Chapter Text
I.
After the war, there are almost as many missing people as there are dead bodies to cart away. Some of those people are recovered from the rubble, or from deep within the crumbling castle walls. They’d been tucked away, hidden, killed for some unknown crime—the wrong place at the wrong time, the wrong blood. Harry does his best not to think about all the head-stones on empty graves. The months tick on, slowly, and it feels like the rebuild of their world would never be fully complete.
Harry’d thought, at first, that there would be a grand sweep of the Ministry. They would root out dark wizards still skulking around the Wizengamot. Aurors would capture the last dark wizards lurking in the countryside, hiding in the towns, cowering in their homes, sitting and waiting for some new power to rise in the absence of another.
The reality is much… slower.
Shacklebolt ascends to Minister for Magic, but there isn’t a wide-spread overhaul of the rest of the Ministry. Harry tries to get more information from Arthur Weasley, but there’s very little coming out of the Ministry at all for several long months following the final battle.Harry desperately tries to trust the process (though the process has never worked in his favor before). Wizengamot judges are shuffled. Heads of departments change. A wave of Unspeakables are removed from their posts and obliviated. As far as Harry is concerned, it's nothing .
The first Death Eater trial doesn’t take place until Harry is just about ready to board the Hogwarts Express for the make-up year that many of the seventh-years are being offered in order to complete their NEWTs. He’s not asked to speak at the first trial, though he does begin to get letters telling him his presence will be required at several upcoming ones over the next few months. Harry finds himself obsessively following the trials through the twisted lens of the Daily Prophet , despite Hermione’s increasingly frantic wishes that he would stop taking whatever they write seriously. (He doesn’t, not really, it’s just… well.)
Only a handful of seventh-years come back for the make-up year: Dean and Seamus, Parvati but not Padma, Zacharias Smith, Justin Finch-Fetchley, Susan Bones and Hannah Abbott, some Ravenclaws that Harry doesn’t know very well, and a smattering of Slytherins, including Blaise Zabini and Theodore Nott.
But not Draco Malfoy.
It feels like a knife in his gut whenever he thinks about it. Pulling Draco from the fire in the Room of Requirement had been the last time he’d laid eyes on him before he made that long, quiet walk to die in the Forbidden Forest. Harry had left him there on the floor, throat raw from smoke, and he hadn’t looked back. And as far as Harry knew, no one had seen him after that moment. Malfoy’s body was one of the ones gone missing after the dust had settled. If he thinks about it too hard, a strange wave of anger and guilt climbs up his throat like bile.
Draco Malfoy doesn’t get a head-stone, as far as Harry knows, nor an empty grave. Arthur tells Harry over winter break that Malfoy wouldn’t even have gotten a trial, that he would have been acquitted due to being underage when he took the mark.
“Under coercion and threat of death,” Arthur explains.
Harry doesn’t think it’s fair, but Malfoy is probably dead now, so what does it matter?
He can’t stop thinking of some unmarked grave, some quiet ditch where Malfoy’s pale skin and white hair lay rotting.
The year goes by. Slow, dragging, every few months another trial that Harry must attend. He testifies against Lucius Malfoy, but in favor of Narcissa’s release. It’s an easy choice to make and one that he doesn’t think Mrs. Malfoy begrudges him.
Harry can’t stop remembering how he had told her that her son was alive. How she’d turned the tides of the war for them, only to be presented with this . The guilt eats at him. More often than not, he lets Ron and Hermione and Ginny talk him down from that ledge. There’s a lot of that, in the year following the war. Never-ending cycles of survivor’s guilt: grief and longing and pain that curdle like rotten milk in their stomachs, that strike like snakes in the middle of the night.
“I’m sorry,” Harry tells Narcissa Malfoy, after her sentence is handed down: a year of house-arrest without her wand. Outside the chambers, Harry stops to talk to her, trying to assuage that unpleasant grinding in his stomach. “Erm, about Draco. I… he was alive, when I last saw him. I didn’t know.”
There’s a flicker of something in Mrs. Malfoy’s eyes. “Yes,” she says, voice soft. “Thank you.”
Harry doesn’t ask her if she would have made the same choice had she known.
A year goes by. Harry manages his NEWTs in between everything else. There’s a relief that comes with leaving Hogwarts for a final time— sadness, too, but a relief that he will no longer be roaming the halls haunted by the memories of his family and friends. When they all return to the Burrow the celebration is enormous, even by Weasley standards. Everyone he knows is in attendance. He spends the night half-gone on Butterbeer and Firewhiskey, the evening a blur of faces and hugs and Molly dutifully pretending she doesn’t notice them all getting more and more drunk.
They all stay at the Burrow for a while, Harry and Ron and Hermione. Hermione has job offers before she’s even gotten the last of her NEWT results. Ron applies for the Auror program and Harry flounders a little, not sure what he wants to do, his long-held desire to join up suddenly dampened by the idea that he could, maybe, live quietly, for once.
“I think you should explore your options,” Ginny says one evening. They’re sat out in the garden, explicitly not talking about how they’ve both decided on their own that they shouldn’t get back together. Ginny holds his hand, still, and he likes the warm press of her palm against his. She lays her head on his shoulder and her hair smells like the wood stove in the kitchen. He breathes her in and holds her hand and feels pounding waves of relief that he’s not expected to fall in love with her anymore.
“I dunno,” Harry murmurs. “I’ve never been good at making my own decisions.”
“Gotta start somewhere,” Ginny says. She turns her face against his cheek and kisses him there. Harry considers how easy it would be to turn his head and kiss her properly. He’s glad to realize he doesn’t want to. He loves Ginny, and it feels easier to love her when they’re not also dating.
As the summer fades distantly into fall, Hermione takes a job offer as a liaison for the Department for Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures.
“She could have been a barrister!” Ron complains to Harry a few days after Hermione accepts the position. They’re both whittling away the last of summer, enjoying spending afternoons out in the garden and long evenings in front of the fire. Ron is still waiting to hear back from the Auror program. “Eight NEWTs and she takes a position as a—what, what did they call it?”
“Liaison.”
“That’s as good as a secretary, I reckon!” Ron bellows, smacking his hand on the arm of the sofa.
“She’s eighteen!” Ginny says from in front of the hearth, laughing. “Merlin, let her start somewhere.”
“Department of Magical Creatures…” Ron mutters.
“S.P.E.W.,” Harry reasons, and the three of them dissolve into helpless giggles.
Two weeks later, two letters arrived carried by the same owl. The first is for Ron, his acceptance letter into the Auror program. The second is for Harry: an invitation into the program. Harry hesitates to show Ron. He’s half frustrated, half grateful: tired of people deciding things for him but pleased that he no longer has to worry about what the fuck he’s going to do. The offer is right there, in gold leaf.
“What!” Ron bellows when he shows him, heaving a big laugh as he wraps his long arms around Harry in joy. “Mate, this is amazing! We can do it together!”
So he does.
“Are you sure?” Hermione frets when their Auror-issue trainee robes arrive later that week. She sits on Ron’s bed while he and Harry try them on, waving her wand to make any tailoring adjustments they may need. “Harry, you didn’t even apply.”
“Come off it,” Ron says, clapping Harry on the back. “We were made for this. We’ve got all sorts of practice. We won a war .”
And it’s fine. It’s fun, some of it. The training parts. Harry spends his days working hard and returns to the Burrow exhausted. It keeps his mind busy and his body busier. There’s suddenly an outlet for all of his left-over grief and despair.
The only problem is that there’s way more to fighting dark wizards than even a war can teach you. It’s not all rushing in and flinging spells and grappling on a wrestling mat. Every Tuesday and Thursday he and Ron sit in eight-hour-long courses about law, and proper investigation techniques, and how to follow a lead, and all sorts of other things Aurors are expected to do beyond just working in the field.
Two years gone from the war, Ron graduates at the top of their trainee class with Harry a few impulsive technicalities behind him.
This is how life begins. Real life, the life outside of school. The life where Harry makes his own money and moves out of the Burrow and into a flat in central London. It’s small, but cozy. Neville fills it with plants for him and Hermione fills it with books and Ron fills it with laughter.
And for years, Harry only thinks about Draco Malfoy in his darkest moments, alone in the quiet of his flat, miserable and wishing life had dealt Malfoy a different hand. No headstone, no empty grave.
Just gone.
II.
“What’s this?” Harry asks as he approaches his desk at the DMLE. There’s a poorly made cake with smeared icing and writing on the top that reads Happy One Year! with a little unlit candle.
Ron looks up from his desk kitty-corner of Harry’s own, flashing a grin. “The girls put that together for you,” he says, leaning back to tip his chair on two legs. “Not that I’m getting a one-year anniversary cake. Not like we graduated together. Not like our whole class is hitting one year this week. Talk about favoritism.”
Harry laughs, a little embarrassed. “Yeah, well.”
He’s never going to get over the whole savior of the wizarding world thing. The press still can’t decide if they hate him or love him, even after months of doing routine Auror work that’s never gotten more exciting than a potion smuggling ring and a string of break-ins in Knockturn Alley. Rounding up dark wizards and all that lark… not really in Harry’s job description that much these days.
It’s all wrapped up in politics, is the problem. A year since his trainee graduation puts the war three years behind them now, and he’s still being called to testify at trials. Still, even if he’s not chasing dark wizards through the snowy countryside, he’s doing something. He’s kept busy, and he gets to work with Ron, which usually turns out better than expected. Ron’s a good Auror. He’s got a mind for strategy and detail. Maybe he’s not clever like Hermione is, but he’s clever in his own way, and quick, and Harry never has to worry that he doesn’t have his back in the field.
“Want to share it with me?” Harry asks, gesturing to the cake.
Ron’s obviously enthusiastic yes is cut short when a memo zooms through the door and lands smack into the cake. Harry plucks it from the icing and unfolds the little paper airplane.
Aurors Harry Potter and Ronald Weasley,
Please report to Madame Granger’s office in the Department for Regulation and Control of Magical creatures immediately.
Head Auror Robards
“Hey, check this out,” Harry says, passing the note to Ron, who glances between it and the cake with increasing disappointment.
“You think this has to do with Hermione and I getting married soon?” Ron asks.
“I’m not marrying you,” Harry points out, laughing. “None of my business, is it?”
They make their way to the lifts, reluctantly leaving the cake behind. The last two years have been good for Hermione, as far as Harry’s concerned. She’d shed the title of liaison barely four months into the job. He can’t help but feel a warm bubble of pride in his stomach every time he thinks about it. Assistant Head Underseer to Lycan Affairs. Harry’s sure that she thinks of Remus every time she goes into work. Harry would. He does.
Hermione’s office has a big, fake window that brings in warm, fake sunshine. They’re not the first to have filed into her office. She’s sat behind her desk, looking harried. Susan Bones is already there, along with Robards and Terry Boot and an older Auror by the name of Atticus Marseille. Harry’s stomach drops a little. The mood in the room is tense, and Harry straightens his shoulders, attention on Hermione.
“Thank you,” Hermione says quietly, steepling her fingers together in front of her lips. “I didn’t know who else to call.”
“Go ahead and tell them what you told me,” Robards says, curt but not unkind.
Ron arranges himself so that he’s stood right by her desk, one hand gripping the back of her chair. Harry crosses his arms, waiting. He thought he would feel some sort of deep-seated adrenaline at the idea of finally being presented with something big, something serious, something dangerous. But his limbs just fill with dread and his stomach turns to water.
“My people have leads on a lycan-fighting ring,” Hermione says slowly, scrubbing one hand across her face. “But not… they’re not fighting on their own. They’re being held there.”
No one speaks. Harry’s arms feel weak.
“Against their will,” Hermione presses. Her jaw steels, determined. “One of my agents got inside and it’s… it’s worse than you can possibly imagine. They’ve been feeding them some kind of potion. It triggers their transformation. They can keep them in their wolf forms for days, weeks, outside the full moon. Sometimes they’ve got them fighting to the death, but… but not always. They can’t keep replacing their… stock like that.”
“ What ?” Susan gasps.
“We’ve got a way in,” Robbards takes over, then. “You’ve all faced off against werewolves before, correct?”
“Auror Robbards,” Hermione says, sharply.
“Sorry,” he mutters, not sounding sorry in the least. “Against lycanthropes?”
Harry exchanges a look with Ron, then Susan and Terry Boot. Sure, there were werewolves at the final Battle, but… Harry thinks of Remus, that one night he’d seen him transform, and his stomach twists unpleasantly. His other encounters with werewolves had been based entirely around Greyback and his ilk, and they’d been even more terrifying. He tries to imagine a werewolf in the kind of position that Hermione is describing and it’s near impossible. To Harry, werewolves have always been imposing, impossible creatures.
“The lycans aren’t the enemy here,” Hermione presses on, voice firm. “They’re the victims.”
That doesn’t sound right to Harry, but he shakes off the thought. If they’re being kept and forced to fight each other, then Hermione is right.
“Right,” Robbards says shortly, glancing sidelong at Hermione before addressing the rest of them again. “The important thing here is that you’ve all faced off against a lycanthrope or two before. You’ll work under Marseille here and a few other senior aurors. We don’t expect these bookies to put up much of a fight.”
“What about the w— erm, the lycans?” Boot asks, weathering one of Hermione’s hardest stares as he stutters over the proper name. “If they’re being kept transformed then… like, will they even know we’re trying to help them?”
“Not likely,” Hermione answers, rolling her shoulders up against her jaw. “Which is why you’ve got to be careful and not hurt them. They’re people. They’re wizards, even. You know what it was like during the war. You-Know-Who tried to practically raise a lycanthrope army. They’re probably victims twice over.”
The way Hermione avoids Voldemort’s name is familiar, but it itches unpleasantly at Harry’s skin. Old habits are dying harder and harder these days. Harry thinks of all the people with empty graves and missing bodies and wonders if one or two of them are among the wolves being kept. He tries not to think about it, about the people he knew who didn’t come back from the war. He’s on the job, he has to focus.
“We’ll keep them safe, Hermione,” Harry says finally, squaring his shoulders. He’s not the best auror in the room, but his voice carries the most weight. The least he can do is hold them all accountable for what’s about to happen. “Promise.”
“Yeah,” Ron agrees, dropping his hand from the back of her chair to between her shoulder blades. “We’ll help them.”
Ever the professional, Hermione hides her grateful smile, exchanging it instead for a curt nod. “Good,” she says. “Then I’ll have Yasmin give you the information you need, Auror Robbards.”
Recognizing the dismissal, Robbards corrals them out of Hermione’s office and into the antechamber just outside. Yasmin is waiting for them, a brown-skinned witch with thick curly hair and warm eyes. She’s no-nonsense as she exchanges information with Robbards, handing over a pile of paperwork: photographs, maps, locations, receipts, everything Hermione’s office has gathered over the last month looking into this place. He makes a note to find Yasmin after all this is over and maybe ask her out for drinks, pretty as she is.
“Alright,” Robbards mutters, handing off the papers to the rest of them. Harry takes a large manilla folder filled with photographs and receipts, documents tracking the comings and goings of the patrons involved in this wolf-fighting ring. “Get to work. I want a clear idea of what we’re dealing with and how we’re going to get in and out. Sorry, kids, you’re in for a long night.”
“Coffee and a conference room,” Marseille says to the group of them. Harry likes Marseille. He has a faint French accent and always seems to know what he's doing. Harry’s worked with him as a senior Auror a few times, but this is the first time they’ve ever been paired together on something so… huge. Truthfully, Harry’s still trying to wrap his head around everything that Hermione told them, and everything they have to do.
When they’re all tucked away in a quiet conference room with massive mugs of coffee from the cantine, Harry spreads the work out in front of him and digs in. The rest of the room is quiet but for the occasional murmur of his fellow Aurors as they consult one another on something they’ve found.
The adrenaline doesn’t leave his system for a long while, and it doesn’t feel good, either.
Maybe it’s just something to get used to again.
III.
They don’t rush in.
In fact, it takes them and a team of senior Aurors a full week to work through the information that Hermione’s team has gathered, and just as long to put together some kind of plan that will get them in and out as quickly as possible with minimal damage to the werewolves. It doesn’t help that their plan has to change every time Hermione’s people go undercover and discover some new variable to the ring.
Finally, though, they’re ready. It feels a little surreal to Harry to be dressing in the Auror locker rooms without donning his typical red robes. When Marseille comes through, he points directly at Harry and Ron and says, “I don’t think so.” For a moment, Harry thinks they’re being tossed off the mission before Marseille says, “Glamours, the both of you. Your pictures have been all over the papers for the last Merlin knows how many years.”
Disguised, glamoured and dressed down, Harry leaves with Ron, Susan, Marseille, and two other senior Aurors as the first group to infiltrate. They apparate to the designated point a block or so away, then move in. The building is old and falling apart on the outside, with boarded up windows and a distinct look, as if the whole thing is ready to collapse. They approach one by one, so as not to rouse suspicions as a large group of newcomers. Another group will wait outside the building at several exit points, hidden, to catch anyone trying to make a break for it after the bust.
Harry moves in last. The man at the door just gives him a sober once-over. “Name?” He grunts.
Prepared, Harry says, “Vernon Dudley.”
The doorman wrinkles his nose, which is crooked like it’s been broken once or twice before. “Betting tonight?”
“Just watching,” Harry mumbles.
The doorman shrugs and steps aside to let him in. Once Harry crosses the doorway, the whole inside of the building changes. The walls are deep red with silver trimmings, the floor black and carpeted. He moves through the building by rote, having long studied the layout that Hermione’s people managed to draw up. The front hall leads to a few rooms, doors closed and presumably locked, and then around to a pair of wide double doors. There are people milling in the side hall, with groups hovering just inside the double doors as well. All conversations are low and quiet, but Harry can spot Marseille chatting up an older, well-dressed witch.
Harry moves past the pair and through the double doors. Inside is a large, circular room lined with a few dozen seats, at the center of which is a particularly large arena. Harry can see the slight shimmer of magic around the stage, presumably to keep whoever is inside from getting out. His shoulders tighten uncomfortably as he moves through the small but scattered crowds of people. They just need to see it with their own eyes, and then they can act, Harry reminds himself.
A young wizard sidles up to him, flashing a crooked smile. “Got your bets?”
Harry does his best not to scowl. He rubs his wrist over his nose instead. “Not tonight,” he mumbles. “Just watching.”
“New, are you?” The wizard asks, nodding certainly. “Well, if you ever want a safe bet, the ol’ white wolf hasn’t lost a round yet.”
“Oh?” Harry prompts.
“Well, maybe he has, but not since I’ve been coming,” the wizard says, seeming eager to have someone else his age to chatter to about the whole experience.
“You come alone?” Harry asks, glancing around them.
“Oh, yeah, mostly. S’not really a sport to tell the folks about, now is it?”
Harry doesn’t respond, but it doesn’t matter. The wizard goes on, shoving his hands in the pockets of his robes. “Doesn’t matter, I mean, they’d kill each other anyway out in the wild, wouldn’t they? Probably bite a few witches and wizards on the way out. This is more humane, if you ask me. Put ‘em out of their misery and keep ‘em from spreading it, you know?”
“Humane,” Harry scoffs. The wizard doesn’t seem to hear him. A bell chimes somewhere from above.
“That’ll be time,” the wizard says. “Come down with me.”
As he follows him down the row of seats to the few closest to the arena, Harry glances around to keep an eye on Marseille, Ron and Susan. When he’s satisfied that they’re alright, he sets his attention back on the stage, taking a seat alongside his unsavory companion.
After the small gathered crowd has taken their seats, a second bell chimes and two more doors on either side of the room open. Harry struggles to watch both, his head bouncing back and forth as a wizard pulls a large werewolf through each. On the left is a massive, russet colored wolf, with some sort of muzzle around his snout and chains on his arms and wrists. A second wizard is ushering him forward from behind with sharp snaps of his wand. On the other side, the white wolf that the young wizard had spoken about is being dragged forward, muzzled and chained and poked from behind.
The white wolf is lean in comparison to his opponent. The creature’s fur is sleek and long, his limbs lanky and thin. From this close distance, Harry can see where fur doesn’t grow in criss-cross patterns over the wolf’s chest, which has gnarled with scar tissue. He doesn’t look like he’s going to be the winner tonight, but the young wizard beside Harry is practically vibrating with excited energy.
“That him?” Harry asks.
“Oh, yeah,” the wizard says. “He looks skinny but he’s vicious. Every time.”
The werewolves are shoved into the arena, through the shimmering spell. The minute they’re inside of the magic their muzzles and chains disappear, allowing them to fall forward on all fours. The big russet wolf snarls, snapping his freed jaws, hackles bristling along his back. The smaller white wolf paces, ears pinned back against his scalp.
Enough , Harry thinks, glancing around for Marseille, for a signal, for anything.
The bigger wolf leaps, enraged, and misses when the white wolf bows low to the ground and bolts underneath his flying body. The smaller wolf rolls, twists, and pounces. Harry isn’t sure if there’s any thought to the movement, or if it’s just pure instinct. The white wolf opens his jaws and latches on just under the bigger wolf’s ribs, head shaking viciously.
The first strike is all they need, as far as Harry is concerned, and he leaps to his feet, wand ripped from his holster. Out of the corner of his eye he can see Ron and Susan following his lead, and then finally Marseille, who, even from this distance, looks infuriated.
“Enough!” Marseille bellows, the sharp glint of magic shooting from his wand as the scattered crowd immediately rouses with the commotion. “Nobody move! Not a single one of you!”
Red shoots from Auror wands, disarming the guests and the workers. Robbards had been right. The bookies aren’t in this to get killed, and the ones who try to run through the doors are let go. They’ll just be met with the Aurors that have the building surrounded.
The young wizard at Harry’s side stares at him in shock and confusion. Harry shrugs and grabs him round the back of the neck. “Gimme your wand,” Harry says, frustrated. “This is officially an Auror investigation. You’re under arrest for—whatever the fuck you think this is.”
“Hey!” The wizard yelps, fumbling for his wand with shaking hands in a bid to defend himself. It’s more than easy for Harry to just rip it from his hand and toss it to the ground.
The commotion in the room draws the attention of the sparring lycans, each suddenly attentive to the crowd. The white wolf’s mouth is stained with blood, the russet wolf favoring his unbitten side where. Their bodies are heaving, and Harry thinks that they might actually be looking , that they might be understanding what’s happening outside the arena.
More Aurors spill into the hall from outside to deal with the attendants. Harry passes his own off to someone else while the rest of the hall erupts with excuses and complaints and threats to sue the DMLE for all they’re worth. Harry avoids Marseille, who is still fuming as he rounds up a few of the more affluent guests.
Harry makes his way through one of the doors through which the werewolves had entered. There’s a short hall that opens up into another room, and Harry’s stomach drops miserably as he sees what’s inside. Cages line the wall, housing werewolves too small for their confinements. Hermione had been right. Every wolf had been transformed, and who knew for how long? The room stinks of shit and piss with no ventilation.
The werewolves barely give Harry a glance. One lays curled on its side, its breathing shallow. Harry curses under his breath. “Okay,” he says, touching one hand to the nearest cage. The werewolf inside bares its teeth, but doesn’t so much as lift his head.
“Okay,” Harry says again. “Okay. We’ll get you out of here. It’s over.”
IV.
Teeth and sharp and grit and smell, blood and hot smoke. Muscles ache and head splits. Stomach churns. Burning bile up throat, out mouth, gagging, saliva dripping. Teeth snap, gnash. Leather over nose, mouth, bitter liquid on tongue. Metal, sharp and tight, pulling shoulders from sockets, biting into wrists.
Sharp, bite, bleed.
It is this or nothing. It is this or death. He knows this now, has known it for however long. They do not let him be human anymore. He wins too much, fights too well, weasels under wolves two times his size and bites into their softest spots. Rips open bellies and throats and leaves them whimpering and limping.
The world narrows like this: down to smell and taste and the burn of his skin under his fur.
The wizards drag him from the metal cage with chains on his arms and wrists, with a leather muzzle over his snout. Under his skin his muscles feel loose and eager, ready to coil and spring. The lights are bright in the fighting room and he must squeeze his eyes shut against them as he adjusts. The wizard behind him sends sparks at his haunches, urging his dragging feet forward. He is tired but it doesn’t matter. Something feels wrong in his side, where his lowest rib is, but his mouth is of no shape to speak.
Shoved forward into the arena, swallowed by cool magic. Everything goes quiet but for the harsh breathing of the creature across from him. He’s angry, that creature, that hulking, red mirror of himself. He can feel it under his skin, like magic.
They pace around one another. And then he leaps, this creature across from him, mouth open, jaws wide. Down, under, around. He comes upon him, sinks teeth under his ribs, rips skin, fur, blood in his mouth. He twists his head, pulls back, comes away with skin. The acrid smell of blood filling his nose.
The watching begin to move outside the shimmer of magic. The watching never move. His attention is drawn away, slowly, towards the outside. They both turn their attention. His hulking creature-not-friend snarls, teeth gnashing, but not at him.
Something new. Something changing.
V.
“You’re lucky you didn’t fuck everything up,” Marseille rants after the last of the guests have been frog-marched out of the building. In their place swarm Aurors, green-robed Healers, and Hermione’s people from the Office of Lycan Affairs. “In what universe did you think you should have acted before my signal? How many field missions have you been on? Did you pass training?”
Harry kicks his boot against the floor. His glamour having long worn off, he’s back to looking like himself and getting scolded like a child.
“Sorry, sir,” Harry says, not feeling sorry. He’s anxious to get back to helping. The wolves in the center of the arena are still there, pacing, huffing, no longer interested in tearing each other apart.
“A month of paperwork,” Marseille threatens. “Now go follow someone’s directions and nothing else.”
Dismissed, Harry hurries away from Marseille to find Ron, who’s milling with Susan and Yasmin, looking over the arena.
“Good job, mate,” Ron says earnestly, clapping his hand on Harry’s shoulder. Harry grins, shaking off Marseille’s reprimanding.
“The lycans in the back cages are easy enough,” Yasmin says to Susan, her arms crossed. “Stun them, body bind them, put them to sleep, what have you. Anything to keep them calm until the potion they’re given wears off. These, two, though.” She makes a vague gesture with her wand. “No spell gets in through those wards and they can’t come out. We take the wards down, then we’ve got two angry lycans on the loose.”
“They don’t look angry,” Susan observes, her voice soft. Harry agrees, though he doesn’t say it. “They look like they know what’s happening.”
“It’s possible,” Yasmin agrees, hands on her hips. “We only know so much about this potion they’ve been given. I wouldn’t expect them to be as clear headed as a lycan on wolfsbane.”
The white wolf makes a route around the arena and Harry watches as its eyes pass over him. And then stop and pass over him again. They’re close enough to the arena and the shimmering wards that Harry can see the grey of the wolf’s irises, the distinctly human pupils. It’s unnerving, that look. Harry turns his back to the wolf, facingYasmin and Susan instead.
“So what do we do?” Harry asks.
Yasmin sighs, turning away from the arena. “We’ve got to get them checked out. That big one will need a healer, anyway. It’ll be easier if they can just sleep off the potion. You three, you’ve got good aim, yes? Wands at the ready, then.”
They spread out around the arena at equal intervals. Harry lifts his wand, unnerved by the way the white wolf follows the motion. Yasmin counts down from three before dropping the wards.
For a moment, nothing happens. No one moves, most certainly not the werewolves. The big russett one steps tentatively down from the arena. It moves carefully, head low, shoulders tight and high, ears pinned. Despite its body language, Harry hears a low snarl start up in the back of its throat. Susan casts a well-aimed sleep spell. The wolf staggers a few feet before collapsing to the ground.
The remaining werewolf doesn’t step off the platform just yet. It paces in a careful, tight circle, eyes on Harry.
“Potter,” Yasmin warns.
In the space of a moment the werewolf tenses, then leaps. It flies off the platform and hits the ground a few feet from Harry, hackles up, mouth unzipped to expose blood and teeth and a gnashing tongue. Harry stumbles back and throws a stunner at the same time that Yasmin does. They both hit the werewolf square, sending it staggering before it collapses to the ground.
Harry exhales slowly, taking a step closer to the werewolf. It lays heavy on its side, ribs pressing out from under his skin, visible even beneath the long fur, eyes open and unseeing, mouth parted, tongue lolling out onto the dirty ground. It’s even larger up close, bigger than Harry had given it credit for.
Aurors and RCMC workers team up to take the werewolves away. They transfigure the back rooms into something more reasonable, a sort of make-shift medical room, while they wait for the potions to wear off. Harry and the other yearling Aurors are shooed off to do work elsewhere. Gather evidence, take pictures, stay out from underfoot.
“This was amazing,” Ron says a while later, leaning up against the wall in the front hall. Harry is exhausted, but he tries not to let it show. He knows that they get to leave when they’re dismissed and not a minute sooner. Even if their job is technically done, there’s still learning to do on the field. Susan keeps peeking back into the larger room, trying to gauge how long they can stay hidden out in the hall before Marseille notices they’re missing.
“It was like, a real mission,” Ron goes on. “We did real Auror work. Not just petty theft and cursed snowglobes, or whatever. We, like, busted a whole underground organization.”
It does feel good, and Harry allows that feeling to fill him up, knocking his shoulder against Ron’s. Their first real, proper mission and they didn’t get themselves killed and Harry only got shouted at by a senior Auror once. The relief washes over him in a crashing wave and he can’t help the laughter that comes next. Enticed, Ron and Susan join him until the three of them are just grinning helplessly at one another.
From the arena room, there’s shouting.
“Someone get the healers in here, now!”
Harry is the first to break away from the group, poking his head back in. The green-robed healers are hurrying towards the doors that lead into the back rooms with the cages. Glancing at Ron, Harry jerks his head towards the commotion, and the both of them break away from Susan (“Boys! No! Hey!”) and make their way through the rabble.
They avoid Marseille and any of the other senior Aurors on their way over, slipping behind the back of a stern, no-nonsense looking Healer who’s directing other Aurors away. (“You can do your interviews after we’ve looked them over. Get on, you lot. Thestrals, I swear.”)
The cages have vanished from the back room, leaving room for low cots for the stunned or sleeping werewolves. The air no longer smells like cloistering, acrid piss, either. The lights are dim, but when Harry edges along the wall, he can see there are people in place of the werewolves, each in various states of injury or exhaustion. A young woman is sitting up on the cot nearest Harry, bent over her own knees, dry-heaving onto the floor while a Healer tries to urge her to drink a potion. She won’t do it, just spits and grunts and gnashes her human teeth.
Ron nudges him in the arm, but Harry can’t look away. The young woman’s fingers dig into her hair, her body curling in on itself while she heaves great, big gasps. Harry wonders how long it’s been since she was human.
“Mate,” Ron hisses, nudging him again.
The Healer nearby tries again to get the woman to drink the potion he’s offering, his voice a low, comforting murmur. The woman lashes out, twisting, spitting.
“Harry!” Ron whisper-shouts, jerking his arm.
“What?” Harry snaps, turning to look, then following Ron’s stricken gaze across the crowded room.
It takes him a moment to realize what he’s looking at. For a moment it looks like another young woman, her hair long and white-blond, head bowed. The figure sits just a few cots away, among the other slowly-awakening lycans. Head rises and shoulders draw back, and then Harry can more clearly see the flat chest, the curve of the jaw, distinctly male. The man’s head rolls up, slowly, and even in the dim light Harry can see the familiar slant of the nose, the high cheek bones, the shape of the brow. Years have gone by, but Harry would know that face anywhere, would be able to pick it out of a crowd. It’s a face he’s pictured rotting in some shallow grave somewhere for years in his darkest, quietest moments.
Malfoy.
VI.
Harry does everything he can to get at Malfoy. The senior Aurors are the ones tasked with transporting and interviewing the lycans after they’ve all come out of the potion. Some of them haven’t been out of it in months. Some of them can barely speak, their mouths unused to the shape of words after so long. They’re no longer much of a danger to themselves or others, but for the few who can’t be reasoned with. The latter group is transported to the DMLE, while the rest go on to St. Mungo’s. Harry doesn’t know how they deal with the newly apprehended witches and wizards who were at the fighting ring. He doesn’t stay long enough to find out. All he can think about is Malfoy.
It’s always been all-consuming, that thought: Malfoy. From the moment he’d met him to the moment he’d left him to die, Malfoy had always managed to wriggle deep into his brain and pilot his thoughts and actions.
“Merlin,” Ron breathes as they lurk through the DMLE halls, pacing outside the interview rooms. “Can you believe it? I thought… Merlin, I thought he was dead. Right? He was dead?”
Harry shrugs, crossing his arms. He doesn’t want to admit how often he thought of Draco Malfoy and whether or not he was dead, or how he died, or where his dead body lay, unrecovered like so many. “Yeah,” he says after a moment, clearing his throat. “I mean, I talked to Mrs. Malfoy after the trials. She seemed to… I mean, she acted like he’d died.”
“When the fuck did he become a werewolf?” Ron muses.
“There were a lot of them at the Battle,” Harry reasons. “Who knows. Maybe they were indiscriminate in who they bit.”
Robbards comes across them not long after, looking just as exhausted as Harry feels. “You kids can head home,” he says, clapping Ron on the back, then Harry. “You did good. The senior Aurors can take it from here. If you see Bones, tell her to take off, too.”
“I was hoping to help out with the interviews,” Harry says quickly, avoiding Ron’s incredulous look.
Robbards seems surprised as well. Which is fair, Harry thinks. He never puts forth any extra effort beyond what’s asked of him. He’s not like Ron, always going above and beyond and doing his best Auror work every day. Being an Auror was just something to do for Harry, something to fill his days, and he’s sure Robbards could tell. It was by virtue of being Harry Potter he hadn’t been sacked.
“Well,” Robbards says slowly, looking a little more pleased as he considers the idea. “Well, there’s some initiative. What about you, Weasley? You want to sit in on one of these?”
Ron schools his expression away from disappointment (“Yeah, sir, absolutely.”) before letting it drop and shooting Harry an annoyed look when Robbards turns his back. Harry flashes him a slightly sorry grin before following Robbards into the nearest interview room. It’s still empty, and Robbards deposits Ron in a chair to wait for the senior Auror and the interviewee. Harry follows him back out and down the hall, his heart racing. He tries to tell himself that sitting in on Malfoy’s interview isn’t all that important.
But then the door opens and Robbards leaves him in a room with two senior Aurors and a striking, horrifyingly familiar white-blond head, facing with his back to him.
“Potter here is going to sit in, take notes for you,” Robbards says before leaving him with his colleagues and Malfoy.
Malfoy’s head twitches up slightly. When Harry comes around the other side of the table to sit, he can see that Malfoy’s been given the opportunity to wash up and change into clean clothes. His expression is blank, his eyes staring forward but not quite seeing. His hair is long in a way that doesn’t seem intentional or styled. Uneven in some places, with ends that split a good few inches upward, it looks more like Malfoy’s been neglecting a haircut for a long time.
Harry lowers himself into his seat. He watches Malfoy’s gaze shoot up and land on him, those grey eyes now suddenly more familiar than he cares to admit. They focus on him in a way that Harry hadn’t seen them do back at the ring. Harry swallows thickly, squaring his shoulders a little and fumbling for the parchment and quill left out on the table.
“Can you tell us your name?” One of the aurors asks. Harry thinks her name is Huntley. Her voice is soft and warm, the kind of tone one wants to be interviewed with after going through something like this. Malfoy’s breathing picks up, but he says nothing, eyes unmoving from Harry’s face, though not meeting his gaze.
Huntley waits a moment, and when it’s clear that Malfoy isn’t going to respond, starts to move on. Harry shakes his head, leaning forward a little.
“It’s Malfoy,” he says, looking at Huntley. “I… we went to school together. I recognize him. His name is Draco Malfoy.”
“Malfoy,” Huntley repeats, glancing at her colleague before leaning forward in her seat. “Draco,” she murmurs. “Can you tell us how long you were there?”
Malfoy’s eyes shift from Harry’s face to Huntley’s. His lips pull back in a grimace, or a soundless snarl, teeth bared. Harry’s hand twitches instinctively for his wand, but Huntley holds her hand out to halt him.
“It’s fine,” she says quietly. “He’s fine.”
Malfoy doesn’t look fine. He looks frustrated, anger pouring off him as his mouth works around his teeth, finally closing. His lips press together in a thin line. When he shifts his weight in the chair, his face tightens in a grimace. Harry frowns.
“Malfoy,” Harry says, to Huntley’s immediate and visible dismay. “Hey. Look at me.”
Malfoy’s eyes snap over.
“You’re alright now,” Harry says. He thinks of what he could have done differently. If he should have dragged Malfoy out of that corridor, away from the Room of Requirement, down to where someone could keep a proper eye on him. If he should have helped him. If he should have …
“Yeah?” Harry presses, shifting, pushing the quill and ink away from him. Malfoy opens his mouth again, tongue against his teeth.
“It’s me,” Harry tries. “Potter.”
Malfoy’s face twitches, lips pulling back into something almost like a smile. It feels feral, unnervingly close to being human but still too much like something else.
“How long were you there?” Harry asks. Out of the corner of his eye, he catches Huntley crossing her arms, leaning back, watching.
Malfoy’s tongue clicks against the roof of his mouth, his lips moving soundlessly around a word. Finally, it comes, and his voice is so torn up it’s like cut glass. “Years,” Malfoy gasps. His teeth click too hard together when his mouth closes again.
“Years?” Harry presses. “How long? Come on. Where did you go after the battle? Everyone thought you died.”
“Potter,” Huntley scolds. “One thing at a time.”
Malfoy’s mouth opens again, all teeth and sneers. He lifts his left arm from his lap and peels up the edge of his sleeve. The belly of his forearm is bubbled and disfigured with scar tissue, right where his dark mark would have lain. It’s a savage ring of teeth marks, or several, all piled on top of each other, leaving nothing but a twisted and gnarled landscape on Malfoy’s skin.
“Punishment,” Malfoy rasps.
“Punishment for what?” Huntley asks this time, her voice more calm than Harry thinks his own would be just then.
Malfoy doesn’t look away from Harry’s face, not even at the sound of Huntley’s voice. He waits, breathing unevenly, arm up on the table. Harry swallows, and leans forward on his elbows. “Punishment for what?” Harry repeats.
Malfoy grins, wild and open mouthed.
“Cowardice,” Malfoy croaks.
Harry struggles to put it together, but when he does the realization hits him in the chest. That fucking mark, Malfoy’s mission from Tom Riddle. The astronomy tower and Malfoy’s faltering, lowering wand. I have to do it , and he didn’t, he couldn’t. The ring of scar across the mark, ripping it from his skin. Harry exhales in a rush of fury, scrubbing one hand against his face.
Punishment.
VII.
Tired. So tired. Stomach roiling, thoughts colliding like bludgers. It’s a strange relief that the concept of quidditch returns to him. Draco answers less questions, even from Potter, who he can’t bear to tear his eyes away from. He cannot decide if seeing Potter here is proof that he is alive or proof that he is dead. Potter repeats questions that the female Auror (she smells like the smoke and spark of a stunner) presses onto him, her voice cooing and calm, too quiet for him to focus. When Potter says the words they come out sharp, and it’s easier to pay attention.
His lower rib still aches and he grimaces with each too-deep breath.
Draco’s body feels strange under his skin. His fingers ache, his back protests upright movement, his legs feel weak. The interview goes on like that, probing, Draco biting out a word or two, struggling to get used to a mouth once more made for speech. His throat burns, aching deep, as it’s burned since he breathed in the Fiendfyre.
What’s worse, he thinks, when he has a moment to do so, is the unyielding crest of emotion that comes with every fleeting fancy. When he wishes for the Aurors or Healers to be silent, he commands it as he had once done with his cage-mates: teeth and hackles and rolled shoulders. He watches with satisfaction as he strikes unnerved worry into their every pore. They leak sweat, the scent filling the room.
There’s not much he can tell them. The words come slow and the shape of his mouth feels foreign. Frustration mounts and turns to fury faster than it ever has before in his before-life. They release him from the underbelly of the Ministry and he is returned with kid-gloves to his ward in the hospital, the sterile smell of St. Mungo’s a welcome relief from the relentless scents that cling to every fiber and surface of the Ministry.
Potter makes his rounds in his head. It is all Draco can think about, all he can focus on, replaying the sound of his voice, picking apart the nuances of his scent. Shampoo and clean linens and meadowgrass. Draco rubs his face against his arms, curled around his knees as he sits up in the bare hospital bed. The room is unfurnished, but for a bed with no pieces for him to break and rip off to use as weapons. There’s no end table available for him to throw, no blinds for him to deconstruct for their thin but sturdy strings. He is in a room designed for someone dangerous and a stroke of pride goes down his spine.
That’s him. Undefeated. Dangerous. Draco’s teeth sink loosely into his own wrist.
The healers come in intervals to give him potions. He doesn’t want to drink them, unable to trust that they’re not the bitter liquid that steals his speech and hands and forces him to all fours with teeth and tongue like a dog. They try to dose his food, but anything but raw meat turns his stomach, so he doesn’t eat.
Freedom feels not unlike his cage, only now he has two legs to walk upon instead of four.
Clearer thought returns to him as the days progress. Reason, too. The potions smell clean and clear, and on the third day he takes one, throwing it back and making a mess down his chin. The aches that plagued his body for weeks begin to recede and his appetite returns. Ravenous, he takes his next offered meal regardless of the meat quality. Swallows it down in large bites.
Logic dictates that he will not be sent back to that hellhole of a place, that he will not be drugged and enticed to fight, that he will not be denied agency. And yet fear turns to anger in a flash and some days are worse than others.
A young woman begins to visit him in the mornings. She comes first thing, with breakfast and a potion. She’s a Healer but not, her robes are blue instead of green. She brings a chair with her, as he’s not allowed one in his room, and takes it with her when she leaves. When she sits across from him, she sometimes says nothing, just watches him ignore her.
“How are you feeling today?” She asks, sometimes. Draco doesn’t answer. He has nothing to say to such a question. How is he feeling? He’s feeling all . Too much, all at once. Talking drags air unpleasantly against the ruined skin of his throat, irrevocable damage from the smoke of the Fiendfyre. He would prefer if he didn’t have to, so he doesn’t.
“That’s fine,” she often says. “Whenever you’re ready.”
The potions and food make it easier to focus. His body doesn’t hurt so much, his brain doesn’t fold in on itself. Draco feels almost like a farce of a human. Like he may be able to mimic their mannerisms and fold his hands neatly and sit straight-backed like he had once been able to. Some nights he can’t help but feel very sorry for himself that this is his lot in life, that this is where the winds of fate have deigned to take him. He wallows in a self pity so deep it feels as if he’s drowning in it, swallowing the sharp saltwater of despair.
He doesn’t see Potter again.
Aurors come and go. They have questions for him that he doesn’t answer, opting instead to stay silent. They give him a quill and parchment to try and prompt him to respond. He drives the quill through the paper instead, then rips it for good measure. If he sends them all away, perhaps they’ll send Potter in their stead. A remaining thread to his old life, dangling in front of him. Taunting.
This is his life now, he thinks, miserably. In a blank white room or in a dim cage, it doesn’t seem to matter. Draco had not thought of living this long and now, presented with an unmarked amount of years still ahead of him, he doesn’t know how to drag himself forward.
VIII.
“I don’t know any more than you do, Harry,” Hermione says for what must be the hundredth time in the last few weeks. “I have almost two dozen lycans being rehabilitated right now. Malfoy’s reports say he’s healing fine but that he’s not talking. That’s all I know.”
They’re sitting down for a late dinner, Ron and Harry having just come from the office not half an hour ago.
“You’ve got to let it go,” Ron says, already digging into the potatoes. “This Malfoy obsession thing is not good for you. It never has been.”
“I’m not obsessed,” Harry says, a touch defensive. “It’s— It was never an obsession. He was very much a Death Eater in our sixth year. I was right.”
“Oh, please. He was a sixteen year old boy scared out of his mind,” Hermione scoffs. “He was a horrible little racist, but he wasn’t a Death Eater.”
Harry scowls and stabs at his chicken.
“I’m just…” Harry sighs, gesturing vaguely with one hand. “He was dead! For like, three years he’s been dead. And now all of a sudden he isn’t, and…”
And Harry knows what that’s like. To die but not die.
“And I just want to…”
Ron and Hermione exchange a long-suffering look, and Harry goes back to his food. It doesn’t matter. He can’t articulate it, anyway. Malfoy is like a fixed point in his timeline, unmoving along the track of his life. As fixed as Ron and Hermione and Ginny and Dumbledore. As fixed as his death. Draco Malfoy feels like part of the prophecy. To say it out loud sounds insane, though, so he doesn’t bother.
“I get it,” Hermione says softly. Her hand covers his own and he turns his over, lacing their fingers together. He gives her hand a squeeze, thankful for the benevolent lie.
The next morning, Robbards meets him in front of the office.
“They need you at St. Mungo’s,” he says, looking unamused. Harry glances around, as if maybe Robbards is talking to the wrong person.
“Me?” He asks.
“You,” Robbards agrees. “The Malfoy boy is asking for you.”
The words set Harry’s skin on fire. It burns through him and sizzles out, leaving an anxious determination in its place. “What?” Harry asks, nearly voiceless.
“Try not to stay too long,” Robbards says. “But if you can get him to talk about what happened, all the better. We need a lot of testimony to build a solid case here.”
Harry isn’t thinking about interview questions. He’s not thinking about the case, or the fighting ring, or the arena. He barely gets out a “Yes, sir,” before he’s turning on his heel and heading back to the lifts, down to the atrium. He feels like he can’t move fast enough, weaving through the morning rush of people towards the nearest line for the Floo. One person in, one person out, and Harry bounces on the balls of his feet while he waits for his turn.
The Floo’s green flame swallows him, lapping cooly at his limbs, as it twists him off to St. Mungo’s. He’s deposited into the front foyer of the hospital and he has to stop himself from tearing through the halls to try and find Malfoy’s room. Hyper-aware of his Auror’s robes, Harry makes his way to the front desk.
“I’m here to see Draco Malfoy?” Harry says, tentative. Then, with more conviction, “On official business from the DMLE.”
The witch at the front desk reluctantly looks up from her magazine. “What’d he come in with?” She asks, popping her gum.
“Er. Lycanthropy.”
“First floor,” the witch drawls.
Harry doesn’t bother with the lifts and goes right for the stairs, forcing himself not to take them two at a time. The mystery of Malfoy’s disappearance burns a hole in the back of his mind. How he had walked away from the boy after pulling him out of the fire. He can still feel the ghost of Malfoy’s arms around his waist, the feel of his chest against his back on the back of his broom. It was the first time Malfoy had said his name.
It rubs him raw, thinking about it. It always has. That he had turned and walked away and something had swallowed Malfoy whole. For a while, he had been content to let the guilt take blows at his psyche. But now it rears up like some great, hulking beast, battering at all of his well-barricaded feelings about the war. Because it wasn’t some mysterious something that had dragged Malfoy away, secreting him into death never to be seen again.
The reality of it is staring him in the face: Malfoy has spent the last three years being kept and tortured and commanded like an animal—lower than that. Like a creature.
“I’m looking for Draco Malfoy’s room,” Harry says, voice rough, stopping the first Healer he sees.
The Healer frowns, looking for a moment like he might tell Harry to bugger off— but then he must realize who he’s talking to, because his expression smoothes out immediately. “It’s about those lycans who came in couples weeks ago? You’ll want to talk to Helene,” the Healer says, pointing down the hall. “Last door on the left that way. She’s overseeing all of their care.”
Harry thanks the Healer quickly before taking off down the hall at a respectable, brisk walk.
He raps softly on the open office door as he peers in. A pretty young witch in blue robes with olive skin and straight, black hair braided back off her face looks up from some paperwork spread across her desk. Her brows knit together for a moment, taking in his Auror’s robes first, before taking in the rest of him, eyes landing last on his scar. Relief washes over her face, and she stands, holding her hand out over her desk.
“You came,” she says, sounding surprised. Harry flushes a little and reaches to shake her hand.
“They said he was asking for me,” Harry replies. Of course he came.
“You’re Harry Potter,” Helene confirms. She doesn’t ask. At the very least, everyone of school age knows who he is. She comes out from around her desk, gesturing for Harry to follow. He does, falling into step beside her as she leads him through the halls.
“We’ve had some luck getting him to take pain medication and eat,” Helene says carefully. “But he won’t talk. When he first got here we noticed he had damage to his throat and vocal chords. There’s a broken rib on his left side that’s already healed, but wrong. He’ll probably always feel a twinge on that side, there’s not much we can do for a bone that’s already been set wrong beyond breaking it again.”
“He can talk,” Harry offers up. “He spoke to us at his initial interview.”
“Yes, we got just one word out of him.” Helene passes Harry a wry smile. “Your name.”
They reach Malfoy’s room. “I’ll be just outside,” she says, opening the door and stepping back. Harry takes a deep breath and passes through, squaring his shoulders.
He doesn’t really know what he expects to find. The room is alarmingly blank. There’s nothing but the hospital bed. No bedside table, no window, no chairs for guests. Nothing to suggest, either, that anyone else has learned of Malfoy’s survival and come to visit. No gifts, no boxes of sweets, no flowers. It’s an empty room with Malfoy sat on the bed, straight-backed and looking uncomfortable.
Malfoy’s hair is still long and unkempt. It looks washed but not brushed, tangled where it’s pushed back off his face. Hospital-issued cotton pajamas hang loose on his skinny frame. Seeing him like this digs at something terribly deep in Harry’s chest.
“Hey,” Harry exhales.
Malfoy rolls his head up, eyes sharp as they were back at the fighting ring. They flicker up and down Harry’s frame, as if assessing him for danger, before landing on his face.
“You came,” Malfoy says. His voice is tight, like each word has to drag itself across the ruined landscape of his throat.
“Yeah.” Harry shifts his weight, then reaches behind him to close the door. It clicks shut and the room seems so much quieter now, with just the two of them. Malfoy breathes in quick short bursts and it takes Harry a moment to realize that he’s smelling him, or at least the still air of the room. Suddenly self-conscious, Harry crosses his arms and hopes that his conditioner isn’t somehow offensive.
“Why?” Malfoy croaks.
“Because you asked,” Harry says, startled into honesty. “And because Helene said you won’t talk to them.”
Malfoy smiles like he’s still learning how, mouth open and teeth bared. “No,” he agrees.
Harry can’t help but roll his eyes. Being annoyed with Draco Malfoy after all these years feels like a gift, and he savors it. “They’re trying to help you,” Harry points out.
Malfoy rolls his head on his shoulders. He looks so impossibly small, like maybe if he stood up he wouldn’t be as tall as Harry remembers. Taking a breath, Harry crosses the room and comes to sit on the end of Malfoy’s hospital bed. The movement must startle Malfoy somewhat, because he goes entirely still, eyes flickering between Harry’s face and his wand hand, even though it’s empty.
“What happened?” Harry presses. “What happened to you?”
Malfoy pulls up his sleeve again, thrusting the mangled skin of his wrist under Harry’s nose. “I told you,” he insists.
“Who? Why? When?”
Malfoy snaps his teeth together. “Greyback. Punishment. Before…” He twists his face up in some kind of agony. “Before the end.”
“Before Voldemort fell,” Harry confirms. Malfoy nods.
“Did your mother… Did she find you? Did she know?” Harry keeps picturing the look on Narcissa Malfoy’s face after her trial. “She changed everything for us, you know. For you. Because I told her you were alive. I thought….I thought you were alive.”
Malfoy wheezes a laugh. “Not wrong,” he agrees. Harry waits, a little impatiently, as Malfoy chews around his next words before speaking. “She found me. I was as good as dead.”
“What do you mean?” Harry presses, his hands clenching into tight fists in his lap.
Malfoy blinks slowly, his blond lashes frail and thin. There’s a faint scar that runs across the bridge of his nose, starting at one corner of his mouth and ending just under his lash line. Harry doesn’t think he’d ever notice it if he weren’t this close.
“She saw what had been done to me,” Malfoy rasps, finally. “And wanted no part of me as her son.”
All Harry’s sympathy for Mrs. Malfoy flies right out the window. He wishes he could go back in time and stop himself from testifying for her. He looks around Malfoy’s miserably empty room and tries to keep his temper in check.
“You know I have to tell all of this to the Aurors,” Harry says carefully. “It’s important. It’s building a case for you. For all of the other werewolves.”
Malfoy doesn’t correct him on the terminology. Either he doesn’t know or doesn’t care the same way Hermione does. He looks away instead, fixing his gaze somewhere in the middle distance. Harry sighs, rubbing his hands over the lap of his robes.
“Aren’t you glad?” Harry presses. “You’re not fighting for your life every night. You’re free.”
Malfoy scoffs. “I always won,” he murmurs. Then, with such conviction that it squeezes his damaged vocal cords and makes the words come out husky and breathy: “And what’s out here for me anyway?”
Harry stares, incredulous. He would have thought that Malfoy of all people would be looking forward to being a person again. The reality of the damage done is staring him in the face, and he wishes he could look away. “You’re kidding me,” he says, scrubbing one hand through his hair. “A whole life is out here for you.”
Malfoy’s gaze snaps back towards him. “I’d rather you’d just killed me,” he snarls. With a dramatic flourish, Malfoy throws himself down on the bed and curls onto his side, back facing Harry. He doesn’t answer any more questions. Eventually, Helene opens the door and tells him it’s time to leave.