The Aftermath
Em being gone from their group causes a shift in the entire world. Things are off kilter, either leaning too far left or too far right. There are too many stretches of silence where he’s supposed to be in their conversations now, one less person to make room for and acknowledge, one less set of footsteps echoing across the stone floors as they shuffle off to class.
Hermione starts wearing a scarf. She says she’s cold. No one argues. Draco all but snarls at anyone who looks at them too long with pity or morbid interest. Ron’s found himself in a similarly foul mood, and he’s so upset he forgets to hate Draco. Harry gets random bursts of righteous energy, desperate to do something about it, and sleeps more than before- which should be a good thing, but just makes him more depressed. The bags under his eyes have never been deeper. The sickest feeling is knowing he can’t do anything about it. He feels so powerless. Harry can’t believe how much life is missing from him now that Em’s just a husk in a hospital bed. He never really thought about it, but of course it was Em leaving him an extra treacle tart on his window sill every Thursday. Of course it was him making Harry’s bed when he forgot. Of course he was the one swapping out the playing cards every game so they never got bored. All these little things suddenly disappear, and for the first time ever at Hogwarts, Harry feels unbelievably alone. The others clearly feel similarly, and instead of hanging out as friends, now they’re just being alone together.
Arthur takes it like a grizzled veteran. It worried Harry at first- still worries him. Arthur had to be in denial to be as matter-of-fact about it as he is. Harry keeps waiting for it, but there’s no meltdown, no implosion or explosion of his feelings. Either Arthur’s insanely good at self-control, or emotionally balanced and capable enough to genuinely accept this nightmare as it is and forge onward. Both are worrisome thoughts.
Ron’s theory is that he’s secretly a robot, but Harry knows Arthur’s more affected than he presents himself to be. He doesn’t know how Arthur does it, but Harry knows he sneaks out of the dorms every night, and three guesses where he goes. He’s been warm as ever with them, but closed off somehow, preoccupied at all times. He breaks off from the group without a clear reason often, so while he checks in on them and eats with them and stays as close as he ever did, he’s clearly keeping the part of him reserved for Em elsewhere. Probably in the infirmary.
The bullying has stopped entirely, but it’s hard to enjoy the reprieve when they’re all so gloomy. Harry just knows Em would hate that, though, and he’d be horrified by the glum introduction Draco’s had to their friend group. Through all this mess, it’s easy to forget he’s only just turned his entire lifestyle around for them. Harry decides he shouldn’t forget that, he should try to help him like Em would. He won’t be half as good at it, but he should still try.
He’s learned quite a bit about Draco in the little time they’ve spent side by side rather than as enemies. He’s dangerously smart, in a sharp, lethal way, which is probably what makes people take such notice of him. He is hard to miss without trying, from his shock-blonde hair to his sterling silver eyes, sharp as daggers. Harry wonders why he used to yell and spit so much before when he’s much more respectable now, and much easier to pay attention to. Much more at ease. It suits him.
Draco knows far too much about everyone around him. He won’t say how, but Harry doesn’t think there’s any big trick to it. He’s fairly certain Draco’s just observant, soaking up every fine detail in the world before him like a sponge, storing it all away in methodically organized files for later use. Making conclusions and connecting dots, unravelling a red string of logic from point to point in his mind. Harry imagines it’s all quite methodical behind the scenes.
Draco is doing his fair share of heavy lifting in terms of spirits as well. Harry is still frequently “Potter,” as Ron and Hermione are still “Weasley” and “Granger”, but they’re never said with the same malice as before, like their very names are the insult. Harry is glad of the upcoming Quidditch game, an excuse to leave the ground and it’s problems behind and be free again with only the snitch to worry about for an hour or two, but it’s when Draco shoots into the air across from him and shouts over “Alright there, scarhead?” that he really feels the weight lift off of him.
It’s still a rough game though. They win, Harry paying for the grand feeling of closing his fist around the snitch with a bludger to the arm.
Harry opens his eyes. He can feel the dew seeping into his back, through his robes. There’s a veritable sea of red around him- his team- along with a more hesitant stream of green. The Slytherin team have come to check on him as well. That’s nice.
Harry frowns minutely at a glitter of pearly teeth, but then it’s being shoved aside to make room for a pale blonde head and gun-metal grey eyes.
“You right, Harry? Your arm was hit, but you’re not bleeding. Does it hurt?”
“Not to worry, I’ll have this fixed in a jiff,” a cheery voice Harry instinctively cringes back from says in the background. There’s a familiar click.
“I don’t want a photo of this, Colin,” he says loudly, proud of his words for coming out clearly. Above him, Draco curses and moves off to enforce that request, making Harry a little sorry to have made it. Particularly when Lockhart swims into view above him.
“Lie back, Harry, it’s a simple charm I’ve used countless times-“
“Why can’t I just go to the hospital wing?” Harry demands through clenched teeth, graciously skipping over the fact that he’s already flat on his back on the grass and can’t see how he might go about lying back further.
“He should really, Professor,” advises a muddy Wood, grinning ear to ear. “Great capture, Harry, really spectacular, your best yet, I’d say-“
“Stand back,” Lockhart orders grandly, throwing his arms out to either side and rolling his gilded sleeves up.
“No- don’t—“
A strange and unpleasant sensation trickles down his skinny arm from the shoulder. It feels like it’s being deflated. Harry hopes he hasn’t just lost his arm or its use permanently to a middle-aged male model’s delusions of competence.
Draco shoves back into his vision as he realizes he’s missed something, stormcloud eyes snapping from Lockhart to Harry and darkening.
“What did you do?” he hisses scathingly, dropping down to look Harry’s arm over while the crowd take a step back and look ill. Harry decides he doesn’t want to know what illicited that response.
“Ah,” Lockhart says. “Yes. Well, that can sometimes happen. But the point is, the bones are no longer broken. That’s the thing to bear in mind. So, Harry, just toddle up to the hospital wing, Mr. Malfoy can escort you— ah, Miss Granger, Mr. Weasley, why don’t you lend your friend a hand, he could do with one. Up, there you go, Madam Pomfrey will be able to- er- tidy you up a bit.”
Lockhart wisely beats a quick retreat as Arthur holds Draco back from tidying him up a bit.
“‘Salright, Draco, if he’s messed me up permanently maybe someone’ll fire him,” Harry offers a little weakly, before tilting right into Ron’s shoulder and almost sending them both down like a sack of bricks.
“That fucking imbecile,” Draco spits later on as Harry tries to restituate his boneless arm against his sheets in the infirmary. That’s another thing he’s learned about Draco: when he’s angry he swears more than any preteen Harry’s ever met. It makes Hermione gasp every time. “He’s going to get someone killed. I should’ve had him fired ages ago. Blithering about, disappearing bones with unsupervised field spells on a minor -“
“Oh, thank Merlin,” Ron sighs. “I thought you’d be all for him.”
Draco gapes indignantly, reeling back in offense. “Me? You thought I would fall for that joke of a fraud? He’s so close to a ken doll he’s probably trademarked!”
Harry stifles a surprised snort, even as he feels a pang of hurt for Hermione.
“Hey, it’s an easy mistake to make!” Ron snaps back defensively. Draco’s eyes go wide, probably thinking Ron used to buy into it. Arthur uncrosses his arms, ready to intervene, but there’s no need. Hermione puts a hand on Draco’s arm to catch his attention and gives Ron a look.
“He had me fooled,” she admits with no small amount of shame. “And Draco’s right, Ron, I was being totally brainless. You guys didn’t let me get away with it for long, though. Em didn’t…”
“That’s what you were fighting about,” Draco realizes. “That was a miserable week.”
“How do you know? You weren’t with us at that point,” Ron accuses.
“I have eyes,” the Slytherin returns a little too quickly. “There was a storm cloud over the lot of you that entire time. The temperature dropped whenever you entered a room. I’d have to have been stupid not to notice.”
“Whatever. Now I can keep an eye on Em, and you have twice as many excuses to come see him. We would’ve been here every night anyway,” Harry says.
They all look over. Em’s set in the bed beside Harry’s- or more accurately, Harry’s in the bed beside Em’s. He was here first, after all. Arthur’s sitting on the edge of it, playing with Em’s hair. He doesn’t seem to notice he’s doing it.
“Mm. Appreciate it. Pomfrey’s been eyeing his scarf, and I can only be here so much,” he hums.
“I’ve never seen him without that thing,” Draco muses neutrally.
“Neither have I,” Ron admits with a shrug. Harry lets out a surreptitious breath of relief that it mostly ends the conversation.
💪
“Any ideas?” Arthur asks aloud as he paces, frown set deep in his young face. “And don’t say Hagrid.”
Albus’ eyebrows raise delicately from behind his desk where he’s watching Arthur stride around his room like a man possessed. “He was sentenced for the opening of the chamber fifty years ago.”
“I know that,” Arthur scoffs. Honestly, does Albus think he doesn’t do his research? They’re trying to catch a terrorist here. “But he didn’t do it, and you know he didn’t, so stop trying to be all smoke and mirrors. Work with me. Would it help if I shifted my physical form? Is it the age, is that it? Can’t strategize with a twelve year old? Get it together.”
Albus blinks, opens his mouth once, then closes it and dips his head in concession, waving a hand for Arthur to continue. Arthur rolls his eyes and ploughs on.
“Here’s what we know. Hagrid was blamed fifty years ago, but guess who was also at school at the time, right in the thick of things? Riddle. Obviously it was him, you can confirm?”
Albus nods once.
“Right. So while he no longer has a physical vessel, it’s still possible for him to have a hand in this through someone else. Could be willing service, could be unwilling- coercion, influence, something. Which means it could be anyone. I don’t see how he could have any fractions of himself in the school to oversee it personally, Merlin would’ve sensed him from day one, so it’s unlikely to be a Quirrel situation. Then it’s more likely to be a willing service deal, he wouldn’t want to trust an insecure line, particularly if it were a student. So we’re most likely looking at an adult servant of the Dark Lord, willingly preying on minors who advocate for mixed-blood justice and sending the pure-blood message.” Arthur snaps his eyes to Albus to make sure he’s got all that before he continues. “I want all the files on every member of staff on campus this year. Once this is all over, you need to tighten up your hiring standards or I’ll have to do it for you. I can’t even begin to approach what you were thinking when you replaced Quentin Quirrel with Gilderoy Lockhart. But first thing’s first: your theories. Hit me.”
“It obviously isn’t anyone related to Sal. He has no descendants, so we can rule out the idea that that claim has any bearing on the identity of the culprit. However, claiming to be the heir gives us insight into the kind of person we’re looking for,” Rowena provides from behind Albus. He politely scoots out of the way so the founders aren’t talking to his back.
“Blood purist, obsessed with the notion of birthright,” Helga agrees.
“Classic narcissist,” Sal concludes.
“No, you’re describing Riddle. He’s pulling the strings, of course it stinks of him. We want his scapegoat, whoever he’s using to paint his picture,” Arthur reminds them.
“But are these not also common traits in the followers of such a man? They serve his creed,” Godric reasons.
“People serve for all kinds of reasons,” Arthur refutes under his breath. “We’re better off working the Basil angle. Anyone can serve, but it takes someone specific to tame a Basilisk, particularly one so averse to violence. I would say Basil’s gone senile, but that can’t be the case if the violence is targeted. It’s possible that someone’s just taking advantage of the collateral damage without instigating it themselves…”
“That’s a big commitment to improvise,” Sal hums.
“You’re right, it’s unlikely,” Rowena agrees. Arthur sighs, running a hand through his hair. For about the eight-hundredth time today, he wishes Merlin was here.
He spends the rest of the daylight holed up in Albus’ study, reading through the staff files and trying to ignore the thousand annoying little knick-knacks that puff and wheeze and click and bubble all around the room. Two of the portraits are helpful, and the rest are loudly unhelpful, so at one point Arthur just tells them all to shut up.
He knows they’re not gonna find damning proof that someone’s under Riddle’s thumb from their school file, but Arthur actually can’t think of anything else right now, and he feels like if he doesn’t do something, anything, towards solving this fucking thing, he’ll lose it. For the second time in as many years there is an unidentified terrorist loose in a high school on his watch. They got Merlin, for fuck’s sake. And they’re doing it all with his son’s familiar. And what does Arthur have? Nothing.
Anger is a dangerous thing on Arthur. Right now, he’s seething.
💢
Draco debates with himself for a long time. He hasn’t slept in the dorms for about a week now, since the inter-house hate started. The bullying’s stopped outright since the Founders’ lecture, but something tells Draco it hasn’t all blown over smoothly enough for him to be safe in the Slytherin dorms yet. Fine by him. There’s nothing for him there- although he does miss looking out the windows.
None of this was a concern before Harry went and got himself bereft of thirteen more bones than he had that morning. Now Draco has a choice: go back to Slytherin, or let scarhead catch him bunking in the infirmary for no reason at all and being his nosy self about it. And he would be- even if he pretended not to pry, he’d get to the bottom of it. It’s the kind of thing Potter does for his… friends.
Draco puts it to himself logically. He’s not scared of Potter. What’s he gonna do? So what if Draco’s fifty shades of fucked up? Harry’s friends with Weasley , he has no room to judge. Yes, right. His friends are a poor redhead built like a newborn giraffe and a nasally teacher’s pet with the worst case of buck teeth Draco’s ever seen. Potter himself is a scrawny waif of a thing whose insane thicket of hair probably makes up 50% of his body weight. Draco might have a whole host of issues, but at least he can tie his tie properly.
So it shouldn’t be this hard to walk into the infirmary.
Really. It shouldn’t.
For all Harry knows he’s just here to visit Emrys. Draco could change his mind or turn around anytime-
No. No, he won’t, because he doesn’t care what Harry Potter, human scarecrow, thinks. It’s none of his business anyway. Draco doesn’t care.
He takes a deep breath and walks in.
Harry’s set himself up with his back leaned into the pillows, dying light from the window pouring over him. He’s reading a book with a broomstick flying around the cover. Typical- recovering from a Quidditch injury and he’s reading a book about Quidditch. Draco would say it’s no wonder he’s so good at the game, but clearly there’s no shortage of raw talent in him either. He’s in a ratty old shirt that might’ve been a real colour once that says ‘Ottery St. Catch Pole Pumpkin Competition’, which, judging by the way it might as well be a nightgown on him, is definitely Weasley’s. His Quidditch robes are folded by the bed next to a half-eaten bag of crisps and two granola bars and his-
His glasses?
Draco’s eyes snap back to his face and sure enough, he isn’t wearing them. With the book about an inch from his face, he must not need them. Draco finds himself stunned still. He never considered that Potter took them off sometimes. In theory, sure, but here he is, without them, and it’s the strangest thing Draco’s ever seen. He just looks like- well. Like a little boy.
His sharp ears pick up on Draco’s entrance, though, and he looks up. Once again, Draco finds himself buffering, so unprepared for a green-eyed, bare-faced Harry he shocks even himself. He manages to pull himself together by the time Harry gracelessly shoves his glasses back onto his face.
“Oh, Draco. Hello.”
“You couldn’t tell it was me?” he hears himself ask, stepping in. “How bad’s your vision?”
“Complete rubbish. I don’t know the exact prescription, though. You’re not wearing green, so I wasn’t sure it was you.”
“You don’t know your own prescription?”
Harry looks down, fiddling with the pages of his book that he’s set aside. “They never got me tested. These are just-“ he shrugs, mumbling into the sheets. “They must’ve found them around the house or secondhand or something.”
Draco blinks as that sinks in. What?
“They’re not even yours?”
“They are now,” Harry shoots back defensively.
“I don’t understand. The Potters weren’t poor, you should’ve inherited a load.”
“Yeah, only when I found out about it.”
Draco freezes on the spot, halfway to his own bed. “What?”
Harry shrugs. “I didn’t know who my parents were until Hagrid came and gave me my letter. I didn’t know about magic, or Hogwarts. I’d never had ‘my own’ anything before then.”
That- no. That’s absurd! He’s Harry Potter. The face of the Wizarding World. Draco knew he was raised by muggles, but they would’ve been in on it, they would’ve told him. Even if they hadn’t, how does that translate to not having anything of his own? Are his muggles poor? Is that why he gets on with Weasley?
“Looks like you still don’t,” Draco’s mouth retorts automatically, eyes flicking pointedly down to Weasley’s shirt. Instead of being embarrassed about it, though. Harry beams and puffs his chest out like he’s proud of it.
“There are no stains on this one. No holes even. Ron gave it to me just because!” he brags. Draco wants to snort until he realizes the kid’s completely genuine. That kills the wind in his sails.
“You here for Em?” Harry asks, and Draco feels a phantom rising of fear in his heart, but it’s too buried in dismay to compare to his earlier distress, and he just shakes his head.
“Oh. Well. Thanks.”
Draco raises his eyebrows, and then rolls his eyes as he catches up. “Not everything’s about you, Potter.”
Poppy takes this opportunity to stride in with a bottle of Skele-Gro that promises to be absolutely foul, dress freshly pressed. Her eyes crinkle (well, more than they already do) happily on seeing him there.
“Draco! You’re early, I haven’t even made your bed up yet. Bit of study to catch up on?”
“No, just nothing better to do. You never know, maybe I missed you,” Draco returns. He never noticed how much softer his voice came out with Poppy, but after snapping at Potter it’s quite apparent. Interesting.
“Sorry, you’re staying? You’re not hurt?” Harry asks, sounding a little taken aback. His head whips between them and his unruly jungle of hair bounces like its own live ecosystem in the light.
“No, dearie, but the infirmary’s open to anyone who needs it,” Poppy assures him easily, effectively assuaging any doubts. Merlin, Draco loves that woman.
“I happen to like it here,” he sniffs to close the topic, flopping down on his own bed. It’s the one facing Em’s.
“Within reason,” Poppy goes on as if Draco didn’t speak. “If only Mr. Penn were so understanding of the rules. You tell him to stop sneaking in here of a nighttime,” she orders, brandishing a strict finger at the two of them.
“I don’t think Merlin himself could stop him,” Draco drawls lazily, cracking open his own book- a rather fascinating read on rare flowers. Honestly, Draco’s enjoyed the nighttime serenades when Arthur pulls his guitar (which he’s stashed under Em’s cot) out.
It ends up being a rather fortunate thing that they’re all there that night, anyway. Arthur’s only just snuck under Em’s covers when the third victim is brought in.