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Chapter Text

The book landed in the middle of Aunt Petunia’s garden, crushing some of her flowers.

Harry scowled at it.  Aunt Petunia would never believe that a book had just fallen in her garden out of nowhere and would surely blame Harry for it.  Or worse, she would believe it and would still blame Harry for it.  Either way, if he couldn’t fix it he was in trouble.  And Harry really, really didn’t want to be in trouble.

He sighed, picked up the book, and did the best he could to fix the flowers.  They were a little damaged but, thankfully, were not beyond repair.  And they were towards the back of the flower bed, so it was likely that she wouldn’t even see them.  He hoped.  He’d gone a full three days without losing any meals, and he’d put on a little bit of weight as a result.  He really didn’t want to start losing his meals again.  He almost didn’t look entirely like a skeleton.

The smaller he was, the better a target he seemed to be for Dudley.  And Harry was tired of being Dudley’s target, he really was.

He finished repairing the damage and went back to his regular work, forgetting all about the book he’d set aside until after he was done with the gardening.  Then he had to mow the lawn and the book was in the way, so he picked it up and shoved it into the waistband of his pants.  There it stayed until the end of the day, when he crawled into his cupboard.  In fact, Harry only remembered it when he went to lie down and it jabbed him in the back.

He pulled the book out and studied it.  “Death Note?” he whispered to himself, eyebrows rising.  Surely this was someone’s awful idea of a joke.

Harry opened the book.  On the first black page, in white lettering, was written The human whose name is written in this note shall die .  Harry let out a small snort of laughter.  Really?  This seemed like a rather poorly thought out prank.  He read over the other four rules just to amuse himself.  A book that could kill in forty seconds?

He laughed a bit.  He couldn’t stop himself.  Yes, strange things happened around him sometimes, but that didn’t mean there was any such thing as magic.  Life with the Dursleys had more than taught him that.

Harry wondered who the prank had been intended for, then shrugged.  It didn’t matter.  He shoved the book under the bed and forgot all about it.  He had more important things to worry about than a book that could allegedly kill someone.

He needed to go to bed, anyway.  He had a new flowerbed to dig out in the back for Aunt Petunia tomorrow and would need all the rest he could get if he wanted to get it done.  Going in to a day like that both exhausted and hungry was a terrible idea, and he already knew he’d be hungry.  He always was.

Harry managed to forget all about the book by the time he drifted off to sleep.

ooOOooOOoo

Harry remembered the book a month later, deep into summer, after the letters started arriving.  It was terribly peculiar that letters like that should begin arriving after Harry had already found one strange object.  He wondered if it was a coincidence at all, that the letter had been addressed to him in his cupboard the week after he’d found the strange book.

Maybe there was something to the book.  Maybe the book really was magic and it wanted to be used.  Maybe it had been given to Harry for a reason, and by ignoring it Harry was somehow offending the book.  That could be one of the reasons that those strange letters were appearing.

But whose name could he write in the book?  Harry didn’t particularly want to kill anyone. Not seriously, anyway.  Still...  He hunched over the book, a crayon in hand, thinking quite seriously.  He had to know the person’s name, and what they looked like.  His back twinged and Harry’s eyes widened.  He couldn’t…  Well.  He could, actually, because Uncle Vernon was massive and unwell and prone to fits of temper at the best of times.

And he’d been awfully worked up for a week now, which couldn’t possibly be good for his blood pressure.  Harry didn’t even need to try and think of a creative way for Uncle Vernon to die, because there was nothing suspicious about him having a heart attack at all.

Of course, the book probably wouldn’t do anything anyway and Harry shouldn’t get his hopes up.

Carefully, neatly, Harry wrote his first name in the book.   Vernon Dursley .  Then he waited.

It didn’t take long at all, just as the book had said it wouldn’t.  He could hear Aunt Petunia screaming, could hear Dudley thundering down the stairs to get to the phone to dial for help, and he smiled because he knew it would do no good.  It couldn’t possibly be a coincidence that the heart attack had begun forty seconds after he’d written the name.

Harry couldn’t stop the small, hysterical laugh from bubbling out of him.  He’d killed his Uncle, and there was no way anyone could prove it was him.  The rush of power from the act was phenomenal.  Harry had never known such a feeling in his life.

All of his life he’d been helpless.  Powerless.  Judged inferior by those who surrounded him.  He laughed again, not caring who could hear him.  What would Dudley or his Aunt do to him?  With this, he had more power than they could have ever imagined.  With this, he was invincible.

He went to sleep for the first time in years with a smile on his face, the book hidden underneath of his thin mattress.  Life was looking up, now.

ooOOooOOoo

He woke up to find a stranger staring at him.

He was lanky and pale and definitely not human.  Harry would have been frightened were it not for the fact that he’d just murdered someone with a book last night.  He was almost certain that the being’s appearance had something to do with that..  “Hello,” Harry said to him.

“Hey, kid.  Gotta admit, you aren’t who I thought my book would go to,” the being said.  “And then you didn’t use it, and I was starting to get really frustrated with you.  But now you have.  You up for some fun?”

Harry shrugged.  “Define fun?” he requested.

The being laughed.  “I like you.  You’re…”  He cocked his head to one side and Harry felt like he was being studied very closely.  Particularly, the space just above his head seemed to be quite interesting to the being.  “You’re very interesting!  I think we’re going to have a lot of fun together.”

“If you say so,” Harry said.  “I won’t use the Note that much, you know.  Using it too much would be suspicious.”  He thought that over and, now that it was morning and he was a bit more clear headed, realized something else.  “And if my whole family dies I’ll wind up in the system, and I don’t want that.  It’d be worse there than it is here.”

“Well, maybe you don’t have cause to use it much yet, but I bet you will.”  The being let out a manic little laugh.  “Ryuk, by the way.  That’s my name.  I’m the god of death that dropped that book for you.”

“Harry Potter,” Harry said.  He held out one hand, and Ryuk took it.  The god of death didn’t feel any different from a human, he supposed, just a bit colder.

“Say, Harry, got any apples?” Ryuk asked.

Harry shrugged.  He couldn’t hear anyone moving outside his cupboard, so he opened the door.  The house seemed empty.  Petunia and Dudley were undoubtedly at the hospital, or somewhere, doing whatever it was that had to be done for a funeral.

“I don’t know.  Let’s find out,” he said to the god of death.

They did, as it happened, and Harry handed one off to him while biting into one himself.  As Ryuk munched happily on an apple, Harry got the mail and finally got to read one of the letters addressed to him.  It told him all about a school of magic and wizardry called Hogwarts.

“Well,” he said to himself, staring at the letter in his hands.  “This will be interesting.”

“Like I said,” Ryuk said.  “We’re gonna have a great time, kid.”

Chapter Text

Getting into the station was interesting enough.  Ryuk showed him how after Harry bribed him with an apple.  Otherwise, he would have had to sit and wait for a wizarding family to come through.  Who knew how long that would have taken?  His way was far more expedient.

He found an empty spot on the train easily enough and pulled out one of the books on wizarding history he’d purchased.  It seemed the height of stupidity to enter a world knowing nothing about it, especially when Harry had a god of death following him who seemed to think something was hilarious.  It only took him an hour or so of reading to figure out what was so entertaining.

“So, I survived the Killing Curse,” he said to Ryuk.

Ryuk cackled.  “You did, you did.  It was really surprising, or so I hear.  I wasn’t there for it, of course.  I was off doing other things.”

“Does anyone know how I did it?” Harry asked.

“Nope,” Ryuk said, popping the ‘p.’  “Lots of rumors, of course.  Personally, I like the one where your mother made a deal with our King.  That makes the most sense to me.”  But he was grinning as he said it, so Harry had the feeling that he was being messed with.

The rest of the train ride passed quickly enough.  Harry was joined by a redhead who attempted to make smalltalk with him but was rebuffed easily enough.  Then came the witch looking for a toad, which neither Harry nor his redheaded companion had seen.  Other than that, the ride was smooth and uninterrupted.

They arrived at the castle in boats, which was a novel experience for Harry.  He rather liked gliding across the water, and wondered if that was how Ryuk felt when he was flying.  He couldn’t ask, though, because they were surrounded by people.

While waiting for the Sorting ceremony, whatever that was, the redhead tried to start up a fuss about having to wrestle a troll or some such nonsense.  Ridiculous.  Harry didn’t quite know what they were doing, but he doubted a school would allow children to participate in such a dangerous activity.  At least, Harry assumed it was dangerous.  Wrestling with a troll certainly didn’t sound safe to him.

And he was right.  Being Sorted involved placing a talking hat on his head.  “Boring,” Harry muttered.  Fighting a troll would have been much more interesting, now that he thought about it.

When his name was called, Harry stepped up to the stool and placed the hat on his head.

Oh dear, oh dear , a small voice said.

Sorry, what? Harry thought at the hat.  Of course the talking hat could talk in his mind.  Harry didn’t even know why he bothered being surprised at these things.  He had a book that could kill and was now wearing a talking hat.

You… are not what anyone expected, Mr. Potter , the hat said, sounding disapproving.

Harry shrugged.   I’d apologize, but I’m really not sorry.

No, I don’t imagine you are .  The hat sounded somewhat irritated, though Harry couldn’t tell who the hat was irritated with.   You’re going to upset quite a few plans while you’re here, I’d imagine.  Starting from day one, too.  It seems to me that there’s really no place for someone like you but “SLYTHERIN!”

Harry took the hat off, stood, and walked over to the Slytherin tables in complete silence.  It was only after he’d taken his seat across from a boy his age with platinum hair that a few people hesitantly clapped for him.

While they were eating, the blonde across from him introduced himself.  “Draco Malfoy,” he said quietly.

Harry could have ignored him, he supposed, but he would likely be stuck with him and the others of the same age for the next several years.  “Harry Potter,” he responded.

“It’s nice to meet you,” Malfoy said politely.

Harry raised an eyebrow, but said, “Same.”  Even though he really found that he could care less.  He was here to learn about magic, after all, not to make friends.

Although he couldn’t deny that there was a part of him that thought a few good friends sounded pretty good.  That part of him could be ignored, though, and probably should.

ooOOooOOoo

Harry stormed from his first Potions class with his cheeks flushed in a combination of both humiliation and rage.  How dare that man call himself a teacher?  He was awful!  And to think he was supposed to be the Slytherin Head of House.  Harry couldn’t see himself going to that greasy, slimy, awful git if he were on fire and needed someone to put it out.

“Harry, he’s just… abrasive,” Malfoy was saying as he rushed to catch up.

Harry had found himself unable to shake the blonde during his first week of classes.  Malfoy seemed quite determined to follow him wherever he went, and honestly Harry had grown tired of trying.  It seemed easier to accept his presence than to try fighting it.

“Abrasive?” he echoed with a snort.  “No, I’m abrasive.  He’s…”  Harry shook his head.  Unfit to teach, was what he wanted to say.  A monster.  Who enjoyed humiliating children, anyway?  What kind of asshole enjoyed that?

“More than abrasive, then,” Malfoy agreed immediately.  “But he’s brilliant, everyone says so.  Everyone who matters does, anyway.”

“If you say so,” Harry said.  It didn’t matter.  Harry had left the house of one bully; he wasn’t going to spend the next seven years under the control of another.  “You go ahead to lunch,” he said to Malfoy.  “I have something I want to look up in the library.”

Malfoy frowned at him.  “If you’re sure,” he said.  “Just don’t let him get to you.  If he sees weakness it’ll be worse.”

“Don’t worry, I’ve already forgotten about it,” Harry said, his lips quirking into something that he hoped resembled a smile.

“See you at lunch, then,” Malfoy said.

“It’s a shame the professor isn’t as careful as he should be with his potions ingredients, isn’t it Ryuk?” he asked once he was sure that he was alone.

“An awful shame,” Ryuk agreed.  “I hear the ingredients can be pretty volatile.”

“How sad, for such a brilliant man to be killed in such an unfortunate way,” Harry said.  “I’m sure many will miss his brilliant mind.”

“Sure, sure.”  Ryuk let out a cackle when Harry wrote Severus Snape, potions accident, 2:32 PM .

“Is that specific enough, do you think?” he asked the god of death.

“It’s fine.  Better to let the Note do some of the work, anyway.  Makes it all seem more natural.”

So Harry went to lunch, and was unsurprised when the news spread through the castle by dinnertime that Professor Snape had died in an explosion in the labs.  By morning the next day there was a new professor sitting at the head table, one Professor Horace Slughorn.

He was utterly thrilled to be working with Harry, and with Malfoy.  At least, that’s what he said when he called them to his office over lunch.  He’d known Harry’s mother, or so he said, and was thrilled to have the chance to mentor her son.  His jovial attitude and decent sense of personal hygiene were both certainly a step up from Snape.

Harry couldn’t decide if was more amusing or depressing the way that none of the students seemed to mourn Snape’s passing at all.  What did that say about a man, when all of the people he’d worked with for years seemed relieved to have him gone?  Not that Harry could blame them, of course.

After all, he’d been the one to kill the man.

ooOOooOOoo

It wasn’t long before Harry noticed a pattern in his interactions with one Professor Quirrell.  The man made his scar burn in a way that was most unpleasant.  It was obnoxious and frustrating, especially when Harry was in his class.  It made it almost impossible to learn anything from the man.

Not that it mattered, because Quirrell wasn’t exactly a great teacher anyway.  He was too nervous, too afraid of his craft.  It made his classes a study in painful tedium rather than in Defense.  

“It wouldn’t be so bad if he didn’t give me a headache just by being near him,” Harry complained to Ryuk.

Ryuk shrugged.  “So do something about it,” the god of death said.  He was devouring another apple.  He seemed inordinately fond of the fruits, but as it was a fairly painless way to keep him happy, Harry didn’t mind.

“It seems to me that being a generally poor teacher is no reason to kill someone,” Harry said.  No matter how much easier life would be if he did just off the Professor.

Ryuk, for some unknown reason, found the declaration to be hilarious and doubled over in laughter.

“What, exactly, is so funny?” Harry asked him.

“You killed that other Professor, but not this one!” Ryuk gasped out.  Then his laughter faded and he looked at Harry through sly eyes.  “You know, if you made the trade for the eyes you’d be able to see what I think is so funny.”

Ryuk had made this offer early on in their acquaintance, so Harry was well aware of the cost of such a trade.  He snorted.  “Thank you,” he said, “But no.  I have no desire to trade away half of my lifespan just to get a joke.”

“Aww, but Harry, it’s the best joke ever!  You’ll laugh when you hear it, too!”

“Perhaps,” Harry said with an agreeable nod.  “But when I hear it, it will be because I’ve found out on my own and not because I cheated.”

At that, Ryuk’s uproarious laughter resumed.  “I knew you thought this was all a game!” he crowed.

“Of course it’s a game.  Isn’t that all life is?” Harry mused.

“Harry?”  The voice of one of his roommates came from the door to their room.  Nott, who it appeared had overheard at least some of his conversation, was looking rather pale.  “Who are you talking to?”

Harry gave him a dark look.  “Don’t you have something else to be doing?” he asked.  He was pleased when the other boy fled the dorm without saying anything else.

Later that evening, at dinner, he noticed that every single one of his fellow students left a healthy distance between them and himself.  All except Draco, of course, who seemed delighted to have Harry’s undivided attention.

Harry supposed the boy was growing on him, anyway, something like a fungus.  He found that he was almost beginning to enjoy Draco’s company.  It was a peculiar feeling, one that would require some consideration before Harry decided if he liked it or not.

ooOOooOOoo

“But I want to know!  Don’t you want to know?”  There was a grating tone to Draco’s voice that Harry found to be horribly obnoxious.

“Not particularly,” Harry answered.  So what if there was something on the third floor that the Headmaster wanted them all to stay away from?  Harry had no interest in finding it.

“Couldn’t you at least help me look?” Draco asked.  “I’d ask Crabbe and Goyle to help, but they’re so stupid they’d be more of a hindrance than anything else.”

Harry sighed.  “Don’t you have more important things to be doing?  Like being excited over Christmas?”  The break began tomorrow, after all, and Harry very much doubted that Draco’s family was like his own.  He would undoubtedly have a lovely time when he went home to celebrate.

Draco sighed.  “I was just hoping that you might consider doing some research when the castle was less full,” he said.  “But if you really aren’t interested-”

“I’ll do some looking,” Harry said.  “But I make no promises.”

“Thank you, Harry!” Draco chirped.  His whole face brightened with his smile.

That smile stuck with Harry during the break and he reluctantly did some research so that Draco wouldn’t be disappointed when he came back.  Unfortunately, he could find nothing about what the mystery item in the third floor corridor was, particularly since he had no information about the item to begin with.

It seemed that the holiday was bound to result only in disappointment, at least until Christmas itself arrived.  Then he received a gift that could only be described as most marvelous.

“Take it off,” Ryuk said almost immediately.  “I don’t like it.”

“What’s the matter?” Harry teased, shifting silently to a different spot.  “Don’t you like not being able to see me?”

“No, no I really don’t!  Harry, please,” Ryuk whined.  “I can’t see you at all.  Do you know how weird that is?  Human-made things can’t do that!”

“This thing can,” Harry said.  He left the cloak on while Ryuk spun around, trying to locate him based on the sound of his voice.  “Is this really that unnerving to you?” he asked the god of death, who collapsed in the middle of the room, looking wildly about himself.

“It really, really is,” Ryuk said fervently.

Harry took the cloak off.  “I’m not getting rid of it,” he told the god of death.  “It’s too valuable if it can really make me invisible, even to a god of death.”

“Oh, of course not,” Ryuk agreed.  He appeared to be greatly relieved now that Harry was back in his sight.  “Getting rid of it would just be stupid.  But please don’t use it around me unless you really have to.”

Harry gave him an odd look.  “You’re always here, Ryuk,” he pointed out.  “Any time I use it I would be around you.”

Ryuk laughed.  “I guess I’m asking you not to use it, then,” he said.

“I’ll give you an extra apple whenever I use it,” Harry said.  “But I won’t not use it.  Just think of what I could get done sneaking around the castle at night!”

Ryuk made a despairing noise, but otherwise didn’t object.  Likely the promise of more apples did a lot to soothe his disgruntled feelings.  Harry had found that they were the easiest way to get Ryuk to behave, or to do as he wished.

He only wished it didn’t make him feel so much like a drug dealer.

ooOOooOOoo

The item hidden on the third floor became of exponentially greater interest when Harry realized that Quirrell was after it as well.  Harry still couldn’t stand the man, and he still made Harry’s head hurt. Really, it was only a matter of time before Harry killed him, but before that he wanted to see what was so fascinating about the item hidden in the school.

So, one night close to the end of the year when the Headmaster was away from the school for whatever reason, Harry donned his cloak to Ryuk’s great consternation and waited by the entrance to the room where the item was hidden.  From there, it was a simple matter to follow Quirrell through a comically easy series of traps and riddles to reach… a mirror?

“Seriously?” Harry muttered to himself.  All of this fuss over a mirror?  And it seemed that Quirrell wasn’t happy with what he found, either, because he was talking to himself about it.

“The mirror will not surrender it to me, Master,” Quirrell was saying.

Whatever.  Harry had seen more than enough.  He picked up his Note, which he’d so thoughtfully brought with him, and wrote in it Quirinus Quirrell, suicide, 10:01 PM .  As he wrote this at ten o’clock, it was only a minute later that Quirrell’s eyes glazed over and he turned and left the room.  The odd thing was that Harry could hear someone arguing with Quirrell, trying to get him to turn back to the mirror.

But that didn’t matter.  Quirrell was already as good as dead, so whoever was trying to talk him out of it would fail, and Harry had more important things to worry about.  He found that he was terribly curious about what made the mirror so special.  Harry walked up to it and watched as his reflection placed something in his pocket.  He felt the weight of the item in his pocket, reached in, and pulled it out.

“Oh, crap,” Ryuk breathed out.  He sounded inordinately excited by the strange red stone.

“What is it?” Harry asked.

“That’s a Philosopher’s Stone.  I never thought I’d actually see one.”  Ryuk started to laugh.  “Please keep it, Harry, I want you to keep it.”

“Why?” he asked Ryuk, instantly suspicious.  The god of death wasn’t what anyone would call benevolent, after all.

“Because I want someone to trade for the eyes then drink the stone’s elixir!  I want to see what happens!”

Harry rolled his eyes, having no idea what Ryuk was talking about.  Still, he supposed it wouldn’t hurt to keep the strange little stone.  He shoved it back in his pocket, then slipped out of the room where the mirror was hidden.  He was already back out in the third floor hallway when the Headmaster entered the room where the Cerberus slept, and there was nothing to show that Harry had been there at all that night.

That didn’t stop the Headmaster from interrogating him the next day, but Harry hadn’t gone to Slytherin for nothing.  The old man never realized that Harry had the strange stone, or that he’d caused the deaths of two of his professors during the year.

Harry returned to his Aunt Petunia for the summer feeling much accomplished, with several interesting books to read and the promise of an invitation to Malfoy Manor later in the summer.  All in all, life seemed to be going fairly well for Harry.  He was pleased with the direction his life had taken when he’d found the Note, as there didn’t seem to be any drawbacks to using it all so long as he was careful with it.

Even if he was fairly certain that Ryuk was eventually going to devour every apple in existence.

Chapter Text

The summer was excessively boring without Uncle Vernon around to harass him, though Harry found he preferred it that way.  The quiet was nice, though a bit too quiet.  Without Vernon to back her up, Aunt Petunia seemed almost to have given up on being awful to Harry.  She got very quiet whenever he entered the room and rarely gave him chores to do.  She also fed him relatively frequently.

Still, Harry found that he actually missed his daily chores.  At least they provided him with something to pass the time.  As it was, he studied his schoolbooks and did little else during the summer break.  He’d made it through all of the assigned textbooks for the next year (Lockhart seemed like he was going to be a joke) before the only interesting thing of the summer happened.

The strange little creature appeared before him just before the end of summer.  It was the oddest thing, the way the strange thing popped into his room.  It was tiny and thin and dressed in what looked to be a dirty old pillowcase.  It cringed as it appeared, like it expected some sort of punishment.  Maybe it did.  How could Harry know?

“Harry Potter must-”  It stopped, quite suddenly, and let out a tiny little squeak.

“Harry Potter must… what?” Harry asked, staring at the queer little creature in fascination.  What exactly was it, anyway?

It let out a tiny little squeak.  “Harry Potter is not what Dobby expected,” the thing said apologetically.  “Dobby is not sure that Harry Potter needs Dobby’s help.”

Harry felt his eye twitch.  “Does Dobby always talk about himself in third person?” he asked it.

The thing let out another squeak and disappeared with another pop.

“What the hell was that?” Harry asked, scowling.  Why had the thing run away from him so quickly?  He wasn’t even trying to be mean to him!

“I think it was a house elf,” Ryuk said from where he was perched on the windowsill.  “They’re pretty skittish.”

“Skittish?” Harry echoed.  “I didn’t do anything to it!  Why would it be afraid of me?”  Not that Harry minded the fear, of course.  He would rather inspire fear than go back to letting people walk all over him.

Ryuk let out a tiny, disbelieving laugh and stared at Harry.

Harry stared back at him.  When nothing was said, Harry asked, “Would you care to elaborate, or did you just want to laugh at me?”

“It’s just that you’ve gotten a little bit… scarier than you used to be.  Since you started using the Note, I mean.”  Ryuk shrugged.

“What does that even mean?” Harry asked.  Scarier?  Maybe he’d become less easy to intimidate, but that didn’t mean that he was intimidating, did it?

“It means that humans who use the Note tend to get… auras, if you will.”  Ryuk shrugged again.  “Can I have an apple?”

“Not until you explain what you mean by auras,” Harry snapped.  “Is this something that’s going to get me in trouble at the school?”

“Not really,” Ryuk said, drawing out the words.

It didn’t exactly inspire confidence in Harry.  “Ryuk,” he said slowly.  “Is this something that’s going to get me in trouble at the school?”

Ryuk let out a heavy, long suffering sigh.  “It shouldn’t.  Most humans are too thick to notice auras, even ones as strong as yours will be.  You should avoid true seers and sentient magical beings like house elves, just to be on the safe side.  And any humans that listen to true seers or spend excessive amounts of time listening to magical beings, but they’re pretty rare.”  Ryuk grinned.  “This is one instance where humans and their superiority complexes will come in handy for you.”

Harry sighed and tossed him an apple from the bowl of them he’d taken to keeping on his bedside table.  “I wish you would have told me some of this before I’d started using the damned Note,” he muttered.

Ryuk laughed.  “Where would the fun in that be?” he asked, and crunched into his apple.

“Maybe I should try not to use it this year,” Harry muttered, staring at the black book.  That would probably be for the best.  Using the Note seemed to cause as many problems as it fixed.

ooOOooOOoo

Harry’s second year was off to a not-so-great start.  Lockhart, as he’d suspected from his summer reading, was even worse than Quirrell.  The entirety of Slytherin house, even Professor Slughorn, couldn’t stand the foppish twit.  Harry had never wanted so very badly to write a name down in his life.

He didn’t, though, and not just because he was trying to avoid using the Note.  Mostly he didn’t do it because he was concerned that it may seem suspicious if another professor died in a somewhat mysterious way.  And besides those two reasons, he was actually a little afraid to use the Note on another teacher.  He’d rolled the dice with Snape and wound up with Professor Slughorn, who was mostly wonderful, but with Quirrell out of the picture they’d wound up with Lockhart.  Who was to say there wasn’t someone even worse than Lockhart out there?

The thought was horrifying.  Really, it was better not to risk it.

There was one bright spot in the year that was looking awful, however, and that bright spot was Quidditch.  Higgs had graduated, so Harry had gone ahead and tried out for Seeker.  He was elated when he got the position, and was looking forward to getting to play the wild game he’d watched in his first year.

“I just wish the Captain wasn’t so comfortable with his Chasers,” Draco sighed over dessert.

“What do you mean?” Harry asked.

Draco shrugged and chased a crumb around his plate with his fork.  He hadn’t finished and he didn’t look like he was going to.  “Flint said that I was as good as Pucey, if not a bit better.  But they’d started out together, so the teamwork they built would make up for the difference in our abilities.”  Draco sniffed and tried to look contemptuous, but only really managed to look sad.

“You never know,” Harry offered, in an effort to cheer Draco up.  “Maybe something could happen to Pucey.  Maybe he’ll need to drop out because of his grades or something.”

Draco laughed.  “Please, Harry, don’t be silly.  Pucey’s grades are some of the best in the school!”  He shook his head.  “I’m not gonna make the team.  But, hey, at least I’ll get to watch you play.  You’re great on a broom!”

Harry grinned.  “Thanks, Draco,” he said, pleased with the compliment.

Later that night, after Draco was asleep, Harry found himself holding the Note.  It would be so easy…

“I thought you were gonna try not using it,” Ryuk said, breaking the silence.

“I was,” Harry said.  “But…  well, Draco’s really upset.”

Ryuk’s laughter was raucous, and Harry was terribly glad that no one could hear him cackling.  “So you won’t kill that obnoxious twit of a teacher, but you’ll kill a student for your boyfriend?”

“He’s not my boyfriend,” Harry hissed, his cheeks feeling oddly hot.  He chucked an apple at Ryuk’s head, then wrote Adrian Pucey, 8:00 AM, broomstick accident before he could change his mind.

The next morning word was all over the school that a Slytherin had been flying unsupervised and had fallen from a great height and died.  Draco was grinning by dinner because Flint had put him on the team, and Harry felt oddly light when he returned the expression.

Pucey had been a jerk, anyway.  He’d been rude to the first years this year, and Harry hated bullies.

ooOOooOOoo

“Now the year’s getting interesting,” Harry said to Ryuk the morning after Halloween.  

Something called the Chamber of Secrets had opened, and Filch’s cat had been petrified.  Everybody was up in arms about the event, but Harry was amused.  Here was something fun that he was in no way involved in.  He was a little excited to see what this so-called “Heir” did next.  Maybe he or she would do something about Lockhart.  Or maybe Harry could make it look like he or she had done something about Lockhart.

Ryuk, however, was shrugging.  “I don’t see what’s so interesting about a basilisk,” the god of death said.  “Sure, they’re hard to breed and hard to kill, but other than that they aren’t that impressive.  Lots of magical creatures kill lots of things in much more interesting ways.”

Harry frowned at him.  “You’re no fun,” he said, resisting a small pout.  “I was actually a little excited about this,” he added.

Ryuk’s face twitched.  “Excited about somebody else killing things?”  He laughed.  “You would be, I guess.”

“Excited because I thought I might have a way to off Lockhart without any suspicion falling on myself,” Harry corrected.  “I was hoping I could figure out how they were doing it, then use the same method to kill Lockhart.  I guess that won’t work if the method in question is a basilisk.”  Then Harry considered what he’d just said.  “It wouldn’t work, would it?”

Ryuk was suspiciously silent.

“Ryuk,” Harry said coaxingly.  “Could I kill someone using the Note and the basilisk?”

Ryuk said nothing.

Harry drew an apple from his pocket.  “Ryuk?” he asked, waving the apple at the god of death.

“I don’t know,” Ryuk said finally, glaring.  “It’s not a human, so you might be able to make the Note do it.  You can’t make a human kill another human with the Note, though.”

Harry tossed him the apple.  “And if the Note can’t do what I ask it to?” he asked.

Ryuk shrugged.  “Probably Lockhart would die of a heart attack, which would be terribly boring.”

“And terribly conspicuous, considering that I bet he’s in perfectly good health.”  Harry sighed.  “Fine.  I won’t use the Note to have the basilisk kill Lockhart.”  He considered that statement.  “At least, not yet.  Maybe if he does something incredibly obnoxious I will.”

Ryuk laughed at him.  “The fact that you think you can stop yourself from using the Note is the funniest part of this,” Ryuk said with great sincerity.

Harry’s eyes narrowed.  “You think I couldn’t throw the Note away?” he asked.  Even as he said it, though, he knew that he couldn’t.  The Death Note gave him such a sense of power over… everyone.  Throwing it away would just be foolish, and Harry was many things, but foolish wasn’t one of them.

“You can throw away anything that you’d like,” Draco said as he came into the room.  He looked around.  “Harry, who were you talking to, anyway?”

“Myself,” Harry said smoothly.  “And my Aunt, who seems angry that I didn’t write her back the other day.”

Draco gave him a funny look.  “But you haven’t received any letters,” he said with a frown.

“That you saw,” Harry said.  It was a weak cover, but it would have to do.

Draco shrugged.  “Fair point, I guess.”

Harry let out a small sigh.  He’d have to start being more careful about where and when he spoke to Ryuk.  Draco was, after all, the second person to catch him talking to the god of death.  If it happened too many more times, his housemates might think he was crazy.

ooOOooOOoo

Draco was doubled over, howling with laughter.  “Your face,” he managed to gasp out.  “You should see it!”

Harry’s lip curled into a snarl.  “I’m glad you’re enjoying my humiliation,” he hissed at Draco, his cheeks flushed in a combination of irritation and embarrassment.

The year was going terribly and it could all be traced back to Lockhart.  He was an awful teacher to start with, and then he’d had that stupid idea for the dueling club.  That club led to half the school thinking that Harry was the one opening Slytherin’s hidden chamber, since apparently he was something called a Parselmouth.  Yes, it made his housemates rather impressed, but everybody else was being awful about it.  Then he had the stupidest idea for Valentine’s Day ever, leading to Harry’s current humiliated state.

Honestly, why the littlest Weasley would think that he wanted a singing Cupid to deliver a sappy, awful poem to him was beyond Harry.  And for the message to have been delivered so publicly… it was awful.

“Oh, relax,” Draco was saying, his laughter fading.  “It wasn’t that bad.  Really.  Hardly anyone paid attention to it, anyway.”

Harry’s eyebrows twitched.  He was relatively certain that was a lie, because he’d noticed several of his fellow students laughing while the message had been delivered.  “If you say so,” was all that he said.

His fingers itched with the urge to write either her name or Lockhart’s name in the book.  But… well, if he was going to be charitable, the youngest Weasley was just a first year.  She probably didn’t realize how humiliating her poem had been.  And Lockhart…  Harry wasn’t sure what would be worse:  Putting up with Lockhart until the end of the school year or listening to Ryuk tease him about

It was with some difficulty later that evening that Harry decided killing Lockhart would be worse.  He only had to put up with the idiot for a few more months, after all.  Ryuk would be sticking around for much longer than that, and the god of death was already more than smug enough.

ooOOooOOoo

It was in Harry’s final few weeks at Hogwarts that he changed his mind about Lockhat.  The Professor had gone from a minor nuisance to a major irritation.  Here he was, supposedly this great hero, and he was running away from the fight like a coward?

Harry didn’t even like Ginny and he wasn’t going to let her rot in some stupid hidden chamber.

He watched Lockhart packing with narrowed eyes, then made his decision.  He pulled out the Note and wrote Gilderoy Lockhart, basilisk gaze, and waited.

“Ooh, we’re testing it?” Ryuk asked.

“Why not?” Harry asked with a shrug.  Lockhart turned to look at him, but it was too late.  The basilisk appeared and Lockhart was dead, just like that.  “Huh,” Harry said, a bit surprised.  “Nice to know it worked.”  Then he followed the snake.

It led him to a girl’s bathroom, which was a rather strange place to be led.  Still, he followed it into the secret passage that opened up just for the giant snake, then stared into the hole.  “I don’t want to go down there,” he said to Ryuk.

Ryuk laughed.  “Sure you do!  Where’s your sense of adventure?”  The god of death floated out over the hole, a manic grin on his face.

Harry sighed.  He was pretty sure that this was foolish and he should go get a professor.  Still, the professors weren’t exactly the most competent of people, were they?  He jumped down the hole.

The drop was unpleasant and the landing was even more so.  Harry found himself standing in a hallway, with nowhere to go but forward, so forward he went.  It wasn’t long before the hall opened up into a beautiful cavern, where Ginny lay sprawled on the ground, a book cracked open next to her.  And standing over her was a young man with a cruel smirk on his face.

He looked up when Harry made a noise.  “Oh, my, what have we here?” the young man asked.  His eyes were lit with a sort of sadistic glee.  “Come to save the wretched little blood traitor?  I’m afraid you’re too late.”  His face twisted into a parody of grief.  “The poor little dear gave her life for a wonderful cause.”

“What cause?” Harry asked.  Ryuk was making tiny, amused noises behind him.  A part of him wondered what was so funny, but Harry didn’t let allow himself to get distracted wondering about it.

The older boy laughed.  “Why, my resurrection of course!”  He bowed to Harry.  “Tom Marvolo Riddle, at your service.  And of course, I know all about you.  Miss Weasley was always so happy to write to her dear friend Tom about the wonderful Boy Who Lived, Harry Potter.  They say you killed Voldemort, you know.”

“I do know,” Harry said.  “Everyone seems to believe that’s the case.”

“And yet, you couldn’t have succeeded entirely because here I am!”  The young man did something with Ginny’s wand, at least Harry assumed it was Ginny’s wand, and golden script began to form.   Tom Marvolo Riddle , it read.  Then, with a flick of his wand, the letters rearranged themselves into I am Lord Voldemort .

“How did you do it?” Harry asked, idly curious.  He knew what he was going to do, of course, since he now had both the fool’s name and his appearance locked firmly in his mind.

“Oh, I’m terribly clever,” Voldemort said.  “I saved a sliver of myself inside of my diary from my days at school.  When the stupid little girl started writing in it, I started sucking away her life force to fuel mine.  As I took more and more of her life force, I gained more control of her.  That’s how I had her opening the Chamber all year.”

“Oh, Harry, I don’t like this jerk.  Please say we’re going to kill him,” Ryuk said over Voldemort’s chatter.

“I am,” Harry said.

“Good, he’s a cheater.”  Ryuk sounded almost offended as he said, “I really don’t like people who try to cheat.”

“I beg your pardon?” Voldemort asked.

“You don’t have to beg,” Harry said.  He pulled his Death Note out.  “As it happens, Tom, you aren’t the only one who has a magic book.  I can’t stand people like you, you know,” he said.  He opened the book and considered what he wanted to write.  “You killed a little girl.  And even if I didn’t mind you in particular, I have no doubt that you wouldn’t leave me alone.  After all, I did kill you once no matter how accidental it was.”

“You insolent little boy, I only came after you because of that awful prophecy,” Voldemort hissed.  “And what book are you talking about?”

“This one,” Harry said.  He shrugged, then simply wrote Tom Marvolo Riddle .  It didn’t need to be anything fancy.

Within seconds the man was on his knees, gasping for breath, and then he was as dead as Ginny Weasley.  When he went, Harry’s scar gave a sharp twinge of pain the likes of which he’d never before felt, then the pain stopped as abruptly as it began.

Harry pocketed his Note and looked around the chamber.  “Now, any ideas about how to get out of here?” he asked Ryuk.

“Nope,” the god of death said.

Harry sighed.  He settled onto the cold, wet ground and said to the basilisk, who had been oddly silent, “~How about you?~”

“~There are always the pipes,~” it hissed at Harry.

“~Thanks, but I think I’ll wait for rescue,~” Harry said.  Surely a teacher would come by at some point after finding the open door in the girl’s bathroom.

And they did.  It only took about three hours, and by then Harry was tired and cranky.  The Headmaster wanted to know how Harry had killed Voldemort, but Harry simply said that he’d been dead when he got there.  He got the feeling that the old man didn’t believe him, but that didn’t really matter.

He couldn’t prove anything, and that was the important part.

What little time remained in the year passed quickly and quietly, and before Harry knew it he was on the train back to Aunt Petunia.  After the ride, when he and Draco were getting ready to part ways for the summer, Draco stopped him by grabbing onto his sleeve just before they left the train.

“What?” Harry asked.  He turned and raised an eyebrow at Draco.

“I’ll miss you this summer,” Draco said.  His pale cheeks were just a little bit flushed.

Harry smiled at him.  “We’ll write,” he said, ignoring the flutter in his chest.

“Yeah,” Draco whispered.  He smiled, but it looked a little forced.  “We’ll definitely write.”

“Okay,” Harry said.  He tugged his arm away from Draco, but gently.  “I’ll see you in a few months.”

Draco’s smile softened into something a bit more genuine.  “Yeah.  I’ll see you in September.”

And then Harry was being whisked away by his overly-eager Aunt back to another boring summer with little to do but think.  Well, that was fine.  Sitting and thinking was better than listening to Lockhart lecturing.  Or Binns, for that matter.

“Say, Ryuk,” he started once he was alone in his room with the god of death.

“What?”

“What happens if you use the Death Note on a ghost?”

Chapter Text

“Mum won’t even look at you anymore, you know?”

Harry rolled over on his bed and stared at Dudley.  “And?” he asked.  Was this going anywhere?  Was it supposed to have a point?

“You killed Dad, didn’t you?  That’s why she’s so afraid of you.”

Harry rolled his eyes.  “Your father died of a massive heart attack,” he said.  “How could I have killed him?”  Nevermind that he had.  The question had Ryuk in stitches, so it was a good thing that Dudley couldn’t see him.

“I don’t know,” Dudley muttered.  “Magic?”

Harry gave him a look that made Dudley flinch.  “Didn’t he die before I started to learn magic, though?”

“I don’t know how your stupid magic works!” Dudley shouted.  “I just know that you’ve done… things!  You’ve got Mum so scared she doesn’t even make you do any work, and Dad died because of you!”  He took a step into the room.

Harry’s eyes narrowed.  “I wouldn’t,” Harry said quietly.  “You’re not in the best of health yourself, Dudders.  You might have a heart attack like your father did.”

Dudley froze.  “So you did do something to him,” he said.

“I didn’t say that,” Harry responded.  “Did you hear me say that?  All I’m saying is that you’re in awful shape and heart attacks happen sometimes out of the blue.”  He grinned.  “But then, with your health, it really wouldn’t be out of the blue, would it?”

“I’ve been on a diet,” Dudley protested.  “People would think it was weird if I had a heart attack!”

Harry gave him a pitying look.  “It really doesn’t work like that, Dudders,” he said.  “You’ve done all sorts of damage to yourself being the whale that you are.  The fact that you’re on a diet now doesn’t undo that.”

“Listen here, you little freak,” Dudley said, taking a step into the room.

Harry sighed.  He pulled out the Note and wrote Dudley’s name on it.  It took only seconds for the Note to take effect, and then Dudley was spasming on the ground, crying out in pain.  “Aunt Petunia, something’s wrong with Dudley!” Harry called.

Aunt Petunia rushed into the room and let out a horrified shriek.  “What have you done?” she asked.  She dropped to her knees rather than calling an ambulance.

“Shouldn’t you call someone?” Harry asked.  “He looks like he needs help.”

“Then go call someone!” Petunia snapped.  “It won’t do any good.  You’ve done something to him with your filthy magic,” she snarled.

“I didn’t do anything to him with my wonderful magic,” Harry said.  But he hopped off his bed and headed to the phone and called for an ambulance.  It wouldn’t do any good, of course, but it would look weird if he didn’t.

Of course, his plan wound up backfiring ever so slightly.  After Dudley died, because of course he did, Petunia refused to keep him in the house anymore.  Said that he was cursed, that she’d lost her family to him and she wouldn’t put up with it anymore.  So the Headmaster came and took him to the Weasleys, where he spent the rest of the summer.

It was awful.  The one bright spot was that they were clearly terrified of him, and so they tended to leave him alone.  It wasn’t much of a bright spot, but it was something.  Of course, that bright spot was overshadowed by the awkwardness of the fact that Harry hadn’t saved the precious little girl Weasley when he’d gone into the Chamber of Secrets.  Molly Weasley tried to ask him how her daughter died, but Harry just shrugged and didn’t answer.  He didn’t care enough to say, and he didn’t think it would bring her peace anyway.

They took him to Diagon Alley with him, but left him mostly to his own devices once they were there.  That was fine.  Harry enjoyed the chance to explore the Alley uninhibited by adults who wanted to monitor things that he bought.  For some reason they got so very antsy when they saw him studying certain books…

It wasn’t his fault, it was all Ryuk’s.  The Shinigami was the one who suggested he study certain texts over others.  He seemed to think that there was interesting information about the Note in some of them.  Harry wasn’t so sure about that, given that he’d never actually found any information in the books that Ryuk suggested.

Sometimes, honestly, he wondered if the Shinigami wasn’t trying to troll him.

This summer’s trip to the Alley was interesting for another reason: Harry learned all about the wizarding prison of Azkaban and the fact that someone had apparently broken out of the fortress.  The madman’s face stared at him from almost every wall of the Alley, and Harry occasionally found himself staring back at the posters.

If he were to be caught with his book, would he wind up in a place like that?  Would he lose his mind the way the prisoner in the pictures clearly had?  The question haunted him long after he’d left the Alley for the day, so much so that one night he said to Ryuk, “You have a Note of your own, don’t you?”

Ryuk tilted his head at him.  “Yes,” the Shinigami said, drawing out the word.  “But I won’t kill someone for you.  Not for all the apples in the world.”

“I’m not asking you to,” Harry said quickly, then reconsidered.  “Actually, no, I suppose I am asking you to.  Would you kill me if I get caught?”

Ryuk’s eyes narrowed and he obviously considered the question.  Finally, slowly, he said, “I think that will cost you an extra apple every day from now until the day you’re caught.”

Harry smiled.  “Deal,” he said, and closed his eyes, finally able to get to sleep.  He refused to be driven mad as that criminal had been.  The thought of it was horrifying, but Ryuk would kill him if he got caught.  That meant they couldn’t drive him crazy.

ooOOooOOoo

Harry had never been so relieved to get on the train to Hogwarts in his life.  The awkward silence with the Weasley family had been stifling, and Harry didn’t even like people!  He was amused to note that as he boarded the train he could hear Molly Weasley saying, “You know, I don’t know that I’ve ever met a boy who liked apples so much as that one.”

Harry abandoned Weasley as soon as he could and went to find Draco, who was settled in a compartment by himself, glaring moodily at the door.  He visibly brightened when Harry came through, though.  “What’s that face for?” Harry asked.

Draco’s nose wrinkled.  “Parkinson,” he said shortly.  “She’s on about some betrothal contract that my family may have with hers.  I keep telling her that there’s no way that I’ll honor it, but she’s not listening.”

Harry frowned.  “Betrothal contract?” he echoed.  “What in the world are those?”

“Exactly what they sound like,” Draco said with a sigh.  “It’s not that important now, but when I’m older it’ll be an issue.  And I don’t like Parkinson,” he added in a whine.  “She’s… she’s a pug!”

Harry couldn’t contain his snort of amusement, even as the train lurched into motion.  “She is, isn’t she?” Harry asked agreeably.  He settled in next to Draco and switched the subject to something more palatable.  “Any bets on how long the new DADA professor will last?”

“Ugh!”  Draco rolled his eyes.  “Does it matter?  He or she probably won’t be any good anyway.  Look at what we had last year!”  Draco shook his head and made a tsking sound.  “We’ll just have to study on our own to prepare for our OWLs and NEWTs.  And speaking of studying, which electives did you sign up for?”

“Divinations and Runes,” Harry said.  He was curious to see what effect runes had on the Note, if any, not that he was certain he’d be experimenting on said book.  He was just… curious.  And Divinations?  Should be an easy enough class.

Draco nodded.  “I thought about doing Care of Magical Creatures, and I almost signed up for it, but my father found out that the half-giant is teaching it this year.  He yanked me from the class and had me put in Divinations instead.”

“We have a half-giant on staff?”  Harry frowned.  “Aren’t they supposed to be… violent?”

Before Draco could answer, the compartment was swept by what felt like a stiff breeze, followed by an abrupt and vicious temperature drop that had Harry shivering in his seat.  He opened his mouth to say something, but then he heard the strangest thing.

Not Harry, please, anything but Harry!

A woman was screaming, and Harry was suddenly quite certain that he would never be happy again.  He could hear her screaming and begging and pleading and his heart broke both for her and for his own fears that were rising to conquer his mind.

He snapped out of it suddenly when the carriage door shut with a soft noise.  Harry stared at the door that had closed, his eyes wide, shivering with a cold that he didn’t think would ever get any better.

“Are you okay?” Draco was asking urgently.  He pressed a square of chocolate into Harry’s unresponsive hand.  “My father said that there would be dementors on the grounds of Hogwarts because of Black’s escape, but I didn’t think they’d be searching the train.  He said that chocolate would help with the worst of the effects.  C’mon, Harry, take a bite for me,” Draco coaxed, his voice shaking.

Mechanically, Harry lifted the piece of chocolate to his mouth and took a bite.  Immediately he felt warmth start to spread throughout his chilled body and he sagged with relief.  He crammed another piece of chocolate into his mouth, despite how undignified it was.  “Thank you,” he said once he’d swallowed.

Draco was eating the other half of the chocolate bar.  “It was no problem,” Draco said.  He shuddered.  “No wonder Black wanted to escape Azkaban so badly,” he whispered.  “If I had to feel those things around me day in and day out, I’d want to escape too.”

Harry, who had briefly been contemplating killing Black with the Note for being the cause of the dementors at the school, immediately changed his mind.  He couldn’t blame the man for wanting to flee those monsters, and besides, if Black died and his body was never found, the dementors might stay at Hogwarts forever.  Harry definitely didn’t want that.

The rest of the train ride, thankfully, passed quietly, and by the time they arrived back at Hogwarts, Harry was almost back to normal.  Some other students hadn’t fared so well, and Harry couldn’t decide if he was amused or sympathetic when he watched those unfortunate souls being gathered and escorted to a place to recover under Madam Pomfrey’s gentle care.

ooOOooOOoo

Most of Harry’s classes turned out to be boring that year.  Ancient Runes was awful, as it happened, but he was good at it so that was something of a plus in its favor.  The classes whose teachers hadn’t changed proceeded as normal, which meant that Harry did a fairly decent job with them but otherwise spent most of his time bored, particularly in Binns’ class.  If only being boring was enough cause for Harry to try killing the ghost…

Lupin wasn’t bad as a professor, Harry supposed, even if it was incredibly peculiar to fear the full moon.  And even if the professor hadn’t let Harry try out fighting the Bogart.  That had been most disappointing, as Harry honestly wasn’t sure what his worst fear was.  Perhaps losing the Note?  It didn’t matter, he supposed.

But the crowning jewel of Harry’s classes at Hogwarts actually turned out to be Divinations.  Not because he learned anything of substance, of course.  The class was utter hogwash, and Harry was mostly amused by it more than fascinated.  No, the best part about Divinations was dear, sweet Professor Trelawney.

The woman had breezed into the classroom, started some spiel that Harry had barely been paying attention to, only to cut off with a squeak when she got a look at Harry.  It was the most hilarious response Harry had ever gotten from a professor, and even more hilarious was the fact that Trelawney refused to speak to him.

Every time Harry attempted to speak to her, she just went incredibly pale and said something about her inner eye obviously being clouded when in the presence of such darkness.

Harry would have been more concerned, but only two of her students seemed to take her seriously.  The rest, like Draco, seemed more amused than not by her constant proclamations.

Her avoidance of Harry had another effect, other than being terribly amusing.  Harry was currently pulling one hundred percent in that class because Trelawney refused to speak to him long enough to assess him and was apparently too afraid of him to fail him.  That was fine.  Harry could use a few easy grades.

ooOOooOOoo

A month into the school year, which was incredibly uneventful in spite of the dementors roaming the grounds, Harry decided to test out the Note on Binns.  Boredom wasn’t really enough of a reason to justify using the Note, but this was no ordinary boredom.  This was a boredom truly worthy of murder.

Unfortunately, the results of using the Note on a ghost turned out to be less than spectacular.  Binns still showed up for class every day, but was now entirely transparent and couldn’t be heard.  He didn’t seem to realize that, though, and continued to lecture as though the students were actually listening.  Harry found that he was thoroughly disappointed in both the results of using the Note and his own giving into temptation in the first place.

“Did you know that was all it would do?” he asked Ryuk once he was alone with the Shinigami on the day he’d done it.

Ryuk shook his head.  “Nope,” the being said, popping the end of the word obnoxiously.  “Makes sense, though.  Can’t kill something that’s already dead.”

Harry groaned and rubbed at his forehead.  “Since I already used the Note once this year…”  He paused.  The dementors really hadn’t been that much of a problem.  Did he want to kill some criminal on the run just because of a minor inconvenience?  He’d killed others for less, certainly, but…

“You could do it, you know.  Just kill him!  Then the dementors would go away and you wouldn’t have to worry about running into them!” Ryuk bounced in front of him and Harry’s eyes narrowed.

“You’re far too eager for me to kill him,” Harry said, and put the Note away.  “I don’t trust you, or your eagerness.”

That Ryuk pouted at him for the rest of the day only made Harry more certain that he’d made the right decision.

ooOOooOOoo

A conversation overheard in the library towards the end of the school year made things briefly more interesting for Harry, who had spent the year wishing for something exciting to happen.

“I’m telling you, George, the map can’t be right!”

“And I’m telling you that it has to be, because it’s never been wrong before!”

“Oh yeah?  What about that weird invisible ‘Ryuk’ that’s allegedly following Potter around?  We’ve never seen him or her, so how can they exist?”

Harry went very still and tried not to breathe very hard.  The Weasley twins knew about Ryuk?  That didn’t make any sense.  Why wouldn’t they have said something to someone about him?  Unless… they said they’d never seen him, so how did they know?

“Look, it should be easy enough to figure out.  We’ve seen Black headed to the Whomping Willow, and Pettigrew is somewhere near there too!  If we can just find them, then we can turn him over to the Aurors.  And if the map is wrong, then we’ll know that it’s just a useless scrap of parchment.”

“It’s not a useless scrap of parchment and you know it!”

Harry had heard enough of the conversation.  Clearly they couldn’t decide if whatever map they had was reliable or not, and Harry didn’t honestly care much about the outcome of that conversation.  However…  Ryuk had seemed awfully eager for him to kill Black, and if the convict was really hiding out near the Whomping Willow…

Harry almost couldn’t help himself, not that he tried very hard.  He headed out of the castle and in the direction of the Willow, and was almost entirely unsurprised to be grabbed around the arm by a big black dog, who used his teeth to drag Harry in the direction that he chose.  Harry didn’t protest, and allowed himself to be pulled under the Willow and into a tunnel he’d never before noticed.  The tunnel emerged into what could only be the Shrieking Shack, which looked even more awful on the inside.

“So, have I found Sirius Black?” Harry asked, staring at the dog curiously.  He knew that McGonagall could turn into a cat, so perhaps Black could turn into a dog?

Sure enough, the dog transformed and a man, gaunt and greasy and tired, stared back at him.  “You have,” the man said.  “Harry,” Black added, and stepped forward slowly.  “You’re looking well.”

Harry took a step back, not even remotely willing to let the escaped prisoner touch him.  “And you’re not,” he said.  “Was it the dementors?  Is that why you escaped?”

Black shook his head, then shrugged.  “Partially,” he said.  “I wanted to find the man that framed me, Pettigrew, and I wanted to kill him.  I’ve already served the time for it, so I thought I would at least make it worthwhile.  And I wanted to see you, but when I went to your house, you were gone.”

That was, perhaps, the first thing to genuinely surprise Harry all night.  “To see me?” he echoed, incredulous.  “Why would you want to do that?”

Black smiled, the expression pained and fragile.  “You’re my godson,” he said.  “And I haven’t had the chance to do right by you.  I thought that if I could see you, make sure that you were doing okay, I could kill Pettigrew and go back to Azkaban with a clear conscience.”

Harry scowled.  “That,” he said severely, “Is a stupid plan.”  Killing Pettigrew just to go back to that awful prison with the terrible dementors?  No, that was the worst plan that Harry had ever heard.

Black looked almost offended.  “Well, if you’ve got a better one,” he started.

“I do,” Harry said.  He pulled the Death Note out and stared down at it, then shrugged and opened it up.  “I’ll get your name cleared, and get Pettigrew dead, all at the same time.  But just know that if you try to tell anyone about this, I’ll kill you.”

Black blinked at him.  “Why are you helping me?” he asked, sounding confused.  “You’ve only just met me, and you’re being rather trusting, don’t you think?”

Harry glanced up at him, then back down at the list of commands he was writing for Pettigrew to follow before he died.  “You’re my godfather, you said,” he said with a shrug.  That certainly explained Ryuk’s joy at Harry’s potentially killing the man.  “If your name is cleared, I won’t have to go back to Petunia or the Weasley’s again.  I can just stay with you.  And if you ever tell anyone what I’m doing right now, even if they do believe you, I can just kill you and everyone you’ve told with the stroke of a pen.”

“That’s… alarming,” Black said.  He stared down at the book.  “I don’t know how I feel about you,” he said slowly, stretching the words out.

“That’s fine,” Harry said.  “I don’t know how I feel about you.  Or why I’m trusting you.  But I am, so I expect that you won’t be foolish enough to abuse my trust.”  He finished his instructions for Pettigrew went to write the man’s name, but realized he didn’t actually know it.  “Sorry, what’s Pettigrew’s first name?”

“Peter,” Black said, staring at Harry like he was some kind of alien.

That was okay.  Harry was doing his good deed for the year.  He wrote Peter Pettigrew with a small flourish, then closed the book with a snap.  “Now it’s just a waiting game,” he told the dumbfounded Black.

He stood and left the shack, and returned to the Slytherin dorm before he could be missed.  Draco took one look at him and shook his head.  “I don’t want to know,” the blonde said, his lips twitching into a smile.

Harry frowned.  “Don’t want to know what?” he asked, mildly irritated.

“Who’s going to die, of course,” Draco said, and left the room with a spring in his step.

Harry stared after him, his eyes wide with surprise.  He hadn’t thought Draco would have figured it out…  And also, did that mean he had a certain look about him after he’d killed someone?

“Ryuk?” he asked the Shinigami in a soft, barely there whisper, who just cackled at him in response.

Right.  His life, he supposed.  He only had himself to blame.

ooOOooOOoo

A week later, the Daily Prophet announced Black’s innocence, and Harry received a letter from the Ministry informing him that he would be under the care of his godfather.  “Better than Petunia,” Harry muttered, packing the letter away in his things.

“Sorry?” Draco asked, glancing at him sideways.

“Black.  My godfather.  I’ll take him over Petunia any day.”

Draco’s eyes narrowed.  “But you haven’t met Black yet,” he pointed out, the words coming slowly.  “Unless…”  His brow furrowed.  “Did you…”  He stopped and shook his head.  “Never mind.  That’s too convoluted, even for you.”

“Is it?” Harry asked, a small grin coming to his lips.

His… friend, and yes, he was confident using that word now, in spite of how little interest he’d initially had in their friendship, just shook his head.  “You’ll never tell me,” Draco pointed out.  He finished his drink and stood.  “Ready for potions?”

“Of course,” Harry said, and followed Draco to class.

Summer was going to be interesting, Harry thought.  Perhaps this would be his first summer since obtaining the book that he truly wasn’t tempted to kill anyone.  He found, oddly enough, that he was almost excited for such a summer.

Ryuk would be disappointed, though.  That was fine.  Harry would just have to feed him more apples.

Chapter Text

That summer was, quite frankly, the best summer that Harry had ever had in his entire life.  He had the extreme pleasure of spending it with his godfather, who seemed determined to make up for all of the miserable years that Harry had spent with the Durlseys.  He didn’t even question why his godson required so many apples all the time.

Sirius spent the summer with Harry travelling, in a dizzying tour of the world’s best wizarding communities.  They spent a week in each one, starting in France and continuing to Rome, then Bulgaria, then to Japan, and so on and so forth, until Harry felt as though he’d travelled the entire world during the course of his summer break.  Sirius promised him that next summer, they would return to Harry’s favorites and spend more time in those cities, rather than just touring them all.

There was one small incident, early in the summer, when Harry had been cornered by a particularly obnoxious reporter by the name of Rita Skeeter.  She’d asked Harry about a dozen inappropriate questions, and had been on the verge of asking him one more when Sirius got in her face and threatened to murder her if she didn’t leave Harry alone.  After all, he’d reasoned while fiddling with his wand, it wasn’t as though there was any proof that he hadn’t done any of the crimes he’d been accused of.

While Rita had been fleeing, Sirius had warned her that she would suffer if she ever, ever approached his darling godson again.

So yes, the summer was truly the best summer that Harry had ever had.  And, even better, at the end of the summer Sirius took him to see the Quidditch World Cup, where he ran into Draco, who was sitting in the same box as them.  The Weasley family was there as well, but Harry didn’t care about them at all.

“Are you having a good summer?” Draco asked him after the game was over and they were headed back to Sirius and Harry’s tent.  Draco had asked his father if he could stay with Harry for the night and Lucius had, reluctantly, agreed.

“I am,” Harry said quietly.  He held the entrance to the tent open for Draco, then showed him to his room.  It felt strange, still, to have his own room in a tent, but it was pretty cool.  It meant that his godfather couldn’t listen in on them, not that he doubted that Sirius wouldn’t find a way if he wanted to.  It at least gave him the illusion of privacy.

“I’m glad,” Draco said.  He ducked his head and smiled.  “Anything in particular, or was this the best of it?”

“The game was pretty awesome,” Harry said with a small grin.  “But really, I’ve been enjoying the travelling.”  He wanted to tell Draco that Ryuk had been enjoying the travelling as well, but he didn’t dare do so.  He’d never actually told Draco about the Shinigami, and still wasn’t entirely sure that he ever would.  He just didn’t know how his friend would take such news.

“You could tell him about me,” Ryuk was saying from behind him, bouncing around.  “I bet I could get apples out of him, too.  It’d be great.  Maybe I could even start saving them up.”

Harry shook his head, but couldn’t stop the small laugh that escaped him.

“What?” Draco asked, his eyes darting up.

“Nothing,” Harry said quickly.  “Just thinking about when Sirius ran into that weird reporter lady.”

Draco’s eyes widened.  “Sirius ran into Skeeter?” he asked, a bit breathless.  “Harry, you have to tell me what happened!”

Harry grinned.  “It was a disaster,” he said, a bit gleefully.  He told Draco the story, followed by some more tales from his wild summer of travel, including the one about the beach in Italy where his godfather had gone chasing after some poor topless woman.

Later that night, Harry woke briefly to the sound of some shouting outside of the tent, something about dark marks or eaters of death, but he settled back down when he heard Sirius tell him that everything was okay.

It wasn’t like anything would hurt him with his godfather around.  The man took was slightly overprotective, but not enough to be annoying.  In fact, it was kind of nice to have his godfather looking after him.  Harry drifted back to sleep with a smile on his face.

ooOOooOOoo

Hogwarts started with a bang that year, as it so rarely did.  Apparently, the school would be hosting some kind of tournament that would reward participants with some form of eternal glory.  Or so the Headmaster said, anyway.

Harry was more frustrated that there would be no Quidditch that year because of the silly thing.

“How can you be more disappointed about Quidditch than you are excited about the Triwizard Tournament?” Draco asked, sounding thoroughly exasperated with him.

Harry shrugged and picked at his dessert.  “Because a tournament sounds boring while Quidditch is one of the best things about the magical world?”  He took a bite of his pudding, but chewed it spitefully.  He didn’t want this tournament at Hogwarts.  He just wanted a quiet year, where nothing happened.

He wondered…

Who was in charge of the tournament?  If they died mysteriously, would the tournament be cancelled?  Then the year would be perfectly normal.  But… he glanced at Draco, who was now frowning at his own dessert.  He was so very excited.

Harry let out a small sigh.  “So, are you planning on entering, then?”  He certainly wasn’t going to, having no desire to compete for eternal glory, but if Draco wanted to, then he supposed he would cheer for his friend.

Draco’s eyes lit up.  “I hadn’t actually thought about it,” he said with a small smile.  “Do you think I would have a chance if I did compete?”

Honestly, Harry didn’t think so.  Draco’s best skill was his way with potions, and that wouldn’t serve him very well in a tournament setting.  He was fairly charming also, Harry supposed, but again, that would do him little good unless he was supposed to charm an opponent during a duel or something.  Still… somehow, he was certain that answering with a negative wasn’t a great idea.

“I think you’d do great,” he said, and smiled at Draco.

Draco’s answering smile was worth the lie.  For that matter, it was almost worth the loss of Quidditch that year.

ooOOooOOoo

The other schools arrived in late October, and Harry was intrigued to see Victor Krum stepping out of the boat that bore the Durmstrang students.  At least, he was intrigued until he saw Draco’s reaction, which was to go practically starry-eyed at the sight of the Seeker for the Bulgarian team.

Harry’s eyes narrowed, and he considered…  no.  No, that was a terrible idea.  He wouldn’t do it.  He wouldn’t give in and write the man’s name down.  He’d done so well already, not using the Note all summer.  He wasn’t going to break his streak now.

He maintained his resolve all through dinner, through the announcing of both the rules and the age line that had Draco pouting until Krum sat next to him for the remainder of the meal.  Then Draco lit up again, and Harry found himself once again fighting the urge to put Krum’s name down in the Note.  What was the matter with him?

Krum was a famous Quidditch player, and Harry knew how much Draco loved Quidditch.  So what if Draco was excited to meet one of his idols?  Harry should be glad that Draco was meeting Krum, rather than wanting to kill Krum for something that wasn’t even the man’s fault.

Harry took a deep breath and focused on his food, then, when the meal was over and Draco was still sitting with Krum, practically chattering at the Quidditch player, he stood up and walked away.

Once he was alone in the dorm, because of course all of his other roommates were busy making nice with the Durmstrang students, Harry got out the Note and glowered at it.

“Problem?” Ryuk asked.

Harry idly tossed him an apple.  “I’m considering using the Note on someone, and I don’t think they deserve it,” he said slowly.  He thought… once, he would never have even considered using the Note on Krum.  Had he been that corrupted by the easy use of the Note?  What was wrong with him?

Ryuk laughed.  “And?” the Shinigami asked.  “You’ve used the Note before on people who don’t deserve it.  What’s different about this one?”

“I don’t know why I want to use it,” Harry said slowly.  Maybe that was it.  Maybe it was just because there was no reason, none at all, why he should want to use the Note on Krum.  “There’s no reason why I should.  Draco’s just fawning over him, that’s all.  If anything, I should be pleased that Draco’s giving me a bit of peace and quiet.”

Ryuk’s laughter was even more jarring than normal, mostly because Harry hadn’t been expecting it that time.  “You’re jealous!” the Shinigami crowed.

Harry stared at him, one eyebrow raised.  “I am not,” he said.  He wasn’t.  Was he?

“You are!”  Ryuk was still cackling, floating upside down as he stared at Harry.  “You’re jealous of Krum, and you want Draco to be paying attention to you, and just to you!”

Ryuk was… he was right.  The realization startled Harry.  “Well then,” he muttered.  He set down his quill and stared down at the Note.  He was jealous, and he wanted to kill Krum because of it.  That… that was the definition of a very bad idea.

“I’ll have to work on that,” was all he said, before putting the Note away, making Ryuk pout at him.  Whatever.  If disappointing the Shinigami was the worst thing he did that day, Harry considered it to be a good day.

Jealousy.  How strange a feeling that was.  He’d have to watch out for that.

ooOOooOOoo

The night the names were called from the Goblet, Harry took great care to not appear to be jealous at all of Draco’s fawning over Krum.  He didn’t want anyone to think that he was being oddly possessive of the blonde, or anything like that.  It didn’t help that Ryuk had begun to hover over Draco, pointing out every time the blonde paid attention to Krum instead of Harry.

It was like the Shinigami was trying to encourage Harry to kill Krum.  And actually, now that Harry thought about it, he wouldn’t put that past Ryuk at all.  The Shinigami was definitely not above such instigation.

As he sat there, ignoring the names being called from the Goblet and instead focusing on his food, he came to realize that he was being stared at by Draco, whose eyes had gone very wide.  In fact…  Harry looked up, a forkful of food still in his hand.  The entire hall had gone silent, and everyone was now staring at him.

“What?” Harry asked, confused.

“Harry, did you put your name in the Goblet?” Draco asked, his voice hushed.

“What?  No, of course I didn’t.  For one, there was the whole age line thing.  For two, I had no interest in even watching the stupid thing, much less competing.”

“Nevertheless, Mr. Potter, your name has emerged from the Goblet.  You must therefore go and stand with the other Champions.”  Dumbledore’s voice was grave, his expression both concerned and sincere.

Harry blinked.  “My name was called?” he asked, confused.

“Yes, it was,” Draco hissed to him.  “Go on, we can talk about this later.”  There was something in his voice, something hard and angry, and Harry didn’t like it.  He couldn’t think…

Maybe he could.  Maybe Draco thought that Harry had placed his name in the Goblet without giving him a chance to do the same.  Harry would never do that!  But maybe that’s what Draco thought Harry had done.

He stood, slowly, and headed in the direction that the other Champions had gone.  The room was chaos, and Harry stayed quiet throughout, hoping that someone would tell him he didn’t have to compete.  Those words were never spoken.  Well.  That was ridiculous.  Harry wasn’t going to compete in a tournament that he hadn’t entered, no matter how much everyone apparently insisted that he had to.

When everyone had left but the Headmaster, Harry approached him.  “Headmaster Dumbledore, I didn’t put my name in the Goblet,” he said clearly.  “I’m willing to swear to it on my magic.”

“I know you didn’t, my dear boy,” the Headmaster said with a small smile.  “I set that age line up to be quite unbreakable.  There is no way you possibly could have managed to get through it.”

Harry’s eyes narrowed.  “Then why are you insisting I compete?” Harry asked, scowling.

“Why, because it will be good training for you,” the Headmaster said.  “Voldemort is coming, Harry.  If you train during the tournament, you’ll be in better shape when you must finally fight him.”

Harry stared at the Headmaster.  “Voldemort isn’t coming,” he said clearly.  “The man is dead.  He is as dead as anyone can be, trust me, I made sure of it.”  The Death Note wouldn’t allow anyone to cheat it, Harry was certain of that.

“Harry, I went to quite a bit of trouble to make certain that your name came out of the Goblet of Fire,” the Headmaster said serenely.  “I’m afraid you have no choice but to fight in the tournament.  But don’t worry, my dear boy, things shouldn’t be too dangerous for you.”

Harry’s eyes narrowed.  He pulled out the Note.  “I suppose we’ll see about that,” he muttered, and started to write.

Ryuk hovered over his shoulder, then hissed at him, “Make sure you put that he surrenders his wand to you, okay?”

Harry blinked, but wrote in the strange clause.  Why not?  It wasn’t going to hurt anything, he supposed, other than the fact that it would be a terrible idea to be caught with the Headmaster’s wand.

It took the Note’s usual few seconds for his orders to take effect.  The Headmaster’s eyes went glassy, and he pulled out his wand and handed it to Harry before wandering away.  Harry felt a flicker of… something strange when he touched the wand, but it was nothing he could readily identify.  So he tucked the wand away with the Note and headed back to the dungeons.

He fought his way through a sea of well-meaning congratulations from everyone in the dorm other than Draco, then headed immediately up to his dorm.  Draco was sitting on his bed, glaring at the door, though the expression smoothed over as soon as Harry came through it.

“I didn’t put my name in the Goblet,” Harry said quickly.  It seemed incredibly important that Draco believe him.  He didn’t want to fight with the blonde over this.

Draco frowned and shook his head.  “Of course you didn’t,” he said irritably with a wave of his hand, as though brushing Harry’s words away.  “You weren’t interested at all in the tournament.  There’s no way you’d want to compete.  So the questions we need to worry about are who did it, why, and how are we getting you out of it?”

Harry relaxed.  “The Headmaster, some kind of sadistic training regimen, and don’t worry about it,” he said calmly.

Draco’s eyes widened and he shook his head.  “Why do I think I don’t want to ask any more questions?”  His lips quirked into a small smile, though.

Harry just shrugged.  “Because that’s probably smart of you,” he answered.  “And I’m sorry, but I don’t think the tournament will actually happen.”

“That’s okay,” Draco said with a sigh.  “I figured it wasn’t happening as soon as your name was called.  There was no way you were going to compete.  Besides, I already got Krum’s autograph.  That’s all I really wanted.”

Harry felt that ugly flare of jealousy inside of him, but brushed it aside.  “I’m glad you believe that I didn’t put my name in,” he said quietly.

Draco just laughed at him.  “Anyone who thinks otherwise is an idiot,” he said with a fond little smile.  “Please, you weren’t even paying attention when the names were called!  Who would possibly think you put your name in?”

“I’m sure that someone would have,” Harry said.  He settled on his bed and let himself relax.  Everything was fine.  Draco believed him, and wasn’t angry with him, and Krum was probably going away so Harry wouldn’t even have to worry about his jealousy issues.

This year was going to be fantastic.  Maybe they’d even get to have a Quidditch season!

ooOOooOOoo

When he and Draco went to breakfast in the morning, Harry was unsurprised by the grim feeling that pervaded the castle.  It felt as though someone had died and, well, someone had.  The grim atmosphere was only appropriate.

Professor McGonagall stood up once all of the students were seated and cleared her throat to get everyone’s attention, her voice somehow carrying.  After the hall quieted, she said, “It is with great sorrow that I announce the death of Headmaster Dumbledore.”

The hall erupted into noise, and Professor McGonagall, now presumably Headmistress McGonagall, closed her eyes.  Then, after it started to die down, she continued.  “It is with great sorrow in my heart that I tell you that it looks as though the Headmaster was murdered, although the Aurors have no suspects at this time.  Due to the violent nature of the Headmaster’s death, I’m afraid that the Triwizard Tournament will not be occurring this year.”

The hall exploded into noise once more.  Harry noted that each of the other three Champions looked disappointed, probably because they regretting not getting their shot at fame and fortune.  Harry didn’t bother faking it.  He’d made it clear that he hadn’t put his name in the Goblet and, if his lack of sorrow about the cancelation of the tournament made him a suspect, well, there was no way that they’d prove that he did anything.  Not without the Note, anyway, and he’d never let them find it.

Once the hall had quieted again, Professor McGonagall continued with, “Our guests will, unfortunately, be departing this evening.  Classes will be cancelled for the day, and the hospital wing is open to anyone who feels as though they need someone to speak with.  Your Heads of House will also be available, should you wish for a sympathetic ear.  We will do our best to make the transition between Headmasters as smooth for all of you as possible.”

Professor McGonagall sat down once more, a frown on her face.  Harry and the other students began to eat their breakfasts, which now appeared for them.  It was interesting to note that most students were eating normally, while a handful of others seemed to be picking at their food.  He wondered if those students had considered themselves particularly close to the Headmaster, or if they were just depressed by the loss of the spectacle that the Tournament would have brought.

They didn’t matter, he supposed, and he brushed them from his mind.  The rest of the year was going to be amazing, now that he didn’t have the Triwizard Tournament to worry about.

As he was leaving the Great Hall with Draco after eating breakfast, his friend leaned over and whispered to him, “Someday you’re going to tell me how you’re doing it,” in a voice that was barely audible.

Harry smiled.  “Someday,” he agreed, because he had the feeling that he probably would.

ooOOooOOoo

The school year came to a quiet, uneventful close and Harry returned to Sirius at Grimmauld Place.  His godfather was waiting for him at Platform 9 3/4, a frown on his face.  Harry had partially wanted to come home for Christmas, had known it was expected of him, but hadn’t been willing to face his godfather just yet.  So he’d made up an excuse about needing to do homework, and Sirius had accepted it, possibly because his godfather didn’t want to face Harry, either.

Once they were alone in the gloomy old house, Sirius turned to Harry and asked, bluntly, “Did you do it?”

Harry considered lying to Sirius only briefly.  Then he smiled and nodded.  “I did,” he said.  His godfather would understand once he explained.  He had to.

“Why?”  Sirius’ grey eyes bore into his own, intense.  They were narrowed, but not like he was angry.  It was more like he was trying to read Harry’s mind.

“The Headmaster was determined to make me compete in the Triwizard Tournament, and I had no interest in doing so,” Harry said with a shrug.  “He wanted me to do it as some kind of weird training exercise.  He was worried that Voldemort was coming back.”

“There’s a chance that he might,” Sirius said, but it was halfhearted.

Harry shook his head, pulled out the Note, and tapped it with one finger.  “There really isn’t,” he said quietly.  “And I couldn’t tell the Headmaster that, because I’m almost positive that he wouldn’t have approved.  Also, I don’t feel bad, because what kind of idiot puts a fourteen year old boy into a tournament that’s killed people before?”

Sirius nodded as though conceding the point to Harry.  “You’re not entirely wrong,” he said, as though he hated to admit it.  “And… well, he was head of the Wizengamot.  He could have made sure that I got a trial before thirteen years had passed.”

“He could have?”  Harry scowled down at the Note.  “Now I wish I’d killed him sooner.  Or at least killed him in a more painful way.”

Sirius let out an incredulous bark of laughter.  “Harry, the man was thrown off of the Astronomy Tower.  How is that not painful?”

“Actually, he threw himself off, technically,” Harry said with a shrug.  “And it could have been more painful.  Except that I can’t make anyone hurt anyone else with this damned thing, so I guess that’s the best I could have done.  I did make sure that he didn’t die until he hit the ground, though.”

Sirius eyed him, then let out another short laugh.  “Sometimes, kiddo, I wonder which one of us is the crazy one,” he said, and ruffled Harry’s hair.

Harry blinked at him.  “Both of us,” he said honestly.  “Definitely both.”

Sirius grinned at him.  “I was considering grounding you this summer, although grounding seems like an awfully gentle punishment for murder, but I suppose I’ll let it slide this time.  So, Harry, where do you want to go this summer?”

Harry smiled.  “We didn’t quite finish with North America last summer, did we?  And we didn’t even start on South America.”

“Well then, pack your bags once more!  To the Americas we go!”

Harry burst into laughter, the sound escaping him much to his surprise.  His godfather was… pretty amazing, and Harry found that he was genuinely glad that he’d saved the man the year before.  His life, he was certain, would be lacking without him.  Almost as lacking as he thought it would be without Draco, actually.

Rather than stopping to consider the thought he’d just had, Harry went up to his room and started figuring out what he’d need for his summer in the Americas.  It was sure to be an interesting one with his godfather in charge.

Chapter Text

The summer before fifth year, Draco joined them on one of their trips.  It wasn’t a particularly long trip, and they weren’t going terribly far.  Sirius just had some business to complete with a company in France and didn’t want to leave Harry alone for the week he’d be gone, so Harry tagged along, and Draco went as well.

It was… not the fun Harry had thought it might be.  His friend was incredibly quiet during the trip, his brow furrowed more often than not.  He looked tired, with the slightest shadows visible beneath his eyes.  While that might not seem like a big deal, Harry had never seen his friend show any such signs of exhaustion.  With that in mind, he cornered Draco one day while Sirius was out in a meeting, blocking the exit to their hotel room.

“What?” Draco asked, a bit peevishly.  His lips turned down into a severe scowl at the corners.  “Weren’t we going to go look at something disgustingly Muggle today?”

“The Louvre is neither disgusting nor is it entirely Muggle,” Harry said.  “But I’d rather know what’s wrong with you.  I’m… concerned.”

Draco’s lip twitched into something of a sneer.  “Well, that’s something new for you, isn’t it?  Being concerned about me?”

Harry jerked back.  “As it happens, you’re right,” he said slowly.  “You know that I’m not accustomed to… feeling.  Things.  And I’m worried about you, and that’s making me rather nervous.  So would you just tell me what’s wrong so that I can fix it?”

Draco just shook his head.  He rubbed at his forehead, like he was developing a headache.  “You can’t fix everything, Harry,” he said tiredly.  “I don’t even know how you could fix this.”

“You could let me try,” Harry pointed out.  “I’m good at fixing things, you know.”

“I’ve noticed,” Draco said.  He shook his head again.  “But your method of fixing things… I don’t want it used.  So I’d rather not tell you, if it’s okay with you.”

“My… my method?” Harry asked.  Did Draco know?  He’d sort of implied as much last year, after Dumbledore’s death, but he’d never actually said...

Draco looked around the room, then he stepped in close to Harry.  “I don’t think that it’s much of a secret that when bad things happen to you or to people you… feel things… about, the ones causing those bad things often end up very dead, very quickly.  I don’t want anyone involved in this situation to wind up dead, so please just keep your nose out of it!”

Then, while Harry was reeling from the harsh words, Draco used his distraction to brush past him and out of the room.

Harry stood there, shocked silent.  “That… wasn’t nice,” he finally said, turning around to stare after Draco.

“He’s not really a nice person, kid,” Ryuk said.  “I guess you never really noticed, since he’s always pretty nice to you.”

“Do you have any idea of what’s wrong with him?” Harry asked.  Not that the Shinigami ever seemed particularly interested in helping Harry out, but maybe this time, since it didn’t have anything to do with the Note…

“Nope,” Ryuk said, popping the word obnoxiously.  “But if you give me a few extra apples, I’d be happy to spy on him for you.”

Harry opened his mouth to accept the offer, then closed it and shook his head.  “I’d better not,” he said.  “Somehow, I feel like spying on him would just make all of this worse.”

“Well, what do you know?  Looks like you’re learning something about feelings.” Ryuk slapped him on the back, then floated out of the room.  “I’m proud of you,” he called as he left, leaving the words to drift behind him.

Harry sighed and shook his head.  Ryuk’s pride was nice, sure, but it wasn’t exactly helpful.  Still, he’d made a decision and he’d stick to it.  Harry waited a few more minutes, giving Draco some time to compose himself, then left the room.  He would see if his friend was still up for a trip to the Louvre, and if not, he’d let Draco pick whatever it was that they were going to do.  Maybe it might make him feel better...

ooOOooOOoo

The rest of the summer, what little remained of it after their return from France, was terribly boring.  Draco didn’t spend any more time with Harry, and Sirius didn’t take him travelling after France because he’d found out that Harry hadn’t actually done any of his summer homework.  Harry hadn’t thought his godfather would mind, but he was apparently wrong.

The ride to Hogwarts was oddly strained, because Draco was still very quiet.  He was also even paler than he’d been in France, if that was possible.  He also held himself rigidly straight in his seat, like he couldn’t quite bring himself to relax.  The reason became at least somewhat apparent when Parkinson joined them in their compartment and draped herself over Draco.

Harry gritted his teeth and looked away.  If Draco wanted a girlfriend, that was his prerogative.  After the feast, after listening to the introduction of yet another new Defense professor (some Ministry woman who would doubtlessly be horribly boring), Harry cornered Draco in their dorm to tell him so.

Draco just stared at him.  “You don’t understand anything, Potter,” he said.  He shook his head, turned around, and left the dorm.

“What did I do?” Harry asked, but no one around him answered.  Not even Ryuk, which was just obnoxious of the Shinigami.  Then again, he had refused his help.  For all Harry knew, he might have offended him by refusing.

Harry groaned and flopped onto his bed.  The year had just started and already he was certain that it couldn’t get any worse!

Of course, he was proven wrong after his first Defense Against the Dark Arts class, led by Madame Dolores Umbridge herself.  When he’d thought she was going to be a boring teacher, he’d never imagined just how boring she could possibly be.  They weren’t even going to be learning any practical magic, which was absolutely ridiculous!

And to top it all off, Draco must have done something to get on her bad side before class even started.  She gave him a detention for not having his book out when none of the other students had theirs out, gave him a second detention for poor posture, and gave him a third for arguing with her about the second.  When she threatened to make it four, Draco backed down.  He settled into his seat and stared at the desk, and said nothing for the rest of the class period.

After class, Harry caught up with him.  “Draco,” he started.

“Potter, back off,” Draco snarled.  He shoved Harry back with one hand.  “Please.  Just… just back off.”

Harry went still.  “I can help,” he tried, keeping his voice as light as he could.  Trying not to let Draco see the pain his sudden rejection was causing.  What had he done wrong?  It didn’t make sense!

“I told you over the summer, and I’ll tell you again now.  Potter, I don’t need your help.”  The word help was spat at him with all the venom of a cobra.

Harry said nothing, and Draco turned on his heel and stalked away, leaving Harry staring after him, wondering what he’d done to cause such anger in the person who had once been his only friend.  Surely this couldn’t all be about Parkinson, could it?  Harry had tried to be supportive, but…

Maybe he hadn’t been supportive enough?  Could that be the reason?  It made sense, sort of, if he didn’t consider the fact that it had started over the summer and not during the year itself.  Had he started dating her over the summer, maybe?

“He would have written to me,” Harry muttered to himself as he started walking away from the Defense classroom.  “That’s a big development.  He would have told me.”

“Yeah, but he didn’t write to you much this summer at all, did he?” Ryuk asked as he drifted along beside Harry.  “He normally writes at least three or four letters over the summer, but this summer, you only got one when you sent one first.”

“So it started in the summer, whatever it was,” Harry murmured with a nod of acknowledgement for Ryuk.  “I’m going to figure this out.”

“He might not thank you for it,” the Shinigami pointed out.

Harry didn’t know what to think of that warning.  He’d never wanted friends when he was younger, and he’d once thought he would never understand why people wanted them.  But Draco had… changed that, and now Harry didn’t know what he would do without him.

He didn’t want to try and find out.

ooOOooOOoo

Harry wasn’t really getting anywhere with solving the mystery that had become his best friend.  It had been a month, and Draco was barely talking to him outside of classes, and was constantly seen with Parkinson.  It was like she’d replaced him, and Harry was beginning to associate the sight of Parkinson with a bitter rage that Ryuk assured him was jealousy, or something like it.

Harry had never wanted to write someone’s name in the Note more than he wanted write Pansy Parkinson’s.  He found himself dreaming up new and creative ways for her to die, elaborate ways that would never be traced to him.  Except that Draco would know.  Draco would know that he’d had her killed, even if he didn’t understand the medium Harry had used, and Draco would never forgive him.

So, frustratingly, Pansy Parkinson remained safe from the Note’s effects.

Even more frustrating was the fact that Draco was still getting multiple detentions from Umbridge, even though he never did anything to earn them.  And he came back from those detentions in a terrible state, even paler than normal and shakier, too.  And his hand… he hid it when he came back, like he didn’t want anyone to see it.

Like he didn’t want Harry to see it, because he always looked for Harry, even though they hadn’t spoken cordially in weeks.  Once his grey eyes met Harry’s green ones, they would dart away, like Draco was afraid that Harry could read his mind.

But Harry couldn’t, and he was tired of trying to get Draco to let him help when Draco wouldn’t even be alone with him anymore, so Harry finally went for a public conversation.  It was just after a detention, when Draco was slinking back into the common room, his wand hand, as always, hidden away in a pocket.  Harry stood when Draco entered, making it easy for those grey eyes to find his own.

“Draco,” Harry started, taking a step forward as soon as their eyes locked.

Draco stilled.  “Potter,” he said, a bit warily.  This was a change, Harry knew it.  He’d always taken care to approach Draco privately, to lessen any burdens that Draco might feel in public.  He was counting on that change to try and unbalance Draco, to try and get his friend to talk to him.

“Everything okay?” Harry asked.  He tried out a smile and hoped it didn’t come out as awkwardly as he thought it did.  “I’m worried about you.”

Draco closed his eyes, as though he was in pain, then opened them.  His face hardened and he sneered, “That’s adorable, Potter, but I really don’t need your concern.  I’m doing just fine.”

“Are you?” Harry asked.  He took another step forward.  “Then why don’t you take your wand hand out of your pocket.  Let me see if, since you’re doing just fine.”

Draco scoffed at him.  “Let you… Potter, I don’t need you to check up on me.  I don’t care if you’re worried about me.  I’m fine.”  His lips curled into something of a cruel smile.  “Just can’t handle the fact that I don’t want you hanging all over me anymore?”

Harry flinched.  “If that were really the case, I would like to think you could have just said so directly,” he snapped.  “But since you didn’t, Malfoy, I’ve been kind of floundering.  I’ll admit to that.”

“Oh, I’m so pleased to hear that you’ll admit to floundering when it comes to obvious signs that someone’s no longer interested in your friendship,” Draco said shortly.  “Too bad you couldn’t have figured that out a month ago, Potter.”

“Apparently I’m slow on the uptake,” Harry muttered.  He shook his head.  “Look, Malfoy, if you change your mind-”

“I won’t,” Draco interrupted him, his voice cold and hard.

Harry flinched again, the words landing like a blow.  “If you change your mind,” he said again.  “Know that I’m willing to help if you need it.”

“Thanks, Potter,” Draco said breezily.  “But I can assure you that I’m more than capable of taking care of myself.”

Harry didn’t say anything else, just turned around and headed up to the dorms.  As the door closed behind him, he heard the common room explode into a cacophony of whispers that weren’t particularly quiet.  Harry didn’t care.  He was pretty sure that this was what a broken heart felt like, and he didn’t know what to do about it.

This was why he’d never wanted to get involved with feelings in the first place.  They sucked.

ooOOooOOoo

In the end, there was nothing for Harry to do but bide his time.  Either Draco would come to his senses or he wouldn’t, Harry reasoned.  He couldn’t make the other wizard be his friend.  No matter how much he missed their friendship.  And he did miss it.

It was physically painful, how much he missed being Draco’s friend.  He wanted to scream about it, to curl up in his bed and cry, to throw a temper tantrum the likes of which he’d never bothered with before.  But… but he didn’t.  First, because he knew it would get him nowhere, and second, because even if it would help Harry didn’t think he could bring himself to let go that much.  

He briefly entertained the notion of telling Sirius what had happened, getting his advice, but discarded that idea quickly.  His godfather was, after all, ridiculously overprotective of him and would likely take Draco’s sudden dislike as free reign to do something awful to him.

Things came to a head as Christmas approached.  Draco was registered to stay, and Harry had chosen to do so as well.  Part of him hoped that, with no one else around, maybe Draco might be moved to tell him what was going on.  The rest of him acknowledged that this was very likely a foolish hope and he would be better off giving up on the idea.  Still, in spite of his knowing how bad an idea it was, he couldn’t manage to shake the hope.

It was the first night of Christmas break when it happened.  Harry had just come from dinner and he hadn’t seen Draco there.  He’d looked, but the blonde hadn’t made an appearance.  Maybe he’d eaten in the kitchens, or maybe he just wasn’t hungry.  Either way, Harry headed back to the dorms alone, feeling defeated.

Why had he bothered to stay?  He knew better by now.  Draco wouldn’t even acknowledge him anymore.  Not unless he wasn’t given a choice by one of the professors, because the majority of them seemed to think that Harry and Draco were still friends.  It hurt, when a teacher paired them off together automatically, mostly because Draco would only focus on the task at hand and refused to address him as anything other than Potter.

Emotions.  Harry was pretty sick of them at this point, and wanted nothing more to withdraw fully into his shell.  What he wouldn’t give to simply not care about anyone else, ever again…

He heard something coming from the dorms that jarred him out of his thoughts.  It sounded like… crying?  Who the hell was crying in the dorms?  Everyone was gone.  Everyone except…

Even though they hadn’t really spoken since the school year began, even though Draco had been nothing but an ass to him, Harry couldn’t stop himself from taking the stairs two at a time.  He burst into the room, only to find Draco sobbing as he tried in vain to wrap a bandage around his wand hand with his other hand.  Every time he let go of the bandage, it slipped back out of place, and Draco’s sobs got just a bit more hysterical.

Harry clenched his jaw and stepped forward.  He sat on the bed next to Draco and stilled his hands with his own.  “Let me help you,” Harry said, his voice as gentle as he could make it.

Draco went still.  “I can’t,” he whispered finally, looking down.  “Harry… Potter, I can’t let you help me.”

Harry ignored the words, because they didn’t come with a corresponding action.  Draco just left his hand in Harry’s, let him begin to unravel the bandage that had been clumsily wrapped around it.  The closer Harry got to unravelling it, the more the hand captured within his own began to shake.  Harry realized why when he finally reached Draco’s bare skin.

Etched into his skin, in Draco’s own handwriting, were the words I must obey my elders .

Harry swallowed hard at the sight.  “Who?” he asked, his voice curiously flat.  He felt… he felt… angry.  That was the closest emotion to what he was feeling, but angry didn’t seem adequate.  Maybe… rage.  Yes, he was feeling enraged at the moment.

When he looked up at Draco, the other boy was shaking his head.  “I can’t,” he said, his voice shaking.  “Harry, please, I can’t.  You don’t understand.”

“Is it Umbridge?” Harry asked.  Draco’s flinch was all the confirmation he needed.

Harry didn’t even think about what he did next, about the fact that Draco had never actually seen him use the Note, for all that he realized that Harry had a way of killing people.  He pulled out the book and his quill and began to write her name.   Dolores Umbridge .  But he paused just before he could finish the ‘e’ and said, “How is she doing it, Draco?”

“Blood quill,” Draco whispered.  He sounded broken, defeated, and Harry ached for him.  But he wasn’t going to let this go on.  “It… I write lines with it, and the words I write are carved into my skin.  It’s… it’s a Dark artifact.”

“Then won’t the Ministry be surprised when the Senior Undersecretary kills herself with it?” Harry asked, a dark smile forming on his lips.   Dolores Umbridge, suicide via lines from a Blood Quill.  Line: I must not torture my students .

“What… what are you doing?” Draco asked, his voice shaky.

Harry hesitated.  Was that it?  Was everything really better between him and Draco, just like that?  Could he trust Draco after Draco’s sudden betrayal?  If he couldn’t…  if he couldn’t, and he told him, then what?

Harry took a deep breath.  “Making sure she can’t do it again,” he said, and flipped the book around to show Draco.  “She’ll die.  Just like this.  Because if I write a name in this book, and write how they die, it works.  As long as I follow certain rules.”

Draco’s laugh was a bit shaky.  “That’s how you’re doing it,” he breathed.  He reached out with one finger, as though he were going to touch the book.  Harry jerked it back only slightly, then closed his eyes and took another deep breath.  He held the book out all the way and Draco brushed it with his fingers.

Ryuk let out a high pitched cackle and Draco screamed, his hand jerking away from the Note.

“What the hell?” Draco asked, his eyes wide.

Harry followed his gaze and found that he was staring right at Ryuk, who had gone upside down and was continuing to cackle.  “You can see him?” Harry asked, startled.

“Yes!”  Draco was starting to calm down now, his eyes still wide but his breathing slowing.  “Who… who is he?  What is he, for that matter?”

“He’s a Shinigami,” Harry said weakly.  “His name is Ryuk.  This Note was… it was either his or he stole it from someone.  Now he just hangs around and eats all of my apples and tries to get me to do stupid things.”

“Like what?” Draco asked.  He was still staring at Ryuk.

“Like getting me to cut my lifespan in half with a deal after drinking from the Philosopher’s Stone, which I’m not trying.”  Harry rolled his eyes.  “Or like telling me to make the Headmaster give me his wand before I killed him.”

“Oh,” Draco said weakly.  “Has he…”  He cleared his throat.  “Has he been around for all of our conversations?”

Harry shrugged.  “Pretty much,” he said.  “You learn to ignore him.”

“Right.”  Draco shivered a bit.  “Harry, that book, it can kill anyone?  No matter how well-protected they are?”

Harry’s eyes jerked back to Draco.  His… friend?  God, he hoped they were still friends.  His friend looked almost hopeful, and he was now staring at the book in Harry’s hands like it held the secrets to the universe.  “As far as I know,” Harry said slowly.

To his surprise, Draco’s breath hitched into a tiny little sob.  “Can you… can you use it to kill my father?”

“Yes,” Harry said immediately.  “Why?”  He shifted the book so that he could write in it, but didn’t start.  Not yet.  Not until he knew why, not after the way Draco had acted all year.

“He…”  Draco laughed, the sound a bit soggy.  “He didn’t want me to be friends with you anymore.  Said that you were a bad influence on me, and that you were the reason I was refusing my marriage contract with Pansy Parkinson.  He told me…  he told me that if I didn’t shape up, I’d regret what came next.  And I didn’t listen, not really, not until Umbridge gave me my first detention.  She did this…  she did it because my father asked her to.  If he finds out that she’s dead, that there’s nobody here to keep me in line, I don’t know what will happen.”

Harry leaned forward and carefully took Draco’s wand hand in his own, not closing his fingers over it so that he didn’t agitate the broken skin.  “You could have told me about this sooner,” he said to Draco.  “I would have handled all of this for you.”

“I didn’t know how you were doing it, and I didn’t want you to get hurt,” Draco whispered.  He wouldn’t look Harry in the eyes.  “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t apologize,” Harry said, making his tone light and cheerful.  “We’ve got it all sorted now, right?  Any particular way you’d like him to die?”

Draco shook his head and didn’t pull his hand away.

Harry, unfortunately, had to take his hand back to write in Lucius Malfoy’s death.   Lucius Malfoy, accident .

“How long will it take?” Draco whispered once Harry was done writing.

“Not long at all,” Harry said.  He took Draco’s hand once more, examining the open wound.  “Do you want some help bandaging this?”

“Please,” Draco said.  As Harry began to re-wrap the hand, Draco said, “I’m sorry, Harry,” in a small voice.

Harry looked up and offered Draco a small smile.  “I know,” he said.  “It’s okay.  I’m not angry.  I was never angry.  I was just… worried.  And hurt.  But mostly worried.”

“I’m sorry for making you worry, and I’m more sorry than I can say that I hurt you,” Draco said.  “I promise, next time I’ll just ask for your help.”

“Very good,” Harry said.  He returned to his task.

“You two are just the most adorable things I’ve ever seen,” Ryuk said, floating over to hover just over their heads.

“And you’re the creepiest thing I’ve ever seen,” Draco shot back.  “What’s your point?”

Ryuk cackled.  “I know I’d like you!” he crowed.

Harry just sighed.  “I knew you would too,” he muttered.  While he was glad that Draco knew about the Note now, glad that things were going so much better, he couldn’t help but think that Draco making friends with Ryuk was a very bad idea.

It didn’t seem as though there was anything he could do to stop it, though, so he supposed he might as well just let it happen.  Mild annoyance with Ryuk was a small price to pay to have Draco’s friendship back.

Harry considered it to be well worth it.

ooOOooOOoo

A letter arrived the following morning, delivering news of Lucius Malfoy’s death to his son.  Draco, when he received the letter, burst into tears in the middle of the mostly-empty Great Hall.  What few students remained at the castle seemed content to assume that the tears were of sorrow, but Harry knew the truth.  Draco wasn’t sad at all; he was happy.

Still, he found himself displeased with the sight of his friend’s tears.  Though he knew they were happy, Draco was making every effort to look as though they were tears of sorrow, including leaning against Harry for support.  The feeling of his friend pressed against him, his head buried in Harry’s shoulder, it was… it made him…

Harry closed his eyes and stopped trying to analyze the strange, fluttery feelings it inspired within him.  Instead, he just held Draco closer and listened as his friend whispered to him, “Thank you,” soft enough that Harry could barely make the words out.

Harry said nothing, but continued to hold Draco until he stopped crying.  Later, he went with Draco to his father’s funeral.  It was an interesting experience, going to the funeral of one of his victims.  Harry had to admit that he was somewhat surprised at the lack of care people showed about Lucius’ death.  The majority of attendees appeared to be there for networking purposes rather than anything else.

It was a novel experience, but Harry decided that was the last funeral he would ever attend of one of his victims.  The entire time he was there, he felt a strange, creeping sensation of something that felt oddly like guilt.  It wasn’t a feeling he was comfortable with.

Draco, when he told him, laughed at him.  The sight of his friend laughing made Harry smile, even if he couldn’t begin to figure out why.

ooOOooOOoo

The rest of the school year was quiet, aside from the fact that they wound up with yet another new Defense professor.  Harry supposed that eventually they would find one who stuck, or perhaps they would just stop offering the class.  Surely, at some point, the Headmistress would get tired of replacing teachers as often as she had to.

When summer came, Draco was at home for only a week when he showed up at Grimmauld Place, a bag in hand.  Harry let him in, confused, but happy to see him.  “What are you doing here?” he asked.

Draco shrugged.  “Mother is enjoying herself, playing the role of the new widow.  She’s out socializing and, I think, hunting for a new husband.  She’s in the prime of her life, after all.”

Harry’s brow furrowed.  “She’s…”  Then he shook his head.  “Never mind.  I always forget how long wizards live.”

Draco’s smile was soft and might even be termed as affectionate.  “You Muggle,” he said, but the words were gently teasing.  “Anyway, since she’s off being a socialite, I thought I might come and spend the summer with you.  And my favorite cousin, of course.”  The last was added hastily, as soon as Sirius walked into the room.

Sirius just shrugged.  “I don’t mind having more company,” he said cheerfully.  Then he grinned, a wicked little thing.  “As long as you two sleep in separate bedrooms.  You haven’t gone through an official Courtship, after all.”

Draco’s cheeks went bright pink and he ducked his head, stammering out something.  Harry didn’t get the joke, but he was amused at the way Draco reacted to it.

“I wasn’t planning on sleeping in his bed, cousin,” Draco said once his cheeks had cooled a bit.

“We have a guest room you can have,” Harry said.  Then he wrinkled his nose.  “I mean, there are a lot of them, this place is huge, so you can pick the one you want for the summer, okay?”

This summer was looking to be so much better than the one before it, especially since Draco was most likely not going to freeze him out in the coming year.  Maybe they’d even go back to Paris and actually see the Louvre, since Draco hadn’t been up for it that day when they’d first argued.

It was a new summer, and anything could happen.

Chapter Text

The summer before Harry’s sixth year was not spent travelling, much to his dismay.  It was spent studying, which would have been okay except that they were studying things that Harry had absolutely no interest in.  What reason did he have to care about things like politics and laws?  He didn’t care about money or power, but apparently he had to learn about all of it.

The sole comfort Harry had was that Draco was studying these things with him, and was doing so with a patient smile.  In fact, Draco seemed almost excited as the summer reached its end, like he was waiting for something that Harry couldn’t quite figure out.

It was on Harry’s birthday that Sirius finally told him why he’d been studying all summer, and when Harry found out, he stared at his godfather with raised eyebrows.  “I’m not interested,” he said shortly.  He ate more of his eggs and hoped that the matter was finished.

Of course it wasn’t.  Draco, sitting beside him, snorted indelicately into his plate.  “You can’t just not be interested,” his friend said, sounding very much like he didn’t believe it.

“Sure I can,” Harry retorted.  “I have no interest in taking my seat on the Wizengamot, or doing anything of that nature.  I’d rather not put myself in the spotlight if it’s all the same to you.”  Unlike Draco, after all, there were things that Harry definitely had to keep hidden that might come out if he were to step further into the public eye.

“But Harry, think of the difference we could make,” Draco implored.  “Besides, you’ve already done all the preparatory work for it.  If you don’t take your title, you’ll have wasted all that time.”

“If I do take my title, then I’ll waste even more of my time,” Harry muttered.  But he glanced at his godfather, who had been suspiciously silent during the exchange.  “Obviously you want me to do it,” he said.  “Why?  Why would you think it’s something that would interest me?”

“Well, for one thing, I’m a fan of making you do your civic duty to your fellow witches and wizards,” Sirius said, leaning back in his chair.  “For another, I… sort of think it might be interesting to see how your… unique morals handle being on the Wizengamot.”

Harry’s eyes narrowed.  “What does that mean?” he asked warily.  He was pretty sure there was a trap somewhere in here, he just wasn’t entirely sure where it was.

“He means that the Wizengamot is… notoriously easy for people to purchase,” Draco said carefully.  “Particularly people who may be… less than good.”

Harry just blinked.  “Why do I care about that?” he asked.  He, himself, was a killer.  It was almost comforting to know that, if he should ever be caught by the Aurors, there might be an easy way out for him.

Sirius groaned and let his head fall forward to rest on the table.  “You care because it’s the right thing to do,” he said tiredly.

“But I don’t necessarily care about doing the right thing,” Harry protested.  If he’d cared about that, he wouldn’t have killed… several of the people he’d killed, actually.  

“I think that what my cousin is trying to say is that it might be nice if you were to at least attempt to understand a more conventional sort of morality,” Draco said slowly.

Harry just shook his head.  “Not interested,” he said.

Sirius just sighed.  “Okay,” he said, sounding tired.  “But if you change your mind, know that the option remains open for you only until you turn twenty-one.  After that, the Potter House seat will disappear.”  Sirius said it like it was a terrible thing to have happen.

Harry didn’t agree.  “I’m not going to change my mind,” he said with great certainty.  Why would he want to do something that sounded like it was going to be so much work?  And besides, what did he care about conventional morality?  His morals had suited him just fine until now.

His opinion didn’t change when Draco went to Gringotts without him and returned with a shiny ring on his finger that marked him as the Lord of the Malfoy family.  It didn’t change when Draco went off to a few meetings of the Wizengamot without him, and it hadn’t changed by the time they took the Hogwarts Express back to school.

At this point, Harry was certain that his mind wasn’t going to change.  What need did he have for more responsibilities, anyway?  He had a Shinigami to keep supplied with apples, and that task was more than demanding enough.

ooOOooOOoo

Harry made it through the first week of his incredibly boring sixth year at Hogwarts without giving in to Sirius’ occasionally pathetic letters encouraging him to rethink taking up his responsibilities in order to better the wizarding community.  Sometimes Harry thought that his godfather didn’t understand him very well at all, especially when he thought that Harry cared about making the wizarding world a better place.

And then, to his dismay, his mind was changed, but not by his godfather’s relentless pleading.  It changed because of Draco, who was utterly infuriated in their dorm room after one of his meetings.  Harry had just returned from dinner, having gone without Draco since he’d been called away for some kind of important meeting, and none of the others were in the dorm yet.  Which was good, because Draco was destroying his bed rather systematically.

When Harry walked in, the pillowcases were on the floor and feathers were flying around the room.  Draco’s face was a mask of frustration and anger as he tore at his bedspread, and he only stopped when Harry grabbed his arm.  “Let go of me!” his friend snarled.

“I will,” Harry said quietly, “As soon as you stop destroying your bed.  What happened?”

Draco stilled.  “We had a trial today,” he said, his voice coming out as more of a growl than anything else.

“I know.  That’s why you weren’t at dinner.”  Harry could feel Draco’s arm relaxing, and knew that he could probably let go when Draco abruptly stepped back and leaned into him.  He also didn’t particularly want to let go, and so instead curled his arms around Draco’s waist and held him close.

“We were trying… the man was a pureblood, on trial for child abuse,” Draco said slowly.  “His child… he killed his child with a whip, Harry.”

Harry shuddered.  “That’s terrible,” he said, honestly appalled.  Who did that?  Who thought it was okay to take a whip to a child in the first place?  Child abusers… they were the worst.

“Right?”  Draco’s voice got smaller, now, and Harry knew that he was thinking of the Blood Quill that Umbridge had made him write with at his father’s request.  “It’s the absolute worst thing I’ve heard in a long time.  Or, I thought it was.”  Draco shivered in Harry’s arms, and Harry instinctively held him closer.

“What happened?” Harry asked, not entirely sure that he wanted to know.

Draco turned in Harry’s embrace.  “They let him off,” he whispered, his words muffled as he buried his face in Harry’s robes.

Harry went still.  “They did what?”

“They let him off.  He’s not going to serve any kind of sentence.  He told them that it was accidental, that he just got carried away, and they let him off.”  Draco was shaking, now, and Harry knew that he was shaking with rage.

Mostly, he knew that because he was shaking as well.  “How could they?” Harry asked, but the question was rhetorical.  Sirius had warned him, and Harry hadn’t listened.  They were corrupt.  The Wizengamot was corrupt, and…  and they’d let a child abuser walk free.

Harry may have killed some people who didn’t deserve it, but he didn’t torture them.  At least the deaths that he provided were quick.

“What was his name?” Harry asked curiously.  He could write the man’s name in the Note…

“It doesn’t matter,” Draco said, shaking his head.  “I mean, it does matter, but killing him isn’t going to solve anything, is it?  Other child abusers are going to get off.  Other murderers, other horrible people, just because they have the money or the status to do it.  If I’d managed to bring my own father before the Wizengamot, chances are he would have gotten off, too.  I can’t… we can’t fix that just by killing the killer.”

“That’s true,” Harry said quietly.  He held Draco close as he considered his options.  In the end, he wound up writing a letter to Sirius that said only I’ve changed my mind.  I’d like to take my seat on the Wizengamot .

If killing the killer wouldn’t work, then surely killing the ones who set him free would do some good.

ooOOooOOoo

In the coming months, Harry’s Note got something of a workout, much to Ryuk’s amusement.  He began with the ones that Draco assured him were the worst offenders, older pureblooded males who seemed to believe that the world owed them everything just because they existed.  Harry disabused several of them of that notion rather quickly, killing them in accidental, and yet hilarious ways.

Draco was enjoying himself, too, which was one of the reasons that Harry himself was so gleeful about killing off the idiots who had, until this point, been in charge of their government.  The rampant corruption that permeated the Wizengamot was enough to make Harry sick.  But, on the positive side, at least those who were the most corrupt were painfully easy to spot.  They weren’t shy about taking bribes, or about encouraging Harry and Draco to do so.

It was like they didn’t even realize that every time one of them suggested that Harry learn to lighten up on sentencing so that his pockets might weigh him down a bit more, Harry took that as license to kill them for the insult.

Of course, just because the members of the Wizengamot were absolute idiots didn’t mean that the rest of the wizarding world was stupid.  It didn’t take long at all before the Daily Prophet started carrying news articles about the deaths of so many prominent members of the Wizengamot, even though all of them had died in ways that were clearly accidental.  The reporter in charge of the articles, one Rita Skeeter, seemed to think that the deaths could be laid at the feet of a certain recently released convict from Azkaban.  While she was very careful not to name names, Harry was almost certain that she was talking about his godfather.

The fact made him… irritable, and he was strongly considering writing her name in the book.  In fact, he was sitting, poised to do it, when Draco entered the abandoned classroom he was sitting in.

“What are you doing?” the blonde asked sharply.

“Getting ready to kill that Skeeter woman,” Harry answered honestly.  He started to write her name, then stopped when his hand was stilled by Draco’s.  “What?”

“You can’t kill her, Harry,” Draco said gently.  He took the quill from Harry’s unresisting fingers and tucked it into a pocket.  “If you kill her, people are going to start to talk.”

“They’re already talking, thanks to her,” Harry muttered.  He wanted nothing more than to write her name.

“Harry,” Draco said with a sigh.  “Think about it.  If you kill her after she’s accused your godfather of being a murderer, who do you think is going to get blamed for her death?”

Harry’s eyes widened.  He hadn’t even thought of that.  “Sirius,” he said.  He didn’t… he wouldn’t go so far as saying that he loved his godfather, but he did like the man.  He didn’t want Sirius to get in trouble for something that he was doing.  “I didn’t even think of that.”

“I know,” Draco said with a smug little smile.

Harry was seized by a sudden urge to kiss that smile until it faded away and his cheeks heated.  He looked away and swallowed.  “Thanks,” he said, and hoped that Draco hadn’t noticed his flushing.

“Anytime,” Draco said easily.  “And Harry?” he asked.

Harry looked up at him, because that tone demanded his attention.  “Yes?”

“Next time Ryuk is cackling madly at a plan of yours, perhaps you should take it as a sign that the plan might not be the best one.”

Draco’s words, as true as they were, served only to make the Shinigami howl even louder with laughter.

Harry sighed.  “I didn’t even notice it,” he said honestly.  He was too used to tuning out the Shinigami and hadn’t even noticed his cackles.  He would have to work on that in the future.

ooOOooOOoo

Christmas break came, and Harry was unprepared to be cornered by his godfather as soon as he arrived at Grimmauld Place, Draco at his side.  Harry was grabbed unceremoniously by the arm and pulled away as Sirius called over his shoulder, “If you’ll excuse me, Draco, my godson and I need to have a few words in private!”

“It’s not problem, Sirius,” Harry heard Draco say.  “I’ll just show myself up to my room.”

“Traitor,” Harry muttered, even as he was pulled into Sirius’ study.  “What’s wrong?” he asked, as soon as the door was closed behind him.

“What’s… are you serious?  What’s wrong?  You ask me that like there aren’t Wizengamot members dropping dead all over the place,” Sirius said, shaking his head.  “Are you doing it?”

Harry shrugged.  “Does it matter?” he asked.

“Skeeter seems to think that I’m responsible, so it actually does sort of matter to me.  If the Aurors come to question me…”

“Do you think they’re going to?” Harry asked.  He frowned.  He hadn’t considered that outcome, either.  This was… a small problem.  He couldn’t exactly kill the entire Auror department.  Then who would keep order?

Sirius shook his head.  “Probably not,” he said.  “But that’s not the point.  The point is that they could, and Harry, I really don’t want to go back to Azkaban.”  His godfather shivered.  “It’s terrible there.”

“If it looks like that’s what’s going to happen, I can handle it,” Harry said with a wave of his hand.  “And yes, of course I’m the one doing it.”

“What do you mean that you can handle it?”  Sirius shook his head.  “Harry, I don’t like this.”

“You liked it just fine when I used the Note to get Pettigrew to confess his crimes,” Harry said.  “Why don’t you like it now?”

“Pettigrew actually did something wrong,” Sirius protested.  “I don’t like this now because you’re just… you’re just killing people who annoy you.”

“I’m killing people who let child abusers go free,” Harry said, his voice cooling.  “I’m killing people who allow criminals back onto the streets for a little bit of gold.  You said it yourself, the Wizengamot is full of corruption.  I’m just cleaning it up.”

“Your little boyfriend is the one who said that,” Sirius muttered.  “Not me.”  The complaint was more petulant than anything else.

“He’s not my boyfriend!”  Harry knew that he was blushing, and knew that his godfather would tease him relentlessly because of it.  Or would have, had the conversation not been so serious.  “And… if it’s bothering you that much, I’ll give it a rest.”

Sirius relaxed, sagging like a puppet with its strings cut.  “I really would appreciate that,” he said quietly.  “Just… just give it a few weeks, or a few months.  See how the deaths and the new members are affecting votes.  If nothing’s changed…”  Sirius shook his head.  “I’m not going to say it’s okay to start killing again, but if nothing’s changed, maybe it’s time to acknowledge that there’s no way to change the system.”

“There’s always a way to change a system,” Harry said, a bit absently.  Things like revolutions worked, but somehow he thought the wizarding world was far too complacent for such a violent action.  Then he shook his head.  “But yes, of course, you have a good idea.  I’ll wait and see if things have started to improve.”

“Excellent!” Sirius clapped him on the back, a bit rough in his enthusiasm.  “Then let’s get decorating!  It’s almost Christmas, and I’m going to make sure that you and Draco have the best holidays possible!”

Harry winced.  “Maybe I should go back to killing,” he said weakly as he was dragged from the study by a cackling Sirius.

“Too late!  You’ve already agreed I was right!”

ooOOooOOoo

Harry’s decision to stop killing came just a touch too late, as things turned out.  It just wasn’t Skeeter who figured him out.

“Can I help you?” Harry asked coldly.  He was in the library, studying for a Potions essay that was due relatively soon.  Draco had already finished it and had gone off to go entertain himself because his life didn’t revolve around watching Harry ruin his favorite subject.

Harry wasn’t entirely certain where the comment had come from.

“You can admit to what you’ve been doing,” Granger said from where she’d settled in across from him.  She was meeting his eye, her expression hard.  “You can tell the truth.”

“I’ve been trying to write this essay,” Harry said.  “It’s a bit difficult, and I put it off for far too long, but I’ll manage to get it done before it’s due.  Was that the truth you were looking for?”

Granger just stared at him, her lips turning down into a severe frown.  “That’s not the truth I was looking for,” she said, parroting his words back at him.  “Skeeter’s been blaming your godfather for the murders, because she thinks he’s the best suspect.  He’s everyone’s favorite suspect, in fact, if they even believe that a crime has been committed.  Most of the wizarding world doesn’t, but I think you know that.  Because I don’t think it’s godfather at all.  The killings didn’t start until you took your seat on the Wizengamot, after all.”

Harry closed his eyes and took a deep breath.  He pulled the Note out, being careful not to show her the cover, and opened it like he would another book that he was going to study.  “That’s a terrible assertion, Ms. Granger,” he said, even as he wrote the words public suicide in the Great Hall without speaking to anyone before she does it in the Note.

“And yet I don’t hear you refuting it,” she said.  Harry looked up at her.  Her chin was raised and her expression could only be termed as defiant.  “Are you going to argue with me?  Tell me that I’m wrong?”

Harry shrugged.  “Why would I?” he asked curiously.  “You still haven’t really made any kind of accusation.  And you’re right.  The deaths of members of the Wizengamot didn’t begin until I joined it.  But what does that actually mean?  I’ve been here at school when many of them have died.”

Granger leaned forward.  “I think that you’re killing them,” she said, her voice barely above a whisper.  “You’ve been killing people since you came to Hogwarts, maybe even before that.  I don’t know why, and I don’t know how, but I know that it’s you.  And I’m going to turn you over to the Aurors, because you’re clearly a monster who needs to be stopped.”

“It’s awfully brave of you to be sitting face to face with someone you think is a murderer,” Harry said.  He wrote her name in the book with a small flourish: Hermione Granger .  Then, with a small smile, he picked up the book and flipped it around so that she could see it.

Her eyes widened.  “You-”  Then she stopped and her eyes glazed over.  She stood and walked away.

She really was the brightest witch of her age, Harry mused to himself as he gathered his things and left the library.  It was a shame that such an accolade didn’t come with knowledge on when to keep her mouth shut.

ooOOooOOoo

Later that night, after their dormmates were asleep, Harry crawled into bed with Draco.  It wasn’t something he’d ever done before, and the blonde clearly wasn’t expecting it, given the way that his eyes widened as Harry closed the curtains and cast a silencing charm around them.

“What the hell, Harry,” Draco hissed to him, his grey eyes huge in the dark.

“Granger figured me out,” Harry breathed, the words barely above a whisper.  Yes, there was a silencing charm in place, but he didn’t necessarily trust it.

Draco gasped.  “She what?” he hissed.  “Harry, we have to… wait.  Granger is dead.”

“Is she?” Harry asked, as though he didn’t already know.  “I wasn’t at dinner today.  What happened?”

Draco laughed softly, the sound hushed.  “She walked in and said that she couldn’t take the pressure of perfection anymore, then… well, it was gory.  She bled all over the Gryffindor first years.  It was… traumatic for them, I would imagine.”

“How awful,” Harry said.  “I never imagined that she would react in such a way after her delusional conversation with me in the library.”

Draco laughed again, and the sound was one of the sweetest Harry had ever heard.  It occurred to him, in that moment, whispering secrets to Draco in the dark, that he had never loved anyone more than he loved Draco, and he had no idea what he was going to do about it.  Then, to Harry’s surprise, Draco took the problem out of his hands.  He surged forward and kissed Harry on the lips, holding him in place with his hands on his cheeks.  Harry let out a small, startled noise.  He hadn’t expected… but it was nice.  He closed his eyes and relaxed into the kiss, even though he wasn’t entirely sure of what he was doing.

When Draco pulled away, he said, “You need to be more careful, Harry,” his voice ever so slightly breathless.

Harry, when he agreed, was breathless as well.  Then he leaned in for another kiss, and Draco didn’t push him away.

ooOOooOOoo

The rest of the year passed quietly, with no more deaths and little in the way of interest from the Wizengamot.  Now that the corruption seemed, in large part, to have been killed out of the organization, Harry was finding it to be just as boring as he’d thought it would be.  The only problem was that now that he’d taken his seat, he couldn’t really get rid of it.

When Harry and Draco returned to Grimmauld Place for the summer, nothing much had happened in their relationship.  It was just that now they kissed and held hands a bit more frequently than before, something which Sirius was quick to point out when he spotted them doing so.

“You two are adorable,” he crooned, a grin lighting up his face.

“We are not adorable,” Harry said severely, and hoped that he wasn’t blushing the way that he knew he was blushing.  How did Draco manage to ignore his godfather when he was teasing them, anyway?

“You really are,” Sirius said.  “So, when’s the Courtship gonna start?”

Harry frowned.  The term was one that he vaguely recognized, he thought, from last summer’s lessons on etiquette and money management, but honestly, he couldn’t remember anything about it.

“As soon as Harry starts it,” Draco said, a bit haughtily.  “He is, after all, of a more elevated House than my own.  It’s his responsibility.”

Harry blinked.  “What’s my responsibility?” he asked blankly.

Draco just smiled at him.  “You should talk it over with your godfather, you muggle,” he said cheerfully.  Then he leaned forward and pecked Harry on the lips before disappearing further into the house.

“What’s my responsibility?” Harry asked Sirius, knowing that his godfather would have an answer for him.

“Oh, we have so much to cover before the school year starts,” Sirius said, and wrapped an arm around Harry’s shoulders.  This time, Harry allowed himself to be steered into his godfather’s study with no protest.

He didn’t know what a Courtship was, but it sounded like it was something that Draco wanted, and Harry was more than willing to give Draco what he wanted.  Within reason, anyway.

Chapter Text

Harry knew that there was no reason to be nervous.  He was just… he was just giving Draco a small present, that was all.  It was absolutely nothing to be worried about.  All he had to do was walk up to Draco and hand him the present, wrapped in silver and emerald paper (which he’d been assured had real silver in it, and it glistened in the dim light of the candles much like a Sickle, so he was inclined to believe it).  Harry knew that Draco would love it, and it wasn’t like they were in public so if he didn’t like it, Harry would both know, since Draco wouldn’t have to hide it, and wouldn’t be humiliated, not that he cared as much about that.

Still, he couldn’t quite manage to summon up the nerve to approach Draco, who was curled up in one of the chairs in the sitting room, reading a book.

“I don’t bite,” Draco said without looking up from his book.  “Unless you ask me very nicely, of course.”

Harry was positive that Draco had just made a sex joke, but was just as positive that he didn’t get it, and that he probably wouldn’t get it until the end of the courtship.  If he ever did.  Sometimes things like that went right over his head.

He cleared his throat.  “I’m just… I’ll be over in a minute.”  He cleared his throat again and looked down at his shoes.  This nervousness was strange to him.  Foreign.  He couldn’t recall ever having been so nervous in his entire life.

“That minute’s getting longer and longer,” Draco said.  He still didn’t look up from his book.

Harry sighed and headed over to him, dragging his feet the entire way.  “I don’t know why I’m so nervous,” he said, and handed the present to Draco.

Maybe it had something to do with the pep talk Sirius had given him when he’d brought Harry back from the jewelry store.  Harry had been feeling fairly confident, since Draco had given him no indication that he would turn down Harry’s courtship, but Sirius had told him that was the wrong attitude to take.

“How can you be so confident?” Sirius had asked.  “Draco is a beautiful young man, with a wealth of power available to him.  You should treat him with the reverence he deserves.”

“Reverence?” Harry echoed, nose wrinkling.  Reverence?  For Draco?  He was his best friend.  Harry had already never considered being any kind of reverent towards him.  Wasn’t that a bad idea, anyway?  Putting people on a pedestal?  That seemed like a bad idea.

“Reverence,” Sirius repeated firmly.  “Always remember that he can turn around and walk away from you at any time during this courtship.  And, in fact, he might.  He might find himself with a better offer, you know.”

Harry had tried to brush off Sirius’ advice, but the words had stuck under his skin.  That was probably what led to him standing in front of Draco, his metaphorical heart resting in Draco’s hands as the blonde stared up at him.  “Aren’t you going to open it?” Harry asked, and was horribly embarrassed by the way his voice cracked.

Feelings.  Why had he thought it was a good idea to develop feelings?

“I’m waiting for you to ask me if I’ll accept your courtship,” Draco said calmly.  He was still holding the package, his fingers not even twitching.  It was like he didn’t care one way or another about what was inside.

“I thought that was supposed to come after you opened the package,” Harry said.  He was confused.  There was a distinct set of rules for this, Sirius had drilled them into him.  The first gift, and then others to follow once Draco wore the necklace.  Or ring, or bracelet, or earrings, or… well, any type of jewelry should work.

“It is, but it’s not like I’m going to reject you based on what’s in the box,” Draco said.  He was grinning now, a wicked glint to his grey eyes.  “Did Sirius manage to convince you that I would?”

Harry caught on and sagged in relief.  “I hate you both,” he muttered.  His godfather had been pranking him.  Draco had probably been involved, given the way that he was laughing now.  “Maybe I’ll take that gift back, then,” he said, his voice taking on something of a lilting tone to indicate that he was teasing.  He reached for the gift.

Draco jerked it back with narrowed eyes.  “Over my dead body, Potter,” he said, and began to open the present.  He was careful with the paper, sliding a finger under the seam and pulling gently, so that it didn’t rip.  When he got to the box, he smiled.  “My father’s first gift to my mother was from this store,” he said.  “It’s one of the most prestigious on Diagon Alley.  Did they give you any trouble?”

“I’m on the Wizengamot, and I’m the Lord of a Noble and Ancient House,” Harry said dryly.  “Of course they didn’t give me any trouble.”

“They’re supposed to go in the other order,” Draco said, but then he fell silent when he opened the box.  He lifted the necklace, a thin platinum chain with a dragon’s claw pendant, clutching a perfectly pristine emerald, with steady hands.  “It’s lovely,” he said with a small smile.

“Then you’ll accept my courtship?” Harry asked, even as Draco moved to put the necklace on.

“Of course I will,” Draco replied.  Then he closed the clasp and he shivered.  “Oh,” he breathed.

Harry blushed.  He knew what Draco was feeling.  Sirius had told him that it was traditional for a proper Courtship Gift to give the Intended an idea of how the Suitor felt, at least, it was traditional if the courtship was a serious one (and he’d done it in such a way that Harry could hear the capital letters in the words).  He’d said that it wasn’t necessary, given that Harry was such a private person, but Harry had thought that his appreciation of his emotional privacy made it all the more necessary for him to include such a thing in the gift.

“You like it?” he asked, a little bit shy.

“Of course I do,” Draco said.  He stood, then, and kissed Harry gently on the lips.  “It’s a wonderful opening to our courtship.  You have excellent taste.”

“Sirius helped,” Harry said, feeling obliged to point that out.

“Then Sirius also has good taste,” Draco said.  “And I’ll expect that excellent taste to be continuously demonstrated throughout the coming year.”

Harry nodded.  “Of course,” he said.  Then, thoughtfully, he added, “You know, it’s almost a shame that I couldn’t wait to kill your father.”

Draco frowned.  “Why?  If you’d waited, who knows what would have happened.”

“Yes, but if I’d waited then I could have gifted you with his head as your final present,” Harry said cheerfully.

Draco’s laughter was bright and free and rewarding, and it was almost all that Harry could wish for.

ooOOooOOoo

Their courtship was no surprise to any of their classmates, not that any would have dared express surprise if there had been any, and Harry’s seventh year at Hogwarts began peacefully.  It seemed that, at least for the first week or so, all he had to worry about was passing his classes and, at the end of the year, passing his NEWTs.  Yes, there were his courtship gifts, but he had a series of them planned.  Now that Draco had accepted, and now that his godfather had apologized for his ill-timed prank, Harry was no longer at all nervous about the rest of the courtship.

Unfortunately, as it seemed to go with all of his years at Hogwarts, the calm wasn’t going to last.  He walked into the dorms with Draco to find Ryuk bouncing up and down, the Shinigami’s own Death Note in his hands.  Harry’s eyebrows went up, and Draco took an automatic step back.

“What’s wrong?” Harry asked the Shinigami.  If his name was written down, there was nothing he could do.  It wasn’t like leaving the room would stop the Shinigami.

“I’m bored,” Ryuk said.  “This is officially boring.  Almost as boring as the rest of my life’s been, except that you at least give me amazing apples.”

“I’m sorry that you’re bored,” Harry said.  He wasn’t sure what else he could say.  “I’m not going to kill someone just to amuse you, you know.”

“I could get you to start killing again,” Ryuk said, and for just a moment he looked as threatening as he had back when Harry had first met him.  But then it faded when Ryuk deflated.  “But that wouldn’t be very fun at all.”

“It’s too dangerous for Harry to use the Note right now,” Draco said.  He tossed Ryuk an extra apple, and Harry knew the Shinigami was depressed because he didn’t even eat it.  Obviously Draco agreed because he said, somewhat desperately, “He was already discovered once!  It wouldn’t take much for someone else to figure out who’s been doing the killings!”

“Yeah, but it’s not just that he isn’t killing anyone, or anything, it’s that he’s not even curious about why I had him take the old man’s wand before he died!” Ryuk complained.  He was tossing the apple in the air and catching it, but still hadn’t taken a bite.

Harry’s eyes narrowed.  “Why did you have me take Dumbledore’s wand?”  He’d been curious when he’d done it, but he’d dismissed it at the time because he’d had other things to worry about.  But now that Ryuk had mentioned it again…

Now Ryuk seemed to be perking up.  “Because it’s part of a set, of course,” he said cheerfully.  “And you already had one piece of the set.  Now you have two.”

“What set?” Harry asked warily.  This was the first he was hearing of it.

“Oh, I don’t know what you mortals call it,” Ryuk said with a wave of his hand.  He was definitely more cheerful, though, because he took a bite out of his apple.  “But I do know that the Shinigami King was really mad that the three brothers he gave the set to managed to trick him in the first place.”

Draco went still beside him.  “Are you talking about the Deathly Hallows?” he demanded, his voice barely above a whisper.  “Harry, do you have two of the Hallows?”

“I don’t know what they are,” Harry hissed back.  He’d never heard of them before.

Ryuk, however, snapped and pointed at Draco.  “That’s what they’re called!  All you’re missing is the stone, you know.”

“Yes, but what does the set do?” Harry asked.  He had no idea what either of them were talking about, but if it would make Ryuk stop being obnoxious… and Draco was staring at him with something like awe in his eyes, which was an expression he hadn’t seen since he’d killed Lucius Malfoy.

“You would be Master of Death if you could gather all three,” Draco said.  “Right, Ryuk?”

“Yes!”  Ryuk bounced, then floated closer.  “And I’m very curious to see what being Master of Death does to someone with a Death Note.  Since I’m bored and all, you should look.  Besides, wouldn’t that be a fun quest to do in your last year of Hogwarts?”

“Yes,” Draco said firmly.

Harry wasn’t so sure that he agreed.  Still, if it was what Draco wanted him to spend his free time on…  “I guess it couldn’t hurt to look,” Harry said.  He wasn’t sure how, but somehow he was certain that he was going to regret agreeing to this search.

Judging by the way that Ryuk was practically beaming at him, Harry was pretty sure that he already did.

ooOOooOOoo

Harry didn’t enjoy searching for the stone’s location.  Draco was having fun with it, treating it as some kind of scavenger hunt, but Harry was just… bored.  Oh, he tried to pay attention to the book he was looking through, but honestly, Draco himself was far more fascinating.  Every now and again while the blonde was working his way through his own book, he would reach up and tuck a strand of hair behind his ear, or would fiddle with the pendant on the necklace he now wore constantly.

Harry found himself shifting closer, only to be warded off by a hand, held up in a warding off gesture.  “Don’t even think about it,” Draco said sharply.

Harry stilled.  “I wasn’t doing anything,” he protested.  Even though he very much had been planning on doing something, and Draco most likely knew that.

“You were going to,” Draco said, confirming Harry’s suspicions.  “Harry, we’ve been trying to get through these particular books for the past week, and you keep distracting me!  We’ll never find the Resurrection  Stone if you don’t let me work on this.”

“But I’m not all that interested in finding the Resurrection Stone,” Harry said.  He scooted closer.  There had been a time, when he’d been younger, when he probably would have been more interested in finding the stone than anything else.  When he hadn’t cared about emotions or friendship.  That Harry would have loved the hunt for the Stone, he would have revelled in the power to be gained by possessing all three of the Hallows, assuming there was any power to be gained.  This Harry… not so much.

He was even strongly considering giving the Note back to Ryuk, a conversation he hadn’t had with Draco yet.  He wasn’t sure how the blonde would feel about it, and didn’t want to risk upsetting him.  Not now, not when he was so focused on finding the stone.

“What do you mean, you’re not interested in finding the Resurrection Stone?”  Now Draco looked up, his brow furrowing into a frown.  “I thought you would jump at the chance to be Master of Death?”

Harry shrugged.  “Maybe once upon a time, but I’ve changed since I came to Hogwarts.”  Harry reached hesitantly for Draco’s hand, pleased when Draco reached back and took it.  “If I hadn’t, I never would have gotten involved with you, not even as a friend.  I thought you realized that.”

“I did, of course I did,” Draco said, but he still looked confused.  “So you don’t want to find it?”

Harry shrugged again.  “I’m ambivalent,” he said honestly.  “I… you know, I’ve been thinking that maybe I should give Ryuk his Note back.”

Draco jerked back, the gesture one of obvious surprise.  “You have?” he asked, his eyebrows going up.  He glanced down at their still-joined hands.  “I don’t know how I feel about that.”

“I didn’t say that I’m definitely giving it back,” Harry said quickly.  The last thing he wanted to do was fight over it.  

“No, of course you didn’t.”  Draco stroked his finger across Harry’s hand, but didn’t pull away.  “And if you want to get rid of it, that is, of course, your right.  I just… Even if we don’t use it, I like the idea of our keeping it as a backup plan.  In case anything should go wrong.”

Harry hesitated.  “Yeah,” he said finally.  “But it’s awfully easy to convince myself that something’s an emergency when I’ve got it.  I… used it for many things that I never should have bothered with.  I don’t know that I like the idea of keeping it just in case.”

Draco just smiled at him.  “But if I’m the one holding on to it, you can trust that I won’t let you use it for whatever you’d like, can’t you?”

Harry’s eyes narrowed.  “Maybe,” he said.  Then, playfully, he added, “But you’re awfully sneaky.  You might convince me to do something naughty.”

Draco rolled his eyes.  “I’m not making out with you when I’m trying to find the Stone.  Because even if you aren’t all that interested, I would very much like to find it, because I like the idea of being married to the Master of Death.”

Married.  When the courtship finished, they were going to get married.  The reminder was more than enough to keep Harry focused on his books for the rest of the evening, trying to find the damned stone that he still wasn’t entirely sure he wanted to find.

It wasn’t like he hadn’t done stupider things for Draco, after all.  Killing a child over a Quidditch placement came to mind...

ooOOooOOoo

Draco located the stone just before Christmas break, which was oddly convenient.  Things in Harry’s life didn’t tend to work that way, but Harry wasn’t about to complain.  He supposed after the past few years that he was due some good luck.

The only problem with going to get the Resurrection Stone now that Draco had found it was that Sirius didn’t actually know what they’d been up to, and he wasn’t amused when he found out.

“The Deathly Hallows?” Sirius squeaked.  His eyes darted from Draco to Harry and back again.  “Why in the world would the two of you be going after one of those?  Besides, I thought they were just myths.”

“Harry’s already got two,” Draco said.  He nodded at Harry, and Harry blinked at him.  “Show him,” Draco said impatiently after the silence stretched out too long.

“Oh!”  Harry laughed a little, then pulled the Headmaster’s old wand, the Elder Wand, from the pocket where he kept it stashed away.  “This is the Elder Wand, apparently.  And Dad’s old cloak is the Cloak of Invisibility.”

Sirius shivered at the sight of the wand.  “I don’t like the thought of having all three of them in my house,” he muttered.  Then he shook his head.  “But you’re going to go after the last one whether I want you to or not, aren’t you?”

Harry hesitated, glancing at Draco.  “We could wait until we graduate?” he suggested hesitantly.

Draco frowned.  “We could,” he said reluctantly.  “I don’t like it, but we could.”

“What’s the problem with waiting until you graduate?” Sirius asked.  It came out as more of a whine than a question.

Draco just rolled his eyes.  “Because, cousin mine, if we wait too long then there’s a very good chance that the Stone will be found by someone else.”

“That’s a good point,” Sirius muttered.  He shook his head again and raked his fingers through his hair.  “Okay, fine.  If you want to go and get it, then I guess we can.  Don’t say I never do anything for you two brats.”

“I would like to go on record as saying that I’d be fine with waiting,” Harry muttered.  It was loud enough for both of them to hear, but only Sirius acknowledged him.  Draco just rolled his eyes at him.

The trip to the potential location wasn’t a difficult one.  It was hidden in the ruins of the house of one of Voldemort’s ancestors, Draco had determined.  Harry wasn’t entirely sure where Draco had gotten the information, and he wasn’t sure that he wanted to know.  It turned out to be a very good thing that they brought Sirius with them on their quest, because the older wizard stopped them both with a shout just before they crossed what would have been the threshold of the house.

“Don’t you take another step,” Sirius snapped.  “Either one of you.  This place is swimming in dark magic.  Just… wait for me to clear it, okay?”

Harry was more than willing to wait, but Draco seemed slightly more impatient.  While Sirius worked, Draco watched him like a hawk, and Harry watched Draco.  “Why are you so eager to do this?” Harry finally asked.  Draco wanted it more than Harry ever had, and he wasn’t sure why.  It had never occurred to him to ask, actually.

“Did you know that the Sorting Hat briefly considered putting me in Ravenclaw?” Draco asked in response.

At first Harry thought that the comment was a non-sequitur, but then he realized.  “You’re curious, just like Ryuk,” he said.

Draco’s lips twitched into a small grin.  “Insanely so,” he said with a nod.  “I’m sorry for using you to fuel my curiosity, but I’m afraid that I can’t help myself.”

“It’s okay,” Harry said.  “I suppose, if there’s nothing else I can do for you, sating your curiosity isn’t the worst thing ever.”

Draco leaned in and kissed him, a long and slow kiss that took Harry’s breath away.  “You do so much more for me than just show me amazing things,” the other Slytherin said when he pulled back.

Harry scrambled to come up with a response, but before he came up with one he heard Sirius saying, “If the two of you are quite finished, you can pick up this damned ring, which I’m guessing has the Stone on it, given the number of curses it had on it.”

Harry walked over to where Sirius was standing.  There was a ring on the ground, glinting golden in the daylight, except for the black stone which didn’t gleam at all.  “You sure you got them all?” Harry asked nervously.  He crouched down to study the ring more closely.

“I can’t be positive, but I’m as sure as I’ll ever be.  If we wanted to be really safe then we’d get a Cursebreaker in here from Gringotts, but since I doubt that Draco wants to wait that long you’ll just have to make do with the word of an ex-Auror.”

“I would wait if it would ensure Harry’s safety,” Draco said stiffly.

“Well, then, let’s wait,” Sirius said, suddenly cheerful.

But Harry didn’t want to wait.  It was right there in front of him and there was something inside of him that demanded that he pick up the ring, now that he could see it.  Before he could even think to stop himself, before he could tell himself what a bad idea it was, Harry slid the ring onto his finger.

It was, perhaps, the most anticlimactic thing that had ever happened to him, in that nothing actually happened.  He could feel something sort of click into place inside of him, and the draw to the ring all but disappeared, but other than that, nothing.

“Wait, that’s it?” Draco asked.  He sounded utterly disappointed.

“I’m glad that you weren’t hurt by such a reckless and foolish decision,” Sirius said disapprovingly.  “We literally just said that we were going to get a Cursebreaker to take a look at it!”

“I couldn’t stop myself,” Harry said, and bowed his head in apology.  “And… nothing happened.  I thought something more would happen.”

“Me too,” Draco said with a sigh.  “Ryuk is going to be so very disappointed.”

As the two of them left the ruins of the house, they heard Sirius ask somewhat plaintively, “Who the hell is Ryuk?”

ooOOooOOoo

Ryuk was just as disappointed in the effects the Stone had on Harry as Draco had been.  “That’s lame,” the Shinigami decreed as soon as he saw Harry after he’d picked up the Stone.

“What is?” Harry asked.  He hadn’t even mentioned to Ryuk that they’d found the thing, since he hadn’t wanted to get his hopes up.  There had always been a chance that the Stone had been moved from the location Draco had given them, after all.

“Your lifespan’s gone,” Ryuk was saying.  “And I can’t see your name anymore.  The Master of Death must be immortal.”

Harry choked on air.  “Immortal?” he squeaked, much like Sirius had before they’d gone after the final Hallow.  “Ryuk, I don’t want to be immortal!”

Draco, by his side, was laughing quietly.  “There’s nothing that awful about immortality, Harry,” he was saying reassuringly.  “Flamel enjoyed it for many years.”

“Yeah, but Flamel had his wife with him the whole time!” Harry protested.  He didn’t want to watch Draco get old and die.  Maybe… maybe he could give the Hallows to Draco?

“Yeah, but don’t you have the Philosopher’s Stone?” Ryuk asked.  “Can’t you just give the elixir to Draco?”

“When did you get that?” Draco asked, his voice coming out abnormally high.  It almost, if Harry dared imply that Draco had lost any dignity, sounded something like a squeak.  “You said something about drinking from it and trading for the eyes, I remember that, but I didn’t know that you actually had it!”

“I got it in my first year,” Harry said absently.  “And I honestly forgot that I had it.  He’s right.  You could drink that and be just as immortal as I apparently am.”  The solution was one that pleased Harry.  If he was going to be stuck being immortal, then Draco would have to be stuck with him.

“You could give one of the Hallows away,” Ryuk was musing, now upside down.  “But I don’t know that it would work.  They might just return to you now that you’re their Master.”

“It’s okay, Ryuk,” Draco said.  He leaned in for a kiss, and Harry gladly complied.  “I think we’ve got ourselves something of a solution.”

That Christmas, along with Draco’s fourth courtship gift of a cloak made of freely-given unicorn hair that would repel almost any curse, Harry gave him a vial of the Elixir of Life, which Draco drank while staring him in the eyes, making Sirius incredibly uncomfortable, which, honestly, was just a bonus for both Harry and Draco.

Immortality didn’t sound like much of a curse at all, now that Draco would be with him.

ooOOooOOoo

The school year didn’t end with a bang, in fact it went out with something of a whimper.  NEWTs were more of an afterthought than anything else, and it wasn’t like Harry to worry about finding a job or anything.  He was a politician now, thanks to his godfather and his boyfriend.  Well.  Soon to be fiance, actually.  As soon as Draco stopped staring at him and took the damn ring.  Which Harry would very much appreciate.  At any moment.  Really.  His knee was starting to hurt and there were students whispering throughout the Great Hall.

Draco grinned down at him, his eyes sparkling, and Harry knew that he was just being teased at this point.  “Draco,” he hissed.  “I practiced all of those flowery words just for you, now would you please take the damn ring so that I can get off my knee?”

His request made Draco burst into gales of laughter, but he did take the ring and slide it onto his finger.  He helped Harry to his feet and kissed him, even as their classmates cheered around them.  Not necessarily because Harry had made friends with any of his fellow Slytherins, but likely because Harry would now be leaving Hogwarts.

He’d never quite managed to do anything about the oppressive aura that loomed over him thanks to his repeated usage of the Death Note.  He’d never really cared to try.

After everything, after they rode the train home for one last time, after Sirius picked them both up from the train station and once they were alone in their room, now shared, Harry pulled out the Death Note and held it out to Ryuk.  He and Draco had discussed it during their search for the last of the Hallows, and they’d both agreed that it was a good decision.

Ryuk, however, looked genuinely surprised.  “What’s this?” the Shinigami asked.  “Are you two kicking me out now that you’ve got each other?”

Harry would have taken it seriously, but the Shinigami was both grinning and crunching on an apple.  He couldn’t possibly be upset.  “Not at all,” Harry said.  “But I think that I’m done with this, and I don’t want to hold onto it if I’m not going to be using it.  I know that you get bored when interesting things aren’t happening.”

Ryuk just laughed.  “There will always be interesting things happening around you two,” he said.  He didn’t take Harry’s Note, though.  Instead, he pulled his out from wherever he kept it and held it in one hand, then produced another one, one that Harry had never seen before.  “Why don’t you two hold onto that one for me?” he asked, tossing the third one into the air and catching it before it could hit the ground.

“Where did you get that?” Harry asked, eyeing the third Note curiously.  Ryuk had never made mention of it before.

“Just got it a few days ago, actually.  Stole it off a Shinigami who wasn’t paying nearly enough attention.” Ryuk tossed it into the air and caught it again.  “I think I’m gonna go find someone new and drop this Note in front of them.  Maybe a Muggle this time!  You should keep an eye out, because I’m sure this one’s gonna be really interesting.”  Ryuk winked and took a large bite of his apple.  “Oh, but hold onto that one, okay?  I might drop by and see you guys sometime.”

And then the Shinigami was gone, leaving Harry with the Death Note still in hand.  It wasn’t quite what Harry had expected, but since he’d first found the Note, nothing had been.  Why should this be any different?

Chapter Text

Draco was kind enough not to protest when Harry got a small television and put it in a small, unused room once they had a house of their own.  He likely didn’t quite understand why Harry wanted it, but he didn’t complain about the choice.  He didn’t even complain when Harry had to pay an exorbitant amount to have it enchanted so that it would work without electricity.

He didn’t seem to mind watching it, though, which was wonderful because Harry had decided to make a habit out of keeping up with the evening news.  It wasn’t that he cared much at all about what was happening in the Muggle world, it was just that he hoped that he’d figure out what Ryuk was up to by watching it.

It took a long time for any sign of another Death Note being used to show.  Harry wasn’t surprised, given that years wouldn’t matter much for a Shinigami like Ryuk.  They still mattered to Harry and Draco, but only because they could watch their children, who were born of a wizarding woman who was willing to carry them for Harry and Draco as long as they sired a child for her and her own wife, growing as the years passed.

Harry and Draco’s oldest child, the first of two, had just turned four in the year of 2003 when Harry heard news of what could only be Ryuk’s Death Note at play.  Somebody was killing Muggle criminals via heart attacks, of all things.  “How uncreative,” Harry said with a sigh.  Whoever it was, they were bound to be caught soon enough if they couldn’t even use the Note to do anything more creative than that.

“Did you say something?” Draco asked, entering the room with two cups of tea.  He handed one to Harry, then settled down with him on the couch, leaning against him.

“I think Ryuk’s finally given out the other Note,” Harry said, and took a sip of his tea.  “It looks like whoever has it isn’t the brightest.  I’m sure he’ll be caught soon enough.”

Draco let out a small hum.  “That’s bound to disappoint Ryuk,” he said, and then leaned up for a kiss.

Harry obliged him, then returned his attention to the television set.

It would seem, however, that Harry was wrong about the new owner being caught soon.  In fact, the case stretched out for years, long past Harry’s interest in it lasting.  Ryuk had to be having fun, given that he didn’t show up to harass them during the entirety of this “Kira’s” reign.

Harry was certain that he and Draco never would have known that it had ended, given that eventually the Muggle news moved on to other things.  When it stopped being interesting, when the Kira case stopped being covered, Harry stopped watching.  He moved on with his life, and continued benevolently restructuring the Wizengamot whenever needed in order to bring a better life to the wizards under its rule.

Seven years after the coverage of Kira had begun, during Harry’s oldest son’s first year of Hogwarts, Ryuk returned to Harry’s home.  Harry didn’t even realize the Shinigami was there at first, as he was focusing on fixing dinner for his youngest, who would be starting Hogwarts two years from now.

“Got any apples?”

Harry jerked around, his eyes wide.  Ryuk was floating just behind him, cackling madly.  “What happened with your Kira?” Harry asked, even as he tossed the Shinigami an apple.  He and Draco never had gotten out of the habit of stocking the Shinigami’s favored fruit.

“Oh, stuff and things,” the Shinigami said vaguely.  “I knew it wouldn’t last forever, but man was it a fun ride!”  He cackled as he bit down on his apple.  “I figured I’d stop by here and vacation a bit.”

“Just as long as you don’t kill my children,” Harry said mildly.

Ryuk pointed at him.  “Keep feeding me apples and I won’t kill your children.”

Harry just sighed and threw him another apple.  Back to buying things with apples, even if he was the Master of Death.  Still, he supposed it could have been worse.  And things had been awfully quiet around here lately…

Maybe it was time to dust off the Note.  See what trouble he could cause.  Harry discarded the notion.  Immortal or not, Harry had the feeling that Draco would kill him if he almost got caught again.  And a bit of boredom was no reason to start killing, anyway, even if his decision was bound to disappoint Ryuk.