There Is Always the Moon - Chapter 9 (of 13)

[firethesound]

Title: There Is Always the Moon
Wordcount: 159k
Rating/Warnings: M - body horror, blood, mild gore, no sex
Disclaimer: I don't own any of the Harry Potter characters and this is written purely for entertainment purposes.
Summary: Draco's life after the war is everything he wanted it to be: it's simple, and quiet, and predictable, and safe. But when a mysterious curse shatters the peace he'd worked so hard to build, there's only one person he can trust to help him. After all, Harry Potter has saved his life before. Now Draco has to believe that Potter will be able to do it one more time. (A remix of If the Sun Goes Black by pasdexcuses)

“Are you feeling all right?” Zelda asks, and Draco nearly drops his glass stirring rod into the cauldron.

He hopes it wasn’t obvious how badly he’d been startled, and tries to project an aura of calm as he looks up to where Zelda’s watching him from the doorway. Behind her, he can hear the murmur of customers browsing through the shop. “Hm? Yes, I’m fine. Why?”

“I called your name,” she says, and she’s watching him closely. “You didn’t respond.”

Draco wipes the stirring rod off on a rag before he sets it down on his worktable. “Lost in thought,” he says, and shifts a little to the side to block Zelda’s line of sight to the cauldron. “Did you need something?”

“I just wanted to let you know that we’re nearly out of Healing Salve,” she says. “We’ll probably run out in the next few days.” She’s frowning at him. “Are you sure you’re all right?”

“I’m fine, thank you,” he tells her firmly.

Zelda hums like she doesn’t quite believe him. “Well, Dorothea came by earlier. She said you had the shop closed for part of the time I was gone.”

Draco stills for a moment, then reaches for the cannister of dried knotgrass.

“I was feeling unwell,” Draco says, carefully scooping knotgrass onto his brass scales. “But I’m better now.”

“Oh,” says Zelda. “I hope it wasn’t anything too serious?”

“It wasn’t,” he says, glancing over at her. There’s something in her too-casual tone that makes him suspicious.

“I’m glad to hear. I was worried when I heard you had the shop closed for three days.”

“Two and a half,” Draco says, narrowing his eyes at her. “Why are you asking so many questions?”

“Well pardon me for caring,” she huffs.

Draco shakes his head and uses his wand to lower the flame beneath the bubbling cauldron before he stirs in the knotgrass. “Well you needn’t care so much. Merlin, you sound like my mother.”

“You mean that to be an insult, but I’m not going to take it as one,” Zelda tells him, and then goes back into the front of the shop before he can respond.

Draco turns back to his cauldron. He should have realised that Dorothea would say something to Zelda. Well. Zelda will have hired the new assistant by the next full moon, so even if the next full moon falls during another Jewish holiday or if Zelda goes abroad again, or both, he’ll have someone to keep the shop open.

He still feels somewhat apprehensive about having an unknown person spending lots of time in his shop, but he doesn’t have the time or the energy to be involved in the process of interviewing applicants. Besides, he trusts Zelda. She wouldn’t hire someone with whom Draco won’t get along.

Casting another glance at the door, Draco reaches into a little box and takes out the last piece of the feather he’d brought in today. He drops it into the cauldron, gives it a stir, and reduces the heat again.

In one hour, he should have his results. Turning away, Draco hauls out another cauldron and sets it up on another flame, puts several chunks of beeswax into it, and begins to mince leeches while he waits for it to melt. It’s easy to distract himself from the other cauldron, the one he’s using to test the feather. Of the five Potter had removed from him, four haven’t yielded any useful results.

He has the fifth one kept safely at home, and if this test fails too, he’s got plans for it later tonight.

After the tests he’d done on the third feather had failed, Draco had mentioned to Potter that he’s got an old childhood friend who has received formal training at the Centre for Alchemical Studies, and if none of the tests he does on the fourth feather turn up anything conclusive, he’s taking the fifth one to her lab to see what she can find out about it. The curse is transformative in nature, and Alchemy is the study of transmutation, so he’s optimistic she might have some ideas about working out the particulars of the curse. He’d mentioned to her in their last exchange that he might be interested in the services of a skilled Alchemist, and they’d arranged for him to stop by her lab tonight to discuss it further.

He’d told Potter about it last night, and expected Potter to nod and go right back to examining the anatomy textbook he was reading through in an attempt to determine whether an arrow to the heart would bleed enough to explain the amount of blood Draco comes home covered in; instead, Potter broke into a wide smile and said, “Sure, let me know when we’re going.”

“You don’t have to join me,” Draco had said, and Potter had leant across the table and clapped him on the shoulder and told him, “Of course I do, Malfoy, we’re in this together, aren’t we?”

And what could Draco possibly say to that?

He’d had to wait until he’d arrived at his shop this morning to owl Katie to let her know he’d be bringing along a guest because he didn’t want to see what she’d do to him if he turned up at her lab with Harry bloody Potter unexpectedly in tow. He’d stopped by her lab once before, to pick her up when they got lunch together some weeks ago, and at a quick glance he didn’t see anything immediately illicit lying about. But knowing who her father is and what her family does, he feels that it’s best to err on the side of caution.

Draco has the Coagulating Paste finished and packed into little jars when the test he’s running on the feather finishes. A quick peek into the cauldron shows exactly what he’d expected to find: nothing. Sighing, he empties the cauldron and runs hot water into both of them, scrubs out the one he’d used for his test and leaves the other full of hot water and soap. Coagulating Paste always leaves a stubborn layer of gunk that’s easier to remove if he leaves it to soak for a bit.

He’s drying his hands when the door swings open and Zelda pokes her head in. “We need more Knuts. Would you mind running to Gringotts for me, please?”

“Just a moment,” Draco tells her, and she goes back out front.

He carefully affixes labels to the jars of Coagulating Paste, puts half of them away in the storeroom beneath the stairs and then takes the rest out into the shop.

Zelda has left a little stack of silver Sickles sitting on the end of the counter.

“Put those in a bag for me, please,” Draco tells her as he walks by on his way to the shelves with pre-brewed potions, and she sighs as she sweeps them off the counter and into the palm of her hand before she does as he asks.

“Here,” she says to him when he finishes arranging the jars on their shelf. She holds out the small cotton sack they use for taking coins to and from Gringotts, and he takes it.

“I think I’m going to stop by that little coffeeshop that just opened up the street. Would you like anything?” he asks, tucking the sack into his trousers pocket.

“No thank you,” Zelda says, then, “Oh, I think we’d best get change for one more Sickle.” She opens up the till and takes one out, holds it across the counter to Draco.

Draco takes the cotton sack out of his pocket and holds it open for her to drop the Sickle inside, which she does after a slight hesitation. Draco stares at her. Zelda stares back.

“What,” she says flatly.

“Nothing,” he says, cinching the drawstring of the sack closed and pocketing it again. “I’ll be back in a few minutes. Are you certain you wouldn’t like anything?”

He can tell by her expression that she’s tempted—he knows for a fact that she’s been hooked on dark coffee sweetened with almond syrup ever since she accidentally took a sip from his cup instead of hers one day—but Zelda shakes her head. “No, thank you.”

“All right,” he says. “I’ll be back soon.”

He steps out of the shop and into the sunlit street.

* * * * *

“So, who is this we’re going to see?” Potter asks. He tucks his hands into the pockets of his jacket and glances around the darkened street suspiciously.

There’s nothing of note anywhere around them, but Knockturn Alley inspires that sort of thing even in the broad light of day. Here, deep into twilight, even Draco feels the urge to look around.

“I told you, we’re going to see a very good friend of mine to see if she can help with the feather,” Draco says, then chides, “You needn’t sound so suspicious about it.”

“Well pardon me,” Potter says dryly, glancing over his shoulder again. “But I can’t help but be suspicious when I’m taken to Knockturn Alley for a mysterious rendezvous under cover of darkness with an individual you refuse to tell me anything about. It sort of sets off my Auror senses, you know?”

“I’m not taking you to Knockturn Alley,” Draco says. “We’re merely walking down Knockturn Alley because it’s the shortest path to where we’re going. We could have walked down Diagon, but the trip would have taken twice as long.” Like Draco’s shop, the lab space Katie leases is right on the corner of Knockturn, but she’s down at the other end of it, where Knockturn intersects with Iron Alley. “And a mysterious rendezvous under cover of darkness, good Merlin. It’s barely past suppertime and the streetlamps have only just come on, so I’ve got no idea why you’re being so dramatic. You sound like a cheap romance novel.”

“I do not, and don’t change the subject, Malfoy,” Potter tells him. “I don’t even know the name of this friend of yours.”

“Her name is Katie,” Draco says. “I told you, she studied at the Centre for Alchemical Arts in Egypt. She’s a good friend, so I know she’ll be discreet.”

“And she’s a childhood friend, you said? Her parents and yours knew each other well?”

“Her father and mine started pushing for the two of us to get married when we were very young children,” Draco says, and hopes Potter will leave it at that as an explanation for how they know each other. He’s reluctant to mention that Lucius and Alyosha know each other because they did quite a lot of business together, years ago. Potter knows all too well about how Lucius has had an unfortunate tendency to take advantage of the greyer areas of the law when he thought he could get away with it; Draco certainly doesn’t want Potter getting any ideas that Alyosha might be the same. “Obviously that wasn’t going to happen, but we grew to be very good friends.”

But Potter only says, “Huh,” and then glances over his shoulder again.

They don’t pass anyone except a pair of hags whispering together in a dim doorway. Iron Alley is broader and the streetlamps shine a little brighter, and Draco leads Potter around the corner and up to a narrow building where he raps briskly on the door with the tarnished brass knocker.

The sharp sound reverberates through the empty street, and Draco takes a step back and waits. Then the lock rattles and the door swings open. Draco steps inside, followed closely by Potter, and then shuts and locks the door after them, then turns back to see Potter looking curiously around. There’s not much to see down here. There are several empty shelves sitting in the middle of the room, and several large crates stacked against the far wall. Remnants of whatever shop was here before Katie took over. Everything is dim and dusty, and a blaring wireless echoes down from above

“She’s upstairs,” Draco says unnecessarily, leading the way to a wrought iron staircase that leads up to the floor above.

Upstairs is warm yellow lamp light reflecting off the dark windows, bare walls and pine floors, and a haphazard collection of tables and benches and shelves, each one piled with stacks of parchment, teetering towers of books, quills and glass bottles of ink, journals and sketchpads, and dozens upon dozens of unusual devices made of metal and glass. An enormous chalkboard takes up the entire rear wall of the room, every inch of it covered with Katie’s cramped handwriting, interspersed with scribbled arithmancy equations and elaborate designs. A wizarding wireless sits atop a tall bookshelf, blasting out something Draco doesn’t recognise, with a pounding drumbeat and lots of screaming.

There’s no organisation to it at all, and it sets Draco’s teeth on edge. He has no idea how Katie can work surrounded by chaos, the mess and the noise, good Merlin, Draco has no idea what station she’s tuned into that’s playing this rubbish, it’s not even music. Trying to get any amount of work done in an environment like this would drive him mad. But to each their own, he supposes, because she’d said the same about his potions lab. Too impersonal, she’d called it, said it was stifling.

Katie’s over by the table by the window, tinkering with a contraption of coiled copper tubes, and she sets down her tools and wipes off her hands on her apron as she turns to Draco and Potter, who’s looking around the lab with unabashed curiosity.

He can see the instant where her cheerful expression flickers, but it’s back in full force when she crosses the room to greet them. She reaches them before Draco has time to wonder what it means.

“This is a surprise,” Katie says, all smiles as she takes Potter’s hand and shakes it firmly. “I had no idea Draco was bringing anyone else along.”

And a cold wave of alarm sweeps through Draco.

“I owled you this afternoon,” he says quickly. “Didn’t you get my letter?”

“Obviously I didn’t if I just said I was surprised,” Katie tells him lightly, then smiles and says to Potter, “I’m Katie.”

“Harry. It’s nice to meet you,” Potter says politely.

“Oh, the pleasure’s all mine,” Katie says. “I’ve heard so much about you.”

“Not that much,” Draco grumbles. He’s only mentioned Potter a few times in their letters, and only because they’re living together. It’s been hard enough to avoid talking about his curse while owling back and forth with Katie, without also trying to avoid talking about the bloke he’s living with. And it would’ve seemed suspicious, besides; he and Potter have been in all the papers so Katie already knew they were together.

“I’m afraid you’re ahead of me, there,” Potter says. “Draco hasn’t said much about you at all.”

“He’d better not have, if he knows what’s good for him,” Katie says brightly, and Potter laughs like it’s a joke.

It’s not a joke. It’s really, really not, and Draco hopes that none of his rapidly-increasing apprehension shows.

Katie turns and gives Draco a smile, a very pretty and very sweet one, and Draco swallows. “Draco,” she says, her tone just as pretty and sweet, and oh Merlin. Draco’s in for it now. “A word in private, if you don’t mind?”

They leave Potter standing in the main lab space as she leads him into the small office adjoining the main lab space, and the moment they’re out of sight, she’s got him up against the wall with her wand at his throat. “You have brought an Auror to my lab. And not just any Auror, but you have brought me Harry bloody Potter. Knowing who my father is. Knowing what my family does.” She stares at him, steady and unrelenting, and Draco feels a sharp chill twist through him. He’s never seen her this angry. “Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t hex the fuck out of you.”

It occurs to him just then that Katie’s got a Durmstrang education, and he really doesn’t care to find out firsthand whether the rumours about all the Dark Arts they learn there are accurate.

“Other than the Auror in the next room?” he asks with far more composure than he feels. “You’re smarter than that.”

Katie’s mouth tightens and she jabs her wand more firmly into the tender skin beneath his chin. Draco swallows reflexively, feels his Adam’s apple bob against the tip of her wand.

“Because I need you,” he says quietly. “Please. I wouldn’t have brought him here if it wasn’t important. If this case wasn’t important.” He’s got no idea where the lie comes from, but it’s probably for the best he hadn’t known what he was about to say before he said it. The fact that he didn’t think before he said it is probably the only reason it’s believable. He can see she’s bought it in the way her anger simmers down. “Please,” he says again. “You could be an enormous help to him.”

The pressure of her wand on his throat eases of the barest fraction as she stares him in the eye. “This is important to you. This case, it’s important to you personally.”

“Yes,” he says, swallowing again. “And helping me is personal to you. I helped you, Katie. I didn’t have to warn you about the Aurors sniffing around your father’s business colleague and I did. You owe me for that.”

She steps back, keeps the wand pointed at him, but at least it’s no longer digging into his neck. “Did you get that information from him?” she asks, and doesn’t give him a chance to answer before she raises and eyebrow and says, “Well, that’s interesting. Does he know?”

“No,” he says. He resists the urge to check and see if Potter’s overheard, though logically he knows he couldn’t have. The wireless is more than loud enough to cover his conversation with Katie. “And I’d prefer if he didn’t.”

Shaking her head, Katie puts her wand away. “Sometimes, Draco Malfoy, you are too like your father. Keeping so many secrets, playing so many different angles…” She sighs. “It never ends well for anyone.”

“I suppose we’ll find out, won’t we,” he says. Then, “Will you help?”

Katie shrugs, sighs, and nods. “Consider our debts balanced, then. He gave me useful information, unwitting though it may have been, and I’ll do my best to give him the information he needs in return.”

“Thank you,” Draco says.

“Don’t thank me yet,” Katie says as she sweeps past him, back out into the lab. “I haven’t done anything yet.”

Potter’s leaning over a table, looking at a strange device made of twisted brass wire and crystal lenses, and swinging his hips a little as he sways in time to the song on the wireless. He stops as soon as he notices them come back, straightening up and frowning a little as he looks over at them.

“Everything all right?” he asks, looking at Draco, who gives a minute shake of his head.

“Just fine,” Katie says with a smile. “Draco was telling me a little bit about your case.”

“My case?” Potter repeats, and Draco hastily jumps in before he can say anything else.

“I’m sorry, I already told her that you need her help for a case the Aurors are working. I know you didn’t want to say anything, but I’ve known Katie practically my whole life. We can trust her.”

“Oh,” says Potter. “Well, I wish you’d discussed it with me beforehand.”

Draco shrugs and doesn’t meet his eye. Instead, he takes out the feather and hands it over to Katie. “Someone is casting curses that force people to grow wings with each full moon. This is from one of the victims. I’ve tested others to the best of my ability, but…”

“We were hoping that, since the curse is transformative in nature,” Potter steps in smoothly, “perhaps a trained Alchemist might have better luck.”

Katie holds the feather by the quill and spins it thoughtfully between her fingers. “I have some ideas I can try. Is this evidence in your case? Will you need it back?”

“No,” Potter says. “Do whatever you need to do to it.”

Katie hums thoughtfully. “It’ll be a few days. Shall I contact you at the Ministry?”

“Actually, I’d prefer if you contacted me directly,” Potter says. “I’m living in a Muggle area currently, but if you send an owl to Draco’s shop, it’ll get to me from there.”

“All right,” Katie says. She sets the feather down atop a nearby stack of books and sticks out her hand. “Well, Harry Potter, I’ll see what I can do.”

“The Ministry thanks you kindly for your service,” Potter replies very solemnly, shaking her hand.

They talk for a little while longer. Katie asks Draco about his parents, and Draco asks after her father. They make plans to have lunch together early next week, and then Katie not-so-subtly invites them to leave, saying she’s got a lot of work left to get through. Draco gives her a hug, and then he and Potter show themselves out.

“You know,” Potter says as they step outside, “you could have told me that you planned to tell her I’m meant to be working a case.”

“I didn’t exactly plan to tell her,” Draco mutters, tucking his hands into his pockets and trying to keep from shivering. It feels like the temperature’s dropped since they went inside, and the wind’s picked up some. “But she wanted to know why I’d brought along the famous Harry Potter and it makes sense, doesn’t it? Why you’d be there and where the feather came from in the first place?” Frankly, they should have considered it before. Katie would have examined the feather without questions simply because Draco asked her too, but it’s better to have an explanation to keep her from growing curious.

“Next time we’re coordinating our story beforehand,” Potter says as they turn down Knockturn Alley, heading back to Draco’s shop where they’ll take the Floo back to the Ministry where Potter’s left his motorbike parked. “Because that could’ve gone a lot worse.”

“You’re the Auror,” Draco tells him, “Shouldn’t you have thought of this?” and Potter gives him a sour look.

“Sod off,” Potter tells him, giving Draco a little shove.

Draco takes a big step to the side to recover his balance, then gives Potter a superior look. “That’s not a very nice way to speak to your boyfriend,” he says loftily.

“Oh fuck off,” Potter says through a laugh, swinging his arm like he’s try to shove Draco again, and Draco dodges him neatly, smiling a little. “Christ, you’re a cheeky little shit.”

Draco snickers, and then drifts closer to Potter over the next couple of steps. Their shoulders bump, and Draco tips his head back to look up into the sky, sighing a little. It’s not cold enough to see his breath and he exhales again, all the way from the bottom of his lungs to see if he can make steam.

“You seem happier right now,” Potter says, glancing over at him. They’re passing underneath a streetlamp, and the warm light falls over them, glints off Potter’s glasses, makes all the edges and angles of his face look just different enough that Draco finds himself giving Potter a second look.

They move away from the streetlamp, passing back into shadow, and Draco looks down at his feet as he pauses, considering Potter’s comment. He does feel happier, and somehow lighter. It takes him a moment to place it: handing over that feather to Katie feels like a weight’s been lifted off his shoulders. He’s optimistic she’ll be able to find out more about it than he could, and he’s hopeful that information will lead him to discover what curse he’s under and how to break it.

“Well, I am,” he says finally. “Katie is good at what she does. She’ll find out more.”

“Good,” Potter says, then again, quieter, “Good.” He nudges Draco’s elbow with his own and gives him a crooked smile. “I’m glad.”

The way he looks, the sound of his voice, it’s all so sincere that it knocks Draco off balance. Potter really, genuinely is glad to see Draco happier, and the realisation feels like descending a staircase and expecting to reach the ground, only to find there’s an extra step. It makes his stomach swoop with that same sort of startled panic.

Which is ridiculous, isn’t it? But this is the first time that it’s clicked together for Draco that Potter cares about him. And he’d known that, to some extent. Because Potter was helping him, wasn’t it? Potter didn’t want Draco to die. But there’s a difference between wanting someone to not die, and wanting them to be happy.

And he can’t help but wonder whether it’s because this is Harry Potter, if that same part of him that made him the Chosen One means that he can’t help but care for everyone around him. Or whether it’s because of him. That Potter cares about Draco himself. That maybe, after all this time, they’re finally learning how to be friends.

* * * * *

“Have you somehow lost the ability to walk across the street?” Draco demands when Zelda asks him to go to Gringotts to exchange coins for the third time in as many days. “During business hours when you’ve got customers in the shop is one thing, but we don’t open for another five minutes.”

He folds his arms over his chest and makes no move to take the Sickles that Zelda stacked neatly on the counter. For a long moment, he and Zelda stare at each other.

“I haven’t cleaned the skylights or watered Francine yet today,” Zelda points out. “Both of which I know you hate. I thought I could do those while you’re at the bank.”

That’s very true, but Grabthar has finally seen through Draco’s inane-weather-babble ploy and now very deliberately counts the coins even slower than his usual glacial pace as some sort of ridiculously passive-aggressive form of revenge. Zelda’s set aside a large number of Sickles, and if Draco waits around to get all of them exchanged for Knuts, he’ll be at Gringotts until teatime.

So Draco slings a Scourgify at the skylights and an Aguamenti at the fanged geranium. “There,” he says, whisking his wand back up his sleeve. “Go to Gringotts.”

Zelda huffs and sweeps the stack of Sickles into the palm of her hand before stamping off, and Draco hasn’t got the faintest idea what she’s got herself so worked up over. The Goblins like her well enough; she’ll be back inside of ten minutes. But she’s been behaving strangely ever since she came back after her time off from the shop. He wonders whether something happened while she was away that she’s not telling him.

Well. If she wanted to tell him, she would have. And if she hasn’t then it must not be that important.

The shop is ready to open otherwise, and Draco props open the door to the back room so he can watch the front while he organises the ingredients for the first batch of potions he’s got on the schedule to brew today.

He’s just hauling his largest cauldron out and hefting it up onto his worktable when the bells over the door jingle, and Draco glances over, expecting to see Zelda.

Instead, Katie’s stepping into the shop.

“Come on back,” he calls out to her, then, when she steps into his potions lab, he adds, “Good morning.”

“Good morning,” she says and hoists herself up to sit on his worktable.

“There is a stool right next to you,” Draco points out, giving the side of her arse a jab with his wand, and she swats him away.

“Oh, thank you,” she says, lifts up her feet and plunks them down onto the seat of the stool. She crosses her feet.

Draco swishes his wand and yanks the stool out from under her, sending it sliding down to the other end of the worktable. Katie lets her feet swing for a moment, then hooks one ankle over the other. She cocks an eyebrow, daring him to say anything else about it, and Draco rolls his eyes and reaches up to get the jug of vinegar down from its shelf.

“Have you come here for a reason? Or did you simply wake up this morning and feel like bothering me?” he asks as he uncorks the jug and measures a cup, pouring it into the bottom of the cold cauldron. She’s come here for the feather. Of course she has, why else would she visit him first thing in the morning? But he doesn’t want to appear too eager.

Katie sits up a little straighter at that, the teasing smile slipping off her face. “I finished with that feather last night,” she says.

Draco keeps his expression neutral as he recorks the jug and sets it aside, and puts the measuring cup into the sink. “Did you learn anything useful?”

“I learnt that whoever’s doing this is using some very, very powerful magic, first off,” she says. “That’s why I wanted to discuss this with you in person, rather than sending an owl. I want you to understand how serious this is so you can make sure that Harry understands he’s probably best off turning this case over to the Unspeakables.”

Draco can feel his hands grow unsteady in the way that means they’ll start shaking if he doesn’t do something about it. Busy. He needs to keep them busy. He picks up the tin of Adder’s forks he’d set out and opens it, upending it over the cauldron so they can soak in the vinegar. “What have you found out about it?” he asks, keeping his eyes on what he’s doing.

“Unfortunately, nothing concrete,” she says, and it’s like a bucket of cold water. The flicker of hope he’d kept burning since dropping off the feather at her Alchemy lab fizzles and dies, and the sudden loss of it is nearly painful. “But hopefully some of what I’ve learned will give help Harry narrow his focus of investigation.”

“What have you found?” Draco asks again. It comes out sharper this time, and he tempers his words by adding, “Perhaps something you’ve discovered will give me ideas for further testing, should I be given another feather myself.”

“Well, as I said before, it’s a powerful magic, likely a very old spell,” Katie says, her voice taking on a brisk and businesslike tone. “The caster won’t necessarily be a pureblood, but it’ll be someone whose family tree shows a long line of wizards. This won’t be something found in an ordinary spellbook. Maybe you’ll get lucky and come across it in something old and rare, but more likely it’s a spell of the sort that’s kept to one’s own family.”

Draco nods. He’d been rather afraid of that. “And that’s if it’s written down at all,” he sighs. There are a handful of powerful spells that exist only in his and his parents’ minds, passed down through the Malfoy line, and several more that he’d got from the Blacks. Most old wizarding families have their own.

“Exactly,” Katie says. “But at least that eliminates most of the more recent or readily available spellbooks.”

“That’s true,” Draco says. He’ll probably still read through the ones he’s amassed so far, just to be sure there’s nothing in there, but it’s good to have a clearer direction of where to look.

“I was also able to trigger a reversal of the transformation, reverting the feather into…” She pauses, screws up her face, “...well, its original organic material.” She produces a corked vial wrapped in strong Preservation Charms and hands it over, and Draco takes it. About half an ounce of bloody sludge puddles in the bottom. “I’m assuming the Aurors have already identified the victim from whom this came, but in case they haven’t.” She shrugs. “And I figured, open investigation and all that,” She twirls one hand expansively. “I’d feel better not having that sort of evidence lying about my lab.”

“That’s quite understandable. And very much appreciated,” Draco says. He puts the vial into the cabinet above his work table. He’ll dispose of it as soon as Katie leaves. He doesn’t need to leave this sort of evidence lying about his lab, either.

“But see, here’s the interesting thing about it,” Katie says, swinging her feet idly. “When I reversed the transformation, I didn’t get a sense that it was Dark Arts.”

“Well, the spell is triggered by the full moon. The feather’s already been transformed, so the magic in it would have gone inert,” Draco says.

“Yes, but Draco, I said I didn’t get anything Dark, not that I didn’t get anything at all,” Katie says. “You know how Dark Arts tends to leave a residue. When I undid the transformation, I should have got a hint of something when the magics released. There was more than enough.”

That gives Draco pause. Katie’s the only person he’s ever met who’s got an even better sense for magic than he has. It’s why she’s done so well as an Alchemist. Transmutive Magics are 75% hard theory and arithmancy, and 25% simply having a sense for what feels right.

“Nothing at all?” he asks, frowning. Not that he doesn’t trust Katie’s ability to sense magic. But he can’t imagine how this curse isn’t Dark Arts.

“Not even a hint,” Katie tells him. “But the magic that did come off it was…” She pauses, shakes her head. “I can’t even begin to describe it. But I could show you, if you’d like?” She twirls her wand between her fingers. “Legilimency, if you trust me?”

“I trust you,” Draco says. “And if you try to get into my head, I know exactly how to force you right back out that’ll leave you with a screaming migraine for the rest of the day.”

Katie rolls her eyes at that, and Draco takes a few moments to ready himself. He’s not at all concerned about her seeing something she shouldn’t. He’s a skilled Occlumens; for all that his studies were involuntary, they were certainly effective. Gaining the ability to keep his Aunt Bellatrix out of his head worked extremely well so far as motivation went. She had a habit of waiting until he was distracted—the dinner table was a favourite of hers, because then there was an audience—and then slipping into his mind and casually announcing whatever of his thoughts she’d gleaned.

It’s given him a healthy fear of having other people in his head, but if all goes well, Katie won’t be. He’s going to be going into her mind, but he still takes the time to put up his own mental walls so that there’s no chance she can accidentally chase the connection back to him.

He exhales slowly, then nods to her. “All right.”

Katie sits up and squares her shoulders. “Go on, then. And don’t press. A girl’s got to have her secrets, you know.” She smiles, but she looks faintly nervous.

“All right,” Draco says again, then reaches out and takes her hand, holding on while he whispers the spell and presses forward.

She’s opened her mind to him, and as always, the sensation of being inside someone’s mind when they’ve prepared to receive him feels like standing inside a fitting room at a clothing shop. He’s in a small space, isolated, but just beyond the curtain is a whole bustling space he can sense but can’t see. He can hear motion, muffled bits of conversation, and it would be so, so easy to lift the curtain, to take a peek.

He doesn’t. Of course he doesn’t, because she trusts him. He can feel it like a wide lake or a broad river, a deep and steady current beneath the rippling surface, choppy waves of uncertainty, and anxiety, and the fear that he’ll break that trust. He couldn’t, he wouldn’t, especially not now that he can feel how deep it runs, how pure it is. The curtain wavers and becomes a door, and the noise on the other side fades to a murmur.

Ready?

He feels the question, and has no idea whether she’s even spoken it aloud. His senses are all tangled up in hers, standing on the floor and sitting on the table at the same time, and the warm press of his hand to her hand to his hand to her hand to his hand spirals away into infinity.

Ready.

The memory comes up. It’s not the same as a Pensieve. Those are crisp and bright, nearly indistinguishable from reality. The Pensieve works by stripping a memory down to its core, sloughing off all the feeling from it, the emotions and the impressions, until what’s left is as objective as a human observation can possibly be.

But this, reliving someone else’s memory directly, is far less precise. It feels wavery, and skips ahead and back a few times, blasting him with a dizzying rush of impressions, the song on the wireless, how she’s beginning to feel tired, how she’s craving something sweet even though she just ate dinner, isn’t there a packet of biscuits I’m almost certain there are some—her father is—and don’t forget that tomorrow—haven’t gone—and it’s important to—bed is going to feel so nice, soft pillow and warm blankets, and that thought’s buffeted by a strong wave of longing—now where did I put that stirring rod?

Then Katie wrestles it back under control, regains her focus, and does her best to strip out everything that’s not important. The sound of the wireless fades, the tiredness, and then she drops the feather into a large glass beaker and waves her wand, reciting spells—the memory skips forward, this takes a long time and isn’t important, you don’t need to see it—picks up the feather with a pair of tweezers and holds it up, examining it closely.

It droops, wilting, and something drops back into the beaker. A single drop of blood, bright red against the glass bottom. Another, and another, and a small burst of triumph detonating deep in his chest in her chest in his—I did it, it’s working now, I knew this would work—and then the feather runs into itself like melting wax and collapses into a soupy mess of—organic material!—and then there, there, the magic coming undone.

Pay attention, now!

Like Katie said, it’s impossible to describe. It feels big, inexplicably enormous. Like the crash of thunder, but there’s no sound. Like being slammed with an enormous wave, but there’s no sensation. It’s everywhere, and then it’s gone.

The memory dissolves, and Draco eases carefully from Katie’s mind until he senses the link between them slip peacefully away.

“You’re right,” he tells her, drawing in an unsteady breath. He feels inexplicably bereft now that her mind is gone from his, and isn’t that strange? Then again, he’s never used Legilimency with anyone he’s actually liked before now. “That’s definitely a very old spell.”

“I’m sorry I couldn’t have been more help than that,” she says. She seems steadier than he feels, her voice and her body language, but she’s still holding hard to his hand. “I’d offer to try more, if Harry’s able to get me another feather. But I wasn’t able to get anything from it until I reversed the transformation, and then…” Katie shrugs. “You felt it. I don’t think there’s anything more we can learn from doing it a second time.”

For all that the magic was strong, it was there for an instant and then gone again. And since the spell is working in reverse, unraveling into threads of magic that quickly disintegrate, any sort of diagnostic charms they might try to use to find out more detail about the spell will spit out rubbish results. She’s right. There’s nothing they can learn from performing it a second time.

“Anyhow.” Katie finally lets go of his hand and produces a tightly-rolled length of parchment and hands it over. “That’s everything I found out. I wrote out the full process, and some of it does get quite technical, but I’ve included explanations in layman’s terms as well.” She shrugs a little and swings her feet. “I assumed that Harry would want something for his case files, and I figured more information was better than less.”

“You assumed correctly,” Draco says. He puts the parchment away into the cabinet with the vial. “Thank you. I—I’m sure Harry will greatly appreciate your help.”

“Anytime. And speaking of Harry…” says Katie slyly, and Draco’s absolutely certain he’s not going to like whatever she says next. “He’s much more handsome in person than the pictures in the paper.”

“Oh good Merlin,” Draco says. “We are not going to gossip about cute boys like a couple of flighty first-years. Especially a cute boy who happens to be my boyfriend.”

“Ah,” Katie says gleefully. “You think he’s cute!”

“I—That—” Fuck, he can feel his cheeks going pink because, oh. He really had just said that, hadn’t he? He hadn’t meant to say that, but now that he has… Well. Potter’s not altogether bad looking, Draco supposes, now that he thinks about it. “Well I am dating him,” he says awkwardly.

Katie laughs. “Oh, don’t give me that look. I wouldn’t poke fun at you if you didn’t get so wonderfully flustered.”

He scowls at her, but it only makes her laugh again.

The bells on the door tinkle just then, and Draco steps to the side to see who’s come in. And oh thank Merlin, Zelda’s back, bringing with her a much-appreciated end to this conversation.

“Customer?” Katie asks, sliding off the worktable. She leans forward to see around the shop. “Oh, Zelda.”

“Zelda,” Draco agrees briskly. He touches his fingers gently to Katie’s elbow and ushers her out into the shop. “Are we still planning on lunch tomorrow?”

“Of course,” Katie tells him, then smiles. “Hello, Zelda.”

“Hi, Katie,” Zelda says brightly. “How have you been?”

They’d met each other briefly the last time that Katie had stopped by the shop to meet Draco and took quite a shine to each other in the few minutes it took Draco to finish up with the potion he was brewing. On the one hand, he’d been glad of it. He liked each of them individually, and it was always nice to see the people he cared about getting on well with each other. But on the other, he has a sinking feeling about the pair of them joining forces.

“Katie,” he says. “It was very nice of you to stop by. Thank you again. And Zelda, I’ll be in the back if you need me.”

He leaves them to it, and goes back to where he’s left the Adder’s forks soaking in vinegar. He lights the flame beneath the cauldron and gets out the jar of crocodile hearts, fishes out two of them, and begins to slice them into neat slivers.

As he works, he thinks over the new information he’d gathered from Katie. Mostly he’s stuck on the idea that the curse on him isn’t a curse at all. Curses are exclusively Dark. And this certainly didn’t feel like it. And Draco knows that all magic exists in shades of grey, and though spells lend themselves more readily to one or the other, it’s the intent of the caster and the purpose for which a spell is used that makes it truly good or evil.

So it’s not that he doesn’t believe that a good spell can’t be used for an evil purpose. It’s that he simply can’t fathom how the spell on him could possibly be used for anything good.

He’s still pondering it more than fifteen minutes later when he’s interrupted.

“Draco?” Zelda calls out as she comes into the back room. “If you’ve got a moment, I’d appreciate a bit of help with something?”

Draco glances at her. “What do you need?”

She holds up her necklace, the silver Star of David glinting in the light. He’s never seen her take it off before. She smiles a little sheepishly and says, “The clasp caught in my hair so I took it off to untangle it, and I’m having a bit of trouble getting it fastened again. Would you mind…?” She holds it out to him.

“Of course,” he says, going over to her. He reaches out and takes the necklace from her.

Zelda’s shoulders slump as the breath leaves her in a silent sigh, and Draco hadn’t realised how tense she was until all of the apprehension in her suddenly went flooding out. It’s as if she’s… relieved? But why on earth would she be—

And then it clicks together for Draco. Her suddenly trying to get him to take Sickles to Gringotts. Why she reacted like this when he accepted her necklace.

One of the things that’s always impressed him most about Zelda is how clever she is, and he should have known she’d put together the very specific timing of his absences sooner rather than later.

She’s been trying to get him to touch silver.

“You—” he says before he can stop himself, and she looks abruptly guilty, and it’s so ridiculous that he huffs out a short laugh. “You really are the worst liar.”

“I’m sure I have no idea what you’re talking about,” she says stiffly.

“The worst,” Draco repeats.

Zelda huffs and takes her necklace from him and fastens it around her neck herself. “Fine, all right?” she says. “I was worried. I thought…” She sighs. “Well, it does seem rather silly, doesn’t it? But you’ve disappeared around the full moon for four months in a row, now. And this last month you closed the shop. I’ve seen you try to work while you’re burning with fever. What else was I supposed to think?”

“Well, I suppose that’s a reasonable assumption,” Draco says. “But you could have asked me about it.”

“I didn’t think you’d tell me,” she says bluntly. “I’m sorry, but I honestly didn’t. Not with the anti-lycanthrope sentiments going around, and I know how you are. You don’t like to admit any sort of weakness.” She shrugs. “So I was hoping that you would pick up a Sickle in front of me and disprove everything, and that would be that.”

Well. She’s not wrong about any of it. “Purely out of curiosity,” he says, folding his arms over his chest. “What would you have done if I had turned out to be a werewolf?”

“Helped you,” she says immediately. “I would have helped you. The way people with lycanthropy are treated is despicable. If you’d contracted it, I would have helped cover up your absences. Mentioned to people that you were just in the back room, brewing something important and couldn’t be disturbed. Or that I’d just seen you that morning. Of course I would have helped. I’d have done everything I could to help you.”

She means it. He can see how sincerely she means every word of it. Draco’s throat goes tight, and he swallows hard against it, because he does not deserve her loyalty.

He’s enormously tempted to tell her the truth. But instead, all he says is, “Thank you.”

The bells on the door jingle, and Zelda goes back into the front of the shop.

As soon as the door shuts behind her, Draco sighs and drops down onto the stool. He’s put her off for now, but if he keeps disappearing each full moon like clockwork, she’s going to get suspicious all over again, and he doesn’t want her involved. If she starts digging into this or asking questions, it might attract the attention of whoever’s after Draco. He still doesn’t know who’s targeting him or why, but he can’t take the chance of that person hurting Zelda.

Draco groans and rubs at his face. If he could be seen during his absence, even just briefly, that might be enough. But there’s no way it’ll work. He doesn’t wake up until the third day, and has no idea where he spends the other two.

His eyes catch on a jar of lacewing flies, and slowly he reaches out and picks it up, turning it in his hands.

But… what if he could be seen during the full moon?

He’ll still have to come up with an excuse to be away for the majority of the time, but what if he got Potter to take a dose of Polyjuice and show up here for a bit, just to alleviate Zelda’s suspicions? He’s been planning to announce a meeting with a supplier on the continent for this transformation. It’d be easy to conveniently ‘forget’ something important, and have Potter-as-him pop into the shop for a moment to pick it up.

Draco sets the lacewing flies down. Even if he starts right this minute, he won’t have enough time to brew Polyjuice Potion. The lacewing flies need to stew for a full twenty-one days before he can begin, and he doesn’t keep any on hand. Polyjuice Potion is on the Ministry’s list of Restricted Potions, so he only fills the occasional order for it. And resents having to do so, based on the amount of paperwork that’s required for the sale.

But lacewing flies are used in a variety of other potions. They were one of the first ingredients he and David worked to find a substitution for. And then happily discovered that the substitution had one enormous advantage over the ingredient they’d meant it to replace: lacewings, once stewed, must be used right away or they rapidly lose their potency; the stewed lacewing substitute is shelf-stable.

And Draco’s got a jar of it in his secondary lab space.

* * * * *

Five days before the next full moon, Potter brings home another enormous stack of books.

Since it’s a Saturday and Potter hasn’t pulled weekend rotation this month and so didn’t need to go to the Ministry today, Draco took the Floo to and from work. It seemed ridiculous to make Potter drive him there and back, and he doesn’t know how to operate the motorcycle, and he refuses to take a cab by himself. So he took the Floo and as far as the neighbours are concerned, Draco simply never left the house today.

When he steps from the Floo at the end of the day, he finds Potter sitting on the sofa, half-hidden behind a wall of books piled up on the coffee table.

“What are all of these?” Draco asks, stepping over and picking up the nearest one, because they’re not books on curses, as he’d expected them to be. They’re not even wizarding books. They’re Muggle books on mythology, Irish and English and German and Japanese and Native American and—

“I’ve been digging into some old files at the Ministry in my spare time,” Potter says. “Looking for old cases that might match any of your symptoms—”

Draco looks up at him “You’ve found out what curse it is?”

“No,” Potter says.

“You’ve found more victims who’ve been cursed with the same thing?”

“Also no,” Potter says. “Will you shut up and listen, or would you prefer to keep making wrong guesses?”

“Go on, then,” Draco says, rolling his eyes, and drops the book he’s holding down onto the stack he got it from. The coffee table lets out an alarming creak and the stacks of books sway ominously. He takes a quick step back.

“Don’t worry, I’ve already put Stabilising Charms on it,” Potter says. “It’s fine.”

“Ah, there’s more of that no-magic-in-the-house rule, I see,” Draco says dryly, and Potter wrinkles his nose.

“No magic in the house unless it’s necessary,” Potter says.

“Or unless we feel like it, or it’s a day ending in the letter Y—”

Draco breaks off when Potter slings a throw pillow at him, and Draco catches it and throws it back. Potter catches it and jams it behind him. “As I was saying, I was looking through old case files trying to find anything that sounds similar to what’s happened to you. If it had, it probably would have been an Unspeakable case, but every few decades or so, everyone’s old case files all get shunted down to Filing, and then every century or so, Filing dumps all their old files into Storage. So every department’s records are all down there together, and you said that Katie said it’s an old spell, so,” He shrugs. “I figured there was a chance something like this came through the Ministry before, and if it had, it’d be down there.”

“So what did you find out, aside from how paperwork flows through the Ministry?” Draco asks.

“I found a different case involving an obscure curse,” Potter says. “And part of the file was a transcript for an interview with a Professor Archimedes Arbore. He taught Transfiguration at Hogwarts, apparently, from…” Potter pauses and shuffles through some papers, “...from 1437 until 1481 when, and you’ll appreciate the irony here, one of his advanced students accidentally Transfigured him into a tree.”

Draco blinks. “No-one could figure out how to change him back?”

“Considering that Arbore was the leading Transfiguration expert of that time, and seeing as how he was made entirely of wood, no. No-one was able to change him back.”

“Well, that’s unfortunate,” Draco says.

“Oh, it gets better,” Potter says. “At something of a loss for what to do with him, they planted him out behind Greenhouse 3 where by all accounts he flourished. He was out there for another 150 years, and then when they were clearing out space for what would eventually become Greenhouse 4, some lines of communication got a bit muddled and he was accidentally chopped down.”

Draco blinks. “That’s…”

“It gets better,” Potter says again. “When he realised what he’d done, the groundskeeper—a Mr Richard Caulifield—who happened to be a skilled woodworker, felt so guilty about it that he turned him into a table—”

“What.”

“—and put him in the Great Hall—”

“What.”

“—and that’s why the Hufflepuff table looks different than the other three.”

“What.”

“Well, Arbore was the Hufflepuff Head of House back when he was not a tree, so when they accidentally chopped him down—”

“No, no. I heard you,” Draco says. “But. What?”

“I know, I know,” Potter says. “I couldn’t make this shit up.”

“That’s horrifying,” Draco says after a moment, once he picks through the sheer irony of it all.

“I know,” Potter says again, and sounds almost gleeful. “I’m so glad I got to tell someone this. I tried to tell Hermione, but she already knew. Apparently there’s a whole chapter in Hogwarts: A History that’s devoted to notable faculty through the ages, and Arbore’s got a whole page for his story.”

“None of the other ones have been turned into furniture, have they?” Draco’s almost afraid to know the answer.

“No, he’s the only one,” Potter says. “Anyhow, sorry. I know that’s a bit off track but I had to share it with someone.” He flips through his papers again. “So, right, the curse they were investigating was the Narcissus Curse. A wizard fell in love with a witch, who didn’t return his feelings. So the wizard, being a complete fucking arsehole, instead of accepting that she didn’t feel the same and moving on, cursed her so that she could never fall in love with anyone at all. As a side effect of the curse, she was transfixed by reflected images of herself and would stare at them until someone else forcibly broke her line of sight.”

Draco eyes the stack of mythology books. “And would this Narcissus Curse have anything to do with the story of Narcissus, who fell in love with his own reflection and wasted away?”

Potter snaps his fingers. “It does indeed. According to Arbore, a lot of older spells are based in mythology. At the time written records weren’t as common, and so passing down the stories is how they passed down the spells.”

“And you think what’s happened to me might be based on a myth?”

“That’s the idea,” Potter says.

“And by finding out the myth the curse is based on, we can figure out how to undo it?” Draco asks.

“Well, that bit is unclear,” Potter says. “But more information is better at this point, yeah?”

“I suppose,” Draco says. “Perhaps it will give us a better idea of how the curse is expected to progress, at the very least.”

He leaves Potter to continue looking through the books, and goes into the kitchen to start dinner. He makes chicken cutlets with green beans and roasted potatoes, and chops vegetables for a salad.

Potter wanders in right as he’s finishing up and asks, “Anything I can do to help?”

“Your timing is impeccable,” Draco says. “Set the table, if you don’t mind, and I’ll make us up a couple of plates.”

They sit down and eat, and Potter keeps up a rambling monologue about several of the latest products George has invented for his shop so that Draco will know what he ought to watch out for at the Burrow tomorrow, and Draco doesn’t add much to the conversation but he’s grateful for the way it fills the silence. And honestly, he’s also grateful for the warning about the Cherry Chatterboxes, which at a glance are indistinguishable from cherry cordials.

“He got me and Ron to help him out with that one,” Potter says, spearing green beans with his fork. “Since the formula’s got a lot in common with Veritaserum and that’s a regulated substance, he didn’t want to get arrested for it. But rather than forcing you to tell the truth, it just encourages you to announce every thought that passes through your head.” He makes a face. “He got Ginny with it, and she spent the whole five minutes it lasted telling George exactly how she wanted to hex him for it. It was pretty inventive.”

“I can imagine,” Draco says.

After dinner, they retire to the living room with its mountain of books, and they begin to look through them, occasionally reading bits aloud to each other. They’re sorting through mostly in search of anything to do with birds. Draco reads about Prometheus, who was chained down and had his liver eaten by a giant eagle each day, only to heal each night. He scans ahead until he finds the story of Ischys, who had an affair with Apollo’s lover and was to have his eyes pecked out by crows, only the crow sent to do it felt sorry for it and didn’t and Apollo turned the crow black with the force of his glare.

“These Greeks were certainly a cheerful bunch,” Draco grumbles. Potter doesn’t answer, and Draco glances up at him. “Potter?”

“Listen to this,” Potter says. “In Danish folklore, there’s a story about when a king is killed and not found on the battlefield, and ravens eat his body. And the raven who eats his heart gains the knowledge of men and could do terrible things because of it. It’s called a Valravn.”

“All right,” Draco says, because, as with Prometheus and Ischys, there’s not much in common with his situation beyond there being birds in it.

“It’s this next part,” Potter says. “According to another account, the Valravn is really a restless spirit who’s looking for redemption. He can only fly at night, and eventually he drinks the blood of a child and transforms into a knight.”

There’s a long moment of silence during which Draco processes what he’s just been told.

“There’s a third version, where the Valravn is a half-raven half-wolf monster,” he offers. “That might, you know, the werewolf…?”

Draco snaps his book shut. “I’m going to bed,” he says.

“Malfoy…” Potter begins, but Draco doesn’t answer.

He puts the book back on top of the stack, stands up, and leaves the room.

* * * * *

Draco would have guessed that he’d dream about the Valravn Potter told him about. Perhaps chasing down a child, or transforming into a half-raven, half-wolf creature. Instead he dreams he’s taken the place of Prometheus, chained and helpless as an eagle tears into the tender flesh of his belly and devours his liver piece by piece. The hot sun shines down on him, and the blood on the eagle’s beak glistens wetly in the light.

He jerks awake with a gasp, the phantom echoes of pain still lancing through his abdomen and a scream trapped behind his teeth. He sits up and scrubs at his face with his hands, listening carefully.

The house remains dark and quiet. That’s good, at least, that he didn’t wake up Potter. He’d insist on making sure Draco is all right, and Draco’s still too rattled from the nightmare to put on a good front. Potter might sit up with him, might insist on making him tea, might put his arm around Draco and be a steady presence at his side, warm and comforting, and—

It’s for the best that he’s still asleep.

Draco slips out of bed and pulls on his dressing gown before he leaves his room, moving down the hall as quietly as he can. Potter’s door is ajar and Draco can hear him breathing, slow and heavy.

He goes downstairs and drinks a glass of water and looks out the window for a while, at the dark, quiet street lined with dark, quiet houses.

It’s strangely lonely. He knows he’s surrounded by people. They’re in all of those houses, and Potter himself is just upstairs. But everything is so still and silent that Draco might as well be the only man in the world. He watches for a while, and then an owl hoots and Draco closes the curtains.

He knows he’ll pay for it tomorrow—the exhaustion of his impending transformation is already dragging at him—but he doesn’t want to go back to sleep, and honestly doesn’t think he’d be able to if he tries. So he makes himself a cup of tea, and then turns on a lamp in the living room and settles down on the sofa. Potter must have put all the mythology books away in the library upstairs because the coffee table is clear of everything but the flower book and the book about the Scottish countryside.

Might as well get some work done. Draco shifts on the sofa so his back presses against the arm of it and he can stretch out his legs. Then he swishes his wand and he Accios the paperbound journal Potter had been making notes about mythology in as well as the pen he’d been using to do so.

Draco’s still wary of Muggle pens, but he can admit that it’s convenient to not have to keep dipping them into an inkpot. If he’s being completely honest, he can also admit that he rather likes the way it clicks to make the nib come out.

He props the journal on his knees, flips past the pages filled with Potter’s scrawling handwriting, clicks the pen, and begins to work through some arithmancy for a couple of new formulas he’s been developing, and it’s a wonderful distraction. Draco’s always liked working with numbers. They’re predictable. Constant. Following the same steps will always yield the same results, and applying principles of Arithmancy to other subjects feels like bringing a little more order to a small bit of the world.

The sun has started to rise by the time Draco closes the journal and clicks the pen and stands up. Potter will likely sleep for a while—he tends to have a bit of a lie-in on Sundays—but it’s late enough that Draco can justify showering and then getting dressed. He’ll go into work for a bit, he thinks. Get some brewing done before it’s time to go to the Burrow.

Plan in place, he takes his empty mug into the kitchen, and then heads back upstairs.

* * * * *

The night of the full moon, he and Potter eat dinner together early and do the washing up, and then Draco sits at the table for as long as he can stand, browsing through potions periodicals while Potter reviews some case files for work. When the ache between his shoulder blades edges toward an itch, Draco stands up.

“It won’t be long now,” he says.

Potter goes up with him to his room and waits outside while Draco ties the Portkey on one wrist and a bracelet Potter had enchanted with several new tracking charms on the other. He takes off his clothes and wraps himself in a blanket and lies down on the bed, the sheets rustling beneath him as he wriggles around a little bit to get comfortable. Potter taps on the door a few moments later and comes inside.

“Ready?” he asks softly.

And Draco squeezes his eyes shut. “Not much choice about it, is there?” he says.

“I know,” Potter says, and Draco can feel the mattress dip as Potter settles beside him. Gentle fingers comb through his hair, and then a wand brushes against his temple. “I’m sorry.”

“Just do it,” Draco says. His back is hurting, and he wants all of this to go away.

And then Potter whispers, “Confundo,” and everything does.

* * * * *

The tracking charms fail, and even though Draco is not surprised to wake up in the woods again, he’s still disappointed.

He wakes up mostly clean this time. There’s a shallow cut on his left arm that bled a little, but it’s firmly scabbed over, and more blood dried onto his back from the deep cuts on his back where his wings grew, and his left wrist blistered from where the tracking charms went bad. But that’s it. There’s no other blood on him. He thinks he ought to feel relieved, or grateful, or something. But right now he’s exhausted and cold and his throat hurts from retching. This time he threw up several large wads of what looked like wet leaves.

Potter’s sitting on the floor with a book propped open on his lap and his yellow mug beside his knee when Draco’s Portkey deposits him suddenly onto the bathroom floor. Potter is on his feet in an instant, book tumbling to the ground with a thud, and then he’s kneeling beside Draco, tossing a towel over his lap and helping him to sit up, and Draco goes dizzy and weak with relief. He’s home now. It’s all right. He’s home and he didn’t die this time. He’s still alive.

Now he’s slumped forward, draped over the edge of the tub while Potter cleans the gashes on his back. He’s got a towel loosely wrapped around his waist to preserve what few shreds of dignity he’s got left in all of this.

“Why are you doing this? Why are you helping me?” he asks as Potter carefully sticks bandages over the wounds.

“Malfoy,” Potter says, tugging at Draco’s shoulder until Draco turns around to face him. “Draco. Do you honestly think I can walk away from you now?”

“I wouldn’t blame you if you did,” Draco says. He can’t look at Potter, so he stares at the pile of bloody black feathers Potter peeled off his back. They got another three, this time. Draco wonders whether it’s even worth trying to test them. Draco inhales and feels his breath shudder on the way in. He’s shaking and can’t stop. He’s not cold but he can’t stop shivering, and he hasn’t got any idea why. Last time, he nearly died. This time, he’s fine. Nothing even happened, he’s fine, he’s—

“Shit, come here,” Potter says. He slings an arm around Draco’s waist and hauls him close. “It’s okay, Malfoy. I’m not going anywhere.”

“I hate this,” Draco says. To his horror, his eyes prickle hotly. He swallows, and swallows again as his throat gets tight, and it’s no use. His eyes well up and his vision goes wavery, and shit. Fuck. He’s going to cry in front of Potter, he hadn’t thought this could get any worse but apparently he was wrong.

“I know,” Potter says soothingly. “I know you do.” He tugs Draco closer, rubs his hand soothingly up and down his arm. “It’s okay. I’m here, it’s okay.”

And there’s something about the warmth of him, the soft sound of his voice, that makes the last splinter of Draco’s composure crack and fall away. He draws up his legs and hunches in on himself, pressing his face to his knees before he cries in earnest. He’s always been a silent crier, thank Merlin for that, so it’s not quite as embarrassing as it probably could have been. But Draco’s never liked for anyone to see him like this.

Potter holds him through it, murmuring soothing nonsense and stroking his upper arm, up and down, up and down. And like a bad storm passing, eventually it fades, leaving Draco feeling tired and hollow inside. He sniffs and rubs his face against the towel tented over his legs, cleaning himself up as best he can. Which is a bit ridiculous, isn’t it, because he’s sitting here with the skin of his back still feeling vaguely tacky, despite the Cleaning Charms Potter had cast over his back to get the blood off.

“Well, this is embarrassing,” Draco mutters as he finally sits up. He rubs at his eyes with the back of his wrist. “Sitting here next best thing to naked and crying on you. Merlin, how pathetic.”

“Hey, come on,” Potter says. “Malfoy, I’ve watched you sprout wings and go flapping off into the night stark naked, three times now. We’re past the point of embarrassment, okay?”

Draco laughs shakily. “Well, that’s true enough. But you weren’t touching me, then.”

“Sorry,” Potter says awkwardly, like he’s not quite sure whether he’s done something wrong. “Should I stop?”

He leans away from Draco, and Draco’s flesh erupts in a rush of gooseflesh the moment Potter’s warm side is no longer pressed to his own. He chases after it almost without thinking, snugging himself back up against Potter.

“No,” he says, staring at a broad smudge of blood across the white tiles. It looks very, very red. “No, I don’t mind. It’s… rather nice.”

“Good,” Potter says. “I, er. I don’t mind either, you know.” His eyes fix on Draco for a moment, then cut away. “I remember how it can be. When you’ve been through something… Touching someone else grounds you. I mean, there’s a reason people try to hug each other when something bad happens.” He inhales, then exhales slow and soft. “It helps.”

“Thank you,” Draco says. “It does.”

They stay as they are for a while longer, until sitting begins to make Draco feel restless. He shifts, and Potter’s arm falls away.

“I think I’d like to clean up now, if you don’t mind,” Draco says.

He’d meant it as an invitation for Potter to leave so he can get on with it, but instead Potter insists on turning on the water for him, testing it with his hand to make sure it’s the proper temperature, then helps him to his feet.

“Call if you need me,” Potter says as he steps out of the room.

Draco is feeling wrung out enough that he drops the towel as the door is still swinging closed. He simply doesn’t have it in him to care, and anyhow Potter’s seen him naked before now so what does it even matter? He’s tired and he’s got a bit of a headache from crying, and he just wants to be clean.

The warm water leaches away some of the tension Draco was carrying with him, and for several long minutes he just stands under the spray, lets it pound against his skin. He hears the door open again, and listens to Potter bustling around, moving things here and there and casting spells. Then the door clicks shut again and even though the shower curtain blocks his view of the rest of the room, it still feels emptier without the sound of Potter moving around.

Draco finishes his shower and steps out. Potter’s left him a clean towel and his wand, but no clothing this time. He brushes his teeth, then tucks the towel securely round his waist and goes into his bedroom.

As before, his bed is neatly made with one corner folded invitingly back. Everything else is perfectly in order and there’s no sign of blood. The curtains on the window are pulled back, and five crows are perched in the tree outside, all of them staring in. As Draco watches, a sixth one flutters up, landing on the windowsill. One of them caws, and Draco turns away.

He dresses casually for the day, in black trousers and a light grey knit jumper. He wonders whether Potter’s left for the day. It’s Monday, so Draco hasn’t got anywhere he needs to be today, but Potter will have to go into the Ministry for his shift.

He’s just gathering his dirty clothing into a basket to wash and contemplating what he should do with the rest of his day when Potter taps on the door. Draco drops a pair of socks into the basket and glances up. “Come in.”

Potter begins to walk in, then stops short, staring at the window. The six crows stare back.

“That,” he says, still staring, “is creepy as shit.”

Draco draws the curtains with a swish of his wand. “Did you need something?”

“Not exactly,” Potter says. “I’m about to head off to work. I just wanted to let you know that the Polyjuice worked. I went in like you said to grab the potion you left on the worktable. Zelda was with a customer so we didn’t have a chance to talk, so no chance of me botching my impersonation of you.”

“That’s good,” Draco says. “We don’t need to do it every month, but I might ask you to do it again.”

“Sure,” Potter says nodding.

He makes no move to leave, and Draco can see him mulling something over.

“What is it?” Draco asks him.

Potter takes a breath. “I thought you should know, I found the myth your curse is based on.”

That’s not at all what Draco expected him to say. “You did?”

Potter holds out a book, the same one that he’d had on his lap when Draco had come home. A folded sheet of paper sticks out of the top, marking the page.

“Yeah, I did,” he says as Draco takes the book from him. “It fits, Malfoy. Everything fits.”

Draco takes the book from him. It’s a collection of ancient Chinese mythology. He holds it, but makes no move to open it.

“Did you, erm. Did you want me to stay here while you read it?” Potter asks.

And Draco shakes his head. “No. Thank you, no. You’d best be getting to work, hadn’t you?” He glances at the clock. “You’re already late.”

“A little later won’t matter,” Potter says. “Really, Malfoy. If you want me to stay, I can.”

“Thank you, but it’s fine,” Draco tells him.

“All right,” he says, reluctantly. A crow calls out, another answers, and Potter casts another glance to the closed curtains over the window. “I should be home at the usual time.”

Draco nods. “I’ll see you then.”

Potter leaves, easing the door shut behind him, and Draco listens to the sound of him moving down the hall and down the stairs. Footsteps crossing the floor, a pause while he puts on his shoes, and then the softer sound of him gathering his things for the day. His keys clink sharply against porcelain as he scoops them out of the bowl by the door, then the front door opens and closes and the lock turns over. A longer pause, and then Potter’s motorcycle roars to life, and Draco waits until the rumble of its engine fades down the street before he moves.

Slowly, he sits down on the edge of his bed. He takes a deep breath. He opens the book.