Chapter Eight of 'Bard of Morning's Hope'- Expedition to Knockturn Alley
Chapter Seven.
Title: Bard of Morning's Hope (8/?)
Disclaimer: J. K. Rowling and associates own these characters. I am writing this story for fun and not profit.
Pairing: Harry/Draco, Lucius/Narcissa
Warnings: Minor character death, violence, angst, gore
Rating: R
Summary: The Bard of Morning's Hope is a seemingly unstoppable murderer stalking former Death Eaters and former Slytherins, enacting vengeance on them in an untraceable way. In the wake of Lucius Malfoy's savage death, Harry Potter becomes the Auror assigned to guard Draco and Narcissa Malfoy from a similar fate.
Author's Notes: This is based on a prompt by Kain, who requested, among several other things, Harry being hired to guard Draco and Narcissa from a killer who was murdering Death Eaters in revenge, Harry having a good relationship with the Weasleys, and a slow-burn romance between Harry and Draco. This story should be somewhere between twelve and twenty chapters, and will be updated every Saturday.
Chapter One.
Thank you again for all the reviews!
Chapter Eight-Expedition to Knockturn Alley
Knockturn Alley looked exactly the same as it always did.
After a frozen moment, Draco could shake his head and tell himself that of course it did. Even if people here would consider Lucius Malfoy’s death news worth paying attention to, it had been years since Lucius had had any business interests in the alley. And Draco had kept away from investing in businesses here as well, on his father’s advice. He had told Draco that Aurors were looking eagerly into all sorts of things the Malfoy family did right now, and even businesses that plenty of “Light” wizards earned profits from would be considered grounds for arrest.
But in the future, when people’s memories, never long, had begun to fade, then…
Draco choked abruptly. That sudden thought had hit him like a body blow, that his father was never going to get anything done in the future.
Narcissa reached out and gripped his hand without saying anything. Draco kept his gaze fixed ahead. Part of was that was for the same reason he wouldn’t come into Knockturn Alley wearing his own face. Never show weakness in the domain of Dark wizards, no matter what happened.
But the other was that he didn’t want to see her wearing her fake face right now. He wanted to imagine that she looked like herself, and imagine his father the way he had looked when alive, too, not as he had looked when melting into the bed.
We are going to find the person who did that to him.
And maybe Potter’s resolution to help would bear fruit. Draco nodded and decided to think, for the moment, that it would. He straightened up and looked ahead and kept walking, dropping his mother’s hand as soon as he could. That was another sign of weakness. There were warlocks, hags, and wizards here who would strike at them for sheer spite if they saw that, on the idle thought that one of them losing the other would hurt.
But they were going to persevere through this, and they were going to trap the Bard, or at least stop him from entering the house. Potter’s wards were going to work.
They had to.
*
The shop Malfoy and Narcissa apparently patronized was a small thing, so small that Harry had to stoop to get in the door. He wondered why this dim place had appealed to people who had enough money to get anything they wanted. How they had discovered it, why they wanted to continue to come here, and several other things.
But once he was inside and had managed to lift his stooped head, he didn’t wonder any longer.
The inside of the shop remained dim even when Harry cast a subtle spell that would let him see through magical shadows and darkness in case they were concealing traps, but it was the sort of warm, comfortable dimness that reminded Harry of some of the muted red and gold of the Gryffindor common room. There were two fireplaces, one on either side of the shop, which sloped back and around much further than Harry had thought it did. It looked as if the back of the shop might run up almost to the border that Knockturn Alley shared with Diagon.
“Ah. Mr. Leonis Klein?”
Harry knew he had never been here before, but his disguise had a reputation. He managed a rattling bow to the dark-haired woman with brown skin and calm dark eyes who had come out from behind a low curtain of blue cloth. “Yes. I am here for my companions, however, and not for myself.” And he took a stiff step to the side, carefully manipulating the contraption of bone and iron that disguised his height, and waited for the Malfoys to remove their glamours.
They were already gone, he realized a second later. Harry concealed a sigh. He would just have to hope they hadn’t actually taken them off in the street.
Madam Royal, if that was her, didn’t appear surprised to see their pale faces appearing. She only nodded and said, “Then you will want mourning robes?”
Malfoy’s face was pink when Harry glanced at him, and Harry didn’t think it was only strange shadows cast by the appearance of the fire. “Yes,” he said in a clipped tone. “And cloaks, undergarments, shirts, trousers, plain robes, and socks.” He glanced at his mother.
“A gown,” said Narcissa. “Rather than trousers. But the other things my son mentioned, as well.” She looked completely calm. Harry wondered how much that was feigned, and how much she had learned about such feigning when Voldemort was in the Manor. Probably a lot, he thought, and felt a squeeze of pity at his heart.
“Then you will spend most of the day here,” said Madam Royal, and turned to Harry. “I can fit you as well, Mr. Klein.”
“I will wait,” said Harry, and leaned against the wall. That took some of the weight off his contraption and feet and let him rest his back.
Royal only paused as though she would argue, and then nodded and said, “Ah,” without blinking. She led Malfoy and his mum into the back of the shop, and let the curtain fall shut behind them.
Harry sighed and rolled his eyes. On the one hand, he didn’t like letting the people he was guarding out of his sight. On the other, he had no particular desire to see them naked or half-naked, either. At least the contraption he wore had its own advantages to fighting if they were attacked here.
He turned his gaze back to a point halfway between the curtain and the street, and waited.
*
“You would look charmingly in this robe.”
Madam Royal never ordered someone else, Draco thought as he took the grey-blue robe from her. She only made pronouncements and observations, and it was up to someone else to obey them or not. She would sell them unflattering robes, if they wanted them, without turning a hair. And then somehow contrive to spread rumors that would reach all her regular customers and let them know that it wasn’t her bad taste that had led to people parading around like that.
Right now, he was looking for a mourning robe. And Draco wasn’t even sure when the funeral was, because the Aurors were still swarming over the Manor and the bed where his father had died, from what Potter said. No telling when they would be done.
Don’t think about it right now, Draco ordered himself, and confined his thoughts to what he could see from his reflection in the mirror. He turned his head back and forth slowly, admiring what he did see there. His hair was perfect, certainly, and the robes made his skin look pale but with a pearly glow beneath it, instead of the washed-out color Draco had been afraid he would see.
Draco nodded slowly, and turned back to face Madam Royal with his mouth open. Right now, she was debating with his mother over a robe by doing nothing more than turning the silky thing back and forth in front of Narcissa and gravely, silently challenging her to refuse it. From the way his mother’s eyes and mouth set, Draco knew she thought she should, but would probably weaken easily enough.
Then Draco felt a cold wind on his cheek, and purely on instinct he snapped his head to the side and dropped to the ground.
The wind skated past him, and Draco leaped up in time to see the mirror crack and splinter. There was a growth of crystal on it, as thought someone had flung a web of crystal that would stick there.
Something that didn’t quite have a form, that felt like a wind, leaped off the center of that crystal and made its way straight at Draco.
And then Potter was there, leaping in with an enormous bound of his disguised legs, planting himself in between Draco and the invisible force, and raising a shield of more of that fire Draco had seen him add to the wards. This time, the fire drew itself in and rolled around and clung to the unseen thing, covering it like the crystal covered the center of the mirror, and dragged it to the ground. The sounds of a furious struggle, full of snarls and growls, came from the center of the fire. Draco stared, shaken, and Potter turned around and gathered him close with one arm, calling out a spell Draco didn’t know.
There was another shrieking snarl from behind them, and at the same moment, Draco, who couldn’t see what was happening there anyway because Potter had his arm around Draco and had turned him towards his mother, saw his mother reach out a hand towards him, her mouth moving in words that Draco couldn’t hear.
Then a shield of fire formed around her, and Draco felt another cold bite in the air next to his cheek.
He struck out, wildly, lashing with one arm, and Potter cursed and dragged him even closer. Draco almost thought that would have helped if he had felt an ordinary chest behind him, instead of the straps of wood and iron that Potter had bound around him. It answered the question of how he had got so much taller, at least.
But that wasn’t the question Draco was really concerned with right now, so much as the question of whether he would survive.
The snarls were quieting down, but Draco could still only see the cloth of Potter’s ridiculous cloak and robes when he turned his head. He struggled with one hand, scuffling at the air, and found Potter hissing at him to be quiet. It did sound like a real hiss, in Parseltongue, although Draco knew he couldn’t have understood that language. But it did an effective job of getting him to be quiet.
Then there was one more wailing noise, and the silver fire came back and draped itself around Potter’s head and shoulders. And the sense of an attacker, of the Bard, was gone.
Draco assumed that, anyway, because the next second Potter was moving away from him, creaking towards the sacred back of the shop, behind a red curtain, where not even Draco had ever been invited. He knew that Madam Royal kept certain tricks of her trade there she didn’t want anyone to know about. And he wasn’t surprised when she moved towards Potter, her head uplifted and her arms spread and her hair rising a little behind her in the wake of some protective magic.
“I’m sorry, Mr. Klein,” she said. “But you cannot go back there.”
“The Bard of Morning’s Hope just escaped out the back of your shop,” said Potter roughly, in his own voice, and for the first time ever, Draco saw Madam Royal startled. “I bloody well have to look and find out where he went, and how he got in in the first place.”
Madam Royal considered it visibly, and then she nodded and said, “Very well. But I will go with you, to make sure you don’t disturb anything.”
Impatiently, Potter nodded, and she pulled the curtain back enough for him to duck through. Draco took a long, slow breath and moved across to his mother. The fire had faded around her enough for him to touch her. Narcissa laid one shaking hand on his shoulder and looked closely into his face.
“Are you all right?” she breathed.
“Yes,” said Draco. He wanted to say he should be, after the way Potter had hugged him, but that sounded weirdly intimate, and anyway, he doubted it would have satisfied his mother. He stood patiently still and let her look him over, running her hands up and down his sides as if she was looking for cracked ribs. Well, maybe it would be likely, from Potter’s embrace.
“Good,” said Narcissa at last, and stepped away from him, frowning. “Did you notice something?”
Draco tensed. “What?” If it was something that proved Potter or Madam Royal was in league with the Bard, then he hadn’t. And he wondered how wise it would be to stay here, if either of them was.
“The Bard’s attack only focused on you this time. Not me.” Narcissa twisted her fingers together and looked at him solemnly. “It makes me wonder if the only way I survived is because the Bard realized his attack was directed at the wrong person.”
“Why would it be?” Draco asked, but then looked at her left arm. Of course. She didn’t carry the Dark Mark. And while not every one of the Bard’s victims did, all of them had fought actively at the Battle of Hogwarts. His mother hadn’t. She had stayed out of the way, and never cast a single curse. Draco knew his father had, if only in self-defense.
“It’s a clue, maybe,” said Draco, and then shook his head. “But if the Bard is so selective in his choice of victims, why did he attack you at all?”
“That, I don’t know.” Narcissa smoothed her skirts down and gave Draco a narrow look. “It’s a mystery.”
One I’m heartily tired of, Draco thought, turning to stare again at the back curtain of the shop, and would like to solve.
*
Harry puttered around the back of the shop. He had to admit it was neat, much neater than the corresponding space in Madam Malkin’s, where he’d spent time both to be fitted for his own robes and when a few crimes had occurred there. There were no huge, towering piles of cloth here, only neat shelves that rose from the floor like bookshelves and contained bolts of cloth and the finished products.
Harry knew there had to be some reason the Bard had come from this direction, though. And he wasn’t prone to giving up, the way that he knew some Aurors in this situation would have, declaring the case unsolvable and reporting directly to the Ministry so they could take over. He had to find something. He moved behind the shelves, and Madam Royal followed him at once, saying, “It’s only my workroom.”
It did look like that, Harry had to admit, just a simple room with a table and scissors and measuring instruments and what looked like one of the silver things that had sat on Dumbledore’s desk before Harry destroyed it in fifth year. Harry paused, then moved closer.
The instrument wasn’t the same, though, he saw almost at once. It had an obvious purpose, balanced scales that would dip beneath different kinds of cloth. Disappointed, Harry drew back and looked around again.
There was a teakettle. There was a door out into Diagon Alley, but when Harry cast a spell known only to Aurors that would tell him how much time had passed since it was open, the answer came back as five hours. There was a photograph of a lovely woman who looked a lot like Madam Royal, except taller. She smiled and waved when she saw Harry looking.
“That’s my Mariana, who flirts with everyone,” said Madam Royal, shaking her head. Then she planted her hands on her hips and looked up at Harry. “And I’ll thank you to keep your eyes away from her, unless you intend to do something about it.”
Harry was startled into laughing. “How can I? When she’s not here and I am?”
“And she’s in Brazil, anyway,” Madam Royal agreed, and herded him gently but persistently back to the front of the shop. “Did you find anything that would help?” Her tone said how greatly she doubted that.
Harry took a long, slow breath. He thought he had, but the difficulties of confronting it made him feel ill. On the other hand, so had the theory about the Bard being a hero of the Battle of Hogwarts at first, and he had got over it.
“Maybe,” he said, and ignored her surprised expression. “Thank you for letting me look around back here.” He started towards the front of the shop.
“It’s a small price for the information you’ve allowed me to have in its place, Mr. Potter.”
Harry turned around slowly, because he had to when wearing the contraption that made him into Leonis Klein. “If you don’t keep this to yourself, then you would be surprised what I can do,” he said softly.
“The information would lose value if I spread it around.” Madam Royal spread her hand in a small, deprecating gesture. “And I am here in Knockturn Alley more for the robes made of rare furs that I sell than because of any inherent affinity for other Dark Arts. If you let me have the privilege of measuring you and clothing you, sometimes, then the temptation to ever spread the information at all would fade.”
Harry had to snort a little. “You wouldn’t want to tell others that you’re costuming Harry Potter?”
Madam Royal half-shook her head. “To be indiscreet with any of my clients’ information would hurt my business more than it would help.” She nodded to a cluster of silver spheres hanging in a corner of the ceiling. “Those collect and measure the magic signatures of those who come in here, and clients with powerful magic can feel the lingering aftereffects of other clients. They would know I was serving a strong wizard. That’s the best advertisement I could have.”
Harry squinted at the spheres. Now that he listened to them, he could hear the faint interruption in the running ripple of magic all around him, the break in the current. They felt like other devices he had run into that did much the same thing. He thought Madam Royal was probably telling the truth.
“All right,” he said. “If it’s nothing more than that, you’re welcome to it.” He turned and creaked back into the front of the shop, where the Malfoys stood up when they saw him. Harry nodded to them. “If you are done?”
They weren’t, but Harry stayed with them behind the curtain this time, simply averting his gaze when Malfoy’s chest was bared or Narcissa fitted the gown. And then they went out onto the cobblestones again, and Harry got in front of them to lead them out of Knockturn Alley.
“You found something,” Malfoy whispered from behind him. “I know. You have that look in your eyes.”
Harry shrugged. “It could easily be nothing.”
And it might. That was what he tried to tell himself. After all, he had only been in the headquarters of the Muggleborn Legion a few times. He didn’t even know if Madam Royal was Muggleborn herself.
What he did know was that he had last seen a photograph of her daughter Mariana perched on Dennis Creevey’s desk.
Chapter Nine.
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