All the Ashes Like Leaves

[firethesound]

Title : All the Ashes Like Leaves
Wordcount : 21k
Rating/Warnings : M, post-apocalypse
Disclaimer : I don't own any of the Harry Potter characters and this is written purely for entertainment purposes.
Summary : Nothing about being the Chosen One had prepared Harry for this. With most of the population blinded and man-eating plants running amok, he can only stay close to his friends as they make their way to safety. Not that he’d call Malfoy a friend, but the end of the world does rather make their ongoing feud seem trivial. And it just figures that it took nothing short of an apocalypse to make Malfoy seem like less of a git.
Author’s Notes : A giant thank you to the mods for your unending patience with me as I missed deadline after deadline; to C for your brutal honesty about my first draft, because this story is a thousand times better because of your advice; and to V for the britpick and for being far nicer than I probably deserve about the last-minute-ness of the whole thing. Dear Mystery Prompter: The Day of the Triffids has long been a favorite of mine and when I saw that someone else loved it enough to prompt it, I pretty much had to write it. I hope you’ll enjoy what I’ve done.

For the seventh day in a row, Harry woke to total darkness. But unlike the previous seven days where he spent those few long and hazy seconds between sleep and wakefulness disoriented and confused and half-convinced he was back in his cupboard, today he came fully awake in an instant. He sat up slowly, pushing his sheets and blankets away, and inhaled deeply to let the faint spearmint scent that lingered on the cool air reassure him that he was still safe in St Mungo’s.

He cocked his head to the side, listening carefully, and after a moment was able to distinguish the sound of someone breathing just a few feet away. Each exhale was a soft puff, and after seven years of hearing it every night in his dorm room, Harry recognised it instantly.

But beyond the comfortingly familiar sound of Ron’s breathing, there was nothing. Over the last week, Harry had become very familiar with the assorted background noises of a typical day at St Mungo’s. A murmur of conversation from the hall. A bird twittering outside the window. The dull rush of Muggle traffic on the street down below. The rattle and clatter of the potions trolley as a Healer made his rounds, delivering doses of medicine to each patient.

It was the deep and solemn silence that Harry associated with very early Sunday mornings, and when a Wednesday sounded this much like a Sunday, he couldn’t help but think that there was something very very wrong.

Harry leaned back against his pillows and gently felt along his head, making sure the thick swaddling of bandages hadn’t come loose, even though the total darkness told him that it hadn’t. They were supposed to come off today, and thank god for that. Harry hated being unable to see, and not just for the hassle of being temporarily blind. This sort of unrelenting darkness made Harry imagine all sorts of things which might be lurking nearby. Especially in the long hours of night. As he’d only had a thin pallet spread over the floor of his cupboard to sleep on, Harry, unlike most other children, had never had a reason to fear a monster lurking beneath his bed. But now the idea that something might be hiding down there, unseen, might even be reaching for him now and he had no idea…

Feeling foolish, Harry nonetheless tucked his blankets more firmly around himself, a small protection from invisible threats.

The small clock Mrs Weasley had delivered on her first visit began to strike out the hour, and Harry turned his head toward it as he counted the tones.

…six, seven, eight.

He frowned. That couldn’t be right. The Mediwitches assigned to this ward always came by shortly before the seven o’clock shift change to do a last round of diagnostics and checks so that the new shift would be brought up to speed with the most recent information about their patients. Sheets rustled on the other bed, and Harry turned his head in Ron’s direction.

“You awake?” he asked.

“Yeah,” came Ron’s sleepy mumble. “M’awake.”

Harry opened his mouth, then shut it again, still feeling foolish. Like he was jumping at shadows. He took a breath and said, “Ron. I think something’s wrong.”

There was another rustle of sheets, and Ron sounded more alert when he asked, “With your eyes?”

“No,” said Harry. “Not that. Just, listen. And tell me what you hear.”

A few seconds slipped by in silence. “Nothing,” Ron said softly. “I don’t hear anything.”

“Exactly,” Harry said. “And it’s eight o’clock.”

He could imagine his friend frowning. “What do you think’s happened?”

“I don’t know. I’m going to go try to find someone,” Harry said.

He flipped the corner of his blanket aside and swung his legs out of bed. He tried to ignore his entirely irrational fear that the lurking something beneath his bed might try to grab his ankles. He reminded himself that he was seventeen and of age and being absolutely bloody ridiculous and an absolute bloody child about this. But he still felt relieved when nothing reached for him. He shuffled his way across the room to the door and groped for the handle, and opened it enough to poke his head out.

“Hello?” he called. “Is anyone there? No one’s been in to see us this morning.”

A small commotion rose up farther down the hall, like dozens of voices all shouting together. Something about it set Harry’s teeth on edge and he took a small step back. The voices died away, and in the silence that followed came a series of heavy, dull footsteps interspersed with a rhythmic patting, and then a door opened several rooms down. More footsteps, more patting, and another door opened. Harry eased his own door shut and turned back for his bed.

He banged his shin painfully against the iron bedframe as he groped his way back across the room, then clambered back up onto the mattress and yanked the blankets over his lap. He slid his hand under his pillow and grabbed his wand. He’d bet anything Ron had his out as well.

After a minute or so, the footsteps and patting came closer. And then their doorknob jiggled, turned, and the hinges sighed as the door swung open. Harry shifted his weight, ready to jump up at a moment’s notice, and to his horror the bed frame creaked.

“Anyone there?” came a rough male voice. “Can you see?”

“No, mate,” Ron said. “Are you a Healer?”

The man laughed, soft and dry and unsettling. “Wants to know if I’m a Healer,” he muttered to himself, and then the patting sound started up again as footsteps went off, disappearing down the hall.

As soon as the sounds receded, Harry surged out of bed and hurried across the room to shut the door, fumbling with the knob until he managed to lock it.

“What are we going to do?” Harry asked as he returned to his bed.

“I don’t know,” Ron said slowly. “Wait for a Healer, I suppose. Someone’s got to be along at some point, right?”

“Right,” said Harry, though he didn’t sound quite convinced. He hated being this helpless.

They sat in silence for a few more minutes, then Ron sighed.

“Bloody hell, this is all Neville’s fault,” he said. There was a rustle of fabric and Harry imagined him folding his arms over his chest. “Neville and all his bloody triffids.”

 

****

 

No one knew where exactly the triffids had come from, though unfounded theories and half-baked speculation ran rampant. Some said they were a scientific experiment gone wrong. Others said it was a government conspiracy, or a foreign attack that had got horribly out of hand. A few of the more outlandish theories suggested that they might have come from space.

Not that where they’d come from made much of a difference, anyway. One day there were no triffids, and then suddenly they had sprung up all over the world.

Harry remembered the very first time he saw one. He was young, only five or six years old, and had been banished to the back garden while Aunt Petunia hosted an afternoon tea for some of the other ladies in the neighbourhood. It was quite small, less than a foot high, and growing in a small patch of dirt behind the gardening shed. He’d been curious about this strange plant, with the odd formation of three small sticks growing up from its straight stalk and its leathery green leaves, and especially about the odd funnel-like cup that grew at its very top. Harry leaned close to peek into the funnel and found a puddle of sticky goo in the very bottom, dotted with bugs, some of which were still struggling. In the very center was a strange little whorl.

Being all of six years old, Harry found the idea of a plant that ate bugs to be the most marvelous thing he’d ever encountered. He dug around the garden until he managed to capture an earthworm. Curious to see whether the strange little plant would eat that too, he dropped it into the cup, then leaned close to see what would happen.

Quick as a flash, the whorl unfurled and lashed out at him, stinging him across the cheek. Harry toppled over backward, falling down onto his bum as he clapped one hand to his face. It took a few seconds for the surprise at what the plant had just done to fade enough for the pain to set in. But when it did, it hurt. The whole left side of his face felt as if it had a thousand wasps on it, all biting him at once, and he could feel a welt raising up beneath his fingertips. He’d sniffled once, twice, and big tears rolled down his cheeks as he’d barged into the house and gone to his aunt. She took one look at the long red welt across his face, and gave a tight smile to the ladies assembled around her tea service.

“My sister’s boy,” she said apologetically. “Terribly clumsy little thing. Come along, Harry, let’s get you sorted out.” Her fingers tightened around his arm, her nails digging in like claws as she hauled him from the room. “What did you do this time?” she hissed at him in a low whisper as soon as they were away from the living room.

“I didn’t do anything,” Harry said. “A plant bit me.”

Her mouth puckered up like she’d just bitten into something sour. “A plant bit you,” she repeated. “One of your plants, I suppose it was.”

Harry didn’t know what she meant by that, but he shook his head anyway. The plant was growing in his Aunt’s back garden; didn’t that make it her plant?

“Serves you right, then,” she said. “Into your cupboard with you.”

“But,” said Harry. He put his fingers to his cheek. He could feel a swollen ridge where the plant had stung him, and it felt hot to the touch. “It hurts.”

“I don’t want to hear it,” Aunt Petunia said. “In with you, and I don’t want to hear another peep or there’ll be trouble.”

Harry sniffled and nodded, and went into his cupboard where he pulled the blankets over his head so she wouldn’t hear him crying.

He spent the rest of the evening locked up in his cupboard, until Dudley had thrown a fit over being fed broccoli for supper and gone out to hide behind the gardening shed. The plant had stung him too, right across his arm. Dudley was taken to the doctor to have his arm looked at. He was the third case that week, the doctor said, and he was quite lucky. A mature plant had venom strong enough to kill a grown man, but Dudley had been stung by a young one and its poison sacs had been mostly depleted. It could have been much worse, they were assured.

Uncle Vernon destroyed the plant the very next day, but that wasn’t the end of it. Soon, the strange little plants were springing up everywhere. And growing at an alarming rate.

There was a brief effort to be rid of them once it became common knowledge how dangerous their stings were. A full-grown plant stood seven or eight feet tall, and the whorl could lash out nearly ten feet. However, it was soon discovered that they could be disabled by lopping off that little whorl and it took nearly two years to grow back. After that, people left them alone aside from a yearly pruning, and for the most part they were regarded as a sort of harmless curiosity. They were planted in parks, and after a time it became very much the fashion to have a triffid or two in one’s front garden. A few years later, once scientists figured out that they could be boiled down into a cheap and nutritious feed for cattle, humanity began to cultivate them in wide, fenced-in fields.

It wasn’t only Muggles who were fascinated by these strange plants. Hagrid, for one, was absolutely thrilled by them, an affinity which should have set alarm bells ringing all over Hogwarts. He kept a whole garden of them on the fringes of the Forbidden Forest, and every few weeks he’d drive a small bunch of deer into the fenced-in pen he’d constructed around it. The triffids would lash out, the deer would fall, and Hagrid would beam at his lot of murderous vegetation like it was something sweet and harmless, like a hippogriff, or a baby dragon, or a three-headed dog. The triffids made all of those seem perfectly reasonable.

It wasn’t until Harry’s seventh year at Hogwarts that the first triffid picked up its roots and began to walk.

It was all over the Muggle news as triffids everywhere began to leave their gardens and fields and started to wander. They simply pulled their roots loose from the earth, revealing three bluntly tapered protrusions from the bottom of their stalks, which they used to shuffle forward in an odd, shambling gait, rather like a man on crutches. At its top speed, a triffid could move along at a pace easily matched by a moderate walk.

The Muggles simply staked them down with ropes, fenced in their fields, and continued on with their annual prunings.

The Wizarding world, however, flew into something of a panic. There had been years-long debate over whether the plants were magical in nature, but this settled it. Muggle plants simply didn’t walk. The triffids’ sudden mobility was irrefutable proof that a magical plant had somehow got loose into the Muggle world and, while the Ministry prattled on about violations to the Statute of Secrecy, herbologists everywhere began to study them in earnest to work out a way to control them and solve the triffid problem once and for all.

Pomona Sprout was one such herbologist, and her star NEWT pupil, Neville Longbottom, was invited to assist.

And Neville, being Neville, was over the moon about it, and that was why Harry found himself tagging along to Greenhouse Five on the sort of beautifully sunny Wednesday afternoon that begged to be spent astride a broom fifty feet over the Quidditch pitch.

“Tell me why I’m wasting a whole afternoon of Easter hols to go look at some plants?” Ron muttered to Harry as Hermione and Neville hurried up the path ahead of them, chattering excitedly to each other as they went.

“Because,” said Harry. “The alternative is studying for your NEWTs. With Hermione.”

“Ah,” said Ron. “Right. That.” He grimaced. “You’d think with a war on she’d be less fixated on studying.”

Harry just shrugged and let the conversation go. In just another couple of months he’d leave school and join up with the Aurors and begin fighting the war against Voldemort in earnest. The Order and the Death Eaters had fought to a standstill, and tension between the two sides mounted with each passing day. He knew the Order was counting on the Boy Who Lived joining the fight to tip the balance in their favour. Harry hoped they were right, and that it would all end quickly after that.

They reached Greenhouse Five and Neville pulled the door open, and held it for them as they filed inside. The air inside was heavy, warm and humid, and Harry stifled a yawn. A metal fan whirred away on a nearby table, emitting a low droning as it stirred the stuffy air. Half a dozen clay pots sat just beside it on the table, with a triffid sprouting from the dark soil of each one. These were young, only seven or eight inches high, not even close to the seven or eight feet they’d reach when they matured.

“Here,” Neville said, indicating them with a broad sweep of his hand. “This is what I’ve been working with. We’ve been testing their reproductive capabilities, trying to figure out if there’s a way to sterilise them. If we can keep the triffid population from growing, that could be one possibility for eliminating them.” He gestured to a jar on the shelf above the fan. “We’ve also been collecting triffid venom—”

“But we all know how they reproduce. All those little seed pods in the springtime,” Hermione cut in.

“Yeah, I’d be all for getting a way to end that,” Ron said.

Harry nodded in agreement. There were loads of triffids growing in the Forbidden Forest, and sometimes if the wind blew in just right it could carry all their little seed pods – puffy little things that looked rather like dandelion fluff – all the way to Hogwarts. The last time that’d happened had been during the Gryffindor-Ravenclaw Quidditch match, and all the players had been constantly getting them in their mouths and up their noses. It’d taken Harry nearly the entire day before he’d finally spotted the snitch in between all the seed pods.

“No, see, it’s all very interesting,” Neville said, and sounded for all the world like he meant it. “They’ve got the seed pods, but they’ve also got these little bits here.” He paused to indicate the three stubby protrusions that sprouted from the plants’ stems. “And just below that is a small gap in the stem. We’re still testing to see what exactly it is, probably part of the reproductive system, but we just can’t figure out how.”

“And they’ve all got it?” Hermione asked.

Neville nodded, and Ron frowned. “So it’s what, like a botanical glory-hole?”

A long and awkward silence fell in the wake of his question.

Then Harry, against his better judgment, asked, “Ron, mate. Do you even know what a glory-hole is?”

“Er, it’s that thing that fish and chickens have? Like, the all-in-one thing?”

“Uh, not quite,” said Harry.

“I believe you’re thinking of a cloaca,” Hermione muttered, leaning closer to get a better look at one of the triffids.

“Not so close,” Neville warned, reaching out to stop her.

He yanked her out of the way just as three of the plants struck out at once. Two of the lashes whipped harmlessly at the air, but the third connected with a shelf, knocking gloves and trowels and jars of soil samples aside. The whole lot went flying, clay pots crashing to the floor, packets of seed scattering. And the bottle of triffid venom toppled off its shelf and smashed atop the wire cage of the fan, and the spinning blades sent it spraying out in a fine mist.

Harry’s vision blurred and greyed as he stumbled back, tears welling up from the pain. The venom irritating his exposed skin was nothing compared to how it burned his eyes or stung his nose and throat.

“Eyes shut!” Neville shouted as they staggered back. “Don’t rub them.”

Harry stumbled back, arms outstretched. His hip knocked into a table and something crashed to the ground. Someone took him by the hand and led him across the room.

“Stay here,” Neville said, his voice low and raspy. “Ron! Don’t move, you’re about to knock into that snarfalump and we’ll never get it untangled if you—Hermione, don’t struggle, it’s just me.”

The door banged open. “What’s going on in here?” came Professor Sprout’s voice.

“The jar of triffid venom fell on the fan,” Neville said, then gave a horrible wracking cough. “Got all of us.” He coughed again. “I’m fine but I think the rest got it in their eyes.”

“Don’t worry,” Sprout assured them. “I know it hurts, but we’ll get you all off to St Mungo’s and they’ll have you right as rain.”

Professor Sprout took Harry and Ron by the hands like children as she led them back to the castle while Neville escorted Hermione. Madam Pomfrey clucked over them for a moment, assessing the damage. Neville, who’d managed to avoid getting any of the venom in his eyes, she could treat there. Harry, Ron, and Hermione were quickly bundled into the floo to St Mungo’s.

Several hours later, the Healers had done all they could for them. Their skin had been easily treated, as had their throats and lungs for the venom they’d inhaled. However, all three of them now had potion-treated pads of gauze pressed firmly over their eyes and held in place with thick bandages swaddled round their heads, and the unfortunate news that they would have to keep them on for the next week while their eyes healed.

“Sorry,” Hermione said. She’d been brought into the hospital room that Harry would be sharing with Ron until next Wednesday. “I shouldn’t have gone so close to them.”

“Well, to be fair I think Neville should have warned us they weren’t pruned,” Ron grumbled. “How many years has it been since any of us has seen one that wasn’t pruned?”

“Yeah,” Harry said. “But he feels awful enough about it as it is.” Neville had managed about half a dozen apologies before they’d all gone into the Floo, and Harry didn’t doubt they’d get more after they got back.

“I wasn’t going to say that to his face,” Ron protested. “And anyhow, spending the week in the hospital is better than studying, at least.”

Harry couldn’t think of a worse way to spend his week than blind and trapped in hospital bed, but Hermione beat him to replying.

Hermione made a small sound of disbelief. “You do realise that we sit our NEWTs in just seven weeks! Do you have any idea how much—”

Harry snorted. “I think you’re lucky Hermione can’t see you right now,” he said. “She’d probably slap you.”

“Really, you ought to take this seriously,” she said. “You need passing grades to get into the Aurors.”

“I’m pretty sure they’d let Harry in anyhow,” Ron said.

Harry shifted in his seat. “Well, it’s not like we can do anything about it. Just wait a week, and then do what we can.”

“A week,” Hermione sighed. “And I was really looking forward to the meteor shower. Everyone’s saying it’s going to be the biggest in recorded history.”

 

****

 

It was a shame to miss seeing the meteor shower by just one day. The bandages were scheduled to come off tomorrow morning, but it would all be over by then. Hermione was the most upset about it, of course; Ron was more upset to be missing out on his mother’s famous Irish stew that she was making for the family when they gathered at the Burrow to watch the shower.

Harry and Ron kept the radio tuned to the on the WWN and listened as the announcer talked about the shower, his lavish descriptions punctuated by lots of oohs and ahhs from the small group of witches and wizards who’d joined him in the studio, just to really get the point across. Harry tolerated it until the announcer described the meteor flare as Avada Kedavra green – “What it must feel like to be staring down a Killing Curse, ladies and gentlemen!” – and then Harry switched the wireless off.

“Hey, I was listening to that,” Ron protested.

“Then go into Hermione’s room if you want to keep listening,” Harry huffed, turning over in his bed. “I’m sure she’s got her radio on.”

Something in the tone of his voice kept Ron from saying even one word in protest. He just got out of bed and shuffled over to the door where he called out for a Mediwitch to escort him down the hall.

Harry sighed into the silence that followed Ron’s departure. He felt sort of guilty for snapping at his friend as he had, but without the distraction of school and classes, Harry’s nerves had grown increasingly frayed. Mostly he just listened to the wireless, and mostly they just talked about the war. And all of it together was just too much.

Someone tapped lightly on the door, and then Harry heard the faint swish of it opening.

“I’ve just come to check your vitals,” said the Mediwitch, the one from the evening shift with the nasal voice.

Harry held still as a series of spells washed over him in a faint tickle of magic and answered tersely as she ran through her usual list of questions: any pain, any itching, any dizziness? Harry answered no to everything, then settled back against the pillows as she bustled around the room. He listened to her collect empty potions vials, and straighten the sheets on Ron’s bed.

“Shame the bandages aren’t coming off until tomorrow,” she said brightly, and Harry heard the window curtains rustle. “The meteor shower is beautiful.”

“I’m sure it is,” he grumbled, but all he could think of was Avada Kedavra green. He’d seen enough of that colour to last him a lifetime.

“The whole world’s watching, I’m sure,” she went on. “It’s visible across the whole world, they’re saying. You ought to see the rooftops. Packed full, every single one of them!”

Her heels clicked on the floor as she crossed the room, and a moment later Harry felt the gentle pressure of her hand on his shoulder, there and gone before he even had time to tense up.

“They’ll have photos in the paper tomorrow, I’m sure. You can see it then. Not quite the same of course…”

“Yeah,” Harry said, agreeing with her to make her go away. “That sounds good.”

Her footsteps clicked over to the door, and the door opened and shut. Harry slid down against his pillows, tucked the blankets around his shoulders, and settled in to sleep.

Tomorrow morning couldn’t come soon enough.

 

****

 

Only a few minutes had ticked by when a great clash and clatter echoed up the hall and someone screamed. Harry started, then froze, straining his ears for something else. But he couldn’t hear anything else. God, he couldn’t do this. He couldn’t keep sitting here.

“That’s it. I’m doing it,” he announced.

“Wait another minute,” Ron said. “Let me make sure the windows are closed.”

Harry remembered the Healer saying they’d take the bandages off in dim light to make sure that his eyes had healed properly, and he listened as Ron eased his way out of bed and moved across the room with small, cautious steps. There was the scrape of curtain rings sliding along the metal curtain rod, and then Ron called that it was closed.

Reaching up, Harry plucked at the knot securing the bandages around his head and worked it loose. He carefully unwound the bandages until they fell away. He kept his eyes shut tight.

“Okay,” he whispered, trying to quell his sudden rush of nerves. What if something had gone wrong? What if the treatment hadn’t worked?

“Did you do it?” Ron asked.

“They’re off, but I haven’t opened my eyes yet,” Harry told him, then took a deep breath. “Okay. Here I go.”

Slowly, Harry cracked open one eyelid, then the other. For a long and terrifying moment, everything was blurry and painfully bright. Even the dim light of their curtained room was too much. But little by little, his eyes adjusted and Harry could look about him without pain. Everything was still blurred, and he groped for his bedside table where someone had left his glasses for him. He fumbled them onto his face and blinked a few times as the room came into focus.

“Harry?” Ron asked.

“I’m fine,” Harry said. “I can see.”

“Well that’s a relief. Help me with these things?”

Harry crossed over to Ron’s bed and gently batted his hands away from the bandages swaddling his head. He easily undid the knots holding them in place and unwound them.

“Eyes closed,” Harry said as he reached the final few layers. “It’ll be bright at first.”

The last of the bandages fell away, and Ron slowly blinked his eyes open, wincing in the dim light.

“All right?” Harry asked after a minute or so.

“Yeah, I’m fine,” Ron said.

He got out of bed and found where their clothing had been stashed in a small cupboard. They dressed quickly and kept their wands firmly in hand as they moved to the door in unspoken agreement.

Harry opened it and stepped out into the hall with Ron on his heels.

The corridor was deserted, and Ron and Harry cautiously made their way down it. Around the corner, they discovered the metal potions trolley knocked on its side, its contents spread over the floor in a mess of broken glass and colorful splashes of potions. There was a bloody handprint smeared on the wall just above it, and more blood smudged in a faint trail leading off down the hallway.

“What the hell happened here?” Ron asked, his eyes following the trail of blood.

“I don’t know, but I think we’d better find Hermione,” Harry said quietly.

They knew that Hermione was in a nearby room, so they split up to search. Harry opened three rooms and found them empty until in the fourth he found Hermione sitting up in bed. She turned her head in his direction as he came in.

“Is someone there?” she asked.

“Hermione, it’s me,” he said as he shut the door again and crossed the room to draw the curtains.

“Harry?”

“Yeah. Listen, something’s gone very wrong. I’m going to take off your bandages, okay?”

Hermione pushed his hands away as he began working at the knotted gauze. “But the Healer said—”

“I don’t know where the Healer is,” Harry said as he pushed her hands down and went back to the knots. “I don’t know where anyone is, but it’s… Something’s very wrong. Ron and I both took our bandages off and we’re fine. I’m sure you are, too. Close your eyes, I’ve drawn the curtains but it’s still going to be bright at first.”

Hermione did as he told her, and after a few minutes of wincing and blinking she was able to look around without pain. Harry handed her the folded stack of her clothing from the cupboard, and turned around while she dressed. She took her wand from the bedside table and together they went out into the hall.

“What happened?” Hermione asked when she saw the potions trolley. She moved a little closer to Harry.

“I don’t know,” he said grimly.

In the distance, someone screamed. Harry glanced over his shoulder where he thought it had come from, but couldn’t see anything. Hermione frowned and tightened her grip on her wand, and moved a little closer to Harry so that their elbows brushed with every step. They rounded the corner and found Ron.

“Are you all right?” Ron asked Hermione as he hurried over.

“Yes,” she said, slipping her hand into Ron’s. He gripped back so tight that his knuckles stood out white, but she didn’t complain.

“Have you seen anyone else?” Harry asked Ron.

Ron shook his head. “What should we do now?”

Harry looked to Ron and Hermione and found them both looking back at him. “Try to find someone, I guess. I mean, something’s clearly gone wrong here. We’ll try to find someone who knows what’s happened.” He frowned as he glanced back toward the hall with the wrecked potions trolley. He could just make out the blood smudged along the wall. “And if we can’t, we’ll go to Diagon Alley.”

Of the three of them, Ron was the most familiar with the layout of St Mungo’s, and he led the way to the lifts. He pressed the button, but nothing happened. Ron frowned and pressed it again.

“It’s not working,” he said, giving the button a third jab. “We’ll have to take the stairs.”

They kept close together as they moved down the hall. About half the doors of the rooms they passed were open, but they didn’t see a single person anywhere. Harry wondered what had become of the man who’d come to his room that morning. He wondered what had become of everyone.

When they reached the door leading into the stairwell, they hesitated, and Ron eased it open as quietly as he could, and when they didn’t hear anything, he led the way into the stairwell, pausing on the landing to check both up and down. Harry followed close behind, his wand drawn and ready, with his Hermione right on his heels. The thick and unbroken silence rubbed his nerves raw.

When they reached the last flight of stairs, from Creature Induced Injuries on the first floor down to the ground level, they found more blood. There wasn’t much of it, not even as much as from the wrecked potions trolley. A little bit smeared on the handrails here, a little more splattered on the steps there. None of it was fresh; all of it looked hours-old, already drying and turning brown.

“What the fuck happened?” Ron asked, his voice reverberating in the stairwell

“I guess we’ll find out,” Harry said, moving around him and leading the way down the last flight of stairs.

When he reached the bottom he hesitated at the door leading out into the lobby. When he didn’t hear anything beyond it, he carefully pushed it open. The lobby was entirely deserted and completely wrecked. Chairs overturned, the Welcome Witch’s station in shambles. There was more blood, more than there had been in the stairwell. Tracked across the floor, smeared on the wall in a vague handprint. Dread crawled up Harry’s back and settled at the base of his skull. What had happened here?

“Oh!” Hermione cried out, rushing forward, and Harry followed her without thinking.

He caught sight of what she’d seen only a moment later. Crumpled on the floor by the bank of Floos was a witch, and Hermione dropped to her knees beside the woman and checked for a pulse. She snatched her hand back and stood up, backing up a step.

“Is she…” Ron asked.

“Dead,” Hermione said curtly. “Still warm, so it didn’t happen too long ago.” She frowned staring down, then knelt again. “Help me turn her over.”

“But,” Ron said. “She’s dead.”

Harry knelt beside Hermione, trusting that she had a reason for this; she always had a reason for everything she did. Together, they rolled the witch onto her back, exposing a deep wound across her stomach.

“Her Suture Spell must have come undone,” Hermione said. She sat back on her heels, biting her lip as she looked back across the lobby. “It must have come undone… and she came down here to get help?”

“Looks like she was trying to leave,” Ron said, nodding down at where the woman’s arm was flung to one side. “Floo powder on her hand.”

“Well I, for one, agree with her,” Harry said, rubbing his hands on the knees of his jeans as he stood. “I don’t know what’s gone on here but it doesn’t seem like anyone knows about it yet. We should go and get the Aurors or the Order. Or someone.”

They went over to the nearest Floo, and Ron scooped up a handful of powder from the container on the mantelpiece. He tossed it in as he announced, “The Ministry of Magic!”

The Floo powder struck the back of the fireplace in a soft grey puff, but otherwise nothing happened. Ron frowned and tried again, and when again the Floo failed to flare to life, he stuck his head in and peered up into the grating.

“Is the Floo Network down, do you think?” Hermione asked.

“I don’t know—” Ron began, but broke off as someone just outside the main doors to the hospital cried out as if in pain.

Moments later, the front doors banged open and Draco Malfoy stumbled into the lobby. He had a short length of rope knotted around his neck, and Fenrir Greyback held tight to the other end. He gave Malfoy another shove forward, crowding him into the lobby.

“Get someone,” he growled.

Malfoy’s wide, panicked gaze skittered around the room before he caught sight of Harry. His eyes widened. “It’s happened here too,” he said. “There’s no one here.”

“Then you’ll just have to do it,” Greyback said, shoving him forward, farther into the lobby. “You’ll find me a potion or treatment.”

“I can’t! I’m not a Healer,” Malfoy protested, and Greyback jerked on Malfoy’s rope.

Malfoy stumbled toward him and Greyback hit him with his free hand. His fist glanced off Malfoy’s head, but Malfoy fell to his knees, crying out, one arm raised in feeble protection as Greyback held his arm back, poised and ready to take another swing even though his gaze was vague and unfocused and aimed off to Malfoy’s right. And it was then that the rope and Malfoy suddenly made sense. Greyback was blind, and he was using Malfoy to lead him around.

“I’m sorry!” Malfoy whimpered. “I don’t know what you want me to do, there’s no one here and I can’t, there’s nothing I can do!”

Harry certainly didn’t like Malfoy, but he couldn’t just stand idly by and let this happen. He raised his wand, grateful that Defence class had drilled them in non-verbal casting, and aimed a Diffindo at the rope.

Nothing happened.

Harry raised his wand to try again.

“There’s no magic,” Malfoy said, looking straight at Harry. “All the wards are down. All the spells have failed. Wands don’t work.”

Harry glanced back at Ron and Hermione and mouthed, “No Magic?” He tried another spell, a Lumos, murmuring the incantation under his breath. Ron and Hermione swished and flicked as well, to no effect.

Greyback swung at Malfoy again. “I didn’t ask you for a bleeding recap. I told you to find me potions to fix my eyes. Now get up.” He yanked on the rope and hauled Malfoy, choking and coughing, to his feet.

Harry wished he were the sort of person who could just turn around and walk away. Let Malfoy just lie in whatever fucked-up bed he’d made. But being Greyback’s captive wasn’t something Harry would wish on his worst enemy. Or, in this case, his schoolboy nemesis. He looked back at his friends and gestured to Malfoy.

Ron quirked an eyebrow at Harry as if to ask, Really?. Harry nodded, then shrugged and jerked a thumb in Malfoy’s direction. Ron stared at him for a moment, then sighed.

“If we get hurt rescuing that stupid git, I’m going to kill you,” he muttered, just loud enough for Harry to make out the words.

That was fair enough. But Harry didn’t plan on any of them getting hurt. It’d be three on one, with Greyback blind. Even without magic, they could handle this.

Ron motioned for the others to hang back as he crept over to the Welcome Witch’s station, where there had been a bouquet of flowers in a decorative red vase, but the vase had been knocked onto its side and the flowers were scattered and trampled all over the floor. Ron picked up the vase and began to slowly circle around behind Greyback and Malfoy. He gestured for Harry and Hermione to move forward. Hermione gave Harry a nudge to the right while she moved off to the left.

Greyback’s head snapped up, nostrils flaring as he inhaled deeply. “Who’s there,” he demanded, still sniffing the air.

“No one, there’s no one,” Malfoy said, his eyes darting from Harry to Hermione and back again, and Harry gritted his teeth against a frustrated sigh. He really should have known better than to lie about it.

“Don’t lie to me, I can smell them. Tell me who’s there!” Greyback snarled, giving Malfoy a rough shake.

“I don’t know!” Malfoy said, his eyes fixed desperately on Harry. “I don’t know, I don’t know them. They’re blind, though. Harmless. Just other patients. Please don’t—”

Greyback yanked Malfoy close and swung at him, his fist striking Malfoy’s head. Malfoy cried out and tried to jerk away, but with Greyback’s hold on his leash he had nowhere to go.

“What’s happening?” Hermione called out. She moved forward a little, her steps uneven as she scuffed her shoes over the tiled floor. “Can one of you see?” She glanced back at Harry, and he nodded to her.

“Who’s there?” Harry said, playing along. “We can’t find our way out.”

Ron continued to circle around, drawing closer to Greyback from behind, while Harry continued to move to the right. Malfoy watched them with wide, desperate eyes. His chest heaved in shallow, panting breaths.

“Stay back,” Greyback said, hauling Malfoy close and curling one hand around his neck. “He’s mine and you can’t have him.”

“Don’t,” Malfoy whined as Greyback’s long nails dug into the tender skin at his throat. “Don’t, please.”

“We’re not going to do anything,” Hermione said, shuffling forward another step. “Just, if you could help us get home again. We can’t see.”

“No!” he growled. “No, he’s mine!”

“Please,” Malfoy whimpered, still watching Harry.

Ron hefted the vase, darted forward, and swung. The heavy porcelain shattered across the back of Greyback’s skull and he went down hard, moaning. Malfoy jerked the other end of the rope free of Greyback’s fist and aimed a vicious kick to the back of his head, and Greyback went still.

“Come on,” he said, grabbing at one of Greyback’s wrists and pulling hard. “Get him outside and lock the doors before he wakes up.”

Between the four of them, they managed to haul Greyback’s unconscious form outside and dump him on the pavement. Back inside, they barred the door and Harry dragged Malfoy over to the Welcome Witch’s station and sat him down on the desk. He picked up a pair of scissors and used the blades to cut through the rope around Malfoy’s neck.

“Oh thank Merlin,” Malfoy said, trying to turn his head enough to look at Harry. With Greyback outside, he’d gone shaky with relief. “I thought I was the only one left who could still see.”

“Stop moving,” Harry told him, giving his head a shove back. “It’d be a shame for us to have rescued you like that, only for me to stab you in the neck because you can’t bloody well hold still.”

Malfoy was still trembling, but he held still enough for Harry to cut the rope away from him. He tossed the rope and scissors aside, and Malfoy brushed his fingers over his neck where rope had rubbed it raw.

“Now,” said Ron, folding his arms over his chest. “Would you care to tell us what exactly is going on?”

“Everyone’s gone blind, and there’s no more magic. I don’t know much about how it happened,” Malfoy said. He looked down at his lap and toyed distractedly with a loose thread at his cuff. “We were at our London home last night. The Dark Lord had decided that the meteor shower was an omen of his impending victory or some rubbish like that. He’d brought us all together so that we could celebrate by torturing some Muggles they’d captured.” Something in Harry’s face must have betrayed his surprise at hearing Malfoy speak so openly of the Death Eaters, because Malfoy scowled at him. “This is much bigger than that. The war’s over, Potty. And we’ve all lost.”

“How about you stop speaking in bloody circles and just tell us what’s happening,” Ron said. “You said there’s no magic? And everyone’s blind?”

“We think it’s the meteors,” Malfoy said. “Everyone who watched them went blind.”

Harry shivered at that. He remembered the Mediwitch last night describing the shower. How everyone was watching, the whole world over. Had all of them lost their sight? Was it really the whole world and not just St Mungo’s?

“Then how can you still see?” Hermione asked.

“I didn’t watch,” Malfoy said. He swallowed and looked away. “They brought out the Muggles and invited me to participate. As it turns out, I don’t have the stomach for that sort of thing. They locked me up in the cellar. Told me I was…” He trailed off and drew in a shaky breath. “That they’d save me for when they ran out of Muggles.”

Harry couldn’t imagine Lucius and Narcissa going along with that. “And your parents…?”

“Didn’t know about it, I’m sure. Rodolphus put me in the cellar. My parents were preparing the back garden for the evening’s events. They didn’t know. My father wouldn’t have…” The loose thread broke with a soft snap. Malfoy dropped it and watched it drift to the floor. “I must have fallen asleep. The next thing I knew, Rodolphus was back. Blind. Said I was going to be his eyes.”

“And Greyback?” Ron asked.

“Killed Rodolphus. Right in front of me. Said he’d kill me too, if I didn’t cooperate. Tied me to him, and made me bring him here.” His hand drifted to his throat.

“I don’t know what the point of it was. Either St Mungo’s was affected as well and there’d be no one to help him. Or it wasn’t, and they’d just have him arrested,” Hermione said, frowning at the door for a moment before she turned back to Malfoy. “What else is going on out there? Have you seen any authorities taking control of the situation? Magical or Muggle?”

Malfoy shook his head. “No, there’s hardly anyone about.”

He’d started to calm down by now. At least, he wasn’t trembling anymore, as far as Harry could see. It struck Harry, just then, that this was the most civil conversation he’d ever had with Malfoy. That any of them had ever had with Malfoy. And that scared him more than hearing that most of the city, possibly the world, had gone blind. More than finding out that magic had stopped working. Because if Malfoy was scared enough to stop acting like a prick, that meant all of this was real.

“Well then,” Harry said, and it was a struggle to keep his voice calm. “I think our plan should stay the same. Try to get to the Ministry.”

Malfoy frowned at him. “Who elected you leader?”

Harry stared back at him. “Have you got a better idea, then?”

“I need to find my parents,” Malfoy said.

“You’re more than welcome to go find them right now,” Ron said, gesturing to the exit. “There’s the door right there.”

The door rattled on its hinges as a heavy weight thumped against it, and Malfoy flinched. “Pardon me if that doesn’t seem like a terribly good option right now,” he said. The door rattled again. “Do you think we might continue this conversation somewhere else?”

“He’s right, as much as I hate to admit it,” Harry said. “Come on. There’s got to be a back door we can use.” He started across the lobby and the others followed him. “Malfoy, where’s your parents’ house?”

“Just on the other side of Diagon Alley.”

“That’s not too far from here,” Harry said. “And it’s roughly on the way to the Ministry. We’ll head that way, check out Diagon, drop Malfoy at his parents’ house, then head for the Ministry. All right?” They turned off the main hallway and into what appeared to be a staff area. Harry didn’t see anyone else, and everything was quiet.

It didn’t take them too long to find a door that led outside from one of the staff rooms. Harry pushed it open and stepped out into a narrow alleyway, just barely wide enough for one car to pass through. Ron and Malfoy followed him out, and Hermione lingered for a moment to wedge the door open with a small piece of stone she found lying nearby.

If Harry had thought the eerie silence was bad while he was still tucked safely into his bed up in his hospital room, it was nothing compared to what it felt like from out here. Other than the slight breeze, nothing moved. Harry couldn’t even hear any birds, or the rush of traffic, or anything. Just perfect, dead silence.

Unease itched at Harry’s skin, prickled at the back of his mind, rattled around in the base of his lungs like a loose stone. And he understood why Malfoy was so willing to stay close to three people he’d never been able to stand before. Harry wouldn’t want to face this silence by himself either.

Ron took Hermione by the hand, and Hermione reached out and curled her fingers around Harry’s fingers as well. Her wand dug painfully into the back of his fingers, but he didn’t complain. Malfoy took in their joined hands with a mild sneer but didn’t say anything. Which is just as well because Ron looked pretty close to punching him.

Harry’s apprehension only grew as they moved out of the alleyway and emerged onto a road. And there it became suddenly, frightfully clear that whatever had happened hadn’t only affected St Mungo’s. There were no cars moving on the street, though several were stopped in the middle of the road, and only two people wandering in the distance, hand in hand and moving slowly as they felt their way along the plate glass windows of a store. Dread settled behind Harry’s ribs in a cold weight that made it hard to breathe. There was something about London that had always struck Harry as immutable. It had always been here; it would always be here. Bustling with activity, millions of people crowded in together and living. But to see it like this. Desolate. Deserted. Quiet.

Malfoy’s words hadn’t prepared him for the reality of it.

They’d all come to a stop at the mouth of the alleyway, staring up and down the street, and one by one the others all looked expectantly to Harry. Even Malfoy.

He swallowed and glanced up the street. “We need to keep moving. Just focus on getting to the Ministry and getting help. That’s the best thing we can do right now.”

“Right,” Ron said with a nod. He dropped Hermione’s hand to balance his wand flat across his palm. “Point Me.”

His wand didn’t even twitch.

Ron frowned and said again, louder, “Point Me.”

Again, nothing happened.

“I told you,” Malfoy said quietly, with no trace of the smugness Harry expected to hear from him. “Magic doesn’t work.”

Ron ignored him and tried it a third time, but still nothing happened. “But that just doesn’t make sense. Magic can’t just be gone.”

Hermione let go of Harry’s hand to grasp Ron’s in both of her own. “Let’s just focus on getting to the Ministry. Someone there will have to know what’s happened. I think it’s this way.”

Ron nodded, and let her lead him down the pavement. Malfoy met Harry’s eyes briefly, then followed after them.

 

****

 

The city looked strange with empty streets, at once familiar and foreign. It seemed too bright and not-quite real, like a stage setting. Like an imitation of itself. They didn’t come across many other people, just one here or two there. All blind and moving along slowly, feeling their way along the faces of buildings and edging cautiously across streets.

Around mid-morning they came to a small park, and Harry could pick out the shapes of three triffids shambling across the broad expanse of the lawn. Several others on the fringes were leaned over at an alarming angle, their tethers stretched taut.

“They’re trying to get free,” Hermione said, watching them with a curious frown. “Have they ever done this before?”

Ron shook his head. “Not that I’ve heard of. I heard that sometimes in the fields where they grow them, they’ll all press up against the same section of fencing until it collapses. But I didn’t think they did it on purpose.” He watched the triffids pulling at their tethers for a few moments. “This looks deliberate.”

“Like they know something’s happened,” Malfoy said. “Like they know this is their chance.”

“They can’t know that,” Harry said. “They’re just plants.” He looked over at Ron and Hermione. “Aren’t they?”

“I don’t think they’ve ever been ‘just plants,’ not from the moment they showed up,” Hermione said. “Let’s keep going.”

They went around the park, and just as they were passing by the edge of it, they came upon two men and a woman stretched out across the pavement. One of the men stirred feebly, moaning.

Harry started for the man without thinking, and drew near enough to see the vivid red lash mark across the man’s face at the same moment Ron cried, “No, don’t!” and lunged forward to catch him.

A lash struck out, catching him across the neck, and behind him Ron cried out. Harry stumbled and turned away, and another lash whipped across the back of the hand he’s raised protectively in front of his eyes. They threw themselves clear, and Harry looked back to see three triffids emerging from a small stand of trees where they’d been hidden. One came forward, rattling the strange little protrusions on its stalk, but stopped when it came near the three people already sprawled on the ground.

Malfoy and Hermione rushed over, and Harry waved them off. “I’m fine,” he said. His wounds itched fiercely, but they didn’t burn. He examined the back of his hand, which bore the mark of the triffid’s lash in mottled pink, the scar tissue of I must not tell lies standing out in stark white against it. A good sign. The darker the wound, the more venom he’d taken. Pink and itchy meant he’d be fine. “Ron?”

Ron rubbed at his forehead. “Itches like hell, but I’ve had worse stings.”

“What I can’t understand is how they’ve grown their lashes back,” Hermione said. “They should all be pruned every year, and it takes nearly two for them to grow back to the point they can use them again.”

No one had any ideas. It all seemed so impossible, but meteors that made everyone blind, magic disappearing, and now the triffids. Harry stared at the three that lingered near the fallen people. The man had stopped moving, and slowly the triffids shifted back in between the trees, hiding and waiting for their next victims.

“Well,” Malfoy said presently. “Just when I thought this shit day couldn’t get any fucking worse.”

And Harry had nothing to say to that; Malfoy had just said it all.

 

****

 

It was past lunchtime when they finally reached Diagon Alley. Twice more they encountered triffids, but they’d already lashed out and taken down people, and so didn’t move from their prey as Harry and the others went past, well out of lash-range.

They’d stopped once to arm themselves with knives to fend off and disable any more triffids, and then a second time to find something with which to treat Ron’s and Harry’s wounds. They itched badly, but it could have been much worse; they’d both suffered triffid stings before and had built up a little bit of immunity to the venom, and that combined with the fact that the triffids’ poison sacs had been nearly empty when they’d lashed out meant that neither of them were in any danger from the stings. They also treated the rope burn around Malfoy’s neck, smearing it with salve and wrapping it with a bandage. Hermione took that opportunity to stock up on an array of medical supplies to carry with them: bandages and pain relievers and fever reducers and antiseptics and such.

Other than that, they kept moving, and made good time to Diagon Alley.

Even so, they were all tired and hungry by the time they reached the Leaky Cauldron, and for one brief and shining moment it seemed entirely unaffected. They piled inside, and the moment shattered as they took in tables overturned, chairs knocked over, bottles broken. And more of that eerily perfect silence.

“Come on,” Harry said quietly.

He picked his way across the room with the others just behind him, and stepped out into the rear courtyard where he stopped short. The brick wall that led to Diagon Alley had fallen, all the bricks collapsed in loose piles on the ground. They could plainly see the crooked cobblestones of Wizarding London stretching away beyond the gap. Harry glanced back. Malfoy looked stunned and Ron had gone pale again. Hermione took his hand, her face grimly determined.

It didn’t seem real. Like he was caught in a bad dream. If he closed his eyes, he could almost hear the bricks clattering over each other as the wall folded back, clinking and grating as they reshuffled themselves into a doorway. Harry shook off the memory and picked his way carefully over the piles of loose bricks, and ignored the sounds they made as they shifted beneath his feet.

Diagon Alley was quiet. Whenever Harry thought of it, he pictured the narrow lane crowded with witches and wizards in the back-to-Hogwarts rush of shopping. People talking and laughing, bells tinkling and shop doors opened wide at the hands of eager customers. But now there was no one for as far as Harry could see.

“Where is everyone?” Hermione asked, her voice sounding small in the immense silence of the deserted street.

“In their houses, I’d assume,” Malfoy said. “They’re blind and have lost their magic. If it were me, I’d stay put for as long as I could. Try to wait for someone to come along and put things right.”

Harry couldn’t imagine hiding in his home and just waiting for help to arrive.

“Wait a moment,” Ron said, slowing as they passed by the windows of Quality Quidditch Supplies.

“Honestly,” Hermione said, exasperated. “You can’t mean to tell me you’re thinking of Quidditch at a time like this!”

“I’ve been thinking about Quidditch gear,” Ron said. “The triffids already pose a threat now that they’ve somehow grown their whorls back. And they’re only going to get worse as time goes on and more of them get loose. But if we can get some protection against them…”

“For once, Weasley, we are in complete agreement,” Malfoy said, looking around. “We’ll need to find something to break the window.”

“We’ll do nothing of the sort,” Ron said, then turned to Hermione. “Have you got any of those pins?” he asked her, gesturing vaguely to his own head.

Hermione rolled her eyes, but fished around in her hair until she tugged two hair grips loose. A curl of hair flopped into her face and she distractedly tucked it behind her ear as she handed the pins to Ron. He carefully bent one in half, then unfolded the other before he knelt down at the door. He slid the bent pin into the lock, then the straightened one and fiddled with the lock for a few seconds.

“Ha!” he said, turning the knob and opening the door. He grinned at the others as he stood.

Malfoy looked impressed, though he appeared to be trying very hard to hide it. “Where did you learn that?” he asked.

“Fred and George,” Ron said with a grin, and Harry grinned too as he remembered the twins breaking him out of his aunt and uncle’s. “Sometimes it’s worth learning how to do things the Muggle way.”

For a moment, Harry thought Malfoy was going to call Ron on his implicit challenge. But he just raised his eyebrows a fraction and said cooly, “So I see.”

He swept inside, and Ron rolled his eyes at Harry behind Malfoy’s back.

“I feel bad to steal things,” Hermione said.

“Don’t worry, Granger,” Malfoy said. “You can do the good little Gryffindor thing and come back to pay for all the gear we take when all of this mess is settled.”

Though his words were laced with sarcasm, they seemed to reassure Hermione. She nodded to him, then they moved deeper into the shop and gathered up heavy winter Quidditch robes – the thick wool would be sweltering in the gentle springtime temperatures, but it would be enough to repel a triffid’s sting – and then collected goggles, helmets, and gloves. They dressed quickly, and then Ron wandered over to the small section in the back corner stocked with Quodpot gear and returned with four wire mesh face masks, and passed them out to the others.

“I never thought I’d ever say this,” Ron said as he fit the mask over his face. “But I’m glad Quodpot is a sport.”

Malfoy snickered at that, then wandered off deeper into the store. Harry fiddled with his goggles, trying to get them to fit over his glasses. When they wouldn’t, he gave up and tucked them into his pocket, then slid the Quodpot mask over his face. Malfoy returned with a beater’s bat.

“That won’t do much good against a triffid,” Hermione said. “The best way to disable them is to cut off the whorl. And we’ve already got knives for that.”

“It’s not for triffids,” Malfoy told her, tightening his grip on the bat.

Ron and Harry exchanged a glance. So far all the people they’d passed had been harmless. But Hermione went and got herself a bat as well. She nodded to Malfoy when she rejoined the group, and Malfoy nodded back, a faint smirk tugging at one corner of his mouth.

“Hermione,” Ron said. “You can’t think you’ll really need that, do you?”

“I don’t know what’s going to happen,” Hermione said. “Eventually people are going to start coming out onto the streets when no one comes for them. I’d rather have this and not need it, than need it and not have it.”

Harry didn’t think it’d come to that. Mobs and mass panic, that was something that only happened in horror movies, right? But then again, all of this – the plague of blindness and deadly man-eating plants running amok – was something that only happened in the movies. And for that matter, so did magic and dragons and stupid villains who did ridiculously melodramatic things like call themselves Lord Voldemort when their names were really Tom, for crying out loud.

Harry went to get a bat for himself, then followed the others out the door.

“Good timing,” Ron said as they stepped back out onto the street.

He pointed to where two triffids were lumbering their way across the cobblestones. Clumsily, they veered off their course and started for Harry and the others. And Harry couldn’t help but wonder just how smart the plants were. Malfoy’s words from earlier came back to them, about how this was their chance. Did they really realise it? Had they just been biding their time all these years?

“Come on,” Hermione said, turning her back to the triffids. “I’m not keen to test how well this gear works just yet.”

 

****

 

They saw more triffids on their way to the Malfoys’ London home, but they gave them a wide berth and were able to easily outpace the one plant that tried to follow them. The house Malfoy led them to reminded Harry a bit of Grimmauld Place, tall and dark and a little dreary even in the bright afternoon sunshine. The front door was wide open, and they followed Malfoy inside and down the hall.

“Father? Mother?” he called. “Are you here?”

There was a rustle of movement from deeper back in the house, and Malfoy hurried toward it. They entered the living room to find Lucius and Narcissa both sprawled across the elegant Persian carpet, with a triffid looming above them.

“Malfoy, wait!” Harry said, trying to grab him.

But Malfoy wrenched free and ran forward. The triffid lashed out at him, again and again as Malfoy ignored it to kneel at his mother’s side and tugged off one glove to check her pulse, using his other hand to protect the one he’d exposed. He checked his father’s too, then slid his glove back on, twirled his beater’s bat in one hand while he turned to face the triffid, hitched the bat up over his shoulder as his other hand came up to grasp the handle, and swung.

Harry started to go to him as Malfoy swung again and again, but Ron snagged him by the arm and tugged him back. “Let him do this,” he murmured.

They stood silently and watched as Malfoy systematically pummelled the triffid to unidentifiable green pulp. Eventually he came to a stop, breathing hard. Then he turned and flung his bat away to slam against the far wall. He ripped off his face mask and goggles and hurled them after it, then sank down to the floor, his face screwed up. He sobbed once, a loud and ugly sound, and sagged forward.

“Keep a lookout for more,” Harry said as he took off his own face mask, then went to Malfoy and knelt down beside him.

He didn’t say anything, because what was there to say? But Harry felt that he should do something. Though he hadn’t liked Malfoy’s parents – and didn’t particularly like Malfoy either, honestly – he knew how it felt to lose a mother and father. He didn’t even remember his parents and it still hurt; Malfoy had almost two decades of love and memories. And this small comfort was something he could offer. He put his hand on Malfoy’s shoulder.

Malfoy knocked his hand away and stood swiftly. His eyes were red-rimmed and swollen and his nose was pink, but he wasn’t crying. He stripped off his other glove and rubbed at his eyes with the back of his hand.

“Malfoy,” Harry began, standing as well.

“Don’t,” Malfoy snapped. “Don’t pretend you fucking care about me.” He stalked over to Ron and snatched his goggles and face mask back.

Harry sighed and put on his own gear. He should probably drop it. Malfoy clearly didn’t want to talk about any of this, but Harry couldn’t keep himself from reaching out one last time. Either Malfoy would take comfort from it, or it’d give him an outlet for his anger. Either way, it might be useful.

“If you ever need anyone to talk to…”

Malfoy’s mouth twisted into a sneer. “What, as one poor little orphan boy to another? Shall we cuddle up and cry on each other’s shoulders?” he snarled. “Why are you even trying to be nice? You hate me, last I checked.” He yanked on his mask.

Harry shrugged. “Not so much, anymore. The whole world falling apart puts things in perspective, I think.” Because really, the sheer scale of this crisis made his schoolboy feud with Malfoy seem tremendously petty. He watched Malfoy for a long moment, but Malfoy didn’t seem to have anything to say to that. “Are you ready to go?”

Malfoy glanced over to his mother’s body. “Almost,” he said.

He disappeared upstairs for a few minutes, and returned with two bedsheets. He arranged his parents’ bodies so they lay side by side, carefully straightened their clothing and hair, then tucked Narcissa’s hand into Lucius’s. He neatly draped the sheets over them, then stepped back.

Harry was just about to say something when Malfoy turned on his heel and stalked away, shouldering roughly past Harry and moving off down the hallway. “Come on,” he said without turning back. “The Ministry’s not far from here.”

At a loss for what else to do, Harry followed him.

 

****

 

The shadows had grown long and deep by the time they reached the Ministry. Not that it did them all that much good, as it turned out. Without magic, they couldn’t get in.

They’d tried the phone booth. They’d tried the toilets. They’d tried the doorbell that Ron assured them his father had said was a way in that was only to be used in emergencies. (And if this didn’t count as an emergency…) In desperation, they’d even tried to Apparate in.

“Well,” said Ron, staring helplessly. “What now?”

“I don’t know,” Harry said when no one else spoke up.

He wasn’t used to this uncertainty. He felt that he should be doing something but he had no idea what. He was used to responsibility. To danger and people depending on him and the expectation that he would singlehandedly save the entire bloody world. But being the Chosen One had a set of clear goals and guidelines. A designated enemy to fight against. And this…

This was far too much for one boy to handle, Chosen or not.

“I don’t know,” he said again, and hated how fucking helpless he felt.

“I think the first thing we should do is get something to eat. I’m not sure about the rest of you, but I’m starving,” Hermione said. “We’ll all have clearer heads with full stomachs.”

“You sound like Mum,” Ron said, allowing Hermione to pull him to his feet. “I think we passed a restaurant about a block back.”

“I meant we could go back to St Mungo’s and get something from the kitchens there,” Hermione said. “I haven’t seen anything here that’s open.”

Ron just shrugged as they started back the way they’d come. There were more people out now. Not anywhere near the crowds that Harry would expect to see on a weekday evening in London. But definitely more than the sparse ones and twos they’d passed that morning. All of them were feeling their way carefully along the street.

“Here,” Ron said, stopping in front of a small sandwich shop. It was clearly closed, the windows dark and the door shut tight.

Again, Ron used Hermione’s hairpins to pick the lock. They filed inside the cafe and called out, but no one answered. They made their way back to the kitchens where Harry made them all sandwiches while Ron found packets of crisps and four bottles of water. They left the kitchen and went back to the seating area up front and settled at a table by the window.

Harry watched Malfoy carefully as they ate. He seemed to be handling the death of his parents with remarkable composure. Maybe the shock of it just hadn’t hit him yet.

“Where do we go from here?” Harry asked.

“My parents are Obliviated and in Australia,” Hermione said. “I don’t have any other family here. Ron?”

Ron dragged a fingertip through the ring of condensation his water bottle had left on the tabletop. “We’ve talked about what to do if something ever went wrong with the war and we’re separated, we agreed that we’d all meet up at Hogwarts. This isn’t the war, but things have definitely gone wrong. They’ll all be heading there.” His mouth quirked in a grim smile. “Might take Charlie a while to get there from Romania, though.” He looked at Harry. “Did you want to find your Muggle relatives?”

Harry shook his head. “I’m sure they wouldn’t want my help, anyway.” He leaned back in his chair. “So. Hogwarts it is.” The wards around the school had surely fallen, along with the rest of the magic. But it still had sturdy walls. They would be safe there. As always, Hogwarts would be home.

Plan in place, they stood up to leave. Harry cleared the table and threw away the remains of their meal while Hermione went up to the counter and stared at the menu for a long moment. She dug around in her bag, then took out a few folded bills and a handful of coins, which she left on the counter. Harry exchanged a glance with Ron. He didn’t think it would make any sort of difference to the owners of the shop, but the didn’t say anything aloud. He understood why Hermione wanted to leave the money: because she needed to believe that the owners would be coming back, that everything would somehow be all right again.

A scream tore through the quiet evening air, and they hurried outside. A little way down the block, a dozen or so people struggled in a small knot of flailing limbs.

“Mummy!” a child shrieked. “Mummy, help!”

The people around her were all shouting, “She can see!” and “Don’t let her get away!” while one woman cried, over and over, “Let her go, let her go!”

Harry didn’t think; he just reacted, racing off down the sidewalk with the others right behind him.

“We’re going to have to fight them off,” Ron said grimly. “Hermione, stay back.”

“What? No, I’m—”

“I don’t want you hurt. Stay here!” he shouted over his shoulder as he started for the crowd. “Harry, you get the mum. Malfoy and I will go after the girl.”

“Right,” Harry said, darting an apologetic glance back at where Hermione lingered on the pavement.

Then they reached the crowd of people, and Ron and Malfoy threw themselves into the fray. Harry edged around the fringes of the brawl until he caught sight of the black-haired woman. He squeezed between two men and caught her by the shoulder. She jerked away from him, and he flung himself after her and wrapped his arms around her waist, holding tight.

“Come with me,” he said into her ear. “We’ll get her for you, but you’ve got to come with me.”

She stopped fighting for a moment, surprised, and Harry took advantage of it to yank her free of the crowd. She struggled against him, still shouting for her daughter.

“My friends will get her, but it’s going to get rough and they don’t need to be worrying about you,” he said, still dragging her away. “Come on!”

He got her to the pavement and told her not to move, then turned back to help Ron and Malfoy. Hermione grabbed his sleeve and pulled him farther down the street.

“Play along,” she said, then tipped her voice up high as she screamed, “Mummy, Mummy! Help me! Mummy, he won’t let me go!” She elbowed Harry.

It only took him a second to work out what she was doing. “I’ve got her!” he shouted. “She’s here, I’ve got her.”

A couple of people broke off from the group and started toward them. Hermione shrieked again as she and Harry backed away. “Mummy, help!”

“Stop fighting me!” Harry yelled. “Help, she’s fighting me! She’s going to get loose!”

Ron had the girl in his arms now and he was hurrying away as quickly and quietly as he was able while Malfoy fought free of a man who’d grabbed him by the hair. The others had started to come after Harry.

Hermione screamed again as they backed away, then Harry took her by the hand and tugged her aside, slipping silently through the narrow space between two parked cars and onto the pavement where they kept very still until the people had gone past. Then they made their way back to the sandwich shop as quickly as they could. Malfoy held the door for them, and shut and locked it after they filed inside.

They found the mother sitting with her child at a table near the window. Ron slid into the seat across from her and took her hand to wrap it around a bottle.

“Water,” he said. “This is a restaurant, if you’re hungry. We could bring you something.”

“No, no,” the woman said. “Thank you. But not now.” She uncapped the bottle of water and took a drink, then held it out. “Isobel?”

While her daughter took the bottle and had a sip, the woman introduced herself as Alice, and Harry and the others introduced themselves as well.

“What happened?” Hermione asked gently.

“We left our flat to find out what was happening. I had Isobel describe what was going on and they… they overheard and knew she could see and tried to take her.” Her arms tightened around the little girl.

The little girl burrowed deeper into her mother’s arms and sniffled. “It’s okay, Mummy.”

“It certainly is,” Alice said, forced cheer making her voice brittle. Her eyes welled up. “We’ll be fine, thanks to these lovely people.” She reached out a hand, and Hermione took it. Alice squeezed tight and pulled her in close. “Don’t let on that you can see. The moment they figured out my little girl could still see, they went entirely mad. All of them… Just mad.”

“We won’t,” Hermione said gently. “Will you be all right? Or do you need us to help you get back to your flat?”

“We’ll be fine. We’ll just stay here for a little while, to make sure they’ve really gone.”

“Do you live nearby?” Malfoy asked, his voice suddenly gentle and charming in a way that made Harry instantly suspicious. Malfoy wasn’t nice to people like this unless he wanted something.

“Not terribly far. A couple of blocks,” Alice said.

Harry liked the calculating gleam in Malfoy’s eyes even less than he liked the gentle and charming voice.

“Then it won’t be any trouble for us to escort you,” he said. “There are triffids around. Somehow they’ve all regrown their whorls. It’s not safe.”

Alice turned her head in his direction, her brow creasing into a frown. “Regrown their whorls? But that’s impossible.”

“Just as impossible as a meteor shower causing mass blindness,” Malfoy said, still using that annoyingly charming voice. “We can make sure you get back safely, and if you’d like. And we could gather some supplies for you. Food and such, so that you won’t have to go outside again while you wait for help to arrive.” He paused. “Although, it’d be quite late by the time we did that. And we still haven’t found a place to stay for the night.”

And there it was.

“Malfoy, no,” Hermione said at the same time Ron told him, “We can stay at the Leaky.” Harry had nothing to add; he was still trying to puzzle out why Draco Malfoy would want to stay in the home of a random Muggle woman.

“I am not staying at the Leaky,” Malfoy sneered. “And it’s nearly an hour’s walk to get back there.

“Really, it’s no trouble,” Alice insisted. “And you’d be doing us such a favour. We’ll have to go out again in a couple of days if we don’t, and with the triffids I’d like to keep Isobel away from them.”

And really, what could they say to that? Malfoy had already volunteered them for the job.

By the time they got Alice and Isobel back home to their flat, dark clouds had gathered and a steady drizzle had started up. They decided to make an early night of it and put off collecting supplies until the morning.

“It’s just as well,” Hermione pointed out. “This way we’ll be able to make a list of what we’ll need for our trip back to the school.”

The evening went along well until it was time for sleep. Alice’s flat was only two bedrooms. She took Isobel to sleep in her room, so that Ron and Hermione could share Isobel’s narrow bed. Which left the sofa bed for Harry and Malfoy.

“I don’t suppose you’d be willing to sleep on the floor,” Malfoy said dubiously as he stared down at the bed.

“Trust me, sharing a bed with you is one of the last things I’d ever want to do,” Harry said. “Right up there with snogging the wrong end of blast-ended skrewt.”

Malfoy snorted as he pulled his shirt off. “Tell me more about these kinky fantasies of yours,” he deadpanned.

It turned out that Malfoy’s bare chest – pale skin and shadowed ribs and his nipples an unexpectedly delicate shade of pink – combined with the words ‘kinky fantasies’ in his posh-as-fuck voice brought Harry’s mental capacity down to about zero. He settled for a muttered, “Fuck off,” as he turned around to undress for bed.

 

****

 

We can’t save everyone, Harry thought later that night as he lay tucked in beside Malfoy. And while he knew this wasn’t his fault, it didn’t make this any easier to bear. There were some days where Harry felt crushed beneath the guilt of all the people who’d lost their lives in the war against Voldemort, while he sat safely inside Hogwarts, sitting through classes and studying for exams and wondering whether there’d be treacle tart for dessert that night. And it all felt so petty and childish, because there he was, worrying about nothing more serious than what he might have for his stupid bloody dessert, while out in the world people were dying. Didn’t he have enough guilt already? Hadn’t his inaction already cost enough lives?

Yes, they were helping Alice and her daughter. But what about everyone else? It was impossible to save everyone, but did that mean they shouldn’t try to save anyone? Instead, how many dozens of people had they simply walked by today, and never said a word?

“I can practically hear your brain,” Malfoy said dryly, his voice oddly gentle in the dark.

“Sorry,” Harry said, quite ridiculously because it wasn’t as if Malfoy could actually hear him think. Without magic, Legilimency no longer existed. “I thought you were asleep.”

“Obviously not,” Malfoy said. Then, “You don’t have anything to feel guilty about, you know.”

“How did you know?” Harry asked, surprised.

“Gryffindors,” Malfoy told him. “You’re all so dreadfully predictable.”

They lapsed into silence. Then Malfoy said, “There’s really nothing you can do, you know. You’re just one person. You’re not responsible for the whole world.”

“It only feels that way sometimes,” Harry said, staring up at the ceiling. “But I feel like I should be doing something.”

“Like what?” Malfoy challenged. “Alice and Isobel are a unique case. Isobel can see, and that might be enough to carry them through this. But the others who are all blinded? Unless you’re planning to hold their hands and take them to Hogwarts with us and look after them for the rest of your life, what good will it do? And even then, how would you decide who’s worthy and who gets left behind, or will you just take everyone you come across?” The springs creaked as he turned to face Harry. “You’d have better luck trying to empty the ocean with a teaspoon.”

“Why are you saying this?” Harry asked. Everything Malfoy said made perfect sense but he didn’t like to hear it.

“It’s the truth, isn’t it?” Malfoy shot back. “And I think you need to hear it from someone other than yourself to accept it. Potter, this isn’t your fault. And you’ve nothing to feel guilty for.”

“Why are you even bothering?” Harry asked. “I thought you hated me.”

“Well, the end of the world’s rather put things in perspective,” Malfoy said, and Harry could hear the faint trace of humour in his voice as he tossed Harry’s earlier words back at him. “I haven’t really hated you for a long time, I think. It’s just that everything else got in the way of me noticing.”

Harry turned over in a soft rustle of sheets. He could just make out Malfoy’s hair, gleaming softly in the light of a streetlamp that spilled through the windowblinds. He was closer to Malfoy than he’d realised, close enough to catch the faint scent of something herbal and the sharper scent of his sweat. “Yeah?”

“Yeah.” He let out a long, slow breath. “Might as well. You and Weasley and Granger might very well be the only people in the world I’ve got left.” He snorted. “Sad as that may be.”

“And is that why you’re not being an arsehole all of a sudden? Because you’ve got no one else?”

The sheets rustled as Malfoy shifted even closer. “There are worse reasons, aren’t there?”

“Probably,” Harry said faintly. Malfoy was close enough that Harry could feel the heat of him. He could barely make out Malfoy’s face in the dark.

Malfoy rolled over then, putting distance between them on the matress, and tugged the blankets up over his shoulder. “Go to sleep, Potter,” he said gruffly.

But it was a long time before that happened.

 

****

 

When they emerged outside the following morning, they discovered that conditions had become even worse. There were more people roaming the street, all of them blind and feeling their way along. The guilt that squirmed through Harry’s stomach was hot and uncomfortable, but he thought of what had happened with Isobel the day before. If the people milling around them caught on that they could see, they’d be easily overwhelmed and overpowered. His first priority was to keep his friends safe. They were all the family he had left.

Still, he hated passing by these people without even trying to help. He clung to Malfoy’s words from last night. He couldn’t help them all. Even if he did all he could, there would always be more.

Seconds later it struck him what he was doing. Really, he was taking advice from Draco Malfoy, of all people? And taking comfort from it?

The world really had come to an end. Harry wondered whether hell had frozen over, too.

He slanted a gaze at Malfoy, who looked pale and tired, but resolute. Then he let his gaze wander over the cityscape around them.

Harry sighed and looked around him. There had to be an end to this. There had to be.

Ron glanced over at Harry when he heard the sigh. “I can’t believe this is happening,” he said.

“That’s humanity’s biggest and most comforting lie, isn’t it?” Hermione answered gently. “That it’ll always happen to someone else, somewhere else. Never here. Never to us.”

 

****

 

They didn’t get very far by the end of the day. Between spending the morning gathering supplies for Alice and Isobel, and then being forced to slow as they avoided groups of people as well as triffids, they didn’t even manage to get all the way out of London.

It was Malfoy’s idea to find a flat to stay in for the night, and it didn’t take much effort to find one. It seemed there were more people on the street every hour, leaving their homes in search for food or answers, or whatever had prompted them to leave the safety of closed doors and latched windows and risk everything by wandering the streets. They simply walked into a building and knocked on doors. If they heard movement behind one door, they went on to the next one. They only had to knock on three before they found one where no one answered.

The flat they chose was on the ground floor, in case they needed to leave in a hurry, and had two spacious bedrooms. Someone would need to take the sofa tonight, but there was plenty of room for them to all stay together. Harry left Hermione with Malfoy while he and Ron went back out to find a camp stove in a department store they’d passed a few blocks back. The electricity was off all over the city by now, and it had been too long since they’d had a hot meal.

It didn’t take long to locate one small enough that they could carry it with them when they moved on the following day. They also found a bag large enough to carry it in, and Harry hefted it onto his back. They stepped out onto the pavement just as someone screamed. Just a few feet away, a man had grabbed a woman and was trying to claw a plastic bag full of cans from her hands.

Ron and Harry ran up and pulled him off her, and she hurried off down the sidewalk, her bag clutched protectively to her chest.

“Here,” Ron said, taking the man by his wrist and pushing his hand against the department store door. “There’s a cafe on the first floor. Just inside and to the right. Plenty of food left in it.”

The man froze, his mouth agape. “You can see?” he demanded.

“Don’t even try it, mate,” Ron warned. “Just go inside, get something to eat. Straight in and to the right.”

Harry held back, tensed and ready to move if the man made a move toward Ron. But after a few long moments, the man’s shoulders slumped. “Thanks,” he said, and went inside.

“It all feels so pointless, you know?” Ron said quietly as the door bumped shut after the man.

Harry watched the woman hurrying off down the sidewalk. “Yeah.”

“I mean, we help one or two. Even if we help everyone we come across, what does that do? Makes it easier for a bit, keeps them alive a few extra days. And what then? What’s the point?”

It was a lesson Harry had been trying to teach himself for years. “We can’t save everyone,” he said dully. Said out loud, the words sounded just as empty as they always had in his own head. “You know, that’s exactly what Malfoy told me last night.”

Ron watched as the woman rounded a corner and disappeared from sight. “I never expected I’d agree with him on anything. But he’s right about this.” He turned away. “Come on, I’m sure the others will be wondering what’s taking us so long.”

 

****

 

When they got back, they found that Malfoy had discovered the flat owner’s drinks cabinet. He had a tumbler of scotch, and Hermione had a glass of wine.

She shrugged at Harry when she saw him looking. “It’s a bit like watching Rome burn,” she said. “There’s really nothing we can do, so…” She shrugged again and toasted him with her glass.

“Pour me a scotch,” he called to Ron as he went into the kitchen with the camp stove. “I’m going to start dinner.”

“There’s one good thing I can think of,” Ron said some time later. His face was flushed with drink and he was lounging on the sofa. “This does rather clear up the problem of Voldemort, doesn’t it? Blind and magicless, he’s not exactly a threat anymore.”

Harry snorted, then broke out giggling. He sat up a bit from where he’d been sprawled across the carpet and raised his glass, sloshing a little over his hand. “Here’s to Voldemort getting eaten by a triffid.”

“Hear, hear!” Ron bellowed, downed his drink, then pulled Hermione in for a snog.

Hermione laughed, and even Malfoy cracked a smile. Harry flopped back against the carpet, still grinning. And for a little while, it really felt like everything was going to be okay.

 

****

 

Later that night, though his brain was pleasantly muzzy from the alcohol, his limbs warm and heavy, Harry still couldn’t sleep. His mind kept turning over, caught on the conversation he’d had with Malfoy, and then later with Ron. The guilt still weighed heavily on him. He hated feeling useless.

Harry closed his eyes and tried to let the quietly spinning darkness lull him to sleep. But every time he’d start to drift off, the deep silence of the night would be broken by a scream.

He had no idea how much time had passed when door opened, and Harry rolled over to see who it was. The light spilling in from the window was just enough to illuminate Malfoy’s hair as he quietly shut the door again.

“What are you doing?” Harry whispered.

“Can’t sleep,” Malfoy answered, crossing the room and crawling beneath the sheets. “And you’re…”

“Get in,” Harry said, somewhat ridiculously because Malfoy was already in bed with him.

But Malfoy seemed to take that as further invitation. He scooted close to Harry and put his arms around him, and Harry put his arms around Malfoy before he could even stop to think about what he was doing. He and Malfoy had hated each other for so long, and now they were in bed together, holding on tight, and wasn’t that just ridiculous? But for a little while, everything seemed just a little bit better. It didn’t improve their situation. It didn’t fix anything that had gone wrong in the past few days. But the simple pleasure of holding and being held by another person, of feeling the warmth of Malfoy’s body pressed close to his, seemed to make it all just a little easier to bear. Harry sighed and tightened his arms around Malfoy. Either that, or Harry was a lot drunker than he’d thought.

They lay quietly for a while, then Malfoy turned in his arms, snuggling closer, and his lips brushed against Harry’s neck. Harry assumed it was an accident until it happened again, lingering a little this time. He held very still, his heart pounding, unsure what to do. And then Malfoy did it a third time, and this time it was unmistakably a kiss.

“Malfoy,” he whispered.

Malfoy froze, then started to pull away, and Harry held on tight. He twisted until he was facing Malfoy, and then kissed him back. And it made absolutely no sense whatsoever, but fuck it, Harry was drunk and Malfoy was here, and everything else had gone to shit but at least he could still have this. Fucking around with someone he shouldn’t was exactly the sort of stupid teenaged mistake he should be making at this point in his life. Mistakes like this didn’t kill anyone. He pushed his tongue against Malfoy’s, ran his hands up Malfoy’s back, and couldn’t contain a small groan.

“The world’s ended,” Malfoy said, so close that Harry could feel the words ghosting across his lips. Malfoy’s breath smelled faintly of the spearmint that still tingled across Harry’s tongue. “Now I know it’s ended because that’s the only way you’d ever kiss me back.”

It was a terrible joke, but Harry snorted anyhow. “Then why’d you do it?”

“I don’t know,” Malfoy said. “I just… wanted to.”

“Then… here.” Harry used his grip on Malfoy to haul him on top as he rolled onto his back. He wriggled, lining up their hips. He rocked up against Malfoy, and Malfoy groaned. “Do you like this?”

“Yes,” Malfoy said, spreading his legs and pressing down against Harry. “Merlin, yes.” He caught Harry’s mouth with his own.

They kissed, messy and desperate and embarrassingly teenaged. The sort of kiss that ought to be happening beneath the Quidditch stands or tucked away in an alcove in a deserted hallway at school. Not in a stranger’s bed while the world was ending. But if this was all he had, then fuck if Harry wasn’t going to take it.

Harry closed his eyes, held on tighter, kissed back harder, and for a while he was able to lose himself in the hot pressure of Malfoy’s body against his own.

 

****

 

Harry woke up alone. For a moment, he and his morning erection were both disappointed that Malfoy had slipped out of his bed at some point last night. But on the bright side, at least this way they could avoid any awkward morning-after conversations. He dressed, brushed his teeth, and wandered out into the living room. Malfoy was already awake, and Harry could hear the quiet murmur of conversation coming from the other bedroom where Ron and Hermione had spent the night.

“Morning,” he said, not looking him in the eye. “I’ll go start breakfast.”

He sliced up a few apples while waiting for the stove to heat as he thought about what the fuck to do about Malfoy. Because he felt he should do something, didn’t he, now that they’d had sex. Or, was it really sex if they’d both kept their clothes on? They’d both come, so surely that had to count for something.

He’d just got the kerosene stove hot enough to fry eggs when Malfoy slunk into the kitchen and leaned against the far counter, arms folded over his chest.

“Do you regret last night?” he asked quietly, skipping straight to the point without even a cursory “Good morning,” to break the ice.

So much for avoiding the awkwardness. For a moment Harry was lost in memories of Malfoy’s mouth on his, the warm hard pressure of Malfoy’s body against him, the way Malfoy shuddered when he reached his climax. Maybe if it had happened before the world had gone to shit, Harry would be having some sort of breakdown over the fact that he’d fucked around with the person who’d made his life miserable for years. But the end of the world had a strange way of simplifying things. What they’d done last night had felt good, and had relaxed Harry enough that he could sleep. He didn’t think it needed to be any more complicated than that.

“No,” he said. He cracked the egg against the edge of the counter, then poured it onto the frying pan where it sizzled and whitened. He tossed the shell away. “Do you?”

“No,” Malfoy said. “I’m just trying to figure out how likely it is that we’ll be doing it again.”

Harry glanced over at him and found Malfoy watching him with his eyebrows raised expectantly. He turned back to the stove so he could blame the heat in his cheeks from the hot pan, if it came to that.

“Very likely,” he said. “If you want.”

Malfoy pushed himself off the counter and came up behind Harry. “I want,” he breathed against Harry’s neck and nipped lightly just behind his ear. “Very much so.”

Harry nudged him away with an elbow. “Tonight,” he said.

Malfoy looked smug as he swiped a slice of apple. “It’s a date, Potty,” he called over his shoulder as he sauntered out of the kitchen.

 

****

 

“We need to get out of the city quickly,” Hermione said as they packed up their things later that morning. She let the window blinds fall back into place as she turned away from the window. “I’ve seen two large groups go by. I think they’re starting to form mobs, and I wouldn’t want to be caught in one. I’ll feel safer once we’re in a less populated area.”

Harry took up his bag, slinging it over his shoulder. “There’ll be more triffids in the country,” he said.

“But we’ve got protection against them,” Malfoy said. “If they can’t lash us, they’re harmless.”

Not quite the word Harry would have used to describe them, but he wasn’t going to argue. They closed up the flat behind them and headed outside.

There were even more people on the streets today. It’d been several days since the meteor shower, and Harry guessed that hunger was mostly likely driving people from their homes now. That, or curiosity. There still didn’t seem to be any sign of authorities coming in to take control of the situation. With no way to find out information, Harry could imagine that people would become restless, desperate to know what was going on.

They also came across more dead bodies. Some were from triffid stings, but some had been beaten. They came across two, a man and a woman, who had fallen from a great height. They gave them a wide berth. Once they smelled smoke and turned a corner to see the flicker of flame shining though the windows of a building and thick black clouds wafting up from it. They broke into a jog until they were safely past.

“You know,” said Ron. “We’d move faster if we weren’t on foot.”

Harry followed his gaze to where a car sat abandoned in the middle of the road. “Maybe someone’s left the keys in it,” he said.

They only had to check three cars before they got lucky and found a Volkswagen with the keys dangling from the ignition. They pulled off their Quidditch gear and stowed it safely in the boot along with their supplies.

Ron started for the driver’s door.

“Have you ever operated one of these things before?” Malfoy asked doubtfully.

“I was able to drive the Ford Anglia,” Ron said.

“But have you ever driven one on the ground?” Hermione asked as Harry studied Ron dubiously.

“No,” admitted Ron. “But I reckon there’s not a lot to it, once you get the hang of it all.”

“It’s quite different from driving through the air,” Hermione told him. “It’s not as if there’s a lot of things you can hit up there, for one.”

“Oh,” said Harry, grimacing. “You’d be surprised.”

Ron pulled a face at him. “Shut up and get in.”

He slid into the driver’s seat, and Hermione got into the front passenger side while Harry and Malfoy piled into the back.

They went slow at first, and Ron stalled it a few times before he got the hang of working the clutch, but eventually they moved through the city at a decent pace. Ron kept the speed low to avoid obstacles, other cars that had been left in the middle of the street or people wandering across the road.

It didn’t take long for them to realise their mistake. The noise of the car’s engine was loud in the empty streets. And the people they passed were both smart enough to know that only someone who could see would be driving a car, and desperate enough to do something about it.

Soon, dozens of people were running after the car. Ron drove a little faster, but only half a block later, a large truck blocked most of the road and Ron had to slow to a crawl to get past it. Before he could get up to speed again, the crowd had caught up, and several people threw themselves in front of the car. He slammed on the brakes.

“Why are you stopping? Go!” Malfoy said.

Ron sent him a dirty look, but otherwise ignored him. He shifted the car into park. “We’ve got to leave it.

People had surrounded them by then, pounding on the windows, yanking at the doors.

“The sun roof,” Hermione said, looking up at the small square of glass in the car’s roof. She reached across Ron and pressed the button that sent it sliding back. “We get out, jump clear, and meet up on the pavement.”

“You first,” Ron said to her, and Hermione didn’t waste time arguing with him, though Harry could tell by the mulish set to her chin that she wanted to.

She stood on her seat to push herself through the opening. Ron gave her a boost and then she was on the roof.

“Don’t wait! Go!” Ron yelled.

Hermione threw herself into the crowd and vanished.

“You next,” Harry told Ron, then added the only words he knew that would get him moving. “She needs you.” While Ron squeezed up through the sunroof, Harry looked to Malfoy. “You’re out next. I’ll go last.”

“Harry…” Malfoy began.

“No,” Harry said. This was how it had to be. The chances of the crowd catching on to them climbing out the roof grew with every second. The last person out would face the greatest risk, and Harry was the one least able to mount a rescue effort. Ron was both larger and stronger than Harry, and Malfoy was more than willing to fight dirty if the situation called for it. And probably even if it didn’t. He could more than handle himself.

Harry moved, already halfway out by the time Malfoy’s feet cleared the opening. He hauled himself out and up onto the roof, and could see Hermione had already moved free of the crowd, and Malfoy’s hair stood out like a beacon. He crouched on the roof of the car, preparing to jump—

Someone grabbed him by the back of his shirt and yanked and Harry lost his balance. He twisted, overbalancing as he tried to break free, and his chin slammed into the roof of the car. His glasses went flying. Harry made a desperate grab for them, but they bounced off his fingertips and fell away, and he couldn’t see where they went.

A hand grabbed his ankle and pulled, and Harry tried to kick free. All around him, the world was a blur of colour and movement, hazy and undefined, and for the first time since all this began Harry felt really and truly afraid. Someone from down below grabbed his arm, then another person, and he couldn’t hold against both of them at once. They pulled him down off the car and into the crowd below. He twisted, bodies breaking his fall, and barely managed to get his feet under himself.

“Let go, let go!” he shouted, but it only attracted more attention. More grasping hands pulled at him, and he tried to fight back but there were just too many.

“I’ve got him! He’s here!” someone shouted from the other side of the car, “Quick, help us! He’s getting away!”

Hermione, pulling the same trick they’d done to rescue Isobel. Harry fought harder. If they were following the same plan, someone would be coming for him any second.

“Unhand me!” came a second voice, and Harry would recognise Malfoy’s posh voice anywhere. “Help, someone, help!”

Someone nearby cried out in pain, and then another, and suddenly Harry’s right arm was loose for an instant before someone clasped his hand. He struggled for a moment until he realised the hand wasn’t pulling at him, just holding tight.

He squinted and thought he could just make out a blur of ginger hair. “Ron? Ron, is that you?”

Ron didn’t answer, but he squeezed Harry’s hand twice. Of course, he wouldn’t want to let on that he could see. Hermione and Malfoy were still shouting on the other side of the car, and the crowd around Harry was thinning somewhat. With Ron’s help, Harry was able to fight his way free and together they got away from the crowd.

Harry didn’t see Hermione coming until she flung her arms around him and he had a faceful of frizzy brown hair.

“Oh, Harry! We saw you go down and…”

He patted her back. “It’s okay,” he said. “I knew you wouldn’t let anything happen to me.”

She let him go, and he blinked around, able to pick out Ron and Malfoy by their hair.

“Where are your glasses?” Malfoy asked.

Harry squinted up at him. “They fell off.” He looked back down the street to where he could still hear the crowd of people around the car, but he couldn’t make out much. Just a blur of motion. “We’ll have to wait until they wander off and go back in for them.” He didn’t think about whether they were already broken. They had to be okay. Harry couldn’t go on like this.

“That’ll take hours,” Hermione sighed. “The noise of the engine will keep drawing them in. And then—Malfoy! Where are you going?”

“Malfoy!” Ron shouted.

“What?” Harry asked. “What’s happening?”

“Stupid fucking git!” Ron snarled, and then the sharp slap of footsteps on pavement echoed, disappearing rapidly as they faded.

“He’s gone running off, and Ron went after him,” Hermione said. She clutched at Harry’s arm and he held her tight. “He’s gone back into the crowd around the car and I… I can’t see what’s going on. I’m going to get closer.”

“Don’t you dare leave me,” Harry said as she tried to pull free of him.

“Here,” she said, slipping her hand into his and leading him along the pavement. “We’ll keep to the side. We won’t get too close.”

She led him up the pavement, and he stumbled several times. As bad as the last few days had been, this was a thousand times worse. Before he’d only felt helpless; now he truly was.

“What’s happening now?” Harry asked when they stopped. The crowd sounded dangerously close, but Harry trusted Hermione to keep him safe.

“Ron went in after him… I can’t see… I don’t know what’s happening.”

They stood for long minutes, waiting, Harry still trying futilely to make out what was going on.

Then Hermione gasped. “He’s got him! They’re coming back.”

Two blurry shapes approached and Harry tried to get his eyes to focus on them by sheer force of will.

“Here,” Malfoy said, pushing something hard and smooth against Harry’s hand.

His fingers closed around the familiar shape of his glasses and he pushed them back onto his face, his tension draining away as the world came back into focus around him. He blinked up at Malfoy, who was bruised and bleeding from his mouth, but grinning triumphantly, and without thinking Harry launched himself at him. Malfoy staggered back a step as Harry’s arms closed around him, then he hesitantly patted Harry on the back.

“Thank you,” Harry said, letting go of Malfoy.

Malfoy shrugged. “Least I could do.”

“Bloody stupid of you to go back rushing in like that,” Ron said, holding a stern face for all of two seconds before breaking into a smile. “Almost Gryffindor, I’d say.”

“Merlin,” Malfoy said, making a pained face. “Please don’t say that about me ever again.”

“Too late,” Harry said with a laugh. “Rushing headlong into a mob to get my glasses back for me? I’m pretty sure this makes you one of us, now.”

“Merlin,” Malfoy said again, but he didn’t look all that upset by it. “It wasn’t just for the glasses. You can’t hear it over the shouting, but I also got the car turned off. Hopefully they’ll move along and we can get our supplies back.” He swiped at the blood on his mouth with the back of one hand and glanced at the people still crowding around the car. “Come on. Let’s find somewhere to wait.”

 

****

 

When the crowd finally dispersed, they made their way back over to the car to find that most of their supplies had been taken. Anything in a box or a bottle or a bag was gone, but thankfully no one had seemed interested in the strange shapes of the Quidditch gear or Quodpot face masks. They gathered up their equipment and put it on again before they set off.

A few blocks later they found a store and stopped to replenish their supplies. It had already been broken into a picked over, but they were still able to gather up some basic medical supplies, bottles of water, and enough food to keep them going for a few days.

On the way out, Malfoy waited until the others had moved a little ahead before he caught Harry’s attention. He shifted the bags he carried to one hand and tugged a white plastic tube free of his pocket so that Harry could read the label. Personal lubricant.

Harry looked up to meet Malfoy’s eyes. Malfoy gave him a wink.

And Harry smiled back.

 

****

 

They found a spacious flat on the ground floor later that evening that they could stay in for the night. They dropped off their supplies, and Hermione suggested they go out again and search for something clean to wear, and to make sure the area was secure.

Malfoy gave a long-suffering sigh. “Getting Potter’s glasses back was my good deed for the day. I’d rather not, if you don’t mind.” He pouted. “I feel like I’ve taken a Bludger to the ribs.”

Harry didn’t miss the significant glance Malfoy snuck him. “I, er, I guess I’d better stay with him,” he said. “You know, so no one’s left on their own. Right?”

“We shouldn’t be more than an hour,” Hermione said. “We won’t go too far. We’ll bring you back some clothes as well?”

Malfoy waved a dismissive hand. “Do what you like. I think I’ll go and lie down for a while.”

He made for one of the bedrooms, and as soon as the front door clicked shut behind his friends, Harry joined him.

It wasn’t until later that they made the unhappy discovery that there was no running water in the building, made unhappier by the fact that they were both sticky with sweat, come, and lube when they discovered it. Harry was forced to open one of their bottles of water and they used it to wet a bath towel and cleaned up as best they could like that.

They hadn’t managed to do a terribly good job of it. Harry’s skin still itched as they sat side by side on the sofa, waiting for the others to return.

“You smell like sex,” Malfoy muttered.

Harry elbowed him in the ribs. “So do you.”

It didn’t stop them from doing it again later that night.

 

****

 

They learned several hard lessons on their way out of London.

The first, of course, was to never let on that they could still see.

The second was about a strange sickness that was sweeping the city. It began with a sudden onset of crippling stomach pain. The victims lay feebly, clutching their midsections and groaning. Sometimes they tried to crawl, pale and sweaty and shaking. Harry and the others gave them a wide berth, unsure how contagious the disease was or how it was communicated.

Third, and most importantly, was about the triffids. Some of the things, they already knew. To avoid open spaces, particularly grassy ones. To go around parks and give a wide berth to broad lawns. To exercise caution at all times. But the most frightening was about their intelligence. How they used those odd little sticks on their stems to make a rattling noise to call other triffids near. How they lurked around corners and beside doorways and hid themselves in between trees, waiting for prey to come to them.

Once Harry and the others made it out of the city, they were able to move faster. There were less people out here, and less obstacles. There were also more triffids, but with their Quidditch gear the lashes didn’t pose much of a threat.

Sometimes people would set up barricades across the motorways and larger roads, trying to catch a sighted person, evidently figuring anyone driving a car would still be able to see. They nearly got caught by the first one they encountered, and after that they kept to the quieter streets. It added time to their journey, but they all agreed the extra measure of safety was well worth it.

 

****

 

They made it to Hogwarts exactly one week after the meteor shower. Hogsmeade was gone, burned down and still reeking of smoke, and Harry could pick out the blackened husks of triffids among the ruins. Ron drove around it, heading for the path that led up to the castle.

Ron stopped the car and sat, silently staring ahead, his hands loosely holding the wheel.

“What?” Harry asked, leaning over the seat. “What’s happened?”

“The path is blocked,” Ron said, and Harry could just make out several downed trees toppled across the path. “We’ll have to go on foot.” He pulled the car over to the side of the path and turned off the ignition.

Harry got out and peered down the path, nudging his glasses back up the bridge of his nose. He could just make out the shapes of several bodies lying crumpled along the pathway. That meant triffids were nearby.

Sure enough, several triffids came shambling toward the car a moment later, as Harry and the others struggled into their Quidditch robes and gear.

“Bloody creepy, those things are,” Ron muttered as he settled his Quodpot mask over his face.

“We’ve only got three bats,” Malfoy said.

“Yeah, well, I didn’t think I’d have to fight my way through a bloody army of the things, now did I?” Ron said.

“I didn’t say anything about that, Weasley,” Malfoy sniffed. “Thought you really should have taken one.” He continued quickly before Ron could respond, “So who’s going to be without one?”

“Me,” Harry said. “It makes the most sense. I can’t use my glasses and the goggles at the same time, and I’d rather have the goggles if we’re going through a crowd of them that dense. I won’t be able to see to hit any of them.”

Malfoy reached out and gave Harry’s fingers a quick squeeze. “Stay with me, then,” he said, and Harry heard the promise in his words: I’ll take care of you.

“I think we should keep off the path,” Ron said. “I don’t trust those bloody things. I’ve never seen this many trees downed, and it seems like too much of a coincidence that it’d happen now. Who knows what else they’ve done.”

“We’ll circle through the Forest, then?” Hermione asked, clutching her bat tightly in both hands.

Ron nodded. “I think that would be best. We know there’s triffids in there, but the trees should break them up. Give us a little more protection from them. Are we ready?”

“Nearly,” Harry said, digging through the bag at his feet. He finally found what he was looking for and quickly shoved it into his pocket, along with his glasses and wand, then reached up and adjusted his goggles under the face mask. “Okay. Let’s go.”

They all climbed out of the car and set off through the trees. It was easy at first. It seemed that most of the triffids had settled down along the pathway. But as they went deeper into the trees, the triffids became more plentiful. A lash struck across Harry’s helmet, then another across his shoulder. He tightened his grip on the back of Malfoy’s robes and kept his head down to keep as much venom as he could off his face. As long as the lash didn’t touch him to break the skin, it wouldn’t do more than itch until he washed it off, but it still wasn’t pleasant.

Soon they were surrounded by triffids, Harry’s world narrowed down to a whirling, writhing mass of green, with Malfoy’s bright blue robes and bright blond hair a blurry beacon ahead of him. Malfoy swung his beater’s bat, back and forth, knocking triffids back to clear a path while Harry clung to the back of his Quidditch robes and held on tight. Ahead and a little to the right, Harry could head Ron and Hermione hacking their way through the crowd.

Once, Harry stumbled and momentarily lost his hold on Malfoy’s robes. He reached out and grasped for him, but only got a handful of triffid leaves. A cold wave of panic broke over him as he looked wildly around, blinking his eyes as if that’d do a damn thing.

“Potter!” Malfoy shouted, and then there he was, and Harry had never been so relieved to see anyone in his life.

Harry clung to his robes again as Malfoy swung and swung, and lashes whipped around them.

It went on and on for a nightmarishly long time, and then they broke through. The unexpectedly bright sunshine startled Harry for a moment, and his grip on Malfoy’s robes faltered. Malfoy grabbed his wrist and gave him a tug.

“Come on! The castle’s just there.”

Harry could just make out Ron and Hermione hurrying ahead, and he allowed Malfoy to pull him into a jog, on hand still linked with Harry’s to steady him as he stumbled over unseen obstacles in the grass.

And then the huge front doors of the castle were right there, and Harry broke into a desperate, giddy laugh as relief crashed through him. They’d made it.

“For Merlin’s sake, let us in!” Ron shouted.

“Who’s there?” someone called down from above, and Harry squinted up but couldn’t see anyone.

“Open the bloody door, can’t you recognise Harry Potter?” Hands tugged Harry’s helmet aside, and he fumbled in his pocket for his glasses and slipped them onto his face to find Malfoy scowling up at where Percy Weasley peered down from an upper window.

“We’re opening the door now. Come just inside and not a step more, do you understand? We’ll have to put you in quarantine.” Percy disappeared back inside.

Harry glanced behind him. Triffids were coming up from the forest, so many of them that they appeared in an unbroken line. But they moved slowly and had no chance of catching up.

“Quarantine?” Hermione echoed as the sound of bolts sliding back echoed across the shallow alcove in which the door sat.

They stepped inside as soon as the door swung open, and Percy quickly shut and barred it behind them. He turned to face them, a crossbow held loosely in one hand and pointed at the floor. “Have you been exposed to the sickness?”

Harry thought of the sweating, shaking people they’d passed. “We’ve seen it, but haven’t gone near.”

Percy nodded. “No contact with an infected person? Good, good. You’ll still have to go into quarantine, just to be safe. Eight days, I’m afraid.”

“Who else?” Ron cut in. “Who else made it here?”

“A scattering of wizards and Muggles,” Percy said. “All of us made it here, but only Mum and I can see.”

“Where are they? Are they—” Ron began.

“Later,” Percy cut in. “Please. I’ll let them all know while you’re getting settled in but we’ve got a procedure in place that you’ll need to follow.” His tone left no room for argument. “Now, the showers are just this way. You’ll need to clean up before we can let you into the rooms…”

 

****

 

It turned out the rooms put aside for quarantine were set up for two people in each. Ron and Hermione obviously wanted to stay together, which left Harry paired up with Malfoy.

“Rotten luck, mate,” Ron murmured after they were showered and dressed again, as they went down the stairs to the small wing of guest quarters. “He may have been surprisingly decent since all this happened, but I still can’t imagine being trapped alone in a room with him for eight days. Good luck on not killing him.”

Harry hid a smile as he slipped his hand into his pocket to touch the tube of lubricant he’d hidden there. He hoped it would last the whole eight days. “I’ll try not to.”

He nodded goodbye to Ron and Hermione and followed Malfoy into the room they’d be staying in for the next week. There wasn’t much to it, just two narrow beds and a trunk to store their things. Harry turned to find Malfoy watching him, gaze predatory, a smirk lingering along the curve of his mouth.

“Alone for eight days,” Harry sighed as he flopped down across one of the beds and grinned at Malfoy. “Whatever shall we do to keep entertained?”

Malfoy’s smirk heated as he clambered up on the mattress and straddled Harry’s hips. “Oh, I suppose I can think of a thing or two.”

 

****

 

The afternoon of their seventh day of quarantine found Harry still in bed. Tomorrow they’d be released, and there’d be so much to do. Percy had told them a little about it through the door when he’d come to drop off trays of food for them. They didn’t know if magic would come back or not, so they were planning for the worst, erecting walls around the greenhouses to seal them off from triffids and planting seeds for next year when the food in the castle would run out. And there was an astounding amount of work to be done, just to keep things running. It took a lot of work to run a castle. There’d be little free time and even less privacy.

So they took this last opportunity to enjoy a lazy afternoon in bed, just the two of them. Malfoy stretched out naked over the sheets, his long limbs flung wide in a sprawl, and Harry took his time.

“What are you doing?” Malfoy asked, propping himself up on an elbow so he could see Harry.

“Memorizing you,” Harry said. He kissed Malfoy’s stomach and made note of a small light spot, almost like a freckle, just above and to the left of his bellybutton. “I want to memorise every single inch of you while I still can.”

It seemed strange to think that just two weeks ago Harry had hated Malfoy. Maybe it was the fact that he’d spent more time in bed than out of it in the past week, but somewhere in that time he’d begun to think of this thing with Malfoy as less of the pleasant diversion it had started out as, and more as something that had a great deal of potential for the future. If this thing they had going worked out in the long run, Harry didn’t want to look back on this time he had and regret not putting it to good use.

“While you still can?” Malfoy asked, warm and amused. “Are you planning to go somewhere?”

“No. But without my glasses I might as well be blind.”

Malfoy frowned at him. “We’ll just be very careful.”

Harry shook his head. “It won’t be enough. Even if they don’t break or get lost, the prescription’s going to need updating soon enough. And then my vision’s going to get worse and worse, and if things don’t get better it’s not as if I can go to an optometrist. And then someday…”

“Shh,” Malfoy said. He reached down and cupped Harry’s cheek, and Harry took his hand and pressed a kiss to his palm, then peered down at it. Three of Malfoy’s fingerprints were arches, but his thumb and index fingers were whorls. His heart line was long and curved sharply up at the end. His head line was straight and joined with the life line at the end. His fate line was broken in the middle, and for the first time Harry was thankful he’d taken Divination because Trelawney’s class had given him the names to describe each crease in Malfoy’s palm. He pressed another kiss there, then traced the life line with the tip of his tongue. Someday, this Braille could be all he had left.

“Although,” Malfoy said when Harry let go of his hand and returned his attention to Malfoy’s stomach. “I suppose I rather like the idea of you thinking of me young and beautiful forever, even after it’s not true anymore.”

Harry looked up at him, at the arched brows above silvery-grey eyes, the long gold lashes, straight nose, smirking mouth, pointed chin. “Malfoy,” he said. “You will always be beautiful to me.”

For a moment it was hard to tell which of them was more stunned by Harry’s admission. But then Harry felt his cheeks warm and he ducked his head to hide his blush. Malfoy’s fingers sifted gently through his hair, and Harry leaned into the touch.

He resumed his study of Malfoy’s body, memorising a curve here, a freckle there. He still had several hours until the sun went down and he intended to use every minute of it as best he could. Once he finished with Malfoy’s body, he’d move on to memorising each of Malfoy’s reactions: the way he trembled when Harry brushed his fingertips up the insides of his thighs, how his toes curled when Harry took him into his mouth, and the beautiful blissful half-broken ecstasy writ plain across his face when he came.

Tonight, much later, after he’d seen everything there was to see, Harry would fall asleep in Malfoy’s arms.

And then tomorrow the sun would rise, and together they would begin their new life.

Together.