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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 Twenty—Unwelcome Revelations

            Shit.

            That was all Harry could think for long minutes, when the spell had tossed him back into himself. He’d seen the route he took, or part of it. The Death Eaters, with their new Lord, were definitely not in the Forbidden Forest anymore. Harry wasn’t the greatest with maps, but he had learned a little bit after being on the run last year, and more than that, some of the kinds of tree had looked familiar. He thought they were in the Forest of Dean.

            He should go back and report this to Klein. She would contact the other Aurors, and maybe, with enough advance warning and without the great Harry Potter to protect, they would prove competent enough to take down Malfoy and his followers.

            He should do a lot of things. Maybe even tell Snape, since the Death Eaters would probably pay for news that he was still alive, and it was the kind of thing someone else might discover on accident.

            But all he could do was sit there and think about how he would tell Draco that his father was the new leader of the Death Eaters, and that Parkinson was with him.

            “What did you see?”

            Well, Harry thought, staring up at the wolfwere’s glowing amber eyes, the first thing I need to do, whatever I feel like doing, is explain to the person who gave me the means to see this in the first place.

            “They’re in another forest,” he said. “It looked like the Forest of Dean. A long way away from here,” he added, and hoped that would satisfy the wolfwere, since even if he was good with maps he doubted he could give directions that would make sense from a non-human perspective. “The leader is someone I thought was—trapped by other humans.” Lucius Malfoy had been sentenced to Azkaban, right? That part of the summer, Harry was fuzzy on, since he thought it was around the fourth funeral. “And he has werewolves with him. I saw them snarling, and they’re bigger than you are, and have sharper teeth.” That might keep the wolfwere from rushing off even if he could find someone who would tell him where the Forest of Dean was.

            “How?” the wolfwere asked, and jerked his head up at the sky where the half-moon floated. “It is not their territory of time.”

            Harry froze. Yes, he should have thought of that, too. How in the world could Malfoy have werewolves around him when it wasn’t the full moon?

            “Maybe they weren’t werewolves,” he said. “They looked—they had teeth enough, but they looked more like ordinary wolves. Just bigger.” And he had seen enough of Remus’s transformation during their third year to know that Remus had some definite differences. “I don’t know. I don’t know where they came from.”

            “I may,” said the wolfwere. “They are kin, the wolves who change with the moon. But they are kin in strange ways. They eat the blood and flesh of the fallen. Of my fallen. If they took enough of my pups to feed them…”

            Harry swallowed. He wanted to say that was disgusting, but of course it was, and that wasn’t the point. Death Eaters probably wouldn’t think of wolfweres as people, anyway, or even magical creatures worth respect, like the centaurs. And the wolfwere didn’t know what had happened. It was only a theory.

            A plausible one.

            And I still have no idea what I’m going to tell Draco.

*

            The smart thing, Harry told himself over and over the next day as he dragged through his classes and waved his wand when he had to and produced an indifferent potion and mumbled replies when called upon, would be to tell Auror Klein right now. She was in the castle, of course, and he had Defense that afternoon; it would take about two minutes. She would want a few more details, and she probably wouldn’t be happy when Harry told her about the wolfwere magic that had taken him there, but at least she knew about the wolfwere. And the Death Eaters might be out torturing and killing people right this second, for all Harry knew.

            But he didn’t want Draco to find out that his father was leading them when the fact popped up in a newspaper article. Which meant Harry had to be the one to break the news, news that would probably make Draco either angry or cold in response.

            He picked up his courage in Charms, where Draco was studying the latest notes on a variation of the Memory Charm that was meant for groups and mumbling to himself. Harry waited until Flitwick was on the other side of the classroom and everyone else seemed to be concentrating on Triad Charms and couldn’t possibly overhear. Then he put his hand on Draco’s and cleared his throat.

            Draco stared at him. “There’s a difference between acknowledging each other as friends and groping me, Potter,” he said.

            Harry yanked his hand away so fast his quill went flying to the floor. He thought half the room leaned forwards in response. Most people in the school seemed to suspect that Harry and Draco’s new friendship was a trick they were playing on each other, or on everyone else, and it would erupt in flying fists and screaming insults like usual any day now.

            “Is there a problem, boys?” Flitwick squeaked, and started back towards them, his face set in a few stern lines that reminded Harry he’d fought in the Battle of Hogwarts.

            Harry shook his head and bent down to pick up the quill. “No problem, Professor,” he said. “We just started a spark of magic that we didn’t mean to.” He didn’t look at Draco, but he was sure the idiot would go along with his response. He had to. And he had to stop thinking that Harry was groping him.

            This is the problem with finding him interesting in a—a sexy way. You know he’s never going to feel the same, and you’ll just feel more and more like an idiot the longer this goes on.

            “That’s right, Professor,” Draco said, and he was much better at the calm voice and fluttering eyelashes that teachers found so charming. “You gave us powerful magic to work with, and sometimes it startles us with just how powerful it is.”

            Flitwick eyed them, and Harry knew he didn’t entirely believe them, given that they had perfect control of their Triad Charms most of the time. But doing well in the class seemed to have got them the kind of tolerance that normally only Hermione had. He nodded and turned back to helping Neville and Seamus with their group.

            “What was that all about?” Draco hissed, before Harry could say anything.

            So much for his plan to break the news about Lucius as gently as possible. Harry took a deep breath and said, “I know who the new leader of the Death Eaters is. The wolfwere helped me see them last night. They’re hiding in the Forest of Dean, and—and your father is with them. Leading them, I think. Sorry,” he added, as he watched Draco’s face go so pale it looked as if it were made of glass.

            Draco clenched his hands on the tabletop, and for a moment Harry thought he would push his chair back and hurry out of Charms. But he had probably felt the Slytherins staring at them along with everyone else, and that would draw attention, which Harry knew he didn’t want. He took his hands back into his lap for a moment and said, “My father would not be doing that. My father is in Azkaban.”

            Well, that confirmed the trial Harry couldn’t remember, at least. He nodded. “I know. Maybe it was someone using a glamour of his face. But you know that if anyone else sees him, the rumors about your family’s involvement will probably start anyway.”

            "Yes," Draco murmured, his eyes shut and his lips moving for a moment after he started speaking, as if he was in prayer. Then he shook his head and opened his eyes, his stare grim and penetrating. "You won't spread the rumors yourself?"

            "Not rumors," Harry said, and lowered his voice even further, because he could have sworn that the Slytherins were staring at them harder than usual. "But I have to tell the Aurors where the Death Eaters are. They'll need to know who to look for, and if that person is still using the glamour of your father's face, then they'll need to know how to find the leader."

            Draco's hand was over his a moment later, tightening down so desperately that Harry winced. He started to open his mouth to make a joke out of who was groping who, but the look on Draco's face dried up all the words, and apparently all the saliva, in his mouth. He sat back and wished they were permitted cups of water in Charms. Then he looked elsewhere--just to make sure that Flitwick wasn't circling towards them, of course. Not because he was afraid he couldn't continue meeting Draco's eyes.

            "You--you don't have to tell them," Draco said, and he was practically playing with Harry's fingers now, picking them up and putting them back down on the table. His head was bowed and his voice was a low murmur. "You don't. The Aurors could find out the truth from some other source. They might have by now and be watching them, anyway. You don't know. And you've never liked Klein."

            Harry swallowed. This had been what he was more than half-afraid of, and of course it had to turn up now like some scenario out of nightmare. He didn't want to refuse Draco, he didn't, but the thought of weighing Draco's comfort and peace of mind against the physical safety of other people--

            Either way he made the decision, he would hurt someone. There was no right thing to do.

            "The last time I talked to Klein, we rather made it up," he mumbled. "And what if the Aurors aren't watching, if they don't have any idea?"

            Draco closed his eyes, then opened them. "I'll let you tell them," he said. "Send an anonymous owl. On one condition."

            "All right," Harry said, while part of his mind rebelled and whispered that Draco couldn't tell him what to do, not if Harry didn't allow him to.

            "As long as you come with me first, to the Forest of Dean, and try to find out who's using the glamour of my father's face, and strip it off him," Draco said, with such deadly, soft calm that it took Harry a moment to realize what he was saying. "I don't care who they capture, as long as it's not someone who can convince people they're my father."

            "Draco," Harry said, and Draco tilted his head to the sound of his name, and the look in his eyes--

            It was the way he'd looked during sixth year.

            Harry flinched. Draco felt the flinch travel through him, but he said nothing. Either he sensed that that was the best way to win his argument at this point, or he just didn't know what to say. He sat there, and Harry could feel the way he was holding himself back, the way his hands didn't flick open and shut and the way he didn't look off to the side because of strict control.

            On the one hand, it was the sort of adventure that Harry would have suggested or done without hesitation during his fifth year. It was the sort of thing he had done with Ron and Hermione and Ginny and Luna and Neville when they had gone to the Ministry. And he had known Luna a much shorter time than he'd known Draco right then.

            On the other hand, she wasn't an enemy for seven years, and then someone you feel sorry for but can't do much for.

            Harry swallowed. Well, whatever the thing was with Draco, and whenever he would be able to figure it out, it had already gone beyond pity. So that wasn't a good enough reason to refuse to do what Draco wanted.

            "I have no idea how we can do that safely," he said, leaning in and lowering his voice. "And--Draco, as awful as this probably sounds to you, I would rather see your family's reputation tarnished again than see you hurt."

            Draco stared at him, his lips slightly parted. Then he laughed. It was a gentle, still sound that seemed to ripple through Harry and settle somewhere near the base of his spine, and make it possible for him to breathe again.

            "That's not awful," he said. "That's--nice." Again, Harry had the sense that he was holding himself back, that he would have said something different if they were alone, or at least in some other place than Charms class. "But I think I can guarantee that we can go in safety. There are still some spells that my father taught me and that I know how to use, unlike the incantation that ruined my friends. I can--I can make sure that we don't get caught. By anyone. Death Eaters or Aurors."

            "Or professors?" Harry asked skeptically. Maybe it was silly, but he worried more about getting out of the school without getting caught than he did about the Death Eaters catching them in the Forest. Maybe because he'd spent all of last year running around places like the Forest of Dean and only been caught by Death Eaters once.

            "Or professors." Draco's smile came and went. "I promise. Trust me, and I can teach you how to perform those spells, too. And with as powerful as you are, I don't think I have to worry about us escaping alive."

            Harry bit his lips. "Okay," he said. "But--there's something else that's important, too. You say that you want to strip the glamour off this bloke's face. But what's going to keep him from just putting it back on again the instant we're gone? We might reveal that he's not Lucius to his followers, but unless we had Aurors waiting right there or unless the other Death Eaters are excited about following your father in particular--"

            "I know a spell that will prevent that," Draco said, and again his smile came and went. "I promise you, of all the problems that I'm concerned about, the least important is that one."

            Harry nodded unwillingly. "But then, why not just owl the Ministry with the information about that spell? Then they could use it when they captured them, and they would know that he wasn't your father."

            Draco let out a long, rattling stream of breath. "Because I don't trust the Ministry to be anything but incompetent," he said. "And because, frankly, I don't think they would use it. They would be too interested in an excuse to destroy my family."

            "Even if it meant people would blame them for failing to keep Azkaban secure from escapes?"

            Draco shook his head suddenly, hair flying, and again Flitwick started towards them. Harry held up a hand and looked pleadingly at their professor, and Flitwick hesitated. Harry could read clearly in his eyes that it would only be for a second, though, so he turned back to Draco and tried to listen.

            "I can't think of every single problem and every single thing that might come up," Draco whispered, so insistently that Harry felt his breath even though they were still several inches apart. "I need to do this, and either you help me or you don't."

            And put like that, there was no alternative. Harry could owl the Ministry or tell Klein or explain to someone else what was going on and let the professors deal with Draco, but not if he wanted to keep Draco's friendship.

            And you've always been willing to do mad things for your friends. Why is this any different?

            "Fine," he hissed back, and then sat up, because Flitwick was behind them and speaking about Triad Charms. Draco looked up and gave the professor a dazzling smile, then turned a look on Harry that had a command in it. Harry nodded and made the right preparations to lend his power to Draco, which probably didn't feel as natural as it should because they hadn't practiced as often as they should have.

            Then again, it's a little hard to worry about schoolwork when you have the threat of death and discovery and losing your family hanging over your head.

            When Draco cast, using Harry's power, the resulting Incendio melted several stones in the wall behind Flitwick's desk. Flitwick raced about putting out the fires and squeaking praise of them at the same time, and Draco leaned back in his chair, his face pale and intent, one hand rising as if to toy with the buttons of his robe.

            Harry saw several Slytherins watching Draco and whispering, and wondered what they knew about Draco's gestures--nervous or otherwise--that he didn't. He settled them by glaring so ferociously that there was a mad scramble to hide from him. At least some of them, fucked-up Memory Charm or not, had learned from what happened to Parkinson. They might fear the wrath of the professors if they injured Harry more than Harry himself, but Harry didn't care. Let them hate, so long as they feared.

            When he remembered where that quote came from, he really had to pause and consider what the bloody hell he was doing.

            But another look at Draco's face reminded him of what they both had to lose, and he remained silent.

*

            "You have not visited me in long enough that I wondered if you intended to return."

            Harry winced a little as he watched Snape's fingers hunt among the flat fern leaves in front of him, and then wondered why. Snape had said many more cutting things, some in recent memory. And he hadn't said anything about needing more ingredients. They had apparently solved the problem of the werewolf blood and how it might have affected Harry. There was nothing more for them to discuss. Harry had visited as much out of curiosity as out of thinking that Snape might need him.

            "Sorry," Harry said, leaning back against the side of the Shrieking Shack, unable to conceal a yawn. Yep, another night's interrupted sleep. At least Draco wanted to take a day or so to plan before they set off for the Forest of Dean, so Harry might be able to sleep through tomorrow night. Maybe. If he could avoid Klein's suspicious eyes, already bent on him. "I just--well, I learned something I had to tell Draco, and it disturbed him."

            "I see," Snape said, and turned back to the potion in front of him. It had turned black like tar, and smelled like tar, and Harry couldn't imagine that he was going to drink it. But maybe that wasn't the final step and it would change again before it got to the stage where he had to consume it. "And what in the world could disturb Mr. Malfoy enough that he would come to you for comfort? Something else about his friends?"

            Harry yawned, and watched as Snape punctured a single smelly bubble from the potion with a dirty nail. He hadn't had enough sleep. That had to be the reason he said what he did, and not some lingering hope that Snape would help them. God knew the git couldn't help anyone right now. "That his father's trying to be the new Voldemort. Or someone wearing a glamour of his father's face, anyway."

            Snape stared at him, and didn't puncture the next bubble that crept up. Harry waited, because for all he knew this one was supposed to creep past the rim, but when it got to the point that it would swell over, he made a choked noise and pointed. The smell was getting bad enough to make his eyes water.

            Snape gave a short curse under his breath and stabbed the bubble. It broke. "That nearly ruined the potion," he said, not looking at Harry. "I must ask that you not visit if your visits are to be so destructive."

            "Whatever." Harry slumped back against the wall and rubbed his hand into his eyes. "But Draco's convinced it's someone using a glamour of his father's face, because his father is in Azkaban. So he wants to go to the forest and strip the glamour off. He says he has some special charm that will prevent it from coming back." Another yawn slipped past his control.

            "No such charm exists," Snape murmured, and concentrated on stirring the cauldron with a ladle that looked like tarnished silver to Harry, which meant it almost matched the color of the potion. "Study how he might, he will never find one. Perhaps he means to kill the man and rescue the good name of his family."

            "He won't let me contact the Aurors." Harry leaned his head further back. The rough wooden wall felt surprisingly comfortable for the nape of his neck. "I think he believes it's a glamour, and he believes he can take it off. And letting the Aurors take this man means that his family's reputation is down the drain. He believes it."

            "And that, of course, is enough reason to run away and put yourselves in danger."

            Harry looked up, then blinked. "Why, Snape," he said gently. "Was that a note of warning I heard? Could it be that you're still a professor after all, underneath, despite you saying that you want to leave everything about that life behind?"

            "I am concerned for the boy I took Unbreakable Vows to protect, and the other one I raised as a sacrifice who never understood his proper place in the scheme of things until he had to die or save the world." Snape glanced away from the potion long enough to stare into Harry's eyes, and then jerked his head back down towards the cauldron. "Those Vows no longer apply, due to the wording that his mother chose. But the boy I made them for is still alive. And so is the other, Albus notwithstanding."

            "I don't think Dumbledore would have asked me to die if he thought there was any other choice," Harry said. "But I had to kill the Horcrux inside me."

            Snape made a sharp movement with one hand, and Harry thought he regretted starting the bloody subject. "It does not matter," he murmured. "But there is no spell that works exactly as Mr. Malfoy thinks it does, and if you insist on going with him, you put yourselves both in danger. You should use the knowledge the way that it first occurred to you to do and stay within the protection of the Aurors."

            "That wouldn't prevent Draco from leaving on his own," Harry pointed out. "At least this way, he trusts me enough to take me with him."

            This time, Snape's stare was long enough that another bubble crept up, but he must have learned to watch it from the corner of his eye and simply popped it without looking away from Harry. "You have thought that far ahead," he said, but it didn't sound like a question and so Harry waited for the real one. "You care that much about him?"

            Harry nodded. "And I don't think it's the right time to leave him alone. Not when he has his friends to worry about, and now his father."

            Snape's face was unreadable as he watched him. Then he nodded. "Perhaps you are right," he said. "But nevertheless, you will take a potion I will brew with you. Come back tomorrow night to fetch it from me. I can make it from the ingredients I have here."

            So much for a night's uninterrupted sleep, Harry thought wryly, but the thought of the greater burdens on Snape and Draco made him nod at once. "Thank you," he added.

            Snape turned back to the cauldron with a grunt, and Harry knew himself dismissed. He made his way down the tunnel beneath the Shack, trying to stay under the Cloak and not reveal himself to any watching Aurors with the volume of his yawns. The only good thing about his weariness was that, once he was up in the Tower and then in bed, sleep came quickly.

*

            unneeded: I think Harry would disagree that he's learning to manage Draco. He didn't manage to stop him from going to the Forest, after all.

            ChaosLady: Both Harry and Draco think it's probably not him.

            Fullmoons_wings: Thanks! I think that because this story isn't from Draco's POV, it's hard to see exactly how this is affecting him. Suffice it to say that he would never tell Harry his plans or give Harry the chance to betray him like that if he didn't trust him fully.

            And touching him could be a good sign, as long as it's not just manipulative, of course.

            SP777: I think the conversation has shifted back towards Draco's concerns here, but hopefully in an understandable way.
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Parsimony