Two Boys of Right & Wrong and the Greater Good

Saturday, March 1st, 1997

Instantly, the once joyful atmosphere of staying in a protected space was shattered, and not even the Potterwatch broadcasts could cheer any of the Quartet up as they planned their third (and hopefully final) break-in to the Ministry. In fact, it seemed the only cheery face inside was, strangely, Kreacher.

He, invigorated by the idea of Regulus’s wishes finally being fulfilled and wearing the fake locket now proudly around his neck, had decided to wash up, himself and the house, cooking them meals every morning, noon, and night, the only thing that brought the teens even a morsel of joy.

This particular evening, they dined downstairs in the newly spotless and shining kitchen and dining room, Draco having just returned from washing potions ingredients off of him.

They were making a fresh batch of Polyjuice Potion, which meant they’d be stuck here in the house for the next month, giving Voldemort more opportunities to kill more innocent people which they heard about on Potterwatch weekly, which was getting harder and harder for Harry to listen to. This, and the Daily Prophet, which Kreacher had been regularly stealing copies of, happy to in his newly sprouted cheery mood. It was these articles, and one particular mentioning Snape, that seemed to smack an idea into Hermione and she had shot out of her seat and stuffed the portrait of former Headmaster Phineas Nigellus Black into the rucksack, claiming they couldn’t have Snape using him to spy on them.

Even tonight there wasn’t much joy in the air despite Ron being freshly a seventeen year old, of age and able to do magic freely even if they weren’t in Grimmauld Place. Kreacher had baked a nice cake for him and a delicious roast, however, which they now dug into, Kreacher having his own seat and plate at Hermione’s stern request and no one’s objection.

“There are still loads of Death Eaters out,” said Harry, giving his latest scoop on the events of the outside world. The Gryffindors had been periodically switching who would travel out under the Invisibility Cloak to steal the news and spy on the entrance to the Ministry, whilst Draco content stayed cooped up inside focusing on the Polyjuice, trying to use the Half-Blood Prince’s book (the only one of them who could so much look at it after Snape’s reveal) to figure out how to speed up the process. Nothing was working, so far.

“What do they expect us to do?” said Draco. “Stride out of here with our hands up and say, ‘Oops! It looks like you caught me!’” He gave an amusing high pitched posh accent to this impression that got the four of them chuckling.

“Did anything else happen today?” Hermione asked when they had quieted down.

“Nothing,” said Harry. “Watched the Ministry entrance for seven hours, and not a single sign of her. Probably thinks she’s ‘above’ using the public entrances in. Saw your dad, though, Ron. He looks fine.” He took a bite of turkey and, after swallowing, thought to add, “and Percy.”

“Alright, so are we deciding we’re going for the same people as before or not?” asked Draco, leaning forwards onto the table. Kreacher stiffened at his bad etiquette but didn’t say anything.

“Well, I don’t intend to stay there long,” said Harry. “If we can find her before a trial we could question her, steal the locket, and come back here and no one would be able to follow us.”

“But Harry we can’t disapparate -” He nodded over at Kreacher, who looked up at them curiously. Slowly, he lowered his fork and frowned at them.

“Kreacher assumes you want him to aid you in your escape from the Ministry of Magic?” The Quartet nodded, all giving him hopeful smiles. He looked back down at his fork. “For Master Regulus,” he said, then took a bite.

Due to how catastrophic the first break-in had almost went when the boys were broken up, this plan was now developed so that they’d go in stages. First, Draco would be sent in Polyjuiced as a random wizard, find her office, and wreck it enough to call for Magical Maintenance, then he’d flee the scene and find Umbridge and bring her over as Harry, Ron, and Hermione arrived to ‘take care of the damage.’ If all goes well, they’ll get the locket off of her, run for it and disapparate with Kreacher back into Grimmauld Place.

Of course, their hopes weren’t very high on everything really going well, but for tonight at least they gave Ron hopefully smiles as he cut into his red velvet cake (not his favorite flavor but he wasn’t keen on criticizing Kreacher and risking losing the good food he made them).

-*-*-*-

Sunday, March 16th

Once again, the Quartet huddled together in the alleyway outside of the underground restroom/entrances to the Ministry, Kreacher waiting patiently in the darkest corner, sat atop a garbage can, while the teens were knelt on the ground beneath the Invisibility Cloak.

They’d hardly slept the night before, which didn’t bode well, but they were overwhelmed, admittedly, at the excitement of being able to get another Horcrux and be able to return to Hogwarts straight after. Not to mention Harry had had an alarming trip into Voldemort’s mind during dinner where he was not-so-calmly putting it to Crouch Jr that if he didn’t step up work soon he’d be facing much more severe punishment than the goblins and wizards at Gringotts.

They had been so wrapped up in planning for the day ahead, however, no one had paused to ask if they should brainstorm what Voldemort’s threats meant. That, and Harry had suggested something rather daring at the last moment. Or, rather, showed it to them.

“No.” Hermione had stated bluntly, turning her head away from the bottle filled with liquid gold.

“C’mon, ‘Mione,” said Ron, snatching the bottle out of Harry’s fingertips and turning to beam at her. “We’re about to get another Horcrux from the heart of the Ministry! From Umbridge! We’ll need all the luck we can get.”

“He’s right,” Draco had to agree, “You never really beat her, did you? Without the centaurs and Grawp…”

Nobody needed to fill in the silence. They all knew what he was alluding to so, with great reluctance, Hermione reached for the flask and uncorked it, glancing at the contents, calculating the amount if they split it between the four of them.

“We’ll have an hour and a half -”

“No.” All eyes turned to Harry, alarmed by his sternness. “No, we need two hours. We don’t know how long Draco will take.”

“But then Draco won’t -”

“He’ll be fine,” and he didn’t give his boyfriend so much as a glance, though they all shrugged this off as nerves as Harry tipped back the bottle and took a careful two-hour long sip, turning and grinning at his boyfriend, who weakly smiled back when he kissed him on the cheek rather jovially with a bit too much force.

Now Hermione slipped out from under the cloak and approached the nearest coming wizard, stunning him quickly from behind and letting him fall into her arms to drag him back into the alley. No one seemed to notice, though they did get a couple of alarming looks, but she’d slipped through the door of the storeroom beside them too quickly.

It appeared to be for a bakery of sorts, filled with pleasant scents as the Quartet headed inside and Hermione yanked a couple of hairs off of the man’s head, collecting his briefcase too.

Dropping the hairs inside their newly filled bottle of Polyjuice, Draco took a sip and immediately looked purely disgusted as his face began to morph and shift. He sprouted deep chestnut brown hair, grew a foot taller, possessing a good deal of muscle, and his nose molded to a swerved point. Harry had seen that nose before, in his old fellow Quidditch player -

“Hey, you kind of look like Alicia!” He exclaimed, grinning at the memory of the feisty Chaser who had graduated with Angelina Johnson last year.

“Harry, that’s a man,” said Ron, frowning like he was worried Harry was losing all his intelligence, but his friend waved a hand at him.

“No, no, no, I meant he just looks like her as in they might be related.”

“Well, according to this,” said Hermione, digging out some parchment documents from the briefcase. “His name is Ademar Spinnit. He’s the Head of the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures. Should give you enough access into Umbridge’s office.” She handed off the briefcase to him and the Gryffindors exited, hidden by the cloak, as he changed. They had their own identical blue robes from Magical Maintenance to wear, of course, but hadn’t a clue what the wizard Draco would transform into would look like, obviously.

A few minutes later Draco stepped out in Ademar’s robes, and strode back onto the street towards the men’s restrooms without a second glance to where he knew his friends huddled, invisible, as they had predetermined this all needed to look as natural and normal. Admittedly, they also knew this wouldn’t be much of a problem as they had already been inside the Ministry around other workers at this point. Or at least the boys had.

He strode into the restrooms with the rest of the crowd and flushed himself in, emerging from the green fireplace and immediately getting swept up in the crowded Atrium.

He tried not to focus too much on the fountain this time, as he had to make sure he found and wrecked the office as fast as possible so Harry and the others wouldn’t wait too long. As he strode over to the nearest open lift, he slipped a hand in his pocket, relieved to feel his old H.O.O.D. coin still sat there, ready to be used to tell his friends he was ready. They’d of course made sure to cut off the coin’s connection to the other coins spread across Britain before, however.

He stepped into the lift, finding only one other short witch, and waited as it began to rise. Waited as more people walked in, occasionally greeting him with a, “Good morning, Ademar.” or, “Hello, Spinnet!” which he returned with a cordial nod. The soft, omnipotent voice announced he’d arrived at Level 1 in about eight minutes, and he strode out, relieved when no one went further than watching him curiously as he strode down a velvet purple carpet, passing door after door with plaques listing familiar and unfamiliar names.

He paused only briefly at Thicknesses, wondering what Fudge had gone through to escape the Ministry unscathed from this office, so detached from the rest of the Ministry. Then he made an even briefer pause beside Percy Weasley’s name, thinking of Tess, alone out in the world with her triplets, her fiance trapped and under the Imperius Curse. Did she even know? Or did she still believe he was in the cellar below Malfoy Manor?

Regardless Draco strode forward, trying his best not to be intimidated by the stillness of this hall. Last time they’d broken in he’d been left downstairs on Level 9, wandering through the Department of Mysteries, where there was so much chaos to the eyes that it masked the dead silence. Here, with the uniform wallpaper and purple carpets, all he felt was trepidation, but he couldn’t let it show on his face. Otherwise he’d have the whole mission blown for his Gryffindor friends.

Draco turned and, halfway down the corridor, halted at the precipice of a wide open space filled with a dozen witches and wizards sat in rows at small desks and, alarmingly, he was thrown back to O.W.L.’s the year before and thought this, surely was where Umbridge presided. In some cruel, twisted way, she wanted a reminder of when she had had the most power; as Headmistress and High Inquisitor over Hogwarts.

It was memorizing, in a horrific curiosity sort of way, just the sort Umbridge would enjoy; uniformly, without a single flaw, the witches and wizards waved and twiddled their wands to move squares of colored paper in every direction, but all forming one pattern as they fell onto each other, creating stacks of pink pamphlets beside each witch or wizard. In fact, the process was so intense not a single one rose their gaze in question when Draco walked forwards to eye what one of these pamphlets said.

“What are you doing here, Spinnet?”

He paused, casting his gaze around the room, every pair of eyes looking up to him at the call of the young woman’s voice as he did so. Eventually he spotted the speaker, a few desks down, wand still hovering in the air, watching him wide eyed and curious. He could tell she was new.

“I was summoned,” he nodded down to a door he had noticed when he arrived that he was certain must be Umbridge’s office. If not, at least someone’s office.

“Good luck with that,” the boy beside her said, who looked just as young. In fact, weren’t they students from Hogwarts a couple years ago? “The Little Miss Pink’s gonna be held up interrogating Mudbloods all day.”

“Sh!” A girl in the row across from the two said, leaning forward and pressing a finger to her lips. She looked much older. “We mustn’t say things like that -”

“Right,” said a girl seated on the other side of the young witch who had spoken, and Draco noticed that the whole clump of witches and wizards seemed to be freshly out of Hogwarts. “Because she’d got magic ears as well as an eye now, right?” She jerked her head over at said mahogany door, and Draco pressed his brows together in confusion, striding towards it.

The witches and wizards were too busy arguing over Umbridge now, though Draco was certain they were simply jumping at an excuse to break from their mind numbing ‘work,’ so he was free to walk right up to the door and see, to his horror, a familiar bright blue eye set into the wood, the only thing strange about it being that it didn’t swivel as it normally would inside someone’s head. But Draco knew what it was for certain all the same; the eye of Alastor Moody, the one that gave him the nickname ‘Mad-Eye.’

And now it was being used as Umbridge’s personal peephole, set above a plaque reading, it capital gold letters no one could miss;

“I’ll just wait inside here, then,” Draco turned to say to the pamphlet-makers, only to find that a couple had now risen from their seats, jabbing their wands at each other angrily as a select few older ones tried in vain to calm them all down, and knew they would pay him no mind as he, as silently as possible, opened the door and slipped inside.

Just as the rows of desks reminded him of school, Umbridge’s office looked no different from the one in which all the H.O.O.D. members had been interrogated and tortured last year, if slightly bigger. There were the same hundred cat plates staring down at him, softly purring and meowing, and the floor to ceiling pink theme, down to the walls. Draco half expected there to even be a boarded up window from when Lee Jordan had snuck his owl in through it.

He was told not to waste any time here, but it wouldn’t hurt to just look around and see if the locket was here, would it?

First, however, Draco wasted no time in turning and ripping the telescope Umbridge had attached to Mad-Eye’s eye out and popped the eye out of the hole too, tucking both into his robe pockets before turning and addressing the office, ripping open drawers and not caring as he threw the contents aside in search of the locket. He was meant to mess her office up, wasn’t he? Although he’d need a big enough problem to call in Magical Maintenance, so planned to place a raining charm on the ceiling, and hope the fact that he was inside the Ministry bypassed the Trace.

When the floor was appropriately covered in quills, notebooks, Spellotape, enchanted paper clips coiling and uncoiling across the pink carpet, and a spare bair bows and clips (ew) Draco turned to a filing cabinet behind the desk and instantly began searching.

Name by name flashed past and he gave them no mind, until he reached the bottom drawer, and paused at a familiar name. Slowly, he removed the file and opened it.

ARTHUR WEASLEY
BLOOD STATUS - Pureblood, but with unacceptable pro-Muggle leanings. Known member of the Order of the Phoenix.
FAMILY: Wife (pureblood) seven children, two youngest at Hogwarts. NB: Youngest son currently at home, serious ill, Ministry inspectors have confirmed.
SECURITY STATUS: TRACKED. All movements are being monitored. Strong likelihood Undesirable No. 1 will contact (has stayed with Weasley family previously). Undesirable No. 2 last seen (outside of Hogwarts) with the Weasley family.

Draco frowned as he placed the folder back, thinking of Ron but also of the posters they’d seen on the way to Gringotts, naming him and Harry as Undesirable No. 1 and No. 2. In fact, when Draco looked around the office once more, he couldn’t help but spot Harry’s face glaring back at him. Notably Umbridge didn’t have his poster, though she always hated Harry more than any of the other children, even Hermione. He squinted and saw a little pink note stuck to it, and, curious, walked forwards to read it.

Beside a little picture of a kitten were the words, ‘To be punished.’

Screwing his mouth up in frustration, Draco suddenly felt an uncontrollable hate towards Umbride, which of course he always hated her, but being preoccupied with trying to kill Dumbledore most of the year, that hate was old and not something he was used to feeling. He shocked himself with the fact that he suddenly felt pain in his palms, and glanced down to see he was clenching his fists so hard he almost broke skin.

Then, without any hesitation, Draco turned to the cats all staring with their wide eyes at him, and one after the other lifted plate after plate off the wall and smashed it on the floor. Occasionally he head a crack beneath his shoe and once felt a stinging in his foot but he ignored it all, releasing all the pent up rage he had towards Umbridge, towards how the world was treating his boyfriend, and to how this world was treating himself because he had just reached the final plate, when he noticed something he hadn’t before.

His own face hadn’t been on the walls, but on Umbridge’s desk, imprinted in the latest issue of the Daily Prophet, his name springing at him from the headline.

The next second that headline had been scattered with shards of porcelain from the last plate as Draco chucked it at it, wasting no time in stomping back over to the filing cabinets, in search of a file on Undesirable’s he was certain had to be there. Finally, after a minute increased by his anxiety and shaking fingers, he found it.

UNDESIRABLE NUMBER 2
NAME: Draco Lucius Malfoy
BIRTH: June 5th, 1980
FAMILY: Father Lucius (pureblood), mother Narcissa (pureblood)
BLOOD-STATUS: Pureblood, with heavy blood-traitor influences
CRIMES: Wanted for the murder of Albus Dumbledore, arson of Malfoy Manor, and suspected involvement in murder of Viktor Krum
PAYMENT: Ten thousand galleons
NOTES: Must be brought in alive with wand

The sheet crumbled in Draco’s fist. He’d managed to (barely) keep his composure until that last line, but now he was ripping the document to shreds. Because of the wand. Of course the wand. Harry was so important to the overall war they’d have to put an embarrassingly high price on his head, because he was important as a person. As the Chosen One. But all Voldemort saw in Draco Malfoy was the wand in his hand. A wand that didn’t even belong to him. It was Dumbledore’s, and before that Grindelwald’s, and before that Gregorovitch and before that who knows.

Maybe, even his parents only saw a wand. Hadn’t that been what they said? Not ‘come home,’ but, ‘give us the wand, Draco.’

Because he truly didn’t have a home to return to, and may never again.

With a wave of his hand above him Draco conjured several rainclouds, slipping out of the office before he could get drenched and therefore look suspicious to the workers. As he strode forwards across the open space and slipped his hand in his pocket, feeling past the damn wand to touch the H.O.O.D. coin, he managed to keep a stiff composure. Using years of practice being a bully, gifted with natural Occlumency abilities and the gift of hiding one’s emotions deep inside, where only he could see them, Draco didn’t raise any eyebrows from the witches and wizards who had reluctantly continued their work outside.

Instead, he turned the corner into the purple carpeted hallways, and began to pace down the halls, waiting for the signal that was sure to come from his friends when they arrived with Umbridge in tow, stole the locket, and were ready to make a run for it.

He could only hope lady luck would make everything go as planned.

-*-*-*-

The Trace is a heavily complicated device of tracking witch and wizard children, and one that has been debated, for some times, as being inhuman. The Statute of Secrecy Department has had several complaints in their maintenance of the Trace that could most likely be blamed for why steps weren’t being taken to make it more efficient.

But everyone in that Department, and the Office for Tracing Magical Activity, knew that those setbacks were just ways to make You-Know-Who angry in this war. Petunia Watkins, 30, 10th year on the job, doubted any other fellow member of the staff held any care towards any of the puppet leaders installed into the Ministry, because they were one of the few Offices fully privy to it all, being designated the strict job of tracking and finding Harry Potter and Draco Malfoy.

But that could get very complicated. The Trace was designed to go inactive when underage wizards and witches entered Hogwarts, only activated again during holidays. But one had to be on Platform 9 ¾ to do that, and, per You-Know-Who’s orders, the Hogwarts Express was interrupted on its return to King’s Cross in December, causing every occupants Trace to never reactivate. Therefore, the two Undesirables were currently freely wandering the world who knows where.

So they were back to square one, and You-Know-Who was even angrier than before because of course they couldn’t track wands. Other countries used this method often but the Ollivander’s had refused many many years ago to place such charms on their precious creations and the Ministry hadn’t pushed it.

But Petunia wasn’t in charge of tracking two teenagers, she was currently sitting behind her desk examining the massive map of the Ministry with her colleagues to make sure every worker arrived on the clock. But one was missing.

“Harold,” Petunia called across the massive map to her friend on the other side, “Do you see Ademar Spinnet anywhere there?”

“Er… Nope, can’t say I do.”

“Caitlyn?”

“No Spinnet’s here, either.”

“It says here he’d have arrived half an hour ago,” said Petunia, raising a monocle to double check the Minister’s personal list this new group of ‘snoops’ (as her other colleagues liked to call them) were given. “Should we call it in?”

In response Harold wrote it down on a piece of parchment, folded it into one of those unnecessarily complicated paper airplanes of his, and waved his wand on it, sending the message sailing out the door.

Petunia Watkins hated her job, as it made her feel just as much of a snoop as her colleagues called her, but in this cruel new world all of the Ministry now found themselves in, there wasn’t much she could do, unless she wanted to end up before a court of Dementors. So she continued scouring the maps while her peers searched in vain for two phantom teen boys behind her, and the Office for Tracking Magical Activity churned on.

Or tried to, because of course the work never ended and not a moment late the new intern, a specky boy too skinny for his own good carrying their platter of teas they’d requested ten minutes ago, stopped them all, something interns rarely did and probably shouldn’t do, but this time he said something worth freezing for.

“I just saw Mr. Spinnet.”

They all turned to the boy, (Kenneth?) raising their eyebrows, clearly prodding him to continue. Realizing he might have bit off more than he could chew, the teen flinched for a moment, then quickly straightened, and Petunia recognized the look on his face as one of a youngster who knew this was his moment.

“I passed him down the hall. I know it was him.”

Petunia spared him a reassuring smile before turning to her colleagues who were all exchanging similar confused, and even worried looks.

“This is bad,” Kenji Shio said bluntly, and couldn’t be more obvious.

“Thicknesse isn’t gonna be happy. What if it’s another break in?” No one made any comments back to that. The thought of all the lesser pay and more work they’d have to put in if Harry Potter and his friends had broken into the Ministry of Magic, so soon after getting into Gringotts, was horrid enough.

“So we’ll stop them before they can do anything,” Petunia announced sternly, grabbing a spare sheet of parchment.

“What’re you doing?” Jack, the wizard next to her asked, peering over her shoulder.

“Writing to Crouch and Yaxley. They’ll know what to do…”

-*-*-*-

Once again, Harry felt quite strange in a body not his own, this time belonging to a man named Howard Kensington, his wife, Hailey Kensington walking beside him in matching navy Magical Maintenance robes. He tried his best not to know Reginald Cattermole as he passed him in the Atrium, and hoped no one would pick up on how they had all gone in figure eights around the Atrium to avoid each other only to end up in the same lift. Hermione had been certain it would work, so the boys didn’t question her methods, thinking Felix knew what it was doing.

No one did question it, so far so good, and Harry was certain his luck couldn’t be better as all inhabitants of the lift exited before they had fully sunk down to Level 10, where Umbridge greeted them, frazzled, clipboard pressed against her chest.

Where the golden locket with the signature serpentine ‘S’ sat in the open for all the world to see. Merlin, Harry loved Liquid Luck.

“Oh! What luck! I was thinking I’d have to make a trip down to Magical Maintenance myself but no, here three of you are. Now, I request your assistance. Apparently, my office has been trashed, and rain is pouring from the ceiling!”

“A raining ceiling?” Ron raised an eyebrow. “That’s er…” He was clearly surprised by Draco’s actions, but Felix easily pushed back his initial sentence and replaced it with, “Well that’s nothing the three of us can’t fix!”

Umbridge grinned very toad-like and stepped inside, the golden grilles of the lift closing on the four of them. Harry released a sigh.

“I believe the Minister should step up on these office incidents. It’s just absurd, how many respected members of the Ministry have suddenly had to take time out of their day to repair their office, just unprofessional…”

“But you aren’t taking time out of your day to fix it,” stated Hermione quite bluntly, and where her friends would have looked at her bizarrely, they instead simply smiled to themselves, all three running on Liquid Luck. “You’re having us do it.”

Umbridge slowly turned her head to glare into Hermione, who she of course thought was just an ordinary witch in Magical Maintenance robes, and as she opened her mouth to say something dripping in poisoned honey, it was at this moment the glowing Lumos powered lights went dark above them and the lift jolted to a halt.

With Felix Felicis working on three wizards and witches attempting to infiltrate the Ministry at once, the first ever power outage of the Ministry occurred.

“What in the name of -”

Hermione and Ron’s wand tips lit up and, without a second thought because Harry was quickly learning there were no second thoughts under Felix Felcis, Harry turned and grabbed hold of Umbridge and pushed her against the wall, where she immediately was fighting against his grip and he had to nod to Hermione who reached forwards and ripped the locket from her neck.

“Ack! Give that ba -”

“It’s not yours,” growled Ron over Harry’s shoulder.

“Yes it is! The ‘S’ stands for Selwyn. I happen to be related to the Selwyns -” Harry pushed Umbridge harder against the grated walls of the elevator and she shrieked.

“You’re lying, Dolores. And one mustn’t tell lies.” he said, voice thick with venom in contrast to her poisoned sweetness.

She startled, squinting her beady eyes at him, then widened her eyes in horror as she realized who she was speaking to. “It can’t be - You aren’t members of Magical Maintenance, are you?”

“Nope,” said Hermione cheerfully, popping the p.

“We’re former students of yours,” said Ron, with a shit-eating grin.

“You!” She growled, glaring into Harry’s entire being now. “Mr. Potter! And You must be the Weasley boy and -” She glared with the most force Harry had ever seen on someone’s face, making her look like she’d just hopped off a lily pad from a swamp. “Hermione Granger.”

Hermione merely grinned at her, and Ron raised an eyebrow, Felix causing him to playfully burst out, “Hermione, did you shrink your teeth?”

“Oh? Yes, Ron, my parents finally let me sand them last summer. Do you like them?”

“Guys,” Harry snapped, nodding back at the still glaring Umbridge and they startled, turning back and putting on their ‘serious faces’ once more.

“How did you get in here?” she demanded, not that she was in any place to make demands, and Harry reminded her of that fact, leaning back to press the buttons back down to the ninth level when the golden grilles opened.

“Harry?” Hermione squeaked behind him, and he turned briefly to see she was looking between him and the golden grilles, wide eyed. “What - Shouldn’t we be going?” she held up the locket, “We have the Horcrux. We can leave.”

“The what?”

Harry ignored Umbridge. “We could leave, Hermione,” he said instead, standing and, when Umbridge tried to reach for her wand, kicking it out of her hand then slamming his foot to pin her arm to the ground, causing her to scream. “But then again, don’t you think she deserves a little comeuppance for all she’s done?”

Hermione’s eyes went much, much wider. “Harry…” she breathed, and he briefly considered he didn’t like the way she was looking at him, but Felix was telling him he could use her for something.

Maybe get her to get one over on Voldemort.

“We don’t have time,” Ron tried to step forward, hands out negotiably, but Harry pushed him back with a casual hand so that now he too was looking at him with wide eyes. He didn’t care.

“How does the Trace work?” Umbridge looked almost confused.

“What?” she snapped, quickly reaffirming her hard glare.

“In case it slipped your mind I’m under age, but I want to do some damage to you. So tell me, how does the Trace work? Can I cast a spell now?”

She scowled. “Yes,” she was speaking through very clenched teeth, as if each word caused her pain, “Due to your train never reaching Platform 9 ¾ and you never boarding it back to school, the Trace was never replaced from being removed during school time. You can do whatever your misbehaving, lying, anti-Ministry -”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” He waved a hand and stood from where he’d bent down to address her as he had to Mundungus a month ago, tapping his chin with his wand. “So, say, I wanted to use an Unforgivable. Like you almost did on me! That’s fair, isn’t it? And I wouldn’t be breaking any rules necessarily, now would I, Dolores?”

Umbridge looked like, at present, she was having a mental gymnastic battle with her twisted morality and hatred for him and self-preservation. Meanwhile, his friends were losing it now.

“Harry no!” Hermione shrieked shrilly.

“You can’t, Harry, you -”

“Relax!” He drawled as the grilles slid open and the pleasant voice announced they’d reached the ninth floor. “I’m not gonna torture her!”

Umbridge audibly sighed.

“I’ll just control her every move and make her free all the Muggle-borns.”

“What? Wait, no -”

“Imperio.” Behind him, Ron winced and Hermione dropped her face into her hands while Harry waved with a wide grin on his face as the pink toad rose and walked out of the lift numbly, then reached forward and calmly pressed the buttons for the atrium, raising his H.O.O.D. coin to send a message that they were ready to leave. As he did so, he turned to face his friends, grin falling at their expressions.

“What? C’mon this is a good thing!” he said, and it felt like it too, with Felix promising him reassuringly everything would turn out right in the end. “She’ll free the Muggle-borns and actually, the Dementors while she’s at it, sure, and all I had to do was spend a few more minutes in this lift with her ugly mug. It’s for the greater good, and all that.”

Hermione raised her head and glared. “Harry, I think we ought to have a serious conversation about Dumbledore and all this ‘greater good’ nonsense -” She stopped because she saw the look on his face as he looked down at the coin and, at the same time he and Ron did, felt the grip Felix had on her brain loosen. “What is it?” she asked cautiously.

“Draco,” was all Harry could croak as he turned around the coin to show them the words that had just assembled themselves across the rim. ‘Danger, Ministry knows, I’ve been compromised.’

A second later, Harry had slammed the coin to the floor.

“Harry -”

“Damn it!” He punched a fist in the wall and hardly winced as the pain raced through his arm. “Felix told me to wait, Hermione it told me to -” Hermione stepped forward with a comforting arm outstretched but he pushed her back because he didn’t need her, he needed him. But Draco was ‘compromised.’ Probably dying at this very moment - “You’re right,” he growled. “The ‘greater good…’ That’s probably what Felix was acting on! The best way to achieve my goals without a care to the effects. How do you think Slughorn felt when Draco forced the memory out of him? How do you think Draco feels now? We abandoned him -”

“Harry!” He startled, looking up in surprise into the blue eyes of his best friend, who had grabbed him by the arms to force sense into him. Ron sighed heavily and continued, “I get it, you’re angry. But yelling about ‘the greater good’ or whatever isn’t going to help Draco. We just have to calm down and form a plan.”

The pleasant voice announced they’d arrived at the atrium, and the golden grilles slid open.

“Or… we could just fight.”

And, miraculously, Harry smiled playfully up at his friend, before turning and charging out of the lift.

-*-*-*-

While the trio of Gryffindors were busy being taken advantage of by their own Felix Felicis influenced minds, Draco continued to pace the carpeted halls of level 1, oblivious to the message that had just been sent from the Office for Tracking Magical Activity to call two Death Eaters. Oblivious to how this plan was about to go all wrong.

Until he heard the name, “Spinnet!” being called down the hall behind him and recognized the voice with horrible clarity without having to turn around.

Strange. He’d heard Barty Crouch Jr speaking through the voice of Mad-Eye Moody and Cedric Diggory, and heard his own voice only a few unhappy times, but it still held the same inflections every time, no matter how hard he tried to act. The personality of a cruel, cold, evil man still burned underneath.

And now, as he turned and faced him jogging towards him in the same Ministry robes as he had worn months before, he felt the weight of Dumbledore’s wand in his pocket heavier than ever before, and could barely force a smile on his face as he walked forwards, stuffing his hands in his pockets to hide how much they were shaking but also to hold onto his H.O.O.D. coin, just in case.

“Good morning, Barty,” he grunted in a way he hoped was convincing and Crouch stopped, nodding along.

“We’ll see about that. I got word from the tracking office that you never came to work. And yet,” he gestured up and down to him. “Here you stand.”

“I believe I do,” he tried to joke though his voice stubbornly cracked as he looked down at himself. He did take that opportunity to slyly glance at his watch however, and saw, to his horror, he had less than half an hour of Polyjuice Potion left. He straightened, narrowing his eyes at Crouch. “Is that a problem, Barty?”

“No, no, no,” the Death Eater waved a hand, striding forwards, clearly meaning to go on a casual walk with Draco, who stepped along with him, fearing what he’d do if he ignored the social que. “Clearly it was a malfunction in the office, but you know all those seasoned professionals and newbies. They’re all eager to get attention, especially with their recent failures in catching Potter and Malfoy.”

Though Draco tried his best to hide his flinch at those words, at the confirmation that every second of every hour of every day Voldemort was expending all his resources to find he and Harry he swore he caught Crouch squinting at him, even as he tried to plunge the conversation forwards.

“Well I’m sure the might of the Ministry will prove a match for the boys in time.”

“Surely, however, I have received word that Dolores’s office has been wrecked, and three more workers have failed to arrive at work.” He stopped short, and Draco tried his best not to make his hard swallow an audible gulp.

“More… malfunctions?” He knew before the words came out of his mouth he was done for, that he’d done something to reveal himself, and, feeling the weight of it in his hand suddenly, he realized what it was; in his nerves he’d removed one of his hands from his pocket, and now the H.O.O.D. coin was in plain view for Crouch to see, a coin he knew well, as he had once owned and used one of his own. Might still.

No words were exchanged, as the second it took for Crouch to turn his questioning stare into a glare Draco had sprung backwards and whipped out his wand, raising it to Crouch’s face.

“Expelliarmus!” was cried by both of them at once, and a realization was reached then and there neither party wanted to kill the other, which was a terrible thing to reveal so early in a duel, and Draco knew now there was no choice left but to run for it, because Crouch was a Death Eater, and he recognized the wand in his hand and he had orders to bring it back to Voldemort and he couldn’t fail and -

“Expelliarmus!” Crouch bellowed again and Draco turned and dived across the floor, scrambling to his feet and bounding down the hall to the nearest lift, ignoring the bellow of, “COWARD!” from behind and the pounding of feet indicating he was following him.

He repeatedly threw up shields, verbal and nonverbal, frenzied and terrified whenever he heard Crouch speak. Months of fear that the wand he carried would one day get him killed were all coming to this, and though he knew Crouch wouldn’t kill him, he also knew the whole world was in danger if this wand left his fingertips.

He couldn’t explain how, but if Voldemort wanted it so badly… It was a gut feeling that him having possession of it could mean nothing good.

He slammed inside a lift and yelled out, “Incendio!” alighting the hall in flames so that Crouch stumbled backwards with a howl, giving him enough time to press the buttons for the atrium and the golden grilles to close.

Alone inside, Draco panted for air and lifted the H.O.O.D. coin, fumbling as he tapped his wand against it to send a new message to his friends, the only coherent words he could form with his mind racing a mile a minute at the moment. He didn’t know how long it took for the grilles to open once more, but what he did know is when they did and he burst out, he caught sight of a blonde lock of hair in his peripherals; the Polyjuice was wearing off.

No sooner had he realized this than he had been tackled from the side by a flurry of magenta robes. He rolled across the floor, fighting in vain against the clearly male stronger arms, and when he opened his eyes he was looking into the face of Corban Yaxley, pinning him to the floor.

“Well look who it is?” He growled through far too white teeth for such a sick man. Out of all his father’s friends (those being Death Eater’s who hadn’t been locked up in Azkaban following the first war) Draco had to say he favored Yaxley the least. “Travers! We caught Lucius Malloy’s boy!” he singonged, gathering attention from all nearby wizards and witches in case he hadn’t already by pinning the boy to the floor and wrestling him a bit. Draco gritted his teeth to bite back a correction of “Malfoy.”

“What d’you know?” Travers drawled, appearing over Yaxley’s shoulder and Draco shifted his glare to him for only a moment, because then the three of them were interrupted by a shout of “Yaxley!” that most certainly wasn’t a Death Eater’s voice.

“Let him go!” The voice repeated and Draco craned his neck to the side to see the figure in navy robes bounding towards them. Harry.

Yaxley’s face went cold in seconds and he grunted, “Get him,” to Travers and Draco knew, with animal instinct, he was going to apparate away, so in his distraction he kneed him between the legs and crawled out from under him, making a break for it towards the fireplaces as he howled in pain.

“The hell - Not gonna fight us, blondie? Crucio!”

He, against his better judgment, screamed, buckling down onto his knees and then collapsing across the marble floors, cringing and writhing, trying only in vain to reach out across the floor and drag himself further towards the fireplace.

But it was fruitless. He could hear their footsteps through his own screams, and though he couldn’t see what was happening to Harry, he could hear him screaming his name, and knew there was no hope he’d ever reach him. But maybe, he thought, as his fist tightened ever greater around his wand, he could also ensure the Death Eaters never reached what they desired.

With that thought, he dragged his hand across the floor then pushed forward and released, rolling the wand as far as he could to Harry’s feet. All he could pray was that Harry would protect the wand from Voldemort’s clutches yet still find a way to come and find him, before his whole world swam in technicolor once more, and he was taken far, far away from his love…

Meanwhile, Hermione dueled Crouch, who had emerged from a lift across from them, and Harry fought and raged against Ron’s admittedly stronger arms persistently dragging him towards the green fireplaces, eyes trained on his boyfriend, cringing and screaming and, Merlin… He was trying to reach the fire. Even in immense pain Draco would always have that survival instinct fuelling him. He was almost impressed, if he wasn’t so horrified.

But then he saw it, coming out of Draco’s grasping fingertips. The wand, rolling straight towards him, with such earnestness Harry could think of doing nothing else but reach forward with his own wand as far as he could against Ron’s grip and whisper, “Accio wand.” calling it to his empty hand. Now he truly was impressed, as he realized that even under the most painful curse in magical history Draco was being cunning and chucking away the only thing the Death Eaters were so desperate to capture him for.

“RON!” Hermione screamed, barely throwing up a shield in time for Crouch’s most recent spell. “You have to run!”

Harry knew he would, but they couldn’t leave Draco they had to -

With a deafening crack, his boyfriend vanished, taken who knows how far from him.

“DRACO!”

And at that moment Ron lunged backwards and Harry was being dragged away too, vision swimming in swirls of brilliant technicolor, and then he was being pulled out of a toilet, across tiled floors of a men’s restroom, but his vision was going dark, his head searing in pain, feeling as if it might crack in two.

He was flying, soaring above dark black seas, and the cave was up ahead, and against his better judgment he remembered those children. How he tortured them. The memory should’ve brought him joy, but in the moment all he could do was retrace his steps paranoid, thinking over how Dumbledore could have discovered the locket’s location.

Voldemort lands on the dark rocks of the cave floor, hurriedly breaks his skin with his wand - or, rather, his temporary replacement Ollivander had finally completed a week prior - and smears the blood across the rocks, passing through the glowing white passage and down the dark cave.

He’s already found the ring to be missing, so it’s harder to calm his paranoia as we stride through the rocks, only comforted by Nagini’s presence at his ankles because it means she’s safe, which means he’s safe, he still has that Horcrux, and the one at Hogwarts can’t be found. Which leaves the locket.

The boat let’s them both cross, of course, he designed it to only recognize those of wizard Pureblood for a reason, and he climbs up the rock island to the basin and with a wave of his wand easily vanishes the emerald potion of his own brilliant creation -

The cave goes dark without the glow of the potion alighting it, but he can still see just how barren the basin is, and seconds later the cave is filled with green light once more, of a very different kind.

Harry jolted forward, awake, and dimly acknowledged the fact that he was back in Arthur Weasley’s borrowed tent, wrapped in blankets on his bed, but he hurriedly threw those covers off, looking around and spotting Ron and Hermione sitting criss cross on the floor, the locket laid across the table in between them.

“Harry?” He groaned, kicking his legs out over the bed and bending over, elbows on his knees as he raked his hands through his hair. “What did you see?”

He shook his head. “Where’s Kreacher?”

That was the plan, wasn’t it? For Kreacher to get them out, but instead they were in a tent. Why?

“He tried to get us but Crouch stopped him. Hermione told him to fight him instead and we’d be fine running. He did toss us the rucksack though, so we got all our stuff -”

“Harry,” Hermione leaned forward, gazing into him imploringly. “What did you see?”

Still he ignored her, instead springing to his feet and striding for said rucksack, leaned against the couch, and slinging it over his shoulder. “Get up,” he nudged Ron with his foot. “We gotta save Draco.”

“Woah!” Ron exclaimed.

“We can’t move so fast, Harry, we just finished a plan -”

“I don’t care!” Harry cut her off angrily, lifting the locket off the table and brandishing it in her face so that she had to dodge away from the swinging gold pendant. “We got the locket! BIG DEAL! We have to save Draco, they’ll kill him -”

“Harry, please, calm down -”

“I will not ‘calm down!’”

“What did you see, Harry?”

“VOLDEMORT! What the bloody else would I see?”

“Harry no!” But it was too late. As soon as the name escaped his lips several loud cracks rang through the night air, and now Ron sprang to his feet and clapped a hand over his best friend’s mouth, as if after failing so terribly and essentially handing he and his friends over to the Death Eaters he’d want to keep talking and mess up even more. He clicked his Deluminator, and all the lights in the tent went out, but it was fruitless; they could hear voices clearly, and they were getting closer.

“Come out of there with your hands up! We know you’re in there! You’ve got half a dozen wands pointing at you and we don’t care who we curse!”