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Parsimony	By : Lomonaaeren Category: Harry Potter > Slash - Male/Male > Harry/Draco Views: 14122 -:- Recommendations : 1 -:- Currently Reading : 2
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Chapter Eleven--How Frustrating It Is

            No, Potter.

            That was all Snape deigned to write on the back of the letter Harry had sent him early that morning about whether he would talk to Draco or whether Harry could even tell Draco about the ingredients he was gathering. Harry gritted his teeth and crumpled the page into a small ball, wetting it with milk from his bowl of cornflakes so he wouldn't be tempted to set it on fire.

            Bloody sodding Snape. Of course he just wanted to make this as difficult as possible for Harry. Well, Harry would find out a solution to this himself. He didn't care how difficult it was. He'd done harder things.

            Is that going to be your mantra your whole bloody life? his mind asked in a voice that sounded like Hermione. His mind sounded like bloody inappropriate people sometimes, too, Harry thought, given that Hermione was gone to Australia today and not at the table to scold him or inquire about the parchment he was wadding up.

            "You all right, mate?"

            But Ron was here, and lonely without Hermione right next to him, and Harry should remember that he had people depending on him who were actually considerate. He smiled at his best friend and scooped up another spoonful of cornflakes. Ron didn't mind if he ate with his mouth full. "Fine," he said, and sprayed little bits of food everywhere. "Just another one of those requests for an interview I don't want to give."

            Ron made a face and contributed by chomping into a scone hard enough to make fluffy crumbs leap across the table. Ginny gave them both an annoyed glance and shifted her book around so she was blocking the path of any flying food. "You'd think they'd realize by now that you aren't interested. What does it take, writing 'I Don't Give Interviews' in capital letters across the sky?"

            "How would you do that?" Harry asked, momentarily sidetracked. They'd seen a Muggle aeroplane do that this summer on the telly, but he hadn't realized the image had stuck in Ron's head. "Could you fly something from a broom?"

            "Well, there are incantations that can make letters out of smoke and fire." Ron licked honey off his fingers and reached for another scone. "We ought to experiment with them and see if all those reporters waiting beyond the wards can read."

            Harry laughed, and he and Ron spent the rest of breakfast planning out ways to make some of the stupid people in Harry's life understand their mistake. By the time they went out to the Pitch to try it, Harry's heart was beating more slowly than it had all night.

            Wolfwere and Snape and Malfoy and Klein and Death Eaters aren't all there is to life. I have to remember that.

*

            "You haven't made any progress yet?"

            Harry sighed and looked up from the book he'd taken out of the Restricted Section to find Malfoy lounging against his library table. The git hadn't approached Harry all afternoon, and when Harry finally found him with a bunch of fifth-year Slytherins who apparently still hero-worshipped him, he'd turned his back and stuck his nose in the air. Harry distrusted that cloudy look in his eyes, too. It was much more "Hogwarts Malfoy" and "taunting Harry about Triad Charms Malfoy" than the clear look he'd seen in the Forest.

            "No," Harry said. "There are too many spells that could describe what happened to you, but none that exactly fit the parameters." He tapped the list of details Malfoy had handed him, which was lying next to the book. "Are you sure you remembered everything right?"

            "Don't speak of that so loudly," Malfoy hissed, looking over his shoulder and reminding Harry of Moody for a second with the way his head jerked.

            "So you do think your enemy is at the school," Harry said. "And anyway, you approached me. If someone thinks it's suspicious for us just to be talking, me ignoring you won't help." He leaned forwards. "Do you think the spell could have confused the one who cast it? That would help me narrow down some of the stranger curses I'm finding. Some of them always affect the caster, and some never do. Of course, it might depend on whether it was an incompetent caster in the first place."

            "You have to consider," Malfoy said, and one corner of his mouth lifted in a sneer, "that an incompetent researcher could affect your findings just as much."

            Harry stared at him, feeling his heart bang against his ribs. Then he said, "Fuck you, Malfoy," stood up, bundled the book back into its place on the shelves, snatched up the list, and stalked out of the library.

            Malfoy followed him, his footsteps so quick Harry thought he was worried about pursuit. Well, that didn't make Harry any more sympathetic. Maybe Malfoy couldn't help him, and maybe he was worried about other people finding out that he'd enlisted Harry's help, but in that case the least he could do was stay away and let Harry get on with the business without any insults.

            "You don't understand anything," Malfoy muttered to his back.

            At least that sounded almost normal, Harry thought, and swung around to snarl at Malfoy, who started back while raising one hand as though to protect his throat against a bite or a punch. "No, I can't, not when you don't tell me," he said. "And I don't see anyone around right now. Is your enemy spying on us through the portraits or something? What is it that's such a big deal you can't tell me?"

            Malfoy's lips twisted up together, and he shook his head. "I should have known you wouldn't understand, Potter," he said, and made a grab for the list that still hung in Harry's hand. "Give me that back. I'll find someone who can look at what I wrote and tell what I meant."

            Harry was still the better Seeker, and he managed to rescue the list before it fell victim to Malfoy's grabby hands. He shook his head in exasperation and moved out of the way when Malfoy tried to take it again. "Look, will you give me a clue? You were saying you wanted to ally with me only last night. Now you're acting as though nothing could be further from your mind. I don't know what's causing the differences, but I wish you'd fucking tell me."

            Malfoy jerked to a stop and stared at him with subtly gleaming eyes. Then he said, "By the time you figure it out, it'll be too late. I shouldn't have made that effort to ally with you. It's useless." And he turned his back and marched away, looking like nothing so much as a clockwork Muggle toy.

            Harry used one hand to tug on his hair until his eyes were watering, then marched away himself, heading for the Owlery. There were plenty of school-owls he could use, and they were actually the better choice, since so many of them came and went each day that the reporters would have a harder time intercepting his letters than if he used some distinctive bird.

            He was going to start owl-ordering Snape's blasted ingredients. At least that would give him the sense of something getting accomplished.

*

            "Let the Pensieve show that we convene today on the eighteenth of September, 1998, in order to question Walden Macnair and Rabastan Lestrange."

            Harry leaned back in his chair and cast a subtle Warming Charm. The Aurors' idea of a good interrogation room was a chamber with stone walls and high windows, filled in with glass and iron. They were somewhere in a building associated with the Ministry, but not inside the Ministry itself, since that was underground. Unless someone's idea of enchanted windows included realistic cold breezes, too.

            Klein sat next to him. She was the one who had spoken the opening words, even though there was no Pensieve in the room. Harry reckoned it was just a way to show that they'd be willing to contribute their memories to a Pensieve later, in case anyone had any questions about the interrogation. He leaned back in his chair and glanced at Malfoy, next to him, and then Olversvald, beyond him.

            Malfoy ignored him, staring at the Death Eaters who waited, chained, on the other side of the table. It had been like that since the day he found Harry in the library and complained about his research. Harry yanked his eyes away from Malfoy's face again and decided to focus on the enemy. After all, he would like to know what they'd been doing so close to the school and what they knew about the wolfwere's pups. He had gone back to the Forest since the night of the attack and helped the wolfwere search for more clues that might tell them who'd killed his children, but in vain.

            He could at least hope to get justice this way.

            "Tell us," said Olversvald, in a chatty, cheerful voice not too different from the one he'd used when he talked to Malfoy and Harry in McGonagall's office, "why you were staying in the Forbidden Forest."

            "Had nowhere else to go, did we?" Macnair said. He spat into the middle of the table. "Not since our Lord fell." His eyes rested on Harry's face, and for a minute they seemed to burn. Then he jerked, hissing out a sharp breath as his eyes fell shut.

            "Yes, your chains will do that if you perform a deliberate discourtesy," said Olversvald, sounding sorry about it. "So. Were you intending to attack the school, or Harry Potter, or anything else in the general vicinity?"

            Macnair said nothing, looking at the ceiling as though it was the most interesting thing in the room. Harry focused on Rabastan. He hadn't glanced at them yet. His head was bowed, his hands twisting back and forth in the manacles, hard enough to make them clink.

            Harry had seen something like that before. There was a boy called Ethan who sometimes ran with Dudley's gang, and would join in the kicking and the punching and the Harry-hunting. But get him alone, and he was really weaker than the rest of them, certainly weaker than someone willing to fight back.

            "I don't think they wanted to attack me," he said. "I think they wanted to kill me."

            Macnair laughed and said nothing, but Rabastan jerked as though Harry had poked him with a fork, and then shook his head desperately. "N-no! Really! No! No-nothing of the kind! We're peaceful now, and we wanted to have a fair shot at life and we knew we wouldn't get it from the Ministry," he added, in the tones of someone reciting a script learned by heart.

            Who made up the script for him? Harry knew it was a question that wouldn't have occurred to him before the last few weeks, but it was there now. He didn't think he could ask it directly, though, and he hesitated.

            Macnair turned and glanced at Rabastan. As far as Harry saw, he did no more than that, but Rabastan wilted, bowing his head and tucking his hands into his robe as though he would need persuasion to move them out again. Harry's spine tingled, and he glanced sideways with one eye at the Aurors, sure they couldn't be blind to what he could see.

            They weren't. Olversvald nodded at the Aurors that stood near the door, behind a bubble ward, but still near enough to respond instantly if someone needed them. "Would you take Mr. Macnair for a walk? We want to speak to Mr. Lestrange, and he does seem to be getting in the way."

            Macnair tried to hit one of the two Aurors in the face with the chain on his left wrist, but they dodged pretty easily and dragged him to his feet. Macnair was raving and spitting, his tongue dangling out of his mouth as he shouted back at Rabastan, "You can't tell them! If you tell them, I'll kill you!"

            Idiot, Harry thought. If he really wanted us not to suspect that something was up, then he shouldn't have talked to Rabastan like that. But then, no one ever said that the Death Eaters were geniuses.

            He glanced out of the corner of his eye at Malfoy, sitting silent and tense and dull-eyed, now, beside him. Really not geniuses.

            When the door of the interrogation room had closed behind Macnair, Olversvald focused on Rabastan. "You must realize," he said, with sincerity that Harry thought he probably practiced in meetings with the Minister, "that we would never allow anything to happen to you. You would be protected if you chose to turn witness. Macnair will go to Azkaban if he refuses to speak, and that means you would never have to see him again."

            Rabastan gave a hollow laugh. "That may be so," he said. "But I'm afraid of Macnair because of who he stands close to. And you can't do anything about him."

            "Who is him, Lestrange?" Klein seemed interfering when she spoke, but then Harry heard her voice and understood why she had. Her bored tone of voice seemed to soothe Rabastan; he sat up and looked from one to the other of them, nodding a little as though in time to a tune.

            "You all know him," he said. "And you won't dare do anything about him even if you could, because he terrifies you all."

            Well, Harry could think of one Death Eater who fit that description, and who hadn't been captured. "Greyback?" he asked quietly.

            Rabastan laughed again, but Harry only knew it was a laugh because of the way his Adam's apple bobbed; it looked exactly like it had when he was laughing the first time. "Yes," he said. "He threatened to turn us all into werewolves if we failed. And he can rip through the walls of any cell you put me in. Then he'll bite me, and I'll spend the rest of my life clawing myself to pieces on the full moon. Anything is better than that. Kill me. I don't want to be a monster."

            Harry saw Malfoy opening his mouth, and knew, without his speaking, that he was going to say something like that Rabastan already was one. He nudged him hard in the ribs, and Malfoy grunted but fell silent. The grunt made Rabastan turn his head and stare at him, though.

            "You were a prize, too," he whispered. "Did you know that? The Dark Lord promised Greyback that he could bite you once he no longer needed your family to have a claim to the Manor. Always so superior, whisking your robes away from Greyback and glaring down your nose at him. Did you think he wouldn't notice? Of course he notices when someone treats him like dirt."

            Malfoy closed his eyes, and said nothing. His pale face looked like ice now, that would shatter at a blow. Harry turned back to Rabastan, since both Klein and Olversvald seemed content to remain silent for now and let him handle the situation. "Why did Greyback want you to kill me so badly?" He had thought the werewolf was the kind of monster who would be happy Voldemort was gone, because then he could do what he wanted instead of having to follow some kind of rules.

            Rabastan looked at him and gave a bitter smile. "Because he knows that you'll come after him, eventually. You would see it as your duty to track him down and keep him from biting anyone else. He wants to stop you before you can."

            "And he sent you into the Forbidden Forest to do such a thing?" Olversvald asked quietly. "Were you living with the werewolf packs?"

            "There are no werewolf packs there," Rabastan said, sounding irritated that someone else didn't have the intimate knowledge of the Forbidden Forest that he did. "Only Greyback."

            Harry nodded. He should have thought about that. He'd heard howling in the Forest, everyone had, but it was either during the times when Remus was teaching at Hogwarts or not during the full moon. Greyback was halfway to werewolf all the time anyway. He could have--

            He could have told the Death Eaters to kill the wolfwere's pups. He would probably think of them as abominations anyway, or competition. He wouldn't want to leave them alive.

            Before Harry could ask, though, Rabastan turned his head away sharply and stared at the wall. Then he shook his head. "Macnair's dead," he said. "You should have guarded him better."

            "What?" Olversvald asked, and flowed to his feet in a battle stance, his hand on his wand. It was the first time Harry had heard him sound more than disappointed with someone. He turned his head, carefully scanning the walls to the sides and the door in front of him, and then flicked his wand. The bubble ward that had separated them from the other Aurors--and from sounds outside the cell, Harry realized now--vanished. Now they could hear the cacophony of screams and shrieks and roars from the distance.

            Olversvald swore, and began to run. Klein was right behind him, shrugging off the trailing cloak that she always wore. She wanted to be more battle-ready, too, Harry thought, his mind vaulting and shining into higher regions, the way it had when they battled the Death Eaters in the Forest.

            He leaped to his feet. Malfoy promptly grabbed his arm. "You can't leave me here!" he hissed. "If Greyback does want to bite me, and he's here..."

            Harry acted before he thought about it, turning his wand so it pointed at Malfoy. A sleeping charm would have worked to hold him behind, but wouldn't keep him safe. There was only one spell Harry could think of that would protect him but mean Malfoy wasn't right behind him, causing more danger than Harry could keep him out of. "Bulla invicta!"

            The air around Malfoy bulged and rippled, and then he was floating off the floor inside a glowing, transparent bubble. Harry punched the side, and winced, watching as his knuckles began to bleed. On the other hand, Malfoy was clearly still breathing. Yes, he'd cast the Indestructible Bubble they'd started to learn about in Charms right, although it was usually used to hold things and not people.

            Malfoy slammed his fists into the inside of the bubble, and stared at Harry. "Potter, you incredible git," he said, in a tone that promised much more deadly vengeance later.

            "I need you to stay safe," Harry said simply, and then cast a tether that would link to the bubble and then to his magic. That way, it would follow him but not get in the way like it would if he tied it to his wrist or his leg or something. He faced the door and ran out of the room, heading towards the screaming.

            "Only you," Malfoy said in disgust, closing his eyes and leaning his forehead against the inside of the bubble. Harry saw that from the corner of his eye, of course. He was busy watching out for threats in front of him, and didn't have the time for Malfoy's melodramatics.

            "Only me what?" Harry jerked to a stop in front of the corridor that suddenly opened up in front of him and looked around. The walls were blank stone, and although he could hear lots of screaming, it seemed to come equally from the two side corridors that branched off here. Harry sucked his lip, and then took the right one. That would probably get him to the center of Greyback's rampage just as fast.

            "Only you would run towards screaming instead of away from it," Malfoy muttered. "And only you would cage up the one person who you can trust to be on your side."

            Harry shrugged. Malfoy could take the shrug for an apology if he wanted to. That was the way Harry kind of intended it. "Greyback wants to bite you, and I can't take the chance. And you looked like you might be so afraid that you would get in the way instead of help, and I can't take the chance on that, either."

            Malfoy hissed at him, but Harry didn't have the time to listen, because there was suddenly a confused group of Aurors in front of him, shooting curses at each other. Harry wondered if Greyback had hit them with a Confundus Charm or something, and then saw the incredibly fast shape that darted through the middle of them, his clawed hands swinging out and marking person after person with the kind of scratches he had used on Bill.

            Bill. Malfoy. All the people who might suffer if he gets away.

            Harry's mind cleared and settled into place, even more than it had during the battle in the Forbidden Forest. He stepped forwards and sent a load of bright sparks roaring out of his wand.

            The sparks shone above his head and then spelled out, FENRIR GREYBACK IS A LOSER.

            "Oh, now we're going to die," he heard Malfoy moan in the bubble behind him, and then a slam that was probably his head falling against the side of the bubble, once again. That was all right. He could have as little faith as he liked. Harry knew his spellcasting would last even if he died and hold Malfoy safe.

            His gaze focused on Greyback, who had come to a halt long enough to read the message in the sparks, and was now looking right at him.

            He looked exactly the way he had the last time Harry saw him. Big, thuggish, covered with shaggy grey hair, with long, wickedly-curving yellow nails and fangs more than teeth. His eyes glowed yellow. He had nothing but madness and idiocy in them. Of course, that would make sense for someone who wanted to bite Malfoy just for being Malfoy, and someone who had come into a mess of Aurors to attack them.

            He's done well enough against them so far.

            That was all Harry had time to think of before Greyback tamped down his legs and soared out of the group of Aurors, heading straight for him. It was a wolf's leap, but again, that wasn't a surprise. Harry had read a little about werewolves this summer, and it was possible for them to pick up animal traits if they didn't hate and despise their beast side the way Remus had.

            Harry lifted his wand, and watched Greyback falling towards him. He didn't feel fear. He didn't feel much of anything but determination to take Greyback down and keep him from hurting anyone else, really. That was the good part about being the kind of "killer" personality that it seemed Klein thought he was.

            He waited until Greyback was directly above him, and he knew there would be no stopping or turning aside. Then he nodded and cast the spell that had been ready to go ever since he understood that it was a werewolf attacking them. "Hasta argenta!"

            A long row of silver spears appeared in midair between him and Greyback. Greyback had time to yelp before the longest one took him through the heart, but nothing more than that. And then the rest coiled in like a hedgehog's spines and stabbed him again and again, through the head and the spine and the legs and the arms. He opened his mouth in what Harry thought could be a scream, but Harry never heard the noise. His head dangled and his mouth opened and his tongue spilled out, and then he was hanging, spitted, in the air above Harry, in silence.

            Harry stared up at him. He was covered with blood, he noted absently, on his face and his arms and his shirt. Malfoy, still hovering in the bubble nearby and staring at him, hadn't been splattered at all.

*

            SP777: She actually wants to be a good teacher and help the students, but as she sees it, Harry is making her main job (and reason for being there) absolutely impossible.

            BlasterBlurby: Thank you! Glad you’re enjoying it.
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Parsimony