January
Early January
“What have you been saying to Harry Draco?”
Draco blinked himself to awareness, away from the deep meditative state he slipped into when refreshing the wards.
“Pardon?”
“He’s split up with Ginny and gone into hiding somewhere - I can’t track him down. I’ve still got his Christmas present for goodness sakes. Did you have something to do with it?”
Draco looked at her blankly. To do with what exactly?
Hermione seemed to read his expression.
“Look he’s started skipping his classes and I’m worried about him. I know he thinks I’m going to have a go at him about Ginny so he’s ducking the conversation, but this is just ridiculous. Can you let him know I don’t care, I just want to talk to him and make sure he’s ok?”
“Why on earth do you think I should be the one to carry the message?”
“Because I’m not stupid Draco. He wouldn’t have changed his room without your knowing and helping him. And it’s quite obvious you’d do anything he asked.”
Draco swallowed rising panic, was he that transparent?
“Oh for Merlin’s sake don’t run away again, it’s getting tedious. Don’t panic. Harry doesn’t have the slightest clue you’ve got a thing for him - he has the emotional acuity of a wet towel. The emotional maturity of one too sadly.”
Hermione looked at him again.
“Just go talk to him now and let him know. I’m going to try to talk Ron down again, he’s worked himself up into a right state about it all”
Draco found himself powerless to disobey, and was knocking at the entrance to the Chamber within the hour.
“Come in Draco”
With a sigh, Draco gave Hogwarts a nudge and the doorway opened, revealing the steps down. As he descended, Draco allowed himself a moment of pleasure at how well the room had turned out. The stone floor was covered in colourful rugs, the walls in drapery and soft lanterns that cast a flickering, warm glow over their surroundings. The decor had barely changed since Harry had moved in - a sign he’d judged the it almost perfectly. Draco dropped into one of the many overstuffed sofa’s that ringed the room.
“Hermione tracked me down - she’s looking for you”
Harry sighed and carefully put aside the book he’d been reading. It was some cheap muggle paperback, the cover a frozen illustration of spaceships and planets. The room of requirement apparently had a surprisingly generous supply of muggle science fiction that Harry had been slowly working his way through. Draco had had a go at reading one but found them almost completely incomprehensible.
Harry turned to meet Draco’s gaze, his expression worried.
“She just misses you you prat. She said she’s not going to have a go at you about Ginny, and she still has your Christmas present.”
Harry shrugged.
“I know it’s bad. The longer I’ve put it off, the worse I feel. But it’s just nice to hide for a bit. I think this is the first time I’ve just done nothing but please myself for more than a few days. It’s pretty addictive”
Harry shrugged, and Draco’s heart hurt for him. His Harry had been the same - a life of constant sacrifice and scarce comfort until the day he’d died. Draco forced a smile.
“Don’t be daft Harry - seeing your friends will please you. Get them all in here for some hideous muggle movie night or something, you’ll feel better for it. I think there’s a TV or two the room has picked up since the fire.”
Harry nodded, and then seemed to notice the rings around Draco’s eyes and his less than pristine state of dress.
“Is everything OK? You look tired”
“The wards again, I started before dawn so I could refresh them all. Someone has been messing with them. Not the corruption, something else. I don’t like it one bit.”
“Is Hermione no closer to discovering the cure? This has to be a new record”
“Yes - it’s worrying”
“Here” Harry threw him a thick blanket that had appeared on the table beside him “close your eyes for a bit. I’ll wake you in thirty minutes if you nod off.”
Draco found himself powerless to resist and curled up on the sofa, falling asleep to the sound of pages being turned.
He dreamed of Harry, of the days they’d been on the run just the two of them together, the week that Neville, Ron and Hermione split off to infiltrate the Ministry. By unspoken agreement they’d both started sleeping in the same bed, Harry curling round him to help ward off his nightmares. Of course Draco still hadn’t had the best sleep, Harry’s restless body tumbled up against his, his surprisingly knobbly knees constantly poking Draco awake.
Sometimes, in the space between sleep and wakening he could still feel Harry’s arm curled tight around his waist. Harry had always held on too tightly.
Harry’s hand was shaking him.
“Draco?”
With a sigh, Draco wrapped his arm around Harry’s waist and buried his wet face into his t-shirt. The familiar smell of Harry an inexpressible comfort.
“Missed you Harry”
He felt Harry freeze under him, and was immediately wide awake. Ah. With extreme dignity Draco pulled himself away and quickly set himself to rights.
“Apologies Potter. I thought you were someone else there. Please forgive me.”
Harry was looking at Draco with an expression of such horrified fascination it caused Draco’s stomach to drop. Of course. It was a good job he had worked so hard to not be hopeful, or this really would have been inexpressibly painful.
“I’d better be off. Thanks for the nap. Now don’t forget - talk to Hermione and Neville - even if you can’t handle Ron and the other Gryffindor lot. Stop being such a hermit or they’ll keep pestering me”
Harry didn’t reply, and Draco didn’t wait for him to, striding quickly up the stairs and out of the chamber.
Late January
Draco was seeing things. It had been happening more and more lately, a movement in the corner of his eye, a flash of tattered material. Always when he was alone, Athebyne off prowling by herself, and always late at night. Perhaps he was going crazy. Sometimes he swore he could hear laughing.
He was tired. He’d completely failed to catch the ward vandal, despite the eighth years pitching in on patrols. He’d been taking blood fortifiers daily, but there was only so much they could do - he was feeling drained and strung out. And hallucinating. Maybe.
The young woman standing outside his room looking militant was unfortunately not a hallucination.
Draco took a deep breath. In his world Hermione and he had never quite had the chance to properly became friends. He had trusted her with his life - rightly so it turned out - but she hadn’t quite got over their rough start, and he had been painfully aware of that in the reserved, slightly unfriendly way she treated him despite all they’d been through. This Hermione made his look sunny. He tried not to care too much.
“Morning Hermione”
“I’ve found something Draco”
She had held out her hands, and Draco saw that she was carrying a slim notebook bound in soft leather.
“It occurred to me yesterday that perhaps if the corruption pre-dated your appointment then Filch might know something. I don’t know why I didn’t check earlier, I suppose I couldn’t quite conceive that Filch would be the type to tell anyone anything. Luckily he kept a diary though.”
The book she held out was worn and greasy, filled with writing in a chaotic crabby hand.
“Headmistress allowed me to go through the box of his belongings, and I stumbled on this. Look here”
She pointed at one of the entries
20-February
The Carrows have done something to Hogwarts. Something wrong. I can feel it deep in my bones. I’ve been watching Alecto but the bitch is being sneaky. She’s been hanging around the third floor corridors. Mrs Norris and I will get to the bottom of it.
Turning a few pages she pointed again
4-April
I’ve finally found it. Alecto has been creeping around the underground chambers, and we didn’t realise because he’s cut it off from our senses. The entrance is under constant guard but we’re going to keep watching. No point in telling Snape. That greasy trouser-stain probably ordered it.
Underground chambers? Draco tried not to look like he was baffled whilst Hermione flipped the stained pages again.
2-May
All is lost. They’ve done something terrible terrible, and it’s tapped into Hogwarts lifeblood.
I cut them until they talked. They called it the Canker Curse, and the corruption is irreversible. At least I made them pay.
“Canker curse?” Draco had never heard of it, and by the way Hermione shook her head she knew little more.
“I think we should go down there and look” Hermione tucked the book into her robe pocket and started walking. Draco had to jog to catch up.
“I must confess that I wasn’t even aware there were any underground chambers. You know where they are?”
Hermione nodded, looking grim.
There was a trapdoor in the third floor corridor. Draco stared at it in confusion. He must have walked over it a thousand times and not noticed. The door itself was hidden under a rug and when he pressed his hands against it he felt the odd numbness that persisted in the corrupted areas.
Not even bothering to attempt to cast on the infected wood, Draco rolled his sleeves up and hauled the trapdoor open, thankful for his callouses when the rusted ring bit uncomfortably into his palms.
“It’s odd the infection didn’t spread beyond the trapdoor” Hermione mused “I’ll have to look into that”
“I almost wish it had” Draco muttered “we would have been able to find this a lot sooner”
The chamber below was black with corruption, and the air heavy with dust and a slightly sweet smell of rot that turned Draco’s stomach. Withered remnants of Devil’s snare filled the room an inch deep.
“This way” Hermione said, and led Draco through a downwards sloping passage with stone walls.
As she walked, Hermione’s feet kicked up the dried foliage, causing it to explode into grey dust. With a disgusted sigh, Draco held his handkerchief over his mouth and followed her down.
They crossed through a wooden door, and then a chamber with a chessboard floor just visible through the black fur. Piles of abandoned chessmen lay at the corner of the room, their magic fully drained.
“How do you know about this place?” Draco asked, voice hushed
“First year. We came through here to get the Philosopher’s Stone”
Draco nodded. Of course. The others had joked about it a few times, during that mess of a seventh year they’d all spent on the run. At the time Draco had been slightly jealous he’d missed out on the adventures. Now, with the benefit of age and experience, he was horrified at the idea of tiny first years being so transparently lured into going through such a dangerous experience for the sake of what? Fulfilling a prophesy?
They passed through two more chambers, the noxious smell getting progressively worse. Before they entered the last, the two of them looked at each other in silent agreement, then cast bubblehead charms.
The last chamber revealed the source of the corruption, and the smell. Two bodies lay toppled against each other in front of a small basin jutting out of the central supporting pillar of the room. They were barely unrecognisable - shrunken and covered as they were in a thick fuzzy layer of corruption - but Draco knew straight away that he was looking at the bodies of Alecto and Amycus.
“We thought they’d escaped” Hermione spoke, her voice sounding muffled through the bubble of the charm.
“Apparently not” Draco replied, and stepped over their bodies to peer at the basin.
“The source of the corruption?” He asked, turning to Hermione.
“I believe so” she replied “I took the liberty of doing a quick check of the spell books to track down this ‘Canker Curse’ but no luck so far. I’ll take a sample keep looking”
Draco nodded.
“And I’ll dispose of these two”