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Crimes of Passion	By : Lomonaaeren Category: Harry Potter > Slash - Male/Male > Harry/Draco Views: 7423 -:- Recommendations : 1 -:- Currently Reading : 1
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Part Three. To Ask.

            "Mr.--Malfoy?"

            Draco knew that hesitation between his first name and his last. He only smiled and leaned on the desk while he waited for the shopkeeper to decide whether Draco was good enough to see one of Potter's former victims.

            The squat woman stared at the card that Draco had given her, nibbling her lip. Then she looked up at him, obviously prepared to align herself as a barrier between Draco and the man he'd come to see.

            "He hasn't done anything wrong," the woman said. "He never has. He's a good boy, Quintus is."

            "I have no doubt," Draco said gently. "I only want to talk to him for ten minutes or so. I'm sure that he can make the decision as to whether he wants to see me or not, and have it stick." Actually, he wasn't sure of that at all; the only thing he knew for certain about Potter's victim, beyond his sex and his name, was that he was older now than he had been four years ago. But the words seemed to reassure the woman, who bobbed her head.

            "Of course," the woman said, and then turned and called for Quintus, leaving Draco to stare around the shop. It was a small, dark, cloth-smelling place, trying to set itself up as a rival to Madam Malkin's. Malkin didn't need to fear the competition as long as it remained so dark that Draco thought the apprentices would struggle to set their stitches even, and so crowded with robes that no one could see the ones that might fit them best.

            Steps called Draco's attention back behind the counter, and he turned to face Quintus Herrington.

            Herrington came to a stop when he saw Draco, staring at him with an open mouth. Then he shut it and swallowed. "Er," he said, shifting both hands through his hair. "You wanted to speak with me, sir?"

            Draco assessed him quickly--narrow dark eyes, hair of that silvery color you got on pure-bloods sometimes, painfully thin body--and then nodded and put the right amount of warmth into his smile. "Yes, I did." He leaned forwards and lowered his voice. "This might bring up painful memories for you, but it's possible that you could help a condemned, innocent man emerge into the sunlight again." Or satisfy my curiosity, which is as important even though it doesn't sound like it. "If it gets too painful, then you can stop and recover."

            Herrington stared at him. "Oh, you want to speak about the night I was tortured?" he whispered.

            "Yes," Draco said. "The night Harry Potter tortured you." Subtly, he waved his wand, raising a thick barrier of silence around them. He had no interest in letting someone else overhear this. "Is there anything you can tell me about that night that isn't too painful, first?"

            Herrington swallowed with a grimace. Then he said, "I don't--remember much. The Healers told me when I woke up that I had two broken ribs, missing fingernails that had been pulled off, an eye that he'd almost gouged out, and a hole in my head."

            Draco blinked. "Excuse me?"

            "A hole in my head." Herrington patted the back of his hair. "He'd drilled a hole straight through my skull to the brain. It was small. I don't know what--what he'd intended to do with it." He shuddered. "The Healers thought that maybe he was going to pour something down it."

            Draco held his stomach still with an effort. "I see. Can you tell me where you were when he attacked you?"

            "That's the hell of it," Herrington said. "I can't. I know that Shirley and I were on our way back from a party one of our friends had given. I know that because they told me, later," he added, sourly. "Someone loomed up in front of us. Then it all goes blurry. I remember feeling like I was underwater. The Healers said my mind probably blocked out the memories because the pain was so bad."

            Draco's throat stuck. He had to clear it, though, and say, "I see. Do you know why he did it?"

            "No," Herrington said, and his voice sank. "I never learned that, either then or later. It was--so strange, you know? I feel as though I ought to know. Why would Harry Potter target me? Why did he hate me enough to do that? But the only thing I really remember is that figure, and then someone saying, 'I'm sorry. I'm so sorry.'" He paused, frowning. "It was a male voice, but I don't think it was him. Because that person took us to St. Mungo's, and why would he do that when he tortured us?"

            Draco nodded silently. He wanted to ask another question, but it took him long moments to find the words. "The papers said that the pressures of the war might have driven him mad." They had always said that, and so they had gone on repeating it even though they didn't know the details of Harry's crime. "Do you think that's it?"

            Herrington laughed without humor. "I don't know. I can't remember. And I don't think Shirley can, either. Her injuries were worse than mine, and she suffered the same thing, her mind cutting off the memory of that night. It's not that I really want to remember," he added, musing now. "But that bastard nearly stole my life from me. I don't think it's fair that he should be able to steal time as well."

            Draco thanked him, asked a few more questions that turned out to produce nothing new, and then left. He had to lean against the wall of the shop before he got more than five steps away.

            The underwater feeling and the lack of memories could be Herrington's mind taking care of the pain for him, yes.

            They were also symptoms of a Memory Charm.

            Draco clenched his fists tight and reminded himself that he had expected baffling results. Or at least he should have, after reading the testimony. There was no single gathered pack of answers to his questions. Instead, they were scattered across the minds of various people, and he would have to gather them for himself, the same way that he found ingredients when preparing to make a potion.

            So. He would speak with Shirley Colnbrook, the second of the victims, and most likely find another Memory Charm.

            Draco gave a small shake of his head. He didn't mind admitting, if only to himself, that a large part of the reason he was so puzzled had to do with the nonexistent motive behind these crimes. Potter seemed to have chosen these children randomly to torture. He seemed to have cast a Memory Charm on them without reason. He had said that he was protecting Draco, but neither Herrington nor Colnbrook were related to anyone who would have a grudge against Draco. And unless the Memory Charm had wiped out his antipathy to Draco along with the night of the attack, Herrington wasn't his enemy.

            Frowning, Draco turned in place and Apparated.

*

            Colnbrook sat staring at the desk, her fingers over her face. "I never expected anyone to mention it again," she said softly. "It's overwhelming."

            Draco nodded and made small encouraging noises without committing himself to anything that involved words. They sat in the empty Potions classroom with the echoes of gleeful shouts lingering around them. From what little Draco had seen as he entered at the end of class, most of the students respected Professor Colnbrook more than they had Snape, but that didn't prevent their love of the end of class.

            Colnbrook sat back and stared at Draco. Draco gazed at her in return. Colnbrook was an ordinary enough woman, with a large pale forehead, long pale lashes, and thick pale brown hair wound neatly into a braid down her back. Draco would have passed her without a second glance on the street, certainly not taking her for the new Potions master of Hogwarts.

            "Why do you want to know?" Colnbrook asked, and a suspicious glint had entered her eyes now.

            Draco smiled sadly. He had prepared for this role. "You probably know that Harry Potter and I were lovers before he left the wizarding world," he said.

            "It was so notorious I could hardly miss it." Colnbrook's fingers gripped individual strands of hair hard.

            Draco nodded, making sure his eyes were wide, his lips slightly parted. "And--he never once hinted to me that he had such tendencies. I want to know why it happened and how I can avoid taking a lover who has tendencies like that again in the future. It came out of nowhere." He dropped his voice, and Colnbrook leaned in. "No warning. Nothing but smiles one day, then blood and pain the next. You were the victims of his attack, but I was the victim of my shattered trust in him."

            For a moment, he thought he'd overdone it; Colnbrook leaned away from him again and stared at the wall. Perhaps he shouldn't have used the word "shattered."

            But then she looked at him and said, "You do understand. You're the only one I've found other than Quintus who does. And Quintus--well. Quintus is Quintus."

            Draco smiled and nodded, and then waited to see what she would tell him, understanding now that silence would be the best means to pull her thoughts out of her.

            Colnbrook released her hair and sat up straighter, cheeks glowing. "He was our hero. We were told that. We don't remember the war, of course, but it didn't matter. Not when we knew that we were growing up in a safe world because of him. Not when he didn't flaunt his heroism. I remember seeing a photograph of him, one that the Prophet had to snap because he was ducking into a pub and they hadn't got any new shots in months. He was waving one hand and shaking his head and smiling, turning away so that you could only see half the smile. That's what he was, someone humble who really had done just one extraordinary thing and then wanted to move on instead of resting on his laurels. An ordinary hero."

            Draco had to close his eyes. Was it possible for a heartbeat to sting?

            "And then it turned out that he was only avoiding the light because it would have revealed him for what he really was." Colnbrook slammed her hands into the table, scowling. "Someone with sadistic tendencies, someone who didn't care about those he hurt. He could save the whole wizarding world from Voldemort, but not a pair of teenagers from himself."

            Draco waited until he could safely open his eyes again. He didn't think Colnbrook, caught up in her own memories, would notice. "Yes," he whispered. "You saw him attack, then? Herrington remembers nothing."

            Colnbrook abruptly flushed and glanced away. "I didn't say that," she muttered. "My mind protected me from it, the same way that his did. But I know he wasn't the one who took us to St. Mungo's, and that he nearly killed us, and that's enough for me." She raised one hand and touched her left ear. "He filled my ear canals with acid and smeared my fingernails in something that kept them from growing back. I didn't have use of my left arm for months, he'd broken the bone in so many places."

            Draco told himself to listen, past the awful details. "Herrington described a sensation of a looming figure and an underwater slurry of loss," he said carefully. "Is that the way you would?"

            "Not underwater, maybe," Colnbrook said. "I awoke feeling dreamy and like there was something important I'd forgotten." Her lips tried to form a smile, then fell back into place. "Of course, the Healers told me what it was."

            Another symptom of a Memory Charm.

            Draco didn't let himself show his excitement. He murmured, "Do you feel that you're in danger from Potter, still? Surely you know the rumors that say he's returned to the wizarding world."

            Colnbrook shrugged. "I don't know why he went after me in the first place. I'm as safe from him as anyone else, I reckon. He could come after me, or Herrington, or do something to someone else, or hurt you." She studied him with big, somber eyes. "I know you defended him. It infuriated me at the time, but it might put you in more danger now. What would you do if he came to you and asked you to cover up for his killings?"

            Draco returned some soft, suitable answer to that, and continued asking until it became clear that Colnbrook had received nothing that could be construed as a warning. If Potter had come back because of his earlier crime, then it seemed that he didn't intend to directly threaten Colnbrook or Herrington.

            It seemed that way. But given that Draco didn't know why the attacks had happened in the first place, it really wasn't an answer.

            When he left the school, Draco leaned for a moment against the warm stones and watched several students playing Quidditch on the pitch. They yelled at each other, their voices as thin as those of crickets. The chill in the air didn't seem to bother them at all, nor the dancing grey clouds on the edge of the sky that bespoke rain.

            Draco could see Potter on one of those brooms so easily, if he closed his eyes.

            He had been annoying, self-righteous, a plague on Draco's family and freedom and sense of honor, but he hadn't been someone Draco could ever see engaging in reckless murder and torture. No, if there was an answer as to why Potter had done this, he didn't think it lay in their past at school.

            He turned and walked slowly towards Hogsmeade, concentrating on the crunch of his boots in the grass rather than the wild, directionless spinning of his mind.

*

            Draco finished another draught of the Concealment Potion and rose to his feet. There was no one else he could question about the assault on Herrington and Colnbrook, no direct witness. He could go to St. Mungo's and speak with the Healers who had tended the two children, but they could only give him evidence of the wounds, not evidence of who had caused them, and Draco didn't think they were lying about that; it would have been too easy to check.

            So that left one other, obvious path.

            He slipped out of his bedroom and nearly ran headlong into Scorpius, who was walking down the corridor muttering to himself. Draco stood still. The Concealment Potion would not survive direct contact with someone else, at least not for more than a second or two.

            "...if he's right, then the spell ought to have the intended effect," Scorpius was saying. "But his math was wrong on the Arithmancy equations. Why should I think it would be right here? That two, for instance. What's it doing over there?" He paused and ruffled the parchment, tilting his head to the side as if that would make the numbers change shape or placement. "If he means it to be under the ten, then the equation is simple enough, but wrong. Or is it meant to be the square root of..."

            He wandered off. Draco smiled after him. Scorpius was in the brooding period, he thought, when his mind bubbled in his skull but he hadn't chosen his direction yet. When he did choose it, Draco thought it would be decidedly more spectacular than his own muted career as a Potions master.

            That encounter successfully avoided, Draco traveled down the stairs and towards the front door. He passed one house-elf slamming its head into the wall and moaning about how Scorpius had punished it. Draco rolled his eyes. The elf had probably stepped into Scorpius's way as he went by, and Scorpius wouldn't lightly brook an interruption into his thoughts.

            When he came out into the gardens, he stood with his eyes closed for a moment, turning his head. They'd had rain last night, and it seemed to have released a gush of moisture and sweetness from the ground, the way it always did. He could hear the light, shrill scream of a peacock in the distance, and the heavy swaying of the fruit trees. The grass crunched lightly beneath his feet as he passed; it was one reason that Draco mostly used the Concealment Potion indoors.

            But he intended to be in position long before his prey arrived, which would help to limit the noise he made.

            He reached the wall without incident and went up the stones easily, his fingers finding holes that he had forgotten existed in his conscious brain. When he dropped down on the other side, he found that he had to worry about the creaking of his knees giving him away, as well as the temptation to cry out when his back was wrenched. Draco clamped down on his tongue and crouched.

            Potter was there already, where Draco hadn't expected to see him before midnight, his back to the walls as he carefully watched the fields beyond. Now and then he raised his wand when a bird cried or a breeze shifted. He always shook his head and lowered it again.

            Draco studied him carefully. Potter moved with a limp, but the Carver's Curse had obviously been healed, which meant he had some confederate within the wizarding world. Draco knew that Potter had never been very good with healing spells.

            Unless that was another lie.

            But Draco had no intention of becoming involved in endless levels of deception, driving himself mad by wondering if there was always one more angle he hadn't considered, if he was doing exactly what his enemies wanted him to by wondering, and then acting wildly because that might be the opposite of what they wanted. He had come here for one purpose, and after watching Potter for ten minutes and noting no signs that he was waiting for someone, he rose to his feet and moved forwards, brushing his fingers along Potter's shoulder.

            Potter yelped and spun around. His eyes seemed to beat like his heart, and he leveled his wand at Draco in the few moments before the Concealment Potion faded and he became visible. Then his arm dropped as though someone had cut his tendons and he turned away, looking anxiously back towards the Manor.

            Draco shook his head. "I won't unleash the guard peacocks on you," he said, and then wondered why. That had once been a running joke between him and Potter. He thought it hardly a good idea to bring up now.

            Potter gave him a quick glance, then nodded. "I never thought you would," he said. "I was never afraid of you."

            Draco leaned against the wall, knowing he should spare more attention for Potter's wand hand, keeping his gaze on his face anyway. "Then tell me what you're afraid of," he said. "Tell me about your dark nature, what made you hate those children in the first place. I've spoken to both of them, you know."

            "Then you know the depths of my depravity." Potter turned and stared into the darkness.

            "Tell me what you're afraid of," Draco repeated, and shifted closer. This near, he could see other differences between this Potter and the one of his memory. He had shoulders that never seemed to stop hunching, and fingers that crawled continuously.

            "This is a game," Potter said, to the night instead of to him. "Because someone else made the first move, and then I made it so. You can never know. I promised that, and I'll keep my promise." He glanced at Draco one more time, then turned away. His body tensed as an owl's call echoed from a distance, then relaxed as much as it could.

            "I can never know what?" Draco asked. "And why?" He shifted closer again, wondering if he could grab Potter's wand before Potter realized what was going on.

            "The truth," Potter said, blinking at him. Apparently it hadn't occurred to him that there could be more than one thing Draco couldn't know.

            "And why not?" Draco's hand shook on his wand. He closed his eyes and kept himself in the darkness with his breathing for a few seconds.

            "Because," Potter said, in the gentlest voice Draco had ever heard from a torturer, "it would destroy you."

            "You think," Draco said, the words sticking in his throat like a bone. "You think this hasn't destroyed me? To have you gone? To have you admit these crimes to me?" He looked at Potter, his eyes quicker to open again than his mouth. Potter stared at his dangling wand and shook his head.

            "I inflicted a wound on you," he whispered. "I know. I'm sorry. But it's one you can recover from." He looked at Draco again, and his hands twitched, on the verge of reaching out. "This one, you wouldn't."

            Draco would have pounded his fists against the wall and screamed at the sky if he was a little bit younger. As it was, he clenched his teeth down and said, as quietly as he could, "Why don't you let me decide that?"

            "There's no way to do that," Potter murmured, "short of telling you the horrible thing and then letting you react to it. Which would be the same as inflicting the wound." He shook his head. "I'm sorry. I said that. And I'm still sorrier than you can know for leaving you." His voice abruptly broke in the middle, and he turned his head away to stare at the ground. "I wish--I would give a lot to come back to you. To have our lives be exactly the same as they were before I found this out. Damn the way I look, anyway."

            Draco narrowed his eyes. "You're not going to convince me you did this because Herrington and Colnbrook made fun of the way you look, Potter."

            "My damn eyes," Potter rambled on, as if he hadn't heard Draco. "You'd think twenty years in the Aurors would be enough. There's no need to go on looking everywhere after that, is there? But I couldn't change the way I look."

            Draco shifted closer, hardly daring to breathe in case he disturbed Potter's confession. So Potter was talking about the way he saw things, rather than his looks.

            Not that that helped Draco understand what he was talking about in general, of course.

            "And who knows?" Potter said, his whisper rambling and purring. "I can't--I'm sure that I can't change things now. But if I hadn't looked in the first place, would it ever have happened? Maybe not. There are some people who feel threatened with a direct gaze, but not if you squint at them out of the corner of your eye. Maybe I could have done that. Maybe it would have been enough."

            Draco waited, but the rest of Potter's words slid into silence. He was leaning nearer Draco now, in a way that told Draco he probably wasn't conscious of having moved. Draco waited some more, and still nothing happened.

            He had to change the balance. So he said, "I don't believe you hurt Herrington and Colnbrook."

            Potter's head jerked up, and the look in his eyes was so wild that Draco skittered back a step. Potter shook his head and spoke with spit flying from his lips. "No, no, Draco, you have to believe me. I can see you at a distance and it'll be all right, but I can't see you dead. You can't--I'd rather lie to you all my life than see you hurt."

            "You fucking idiot," Draco said, "you think it didn't hurt when you left? You think it didn't hurt when I believed you? I want you back. You broke up my life, and for the sake of what? A bloody game? Something I can't even understand, much less care about? You ignorant fuck. I was in love with you."

            "Was," Potter said eagerly, although he'd staggered when Draco said those last words and didn't yet look as if he'd recovered. "Was. You still have the chance to heal from this, Draco, to walk away and not look back. You're not in love with me now, are you? The past tense is important. Walk away and don't look back."

            Draco was sure of his ground now, although still not sure of his reasons. He reached out and grasped Harry's collar, hauling him close. A week ago he would have been sure this move would get him killed; now, there was nothing in the world he believed less. Harry came with the tug, gasping, his eyelashes fluttering as if he would faint.

            "You ignorant fuck," Draco repeated. "I know that you loved me, too." He had once known no such thing, especially right after Harry left, but the certainty was like granite within him now. "Tell me what happened. That's the only way you can make up for what you did, for leaving me like this."

            Harry tensed, his eyes darting around, as if he thought they might have an audience. Draco looked into the darkness, unimpressed if so, but about ready to invite someone else to join in.

            "I love you enough to know how you would react," Harry whispered. "I told you. You have a chance at a normal life now. You won't if I tell you."

            "Is it some wide-ranging conspiracy aimed at Malfoys?" Draco tightened his grip and felt his fingernails scraping against skin at Harry's neck as well as cloth. His pulse pounded and he leaned closer still. "I can handle it. Is it a personal enemy? I can take care of that, too. Do you know some secret about my bloodline, my heritage, that you don't think I can live with? I would put up with knowing that I had a Muggleborn grandfather, Harry, just to have you back."

            Harry shook his head, and intolerably, the look in his eyes had shifted to one of pity. "You couldn't live with this, Draco," he said. "I'm sorry, but when I found out, I knew you couldn't. That's why I had to shelter you from the knowledge."

            "How does torture help with that?" The words burst out of Draco before he could stop them.

            "That's good, that's good," Harry whispered, as if encouraging a frightened child to go to bed. "Believe that. Say those words. Think them. Weave them into your life. It's the only way to make things right." And then, with a strong jerk, he broke from Draco and danced backwards.

            "If you ever found out the secret," he said, with a faint smile, "then you'd thank me for keeping it. Of course, if you found out the secret, it would be because I'd failed in my duty."

            "I'm not a child," Draco said, throat and voice both thickened. "You don't have to make decisions for me. Tell me, and we'll deal with it together."

            Harry shook his head. "I made my decision four years ago. It's the kind there's no coming back from."

            "Harry." The sound of his first name made Harry orient on him, and Draco used that moment. "Did you torture those children?"

            "Yes. Of course."

            And he was gone into the darkness again. Draco stood, listening, until he was sure that he heard the distant pop of someone Apparating.

            He turned back to the Manor, blood thrumming so hard it was difficult to walk, but sure of one thing: he was going to find out and decide for himself whether the effect of that secret was so shattering as Harry believed.

            He paused when he saw something in the grass behind him, and bent low. There was the perfect print of a boot, dragonhide, light in the step.

            Someone had been listening to their conversation.
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Crimes of Passion