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A Vicious Tangle (Complete)	By : Tommy-Lane Category: Harry Potter > Slash - Male/Male > Harry/Draco Views: 13085 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 3
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter or any charactors from the books and I am not making any money off of this.

Chapter List
- 9
- 10
- 11
There was a memo sitting on Draco's side of Potter's desk the next morning - its wings dark and its point rounded, somehow looking different than any other department’s memos in the whole Ministry. And due to the fact that he was only standing thanks to copious amounts of hangover potion and yet still feeling like a woodpecker had taken up residence in his head, Draco could only stare at it as he hovered in the opening to the empty cubical.
It was from the Unspeakables.
They hadn't spoken a word to him since exiling him from his office, choosing to ignore his inquires and setting up formal hoops to keep him jumping through instead of actually telling him anything. And now there was a neat little memo just waiting for him on the same day that he had nearly not even come in. He had spent far too long that morning staring at his shallow complexion with the toothbrush sitting idle in his mouth, debating the merits of starting a new profession solely so he didn't have to face up to a certain someone who hadn't left his drunken mind alone the entire night.
Dreaming of Potter these days was nearly as bad as the nerve splitting, gut wrenching, completely chilling ones he got from the disks.
With a deep breath, he carefully set down his coffee and the large tome he had planned on immersing himself in before plucking the memo up and pulling it open.
Specialist Malfoy,
Decontamination complete. You may return to your assigned office upon reception.
Unspeakable X
Draco stared down at it and scowled - X, really? The Unspeakable couldn't even be bothered enough to sign his name? What did he think Draco was going to do with such information? Track him down and jump him, demanding he apologize for overrunning his workspace? Spike his food with some horrid potion in the cafeteria? Not that the Unspeakables ever ate in the cafeteria...nor did he actually but that hardly mattered. What mattered was that he had his office back - his clean, pristine, Potter and Weasley free office - so why in the name of Merlin was he just glaring at the undefinable blocked writing and grumbling to himself about the lack of a proper signature?
Stuffing the memo into his pocket, Draco slipped back out and through the maze of cubicles, reminding himself that he was ecstatic to be free of the mangy Auror department. He shot a withering look at the lone Junior Auror who had shown up in the wee hours of the morning, most likely to finish a teetering stack of reports her supervisors were supposed to have done, simply to spread his own sour mood and pushed through the squeaky door leading to his annex.
His lovely, lovely annex. No loud noises or brash lighting. Just him and Damaris and Cobble, all in their respective corners.
His door looked exactly the same as it always did. Black with silver edging, his name printed in nice neat letters in the exact center, his fingers lifting to touch it lightly as he paused in uncertainty. "Bugger it." He grumbled with a shake of his head, his hand dropping to the knob and with a quick twist of his wrist the expanse of wood was swinging inward and revealing his office that looked...exactly the same. Like nothing unsavory had ever happened, let alone a fucking explosion of Potter's magic.
His desk was still sitting exactly where it had been, his chair neatly tucked behind it, hell even an inked quill sat waiting at the ready. Lifting his hand, he grasped the door frame above his head that they apparently saw no reason in fixing since it had sunk even more since last he had seen it, and stepped through with a quick duck. His gaze went straight to the wall running along the right side and with a mutter and flick of his wand he held his breath as he waited to see if the shelves would come grinding back into the light.
"Bugger." He repeated as a crushing lack of proper expression gripped him, his eyes glued to the shimmering wall as they shifted into view, the skeletal rows still stuffed full of gleaming black boxes with carefully imprinted numbers. He hadn't known what to expect - but this, everything in its rightful place and intact - most definitely was not it. He had been picturing his desk blown to bits (though it could have been and then simply repaired), his files singed and lost, and most importantly all his artifacts he was currently studying gone - damaged beyond repair (which really could still be the case, there was no way of knowing until he checked them all over).
Everything was perfect and yet it felt off in a way he couldn't pinpoint. Perhaps it was the fact that the walls and everything encased within them had been soaked in dark magic and then scrubbed clean of it with the Unspeakable's own special brand of harsh magic that never left a trace of anything. They mere meticulous about that - making sure there was never anything anyone could track back to them.
He felt something odd thump against his chest as his eye caught on the third shelf and the four boxes in the right hand corner - 43, 44, 45, and 46. They were still there, an empty spot on the shelf after them where the disk he had submerged in the basin had resided, the only one missing. He swallowed against a lump as he stepped forward and let his touch linger over the first of the locked boxes, a strange sense of urgency filling him as he stared at it. An urgency that had him setting it on his desk and spelling it open before he had even fully thought on what he was doing - his gaze suddenly transfixed on the little disk of black and green.
The first one. And the only murder that had been a wizard.
It looked so innocent once more, bringing back the memory of all the weeks he had spent on them, trying and failing to find any sort of hint as to their purpose. Funny that it had been donning Potter's spectacles that had given him the notion of using water to trigger it. Scooping up the disk, he held it gingerly in the palm of his hand, his head cocked as his eyes traced over the intricate pattern - the same pattern that was etching itself over the inside of Olivia's wrist as she lay in a plane of existence that was neither here nor there.
It frustrated him beyond measure that he still had no clue as to the meaning behind the meticulously placed pattern of black and green. That the dead were piling up and all he had to go on was some disconnected screaming and ice in his blood and dreams of faded images. Every time he got close he was propelled even further away but he also knew he was on the right track. That everything he had witnessed was devastatingly important and connected somehow. He felt a sweeping ache startle down his spine as he turned the disk over in his hand, his thumb brushing over it, something just beyond his reach tugging at his consciousness.
It all came down to a feeling. Instinct. If he was going to get anywhere in the case, if he was ever going to take another step forward he would have to rely on what his intuition was telling him.
Potter was going to murder him when he found out.
The disk felt unreasonably heavy against his thigh as he slipped it into his pocket and thunked against him with each step he took - the Auror office still mostly empty as he stepped back through the door and slipped through the partitions. He let out a sigh of relief as he rounded the corner into Potter's cubicle to find it still vacant, knowing there wasn't any way in hell Potter would relinquish what he needed if he had been there. With a twitch of his hand the uppermost drawer of the sleek black filing cabinet was sliding silently open.
His gaze drifted over the blue tabs in the front, his fingers skipping right along after till he spotted what he needed, the file slipping free easily and falling open in his hand. His eyes tracked down the pages as he turned them, stopping as he spotted the unmoving photo of an older man with his eyes stuck wide and his lips parted in a look of surprise and horror. Jenner Thornbee, the name beneath it read, the man's golden, silver streaked hair sodden just like the rest of him - his body splayed out on browning sand, a faded mark that was mostly just scar tissue now on his left forearm a twin to the one Draco kept carefully covered most the time.
Tearing his eyes away from the picture, Draco quickly located the coordinates of the isolated lake tucked away in the valley of low hills. He committed it to memory before dropping the file back into the cabinet and searching out the thin brown bracelet that allowed Potter to Apparate in and out of the Ministry any time and place he wished. Fitting it on, he gripped his wand, closed his eyes with the destination firm in his mind’s eye, and spun.
****
An hour later - after a considerable hike through low shrubs and rolling hills - Draco stood alone on the shore of the crystal blue lake that had been the end of the line for Jenner Thornbee. It had perplexed Potter for weeks how the man had found himself here, why it seemed he had been at the barren lake willingly. There hadn't been any sign of a struggle nor a wisp of residual magic in the entire surrounding area. And yet as Draco watched the water sit idle and smooth he couldn't help but think that Potter had missed something. There was something about the place that sent a chill down his spine, mingling with the cold in his body like the two were old friends finally reunited. He stared into the lake, picturing the Auror's drudging the body up onto the shore, and felt a pull beneath his navel - like a whisper beckoning him forward and beneath its glassy surface.
A warm breeze swept around him, tugging at the fabric of his robes and making them flutter around him like the Universe was shouting its agreement. The sun shone high and beat upon his back as he undid the gray buttons, shrugging the fine material from his shoulders and folding it neatly to lay on the sand at his feet. His shirt and tie followed suit, as did his socks and shoes, until he was standing with his toes touching the cool water in just his trousers.
He bloody hated lakes and had long before Potter had pulled him from their depths with his lungs full of water. They made him uneasy, the thought of the dark unknown beneath his feet housing any number of horrendous creatures that could very well spell his doom keeping him on the shore far more often than not.
But not today.
He held the disk tightly in his hand as he took a step forward, the water rushing over his ankles, then his shins, his thighs, engulfing him up to the waist as his feet hesitated over a sudden drop that would plunge him straight down for who knew how far. One more step and there would be no turning back - one more step and he would either be rewarded for following his gut that was starting to churn now that he was at the precipitous, or he would be the newest victim added to Potter's to-do list.
Muttering a quick Bubble-Head charm, Draco gathered his resolve and took the last step forward, his body following like dead weight - the cold water suddenly engulfing him completely a shock to his system as he plunged downward. Kicking his legs out he slowed his decent, hovering in the water that was making everything look surreal and caught in a gentle current. He felt weightless and slightly panicky over the shoddy footing being in such a position left him, the idea that he couldn't run or even Apparate away if things went badly a thump in the back of his skull.
But he pushed it all away, his arm floating out before him as he unfurled his fingers, the green of the disk blindingly vivid - like a mirror reflecting the sun. There was a pulse that rippled out from his palm and all around him - holding him still with his limbs suddenly heavy as a soft sound started trickling towards him. It grew louder, broke completely, started back up soft, and repeated all over again.
It was the sound of crying. Of a broken soul spilling tears from eyes so red and dry that they shouldn't have been able to produce any sort of liquid let alone the wet sobs that rose and fell around him - filling his ears completely and tugging at his heart. He listened to the wrenching sound and watched with growing trepidation as the eight tentacles started slowly weaving out from under the disk - a slow wave as they grew and stretched towards him, beckoning him.
And this time he let them. There was no Potter to pull him back, no place to escape. He only vaguely registered the foully of following those black tentacles, of lifting his arm until the disk was right before his face - one tentacle, smooth as silk reaching out and caressing down his cheek. His pupils expanded, his body screamed out, and he felt himself rushing forward - the water all around him tunneling away from him until he was squeezing through and out.
He blinked and found himself in a very familiar room surrounded by a very familiar, if long suppressed, sight.
He was hovering in an awkward suspension above the main receiving hall in Malfoy Manor, the room brimming with people in long black cloaks and silver skull masks that were specifically designed to instantly instill fear. The air was filled with low murmurs, no one daring to speak above a whisper, a tension matched in each and every person's body. The Dark Lord was furious though Draco couldn't see him. He just knew it like everyone else knew. He could feel it, could see it reflected in the way the people below him held themselves.
Someone would die that night. One of their own.
But it wasn't until the grand doors at the far end banged open and Theodor Nott was marched in with his hands bound and his limbs twitching that spoke of the hours he had just spent under punishment, that Draco felt the cold penetrate him once more. This wasn't any old vision, this was a memory, one that he knew all too well because he had been there as a boy. He witnessed this very event, had had something irreplaceable ripped away from him that night.
It only took him a moment to find his seventeen year old self, his frame far too skinny and his always pale skin looking sickly and wan, leaning against a wall in the far back - as far away from what was to happen as he could possible get. Draco watched himself as he watched the face of the quiet boy he had grown up with, the boy who hadn't ever shown even an inkling of siding with the Dark. Theo's eyes were downcast, staring at his feet, his wrists bloody under the binding, his harsh breath rattling through the now silent room.
Draco could remember that without even looking, he had dreamed about it far too often for it to ever leave him.
He could readily remember how he had felt sick, his breakfast from that morning churning in his stomach and threatening to come up as he watched Theo forced to his knees with a pronounced wince. With his back to the wall Draco watched himself as he tried to think what Theo could possibly had done, but nothing came to mind because Theo hadn't done anything. The Dark Lord liked punishing his followers through their children or their friends and Theo was the innocent sacrificial lamb. He would be slaughtered to teach a lesson, to prove a point.
Hanging suspended above it all, it all had a sort of glossy sheen to it, a sort of rosy glow around his younger self - making him look far more controlled and resolved then Draco knew he had been.
Then a smaller door off to the side was opening and a girl was being pulled through, her black hair a greasy, sticky mess in her face. "Pansy." Past Draco breathed with his heart clenching as she was dragged opposite Theo, a wand shoved into her trembling hand.
Merlin he didn't want to watch this, not again.
He could remember how confused he had been. How his back had stiffened, how his stomach had lurched threateningly as his mind spun - because he couldn't fathom what she was doing there, why she wasn't still at school, what she could have possibly done to have made the Dark Lord decide that she needed to do this. Pansy, like Theo, had kept her distance, had skirted the line. Now here they both were, one to die, one to kill, and Draco it seemed was doomed to witness the death of one friend and the ripping of another friend’s soul.
"Do it." One of the masked men commanded in a voice that sounded disjointed and off as Pansy cowered on the floor, her nose running with snot and her cheeks wet with tears. "Do it now girl."
Her hand shook as she raised the wand, her eyes downcast like she couldn't stand to look at Theo as she took his life from him. "Avad-d-d"
The man fisted a hand in her hair and yanked her head back, his shiny mask looming right above her terrified face. "You have to mean it." He hissed menacingly and Draco felt like swooping down off the ceiling and hexing the man's arse six ways from Sunday just as much as his younger self felt stuck to the wall with utter helplessness.
Pansy let out a gasping sob, the tip of the wand in her hand shaking with a violent tremor. She wouldn't be able to do it, no matter how much they threatened her, which meant that she and Theo would both end up dead on the floor before the day was done - Pansy's body no doubt covered in bloody, horrible wounds before she hit the floor. Draco knew there wouldn't be any hope, the one major side effect of growing up in the presence of darkness was it washed away disillusion, leaving the gritty reality that a boy shouldn't ever have to be burdened with.
Draco could remember how he shook as he pushed from the wall and stalked up right next to Pansy before he could even fathom what he was doing, his stomach so sick that it was a miracle he hadn't thrown up yet. Her large brown eyes blinked at him, tears leaking past the red rims. "Draco?" She whispered, her voice filled with that hope and belief that he could overcome everything - her hero since childhood. Except Draco was no hero, he was a Slytherin, he had always looked after himself above all else.
And yet...
He snatched her wand, pointed it at Theo, hoped the boy saw his apology in his masked gaze, and whispered the killing curse. The flash of green light had present day Draco flinching and Pansy sobbing again, the thud of Theo's body on the floor a sound that would haunt Draco for the rest of his days. But he didn't let that show, didn't let his own tears fall until later that night behind his closed bedroom door, kept the contents of his stomach in until he had stumbled down the hall and out of sight.
With all eyes on him, he hid his panic as he thrust the wand back at the man beside them. "She doesn't have the power." Draco said, again in a voice that didn't quite fit - his stance much too steady and his glare stonier than it had been - before walking as calmly as he could manage back to his spot on the wall, half expecting to be hit in the back with a curse that surprisingly didn't come.
Then the vision was shifting and Draco felt like he was floating out of his body as he fell upon a small stone room with a large white bed in the center - a girl with long blonde hair that scraped her waist sitting on the edge with her back to him. She was crying, the sound connecting with the disjointed one he had heard in the water moments before. Her shoulders were trembling lightly, her pale hand lifting to tuck a piece of her wispy hair behind her ear.
"Draco." She whispered, her voice caught on a sob and Draco felt crushing pain crumble through his body as he was propelled backwards - the girl falling away from him as her tears grew in pitch.
With a gasp that had water rushing into his lungs, Draco was flung back into his body, the Bubble-Head charm having dissolved from around him and leaving his chest burning as he pressed his arms down and kicked his legs - the only thought in his foggy head was getting to the surface. Then he would think about what he had seen and what the hell it all meant. With the disk that was no longer blinding bright or spouting tentacles clenched tight in his fist, he swam up and up, his head breaking the surface with a large gulp of air that didn't do anything to soften the splitting pain down the center of his head.
The sun sent dazzling spots through his vision and he swam until his feet touched the slimy lake bed once more, his heart beating so furiously that it bloody hurt - each thump bringing another question to mind that he had no clue how to answer. Like how in the fuck did the disk have that memory? And why? Not to mention the rosy glow about it all, the way he had seemed so much larger and confident than he knew he had been during it all. And who was the girl and why was she calling for him? She seemed familiar in a begrudging way, like his brain was refusing to connect her even though there was something in his past that she was linked to.
She had been the one who was crying and now that he had heard her, seen her, it felt as if she had been the one who had been screaming when he submerged the disk in his office and when he been around Olivia. But that didn't make any sense. None of it did.
****
Potter was staring at him with his mouth dropped open in shock, his arms still crossed over his chest from when Draco had popped up in his cubicle - half dry with dripping hair and sopping shoes and wet elbows due to a distracted drying charm - proclaiming that he needed to speak with him right away. A matter of urgency. Potter had grumbled as he led him into his newly reinstated office, the sound of Potter hitting his head on the door frame not even managing to pull a smirk across Draco's lips like it always did.
He had been much too distracted to care about taunting him or even noticing the tightness to Potter's lips and the erect way he held himself as Draco fell heavily back into his chair. He barely even noticed the snappish way Potter asked what he wanted as his eyes roamed over Draco's wet, disheveled appearance.
And he told him - leaving out the little tidbit of nicking his Apparation bracelet. It had all rushed out in an unstoppable gush, his voice simply rising and plowing on when Potter started yelling about his utter stupidity, his tone not even bothering to drop back to normal when Potter fell quiet as he explained the memory he had been transported to (and thus confessing his one and only murder for the first time outside of a court room) and the scene with the girl afterword.
Now he was finished, had been for a few minutes, and Potter hadn't even twitched a muscle. He just stared with wide eyes that surely must have been stinging with the urge to blink by now.
"You're...you're serious?" Potter muttered, his eyes narrowing an inch.
"No Potter, it's all a grand joke." Draco snapped, his body completely spent and the throbbing in his head still making his vision waver. "Clever no?"
"I just..." Potter pushed a hand through his hair and rubbed at the back of his neck. "Seriously?"
"Ask that again and I'll throttle you." Draco grumbled, watching as Potter seemed to snap back into himself and take a little step forward, his gaze dropping to the disk resting quietly inside its open box.
"You're bloody mental Malfoy." Potter carefully touched the disk and frowned when nothing happened, like he been expecting it to jump out at him and pull him under. "How did you know that would work and not just kill you?"
Draco shrugged. "I didn't. I just had a feeling that it was the right direction to go."
Potter glared at him. "A feeling? You risked your like on a fucking feeling? Merlin Malfoy are you trying to make me go gray?"
"Gods no, you would look awful all sprinkled with salt." Draco shuddered. "But I don't see how what I choose to do with my time has anything to do with you, let alone the color of your monstrous hair."
Potter open and shut his mouth, a muscle in his cheek twitching in irritation. "You don't see? You have no tiny clue as to why you dying on my case might make me a bit barmy?"
Draco tipped his chin and fought against looking away, the heat in Potter's gaze always making his head go light. It didn't help that the dark haired man was leaning over his desk now, with his palms planted firmly on the wood, the green of his eyes bright like the disk underwater - a bruising patch of purple poking out defiantly from the collar of his shirt, making the memory of sucking it onto Potter's neck bloom under his skin and warm his chill. "You needn't worry about it tarnishing your record. No one would hardly bat an eyelash over the death of a former Death Eater when they've got you to smile at them."
Potter's hands curled into fists on the desk, something truly frightening taking flight in his gaze. "You know that's not it." He spoke lowly in a tone that Draco felt that if he hadn't already been sitting would have made his knees buckle. It was Potter in full authority mode, a jumble of all the Potter's he knew rolled into one.
"Regardless." Draco cleared his throat, glancing down and away, his wand flicking and forcing the box with the disk shut and locked. "We finally have a lead do we not?"
"It's not much." Potter conceded with a grunt. "But it is something. Was there anything at all that stood out to you, anything that was different or that could lead us to the girl or the murderer?"
Draco sighed and shook his head. "I don't believe so. Like I said the memory was correct but skewed. It painted me with much more...flattery and bravado. But other than that...I'll think on it."
Potter nodded and straightened back up. "Do that and Malfoy don't you dare go off on your own again in the meantime. I had my theories that all this was driven by Death Eaters or their sympathizers and now I think it's even more likely."
"The other disks?" Draco quipped, glancing at the three boxes that housed the other disks, plans already in his head about finding the correct locations and activating them.
"We'll do it together later this week."
"I don't need a babysitter." He grumbled, unsure if the twist in his stomach was due to apprehension over Potter being there with him next time or gratefulness of not having to go it alone.
"Not a negotiation." Potter gave him a pointed look. "Run off again like that and you'll find yourself fetching coffee for department heads all year."
Draco glared and bit his tongue against arguing, knowing full well that Potter had the pull with the right people to demote him like that - the sneaky bastard. "Fine." He hissed through clenched teeth. "Now get out, I have a report to write."
"Yeah, yeah, I'm going." Potter muttered but there was a little nervous frown on the corner of his lips as he took one step back and then stopped - hovering on the spot like there was something more he needed to say but couldn't find the words.
"What is it?" Draco snapped, unfurling a roll of parchment and laying it out on his desk.
"Nothing, it's just." He fidgeted with his hand messing up his hair ever more once again. "Just some of us are going out tonight...get some drinks you know."
"Goody for you." Draco drawled, something that was trying to be a smile at Potter's obvious nervousness tugging at his mouth.
Potter nodded and scratched at his jaw. "Yeah...so maybe you could stop by?"
"Why?" Draco asked, trying to remember a single time Potter had ever invited him to something and coming up blank.
The smile on Potter's lips was much too damn boyish, just a flash of teeth at the corner and a deep flush spreading over his cheeks. "It will be fun."
Draco snorted. "With your friends? Hardly."
He shrugged and his nose crinkled as his smile grew. "You never know. You won't have to buy."
"Enticing me with free alcohol?" Draco snickered and wondered if Potter's blush was somehow contagious as it seemed to be pricking his own ears now as the man grinned at him.
"Is it working?"
"Perhaps."
"Alright, great. Well I'll send you the address. 9 o'clock. So...great, I'll...I'll see you there then." And with that awkward sentence and another blush inducing smile, Potter was smacking his head on the doorframe and stumbling away with a pained curse as Draco sat back and wondered how in the world he was even considering going out with Potter and his friends - the uncomfortable state of his wet feet all but forgotten.
- 9
- 10
- 11
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A Vicious Tangle (Complete)