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Bard of Morning's Hope	By : Lomonaaeren Category: Harry Potter > Slash - Male/Male > Harry/Draco Views: 9573 -:- Recommendations : 1 -:- Currently Reading : 2
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter and am not making any money from this story.

Chapter List
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Thank you again for all the reviews!
Chapter Five—Slip-Through
            “So that’s suspicious,” Ron said, after Harry had wound up the story of Dennis coming to see him and giving him Tatyana Kingston’s name.
            “Bloody suspicious,” Harry said, shifting so he could get more of the cushion under his knees. It had seemed ridiculous to him that he should have to be uncomfortable on a stone floor every time he wanted to firecall someone—and chats with Neville and Molly in particular could take a long time. So he had a cushion in front of the hearth now. “The only thing I can’t figure out is what Dennis wants. Is he trying to distract attention from himself? Or from someone else in the Muggleborn Legion? Or is it a distraction technique combined with real news about a missing woman who needs to be found?”
            Ron was silent for a moment, fingers rapping on the desktop. It made a pile of parchment tilt dangerously near the floor, and Ron had to break off whatever he was about to say to snatch the pile before it could fall. Harry looked up at the ceiling and whistled innocently.
            “Shut it, you,” Ron grumbled.
            “Then I can’t discuss anything with you,” said Harry, and blinked at him.
            Ron flipped him off. “You’re sure it’s a distraction technique,” he said.
            “What are the chances,” Harry said gently, “that Dennis would have noticed the pattern of Kingston’s disappearances coinciding with the Bard’s killings just now? What are the chances that he’d feel the need to come to us when news of Lucius Malfoy’s death hasn’t even been officially released yet?”
            “So how did he find it out?” Ron jumped in.
            “Through someone in his organization who likes to brag?” Harry shrugged. “Listen, I know you and Dennis have fought together a time or two.” Dennis and Ron both belonged to an informal dueling organization that liked to run pairs of wizards opposite each other instead of just having single duelists fight each other all the time, and Dennis and Ron had been a pair. “I’m not saying he is the Bard. I’m just saying I don’t believe him any more than I would Bellatrix walking up to me fluttering her eyelashes and saying I was the love of her life.”
            Ron shivered and clawed at his shoulder. “Thanks so much for that disturbing image, mate.”
            Harry grinned at him. “I live to spread my disturbing images around and make sure other people know all about them, too.”
            Ron rolled his eyes at him. “So what do you want me to investigate now? Dennis? Or just report on how the investigation into Kingston’s disappearance goes?”
            “Just report,” said Harry, and shrugged. “If you can without compromising your integrity or silencing orders. But since I’m part of this case now and I can’t leave the house unless I take the Malfoys with me—”
            “You’re going to receive reports anyway,” said Ron, and began to grin. “You want me to, what? Add that little something extra to them I did on the Gillencrest case?”
            “That would be helpful,” said Harry. “After all, that little something extra helped us solve the case, didn’t it?”
            Ron rolled his eyes again. “Helped you. I didn’t even realize how much vital information I was passing along to you at the time.”
            “But you did later. And you did it. That’s the important thing.” Harry shifted around on the cushion and sighed as he heard someone yell his name from upstairs. “I have things to take care of here. Keep me informed?”
            “Of course.” Ron flipped off a salute and then turned and left the office before Harry could yell at him for it, making continuing the firecall pointless. Harry still grumbled to himself as he shut down the Floo.
            “Potter!”
            That sounded like fear. Harry rolled to his feet and drew his wand, running straight for the stairs as he did so.
*
            Draco didn’t know how he was supposed to use a bathroom that had a portrait in it.
            “It’s not as though I care about what you look like, you know,” said the unpleasant old man in the portrait, sniffing a little. “I’m rather past that point of my existence.”
            “I don’t want you in here,” said Draco. “Point or no point.” He folded his arms and tried to stare down the portrait, while his mind worked furiously. Portraits could be gaps in the wards, couldn’t they? Draco knew that none of the pictured ancestors in his own manor would have betrayed their descendants to the Bard of Morning’s Hope, but he knew nothing about the Black ancestors, including this one.
            Even if they liked Mother, if they remembered her from her visits here as a child, the Black family had always been a little strange. What if they’d betrayed her and Draco for a lark, or under the sincere belief that they were doing good?
            “What’s the matter?” Potter came springing through the door, his cloak rippling behind him.
            Draco stared at him for a second. Potter had his wand out, his eyes narrowed as if he needed to shut out strong sunlight, and his body seemed to flow together into a collection of sleek, strong lines. He was every inch the Cool, Competent Auror.
            Draco swallowed, and a barely-noticed fear plaguing him died away. At least Potter was going to be able to track down the Bard of Morning’s Hope. Draco couldn’t watch the way he spun around, scanning the room for the threat, and doubt that.
            A second later, though, Potter slipped his wand back into its holster and shook his head at the portrait. “I didn’t realize that was a frame you could use, Phineas,” he said.
            Draco turned warily back to the man. “Phineas Nigellus?” he asked. “My mother told me a few tales about you.”
            “She left out all the best ones, I bet, or you would have shown me more respect,” said the portrait, and turned to talk to Potter before Draco could retort that it wasn’t as if Narcissa had told him what Phineas Nigellus looked like. “I only use this portrait frame when I sense strange magic in the house. I would never use it to spy on you, boy.”
            “Yes, well, I don’t want you to use it to spy on my guests, either,” said Potter, shaking his head. His hair was tangled and wind-worn, and he folded his arms and scowled at the portrait. “He’s my guest, all right? So is his mother. Go away.”
            “But I need to learn more about why,” said Phineas, and Draco could see the gleam in his eyes as he leaned back against a faint line that might have been a bookshelf in the blurred painting. “If only to reassure those old gossips back at Hogwarts that you might be on the brink of a chance of having more company, not squatting up here at all hours of the night like a raven in a paperwork nest.”
            Potter flushed, but his gaze never wavered. “Protecting them on a case. Lucius Malfoy died this morning.” He gave a quick glance at Draco, and then averted his eyes as if he was afraid that he might intrude on Draco’s grief. “Anyway, Grimmauld Place is the safest place for them right now.”
            Phineas straightened up and looked from Potter to Draco. “What a waste,” he remarked at last, and turned and disappeared from the frame.
            A little relieved that Phineas didn’t seem interested in coming back, Draco turned to Potter. “What does that mean?”
            Potter shook his head. “Phineas was Headmaster of Hogwarts at one time. He gossips with all of them, including Dumbledore, and apparently there are wagers going on as to the time when I’m tired of living alone and start—I don’t even know. Hanging out with my fans, dating, spending time with someone other than Ron and Hermione, deciding that I believe my own press and consider myself a hero and a public toast.” He waved a disgusted hand. “Portraits.”
            “And he thought—he thought I might be someone you would be interested in dating?” Draco only then knew how badly he’d been rattled by his father’s death, because he had picked up on that as the only noteworthy thing in Potter’s little monologue.
            “Yes,” said Potter. “If it bothers you, then I can give you another bathroom.”
            “It doesn’t bother me,” said Draco, and straightened up. He might be rattled, he might be unable to prevent the Bard’s attacks by himself, but he wasn’t going to be a coward about something he understood, in the middle of a warded and protected house, no less. “Go away. I’m just going to use the loo and take a shower now that there’s no spying portrait about.”
            “Of course,” Potter said, and turned and loped out of the bathroom.
            Draco exhaled an angry hiss as he started to take his clothes off. He didn’t know what he was angry at, but it felt good to have something to be angry about instead of just scared and shaken and wondering when the next blow would fall.
            Even if he had to admit that the stupid portrait probably deserved his anger more than Potter did.
*
            “No sign of her.”
            Harry leaned back and nodded slowly. Auror Grimstone was the one who had delivered the report, not because he’d been deeply involved in the search for Kingston, but because he had already undertaken the investigation and handled sensitive information about the Bard. “And the Muggleborn Legion wouldn’t let you see the records that specified she was gone on the nights of two other Bard attacks, I suppose?”
            Grimstone’s smile didn’t reach his eyes. “Creevey claims there aren’t any records, that this just comes from observations and memories.”
            Harry snorted. They knew from the information they had gained on the smuggling case that the Muggleborn Legion kept extensive records of everything, and their agents were encouraged to write down all these reports and different sorts of recollections so they could use “the weapon of the written word” against their tormentors. “Right. Well. Thanks for the report.”
            Grimstone touched his pointed hat—he was one of the traditionalists among the Aurors who insisted on wearing one at all times—and the Floo died down again. Harry put one hand thoughtfully over his mouth and stared up at the ceiling.
            He liked Dennis Creevey for the Bard. He certainly did. He fit the specifics Harry had privately decided on: Muggleborn, had reason to think evil of people on Voldemort’s side who had survived the battle where his brother had died, and had the required fanatical determination, which he had demonstrated when he founded the Muggleborn Legion.
            On the other hand, Harry had been close to Dennis several times now, not just outside his wards today but when he visited the Muggleborn Legion to ask about cases and interviewed Dennis about his connections with the smuggling case and even when they had met casually before Harry became an Auror. Harry thought he was pretty good at picking up on someone’s magic. He couldn’t tell what spells someone was capable of casting, or even whether they had a specific ability like an Animagus form. But he could tell whether they were particularly focused, or determined, or powerful.
            Hermione’s magic was a quiet song singing away to itself, starred and dotted with sparkling bursts of notes that danced up and down the scale. Harry knew—because he knew her—that it meant she was good at figuring out new uses for common spells, and brewing potions she’d never completed before. Her magic had been one of the first focal points that helped him figure out what his impressions meant.
            Ron’s magic was a lazy river, most of the time. Ron had power, but not the focus Hermione did; he would surge to the rescue to defend friends or victims in need, or chase down criminals, but he wasn’t on high alert all the time. Several of the Aurors were somewhere along the same spectrum as Ron, although the more paranoid ones sounded more like grumbling waterfalls. Harry was a little sorry that he’d never got the chance to listen to Mad-Eye Moody. It would probably have been a raging torrent.
            Harry didn’t know what he sounded like, because you couldn’t listen to yourself, but he did know what a whole bunch of people sounded like. And he knew what magical theorists and geniuses sounded like—all the different kinds, from people like Hermione to Unspeakables, to spell creators and those who had made genuine breakthroughs.
            The Bard had to be one of those people. And Dennis didn’t sound like him. He sounded like a low, subdued song that became fervent only when he spoke of injustices against Muggleborns.
            Harry sighed and stood up. Maybe the Bard really was this Tatyana Kingston. Or, more likely, someone else in the group, someone who was valuable and Dennis wasn’t ready to see sacrificed.
            I’ll have to request a list of everyone in the Muggleborn Legion, and try to arrange to meet them, or at least eliminate the ones I have met, Harry thought, a little annoyed. He had thought he would be doing more of the thinking, with bodyguard work. But he—
            A scream rang from upstairs.
            This time, Harry didn’t bother running up the steps the way he had when Malfoy yelled for him earlier. He folded his arms and shut his eyes, and that silver lightning he had added to the wards, product of another inheritance he wanted no more than he’d wanted the Black fortune and property from Sirius, seized on him and whirled him to his destination.
*
            Draco was yelling for his mother as he thumped around, trying to understand why his Lumos Charm wasn’t coming to life, why he couldn’t see in the thick darkness of the bedroom that shouldn’t be that dark, and feeling the gust of cold that traveled past his cheek.
            Then the charm sprang to life, and filled the bedroom with brilliant shadows, and Draco shook his head hard and faced his mother’s bed.
            There was nothing there now, but Narcissa was sitting up with something over her nose and mouth. Draco reached out and took it. It looked as though it was an ordinary handkerchief, but when Draco turned it over, it was starred with small spots of blood.
“Damn it.”
Draco blinked and turned his head. Potter was beside him, but Draco hadn’t heard him come in. Potter had his wand pointed at a corner that was opposite from Narcissa’s bed. He dropped his hand slowly and repeated the bleak words. “Damn it.”
“What the hell happened?” Draco whispered. He would have liked to demand clarification instead of merely ask for it, but at the moment, he didn’t have it in him.
“The Bard was here,” said Potter. “And it’s no comfort knowing I was right that he might stalk you if I can’t be here to bloody fucking prevent it.” He turned and came up to Narcissa. “Are you all right, Mrs. Malfoy?”
“I will be,” said Narcissa, and bowed her head a little. “But you should take care of that handkerchief, and not use language like that in front of me again.” She reached up as if she was going to adjust the shawl across her shoulders, and stopped.
“Where’s your shawl?” Draco demanded, glad he could use a normal tone of voice once in a while.
“I do not know,” said Narcissa hollowly.
“Here,” said Potter, and took the handkerchief from Draco. He turned it over and nodded. “Transfigured from the shawl,” he said, his voice clinical. “He planned to use it in the murder somehow, although I think he must have slipped up—otherwise, you wouldn’t have been able to scream.”
“Potter, do you mind?” Draco snapped, seeing how pale his mother’s face was becoming. He stepped up to Narcissa and wrapped his arms around her, frowning severely at Potter. “No wonder they usually keep you at bodyguard work; you haven’t the slightest idea of how to behave around people who need comfort.”
“I’m sorry,” said Potter, and shook his head. “I just—I need to keep this. It’s the first time we’ve ever had a clue as to what the Bard was planning to do.” He looked straight at Draco’s mother, and smiled as gently as Draco thought he could at that moment, while he was being the Big Bad Auror. “It’s the first time that someone has ever survived a Bard attack, in fact.”
That made Draco’s mother tilt her head back, and Draco relaxed. Potter might be pants at traditional means of comforting, but maybe he had spoken with enough pure-bloods to know what to do when he had to. “All right, Potter. Then maybe you can tell me how the Bard got through the wards?”
“That, I’m working on,” Potter replied, and turned around slowly as though looking for clues. “At the moment, I’m more interested in why he fled with his work uncompleted. We know at other times, the presence of someone sleeping in the same room wasn’t a deterrent to him.”
Draco looked with Potter’s eyes, trying to think like an Auror. But the only things in the room were the ones that Potter had kept here all along or Transfigured for them, and the small keepsakes they had brought with them from the Manor, the photographs of his father and their small toiletries and clothes. Draco knew that none of them had ever been owned by a Muggleborn, and he was at a loss as to how they could have been used in the sympathetic magic Potter said had got past the Manor’s wards.
            “Have you had a Muggleborn visit your house recently?” he asked. “They could have left something here.”
Potter stiffened a little. “Dennis Creevey did come by today,” he whispered. “But he didn’t try to get through the wards. He wanted to tell me about a missing Muggleborn woman he claims is the Bard.”
“Then go check the bloody wards,” Draco snapped, and for once, Potter did as he was told, disappearing down the stairs again.
Draco narrowed his eyes in thought. Perhaps someone who hadn’t got through the wards personally couldn’t have influenced them in the way the Bard would have to, but Draco had thought of someone else.
Potter’s friend Granger had been at the Battle of Hogwarts. She’d lost friends there. She would surely visit Potter’s house all the time.
Draco had someone to watch for.
*
moodysavage: Well, Draco did see the body, and thought at first his touch had melted it. In a few other cases, the body has melted or done similar things, but others were very much present.
SP777: If you mean the action, it’s ongoing!
Kain: No problem about the belated review. All the more welcome when it did come.
Thank you! Draco does suspect Hermione, but then, he already dislikes Harry’s friends.
Harry will have Draco get along with Molly whether he wants to or not!
Harry absolutely does not trust Dennis. He’s just trying to decide how he should distrust him, if that makes sense.
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Bard of Morning's Hope