Chapter Fourteen of 'The Bard of Morning's Hope'- Revelation
Chapter Thirteen.
Title: Bard of Morning's Hope (14/?)
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 Fourteen-Revelation
“They’re going to do what?”
“Sorry, mate.” Ron was almost cringing back from him in the fire, which reminded Harry that he was placing the blame on the wrong person. Ron was just the messenger. Unfortunately, the real culprits would be out of their offices in the Ministry by now, it was so late at night, and Harry didn’t know the names of their houses on the Floo network. “I don’t think it’s the right decision, but like they listen to me.”
“They should,” Harry snapped, leaning back on the hearth and shaking his head. “You’ve been right lots of times when someone else couldn’t see what was in front of their nose. And that person was me often enough.” He owed Ron his life several times over, and Ron owed his to Harry, probably as many times, but it wasn’t something they talked about.
Ron’s face went a little pink. “Thanks, mate. But that doesn’t tell me what you’re going to do about them.” He paused and gave Harry a significant look.
“I’m going to stay here and keep working the case until they pull me off,” said Harry grimly. “Officially pull me off, not just mouth these mealy words about how my life is in danger and someone else could do a better job of guarding the Malfoys while I’m in the field.” Saying the words made him feel sick.
“I think it’s political as much as it is anything else,” Ron muttered, but when Harry started to open his mouth and say he knew and that was what sickened him about it, Ron added hastily, “But I also think that Kingsley’s really worried about you. Even when you were disguised as Malfoy, the Bard still attacked.”
“And how many people knew I wasn’t Malfoy?” Harry asked quietly. “Only the Malfoys and the Aurors at the funeral. I don’t think the Bard would have attacked me at all if he had magic that could just find its way through the Transfiguration. He would have attacked the real Malfoy.”
Ron made a rude noise. He wasn’t a fan of Harry’s theory that an Auror had betrayed their ruse to the Bard. “If someone had told him, then why’d he attack at all? Your theory makes no sense.”
“I think he came to see if I was Malfoy or not,” Harry said softly. Admittedly, he hadn’t caught much of a glimpse of the Bard’s face, but he didn’t think it had been twisted in anger and hatred. “To see for himself, and then backed off from the attack. That attack was different from all the others. It happened in front of a bunch of potential witnesses, and I know he wasn’t using some of the magic that he has in the other attacks. I wasn’t even really defending myself, but he backed off.”
Dennis’s words rang in Harry’s head. Muggleborns who hero-worship me. The Bard might not have been able to bring himself to kill Harry because that hero-worship was so strong in him. But he’d had to attack and see for himself, or work some kind of spell that would only let him peer beneath the Transfiguration after the attack had already begun.
“It still doesn’t make sense that someone would have told him the truth and he would have attacked you anyway,” Ron said stubbornly. “It has to be something else.”
With a sigh, Harry let it go. It was true that someone who was a traitor in the Ministry, if they had power at all, would have been eager to keep Harry on the case so the Bard could try killing him again, not remove him from it.
Unless they think that with me gone, the Bard has the best chance of killing the Malfoys.
Harry felt a headache forming behind his eyes. They had too few clues, too many possible theories about what could have happened. As bloody usual with the Bard, he thought bitterly. The bastard wouldn’t stay put and let himself be sealed into a neat little theory-box. Not that Harry could have hoped he would, but he had hoped anyway.
“I’m sorry, mate,” Ron offered. “I don’t think they’ll try and pull you off the case for a few days, anyway.”
“Thanks for the advance warning,” Harry said tiredly. He knew that Ron had probably been allowed to give it to him; Kingsley wouldn’t want to anger Harry by springing a surprise like that on him. “But it’s bollocks. My job really is protecting the Malfoys, not hunting around for clues on the Bard.”
“I thought it was both.”
Harry gave him a tired smile. “I’m trying to do both, but if it comes down to it, I’m always going to put protecting the Malfoys first.”
*
Draco raised his eyebrows and leaned slowly back from the doorway of the drawing room, where he’d stood to listen to Potter argue with Weasley. At first, his thoughts had been consumed with bitterness. It wasn’t enough that his father was dead. Now someone wanted to take away the only Auror who had really protected them because of political shit, or because Draco and his mother weren’t dying fast enough to suit the Muggleborn fanatics.
But then he had started to listen to the rest of the conversation, and he had been a little humbled, a little awed, by how much Potter wanted to stay by their sides and defend them.
And a little thrilled.
Draco shook his head sharply. He wasn’t about to tumble into the panting position of Potter’s number-one fan, at least not yet. He would have to talk with him about it, though. If Potter refused to go and the Ministry insisted that he do exactly that, they might find themselves in a very awkward position very fast. Or at least another Auror would have to move into Potter’s house, and Draco didn’t think his mother would like that any more than he did.
But it might not happen. I’ll talk with Potter about it calmly.
Potter came stalking out of the drawing room shortly after, his face dark enough that Draco was reminded for a moment of the way he had looked at the funeral right after the Bard got away. He said nothing, but fell into step beside Potter.
For a moment, Potter paused as though Draco’s presence was disturbing him, but he shook his head a second later, and went on stalking down the corridor. “You heard most of that, I assume,” he mumbled.
Draco had to smile. It might not be done for a perfect, righteous Gryffindor to suspect the motives of potential victims he was guarding, but of course Potter knew Draco pretty well.
“Of course I did,” he said. “And I don’t particularly want anyone else guarding my mother and me. Apart from the danger factor, we might have to be suspicious of their motives in asking for the job.”
Potter exhaled hard and leaned against the wall for a second, staring at the other one. Draco looked, but saw nothing more interesting than an empty portrait frame. Potter had told him that a number of Draco’s Black ancestors had left their portraits when Potter moved into the house, refusing to stay in a property owned by a “filthy half-blood.”
“I don’t understand it,” Potter whispered. “Dennis and his people have never resorted to murder, because they understood that it would destroy their own political goals in the long run. But the Bard is connected with the Muggleborn Legion somehow. I think Dennis did know him, and I just didn’t ask the right questions. I think…” He pulled a strand of hair through his fingers sharply, frowning. “Either he’s someone crazy, or he has some goal with these killings that I don’t understand.”
“How could someone that crazy pull off such complex magic, though?” Draco asked, voicing one of his own prime doubts. “He would have had to have assistants, but no one has betrayed him, even for the hefty reward the Ministry offers.”
“Or perhaps he’s a sentient spell, and none of what I’ve been saying even matters.” Potter threw up his hands. “That’s the only problem with the abundance of theories on this case. There’s no way to be sure! Even narrowing him down to someone who was at the Battle of Hogwarts doesn’t tell us who might have cast a spell that went sentient. Merlin, sometimes I could wish Hermione hadn’t suggested that theory,” he muttered.
Draco put a hand on Potter’s shoulder, and made him stop muttering and look at him. “You seem frustrated,” he murmured. “You aren’t going to come up with the right answer by standing here and screaming in frustration. Come on. Let’s go into the kitchen, and sit down and have something to eat, and pool our knowledge, what we know about the Bard for certain.”
Potter hesitated once, then nodded. “All right. Thanks, Malfoy.”
Draco nodded back and began to move towards the kitchen, not bothering to take his hand off Potter’s shoulder, so Potter was drawn along with him. Potter did clear his throat after a moment. “Er, Malfoy, you can let go of me now.”
“Maybe I could,” Draco agreed easily. “But I don’t want to.”
He counted three beats of silence, then looked over his shoulder.
Potter was staring at him with the perfect mixture of shock and something else, his jaw hanging open. He swallowed and closed it hastily when he saw Draco watching him, but he nodded and looked away.
He also didn’t make any attempt to remove his shoulder from Draco’s grip.
Draco smiled and went on walking. It seemed they were creating some understandings that would survive after all, even if another Auror was assigned to guard his mother and him.
*
“We know that he was at the Battle of Hogwarts,” said Malfoy, and made a notation on the growing list in front of him.
Harry sighed and jogged the plate of bread in front of him. Molly had brought over more food before he could ask Kreacher to cook for them, and hadn’t stayed. She had simply taken a look at his face, hugged him fiercely, and murmured into his ear, “You’ll catch him. I have faith in you, Harry.”
It’s good that someone does, Harry thought, and then looked across the table at Malfoy and changed his opinion. Or two people do.
Malfoy took another sip of his own tea and said, without looking up from the list, “Yes, it’s possible that he’s only killing people who were at the Battle of Hogwarts and wasn’t there himself. But we have to cut down the possibilities and see where the remaining ones intersect, for now. We’ll try a different set of possibilities if this one doesn’t produce any answers. Besides, he’s scarily accurate. I don’t think that he could have been absent from the battle and then asked questions later without betraying himself to someone who would have betrayed him in turn.”
That was at least a rational reason for cutting some of their theories out of the picture, Harry thought hopefully. He leaned forwards again. “What do you think about the possibility of a sentient spell?”
“It’s a clever thought,” said Malfoy, in a neutral voice. “But so far, we haven’t seen any evidence in support of it.”
Harry narrowed his eyes at him. “If you’d come up with it, or even if I had, you might be all over it. You only don’t want to acknowledge that it’s clever because it’s Hermione.”
“I just said that I think it’s clever.” Malfoy looked back at him, unblinking. “But it has no evidence.”
“The Bard can come through the wards,” Harry said, and began to count things off on his fingers. “The Bard can be half-real at moments when he is. The Bard can attack with an amazing variety of magic, although he’s used ice magic the last few times-”
“Why would a curse specifically pick ice magic?” Malfoy interrupted. “We aren’t associated with ice, it isn’t our symbol, my father wasn’t known for killing people with ice curses. The sentient spells I’ve read about are tailored to provide poetic justice. But what’s the reason for this?”
Harry shook his head wearily. “We know that he can use sympathetic magic of some sort to get inside the wards,” he said. “Or artifacts that are associated with his victims.” He hesitated, because that wouldn’t explain the attack at Madam Royal’s robe shop, and slowly adjusted his thinking. “Or perhaps he can ride them…”
“What?” Malfoy looked up sharply.
“I was wondering about the robe shop,” Harry said. He had the insight now, and he didn’t think he would lose it this time and have to have Malfoy turn to Legilimency to get it out of him. He could see the path of logic unfolding ahead of him, rolling down into a long road. “You didn’t have anything with you that day that you’d brought into the house out of the Manor, since you’d sent all your clothes back and you were wearing the ones you’d Transfigured.”
“Our wands?” Malfoy offered tensely. He was leaning forwards with his eyes on Harry’s face, as if he was fearful of disturbing his train of thought.
“That still wouldn’t answer the question of how the Bard got through the wards in the first place,” Harry pointed out. “He had to have a link. But say it was your wands. How would he go where they were? Maybe he can actually attach a small part of himself to them, a piece of hair or whatever it is that lets him get through the wards in the first place. A part of his magic? So he can ride them.”
Malfoy whistled, long and low. “That’s an idea I’ve heard in a few elf stories, Potter. Not in magical theory.”
“But it would explain so much, wouldn’t it?” Harry demanded. He didn’t want to let go of the idea, because it made so much sense. “How he could follow you into Grimmauld Place, for one thing. He just had to attach part of his magic to the clothes or something else you brought along from the Manor, and then he could attach it to something else once he’d been pulled through the wards here. Then the wards on Madam Royal’s shop couldn’t keep him out, either.”
“But…” said Malfoy.
Harry focused on him, as intently as Malfoy had looked at him, because he knew Malfoy was at least intrigued by the idea, and hadn’t come up with one that could destroy it completely in turn. “Yes?”
“It still doesn’t answer the question of how he got through the wards at the Manor in the first place.” Harry started to open his mouth, and Malfoy held up a hand. “Or the wards at the other places where he attacked the other Death Eaters, I know that, but I’m trying to explain just about the Manor for right now. We’d had no visitors since before at least three of the other murders. We’d had no owl deliveries he could have used. If he’s proceeding along a chain of sorts, setting things up so that one murder allows him to get through the next victim’s wards, then how was he able to get access to the Manor?”
Harry sighed. That was true. And then there was the fact that someone or something that was already inside the wards wouldn’t have had to push the half-real ball of ice that Narcissa had seen through the wards, either. “I understand what you’re saying.”
“Maybe,” Malfoy said, suddenly enough that Harry jumped, “he isn’t proceeding the way you think he is. Not just a random object, but one kind of object. Was there one particular kind of object at all the murder and attack scenes?”
Harry rolled his eyes. “Wands. Nothing else. You’d think we wouldn’t have noticed by now if there was?”
“I’m not talking about specific objects,” Malfoy snapped. “Not something like, oh, crow feathers. But feathers in general. What did we bring from the Manor?” He started ticking things off on his fingers. “Our wands, clothes, the shawl he used to try and strangle my mother, photographs of my father-”
Harry slammed his hand down on the kitchen table. “The photograph of her daughter that Madam Royal had in her shop!”
And, with an awful, gut-twisting howl, a cold wind blew straight at Harry.
Harry was already moving, prepared, this time, in a way that he hadn’t been at Lucius’s funeral by the discussion and the fact that he’d failed in the last attack. His magic spread out in a Fire Shield Charm, a specialized version of Protego that used flames as the spinning center and edges of the wheel, and consumed anything that came between them. Harry thought it should be adept at countering the Bard’s cold magic.
He felt something heavy hit the edge of the shield. He struggled for a second, trying to see the Disillusionment Charm that shielded the Bard, and then the weight was gone as if it had never existed. Harry cursed, and rolled, trying to spread the fire shield so that it covered Malfoy as well. Was this more of the half-real shit?
Malfoy shouted a charm that Harry wasn’t about to admit he knew, a Dark revealing one that was supposed to show the innermost secrets of hearts along with quite a few other things. Harry bit his lip sharply so he didn’t start babbling out inner truths, and stared up.
There was a shimmer in the middle of the air, and for a moment, Harry saw the Bard, the glittering face, the haunted and staring eyes, before Malfoy lost his grip on the magic-probably in astonishment-and it blew away again, with another howl accompanying it.
Harry lay on the floor, stunned, staring up, his heart pounding so hard that he had to have Malfoy’s help to get to his feet again. When he could, he collapsed into a chair and put his head in his hands.
No wonder the wards hadn’t kept him out. No wonder he had seemed half-real. No wonder he could travel through photographs.
The Bard of Morning’s Hope was a ghost.
The ghost of Colin Creevey.
Chapter Fifteen.
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