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amand_rTitle: D For Defender 3/4
Author: Amand-r
Team: Snitch
Genre(s): Alive and Kicking (EWE)
Prompt(s): Green Lantern, Enemy At The Gate
Rating/Warnings/Kinks: NC-17 for sex (contains fisting), R for violence. Some canon deaths ignored. Also? Kinda cracky.
Word Count: 28,000+ some
Summary: There's a man stalking the Wizarding world. Or a bat. Maybe a Man-Bat. Severus is probably having an affair, Harry's tired all the time, oh, and those drunks out in East Anglia are complaining about the green lights. Again.
Author Notes/Disclaimers/Betas Thanks to![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
jadzialove for being the best sidekick beta evar, cleaning up parts 1-3. joanwilder, aka Alfred, hit all of it, especially part 4, with a batarang of spag (Thanks beth for a few quick saves!). All italicized bumper quotes from The Tick: The Animated Series.
PART THREE: EVIL IS AFOOT AT THE CIRCLE K
Well, once again we find that clowning and anarchy don't mix.
There was toast and jam and tea waiting on the table when he got in that morning. Harry tossed his keys in the bowl on the counter and unbuckled his holster, laying it and his wand and other accoutrements on the sideboard of the dining room as he blinked at the spread in front of him.
Severus strode in, his hands full of plates. "I've eggs, and toast and sausages." He frowned as he set the plate down. "They're those pre-packaged store ones, but beggars cannot be choosers, I suppose." He looked at Harry then, cocking his head. "Are you all right?"
Harry opened his mouth to say something, but he realised that he didn't know how to approach the fact that he'd just come face to face with his husband in the middle of a stakeout-turned-sting, both of which Harry had been forced to label unsuccessful in his report. A report that he hadn't wanted to file, and had simply tossed at Ginny for her signature before storming out of the office.
He hadn't told Ginny or anyone else what he had seen. How could he? Harry wasn't sure that he'd actually seen it himself—Severus in his black cloak, striding across the room, papers in his hands, some sort of industrial espionage, perhaps.
There had to be a good explanation for this.
Severus left the room and returned with a small bowl of porridge for each of them, and he sat down at his side of the table, eyes glinting. He looked as fresh as a goddamned daisy, actually, and for a moment Harry wanted to punch him for that alone. Instead, he dropped into his chair and spooned some eggs onto his plate; the yolks were runny, just the way he liked them. Severus hated runny eggs, so he had to be making up for something.
Oh yeah. Making up for something, all right. Harry spread some jam on a piece of toast and stared at it as it bloomed under the blade, spreadable red.
"How was your night?" Severus said over his toast. "Ministry had you out all night, I see."
Harry dropped his knife. "You can't be serious. You're going to pretend—"
Severus's eyes were searing before they cut away from him, and his hand resumed buttering his toast with the smooth practice of years. "I was going to try to distract you with sex, actually, but I have come to the conclusion that such a tactic is fleeting, and you are not nearly as stupid as I affectionately tell people you are."
Harry picked up his knife again. He could do this. They could talk about this. Severus's manner pretty much said that he was open to it, so Harry dove into the conversation headlong. Except—
"You tell people I'm stupid?"
Severus smiled and sipped from his teacup. "Only sometimes. And stupid isn't the word I use. 'Intellectually deficient' is a more accurate term anyway."
The conversation rather died there, hanging between them. Harry wasn't sure if he wanted to pursue this thread or get back to the matter that was really supposed to be at hand. He chose the latter.
"How long have you been doing this?" Harry raised a hand to stop Severus from replying and instead scrubbed his face with it. "No no, I know that. I have a file of your exploits sitting on my desk at work, as we speak."
Severus snorted. "Exploits. You make me sound like a joy-rider in a Broom shop."
Harry slammed his fist on the table. "That is what you are, Severus, a joy-rider." He leaned forward, not caring that his sleeve was dipping into his eggs. "I do this for a living. It's my job. You brew potions. That's your job." Severus opened his mouth to speak, but Harry cut him off with a hand. "They asked you to join the Ministry, several times."
Severus's mouth twisted in distaste. "I refuse to punch a card ever again."
Harry sat back, wiping his sleeve with his serviette. "Well, I'm sorry, but that's what I do. It's not ideal, and I'm not overly fond of it, but there it is. Citizens don't go about fighting crime in their spare time."
Severus said nothing, simply resumed buttering his toast. "I think, Harry, that you'll find I have no time to spare to begin with." He glanced up. "I'm busy."
"You always say that. What have you been doing?"
Severus looked at him for a moment, cocked his head, and then sighed, rolling his eyes. "Your Ministry is corrupt."
Harry blinked. That had not been the answer he had been hoping for. In fact, it hadn't really answered any questions. Except perhaps, 'tell me Severus, how you feel about the current administration,' which hadn't even been on the menu.
The chair scraped when Severus rose, setting down his knife and toast. He left his side of the table and walked towards the kitchen, opened the closest cabinet door, and then began to crawl inside. He was almost completely inside the cabinet when he turned back to Harry, raising a hand. "Come on, then. Let me show you." And then he vanished.
Harry rose from the table and crossed the room, peering inside the cabinet that usually held cereal and other dry goods. Right now it was just a wooden hallway. An ill-lit wooden hallway. He could hear Severus's footsteps in the distance. Oh well, nothing for it, then.
It was surreal, not unlike some children's book he'd once read, entering a cabinet, and really, how this even surprised him despite that he lived in a world that thought it perfectly normal to fly on brooms and transfigure bats into mufflers was shocking in and of itself. Harry ground his teeth as he finally dove into the cabinet, his hands finding the wood walls inside just as narrow as they looked on the outside, but still, they extended farther and farther back, until Harry was sure that the pitch-black passage he was following had gone on for more than the length of the house. He might have been less disconcerted if he hadn't yesterday opened this cabinet, retrieved a box of Weetabix, and closed it, never noticing that it was three miles deep inside.
He finally saw a light ahead and quickened his pace. The tunnel wasn't large, but it wasn't claustrophobic, actually. On the other hand, Harry had heard horror stories of wizards becoming trapped in magical tunnels when both ends closed on them. The thought was enough to make him increase his step and spill out the other side of the tunnel into Severus's hidden room in a rush.
For all that the tunnel was long, the room wasn't the vast cave-like structure he had thought it would be. It was small, about ten by ten feet, the walls plastered with maps and pins, little flags. On a table in the far corner lay an assortment of tools: grapples for something, a belt with vials on it, a coiled rope, a box for a camera that looked suspiciously like the one he'd lost several months ago. It had been a present from Colin upon his graduation from Auror training, and he'd rather liked the Muggle-ness of it.
Hanging from the ceiling in another corner was a gilded birdcage, large enough for Harry to fit himself into if he had been so inclined. It was filled with rolling blackness, and from the scraps and tips that stuck out of the bars and waved, he had a good idea as to what it was.
He reached out a hand to touch the cape through the bars when Severus barked a quick, "Don't touch that," and he pulled his hand back sharply. "It's not stable. That's why I cage it."
The cape stretched towards him, as if it wanted to feel him, and Harry wanted to poke one of the edges hanging out of the bars. "It's Memory cloth, right?"
"After a fashion. It began that way, I suppose. I added a few modifications of my own to make it strong, more tactile." Severus blinked at the cloth as if he were seeing it for the first time before shaking his head and sighing. "It's been a long time since I've had to experiment with Transfigurative and Sentience spells. I fear I might have been a little rash."
Harry peered close and the cape reached out to caress his cheek before Severus tugged on his arm. "I was serious. It'll try to kill you."
Well then. "Why doesn't it try to kill you?" At Severus's look, he blanched. "Merlin, Severus, be careful," was out of his mouth before he realised how futile and ridiculous that sounded.
It was Severus's turn to swear. "Oh bollocks. Like things haven't been trying to kill me for years." He rolled his eyes. "Werewolves, snakes, you, Weasley…" He ticked items off on his fingers as he walked away, his back turned to Harry but his hand raised. "Sirius Black, Neville Longbottom, multiple orgasms." Here he paused and glanced over his shoulder. "The list goes on, actually. I think a sentient cape that becomes overexcited at the idea of adventure is something I can handle. Now, come."
The table in the center of the room was long and covered with papers, more maps, some of them animated, and file folders, which Severus was shuffling.
"How long has this been here?" Harry asked, gesturing at the tunnel, the room.
Severus shrugged. "Since we moved in. Standard Panic Room." He glanced at Harry then, looking as sheepish as he ever got, which was sort of like a cross between perplexed and angry. "I suppose I should have told you."
Harry leaned against the table and looked out at the vast surface. "Yeah, that would have been nice."
Severus turned back to the table, on which he was slapping a series of photographs. On his left sat a second stack of buff file folders and a few thumbed-at notebooks. "I suppose I should start at the beginning."
Harry laughed. "We're in your Batcave. You go ahead and start wherever you want."
Severus glared at him. "There are no bats in here." His hands played with the empty folder. If Harry didn't know better, he would have said that Severus was nervous. Maybe he didn't know better. "I'm sure you're curious as to how this started."
Harry almost snorted his own spit up the back of his nose.
"It started simply enough," Severus said, ignoring his paroxysm and laying out pictures on the flat table. "Two months ago, I was in Knockturn Alley when I saw someone being accosted by a few thugs." He shrugged. "It was easy to stun them from a distance and make a quick getaway."
Here Harry nodded; there'd been an Auror report on this crime, the first event that had mentioned a Man-Bat-Thing. He wondered if this had been where Severus had got the idea for the costume in the first place.
"And then, I accidentally stumbled upon a burglary in progress whilst delivering a shipment for Widow Huxley." Severus glanced at Harry. "I didn't want to get involved, but you know how I feel about tampering with personal property."
Oh, did he. They'd been married for ten years, and Harry still wasn't allowed to open Severus's Potions texts. Something about everything being in place.
"Three weeks ago, Astoria Malfoy owled me because Draco had gone missing." Severus finished laying out the photos, and stepped back, letting Harry peer over them. They ranged from the outsides of warehouses and hangars and in once instance, a house that looked very much like the Dursleys' old address on Privet Drive. The rows of photos ended with a series of shots featuring Draco.
"He was missing for a week before he just turned up on the lawn in the middle of the night, addled and incoherent." Severus paused while Harry stared at Draco's expressionless and mad face. "She took him to St. Mungo's, but they weren't able to ascertain the nature of his illness."
"Did he just go crazy?" Harry asked. He was rather glad that the pictures weren't moving, because he was fairly sure Draco was about to drool in the picture he was examining.
He didn't understand the photo, nor how it made him feel. There was no love lost between him and Draco, and he would have lived happily never seeing the man again. He usually didn't, except for the casual glance, glare or nod across the Ministry.
"Suffice to say that St. Mungo's didn't try very hard with Draco," Severus said, his voice sandpaper on glass. "There are a great many people who still blame the son for the sins of the father." And then, he added, "I think we both know something about that."
Harry looked up from the photos and smiled. "I could be more forgiving of Draco," he said, "right?"
Severus reached out and touched the edge of one photo, in which Malfoy was dragging a quill across a paper filled with scribbles of green. "I'm saying that a healer or medi-witch takes an oath to provide the best medical care possible, and they failed to do so."
Harry straightened and shoved his hands in his pockets. "All right, table that for later, unless it's relevant."
Severus raised a brow. "It is. Because what is wrong with Draco is not hard to ascertain. I obtained the services of a foreign healer, one untainted by the war." He retrieved another buff folder and flipped it open, revealing a series of swirling images on sheets of paper. They were animated, like a moving photo, but it was obvious that they were recordings of some sort of scan. Severus traced what looked like the outline of a human brain. "Part of Draco's brain has been tampered with."
Harry bent over the scans then. "Where?"
Severus's finger tapped an area of what looked like the frontal lobe. "Right there. I'm not an expert, but I was informed that these parts of the brain are supposed to connect." He reached over the array of photographs and retrieved a large volume labelled 'DSM' and opened it to a marked passage. "The only reason I, or the healer could think of would be this—" He pointed to the page.
"Lobotomy." Harry frowned. "That's…we don't do those, do we? At St. Mungo's?"
Severus shook his head. "As far as I know, the Wizarding world has never supported much in the area of Muggle surgical procedure, for whatever reason." He sighed and waved at the scans of Draco's brain, still swirling on the paper. "And yet."
It was a distressing thought, really, and Harry didn't like the tickle he was getting in his stomach, the one that told him he knew something about all of this. He hated that feeling; usually it meant that he was going to have a big think later until his head hurt and he would still fail to see the connection until it fell into his lap at an inopportune time.
"Why would anyone want to lobotomise Draco Malfoy?" Harry wondered aloud. "I mean, he's a git, but he's not—"
Severus slammed the book shut loudly, even though he tried to make it look for the entire world as if he was just shutting a book and not commenting on Harry's dislike of Malfoy. "I think he found something that he wasn't supposed to find."
Harry was about to ask, A conscience? Social tact? but he stopped himself. That was petty. Also, the pictures made him feel guilty. He settled for folding his arms and trying to look like a professional.
Severus set the book down in the corner of the table again and flipped through his remaining unopened folders, looking for something as he talked. "No matter what you may think about Draco, the fact is that he was as surprised by his father's escape as everyone else, myself included. Lucius was smart, but not that smart."
Harry shrugged and pursed his lips; he didn't really have anything to add anyway. Severus knew how he felt about the Malfoys, and he knew how Severus felt about them as well. Just because someone had a change of heart when the writing was on the wall didn't redeem him or her completely. Lucius had accepted his fate with uncharacteristic grace, actually, and Harry had always rather thought that pensive moment in court had pointed towards his escape plans all along.
"Draco's been looking for his father for years, but recently I know he'd stumbled on something. He sent me some plans and scribbled notes about Azkaban." Severus opened another buff file, this time filled with moving photos of the outside of Azkaban and a few letters in Draco's spidery green handwriting.
Harry took the photos and stared at the stone walls of the prison. The weather there was always stormy, Harry had always noted in the few times he'd been there, and the pictures didn't belie that. Occasionally, a dark shape would flit by one of the prison parapets. Harry frowned as he tried to jar his memory as to what was bothering him about the image.
"There's something wrong with this," he mused.
Severus nodded and took the photos from him, setting them down next to the ones of Draco. "There are barely any Dementors," he supplied.
Harry looked again. "You're right. I didn't think. I knew that they lost a few after the war, and occasionally, they lose a few more, right?" He shook his head. "I always figured that they had a rotating cycle of them coming and going."
"There's more. Azkaban is almost empty," Severus said, flipping a few unmoving Muggletech pictures. "I took these with that blasted camera, about three days ago." He pointed to the outside of the prison with one finger. "There are no Dementors on the outside grounds. Only about five in attendance altogether. I found it easy to walk about."
Harry squinted at the pictures. "Empty, as in…"
Severus crossed his arms. "All the Dark Lord's followers are gone. As are most of the violent offenders. Now it's just thieves and other small-time crimes." He reached out with a long finger and tapped the photo with his last words: "Not. One. Murderer. Not. One. Death Eater."
"And you think Draco found them."
Severus shrugged. "He found something."
"And that's what you've been doing. Looking for what he found."
Shrug. "I still stop the occasional crime, as I find them. It's actually harder to stumble on them than you might think. It makes my goals seem more diverse."
"Oh Merlin's balls, why didn't you come to me?" Harry groaned. He rubbed the bridge of his nose with a thumb and forefinger. It occurred to him that he hadn't slept since the night before last, and he wondered if he'd remember any of this at all after he woke up. It was just bizarre enough that he might be able to write it off as the inner workings of his sleep-deprived mind. On the other hand, he was pretty sure that he wanted to remember.
"And tell you what?" Severus raised a brow. "Draco found something off and got his brain addled? Azkaban is being systematically emptied and its prisoners transferred elsewhere? Tell me that is being done without Ministry consent."
Harry shrugged. "If there aren't any Dementors, they might have escaped…" As he said it, he knew that it was temporising. If people were going to break out of Azkaban, some of them would be thieves. The selection, if Severus was correct, was less than random, or luck. His Wizard sense was tingling. Or maybe he just needed more caffeine. Or some sleep.
"I believe you are, despite your best efforts, what you amusedly refer to as 'the man'." Severus shuffled papers and photos back into the files. "If I had told you, then you'd use Ministry connections. And you, being not the most, discreet of all God's creatures, might have stumbled into a similar fate." He looked away. "I've seen Draco lately. I don't wish that on anyone. Especially you."
Harry forgot, sometimes, that they were married. Not because it wasn't a marriage, and not that he didn't love Severus madly, but because at times like this, they fell backwards, all the way back to the past in which they hated each other, in which they bickered, in which their whole relationship had consisted of insults and tension and misunderstanding.
"Well, I know now," he said, "and I can help."
Severus opened a folder and dumped the contents haphazardly on the table. Photos fluttered out like dead leaves. "Fifty prisoners, unaccounted for. All of our most dangerous wizards, out there somewhere, and no one in the Ministry is concerned." He stared at Harry and placed his palms flat on the table. "That is worrisome."
Well, Severus always was one for understatement. Harry's eyes ran over the photos, finding faces he wanted to forget: Dolohov, Nott, Carrow. Lucius Malfoy. Harry sighed.
At least Severus wasn't having an affair. He wasn't sure if that was better or worse, and for whom.
***
Level Nine looked to be all but deserted as Harry made his way down the hallway. He wasn't sure if he was supposed to announce his presence, or if they already knew that he was there. He turned about and looked for some sort of desk. Maybe he had to sign in. Maybe he needed a special pass. To be fair, he hadn't been down here in years, and they seemed to change the layout every other week. It was a requirement of the Department of Mysteries, he figured. Because of the 'Mystery' part.
Maybe he needed to actually call out.
He was about to scream something awkward like, 'Hello? It's Harry Potter? From the Auror Department?' when a door opened. Ah, good.
Undersecretary Percy Weasley exited one of the rooms, locking the door behind him with a huge skeleton key. He turned then, and his eyes met Harry's. "Oh! Harry!"
Fascinating. "Hi," he said, raising his hand. "Did you have a meeting down here? I'm looking for someone."
Percy glanced to the left and right and then smiled at Harry. He was looking a little haggard. Harry didn't get a chance to spend much time with Percy, not even in a social setting. He saw him once or twice a year, at one Weasley family function or another, often looking distracted and busy, a perennial workaholic with a secretary in tow, or poring over documents in the kitchen with his wife, Penelope Clearwater, who incidentally worked in the office adjacent to his.
Harry felt a little sorry for Percy. He certainly was where he wanted to be, career-wise, and maybe that made him happy. He just never seemed it.
Like now—Percy's hair was unkempt, and his eyes were rimmed in dark circles. Even as he smiled at Harry, his eyes were already darting elsewhere, not seeing him. His fingers twitched and rolled the sheaf of papers that he held.
"Anyone in particular?" Percy asked. "I know everyone down here."
Harry pulled the card from his pocket and glanced at it again. "Roger Ketterer? Know him?"
Percy smiled, but it was quick, pained. "Lower level man, I believe. I don't really know him in the personal sense, but of him. Is he meeting you here?" He moved to take the card, but Harry palmed it and shoved his hands in his pockets.
"No, I just thought I'd pop down here and see if I couldn't ask about some property he was hanging about. There were some complaints from the locals, and Mister Ketterer wasn't very accommodating when I inquired about it."
Percy rolled his papers tighter and sighed. "Well, I'm sorry, but I know most everyone is out of the office today. I came down here for something and had to help myself."
Harry sensed that he wouldn't be allowed to simply 'help himself'. He wasn't completely surprised; okay, he wasn't surprised at all. Hell, he wouldn't like it if people started to dig about in his desk either. It was irksome that he'd have to come back later, though. He had plans.
Those plans involved a field trip with Severus. Harry was still digesting the events of yesterday morning, when he'd spent two hours in a dimly lit room with Severus, poring over the remaining photos and maps and files, tracing Severus's research and travels.
Harry waved at the wanly smiling Percy and walked to the lifts. Percy didn't move, and Harry guessed that he either didn't trust Harry not to snoop around (and in the past he might have, when he had been younger), or he wasn't finished with whatever it was that he was doing down here in the first place. It really wasn't for Harry to say, actually.
It was frustrating, Harry thought, being sandbagged. Ron used to refer to it as being cockblocked, but Harry wasn't sure he agreed with the sentiment. It wasn't as if he was trying to get laid here. Just a little information would have been nice.
He made his way into the office and sat down at his desk, shaking his head at his inbox, once again full. It was rather like the paperwork never ended. Sometimes he felt like all he did was paperwork. He checked his watch. He was to meet Severus in an hour, and he had to manage to find Ginny before then. In the meantime, he could give 'Milda a break and look at some of the paper in front of him, as if he could accomplish anything by simply looking at it. One day he wanted to invent a quill that would work simply by thinking at it. On the other hand, he was fairly sure that his reports would then be punctuated with pornographic sequences. Perhaps that would make his superior's day.
The first thing in the pile was a familiar envelope. It was the letter he'd jotted off to Amos Frobisher after meeting the man. Frobisher had been right about the Ministry needing to be more proactive and communicative with civilians; Harry felt bad that his office hadn't been more responsive of his complaints, and so he'd written a quick note to tell Frobisher that he had been over to the property and was definitely investigating the matter further.
He thought he had submitted it in time for the afternoon owling. "'Milda, I thought you sent the post yesterday."
Romilda widened her eyes and then narrowed them. Ooh, bad day already. "I did," she told him. "That was sent back, which you would know if you had looked closer." Harry flipped the envelope over and saw the stamping from the Owl Post, in red letters: RETURN TO SENDER. Oh.
Why would Frobisher return his letter? He added it to the growing list of things to do when he had the time. Right now, he was looking for his absent partner.
"Did you see Ginny?" he asked absently, tossing the letter on a pile of papers in this inbox. Colin entered the room, took a panicked look at Romilda and backed away. Harry glanced between the empty doorway and his assistant.
"I'm not her keeper," 'Milda snapped. Her face was red and Harry noticed for the first time that morning, her hair was in disarray and she had what looked to be a streak of motor oil across her front. "Check her schedule."
Harry shook his head and reached across the desk to snag Ginny's self-updating calendar. It said, 'MIA.' That meant she was either in the toilet or down getting coffee. "Are you sure you're okay?" he mumbled. "I mean, tell me how you really feel."
'Milda slammed a ream of paper on the desk and the packaging snapped in the middle. That seemed to be what she wanted, because she pulled the two halves of the packaging off and tossed them in the bin by her desk. "Colin forwarded a Twitter message to our cell network ten thousand times," she muttered. "I've been getting Tweets of his cat licking his genitals all morning."
Harry glanced at his active mobile on his desk, its message light blinking menacingly. "Oh dear."
Romilda snorted and divided the paper into sections, plunking a thick slab of it in the loose paper box that he and Ginny split in the center of their desks. "It's fine. It was funny the first time. The last nine thousand plus, not so much."
Harry shoved away from his desk. "I'll just go find her myself, then. And we'll be out of the office for a few hours, yeah?"
Romilda waved him away, and Harry beat a hasty retreat, pocketing his mobile and wondering how the hell he was goIng to clear all the text messages. Was there a 'delete all' function?
Colin was still lingering about in the hallway. "I didn't mean to do it," he said to Harry. "Do you think she'd be happy if I got her a gift? A fruit basket? A coffee?"
Harry ignored his distress and instead threw a conspiratorial arm about his shoulders. "Colin," he said, "I need you to run an errand…"
Fifteen minutes later he was in the Atrium, listening to the 'bearista' as she explained the finer points of Bertie Botts' Every Flavour Syrup and how it wasn't risky at all to use it because Earwax wasn't one of the flavours in the bottle. Harry read the side of the bottle sceptically; he wasn't too fond of beets to begin with, and putting it in his coffee sounded obscene and vaguely Russian. The last thing he wanted to taste was caffeinated borscht.
He never got to order, and he wasn't really interested anyway, since he wasn't tired. For the first time in weeks, he felt energised, as if someone had slipped him a stimulant. But that was something to think about later, because the object of his quest walked out of the Women's Lounge, Hermione in tow.
Harry intercepted them at the lifts, and he noted that Ginny already had her wand and holster on her. All geared up, then. He slipped her phone with its blinking red light (let her clear her own damn messages; it had taken him five minutes of hitting 'dismiss' and 'erase' to clear his) from his pocket and palmed it as he sidled up to her and grabbed her elbow.
Ginny grinned. Hermione waved at them and got on the lift with a wink.
"Snitch," Ginny said in greeting over her coffee cup, "have you ever wondered just what coffee with a shot of molasses tastes like?" She held out the cup. "I hadn't, but now I'm glad I did. I have a sugar high like you wouldn't believe."
Harry rolled his eyes. "Hermione is a bad influence on you."
"Well, someone has to be," she grumbled, but her face was pleasant. "I think I'm going to ask out meat pie man."
"That's great," he said, pulling Ginny into a corridor and casting a Muffliato. "Look, we have a field trip to make, and you need to know some things first."
***
Severus met them at the gates to the Malfoy Manor. He looked decidedly cold, and the air was chilling, Harry had to admit. He and Ginny pulled their cloaks tighter around them as they trudged up to the gates. Malfoy Manor had surely seen better days, but it appeared that most of the house was completely intact. It wasn't that it was in disrepair, but more like the gardener had taken a few years off; the walls were overrun with some sort of creeping ivy. He had a hard time believing that Draco wouldn't keep the house up.
Who knew? Maybe he liked it that way. It was kind of charming, in that 'Hound of the Baskervilles meets The Amityville Horror' way. He turned to say something to Ginny about it, but then he realised that neither of the people with him would understand the references. Sometimes it was hard coming from a Muggle background to the Wizarding world.
Severus nodded his head at Ginny with a mumbled, "Ginevra," because he knew it irritated her. Harry glanced up at the walk that led to the house and sighed. He wasn't looking forward to this.
Ginny was already in rare form. "So," she asked brightly, her eyes gleaming as they started the short ambling walk up the unpaved lane, "how does one become the night?"
Severus glared at her. "I have no idea what you mean by that."
Ginny flapped her hands in a very bad halfhearted impression of a flying bird. "You know, Man-Bat, saving the weak, helping the helpless or something." She grinned. "So altruistic. I would have never guessed it was you."
Severus shook his head and rolled his eyes. "I would hope not. Anonymity is rather a necessity, and one that I seem to no longer enjoy," he grumbled, glaring at Harry.
Harry shrugged. "I tell her everything," he said, and then smiled. Let Severus chew on that for a while.
The rest of the walk was silent. Harry had told Ginny everything he knew, which, Severus had assured him, was everything he knew. It was little. Draco was insane. Draco had been lobotomised. The Ministry was possibly behind it. Azkaban was slowly emptying itself of prisoners, all missing. That was quite a story, and Harry was looking forward to solving it in short order, or proving it not a mystery at all. Unfortunately, even if there wasn't a mass conspiracy connecting everything, there was still a massive assault case and the mystery of the vanishing criminals. In his head he pictured them all jamming themselves into a clown car and taking off for parts unknown. They could only be so lucky.
The door was answered not by a house-elf, as Harry had thought it would be, but by Astoria Malfoy herself. Her face was drawn and pale, without make-up or her signature coiffe of ice-blonde curls piled high on her head, a modern day Marie Antoinette. Her dress was still as fashionable as ever (Harry remembered seeing the exact dress in the window at Twillfit & Tattings weeks ago, in a lovely shade of jewel green), but she hadn't done more than put it on; she hadn't added any jewelry or other adornments. Oh, he was reading too much into her dress. Maybe Astoria just didn't wear any of that at home.
Somehow, he doubted it.
"Astoria," Severus said, grasping her hands in his and pulling her towards him in an embrace. Harry watched the exchange with detached interest. It wasn't that Severus didn't hug him, it was that Harry rarely saw him hug anyone else. The last time he'd seen Severus hug another human, it had been at Ron and Hermione's wedding, and Molly had been quite squiffy and crying.
"Severus," she whispered, or maybe her voice was just worn out. "And Harry Potter." She sounded less happy to see him. Harry rarely interacted with Astoria Malfoy, but he'd tried to be civil, friendly, welcoming. They just weren't ever going to be friends, and he guessed that would be okay.
She seemed to notice their Auror robes, the holsters, the pouches at their belts, and her eyes narrowed. "Aurors. I think we've seen enough of your lot for the rest of our lives," she hissed.
"They're here officially," Severus said softly. "We need more help to find whomever Draco ran up against. Severus pushed her back, and she let him walk her into the foyer of the house. "They are completely in my confidence. And they can be discreet," he finished, glaring back over his shoulder at Harry and Ginny, who shoved her hands in her pockets and examined the paintings on the walls as they entered the house.
Harry didn't have a chance to gawk at the interior of Malfoy Manor, because his phone vibrated and everyone stared at him. Ginny smirked as he pulled it from his pocket and slid it open. "Let me get this," he mumbled, feeling quite Muggle for a second and stepping away from then group to slouch in the doorway of the room.
Colin had sent him a text, and it wasn't of his cat: 's—you were right. frobisher is gone. packed up last night and disappeared. neighbours concerned. gave me jam. p.'
Harry slammed the phone shut and glanced at Ginny, nodding. One more puzzle piece that didn't fit anywhere yet but just hung in the middle of the framework they were assembling, a piece without an anchor.
Astoria gave him a look that he understood to be contempt for the Muggle technology he slid in his pocket, and then she turned and walked down a hallway. Severus followed her, gesturing to them with two fingers. Ginny shrugged and they trailed behind.
Malfoy Manor was full of paintings of platinum and blonde-haired beings. Harry wondered if they had Veela in their line somewhere or if all babies who were born into the house were spelled with that colouring upon birth, just to maintain a pattern. A painting of Lucius Malfoy scowled at him as he passed, and he couldn't help grinning and giving it the V. Ginny snorted.
The hallways led them through to a great room, lined with more photos and pieces of furniture older than all of their combined ages. The heavy green velvet curtains had been pulled back, and the weak sun threaded into the room, dust filled spindles illuminating the massive wooden table that stood to the far side of the room.
Draco sat at the table, his hands busy tracing patterns of figure eights on the wood, index fingers pointed like claws. His back was curved as he hunched, and his long hair had been pulled back into a haphazard tail. When he drew nearer, he could hear Draco mumbling under his breath, his upper body rocking back and forth with the movements of the patterns that he traced, leaning forward to stretch his arms out at the top of the eight and then leaning back in his chair when he moved his hands towards himself to round the bottom of the figure.
Severus pulled out the chair on Draco's left and sat down. Astoria hung back in the doorway, her hands wringing a lace handkerchief, and pursing her lips.
Draco looked at Severus when he pulled up the chair. "Oh, hullo," he said cheerfully. "I was just thinking about you."
Severus sat back in the chair. "How are you today, Draco?"
Draco grinned. "I want to explain the faeries, but they keep taking my pudding."
Ginny looked at Harry, her eyes wide; he hadn't been prepared for what they were seeing either. He'd known that Draco was ill, but he hadn't really understood just how ill, even though he'd seen the pictures. Draco was mad.
Severus's hand reached out to still Draco's hands in his own, and the younger man just pulled them away and smiled, retracing the patterns without looking at the table, as if he had to continue to move. "Draco, I want to talk you about your trip away, before you came home. Do you remember the hospital?"
Ginny shook her head minutely, her eyes riveted to Draco's hands as they moved on the table. Severus set his own hands in his lap and sighed.
"I remember everything," Draco snapped a little, his fingertips coming to rest on the table in staccato. Harry felt as if he were eavesdropping on some other conversation; it was almost intensely private, especially when Severus leaned back in again and put his hand on Draco's shoulder, pulling a handkerchief out from his sleeve and using it to wipe at Draco's mouth when a small spattering of drool appeared at the corner. Draco smiled and blinked his wide eyes.
It was unnerving. Harry thought back to all the times he'd said or thought horrible things about Draco. It wasn't that he regretted them, not really, because Draco had never been a saint. It was more that Harry wasn't sure that he would have wished this on anyone, not even Draco.
What if he couldn't be repaired? What if the damage was permanent? Harry suspected that if the healer could have repaired the damage to Draco's brain, then he would have already done so.
"Before you went to the hospital, you were on the lawn, do you remember?"
"Of course. My toes were soggy."
Severus glanced back at Harry then, his face pained. "And then, Draco, before that, do you remember where you were?"
"Father always said I was bright. They took him from jail, you know."
Ginny frowned and Harry realised that he hadn't told her everything, mostly because he wasn't sure himself what to think about the situation. He had decided that he wasn't going to tell her about Azkaban and the Ministry connection. If he and Severus were wrong, well, then, there would be less of the hysterical mess out there.
"Draco," Severus said softly, "where did you go?"
Draco traced the design on the table again. "If I work the pattern enough, I can make a pixie come out of the grain," he told them. "Make the green lights come."
Ginny jolted back as if she'd been slapped, and Harry felt his face draw up in a frown.
"Where, Draco?" he asked, leaning over Severus's shoulder to come face-level to Draco. "Where did you go? Were there green lights there?" Severus glanced back at him, and Ginny raised an eyebrow, but Harry stared into Draco's eyes and thought about a dead tree in East Anglia.
Draco smiled at him. "They flashed the lights. There was a big. Big flash."
Astoria sighed, but it came out like a strangled sob. Harry could see Ginny move out of the corner of his eye and he knew that she would at least try to do something with Astoria. Harry didn't want to think about what he would be like if it had been his husband sitting there. Severus sat back then, his back connecting with Harry's front, and Harry couldn't resist resting a hand on the man's shoulder, even though it was shrugged off almost instantly.
"Green lights," Severus said to him. "I thought we'd had our fill of green lights."
Draco traced the pattern on the table. "You know, the faeries, when they come, they have cake."
Harry glanced back at Astoria resisting Ginny's compassion and standing ramrod straight in the doorway. From behind her skirts peeked a pair of eyes, little Scorpius watching his father fall apart.
Something in Harry clicked a little, like tumblers in a lock. "Severus," he said softly, "I know where they're doing this."
***
Back to Master Post
Author: Amand-r
Team: Snitch
Genre(s): Alive and Kicking (EWE)
Prompt(s): Green Lantern, Enemy At The Gate
Rating/Warnings/Kinks: NC-17 for sex (contains fisting), R for violence. Some canon deaths ignored. Also? Kinda cracky.
Word Count: 28,000+ some
Summary: There's a man stalking the Wizarding world. Or a bat. Maybe a Man-Bat. Severus is probably having an affair, Harry's tired all the time, oh, and those drunks out in East Anglia are complaining about the green lights. Again.
Author Notes/Disclaimers/Betas Thanks to
jadzialove for being the best joanwilder, aka Alfred, hit all of it, especially part 4, with a batarang of spag (Thanks beth for a few quick saves!). All italicized bumper quotes from The Tick: The Animated Series. PART THREE: EVIL IS AFOOT AT THE CIRCLE K
Well, once again we find that clowning and anarchy don't mix.
There was toast and jam and tea waiting on the table when he got in that morning. Harry tossed his keys in the bowl on the counter and unbuckled his holster, laying it and his wand and other accoutrements on the sideboard of the dining room as he blinked at the spread in front of him.
Severus strode in, his hands full of plates. "I've eggs, and toast and sausages." He frowned as he set the plate down. "They're those pre-packaged store ones, but beggars cannot be choosers, I suppose." He looked at Harry then, cocking his head. "Are you all right?"
Harry opened his mouth to say something, but he realised that he didn't know how to approach the fact that he'd just come face to face with his husband in the middle of a stakeout-turned-sting, both of which Harry had been forced to label unsuccessful in his report. A report that he hadn't wanted to file, and had simply tossed at Ginny for her signature before storming out of the office.
He hadn't told Ginny or anyone else what he had seen. How could he? Harry wasn't sure that he'd actually seen it himself—Severus in his black cloak, striding across the room, papers in his hands, some sort of industrial espionage, perhaps.
There had to be a good explanation for this.
Severus left the room and returned with a small bowl of porridge for each of them, and he sat down at his side of the table, eyes glinting. He looked as fresh as a goddamned daisy, actually, and for a moment Harry wanted to punch him for that alone. Instead, he dropped into his chair and spooned some eggs onto his plate; the yolks were runny, just the way he liked them. Severus hated runny eggs, so he had to be making up for something.
Oh yeah. Making up for something, all right. Harry spread some jam on a piece of toast and stared at it as it bloomed under the blade, spreadable red.
"How was your night?" Severus said over his toast. "Ministry had you out all night, I see."
Harry dropped his knife. "You can't be serious. You're going to pretend—"
Severus's eyes were searing before they cut away from him, and his hand resumed buttering his toast with the smooth practice of years. "I was going to try to distract you with sex, actually, but I have come to the conclusion that such a tactic is fleeting, and you are not nearly as stupid as I affectionately tell people you are."
Harry picked up his knife again. He could do this. They could talk about this. Severus's manner pretty much said that he was open to it, so Harry dove into the conversation headlong. Except—
"You tell people I'm stupid?"
Severus smiled and sipped from his teacup. "Only sometimes. And stupid isn't the word I use. 'Intellectually deficient' is a more accurate term anyway."
The conversation rather died there, hanging between them. Harry wasn't sure if he wanted to pursue this thread or get back to the matter that was really supposed to be at hand. He chose the latter.
"How long have you been doing this?" Harry raised a hand to stop Severus from replying and instead scrubbed his face with it. "No no, I know that. I have a file of your exploits sitting on my desk at work, as we speak."
Severus snorted. "Exploits. You make me sound like a joy-rider in a Broom shop."
Harry slammed his fist on the table. "That is what you are, Severus, a joy-rider." He leaned forward, not caring that his sleeve was dipping into his eggs. "I do this for a living. It's my job. You brew potions. That's your job." Severus opened his mouth to speak, but Harry cut him off with a hand. "They asked you to join the Ministry, several times."
Severus's mouth twisted in distaste. "I refuse to punch a card ever again."
Harry sat back, wiping his sleeve with his serviette. "Well, I'm sorry, but that's what I do. It's not ideal, and I'm not overly fond of it, but there it is. Citizens don't go about fighting crime in their spare time."
Severus said nothing, simply resumed buttering his toast. "I think, Harry, that you'll find I have no time to spare to begin with." He glanced up. "I'm busy."
"You always say that. What have you been doing?"
Severus looked at him for a moment, cocked his head, and then sighed, rolling his eyes. "Your Ministry is corrupt."
Harry blinked. That had not been the answer he had been hoping for. In fact, it hadn't really answered any questions. Except perhaps, 'tell me Severus, how you feel about the current administration,' which hadn't even been on the menu.
The chair scraped when Severus rose, setting down his knife and toast. He left his side of the table and walked towards the kitchen, opened the closest cabinet door, and then began to crawl inside. He was almost completely inside the cabinet when he turned back to Harry, raising a hand. "Come on, then. Let me show you." And then he vanished.
Harry rose from the table and crossed the room, peering inside the cabinet that usually held cereal and other dry goods. Right now it was just a wooden hallway. An ill-lit wooden hallway. He could hear Severus's footsteps in the distance. Oh well, nothing for it, then.
It was surreal, not unlike some children's book he'd once read, entering a cabinet, and really, how this even surprised him despite that he lived in a world that thought it perfectly normal to fly on brooms and transfigure bats into mufflers was shocking in and of itself. Harry ground his teeth as he finally dove into the cabinet, his hands finding the wood walls inside just as narrow as they looked on the outside, but still, they extended farther and farther back, until Harry was sure that the pitch-black passage he was following had gone on for more than the length of the house. He might have been less disconcerted if he hadn't yesterday opened this cabinet, retrieved a box of Weetabix, and closed it, never noticing that it was three miles deep inside.
He finally saw a light ahead and quickened his pace. The tunnel wasn't large, but it wasn't claustrophobic, actually. On the other hand, Harry had heard horror stories of wizards becoming trapped in magical tunnels when both ends closed on them. The thought was enough to make him increase his step and spill out the other side of the tunnel into Severus's hidden room in a rush.
For all that the tunnel was long, the room wasn't the vast cave-like structure he had thought it would be. It was small, about ten by ten feet, the walls plastered with maps and pins, little flags. On a table in the far corner lay an assortment of tools: grapples for something, a belt with vials on it, a coiled rope, a box for a camera that looked suspiciously like the one he'd lost several months ago. It had been a present from Colin upon his graduation from Auror training, and he'd rather liked the Muggle-ness of it.
Hanging from the ceiling in another corner was a gilded birdcage, large enough for Harry to fit himself into if he had been so inclined. It was filled with rolling blackness, and from the scraps and tips that stuck out of the bars and waved, he had a good idea as to what it was.
He reached out a hand to touch the cape through the bars when Severus barked a quick, "Don't touch that," and he pulled his hand back sharply. "It's not stable. That's why I cage it."
The cape stretched towards him, as if it wanted to feel him, and Harry wanted to poke one of the edges hanging out of the bars. "It's Memory cloth, right?"
"After a fashion. It began that way, I suppose. I added a few modifications of my own to make it strong, more tactile." Severus blinked at the cloth as if he were seeing it for the first time before shaking his head and sighing. "It's been a long time since I've had to experiment with Transfigurative and Sentience spells. I fear I might have been a little rash."
Harry peered close and the cape reached out to caress his cheek before Severus tugged on his arm. "I was serious. It'll try to kill you."
Well then. "Why doesn't it try to kill you?" At Severus's look, he blanched. "Merlin, Severus, be careful," was out of his mouth before he realised how futile and ridiculous that sounded.
It was Severus's turn to swear. "Oh bollocks. Like things haven't been trying to kill me for years." He rolled his eyes. "Werewolves, snakes, you, Weasley…" He ticked items off on his fingers as he walked away, his back turned to Harry but his hand raised. "Sirius Black, Neville Longbottom, multiple orgasms." Here he paused and glanced over his shoulder. "The list goes on, actually. I think a sentient cape that becomes overexcited at the idea of adventure is something I can handle. Now, come."
The table in the center of the room was long and covered with papers, more maps, some of them animated, and file folders, which Severus was shuffling.
"How long has this been here?" Harry asked, gesturing at the tunnel, the room.
Severus shrugged. "Since we moved in. Standard Panic Room." He glanced at Harry then, looking as sheepish as he ever got, which was sort of like a cross between perplexed and angry. "I suppose I should have told you."
Harry leaned against the table and looked out at the vast surface. "Yeah, that would have been nice."
Severus turned back to the table, on which he was slapping a series of photographs. On his left sat a second stack of buff file folders and a few thumbed-at notebooks. "I suppose I should start at the beginning."
Harry laughed. "We're in your Batcave. You go ahead and start wherever you want."
Severus glared at him. "There are no bats in here." His hands played with the empty folder. If Harry didn't know better, he would have said that Severus was nervous. Maybe he didn't know better. "I'm sure you're curious as to how this started."
Harry almost snorted his own spit up the back of his nose.
"It started simply enough," Severus said, ignoring his paroxysm and laying out pictures on the flat table. "Two months ago, I was in Knockturn Alley when I saw someone being accosted by a few thugs." He shrugged. "It was easy to stun them from a distance and make a quick getaway."
Here Harry nodded; there'd been an Auror report on this crime, the first event that had mentioned a Man-Bat-Thing. He wondered if this had been where Severus had got the idea for the costume in the first place.
"And then, I accidentally stumbled upon a burglary in progress whilst delivering a shipment for Widow Huxley." Severus glanced at Harry. "I didn't want to get involved, but you know how I feel about tampering with personal property."
Oh, did he. They'd been married for ten years, and Harry still wasn't allowed to open Severus's Potions texts. Something about everything being in place.
"Three weeks ago, Astoria Malfoy owled me because Draco had gone missing." Severus finished laying out the photos, and stepped back, letting Harry peer over them. They ranged from the outsides of warehouses and hangars and in once instance, a house that looked very much like the Dursleys' old address on Privet Drive. The rows of photos ended with a series of shots featuring Draco.
"He was missing for a week before he just turned up on the lawn in the middle of the night, addled and incoherent." Severus paused while Harry stared at Draco's expressionless and mad face. "She took him to St. Mungo's, but they weren't able to ascertain the nature of his illness."
"Did he just go crazy?" Harry asked. He was rather glad that the pictures weren't moving, because he was fairly sure Draco was about to drool in the picture he was examining.
He didn't understand the photo, nor how it made him feel. There was no love lost between him and Draco, and he would have lived happily never seeing the man again. He usually didn't, except for the casual glance, glare or nod across the Ministry.
"Suffice to say that St. Mungo's didn't try very hard with Draco," Severus said, his voice sandpaper on glass. "There are a great many people who still blame the son for the sins of the father." And then, he added, "I think we both know something about that."
Harry looked up from the photos and smiled. "I could be more forgiving of Draco," he said, "right?"
Severus reached out and touched the edge of one photo, in which Malfoy was dragging a quill across a paper filled with scribbles of green. "I'm saying that a healer or medi-witch takes an oath to provide the best medical care possible, and they failed to do so."
Harry straightened and shoved his hands in his pockets. "All right, table that for later, unless it's relevant."
Severus raised a brow. "It is. Because what is wrong with Draco is not hard to ascertain. I obtained the services of a foreign healer, one untainted by the war." He retrieved another buff folder and flipped it open, revealing a series of swirling images on sheets of paper. They were animated, like a moving photo, but it was obvious that they were recordings of some sort of scan. Severus traced what looked like the outline of a human brain. "Part of Draco's brain has been tampered with."
Harry bent over the scans then. "Where?"
Severus's finger tapped an area of what looked like the frontal lobe. "Right there. I'm not an expert, but I was informed that these parts of the brain are supposed to connect." He reached over the array of photographs and retrieved a large volume labelled 'DSM' and opened it to a marked passage. "The only reason I, or the healer could think of would be this—" He pointed to the page.
"Lobotomy." Harry frowned. "That's…we don't do those, do we? At St. Mungo's?"
Severus shook his head. "As far as I know, the Wizarding world has never supported much in the area of Muggle surgical procedure, for whatever reason." He sighed and waved at the scans of Draco's brain, still swirling on the paper. "And yet."
It was a distressing thought, really, and Harry didn't like the tickle he was getting in his stomach, the one that told him he knew something about all of this. He hated that feeling; usually it meant that he was going to have a big think later until his head hurt and he would still fail to see the connection until it fell into his lap at an inopportune time.
"Why would anyone want to lobotomise Draco Malfoy?" Harry wondered aloud. "I mean, he's a git, but he's not—"
Severus slammed the book shut loudly, even though he tried to make it look for the entire world as if he was just shutting a book and not commenting on Harry's dislike of Malfoy. "I think he found something that he wasn't supposed to find."
Harry was about to ask, A conscience? Social tact? but he stopped himself. That was petty. Also, the pictures made him feel guilty. He settled for folding his arms and trying to look like a professional.
Severus set the book down in the corner of the table again and flipped through his remaining unopened folders, looking for something as he talked. "No matter what you may think about Draco, the fact is that he was as surprised by his father's escape as everyone else, myself included. Lucius was smart, but not that smart."
Harry shrugged and pursed his lips; he didn't really have anything to add anyway. Severus knew how he felt about the Malfoys, and he knew how Severus felt about them as well. Just because someone had a change of heart when the writing was on the wall didn't redeem him or her completely. Lucius had accepted his fate with uncharacteristic grace, actually, and Harry had always rather thought that pensive moment in court had pointed towards his escape plans all along.
"Draco's been looking for his father for years, but recently I know he'd stumbled on something. He sent me some plans and scribbled notes about Azkaban." Severus opened another buff file, this time filled with moving photos of the outside of Azkaban and a few letters in Draco's spidery green handwriting.
Harry took the photos and stared at the stone walls of the prison. The weather there was always stormy, Harry had always noted in the few times he'd been there, and the pictures didn't belie that. Occasionally, a dark shape would flit by one of the prison parapets. Harry frowned as he tried to jar his memory as to what was bothering him about the image.
"There's something wrong with this," he mused.
Severus nodded and took the photos from him, setting them down next to the ones of Draco. "There are barely any Dementors," he supplied.
Harry looked again. "You're right. I didn't think. I knew that they lost a few after the war, and occasionally, they lose a few more, right?" He shook his head. "I always figured that they had a rotating cycle of them coming and going."
"There's more. Azkaban is almost empty," Severus said, flipping a few unmoving Muggletech pictures. "I took these with that blasted camera, about three days ago." He pointed to the outside of the prison with one finger. "There are no Dementors on the outside grounds. Only about five in attendance altogether. I found it easy to walk about."
Harry squinted at the pictures. "Empty, as in…"
Severus crossed his arms. "All the Dark Lord's followers are gone. As are most of the violent offenders. Now it's just thieves and other small-time crimes." He reached out with a long finger and tapped the photo with his last words: "Not. One. Murderer. Not. One. Death Eater."
"And you think Draco found them."
Severus shrugged. "He found something."
"And that's what you've been doing. Looking for what he found."
Shrug. "I still stop the occasional crime, as I find them. It's actually harder to stumble on them than you might think. It makes my goals seem more diverse."
"Oh Merlin's balls, why didn't you come to me?" Harry groaned. He rubbed the bridge of his nose with a thumb and forefinger. It occurred to him that he hadn't slept since the night before last, and he wondered if he'd remember any of this at all after he woke up. It was just bizarre enough that he might be able to write it off as the inner workings of his sleep-deprived mind. On the other hand, he was pretty sure that he wanted to remember.
"And tell you what?" Severus raised a brow. "Draco found something off and got his brain addled? Azkaban is being systematically emptied and its prisoners transferred elsewhere? Tell me that is being done without Ministry consent."
Harry shrugged. "If there aren't any Dementors, they might have escaped…" As he said it, he knew that it was temporising. If people were going to break out of Azkaban, some of them would be thieves. The selection, if Severus was correct, was less than random, or luck. His Wizard sense was tingling. Or maybe he just needed more caffeine. Or some sleep.
"I believe you are, despite your best efforts, what you amusedly refer to as 'the man'." Severus shuffled papers and photos back into the files. "If I had told you, then you'd use Ministry connections. And you, being not the most, discreet of all God's creatures, might have stumbled into a similar fate." He looked away. "I've seen Draco lately. I don't wish that on anyone. Especially you."
Harry forgot, sometimes, that they were married. Not because it wasn't a marriage, and not that he didn't love Severus madly, but because at times like this, they fell backwards, all the way back to the past in which they hated each other, in which they bickered, in which their whole relationship had consisted of insults and tension and misunderstanding.
"Well, I know now," he said, "and I can help."
Severus opened a folder and dumped the contents haphazardly on the table. Photos fluttered out like dead leaves. "Fifty prisoners, unaccounted for. All of our most dangerous wizards, out there somewhere, and no one in the Ministry is concerned." He stared at Harry and placed his palms flat on the table. "That is worrisome."
Well, Severus always was one for understatement. Harry's eyes ran over the photos, finding faces he wanted to forget: Dolohov, Nott, Carrow. Lucius Malfoy. Harry sighed.
At least Severus wasn't having an affair. He wasn't sure if that was better or worse, and for whom.
***
Level Nine looked to be all but deserted as Harry made his way down the hallway. He wasn't sure if he was supposed to announce his presence, or if they already knew that he was there. He turned about and looked for some sort of desk. Maybe he had to sign in. Maybe he needed a special pass. To be fair, he hadn't been down here in years, and they seemed to change the layout every other week. It was a requirement of the Department of Mysteries, he figured. Because of the 'Mystery' part.
Maybe he needed to actually call out.
He was about to scream something awkward like, 'Hello? It's Harry Potter? From the Auror Department?' when a door opened. Ah, good.
Undersecretary Percy Weasley exited one of the rooms, locking the door behind him with a huge skeleton key. He turned then, and his eyes met Harry's. "Oh! Harry!"
Fascinating. "Hi," he said, raising his hand. "Did you have a meeting down here? I'm looking for someone."
Percy glanced to the left and right and then smiled at Harry. He was looking a little haggard. Harry didn't get a chance to spend much time with Percy, not even in a social setting. He saw him once or twice a year, at one Weasley family function or another, often looking distracted and busy, a perennial workaholic with a secretary in tow, or poring over documents in the kitchen with his wife, Penelope Clearwater, who incidentally worked in the office adjacent to his.
Harry felt a little sorry for Percy. He certainly was where he wanted to be, career-wise, and maybe that made him happy. He just never seemed it.
Like now—Percy's hair was unkempt, and his eyes were rimmed in dark circles. Even as he smiled at Harry, his eyes were already darting elsewhere, not seeing him. His fingers twitched and rolled the sheaf of papers that he held.
"Anyone in particular?" Percy asked. "I know everyone down here."
Harry pulled the card from his pocket and glanced at it again. "Roger Ketterer? Know him?"
Percy smiled, but it was quick, pained. "Lower level man, I believe. I don't really know him in the personal sense, but of him. Is he meeting you here?" He moved to take the card, but Harry palmed it and shoved his hands in his pockets.
"No, I just thought I'd pop down here and see if I couldn't ask about some property he was hanging about. There were some complaints from the locals, and Mister Ketterer wasn't very accommodating when I inquired about it."
Percy rolled his papers tighter and sighed. "Well, I'm sorry, but I know most everyone is out of the office today. I came down here for something and had to help myself."
Harry sensed that he wouldn't be allowed to simply 'help himself'. He wasn't completely surprised; okay, he wasn't surprised at all. Hell, he wouldn't like it if people started to dig about in his desk either. It was irksome that he'd have to come back later, though. He had plans.
Those plans involved a field trip with Severus. Harry was still digesting the events of yesterday morning, when he'd spent two hours in a dimly lit room with Severus, poring over the remaining photos and maps and files, tracing Severus's research and travels.
Harry waved at the wanly smiling Percy and walked to the lifts. Percy didn't move, and Harry guessed that he either didn't trust Harry not to snoop around (and in the past he might have, when he had been younger), or he wasn't finished with whatever it was that he was doing down here in the first place. It really wasn't for Harry to say, actually.
It was frustrating, Harry thought, being sandbagged. Ron used to refer to it as being cockblocked, but Harry wasn't sure he agreed with the sentiment. It wasn't as if he was trying to get laid here. Just a little information would have been nice.
He made his way into the office and sat down at his desk, shaking his head at his inbox, once again full. It was rather like the paperwork never ended. Sometimes he felt like all he did was paperwork. He checked his watch. He was to meet Severus in an hour, and he had to manage to find Ginny before then. In the meantime, he could give 'Milda a break and look at some of the paper in front of him, as if he could accomplish anything by simply looking at it. One day he wanted to invent a quill that would work simply by thinking at it. On the other hand, he was fairly sure that his reports would then be punctuated with pornographic sequences. Perhaps that would make his superior's day.
The first thing in the pile was a familiar envelope. It was the letter he'd jotted off to Amos Frobisher after meeting the man. Frobisher had been right about the Ministry needing to be more proactive and communicative with civilians; Harry felt bad that his office hadn't been more responsive of his complaints, and so he'd written a quick note to tell Frobisher that he had been over to the property and was definitely investigating the matter further.
He thought he had submitted it in time for the afternoon owling. "'Milda, I thought you sent the post yesterday."
Romilda widened her eyes and then narrowed them. Ooh, bad day already. "I did," she told him. "That was sent back, which you would know if you had looked closer." Harry flipped the envelope over and saw the stamping from the Owl Post, in red letters: RETURN TO SENDER. Oh.
Why would Frobisher return his letter? He added it to the growing list of things to do when he had the time. Right now, he was looking for his absent partner.
"Did you see Ginny?" he asked absently, tossing the letter on a pile of papers in this inbox. Colin entered the room, took a panicked look at Romilda and backed away. Harry glanced between the empty doorway and his assistant.
"I'm not her keeper," 'Milda snapped. Her face was red and Harry noticed for the first time that morning, her hair was in disarray and she had what looked to be a streak of motor oil across her front. "Check her schedule."
Harry shook his head and reached across the desk to snag Ginny's self-updating calendar. It said, 'MIA.' That meant she was either in the toilet or down getting coffee. "Are you sure you're okay?" he mumbled. "I mean, tell me how you really feel."
'Milda slammed a ream of paper on the desk and the packaging snapped in the middle. That seemed to be what she wanted, because she pulled the two halves of the packaging off and tossed them in the bin by her desk. "Colin forwarded a Twitter message to our cell network ten thousand times," she muttered. "I've been getting Tweets of his cat licking his genitals all morning."
Harry glanced at his active mobile on his desk, its message light blinking menacingly. "Oh dear."
Romilda snorted and divided the paper into sections, plunking a thick slab of it in the loose paper box that he and Ginny split in the center of their desks. "It's fine. It was funny the first time. The last nine thousand plus, not so much."
Harry shoved away from his desk. "I'll just go find her myself, then. And we'll be out of the office for a few hours, yeah?"
Romilda waved him away, and Harry beat a hasty retreat, pocketing his mobile and wondering how the hell he was goIng to clear all the text messages. Was there a 'delete all' function?
Colin was still lingering about in the hallway. "I didn't mean to do it," he said to Harry. "Do you think she'd be happy if I got her a gift? A fruit basket? A coffee?"
Harry ignored his distress and instead threw a conspiratorial arm about his shoulders. "Colin," he said, "I need you to run an errand…"
Fifteen minutes later he was in the Atrium, listening to the 'bearista' as she explained the finer points of Bertie Botts' Every Flavour Syrup and how it wasn't risky at all to use it because Earwax wasn't one of the flavours in the bottle. Harry read the side of the bottle sceptically; he wasn't too fond of beets to begin with, and putting it in his coffee sounded obscene and vaguely Russian. The last thing he wanted to taste was caffeinated borscht.
He never got to order, and he wasn't really interested anyway, since he wasn't tired. For the first time in weeks, he felt energised, as if someone had slipped him a stimulant. But that was something to think about later, because the object of his quest walked out of the Women's Lounge, Hermione in tow.
Harry intercepted them at the lifts, and he noted that Ginny already had her wand and holster on her. All geared up, then. He slipped her phone with its blinking red light (let her clear her own damn messages; it had taken him five minutes of hitting 'dismiss' and 'erase' to clear his) from his pocket and palmed it as he sidled up to her and grabbed her elbow.
Ginny grinned. Hermione waved at them and got on the lift with a wink.
"Snitch," Ginny said in greeting over her coffee cup, "have you ever wondered just what coffee with a shot of molasses tastes like?" She held out the cup. "I hadn't, but now I'm glad I did. I have a sugar high like you wouldn't believe."
Harry rolled his eyes. "Hermione is a bad influence on you."
"Well, someone has to be," she grumbled, but her face was pleasant. "I think I'm going to ask out meat pie man."
"That's great," he said, pulling Ginny into a corridor and casting a Muffliato. "Look, we have a field trip to make, and you need to know some things first."
***
Severus met them at the gates to the Malfoy Manor. He looked decidedly cold, and the air was chilling, Harry had to admit. He and Ginny pulled their cloaks tighter around them as they trudged up to the gates. Malfoy Manor had surely seen better days, but it appeared that most of the house was completely intact. It wasn't that it was in disrepair, but more like the gardener had taken a few years off; the walls were overrun with some sort of creeping ivy. He had a hard time believing that Draco wouldn't keep the house up.
Who knew? Maybe he liked it that way. It was kind of charming, in that 'Hound of the Baskervilles meets The Amityville Horror' way. He turned to say something to Ginny about it, but then he realised that neither of the people with him would understand the references. Sometimes it was hard coming from a Muggle background to the Wizarding world.
Severus nodded his head at Ginny with a mumbled, "Ginevra," because he knew it irritated her. Harry glanced up at the walk that led to the house and sighed. He wasn't looking forward to this.
Ginny was already in rare form. "So," she asked brightly, her eyes gleaming as they started the short ambling walk up the unpaved lane, "how does one become the night?"
Severus glared at her. "I have no idea what you mean by that."
Ginny flapped her hands in a very bad halfhearted impression of a flying bird. "You know, Man-Bat, saving the weak, helping the helpless or something." She grinned. "So altruistic. I would have never guessed it was you."
Severus shook his head and rolled his eyes. "I would hope not. Anonymity is rather a necessity, and one that I seem to no longer enjoy," he grumbled, glaring at Harry.
Harry shrugged. "I tell her everything," he said, and then smiled. Let Severus chew on that for a while.
The rest of the walk was silent. Harry had told Ginny everything he knew, which, Severus had assured him, was everything he knew. It was little. Draco was insane. Draco had been lobotomised. The Ministry was possibly behind it. Azkaban was slowly emptying itself of prisoners, all missing. That was quite a story, and Harry was looking forward to solving it in short order, or proving it not a mystery at all. Unfortunately, even if there wasn't a mass conspiracy connecting everything, there was still a massive assault case and the mystery of the vanishing criminals. In his head he pictured them all jamming themselves into a clown car and taking off for parts unknown. They could only be so lucky.
The door was answered not by a house-elf, as Harry had thought it would be, but by Astoria Malfoy herself. Her face was drawn and pale, without make-up or her signature coiffe of ice-blonde curls piled high on her head, a modern day Marie Antoinette. Her dress was still as fashionable as ever (Harry remembered seeing the exact dress in the window at Twillfit & Tattings weeks ago, in a lovely shade of jewel green), but she hadn't done more than put it on; she hadn't added any jewelry or other adornments. Oh, he was reading too much into her dress. Maybe Astoria just didn't wear any of that at home.
Somehow, he doubted it.
"Astoria," Severus said, grasping her hands in his and pulling her towards him in an embrace. Harry watched the exchange with detached interest. It wasn't that Severus didn't hug him, it was that Harry rarely saw him hug anyone else. The last time he'd seen Severus hug another human, it had been at Ron and Hermione's wedding, and Molly had been quite squiffy and crying.
"Severus," she whispered, or maybe her voice was just worn out. "And Harry Potter." She sounded less happy to see him. Harry rarely interacted with Astoria Malfoy, but he'd tried to be civil, friendly, welcoming. They just weren't ever going to be friends, and he guessed that would be okay.
She seemed to notice their Auror robes, the holsters, the pouches at their belts, and her eyes narrowed. "Aurors. I think we've seen enough of your lot for the rest of our lives," she hissed.
"They're here officially," Severus said softly. "We need more help to find whomever Draco ran up against. Severus pushed her back, and she let him walk her into the foyer of the house. "They are completely in my confidence. And they can be discreet," he finished, glaring back over his shoulder at Harry and Ginny, who shoved her hands in her pockets and examined the paintings on the walls as they entered the house.
Harry didn't have a chance to gawk at the interior of Malfoy Manor, because his phone vibrated and everyone stared at him. Ginny smirked as he pulled it from his pocket and slid it open. "Let me get this," he mumbled, feeling quite Muggle for a second and stepping away from then group to slouch in the doorway of the room.
Colin had sent him a text, and it wasn't of his cat: 's—you were right. frobisher is gone. packed up last night and disappeared. neighbours concerned. gave me jam. p.'
Harry slammed the phone shut and glanced at Ginny, nodding. One more puzzle piece that didn't fit anywhere yet but just hung in the middle of the framework they were assembling, a piece without an anchor.
Astoria gave him a look that he understood to be contempt for the Muggle technology he slid in his pocket, and then she turned and walked down a hallway. Severus followed her, gesturing to them with two fingers. Ginny shrugged and they trailed behind.
Malfoy Manor was full of paintings of platinum and blonde-haired beings. Harry wondered if they had Veela in their line somewhere or if all babies who were born into the house were spelled with that colouring upon birth, just to maintain a pattern. A painting of Lucius Malfoy scowled at him as he passed, and he couldn't help grinning and giving it the V. Ginny snorted.
The hallways led them through to a great room, lined with more photos and pieces of furniture older than all of their combined ages. The heavy green velvet curtains had been pulled back, and the weak sun threaded into the room, dust filled spindles illuminating the massive wooden table that stood to the far side of the room.
Draco sat at the table, his hands busy tracing patterns of figure eights on the wood, index fingers pointed like claws. His back was curved as he hunched, and his long hair had been pulled back into a haphazard tail. When he drew nearer, he could hear Draco mumbling under his breath, his upper body rocking back and forth with the movements of the patterns that he traced, leaning forward to stretch his arms out at the top of the eight and then leaning back in his chair when he moved his hands towards himself to round the bottom of the figure.
Severus pulled out the chair on Draco's left and sat down. Astoria hung back in the doorway, her hands wringing a lace handkerchief, and pursing her lips.
Draco looked at Severus when he pulled up the chair. "Oh, hullo," he said cheerfully. "I was just thinking about you."
Severus sat back in the chair. "How are you today, Draco?"
Draco grinned. "I want to explain the faeries, but they keep taking my pudding."
Ginny looked at Harry, her eyes wide; he hadn't been prepared for what they were seeing either. He'd known that Draco was ill, but he hadn't really understood just how ill, even though he'd seen the pictures. Draco was mad.
Severus's hand reached out to still Draco's hands in his own, and the younger man just pulled them away and smiled, retracing the patterns without looking at the table, as if he had to continue to move. "Draco, I want to talk you about your trip away, before you came home. Do you remember the hospital?"
Ginny shook her head minutely, her eyes riveted to Draco's hands as they moved on the table. Severus set his own hands in his lap and sighed.
"I remember everything," Draco snapped a little, his fingertips coming to rest on the table in staccato. Harry felt as if he were eavesdropping on some other conversation; it was almost intensely private, especially when Severus leaned back in again and put his hand on Draco's shoulder, pulling a handkerchief out from his sleeve and using it to wipe at Draco's mouth when a small spattering of drool appeared at the corner. Draco smiled and blinked his wide eyes.
It was unnerving. Harry thought back to all the times he'd said or thought horrible things about Draco. It wasn't that he regretted them, not really, because Draco had never been a saint. It was more that Harry wasn't sure that he would have wished this on anyone, not even Draco.
What if he couldn't be repaired? What if the damage was permanent? Harry suspected that if the healer could have repaired the damage to Draco's brain, then he would have already done so.
"Before you went to the hospital, you were on the lawn, do you remember?"
"Of course. My toes were soggy."
Severus glanced back at Harry then, his face pained. "And then, Draco, before that, do you remember where you were?"
"Father always said I was bright. They took him from jail, you know."
Ginny frowned and Harry realised that he hadn't told her everything, mostly because he wasn't sure himself what to think about the situation. He had decided that he wasn't going to tell her about Azkaban and the Ministry connection. If he and Severus were wrong, well, then, there would be less of the hysterical mess out there.
"Draco," Severus said softly, "where did you go?"
Draco traced the design on the table again. "If I work the pattern enough, I can make a pixie come out of the grain," he told them. "Make the green lights come."
Ginny jolted back as if she'd been slapped, and Harry felt his face draw up in a frown.
"Where, Draco?" he asked, leaning over Severus's shoulder to come face-level to Draco. "Where did you go? Were there green lights there?" Severus glanced back at him, and Ginny raised an eyebrow, but Harry stared into Draco's eyes and thought about a dead tree in East Anglia.
Draco smiled at him. "They flashed the lights. There was a big. Big flash."
Astoria sighed, but it came out like a strangled sob. Harry could see Ginny move out of the corner of his eye and he knew that she would at least try to do something with Astoria. Harry didn't want to think about what he would be like if it had been his husband sitting there. Severus sat back then, his back connecting with Harry's front, and Harry couldn't resist resting a hand on the man's shoulder, even though it was shrugged off almost instantly.
"Green lights," Severus said to him. "I thought we'd had our fill of green lights."
Draco traced the pattern on the table. "You know, the faeries, when they come, they have cake."
Harry glanced back at Astoria resisting Ginny's compassion and standing ramrod straight in the doorway. From behind her skirts peeked a pair of eyes, little Scorpius watching his father fall apart.
Something in Harry clicked a little, like tumblers in a lock. "Severus," he said softly, "I know where they're doing this."
***
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