Chapter Text

Draco let the disorientation of apparating wash over him and smirked as both of the Aurors holding his arms staggered a little. With all of the filth that had been dumped on his family over the last four months since the Battle of Hogwarts (to say nothing of the filth they'd voluntarily wallowed in before that), it was nice to get the occasional reminder that he was an uncommonly skilled wizard.

Unfortunately, these men were also supposed to keep him alive this evening, a realization that promptly chased Draco's smirk off of his face. A quick check of his surroundings revealed only overgrown, weedy gardens and an algae-choked, nonfunctional fountain. Nothing was trying to kill them yet, but the night was young. A damp chill hung in the air, less a promise of fall than a threat of winter.

"Nice work, Malfoy," Auror Jones said. "You got us through the Greengrass wards."

The young man shrugged. "I figured I was probably still keyed in, especially given how derelict the estate has become. So what you two want is probably in the manor?"

"Almost certainly," Auror Ryan said.

"Very well," Draco said. "I'll take the lead by about two yards and warn you if I feel any more wards. I'll be focused on that, so I'm counting on you two to watch my back."

The Aurors nodded and fell in behind Draco, Jones two yards back from him and Ryan two yards back from Jones. Despite himself, Draco had to admit their movements were crisp and precise.

He led them forward carefully, sticking to the paths that took them near large bushes, statues, or other items that could be used as cover against anyone watching from the manor. Draco had no reason to believe Cyrus Greengrass or his daughters were still alive, but he didn't know who else might have moved in since the Battle of Hogwarts and a lot of his former "friends" now wanted his family dead for turning their backs on the Dark Lord's cause.

When they came up to a large bush on the border of the open ground around the fountain, Draco put up his hand to let the Aurors know he was pausing. "I don't like the open ground ahead," he whispered. "I'm going to run over there and stay low, but don't follow until I wave you on. I don't want you slamming into a ward because I haven't had time to warn you."

They nodded, so Draco dashed off toward the fountain. He knelt on the far side of the central stone statue of a selkie spitting water (or what would have been water if the fountain were active) from the manor and took stock of what he'd sensed as he'd run. Satisfied there was nothing, he waved the Aurors over.

Jones hurried over and knelt next to him. "So far, so good."

"Wait." Draco looked over the man's shoulder. "Where's Ryan?"

"He was right behind me!" Jones hissed as he spun around. "Ryan! What are you--"

The man's sentence ended with a sickening thud. Draco turned around in time to see Jones crumple to the ground at the feet of what could only be described as a monster. A humanoid fox, easily seven feet tall and over twenty stone of pure muscle, towered over the two of them. Time seemed to slow to a crawl as Draco tried to bring his wand to bear on the new target before its fist connected with his face, a race that Draco lost.

The shock of the impact threw Draco back four feet onto the cobbled drive, his head taking another jarring as it bounced against the hard stones. Darkness was creeping in around the edges of his vision and he mentally screamed at his lazy, useless arm to raise his wand, but nothing happened. The beast strode up to him and reared back for a punch that would probably shatter his skull against the stones, and he could only watch through the shadows already claiming his sight as the blow came down.

And stopped, a foot from his face, as another clawed hand reached out and caught it. Draco had questions, so many questions, but unconsciousness overtook them all and he surrendered to the darkness.

It was well after ten o'clock in the morning and Harry considered getting out of bed, but the silence of 12 Grimmauld Place was enough to push him back under the covers. Besides, why bother? He finally had what he wanted: silence. No Ginny asking him to go out to Quidditch matches, no Ginny asking him to take her to dinner or clubs…

No Ginny. He buried his face in his pillow. She'd left him the previous week, and he finally had the silence he'd been craving since the end of the war.

He hated it.

Harry had never known how much he needed someone...anyone around him. The only company he'd had for the last few days had been a house elf who hated him and a house that also seemed to hate him. Ron and Hermione were off in Australia trying to fix her parents, and Andromeda had made it clear that she didn't need Harry hanging around all day, every day while she was trying to raise her grandchild.

The sound of a voice in the floo was a welcome distraction. "Potter?" a woman asked. "Are you there?"

Had he been thinking more clearly, he would have wondered why it didn't set Walpurga off, but instead he just shouted "One moment!" in reply. He threw on enough clothing to look decent at a modest distance and hurried downstairs. It was only when he'd cleared the staircase that he remembered whose voice it was, at which point he wished he'd been more specific in his desire for company.

"Hello, Narcissa," he said as he stepped in front of the fireplace. Hopefully, his tone conveyed every last ounce of his feelings for her.

"May I come through?" she asked. Her normally perfect hair was in disarray, her eyes were bloodshot, and not a trace of makeup graced her delicate features. "I need your...help. Urgently."

Harry bit off an instinctive "no" and thought about it. She sounded genuinely upset and looked like she'd spent the night in a dryer, possibly one that periodically turned on. Besides, the worst-case scenario was that she would kill him, and he couldn't find it in him to fear that as much as he used to.

"Come on over," Harry said, and stood back so Narcissa could floo in.

She hit the ground firmly and shook the soot out of her hair. "Thank you, Potter. I'm sorry to...Merlin, child, you look awful. Did you just wake up?"

He shrugged. "Didn't seem like there was any reason to get out of bed."

"You sound like my husband," she said. "At least you don't smell like him, though. That man drinks like a fish and reeks like a dead one."

"I'd normally take offense to any comparison to Lucius," Harry said, "but I can't honestly say you're wrong."

Narcissa sighed. "Harry, I need your help, but I need the boy who defeated a Dark Lord, not…" she gestured at him, "this. Go shower and I'll have Kreacher make breakfast."

Harry wanted to yell at her or at least say something snarky, but having someone care that he looked like crap was such a massive improvement in his week that all said was, "OK."

Ten minutes later, he was showered and tearing through a traditional English breakfast across the table from Narcissa, who'd also taken the opportunity to fix up her hair. He hadn't realized how hungry he was, and he'd wolfed down about half of the breakfast before Narcissa finally spoke.

"Welcome back to the world of living," she said. "I'm afraid you're going to want to be at full strength for this."

"What's wrong?" Harry asked in between bites.

"The Aurors." She practically spat out the word. "Unlike my husband, my son is trying to pull our family name out of the mud. He's been assisting Aurors in cases where his name or expertise can help."

"I've heard scuttlebutt about that from some of the Aurors I know," Harry said.

Narcissa nodded and continued, "Last night, he never came home, and this morning I found a letter on the dining table."

She took a deep, shaky breath, and continued. "He'd...charmed it so it would only appear there if he didn't stop it. It said he wasn't allowed to tell anyone where his missions would take him before he left, but there was nothing in the Vow about telling people afterward."

Harry had to admit that was clever, if a little risky. If Draco got the timing wrong on that charm, it would be the end of him.

"The letter said he'd been on a mission to Greengrass Manor the night before. He thought he was still keyed into the wards there from our regular visits as family friends prior to the war. I asked the Aurors and the two who went with him were found outside the manor this morning with serious concussions. They're receiving care, but the Head Auror says his resources are stretched too thin to try to risk more people to try to find out what happened to Draco." She shook her head. "That's my son, Potter. I can't accept that as an answer. Please come with me and help me find him."

Harry scooped up the last bite of baked beans and thought about it. "Can't you ask Lucius? He was a skilled duelist, too, and he actually liked Draco."

"Lucius hasn't picked up a wand in weeks," Narcissa said. "He just sits around, drinks, and mopes. Our other old friends are either dead, imprisoned, or hate us for not being either of those. I need help, Potter, and you're the only one who will."

"I will?" Harry asked skeptically. "I kept your family out of Azkaban. We're even."

"This isn't about owing us," she said. "You've never been able to let anyone go. You didn't leave my son to die at Hogwarts and I don't think you will today, either."

He sighed. "Damn it. You're right."

"I know," Narcissa said smugly. "What should we do now?"

"You don't have a plan?" he asked. "I thought you just wanted me to tag along in case you needed something hexed."

"Me?" She shook her head. "I'm a Pureblooded matron, not an Auror. I can get you through the Greengrass wards, but after that I'm just going to follow your lead."

Not for the first time in the last few weeks, Harry wished Hermione were around. She would tell him this was a terrible idea or at least come up with a plan for him. Instead, though, all he said was, "Fine. Tell me what I need to know."

Chapter Text

Unconsciousness wore off like anesthesia for Draco, returning pain with awareness. His head throbbed, the sunlight suffusing the room was too bright even behind his eyelids, and someone seemed to be rubbing his cheek with sandpaper. Then again, he wasn't dead, so he had that going for him.

He opened his eyes a crack and immediately wished he hadn't. Not only was the light much brighter out there, but one of those fox beasts was leaning over him. Its hand roughly brushed his cheek again as it took a wet cloth and wiped off his head. The sensation stung, but it was clearly trying to clean his wound. He couldn't feel his wand, so it clearly didn't trust him, but he wasn't tied up, either.

"Hel...hello?" Draco said. His mouth felt like it was stuffed with cotton, and the word tasted odd on his tongue and lips.

The beast pulled back its hand in shock. "Oh, you're back," it said, its voice a low rumble. "You had a bad night."

"I...certainly feel...like I did," Draco said slowly. Words came slowly through the pain and haze.

"You shouldn't have attacked us," the beast growled at him. It went back to tending to his head, though.

"Didn't know...you were here," he replied.

It shook its head at him, accidentally flinging a bit of drool on his arm. "You're such an idiot, Draco. What possessed you to join the Death Eaters in the first place?"

He wasn't sure how it switched topics there, but he was too fuzzy to really care. "Stupidity," he said, and the thing's furry eyebrows shot up. "My parents...they thought the Dark Lord...would bring about a dictatorship...of the 'right sort' of people."

"Like them." The beast's skepticism was audible even in its inhuman tones.

"Yes," Draco said. "Instead...we got a dictatorship of the violent...the cruel...the grasping people. Got what...we deserved. He used our house…as a torture chamber...on us as much as anyone. We spent...more time healing each other...than we did helping him."

It rested its hand on his cheek, a shockingly tender gesture coming from such a monstrosity. "You really are a fool, Draco Malfoy."

Draco did his best to smile a little. "No argument here. So why...did you save me?" He wasn't positive this was the same beast that had saved him, but it seemed likely.

"I was lonely." It shrugged. "I wanted to talk with someone I cared about once, before I couldn't anymore."

"I see," Draco said. "And this certainly beats...Azkaban as a prison, which is probably...what I deserve."

"Oh, we're not going to imprison you," it said. "At least, not for long. We need--" it stopped and sniffed at the air. "That sound…"

Draco hadn't heard anything.

The beast rose to its feet. "Someone just apparated in. I'll return once we've dealt with them. Don't go anywhere."

"Wouldn't dream of it," Draco said weakly.

Harry stumbled as Narcissa apparated them to the gates of Greengrass Manor a little before noon. A glance in her direction showed that she'd remained gracefully upright, though she had the decency to hide her smugness a bit.

"Are you sure it'll be safe to hit this place during the daytime?" Harry asked as he straightened up. It was a beautiful early fall day in Rutland, and the strength of the sun was enough to ward off any chill in the air.

"Not at all," Narcissa said. "Draco was here at night, though, and that doesn't seem to have helped. Besides, I'd rather not leave him here longer." She waved her wand at her feet and said, "Silencio Pedites," and repeated that on Harry's feet. It felt like they'd been drenched in invisible mud, but the feeling passed immediately. "That will silence our steps for the next hour or two. Can you handle the Disillusionment Charms, though? I'm lousy at those."

Harry waved his wand at her and said, "Chamaeleontis," and repeated the procedure on himself, feeling the familiar invisible rope of the spell tightening around him as the camouflage settled in. Magic came ever-so-slightly easier now that the Horcrux was out of his head, almost like a thin pall of haze between his intentions and his magic had burned away.

"Nice work." The now-invisible Narcissa paused. "Drat. I need to be touching you to get you through the wards."

Harry laughed. "Oh, right. I'm over here."

Nothing happened for a moment, then the back of a hand slapped his arm. "There you are," Narcissa said. She slid her hand down his arm and took his free hand. "Do not let go of me until we're through the wards. Afterward, we should probably hang on, since otherwise you'll have trouble finding me, but you absolutely must not let go till we're through the wards."

"Got it." Harry was glad he was invisible, since he never wanted pictures of him walking hand-in-hand with Draco's mum to get out.

Narcissa led him through the open manor gates and up the cobbled driveway. The wards washed over him with an ominous grasping feel, but the constant pressure from Narcissa somehow made the hostile magic slough off of him and he came out on the other side no worse for wear.

"We're through," Narcissa said. "I distinctly remember only one line of wards. Do you want to lead?"

Harry nodded, then realized Narcissa couldn't see him. "Yes. Since we're invisible, let's stay in the open. The bushes and statues are good cover, but someone else could use them, too."

He took them up the driveway, stepping cautiously and quietly. But for the rustle of the wind in the branches of the overgrown bushes and flowers of the gardens, the manor was quiet. It almost reminded him of…

Narcissa froze when Harry stopped and squeezed her hand. "What's wrong?" she whispered.

"These grounds have been untouched for months, yet there's no birdsong and no visible animals," Harry responded. "It's like when we were on the run in the forest and a Snatcher gang or predator was nearby."

"They know we're here?" she asked nervously.

"Possibly," Harry said. "If they do, though, that means they either don't know exactly where we are or they're afraid to fight us in the open. In either case, we have an advantage."

"And when we get to the house?"

Harry grinned and hoped it came through in his tone. "Since we don't know which situation we're facing, I'm going to blow some of the windows open, charge in, and stun whoever I find as fast as I can before they realize we're there."

Narcissa didn't respond for a moment. Finally, she asked, "That's your plan?"

"Do you have a better one?"

"Merlin, so much of the last seven years makes sense now," she said.

"I'll take that as a 'no,'" Harry said, and continued up the drive.

The three-story manor house looked derelict from a distance, but as they approached, Harry realized that couldn't be true. The plants around it were overgrown, but the house itself was in perfect condition. Someone, person or house elf, was taking care of the place.

They crept up to the front edge of the house, about ten yards to the left of the door and between two large windows. Harry flattened himself against the wall of the house and used his hand to pull Narcissa against the wall next to him. "The Disillusionment Charms will drop as soon as we cast spells," Harry whispered. "As soon as that happens, I need you to keep moving. A standing target is a dead target."

"I understand," Narcissa responded. "Which window are you going through?"

"The one on my--"

The roof above them creaked mightily, as if a great weight had been added or removed. Harry cut himself off and looked up. Two massive anthropoid foxes had jumped off the roof and were hurtling down toward them, their clawed hands and feet aimed toward the two intruders below.

Instinct pushed terror out of the way and Harry calmly fired off two non-verbal Flipendo hexes at the beasts (removal of the Horcrux made more advanced magic even easier, for some reason). They tried to twist out of the way, but, as Harry had suspected, they had limited maneuverability while falling. The hexes struck true and flung the beasts about ten feet to the right and left, respectively.

Narcissa had finally found her voice to scream, but Harry ignored her and launched himself into motion. The impact of the hexes didn't seem to have disoriented the beasts, and each one was back on its feet almost as soon as it hit the ground. Harry fired a Stupefy at the nearest beast and was dismayed when it merely shook off the spell and rushed him.

Meanwhile, the other beast roared "Malfoy!" and rushed at Narcissa. Harry felt a twinge of regret for not being able to protect her, and a slightly larger regret at the small size of the initial twinge. Regret wouldn't keep either of them alive, though, so he focused on his own opponent. Another Knockback Jinx only stopped the beast for a moment, but that's all he needed to hit it with an Incarcerous. Magical ropes started wrapping its legs from the ground up, but as fast as they came up, the beast ripped them away. Harry zapped it with another nonverbal Stunning Spell to slow down its efforts against the ropes and turned to face Narcissa's opponent.

Things weren't going well for the woman. She'd gotten off a couple of Stunners, not that they appeared to have accomplished anything. The beast had punched her in the chest hard enough to fling her into one of the porch columns, and the impact of her skull against the column had knocked her cold.

Before the beast could finish her off, Harry blasted it into the front wall of the house with an Expulso strong enough that it might have killed a normal human. The stone crunched under the impact, and even the beast fell to its knees in shock and pain. That gave Harry time for a follow-up Incarcerous, and this opponent was too stunned to react before it was firmly mummified in ropes.

Harry turned back to his first foe only to be caught in the shoulder with a clump of rocks, roots, and dirt the size of a football. The impact threw him onto his back, and pounding footsteps warned him that he didn't have time to get to his feet again. Instead, he swung his wand around and brought it to bear just as a huge, clawed hand wrapped its fingers around his throat.

The beast narrowed its eyes at the wand pointed straight at its chest, but they widened again when they settled on his face. "Harry...Potter?" a low, rumbling voice asked.

He didn't have a whole lot of spare air just then, so he nodded. The bristled fur was rough against the underside of his chin.

"But...why would you help a Malfoy?" it asked him. "They serve He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named."

Harry slowly moved his free hand to point at his throat and was rewarded with a slightly slackened grip. "They switched sides in the last battle," he said. "The war is over. Voldemort…" he had to suppress a grin when the humanoid monstrosity holding him down shuddered at the name, "is dead. Most of his followers are dead or in Azkaban now. Narcissa saved my life before the Battle of Hogwarts, and this morning she asked me to help her find her son."

The beast sagged, but thoughtfully kept its weight off of Harry's throat. "He's dead? He's really dead this time?"

"His killing curse bounced off one of my spells," Harry said. "I saw him die myself."

It removed its hand from his throat and, before he could react, wrapped its arms around him in a crushing hug. "You saved us again! Thank you!" Its voice rumbled against the dirt next to him.

"Others did most of the work," Harry said. "And please don't hug me so hard." This day had taken a weird turn.

The beast immediately released him. "I'm sorry," it said. "We thought you were a Death Eater because you showed up with a Malfoy."

"I can understand that." Harry levered himself up on his elbows. "Um...if you don't mind, I should probably check on Narcissa. I think she got hit pretty hard."

"Oh, of course." It rose to its feet and helped Harry up. "And I should probably check on my sis...oh, dear." The other beast lay moaning on the ground, trussed up in ropes. "I think you really hurt her."

Harry brushed some dirt off of his jeans as he stood. "She was trying to kill Narcissa," he said. "I couldn't risk pulling punches."

The beast sighed. "I understand. She's...angrier than I am. It makes her a better fighter, but I worry she's given too much to the beast inside sometimes. Can you release her? She's in pain."

"Will she try to kill us?" Harry asked. The beast shook its head, so he waved his wand and did a silent Finite to end his spell.

The other beast relaxed onto the ground and its moaning slowed. "Why let me go?" it asked. "Wait...Potter?"

Something about the way it said his last name reminded him of how a Slytherin would say it, and with that, the reality of the situation finally penetrated Harry's somewhat rattled skull. "Daphne?"

It nodded, a grimace of pain on its face.

Harry turned to the beast that had attacked him. "Astoria?"

It nodded, as well.

"But...how?"

"It's a long story," Astoria said. "Can you heal Daphne first? She won't admit it, but I've never seen her in this much pain."

"I think so," Harry said. He walked over and did a quick diagnostic charm. "Cracked ribs and a broken left arm. I should be able to fix those." He carefully did the bone mending charm over her arm first, moving slowly and carefully to avoid pulling a Lockhart on the poor girl…er…thing. Once he was satisfied that her arm was back in place, he repeated it thrice more over her ribs.

"Thank you," Daphne said when he'd finished. Her growl had more of a rasp to it than her sister's. "That hurt like hell. I'm glad you're on our side, Potter, because you're more dangerous by yourself than the last three groups of Death Eater sympathizers that attacked us."

"I think only two of those were Death Eater sympathizers," Harry said. "The ones with Draco last night were Aurors."

Daphne cursed. Astoria shrank back and said, "Oh, no! We didn't want to hurt Aurors, but we...we can't let them have it. It has to be destroyed."

"I'd like to know more," Harry said, "but I should check on Narcissa now. I'm worried for her."

Daphne gave a bestial snort. "Sentences I never thought I'd hear. Go right ahead, Potter."

He hurried over to Narcissa and ran the diagnostic charm on her, too. She was in much worse shape, with two broken and two cracked ribs as well as a serious concussion. Harry fixed the ribs as best he could, but he wasn't an expert healer by any means. "She needs to see a professional," he said when he finished. "I'm not good enough to heal her and I'm worried about her head injury and her lungs potentially being pierced."

"We can't let her leave," Daphne said. "Others could use her to get past the wards, just like you did."

"Draco said he was good at healing," Astoria said. "Now that we know they're not Death Eaters anymore, maybe he could help?"

"They're not?" Daphne asked.

"Oh, right, you missed that." Astoria gave her a quick rundown of what Harry had said.

"Fine," Daphne said when she finished. "Take Potter to heal up your boy toy and maybe he can help. I'll stay with Narcissa."

Astoria roared at her sister. The noise made Harry flinch a little, but somehow the quiet growl Daphne gave to silence her sister was even scarier.

"He's not my boy toy," Astoria responded meekly. "Come on, Harry."

Chapter Text

Astoria hurried into the house, and Harry nearly had to jog to keep up with her long strides. The foyer, parlor, and staircase were all well-kept, though tumbleweeds of coarse, black fur blew along the edges of the rooms. She guided Harry to a second-floor bedroom, knocked (a gesture that was probably meant to be a polite rap, but her massive strength ended up rattling doorknobs down the hall), and walked in.

"Hello," she said.

"Did you deal with the uninvited…" Draco trailed off as Harry walked into the room. "Potter."

Harry nodded. "Malfoy."

"Potter."

"Um...Malfoy."

"Potter."

"Will you stop that?" Harry asked. Astoria made a snorting, horking sound that may have been the strangest giggle ever.

Draco smirked, an expression Harry instinctively wanted to remove from his face with a fist. "I'm lying here with a head injury, no wand, and you waltz into the room. I decided to have some fun with you and either enjoy it or receive the sweet release of death. Either way, I win."

"Damn it." Harry sighed. "Listen, as much as I would love to curse that smirk off your face, your mother was hurt and I need your help."

The smirk disappeared instantly, regardless. "If you hurt her," Draco snarled, "I won't need a wand to end your miserable existence."

"I'm sorry," Astoria said, genuine contrition somehow coming through her bestial rumble. "We thought you two were still Death Eaters."

Draco threw his head back against the pillow. "Damn it! That's why you brought that up. If I'd just said something! I'd only just awoken and my head was still so fuzzy."

"Let me try to get you on your feet," Harry said as he walked over to Draco's bedside. "I missed all of last year, so the only training I have in healing charms is what I learned in the field. Astoria said you have more practice."

"Astoria?" Malfoy blinked. "Merlin, Tori, what happened?"

"It's a long story," she said. "You need to help your mother first."

Harry ran a diagnostic charm and found only a mild concussion, so he targeted a couple of low-power Episkey charms at the area to slowly bring down the bruising and swelling. "I think that will help," he said. "How do you feel?"

Draco rubbed his head. "Like I have a terrible headache, but I'm not so fuzzy anymore and the light doesn't hurt. I think I can do this."

"I'll get your wand," Astoria said. She hurried off, her heavy footsteps thundering down the hallway away from them.

Harry sighed and held out a hand to help Draco up. Draco shrugged and took it. He expected the boy's hands to be smooth and soft, but they had a bit of the toughness his own did. "I'm sorry about Narcissa," he said as they made their way back to the stairs. "I couldn't fight both of them and protect her."

"I couldn't even protect myself," Draco muttered. "I don't know if I can forgive you, but I can't say I'd have done better."

There wasn't much Harry could say to that, so he just shrugged. He couldn't imagine he'd take it all that well, either.

Astoria ran up a moment later and handed Draco his wand. He accepted it gratefully, but had a quizzical expression on his face as he did so. "You'd trust me with this?" he asked.

"We have to," Astoria said. "We don't want anyone else to die, except maybe Death Eaters." She led them toward the stairs.

Draco looked down at his wand. "I'm trying to decide if I deserve this," he said, softly enough that only Harry could have heard.

"Your mother thought you did," Harry whispered back.

He sighed. "I hate you, Potter," he said, though without any of his usual fire.

Harry smirked, enjoying the opportunity to turn that particular table on Draco. "I hate you, too, Malfoy." Ahead of them, he swore he saw Astoria stifle the bestial equivalent of laughter and wondered for a moment how good her hearing really was in this form.

They followed Astoria down the staircase, and Harry had to admit it was an impressive one. A grand lady in a gown could make a brilliant entrance on that staircase, and he wasn't even normally impressed by that sort of thing. This was just an amazingly well-designed staircase.

The staircase took them down to the foyer, and Astoria led them back outside where her sister was keeping patient watch over Narcissa. "Harry was able to help Draco," she said.

"Oh, and you gave him his wand back already," Daphne said. "Brilliant. Harry damn near kicked our asses last time around with a witch who was barely better than a meat shield, and now Draco has his wand back, too."

Draco whipped around to stare at Harry. "You did what?"

"I'm sorry!" Harry said. "I didn't know it was Daphne and Astoria and they were trying to kill us."

"You used my mother as cannon fodder?" Draco raised his wand as he spoke.

Harry stepped back and instinctively drew his own. "It wasn't like that!"

Astoria stepped between them and gently laid one massive paw on Draco's wand hand. "I was trying to rip him to pieces the whole time. He disabled me for a moment and protected your mother from Daphne at the cost of giving me the opportunity to get my hand around his throat. He was very brave."

Draco allowed her to lower his wand. "Damn it," he said, almost crying, "even when you're effortlessly better than me, Potter, you're still not good enough."

Before Harry could even begin to figure out how to respond to that, Daphne cut in. "Tori," she grunted, "why are you giving Potter a perfect shot at your back? We still don't know if we can trust them."

Tori growled a little in response, a sound that again reminded Harry of laughter. "Harry," Tori asked without turning around, "have you ever in your life hexed anyone in the back?"

"I...um...don't think so, no," Harry said.

Daphne sighed, the flow of air making her loose, vulpine cheeks ripple. "I don't know what annoys me more about my sister: her unflagging faith in humanity or the fact she's so often proven right."

"She has that knack." Draco had regained most of his composure, which registered to Harry as a mysteriously increasing desire to punch him. "I'd better check out my mother now, if you don't mind."

The others took a step back to allow Draco full access to his mother. He performed a diagnostic charm and sighed. "I don't know if I can fix this. Ironically, she probably could have. She was the best of all of us at this." He took a deep breath. "I'll start with the head injury. I've had a lot of experience dealing with nerve damage and secondary injuries like concussions sustained while thrashing during a Cruciatus Curse."

Draco ran his wand carefully over the back of his mother's skull for about five minutes straight before sitting down and allowing himself to fall flat on his back. "I think I've dealt with her head injury," he said, weariness dragging down his voice. "She'll probably survive the night now."

Daphne put a clawed paw on his free hand. Draco flinched a little at the contact, but forced it back and had the grace to look sheepish. "I'm sorry," she said. "We've had so many Death Eaters after us that I attacked first rather than asking questions."

"Death Eaters?" Harry asked. He was curious about what was going on at the mansion, but Death Eaters took priority. "Do you know who's backing them? I'm worried they'll come after me and my friends, too."

"Lord Selwyn," Daphne said. "He's the wealthiest and most powerful surviving Death Eater now that Theo's family is dead and Draco's has turned away. A couple of dozen Death Eaters and sympathizers, mostly small-time thugs, have coalesced around him, but he's keeping a low profile for the time being. That doesn't mean he's not keeping an eye out for advantages, though, and he knows what we have."

"What do you have?" Draco asked.

Tori growled, as if the mere memory made her angry. "Something Father bought from a creepy Russian artifact broker. The old wanker spent the whole negotiation leering at me, and I learned later Father only brought me along because he knew the man had a weakness for black-haired girls."

Draco rolled his head around to look at Tori. "I'm sorry. That's disgusting."

"It gets worse," Daphne said. "The device was an old Cossack artifact, a hand mirror, that allowed them to turn prisoners into monsters fast and brutal enough to help with their raids. It hadn't worked for nearly two centuries after one of Tsar Alexander's wizards damaged it to ensure it couldn't be used against him, but Voldemort was interested in its potential to rebuild his army after the losses he knew he would take assaulting Hogwarts." Astoria twitched again at the name, but didn't say anything.

She turned to Draco. "You've met our father. He could be nasty, yes, but he wasn't a fighter. He could barely even jog. So Voldemort let him skive off the Battle of Hogwarts and focus on mastering and repairing the artifact, which is where we found him when we ditched the evacuated students and snuck home hoping to destroy the mirror."

"We were hoping he was at the battle," Tori said, "but we were...ready when we found him. We hammered him with disarming charms and Daphne eventually took his wand, but he wouldn't give up. He turned the mirror on us." She shook her head. "I collapsed as soon as I felt the change coming, but Daph was stronger than me and blasted Father out the window with an Expulso before it took her."

"Did that work?" Draco asked.

"The lab's on the third story," Daphne said.

"Ah."

"I'm…" Harry shook his head. "I don't even know what to say. I've had a hole in my heart my entire life where my parents ought to have been, but to find out that you killed your father after he turned a Dark Artifact on you...I just feel ill."

"Rethinking your decision not to kill me, Potter?" Daphne asked. With her bestial voice, Harry couldn't tell if she was making a dark joke or genuinely curious.

"Nah, just rethinking my decision to come back after Voldemort killed me," Harry said.

"You were dead?" Tori asked.

"Briefly," Harry said. "It's a long story."

"My parents were there," Draco said. "I am so put out that I missed seeing him get killed. Would have been the highlight of my year."

Tori smacked him on the top of his head. "You are such a prat."

Draco moaned and rubbed his head. "Ow. I do not need another head injury just now."

"Sorry," Tori said. "I'm still not really used to this form."

"It looks to me," Harry said, "like you've got the hang of it nicely."

Tori glared at him, which he had to admit was fairly intimidating.

"So how do we get you out of this form and render you incapable of giving me any more accidental head injuries?" Draco asked.

"We don't," Daphne said. "Tori and I have been looking through my father's notes. He'd mostly fixed up the mirror, but it doesn't have the same efficacy it once did. It can only turn two people at a time now, rather than ten. Also, a prisoner used to take only a month to turn, but his notes said he'd only gotten it down to four months before he...he died." Harry got the sense that dueling her father to the death had been harder than the girl had let on. "There's no way to stop the transformation. On September second, our personalities will die and we'll become mindless beasts."

Draco's eyes widened and he pushed himself up to his elbows. "What?"

Tori nodded. "Father's notes said there used to be a way to undo the transformation, but he'd worked to limit its effectiveness. Now, the only way is to see through it without magic, whatever that means. Father wasn't even sure, but was confident it would be impossible."

"So you have only two days to live?" Harry asked.

"Hopefully a little less," Daphne replied. "If you can destroy the artifact, it'll kill us instantly and we don't have to worry about our minds being eaten alive from the inside. That will also keep the Ministry's grubby little paws off of this thing. I'm guessing they won't go back to using Dementors after those things turned on us in the most obvious betrayal of the decade--not that I'm bitter about that--and the Ministry probably thinks this is a great way to turn life-term prisoners into their own guards."

"Had I known," Draco said, "I'd have told the Aurors to bugger off. Nobody deserves this."

"I see," Harry said weakly. "So we just have to indirectly kill you."

"Or do it personally if the beast claims us first," Daphne said. "Your choice."

"That's not much of a choice," Draco said.

Daphne shrugged. "That's life...at least till it's not, anyway."

"Ugh." Tori leaned over and smacked her on the shoulder. "I told you I would put up with your awful dark humor as long as it was witty. That wasn't even close."

"It's a fair cop," Daphne said. "Anyway, speaking of the damn thing, we're not doing any good out here. Potter, you want to come in with me and see if you can figure out how to destroy it?"

"I might as well," Harry said. "I hate just sitting here and staring at yet another person I couldn't protect. In there, the worst thing I can do is not kill you."

Draco shrugged. "I can't say I want to stare at you right now, either, Potter. I'll keep working on my mother. I want to try to get the broken bits of her ribs far enough away from her lungs to move her inside safely."

"Good luck," Harry said. Daphne nodded and headed back into the house. Like her sister, her strides were long enough to force him to hurry to keep up, but Harry suspected the older girl knew what she was doing and did it anyway.

After once again climbing the grand staircase, Daphne took a left and headed toward the end of the hall. "We use the third floor mostly for storage," she said as they walked, "but Father's lab is up here, too. Mother insisted he Charm the hell out of the floor so nothing ever leaked through."

Harry chuckled. "Smart woman. What happened to her?"

"She and father fought more and more after Voldemort returned. She was alive when Tori and I left for Hogwarts last year, and when we came home for Christmas, she...wasn't."

"I'm sorry," Harry said. "That's awful."

Daphne nodded as she climbed the smaller staircase to the third floor. "Last year was awful, and most days it feels like it never ended."

"I know what you mean," Harry said as he followed her. "Most nights I wake up and I think I'm still on the run."

"I was wondering where you'd buggered off to last year," Daphne said. "Tori said she heard you'd been on some sort of secret mission, but we obviously haven't been able to get any news since we came here."

"It's a long story and I can't tell most of it," Harry said. "Let's just say that Voldemort won't be coming back again."

"Good." The word rumbled in her throat. "I'm glad you finished the job this time."

Harry stopped as he was about to reach the top of the staircase. "I was a bloody baby last time!"

"Hurr, hurr," Daphne snorted. "Sorry, Potter, I couldn't resist. I can't say I wasn't a little annoyed with all of those idiots fawning over the 'Boy Who Lived' for my entire time at school, but I guess you've really earned it now, haven't you?"

"Yeah." Harry didn't even try to keep the bitterness out of his voice. "Only cost me my parents last time and the rest of my family this time."

Daphne stopped for a moment, as well. "Come on," she said when she started walking again. "You need to figure out how to kill me."

As he followed her into the lab, Harry wondered if having trouble with apologies was a Slytherin trait or just a Daphne one.

Chapter Text

The lab was in surprisingly good shape given the battle Daphne had described, though she said that was mostly due to their tireless house elf Flopsy. Once she had Harry settled in with her father's notebooks and had given him a rough reading order, she excused herself to add him to the internal wards and get them some lunch. About half an hour later she returned with a sandwich and tea for him and a whole cooked ham leg for her. Harry took the food gratefully and tried to ignore how she ate, mostly because it was triggering at least three separate instincts in him to run away screaming.

"Sorry," she said when she'd finished. "We've been alone for four months and I think we've forgotten a bit about how to be human. The beast inside comes out most strongly when we fight or eat."

He shrugged. "It's your house. Eat however you want. Honestly, once I manage to tamp down the fight-or-flight reflex, it's nice to have the company."

She stared at him. "Again, sentences I'd never thought I'd hear from you...from anyone, really. So nobody's waiting for you at home?"

"Just a house elf who hates me because I'm not a Pureblood. Ginny left me last week. She needed people around her, partly because that's who she is and partly because that's how she's dealing with her grief. I needed silence, so in the end she decided she could give us both what we wanted."

"Ouch." Daphne shook her head. "Cold. And that's coming from a girl most of the boys in Slytherin called the 'Ice Queen' because I wouldn't pretend they were worth my time."

"I defer to your expertise in the matter, then," Harry said.

"What about Weasley and Granger?" Daphne asked.

"Hermione hid her parents elsewhere for safety during the war," Harry said. "They're retrieving them and their memories now."

"I see. That was cold-blooded of Granger, but she probably made the right call. A lot of muggle-borns lost family members last year."

"Yeah. Sometimes there were no right answers, just ones we hoped we could live with." He looked down at the notes in front of him. "Or not, in this case. Are you sure you want me to do this?"

"Absolutely," Daphne said firmly. "Tori is, too, but she's focused on trying to enjoy life as much as she can in these last few days. I got that out of my system and I'm focused on making sure we go out on our own terms, not Father's."

Harry nodded. "I'll make sure you do, then."

The next few hours were a blur, and he felt himself settling in a comfortable routine again. It wasn't quite the same as a Saturday spent studying at Hogwarts, mostly because instead of Hermione managing the study session it was a giant anthropoid fox monster, but Daphne wasn't solidly in the top five students in their class for nothing and Harry found himself rapidly mastering her father's material. He burrowed so deeply into the familiar habit of studying that he barely noticed the fall of night outside, and didn't consider stopping until his stomach rumbled angrily at him.

"I heard that." Daphne gave another gentle "hurr, hurr" across the table. "We've probably done enough for now. Want to get some dinner?"

Harry blinked. "Um...yes, I think so. Sorry, I was really into the notes there, I guess." He shook his head, trying to clear out the cobwebs of lost thought. "You're right. Let's get some food."

Daphne cocked her head at him as if a question was on the tip of her tongue...snout...whatever, but she chose not to ask it and instead led him downstairs to the dining room.

Tori and Draco were already at the table when they arrived. "We were hungry half an hour ago," she said by way of explanation, "so we asked Flopsy to make some bruschetta and open a lovely '94 Brunello di Montalcino."

"You ate bruschetta?" Daphne asked. "Neither of us have been interested in anything but meat for weeks."

She nodded primly, a motion so incongruous with her bestial form that Harry had to try not to laugh. "Of course," she said. "I have precisely one chance to host a dinner, and I refuse to mess it up."

Daphne's posture relaxed and her head dropped a little, and the laughter Harry had been holding in evanesced like his last good dream. "Oh," she said, "We're sorry to have kept you waiting, then."

Harry nodded and followed her silently to the table. "Thank you for arranging this," he said, doing his best to dust off his table manners.

"Yes, thank you," Draco said. He shot Harry a subtle nod, at once both appreciative and encouraging. Doing anything Draco encouraged instinctively worried Harry, but he pushed his concerns aside and tried to focus on being a good guest. A dying teenage girl wanted to host a dinner and damn him if he was going to be the one to mess it up.

Tori had Flopsy start them with a Caesar salad, which Harry supposed was savory enough that even Daphne could stomach it in her current form. She followed it up with a plate of pappardelle Bolognese, which Harry had never had before and seemed like a perfect choice given the circumstances. After a short break during which Tori absolutely insisted the boys drink some wine, which Harry had been trying to take slowly because of his unfamiliarity with alcohol, she asked Flopsy to bring out a pot roast braised in red wine and served with gravy, carrots, and something called polenta with some cheese on it. It was delicious, and even the polenta turned out to be decent. Neither of the girls touched their wine goblets, probably because they were worried about how to hold the delicate goblets in their clawed paws or drink from them with their large snouts. They also did their best to eat daintily, which generally involved spearing a bit of food on a claw and licking it off. Harry decided it was the thought that counted and soldiered on.

After the meat course, Draco excused himself to check on his mother. Harry attempted to make some polite conversation, but the girls/monsters looked a little uncomfortable and he ended up just drinking some more wine. He stopped when Flopsy materialized to refill the glass, though, since that made him realize both how much wine he'd already finished (one generous goblet) and how much wine he could theoretically finish (all of it), and both of those realizations worried him.

Draco came back a moment later. "She's still stable and slipping in and out of consciousness," he said. "I got her to drink a little."

"I'm glad," Tori said. "She'll need it."

"I'm really sorry I hurt her so badly," Daphne said. "I didn't know you weren't still Death Eaters."

"You couldn't have," Draco said bitterly. "I thought we were safe when Harry's testimony kept us out of Azkaban, but that was just the start, wasn't it? We're never going to be able to escape what we did during the war."

Harry poked with his fork at a bit of rogue polenta on his plate (what was that stuff?) and tried to collect his thoughts. "None of us can escape what we did during the war."

"At least people are happy to see you in the street," Draco shot back.

"I spoke at over fifty funerals in the fortnight after the Battle of Hogwarts," Harry said, his tone not rising to respond. "I can't even remember all of the names anymore. Whenever someone comes up to congratulate me in the street, all I can think of is whether they'll ask me about a lost relative and find out I couldn't even be arsed to remember their name."

A pall of silence descended on the table. After a long minute, Draco finally broke it. "I hated you for making me feel small, Potter. After all these years, I've finally realized you were right to despise me, because I really am small."

"Despise you?" Harry (or possibly the wine in his blood) snorted in derision. "I envied you, you prat. You had self-confidence to spare, the intelligence and skill to back that confidence up, wealth, power, and parents who loved you. I mean, they may have hated most other human beings on the planet, but they still loved you. I would have given anything for that."

Draco stared at him for a moment. "We had everything, didn't we?" he asked, his voice wavering. "We had everything and we threw it away."

Harry looked down at his food and said nothing. To agree would be cruel, but to say anything else would be a lie.

The other boy rose suddenly, almost violently. "I need to sit with my mother," he said, and hurried off into the darkened parlor.

Tori hastily wiped off her foreclaw (ripping the linen serviette in the process) and hurried after him without a word to her other guests.

"Damn it." Harry sighed, lost his mental battle, and took a drink of wine. "I promised myself I wouldn't bollocks up your sister's dinner and I ended up doing it anyway."

"For once," Daphne said, "I don't think this one was your fault."

"That would be a change of pace." Harry looked back toward the parlor. "So I take it Tori fancies Draco?"

Daphne made that laughing sound again. "Goodness, it must be obvious if even you can see it."

Harry glared at her. Intimidating a seven-foot-tall humanoid monstrosity wasn't necessarily easy or even likely, but Harry gave it his best shot, anyway.

"Oh, come on," she said. "You were legendary among my fellow girls for your massive obliviousness to the number of them who lusted after you."

"Really?" Harry's glare dissolved into laughter. "I had no idea."

"That's why it was so funny to watch them chase you," Daphne said. Her expression darkened...which was more than a little disconcerting on a visage such as hers. "After what you just said about family, do you think we're monsters for killing our father?"

He shook his head sadly. "Of course not. I'm just sad that bastard made you sacrifice your own family to protect the rest of us from him, and I wish I didn't know how much that loss hurt. For what it's worth, though, thank you."

Daphne rested her massive head in her clawed hands. "I appreciate that, Potter. I've been sitting here for the last four months with only Tori and my own guilt for company, so it's nice to hear someone else say I did the right thing." She sighed. "Bloody hell, this conversation has gotten depressing. Would you like some dessert? Tori would probably want us to pretend we're still polite dinner guests."

"Sure," Harry said. "What are you in the mood for?"

She shrugged. "I don't really eat dessert anymore. You can ask Flopsy for whatever you want."

"How about cookies?" Harry asked. "I've heard there's such a thing as 'dog cookies,' so you could have those while I have normal cookies."

"Don't worry about it," Daphne said.

"You don't get it." The angry hiss in Harry's voice caused her head to jerk up. "There's nobody at my manor, so I can have whatever I want whenever I want. That's all I have to look forward to when I go home in a few days: whatever I feel like. Do you know how meaningless all that choice becomes after a day or two? Every meal, you sit down knowing you can have anything you want except someone to lose the 'what do we eat' debate to. Do you know what I would give to have someone to debate dinner choices with again? So, yes, I want to know what you would like for dessert."

Daphne stared at him for a moment, mouth slightly open. Finally, she said, much more softly than usual, "I never really liked cookies. What would you say to ice cream? Flopsy's always made fantastic ice cream."

"I'd love to try some of her ice cream," Harry said, and they both pretended his smile wasn't the only thing holding back his tears.

At least it turned out Daphne was right: Flopsy's ice cream was delicious.

They'd gone over notes for another hour that evening, but Harry's heart wasn't really in it and he ended up going to bed early. The guest room was well-appointed, if a little on the feminine side in its choice of floral patterns for the wallpaper, dresser, armoire, and bedding, and the bed was incredibly comfortable. After Harry's day, he knew sleep should come with no trouble, but he wasn't sure he could face what he knew would come next.

He lay in bed for several hours while the rest of the house grew quiet before eventually giving up and rising from bed. He slipped his shoes back on and threw on his robe to ward off the evening chill, then slipped out of his room. The stairs were blessedly silent under his steps as he descended, and as he passed by the parlor door at the base of the stairs, stray moonbeams illuminated Draco and Tori sleeping uncomfortably in armchairs while Narcissa lay on the couch.

The front door opened with nary a creak, a testament to Flopsy's untiring maintenance, and allowed Harry easy egress into the front gardens. The night was as chilly as he'd expected, but otherwise only slightly overcast. A half-full moon cast plenty of light around him, and he had no trouble finding a large bench to sit down upon and watch the sky. It was a peaceful night, an easy one in which to lose oneself in the stars. The night sky in London was terrible, and nights like this reminded Harry how much he missed the more sedate environment around Hogwarts.

After only a few minutes, though, gravel crunched behind him. In another time and place, he'd have leapt to his feet, wand already in hand. Now, though, he was just too tired to react like that, and he merely raised a hand and waved in the general direction of whoever was back there. It was either one of his hostesses or it wasn't.

"So much for stealth," Daphne said, and walked more normally up to the other side of the bench. "I heard you sneaking out and was worried you were going to try to escape."

"I understand," Harry replied. "I'm just enjoying the quiet night, though. Care to join me?"

She shrugged and sat down opposite him, the old metal of the bench groaning under her mass as she did so. "Fair enough. Honestly, though, I'm a little surprised you haven't tried to get away, or at least spend an evening at your own home."

"I promised you I'd help, and I will," Harry said. "Besides, all I've got there is a house elf who hates me and a house that I'm pretty sure feels the same way. Oh, and the constant requests for interviews and favors. Or marriage proposals. It's not a proper morning till I've vanished at least a six-inch stack of mail."

"Hurr, hurr," Daphne laughed. "You know, I owe you an apology, Potter. Ever since you showed up at Hogwarts, I thought you really were a fame-hungry arsehole. I should have ignored my father and idiot classmates and actually paid attention to you instead of just assuming they were right."

"It's OK," Harry said. "It's not like I ever gave Slytherins the time of day back then, either. I can't blame you for assuming they were right."

She cocked her head at him. "You forgive too easily, do you know that?"

He shrugged. "If I kept all of my grudges, I'd hate everyone, and that sounds exhausting."

"Don't knock it till you've tried it," Daphne said, and laughed again. This time, Harry couldn't help but join her.

They watched the stars for a few minutes in silence before the woman-beast spoke up again. "My sight in this form is a little fuzzy, but I can hear and smell far better than I used to," she said. "It's probably good that you didn't try to sneak out tonight. I smell some of Selwyn's minions on the wind."

Harry went for his wand, but Daphne waved his concern away. "No, no," she said, "they're pretty far off. Probably keeping an eye out to see if we're obviously injured after the fights with the Aurors and you. And they couldn't break through the wards without battling them for at least half an hour, so even if they wanted to attack Tori and I would have an unholy screeching alarm clock to let us know."

"Oh, OK," Harry said. "I've spent a lot of time relying on wards, so the idea of people skulking around outside them while I'm trying to sleep doesn't bother me as much as it probably should."

"Hurrgle," Daphne growled. It sounded kind of like a beast-woman lost in thought.

"What's on your mind?" Harry asked.

"I was going to ask you that," she replied. "I can also hear your breathing change when you think, and I know something was bothering you even before I brought up the Death Eaters. What's wrong?"

Harry sighed. "I suppose I was just wondering whether your attitude made it easier or harder to face death."

She didn't respond for a moment, and Harry wondered if he'd offended her. When she spoke again, though, her voice was tinged with sadness, not anger. "I thought it would," she whispered to the night, "but I'm still scared. Working on the artifact is a good distraction, though."

"Is Malfoy Tori's distraction?" Harry asked.

"More or less," Daphne said. "I guess I owe you thanks for this, too. Before you showed up, she was desperately trying to help me destroy the mirror, but she trusts you to be able to handle it, and I'm glad you were able to take it off her mind. She legitimately fancies Draco, and a teenage girl ought to be able to think about her fancy rather than...this. "

Harry chuckled, drawing a confused head-cock from Daphne. "Sorry," he said, "but I just realized your sister is probably the only person in the world who simultaneously thinks highly of both Draco and me."

Daphne laughed, too. "You're probably right. Tori's heart is somehow big enough for all of us. She's never really had the heart to fight anyone, but she insisted…" she trailed off, then forced the words out anyway, "insisted I let her come with me to confront Father."

"I got lucky on that count, I guess," Harry said. "When I went to let Voldemort kill me, I used an invisibility cloak to make sure none of my friends followed me and tried to do anything stupid."

"I could have snuck away," Daphne whispered, her voice low and scratchy. "I let her see me going because I was too scared to face him alone. I'm a damn coward, Potter, and now Tori's going to die because of it." Her body shook with what Harry was pretty sure were repressed sobs.

Harry slid over a foot and patted her on the shoulder. Her fur was bristly, oily, and unpleasant to touch, but denying her comfort because of the very affliction necessitating it just seemed cruel. She froze for a moment at the touch, then relaxed and leaned on him, resting her right shoulder on his left and her head atop his. Harry had to brace himself with his right hand to keep from being pushed over by her weight, but he still managed to work his left arm out from under her and pat her on the back. "It's not your fault," he said. "I had it easy: I just needed to die. You needed to win."

The sobbing ebbed and the woman-beast shook her head. "You're too damn nice, Harry Potter."

"And you're too damn heavy, Daphne Greengrass," he responded.

She threw her arms over her mouth to try to restrain a literal roar of laughter. "Thank you," she said once she'd gotten her breath back under control. "It was nice to forget myself just for a moment there."

Harry shrugged again and tried to resist the temptation to wipe the oil off of his hair or do anything else to remind her of her affliction. "No problem. Thanks for letting me help you a bit."

Daphne snorted. "You don't have to help everyone, you know."

"I know," he said, "it's just...helping someone takes my mind off of the people I couldn't help, at least for a little while."

"Nightmares?" she asked.

He nodded and yawned simultaneously. "Constantly. Ginny and I were sleeping in separate beds for the fortnight before she left. That's part of the reason I'm out here, if I'm being honest. I didn't want to wake anyone up."

She regarded him silently for a moment before reaching over with her right arm, grabbing his right shoulder, and pulling him down so his head rested on her lap. He tried to fight it, but her strength was so far beyond his that she probably didn't even notice his efforts.

"You may as well sleep here, then," she said. "My current form isn't good for much, but maybe it'll be enough to scare away your nightmares."

Her fur was rough and abrasive against the side of his face, but at least the muscles beneath it provided a decent cushioning over her femur. The beast's smell was overpowering in that position, but it wasn't so awful that he couldn't get used to it. Overall, he was so tired that he was willing to give anything a try, even this. "Thanks," he said, and rolled slightly toward his back so the skin of his cheek was no longer touching her fur. "What about you, though?"

She leaned her left arm on the back of the bench (the arm rest was too low for her height). "I'll be fine. Animals sleep in uncomfortable positions all the time."

Something about that statement bothered Harry, but his consciousness was already fading and, try as he might, he just couldn't grasp the thread.

Chapter Text

Harry awoke to the rosy light of dawn, a terrible smell, and someone pressing a steel wool pad into the back of his head. He jerked up a few inches, startling awake the vulpine monstrosity he'd been using as a pillow and did the whole of reality shatter while he was asleep or something because bloody hell it's a fox monster!

The monster looked down at him and jumped, as well, nearly knocking him off the bench he'd been laying on. His back hurt, the back of his head was a fun combination of oily and raw, and somehow it was still the best night's sleep he'd had since Ginny moved out.

"I'm sorry," the monster rumbled, and he finally remembered just what on Earth was going on. "We've been alone so long I forgot anyone was here."

"I forgot I was here, too," Harry said. "And I really forgot you were here."

She looked down at him and gave the bestial chuckle he was improbably getting used to. "I'm not sure which one of us is more of a mess, so I'm going to assume it's you."

Harry rose slowly back to a sitting position and tried to stretch the kinks out of his back. "Yeah," he said, "but my hair is always a disaster. What's your excuse?"

Daphne's chuckle turned into full-on laughter. "Well played, Harry," she said. "Now that we're up, shall we get some breakfast?"

"That sounds good," he said. "What are you in the mood for?"

"A Full English. You?" she asked.

"How about a Full Scottish? I haven't had one of those since I was at Hogwarts."

"Now that you mention it, I haven't, either," she responded. "OK, Full Scottish it is."

"Thanks," Harry said, though the word came out more quietly than he'd intended.

One of Daphne's heavy paws clapped onto his shoulder and brought him to a complete halt. "Harry, I need you to promise me something," she said.

Harry nodded, in part because of the seriousness of her tone and in part because his hindbrain apparently had a strict "Do not annoy the seven-foot-tall vulpine monstrosities" policy.

"In two days, I will be dead and/or gone," Daphne said. "After that, you are going to go home and contact St. Mungo's. They have an orphanage there, and you are going to work as a volunteer no fewer than five hours a day, five days a week. Don't worry about your fame; all it will do is serve to attract even more attention to the orphanage. Is that clear?"

He stared at her in shock.

"I said, is that clear?"

"That's a great idea," Harry said. "I'll do it. Thank you for the suggestion."

"You're welcome." She released his shoulder. "Now, let's get that breakfast. Be quiet as you enter the house in case our other guests haven't risen yet."

Daphne's prediction proved accurate as soon as they walked into the foyer. Narcissa was still asleep on the couch, with Draco and Tori sitting on the floor and resting their backs against the couch below her and their heads against one another. It didn't look terribly comfortable, but it was probably a good way to make sure they awoke if she did.

They crept past the sleepers and into the dining room. Daphne closed the door before summoning Flopsy and asking her to quietly prepare them a Full Scottish Breakfast. The mousy little house elf with unusually floppy ears nodded enthusiastically and popped away to begin work on breakfast.

"Was that an embroidered pillowcase she was wearing?" Harry asked. "I only just noticed it."

Daphne nodded. "My mother made it when I was little, put it in a bag, and put that bag into the trash. She told Flopsy what she'd done, asked her to empty the trash, and told her she wouldn't be offended to find Flopsy wearing that pillowcase were she inclined to do so. She's never taken it off since."

"That was nice of her," Harry said.

The elf came in a few minutes later bearing two plates loaded with baked beans, sunny side-up eggs, lorne sausage, haggis, black pudding (because every culture needed at least one disgusting dish) fried mushrooms, fried potatoes (Professor McGonagall called them "tattie scones" for reasons Harry never figured out), and other items. They both thanked Flopsy and tore into their food.

After stuffing his face for a few minutes, Harry hit upon an idea. "Hey, Daphne? Want to trade some fried potatoes for my black pudding?"

She swallowed her current mouthful and nodded. "Yes, please. Normally I hate black pudding, but in my current form it's delicious."

They traded food and kept eating. Daphne's table manners were still mildly horrifying in her current form, but Harry found himself inured to them and largely ignored her. They were just finishing up breakfast when Tori and Draco came in. Tori looked about ready to murder something, but Harry reminded himself sleep-deprived monstrous fox beasts probably just looked like that normally. Draco had ridiculous bed-head and bags under his eyes.

"How's your mother?" Harry asked.

"Waking up every couple of hours," Draco replied as he pulled out a chair for Tori before sitting down himself. Harry had to hand it to him; he could be quite polite if he thought someone deserved it. "I think this is my punishment for ever being a baby. She's stable for now, at least from what I can tell. She's regained consciousness a couple of times, but she's been a little out of it and I've had to Stupefy her to keep her from overreacting to Tori or the environment."

"I understand," Harry said. "I'm she's stable." Daphne nodded in agreement.

"By the way," Tori said, "around midnight last night I smelled some Death Eaters on the wind outside. They definitely haven't given up on us."

"Harry and I were out walking around then," Daphne said. "I smelled them, too."

"Oh, good," Tori said. "I'm glad you were aware of them. I thought about trying to wake you, but I decided it probably wasn't necessary."

Draco smirked. "Rather late for a walk, wasn't it?"

"I couldn't sleep," Harry said. He suddenly found himself wondering if even a rocket launcher could remove Draco's smirk and came to the conclusion he'd love to get his hands on one and try.

"I see," Tori said, and snorted. "Daph, were you making sure he didn't escape?"

"Yes," Daphne said. "It turned out to be entirely unnecessary, but I thought I should at least try to be cautious about our safety."

"That's fine," Tori said. "I hope you had a nice time on your predictably unnecessary moonlit stroll through our gardens."

"As nice as possible," Harry said, "with skulking Death Eaters as chaperones."

Tori growled/laughed. "So they are good for something. How lovely. Well, hopefully we'll be able to revive Narcissa after breakfast and she can chaperone you more congenially."

"I hope so," Draco said. His smirk was gone and even his neutral expression was clearly forced. "If not, I may need to get help. I think she'll be all right, though."

"Good luck," Daphne said. Her voice was low, almost a growl. "Make sure you take her wand first in case she wakes up angry."

"Fine," Tori said. "We'll be careful."

Daphne gave her a sharp look, but said nothing. Instead, she rose to her feet. "We're done with breakfast, so we should probably get back to the artifact research. Good luck with her."

Harry nodded and followed her. Theoretically, she probably should have asked him instead of just dragging him out of the room, but as a practical matter it meant he had to spend less time with Draco, so he couldn't complain.

Tori and Draco ate a light breakfast (just some toast and tea for Draco, and a single pound of steak for Tori) before returning to the parlor to check on Narcissa. They'd done their best to ease her sleep the previous night, at much cost to their own, and it seemed to have done her some good.

Tori gently laid a paw on the woman's shoulder. "Do you think she's ready?"

Draco heard both meanings of the question as he ran another yet diagnostic charm on his mother. He'd done so many in the last twenty-four hours that neither he nor Tori noticed he'd done this one non-verbally. "No real change from when we woke up," he said. "I'm worried there are some bone fragments near her lungs, but I can't get enough detail on the charm to be sure. I think she's ready, but if she takes a turn for the worse, we're going to have to risk taking her to St. Mungo's."

"I understand," Tori said. "I...I won't let Daphne keep her here if she gets that sick. She shouldn't d...die because of us."

"Thank you," Draco said. "That means a lot to me." He stared at his mother for a moment. It would be simple to intentionally mess up a bone-mending charm to shove a bit of rib into her lung, and the resultant bloody cough she'd develop would be more than enough to convince Tori to let him take her to St. Mungo's. All he'd have to do was risk killing his own mother and take advantage of the kindness of an orphan.

Draco sighed. He wished he'd learnt sooner the difference between being "ambitious and cunning" and "an arsehole."

"She'll be all right," Tori said, misunderstanding the meaning behind his sigh. She moved her paw to Draco's shoulder and patted it in a manner that she probably thought was gentle, but that forced him to tense all of the muscles on the left side of his body to avoid staggering. Regardless, he appreciated the gesture. "You're better than anyone our age I've ever met at healing charms."

"We all got pretty good at patching each other up from Cruciatus-related injuries during the war," Draco said. "Those were usually neurological issues or breakages in extremities, though, not internal injuries like broken ribs can cause. I'm out of my depth here."

"You're doing a great job," Tori said. She released a sigh that rippled her cheeks and flung a bit of drool around the couch. "Oh, sorry," she said. "I forgot that happens now."

Draco shrugged and wiped up his sleeve and his mother's blouse. "It's not exactly your fault. Is something on your mind?"

"Well...no...I mean," she shook her head. "Oh, Morgana's knickers, why not? I'll be dead in forty-eight hours, anyway. Draco, what possessed your damn fool family to pledge their loyalty to He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named? You're sitting here talking casually about how good you got at repairing Cruciatus damage on your own parents, for Merlin's sake!"

He took a deep breath. "Father raised me to believe blood mattered," he began, "and that people like you and I owed it to the world to lead them with our superior power and abilities. Noblesse oblige, if you will, and like all stories of noblesse oblige it was more than a little self-serving. Father started following Riddle--"

"Who?" Tori asked.

"I'll get to that in a moment," Draco said. "In his first war Voldemort offered his supporters a path to restoring that order and power, and men like Father jumped at the chance to set the world right again. Everyone they hurt, everyone they murdered, was just one more piece of collateral damage on the way to a better world.

"It was all a lie, of course. Voldemort was really a half-blood named Tom Riddle, and his revolution attracted the dregs of Pureblooded society, the wastrels, the cruel, and the petty, and turned them loose upon the country with the offer to reward their basest desires with power."

Tori stared at him. "Voldemort was a half-blood?"

"Potter proved it to me beyond a reasonable doubt," Draco said. "I have no idea why Dumbledore kept that to himself rather than shouting it from the rooftops. That man was inscrutable to the point of madness sometimes."

"Are you kidding me?" Tori turned to face Draco fully and drew herself to her full height. "All of the death and the chaos that man caused, my whole family dead including my sister and me, all for a blood purity crusade led by a damned half-blood? That is so stupid on so many levels I..." she trailed off and let off a thoroughly bestial growl of sheer frustration. "How did you fall for that, Draco? You're smarter than that! I've met your father and he's not stupid, but you're twice the wizard he is and you know it."

"I know it now," Draco said. "When I was little, I just wanted him to be proud of me. I thought I was doing everything right, but then Potter and Granger walked into Hogwarts and started outdoing me. And instead of just recognizing that I needed to work harder, my father told me they were cheating me of my rightful place in the world. That's a tempting lie to believe, and I fell for it.

"That's the really stupid thing," he continued. "If I'd tried as hard to earn better grades as I did to undermine and cheat Potter, I'd probably have beaten him fairly. Instead, I threw that chance away, just like my parents threw away our family's wealth, power, and prestige." He shook his head. "We were genuinely extraordinary, and we sacrificed almost everything to a lie."

"You really were." Tori shook her head. "I was head-over-heels in love with you until the year before last when you betrayed the whole damn school, Draco."

"I wish I could say knowing that would have made a difference," Draco said, "but I'd be lying. I was so focused on who I wasn't that I would never have believed someone could have loved me for who I was."

"You didn't seem to have any trouble accepting Pansy's affections," Tori said archly.

Draco shrugged and did his best to stifle a grin at that tone coming from a huge fox monster who claimed to be over him. "Pansy loved me for who she thought I was going to be," he said. "She no longer has any use for me, and I can't say I have any use for that kind of affection anymore, either."

"I see. So, once you're released from captivity by hideous monsters, what are you going to do with your life?"

Draco laughed sadly at her self-deprecating humor. "First, I'll need to plan your funerals. I know Harry will want to help, but let's be honest: he'll be terrible at it. I'll have him handle the paperwork or something to keep him busy and away from the more formal aspects."

Tori gave that snorting, horking giggle again. "Indeed. He'd make a right hash of it. Thank you for thinking of us."

"It's the absolute least I can do," Draco said. "Think nothing of it. After that, well, I'm not sure. I'm still coming to terms with the end of the war, and I also want to study for my N.E.W.T.s, and I hadn't thought any farther ahead than that. Realistically, it's probably going to be my life's work to try to rebuild a fraction of the wealth and power my family had before we threw it away.

"I don't believe you," Tori said, shaking her head. "You're making the same mistake your father made."

"What do you mean?"

"If it's just power you want," Tori responded, "then you'll never have enough."

Draco sighed. "You're right, but what else can I do? I won't give up on my family's legacy, even as tarnished as it is now."

"I know you well enough not to suggest that," Tori said, the low growl in her throat somehow conveying disappointment and reproach. "I just want you to think. The difference between a miser and a great businessman is that the former hoards wealth and the latter risks it for the success he truly wants. What do you want enough to risk the power you're accumulating, Draco?"

He stared at her and tried to put his thoughts together coherently. "I never...you're right. I've been going at this backwards. What I want is to educate other Purebloods and help them see more value in themselves than just their family trees. I know the world is changing, but I think the traditions and history of the oldest Wizarding families can still teach valuable lessons even today. There aren't that many of us left, and I'd hate to see even more of our heritage lost."

Tori patted him on the back, and once again he had to brace himself against the impact. "Now that is a worthy goal for a skilled and cunning wizard. I'm sorry I won't live to see you succeed."

"I am, too." He reached up with his left hand and awkwardly patted one of her claws. Silence fell around them for a moment before he spoke again. "I guess we should get started on my mother."

"I suppose so." Tori released his shoulder. "Thank you for letting me get that off of my chest. I doubt I'd have been brave enough to say anything were I going to live longer, but…" she shrugged.

"No, it's fine," Draco said. "I think I needed to hear that." He bent over his mother and began one last bone-mending charm. Once he was satisfied he'd done all he could for her ribs, he began a series of Episkey charms on the rear of her lungs, trying to reduce the swelling and strengthen the injured tissue. When he was done, he cast one final diagnostic charm and pocketed her wand.

"She's ready," he said.

"I'll step out into the foyer," Tori replied. "Let me know when she's ready to see me."

Draco nodded and, as Tori slipped out, leveled his wand at his mother and said, "Rennervate."

Narcissa groaned and put her hands over her eyes. "Draco? Is that you?" She groaned again.

"Yes, Mother," Draco said thickly. "How are you feeling?"

"I'm all right," she said, with possibly the most obvious lie he'd ever seen. "Are you well?"

"I am," he said.

"Oh, good," Narcissa replied. "I was so worried about you, but I don't remember why…" She gasped and tried to sit up, but stopped about two-thirds of the way to a sitting position and groaned again.

"Everything is fine." Draco dropped to one knee and wrapped his arms around her. He couldn't remember the last time they'd embraced, but it was probably after they'd all dodged prison sentences three months before. His family wasn't much for physical affection. "Let me help you." He gently moved her all the way to a sitting position.

She returned the embrace and sobbed a few times into his shoulder. "I thought I'd lost you!" she said. "I haven't been so worried since the war. I was going to go get Harry...wait, did I? Draco, where are we?"

"You did," Draco said. "We're at Greengrass Manor, and Harry is here, too. We're safe."

"Safe? But...weren't there monsters? I dreamt I fought one here."

"There are no monsters here, Mother." Draco took a deep breath. "Just two of my classmates trying to defend their home after being cursed by a Dark Artifact."

"Cursed?" Narcissa asked.

"Yes. An old Cossack hand mirror that turns people into large, fox-like creatures. Daphne and Astoria are still here, but they...look different."

"Oh, I'm sorry to hear that," she said.

"I'm going to get Astoria now," Draco told her. "She looks monstrous right now, but I promise you it's Astoria. Please trust me, Mother."

"Very well," Narcissa said.

Draco walked over to the foyer door and held out his hand. Tori took it and, hunched as if she were trying to make herself smaller, followed him back into the parlor.

Narcissa gasped. "That's...that's one of the monsters!"

Tori flinched, but Draco responded calmly, "She's not a monster, Mother. She never was. This is Astoria Greengrass."

"Draco, you're being mind-controlled or subjected to an illusion. Please, return my wand and let me help you."

"I remember," Tori began hesitantly, but even her soft, rumbling words were enough to quiet the Malfoys, "the garden party at Malfoy Manor before the 1994 Quidditch World Cup. I was only twelve and I was thrilled to attend my first adult party. Your house was so beautiful when we arrived. The floating fairy lights in the garden glowed like fiery gems in the sunset and lit the twilight afterward like a snowstorm of candles. Everyone's robes and gowns were gorgeous, the adults all spoke of such sophisticated things, and I couldn't wait to grow up a little more so I could join them all properly. The whole time, though, Lucius was planning that Death Eater attack at the World Cup." Her gaze fell to the parlor floor. "How did the war poison the good memories from before it even started? How could you have planned something so beautiful and something so ugly simultaneously?"

Narcissa stared at her in slack-jawed astonishment. Draco, though, reached over and patted the bristly, oil fur on her shoulder. "I'm so sorry," he said. "I know that's not enough and I can't repay you for the memories we tarnished, but apologies are all I have to give you."

That comment finally shook his mother out of her stupor. "Astoria...it really is you, isn't it? I remember you at that party. You'd grown easily three inches since the last time I'd seen you and I couldn't believe how you'd turned into a young woman so quickly. What's happened to you?"

"The war," Tori said simply. "It's not quite over for Daphne and me, but it will be tonight. My sister and Harry are working on a way to destroy the cursed mirror before the curse takes our minds, but the destruction of the mirror will kill us, too."

"I'm so sorry." Narcissa rested her head in her hands. "We never meant for little girls like you to be hurt."

"And Vincent," Draco said bitterly, "never meant to be consumed by his own Fiendfyre. You can't start a war and think you can control it. We did this, Mother. We started a war to gain power for Purebloods and all we accomplished was putting more of them in the ground."

"Draco!" Narcissa spoke sharply, then put her hands to her temples and leaned back against the couch. "Ugh, my head. Draco, I've never heard you take that tone with me in public."

"I'm sorry," Draco said. "I know you see every day what the war did to our family, but I'm the one who's out managing our remaining business interests and trying to salvage our name working with the Aurors, and I see what it did to everyone else. What we did. That's why I got upset when you called Tori a 'monster,' because she only looks like that because of what we did to our world."

"What do you want me to say?" Narcissa asked him. "Haven't we suffered enough?"

"I don't want anyone to suffer," Tori said. "Draco told me how he wants to rebuild, and that's enough for me. Your son has grown up tremendously, Mrs. Malfoy. I hope you're proud."

Draco inwardly winced. He appreciated the sentiment, but hadn't exactly told his parents about his plans and wasn't sure they would approve, especially after the argument he and his mother had just had.

"Thank you, dear," Narcissa said. "I've always been proud of him."

He breathed an imperceptible sigh of relief. Right now, he just wanted to bask in his mother's good health. Inevitable arguments could wait. He finally had a moment's peace, and he was enjoying it immensely until the sharp crack of an apparition shattered it.

"All right, Harry," Daphne said as soon as they'd settled back into the lab, "you got all of the theory yesterday. Are you ready for your practical exam?"

"I think so," Harry said. "Studying with you reminded me of studying with Hermione, and I usually did well after I studied with her."

Daphne snorted with gentle laughter. "You missed this, didn't you?"

"You have no idea. I never knew how much I truly loved Hogwarts until I couldn't return last year, and now...I've seen too much death there. I don't think I can return to study and walk past places where my classmates died."

"I understand. Well, when you see Hermione again, tell her I appreciate all of the time she spent drilling theory into your Quidditch-addled skull. You picked it up quickly."

Harry laughed. "Will do. So, what next?"

"I've never done any curse-breaking myself," Daphne said, "but from what I've read in our library--which was not easy in this form, I might add--you can apply what you've learned by using your wand and sort of feeling around for the layers of spells Father left notes about. You don't have to rip any apart just yet, just familiarize yourself with how they interact and where you could pull them apart if you were so inclined."

"I think I can do that." Harry drew his wand, pointed it at the mirror, and reached out with his magic. The spells surrounding the mirror felt oily and rancid, almost as if the magic itself were rotting and putrefying in front of them. Harry kept prodding at it, though, and focused on looking for where the different "scents" of putrefaction that he sensed transitioned from one to the other.

Mentally, he began to map those points out, but he had to take periodic breaks as the strain of focusing began to take its toll. Daphne's support didn't waver, though, and she let him take his time on the project. Finally, he released his focus and turned to her. "I think I can do this," he said. "May I try peeling back the first layer of spells? I'd like to see if I'm on the right track."

"Go ahead," Daphne said. "From the work Father did, I doubt that will destroy the mirror by itself, and if it does, well, that's an acceptable outcome."

Harry suppressed a shudder at that and focused on the mirror. As gently as he could, he inserted his own magic into the first spell junction he'd felt and pushed, trying to pry apart the two layers of spells.

Absolutely nothing happened.

"Harry?" Daphne asked. "Did it work?"

"No," he said. "I'm going to try this again." He let his magic flow into the junction and really pushed this time, not holding anything back or trying to do the work delicately. The mirror's magic did its best to protect itself, but Harry's onslaught proved too much for it in the end and, with a snapping sound and a swirl of black smoke whipping through the room, Harry finally tore off the first spell layered into the artifact.

Daphne raised her eyebrows and looked at the mirror. It was still intact, but a quarter-inch crack ran inward from the lower left edge. "I'm not sure that was 'nice' work," she said, "but it definitely did something. I've got to hand it to you: you seem to have an innate ability to apply magical theory to destructive ends."

Harry laughed. "That certainly sounds like me. Unfortunately, this took a lot more power than I was anticipating just to tear off the first spell layered into the artifact, and that was probably just a basic preservation spell to keep it from tarnishing. I'm not sure how long it's going to take me to rip this apart."

"Time is not something we have a lot of right now," Daphne said. "Is there anything--" She froze. "Someone just apparated in."

Harry shot to his feet. "Where?"

"The front gate." Daphne pushed the chair she was sitting in out of the way and rose to her full height. "This isn't your fight," she said. "Tori and I will handle it."

"If it's Aurors," Harry said, "I might be able to convince them to leave. If it's Death Eaters, it damn well is my fight. And if it's door-to-door broom salesmen, then I get to see the looks on their faces. Let's go."

Daphne smiled (an expression that hardly even terrified Harry anymore) as she hurried to the door. "How do you do that? There are people outside trying to kill me and you're making me smile."

Harry shrugged. She didn't seem like she expected an answer, which was good because he didn't have one.

Chapter Text

Tori and Draco were already in the foyer when Daphne and Harry hurried down the stairs. Both of them were trying to push Narcissa back into the parlor with minimal success.

"I will not let my son go out there without me!" she was saying as Harry stepped down the last step.

He sighed, drew his wand, and aimed it straight at her head. "Narcissa," he said, affecting a tone that was calm almost to the point of 'bored,' "I know Draco won't body-bind you even for your own protection, but I promise you I will. Get back on that couch now."

She shot him a murderous glare. "Draco, you wouldn't let--"

"Do it, Potter," Draco said.

"Fine, fine," she said. "We'll discuss this later."

Somehow, Tori managed to shoot him a genuinely appreciative look despite having more limited facial muscle mobility and the countenance of a horrifying monster. Draco just gave him a nod, which he returned.

Baby steps.

Daphne snorted in amusement. "Tori, did you check the wards?"

Tori nodded. "They're still up, and someone came about three minutes ago, then left and returned under a minute ago. Whoever it was probably tested their access first and is now bringing in friends."

"Damn it!" Daphne said. "I thought I got all of the Death Eaters. My control of magic is so bad in this form that it takes ten minutes to erase a single name from the wardbook, so I just tried to get all of the arseholes off the list."

"Hopefully it's the Aurors, then," Harry said. "If not, though, Draco, silence us. I'll Disillusion us while you do it. Whoever it is may know about you two, but they won't know you've got wizard backup now, too."

Draco nodded and started on the charms, and Harry did likewise. He had a moment of claustrophobia when the rope-tightening sensation of the Disillusionment Charm met the muddy sensation of the foot-silencing charm, but both passed quickly.

"Ready?" Daphne asked impatiently. "They'll be nearly to the house by now."

"You two go out first," Harry said, slipping back into old habits from his year on the run. "Daphne, flank them to the left, Tori flank right. Draco, you and I will stay to the side of the doorframe away from the hinges till the count of three. I don't want either of us to be hit by spells aimed at the girls. Once we're out, you flank right and I'll flank left. Don't open fire till you've put distance between yourself and Tori. We don't want them ever having two targets in the same field of fire."

They all stared at him. "Damn, Potter," Daphne said. "Where did you learn to do that?"

"War," he said simply. "Does that plan work?"

"Yes," they all replied.

"Good," he said. "Ladies?"

The girls nodded and hurried to the door. As soon as Draco and Harry told them they were in position next to the door, Daphne swung it open, charged out, and all hell broke loose.

Screams of fright and anger erupted from outside along with shouted curses. Harry was glad he was counting to three before going out, because on "two" a sickly white Sectumsempra blasted through the foyer and cut a baluster in half.

On 'three', Harry let Malfoy go first (both to avoid tripping if they went simultaneously and because he didn't mind a moment of extra meat-shielding), then charged after him out the door. Two seedy-looking young men, a tall, thin grey-haired man Harry recognized as the Death Eater Travers, and the portly, sharp-dressed Lord Selwyn stood in a tight group around a bony, elderly woman with her grey hair drawn up in a tight bun. The five of them were only about twenty yards from the front door.

The old woman was just as involved in the curse-slinging as the men, and the sheer volume of spells was forcing Daphne and Tori back. Like werewolves, their current forms seemed to regenerate spelled damage quickly and resist some of it entirely, but Daphne still roared in pain when a curse connected and a line of blood spurted from a gash on her chest and arm. Fortunately, she still managed to dodge a follow-up Killing Curse from Travers.

At that point, Harry decided he'd flanked far enough and decided to make his presence known. Unfortunately, Draco had the same idea he did, and Travers went down with two stunners to the chest. That undid their stealth, though, and now the Death Eaters turned some of their fire on Harry and Draco.

Harry focused on staying mobile, leaping rows of flowers and shielding whenever he felt his movements might be predictable. He never let up his attacks on Selwyn, trying to keep the more dangerous wizard on the defensive and generally succeeding. Draco focused on the two young men, blocking curses hurled at himself with surgical precision while hurling his own at whichever one seemed most focused on the vulpine monsters hunting them.

With the volume of curses being hurled at them massively reduced, Daphne and Tori were now making serious forward progress toward the Death Eaters. Selwyn recognized the danger and responded unexpectedly: by kicking one of the other two men hard in the arse. He stumbled forward, presenting a target too tempting for Daphne to ignore. She lunged and, with one vicious swing, took the young man's head clean off.

Selwyn perfectly anticipated her movement and shouted "Imperius" as Daphne killed his man. She spun around and ran jerkily at Tori.

The old woman cackled and whipped a Sectumsempra at the younger vulpine monstrosity as she tried to dodge her sister's first swing, and Tori screamed in pain and stumbled as the spell gouged her leg. That was all the opening Daphne needed, and the older girl slammed her down onto her back and was on her in an instant.

"Tori!" Draco screamed and focused his attacks on Selwyn. The man's defense was impeccable, though, and they couldn't get through. However, in the course of fighting him, Harry noticed the older witch was getting sloppy in her defense, since all of the attacks were focused on the men. Harry spared a stunner for her and was gratified to see her drop.

Preoccupied with his target, he didn't realize Narcissa had come outside until she screamed, "Draco!" and unloaded several stunners on the other young man. He went down before he could even turn to face the witch.

Selwyn tried to hit Narcissa with a Sectumsempra, but Draco shielded her. That bought Harry a moment to try to help Tori, so he used an Expulso to blast Daphne off of her younger sister and about five feet away. Not to be deterred, Selwyn used the same spell to blow up the stairs on which Narcissa stood. His spell came in below Draco's shield and the resulting explosion tossed Narcissa several feet back into the foyer.

Draco screamed, "No!" as his mother went flying. Harry had heard that tone before out of his own mouth back in the Department of Mysteries and, going with his gut, decided to pin Selwyn in place with a trio of stunners. As he expected, the man shielded all of them as well as the spell Draco roared at him. The other boy's spell was the Killing Curse, though, and it passed through the man's shield as if it weren't even there. Selwyn collapsed to the ground wreathed in tendrils of sickly green light.

Draco didn't even stop to confirm his kill before racing toward his mother. Harry didn't want to risk even waiting the time he'd need to get close to her, though, and hit her with a Stragulum Immutabilis from where he stood.

"What the hell, Potter?" Draco shouted, leveling his wand at him.

Harry didn't aim his wand at the other boy, but he was ready to shield in an instant if necessary. "The Medical Stasis Charm freezes every aspect of the target," he said, as calmly as he could. "If she's bleeding out or has a punctured lung, that will buy us some time."

Draco stared at him. "Th...thank you."

"Check on her," Harry said with a nod in the woman's direction. "I'll see to the girls."

The other boy dashed off and Harry hurried over to Tori. She had pulled herself up to her knees, and was covered with slashes and blood. Her shoulders shook, and as Harry approached he realized she was sobbing. "Just stay still for a moment," he said, and cast a series of Episkey charms that, slash by slash, began to put her back together.

"I'm sorry," she said as her pain subsided. "I barely did anything and now you just need to heal me. I'm useless."

"Don't say that!" he said. "I'm the coward, letting you run out and draw fire."

"And I'm the one," Daphne said, panting, "who wasn't strong enough to fight off that Imperius Curse." She'd snuck up on them while he was working on Tori's injuries.

"It's not your fault!" Tori said.

"I shouldn't have gone for that idiot Selwyn kicked in front of me," Daphne said weakly. "I just...the beast inside me wanted him. I couldn't resist." She hung her head. "I always thought I was stronger because I could use the beast better than you. It was just using me, though, wasn't it?"

"You are stronger than me, Daph," Tori said. "You always have been."

Harry finished up with the large cuts and started working on the swelling around Tori's throat. "You're both incredibly brave. You charged a whole group of Death Eaters and faced a lot of pain without backing down. I haven't always done that well."

"It's not like we had a choice," Daphne said. "We can't let them have the mirror."

"There's always a choice," Harry said. "You could have hidden or run away, but you fought without a second thought."

"It was probably just the beast inside," Daphne said darkly. She panted as she spoke.

"Beasts don't follow battle plans," Harry shot back. "You knew what you faced and you faced it anyway. Only a thinking being can be brave like that. Now shut up and accept the compliment. I have more healing work to do."

Daphne lowered her snout in submission and didn't respond. Tori arched her fuzzy eyebrows at her sister but stayed similarly quiet.

Harry took a deep breath and relaxed a bit once he was done working on Tori's throat. "There you go. How do you feel otherwise?"

"Better than Daph," Tori said. "You need to check her now."

"I'm fi--" Daphne was cut off by a growl from Tori.

"I'll judge 'fine,'" Harry said. He ran a diagnostic charm. "Ouch. I'm sorry about the cracked rib. That was probably my fault. I underpowered the spell a bit, but I couldn't make it too weak and risk Tori being hurt more."

"You were helping Tori," Daphne said. "Don't worry about it."

After Harry fixed Daphne's bone, he turned his attention to a few gashes on her. "You two are lucky these forms heal so well," he said. "Sectumsempra cuts are much harder to heal on a human."

"Don't remind me, Potter." Draco's shaky voice made Harry jump with surprise.

"Draco!" Tori said. "How's your mother?"

The other boy had clearly only recently forced back some tears. "Multiple broken ribs and lung punctures. If Potter hadn't put her in medical stasis, she'd be dead by now."

"I'm so sorry!" Tori said. "I hope they'll be able to save her at St. Mungo's." She turned to Daphne as if daring her sister to gainsay her, but Daphne only nodded.

"The Aurors may have St. Mungo's watching out for me," Draco said. "They know I'm missing, and I don't want to do anything to lead them here. Potter, will you take her? You'll have to remove her from stasis to apparate."

Harry nodded. "Yes. I'll be honest: I'm still not the best at recovering from apparition, but I'll put her back in stasis as soon as I can."

"I'll add him to the wards so he can Apparate from the house," Daphne said. "Before he goes, though, what should we do about those Death Eaters? I killed one and Draco used an Unforgivable on Selwyn. Death Eater or not, there will be repercussions for doing that to a Wizengamot member."

"Not if the bodies are never found," Harry said.

They all stared at him.

Harry stared right back. "Do you know how sick I got during the war fighting people who treated the gates of Azkaban like a revolving door? These Death Eaters came here to murder two orphans. They can rot for all I care. That we keep Draco out of prison is just an added bonus...or disincentive. I'm trying not to think too hard about that part."

Daphne snorted. "We won't tell anyone you helped him. Harry, get Narcissa to St. Mungo's. I'll kill them all personally, especially Euphemia. I'd forgotten she was as nasty a piece of work as her husband and son, and she visited my parents a few times a year. That's how they snuck through the wards."

"Thorfinn and Herewald Rowle are in Azkaban," Draco said, "the latter on my parents' testimony. They won't come looking for her."

"Excellent," Daphne said. "We'll have Flopsy excavate some dirt for us before repairing the stairs and bury them down there. Vanishing spells won't work on intelligent creatures, the only spell that would leave no real trace is Fiendfyre and that is not allowed near the manor, and Draco doesn't know the area within apparition range well enough to take both bodies somewhere hidden in the time we have to work with."

"I don't know how I feel about this," Tori said. "Are we sure there's no other way to handle them without Draco getting in trouble?"

Draco shook his head. "I'm a former Death Eater who used an Unforgivable Curse. I don't like my odds if the Ministry finds out, but I don't want you to get in trouble for something I did, Tori."

"What about me?" Harry asked, faking (or possibly not, he wasn't sure) annoyance.

"You can go to hell," Draco replied evenly.

Harry shrugged. "As long as I know where I stand." This casual sort of loathing was so much less work than active hatred. He wished they'd figured it out years ago.

"Hurr, hurr," Daphne gave that bestial laugh again. "Don't worry about us, Draco. We'll be dead not long after nightfall."

"Oh." The blonde boy looked down at his feet. "Right."

Harry felt a bit of tightness in his chest at that comment, but ignored it to focus on their current problems. "I'd better get going. I'll tell St. Mungo's that we were attacked by some Death Eaters over lunch at my house, but they apparated away before I could stop them."

"That'll have to do," Draco said. "Be careful with her, Potter."

"I will," Harry responded.

Chapter Text

Harry appeared in the front hall of St. Mungo's with a crack and the usual sense of disorientation apparition gave him, but this time he forced it down and accepted the inevitable headache later. Before the receptionist could get out more than a surprised gasp, Harry had already re-bound Narcissa.

"I need help," Harry said as he levitated the woman. "Mrs. Malfoy and I were attacked by Death Eaters at my manor."

The receptionist gasped again, and Harry idly wondered if the man was going to do something useful at some point. "That's terrible!" he said. "I'll get help." He touched his wand to a three-inch steel sphere floating an inch above his desk and tendrils of smoky light flew out of it back into the hospital.

"Thank you," Harry said. "She's in medical stasis now."

"Excellent," the receptionist said. "That was going to be my next question."

A middle-aged witch in worn-out, though clean, doctor's robes Apparated into the reception area with a crack. "My name is Healer Winifred Morrison," she said. "May I examine the patient?"

Harry stepped aside and floated Narcissa over to her. Morrison ran a quick diagnostic on her and pursed her lips. "Ugly injuries," she said. "What happened?"

"Death Eater dead-enders attacked us when she came to visit my manor," Harry said. "I fought them off, but she got winged with an Expulso or something and hit the wall hard."

"We should be able to help her," Morrison said. "Good job putting her into medical stasis so quickly. I'm not sure she'd have survived otherwise." She raised her eyebrows. "I think you're the first person I've ever met besides healers or Aurors who knew that spell."

"Hermione taught me in case we--"

A pair of sharp cracks sounded behind Harry in the front hall, and he spun around to find himself nearly face-to-face with Senior Auror Dawlish and another man in Auror robes.

"Potter," the rugged, burly man said with a nod. "We've had Mr. and Mrs. Malfoy on a monitoring list, but Mr. Malfoy hasn't left his manor in days and it's warded against our entry. Healer, we need to borrow Mrs. Malfoy for use in circumventing wards. We'll bring her back--"

"Not a chance!" Morrison said. "She was seriously injured in a Death Eater attack and shouldn't be moved."

"And she wouldn't consent to this if she were awake," Harry added.

"This is a criminal investigation about the whereabouts of a dark artifact," Dawlish said. "Her consent is not strictly necessary."

"Narcissa Malfoy is a relative of mine," Harry said. "As a Wizengamot member, I will not allow--"

Dawlish whipped up his wand, stopping it about an inch from Harry's nose. "Healer, I suspect Mr. Potter is under the influence of a dark artifact. Please take his wand and confine him for his own safety."

"I have seen no evidence--" Morrison began.

"That's an order, Healer," Dawlish said.

"This is kidnapping!" Harry said.

"You and your friends made me look like an idiot during the war," Dawlish responded. "I will not let you mess up this mission for me. Now give the Healer your wand or I will take it from you."

Harry did as he'd been instructed, glowering at Dawlish the whole time.

"I'm only doing this under protest," Morrison said. "And I will not let you move Mrs. Malfoy until we've dealt with her internal injuries. That will likely take at least two hours."

"You have one," Dawlish said.

Morrison chose not to respond to that and instead floated Narcissa toward a healing chamber only a few doors in from the receptionist's desk. A burly orderly came a moment later to take Harry to a room in the secure basement section. A heavy iron door secured the only way into the section, and a stern note on the door reminded employees that anti-apparition wards were in permanent effect there. The orderly held his badge up to a flat piece of jade on the door to open it, and Harry confirmed with a glance that a similar piece of jade adorned the other side of the door.

The orderly pushed Harry into an empty, open cell and slammed the door behind him. "Colloportus," the man said, and a squelching noise from the doorframe indicated the success of his spell. His heavy footsteps tromped back up the passageway, leaving Harry alone with his failure.

A single, milky stone set into the ceiling emitted a dim yellow light that cast a sickly pall over the tiny cell. A bed with no pillow and just one tattered blanket took up most of one wall, and an elderly chamberpot stood in the opposite corner. It didn't reek, so Harry assumed it had Vanishing Charms built into it to deal with waste.

Forty-eight hours before, Harry probably would have laid on the bed and waited for someone to come for him...or not. Even now, a little voice inside his head was suggesting just that course of action.

He ignored it and focused on his surroundings. He thought about trying to retrieve the lightstone, but it was probably firmly bound to the ceiling and he didn't want to try mucking about on the bed trying to reach it. Instead, he took the blanket and wadded it up at his feet. It might come in handy if he succeeded, and he didn't intend to fail.

The next hour was excruciating. He'd performed wandless magic before, but never something as complex as the Unlocking Charm. He had no intention of letting that stop him, though. Time and again, he made the wand gesture with his own hand and said "Alohomora," and time and again nothing happened. He could feel his magic almost bunching up in his hand as he spoke, and he tried everything he could think of to loose it on the Locking Spell binding the door.

The knowledge Dawlish would take Narcissa soon was enough to drive Harry to more desperate measures. Instead of merely unleashing his magic, like he would with a wand, and allowing the wand's motion to channel and direct the spell, he'd have to do that with his hand. The magical core of the wand allowed it to withstand the magical forces involved, though. His hand was merely flesh and blood, with just a fraction of his own magical core sprinkled into it.

It would have to be enough.

The basement door creaked open and Harry realized this might be his best chance. He held out his left hand, banished fears of what this would likely do to him as best he could, and said, "Alohomora."

He wasn't sure exactly what to do with his hand, so he let the magic direct it. As he did so, he finally felt the magic flow out of his hand. This...this made sense. He could feel the magic forming into the spell, guided by the word he'd spoken and his own muscle memory. He could feel it unweaving the sloppily cast Locking Charm on the door. He could feel it tearing at his tendons and ligaments, and bit down on a scream. Just when he thought he couldn't possibly bear any more, the Locking Charm finally dissipated. Without missing a beat, Harry knelt and grabbed the blanket. He would have time for pain later.

The footsteps were just passing the door when Harry threw it open. He didn't even bother cursing when he saw two orderlies there, not just the one he'd expected. Luck had thrown so much worse his way in the past year that this didn't even seem worth complaining about.

The one nearest the door, a middle-aged man about Harry's height, had faster reflexes than the burly orderly next to him. He was nearly fully turned to face the door and in the process of drawing his wand when he ate a tattered blanket straight in the face. Before he could claw it off of his head, Harry kicked him in the groin, ignoring the pain the sudden, violent motion generated in his left hand.

The man screamed and began to double over, but Harry didn't let him complete the motion. Instead, he shoved the man into the burly orderly, temporarily frustrating the larger man's attempt to draw his own wand. With reflexes honed from years of Seeker training, Harry grabbed the first man's wand from his twitching fingers and hit the burly orderly with a Stunner before bringing surcease to the other man's pain with a second Stunner. The wand felt almost petulant in his hands, but allowed him to cast spells through it anyway since he'd disarmed its previous owner.

Harry assumed their screams had been heard, so he didn't waste time. He ran for the basement door and cast "Accio badge" as he went. Just as he reached the door, he ducked and, with a little nudge of magic, the badge flying toward him slammed into the jade panel instead. The door creaked open to reveal an orderly just reaching out with his own badge to activate the panel on the other side. He had his wand out, and both men cast simultaneously. Harry's nonverbal Stunner was far faster than the Body-bind curse, though, and the man dropped before he got out the last syllable of "Petrificus."

Harry leapt the man's body and charged up the stairs, doing his best to ignore the jarring pain in his left wrist with each pounding step. It was still distracting enough that he didn't try anything special when he reached the top, though, and instead simply cast a shield just ahead of the landing before he reached the top. Sure enough, a couple of stunners crashed into it as he climbed into view. He shouted "Stupefy" as he shot a stunner at a large, athletic female orderly, but whipped a second stunner silently at the receptionist. The man took the bait and ate the stunner while he tried to hex Harry, and a fast trio of non-verbal stunners battered down the orderly's shield and dropped her to the ground moments later.

He didn't waste time seeing if anyone was coming to check on the disturbance, but instead charged straight into the room into which he'd seen Morrison take Narcissa. He was expecting to have to fight Aurors there, but instead found only Morrison. The woman was sitting in a chair next to an empty bed, her elbows on the bed and her head in her hands. Her wand was on the bed, but she made no effort to reach for it. Harry's wand lay on a table next to the door.

"They took her about ten minutes ago," she said. "Go ahead and hex me. I knew it was wrong and I let them do it anyway." She looked over at Harry. "You've been so brave your whole life…do cowards like the rest of us disgust you?"

He shook his head and swapped the orderly's wand for his own. "I'm just…tired of being brave, but people need me." He turned to go.

"Wait." Her tone brooked no argument, and when he turned around her wand was in her hand. "Show me your hand."

Harry could have stunned her on the spot or tried to run. He'd spent longer in Madam Pomfrey's care than anyone else's at Hogwarts, though, and Morrison had the same manner of speaking that must have been common to healers everywhere. He instinctively obeyed, held out his arm, and winced as the muscles pulled on torn tendons.

"Morgana, what did you do?" she asked. "Hold still." She started waving her wand over his hand and things began pulling themselves back into a more normal shape.

"Wandless…ouch…Alohomora," he said. "I need to…ouch…go."

"I'm not sure whether to be impressed at your quasi-success or horrified at the results," she said as she rose to her feet. "I think I've prevented it from getting worse."

"Thank you," Harry said. Fighting with that kind of pain was never fun.

She nodded, walked past him, and looked out the door. "There are orderlies out there, but they look confused." She took his free left arm. "Follow me and stumble a bit," she said.

The orderlies barely gave him a second glance as he allowed Morrison to help him from the room and back toward the front hall. Harry realized that they were looking for an escapee, but on Morrison's arm he was just another patient.

"Get Mrs. Malfoy back here," she whispered as they walked. "And yourself, too."

"I will," he said. "Knowing me, I'll probably hurt my hand again in a few minutes, anyway."

"Not just for your hand, Mr. Potter." Morrison's voice faded from "stern" to "sad" as she spoke.

He slumped a little more. "You're right."

"Of course I am." She stopped them roughly where he'd apparated in. "Now go. People need you."

Harry straightened up and nodded. "See you soon," he said, and apparated away.

Chapter Text

"I hope he'll be back soon," Tori said as the crack of Harry's apparition to St. Mungo's with Narcissa faded away around them.

"He will," Daphne said. "Let's go get those bodies. Flopsy is clearing out the dirt under the stairs."

"Daph?"

Daphne paused. "Yes?"

"You…trust him."

"I suppose I do," Daphne said.

Tori raised her thick, furry eyebrows. "You never trust anyone. Why start now?"

"I was jealous." Daphne looked down at her feet. After all these months, she still wasn't used to the furry, clawed things she saw there. "You seemed so much happier trusting Harry and Draco, and they kept proving you right. I decided I'd give it a try."

"How does it feel?"

"Like I should have tried this sooner," Daphne said.

Tori laughed sadly, a soft, rumbling sound. "It didn't feel so good when Draco sold all of us out last year."

"Yet you're still willing to trust people."

"Of course!"

"I told you," Daphne said, "you were the strong one the whole time."

"You have a different kind of strength, maybe," Tori said. "I don't know if I would've thought to hide bodies like this."

"Speaking of which, we should probably get to that. If you'll just help me haul them, I'll kill them."

"I hate to make you do that alone," Tori said.

"Don't worry," Daphne replied. "I'd rather do it myself than make you do it."

"Thank you," Tori's reply was just a whisper.

Flopsy had already cleared out several feet of dirt from below the former location of the stairs when the girls made their way out of the house, but in their vulpine forms they had no trouble leaping the hole and continuing to where the Death Eaters' bodies lay. Draco was already there, using cleaning and vanishing charms to remove any stray blood on the ground.

"I'll get the four intact bodies," Daphne said. "Tori, can you get the other one and try to keep it from dripping?"

"I think so," Tori said. "Can you carry all four?"

"Yes," Daphne grunted as she picked up the first two and shoved them under her arms. She then picked up Selwyn and Euphemia in her hands and slowly hauled them to the hole Flopsy was making. Her arms and hands were shaking by the time she got to the edge of the hole, and she only barely managed to toss them into the hole before her grip strength gave out on her.

"You could have just gone back and made a second trip," Tori said as she threw her corpse in.

"I hate making second trips," Daphne replied. "Flopsy, can you put the dirt back in the hole now?"

"I is sorry, Mistress," Flopsy said, "but they's is not dead yet and I can't kills them."

"Oh, right," Tori said. "I forgot about that."

"It's never really come up before," Daphne said drily. She hopped into the hole, took a deep breath, and ripped out Euphemia's throat with her claws. She had to fight back against the instinct to retch, but she succeeded and killed Travers next before she could get queasy. He was easier, and the last Death Eater, a young man not much older than her, was almost fun. It was only when she found her paws reaching for the very dead Selwyn's throat next that she forced herself to stop.

"Tori," Daphne ground out the word, forcing her vocal cords to remember what human speech felt like, "tell me I'm human and don't need to mutilate a corpse."

"He'd dead, Daph," Tori said. "Look at me. He's dead."

Daphne did take her eyes off Selwyn's corpse. "I want to do it with my teeth. He…he looks like he'll be tasty. Lots of fat–"

"No!" Tori said. "Look at me, please. He's dead now. You don't have to do this."

"Daphne!" Draco's voice chimed in, surprising her out of her flesh-induced reverie. "You had the best grades in our year in Slytherin for our entire time in school. You are smarter than this. You are better than this. Now get out of that damn hole and let Flopsy do her job."

"Very well." Daphne closed her eyes, turned around, and climbed out entirely by feel.

When she got to the top, furry arms wrapped around her. "Thank you," Tori said. "I'm not ready to lose you yet."

"I'm already a monster," Daphne said.

"No." A human hand, Draco's, patted her arm. "I am. You will never be the monster I am."

One of Tori's arms released Daphne and pulled Draco in an embrace with her. Daphne opened her eyes and saw the boy's nose crinkle in disgust before he tamped down that emotion. She didn't envy him, stuck with the two of them and a working, human olfactory system.

"Listen, Draco," Tori said, "I don't know what you were, but you've chosen not to be a monster today. That's all that matters: that every day, you choose to be better than you were. That goes for us, too, Daph. We chose not to be monsters yesterday, and for as long as I can I will not let you choose to be a monster today. Is that clear?"

Daphne nodded. "Thank you. I…needed that."

"I won't let you down," Draco whispered.

"I know." Tori released them. "It looks like Flopsy's done with the dirt."

"Yes, Mistress," Flopsy said. "Is good?"

"It is," Tori said. The dirt was flat and she'd even patted it down to better support the porch. "That's great work."

"May Flopsy take a rest now? That was hard magicking."

"Of course," Tori said. "We'll call you if we need anything."

As soon as Flopsy popped away, Draco whipped out his wand and began vanishing stray bits of dirt. "No sense making what we've done too obvious," he said. "She was pretty tired toward the end and probably didn't have it in her to clean this up."

Daphne raised her eyebrows. "Draco, I don't think I've ever seen you be charitable toward a house elf before. Your family's treatment of Dobby made even my father uncomfortable, and that's my father I'm talking about."

"I thought that was normal when I was younger," Draco said. "It wasn't until after Dobby left and I started complaining about it that I realized how far out of line we were. When Dobby sacrificed his own life to save Potter and his friends, I was incredibly resentful that something…someone I'd grown up with would do that for someone else. After Potter got us out of Azkaban, I realized I'd had every chance to earn that kind of loyalty from Dobby, too, and I'd thrown them away, just like I threw away so many other important things. So, yeah, I treat house elves better now because I don't want any children I might have to learn the same thing from their father that I learnt from mine."

Tori gave him a gentle pat on the shoulder, and for once the poor boy didn't stagger. Either she was getting better at that or Draco was getting better at absorbing the pummeling.

"I suppose," Draco said, changing the subject, "I should get started on the staircase. Stand back, please."

They all took a few steps back while Draco looked around at the pieces of wood lying on the ground around them. "Can you do this?" Tori asked.

"I think so," Draco said. "One upside of the method by which I betrayed the school is that I'm probably one of the best magical carpenters and furniture repairmen in the entire country."

"Wait, what?" Daphne asked.

"It's a long story," Draco said. "Reparo."

Pieces of wood whipped into the air all around them, somehow dodging their bodies and embedding themselves in the rapidly reconstructing frame of the staircase. A full minute passed, then two, and Draco's concentration didn't flag. Once the full frame of the staircase and each stair was rebuilt, Draco let the spell stop and leaned over, his hands on his knees.

"Damn," he said. "I forgot how hard that was to sustain. I got the main portion, at least."

"You weren't kidding about skills," Tori said. "Even McGonagall would have been impressed with that."

Draco nodded. "It's nice to know I could work for a living if necessary."

"You would work?" Daphne asked. "Who are you and what have you done with Draco?"

"I," Draco said, "am someone who has run the numbers on his estate's remaining assets, his parents' expenditures, and come to some depressing conclusions."

"You'll make it," Tori said. "I think you're finally embracing the person I thought you could have been all along."

"Thank you." Draco might have blushed as he said that, but Daphne thought she was probably imagining it. "I should probably finish up this project. Potter will be back soon and he may need help with the artifact."

He stretched, leveled his wand, and continued repairing the stairs. The finer touches ended up requiring a few more breaks, but after ten minutes they had a staircase that, if it wasn't quite as good as it had been that morning, was certainly close enough to withstand scrutiny.

"I hate to suggest this," Daphne said when he was done, "but these stairs look too good now. Too new."

Draco sat down on the second step and sighed. "Yes, yes, such is the fate of all true art: to be trod upon by those incapable of appreciating its genius."

"They're stairs," Daphne said.

"To you, perhaps," Draco said. "To me, they represent the striving of all wizards toward the unknowable heights of pure magic."

"So…striving," Tori said, "but striving that you can walk on?"

"Exactly," Draco said. "The idea that we can tread our own striving under our feet is–"

"Complete rubbish," Tori said.

Draco tried to pout at her, but ended up laughing when Tori couldn't keep a straight face about it. (Smiles in her current form looked a lot like those of a gigantic dog.)

Daphne just shook her head. "If you two are quite done, I'm going to stomp on these a bit and scratch them with the claws on my toes."

"I can't watch." Draco covered his eyes.

"Did anyone ever tell you," Daphne said as she began to stomp up the stairs, "that you're a terrible drama queen?"

Tori grunted grumpily at her sister. "That's not true at all. He's the best drama queen."

"Wait…" Draco sat up and looked back and forth between them. "Were you defending me or insulting me?"

"A lady never tells," Tori said.

"It's quite simple, really," Daphne paused in her tromping. "Tori's in Slytherin with us, right?"

Draco nodded.

"If she were a 'Puff, she'd be defending you. If she were a 'Claw, she'd be insulting you. But since she's a Snake, she's doing both simultaneously, and will claim later to have done whichever one turns out to have been most advantageous."

"See?" Tori asked. "She gets it."

"That doesn't answer my question," Draco said, "but I learnt something anyway. So what would a Lion do?"

"Neither," Daphne said. "That would require them to use words. They'd either hex you or whoever was insulting you." She paused. "Actually, in your particular case, they'd probably hex you regardless."

"That certainly fits my experience," Draco said.

"Speaking of our Lion," Daphne said, "when do you think he'll return? It seems like he's been gone awhile now."

Draco flipped out his pocket watch. "He has."

"Do you think we should worry?" Tori asked.

"Probably," Draco said.

The girls' heads whipped around to glare at him.

"Wait, wait." The boy held his hands up in a placating gesture. "I didn't mean I thought he was going to sell us out, just that he's probably in trouble. To be honest, after that boy's school career, I'm kind of surprised he can make it to the grocery store and back without being abducted by some cult worshiping a forgotten dark budgerigar deity. My only real hope for my mother's safety was that I was personally responsible for a decent fraction of the incidents Potter stumbled into and I'm safely trapped here."

"Oh," Daphne said, "I see what you mean." She sighed. "Think I have time to scrub Narcissa from the wards?"

"With Potter's luck?" Draco snorted. "Doubtful. Give it a try, and, if you detect any apparition, stop and try to talk them out of attacking. I'll go around the side of the house and Disillusion Tori. If they attack, just try not to get hurt while she sneaks up on them. I'll try to cover you with spellfire, but I'd rather not visibly attack any Aurors if I can avoid it."

"That makes sense," Tori said, "but I should probably handle the wards and the negotiations. No offense, Daph, but you're not the most diplomatic person on a good day and the last few months haven't been good for either of us. Besides, it's not like I've accomplished much in our fights, anyway."

"Tori–"

"It's alright, Draco," Tori said. "Now get moving. We're probably low on time."

He nodded. "You're right. Be careful."

Daphne nodded. "Just be your charming self and stay out of trouble until I can sneak up on them, OK?"

"Can do," Tori said.

Draco and Daphne hurried off toward the west wing of the manor (the house itself faced south), Draco jogging to keep pace with Daphne's long, fast strides.

"You were trying to keep her out of the line of fire, weren't you?" Daphne asked as they walked.

Contrary to what most Gryffindors seemed to think, "pathological lying" wasn't part of being "cunning." Sometimes, you had to admit it when someone had you dead to rights. "Yes," Draco said. "Are you mad at me?"

Daphne snorted derisively. "I'd be a rubbish big sister if I hadn't wanted the same thing. Why do you care, though? We'll be dead by midnight."

They were around the side of the manor by that point, and Draco stopped and rubbed his left temple with his free hand. "She…she gives me hope almost every time I talk to her, and I can't give her any in return. This is all I can do."

"It's enough," Daphne said firmly. "For both of us."

The silence that followed was shattered by the crack of several simultaneous apparitions at the front gates.

Chapter Text

Tori opened the front door a couple of inches and shouted "You're in terrible danger! Please don't come closer."

A burly man with short, wiry grey hair stopped walking forward and leveled his wand at the door. "My name is Senior Auror John Dawlish," he said, "and the only 'danger' around here is me."

Tori had to fight the urge to groan at the man's self-regard. "Mr. Dawlish, we have a dangerous Dark artifact in this house. You all need to stay away or…or it will turn you into a monster and compel you to defend it."

He snorted. "Pull the other one, whoever you are. It's got bells on."

"Please believe me." Tori took a deep breath and opened the door. Four pairs of Aurors trained their wands on her as she stepped onto the recently "antiqued" front stairs. "My name is Astoria Greengrass, and I'm only seventeen years old. I don't want anyone else to end up like me."

The Aurors were arranged in a rough arc around the front door, with Dawlish and his partner almost directly in front of the door. Narcissa lay motionless on the ground just inside the ward line, about thirty yards away. "Someone taught you to speak, did they?" Dawlish asked. "Do they teach you any other tricks?"

"The artifact is incredibly dangerous." Tori did her best to ignore the jibe. "I won't let it hurt anyone else."

"We'll keep it somewhere nice and safe," Dawlish said. "Now lie on the ground and put your hands behind your head, or we're going to treat you like the beast you are."

"I won't let anyone else suffer like this," Tori said.

"Then we're going to teach you a new trick," Dawlish said. "Play dead. Stupefy!"

Tori's superhuman speed allowed her to dodge the first barrage of stunners, but with so many wands aimed her way it was only a few seconds before the first one landed. It barely slowed her down at all, but the second one that landed slowed her down a little more, as did the third. The fourth through sixth hit within a few seconds, followed quickly by the next dozen, and the last thing she felt before unconsciousness claimed her was the house wall buckling as she slammed into them.

Daphne crept around behind the Aurors as Dawlish and Tori argued, trying to stay at least fifty yards away. She wished she could get closer, but she was upwind of them and she didn't want her scent to give her away. She approached slowly and cautiously, right up until Dawlish told her sister to "play dead," at which point she charged.

The closest pair of Aurors were focused on bringing down their moving target and neither noticed Daphne until her pounding footsteps were only a few feet away. The nearest Auror was a solidly built man of maybe thirty years old, but he still flew like a rag doll when she threw her shoulder into his side as he turned to see who was responsible for the footsteps he'd finally noticed. She didn't let him fly far, though, and instead grabbed him by the ankles and threw him bodily into his partner, a middle-aged woman with close-trimmed hair. They both collapsed with a sickening series of cracks that probably indicated unpleasantly broken bones.

The violent action dispelled Daphne's disillusionment, and she cursed the fast reaction times of the other Aurors. Without missing a beat, five of the six remaining spun around to face her and started slinging curses. She did her best to dodge, but they smoothly laid down a coordinated spread of curses that was impossible to avoid entirely, especially when the last junior Auror managed to get over her shock and join in the fight. Stunners and body binds slammed into her one after another, each slowing her another step.

She didn't even notice the first Auror, the one farthest away from her, go down to a non-verbal stunner. The woman's partner, the aforementioned junior Auror, barely got a shout of warning off before she dropped, too. While Dawlish and his partner hammered Daphne with Knock-back hexes (most of which missed, but it still felt like getting punched about once every three seconds), the other pair turned to face the new threat.

Draco's own Disillusionment was gone now, and the boy was moving fast. As he ran toward Tori, completely disregarding his own risk of imprisonment, he fired off curses and periodically shielded himself. He didn't stop until he made it to Tori's motionless body, and Daphne realized he was trying to protect her sister from additional harm.

He was holding his own against the two Aurors, which Daphne had to admit was impressive, but she didn't think she was going to be able to do likewise. Dawlish and his partner may have been gits, but they were exceptionally powerful ones and their brutal rain of hexes was wearing her down. She wasn't sure how much longer she'd be able to stay upright when the sharp crack of an apparition rang out from their foyer.

The Aurors glanced briefly in that direction, a reaction that gave Daphne some hope that they weren't expecting reinforcements. The Sonorous-enhanced voice that roared out from her house a moment later gave her so much more hope that she actually fell to one knee in relief.

"Aurors!" Harry said, his voice loud enough to visibly rattle windows and shutters around the house. "Stand down!"

"Not a chance, Potter!" Dawlish responded. His mention of Harry's name got some raised eyebrows from his colleagues, but not nearly as many as Harry's reply.

"Wrong," Harry said, his enhanced voice so calm that Daphne almost shivered.

Dawlish and his partner turned to face the front doors just as Harry blew them off their hinges and charged out. He dodged several curses, shielding periodically, before leveling his wand at one of the men battling Draco and shouting "Expulso."

The man shielded, but he wasn't Harry's target. The spell smashed into the ground beneath his feet and sent the man flying into both the air and the path of a blood-red silent stunner, and he was unconscious by the time he hit the ground.

That got everyone's attention. Harry didn't give up the initiative and shouted "Expulso," launching another spell at the other man battling Draco.

Before Daphne could do any more than wonder why Harry chose to make this spell verbal when he'd cast the previous stunner silently, it crashed into the man's shield. Since he'd been forced to expand it to protect the ground at his feet, though, it was weaker, and collapsed under the force of Harry's overpowered spell. No one even realized Harry had fired a second spell until a second silent stunner slipped through the dissipating shield and dropped the man to the ground.

Some dispassionate part of Daphne's mind had to admire the insane self-confidence Harry must have had to develop a plan that simply assumed he'd be even more powerful than trained Aurors, but that dispassionate part was largely ignored by a much more passionate part that watched him fight and said, "Damn."

Their numerical advantage gone, Dawlish and his partner apparently decided discretion was the better part of valor and started retreating. They focused solely on dodging and shielding, battling each step of the way under combined spellfire from Draco and Harry. Draco didn't follow them, though, and his spells got less effective as they fell back further from where he was guarding Tori. Harry seemed to be following them at first, but as the men fell back, he took the opportunity to make his way over to Daphne, instead. The two Aurors were able to reach Narcissa's body entirely unimpeded for the last ten yards or so, and they disappeared with a crack as soon as they could both lay hands on her.

Harry dashed up to Daphne as soon as the Aurors vanished. "Are you hurt?"

"It doesn't matter," she said as she struggled to her feet. "I don't need to last much longer."

"Yes, it does," Harry said. "Dying is awful enough without being in pain."

"I forgot that you know," Daphne whispered as he performed a few quick Episkey charms on her ribs.

"I'd like to forget that, too," Harry said wryly. "Can you move now?"

She nodded. "Thank you."

"No thanks necessary. I just wish I'd been here sooner, but–"

Daphne gently cut him off. "Harry, all I care about is that you came back, and we're almost out of time. Let's get back inside so I can scrub Narcissa from the wardbook and you can get to work on the mirror."

"I understand," he said, trying to keep a grimace off of his face. "Let's go."

The two of them hurried back to the porch, and as they jogged Harry casually put each Auror into medical stasis, just in case one was more hurt than they appeared. Draco was sitting next to Tori a few yards from the porch (which looked surprisingly worn for something so new) as they approached, and he didn't look up from his healing work. "Thank you for finally gracing us with your presence, Potter," he said as they approached, and for a moment Harry thought he'd been late to Potions and it was Snape mocking him, instead.

"I'm sorry," Harry said, "I–"

Daphne cut him off again. "You were right, Draco: it was the budgie-worshippers. He barely escaped with his life."

Draco snorted as he tried and failed to keep from literally falling over laughing. "I knew it!" he said in between gasps.

Harry looked between Daphne and Draco. "Did I…miss something?"

"Yes," Daphne said without elaborating. "Draco, I'm going to scrub your mother from the wards and Harry is going to destroy the mirror. Maybe…maybe you should just let Tori rest."

The boy's mien immediately turned serious and he sat back up. "Not a chance. She wouldn't want to give up a moment she didn't have to."

"I know you want to say 'goodbye,'" Daphne said, the delicateness of her tone counterpointed by her hulking size, "but there's no sense bringing her back around just to–"

"No!" Draco hissed. "She is not an animal, and I will not let you put her down. I am going to bring her back, we are all going to say 'goodbye,' and then she is going to go to her reward with the sun shining in her eyes while she enjoys every last second of this beautiful day. Is that clear?"

Daphne and Harry nodded and slunk off. Once they were safely inside the foyer, Harry asked, "Did we just lose an ethical argument to Draco?"

"I won't tell if you won't," Daphne said as she walked up to the wardbook. She and Tori had both left their wands right next to it, but she needed a few tries before she managed to pick up her wand in her thick, clawed fingers. "I'll come upstairs after I handle this."

Harry nodded and hurried upstairs. The mirror was right where he'd left it in the lab, so he settled down and got to work. The next layer of magic was harder to rip away than the first, but the fight earlier had gotten his heart pumping and he tore through it anyway. As the oily, black smoke of the dead spell boiled away from the mirror, he was rewarded with the sight of another crack in the mirror, this time in the upper right.

The third layer was even stronger, and after five solid minutes of tearing at it Harry was both exhausted and starting to question his ability to accomplish the task at all. Finally, though, he took a deep breath and put everything he had into it and ripped. The mirror cracked so loudly that it almost seemed to shriek and a huge cloud of smoke erupted from it. When it cleared, the remaining two corners of the mirror had cracks starting in them, too, and the existing cracks had extended another inch. The remaining layers of magic on the mirror were easier for him to perceive, too, and were held together more loosely.

"Oh, thank Merlin," Harry said to himself. "I couldn't do that again."

"I'm surprised you could do it at all," Daphne responded, and Harry jumped out of his chair in shock, tripped on it, and banged his knee on a table leg.

"You scared me half to death!" he said, rubbing his kneecap as he spoke. "I didn't know anyone was here."

"You were focusing hard," Daphne said from where she stood just inside the doorway, "and performing such powerful magic I could feel it even in this form. I'm not surprised you didn't notice me coming in. How's it going?"

"I think that was the toughest layer," Harry replied. "The rest of the spells should come apart easily. Any third-year could probably destroy this now…"

"Harry?" Daphne's eyes narrowed. "What are you…oh, no. I've heard of this look in your eyes."

That brought him up short. "Wait, what?"

"Yeah, I heard Granger telling the Patil twins once that you got this 'look' in your eyes sometimes and whatever happened next usually put you in the hospital wing and took five years off of her life."

Memories flooded into his mind and he had to laugh. "Yes, I suppose that's a fair description."

"So what, exactly, are you up to?" Daphne asked.

Harry glanced at the mirror, trying to gauge how far it was from him vs. Daphne. It was a few feet down the table, away from the door, but he'd have to lean across the table and Daphne was much larger and faster.

"I saw that," she said. "Move and I'll knock you unconscious."

He shot her a glare. "I didn't want it for myself, I'll have you know. I was just thinking of a way out for you."

Daphne met his glare with an angry one of her own. "I know, which is why I was threatening you. Don't you dare try to save my life, Harry Potter."

Chapter Text

Draco breathed a sigh of relief as Tori's eyes fluttered open. "Draco?" she asked. "What…where am I?"

"The couch in the parlor." He laid his free hand on her cheek, where her fur seemed a little softer. "I levitated you in here once I'd repaired your ribs and shoulder, and I've been working on the residual neurological damage from all of those stunners since then."

"Thank you." She looked nervously out the window. "Did they get the mirror?"

"No. Daphne and I hit them as soon as they attacked you and took out two each before they realized we were there. Potter showed up a few minutes later, stunned two, and scared off the last two." He shook his head. "I have no idea why he was late, but your sister said something about it being the budgie-worshippers."

Tori's whole body shook with some of that growling laughter. "That poor boy. Anyway, was anyone hurt?"

Draco had to smile at her concern for even the people attacking them. "I don't think anyone was seriously hurt except maybe your sister, but Potter patched her up. They're upstairs working on the mirror now."

"Oh, good." Tori looked out the window again, but up toward the sky this time. "How…how long do you think it'll take him?"

"Either he'll get it done at the last possible moment or accidentally destroy it in the next thirty seconds. There's no middle ground with Potter."

"In that case…" Tori reached out and pulled Draco into a hug. He didn't pull away or even notice the smell much anymore.

"You'll be alright," Tori said, her voice a low rumble against his chest. "I always knew you'd be a great man one day, and I look forward to hearing all about it when I see you again in ten or fifteen decades."

Draco tightened his embrace of her, though she was so solidly built that he wasn't sure she'd notice. "And here I thought I was supposed to be comforting you."

"Don't worry. I've had time to come to terms with this." A waver in her voice put the lie to her words. "Thank you for bringing me back to say 'goodbye,' though. I've always loved the fall, and it's nice to see a beautiful fall day one last time."

"Then let's see it properly." Draco rose to his feet and offered her his hand. She took it and started to stand, but when she started to actually put weight on his hand she ended up pulling him into her and they both crashed back onto the couch.

"Sorry!" Tori said. "I still forget myself sometimes. Let's try that again."

Draco insisted on being a gentleman and giving her his hand again, but she carefully avoided pulling on him and they both made it safely to their feet that time. He escorted her to the parlor window and pulled the heavy velvet drapes entirely out of the way.

"Thank you," she said.

"I should be thanking you," he replied. "All I've done for the last several years is disappoint you, but you still managed to remind me of what's most important in life. I'll never forget that."

"I'm just glad I get to remember you like this," Tori said, "and not like you were."

Draco couldn't find words just then, and instead of trying, he just reached up, cupped both sides of Tori's snout in his hands, and pulled her gently down to him so he could kiss her. One part of him thought it was disgusting and another part of him was desperately trying to get him to worry about the apparition cracks resounding from outside of the ward line, but, right then, he could not possibly have cared less about such things.

The only muscles Harry moved were those necessary to raise his eyebrows at Daphne. His hindbrain apparently took that "Do not annoy the seven-foot-tall vulpine monstrosities" policy seriously. "You say that like it's a bad thing," he said.

"Yes, it is!" Daphne said. "Our father did this. It's our job to clean it up. Tori and I won't let this take any more innocent lives."

"Besides your own," Harry said.

"Exactly," Daphne said. "This ends with us. I wouldn't mind if Tori traded with Draco, but we both know damn well she'd kill herself before she let us do that to him. And you...you've given enough, Harry."

"You think this is about some sort of martyr complex?" Harry snorted. "I'm tired, Daphne. I'm so very, very tired. Almost everyone I've ever cared about has already gone through the Veil, literally in poor Sirius's case."

"Poor…Sirius? As in Sirius Black? The man who–"

"Escaped Azkaban, yes, yes, I know. Totally innocent, loved me like a son, died trying to protect me from Bellatrix."

Daphne blinked. "Oh. I…um…I'm sorry for your…" she trailed off. "I'm sorry, I'm just having trouble processing this. I'm genuinely sorry for your loss, but…are you sure you haven't gone 'round the twist?"

"Yes…well, at least, not for that part." Harry had to chuckle, but it faded quickly. "I mean it, though: I'm tired of watching innocent people die. Please don't make me do it again."

"I won't." She took a large step forward and grabbed the mirror. "The last gift I can give you," she said as she turned and walked away, "is not making you watch me die."

Three quick strides took him to the doorway and close enough to her retreating form that he was able to grab the fur of her arm. "No," he said. "I won't let you die alone."

Daphne turned back to face him, grief clear even on her monstrous features. She reached out with the arm he wasn't holding and cupped his face in her hand.

Harry closed his eyes and leaned his cheek into her hand. In a moment, he'd have to kill her. In a moment, he'd have to figure out what to do about the apparition cracks he'd just heard. Right then, though, he let his head rest on Daphne's hand and bathed in the unfamiliar feeling of being cared for by even just one single human being.

It was so heady, so distracting, that he didn't even notice for a moment the hand holding his cheek had shrunk and softened. When that sensation finally sunk in, his eyes snapped open to meet the shocked, sapphire blue eyes of an entirely nude blonde girl, maybe four inches shorter than him and with a toned, slender body. All he could do was stare back in shock for a moment before a girlish shriek of joy shattered the silence between them.

Tori's joy jolted Harry into action. He shot the rapidly blushing girl in front of him a grin, spun around, and summoned the green velvet curtain off the window. As it flew toward him, he hit it with a basic clothing transfiguration spell and a simple shift dress landed in his free hand. Which he nearly dropped because the tendons still weren't quite right.

Harry silently cursed his clumsiness and, without looking, passed the dress to Daphne.

She took it from him and there was a quick rustle of fabric. "Smooth, Harry," Daphne said, her voice now that of a normal girl his age. "You're still replacing the curtain."

"This is the happiest I've been in months," Harry said. "I'll replace all of your curtains." While she dressed, he leveled his wand at the mirror and floated it back to the table. One solid mental and magical push ripped the last enchantments on it into wisps of spellfire and, with the failure of its magic, it shattered into dozens of pieces. As the tinkling of the glass shards died away, he said, "If the lady is decent, I believe she's about to have guests."

"The lady is."

Harry turned around to see Daphne facing away from him, her left arm held out expectantly. He blinked, then holstered his wand, took her arm, and escorted her to the grand staircase.

Draco and Tori awaited them at the bottom. Tori was the mirror image of her sister but with black hair, and she even wore the same green velvet Daphne did as a much more flattering sheath dress. "Daphne!" she shouted. "Draco kissed me, then I turned back, then he made me a dress, and now you're back, too!"

Daphne smiled at her little sister. "Harry and I had a bit of a moment upstairs, too. Draco, could you clean up my dress a little? Harry has many useful skills, but he's pants at dressmaking."

"I didn't think it was that bad," Harry grumbled. "It stayed on, didn't it?"

"Only because I've been holding it on with my free hand," Daphne responded. As she spoke, Draco transformed her dress into the twin of her sister's. "Thank you, Draco."

"You're welcome," Draco said.

Harry sighed. "Fine. At least I was able to destroy the mirror."

"Which you did very well," Daphne said.

He shot her a half-hearted glare, which she primly ignored.

"I told you, Tori." Draco grinned. "He destroyed it at the last possible minute. How much longer before the Aurors tear down the wards?"

"Only a few minutes, I think," Tori said. "There must be two dozen of them out there."

"No sense losing the wards, then," Daphne said. "Join us up here on the staircase and keep your wand holstered. I'm going to allow them through."

"Good idea," Draco said. He gave Tori his arm and escorted her up the stairs.

"We don't even have to open the doors for them," Tori said as they climbed. "What…um…happened there?"

"Potter felt like making an entrance," Draco replied.

"And I succeeded in scaring off two senior Aurors," Harry said, feeling a sudden need to defend the property damage he'd inflicted.

"Nice work," Tori said.

"It was," Daphne added. Something in her tone made Harry shoot her a questioning glance, but her eyes were locked on her sister and she didn't react. Tori smirked at the two of them, but didn't comment.

A dozen Aurors burst through the open doorway just as Draco and Tori took their places next to Harry and Daphne. Dawlish was in the lead and leveled his wand at the teens standing above him on the stairs. "Surrender and lay down your wands!" he said.

"I am unarmed," Daphne said. "As Lady Greengrass, I welcome all of you to my home. What can I do for you?"

"Can the pleasantries," Dawlish said. "You're under arrest for possession of a Dark Artifact. Where is it?"

"It's on the third floor," Daphne said evenly. "I'm sorry we gave you so much trouble earlier. What my sister tried to warn all of you about was that the mirror would have taken over your minds and forced you to defend it, just like it forced us. She saved your minds, Auror Dawlish, and you treated her like a monster. I will not forget that, and I will seek an inquiry into your behavior when I take my family's seat at the next meeting of the Wizengamot."

Dawlish's jaw dropped. Before he could respond, another Auror spoke up. "Lady Greengrass, I'm Head Auror Gawain Robards. I think we may have been misinformed about the state of affairs at your manor." He shot Dawlish a glare as he spoke. "Could you explain what happened here in your own words? Also, I didn't know your father had passed on."

"Of course, Head Auror." She inclined her head to him politely. "I'll start at the beginning, if you'll indulge me. On the night of the Battle of Hogwarts, my sister and I used the distraction the battle afforded us to slip back to our home and confront our father, who was also marked." That revelation got a number of raised eyebrows from the Aurors, but Daphne soldiered on.

"We tried to stop his work on the Dark Artifact, but he turned it on us. We'd damaged it, though, and while it did work its magic on us, it also created a magical vortex that sucked our father out of this plane of existence." She drew a shuddering breath. "Skin-first. His screams will haunt my dreams until I die."

Harry caught Draco's eyes and they shared a raised eyebrow. Daphne was shockingly good at this.

"The magic of the mirror forced us to guard it in new, bestial forms," Daphne continued, "and while it didn't transform Heir Malfoy or Mrs. Malfoy when they came here, it did ensnare their minds, as well." She sighed, almost theatrically. "I desperately wish Senior Auror Dawlish had listened to Lord Potter when he ordered his Aurors to stand down. Do you realize he saved all of your minds? He's the only person who's been in this house for the last four months who has been able to fight off that thing's control. I'm not surprised, of course, since he fought off the Imperius Curse at Hogwarts, but I'm still impressed. After you left, Lord Potter disabled Heir Malfoy, my sister, and myself, then personally destroyed the artifact. It's only thanks to him that you all weren't enslaved to it the moment you passed through that doorway."

By the time she finished, not a few Aurors had their mouths open in shock. Robards raised his eyebrows and turned to Harry. "We all seem to be in your debt, Lord Potter. Thank you for handling this situation before anyone else was hurt."

Harry bowed. "You're most welcome, Head Auror. I saw too much needless death during the last war, and I didn't want to see anyone else hurt. By the way, I apologize for any injuries I might have caused during my escape from St. Mungo's to return here. Senior Auror Dawlish ordered me incarcerated there on nothing more than his anger that I dared disagree with him, but I still didn't want to see him and colleagues enslaved to a Dark Artifact and I had to stun a few people to escape."

"I think," Robards said, glaring at Dawlish as he spoke, "we would be happy to overlook a few stunned orderlies for your willingness to save the lives of some of my more incautious Aurors. I'll also open an investigation into whether you were unlawfully detained at St. Mungo's. Auror Dawlish, you're--"

Dawlish cut his boss off with a vicious snarl. "You're a damn liar, Potter," he said, "and I'll see you in Azkaban. Stupefy!"

Harry had a split-second to decide how to respond and his Gryffindor instincts got the better of him. Instead of drawing his wand to block the curse, he shifted slightly to put himself entirely between Daphne and Dawlish, then waved his free, injured left hand and attempted to conjure a wandless Shield Charm. He figured it would probably fail, which meant an Auror had just cursed an unarmed civilian. Daphne would leverage that fact to the hilt.

Shocking everyone in the room, though, including Harry, a shield shimmered into life in front of him just in time to absorb the stunner. Dawlish's spell was powerful enough to dissipate the shield, but nothing got through.

"That one was free, John," Harry said, hoping his voice sounded firmer than his confidence actually was. "The next one will cost you."

Robards coughed awkwardly. "That…um…won't be necessary," he said, as most of the Aurors in the room started simultaneously edging away from both Harry and Dawlish. "Dawlish, you're suspended for attacking the unarmed civilian who just saved magical Britain and is a personal friend of the Minister. Return to headquarters immediately."

Dawlish shot his boss and Harry a death glare, but did as he was ordered. After he stormed out, Robards turned back to Harry. "I apologize for that, Lord Potter, and I'm glad you were…talented enough to protect yourself and Lady Greengrass from that spell. Would you both consent to leading some of our Aurors to the remains of the Dark Artifact?"

"Certainly," Daphne said. "Lord Potter, why don't you take them up there? I can give a formal statement to Head Auror Robards."

"One question," Draco said. "Do you have my mother out there?"

"Yes," Robards said. "I asked John why they were using an unconscious noblewoman to breach these wards, but he insisted it was a matter of life or death. I'll have her brought in for you, and I hope you'll accept my apologies for her treatment."

"I will unless she's…been harmed," Draco said. He was clearly doing his best to keep his voice level.

"We've been careful about casting a medical stasis spell after each apparition," Robards said. "I'm confident she's well. I understand there are some injured Aurors here, though."

"Yes," Harry said. "I put them in medical stasis, as well. For what it's worth, I'd be happy to pay for any medical expenses incurred by any Aurors or St. Mungo's orderlies, except perhaps for Mr. Dawlish." Daphne made a show of elbowing him, though it hardly hurt at all. "OK, OK, Mr. Dawlish, as well."

"Thank you, Lord Potter," Robards said. "My office will appreciate that. We'll send someone by tomorrow to follow up with any questions we might have about Lady Greengrass's statement, but since you're providing us with the remains of the artifact and making yourselves available for questioning, I don't think much additional investigation will be necessary."

The next ten minutes were a whirlwind of activity, both from the professionalism of the remaining Aurors and what appeared to be their sincere desire to get out of the house before anyone got on Harry's bad side. As soon as the last Aurors had floo'd away, Daphne, Tori, and Draco turned to Harry.

"Harry," Daphne said gently, "would you mind telling us what happened at St. Mungo's and where you learned to do wandless combat magic? That little display on the staircase scared a roomful of trained Aurors, probably because the only other people any of know who can fight wandlessly were Dumbledore and the Dark Lord."

"I didn't exactly learn it," Harry said. "I sort of figured it out by trial and error because I knew you needed me." He held up his left hand. "I escaped my cell in the secure wing of St. Mungo's with a wandless Unlocking Charm, but I ripped most of the tendons and ligaments in my left hand in the process. It hurt like hell while I was beating up some orderlies for their wand and fighting my way back to my own wand and where I thought Narcissa was, but her healer fixed my hand enough that it doesn't hurt much and I can kind of use it again."

They all stared at him. Finally, Tori broke the silence by smacking Draco in the arm. "You spent the last seven years antagonizing him? Do you have a death wish?"

"I have made some terrible life choices," Draco said drily. "I don't think any of us realized how bad this particular one was until just now, though."

"We can stroke Harry's ego later," Daphne said. Tori smirked, but stopped when Daphne shot her a glare. Harry had a feeling he'd missed something important there, but he wasn't sure what. "Right now," she continued, "we need to get him and Narcissa medical attention."

"I don't want either of us going back to St. Mungo's," Harry said. "Being kidnapped there once today was quite sufficient. I'll see if I can get the healer we saw to make a house call."

Chapter Text

Healer Morrison emerged smoothly from the Greengrass Manor floo and nodded her head to Harry. "I'm relieved to see you for many reasons, Mr. Potter," she said. "How is Mrs. Malfoy?"

"In medical stasis on the couch in the parlor," Harry said. "She appears to be in the same condition as she was when you saw her last."

"Thank you for coming," Daphne said. "I welcome you to Greengrass Manor and offer you our hospitality."

Morrison nodded so deeply it was almost a bow. "Thank you. I accept your hospitality. My name is Healer Winifred Morrison, and I appreciate Lord Potter's donation to St. Mungo's to cover the cost of my work here."

"I am Daphne, Lady Greengrass. We thought it was best that Lord Potter and Mrs. Malfoy continue receiving care from you."

"If Mrs. Malfoy is still in stasis," Morrison said, "I'll start with Lord Potter. Your hand, please?"

Harry held out his hand and Morrison waved her wand over it. "Lord Potter, what did I tell you about straining it?"

He winced as she performed the first healing spell. "Things were a little difficult here."

Daphne raised her eyebrows. "Lord Potter's gift for understatement is showing. Four Aurors were still attacking us when he arrived, and within a minute he'd stunned two and scared off the other two. When they returned and we sorted everything out, one of them attempted to stun him for reasons I still don't entirely understand."

"Dawlish and I have a history together," Harry hissed out through clenched teeth. Having your tendons and ligaments individually reattached hurt.

"Harry was unarmed at the time as a gesture of goodwill," Daphne continued, "and shielded us from the stunner with a wandless, silent Shield Charm. I refuse to tell him how impressed I am because I don't wish to encourage such behavior."

The corners of Morrison's lips twitched into a smile. "He won't hear of it from me, my lady." She hit Harry's hand with a few more spells. "There. Can you move all of your fingers again?"

He tried and found they all responded appropriately. "Yes, thank you."

"Good. I'll owl you a physical education regimen tomorrow for that hand."

"Um…my house is under a Fidelius Charm," Harry said.

"He'll be here," Daphne said.

"Wait, what?" Harry asked.

"Good," Morrison said. "I appreciate you taking care of him, my Lady."

"You really don't–"

"You're welcome," Daphne said, cutting Harry off while simultaneously being polite and gracious. He thought that was impressively Slytherin of her.

"Are you in good health, Lady Greengrass?" Morrison asked.

"I…um…think so," Daphne said. "I've…well…did Harry tell you my sister and I were seven foot-tall vulpine monsters for the last four months due to our late father cursing us with a Dark Artifact?"

Morrison raised her eyebrows. "No, I don't believe he had the chance. Let me check you over, dear." She cast a detailed diagnostic spell and frowned at the results. "You're in good physical shape, but your nutrient levels are skewed. I'll owl you some nutritional potions tomorrow that you and your sister should take for the next three days."

"Thank you," Daphne said. "Please bill me, not Lord Potter."

Harry held out his hands. "I'd be happy–"

She silenced him with a look.

"Of course," Morrison said, smiling.

Morrison gave Tori a similar diagnosis and complemented Draco on his healing work. She was slightly more concerned about the healing charms Harry had used on Draco's concussion, but only needed to make some minor corrections before she pronounced him free for all normal activity that posed no risk of further head injury.

Narcissa's injuries were considerably more complex, but fortunately Morrison was able to fix her bone fractures and remove all remaining bone fragments without taking her back to St. Mungo's. Even her head injury proved amenable to Morrison's healing charms, and after an hour of exhausting work she pronounced Narcissa healthy again.

"Since she's your mother," Morrison told Draco, "I'll make myself scarce and allow you to bring her back around yourself. I don't anticipate any complications, but please bring her to St. Mungo's immediately if any arise."

Draco nodded and, after they all thanked her one last time, Morrison floo'd back to the hospital. After she left, Draco turned to Daphne and took a deep breath. "I'd like to do this before my mother awakens," he said. "Lady Greengrass, I request permission to court your sister Astoria."

Astoria gasped and grabbed Draco's hand. "Really?" she asked.

"Of course," he said, smiling.

"I have a few questions," Daphne said. "I take it you're not necessarily confident in your parents' approval?"

"My mother would doubtless approve if it were up to her, but she'd want to follow my father's will in the matter and he's enough of a drunk that I don't know what he'll say."

Daphne nodded. "I see. And your comment about your family's finances?"

"I won't lie," he said, shrugging. "They're not great right now."

Tori glared daggers at her sister. "Daphne, you wouldn't."

"Of course I wouldn't." Daphne smirked. "I just wanted to make him sweat a bit for all of the times he annoyed me at Hogwarts. Draco, hurt her and I'll kill you."

He nodded. "The last time I hurt her, I very nearly didn't survive the experience. I won't do it again."

"Good. Then I approve."

Tori squealed in delight. Draco attempted to politely kiss her hand, but she grabbed him and kissed him square on the lips instead.

After a solid twenty seconds of kissing, Daphne turned to Harry. "Do you think they'd stop if we awoke Narcissa?" she asked him.

He shrugged and raised his wand. "One way to find out." Before Draco or Astoria realized what was happening, he said, "Rennervate" and fired the spell into the parlor.

Draco and Tori jumped apart as if electrically shocked and stared into the parlor. Narcissa lay peacefully on the couch, still stunned. On the other side of the room, a chair gently rocked.

"Damn it, Potter," Draco said, "that was cold."

"Then don't make fun of my skills as a modiste," Harry said. "I'm sensitive about that sort of thing."

Daphne snorted, but Draco just stared at him for a moment before facepalming.

Tori ignored them and kept looking into the parlor. "I…um…don't think I've ever seen a chair rock before without, you know, rockers."

"Wait, what?" Harry looked back into the parlor and discovered that the chair was indeed a heavy Victorian armchair with four mostly straight legs, yet it still rocked gently back and forth.

Draco sighed. "Only you, Potter. Tori, let's awaken my mother before he figures out how to kill us all with furniture."

"Alright," Tori said. Harry felt bad at how the girl gripped her wand tightly as she followed Draco into the parlor.

"Harry?" Daphne whispered. "I thought the Reviving Spell only worked on living beings."

"I did, too," Harry whispered back.

"Just how powerful are you?"

"I have no idea."

She shivered. "I think I'll just keep this to myself."

"Likewise," Harry said, and the two of them followed Draco and Tori into the parlor just in time to see Draco revive his mother.

Narcissa, with some gentle help from Draco, managed to sit upright again, and stared at him with gradually increasing amounts of horror as he recounted what had happened since she'd been knocked unconscious. By the time he finished, she'd hauled him onto the couch with her and was pressing his head to her shoulder. "Never do that again," she said. "Stop taking these jobs with the Aurors. Nothing could be worth the risk."

"Well, I think this one was." Draco coughed gently and partially extracted himself from his mother's embrace. "Daphne gave me permission to court Astoria."

Narcissa stared at him. "That's…I mean, that's wonderful, Draco, but you should have asked your father first."

"I love Father, but…no, Mother. Just…no. He's given up on the future of our family, and I won't let him throw away mine."

Narcissa recoiled almost as if he'd hit her, but she took a deep breath and drew him back into her embrace. "I'm so sorry, my son. You deserve better than this. No matter what, I'll always love you."

"I love you, too," Draco said. "I…if you're willing, I was going to tell him that we'd already discussed this and he'd approved it."

"That should work," Narcissa said. "I don't know how it's come to this, but that should work."

"Mrs. Malfoy?" Daphne asked gently. "We've all had a terrible day, you most of all. Why don't you come to dinner and we'll celebrate the courtship?"

"I…thank you, dear. I'd like that."

Daphne led them all into the dining room, where Flopsy immediately threw herself into preparing a wonderful multi-course meal for them all. Harry once again tried to be on his best behavior (Tori was just so nice that he couldn't imagine ruining her courtship), and this time his efforts were rewarded with a lovely dinner and a genuinely pleasant interaction with Draco and Narcissa. Afterward, Narcissa invited Draco and Tori back to Malfoy Manor to discuss the courtship with Lucius, and Tori not-so-subtly implied she wouldn't be home again that evening. Daphne only smiled, hugged her sister, and asked her to convey her regards to Lucius.

Darkness had fallen by the time they floo'd away, leaving Daphne and Harry alone in the manor. "You're just letting her go?" Harry asked. "I mean, not that I have any problem with that, but I thought Purebloods were stuffier about the whole sex thing."

Daphne shrugged and gestured at the darkness beyond the windows. "We were, but it's kind of hard to ask someone to 'wait' when you look outside and realize you both should've been dead by this time tonight. She's found someone she cares about, so I can't ask her to wait any longer."

"I hope she finds true happiness with him," Harry said. "Which is hard because I hope Draco is miserable. Those two are probably mutually impossible, so I guess I have to hope he's happy, too."

"Prat." Daphne smacked him in the arm, but she was smiling as she did so.

Harry scratched the back of his head awkwardly for a moment. "Well, I…um…don't want to overstay my welcome, but you told Healer Morrison I'd be here tomorrow."

Daphne stepped in front of him so she could look him straight in the eyes. "And that's where you'll be. I'm not asking you for anything you're not ready to give me, but I won't let you be alone again at night until your nightmares have abated."

"That might take awhile," he said. "I can't ask…I didn't help you because I wanted to drag you into that mess."

"I don't care," Daphne replied. "You've gone and made me care about you, Harry, and I can't walk away from you any more than you could have walked away from me."

He could neither come up with a good argument against that nor meet her eyes, so he let his gaze fall to the floor between them. "I'm broken, Daph. I'm broken and I don't think I'll ever be fixed again. You don't deserve that."

"Broken? Broken?" Harry's eyes snapped back up to her face in surprise at her tone and found her eyes blazing with a cold fire that nearly made him take a step back. "Do you…" she paused, "right, you weren't here for that part. Do you know what those unbroken Aurors said to Tori? Do you know how they mocked her for trying to protect our home? I don't care how broken you are right now; you're still ten times the man any of those bastards is."

Daphne took a deep breath, reached out, and cupped his cheeks in her hands. "Please don't go. Please, for me. I know I can't make you stay, but I'll never forgive myself if I let you face this night alone."

"You…" Harry reached up with his recently healed left hand and placed it over Daphne's right hand where it rested on his cheek. "You don't owe me this."

That blue flame returned to Daphne's eyes, only now it was somehow warm and inviting. "I promise you," she said, "everything I give you, now and for the rest of my life, will be given freely." Harry was lost in her eyes now, a powerless moth fluttering around that blue flame, and he never again wanted to be found. "Starting…" she gently pulled his head down toward her own, "with…" she was so close that the hiss of her breath tickled his lips, "this."

No fireworks went off when she kissed him, nor did they immediately succumb to a frenzy of lust. There was only the affection and warmth of the blue flame in her eyes spreading through his whole body like he'd always thought real magic would feel, and it was everything he'd never let himself dream it could be.

Epilogue:

Hermione leaned in and took a sip from her second glass of rosé. "So, that was your first kiss, but when did you realize Harry was in love with you?"

"Approximately five minutes later, when we finally stopped kissing," Daphne said. "He looked at me, said, 'Wait, if Tori is going to marry Draco…' and trailed off as he stared at me in horror. Then he shook his head violently, said, 'Oh, sod it,' and started kissing me again. I figured he must be really in love with me if he'd made that connection and was still willing to kiss me."

"He'd have figured it out eventually, regardless," Hermione said.

"I know." Daphne toyed with the diamond ring on her finger, a sensation she wasn't quite used to yet. "However, I was hoping I could get him into bed before that happened. I took the fact that he figured it out before I shagged him senseless and stayed with me anyway to mean he was truly in love with me."

Hermione grinned and raised her glass. "To the empirical validation of your hypothesis."

Daphne clinked hers against it. "I'll drink to that."

==The End==