wait to see what Draco’s going to come up with next.
Author’s Notes: I don’t yet know how long this story will be. It will be largely fluffy, and updated every Thursday.
Chapter One.
Thank you again for all the reviews!
Chapter Twelve-How to Cope With Madness
“That’s unbelievable,” Kingsley whispered, when Harry had finished the story about how he had discovered the conspiracy of Malfoy’s former lovers. (Suitably edited, of course. Harry didn’t think any Auror report needed to include the sentence, “And then I nearly came in my pants,” no matter how dedicated he was to the job).
“Yes, sir.” Harry slumped back in his chair and let his gaze wander for a moment around Kingsley’s office. There were framed photographs and clippings from dozens of cases, not all of them successful. Harry felt, though, as if most of them had to be more normal than the one he had just worked. “He seems to have known about them and let them run.” He shrugged and turned to Kingsley. “He would have been content to die as long as he died admired, he said.”
Kingsley frowned at him. “Well, some things still don’t make sense. Why did the lovers work together?”
Harry groaned and tilted his head back against the chair. “Do I have to tell you now?”
“Harry.”
Which meant yes, he did. Harry sighed and brought his head forwards. “I spoke to all of them separately-the ones who would speak instead of glaring at me-and they all said the same thing. They received owls that directed them to meet in one specific place and work together with the people they would find there. They also received plans for their attacks by owl from someone else. The letters promised that the one who succeeded in driving me away from Malfoy’s side or harming Malfoy in a way that didn’t kill him would get to have him.”
“You think Malfoy sent them, don’t you?” Kingsley’s voice was sharp with wonder.
“I don’t really see who else could have. No one else could have kept that promise about them having Malfoy.” Harry decided he might as well get some of his own back with deep sighs and indications of how much this was depressing him, so he turned and gestured at Kingsley. Kingsley prudently ducked so as not to get hit by a flying finger.
“He didn’t care if he died! He was angry I saved his life!” Harry kept shooting out his fingers as he got to the relative points, and it made up, a little, for the curses he wouldn’t get to shoot at Malfoy for being so stupid. “He left weaknesses in the Manor’s perimeter on purpose, and they were all from the points when those people had been his lovers!” Harry slumped further back and rolled his eyes. “I don’t know whether the ultimate point was to be adored, or to have someone prove they were the strongest and thus must worthy of him, or to have me show off by protecting him. But it’s done now.”
“Perhaps not.”
Harry opened one eye to see Kingsley. “I don’t like the tone you say that in.”
“Harry.”
“I don’t like the tone you say that in with all due respect to your office as the Minister and the hard work you do. Sir.”
“Better.” Kingsley studied him. “There are two aspects you haven’t considered. One, you’re assuming Malfoy sent those owls. You have no proof. And what do I always say to each new set of Auror trainees?”
Harry sighed a little. “Assumptions get you decapitated.” The fact that he knew the story behind that saying only depressed him further.
Kingsley nodded. “Exactly. So we still need to investigate and see if it was really Malfoy or someone else.” He spread one hand. “And the other point is, if these people received owls telling them to drive you away from Malfoy’s side, who hexed his broom in the first place? During that game when you saved his life? You weren’t at his side then. Nor do I think anyone could have assumed he would immediately decide to have you date him.”
Harry sat still, and felt stupid. “Oh.” Then he shook his head. “Maybe he set the hex on himself, sir, to see what would happen. Or maybe it was a real accident and he just had trouble with his broom.”
“And maybe I’m not the Minister and you’re not my best Auror and I’m not about to set you on the case.”
“Fine.” Harry pouted, and climbed to his feet. “But tomorrow, please, Kingsley. I really need to take a shower to get the stink of crazy off me.”
Kingsley nodded, pleased. “Waiting until tomorrow will be perfectly acceptable.”
Harry shook his head as he made his way out of the Ministry. He didn’t know how he got himself into these things, he really didn’t.
Other Aurors passed him, nodding to him or mouthing congratulations or condolences, depending on how much they had heard about his latest case. Harry studied them. They carried files under their arms, or they argued with other Aurors about the best way to track down Dark wizards, or they were on their way to classes full of trainees. As far as Harry knew, they all had reassuringly normal lives.
His gaze fell on the hand of one Auror who was gesturing so hard she almost flung tea at the other woman she was arguing with. The glitter of the wedding ring on her finger made her hand really noticeable.
That’s something else I need to do, Harry realized, pulled off the diamond ring, and veered towards the Ministry’s Owlery. He would just send the ring back to Malfoy without a note. Harry hadn’t earned the right to keep the ring.
Maybe I keep getting into these sorts of situations because I save too many people’s lives.
Harry shrugged a little as he sent the owl off. That was even possibly true. It still wouldn’t change things.
He could regret lying to Malfoy; he could regret Malfoy’s craziness; he could regret falling so far into the deception and enjoying teasing Malfoy so much; he could regret the way it had ended. But he couldn’t regret something that was so much a part of him.
*
Harry snorted a little when he saw the white package that an unfamiliar owl brought the next day. It was wrapped in silver ribbon, and had a golden ring dangling from it as almost an afterthought. No doubt Malfoy had sent it, and there would be some indignant ranting note inside about what an unforgivable peasant Harry was, and probably also a gift that was designed to make him feel small.
Harry reached for it, and then stopped, a sharp tingle racing up his arm the closer his hand got to the package. He narrowed his eyes and cast a spell. The package glowed dully, and then the glow faded away, which was what should happen.
I’m probably being a paranoid bastard. Harry could sometimes sense powerful Dark magic, but it was a talent that never worked predictably, and it was better when he was near people than objects. Malfoy might want to punish Harry in lots of ways, but cursing him was beyond the pale.
Well. I think. Malfoy’s a lot more mental than I thought he was.
Harry roamed in a circle around the table, casting spell after spell at the package, including a few that came near to melting the gold off the ring. None of them revealed anything wrong, and Harry was starting to feel more than a little silly for his own presumptions-until he cast one that revealed spells which would only activate if a certain condition came to pass.
The package, and especially the ring, lit up like fireworks. Harry stared at the revealed colors. If he’d put on the ring, it would have melted his finger off. If he’d opened the package with emotion of some kind stewing in him, it would probably have literally blown his face off.
The emotion was revealed as a glittering green morass, and Harry hadn’t used this spell in long enough that he’d forgotten what kind of feeling that shade represented. He Summoned the book from which he’d originally learned the spell to find out, keeping a wary eye on the package as he did.
Green was love. The package would have killed him if he opened it with love.
Harry swore and bounced the book off the edge of the table. Malfoy was mental enough to try and kill him if Harry was in love with him, then? Well, it probably made some kind of twisted sense in his brain. If Harry loved him and yet walked away, that meant that Harry was the one who had to leave a pretty corpse.
Or something, Harry thought grimly as he created a Traveling Balloon around the package and the ring. The Balloon was a sort of portable round shield that sheltered the objects inside from any magical interference outside, or bumps and bruises, until the caster of the spell canceled the Balloon.
This might not be Malfoy’s work. This might be the work of the other person who was sending the notes to Malfoy’s lovers, if Kingsley is right.
Harry rolled his eyes. He might as well have stayed Malfoy’s fiancé, if he was going to get shit both for being it and not being it.
He told himself sternly that his motivation for remaining that way-because he’d wanted to see what it would be like to come in Malfoy’s hands-was unworthy of an Auror, and then he seized the trailing string of the Traveling Balloon and Apparated.
*
“The ring was set to melt your finger off, yes.” Head Magical Theorist Ella Baravar stared into the Travel Balloon and then nodded briskly and looked at Harry. “A rather elegant spell. It was attuned specifically to your skin.”
Harry decided that only people who spent the whole day looking at magic as a problem of numbers and angles could describe a curse that way. “What about the package itself?”
“Let me see.” Baravar’s grey-and-black-streaked hair swayed around her ears as she bent over and poked her wand at the package. Harry flinched on instinct, but although the package trembled for an instant, Baravar didn’t trigger the spell on it or make it seem likely to go off. She traced a certain pattern on the surface of the Travel Balloon instead, and sighed in satisfaction as it turned yellow and began to pulse.
“What is that?” Harry had never seen a spell that mimicked that effect before, and certainly not one that was supposed to be able to reach through a Travel Balloon.
“A variant of the Spell Reader.” Baravar smiled at him. “It can touch the inner essence of a spell, and of course while it doesn’t work as well as we would like in cases of multiple, layered curses, due to the conjunction between Avander’s Theorem and Millahale’s Idea-”
“It can tell you what the spell is, even through the Travel Balloon,” Harry translated. As always, Baravar only seemed puzzled, rather than offended, that someone didn’t want to learn all about her esoteric art. She nodded.
“Yes.” Baravar turned back to the balloon, while Harry rolled his eyes in private. He only hoped that no one ever broke into the Magical Theory Division and tried to make off with the secrets. Then again, the Aurors would probably stop them because the intruder would have a dozen theorists all clustering around them and preventing movement while they chattered about what their inventions did.
“This spell was meant to kill you.”
Harry straightened up. “I suspected that,” he said, while wondering what good these people were.
“Kill you rather nastily.” Does she have to sound so delighted when she talks about that? Harry wondered, while Baravar went on scanning the package raptly, unaware of his thoughts. “Oh, yes. My. Decapitation combined with burning. Slow decapitation, many cuts of an axe. Rather sophisticated.”
Harry shook his head. “I suppose there’s no way to tell who sent the package?”
“Not unless you brought us a feather from the owl that carried it.” Baravar cast another spell, and then clucked her tongue as a second, red pattern appeared on the surface of Harry’s balloon. “Of course, who set the spell is a different matter.”
“Well, the person who set the spell is presumably the person who sent it,” Harry snapped.
“We don’t know that,” said Baravar, and turned a shocked face on him. “And we must always keep our minds open to possibilities. How else are we going to catch criminals?”
Harry bit his tongue to avoid saying that they didn’t, that they simply stayed in their department and came up with complicated, abstract solutions to problems that had more practical applications. “Fine,” he said. “But if you think I have to look for two or three different people, then it’s going to be a lot harder for me.”
“I should be able to get you one name, at least,” said Baravar, and then spent a few minutes weaving a long spell that Harry didn’t know. Harry half-suspected she was adding flourishes to the spell that didn’t really exist, simply in order to be impressive. Her fingers cracked and creaked and gestured, and then she snapped two of them.
A small name appeared, floating up in smoky letters out of the mingling of the red and yellow patterns on the balloon. Harry blinked. Yes, that was impressive, although he didn’t much feel like letting Baravar know it right now.
The name turned in several different directions, seemed as if the smoke that composed it might form different letters, and then settled. Harry could see the name written in the air as if in a neat hand.
Jessica Cassel.
Harry flinched before he could stop himself. Then he shook his head. “How reliable is that spell?” he demanded of Baravar.
“Oh, very reliable for a spell that’s only a few years old,” said Baravar. She’d been standing back and admiring her handiwork, and Harry’s words seemed to have snapped her from a trance. She turned and beamed at him. “Is that not a name you expected?” she added in concern upon seeing his face.
Harry said nothing. He was thinking.
Cassel had been one of Malfoy’s lovers, the only one Harry knew of not with the group that he’d captured outside Malfoy’s house. She would have had the chance to create the spell that attuned that ring to his skin after the game Harry had played with the Falcons. He’d touched the Snitch, which had a flesh memory. Though it was tricky magic and not of a kind that most people knew, Cassel might have been able to pull the flesh memory from the Snitch and apply it to the ring, then add another enchantment which would cause the ring to burn when he touched it.
As for the spell on Malfoy’s broom, nothing easier than for a teammate to do that. Most people wouldn’t notice her casting in the excitement of watching Malfoy twitch around and Harry save him, would they? And no one would suspect her of wanting to harm her own team’s Seeker.
Harry shook his head.
“It wasn’t?” Baravar turned back to the name floating in the air and frowned in determination. “Well, we can try to get another one, but I think that’s at least the primary sender of the package.” She lifted her wand.
“No!” Harry gripped her wrist and eased her hand back down towards her side. “I trust your conclusions,” he finished, when Baravar looked at him in a way that suggested she wanted to cast a spell on him. “I just find it hard to believe that’s who it was. I hadn’t thought she was hostile to me.”
She was the first one to tell me about Malfoy and the way he dated.
But even that hadn’t felt hostile, more as if she was explaining the truth to Harry. And if she was the one responsible for hexing Malfoy’s broom, then she must have had a plan in motion before Harry interfered with it. Harry sighed. He found this case confusing enough that he could almost wish he hadn’t saved Malfoy’s life.
Except I didn’t want to grant his wish to die with dignity, either.
Harry shook his head and turned back to Baravar. “Is proof like this enough to arrest this person?”
“Oh, yes.” Baravar smoothed a hand down her robes and spent a moment preening. “We rely on our evidence, and we vouch for its truthfulness. We wouldn’t have spent time trying to develop this spell if it couldn’t be used for purposes like that.”
Harry nodded. “Great. Then I’ll send a few Aurors to arrest Cassel as soon as possible.” Once he would have wanted to lead them himself, but he thought it was better for him to go back to his office and try to think this through. Things would possibly only get more confusing after Cassel’s arrest.
“Good luck!” Baravar called after him as Harry left the department. “Bring us any other little interesting puzzles that you have! And do ask her how she did that ring spell. Melting off others’ fingers is particularly ingenious.”
*
Another package sat waiting for him in the center of his desk.
Harry eyed it, then promptly cast a Travel Balloon around it and made sure his door was open. If he ended up screaming for help, then he wanted other Aurors to be able to come running to his defense.
But no matter what spells he cast on the package this time, it didn’t reveal any hostile intent. Harry was half-thinking about marching this one down to the Magical Theory Department, too, when the center of it unfolded like a flower, and revealed a note and another ring.
Harry peered at it. The ring was the diamond one Malfoy had Transfigured for him, and the note was in Malfoy’s handwriting too.
I think we need to talk, Potter. I never agreed to end the engagement, and the consent of both parties is traditionally necessary. And I don’t think that you’d wish to see what I’ll do if you don’t come and visit me.
Harry had barely finished reading the words when the Travel Balloon popped, the ring whirled up and onto his finger, and Harry felt the tug of an enchantment he hadn’t checked for. It seemed Malfoy had turned the ring into a Portkey, and he wasn’t about to give Harry any time to think about refusing him.
As he whirled into the colors that would probably end up with him in Malfoy Manor, Harry couldn’t deny the rapid beating of his heart.
Or that what drove that rapid beating was mainly gladness, and excitement.
Maybe I’m a little mental, too.
Chapter Thirteen.
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