Redecorating the Ancient and Most Noble House of Black was very different from cleaning it.
It was a lot more fun.
The house did not seem like a war zone anymore, though it did seem unsettlingly like it wanted to get Malfoy alone and cuddle him to its walls a bit. The whole question of the house’s strange desires, in any case, sort of faded in comparison to Kreacher’s.
Harry came into the kitchen the first morning in Grimmauld Place to find Malfoy sitting at the kitchen table staring at a tatty, yellow heap of parchment which reached to his chin, and looking at a loss.
“What’s this?” Harry asked.
“The list of all the things Kreacher’s done wrong and needs to be punished for in the past, oh, fourteen years,” Malfoy answered. He was looking faintly desperate.
“Kreacher has been saving it until he had a proper master again,” Kreacher commented from under the table.
“Oh?” Harry said. He nobly only smirked once at Malfoy’s expense and then made him some coffee. “Um. Dobby used to punish himself. Iron his hands and stuff.”
“Dobby is a lower caste house elf and does all manner of ill-bred things,” Kreacher sniffed. “It would be an indignity for Kreacher to receive punishment from anybody but the master,” he went on insinuatingly.
“Right,” Malfoy said, his tone quietly appalled. “Well, obviously. This is actually a lot of stuff, so what do you say as a special treat we let you off it, and start the punishment schedule from scratch?”
“Kreacher is a low unworthy worm undeserving of his master’s kindness!”
“Oh, well,” said Malfoy. “I’m gracious like that.”
There was a cough from under the table. “What Kreacher meant to say was, Kreacher is a low unworthy worm so undeserving of his master’s kindness that he cannot possibly accept it. Oh master, see item one on the list, this day Kreacher allowed the second drawing room mantelpiece to bear dust. Kreacher suggests the scourge.”
“I really have a lot of things to do, Kreacher,” Malfoy said. “And punishing a house elf really isn’t, uh, how I envisioned spending my life.”
“If the master would but give his noble command for Kreacher to starve himself, or go without sleep, or perhaps if Kreacher were to be put in the Chains of Shame—”
“Look,” Malfoy said, surrendering to desperation and pushing out his chair so he could kneel on the floor beside Kreacher. “Just now I need you to help me get settled in, so let’s leave the question of—punishment alone for now, and I’ll, I’ll get back to you.”
Kreacher gave a heavy sigh. “Master is very young,” he said in a forgiving tone. “He will learn the old ways. Kreacher will teach him. Everything will be lovely, yes lovely, and Kreacher will go shine the chandeliers as master wishes, and not spit on the head of the Mudblood as master has commanded, and—”
He went out of the room still muttering to himself. He probably was going to shine the chandeliers. Everything else about the house sparkled already, mildew and age wiped clean as if it was as easy as rubbing the mist off a glass and seeing everything clearly. Harry presumed it was house elf magic. It occurred to him that Sirius would have been gratified to know that his suspicions had been correct, and Kreacher was a fraud.
Malfoy accepted his coffee and drank it down. “The Chains of Shame,” he said at length. “Should I ask?”
“I wouldn’t,” Harry said firmly.
Malfoy looked pensive. “I like chains, though.”
“I really didn’t need to hear that, Malfoy,” said Harry.
Malfoy tipped his chair back so as to face Harry rather than the list of Kreacher’s misdeeds, and looked amused. “I didn’t mean that,” he said. “I mean, they’re—I used lots of chains as props for ghosts in the talent show.”
Harry leaned back against the ancient old stove. “I don’t understand.”
Malfoy put down his coffee cup so he could gesture at will. “Oh, well, it was a play involving all the ghosts at Hogwarts, and we used all the flour in the kitchens, and the house elves went on strike and refused to wash our clothes for a week. It was about the Bloody Baron’s great and tragic love for the Grey Lady, with comic interludes involving a coarse knight—that’d be Nearly Headless Nick, obviously—”
“I’m sure it was brilliant, Malfoy, but when did Slytherin have a talent show?”
“It wasn’t just Slytherin,” Malfoy said. “It was Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff, as well. Near the end of fifth year.”
Harry raised his eyebrows. “Oh, it was Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff as well?”
Malfoy widened his eyes. “I sent all of Gryffindor invitations,” he informed Harry earnestly. “In the spirit of house unity. Damn those unreliable owls, I expect they used the parchment to line their nests. I’m certain that’s what they did with all the pressing invitations to join Dumbledore’s Army Slytherins should’ve received.”
“That wasn’t—fine,” Harry said. “Okay, fine. Tell me about the talent show.”
Malfoy beamed. “It was one of my most successful cunning schemes of all time,” he informed Harry. “I was aided by my beautiful and brilliant stage manager at every turn, but mine was the presiding genius—”
“This’d be Pansy, then?”
“No, actually,” Malfoy said, and looked deeply amused. “Cho Chang.”
“But she was,” Harry exclaimed, and finished lamely: “—part of the DA.”
“Seemed a little annoyed with you,” Malfoy observed with a beautiful calm. “Personally, I can’t imagine why. I mean, given your notoriously sweet temper—”
“Oh shut up and tell me about the talent show,” said Harry.
“Well,” Malfoy said, “I admit that on the road to my glorious success there were a few hiccups. Araminta Eckhart tried to shrink herself so she could dance on the head of a pin, and it took us several hours to find her. It wouldn’t have been so bad if Crabbe hadn’t convinced himself he was going to step on her and got up on the piano. Pianoes should be more sturdily made, Potter. I’m sure you’ve thought this yourself.”
“Almost daily,” said Harry.
Malfoy, shaping what was possibly a broken piano with his hands, flashed a careless smile and went on: “The worst thing that happened to us, however, was a bit of a misunderstanding—it could have happened to anyone—involving some teacups, some butter, Professor Flitwick and a dance that I now accept was too ambitious for an eleven year old—”
The narrative was cut off by the advent of Charlie, walking in looking sleepy in teacher’s robes. Malfoy stopped talking and picked up his coffee.
“Morning,” Charlie said, looking puzzled.
“Morning,” Malfoy returned.
“What’re you guys talking about?” Charlie asked, eyes travelling from Malfoy to Harry as if he would be able to find a clue somewhere if he looked closely enough.
“School stuff,” Malfoy said with an air of studied disinterest.
“How, um, is the school going?” Harry asked suddenly, because this was a bit awkward. “Is Hufflepuff really going to win the Quidditch Cup?”
“Looks like,” Charlie said glumly. “Pretty weak Chasers, though, maybe Ravenclaw can seize an opportunity—”
“The only thing a Ravenclaw can seize is a library card,” Malfoy said woefully.
They talked Quidditch casually enough until it was time for Charlie to go to work, but Malfoy being casual about Quidditch was a far cry from vivid laughing Malfoy holding forth. Once Charlie was gone Harry raised an eyebrow and inquired: “What was that about?”
Malfoy frowned at his second cup of coffee. “It’s just,” he said. “Well, what you said about Charles. He could’ve told me.” He paused, bit the side of his lip for a minute and then went on: “I thought we were friends. I told him—a lot of things.”
Harry could think of one reason why Charlie wouldn’t have told Malfoy, but he’d already suggested it and been laughed to scorn. Anyway, Harry thought it’d probably be best if Malfoy distanced himself from Charlie a bit. He was confused, Charlie was older, and it was Harry’s job to look out for Malfoy now.
He took the chair beside Malfoy and said: “Tell me something.”
Malfoy stole some toast off his plate and looked quite pleased to be asked. “All right,” he said, smiling. “What do you want to know?”
“You know,” Harry said. “A thing. Like one of the things you told Charlie. Anything.”
“Ask me a question,” Malfoy said. “And I’ll tell you. Anything.”
“Well,” Harry said, and stopped, trying to think of the right sort of thing, and something that wouldn’t upset Malfoy. “Well. Er. All right, so you keep getting me to sing things and you had the talent show and you hum things all the time. So—why don’t you ever sing something? I mean, um, when you’re dancing around with Ginny or something. It just—seems the sort of thing you might do.”
He didn’t think he’d ever said the word ‘thing’ so much in his life.
“Ah,” Malfoy said. “Okay, I’ll tell you. But you have to promise not to tell anyone.”
“I promise,” Harry said, amused.
Malfoy leaned forward and lowered his voice. “When I sing,” he confided, “I sound like a parrot being kicked to death.”
“A parrot,” Harry repeated, half-laughing.
Malfoy leaned back and half-laughed himself. “Being kicked to death,” he said. “Brutally,” and made a sweeping gesture that almost brutally knocked over the salt, to prove it.
Malfoy and Ginny went shopping in the Muggle world again, this time without Charlie, and they came back with lots of new clothes and with Malfoy having made a rash promise.
“D’you like my hair?” Ginny asked once she’d twirled in her new dress.
“Oh,” Harry said. “Um. Yes. It’s shorter, which is—the point. And nice,” he added hastily.
“So Malfoy says I can decorate the parlour,” Ginny went on in high spirits.
“Oh,” Harry said again. “That’s nice, too.”
Ginny was great in many ways, but Harry had actually seen her idea of Christmas and wedding decorations, so later Harry went and found Malfoy, who was sitting in the sofa he’d dragged up to the green curtains and reading a book. The green curtains were playing with his hair, which had gone static from all the velvet, so any evidence that he’d had a haircut, or indeed ever not borne a striking resemblance to a dandelion, was gone.
“D’you think that was a good idea?”
“Mmm?” Malfoy said. “Well, somebody has to do it. And I don’t know what to do about curtains and wallpaper and things, not being an enormous girl. If you want to go pick out curtains with her, have at it. She’d love it.”
“She did Fleur’s wedding decorations. The stuff in the hall,” Harry warned him.
“Oh my God, my beautiful house,” Malfoy said, and petted the curtain in a distrait fashion. “What is she going to do to it? But I still don’t know how to pick curtains. Though of course if I did pick any curtains, I would pick you, Ernestine,” he added soothingly into the velvet.
Harry was momentarily diverted. “What did you just call that curtain?”
“Ernestine,” Malfoy said with not a trace of shame. “And the other one is Maud.”
Harry stared at the curtains. They remained, in spite of the unusual amount of movement, basically curtains and thus intrinsically nameless.
“Malfoy,” he said. “Don’t have any children, all right?”
“I happen to think Ernestine is a lovely name,” Malfoy informed him haughtily. “And she likes it, too.”
He returned to his book, which was in fact Hogwarts: A History. Harry didn’t see why Malfoy felt the urge to read this now they’d left school, but a couple of days later Malfoy disappeared into his bedroom and soon after there was the sound of hammering and the smell of turpentine. Harry was researching with Ron and Hermione, and they listened for a puzzled five minutes.
“Maybe he’s nailing Kreacher’s ear to the wall or something,” Ron said at last. “Kreacher’d like that. Be a little treat for him.”
The hammering went on, though.
“Maybe he’s crucifying Kreacher,” Ron speculated further. “Best not to interfere.”
Eventually Harry was curious enough to go knock on Malfoy’s door. Malfoy answered, holding the door open a tiny chink so all Harry could see was one eye bright with manic glee and a paint smear on Malfoy’s cheek.
“What’s going on in there?”
“You’ll see,” Malfoy said. “Oh, you’ll see. And it’s going to be perfect, and marvellous, and you’ll think I’m a genius, but right now, you have to go away. I’m very busy.” He slammed the door.
Few things could distract Malfoy from his mystery bedroom project, but when Ginny asked everyone to come look at the new parlour he came too. She threw open the doors and beamed at them all.
“What do you think?”
“Oh, well, um,” said Ron.
“It’s really,” said Harry. “Great.”
“That’s it,” said Ron. “Exactly the word I wanted. Great.”
Ginny beamed. “Are you pleased?”
“Pleased is too weak a word,” Malfoy said faintly.
“I always wanted a room like this one,” said Mrs Weasley, looking fondly around at the puce-coloured sofa and the mantelpiece crowded with china people, who were making a bit of a racket. She seemed to mean it.
Harry tried to catch Malfoy’s eye, but Malfoy had his eyes fixed on the curtains. After a moment of staring at them, too, he could see why. They were salmon-pink and purple, and had enormous frills, and they moved in the wind, like the flickering inside of a Venus flytrap. At first sight they just looked like the most ridiculous curtains in the world, but then Harry recalled Maud and Ernestine, and they began to look sinister.
One of them fluttered in the wind and Harry and Malfoy took a step back.
“You’ll have to deal with them if they’re killer curtains,” Harry said in a low voice. “Curtains are your thing.”
“I don’t think so,” Malfoy hissed. “You’re the big hero. You’re meant to vanquish evil. If the curtains turn out to be maneaters—and they will, I know they will—then you have to vanquish them!”
Ginny saw where they were looking, and walked over to the curtains. “Don’t you love them?”
Malfoy stared at her in horror, and when the frills continued billowing in the wind and did not eat her, he gave them a dark look. “I see their little game,” he said. “Biding their time, are they?”
Harry coughed. “Okay, you might be over-reacting a little, Malfoy.”
“Don’t come crying to me when you’re eaten by ravening curtains,” Malfoy muttered.
They told Ginny the room was too good for everyday use, and they were going to keep it for special occasions.
The next day Harry and Ron got a door in the cellar unstuck, and found the garden. They went and got Ginny, and then Hermione and Malfoy were both dragged away from their respective reading and hammering so they could see too.
Outside it looked like some gardening spells had been left too long, and gone a bit wonky. The trees filled almost the entire garden, so that only patches of soil showed between their entangled roots, and their leaves were all mingled together in showers of yellow and orange, like girls with long hair and their heads bent close together. The treetrunks, winding towards the sun, formed a sort of labyrinth so Harry had to keep glancing around to make sure he could see everyone. Ron, Ginny and Hermione’s hair stood out against the leaves, but he kept losing Malfoy.
“Where are you?” he called in exasperation for the fourth time.
“Here,” Malfoy said, sounding like he was laughing, and he reached out and grabbed Harry’s wrist from where he stood hidden in a shower of gold-coloured leaves.
They all came in laughing from the garden after hours of getting lost in the trees, and collapsed into chairs around the kitchen table. Once Malfoy had thrown himself into one chair, he raised his head fractionally and Harry recognised the gesture from latter days at the Burrow: Malfoy’d just remembered that he should go sit nearer to Harry.
It took a moment for Malfoy to realise that he was already sitting next to Harry, and when he did he looked a little surprised, then grinned ruefully and relaxed back in his chair.
Harry was in the hall on his way to the kitchen for an urgent sandwiches errand when he ran into Snape and decided he hadn’t been that hungry after all.
“Sorry,” he said. “Didn’t know there was a meeting on—”
“There isn’t,” Snape answered. “I have come to get Draco.”
He sneered at Harry, not elaborating further, and Harry scowled at him. “What for?” he snapped.
“I don’t believe it’s any of your business, Potter,” Snape said. “Particularly since Draco did not decide to inform you. Now, if you could be on your way and stop your endless snooping—”
“I’m not snooping, I’m just asking!”
“Out of pure concern, I’m certain,” Snape said silkily. “Naturally. What kind of person would I be, to disbelieve in this sweet solicitude just because of one silly little murder attempt? Everyone has already informed you that you’re the image of your father, haven’t they? It amazes me, that there should be two creatures so exactly alike.”
Harry set his teeth. “Where’re you taking Malfoy?”
“Could it be that your apparently impenetrable denseness during lessons are due to a tragic hearing deficiency?” Snape said, and Harry noticed that Snape looked more on edge than usual. His voice had more of an edge than usual, as well, as he went on: “I’m not going to tell you, you loathsome spoiled brat, so stop putting on a lordly show of consideration for lower beings.”
If Snape wanted a fight, Harry decided, he could have it.
“Dad checked up on you after he saved you from getting eaten by a werewolf, then?” Harry asked coldly. “Bet you hated that.”
“Take yourself off, Potter. This night will be quite unpleasant enough without having to endure the sight of you,” Snape said. “You know nothing about me, and certainly nothing about Draco, who showed his excellent character judgement from the first by despising you. In this world, nothing gives me more satisfaction than the fact that Regulus Black’s nephew saw you for what you were. You two are made of entirely different material. It was inevitable that you hate each other, so do not bother pretending it can be otherwise.”
“But it is,” said a voice from behind Harry.
Harry glanced behind him and saw Malfoy coming down the stairs, looking too pale. He nodded at Harry all the same and came to stand beside him, close enough so Malfoy’s elbow brushed the inside of Harry’s.
“We don’t hate each other anymore,” said Malfoy. “Right?”
“Right,” said Harry, after a moment of being extremely startled.
Snape looked like he had bit into a pear and found a lemon.
“Where are you going, Malfoy?” Harry asked.
“The Dark Lord,” Malfoy answered in a distant, cool voice that Harry suspected meant he was absolutely terrified. He took a deep breath and said: “So I can be accepted back into his inner circle, and taken to the bosom of my loving father and Aunt Bella, and I can actually be useful as a spy. I’ll see you later.”
“When’s later?” Harry demanded.
“Sometime?” Malfoy said. “I don’t know, the Dark Lord didn’t hand out a schedule?” His voice rose, and cracked while rising. “What do you want me to say? Possibly never, if he kills me? Sometime.”
Harry looked from Snape’s dour face to Malfoy’s ashen one, and came to a decision.
“All right. You’re not going.”
Malfoy stared. “Oh yes I am.”
“No, you’re not,” Harry said. “I didn’t think this through. You’re not going to do it, there are other ways to find out things. Snape’s doing it. You don’t have to.”
“I’m sorry,” Malfoy said, not sounding sorry at all. “Why do you think you get to decide? I don’t take orders from you.”
“I’m the one who’s going to kill Voldemort,” Harry told him between his teeth. “This is a war, and you’re on my side. So I think you do.”
Malfoy’s eyes narrowed. “Well, you can think again. I’m done with taking orders from people, and I’d never take orders from you. What do you think I am? One of your precious DA, tagging after you to do your bidding and then being dismissed whenever you don’t have a use for them? The hell with that!”
“How dare you,” Harry said.
“Oh, how dare I what?” Malfoy sneered. “Have a mind of my own? I realise you’re used to slavish little toadies, Potter, but not everyone in the world is going to fall in line behind you. I’m doing this, I decided this, and you can’t stop me.”
“Watch me,” said Harry.
“I’m going upstairs to change into my robes,” Malfoy said, turning away and deliberately addressing Snape. “I’ll be right down.”
With another venomous look at Harry, he stormed up the stairs. Harry was left staring at Snape, who was smiling.
“Stepped right into that, didn’t you, you arrogant little weasel,” Snape murmured.
“What?” Harry snapped.
“He came down the stairs to defend you, and you sabotaged yourself all on your own,” Snape went on, seeming horribly happy. “Just like your father. Couldn’t bear anyone but his own special little gang of admirers—”
“Oh, shut up!” Harry shouted. “He’s been dead for sixteen years. You’ve been hating someone who’s dead for sixteen years! That’s pathetic. You’re pathetic! Get out of my way.”
He shoved past Snape, who’d got between him and the stairs, and went up to the second floor to find Malfoy. He turned the handle on Malfoy’s bedroom door and found it locked, and then he heard the sound of a window opening and a thump.
He ran for the back door and out into the garden, and under Malfoy’s window he found Malfoy’s broom.
Harry cursed, whirled around and ran back into the hall and straight into Ginny, who upset her glass of pumpkin juice on his shirt.
“Where’s Malfoy?” he snarled.
“He just left,” Ginny said, staring. “He and Snape Apparated somewhere. Where are they going, d’you know?”
Harry cursed again, more comprehensively. “To see bloody Voldemort,” he answered tightly, after some time, and then cursed Malfoy for the sly, underhand, stupid bastard that he was.
“Oh,” said Ginny, and her freckles stood out suddenly from her pale face. “Will—will he be all right?”
“How should I know?” Harry snapped. “If he isn’t it’s all his own fault. I tried to stop him. If Voldemort does kill him then he bloody deserves it!”
He wheeled away from Ginny, who looked white and scared and was making him feel sick. Malfoy’d looked scared, too. Even Snape had been scared, he thought. He didn’t know where to go, or what to do. Malfoy’d better get back alive, because Harry was going to strangle him.
He walked into an umbrella stand and then threw it against the wall. A portrait fell off the wall and Harry heard a round of cursing come from inside the frame. Bloody Malfoy had hung up that picture, too, strewing his godforsaken ancestors around the house. Harry felt tempted to smash it.
He should have thought about this at the Order of the Phoenix meeting when Malfoy had made his idiotic suicidal suggestion, but he’d just been thinking—well, that it was something they should do against Voldemort, and that Malfoy was making sense, and it was so stupid, it hadn’t really sunk in that Malfoy was planning to go do this dangerous, dangerous thing, and Harry couldn’t possibly be there.
Malfoy’d been a spiteful little git to call Harry’s friends what he had. He was a spiteful little git, and he deserved whatever happened to him. Only—well, it was true that Harry’d been the leader of the DA, and Ron and Hermione had always been with him when he’d done things, or he’d done them on his own. Ron and Hermione hadn’t gone into danger without them. He’d never have let them.
He remembered suddenly being twelve years old, and separated from Ron by a rockfall. Harry’d had to go on and face the basilisk.
He’d never considered before how it must have felt to be Ron on the other side of the rocks, but he thought now he knew. It felt terrible.
He was not used to staying behind when other people went into danger. God, and Malfoy had been so scared of Voldemort last year that he’d cried, and now he’d just walked off to let Voldemort get a clear shot at him, what was the matter with Malfoy, was he the stupidest person on earth?
Harry went up to the second floor and didn’t want to go into his room: it was just some room, Malfoy had said a bedroom on the second floor and Harry’d picked that one at random and he didn’t want to look at it. He caught sight of himself in a mirror on the landing, green eyes shocking in a white face, and he wrenched it off the wallpaper and threw it against the next wall. It smashed loudly.
He stormed up the rest of the stairs to the attic, not thinking about why he was doing it, and once he was in that dim crowded attic he looked around helplessly. He couldn’t do anything here. He couldn’t do anything at all, and that was the worst part.
He swore and whirled to face the Black family portrait, where three of the four Black children were awake and staring at him. Narcissa looked disapproving, Sirius looked interested, but it was Regulus who spoke.
“Where’s the other boy?” he asked.
“Be quiet!” Harry said. “You’re dead. You’re all just dead, and—and stupid, and you don’t even know what happened to you, you don’t even know what you were and so you can just be quiet! That’s what dead people are, isn’t it? They’re just quiet, forever. So be quiet!”
Sirius and Narcissa narrowed their eyes at him, looking at him with identical Black hauteur. Regulus went pale and looked scared, and Harry turned the picture around, so all he could see was the blank expanse of the back of the canvas, and all he could hear was silence.
Regulus’ nephew, Snape had called Malfoy. That was stupid, too, Harry thought, banishing the thought of Regulus’ pale child’s face. It wasn’t as if Malfoy even looked that much like Regulus: he looked far more like his father.
His father was going to be there, too, with his mother’s blood on his hands. Malfoy was going to have to face him, all alone. Oh damn. Oh hell.
Harry stood braced and trembling when a noise came on the stairs, and Ron and Hermione emerged into the attic.
“Hi Harry,” Ron said. “We heard you kind of thumping around the place, and we heard you bit Ginny’s head off, so we—”
“We came to be with you,” Hermione said, and sat on a pile of folded tablecloths, hugging her knees.
Harry looked at them both, safe and concerned-looking, and felt a little better and a little sick.
“It’s all right,” Hermione went on. “We understand. You’ve taken Malfoy under your wing since the—since his mother. That’s really—it was a really good thing to do, Harry. And with that and—your saving people thing—we understand that you’re upset.”
Harry felt a bit deflated. “It’s not just,” he said. “Mrs Malfoy gave him to me.”
“Well,” Ron said. “I’m sure she didn’t exactly—well, he’s not a cat or something. She couldn’t exactly—”
“She did,” said Harry. “And now she can’t come back and take him away.”
There was a long pause, as if neither Ron or Hermione quite knew what to say.
“I understand you feel responsible for him,” Hermione said at last, in a gentle voice. “He’ll be all right. The Order wouldn’t have let him go if they thought he didn’t have a good chance.”
“I don’t know,” said Harry.
“He’ll be all right,” Ron said, as if he was sure.
Harry gave up and sat suddenly on the pile of tablecloths beside Hermione, and Ron sat on his other side, shoving his shoulder against Harry’s in a supportive kind of way. They all sat together for a while.
“I sort of like him,” Harry said at length. “Not just now. But when he isn’t in the process of making me bloody furious.”
“Every first Tuesday in the month and not otherwise, then,” Ron said, and Harry didn’t laugh but he felt the furious squeezing ball in the centre of his chest ease a little.
They didn’t say much else, but they stayed up with him past midnight, and it wasn’t until Hermione yawned and almost fell off the tablecloths that Harry told them both to go to bed.
“You’ll be all right, mate?” Ron asked.
Harry looked at the back of the Black family portrait and said: “I’ll be fine.”
When they were gone he picked up the little pile of stuff Malfoy had wanted for his bedroom and threw it inside the door without looking. He’d like it, once he got back.
Then he went into the room on the first floor, and sat at the window. It was freezing beside the window, the glass wet and cold with the November chill, and there was nothing alive out there on the grey streets of Grimmauld Place.
Maud or Ernestine quietly folded itself closed over him, a frail green shield over the world, and Harry shut his eyes and leaned his head forward and thought Please. Let him be all right.
The sky bled miserably into grey as the hours went on. Malfoy’d been gone for nine hours when Harry saw the two dark, hooded figures coming down the road. One of them was leaning heavily against the other. They were crawling along.
Harry got up too fast, felt the blood rush to his head and stumbled because he was cold and stiff, but he didn’t let it stop him, and he got down the stairs just as the door to Grimmauld Place opened and he saw Snape only just manage to save Malfoy from falling forward.
He didn’t remember crossing the hall, but he was suddenly propping Malfoy up, a hand against his chest to keep him upright and his other hand at the back of Malfoy’s neck, trying to steady his lolling head and get a look at him. Malfoy’s skin felt cold and he was a terrible, stony white colour.
“Malfoy,” Harry said, urgently. “Look at me. Malfoy, are you all right?”
Malfoy made an obvious, painful effort and focused on him, his fogged eyes narrowing. “No,” he said in a low, exhausted voice. “Obviously I’m not all right. Try to have some sense, Potter.”
If Harry’d been able to let go of Malfoy he would have grabbed Snape and shaken him like a rat.
“What’s happened to him?” he demanded.
“Oh, now Potter,” Snape said in a tone that was clearly as nasty as he could manage while nine-tenths of his attention was focused on Malfoy. “Bellatrix Lestrange has informed me you’re quite familiar with the Cruciatus curse.”
“The Cruci—what the hell were you thinking, to let that happen to him?” Harry shouted.
Snape’s lips curled. “Let it happen to him? Why, Potter, what are you talking about? I did it to him myself.”
I am going to kill him, Harry thought quite clearly. I don’t care in the least about tearing my soul. I am going to kill him. He let Snape see the thought in his eyes, and then Malfoy muttered “He had to,” and almost fell forward again. Harry put some more force behind propping him up: Malfoy’s breath was hitching with pain against his cheek.
“Of course I had to,” Snape said sharply. “You would perhaps have liked the Dark Lord to delegate it to someone else? Bellatrix, for instance? Do you know what happened to the Longbottoms, you stupid boy? It had to be convincing, but this way he’ll recover in a few days. Trust me.” Snape’s lips curled again. “I knew exactly what I was doing.”
“I bet you did,” Harry said contemptuously. “Let go of him: I have him. You’ve done enough.”
“Don’t start pulling me around, this isn’t a tug of war,” Malfoy said in a thin voice. His eyes were rolling to the back of his head even as he spoke. “Leave it, both of you!”
“Malfoy?” said a small voice from the stairs.
They looked around and saw Ginny, looking a little horrified that Professor Snape had just seen her in her nightie, and more than a little concerned. “I heard a noise,” she said. “I—what happened?”
“The Cruciatus, Miss Weasley,” Snape said dryly. “Ask your little boyfriend about it some time.”
“Malfoy, are you all right?” Ginny asked.
Malfoy turned his face in the direction of her voice, and said: “Yes,” in an unconvinced way.
“Can I,” said Ginny, looking as if she wanted to turn and run. “Can I do anything?”
“Help me upstairs,” Malfoy requested.
“It’s all right, I’ve got him,” Harry said.
“I want Ginny to help me,” Malfoy insisted, and Ginny looked pleased to be chosen. She tripped over to Malfoy, who shook off Snape and Harry with feeble vehemence, and then almost collapsed against Ginny. “And you two can try being civil to each other for a change,” he added over his shoulder.
Ginny was sturdy, but she was pretty small. Malfoy was a lot taller than her and Harry could see her struggling with his weight already: she was going to drop him, but Malfoy looked determined and if Harry tried to intervene he’d try to stand on his own, and then he would fall down.
“Thanks,” Malfoy said, still in the small voice that sounded compressed by pain.
“It’s all right,” Ginny answered, squaring her shoulders under his arm. “Lean on me some more: I’ve got you.”
They began to make their slow way up the stairs. Malfoy got a death grip on the banister and after a few wobbling moments of uncertainty it looked as if they might make it after all.
Harry looked back at Snape, and realised that Snape too had been poised for a spring to help. When he saw Harry looking, he leaned back against the door and bared his yellow teeth.
“A report for the Order,” he said in a flat voice, like a machine. “Mr Malfoy was accepted back into the Death Eaters, and punished as the Dark Lord thought fit for his insubordination. The Order will be pleased to know that both his father and his aunt requested a private audience with him, but at the time he was in such a condition that I felt justified in taking him away. The groundwork is done. Mr Malfoy will be called for Death Eater meetings and given assignments. Tell them I hope they’re all satisfied with that, and if they’re not then they can rot.”
“Fine,” Harry answered, just as flatly, and then paused. “Do you want to be Owled about how he is?” he asked stiffly.
Snape paused in his turn. “I’d appreciate that,” he said in a wooden voice.
“Fine,” Harry said again, and then Snape wheeled around, walking as if he had been made into a clockwork soldier, and Harry slammed the door after him and then took the steps two at a time.
He found Ginny outside Malfoy’s bedroom.
“Harry, thank God,” she said. “I really don’t think he’s okay. I think we should wake Mum. I think he needs to go to St Mungo’s.”
“With a Dark Mark on him and the evidence of an Unforgivable?” Harry asked. “Sure, if we want him to go to Azkaban afterwards. What did Malfoy say?”
“He said he was fine and I was to go to bed,” Ginny told him shakily.
“Okay,” Harry said, and thought. “Yeah. Go to bed,” he said. “I’ll take care of it.”
Ginny hesitated, then nodded and fled. Harry hesitated himself, and then opened the door and looked inside Malfoy’s room. The heap he’d left on the floor was untouched, the bed was swathed and hung in canvas covers, and on top of the canvas-laden bed was Malfoy, fully clothed and twisted in on himself.
He opened his eyes a slit and croaked, “Go away.”
Harry stood, and put his hands in his pockets. “Er,” he said. “Um. No.”
Malfoy was silent for so long that Harry thought he might have fainted, but then he said: “All right. Then bring me a basin.”
“Accio basin,” Harry said, and one hit him in the elbow. He went over and put it by the side of the bed.
“Thank you,” Malfoy said with difficulty, and then leaned over and was quietly, tidily sick into it.
Harry hovered by the bed, feeling uncertain. Malfoy was obviously in miserable pain, but Harry didn’t know anything about healing charms, and if there ones which would help he presumed Snape would’ve already cast them. He thought he should possibly say something like ‘I’m glad you’re not dead’ or ‘You’re not going back there’ but Malfoy didn’t look really in the mood for conversation.
“Saw my dad,” Malfoy said hoarsely. “It’s been a year. More than.”
“Oh,” said Harry. “Um. How did he look?”
He cursed himself comprehensively for making it sound like Malfoy and his father had been mingling at a cocktail party.
Malfoy said: “Smaller,” and then got sick again.
Harry went around to the other side of the bed and scrambled on top of the canvas covers, so he could crawl over the bed to Malfoy and make a clumsy effort at holding his head while he vomited.
“Stop it,” Malfoy said crossly. “Ow—ow—”
He moaned, grimaced and then screwed up his eyes and turned his face into the curve of Harry’s arm, which was some protection from the moonlight coming through the window. His whole body was seized with a fine trembling.
Harry felt utterly and horribly helpless, until he remembered something that he’d seen once, when he was very young, watching through a door as Aunt Petunia nursed a sick Dudley. He was going to feel completely stupid, but he was desperate enough to try it.
He stroked Malfoy’s thin, trembling back with his free hand, leaned over him and murmured: “Shh. Shh. Everything’s going to be all right: I’m here.”
In a quiet sort of miracle, Malfoy’s trembling eased, and Harry kept tentatively stroking his back until another miracle happened, and Malfoy finally slipped into sleep.