“I don’t give a damn who started it,” Hermione had said. When Harry began to protest she held up a hand and continued sharply “—although I noticed it was you standing at Malfoy’s door and not the other way around. I don’t care. This is the Weasleys’ home!”
Harry was tired of arguing that it had been all stupid Malfoy’s stupid fault and that he’d insulted Dumbledore. His face was aching where Malfoy had cut him, he was still embarrassed by the way everyone had stared at him as if he was a crazy person, and Hermione had been reading him a lecture on the correct behaviour of guests for what felt like years.
“What do you want me to do, then?” he’d asked, and she’d looked thoughtful.
“Since you’re up, you could collect the books from the library that Ron and I weren’t been able to bring back. There were a lot of them, you know, and I do not particularly fancy facing Madam Pince again after you threatened to set fire to the library.”
“Hermione, it’s the middle of the night—”
“Just like it was when you went to get Malfoy from Snape’s house, then. Only this time what you bring back won’t be keeping us all up. Just go, Harry. Let everyone have some peace and quiet.”
So Harry’d gone. He’d Apparated and stamped through the darkness of Hogwarts grounds and collected a bulging sack of those stupid books and wondered why Hermione had turned on him, aside from the fact she had apparently been immersed in extraordinarily interesting footnotes when the yelling started.
By the time he returned home, the sky was turning a paler blue by the second, and Harry made himself tea instead of going to bed. He rummaged through the sack of books and, failing to find anything called How to Get Your Horcrux Off the Most Annoying Neck in the World, selected one at random and started flipping through.
Hermione came down the stairs soon after. Harry hadn’t realised that books actually called to her in her sleep.
The soothing sight of new books seemed to mean all was forgiven. “Ooh, thanks, Harry,” she said, pouring herself a cup of tea. “Oh—I didn’t even notice that last night, Harry, you should’ve said something. Have you lost much blood?” He stared at her, uncomprehending, and then realised what she was on about as she took his chin in one hand and healed his cheek. “Malfoy had no right to do that,” she went on disapprovingly. “A cutting spell can get right out of—”
She stopped abruptly and then, with unusual tact for Hermione, went and made toast.
Harry had known that both food and Hermione called to Ron in his sleep, and was not overly surprised when he staggered down in his pyjamas, in time to grab the first lot and start liberally applying marmalade.
“So how about last night?” Ron asked. “Can you believe it? Draco Malfoy apologising to me. To me!”
Harry put his knife through his toast and then spoke through his teeth. “He owed you an apology.”
“Well, yeah, but I didn’t expect him to say it, all the same.” Ron frowned at his marmalade. “I’d’ve thought he’d find it too humiliating, or something.”
“Well, feeling humiliated about being sorry just shows what a stupid, arrogant prat he is!”
“That’s my point,” said Ron. “He is a stupid, arrogant prat. I don’t think he’d apologise unless he was really sorry, and if he’s really sorry then he’s probably not working for You-Know-Who. I mean… d’you think he is?”
Harry looked at his cup of tea rather than Ron, and thought of Malfoy shouting I thought it would be easy!
He cleared his throat. “No,” he said after a moment. “No, I don’t.”
“So if he’s on our side,” Ron pursued, “can’t we just ask him what’s going on without fiddling around with Veritaserum and stuff?”
Harry opened his mouth and then shut it again, searching for a way to say that it was easier to be sympathetic towards Malfoy when he wasn’t in the room without making it sound like Harry was making decisions based on how much he was annoyed by Malfoy’s face.
“Ron, don’t be absurd,” Hermione said briskly. “Harry found Malfoy at Professor—at Snape’s house. Even if Malfoy is on our side, and I’d be much more inclined to believe he’s just trying to save his own neck any way he can, he obviously trusts Snape. He let Snape lock the Horcrux round his neck, and he will keep Snape’s secrets from us. And we need to know what Snape is planning.”
Harry thought of Malfoy in the garden yesterday, in the gathering dusk with his forehead pressed against that of someone who looked like Ginny, his swollen mouth brushing her skin. I’m trying to make up for it now. I really am. Professor Snape’s helping me.
Snape, who had murdered Dumbledore. He had to be found out and stopped and punished, and perhaps once he was out of the picture Malfoy would turn to the right side for help.
They all heard Malfoy’s voice on the stairs, which cut off any Malfoy-related conversation abruptly and sent them to their books. “Charles, I don’t want to, stop coercing me.”
Harry kept his eyes fixed on Chapter Four: When You Really Want In and Alohomora Just Won’t Cut It for all of three seconds after the door opened and Malfoy and Charlie came in. Charlie had hold of Malfoy’s shoulders and was pushing him forward. Malfoy was rubbing his eyes, looking sleepy and cross.
“Draco, I thought you loved Bessie. I can’t keep her here, I’m going for the job interview this morning and I won’t be able to take care of her if I get it. I’m sending her back this morning.
Don’t you care enough to say goodbye?”
Charlie sounded amused. Malfoy gave him a filthy look and wandered over to the coffee pot. “I hate whoever made tea and not coffee,” he announced in a hollow voice. “Hate them.”
“So nothing new there then,” Harry snapped.
Malfoy glanced over his shoulder at him, and then looked immediately away. He’d only been in the room two minutes and already Harry’s whole body was thrumming with irritation and he was ready to believe Malfoy had inveigled his way in there to spy for Voldemort.
“Bessie will think all your sweet words meant nothing,” Charlie said mournfully.
“You’re just a great big bully,” Malfoy informed him severely, fetching cups for the coffee. “Bessie knows how I feel. We have something between us, Charles, something wonderful. I call it the window. I want to keep it between us.”
Harry shut his book and went over to get himself a fresh cup of tea. “He means that he’s scared.”
When Malfoy scowled Harry saw the cut at the corner of his mouth, left unhealed. “I’m not scared!” He looked at Charlie, and the scowl slipped away. “I can’t go out there. I’ll be cold,” he announced plaintively. “I have to stay inside in case I catch a chill and die.”
Charlie snorted. “Oh, you poor little thing.”
How was anyone supposed to find the sugar for a simple cup of tea with Malfoy leaning all over the kitchen surfaces and trying to win over the Weasleys one by one with his horrible wheedling smiles?
“I’m a delicately nurtured soul,” Malfoy claimed. “Particularly subject to chills.”
“Fine,” said Charlie, and grabbed the front of his own jumper. His red head disappeared for a moment, and then emerged as he pulled the jumper all the way off. Harry was a bit taken aback when a good section of broad back was suddenly on show in the kitchen, but then thin material tumbled back down and he saw Charlie was wearing a T-shirt after all. “There,” Charlie said to an equally taken-aback Malfoy. “Now you’ll be warm.”
“Ah… all right, then,” Malfoy said, accepting it and then smiling again. “But I still think you’re a bully.”
He struggled into the jumper and came out ruffled and flushed and looking just as stupid as Harry would’ve expected Malfoy to look in a Weasley jumper. Charlie was actually shorter than Malfoy, but he had the arms and shoulders of someone who bossed around dragons for a living and Malfoy’s hands were lost in his sleeves.
“Suits you,” Charlie remarked. “C’mon, let’s—”
He was cut off by the sound of a door opening.
“Charlie, stop right there!” Ginny exclaimed. “Why did Mum have to tell me you were going for an interview? What’s genealogy? Isn’t it to do with books, Charlie, you’ll be rotten at it—”
“It’s helping with dragon pedigrees for the Cave to Kennel Association, Ginny, I do need a job—”
“It’s still books, Charlie, and you hate books—”
Charlie and Ginny launched into a loud discussion about Charlie’s aptitude for books, Charlie’s stubbornness, and the insulting attitude of some know-it-all little sisters.
Malfoy grabbed the sugar from the shelf over his head.
“I need that,” Harry said.
Malfoy slammed the cupboard door and did not look in the least inclined to hand it over. “It astonishes me how very pathetic you are.”
“I’m not interested in your opinion of me, actually.”
Malfoy opened another cupboard door purely, it seemed, so he could slam it closed again. “Of course you’re not,” he said, opening and slamming more cupboard doors. “I’m Harry Potter,” he said in a falsetto voice. “I’m always right and pure and virtuous and too marvellous to even brush my hair in the morning!”
“I brush my hair every morning!” Harry said, and then realised that was not a retort calculated to wound Malfoy to the quick. “I’m so sick of you.”
Malfoy slammed yet another cupboard door. “I’m so sick of this!”
“I think we should go see Bessie now,” Charlie interposed. “Coming, Draco? Ginny?”
Malfoy threw the sugar at Harry’s face. Harry caught it easily, but Malfoy had already turned away and did not see. Ginny left the door open and they were all treated to the sight of Bessie’s scaly bulk moving in the garden, and the three figures moving towards her. Harry noticed Malfoy’s head bent to Ginny’s, murmuring something, and heard her laugh.
Harry was pleased to note that Ron was also moved to glower at them. “I keep thinking about him kissing her,” Ron confided darkly to the table at large. “It was horrible. It—I hope Charlie keeps an eye on him in case he tries anything.”
“Oh honestly,” Hermione said. “If Malfoy tried anything Ginny would hex important things off him. Leaving aside the fact they both fancy other people, he’s not her type.”
“Not sure Ginny has a type. Not like you, with your really good Quidditch players.” Ron put down his knife and got marmalade all over the table as a horrible thought clearly struck him. “Hermione, you don’t—”
“No I don’t!” Hermione yelped. “Ron, sometimes I think you must be going mad.”
Ron looked pleased.
Hermione laughed. “If I really did fancy Quidditch players then I’d fancy Harry, wouldn’t I?”
“Oi,” Harry said, coming over with the tea. “It’s been a long hard day already, and it’s not even nine yet. Don’t pour scorn on my manly charms until lunchtime.”
Hermione snorted at him and Harry sat down, trying to find the place he’d reached in the book before Malfoy interrupted.
“You did say Harry was fanciable,” Ron remarked, giving Harry a look full of dark suspicion.
“But I don’t fancy him,” Hermione said in an exasperated tone. “He’s got the same problem as Malfoy. He’s too skinny.” She grinned and then added hastily: “Of course you’re better-looking than Malfoy, Harry.”
“Um,” said Harry. “Thanks.”
“I think I look quite well-fed,” Ron put in, his face hopeful. “Sturdy, you might say.”
“Mmm,” replied Hermione, who had returned to her book with a little smile.
Harry rolled his eyes at both of them and turned a page. He would’ve been able to concentrate on his book much better if Ginny hadn’t gone and left the door open, which he considered thoughtless. He could see, in the darkness of early morning, Malfoy reaching up to pat the dragon’s neck. He didn’t want to think about Malfoy not being on Voldemort’s side, or feeling guilty when he wouldn’t say sorry, or anything like that. He did not want to think about Malfoy’s pain. All he’d ever wanted was for Malfoy to get expelled and move to Tahiti or something.
“There, there, who’s a good great big enormous girl!” he heard Malfoy say. “Been a touch over-generous with the dragon feed, have we, Charles?”
“She can hear you! You’re giving her a complex!”
They clattered in laughing, the crisp morning air spreading rose colour over Ginny’s face and turning the end of Malfoy’s nose pink.
“No wonder Hippogriffs slash you if that’s how you talk to them,” Ginny remarked as they came in, in far too friendly a tone for Harry’s liking. “Sugar in my coffee, please.”
“Can we not bring up Care of Murderous Creatures?”
“Care of Magical Creatures,” Harry put in.
Malfoy didn’t even turn around. “That’s what I said. It was all that gigantic oaf’s fault—”
“Don’t talk about Hagrid that way,” Charlie chided. “He’s a good guy, even if he is completely mental, and you should know at your age that Hippogriffs are bizarrely touchy.”
“I was thirteen,” Malfoy snapped, “and people who are completely mental should not be teaching class!”
Charlie blinked. “Thirteen’s a bit young to be thrown in with Hippogriffs, all right—”
Malfoy shrugged one-shouldered and handed Ginny her coffee. Harry watched her smile at Malfoy, and watched Malfoy smile quickly back.
He was grateful when Mrs Weasley came downstairs, though her motivation seemed to be more feeding the masses and giving Charlie extra muffins for luck than separating her youngest born from boys with dubious morals.
Mrs Weasley, Ginny and Malfoy all went to the back door with Charlie when it was time for him to go. Ginny and Mrs Weasley kissed him: Harry supposed he should be thankful Malfoy’s sucking up did not go that far.
“Good luck,” Malfoy said instead, leaning against the door frame. Charlie smiled at him, and Malfoy stayed on the doorstep with the others as Charlie and Bessie lifted off, her wings filling the garden and his red hair catching the sun, and flew away.
Harry did not care if Malfoy wasn’t on Voldemort’s side. He didn’t care if Malfoy wanted to save the Muggleborn and spend his life caring for abandoned puppies. He was going to die of hate.
They all had to research and Charlie was gone, so Ginny and Malfoy were doing stuff together. On their own.
All right, they were playing card games in the same room as everyone else, but still. Harry had seen Malfoy kiss Ginny’s mouth yesterday, seen his hands move on her body, and heard Ginny’s voice making sounds in Malfoy’s ear. It didn’t help that when he shut his eyes he saw that, and when he opened his eyes he saw Ginny’s hand slap down on top of Malfoy’s.
“Snap!”
Harry was pretty sure he was going to.
He’d had someone he thought was Ginny making sounds in his ear yesterday as well, which did not help matters at all. He was tired and angry and the book wasn’t giving him any answers, it was all utterly frustrating.
As if the situation wasn’t bad enough already, Malfoy had the locket out. He was playing cards with Harry’s girlfriend and he had the Horcrux Harry needed out, the locket in the hollow of his palm, the chain escaped from the collar of his shirt, lying gleaming and exposed against his neck. His head was tilted towards Ginny so one side of his neck was exposed, the gold links taut against his skin and then tangled around his restless fingers. He was used to having the Horcrux Harry needed to destroy Voldemort around his neck, comfortable enough to play with it, and Harry just—all Harry wanted was to…
“Harry? Harry!” Hermione yelled in his ear.
Harry blinked. “Um?”
“God, you must be tired. Do you want another cup of tea?”
“Tea. Er. Tea. Yes, please.” Harry looked back, under cover of studying his book. Ginny had dropped the cards and was stooping to pick them up, and Malfoy had let go of the Horcrux. The locket had been slipped back inside his shirt, and lay half-concealed in the shadow of his collar. Malfoy was looking at Harry with narrowed eyes.
Harry looked back at his book. He strained to hear what Malfoy was saying, but all he caught was the sound of his voice murmuring, and the flash of his teeth when Ginny nodded and Malfoy smiled. They got up and went out.
Harry gritted his teeth and read. By the time he was through two books he had also been through eight cups of tea and it was lunchtime. Mrs Weasley had waited lunch for Charlie, and Malfoy and Ginny had been outside alone for hours.
“I’ll get Ginny!” Harry exclaimed, standing up as soon as Charlie came in. Ron and Hermione stared at him and he added, “For lunch.”
Hermione opened her mouth, but he was out the door before she could speak and into a garden that looked strangely empty without the scaly presence of Bessie.
Malfoy and Ginny were standing under a tree, looking at each other. The wind was whipping Ginny’s hair around her face, but she didn’t even seem to notice. They were both tense, staring at each other intently, hands outreached.
Malfoy’s hand opened and released a Snitch.
Harry’s small sound of surprise caught Malfoy’s attention, and as his eyes met Harry’s Ginny made a leap for the Snitch and caught it in both hands.
“Aha!” she exclaimed. “I am the Supreme Quidditch Mistress!” Malfoy nodded towards Harry and Ginny turned, flashing him a smile. “Harry! I won, did you see?”
“It’s now fourteen thirty-two to me,” Malfoy drawled. “Imagine how crushed I am. She’d be quite good with a bit more practise, though.”
Ginny laughed, turning back to Malfoy, and said: “Quite good? I’ll show you how good I am, Malfoy—”
“With Potter right here?” Malfoy asked in a dramatic, conspiratorial whisper. “Scandalous!”
Ginny was just laughing, but his eyes slid towards Harry with a sort of absent-minded malice. That was what worried Harry—not Malfoy being malicious, which was familiar and felt almost reassuring directed towards Harry—but the fact malice seemed to be a side issue. Malfoy’s eyes shifted away, fixed intently on the Snitch, or perhaps just on Ginny.
Harry felt an urge to snap his fingers in Malfoy’s face so Malfoy would look at him and away from Ginny before Harry punched him.
“It’s lunch time,” he said warningly.
“This one counts for all,” Ginny declared.
She and Malfoy stared at each other, the wind dropping as if to give them privacy. Malfoy smiled and Ginny’s hand opened, the Snitch bursting out into the air.
Harry moved forward and grabbed it. That had always been easy for him, just a matter of speed and control and taking something for his own, leaving everyone else standing with their hands empty.
He stood, breathing a little harder, and saw they were both looking at him. Ginny stared at him for a moment, and he could not quite read the expression in her brown eyes, but it chased all the triumph from his chest. He was left empty, and she walked away.
Anger filled the void at the sharp, deliberate slam of Malfoy’s shoulder against his. He looked into Malfoy’s cold eyes.
“Nobody invited you to play,” Malfoy informed him, and then stormed off after Ginny.
Harry looked at the gold gleaming in his hand, so easily caught, and then at the gold visible at the nape of Malfoy’s neck. He blinked, feeling the tired burn behind his eyelids, and then tried to catch up.
If Ginny had been angry with him, it did not last. He smiled and passed her bread she didn’t want, and she smiled and took it. He looked at her smile, tried to memorise it: it did look different from the smile Pansy had worn on Ginny’s lips, just before Malfoy kissed her.
“—can’t see why you were so late,” Mrs Weasley’s voice came through to him, fondly chiding. “What were you doing?”
Harry looked away from Ginny at once when Charlie answered, caught by the edge to his voice.
“I was seeing Percy, actually,” Charlie said. “Remember Percy?”
Harry looked around the table and saw Mr Weasley, his face very still, and Ron and Hermione with their arms pushed together for comfort. Malfoy had taken his usual place next to Charlie, and he looked trapped, and something about the set of Charlie’s shoulders made Charlie look even bigger than normal, and almost menacing.
Ginny dashed in where others feared to tread. “Of course, we remember him arriving on Christmas Day, to use us because the precious Minister told him to!”
“I’m sure you remember throwing food at him as well!” Charlie said, and the edge to his voice grew sharper, closer to a shout.
“Could I have the salt?” Malfoy burst out, looking hunted to the point of trying to turn the conversation from quarrelling to condiments.
“Could you be quiet?” Charlie snapped. “Not everything has to be about Draco Malfoy all the time!”
Malfoy looked at his plate and said, “Right,” in a very low, careful voice. On an impulse Harry pushed the salt towards him and Malfoy took it, without looking up to see who had given it to him.
“I know he’s being a prat!” Charlie continued savagely. “I know he shouldn’t have shown up at our door just for the Minister, I know he should’ve believed us about You-Know-Who. But I’m sick of pretending that all the fault lies with him and none of it with Dad!”
“D’you want to go play catch the Snitch?” Harry asked Ginny in a low voice. She nodded with a swift bright smile. He got up and said, “Thanks for lunch, Mrs Weasley, it was really—”
“Don’t lay this on your father!”
“He said Percy was being used to spy on us! Well, Percy didn’t get fired when he turned away from all of us, did he?”
Hermione coughed and said: “Charlie, how did the interview go?”
Harry could see she thought this was a tactful intervention. It was amazing, the way Hermione’s intelligence sometimes just failed her.
“Actually,” Charlie said between his teeth, “I didn’t get it. Scrimgeour and his people have apparently spread the word that I am not sympathetic to the war effort. Thanks for asking,” he said, biting off every word as if he had a personal grudge against each one.
Hermione looked horrified. “I think I’ll—I think I’ll take a book and catch some air outside with Harry and Ginny,” she announced in a small voice.
“I’ll come with you,” Ron told her, getting up and putting his body between her and Charlie’s glare. “C’mon, let’s all…”
While they were escaping, Harry felt a moment’s compunction. Malfoy looked as if he wished his plate would eat him and save him from the embarrassment of a family not his own fighting around him, and Harry thought—he thought Ginny might ask Malfoy along. Since she seemed to enjoy his company so much. Ginny, however, was giving Hermione and Ron a speaking look, as if she was indignant about them coming along and not inclined to invite anyone else.
After a moment, Harry pushed the thought irritably away. It wasn’t like he was keen on Malfoy’s company.
They all went out, the door shutting fast against Charlie’s shout of “Percy is bloody good at his job—”
Ron took off his jumper and put it on the grass for him and Hermione to sit on. Given the relative size of his jumper, this necessitated sitting rather close together. Harry had a suspicion that Ron was not going to get much reading done, and that the wind was not solely responsible for the colour in Hermione’s cheeks.
Harry caught the Snitch twenty times in a row. The twenty-first time, Ginny put her head to one side and said: “What do I have to do to win here?” and Harry had a terribly unfortunate memory of Pansy’s—Ginny’s—Pansy’s back arching under his hands, and then a sudden dreadful moment when he was not sure whether those had been his hands or Malfoy’s.
Ginny caught the Snitch easily that time. Harry blinked at her, remembering yesterday’s sunset and the exact feel of her body pressed against his palms—surely they had been—He pinched the skin between his eyebrows, feeling suddenly even more tired.
“I’d—we’d better all go in. I need to get a book too.”
“Sore loser, are we?” Ginny’s smile invited one back and he gave her the best he could.
“Just letting you enjoy your one victory.”
“You’re no fun,” she grumbled. He shrugged, giving her a more genuine and unrepentant grin, and made for the house. He saw Ginny go over to Ron and Hermione, displaying her Snitch, and he shook his head in amusement as he opened the door and went into the kitchen.
There were no raised voices now, just Malfoy’s voice saying on rather a high note, “Mrs Weasley, someone is going to come in—”
Malfoy was almost at the kitchen door, leaning against the draining board with his arms stretched along it, one hand clasping a cup of coffee. He was half naked.
Harry wished things like this would stop happening in the kitchen, or it would be utterly ruined for him.
“Now, Draco, you can’t keep Scourgifying this shirt,” Mrs Weasley told him, looking pleased to have something to do. “Scourgify is very hard on clothes, you know. Look, these shirt cuffs are all frayed already, tch, this really isn’t very good material—”
“It’s fine—”
“You’ll get a lovely lemony smell with better cleaning spells, too,” Mrs Weasley went on happily.
Hermione had been right, Harry thought with a bizarre sense of dispassion. Malfoy was a skinny bastard. Harry could count every one of his ribs, they looked like he could’ve played the xylophone on them if he had reached out and touched them. Malfoy’s spine stuck out as well, a distinct line running from the nape of his neck where chain and fine hairs glittered, between shoulders more powerful than Harry would have expected, to the point where his jeans began. Perhaps it was good he was staying at the Burrow, at least Mrs Weasley would feed him…
Malfoy must have noticed the cold air from the open door at last, because he cast Harry a wintry look over his shoulder.
“Oh, perfect,” he said. “Do you mind?”
“Oh—sorry,” said Harry, shutting the door behind him. Malfoy, unreasonably, looked even more annoyed.
“Are you done yet?” he asked Mrs Weasley, who smiled at him indulgently and shook out the flannel shirt.
“Here you go,” she replied, and held it out for him.
There was a strange, still pause. Malfoy did not move.
Harry abruptly realised why. Mrs Weasley must have given him the coffee, and Malfoy must’ve accepted it with his right hand without thinking, but now Malfoy was frozen, not wanting to switch the coffee to his left hand in case she wondered why, and not wanting to reach out with his left hand… because he did not want Mrs Weasley to see the Dark Mark.
Harry reached out before he knew what he was doing, and took the shirt from Mrs Weasley’s hands.
She was looking at him oddly now, and he said: “Um—you were right, Mrs Weasley, you really can tell the difference. It does have a lovely, lemony smell!”
Mrs Weasley looked gratified. Malfoy looked around over his shoulder as if he was utterly amazed that it was still Harry Potter standing behind him, and Harry had a brief moment of satisfaction that at last Malfoy knew he had something to be grateful to Harry for.
Only Malfoy had turned a little to look at him, and Mrs Weasley’s eyes suddenly fixed on him.
“Draco,” she said, her voice suddenly very sharp. “Draco, you can tell me—who did that to your chest? Was it your father?”
“No—” Malfoy answered automatically, and then in an angrier voice, “No, of course not! It was—” he stopped for the briefest of moments, and then continued smoothly on: “It was a helicopter,” he said firmly. “I was about ten and I was flying over the moors on my new broom, which I wasn’t technically as such allowed to do, and then out of nowhere there was this enormous Muggle thing with—well, they’re called choppers and they’re kept up with blades, so you can imagine what happened. There was a terrible collision. And I have this scar now,” he concluded, and anyone not listening as closely as Harry would have been sure there was some connection between the two sentences.
“Well! You poor thing,” Mrs Weasley commiserated at once. “Nasty Muggle machines—I suppose they’re run on that filthy stuff called oil, aren’t they, did that get in the wound?”
“May…be,” Malfoy answered slowly.
“I should tell Arthur to put another lock on the shed door immediately,” Mrs Weasley said, looking haunted by thoughts of her children being scarred with blades and oil. “Excuse me, boys—”
Harry and Malfoy were left alone in the kitchen, and Malfoy turned on him with a cold look that let Harry know in no uncertain terms that the only reason Malfoy had shielded him was because Malfoy never wanted to owe him anything at all.
“We’re even,” Malfoy informed him.
Harry said: “Oh my God, Malfoy.”
Malfoy tried to step back and was stopped by the draining board. “What are you—do not touch me, Potter!”
Harry kept a hard grip on Malfoy’s shoulder. He’d seen some of it in Snape’s house when Malfoy unbuttoned his shirt, but he hadn’t—he’d been taken aback and furious and he hadn’t imagined, he hadn’t thought.
The scar started just above the hollow of Malfoy’s throat, and then followed the dip as if tracing it. Then it cut a jagged path across his chest, a slash written on the left because Harry held his wand in his right hand. Malfoy’s chest was pale as the rest of him, pale as if not even the sun had ever touched him, and the raised, silvery ridge of the scar looked obscene carved onto his skin. It looked as if someone had tried to cut out Malfoy’s heart.
Harry found his throat dry. “Malfoy—”
“Give me my shirt this instant, Potter, or I swear—”
He swallowed, felt his throat click as he did so. He remembered the sheer horror washing through him when Malfoy went down and how he’d—he hadn’t wanted to think about what he’d done, hadn’t wanted to give up the book because it had been a friend (when God, it had been Snape), and he pushed it away and buried it with resentment of Snape and thoughts of Quidditch and even Ginny. He’d complained about Snape’s punishment, he remembered with a slow rise of horror, when if Snape hadn’t been trying to conceal his part in it he would have gone to Dumbledore.
Harry was glad Dumbledore had never known. That Harry had complained about missing Quidditch, when it had been so close. The scar showed a wound that—if it had been the smallest bit deeper, if Snape had not been just outside the door… Harry was suddenly deeply, fiercely grateful for the living warmth of Malfoy, struggling in his grip.
Malfoy would have died. And Harry would have…
“Malfoy,” Harry said abruptly, heard his voice rasp and went on in spite of it. “Malfoy, I’m really sorry. I didn’t think—I had no idea what the spell would do. It was in that book and it said ‘for enemies’ and—I was angry, I’ve been Crucio’d before. I thought you were a Death Eater. It’s not an excuse. I don’t mean to make excuses. I’m really sorry. I should have told you before.”
Malfoy stared at him. After a long moment, and in a far less combative tone, he said: “Can I please have my shirt back?”
Harry snatched his hand away. “Right.”
Malfoy reached out and took the shirt from Harry’s other hand, still looking at him warily and looking completely off balance, and began to slip the garment on. After another long moment, the corner of Malfoy’s mouth—cut where Harry had hit him last night—came up a fraction.
“It’s all right,” he said. “I was a Death Eater.”
The breath Harry let go was almost pure relief, mingled with a small stupid bit of laughter. He did not know what to do with his hands and ran his fingers helplessly through his hair.
“Well, but still—”
The corner of Malfoy’s mouth came up another fraction. “Not sure how much of a threat a Death Eater poses, weeping like a small girl in a bathroom, but—”
The door opened.
“Malfoy,” Ron said in a terrible voice, “why are you practically unclothed?”
Malfoy’s stilled hands flew to do up the rest of his buttons, but even as they did so his eyes slid to Ron’s face, and took note of where Ron’s eyes were going. Ginny looked extremely annoyed as Ron glanced back and forth, trying to keep both of them under his gaze.
“Well,” Malfoy answered. “I’m unclothed in a vain attempt to win the girl of my heart.” He grinned maliciously at Ron and walked the few steps over to Ginny, trying to slip one arm around her shoulders as he did up the last few buttons with his free hand. “I dream of her ruddy locks,” Malfoy went on gravely. “Also other things. She is the other half of me. Every night I whisper yearningly into my pillow the words ‘Girl Weasley…’”
Harry saw the flick of Ginny’s eyes downwards, and the sudden change in her face. He was sure she hadn’t seen the whole scar but it was one thing, Harry thought sickly, for Ginny to defend Harry’s actions and quite another for her to see the consequences. Wizarding children were not brought up to remember scars could be left, and Ginny would never hurt anyone in cold blood.
“Get off,” she said after a shaken pause, squirming but not actually trying to hurt Malfoy. “Also my name is not ‘Girl Weasley.’”
“Girl Weasley is my special name for you,” Malfoy told her soulfully. “It is what I call you in my heart.”
“Well, try Ginny,” Ginny suggested, putting both hands on his chest and pushing.
Malfoy fell back easily. “Ginny,” he repeated, lingering over the name and looking gleefully for Ron and Harry’s reactions.
Ginny rolled her eyes. “Oh, whatever. Come on, the others are all going to read boring books all day long. Fancy another game of catch the Snitch?”
“I suppose you could use the practise.”
It was Ginny making up for words Malfoy did not even know she had spoken, it was guilt and sheer boredom. Harry knew that. In spite of the knowledge and his own guilt, he found he still longed for the old days—like last week—when Ginny would have turned Malfoy’s snot into bats for daring to touch her.
When Harry’s face fell forward onto his book, he realised he really needed another cup of tea. He levered himself off the bed and, murmuring offers of a pot to Ron and Hermione, made his escape. As he came down the stairs he saw Ginny and Malfoy from the window, still playing around.
In the kitchen, he found Mr Weasley watching them as well.
“About last night,” Harry began awkwardly, recalling Hermione’s reprimand.
“Don’t worry about it, Harry,” Mr Weasley said at once. “I understand completely why you lost your temper. God knows, it’s all I can do to tolerate the boy’s presence myself. Not that I blame you for bringing him,” he added hastily, misinterpreting Harry’s stunned silence. “You had to do it, since he has the Horcrux. But—well, he’s his father’s son, isn’t he? It makes my blood boil just to look at him.”
It astonished Harry, how he had looked for enmity from easy-going Bill or even Mrs Weasley, who was a sucker for lonely children, and never considered that hatred might come from Mr Weasley, who had once leaped for Lucius Malfoy’s throat.
“He’s not—” Harry stopped. “I wouldn’t have brought him here if I thought he’d harm any of you.”
Mr Weasley looked cold. Harry wondered how he had never realised that Mr Weasley did not speak around Malfoy. Looking back, Harry could not remember him even looking at him.
“You think a Malfoy has scruples?”
“You don’t know him,” Harry said.
“I know enough,” Mr Weasley answered. “Lucius Malfoy tried to murder my daughter, and before he was grown Draco followed in his footsteps, and almost murdered my son. I know that family.”
“He didn’t mean to—”
“What a comfort that would have been to me and Ron’s mother! No, Harry, you’re very good, but—”
It would have been little comfort to Narcissa Malfoy that Harry hadn’t meant it, if Malfoy had bled to death on a bathroom floor.
“I’m not good!” Harry said violently. “It’s just that—I do hate him, but he’s not his father. If Lucius Malfoy’d had his wand to Dumbledore’s throat, he would have killed him. Malfoy didn’t. Lucius Malfoy wouldn’t have apologised to Ron. Malfoy did. They’re different.”
“Not different enough,” Mr Weasley said. He stopped, and then said: “Draco is lucky to have someone like you standing up for him.”
Well you see, Mr Weasley, I did almost murder him, so I suppose I owe him one.
Harry looked at his cup of tea, which he had been stirring so hard it had turned almost black. “He’s not lucky,” he said in a low voice.
Mr Weasley turned away from Harry to look out of the window, his jaw setting. “He’d be wise to stay away from my children, that’s all I know,” he said. “Ginny—she’s an innocent, she hasn’t really seen much of the world, of what evil can do. She would find it hard to accept that evil can make jokes and play games with her. I would appreciate it if you could look out for her, Harry. You’re not like her.”
Harry followed Mr Weasley’s eyes, but Malfoy and Ginny had already gone inside.
He picked up his cup of tea. “No,” he said, leaving the kitchen. “I’m not innocent.”
As he went up the stairs he heard Ginny having words with her mother in the sitting room, and then froze on the stairs as he heard Malfoy’s voice on the landing.
Malfoy talking to Ron?
“What d’you have to say to me?” Malfoy asked, his voice gruff, as if he had never used a tone even approximating politeness for Ron before.
“Oh,” Ron said. “Oh, well. It’s about last night.”
There was a pause. “Well?”
Harry heard Ron take a deep breath, and then speak in measured tones. “I wanted to accept your apology.”
“You what?”
“Is it me,” said Ron, “or are you not terribly quick on the uptake? I’m sure you know what the words mean, Malfoy. You said you were sorry and I said it was okay.”
Malfoy sounded like he wanted to spit out his astonishment and show it to the world. “Of course it’s not okay, Weasley, what is the matter with you? I poisoned you, you could have died, you can’t just say ‘no harm done, what a laugh, better luck next time!’”
“Yes I can,” Ron told him. “The way I see it—well, I mean, that’s the way apologies work, isn’t it? You’d know this if you had any brothers or sisters. You can’t make up for what you did. You can only say sorry, and if you are sorry, that has to make it okay. Or nothing will. You’ve been trying, I can see that—I wondered about you not insulting me and offering to play chess. And you said sorry. So, all right. You’re a nasty git and I don’t like you, and if I ever hear you say one word about my family again I’ll hex you sideways, but I believe you’re sorry. No harm done. I forgive you.”
Clearly, growing up with Fred and George made people remarkably easygoing on the subject of grievous bodily harm. There was another, longer pause.
“Um,” Malfoy said at last, and then with an effort that made his voice scrape like sandpaper: “Thank you.”
“I do have one condition,” Ron informed him.
The silence that followed was very short, and broken by Malfoy’s cold laugh. “Of course, I see—”
“Shut up, Malfoy, no you don’t! I want you to be decent to Hermione,” said Ron. Malfoy’s laugh stopped as if someone had cut his throat. “I’ve seen the way you are with her,” Ron went on steadily. “No more insults and no more ‘Mudbloods,’ but you don’t look at her and you don’t talk to her—”
“Like your father doesn’t look at or talk to me,” put in Malfoy, who had noticed, then.
“Yeah, but the difference is you’ve done stuff, haven’t you, Malfoy? She hasn’t done anything. And you can be polite enough to me and Ginny, and even pal around with Charlie because we’re pureblood and you won’t be actually soiled by contact with us, as long as you don’t listen to a word we say. Hey, we’re even better off now, aren’t we?”
“That’s nothing to do with—” Malfoy cut in sharply.
“See, I don’t care,” said Ron. “But I won’t have Hermione treated any different from the rest of us. So for once in your life, Malfoy, if you’re really sorry, you can stop doing what Daddy would want you to do and treat her as if she’s just as good as you are. It ought to be easy enough, since she’s approximately a thousand times better. Can you do that?”
“Yes,” Malfoy answered. “I can.”
“Well—right,” Ron said, sounding slightly surprised by Malfoy’s acquiescence. “Good. You can get back to mending your clock now.”
“Gosh, Weasley, thanks ever so.”
“Also touch my sister and I’ll knock your stupid albino head off.”
Harry heard steps, a door opening and then Malfoy said: “But she is the other half of my soul,” and prudently shut the door.
Once Malfoy was gone, Harry came up the stairs and found Ron waiting for him at the top with his eyebrows raised. “Harry, mate, I really think that Cloak has made you a bit fond of spying on people. D’you want an Extendable Ear for Christmas? Fred and George have put out a special edition.”
“Oh, shut up,” said Harry.
Ron cocked his head towards Malfoy’s door. “What a prat, eh? But that’s got his attitude to Hermione sorted.”
“You’re a good bloke,” Harry told him. “Hermione is lucky.”
Ron immediately turned his gaze to the floor and Harry saw the tips of his ears go bright red. “I haven’t a clue what you’re talking about,” he said, in a muffled voice because his chin was pressed into his chest.
“‘Course not,” Harry said, shoving him. “C’mon, Hermione must think we’ve deserted the good ship horribly dull research.”
When they went in, Hermione looked up from her cross-legged perch on Ron’s pillow and tapped her pen against the book. “You were away a while. Did you see Charlie? I feel terrible about what I said to him…”
Harry said no and that he was sure it was fine. Ron, settling on the end of his bed as if he had no wish at all to be near Hermione, looked doubtful.
“He won’t be annoyed with you,” he hastened to assure Hermione. “Charlie’s a very easygoing bloke. Only dragons are his whole life. I bet he wishes he was a Parselmouth like Harry so he could talk to them, I don’t know what he’ll do without them.”
“I can’t actually talk to dragons, Ron,” Harry began, and then stopped because Hermione’s mouth was open and she was pointing her pen at him.
“Harry,” she said, still gaping. “You can talk to snakes!”
“That was more or less the point I was trying to make to Ron, yeah…”
Hermione looked vexed at his stupidity. “Hush!” she said. “I’m thinking!”
Harry and Ron knew better than to disobey her when she got that Madam Pince look about her mouth, and they opened their books at once. Hermione picked up an entirely different book and began to make notes furiously. Harry shared an amused glance with Ron, and then tried to fix his attention on his book.
Three pages into Stealing Enchanted Jewellery for That Special Someone, Harry’s tea was all gone and his face had just dropped onto a diagram of a magical chastity belt. He was finally ready to admit that caffeine appeared to be a very poor substitute for sleep.
At the point when he thought he might catch a quick kip on his bed, Hermione noticed that Ron was not taking notes and they launched into a full-blown argument. It went right through Harry’s head.
“I’m just going to—” Harry mumbled, and went down the stairs headed for the sofa.
Just before he opened the door to the sitting room, he heard Mr and Mrs Weasley’s agitated voices. He went hurriedly back, and then up further towards Ginny’s room. She and Charlie seemed to be holding a soft debate in there. Which was just perfect.
Harry had always loved the Burrow as if it was his own home, but he had to admit that it was not exactly an oasis of peace. He came down from Ginny’s room and looked speculatively at the door to Fred and George’s.
Oh, why not?
He opened the door and found nothing but blissful silence inside. The room was warm and calm, the windows filled with the golden light of a sun that had just begun to sink in the sky, golden light that was washing over Malfoy’s head and exposed forearms as he crouched by the table and squinted at the innards of Mrs Weasley’s clock.
“I need somewhere to have a kip,” Harry informed him.
Malfoy squinted in his general direction. “Do not talk to me,” he commanded. “I am extremely close to a breakthrough and I need to concentrate.”
That suited Harry. He chose the bed furthest from Malfoy’s table, hoping it was Charlie’s, and crawled onto it. Malfoy was silent, the only sound the shift of his clothes and the tiny chink of metal on metal, and in the warmth and a scent of flowers Harry fell asleep.
He half-woke, happy to keep dozing, to the sound of Charlie’s quiet voice.
“—I love them,” Charlie said. “I do. Only—well, Dad not having much money didn’t bother me, but it did bother Percy. I think it bothers Ron, too, but he’s a good kid, he tries not to show it. Percy really wanted to make something of himself, and bless them, the twins have been a bit much for anyone to handle from the word go, and Dad’s—Dad loves us but he’s happiest with his Muggle things. It’s all… I was okay in Roumania. I just forgot how it was, always being here, and now I’m twenty-four and I’m stuck here and there are no dragons—”
Harry was very warm. Someone had put a blanket over him: he presumed it had been Charlie.
“You see,” Malfoy remarked in a neutral sort of way, “I think you’re trying to apologise to me for snapping, and I can’t imagine why.”
Harry let his eyes slide open a bit, in time to see Charlie (who was sitting on the other bed and there was a reason Harry should be sorry about that, but Harry couldn’t quite remember it) to see Charlie look at Malfoy and blink.
“Well, I’m older than you, and I should be able to keep my temper better.”
“You didn’t get the job, though,” Malfoy observed. “Anyone would be ticked off. So you showed it, so what. I know you’re used to being everybody’s big brother, but you see…” He stopped and tapped something metal against a cog. Harry slid his head on the pillow to see him, his face hazy in golden light and smiling a little. “I never wanted a big brother,” Malfoy said, in a voice softer and smoother than the one he used around Harry. “I was always quite happy as an only child.”
Charlie paused for a second, and then said: “Yeah, you would be,” in a more relaxed sort of way. “So…”
Malfoy tilted his head in Charlie’s direction and went on in that unusually warm voice. “Snap at me all you like. I’m not in the market for a big brother but—I could use a friend.”
“Okay,” Charlie said softly. “Okay.”
Malfoy laughed. “I think you should apply to Hogwarts. They could use all the help they can get, and Professor McGonagall’s not going to listen to the Ministry. Plus, if you get the job I can call you Professor—”
Charlie snorted and Harry cuddled his head back down into the pillow, sinking back into sleep.
He woke with the sun touching the horizon and a hand touching his hair. He made a small contented noise and pushed his head into the hand, only to freeze a moment later when he realised who the hand must belong to.
The hand had frozen when Harry nuzzled in, but after a moment Harry heard Malfoy sigh in an almost-exasperated fashion, and then push his hair back in one swift gentle gesture, the casual touch that of someone practised in affection. Harry lay very still.
Malfoy removed his hand and went for the door, and Harry half-opened his eyes only as the door came open. Malfoy looked over his shoulder as he did so, and they shared one startled glance before the door closed between them.
What the hell had Malfoy been playing at?
Harry sat upright as another thought struck him. Something had woken him, and from a memory of faint pain and Malfoy’s hand in his hair, it was not difficult to work out what.
Malfoy had pulled out some of Harry’s hair. What exactly was he planning to do with it?
He searched for Ron and Hermione and found them in the hall. Hermione had Hedwig balanced on her wrist, and was dictating an Owl to Ron in a low voice. She looked up as Harry came down the stairs.
“Harry, where have you been?”
“Er,” said Harry.
She waved aside her own question as if it was a fly. “I’m writing to Lupin,” she confided, sounding very pleased with herself.
Harry blinked violently several times, trying to clear the sleep away from his eyes and his mind. “Uh… why?”
Hermione made another impatient gesture and Harry came slowly down the stairs to her side. He looked at Ron and saw Ron’s face was serious, too. Hermione must really have something here.
“So that Lupin can find out where You-Know-Who is.”
“Hermione—it’s a nice thought, but first we have to find all the Horcruxes, you know—”
“Yes, of course I know that! We don’t need to find You-Know-Who—we need to find his pet snake, that—”
“Nagini?”
“Well exactly, Harry! You said she was probably a Horcrux, didn’t you?” At Harry’s cautious nod Hermione clasped her hands together, heedless of Hedwig’s substantial weight. “So we need to kill her. And if we were in You-Know-Who’s lair and you called to her in Parseltongue—well, who is she used to hearing Parseltongue from? She’d think it was You-Know-Who calling for her. She’d run to the slaughter.”
Ron stared at her. “You’re a little bit scary sometimes, Hermione,” he told her. “I just thought you should know that.”
They both looked at Harry for his reaction, Hermione beaming with pride. He looked back at them and felt sick with their disappointment.
You seem to have visited the snake’s mind because that was where the Dark Lord was.
He seems to have an unusual amount of control over her, even for a Parselmouth.
“It won’t work,” he said heavily. “I’m sorry, Hermione, I wish it would. Voldemort’s really close to that snake, he possesses her all the time, they share minds all the time. She’d know it wasn’t him from my mind.”
Hermione paused, and then looked eager again. “Oh, but Harry, You-Know-Who’s really proud, isn’t he? He wouldn’t share minds with a snake all the time. I bet he blocks his thoughts often enough, you can just do that, and—”
Harry was glad of the growing dark. He didn’t think Hermione would have wanted to see the expression on his face.
“And how d’you suggest I do that?” he asked. “Anything up your sleeve?”
Ron frowned at him. “Occlumency,” Hermione said, uncertainly. “Surely you learned enough to…”
“Hermione, I didn’t. I told you I couldn’t learn it and that means I couldn’t learn it. It’s not that I was afraid of not getting an Outstanding in Occlumency, I couldn’t do it, I couldn’t do any of it, and that includes blocking my mind for any length of time whatsoever. As Snape was at pains to point out.”
Ron put down his quill a moment before Hermione’s shoulders sagged. “Oh,” she said in rather a small voice. “Oh, dear.”
“Sorry,” Harry said. “I wish I did know Occlumency.”
“I do,” Malfoy told them.
Harry’s head jerked up like a puppet whose string had been pulled hard. Malfoy was standing on the stairs, his face grave. His hair stood out, the only pale thing in the darkening room.
“I know Occlumency,” Malfoy continued. “I’m very good—and I’ll teach you, if you like. Part of the reason Snape wanted me here is so I could.”
“And why would Snape want—” Harry began furiously.
Malfoy’s face lit up with malice. “Well now, you know I can’t tell you that. Do you want my help or not?”
Harry was about to tell Malfoy that he and his help could go to hell, when he caught Hermione’s eye. Her lips were framing the word ‘Veritaserum‘ and Harry remembered. Soon, they would know everything about Snape’s plan that Malfoy could tell them. Until then, if Malfoy could help Hermione’s plan along…
Harry recalled Malfoy’s half-smile in the kitchen. It might be possible to work together without killing each other, just about.
“Yes,” he said eventually. “I’ll take it.”
Malfoy smirked at him. “Thought you might. We start tomorrow.”
The next morning, despite a full night’s sleep, Harry was in a foul mood and convinced that the Daily Prophet had been right all along. He was dangerously insane. Anyone who would let Draco Malfoy have free access to their thoughts was a candidate for St Mungo’s, and as soon as Harry was sent there away from all the books and Occlumency the happier he would be.
“Are you people going to be reading all day today as well?” Ginny asked over the muffins.
“We don’t really have a choice,” Harry said testily, and stopped himself from asking her if she thought he enjoyed it. Ginny hadn’t been Hermione’s friend for going on seven years. She was not used to daily dosages of books, and she still didn’t quite grasp how serious all this was.
“You two could help,” Hermione suggested, casting a combative glance Malfoy’s way.
Malfoy smiled at her angelically. “Why should I? I like the locket where it is,” he said, tapping it with two long fingers. He proceeded to twist the chain slowly around his fingers again, while Harry watched and fought down the impulse to shout at him until he stopped playing with Horcruxes.
A welcome distraction came in the form of Hedwig with an Owl. Harry wondered whether it was a reply from Lupin already before he remembered they hadn’t even sent Lupin’s Owl yet, and he realised that what had been dropped in his plate was the Daily Prophet.
“What’s that, Potter?” Malfoy asked, smirking. “Fans sending you your paper now?”
“Well, they love me,” Harry told him earnestly. “The news today, some girl’s knickers yesterday. It’s a burden, but someone has to bear it.”
“Someone’s knickers?” Ginny asked in a dangerous way, but Malfoy turned his head a little to hide the half-smile that reminded Harry of yesterday. It was weird and made Harry feel vaguely unprotected, this business of not being actively angry with Malfoy right this second.
“He’s a big star,” Malfoy told Ginny. “You have to accept that you’ll have to share him with all the lovestruck young things writing ballads about him.”
Harry grinned a tiny bit and flipped Malfoy off, still feeling a bit off balance.
“I hear you’re the one who wrote a song about Ron,” Charlie put in.
He and Malfoy were apparently back to being friends forever. Charlie had his chair angled towards Malfoy, Harry noticed, and probably they were braiding friendship bracelets for each other.
Malfoy smiled properly at him. “I’ve written a lot of songs. When I was in fourth year me and some other people from Slytherin tried to form a band.”
“No you didn’t,” Harry said.
Malfoy stared at him. “Yes, I did.”
“I didn’t hear anything about that.”
Malfoy sneered at him and the rush of familiar animosity was actually a little comforting. “It might surprise you to learn, Potter, that you don’t know everything about me because—wait for it—you don’t actually know me that well. What, you thought I was sitting around Slytherin for years hatching evil plots for your downfall every day? We had a band,” he continued, turning to Charlie without even giving Harry a chance to respond. “Goyle was on drums and Pansy was the singer—”
“That would be Pansy your girlfriend who was here two days ago?” Charlie asked.
Malfoy tilted his chair backwards, which Harry happened to know for a fact Mrs Weasley did not permit people to do at the table. “She was here two days ago,” he answered slowly, “but she’s not currently my girlfriend.”
“Oh. So…” Charlie paused. “What were you doing in the band?”
Malfoy looked distinctly roguish. “Being the star. I wrote the songs and stood at the front and I was planning to learn to play the guitar, but then there were creative differences in which our friend Crabbe locked Goyle up in his wardrobe for playing the drums at two in the morning. We briefly re-formed to make up the song for Weasley, but our glory days were over.”
“It was a rotten song,” Harry said, glaring at his toast.
He transferred his glare to Malfoy, who returned it with interest. “Oh, Potter, are you jealous because someone else got some attention? I could write a song for you,” Malfoy suggested, and struck the edge of his plate with a fork. “H is for how very much I hate you. A is for how absolutely annoying you can be—”
Charlie, after a brief struggle that involved Malfoy slapping hands like a girl, took Malfoy’s fork away and Malfoy subsided. Harry was sort of amused and annoyed at the same time, and decided to hide it all by opening up the paper.
Once he did, he saw the front cover said Ministry’s Forces Drives Death Eaters from Muggle Town: Greatest Victory Yet. He scanned the lines, searching until he found the words ‘Minerva McGonagall declined to comment and refused to reveal her sources‘ and then flipped through the pages until he found a report that though a Dark Mark had appeared above the Finnigans’ house in Ireland, the family had been warned and gone into hiding some days beforehand.
As he looked through the paper, a single sheet of parchment fluttered to his lap. Harry opened it under the table and read it as fast as he could.
Dear Harry,
Now you have read the paper, I trust you are assured of my good faith. I hope you are keeping up your end of the bargain—and that we can meet again soon, so that you and I may both get what we desire. I’ll let you know when I can next slip away.
Yours in anticipation, The Girl From The Alley
Harry looked at the parchment once more and then stood up, slipping it into his pocket. Ron and Hermione should see this paper. He’d go to the sitting room, where they were already researching, and tell them. Now the information had proven valuable, even Hermione wouldn’t object to Harry receiving more.
He was already in the hall when he heard Malfoy’s voice behind him.
“Potter? May I ask you a question?”
He didn’t turn around. “What?”
At which point Malfoy grabbed the parchment in one hand, Harry’s arm in the other, and slammed Harry against the wall. Harry shoved him and Malfoy didn’t move an inch or relax his hold, and as Malfoy’s hand closed even tighter in an iron grip around Harry’s bicep and Harry looked at his cold, close eyes, he realised that this was possibly the angriest he had ever seen Malfoy.
“May I ask you,” Malfoy snarled, “why my mother is writing you letters?”
He glanced at the Owl and for a horrible moment Harry thought he was going to have to protest that he had no designs on Mrs Malfoy’s honour, and then Malfoy made an incoherent, furious sound and slammed Harry harder against the wall. Harry hit his head and for a moment the world went black, and then Malfoy’s eyes were back again, hazy around the edges and still furious.
Malfoy dropped the letter and shoved his suddenly-free arm against Harry’s throat, cutting off the greater part of his air supply.
“You have her spying for you.”
Harry tried to shove Malfoy back again, but Malfoy was braced for the shove, his body not giving under Harry’s hands.
“Yes,” Harry rasped. “I do.”
“You stupid bastard,” Malfoy said. “You stupid, stupid bastard! Do you have any idea of what they’ll do to her if they find out?”
He’d never dreamed Malfoy could be this strong.
“Do you have any idea,” he said, managing to lift Malfoy’s arm from his throat, holding it locked against his own, “how much I don’t care? A whole Muggle town was saved by this information! Seamus Finnigan’s family escaped because of it!”
“I don’t give a damn!” Malfoy shouted. “She’s my mother!”
“And she passed on information that got my godfather killed!” Harry yelled back, shoving against Malfoy again. Malfoy was forced back and then he pushed in, Harry’s shoulderblades hitting the wall hard. “So she’s passing information to the right side now, so she can save your miserable hide,” Harry panted. “So at last she’s doing something right, and it’s about time! I don’t care what danger she’s putting herself in. It’s worth it!”
Malfoy’s nails were digging into Harry’s skin mercilessly, he wouldn’t be surprised if he was bleeding, but he didn’t look to see. Malfoy’s eyes were fastened on his face, and through the icy anger he saw fear.
“What can I do,” Malfoy said quietly, “to make you leave her alone?”
Harry raised the arm Malfoy had been holding, and Malfoy let him. He grabbed the locket and twisted the chain around Malfoy’s neck, and said: “You know what I want.”
Malfoy looked at him for a long moment, and then nodded sharply. Then he shoved Harry away and backed up, as if he simply could not bear to touch Harry for a moment longer. He shot him one last venomous look and then threw the sitting room door open wide.
“Give me one of your damned books,” he snarled to a startled-looking Ron. “Let’s get this thing off me.”
Harry shut the door again, shut his eyes and leaned his head back against the wall. His heart was pounding and his breath was coming fast and he couldn’t quite believe what he’d done. Threatened someone’s mother, held to ransom someone that Malfoy loved, and told him that it did not matter what happened to her.
Only it couldn’t matter, not compared to all the people it could save, and it couldn’t matter how frightened and savage Malfoy had looked at the idea of losing her. He couldn’t afford to be merciful. This was war.