Happy birthday, leochi! -Albatross Around His Neck, PG-13, 3/4



Draco stood with his hands behind his back and his posture absolutely straight in the room he’d been shown to when he appeared in the Ministry, a room with a broad table where the Minister and his most important advisers sat. One by one they were looking into the Pensieve that contained his memories of the attack on the Magical Menagerie. For the most part, they made no sound, though sometimes one of them would grunt as they pulled their heads out and began to write on the parchments sprawled in front of them. Draco watched their faces instead. They were pale and grim, and sometimes they exchanged glances that spoke of deeper and more hidden meanings, though Draco couldn’t read those.

The funniest part was when one of them turned around, glaring, and tried to intimidate him. Animagus training, if completed, was good for many things, and one of them was absolute poise and self-control over the body. Draco had done far harder things when learning to be an albatross, especially when learning to fly, than endure a few glares from people who wanted to make him less important than he was. He looked back, unimpressed, and one by one they turned away.

Potter leaned against the far wall in almost the same posture as Draco, with his face as stiff and neutral, though his arms hung down at his sides instead of being clasped behind his back. Draco considered altering his own stance for a moment, wondering if he looked defensive in comparison to Potter, and then discarded the idea. He liked this position because it arranged his arms in the shape of folded wings, and his own appreciation for that outweighed an untrue perception in the minds of his enemies.

Besides, it was untrue. Draco was quietly confident in the value of his memories as evidence. He’d distinctly seen the black hand on the back of the white robe.

Finally the large wizard drowning in hair to the right of the Minister pushed the Pensieve away from him, indicating that he’d viewed the memories and was done. Minister Shacklebolt cleared his throat. Draco noted in interest that that sound brought more tension to Potter’s stance, rather than less.

“Well, Mr. Malfoy,” said Shacklebolt, “what you bring to us is remarkable.”

“But,” Draco said helpfully, keeping his outrage so far beneath the surface that it didn’t affect his tone.

“Pardon?” Shacklebolt frowned at him.

“You were about to add a ‘but’ to the end of that sentence, telling me why my memories are remarkable but not enough,” Draco said. “I was providing it for you, so that you didn’t need to exhaust yourself talking.”

He thought he caught a darting smile from Potter before his face froze again. Though the smile had a touch of bitterness in it, it was interesting nonetheless. Draco spared a moment to frown at Potter. Life would be so much easier if he could only tell what the Auror’s Animagus form was. Overnight he had considered the forms of owl, hare, crow, and dolphin in turn, and had to reject each of them for different reasons.

“Quite.” Shacklebolt’s dry tone drew Draco’s eyes back to him. “They are not enough to arrest anyone.”

“I don’t see why not,” said Draco. “If nothing else, Athena Wellward, or the woman who calls herself that, is clearly attacking my school. With her is one wizard wearing the emblem of Medea Shrivelfig.”

“We’ll look for this Athena Wellward,” said Shacklebolt. “But it’s likely that that’s not her real name. And we can’t arrest her until we find her. As for the other, those wearing Shrivelfig’s emblem have so far caused mostly harmless trouble. This would be an exception. And we have no idea who the wizard is, either. We can’t inquire after those who might have been wearing that emblem in Diagon Alley of a Tuesday afternoon and arrest them on principle.”

“Would you have made the same qualification about someone who wore Death Earth robes and mask during the war?” Draco asked, simply because he was curious.

“The followers of You-Know-Who were known troublemakers,” said the hairy wizard. He shifted ostentatiously, and Draco caught a glimpse of the heavy bone ornament hanging around his neck. He was a member of the Wizengamot, then, given the crossed wands on the ornament. “The followers of Medea Shrivelfig are not present in such numbers yet, and they are capable of pranks and high spirits.”

“Then don’t arrest all of them,” said Draco. “Just arrest the one who attacked my school.”

“It’s not clear that he threw any curses,” said the Councilor.

“Yes, it is,” said Draco, wondering whose memories he had watched. “He was the one who hurled the spell that shook my school like an earthquake and began to crack the foundations. I appreciate that you may be thinking of the trouble and panic such an arrest would cause, Councilor, but it would be far more trouble if the Magical Menagerie burned down, or if the criminals found the letters and documents that I assume they attacked the school in order to take.”

“Nevertheless,” said the Councilor, and then didn’t bother saying what part of Draco’s speech he’d appended the “nevertheless” to. He stroked his beard and looked at Minister Shacklebolt, who took the hint and seized and turned the conversation.

“We thank you for your help, Mr. Malfoy. We will contact you if we learn anything.”

“Do you need information from me on this attack’s connection to the Ferguson case?” Draco asked quietly.

The Minister winced. The hairy Councilor leaned towards him, as if he wanted to see the Minister’s face as much as Draco did in that moment. Shacklebolt foiled both of them by putting a hand over his eyes and shaking his head. “I know only one source that you could have got that information about a connection between the cases from,” he said, and dropped his hand to stare towards Potter. “I told you that you were off the case, Harry.”

“I know that.” Potter didn’t appear at all startled, as Draco was, that an attack on his information had been turned into an attack on Potter. He stood up straighter, but that was the only change he made to his posture as he faced his superior. His face was perfectly blank and calm still, and his voice no more than mildly polite. “But it seemed only right to visit Mr. Malfoy when he told me that he suspected Gully of more than simply using his school for Animagus training. And there is more, sir. He mentioned the letters that he discovered, containing information about Medea Shrivelfig and Gully’s and Wellward’s association with her. Those should be read over for clues—“

“And they will be,” said Shacklebolt, “if it turns out that we can uncover the existence of Wellward in the first place. But there is no need to rush this case and accuse innocent people.” He had half-risen to his feet and was staring over the table at Potter, his gaze heavy with import that Draco couldn’t read any more than he could read the glances the advisers had exchanged earlier. Maybe that was why he couldn’t grasp Potter’s Animagus form from mere observation, he thought in irritation. There was simply too much he didn’t know about him, especially his work environment over the past few years. “Don’t you agree, Harry?”

“No,” Potter said.

He didn’t lay any particular emphasis on the word, but this time Draco could make some guess at the meaning of the charged silence that filled the air between the two men. Potter was defying a direct order, and he did it without a trace of guilt or dissembling. The Minister might just have lost control over one of his most potent weapons, and everyone in the room knew it.

Draco found his nostrils flaring and his gaze raking down Potter’s body with new appreciation. If Potter had merely become cynical and jaded over the years, then Draco could have discarded him as a source of interest. But he had his old ability to set the world on end. That now he was using it on those who were supposedly his friends and allies only made Draco want him the more.

“Your Minister has told you there is not enough of a connection between these two cases to warrant investigation,” said the hairy Councilor suddenly. Potter’s gaze shifted towards him, and Draco didn’t think he was the only one who noticed the flicker in Potter’s eyes, though he might have been the only one who realized its true importance. Left alone, the Minister might have managed Potter, who still had a trace of respect for him. But Potter disliked this Councilor and would resent his attempt at interference. Shacklebolt had lost the opportunity to talk Potter back into serfdom. “I think that if his word is good enough for the Wizengamot, it ought to be good enough for you.”

“You would think that,” said Potter.

Only those words, but they made both the hairy Councilor and Shacklebolt flush. “You make mistakes when you go too fast, Harry,” said Shacklebolt, his voice holding so much warning that Draco nearly winced. That wasn’t the right way to handle Potter either, right now. He would lock his legs if someone tried to drive him. He needed to be lured.

There, Draco thought suddenly, feeling, despite the situation, the brilliant flash that often accompanied a particularly important insight. There, right there, is a glimpse of Potter’s soul. He needs to be worked with or coaxed or tempted into doing something by himself, and that means he’s an animal who will share the same quality.

I wonder, did the Minister ever know that about Potter and then forget the lesson, or did he manage to handle Potter by luck alone all these years?

“You need to give me your word that you won’t pursue either the Ferguson case or the attack on Malfoy’s shop,” said the Minister. His voice was low but shaking with tension. “I need that much from you, Harry.”

“You’re using my name too much,” said Potter.

“I need it.”

“Too bad.” Potter spoke coolly, unmoved by the desperation Draco could hear working beneath the surface of the Minister’s voice. “You can’t have it.”

“Then you are suspended without pay for a week,” said the Minister, and banged his hand down in the middle of the table, so that the Pensieve holding Draco’s memories wavered and nearly fell over. Draco quietly Summoned the Pensieve. No one appeared to notice, too focused on what was unfolding between Potter and Shacklebolt. “At the end of that time, you and I are going to talk to each other and figure out what kinds of cases you can be trusted with in the future, since you disobeyed me this time.”

Potter bowed, inflexible, stubborn, and moved out of the room without looking back. Draco joined him swiftly. It was a bad idea to claim Potter as an ally in front of the most important people in the British wizarding world, perhaps, but Potter seemed to be the only one willing to investigate the attack that had nearly cost Draco his school.

Stubborn, Draco thought, as he watched Potter pacing ahead of him. A goat? Maybe. But I don’t know that he fits the other characteristics of goats as shown in the popular imagination…

*

Harry had anticipated this day for a long time, the day that Kingsley would finally be angry enough to reprimand him sharply in front of other people. He supposed he should be more upset than he was. But his anticipation had lessened that pain, and so had the fact that many small ruptures had occurred between him and Kingsley before this, loosening the chains that bound them.

He was not what he had been fifteen years ago. Kingsley was not what he had been. The Order of the Phoenix was long ago enough that both of them considered themselves defined by other things now. Harry only had to show the Minister what those other things were for him and wait for Kingsley to decide if he wanted to accept them or not.

He will, once I solve the Ferguson case. Harry paused near the fireplace that would take him home and studied one of the paintings that hung in the Ministry Atrium, depicting what was supposedly the battle between Voldemort and Dumbledore in his fifth year. The painting was little more than a chaotic series of streaks, white and blue and yellow, making it look as if the dim figures in the center stood in a maelstrom of lightning. I’m still a warrior, though not as mighty as they were. I want to show Kingsley that there’s still room for a warrior in the world.

First step was to get the documents from Malfoy and decide on the angle to pursue. There were certain spells Harry had researched and studied in his spare time, or dreamed up during those long evenings at the pub when he didn’t have anything else to think about, that should let him start tracking down Athena Wellward, or the woman who bore that name. And then—well, he would see what he would see.

He turned to Malfoy and nodded to him. “Where’s the nearest open Floo to your school?” he asked. “Or should we Apparate instead?”

“Are you in a particular hurry?” Malfoy wore the same intense introspective expression he had during their conversation in the pub last night. Harry wondered what the reason for it was this time. He had done nothing more than pick up a pinch of Floo powder and hold it between finger and thumb, ready to use.

“Well, I wanted to retrieve the letters you spoke of from you, as well as any other evidence you have of Gully’s possible illegal activities,” said Harry, surprised Malfoy wouldn’t realize that. “But since you said that ward prevents magical access to your school as long as it exists, I thought a Floo wouldn’t work.”

Malfoy raised his eyebrows slightly. “What makes you think that I’d surrender the documents to you?”

“Because then you have someone to blame when the Ministry comes looking for you.” Harry studied Malfoy more closely. Maybe he’d said something offensive to Malfoy when he was defying Kingsley. It wouldn’t be the first time Harry had done that. He tended to pay attention to his tirades when his anger was roused, not the exact shape of his words or the bad memories they might bring up for other people. “I mean, since your involvement in this case is ended—“

“I want vengeance,” said Malfoy. He laid a hand on Harry’s arm, not seeming to think the gesture strange at all, which only made it stranger to Harry. “I’m going to join you in the investigation.”

Harry snorted. “You’re not an Auror. What makes you think you’ll have anything to add? And don’t say your Animagus form,” he added, when Malfoy opened his mouth. “My enemies know about it, so it’s not useful for spying or sneaking up on them.”

“I was going to say,” Malfoy said, his fingers tightening on Harry’s arm until they were squeezing a ridge of flesh and cloth, “that I’m extremely observant, used to figuring out what Animagus form someone would take from a few clues about the state of their soul and their inclinations and history.”

“Which animal am I, then?”

“You’re the hardest person to divine that for I’ve ever met,” said Malfoy, and his face twitched and convulsed, as if he suspected Harry was being hard to guess on purpose. “But that doesn’t mean I’m as in the dark about everyone. And I can at least predict Wellward’s and Gully’s movements. There might be other former students of mine among Shrivelfig’s minions. She seems to have had an idea of using my school as a recruiting ground.”

“And you don’t like that,” said Harry, hearing the ice spread along the surface of Malfoy’s last words.

“Oh, Potter.” The pinching fingers eased their hold a little, smoothing down the cloth and soothing the flesh. “I hate that.”

Harry thought about it for a moment. He supposed that he could use an ally, especially someone who knew to get out of the way when the dangerous magic started and allow Harry to handle himself, the way Malfoy had when he’d flown to the roof of the Magical Menagerie to trigger that ward. Besides, half the Aurors he’d worked with hadn’t had Malfoy’s power—he must be magically powerful to master the Animagus form—or observational skills, or intelligence, though Harry was basing his estimate of the bloke’s intelligence solely on their conversation in the pub last night. And considering the tactics their enemies had used so far, he could use someone who understood Animagi.

“All right, Malfoy,” he said, and when a wide grin spread across Malfoy’s face, added, “But you’ll do what I tell you to when I tell you to do it, and get out of the way immediately if someone tosses a curse at you.”

“I’m not stupid, and I have no desire to be cursed.” Malfoy patted Harry’s arm once before he withdrew his hand. “I know to leave Dark magic up to the experts.”

There was a time, Harry thought, when he would have been unable to imagine Malfoy saying that unironically, but after seeing what Malfoy had made of his life, and knowing what he’d made of his own, he had to admit he’d probably spent more time in proximity to Dark magic than Malfoy in the last decade.

And I’m about to spend more, he thought as he and Malfoy strode out of the Atrium, preparing to Apparate. Not that I think I’ll tell Kingsley that. Or even Malfoy, at least not until I see how he reacts to the Seeking spells.

*

Potter looked through the letters quickly, Draco noted, his eyes studying them so fast that Draco might have thought he was skimming them if he didn’t know better. Potter put them down and fired a series of rapid questions at him that tested Draco’s own knowledge of the letters and his students.

“Why would Gully leave these here, when he must have realized that they would be revealing to anyone who looked?”

“He didn’t expect anyone to look,” said Draco. He resisted the temptation to add an “of course”; obviously, Potter didn’t find this as obvious as he did. “I keep many effects that my students leave here, sometimes because they go traveling after they’ve mastered their Animagus transformations or because their families don’t approve of their dedicating so much time and effort to the study in the first place. I guarantee my students’ privacy. When Gully realized that you’d visited me, he must have said something that spurred the attack. I would guess the attack was partially to retrieve the documents, after all.”

Potter nodded, stirring through the letters with one hand like someone stirring the faded ashes of a fire with a poker. “And this ‘love affair’ Wellward mentions in the third letter. What do you think that refers to? Were they actually sleeping together?”

Draco gave a grim little smile. “Someone actually dangerous and perceptive, and someone as nasty and short-tempered as Wellward? I doubt it.”

“Stranger things have happened.” Potter gave him an annoyed glance, as if Draco’s pronouncement about his two students was a denial of all strange things happening in the world ever.

“Yes, they have,” said Draco, and controlled his temper with a stern effort. “But I trust my perceptions of those two. They’re mismatched. The love affair refers to something else, and based on what she says in the seventh letter, I’d wager it’s to do with their service to Shrivelfig.”

He expected Potter to hunt through the letters to track down his allusion, but Potter opened his mouth and hissed deeply instead, as though Draco had insulted him. His eyes were glowing, though, and Draco doubted animation in Potter was a bad thing. When he was feeling insulted, as he had with Shacklebolt, he retreated into stubborn taciturnity.

And that’s another thing about him, Draco thought suddenly, another clue to his animal form. He can be loud when he’s provoked, but he’s often silent the rest of the time. What animal do I know that is stubborn and silent most of the time?

A giraffe? Maybe, but Draco had never actually trained any giraffe Animagi, so he didn’t know for certain.

“Yes,” said Potter. “‘The love greater than any man knows,’ Wellward calls it. And one of the slogans that Shrivelfig and her lot throw around is the love of a lady for her people. They’re drawing on legends of Morgana le Fay and Nimue and the like, witches who defeated wizards. They want to convince those who will listen that a Dark Lady could succeed where a Dark Lord failed.”

Draco snorted. “That’s ridiculous. Who listens to these kinds of things?”

“Evidently, people like Septimus Gully.” Potter turned a burning gaze on him. “Do you know why he might have wanted to follow Shrivelfig? What was the point of it all? Why would someone like you describe him want to do that, rather than use his obvious intelligence and magical power to achieve something grander?”

Draco leaned back and thought seriously about the question for a moment. The first thing he had been inclined to believe when Potter brought him word of the Ferguson murder was that he had misjudged Gully, or that Shrivelfig and Wellward had corrupted him. But it wasn’t that long ago that Draco had trained Gully, and his memories of his scorpion student were still sharp. Besides, the letters were proof that he had entered the school in the first place at the behest of the witch he followed. If there was any corruption, it had existed before he entered the Magical Menagerie.

He’d just been bragging to Potter what a keen observer he was, and how he could understand the hidden motives of people around him. Could he solve this puzzle?

He closed his eyes and recalled Septimus Gully. An inquisitive student, who had asked questions that others hadn’t thought of about the Animagus training method and pushed Draco to tell him why and how the magic worked, rather than simply accepting that it did. The transformation had not been a source of wonder to him, Draco thought, but something more like science to Muggles. He had known he could perform it once he received the proper training, and he had been confident he could understand it.

Draco did not have that attitude himself. Even after ten years, the ability to grow wings was still a source of pride and pleasure. And that made it harder for him to understand Gully.

But if he could see good qualities in Potter and want to know more about him, then he could certainly do the same thing with Gully. He tapped a store of observations he’d never had use for before now, and thought of everything from the way Gully ate his meals to the way he frequently looked guilty when caught writing letters to Wellward instead of working on the exercises Draco put him through.

“I think,” said Draco slowly at last, aware of the intensely listening silence from Potter as he spoke, “that he was looking for something he could believe in. He had one of those minds that pull all the mystery from the world, and he couldn’t be contented with the world of problems that remained. He wanted something odd, wondrous—something, if you’ll excuse the obvious pun, magical. He didn’t find that in my training or in his Hogwarts education, that’s certain. For some reason, he found it when he listened to the doctrine Medea Shrivelfig and her kind preached.” He opened his eyes and shook his head. “I couldn’t tell you why he chose that doctrine out of all the ones he met to follow, but he obviously did.”

Potter nodded and closed his eyes, tilting his head back. Draco admired the line of his throat in abstracted silence for a moment.

“The answer might lie in his childhood, or in the approach that Shrivelfig first made to him, or any number of things.” Potter sighed and rubbed his hand over his face. “Well, damn. We have the information I was looking for, the connection between Gully and Shrivelfig, but I doubt even this will convince Shacklebolt.”

“Do you have to convince him?” Draco returned to something that had been bothering him since he watched Potter in the Minister’s office. “Follow Gully and catch him doing something dastardly. Then you can arrest him and present this case to your Minister as a done deal.”

*

Harry smiled in spite of himself. The solution Malfoy spoke of was one he had actually envisioned at one point, and a younger Harry Potter would have tried it and been scorned for his pains. But he had those bad experiences to make him wiser now.

“It does matter,” he answered. “If I’m acting outside the Minister’s purview, I can’t be trusted to obey the code of the Aurors and the laws themselves. I’ll find Gully, yes, and catch him with evidence that the Minister can’t ignore, but I’ll wait to present him with that evidence. The Minister has to be the one who makes the arrest.”

“I don’t understand why.” Malfoy folded his arms and gave Harry a pointed look, as if he wanted to remind him that these were the people who had attacked his shop.

Harry had no intention of forgetting that. Malfoy had proven a more trustworthy ally than any he’d had in the past several years. “Because I want to protect people, but I also want to go on protecting them,” he explained. “I challenged Kingsley today only because I thought there was a chance he might back down and keep me on the case, let me do the job. But I’ve pushed him too far this time. If I want to go back on the job and help other people as an Auror, then I need to wait until he calms down.”

“And in the meantime, investigate and try to find the evidence that you think you need to convict Gully.”

“That’s right.” Harry cocked his head inquisitively. There was the heaviness of disbelief in Malfoy’s voice, as if he didn’t understand why Harry would want to find Gully, and had in fact given up his desire for vengeance.

“When you could make more money, and have more prestige, and probably save more people, if you were working outside the Ministry structure.” Malfoy leaned forwards. “You’re stubborn, yes, but the Minister is more so, and he has the power. You ought to see that you’ll get along better if you make your way outside the Ministry.”

“I won’t become a vigilante,” said Harry sharply. He could feel a worm of guilt stirring at the base of his spine. There had been a time, drunk and bitter, when he’d made the same suggestion to Hermione that Malfoy was making to him. She had destroyed him with swift, precise arguments about how Harry Potter and the Ministry at odds would lead to a weakened Minister at best, a civil war at worst. There were still fanatic champions of Harry Potter who would do frightening things if they thought he’d been insulted.

“I was talking about a private investigator, Potter, not a vigilante.” Malfoy took a step towards him. “Do you think the existence of my Animagus school challenges Hogwarts? Of course not, but I do exist outside that structure. There are certain rules I have to obey, but they’re not the rules of Hogwarts’s Headmistress.”

“But you still have to obey some rules,” Harry parroted back at him. He could feel his heart beating, the beat racing through his ears and his blood, and he didn’t know why he felt so frantic.

“Of course I do,” said Malfoy. “But I was offered a position as the Transfiguration professor when I became fully trained. It seems that McGonagall has never found herself a satisfactory one since she had to abandon the job to become Headmistress. I refused, because I knew I could never obey all the rules in Hogwarts and still be myself.” He reached out and poked Harry in the chest with one finger, a gesture that Harry tried to feel insulted about. He failed. “You could do the same thing.”

Harry licked his lips and glanced away. For the first time in a long time, the apathetic shell that he’d wrapped himself in, the shell of cynicism that said of course the Ministry would screw him over and he would just have to put up with it, cracked and a shaft of light flooded in. But he couldn’t actually be certain that it would ever happen, so he shrugged stiffly and said, “With the Ministry’s authority behind me, at least I can make arrests. If I was an investigator, then I might be able to prove the crimes to my satisfaction, but I couldn’t be sure the criminals were actually punished.”

“There are ways around that as well,” Malfoy said calmly.

Harry glared at him. “Now you are talking about being a vigilante.”

“So what if I am?” Malfoy grinned suddenly, and the dash of the brilliant smile across his face was shocking. “You’d be better-suited to it than you are to work as an Auror. You’re stubborn and short-tempered and have to work hard to control yourself. You have to be coaxed instead of prodded or driven.”

“You’ve been collecting observations about me.” Harry shook his head, a bit of amusement mixing with his indignation. “You’re still not going to learn what you need about me to determine what my Animagus form would be.”

“How do you know?”

“Because I don’t want to become an Animagus, so I think my desire will affect your perception,” Harry said. “You did mention that something like that might happen.”

“Everyone has a potential animal form, even if they don’t want the training.” Malfoy had his arms folded now, as if he thought that Harry was mad not to want the specialized training that he provided.

“But some find it hard to see,” said Harry. “I prefer to be blind to mine.” He drew his wand and spoke quickly, because otherwise Malfoy might try to continue the argument, and Harry didn’t want to do that. He’d already confessed more of his personal anxieties to Malfoy in the past few days than he had to anyone in the past few years, and he still didn’t know why. It wasn’t as if he trusted the git. “Now, I do have a chance to find Septimus Gully since I’ve touched one of his letters. A better chance than I did this morning, at least.”

“Why?” Malfoy allowed himself to be diverted, though the heavy tone of his voice said he was reluctant to allow it to happen.

“Because I’ve handled a piece of paper he’s touched more than once,” said Harry, his eyes falling shut. “And I’ve read words addressed to him, by a person who was thinking intensely of him.” The pressure of the magic built and built in the back of his head, making him breathe harshly, making him waver and struggle on his feet. “Those are both good things to carry a trace of his presence, to make him—ah!”

And he felt the tearing that always happened, centered somewhere around the middle of his chest, as the incantation of the Seeking Spell spilled of its own free will past his lips. He dropped to his knees, the magic beating him like a rug as it flooded out of him. Pain made dizzy rings circle his vision when he opened his eyes, but Harry could bear that; it was the most minor of the physical sensations that were likely to assail him after the Seeking Spell. He knelt where he’d fallen, breathing quietly, eyes tracking the white flitting shape that streaked away from him towards the east.

“What the fuck was that?”

At least Malfoy sounded sufficiently impressed. Harry grinned tiredly and reached out for a moment, intending to clasp the leg of the table on which Gully’s letters lay spread and let that help him up. Instead, he caught Malfoy’s hand. Malfoy pulled him effortlessly to his feet and stood staring at him, not releasing Harry’s wrist. Harry raised an eyebrow, but let the strangeness pass unremarked for now.

“That’s called a Seeking Spell,” he said. “Spectacular, wasn’t it?”

“That was Dark magic,” said Malfoy. His hand tightened as if he would crush the truth out of Harry. “Do you want to tell me exactly why the top Auror in the Ministry is using Dark Arts?”

“Really?” Harry widened his eyes innocently. “You could tell it was Dark magic? How?”

“The pain it caused you,” said Malfoy. “And the way it made the skin around my temples tighten when it flew.” His mouth was set into a hard line. “Now, Potter. Tell me, or I’ll simply go to the Minister and render your little rebellion worthless.”

“I thought you wanted vengeance?” Harry knew he was pushing, and perhaps as unwisely as he’d pushed against Kingsley’s edict, but he really didn’t understand Malfoy. One moment he was suggesting that Harry defy the Ministry, and the next moment he appeared to believe that the Ministry was the only thing that could control Harry. “You won’t get it if the Minister locks me up now.”

“I think you matter more than to become a sacrifice to this case,” said Malfoy bluntly. His hand moved from Harry’s wrist to his shoulder and squeezed painfully. “You can’t use Dark Arts simply to find a criminal. What’s next? Will you use the Unforgivables because someone annoys you?”

“I did that during the war,” said Harry, but it was surprisingly hard to meet Malfoy’s gaze. He shifted his feet and sighed noisily. “Listen, Malfoy, this spell works. It keeps me from having to charge headlong into dangerous situations, and it locates people who might have so many contacts or plans that they can easily hide whilst they inflict more torment and pain on their victims. The only one it hurts is me.”

“Still not acceptable,” said Malfoy, and the hold of his hand on Harry’s shoulder tightened until he was sure his face was white. Combined with the haze that still swam around his vision, it made Harry feel nauseated. But he composed his expression into stubborn lines and glared back at Malfoy. “What does it do?”

“It turns part of my soul into a Seeker,” said Harry reluctantly. “That part of my soul flies after the person I want to find and briefly embeds itself into him. Then it brings me back a sense of where he is, including a picture of his location.”

Malfoy hissed, and his hands ground down until Harry cried out, softly. Malfoy immediately stopped pressing down, but his arms remained looped around Harry’s shoulders as he moved closer, his voice low and passionate. “And the piece of your torn soul reunites with you after a certain period of time?”

Harry nodded. His eyes were watering with tears, but he blinked them away. He wouldn’t lift a hand to wipe them off his face. That would be like admitting weakness to Malfoy. “It always comes back. I don’t cause myself permanent harm—“

“No, you’re only splitting your soul because you’re an idiot.” Malfoy’s voice was shaking now. He looked away and shut his eyes, his lashes standing out in pale lines against his even paler skin. “How long have you done this?”

“For years, but not often,” said Harry, thinking that Malfoy had asked the question with the most inconvenient phrasing he could possibly have chosen. “A few of my harder arrests—“

“Should never have happened at all.” Malfoy stepped away from him, his breath racing, and Harry was certain he had changed his mind about helping Harry after all, that the Dark Arts would be a bargain-breaker. But instead he opened his eyes and glared at Harry. “I want your word that you’ll never use that spell again.”

“Or what?” Harry frowned. “You’ll tell the Ministry? How are you going to know that I’m using it after this case?”

“Or I’ll cast a spell I know, which is perfectly legal, and constrain and bind your magic,” Malfoy said. His wand was in his hand; Harry hadn’t even seen it move. “It’ll make you incapable of ever using a spell that powerful and Dark again. Of course, it’ll also keep you from some of the more powerful magic that you might use to arrest criminals and save their victims, but that’s the consequences.”

Harry felt his face flush. Ordinarily, he would have been able to outface Malfoy’s threat, but he was magically and physically weaker with a piece of his soul gone from him. And he found it hard to look Malfoy in the eye. If Malfoy had been angry about the taint of the Dark Arts being performed in his shop, then Harry could have understood, but this—this was different. This was concern about Harry himself, and he didn’t know how to handle it.

You have friends, he told himself. You should.

But concern from Ron and Hermione if they ever found out he was using Dark Arts would only have been proper and expected, which was one reason Harry had been careful to hide his use of that magic from them. Concern from Malfoy changed his perception of the man intolerably and made him think that there might be lasting consequences, after all, from their conversation in the pub the other night.

He bowed his head and murmured, in response to that concern far more than to the threat, “I promise.”

“Say what you’re promising.” Neither Malfoy’s gaze nor his wand had wavered when Harry glanced up at him. “You’ll never use that particular spell again.”

“It’s called the Seeker Spell.”

“Then call it by its proper name.”

Harry licked his lips. Technically, there was nothing binding on him. Malfoy wasn’t forcing him to make an Unbreakable Vow. Harry could make the promise and snap it later without consequences. How likely was it that Malfoy would ever know?

But precisely because it had to be his choice to let this promise bind him in the future, it had become more sacred and solemn to Harry than an Unbreakable Vow could possibly be.

“I’ll never use the Seeker Spell again,” he said. “I promise. No matter what the temptation, no matter how many people I might save because of it.” He waited to see if his choice of words would cause Malfoy to look at all sorry—would he like possibly being the cause of innocent people’s deaths?—but there was a flash in Malfoy’s eyes before he slowly nodded.

“Yes,” he said. “That’s what I needed to hear. You started using it in the first place to save people, didn’t you? Because you think anything is permissible if you do it to save other people’s lives. Dark magic, or conflict with the Minister, or being miserable in your job.”

Harry blinked. “I don’t understand you,” he said. “Will you please decide which side you’re on and stop changing your mind, and my perception of you, constantly?”

“I’m on your side, as long as you don’t do anything stupid,” said Malfoy. “And my own side, always.” He lowered his wand and looked up as a shuriken-shaped point of white light traveled through the wall and back towards Harry. He held out his hands, and the torn, flying piece of soul slammed into his chest and rocked him back on his feet.

He closed his eyes, and an image of a small stone house unfolded in his mind’s eye. In one corner was a large hearth covered with gray ashes that might have been the remnants of burned documents. The major piece of furniture in it was a large table draped with maps. More maps hung on the walls. They were maps of the wizarding sections of the British Isles, Harry saw at once. Hogsmeade, Hogwarts, several small wizarding villages in Ireland, and Diagon Alley were the areas he recognized at a glance.

A tall woman with straggling red hair bent over the table and tapped one of the maps with a long fingernail painted black, speaking loud words in a strangled voice that sounded like a duck choking. The man next to her was small and hunched in his chair, but Harry recognized him anyway from his photograph: Septimus Gully. And next to her was the woman who might be Athena Wellward, with an unpleasantness about her eyes and mouth that Harry could imagine issuing in a swan’s hiss.

The image pulled back from the cottage and showed him a line unfolding across a map of his own, across the streams and flatlands and meadows and mountains that stood in his way. It was too long a distance to Apparate there from London in one jump, so here and there places that would provide safe Apparition coordinates shone with clear light. Harry nodded and opened his eyes, knowing a grim smile was playing around his mouth.

“You know where we’re going?” Malfoy asked. He had moved up beside Harry, his breath oddly warm on Harry’s neck and ear. Harry shivered absently and stretched out an arm to claim his. It seemed that Malfoy was still intent on going into battle with Harry after he’d found out that Harry used Dark magic.

“I do,” Harry said. “A wizarding village north of here. I don’t know the name, but I’m certain Medea Shrivelfig is there, with Gully and someone who’s probably Wellward. The cottage has no extraordinary wards.”

Malfoy nodded, once. At least he was wise enough not to demand that Harry wait until they could find someone else to back them up, Harry thought. There would be no backup coming from the Ministry even if he Apparated straight to Kingsley’s flat now and presented his evidence. There would be some reason to delay it, danger or the chance of disrupting a business owned by the Wizengamot Councilors, and in the meantime Shrivelfig and her followers would slip away.

Still, Harry found that he was glad to have company. He gathered himself to Apparate, and then suddenly paused.

“What?” Malfoy stirred next to him, and his breath brushed Harry’s hair back from his forehead. He automatically pushed it forwards to hide the scar again.

“I just realized that I shouldn’t be able to perform magic in your shop, if that ward that prevents any magic but Animagus transformations is still in place,” Harry said.

Malfoy chuckled smugly. “I raised it when we came back. The illusion of it is still in place, though, to prevent my enemies from thinking they have a free chance to attack us.”

Harry nodded. “You raised it because you didn’t want to go without the convenience of performing magic for yourself?”

“No, actually.” Malfoy leaned even closer to him. “Because I noticed your reluctance to have me come with you, and thought it quite probable I would need to perform a spell to save your life before we even started.”

Harry couldn’t think of anything to say to that, so he focused his mind on the first set of coordinates the Seeker spell had given him and Apparated.

Part 4.