Everything Except This Infinite Sky

The hounds came for him in the night.

They usually did, these days. When they spoke they had a single voice that was many voices, Sirius and Lupin and Fred Weasley and Lavender Brown and all the rest, screaming at him, circling him in a mass of flesh and fur and razor-sharp teeth. It was a relief when they fell upon him and tore him to shreds.

He woke up in the peacock room and had to struggle to remember where he was, and why, and to convince himself that the whole night at the Manor had really happened. Malfoy was gone.

He dug one of his little packets out of his coat, which was crumpled on the floor, and then cut a few lines on the battered table and banished the hounds. He was acutely hungover. He’d lost his trainers at some point, and he padded down the hall to the ballroom, thinking maybe he’d left them in there. When he walked in, Pansy was on her hands and knees, patting the rug frantically.

“…I’m serious, Blaise, if you’ve taken it for a laugh—”

“Why in Merlin’s name would I do that, you silly old cow—Oh, Harry,” Blaise said, noticing him, and sat up. He appeared not to have moved an inch otherwise since Harry had left him last night. “Pansy’s looking for an earring back, have you seen one?”

Harry’s post-nasal drip was starting up, and he was so hungover that he swayed on the spot a bit, determined not to sick up. “What’s it look like?” he managed.

“Oh, for heaven’s sake, I haven’t got time for this,” Pansy moaned, sweeping around herself with both hands, “I’ll be late for the chippy—”

She was still barefoot. Harry tried to decide which detail to focus on. “Why are you going to the chippy?”

“Some of us have to work for our money, you know—a-ha!” she said triumphantly, holding up something Harry couldn’t see and then fastening it into her ear.

“I work,” Harry said, offended. “Sometimes.”

“What Pansy means is that Mummy and Daddy won’t bankroll her boozing, so she finds demeaning jobs and then gets sacked after the first cheque comes in,” Blaise drawled.

“What Blaise means is he wishes his mummy and daddy were still on speaking terms with him, after they found out he’s a ponce,” Pansy snapped, standing.

“Now, let’s not be crass, darling, the sun is barely up,” Blaise sighed.

Pansy lifted the box of wine from the floor, testing its weight, and then hoisted it up in the air and shook the remainder of the contents directly into her mouth. She yanked a jacket off the floor and ran out the ballroom’s main door, still barefoot.

“The property still has Lucius’s old anti-apparition wards all round the borders,” Blaise said, shaking his head. “A tragicomedy of awesome proportions.”

“You could probably fix that,” Harry said, fumbling for his wand, but it seemed to have gone the same way as his trainers.

“Draco will kill you if you touch anything of Lucius’s,” Blaise replied cheerfully. “Anyway, what’s got you up so early, Harry?” He lay back down on the rug and closed his eyes.

Harry thought he’d had some sort of plan in mind when he’d walked into the ballroom, or at least something resembling an intention, but the whole thing was rather fuzzy now. He lurched over to the rug and sat next to Blaise, impressed at his own fortitude in resisting projectile vomiting.

“Where’s Malfoy, anyway?” he asked.

“Haven’t the foggiest.”

Harry mulled this over. “You live here now?”

“I have many benefactors.”

“Oh,” Harry said. He lay down on the rug next to Blaise and passed out again.

When he awoke, the sunlight coming in the French windows was noticeably brighter, and Malfoy was poking at something in the fireplace. “Breakfast,” he said, pointing to a few rumpled paper bags on the floor. Blaise was already eating a croissant directly out of one of them.

Harry sat up. His head swam. He ate a few pastries while Malfoy became increasingly profane, his head buried in the fireplace.

“What are you doing?” Harry asked. He turned to Blaise. “What’s he doing?”

“Floo hookup,” Blaise yawned. “It’s Halloween, you know.”

Harry did not know. “Is it still October?”

Blaise eyed him. Harry recalled from somewhere in the back of his brain that Halloween was inherently in October. “Right.”

Blaise patted him on the shoulder. “Good man.”

Malfoy stepped fully inside the fireplace and stood up. He was wearing one sock, his other foot bare. “Is this house allergic to shoes?” Harry asked.

Blaise looked at his own feet, frowning.

Malfoy screeched, and a bat flew out of the fireplace and fluttered around the room for a bit. It found the chandelier and settled upside-down like it had decided to roost there. Malfoy emerged from the fireplace, coughing and sooty.

“Blaise, get that thing outside.”

“I’m not your servant.”

“Well, you’re awfully short on rent.”

Blaise looked at Harry. “Help me here.”

“I lost my wand,” said Harry, patting his pockets. “Maybe that’s why I came in here.”

“That’s a shame.”

None of the three of them got up to deal with the bat. Finally Malfoy flopped down on the rug and picked up the telly remote. “What’s on, then?”

The TV had clearly been fixed up with magic, because there wasn’t even a cable running out behind it. But whoever had done it had got the dates all wrong: when Malfoy turned it on, a grainy news broadcast came on that showed Margaret Thatcher shaking hands with a very tall man in front of Downing Street.

“Daft old bint,” Blaise said.

“Her term’s ended,” Harry told them.

“Good riddance.”

Malfoy passed around a spliff and then dozed off lying on his back in between Harry’s legs. Harry stroked his hair, mesmerised by the feel of the silky golden strands in his fingers. Morning gave way to afternoon.

“I need a piss,” Harry said suddenly, sitting up. Malfoy blinked, dazed.

“Next to the peacock room,” Blaise told him.

When Harry got back, Malfoy was undoing Blaise’s trousers.

“Oh,” Harry said from the doorway.

“It’s rude to stare, Potter.”

He sat down next to them and wanked Malfoy while Malfoy wanked Blaise.

“Well, now I simply must shower,” Blaise said when they were done. He ambled out of the room.

“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” said Pansy when she got back and found them all sitting on the rug, Blaise in a fresh suit but the scene otherwise practically comatose. “Here, I got us costumes.”

She flung plastic bags at each of them.

“You found shoes,” Harry said, pointing. “Why do we need costumes?”

“It’s Halloween,” Blaise reminded him.

“Potter’s been living underground for so long, he’s forgotten what a party is,” Malfoy said.

“How horrible,” Pansy shuddered.

Harry opened his plastic bag and found a mouse-ear headband and a plush tail.

“Take a shower first,” Pansy told him, wrinkling her nose. “And perk up a bit.”

“I told you, Potter doesn’t like uppers,” Malfoy said. He followed Harry to the bathroom and lit another spliff while they waited for the water to warm up.

Harry stripped off his clothes and watched Malfoy do the same. A set of long, thin silver scars ran parallel across the backs of his thighs.

“I didn’t do those ones,” Malfoy said, catching him looking.

“You’re beautiful,” Harry said, high. Malfoy laughed at him.

They got into the shower, which was difficult because it wasn’t big enough for two people and neither of them wanted to stand out in the cold. Finally Harry got them positioned sort of sideways, Malfoy’s back pressing into his chest. He reached around Malfoy’s waist, his arm pressing against the knotty ridges of innumerable scars, and wanked him off again.

“That was much better than last night,” Malfoy told him as they climbed out of the shower.

“You were pissed last night.”

“So were you.”

Harry looked around the bathroom. “Oh,” he said. “I don’t have clean clothes.”

“Wait here,” Malfoy said, and left the bathroom fully nude, dripping all over the carpets. He returned a moment later with clothes for both of them. Harry moved the packets from his coat pocket into the trousers Malfoy had given him and left his old clothes in a pile in the hall. They went back to the ballroom, where Blaise was wearing a pointy blue wizard’s hat and a matching cape.

“Pansy thinks she’s very funny,” he told Harry neutrally, still sat on the rug.

“Where is Pansy?” Harry asked, looking around.

“She’s gone to retrieve her date for tonight’s festivities.”

Harry put on his mouse ears and tail. He looked around at Malfoy, who was now in fluffy black cat ears and a similar tail.

“As I said, Pansy thinks she’s very funny,” Blaise said.

“Well, Potter, welcome to your first Slytherin House party,” Malfoy said. Harry emptied one of his packets onto the back of his hand and inhaled most of it in one, then gave the rest to Blaise.

People started flooing in as the last rays of sunlight were fading from the room. He recognised a few of them: Millicent Bulstrode, Theo Nott, the Greengrass sisters, and, bizarrely, Hannah Abbott. Most of the rest were nobodies, animal faces that Harry squinted at hazily and then promptly forgot. Pansy returned wearing a leather skirt and a pair of black feathered wings, one arm around her date, who turned out to be a muggle girl she’d met at the chip shop.

“Isn’t that against the law or something?” Harry said as he watched the girl take in the scene, wide-eyed.

“Sue me,” Pansy said. She was barefoot again. Someone spelled up music, and Malfoy led a contingent to the middle of the floor to dance.

“Hello, Harry.”

It was Baxter.

“What are you doing here?”

“It’s good manners to play nice with your suppliers in, you know.” Baxter dangled a few packets in front of him, then returned them to his pocket. “Enjoying your evening?”

“Well enough.” Harry reached for his wand and remembered again that he’d lost it.

“Lovely.” Baxter smiled, and his teeth were fangs. Harry looked around wildly.

“Harry,” Blaise said smoothly, appearing out of nowhere. He looped an arm around Harry’s shoulders and whisked him onto the dance floor.

Harry was pretty sure he was stumbling rather a lot, but he felt weightless enough that it didn’t really matter.

“Does Baxter have normal teeth?” he asked Blaise.

“Can’t say I’ve ever inspected,” Blaise replied demurely. “You should keep away from him either way, though.”

“I think they’re fangs.”

“He’s dangerous, Harry.”

“Yeah, I know. I just didn’t know he had dangerous teeth.”

“The man makes the teeth,” Blaise said gravely.

“Why did Malfoy invite him, anyway?”

“He didn’t. Baxter gate-crashes.”

The song changed, and the dance got looser. A rabbit offered them sips of something sparkling and purple in exchange for a line of Harry’s Indolor. As the rabbit drifted away Harry realised she was Fleur Delacour’s younger sister.

“How does Malfoy even know her?” he asked.

Blaise shrugged. “Probably related.”

Harry was getting sweaty. “I need a drink,” he said, and Blaise led him off to one of the French windows, where a bottle of vodka was stashed behind the curtain.

“Harry.”

Baxter slid up to them again, smiling. His lips were closed: Harry couldn’t check what his teeth looked like. His face kept coming in and out of focus.

“Hello, Baxter,” Blaise said warily.

“I’m afraid Harry and I were in the middle of a conversation when you joined us,” Baxter said. His mouth opened when he talked. Harry saw fangs. He blinked, and saw regular teeth. Baxter turned to him, and they were fangs again.

“I don’t need anything from you,” Harry said.

“That’s fortunate for you, because you still owe me about a thousand Galleons.”

Harry closed his eyes. When he opened them, Baxter had his wand out. Another wizard stood a few paces behind him, and a third next to Blaise.

“I have the money at home,” he said desperately.

“Excellent,” Baxter said. “Let’s go.”

Harry looked around. No one at the party seemed to have noticed them, although it was hard to be sure of anything with how stupendously wasted he had become.

“My flat’s not hooked up to the floo network,” he said.

“Then we’ll apparate.”

The man next to Blaise had his wand out, too.

“We have to go outside to apparate,” Harry told Baxter.

“Lead the way.” His fangs flashed.

“You too, Merlin,” Baxter’s crony said to Blaise, poking him in the back with his wand.

Harry led them around the perimeter of the room, down the dark staircase, and out to the end of the drive. Baxter wrapped one arm tightly around Harry’s waist, his cronies grabbing Blaise and placing their hands on Harry’s shoulders. They were trapped.

“We could get splinched,” Harry said.

“Guess that’s a chance you’ll have to take.”

Harry breathed deeply, trying to steady himself, and turned on his heel.

He could tell instantly that he’d got it wrong. He was distantly aware of blood, and his kitchen table, and some kind of scuffle around him, but he was just staring up at the ceiling, its vast expanse, the texture of the cheap paint his muggle landlord used. Then there were three cracking noises, and Blaise’s voice saying his name, and as he lost consciousness he was only thinking about Baxter’s fangs, and how he hoped Blaise wasn’t being torn apart by them.