Author: reposoir 

Rating: NC-17

Summary: Harry, Hermione, and Ron work together in Godric's Hollow to find and destroy Voldemort's horcruxes. With the unexpected arrival of Draco Malfoy, Harry has the burden of both the horcruxes and new worries weighing him down. 

Author's Notes: Thank you to my betas, Berne and Becca for the edits and feedback, and to Ella Bane for the help and suggestions. And as often, Ovid should get the credit for inspiring my title.
   






The house is silent when Harry goes back. It is the same as ever and equally as different as the last time he's seen it. Thicker cobwebs thread the cracking cornices together, more doxies scurry underneath curtains when his Lumos charm shines near their tracks. Mostly, it feels empty. Harry feels empty inside, too, because this time there is no smiling face of Sirius waiting in the drawing room to see him. 

He glances down at his feet. Kreacher scowls and mutters beside him—he's worse in this house. Mrs Black's portrait starts shrieking in the hallway and Kreacher runs up to her, sniveling and pleading, "Mistress, he made me! Mistress, the half-blood scum made Kreacher take him back here!" 

"Shut up, Kreacher!" Harry yells. Kreacher shuts up, but his eyes bulge out like he's choking on his tongue. Mrs Black continues to holler at him. Harry pulls out his wand and zaps the portrait. It does little more than smoke, which makes her yell louder. 

The kitchen is the quietest room in the house, not even the faintest whistling from the fireplace can be heard in here. Harry walks inside and opens all the cupboards with a flick of his wand. A saucer tips onto the floor and hits it with a crash. Harry winces. 

"Kreacher," he calls out, "where is the locket?" 

Kreacher rushes up to Harry. His eyes shift and watch the motions of the silent clock, the arms moving with abrupt jerks against thick, black roman numerals. "Kreacher doesn't know what Master is talking about," he says sweetly, rubbing his fingers together. 

Harry grits his teeth and peers around the stove pipe into a dusty corner. A broom sits neglected there, stirring particles into the air as Harry lifts it to peer behind it. "You know exactly what I'm talking about. The one with the S. The one that opened. The one we found two years ago that we tossed into a rubbish bin. I know you did something with it. Tell me where it is." 

Kreacher's ears flap down over the sides of his face. His smile spreads far enough to touch them. "Kreacher does not know what Master is talking about." 

The cupboard Harry has opened slams shut and the dishes rattle inside it. He turns and points his wand at Kreacher's head. "Kreacher," he says slowly, "you will tell me where the locket is." 

Harry smiles when the house-elf's mouth starts to open and he clutches at his throat. The words are strangled, but Harry can hear him say "With Mistress Narcissa, you filthy half-blood..." 

"Shit," Harry mutters.  

Coming here was useless. So his gut feeling was right—Mundungus didn't steal it and Kreacher knows what happened to it. Kreacher pulls his hands away from his neck and smirks, before a snap of his fingers and a crack in the air tells Harry he has disappeared once more. 

He'd hoped this wasn't going to happen. He had hoped that the locket would be in Kreacher's hovel under the stove. Harry bends down and looks beneath it, but he sees little more there than some straggly lint balls and shriveled doxy shells. And possibly the scurrying of billywags behind a chewed-up jumper. 

Nothing shiny. No framed photographs of Bellatrix. No goblets inscribed with the Black family crest and motto. No lockets. 

"Shit shit shit," Harry says louder. His words gather in the thick air, laden with floating dust motes. Number Twelve Grimmauld Place smells of dereliction. He breathes in the dust and sneezes. The damp warmth and the scent of mould are heavy. Not even the loud rush and blaring horns of mid-afternoon city traffic can penetrate the walls here. 

Harry wants to get out as fast as he can. The house screams of loneliness and Sirius, something unloved and unwanted. Harry certainly doesn't want it. He walks back through the kitchen, through the long, dim corridor and into the parlour. His footsteps creak across the sagging wooden floorboards. 

"Hello?" a voice calls from the hallway. 

"—FILTHY SCUM SOILING THE PURITY OF THIS HOUSE—" 

"Shut it, you old bag," Harry tells Mrs Black. She continues to shout, but loses her steam after a few more insults when Harry ignores her and walks by, deeper into the hallway. It is lined with fraying tapestries, cracked oil paintings and mirrors, framed with dust that reflect a muffled version of himself when his eyes glance around. 

"Hello?" Harry sees Phineas Nigellus peering out of his portrait. When Harry comes into view, he nods his head slightly and says, "So terrible, for our house to come to this, don't you think?" 

Harry says nothing.  

"I've a message from Dumbledore," Phineas Nigellus says. Harry turns to him immediately. "I knew that would catch your attention," he says, smirking. 

"From Dumbledore, but-" 

"I was just having a lovely chat with his portrait at Hogwarts," Phineas Nigellus says. The portrait picks up his hat and brushes the dust off the top. "Horribly dusty in here, isn't it? Would you mind scolding the house-elves for me? And tell the last one he added too much varnish to the canvas. My face cracks in this heat and it hurts terribly." 

"What about Dumbledore?" Harry insists. 

"So impatient wizards are these days," Phineas Nigellus sighs heavily, "His portrait told me to tell you, if I ever did have a chance to speak with Harry Potter, that is, that he's very sorry you have decided not to come back to Hogwarts this September." 

Harry starts to frown. "That's it?" Even a message about acid pops would be better than that. "That's it?" 

Phineas Nigellus shrugs. "We were having a most wonderful conversation about scrying bowls, you see. I used to have one—oh it was a beautiful obsidian one, as dark as my hair was when I was younger—and Dumbledore's portrait said they were most magnificent objects if one could still buy them and that he was very sorry you weren't coming back to Hogwarts, because he could have shown you how to use one." 

Harry realizes he has stopped breathing. He sucks in the dusty air and coughs. Then he stares at Phineas Nigellus, who is scratching his nose. "A scrying bowl?" he asks. "Dumbledore wanted to show me how to use one?" 

"I suppose," Phineas Nigellus says. "They don't sell them anymore: they were banned, oh, what did Dippet tell me when he was in office...oh, yes, they were banned just before Grindelwald was defeated. He had a penchant for them, you see." 

"Phineas Nigellus," Harry says loudly, interrupting him. Phineas Nigellus looks up as Harry says "Thanks" and rushes off back down the corridor, past Mrs Black again, who takes a long moment before she starts shouting at him. 

Harry steps into the fireplace and pulls a small pouch from his trouser pocket. He unties it, takes a fistful of powder and shouts, "Godric's Hollow!" before Number Twelve Grimmauld Place is engulfed by a verdant light and he tumbles across a linoleum floor back home. 

A chair scrapes across the kitchen floor and Hermione steps into the room. She offers Harry a hand and helps pull him up. Her eyes search out his, then she smiles wistfully as she says "Not there, then?" 

"I didn't think I saw Mum throw it out!" Ron says, stepping into the room. "But...it was a long time ago and-" 

"It's at the Malfoys'," Harry says. "It has to be there. Kreacher was going on about Narcissa Malfoy. He knows something and I'd reckon it's that the Malfoys have it now." 

"Shit," Ron says, shaking his head. "Fucking hell, how do we get it now?" 

"It might have been destroyed," Hermione says. Her smile is forced. Harry, for one, is not convinced. "If RAB—if he really was Regulus Black— managed to succeed, it might well be collecting dust at the Malfoys'. I don't think it was the locket Mrs Weasley found two years ago. I think the Malfoys could have had our locket all this time." 

"I'm not willing to chance it," Harry says. 

"How do we sneak into the Malfoys' to steal it back?" Ron asks. He flops down onto the ratty ottoman and crosses his legs. "I can ask Dad where Malfoy lives—I think he has it on record somewhere at the Ministry." 

Hermione pushes Ron's legs away and sits down next to him. "We can't Apparate in, Ron," she says. "Besides, Harry isn't licensed yet." 

Harry starts to smile at Hermione. "I...er...don't think that really matters, Hermione," he says. Hermione smiles back at him and shakes her head. 

"Well, don't let the Ministry catch you!" she warns. "That still doesn't answer how we'd get past wards. Or find this locket—for all we know, Malfoy wears it around his neck." 

"He's right poncy enough to do that," Ron mutters. 

"Ron," Harry says, "Floo your Dad tonight and ask him for the information. Hermione, you look into spells to unlock house wards." 

"And you, Harry?" Hermione asks as she folds her arms over her chest. 

"I want to look up scrying bowls. D'you still have that indexing book on charms, Hermione?" 

Hermione nods. "It's in my bedroom. On the desk." 

Harry thanks Hermione and goes upstairs, taking the narrow steps two at a time. The house in Godric's Hollow is small, but with Mrs Weasley and Ginny's help cleaning it a couple weeks back, it doesn't smell much like rubbish anymore, except when it rains. Harry wonders if his parents lived in a similar house to this, all those years ago. There are hardly three streets in the village, all lined with boxy, stone cottages like this. 

Harry cracks open the door to Hermione's room. He notices the pair of Ron's underpants, half-hidden under the rumpled sheets. He bites his lip on a rising smile. The room is littered with Ron's things—there, a Martin Miggs comic, there, an extendable ear from Fred and George's shop, there, a sock with more holes than Ron has toes. 

It's a good thing Mrs Weasley hasn't visited since last Saturday. If she knew where Ron was sleeping—certainly not the room she cleaned out for him—Harry wonders what she would say about it. Insist Ron come home, maybe. Or worse yet, insist Harry be their chaperone. 

He pushes aside some parchment scrolls Hermione has laying on the desk. He picks up the tome and carts it out of the room, closing the door most of the way behind him. It's a heavy book, the cover and pages are water-stained around the bottom, but it has been invaluable. Harry makes a note to tell Hermione to thank her parents for giving the book to her as a present for her last birthday. 

Harry spreads the book across the kitchen table. He flips through to the 's' section, thumbing down the pages slowly until he finds the entry. 

Scrying bowls: Used in divination. Associated with dark wizards. Commonly found in jade, moonstone and, more rarely, obsidian. Not in use since 1944 when all registered bowls were destroyed as per act 73, legislation 29b of the 1944 sitting of the Ministry of Magic War Counsel. For use, see appendix c under 'Scrying Bowls'. 

Harry frowns. Hermione leans over his shoulder, reading the words along with him. "What's this about, Harry? The only scrying bowls I've ever seen were at a Renaissance Faire when I was ten. They had a 'witch' there," Hermione snorts. "And she was complete with 'love potions' and voodoo dolls, too!" 

"Phineas Nigellus' portrait mentioned something about them to me," Harry says. "It's worth a shot to look them up anyway." He turns the pages to the appendix c and finds the entry. 

Scrying bowls, use: Cleanse bowl appropriately. Fill with pure water and add the horsehair of a centaur, one per use. Stir deosil five times with wand to see what was while chanting three times what you wish to see. Stir widdershins three times with wand to see what may be while chanting five times what you hope to see. To close, remove wand from water and tap edge four times with Finite Incantatem. 

"What a load of rubbish!" Hermione scoffs. She closes the book on Harry's fingers. "Harry, that's nothing but divination nonsense! Phineas Nigellus was pulling your leg if he was talking about scrying bowls. Besides," she says, tugging her hair from its ponytail and fixing it into a new one, "besides, everyone knows scrying bowls have been banned since the Second World War. I don't think you could find one unless you searched a dark wizard's attic!" 

"Maybe the Malfoys have one," Ron says. Hermione hits him in the arm lightly and shakes her head. 

"Maybe," Harry says. Or maybe dark wizards sell them still... "It was worth a look, anyway." 

"Help me look up wards, Harry," Hermione says. She takes the index off the table and plunks it on an empty chair, picking another large book off the kitchen counter. "I've put sticky notes on the pages we ought to focus on. I think the Malfoys probably have a Janus Lock charm—that's one a lot of wizards have as a primary ward, as well as some others I've never heard of before, like," Hermione sticks out her tongue as she turns the pages, "hah! Like this one, here. Doesn't it sound like something they'd have?" 

Harry reads something about disembowelment and setting off alarms silently. "Er...yeah, sounds like them." But he can't help but also think of when he can slip away with his Cloak and Apparate to Knockturn Alley. He doesn't like to do this to Hermione and Ron, but he's not convinced that Dumbledore and Phineas Nigellus were talking about scrying bowls for nothing. 

He and Ron spend the afternoon helping Hermione, which mostly consists of nodding and agreeing when she comments about this ward or that kind of shielding spell modified for homes. "I know the Malfoys live in Wiltshire," she tells them, "so I assume it's close to Stonehenge. If that is so, then we ought to also expect some sort of ingrained natural magic, possibly arranged in cyclical layers with wards." 

"Or," Ron says with a yawn, "we could just arrange to kidnap Malfoy and bribe our way in." 

"Ron," Hermione says with a groan, "we could but I don't think he's stupid enough to fall for something like that." 

"Not if Snape might be with him still," Harry says. The thought of Snape makes the lump in his stomach grow heavier. Under the table, he balls his fist as tight as he can. If Snape's with Malfoy, Harry will be ready. He imagines being the one this time, the one with the two words on his tongue as Snape cowers underneath him. Harry doesn't know if Dumbledore would want vengeance, but Harry reckons a great wizard like him deserves it. 

"Hermione," Ron moans sometime later, "it's too hot to be thinking about this. Besides, I'm hungry." 

Hermione sighs. She lifts her arm from the table and it peels off with the sound of a suction cup. She cringes. "All right." She slams the book shut and places it on the chair on top of her charms index. "Do we have any of that casserole left from Mrs Weasley?" 

Harry opens the fridge. Pickles. A half-full pitcher of milk. Some cheese that looks a little green around the edges. And a pot full of something. Harry sniffs it. "Smells all right still." He puts it on the stove and turns a hob on. 

"We'll have to go to the grocer's tomorrow," Hermione says. 

Harry stills. Then, casually, he says, "I'll go, Hermione." 

Hermione shrugs. Ron lays his head on the table and drums his fingers. Inside, Harry smiles. 

In the middle of Wales, there really isn't much to do. Harry, Ron and Hermione eat dinner around the table, then pile the dishes in the sink full of stacks of plates and cups and soggy tea bags buzzing with flies. Hermione suggests that one of them do the dishes, but Ron suggests he and Harry play some wizarding chess. They leave a grumbling Hermione to it. 

Harry is bored after a round of chess, Ron winning by a clear margin when his king beheads Harry's surviving knight. He wanders out of the back door and sits down on the stone porch. The sun hovers low over the surrounding mountains, streaming gold and amber onto the tops of the trees. The crickets still chirp loudly, having come out to play. 

It's a perfect night, if Harry thinks about it. He can only hope that in the morning things go as well for him. 

Harry dreams about a gold locket, wrapped around his wrist, coiled like a snake. He tries to look at it, to pry it away from his skin, but when he squints, the locket vanishes from his arm. He wakes come morning, and his wrist is red and sore where it had lain. 

He sits up groggily and rubs his eyes before reaching for his glasses. It's early enough that the birds chirp in the bushes outside. Faint snores emanate from Hermione's room and when Harry passes by the door, open a crack, he can see Ron's feet hanging off the end of Hermione's bed. 

Hermione is sitting in the kitchen, her hands wrapped around a mug of tea. "Good morning," she mumbles. 

"Good morning," Harry answers, just as gravelly. He ruffles his hair at the back, where it is messiest. The insects buzz in long rhythmic hums. Harry can feel the warmth of the summer sifting through the open windows as he walks up to them. He pulls back the curtains and peers out. The street is quiet; the milkman hasn't even driven by in his lorry to drop off bottles on doorsteps. 

"I've made a grocery list," Hermione says. "Just a few things." She hands Harry a list that fills a good half-page of lined paper. "Oh, and Ron was asking about peaches, too, if you can find them. I didn't know if they were out yet or not." 

Harry folds the paper and tucks it into his pajama trousers pocket. He pads back up the stairs and into the bathroom. His skin has the vague reminder of a hot night of tossing and turning in his damp sheets. He's slightly clammy all over and he's glad when he steps into the shower and feels the first rush of cool water sluice across his chest. 

The soap is gummy in the holder. He smears it across his skin and dips his face into the water spray. Water creeps into his nostrils, into his ears, everywhere. He thinks about scrying bowls as he lathers his chest. Maybe he's wrong about them, maybe they won't help him at all, but Harry can't but help reckon that it must mean something if Dumbledore wanted to teach him about them. 

But maybe, maybe it was just another little thing Dumbledore would have liked for him to have learned. Harry wonders how much Dumbledore knew about magic, and about life, that he was never shown. He remembers the green light from Snape's wand and the echo of Dumbledore's words float across his mind. He grits his teeth.  

Snape. 

When his hand dips down to his waist, still soapy, he tries not to think about Snape. His fingers dip along through his hair to grip his shaft. Harry leans back against the slick tiles and closes his eyes, imagining Ginny's face. She smiles at him, her eyes crinkling in the corners, the way she used to before they would kiss sometimes. Harry misses the way it felt to hold her—to wrap his arms around her back, to slide his hands down to her waist and under her shirts, to cup her breasts with his palms, to feel her nipples harden as her breath hitched. 

He groans and starts to tug at his cock as it hardens. Outside, he can hear Ron talking to Hermione, but the words are lost over the sound of the water, as are his moans. 

The memory of Ginny whispers in his ear, her hot breath making him shiver. He saw her just last week, when she and Mrs Weasley Flooed in with a casserole and some fresh baked rolls. She had smiled at him then, too, her eyes catching the light as she winked at Harry. Harry wanted to walk out with her behind the cottage and kiss her, maybe stick his hand under her tight-fitting t-shirt and press her body against the stone wall. 

But he didn't. 

Now, he is left with the ghost of her haunting his mind as he comes in his fist. Harry watches his come swirl down the drain as his cock grows limp once more. Harry misses Ginny, he thinks, but deeper still he wonders if he just misses someone to hold and to kiss and to touch, instead. 

Ron has Hermione and he has no one here. He tries not to feel lonely. He does have his friends here, but sometimes in the middle of the night, when the village is still and quiet and he hasn't quite nodded off to sleep, he's envious of his friends in the bedroom next to his. 

He towels himself off and wraps the damp towel around his waist before walking off into his room and closing the door. It is stuffier in the room than it was last night. Harry tries another cooling charm, but it does little more than rattle a few scrolls he has lying about on the floor. He budges the window open an inch or two and sighs. 

The Invisibility Cloak lies pooled on the floor, too, amidst cast-off underpants and socks and a rumpled t-shirt, which he promptly pulls over his head. If he weren't going out, he might be tempted to walk around in his underpants like he did the day before yesterday. Ron, no doubt, is already doing that. Hermione doesn't say much to either of them about it. Harry reckons she's used to it now, and that she probably doesn't mind if Ron does it anyway. 

The only pair of shorts Harry can find are the ones with the spaghetti sauce caked on the thigh. He sniffs them and they seem all right, so he pulls them on over a pair of underpants (possibly clean). He folds up his Invisibility Cloak and slips it under a fold in a dark robe he rolls up under his arm. 

"Are you not having breakfast first, Harry?" Hermione asks when he has his hand on the front door doorknob. 

He shrugs and picks the piece of toast off the plate she holds out to him. Hermione puts a hand on her hip and says, "You shouldn't skip breakfast, Harry." 

Ron snickers from the kitchen. Hermione turns and glares at him. "Well, it's true," she says, narrowing her eyes, "it's the most important meal of the day and—Harry, are you off then? Do you have my list?" 

Harry nods. "Yeah." 

"I hope the grocer's in town has everything. They didn't last week when I wanted some decaf Earl Grey tea," Hermione sighs heavily. Then she stares at Harry when his eyes drift to his feet. "You're not Apparating, are you?" she warns. "Harry!" 

"I just want to check something out," he says quickly. "I'll get your stuff. No one is going to attack me." Reluctantly, Harry pulls his Invisibility Cloak out to show Hermione. She frowns, but doesn't say too much more except to remind him to call her with his Patronus if he runs into anything. 

Harry walks into the garden, hardly more than a step or two. He tosses his dark robes over his head and as soon as his head peeps through them, his Cloak overtop. He glances over both shoulders, making sure none of the neighbours in their gingerbread cottages can see him. No faces stare out in shock from windows. 

Harry squeezes his eyes shut and wills himself to think of Diagon Alley, remembering the three D's. Destination. Determination. Deliberation. His stomach starts to heave when the invisible bars tighten around his chest, but sooner than he can gasp for air does he open his eyes to the bustle of people brushing past him in a crowded street. 

Harry looks down. Ten fingers. He wiggles his toes. They all seem there. Glasses—yes, he can see. "Good," he whispers and falls into a throng of people, all rushing down the main drag of Diagon Alley. Their voices are more subdued now than ever. The attack in Scotland—wild dogs bite ten in a surburb of Glasgow—even that was reported in the Muggle newspapers. Here, everyone knows the truth—

Werewolves. 

Harry hopes Lupin is fine with Tonks. She owled him three weeks ago Friday and the parchment was delivered by something that Hermione looked up in a bird book to be a Canadian goose. If Lupin and Tonks are in Canada hiding, maybe looking for Death Eaters there too, Harry hopes the atmosphere isn't as tense as it is in England. The Ministry rounded up only one of the werewolves in the incident. Ron said his Dad heard the werewolf had never been to Scotland, let alone was there for the attacks. The man had been in St. Mungo's, having been just bitten two months past himself. 

Rufus Scrimgeour's face appears on a flyer stuck to the side wall of a shop Harry walks by. He scowls at the Minister. "Bloody bastard," he mouths. Too many innocent wizards are being blamed in order to satisfy the public outcry for action. 

It is hard to keep up with the wizards rushing past him, oblivious to the seemingly blank gap in the crowd that Harry squeezes into. Harry ducks into corners and alleyways and steps into a low open sewer to get past them as fast as he can. One witch even bumps into him and whips around with her wand, only to see empty space where Harry is, staring at her behind a veil of diaphanous cloth. 

Everyone is paranoid. Harry, though, feels quite all right. 

Fred and George's shop is nearer the end of the street, close to Gringott's. The coins Harry has with him in his money bag Bill gave him, just before the wedding last month. He hasn't spent more than a couple sickles and it is weighty on his side. 

The shop door opens and closes with a regular pulse of customers. Harry slips inside past one when the door opens and he darts into a close corner behind the doorway before pulling off his cloak and stepping out proper. 

George—or so Harry thinks—glances up from the till where he was chatting to a saleswitch. "Harry!" he calls out, striding up to Harry and shaking his hand firmly, "How is our favourite investor?" 

"All right, thanks," Harry says. "Look, George—can I talk with you in your office?" 

George's eyebrows rise as he smiles widely. "Of course, of course," he says, pushing Harry between customers, bumping into as many as he can. In the back of the shop, George opens a door, flicks his wand at a lamp, and closes the door right behind them. 

He grins. "How can I help you, Harry?" 

Harry glances about the room. It is stacked floor-to-ceiling with boxes. Some buzz and whistle, others sag precariously overhead. Nothing is labeled. Harry leans close and says in a low tone, "Is it you who manufactures Metamorph Medals?" 

George pats Harry on the shoulder. "If you are looking to get a girlfriend, Harry, you don't need a Metamorph Medal to woo them with a disguise." 

"That's not what I need it for," Harry says. His cheeks flush as George continues to waggle his eyebrows. "Do you have any that actually work?" 

"For you Harry?" George sweeps his hand and a box flies out onto a table. George opens it and pulls out a shining bronze medallion on a thin cord. "This is a new model of them. Not on the market, yet, except to a few privileged customers willing to pay the extra price. But for you? Free of charge." George drops the medal into Harry's hand. It is lighter than Harry would have expected, and much smaller, hardly more than the size of a locket. 

The locket. 

Harry looks up at George. "And does this work?" 

George shrugs. "Aside from a bit of a neck rash? This model is far superior from the original version." 

Harry nods. "Thanks, George. Tell Fred I said Hullo." Harry tucks the medal around his neck, then tosses his cloak on once more. Fred opens the door and hums to himself as he walks out of the room, seemingly alone. 

Harry can feel his face contorting under the cloak, but he hasn't a mirror anywhere near and there are too many people in the shop to try to find one. Besides, Harry reckons Fred and George would have only gag mirrors, ones that squirted water or made him look like he had makeup on. 

Whatever the guise is, Harry hopes it works. 

Knockturn Alley is little more than a left turn, then a second left again away. Harry passes under a crumbling archway into a side alley. He glances around him, then steps into a dark corner between two dripping buildings. He pulls his cloak off and shrinks it, before tucking it into his pocket. 

His fingers feel out his face. It feels...different, no doubt. His nose is smaller by a bit, and his cheekbones higher. The stubble on his face from a day or two of neglecting to shave feels coarser and splatters down his chin and neck more than his own. And his eyes— his eyes ache behind his glasses and the world has taken on a slightly blurred quality. He pulls them off his face and tucks the frames aside. He feels naked with his glasses there. He feels exposed. But he can see much better now. 

He takes a tentative look out of the corner of his eye. He smiles, his body starting to turn as he looks, when instead he no longer has to worry about the lack of sight at the far side of his eyes where his lenses stop. 

And his scar. Harry's fingertips search out the faint rise in his forehead, but nothing is there. He smoothes his fingers along his skin, double-checking before he is satisfied enough with the disguise. The medal hangs around his neck, under his robes. Harry scratches at a spot on his neck, just above the collar. He feels hotter suddenly, but the palpable damp heat in the air doesn't help matters either. 

Puddles of sludge stain the flagstone road as Harry walks along the edges of buildings, trying to search out the sign for Borgin and Burke's without looking too obvious. Hags with warts and figures in heavy, shaded robes lurk and loom around him. He pulls his own hood further over his eyes and turns his mouth into a scowl for show. He's no actor; it will have to do. 

The deeper he walks into Knockturn Alley, the colder and darker it becomes. No longer does the sun shine weakly through heavy London smog. Now, it has been replaced with buildings that dip and seem to touch each other, across the street. Now it has been replaced with rafters of hanging, drying, sagging furs and wriggling skins of things Harry hopes he doesn't recognize. The air smells heavily of rotten cabbage and carrion, sickly floral perfume of ladies in black veils and vulture-topped hats, musky incense of burning herbs and boiling cauldrons behind oak doors of shops and stalls. 

No one speaks. A heap of rags moves across the alley, nearly bumping into Harry. A face grins up at him, teeth flashing white behind a grubby face, neither male nor female, neither alive nor dead. Rodents scurry and squeak in the blackest corners, doors open with resounding creaks as shoppers shuffle by, their robes swishing and their shoes clicking. Here, a cackle, there, a muffled voice, a squawking owl, but nothing more. 

And there, right above and to the left, hangs a swinging sign with the names Harry most wants to see. He steps to the side and opens the shop door to Borgin and Burke's. 

Nothing has changed here since he has last been inside, not even the dried, shriveled heads stacked behind glass cases. His footsteps trail a snaking line through the dusty grime coating the floor. The shop seems darker than in Knockturn Alley and an eerie silence drips from the walls. 

Harry tries not to touch anything. There, in a velvet-lined box, an opal necklace, with huge, swirling colours than shine different ways when Harry steps by it, just like the one Malfoy passed on to Katie last year. Harry wonders if it is the same one, if it somehow found a way back here to be sold and used again. Another victim. Price, eleven hundred galleons. 

It really is no more than a junk shop of Dark Arts goods. Tusks and teeth litter shelves, boxes of wood, dark and small and gilded are stacked in corners. There is a cabinet, half-open, that reveals rows of glass vials, cobalt and green and black and clear, all filled with fluids and stopped with wax seals. No labels are needed—they all seep poison. 

"Hello?" Harry calls out. He knows what he wants, yes, but not what to look for. 

A man pops out behind the counter, out of no where, it seems. A bell chimes and he smiles, his rotten-toothed grin as slick as his greased hair. "May I help you, sir?" he says.  

Harry turns his head—there, in a dusty mirror propped against a cabinet, he can see a face staring back at him. Middle-aged, perhaps, dark hair, high cheeks and upturned nose, a bit like Sirius, maybe. A bit like a Black. No wonder Borgin wants to be of service to him. Harry can feel the disguise pulling at his skin, he can feel the magic wiggling under his flesh, all crawling of a pureblooded wizard's visage. 

He leans on the counter with a burst of confidence, and tries his best smirk. "I am looking to buy a scrying bowl," he drawls. Harry thinks of how ridiculous his voice must sound, but Borgin buys it, for his eyes widen a little and he tells Harry to wait, before he vanishes behind a door in the back and the sounds of chairs scraping and boxes moving tapers out into the shop. 

"We have several, sir, that might be of interest to you," Borgin says when he returns. "Some with more provenance than others. Some with far better, higher qualities..." 

A bell chimes and Harry turns around in time to see the shop door open. A man steps through, his face hidden by a hood. Borgin raises his brows and his face makes another grimacing smile when he turns to Harry and says, "Sir?" 

Harry watches the other man walk slowly through the shop, skirting around dark tables and glass shelving, past the poison cabinet, close enough to him that Harry can smell the damp wool of the man's cloak and the faint musk of pricey cologne. Pureblood no doubt, Harry thinks. The man stinks of it. 

And the man stares at Harry from behind his hood. Harry realizes this and turns back round to Borgin quickly, willing himself to be as composed and as nonchalant as possible. 

The galleons in his pocket are heavy, but probably not heavy enough for what he truly wants. Harry says, "Bring me an obsidian one, if you have it," Borgin nods vehemently and disappears as Harry taps his fingers on the glass counter, his rhythmic rap impatient and hurried. 

In the mirror's reflection, he watches the other man itch his jaw under his hood, just the slightest, fastest motion, gone before Harry notices it much. His own neck starts to mimic the other man's casual motion. The skin at his collar writhes from the Metamorph Medal, pulsing with a sensation that Harry fights to keep from itching it raw. He curls his fingers into a fist and bites his lip, but his neck twitches and strains further. 

Borgin sets a bowl on the counter. "This piece, as you can see, is made of a single piece of obsidian from the caves of Sumatra. A fine specimen, sir, do you see how it shines?" He waves his hand over the bowl and it tips toward the dust-speckled window. The light swirls around the smooth edges and collects in the centre. A black whirlpool. 

"And how much is it?" Harry asks. He tips his head and looks vaguely at his fingernails. 

"Seven hundred, sir. But for you, six seventy five." Borgin gives Harry an oily smile. The wizard behind Harry coughs. His neck itches and his fingers ache to scratch the spot right above his collar red raw. 

Harry doesn't think he has anywhere near as much in his moneybag. He unties the string and takes out a stack of galleons. Borgin's eyes shine as much as the bowl as Harry digs for more and more coins. The bag doesn't seem to end, because, there, another fistful of gold, then another and another. 

Bill charmed his bag. He has a direct hand in his account at Gringott's. Harry wants to rush over to the bank and shake Bill's hand until he breaks it, he's so grateful. 

"That ought to do it?" Harry asks, staring at the pile of gold on the counter. Borgin nods and smiles and wraps up the bowl in silk layers, then places it in a box, which he shrinks to the size of a jewelry box for Harry. 

"A pleasure doing business with you, sir," he insists as Harry starts to back up to leave, "Always a pleasure." 

As he opens the door, Harry can hear the sound of the other man speaking at long last to Borgin in a low voice. His words are muffled, but Harry can't help but think how familiar he sounds. He steps onto the alleyway and ducks off to the side, next to a rickety side stall with hanging plants suspended above a sleeping crone, whose hands are clamped tight on her wand. 

Harry pushes his hood aside and scratches furiously at his neck. He sighs, relieved, and scratches at his collar some more. Skin chafes under his rough fingernails in the most refreshing way. He is eager to Apparate back to Godric's Hollow and test the scrying bowl out, to see if it was really worth the galleons paid, or if Hermione was right and it's nothing more than a worthless piece of divination hocus pocus. 

Across the street, a witch in long indigo robes walks by brusquely. A house elf trails behind her, carting a basket larger than itself. The witch glares at the elf, the deep lines of her face contorting into glee as the house elf whimpers. 

House elf. Kreacher. Malfoy. Brilliant! Harry knows what to do to break into Malfoy Manor now. He smiles, pleased with himself, and hurries out of Knockturn Alley, following the increasing streams of light that filter through from Diagon Alley. 

Being as it is impolite to Apparate in the middle of Diagon Alley, and being that technically it's illegal for Harry to Apparate at all, he steps aside when he reaches the familiar, light-filled street into the side of a shop front. He shifts his eyes and notices the man from Borgin and Burke's skulking not too far off, scratching his neck. He holds a small box, shaped like a treasure chest, tucked under his arm. The wizard's hood falls away from his face, but Harry doesn't recognize him any more than any other wizard on the street here. The hundreds of faces blur into one unfamiliar mass. 

But the man, his neck is red and pulsing, speckled with a rash that he keeps scratching with one hand. And his gaze, it shifts from left to right, then left again as he walks hurriedly down Diagon Alley off into a dip in the street past Gringott's. 

A rash on his neck... 

Harry follows the man, his internal Sneakoscope blaring loudly. The wizard moves fast and he moves carefully, navigating the rushing crowds with ease as Harry starts to fall behind. There are so many other wizards, all wearing dark robes like that, like Harry, that he can only pray he is still on the tail of the right wizard. 

The man turns around once, very briefly, and his dark eyes flash under his shadowed hood. Harry knows the man saw him, for he starts to move faster, weaving in and out, darting to the side here, then—

He's gone. 

Harry stands in the middle of the street. A wizard bumps into his back and growls, "Watch it!" A witch brushes his side and sends him a dirty look when he doesn't budge for her. Amazing how they act around him when there is no scar in the middle of his forehead. 

"Fuck," he mutters. Harry has no idea where the other wizard has gone. There is no sign of him, and if there was, Harry wouldn't know. Throngs of wizards, constantly moving, eager to be finished here as fast as they can, they distort the world like heavy London traffic. "Fuck," he says again, and starts to turn round to find a decent spot to Apparate from. 

Until he sees a small archway, hidden by a sloping roof of a stony building, tucked aside and unnoticed. He walks into the archway, which echoes the dripping damp summer and dulls the sounds of countless footsteps in the street. It is dark, here, and smells of sewage and rotten fish, like the Thames in July on a scorching day, the faint residue of mildew, too. 

Harry slips up against the side of the archway, hidden by a heavy shadow. He grins to himself when, in the courtyard the archway opens onto, he sees a dark figure emerge from behind a pile of wooden crates, itching his neck. 

He can practically hear the man's dark mark vibrating under his skin. Harry doesn't think the wizard can be anything but a Death Eater. And a foolish one, at that. He pulls his wand out and steps into the courtyard. 

"Did you think no one would notice that you've got a disguise?" he asks the man loudly. 

The man makes a noise, not quite a gasp, not quite a hiss. Something clinks to the ground at his feet. His wand is whipped out near as fast as he's standing up tall, right across from Harry, and pointing his wand right back at him. 

"And you?" the man asks. "Do you think no one would notice yours?" 

Harry knows that voice. He's heard it a thousand times before, he knows it, and yet he can't place it. The face isn't right. A haggard man, middling years, maybe, nothing exceptional about his appearance save for the bushy eyebrows that waggle as he speaks. 

The man starts to circle the courtyard and move closer, like a cat stalking a mouse. Harry circles the man in return, determined to play the part of the hunter, too. 

"Are you afraid to show yourself to anyone but your lord?" Harry asks. The wizard's face curls up into a grimace. Harry smiles. "I knew you were a Death Eater. What were you doing in Borgin and Burke's?" 

The grimace on the man's face is frozen and his eyes widen slightly, revealing pupils shot with red. His eyes glance down to his left forearm, then back to Harry, whose wand is firm. The wizard's wand, however, shakes ever so slightly. 

"Potter?" he asks. 

Harry's mouth falls open. So does the man's when he realizes he was right. 

And then, then, the man is gone in a half-moment. Harry flicks his wrist and his wand shoots sparks at the empty air where the man had stood. He swears and stomps his feet once. How did the man know him? Surely his voice was- 

He shakes his head, knowing he needs to flee as soon as possible, before the wizard can return with other Death Eaters, before his trail is any warmer than a cauldron of Pepper-Up Potion. He takes a step and plants his feet, but before he closes his eyes—Destination—his trainer catches something on the ground. 

He leans down and picks it up. His pulse skips a beat when he recognizes it. A heavy gold locket with an S inscribed in the middle.  

The horcrux. 

The locket is warm from the other wizard's hand when Harry clenches his fist around it. He squeezes his eyes shut and feels his chest squeeze and his breathing stop, then the world rushes by like a storm, whipping his hair and robes around him. His eyes open and he's back in the yard of the house at Godric's Hollow. 

Harry's hand is on the doorknob, twisting, when he realizes the voice. 

Malfoy. 

::

Harry is sitting in his room, his feet tucked under his legs, when Hermione raps the door and walks in. He can hardly sit still, his mind and body shake with the thrill of serendipity. It can't be true that he just found the horcrux like that. It's too fateful. 

"Do you want me to put the groceries in the fridge, Harry?" she asks. Her eyes search the room for bags, but when she sees Harry flush and mutter an apology, she only frowns. "I'll have Ron go get some from town, then. What were you doing, Harry? You were gone for a long time not to have bought any groceries," she says, lecturing him with a loud tone. 

Harry says nothing to Hermione. He can't bring himself to tell Hermione just yet, he can barely believe it himself, even with the locket pressing through the pocket of his trousers, physical and real. He brushes past her and walks downstairs, to where Ron is tying his trainers. A twenty pound note—Hermione's, no doubt—sits on the table, along with a new list of groceries. Ron looks up at Harry. 

Harry drops the locket from his fist. It dangles in the air, suspended by the chain looped between his fingers. He holds his breath as Ron and Hermione's eyes go wide. 

"Is that?" Ron asks, watching the locket swing back and forth. 

Harry nods. 

"How did you—oh, Harry!" Hermione gasps. "But—how?" 

They sit down in the parlour and Harry tells them both. Hermione curls into Ron's arms, shaking her head and making vague exclamations of surprise and reproach when he tells her he followed someone—Malfoy. He doesn't tell Hermione or Ron just yet about the Metamorph Medal he's stashed in his trunk. Or the scrying bowl he purchased. Right now, he's thinking about horcruxes. 

"Why would Malfoy drop it, though?" Ron asks. "Why would You Know Who even trust him with it?" 

"Perhaps," Hermione says, "You Know Who doesn't know Malfoy had it." 

"That still doesn't answer why Malfoy would have it. Or drop it." 

"I don't know if he realized he dropped it," Harry says slowly. The locket sits on a table, watched by all of them. It looks as harmless and junky as the first time Harry saw it, but he can almost feel the raw power within it. His fingers hum when he touches it, and he feels a little light-headed. "But Kreacher said Narcissa Malfoy had it, so she must have been in contact with Malfoy and Snape since then. Maybe she's helping them hide out and get back to Voldemort." 

Ron and Hermione wince at the name. Harry sits back, chewing on his bottom lip as he thinks about it. "They must have a good network of allies," Harry goes on. "And I'd reckon some of them know we're looking for objects, maybe not about the horcruxes themselves, but certain thinks associated with Death Eaters and Voldemort." 

"Do we even know if RAB destroyed the horcrux within it?" Hermione asks. 

Harry says, "We can only find out." He taps the locket with the tip of his wand and says, "Alohamora!" He wedges what little fingernails he has into the tiny slit and tries to pry the locket open, but it doesn't move. He taps it again, twice, but still nothing. 

"I don't think Voldemort would have it open with a simple spell like that," Hermione says. "Though I wonder..." her eyes drifted off toward the curtains. Outside, a car whizzes by, rattling and spewing thick exhaust. "If the original location of the locket as a horcrux was in a potion, then perhaps another potion is what we need to open it again." 

"I don't know where that cave is," Harry says. "Wales, somewhere, but without Dumbledore-" his voice hesitates on the name. His death is still raw, it still makes Harry's throat catch when he thinks of that night, that awful night, of forcing Dumbledore to drink that potion, of the Inferi that float in and out of his dreams still, of the flashing green light from Snape's wand. He swallows the lump forming in his throat. "Without Dumbledore I don't think I could find it again." 

Hermione shakes her head. She unwraps her arms from around Ron's waist and stands up, pacing across the wooden flooring. "No, I don't think we need the same potion. There are unbreakable potions, and unlocking potions. I think that since we have the locket outside of the original binding potion—whatever it was, exactly—I think all we need is an unlocking solution. They're not too hard to make." 

"How soon can you brew one?" Harry asks. 

Hermione considers. "Maybe a couple days? I think I have all the ingredients here in my potions kit. It's not hard, just a lot of stirring once it thickens after the third boil." 

Harry nods. Hermione rummages in the kitchen and starts to pull out a large, cast-iron cauldron. Ron, however, filches the twenty-note from the table. "You start that Hermione," he says, "and I'll get lunch. Want to come, Harry?" 

Harry shrugs and says he's all right. 

Hermione stays up well past midnight with the potion. It bubbles away in the kitchen as she hums and chops roots that scorch and sizzle when she drops them in, one by one. Harry watches a football match on a grainy television with Ron. It's not Quidditch, but it's more exciting than watching Hermione brew, or reading another one of the back-breaking heavy tomes she has owled to the cottage every week on Fridays. Charms this and History of Transmogrification that. "Bloody boring," Ron says, and Harry agrees. 

The clock chimes one and Hermione, yawning, trudges up the stairs. Ron is close behind her, as ever. Harry is grateful that at least they wait until they're upstairs and the door is shut before he starts to hear the faintest sounds of murmured words and slippery snogging. He reaches over to the telly and turns the volume up a notch. It doesn't help much and he's tired too. 

He brushes his teeth and takes a piss and shuts himself in his bedroom, after switching off all the electric lights. His wand glows bright atop his bed as he sits down next to it and peels off his clothes, balling his socks up and rolling his underpants before he tosses them all into a growing musty-smelling pile. 

The night is warm, so he lies back on top of his sheets, dressed only in a pair of thin cotton pajama trousers. He tries not to think of Snape, of horcruxes and Malfoy sneaking around. Instead, he remembers the way Malfoy's wand shook, just before Dumbledore was killed, he remembers seeing Malfoy's fat tears hitting the sink basin in the boy's loo. He doesn't know why Malfoy dropped the locket— if indeed he had meant to, which Harry isn't so sure about—but now that he has, Harry can't find a reason to need to sneak into Malfoy Manor anymore. 

And he thinks he regrets that. He wanted to confront Mrs Malfoy and Snape and Malfoy, too. He wanted to shout at them and whip his wand and have something happen to them all, something they all deserve for helping kill Sirius, for helping kill Dumbledore, for causing the Ministry to blame innocent witches and wizards in their stead. His belly flops over when he thinks on this. It gurgles and growls— Ron's cooking has nothing on Mrs Weasley's. He flips onto his side and balls himself, foetus-like, in the hopes the feeling will pass. 

Harry dreams of Ginny, laughing at him and flipping her red hair in the wind, before leaning in to kiss him. She smells of a rose garden, of the thick, heady, woodsy scents of the greenhouse where they snuck around one night to snog in peace. He tells her he misses her, but she shakes her head and her eyes are gone, changing, morphing into pupil-less slate holes that leak red tears of anguish. 

"Help me," she mouths, but it's not her mouth, and the pale, thin lips aren't hers either. 

Harry wakes, covered in a sheen of sweat, panting and clutching his sheets. The room still smells of flowers and the slight summer breeze off the sea has stopped completely. 

He stirs after dawn when no sleep comes back to him. He rolls out of bed, showers and pulls the least-smelliest shirt from a pile on the floor and a pair of shorts wedged beside his trunk. He fishes around inside it for some socks; the smooth wrapping of the scrying bowl calls out to him. He takes it out and unwraps it carefully, watching the light shift across the concave surface as he tilts it in his hands. It captures the sunlight from his window and smothers it within the darkness. 

Not yet, he thinks. Don't these things have to be used at midnight, for best results? 

Downstairs, the cottage reeks of stewing rubbish as the potion congeals on the kitchen table. Hermione, dressed in a housecoat, holds a mug of tea and drinks it with relish. She smiles at him, bleary-eyed and makes a motion to the pot of tea on the stove. 

"The horcrux?" Harry asks, pouring himself a cup. The tea has steeped for some time. It is nearly black, even when he adds a good inch of milk on top. 

Hermione pats the pocket of her housecoat. "Here. All safe." 

"The potion?" 

"Tomorrow," she says, "two o'clock in the afternoon." 

Harry is tired, but restless. The caffeine sits in his stomach, congealing like the potion. Ron will sleep until nearly noon and he's envious of that. Here, he's sitting with Hermione, silently pondering over whether or not he really feels like eating a piece of toast with her.  

He's tired of the books. He's tired of the reading about this and that—it's gotten them nowhere. He thinks about yesterday; the sound of the locket hitting the stones is etched in his mind. He can see the arc of tarnished gold in his mind more clear and more there than he ever did yesterday. 

Malfoy knows something. The locket is too valuable to be tossed aside, even if RAB might have destroyed the horcrux within it. 

"I'm going for a walk," Harry announces as he scrapes his chair across the kitchen. Hermione nods and reminds him to be careful. 

There could be Death Eaters anywhere! 

His trainers are damp with dew, having been left accidentally on the front porch all night. Harry doesn't mind much, until he's as far as the main road of the village and the squelching starts to get to him, grating his ears with the slurping sounds of water under his now-wet socks that clam up between his toes in the most distracting of ways. 

He itches his neck, too. The collar of his t-shirt, a long-ago cast off of Dudley's is just tight enough on his neck to rub the hem again and again over just the wrong spot where the rash from yesterday speckles his neck still. And the sun lifts over the shingled roofs of the few buildings to shine right on his neck, to the east, as he walks to the north, dipping up and down the hills of the road, taking in the green fields of the farmers where the crops are steadily growing in peace. 

His feet take him off the road and into the churchyard of St. Godfrey Anglicus. He pushes open the rusty gate and walks into the dilapidated cemetery, overgrown with crabgrass and dandelions, all gone to seed. They fluff and float past him, clouds spread up and around with his shins, damp from the early morning and just as itchy as his neck. 

No birds chirp here. No squirrels run out of the copses of oaks that line the road, off and on, and around the church perimeter. The church itself is a sad little ruin, all crumbling walls and a silent steeple. Harry wonders when the bell last rang in this parish, if there actually is a minister here to do Sunday service. Harry wouldn't bother to go, but he wonders. 

The church seeps of sadness. Harry lets his fingers brush the tallest gravestones. They are soft where the moss grows, and smoother still where the stone has been worn away over time. The names are faded, the dates alien. 

All except a wide stone marking two graves. Harry stops in front of it and shivers in the shadows. 

James Potter
1960-1980 

Lily Potter
1960-1980 

Beloved friends and parents. 

This is all that remains of them now. Two names, two matching dates and the briefest inscription that means nothing. Harry sinks to his knees and traces the names. Lead starts to form in his throat. Mum and Dad. He tries to say it aloud, but his words are choked and choppy. 

He may have his Dad's hair and his Mum's eyes. He may have his Dad's height and his Mum's chin, but nothing more is left of them than this shoddy marker. Nothing to show how much they loved each other, how much they loved him, that they died for love. 

Harry's eyes start to sting, but he doesn't turn away. His face feels sore, and his mouth and jaw are trembling with the effort of not allowing himself to cry the tears for his family that never was. A family that deserved to be. 

Voldemort doesn't understand any of this. Harry stands up, surging with something, something that makes his bones quake deep inside with a new-found force as he watches the names fade once more into obscurity when he leaves the graveyard, swinging the rusty gate behind him. 

He says nothing to Hermione when he returns. She lies on the couch, a blanket thrown onto the floor beside her, and is sleeping. The cottage smells more strongly of the potion, and the cauldron sits steaming as it cools once more, congealing for another time. 

Harry spends the day lounging about. He's not the only one tired today. The summer steals the energy from all of them, even Ron, who wakes up, still yawning, at half-past one. 

"We ought to do more research," Hermione says. Harry flicks through the channels on the telly, but little more than reruns of Coronation Street and stale news is broadcast in this area. Harry almost starts to envy the satellite dish Dudley insisted Uncle Vernon buy a couple years back. 

"We ought to take a break," Ron suggests. 

Hermione makes no effort to get up from the couch, either. All three of them have purple bags under their eyes and sweat beading on their skin. Harry casts a cooling charm, then a fanning charm in quick succession, but they never do much in this cottage. The weather seems impervious to magic. 

They eat a lazy dinner off plates balanced on their laps and watch BBC1 for a few hours before bed. Hermione leans on Ron's chest and he has his arm around her. Harry's arms stay put, right at his sides, as much as he would like to have his own too-warm someone to sit with him. He forces down the envy bubbling inside, closing his eyes and trying to remain impervious. 

Hermione sets the potion to boil one last time and they march up the stairs to bed. Harry can feel the heat come in waves against his face as he takes each next step, but his room is cooler and darker. He flops onto his bed, still clothed, and stares at the ceiling. His limbs are lethargic, but his mind is numbingly awake from too much primetime comedy. 

The bowl beckons him. 

It is a beacon, just sitting in his trunk. Harry opens it and holds the bowl up. It consumes even the faintest light from the crescent moon outside. His fingertips trail along the smooth, round lip and he can feel it almost start to hum if he holds it loosely. 

The clock downstairs chimes throughout the house. Hermione and Ron's moans are muffled. Harry can hear twelve. Chimes, moans. They are all rhythmic and regular. 

The water in the bathroom sink hits the bowl with a hiss as Harry holds it in place, filling it slowly. The bowl is larger and heavier the longer he stands there. The water rises, but not as fast as Harry reckons it ought to. The magic eats up the water and the scrying bowl fills with hardly so much as a bubble. Not one. 

He carts it back into his room, trying to be as quiet as he can. Ron and Hermione—well, Harry hopes they're sleeping now. Hermione, at least, would not approve in the least of what he wants to do, what he wants to test. 

The water splashes over the lip and stains the floor, dark patches that look as much as blood as they could water. Harry doesn't know if a bowl like this is one that you read by candlelight, or perhaps not. He remembers the instructions from Hermione's book and quickly creeps downstairs into the kitchen to pilfer a centaur hair from the tiny vial filled in a kitchen cupboard, before tiptoeing back into his room. 

Harry dips the centaur hair into the water and inhales, before he dips his wand into the bowl after setting it on the top of his closed trunk. 

He swirls his wand clockwise once. Show me RAB.  

He swirls his wand clockwise twice. Show me RAB and the horcrux. 

He swirls his wand clockwise a third time. Show them to me! 

The water whirls about, carrying his wand with it. A vortex, spinning, spinning, spinning as a light forms in the centre of the bowl takes shape, growing brighter and brighter and- 

Harry peers over the bowl. A man is inside it. His head is turned, Harry behind him and the light in front, eclipsing the man's identity. Harry hovers a hand over the bowl and reaches in, grabbing the picture. 

Grabbing nothing. His fist is wet and the picture is gone in an instant, the light with it. Water has splashed over his chest through his t-shirt. 

He leans back on his heels and squints down at the scrying bowl. It sits placidly on his trunk and the water beading along the rim slides back down into the dip, drop by drop by drop. 

"There was something," he whispers. The cottage floors creak under him, the wood shifting with the passage of time. Outside, branches and leaves rattle against the windows. A slight breeze has picked up through the valley and swirls the plants around. Harry's hair flutters from a draft. He pats it down absently. 

The water stills once more and Harry tries again, swirling his wand and commanding it, non-verbally, since he reckons that might work best, to show him RAB and the horcrux. The eddies start to form in the scrying bowl as his wand whips round and around, flowing with the swirls as the waters grow bright with an unnatural, bluish light that illuminates the whole room. Part of Harry wonders if the brightness will wake Hermione and Ron, but for the most part he's too busy watching the forming images to even consider doing anything about it. 

Harry is careful not to touch this time to disturb the waters. This is no pensieve, he reminds himself as he holds his arms behind his back, just in case he's tempted to dip them in. 

He watches: 

The scene is different. No longer does a greenish tinge touch the background in front of a man's turned head. Now, the waters ripple and dip and rise as something darker, something more familiar takes shape. Dots of colour fuse together in the dark ground, here peach, there scarlet and- 

Number Twelve Grimmauld Place. 

Harry knows it. 

A hallway lined with portraits, all in wooden frames, some gilded and glittering, some cracked and moving, painted sitters standing up and stretching, others with mouths that move in silent conversations with each other that Harry cannot hear because- 

The scene turns the corner. 

"Mother," the voice says. The voice from where Harry is, the one whose hands, Harry can barely see when his hands reach into his pockets, then out just as quickly. 

"Regulus," a voice calls from the parlour. 

RAB! Harry leans closer, his nose nearly touching the bowl as he watches as the images unfold, like a program on the telly.

"Where were you all night?" Mrs Black says when she steps out of the kitchen. She looks like her portrait, just as stiff and bitter, with her dark hair pulled back tight and her wide mouth scowling, this time, though, no curses flow from her lips. 

Regulus is silent. Mrs Black reaches out, close to the water's surface and touches him. "Have you been to a pub? You look ill," she says. 

"Yes, Mother," Regulus says. Harry can taste the lie in the air. Mrs Black's eyes narrow, but she says nothing to him. She turns and yells, "KREACHER! Get Regulus some clean clothes." She picks at the sleeve of Regulus' shirt. He recoils and hisses. It is his left arm. But Mrs Black is not fazed. 

"These are filthy, Regulus. What have you been doing? Crawling through caves all night?" 

"There aren't any caves in London, Mother," he says. He turns around and for a flash, Harry can see his young face smiling. He looks like Sirius, only his chin is pointier and his eyes are bluer and maybe his mouth is a little wider. He's handsome and young and his skin has the faintly grey tinge to it that- 

"-Dumbledore had before he was killed," Harry murmurs as the waters start to swirl one last time. A faint pop, a puff of smoke and the room is black, like the waters of the bowl. 

Harry sits on his bed, wiping the water from the end with a section of bunched up bed sheets. This tells him at least one thing, they were right when Ron remembered about the locket at Number Twelve Grimmauld Place. RAB was Regulus Black. 

And Sirius was wrong about his brother, then. He was smarter than Sirius had thought, if he was the one who managed to sneak into the cave and thwart Voldemort, even if only for a few days. Harry lies back on his pillows and twiddles his wand through his fingers, back then forth and back again. The lump in his throat when he thinks about Sirius isn't as pressing now, but he still misses him and what never was. What should have been. 

Damn Bellatrix Lestrange. Harry wonders if she killed her other cousin, too. 

Outside, a gust of wind scrapes shuddering leaves against the window pane. Harry peers down at the scrying bowl and dips his wand in. 

Show me Regulus Black's death. 

Nothing happens after three stirs with his wand. He tries again. Show me Regulus Black's death! Still, nothing happens. The waters move round and carry his wand, but they are dark and impermeable until Harry pulls his wand out with a frustrated sigh. 

"Bugger this," he mutters. Harry taps the bowl with his finger; the water jiggles a little over the lip, spilling onto his trunk like midnight oil. Whether the bowl is faulty or not, Harry doesn't know. Hermione is already going to give him a long lecture on divination and how it can be completely inaccurate and misleading in the morning when he tells her what he saw, but- 

Harry's drawn to it, still. If it can show him the past, what was, even if it was just once- 

Show me the future. MY future. He doesn't allow himself to think the obvious if. Not just now. 

Divination might be a load of rubbish to Hermione, but Harry was never as adamant about it as her. Maybe the bowl works, maybe the bowl doesn't. There is no way to find out if he doesn't try it out for himself. 

Besides, a test won't hurt. Hermione will never know the difference. He's not about to tell her about using it, except maybe for Regulus Black, but Hermione will understand that he did it to help them with the horcrux. And now, he's just playing with an idle curiosity, one that seems to swell in his stomach, threatening to burst out if he doesn't do something soon. 

He stirs the waters counterclockwise. This way, they are stiffer and resist his wand, as though the water is thicker, heavier and less willing to give up its secrets. Secrets that may or may not come to pass, but Harry doesn't care. He feels something move through his body, like his blood pumping through his veins, expanding them all over his body, heating him from the core with magic. 

The waters start to boil. Harry's wand shakes and bounces across the bowl. He grips a hand on the edge of his trunk, and watches as the bowl foams blue and white and bubbling, like it will explode all over him any second, scorch the earth with power and magic and- 

The image blurs into focus, like Harry is putting his glasses on for the first time after sleeping—except when Harry reaches up to his face, his glasses are very much there.The bowl, the image still swirling in tiny, choppy waves has a dream-like fuzz about the edges, one that doesn't recede. A figure forms where once there was a dim blob.  

The back of a man, half-covered by a sheet, in bed. His dark hair is messy and he's lying on his stomach, his arms holding him up, like he's about to roll over and get out of bed. 

Me, Harry thinks. It's me. 

Except the man—him—is not getting out of bed. His back strains and the shoulder blades move under his skin, a butterfly threatening to burst below the surface, shifting and straining and- 

He's having sex. Faint noises come from the bowl, little moans and suppressed groans. Then, a whisper that sounds like a name, but is not loud enough for anyone, save himself in the scene, to catch. 

Then, the image of himself in the scene shifts slightly. He's thrusting down and the sheets are slipping away, across and down his arse. It flexes and changes with each movement. There are legs wrapped around his hips, clinging to him like the hands from the woman underneath himself. She's grabbing at his back and clawing to him. 

Harry desperately wants to see who it is. He thinks of Ginny, remembering the faint floral smell that clung to her hair, especially after a shower after a Quidditch practice. He seeks out the red hair in the bowl. 

But he covers her completely, his body eclipsing her face. He can see her legs, yes, muscled calves that twine around his waist, and he can see her hands, short fingernails, pale and long that dig into his shoulders, pressing little red marks of claim into his skin. 

It's hot, watching this. Harry is hard. His own fingers toy at his waistband and dip under his underpants, down enough to tangle them in his pubic hair. He's unwilling to touch himself just yet. It feels a bit, well, pervy, watching himself and a girl shag in a scrying bowl because he's getting off watching himself get off. 

Then, his self in the scene leans a little to the side and the angle of the image shifts, like a camera. It is dim, this room with this bed, and himself and the girl are covered in greying shadows, shadows that dance as their bodies strain and the fingers grip himself in the scene's back harder. A cry rises in the air from underneath himself. 

He can see her clearly. The pale hair, dark with damp, spread under across the pillow, the thin lips, the pointy face, the mouth hanging open as Draco Malfoy's face moans his name, "Harry", when his head is thrown back and his neck aches under himself in the scene. 

Harry falls back against the floor, hard, with a loud thump. He freezes for a moment, worried that Ron or Hermione might have heard, but only silence lurks in the cottage. He's breathing hard and his mouth hangs open. He leans back over the bowl, but his wand has been knocked from it and the images have reverted back to black waters for the last time. 

He doesn't know what to think. It was...it was Malfoy spread out under himself in the scene. Not Ginny. Not Luna—she has blonde hair. Not even Hermione or Susan Bones or Lavender Brown. 

It was definitely Malfoy: the pointed face, though contorted with pleasure, the pale skin, the short, almost-white hair. 

He feels ill. His innards twist like the monster in his chest when he was near Ginny last year. But this monster is—Harry doesn't know quite what it is. Disgust? Shame? His cock is still swollen in his shorts, and his hand has dropped down around it, rubbing it lazily. He wants to stop, but- 

When he thinks of how Malfoy looked, flushed in the dim light, his name on his lips, Harry only pumps himself harder, tugging and pulling as a numb feeling rises between his legs faster and harder and he comes in his pants, on his knees, on the floor. 

He squeezes his eyes shut and rolls over onto his back. 

"Fucking ridiculous," he says. "Malfoy!" It is ridiculous, he reckons. The bowl—Harry touches it and feels it humming against his finger, the slightest of vibrations against his skin. It must still have some Dark Magic in it. 

Harry feels dirty. He grabs a Kleenex and wipes his hand off, then shoves his shorts and underpants down and wipes what he can from his cock. He undresses and pulls on some pajama trousers, then lays in the dark on his bed after setting his glasses aside. 

The ceiling swirls above him, inky like the scrying bowl. Harry half-expects it to start eddying and blurring and focusing into yet another scene. His guts roil, flipping around painfully like food poisoning. His mind has been poisoned. Malfoy! Good God! The bowl was playing a trick on him! 

Except the more Harry tries to forget it, the more he remembers the last time he saw Malfoy, turning around, just before he fled with Snape, his eyes had the same look in them as in the scene, the same dark glow, the same almost haunted shine. That was the look that Harry could pity, that he could- 

like.  

No! 

Harry tries to forget it and sleep. The air carries a heavy feeling of approaching rain and the wind smells of a coming storm, thick and damp and welcome. But instead, he lies there, awake, for some long hours until the birds start to flutter just before dawn and he is too tired to do anything but close his eyes, not forgetting.  

He dreams of blond hair and rumpled sheets around his hips and gold lockets dropped in alleyways. When he wakes, all he can remember is a bright green, like the killing curse, and the bitter taste on his tongue that makes him angry. Like revenge. 

Harry thinks of Snape, but reckons it is far too early to be thinking of vengeance for Dumbledore. He stumbles down the stairs and sees Hermione and Ron eating breakfast together, talking with their foreheads touching. 

"'bout time you woke up," Ron says. 

"We saved you some lunch, Harry," Hermione says. Harry notices the grandfather clock pushed against the wall shows sometime well past noon. It's the first time in weeks he's slept this long. 

He runs his hands through his hair, trying to pat down the bedhead flyaways. "And the locket?" he asks them. 

"We were waiting for you," Hermione says. "The potion is ready." She holds out her palm and the locket sitting in the middle of it. Harry nods. He isn't really all that hungry anyway. 

Hermione takes a deep breath and mutters something to herself. She pulls on a white lab coat with an embroidered name that Harry thinks looks suspiciously like a "Dr. Granger" on the breast and he wonders if it is a hand-me-down from her parents' office. She is very clinical and methodical about the whole process, from pouring a weighed amount of potion from the cauldron into a glass beaker, to clamping the locket chain with forceps while wearing safety goggles. 

"Put yours on, too," she tells Ron and Harry. "This potion could be extremely volatile." 

"You're not sure?" Ron says. 

"It has Beasonia Root in it. Better safe than sorry." Hermione flicks her wand on the table, transfiguring the salt and pepper shakers into two more sets of goggles. Harry puts the pepper pair on over his glasses. They're skewed and a bit big, but he reckons they ought to do. 

Hermione counts down, holding the dangling locket over the beaker. "Ready?" she asks them. Harry and Ron step back, nodding. Harry clenches his fist, the muscles in his arm tensing with anticipation. The locket swings gently in Hermione's hand as she steadies herself with a deep breath. Harry's heart pounds in tune with the swings, back and forth, back and forth, his chest tightening uncomfortably as he waits on the precipice of something happening. 

"One...two..." Hermione sucks in her breath, and drops it in. The potion splashes over the lip of the beaker and sizzles on the table, sending pungent steam into the air. 

Harry takes a tentative step forward and peers into the beaker. 

The brackish potion does nothing. The locket sits in calmly. 

Hermione smiles widely, pulling off her own goggles. She wipes the sweat from her forehead and tosses the forceps aside. "Brilliant. That's one less horcrux we need to worry about. There's no soul in it. Because of the acidic component of the potion, if the horcrux still had a part of You Know Who's soul, it would have fizzled and bubbled like vinegar and soda." 

"But...but can we open the damned thing?" Ron asks. "I thought that is what the potion was for." 

Hermione looks flustered. "Well...well, yes," she says. She fishes the locket out of the beaker with the forceps and dumps the potion down the drain, before washing everything off. 

The locket is split open, like a rotten peach with its core exposed. Except this locket has no core, only the empty space where a portrait or miniature might fit. Or a part of a soul. 

...the curve of Malfoy's neck, arching under Harry. 

"Harry?" 

Harry's cheeks flush and he pushes the thought aside. He turns to Hermione and tries not to look too...too embarrassed. "Er...that's good," he says. "Er...I found out that RAB was Regulus Black, like we thought." 

"That's good too," Ron says. 

"What do you mean you found out?" Hermione asks, hands on her hips. 

"I used the scrying bowl—I mean, I bought one and I used it and it worked-" 

"Harry, those things are full of Dark Magic. They're dangerous!" 

"And your potion wasn't?" Harry shoots back at Hermione. She sniffs and says nothing, refusing to either agree or disagree. 

Ron breaks the tense silence descending between the three of them. "So, how's it work? Like a pensieve?" 

Harry says no. "A bit more like a telly. Only they don't always work." 

"What Harry means is," Hermione cuts in, "they're like any other means of divination—flawed and open to interpretation. Honestly! Horoscopes are bad enough, now you have gone and paid galleons for a scrying bowl, Harry?" 

"It was worth it," Harry says. Despite himself, he thinks of the image of himself in the scene, with Malfoy. He shudders inside and his innards start to lump like cooling lead, burning and frozen at the same time. "I saw what I wanted to see: Regulus Black with the horcrux." 

And Malfoy, too. 

"He'd drank the same potion as Dumbledore," Harry tells them, feeling a pang of sadness thinking about Dumbledore, about yelling at the Headmaster as he forced the potion, forced suffering, on him. "It was....it was awful." 

"So we know about this horcrux now," Hermione says with resolution. 

"So we know," Ron echoes. 

"So now we look for the others," Harry says. 

They eat lunch. Or rather, Harry eats lunch and Ron watches and tells him about the Cannons' last match against Holyhead, which Ginny owled him the scores for, a cut-out section of The Daily Prophet from last week. Hermione washes beakers, smelling of lemon-fresh soap that is a welcome change from the perpetual scent of rotting fruit peel and stale sweat that hangs over the cottage until the time Mrs Weasley will come by and help them clean up again. 

"You know," Hermione says. She sits down with a damp tea towel in hand, absently rubbing the forceps dry. "I can't help but wonder if Malfoy was up to something with the locket. It's odd, anyway." 

Ron snorts. "And I can't help but wonder if Zacharias Smith is related to Hepsibah Smith and if that prat's got some Hufflepuff relic with You Know Who's soul stuck in it in his attic or something." 

Harry grunts and adds, "It was a cup. I saw it in Dumbledore's pensieve. A cup of Hufflepuff—I'd reckon Zacharias Smith's family might know where it is. We ought to...er...ask him," he says, watching Ron's eye twitch at the mention. Hermione's cheeks have spots of pink and she nods curtly. 

"It would be easier than asking Malfoy, at any rate," she says, conceding. 

"I'm not Flooing that prat!" Ron says. He leans his chair back on two legs and folds his arms. "Hermione, you do it. You were awfully friendly with him last year." 

Hermione rolls her eyes at Ron, but she smiles nonetheless. 

Harry doesn't want to think about Malfoy. All talk of sneaking into Malfoy Manor is abandoned when they gather around the small, drafty fireplace that whistles when the wind blows. Hermione tosses in a fistful of Floo powder and shoves her head into the green flames, calling out for Zacharias Smith's home, which she conveniently—"Suspiciously," Ron mutters to Harry—had in her address book. 

Ron gnashes his teeth when he and Harry loom over Hermione's shoulders and see Zacharias Smith's face through the grate. He smiles at Hermione and says, yes, he is related to Hepsibah Smith. 

"She is—was— my father's great aunt. Met a sticky end—murdered, so we were told." 

Hermione smiles and nods politely. Harry can tell she is simply itching to press him further about the cup, but Smith won't shut up. 

"I, of course, wasn't there. And my father was hardly born, but my grandfather, he says that Old Aunt Hepsibah had the marks of cursing on her body after they found her, weeks after her death, we think. But my grandmother says that when they found her it wasn't a curse so much as-" 

"Voldemort?" Harry offers. 

Smith shudders at the name. "You Know Who wasn't around then," he says. "But anyway, my grandmother thinks it might have been a left-over rogue agent of Grindelwald who did it." 

"But...why?" Hermione offers, rather pathetically. She covers her mouth with her hand to keep from yawning. Or snickering, like Ron. She elbows him in the side and he stops. 

"For her money!" Zacharias insists. 

"Not for...er...any antiques—did she collect any? I know they're worth an awful lot," Hermione says. 

Smith stops to consider. Harry wonders if there is smoke coming out his ears from the effort—Ron certainly thinks so, for he's started to snigger again. 

"She had a bunch of old family stuff. Nothing really that any one else would be interested in. Mum's got some of her jewels now, and my uncle has some of her books and cauldrons." 

"Anything really old?" Hermione presses. When Zacharias' eyes start to narrow, she adds, "It's just I was doing some research, you see, on old wizarding artifacts and was wondering if your family might have any because...er....they're all so terribly fascinating, you know, the older they get. Especially ritual goblets." 

"Ritual goblets?" 

"Yes," Hermione insists, "Professor Binns was mentioning them one lesson and I couldn't help but be enraptured by them-" 

"Enraptured?" Ron mouths to Harry. Harry's eyebrows shoot up to his scar and he bites down on his lip to keep from rolling on the floor and laughing at Hermione. 

"I'll—I can check with my Dad," Smith offers. 

"Thanks," Hermione says. "That would be super." She and Smith say goodbye and she pulls her head out from the dying flames. Hermione brushes grey ash off her shoulders and turns around, glaring at Ron. 

"Do you mind?" she whispers, her voice low but full of dread. 

Ron laughs loudly. "Enraptured? Super? 'Oh, Zacharias, why don't we get married because that would be superbly enrapturing!'" 

Harry laughs, too. Hermione stands there, glaring and glowering until her own lip starts to tremble and she laughs along with them. 

"All right," she concedes. "But, honestly, I was trying to get some information out of him. He's awfully-" 

"A prat?" Ron says. 

"I was thinking more enrapturingly annoying," she says with a grin. "But, yes, a prat too, I suppose. Hopefully he can give us some leads about the cup. It'd be a place to start, anyway." 

They play a game of Exploding Snap in the afternoon when it has become too hot and too muggy to do anything but lounge around in the most cave-like areas of the cottage. Even the locals are inside. No one gardens. No lawns hum with the sound of a lawn mower or permeate with the scent of fresh-cut grass. The insects appear to be the only things alive, but even they are lethargic and sporadic come late afternoon when the summer is hottest. 

Harry toys with the locket. It seems so innocent in his hand as he weaves the chain through his fingers. Ugly and bulky, if innocent. He wonders if Aunt Petunia would ever wear a piece of jewelry like this. He doesn't know what to do with it, nor does he care. He opens the back door and tosses it onto the patio. The squawking magpies can cart it off. They like shiny things, don't they? 

They pass the days waiting for Zacharias Smith's return floo in a blur of research. It hangs over them like the haze in the mountain valleys at dawn—cloudy and damp and far too warm. Hermione charms a cheap electric fan she recently bought into running non-stop with a cooling charm. It helps the kitchen, but in the afternoons they sometimes open a window, letting in the hot sunshine that peeps through grey clouds and bakes the earth. 

"This is so bloody boring," Ron moans, slamming a tome shut on the third day. "I can't read this rubbish anymore. Let's Apparate to the beach and have a swim in the sea." 

Hermione opens the curtains and peers outside. "No, it'll rain later today." Harry can see black clouds roiling in the distant south on the horizon. 

"We only need a couple hours-" 

"Ron! I'm at a good part in Enquiring Minds, Transfiguring Bodies and I think it could really help us about how to use tracking charms on the horcruxes. We can go some other time." 

There is a rapping at the door. Like all of the stories and books and fairy tales—three sharp sounds. Harry glances to Ron and Hermione, who shrug, and walks over to the door, opening it wide. 

A man stands on the porch, wearing a worn cap and wellies. He clears his throat and asks, "Does Harry Potter live 'ere?" 

Harry wonders if maybe Hermione had asked her parents to post them something. Like more Earl Grey or new white socks. He nods. "Yeah, it's me." 

The man nods in return and turns to the side. "Says he lives here, like what Mrs Faulkner down the road thought," he says to someone who must be standing around the hedgerow, out of Harry's vision. 

Malfoy steps out. Harry stares at him. And grabs his wand from his pocket. 

The man blinks. "What do you have that for?" he says, gesturing to the wand. 

"What do you want, Malfoy?" Harry hisses. The man, standing between them, looks completely flustered. Malfoy, in a tight voice, mumbles something that Harry thinks sounds like a thanks, then the man tips his hat and walks off down the row of cottages. 

Malfoy, however, says nothing. His face is tight and white and his lips drawn. His hair hangs limp and a little greasy, not unlike Snape's. And his robes, maybe once they were dark and pristine, but now they are covered in mud and dirt is smudged on the knees and elbows. 

Hermione walks up behind Harry and starts to say "Harry, what-" then she stops and glares, her own wand drawn and pointing at Malfoy. 

Malfoy's throat bobs and he glances around over his shoulder. "You-" his words are thick and forced, "you've got to help me, Potter." 

Harry doesn't think he has heard him right. "Excuse me?" He shoves his wand closer to Malfoy's throat. His chin rises and his eyes widen, but they don't leave Harry's gaze. Harry can see that Malfoy looks as awful and as pitiable as last year—red-rimmed eyes of watery grey. God knows what Malfoy has gotten himself into now. 

Malfoy doesn't have a wand out, not even in his hands, which are empty and hang limp at his sides. He is outnumbered and he knows it, and yet, he's not spouting curses and hexes with a sneer and upturned nose. "I—" He is breathing very shallowly, but Harry can hear the whistling in his chest, like he's run miles and miles. "I need help," he whispers. 

"Help with what?" Ron asks, coming up behind Harry, his own wand pointing straight at Malfoy's chest. "Lost Snape? You Know Who tell you to kill another wizard?" 

Malfoy's eye twitches and Harry can see him swallow a lump in his throat. Malfoy tries to sneer, but it comes off as more of a weak grimace. 

"Get in before the neighbours start to stare!" Hermione warns. Malfoy shifts his eyes and tentatively walks over the threshold, Harry and Ron parting for him to pass. Hermione slams the door shut. "That's better," she says, then she whips her head around and—"Incarcerous!" 

Long, thin ropes snap out of Hermione's wand and whip around Malfoy's arms and legs, knocking him to the floor with a loud thump. He lays there, as stiff as a Mobilicorpus. Harry peers over him. Malfoy spits up at his face. 

"Erugh—that was disgusting, Malfoy," Harry snaps, wiping his face with the hem of his t-shirt. What rising sense of pity he had for Malfoy has been squashed with Malfoy's saliva. 

"Do you really think this was necessary?" he snarls. Malfoy struggles in the ropes, but does little more than wiggle himself a couple inches on the hardwood flooring. 

"What are you here for, Malfoy?" Ron asks. He stands over Malfoy with his foot at just the right angle to- 

"Don't, Ron," Hermione warns. "Who sent you?" she asks, turning to Malfoy, making sure her wand is in full sight of his face, making sure he knows she's not joking. Her tone makes Harry wonder just what she might be capable of. 

"Why'd you drop that locket?" Harry asks, stepping over Malfoy to his other side. Malfoy turns his head and narrows his eyes. 

"I don't know what you're talking about," he says. 

"Yes, you do," Harry tells him. "The locket. What do you know about it?" He waits for Malfoy to answer, but instead Malfoy just grunts and wriggles and tries to escape the bonds. 

"D'you mind loosening these a little, Granger?" he finally says. "If you want me to talk, I'd like to be able to feel my hands and feet." 

Harry nods to Hermione. She flicks her wand and the ropes rub a little, loosening enough for Malfoy to wiggle his fingers. They prop Malfoy up against the back of the couch and pull up three chairs. 

"So," Harry says. 

Malfoy is silent. His glare is weakening by the second and that look of almost-fear that he had when the man in the hat was speaking with Harry returns to his watery eyes. 

"What are you here for, Malfoy?" he asks. 

"Aren't you going to force-feed me Veritaserum?" Malfoy counters. 

Ron looks at Hermione, raising an eyebrow. Hermione says, "We don't have any" and Malfoy smirks at her. Harry wants to box the satisfaction from Malfoy's face, but instead he says, "You came to us. You tell us why you're here." 

They wait for an answer. Malfoy's foot moves a little toward Harry. He's wearing shoes that might have once been shiny and black and expensive, if it weren't for being covered in something that looks like a suspicious combination of horseshit and mud from farmer's fields. 

"I need help," he says in a quiet voice. 

"I thought that was what Snape was for?" Ron says. Harry twitches at the name, as does Malfoy. 

"This has nothing to do with you, Weasley," Malfoy says. "I need Potty's help, not yours." 

"And if you call me that, you won't get anything," Harry tells him. "Except maybe a few curses." 

Malfoy's eyes darken. His breathing starts to wheeze faintly once more. "You'd know about that, wouldn't you?" he whispers to Harry. He cocks his head a little to the side, enough for the line of his neck to show a smooth outline against the dim contours of the room. 

...the curve of Malfoy's neck, arching under Harry, his lips forming a round word as he moans... 

Harry flushes. "It's all right," he says to Ron and Hermione. "I can handle this." He nods them off and they, or at least Hermione anyway, get the hint and walk upstairs, mentioning something casually about another book. 

"Off to go shag, right under your nose, eh, Potty?" Malfoy asks. 

"Shut up, Malfoy," he says. Oddly, Malfoy does. 

"Why are you really here?" Harry asks him. This, too, is odd. He's never so much as spoken this much with Malfoy without a curse being tossed or a hex thrown, or even an insult or a punch to the gut. He thinks about the Malfoy in the scrying scene, the one who was writhing underneath that other Harry Potter. His insides wither at the thought that maybe he's one and the same person. 

He wonders if Malfoy can sense it—the dirtiness he feels, sitting here near Malfoy, thinking about that scene that wasn't real and yet he can't stop wondering if Malfoy's neck really would arch that way. He wants to crush this feeling, to make it stop, but it only swells the more and more he thinks about it, the more because Malfoy is tied to a chair right in front of him, not some intangible thought in his mind. 

Malfoy stares at him. Harry doesn't realize he has been staring at Malfoy until Malfoy starts to smile a little. 

"Why do you think I'm here?" he says. "I said I need—" he starts to shake his head, "I need help." 

"Help with what? I hate you." 

"You're no prize, either," Malfoy says. Then, he turns away and glares at the wall, where Ron's trainers are pushed against the doorway. "I—I can't—it's Snape, he—" Malfoy turns to Harry and says through his teeth, "He's a fucking traitor. He ruined everything." 

Dumbledore's pleading echoes in Harry's mind. Please, Severus. The look in his blue eyes, once twinkling with life, now glazed over as the green light flashes from Snape's wand. "Yeah, he did," Harry agrees. 

"It was supposed to be me," Malfoy says, "but he did it instead." 

"You couldn't do it, Malfoy," Harry says. "If there was one thing—" He stops and tries again after a pause, "Dumbledore offered you mercy." 

Malfoy is quiet. He has stopped rubbing the robes on his wrists and his hands sit placidly in his lap, his legs spread out before him, his ankles wrapped tight too. "That's why I'm here," he whispers. His voice is strained, and thick and his words are slurred. Regret, maybe. Shame, probably. He closes his eyes and says, "My wand is in my pocket." 

Harry reaches into Malfoy's pocket. The fabric is warm from his body and damp with sweat. He pulls out the wand and tucks it into his own pocket after tapping it with his own, checking for jinxes. 

"I didn't do anything to it!" Malfoy snaps. 

"Good, then." It weighs heavily in Harry's pocket. It's smaller, but thicker than his own wand. And the wood is a lighter, honey colour. Nothing out of the ordinary, but Harry remembers Madam Rosmerta—Malfoy practically admitted to Dumbledore he'd used the Imperius on her. Malfoy might be pitiable, but he is not innocent. 

"So talk Malfoy," Harry says. 

"So untie me, Potter," he replies. 

Harry hesitates on the spell for a moment, then casts it. Malfoy rubs his wrists after the ropes coil back up into his wand. He has the upper hand. And Malfoy's wand. 

"Snape fucked me over," Malfoy says. He glances around the room and sniffs. "What is this place? Some sort of Muggle dump? What is that?" he asks, gesturing to the telly. 

Harry ignores him and taps his foot. Malfoy scowls, but adds after a long while in a voice that Harry isn't all that sure he actually did hear, "And I couldn't do it again." 

"Do what?" 

"What—" Malfoy eyes are wide and he glances around the room, over his shoulders. "This place isn't bugged with spying charms, is it?" Harry shakes his head, so Malfoy says, "I couldn't do what He asked me to. Not—not again." 

"And what was that?" Harry asks, slow and steady. He wants to know what Malfoy was up to this time. He needs to know. Bugger the Order and all they do—Harry hasn't heard from any of them, except the Weasleys and Tonks, in nearly two months. Not even Lupin, he thinks, bitterness stinging his mind. 

"To—" Malfoy takes a deep breath, then shakes his head, muttering something about how he can't. Harry reaches out and places a hand on Malfoy's shoulder. Malfoy stares at his hand, then his eyes lift to Harry's. Harry recoils, like his hand is on fire. He hadn't meant anything by it. But Malfoy doesn't seem to take much notice. 

"To kill a witch, Hestia Jones. He said she knows something, too much—I—I didn't know, but—I—I couldn't." The tremble in Malfoy's voice is visible in his hands. He's shaking again, like that day that Harry found him talking with Myrtle. 

This is the Malfoy he pities. The one sitting on the floor of the parlour of a cottage in Godric's Hollow, Wales. The one who can't kill. 

"Snape," Malfoy adds, a little offhand after what he has just admitted, "Snape made a vow to my mother that if I can't fulfill what I'm supposed to, he will. And I think he wants me to fail so that he can have all the glory. But my mother..." Malfoy says nothing more. 

"So you can't kill," Harry says. "And now Voldemort is going to kill you because you're a traitor to him." 

"No!" Malfoy says hotly. "No, Snape's going to rat me out to the Dark Lord, then I'll be—" his voice falters, "I'll be killed." 

"No you won't," Harry says. 

"That's why I came to you. Because you were there when Dumbledore died and you heard what he told me. I thought..." 

Harry smiles, just a little, just enough for Malfoy to believe him. "All right," he says. 

When Ron and Hermione come downstairs again, suspiciously soon after Harry has stopped talking with Malfoy, they grill him with questions. Malfoy clams up and sits on the couch, sometimes glaring at Ron and muttering things under his breath, sometimes staring out at the fireplace, as if he's really not sure this was such a good idea after all and he ought to just Apparate back to Snape. 

Hermione stalks the room, pacing across the floor, sometimes scratching her chin for more questions. Ron calls Malfoy a "coward" and says that his father is a fucking loser. 

"Shut up!" Malfoy shouts. "Don't you dare talk about my father like that!" That is the only thing Malfoy says before he stands up, his hands shaking slightly, and stomps off, slamming the bathroom door behind him, as though this were his home, not theirs. 

"We'll never get answers now," Hermione lectures Ron. 

"Not as though he was talking," Ron says. "Except to Harry." 

"I've got his wand," Harry says. "He can't do anything. And I don't think he will." Harry doesn't know why he believes this, but he can feel it inside, like the monster starting to swell in his chest again. 

Hermione frowns. "Don't you think it's a bit odd that Malfoy shows up here when we were planning on sneaking into his home? I mean, if he was able to track you, Harry, what about other Death Eaters? Or You Know Who?"  

The bathroom door creaks open and Malfoy pops his head out. He narrows his eyes and says, "In case you're wondering Granger, I reckoned that Potter would have come back to his parents' home. Nostalgia and all that. It doesn't take a genius to track you lot." 

Ron says, in a low voice when Malfoy has disappeared once more, "I think we need a secret keeper." 

"Or to move." 

Harry shakes his head. "We've got our own wards here. They would have gone off if Malfoy was perceived as a threat. And there is still the residual magic in the village. I reckon that's why my parents lived here. It's all right—safe and all." 

Hermione sighs, but Harry can tell she is worried from the sad smile she gives him. 

They eat supper, transfiguring a chesterfield pillow into a tacky, if comfortable-looking fourth chair for Malfoy. Malfoy sniffs the chicken Hermione has fried and grimaces. "What is this?" he drawls. "You expect me to eat this?" he asks, holding up a section of chicken with his fork and peering under it. 

Hermione's cooking is, Harry can admit, a far cry from even Aunt Petunia's, but, "It tastes fine, Malfoy," he says. The sides of the chicken are a little black and the vegetables a little too mushy, but Hermione can cook mashed potatoes, even if they are a little soupy. 

"I think it's brilliant," Ron says, glaring across the table at Malfoy. Hermione beams at him. "Near as good as Mum's." 

Harry bites his lip to keep from snickering at Ron's fibs. Hermione doesn't seem to notice, or if she does she does a decent impression of being pleased with herself. She scoops an extra spoonful of limp beans onto Ron's plate for him. 

Despite his complaining, Malfoy grows silent soon and is busy shoveling heaps of food into his mouth in amounts that would make Hagrid flush. His skin is almost translucent in places on his neck and face, the thin blue veins showing through, as grey as his eyes. His cheeks are gaunt and his eyes a little sunken. He looks thin, dirty, and, well, plain awful.  

Malfoy ends up eating over twice as much as even Ron. And he finishes every last piece of fried chicken in the pan. 

"Does Snape not know how to cook?" Harry asks. 

Malfoy starts to say "He has Worm—" but he stops and simply says, "Not very well." 

Harry eyes him and passes Hermione his plate to be cleared from the table. "Is Peter Pettigrew with Snape, then?" he says, slow and steady. Under the table, his curls his fist tight around his wand. His guts roil, angrily tossing his supper around inside. 

Malfoy nods, just as slowly. 

"So the traitors stick together, do they?" Harry spits. "Good. Easier to kill them both." 

If Hermione and Ron might have once held him back, they don't now. Ron leans back in his chair and belches. Hermione raises her eyebrows, seemingly with approval, and turns on the tap to do the dishes. 

"Where does Snape live?" she asks Malfoy, snatching his plate away from him as though he might do something to their last extra place setting. 

"I'm not the secret keeper," Malfoy says. 

"Who is?" Harry asks. 

"I don't know," Malfoy says. "And no," he says sharply, when Harry starts to ask another question, "it's not my parents and even if it were, they wouldn't tell me. It might be someone like Rabastan Lestrange. Maybe—I don't know." 

"And he's rotting in Azkaban," Ron says. 

"I don't know if it's him!" Malfoy says hotly. "I don't know who it is!" 

"What's on the telly tonight?" Hermione interrupts, faking some sort of pleasant intervention. 

Ron shrugs. "Dunno. Is it Tuesday or Wednesday?" 

"I forget," Harry says. "Wednesday, I think. So there's the match with Birmingham and West Ham—unless that was two nights ago." 

Malfoy looks completely out of place, sitting in the middle of the conversation like this. His brow scrunches with confusion. Ron turns on the television and the visage that forms on Malfoy's face is brilliant, even better than Ron's when he first saw what was on a telly. 

Malfoy watches the match with Harry and Ron in the living room. He sits off by himself in an oversized chair, so old the springs don't work and he falls into the low seat. His eyes are glued to the little figures running around, after each other and the ball. He is like a cat, watching a clock tick—eyes moving left and right and left and right. His mouth hangs open a little. The lights from the screen flicker in his eyes, just like on the wide window in the front of the cottage. 

West Ham wins. Harry smiles, thinking that Dean ought to be pleased. Hermione nurses the last of the tea she drinks, then announces she is going to bed, sending a pointed look to Ron, who says goodnight to Harry not too long after. 

"What are you doing with Malfoy?" he asks. 

Malfoy glowers. "I'm right here, Weasel," he says. 

Harry and Ron both ignore him. Harry says, "Don't worry about him" as Ron leaves, probably eager to crawl under the sheets with Hermione before too long. 

"That's disgusting," Malfoy drawls, "to let them just go off and shag like that." 

"Shut up, Malfoy," Harry says. He has turned off the television, and the lights in the kitchen. The house is dark now, save for a sliver of light emanating from under the doorway to Hermione's room that bounces down the stairs and falls in a puddle at the base. 

"Malfoy," Harry says, "why are you really here?" 

Malfoy stiffens, sitting up straight in the chair. His hands clench on his knees. "I already told you," he says. 

Harry leans back, propping his feet up on the table. He knocks over an empty plastic glass with his toes and wiggles them. "Look, Malfoy, I'm not stupid. I know you can't kill anyone, but that's not the real reason you're here, is it?" 

Malfoy says nothing. Harry goes on. 

"It's about your family, isn't it?" Harry knows this. Malfoy eyes dart around to his. In the shadows, he has the look of a deer in the headlights, wide-eyed and afraid. 

"That's none of your business—" he says, but Harry cuts him off. 

"Don't bullshit me, Malfoy. If you want help, I want real answers." Harry pulls out his wand and taps it impatiently on his thigh. 

The clock chimes eleven times in the background. The light in Hermione's room goes out and the cottage is cast completely in long shadows. Malfoy stands out, though, sitting in the room in just the right place that the streetlamps outside shine through the wide window, making his pale hair and paler skin a sort of murky grey amongst the ink. 

Malfoy sighs, finally. "If you breathe a word of this to the Weasel or Granger—" 

"I won't," Harry lies. 

He sighs again. "I—my mother, she— she made a vow with Snape, all right?" 

Harry knows this already. He nods. 

"And—Snape's blackmailing her with it. I heard them one night talking—and she said she owed him for it, for helping me, and then..." Malfoy swallows, "...and then I heard them." 

"Heard them what?" 

Malfoy's nostrils flare slightly, and his left eye twitches. He turns away a little, and if Harry isn't mistaken, his face looks pinker, though the shadows may well be playing tricks on him, until Malfoy whispers, "Snape—having sex with my mother!" 

Harry laughs, even under Malfoy's glaring. "That's—" 

"She fucking betrayed me!" Malfoy moans. "And my father! And Snape manipulated her—how could she not, she's a woman, she doesn't understand these things—" 

"So that's why you're here," Harry says with finality. He crosses his arms and shakes his head at Malfoy. Malfoy's head hangs as he mumbles something in agreement. He looks completely dejected and miserable, sitting in the chair with his head in his hands, his elbows on his knees.  

"It's late," Harry says. He glances at the clock when an uncomfortable silence falls. It's hardly more than a little past eleven. He stands up and stretches out his arms above his head, but Malfoy remains seated. 

"Er...aren't you tired?" he asks. 

Malfoy glances over his shoulder. His eyes hang with puffy bags underneath, distorting them into small slits. 

"I guess you can...er...sleep upstairs," Harry says. "I'll transfigure something." There is no way he's letting Malfoy sleep downstairs, or anywhere that's not within sight. He doesn't trust Malfoy and Malfoy knows it well enough, so he follows Harry hesitantly up the stairs, which creak under their feet. 

Malfoy steps over the threshold into his room and curls his lip up when Harry uses a Lumos and every bit of dirty laundry is shown splayed across his floor in all its glory. He steps over a pile and stands in a small bare patch where the carpet shows through. "Don't you have all those house elves you freed, Potter?" he drawls. 

"They're not here," Harry says. He rolls his eyes and kicks a couple shirts into a small pile. "They're—" he stops himself before he tells Malfoy where Kreacher is. "I don't want them here." 

"Then you ought to have Granger do some cleaning," Malfoy says. 

"Fuck off," Harry says. He's a bit tired—the heat, the boredom of summer nights, the lethargy. He wants to sleep away his night and wake up in the morning and know something more about the horcruxes. But Malfoy—he doesn't seem to know much. Or if he does, he hasn't let on that he does. 

Harry reckons he'll try again in the morning. When he has more energy, perhaps. Malfoy yawns widely and blinks his eyes quickly, struggling to stay awake. Perhaps Malfoy will have more energy in the morning, too. 

His trunk transfigured into a narrow bed doesn't leave much room to maneuver. Malfoy sits down and bounces a little, testing it out. He doesn't say much, but Harry thinks that the one pillow that appeared after he'd flicked his wand looks suspiciously dark and shiny, like the bowl he'd left inside his trunk. 

Harry pulls off his t-shirt. Malfoy stares at him. He feels a blush creep across his cheeks and remembers the way Malfoy's body looked, long and lean and pale, when he arched under him in that scene. 

"Er...I can scourgify some pajamas, I guess," Harry says when Malfoy simply sits there, watching him with slow-blinking eyes. 

"Touch your clothes?" Malfoy says with a sneer. 

"It's too hot for those robes," Harry says. He nods to Malfoy, who is sweating profusely at his temple and down the sides of his jaw. 

"Its fine," Malfoy says through his teeth. 

"Malfoy, I can smell your sweat from here," Harry says. He doesn't think about how he doesn't mind it—it reminds him of the salty sea near the beaches of Brighton, where the waves lap at the shore like tongues- 

...the arch of Malfoy's neck... 

Malfoy's is sweating at his neck too. He pulls at the collar of his robes discretely, as if he is trying to adjust it, but Harry can see he's more like letting some air in under the tight vicar's collar. Malfoy's right hand drops down to his left forearm and rests there. His face is a pale mask. 

"I bloody well know what's on your arm," Harry hisses. He picks up a pair of pajamas off the floor and uses a fast cleaning spell. He throws them at Malfoy's lap. Malfoy recoils when they touch him; his nose twitches, but he eventually starts to unbutton the rows of snaps down his front.  

"They'd better not have...lice or mites," he says with distaste. 

Harry snorts. It feels strange standing in his bedroom, with Malfoy, who is slowly shrugging off his robes to put on a pair of Harry's pajamas. Something inside swells at the thought of this. Something Harry thinks might be a sort of possessive quality. He doesn't know what to make of it. He pulls off his own trousers and underpants quickly, and pulls on a pair of pajama trousers. He's no prude, but... 

He can't forget that scene in the scrying bowl. The more he thinks about it with Malfoy being just a couple feet away, the more it makes his guts sink with embarrassment. 

His eyes shift to Malfoy. He's turned around so Harry can only see his back—white in the light filtering in from his small window, and his ribs are outlined on his sides. Harry didn't think he was quite this skinny before—Malfoy does look like shit. He wonders how much Malfoy has been eating at Snape's. He wonders how much Malfoy has been worrying, struggling over orders from Voldemort.  

And he can see, in one flash, the outline of something dark on Malfoy's left arm. He doesn't cringe at it, but Malfoy, who notices Harry watching him, does, just a bit. 

Malfoy crawls under the transfigured sheets as Harry climbs into his own bed. He says, "Nox," quietly and lays in the dark, on his back, listening to the sounds of Malfoy's breathing. When Malfoy's breathing deepens into slower, louder snores of sleep, Harry turns onto his side and watches him sleep, watches him lie there, a blurry form in the blurry, dim light of streetlamps and stars. 

Harry dreams of making love to an unknown face. He rubs his hips against theirs. He can smell flowers and the salty sea. When he wakes, the rushing roar of the ocean dims from his ears and he realizes he is lying on his stomach, humping the mattress with a morning stiffy. 

Under the cold spray of the shower, Harry plants his feet, braces one hand of the slippery tile wall and jerks himself off, hard and fast. He sighs under the water as it washes down his face and washes away the flush he has—shame at thinking of the way Malfoy's mouth hung open, slightly, as he slept, how his lips glistened stickily. 

Malfoy, however, doesn't know these things. Malfoy sleeps in until noon—even later than Ron. He stumbles downstairs and blinks at Harry, Hermione and Ron, then, recognizing them all, he blinks again and stands stiffly, rooted to the spot. 

"We saved you some food, Malfoy," Harry says, toeing out a chair beside him at the table. Malfoy sits down and starts to pick at the toast. 

"What I want to know," Hermione says, as though Malfoy is not there at all, "is how Regulus Black destroyed the horcrux. I think that if we can determine how he did that, we might have some sort of idea as to what the other ones might be." 

"Besides the cup," Ron says. 

"Besides the cup," Hermione repeats, nodding firmly. 

"I can use the scrying bowl," Harry says. He notices Malfoy's eyebrows rise at him when he says that, then his face returns almost immediately to a look of nonchalance. 

"Harry I don't trust that thing— they're rooted in Dark magic!" 

"But pensieves aren't!" Harry says hotly. 

"It's not a pensieve, Harry. Pensieves have fragments of memories floating in them. Wizards put them in willingly. Scrying bowls—from what I recall reading over that one paragraph in the Defence textbook once—they," Hermione frowns and pauses to think for a moment, "They tap into the innate magic of wizards and witches with some sort of Dark force in order to access things—the past, the future. It's almost like a form of rape, I suppose." 

"Like Legilimency?" Harry offers. He catches sight in the corner of his eye: Malfoy has stopped chewing and holds the toast out in the air with his hand, not moving. 

"In a way, I'd say yes. Except that using tools like that for Divination can cause dependence." 

"Like the Mirror of Erised?" Ron asks. 

"Yes, like that. The magic we use is rooted in the present. Dark magic is rooted in something entirely different—manipulating innate magic." 

"I don't think so," Harry says, shaking his head. "Dark magic is dark only because it is used for bad purposes. Veritaserum isn't bad—it's used to get confessions out of criminals, like Barty Crouch." 

"Don't play with fire, Harry. Please don't use that bowl anymore," Hermione pleads. Harry nods reluctantly and says all right as he turns to Malfoy, who is watching him through slitted eyes and a neutral expression on his face. 

He doesn't like lying to Hermione, he really doesn't, but Harry thinks about it constantly, all afternoon. He and Ron and Hermione pull out more tomes from Hermione's seemingly endless stacks of research books she's bought (or possibly stolen from the Hogwarts library, too—Harry wonders this when he seems the tell-tale signs of a vaguely square-shaped marker ripped from the inside cover of one). 

Malfoy sits in the living room, watching the telly. At least he is quiet this way. And generally harmless. His wand is burning a hole in Harry's pocket—he's eager to use a Priori Incantatem, but worried about the possibilities of the Ministry with such a powerful charm in these troubles times. That is the only thing that keeps him awake as he flips through the texts, one page at a time. 

Ron has fallen asleep and snores softly. His mouth hangs open and a tiny trail of drool darkens a page of his tome. When Hermione finally glances up, face flushed and about to say something important, she sees Ron and scowls. "Ronald!" she hisses, poking him sharply in the back. "Stop sleeping and start researching!" 

"What are we even researching anymore?" Ron asks. 

Hermione, huffing, says, "Potential soul receptacles! Links to You Know Who! Links to material objects of the Hogwarts founders! Honestly!" Then, spitefully, she pushes the largest tome of the lot on the table in front of Ron. "Here, you peruse Hogwarts, A History." She smiles at him, a sort of self-satisfied grin of a cat. 

Harry hasn't seen Crookshanks in nearly a week. The only signs that he's not dead, lying on the side of some country road after a lorry ran him over, are the chewed up, slimed little robins and voles that Harry finds on the front doorstep. They come with the regularity of the milk man. Not long after supper, he finds another and chucks it out the back door, where it bounces off the patio and lands not far from the scrappy locket. 

He walks outside and picks the locket up, placing it in his empty shorts pocket. He tiptoes up to his bedroom and takes the shiny black pillow from Malfoy's cot and shoves it inside a musty hallway closet. The cobwebs and shadows are so thick in there, he doubts anyone will notice. 

When they all go to bed, Harry is torn. The lure of the bowl flows through his veins, like a craving he needs to satisfy, rather like Hermione and chocolate on three days of the month. But there is no way he's leaving Malfoy, alone and awake, in his bedroom and there's no way he's using the bowl in front of Malfoy either. 

First, he follows Malfoy upstairs and shuts the door behind the both of them. The room is stuffy, the window has inched its way down in the sill and is nearly closed. Harry jacks it up, though the air outside isn't much cooler than in. He sits on his bed and tries to wait as casually as he can. 

Malfoy narrows his eyes. "Are you watching me?" he asks, when he has started to peel off his long robes, but stopped once he had freed one arm from a sleeve. 

Harry says "No" and half-turns. It is Malfoy's turn to watch him as he undresses, always careful to make sure his left forearm is hidden. Harry remembers, after Malfoy sits still, watching him back, that he ought to get changed too. 

He waits until Malfoy is asleep before he cracks his door open and sneaks out. He takes the pillow from the closet, and checking one last to make sure Hermione and Ron are asleep, or doing other things in the dark, he creeps downstairs, unlocks the backdoor and steps onto the patio. 

The pillow is not easy to reverse transfigure. It takes Harry a good five minutes of wand pointing and limp wrists before it finally resembles something like the bowl again, albeit with a tassel on the side. He hopes that doesn't affect it. 

"Aguamenti!" he intones quietly, wishing the bowl would fill less loudly with water splashing all over the sink. It shouldn't matter, though. The water ought to dry by morning, and if not, well, Harry hopes the puddle isn't that large. He doesn't want Hermione to suspect anything, to know what he's doing. She doesn't trust the scrying bowl, but she's not willing to investigate the possibility of using one either. 

Harry takes the locket from his clammy hand and plops it into the bowl. It is lost in the darkness as he swirls his wand three times clockwise and says out loud this time: "Show me how Regulus destroyed the horcrux!" 

The waters whirl and wave up the sides of the bowl, starting to glow with a bright, azure light, faster and faster and faster until the blobs of colour start to form- 

Then the bowl explodes. 

Harry falls back on the patio, some five feet away. He scrambles back to the bowl, sighing when he sees that the bowl itself is still intact, though the images are not. He takes it and chucks it into the scrubby grass of the yard and prays that Ron and Hermione didn't hear him. He waits for them to come downstairs- 

But no one comes. He sighs with true relief this time and wanders out into the yard, looking for the bowl with a "Lumos Minima!" 

The scrying bowl sits in a bush, the locket lying next to it. Harry shoves the locket in his only pajama pocket and carts the bowl back to the flagstone of the patio. The water splashes against his hands over the lip and gets his skin wet, pleasantly so, with the cool water. 

Then he realizes something. 

The bowl ought to be empty. He chucked it across the lawn. 

"Hah! I knew you'd be getting into something!" a voice calls out behind him. Malfoy steps through the back door, closing it softly behind himself and smiles smugly. He takes a step closer and his eyebrows rise appraisingly. "Is that it, then?" he asks, more curious than smug now. 

Harry glares at him. "If you tell—" 

"Consider us even," Malfoy says. He starts to hold out his hand to Harry, then pulls it back and sneers. "For now," he adds. 

Harry nods once, seemingly enough to satisfy Malfoy. His own hand dips into his pocket, only to remember that he's left Malfoy's wand under his pillow in his haste to use the bowl again. Shit. 

"I don't see what Granger was going on about. Those things are harmless. We had one at home," Malfoy says offhand. 

"Did it work?" 

Malfoy shrugs. "My d—my father kept it hidden away, but I know he had one. Until..." Malfoy's eyes narrow. "Never mind." 

Harry's nose starts to throb, a phantom pang from Malfoy stomping on his face last year on the train. His own eyes narrow too. He picks the bowl up and cradles it with one arm, leaving the other free to open the door for Malfoy. He raises an eyebrow and says, "Guess we'd better go back." 

Malfoy doesn't move. "Does that work?" he says suddenly, nodding to Harry's bowl. Harry hesitates to answer, thinking only Oh God, what if Malfoy sees that scene, which only seems to egg Malfoy on. "Let's see it, then, Potter. Do you save the world or not? Actually, no, I don't care about. My family—let's see it." 

Harry feels the invisible burden fall off his shoulders. He would still rather not show Malfoy anything with the scrying bowl—but Hermione's probably right, it's nothing but divination rubbish. 

"Don't touch anything, then," Harry says at last. He sets the bowl down and stirs it three times, counterclockwise, saying loudly (enough that he hopes Ron and Hermione don't hear), "Show me Draco Malfoy's family!" 

The waters start to boil, but there is no swirling blackness with lights in the obsidian depths. Bubbles rise and pop at the surface, the whole bowl gurgling and beginning to shake. Harry reaches out to steady it, but it shakes so much that water spills and it splashes on his hands, burning them. He recoils with a yelp and crawls back, waiting for yet another explosion. 

"You bloody break this thing, Potter?" Malfoy asks. "Do you know how much they're worth?" Malfoy only leans closer to the bowl as it rumbles on the flagstone pavement, a thunderstorm in miniature. His expression changes and his mouth starts to hang open as the bowl slowly simmers down. He glances up to Harry, red-faced in the hazy night sky and says, "Is this some kind of a fucking joke, Potter?" 

The blood drains from Harry's face. He snatches his wand out of the bowl because he knows what Malfoy has seen. There is no other explanation for the look of dawning horror in Malfoy's eyes. 

"It doesn't work properly," Harry says stiffly. "It—it did that to me. It's rubbish." He picks the bowl up, the waters whirling gently inside and moves to toss it into the bushes, when Malfoy stops him. 

"Don't. You'll mess something up that way, Potter," he snarls. "The only way to make—to make that stop is to dump the water, idiot." Harry can hear Malfoy breathing very shallowly, that whistling sound has returned to his lungs. Malfoy's jaw is set, he's tense, and looks ready to either burst into tears or start spewing hexes. 

Harry doesn't trust him. "Accio Malfoy's wand!" he shouts. A wand zips through the house, shattering a window upstairs and falling into Harry's hands. 

"What the fuck did you do that for?" Malfoy sneers. "That—that thing is a load of fucking lies. Didn't you ever read Edward Garrish's bestseller, Divination is a Load of Rubbish?" 

"No," Harry spits. But he reckons Hermione has. The bowl is still in his hands and it is getting heavier. Baring his teeth, Harry steps back, leans over and tips it upside down. 

Nothing moves. 

The water doesn't come out. It doesn't splash him, not so much as a drip. Harry shakes it hard, but still nothing pours. 

Malfoy simply stares at him. Harry sets it on the ground, where it sits, just as full as before. "Ignis!" he shouts at it, pointing his wand. Flames lick the sides of the bowl