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Parsimony	By : Lomonaaeren Category: Harry Potter > Slash - Male/Male > Harry/Draco Views: 14122 -:- Recommendations : 1 -:- Currently Reading : 2
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter. I am making no money from this fanfic.

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Chapter Nine—Shooting Stars

            Harry cast a spell that would create a Shield Charm around Malfoy, which would move with him and should keep up with his movements as long as he didn’t actually cast a Finite, and then started studying the spells there enemies were shooting at them. Green stars, down to a star-shape in the front and a trailing tail behind, like a comet. They hissed where they landed, and burned the earth. Where had he seen spells like that before?

            It came to him in a flash that was a lot like the flash of a star itself. When he and Hermione and Ron had hunted through the Black library last year for mentions of Horcruxes, he had seen an illustration of this spell. One hitting you would just burn you, but enough of them could melt flesh and bone or mean that you had to cut off a limb. They were Dark magic.

            Well, Harry was going to make sure no one had to go through that. The book had mentioned a counterspell, and although it hadn’t explained it very well, Harry had figured it out on his own. He stood up, spinning his wand between his hands, and shouted out, “Protego Maximus!”

            The air around him shuddered and made a weird sound, as though it was a gong someone had struck. Harry grinned and threw his head back as the magic poured out of him, forming an almost solid wall in the air. He lived for moments like these, and the great things that he could with magic when they happened.

            The air turned transparent but softly shimmering in front of them, and Harry knew the shield was up. They could cast around it, as Klein was doing with easy stabs of her wand, but it would protect them from any of the shooting stars that tried to land on them. Harry nodded, satisfied, and turned to see what Malfoy was doing.

            Malfoy was sitting on the ground, his mouth open as he stared at Harry. Harry held out a hand to help him up.

            Malfoy shouted and pulled him down instead. Harry started struggling, sure for a moment that Malfoy meant to kill him the way Klein had seemed worried he would.

            Then he realized the light of a different kind of spell was crashing past him, a bright red curse that drilled into the ground and dug a little hole as he watched. Harry swallowed. He could envision the way that curse would have dug a hole into his back, too, but it wasn’t something he wanted to imagine.

            “Thanks,” he said awkwardly to Malfoy, and pushed his glasses up his nose as he rose back to one knee and looked around for the wolfwere. He was gone. He had probably already bounded into the clearing past the barrier of tall grass that surrounded it, Harry thought. And he could hear snarling.

            While it was understandable that the wolfwere would want to destroy the people who had destroyed his pups, Harry didn’t want him to die, too. He grabbed his wand and plunged forwards, noting gratefully that the shield he’d cast against the Shooting Stars came with him. It would have been embarrassing to walk past those spells, confident in the knowledge he was protected, and then have one kill him.

            The clearing was full of brilliant light, a fire big enough to be called a bonfire burning in the center of it, and Harry had to squint and duck his head until his sight adjusted. He did catch a glimpse of a tall witch in a long dark robe aiming her wand at the wolfwere, who was growling and ripping up the leg of an overweight wizard, and Disarmed her fast enough that she cried out and clutched her hand.

            Then she turned and saw him, and her eyes narrowed. Harry didn’t recognize her, even though she wore no mask, but he saw dark eyes and long dark hair.

            Like Bellatrix’s, he had time to think, and then it was as if instincts took over.

            He cast a Tripping Jinx that tightened an invisible rope around her foot and pulled her to the ground, towards him. As she came rushing towards him, Harry leaped over her and then whirled and kicked up a fold of her cloak, using it to deflect a bright yellow cloud of magic that darted at him from another Death Eater’s wand. Yes, these were Death Eaters, he saw as he cast a Stunner that should make the witch sleep for a little while, because he recognized the heavy man in front of him with a Dark Mark spilling out from under his sleeve.
            Walden Macnair.

            Macnair saw him and let his mouth gape wide in a snarl that Harry thought Fenrir Greyback would have trouble matching. The wolfwere, from the sound of it, was doing his best, though. Harry half-bowed to Macnair and cast a spell that made the ground vibrate and sway under him, dropping him to one knee.

            It seemed Macnair didn’t mind being down there, though, because he cast a spell that was meant to dislocate Harry’s kneecap. Harry stepped to the side, and it just barely went past him. He sprinted towards Macnair, who grinned again and hopped back to his feet.

            “Yes, that’s right,” Macnair said, his voice low but a rumble so deep that it still seemed to fill the whole clearing. “Let’s see how you do when you face a real man, one-on-one and hand-to-hand.”

            But Harry had no intention of wrestling with Macnair; he knew the man was a lot stronger than him. Instead, he smiled back at him and whispered the spell that Snape would probably be annoyed to know he remembered. “Levicorpus.”

            Macnair’s wand went flying as the spell jerked his body into the air. Harry Summoned it before one of the other Death Eaters—there were five others in the clearing, besides the man struggling with the wolfwere—could have the bright idea of taking it. Then he spun his wand and cast a special nonverbal incantation that he had mostly used this summer for helping to dry Mrs. Weasley’s laundry.

            Macnair flew in a circle, his arms sticking out and his voice calling in a weird echo as he spun. His head hit a tree, and then it sagged on his neck, his arms doing the same thing at the same time. Harry smiled, a savage gladness in his heart, and then cast Finite to end Snape’s spell. Macnair crashed to the ground, falling so heavily Harry reckoned he’d probably done more damage to him. But he had no time to worry about that.

            One of the other wizards was coming at him, and Harry was sure it was one of the Lestrange brothers, although which one, he didn’t know. And right behind him was a cringing little bastard with a thin moustache who reminded Harry of Pettigrew. He grinned and stepped forwards. He hadn’t got his revenge on Bellatrix for killing Sirius, but her husband or her brother-in-law would do.

            “Fuga!” he roared, this time calling on a spell that he’d found in their Defense textbook for last year. He wondered for a moment whether Klein would be proud of him for knowing about it, since she preferred not to teach out of a book, or not.

            Both the Lestrange and the thin wizard quivered to a stop and stood staring at him for a minute. Then they turned their heads to the side and stared at each other.

            Both of them leaped in the air at the same time, dropping their wands. They didn’t bother picking them up, either, but ran madly away towards the far side of the clearing. Harry smirked and didn’t bother pursuing them. That spell caused uncontrollable fear, and the direction they were going, they would be easy prey for Klein.

            The three Death Eaters left were spreading out to face him in a wavery line, but the wolfwere jumped on the shoulders of the nearest one and dragged him to the ground, biting so sharply on the back of his neck that it looked like he’d be decapitated. Harry ignored that one and focused on the two others.

            One was the other Lestrange brother, he was sure, just from the way he stared at Harry and started gabbling about Bellatrix. Harry wasn’t going to listen to him, not when he knew the Death Eater wouldn’t be so obliging as to tell him their plans. He focused on the other one instead, the quiet, arrogant witch with the tossed-back head and silver hair that almost made Harry think she was Narcissa Malfoy for a second.

            He didn’t know her, and she didn’t give him time to ask who she was, either. She aimed her wand at him, and a spell like the one Malfoy had cast in the woods seized hold of Harry, making him see things as if he was somewhere else.

            He was standing in an immense cage, made of silver and iron, and it was up on a dais, and in front of him was a huge crowd. He thought he could see his friends in the crowd, and the Weasleys, and the professors at Hogwarts. Skeeter was in front of everyone, rapping her Quick-Quotes Quill against a scroll and smiling at him smugly.

            “Isn’t it true, Harry Potter,” Skeeter said, rolling all the words as though she wanted everyone on the furthest fringes of the crowd to hear her, “that you committed crimes during the war, by using the Unforgivable Curses against people?” She paused, but didn’t give him long enough to answer before she went on, “Of course, you would probably say they were Death Eaters. But do you know what happens to people who use—Unforgivable Curses?” She lowered her voice this time.

            “They go to Azkaban!” the entire room chorused.

            Harry felt ill for a moment. No. He didn’t think he could survive Azkaban, not when they would probably have Dementors nearby. And he didn’t have an Animagus form, like Sirius did, to keep himself safe during the times when they were trying to drain his happy memories. He would sit in a cell for years and hear nothing but the screaming of his mother, see nothing but that flash of green light every time he closed his eyes—

            Something painful hit his leg, and Harry suddenly remembered the Death Eaters in the clearing and knew there was no way that he could have got from there to this cage in front of everyone he knew.

            This is an illusion!

            Harry’s rage flared up and cut through the spell, which he thought was probably meant to make him face his greatest fear or something, and he found himself crouching on his right leg, where blood streamed, as the silver-haired witch stepped forwards again. Harry focused on her and chose his spell before he thought about it. “Sectumsempra!”

            Blood flew everywhere, and she fell backwards. That was all Harry knew before he focused on the Lestrange brother—

            Who turned and fled into the Forest. Harry tried to jump up and go after him, but his weak leg gave way beneath him and crumpled. He bowed his head into his hands and swore for a second, then leaned back and tried to see how bad the wound on his leg was.

            It looked deep, deep enough that he could catch flashing glimpses of bone and some of what he saw looked like muscle instead of just skin. Harry winced and used a few convenient healing charms he’d learned that summer to stop the bleeding and ease the pain. He wasn’t sure what else he could do, what was good for a cut this deep, until he got back to Madam Pomfrey.

            “You did it.”

            Harry blinked and looked up. He half-expected to see Klein there, scolding him for killing someone instead of capturing them. Harry didn’t know for sure that he’d killed the witch, but he’d seen his curse catch her in the throat. He pretty much doubted she was still alive.

Malfoy was there instead, staring at him with a strange look in his eyes. He shook his head.

            “You Stunned Humble,” he said. “And Macnair, in less conventional ways. You got rid of Rabastan and Avery, and you killed Salgrass, and Rodolphus ran away rather than face you. You did all that in less than three minutes. Exactly what else can you do?”

            Harry shrugged. “Was it less than three minutes?” he asked, and looked around the clearing to make sure that all the Death Eaters still remaining were down. The wolfwere had chewed into the leg of the first one he’d attacked, Harry saw, and chewed off the head of the other. He turned away with a little wince, shaking his head. He had to remember that he had just killed someone, too, and with no more thought than he had employed when he used the curse on Malfoy, even though he knew what it did now.

            Klein walked through the tall grass then, the Death Eaters Harry had sent fleeing towards her floating bound and unconscious behind her. She looked at Harry expressionlessly, then turned towards the bloody body on the ground.

            “Even some Aurors could not do that,” she said. “Use that many spells so effortlessly, all in a row, and then use another spell that killed someone.” She turned to face Harry, planting her body there as if she assumed she would need to shield someone from him. “Did you consider it? Do you feel badly for having taken a life?”

            “A Death Eater life.”

            Harry blinked. Malfoy had turned to face Klein, and you’d have thought that Harry never used a spell Malfoy must have had bad memories of. His face was crimped, and his hands were clenched in front of him as though he was going to drum out a rhythm on someone.

            “He killed her because she was trying to kill him,” Malfoy continued. “I saw the spell she used on him. It was a variant of the one I used on you before we came here, one that calls up fear. She would have killed him if he’d remained in thrall to it much longer. And you think he should be sorry he killed the bitch?”

            “There is a difference,” Klein said, voice still without much tone or inflection, “between killing someone in self-defense, and killing someone and then turning away to go after others, the way Mr. Potter did.” She looked back at Harry. “You don’t have the training to kill someone like that.”

            “I did it, whether I have the training or not,” Harry said. He shivered. Even though it really shouldn’t have when he’d been running around and flinging spells, he could feel weariness creeping up on him. Well, it was after three in the morning and he was in the middle of a cold, dark Forest, and he thought he’d felt a drop of rainwater sliding down his back. “I don’t know what you mean.”

            “I mean,” Klein said quietly, “that you don’t have the training to cope with the consequences of taking a life. This is not how I would have wished you to discover it, so young.”

            Harry blinked and stared at her. Then he said, “But I killed Voldemort. Aren’t you concerned about that, too, that I might not have the training to deal with that?”

            “No,” said Klein. “Because you did not kill him in the traditional way. You did not have to see his blood flow. The contest between you was settled by other means.” She stared at Harry, and although he tried to hold her gaze, in the end Harry had to drop his eyes. There was something commanding about her, something that made the excuses that he tried to marshal in his mind seem trivial. “I do not like that, Harry Potter. I do not like that at all.”

            “Then look the other way,” Malfoy said, and his voice was a harsh trumpet-sound, as though he was commanding an army on the opposite side of whatever battle Klein was fighting. “You were the one who let us follow you. What did you expect us to do, if not join the fight and kill someone?”

            “To hold back and hold still, the way you did, Mr. Malfoy,” Klein said, and Harry didn’t think she saw how deeply her words cut Malfoy’s pride, the way he did. “Or at least to capture the Death Eaters, the way Mr. Potter did at first. Living informants are more valuable to us than the dead.” Again she turned back to Harry, and again her eyes sliced at the arguments and defenses he could have raised. “We will need to report this to the Head Auror, as well as the Headmistress.”

            Which will mean more attention from the newspapers, and more people prying into my life, Harry silently completed the sentence. But he knew what Klein would say if he repeated that aloud. She would say that he should have thought more deeply before killing someone, if he didn’t like the consequences.

            “You do that,” Malfoy said, his eyes still narrowed and his body still vibrating. He looked like Aunt Marge’s dog, Ripper, did sometimes moments before he rushed Harry. “But you remember I’m probably alive because of him.” He took a step back towards Harry and looked over his shoulder, eyebrows raised.

            Harry gave him a weak smile back. He was glad that someone in the clearing didn’t think he was a monster, but it was hard to know what he would do with the approval. He couldn’t prevent Klein from telling anyone about this that she liked, and the testimony of an adult, and an Auror at that, would overrule what Malfoy said.

            “Come with me,” Klein said abruptly, and began to bind and float Macnair and the first woman Harry had brought down; he thought Malfoy had called her Humble. Harry looked around for the wolfwere. He hadn’t seen him for a few minutes and thought he might have faded back into the Forest, satisfied at the vengeance for his pups.

            No, there was a ripple of silver light at the other side of the clearing, in the direction that the last Lestrange brother had fled, and the wolfwere trotted out, loping towards Harry. He spoke quietly before he was halfway there. “The others will escape, if you do not hurry,” he said. “Why are you waiting?”

            Klein turned around with a frown. “Because we have enough people to try,” she said. “We thank you for your help, and think the best thing for you to do would be to return to the rest of your family in the Forest.”

            The wolfwere stared at her with great and gleaming eyes, then said, “I was not speaking to you.” He turned his shoulder towards Klein and faced Harry again, his head half-bowed and his teeth showing. “You will come with me?”

            “Some other night,” Harry said, thinking about how much trouble he was going to be in, and what McGonagall would likely say, and the ingredients he somehow had to collect for Snape and the research he somehow had to do for Malfoy. “I have things to do right now. Did you find the ones who had harmed your pups?”

            “Many of them might have,” the wolfwere said, and sat back on his haunches, closing his eyes as if he wanted to dim their glow. “Most of them might have. I have killed two of them. It is not enough.” He looked at the floating bodies gathered behind Klein.

            Klein said nothing, but shifted as if she assumed that she would need to get between the Death Eaters and a crazed wolfwere.

            Harry sighed. It seemed he was going to have to intervene, then. “I’ll come back another time and help you look,” he said. “And I’ll tell you if any of these say anything about harming your pups.”

            He could feel Klein’s expression changing even though he wasn’t looking at her. “And what makes you assume, Potter,” she murmured, “that you will be allowed to sit in on the interrogations?”

            Malfoy made a muffled sound. Harry ignored him and Klein. Right now, the wolfwere was the most important. If he had to pick and choose who to talk and listen to at any point in time, well, so be it. He bent down so he was meeting those glowing eyes when they popped open again. “Is that acceptable?” he asked quietly. “To know that you will have the ability to learn more about the fate of your pups when we question these people?”

            The wolfwere’s jaws worked around invisible words for a moment. Then he said, “You are the only one who has offered me anything. I will say yes.” And he turned and loped into the woods so quickly and quietly that Harry thought he could have tracked him for a week and not found anything.

            A heavy silence settled on the clearing. Klein broke it with a harsh cough and by turning her back for her own march into the woods. “Let us get back,” she said.

            She perhaps thought Harry ought to be chastened. Harry wasn’t. He moved after her thinking—about the way he had killed Salgrass, and the way that Malfoy had stood up for him, and the expression in Klein’s eyes as she looked at him, and the wolfwere.

            And Death Eaters so close to Hogwarts. Couldn’t forget about those, either. Harry wondered if their presence here meant they were hunting him, or that the Forbidden Forest was a place they thought no one would look for them.

            Will I even be allowed to know? Klein had said that he might not sit in on the interrogations, which was worrying in and of itself. He might not know enough information to give the wolfwere, but he also might not know enough to protect himself.

            “Potter.”

            Harry gave a distracted nod at Malfoy. He tested the resolve growing in him, and it was steely. Well. All right, then. Klein and maybe McGonagall and maybe the other Aurors might want to keep him away from this, for his own “safety,” but there were ways Harry could insist on knowing. Influences he could employ, the same way he could owl-order Snape’s ingredients, if he really wanted to. He didn’t want to use them, but he would, rather than just forget about this and accept the protection of adults.

            He had killed tonight. Klein seemed to feel that should change him. Therefore, Harry would make sure it did.

            “Potter.”

            “Yeah, Malfoy?” Harry asked, and turned to face him when he realized Malfoy’s grip on his arm was tight, not letting go. Malfoy leaned towards him, and his eyes were wide and anxious. Harry smiled a little. “Worried Klein might report you followed us? I don’t think it’s you she’s angry at.”

            “No, you idiot,” Malfoy said, and there was the flash of the boy—man?—Harry knew again, rather than the sullen and naïve idiot he’d acted like in school. “I’m worried you won’t accept my help.”

            Harry blinked. “I thought you wanted to blackmail me, not help me.”

            “You changed that,” Malfoy said simply. “The way you killed in the clearing, Potter. I know now you can help me, that you have more determination than I reckoned on and that you can actually protect me if the Death Eaters showed up again, or from my friends. That makes you a worthy ally. Someone worthy of my help.”

            Harry stared so hard that he nearly walked into a tree. Then he shook his head and blinked. “You have some bloody weird standards, Malfoy.”

            Malfoy inclined his head and seemed to take the compliment on the chin. “Thank you. Now. Will you let me help?”

            Harry looked ahead again at Klein. He thought about the wolfwere, who might not get justice. He thought about Snape, who might give him permission to bring Malfoy in on the secret.

            He thought about himself, who might lose the chance, again, to know what he should know and protect himself, even though Dumbledore was dead.

            He held out his hand to Malfoy. “Yes. Thank you.”

            Malfoy’s smile was wider, and deeper, than Harry had ever thought it could be. And his grasp was firmer and warmer.

*

            unneeded: Well, Harry has one, now! But yeah, he still won’t tell him about Snape until Snape gives him permission to, if he does.

            Lady lizzy: Thank you!

            SP777: She is, at the least, not with the Death Eaters, or I doubt she would have participated in the capture.
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Parsimony