Bad Faith

BAD FAITH

Chapter 7

IT IS NECESSARY THAT YOU BREATHE

"Where are we going?"

"You'll see."

Harry fumbled with the gearshift; the BMW didn't have the same ease of handling as his Mercedes did. Draco knew that, by lunchtime, the sun would burn away the fog which had descended overnight. It had a blue tint like cigarette smoke in the right light. He absently ran a hand up and down his seatbelt.

Draco wasn't sure he wanted to know, anyway.

The passing buildings were like old vices welcoming him back - they reminded him of himself, each one a little less well-kept than the last, each one a little shabbier. Occasionally, one had a window broken or had boards nailed over them in a futile attempt to prevent further deterioration.

Draco glanced back at Harry, whose profile was impassive, fixed on the damp road ahead. They drove past a few restaurants open for breakfast, and his stomach grumbled; but Draco didn't say anything, feeling he'd already pushed his luck far enough yesterday.

There was a sense of déjà vu - the tarot parlor, the strip club; and for a moment, Draco could almost identify the place where Harry's Mercedes had been parked a few weeks previously.

"This is the same place. From before, when you visited Edwin." And beat up some poor bloke.

"It is," he said; and Draco didn't detect any animosity underlying his words, just the sarcasm he'd begun to accept as normal. "Do we need to stop so you can get a quickie?"

"No," he said, wondering which side of Harry he liked better. "I mean, I'm fine."

Harry traced the bridge of his nose with his middle finger; for the first time, it looked as if he were tired. Draco remembered how back at Hogwarts, Harry had always had a boyish look about him - his face having a shape that Draco thought would always make him look a few years younger than he actually was; he had been shit at keeping his keeping his emotions under control.

Draco had been more used to the transience of Narcissa's emotional displays and stiff, lip-curling approval from Lucius. From Harry, there was sometimes anger, most of the time, nothing.

The car stopped. Draco recognized the house; he glanced at the glove compartment: his first find was here... The fags were long gone and he'd nearly forgotten about the Kama Sutra. Expecting Harry to tell him, "Wait here," Draco's hand was inexplicably moving towards the compartment handle like a bad rerun.

"Get out," was what Harry said instead. Draco heard the door click and fall shut behind him. The locks sprang open with a touch from the remote control and he undid his seatbelt clumsily, placing a foot outside.

Harry said, "Come on," impatience audible. The door slammed shut behind Draco, too hard. He winced but Harry didn't notice.

He rang the doorbell and waited in a kind of still anticipation. "He said he'd be here," Harry muttered, swearing quietly. A few more presses in rapid succession, the buzzing audible from outside.

The door opened, showing a weedy looking man with thin, ash-blond hair and a gaze that made Draco feel distinctly uncomfortable. "Cardona," Harry said amiably. The man nodded a greeting, his spine relaxing. "Can I see you after...?"

"Of course. He's right in there."

"Who?" Draco asked, not expecting an answer and not getting one.

The house smelled strange, a mix of something clinical with an oddly familiar dark undercurrent. A few broken chairs were propped up against the wall and the paint colors chosen seemingly at random. In the few rooms where doors were open, a few looked well decorated; others were left almost empty.

Harry seemed to know exactly where he was going; he must have been here often before. Why was he here now? Tugging at the sleeves of his jacket, Draco followed him through a hallway, and past a marble statue which stood underneath an abstract print of cubes and circles.

Walking into a sparely furnished room, he saw a TV and a round table set with white candles, a statue of the Virgin Mary, and a bowl of dusty potpourri. A silver cross was set in front with a glass bowl fill with what looked like wooden beads. A man was sitting on the couch, holding a remote control covered in plastic wrap, the weave rug beneath his feet askew. He looked up.

The man said, "Harry," and then, "Who's this?" He was sitting and smiling, the way someone might at a prospective employer or an unruly son's teacher.

"Draco Malfoy."

"Oh? Care to explain?"

Harry's hand went up to his sunglasses again as he turned his head slightly to the side to look at the window. "He's a friend. He'll be helping; that is, if you don't mind."

The man asked sharply, "Are you trying something?"

"He doesn't know yet. I just wanted to make sure first -"

"Make sure what?" Draco asked, pissed off. "What am I doing this time?"

"Do you need somebody to clean up after you or something?"

Harry said, "Something like that." Draco looked at the man, not sure who he was, not impressed. He looked like a man with 2.4 children and 1.7 cars, who rang his dear mum on Sundays.

"What the bloody hell are you talking about?"

Harry's voice was very clear, matter-of-fact. "Draco, this is Brian Wright."

Draco snapped his head around to look at Harry to see if he was joking. "The Brian Wright?" He reevaluated the man, remembering the newspaper article, half-expecting him to suddenly change into the devil incarnate. He didn't. It was a disappointment - like rewatching a horror film years later, or almost winning the lottery. The person standing in front of him supposedly ran an international drug smuggling ring, and was wanted in most of Europe and North America, for fuck's sake.

Spreading his arms out in an ironic gesture. Wright said, "The very one." Continuing, "What I don't understand is why you would need... him, to help. Or anyone." Draco was too tired, still trying to process his surroundings, to be insulted. "I know how you work. You don't like other people around to fuck it up for you, right?"

Carefully, Harry said, "It's different this time."

"Do you need him to hold your hand when you point your wand?"

His words were first measured for their full weight, coming out easily. "It's different with magic. It's better if I have somebody with me."

"Magic," Draco repeated, still trying to understand fully the "Brian Wright" part.

"Yes. Magic."

Wright smiled and ran a finger over a faintly dusty table, looking at his hand. "Quite the clueless one, isn't he?"

"He has his uses."

"I'm sure."

Harry took a package of Silk Cuts from his jacket pocket, and then a lighter, flicking it open with one hand. He silently lit up his cigarette, not bothering to offer one to Draco. He felt a craving hit like a kick to the groin. "Magic? The kind we learned in Hogwarts?"

"The kind where we pull rabbits out of hats, Malfoy."

"Now we've got that over with," Wright said with an amused look at Draco, "can we get down to business?"

Harry shrugged. The room was growing dimmer, the blinds and smoke filtering out the already weak light. Wright's profile was towards the window, like he was trying to see past the plastic. Harry had a different approach.

"Everything is business to me," Harry finally said.

"Good, then." Wright adopted a crisper tone, "There's nothing you shouldn't be able to manage. Cardona will be responsible for the payment and ironing out the details." A pause. "There's something I'd like done right away."

"I'll see to it," Harry said smoothly. Taking a step back, Draco looked for any signs of a criminal in the man standing there, who had probably forgotten to shave, was dressed in a nondescript shade of blue and wearing trainers. There was nothing threatening about him at all - he was used to Voldemort and brooding, violent figures who eventually brought about their own demise.

"Where do I fit in?"

Harry replied, too fast: "The same thing you did for others."

Wright: "And what would that be?"

"Body disposal." Accurate enough.

Draco relaxed a little more, but something was pressing at the back of his mind. Both of them looked at him expectantly; he just stared back, tough face on. Not even that. Just waiting for the confirmation they knew was coming. Draco squinted through the expectations and the smoke and the lies at Brian Wright, the word leaving his mouth, easy like murder.

"When?"

* * *

Neville wanted two things that morning.

It was still foggy outside, the dampness condensing slowly on the windows of The Leaky Cauldron. She was supposed to have been here over half an hour ago, and Neville checked his watch worriedly. Rubbing a circle on the windowpane clean with his fist, he checked outside for any sign of Parvati. Forty-two minutes now... his breakfast was cold, and congealing into a plate of cooling grease, which was the unfortunate thing about fried food. It never tasted better cold.

Some song by the Teenage Witches was playing but he barely heard it... Forty-three minutes, now... Rita Skeeter, the proprietor of The Leaky Cauldron since last summer, was hurrying out to greet Pansy Parkinson and Terence Boot. For a moment, his attention was arrested as he looked at the passing couple.

Pansy breezed past in an original Gladrags creation worth more galleons than Neville's yearly salary, but he noticed she gripped the strap of her handbag so tightly that her knuckles were pressed white.

"Do we have to be out?" he heard her say in a low voice. Terence whispered something and she nodded, her carefully applied makeup agreeing with the movement of her face; but her body didn't relax.

Forty-five. Green tea, black, jasmine? The Leaky Cauldron, knowing Rita Skeeter, probably served one kind: in a bag. Although couldn't they just magick up some from another storeroom?

"What kinds of tea do you have?" he said, looking up. "I don't think I'm going to-" he stopped in mid-sentence. "Hermione! You look nice," he said truthfully. Her hair was frazzling into its usual self at the ends, but she was wearing well-cut robes and oddly, all her clothing seemed to match.

"So," she said briskly, sitting down. Pansy was looking over their way now; Neville noted. Hermione's back was to her. "How are you?"

"Er- fine. I mean, I'm getting along." He tactfully tried not to ask about her.

"I'm doing great, in case you're wondering," she ploughed ahead. "Just came from a job interview."

"That's great for you." There was that pleased, confident glow she had always had on her good days. It had never changed her ruthlessness, though, he remembered sadly. Neville stared in fascination at his cold bangers and poked one with a fork. He wasn't taking orders from her anymore. Nothing to be intimidated by.

He glanced at his watch. Fifty-one minutes. What he had eaten turned cold in his stomach like he had swallowed frozen butter. Should he owl her? Or would that look bad?

"I think I did well."

"That's great for you."

Hermione was still twitchy, her foot tapping against the table leg as she kept twisting a silver and emerald bracelet around her wrist. "Look, Neville. Just want to, uh -"

He sensed what she was going to say the way he had known when she had wanted him to stay out of her path. "That's okay. You don't have to -"

Just as suddenly as she had appeared, Hermione was standing up and readjusting the hem of her robes. "That's that, then. I'll see you around, Neville."

He nodded and the door was swinging shut behind her. The pub broke into a furious exchange of whispers.

"Hermione Granger..."

"I heard she stole thousands and thousands of Galleons."

"She got sacked, didn't she?"

"Sent straight to the Centaur Department..."

"Terribly sad of course," he heard Pansy saying; her voice had a quality that carried above all the other voices, "but she had it coming. I knew her from school, always the brainy one. Don't you remember, Terence?"

"I heard it was going on for years and years... Right under our noses."

Neville's stomach churned again, this time not from the food. His fault. Should have helped her, eh, Longbottom? That was his job, anyway. Keep her from overwork and drowning in papers.

"Done with your breakfast?" A bony looking girl wearing an embarrassingly frilly uniform had one hand poised to pick up his plate. "You've been here for almost an hour, already, " she added helpfully.

"I know."

"Anything else you'd like?"

Neville looked at the pavement outside, sighed, and resigned himself. "Hot chocolate?"

* * *

The British Ministry of Magic, Magical Law Enforcement, never seemed to take a coffee break.

Or even a bathroom break, for that matter.

Wizards and witches, some with bloodshot eyes, scurried like laboratory mice, holding papers and packages with red confidentials stamped on them. Joanna Southwood stood on an elevated platform, and in rapid, clipped tones ordered, "Hogsmeade, Honeydukes. Three Mediwizards right way." Almost instantaneously, two appeared in the green robes. "Is there another?"

A cheerful poster with the words, "Constant Vigilance," printed on it, accompanied by a twitchy-looking picture of Alastor Moody was pasted above Dennis Creevey's desk.

Dennis picked up his wand from the tabletop; they were enclosed in what could be best described as an office cubicle. "Hullo," he said, smiling a little. "Didn't expect to see you back so soon."

Smithson asked eagerly, "Did you use the watch? Did it work?"

"The weather is making the wards go haywire..."

"Did you get a chance to try out the translator? And what about the watch?" Smithson continued ruthlessly.

"Wait," Ginny said, looking suspiciously at Cho, "We had a translator?"

"How was Paris?" Dennis asked. A man tugging an irate house-elf along by the hand pushed rudely past her

"Out of the way... out of the way..."

"Paris was..." Ginny searched for the right adjective, "interesting."

"It was cold. We didn't do any sightseeing, anyway," Cho said firmly. It was futile and we froze our arses off, Ginny mentally added. Dennis looked back at Ginny, faintly amused at her less-then-enthusiastic expression.

Ginny asked, "Did everything go through?"

"Yes. I got the owl from Dupont and the powers that be okayed it. You've got the go ahead. Things look pretty serious over there, don't they?" he added casually. Alastor Moody on the poster suddenly raised his wand and shouted, "Petrificus Totalus!" Dennis looked back at him fondly. "He never does shut up. Amazing man. Just amazing."

A Mediwizard with bright pink hair replied, "Take that bloody thing down already, Creevey!" before hurrying off to his destination. There was no time for anything except the rapid-fire exchange of insults, and information processed like binary code. The completely organized disarray around them continued on regardless, a group doing last-minute hex deflection practice while Joanna debriefed another batch of Hit Wizards.

"Everything you'll need is in nine-eight-two-five. We can take a visit now, if you like." He glanced at the clock on the wall. "Only five o'clock. Still have a few more minutes before I'm due for a meeting with the Head Bitch," he announced cheerfully. "How about it?"

Sounding slightly amused, Ginny said, "I suppose so." Cho bit her lip and looked away, an inner conflict playing out externally.

Smithson, who had been quiet for a while, spoke up: "I hear they're absolutely fascinating. You used old Muggle machines, right? I saw some of the blue prints, really ingenious stuff, Creevey. Just brilliant. I almost couldn't have thought of those myself."

"Thanks," said Dennis, "but I didn't design them."

"Oh."

"The watch worked fine," Cho added, almost absently. "Most of them weren't lying, though..."

A cold ribbon spiraled around her lower stomach. "He wasn't lying," she echoed. No could possibly lie about something like that... people did, anyway, but Ginny would sooner take up the harp and join a nunnery than lie about Ron.

"And the compressed history of France?"

"Didn't look at it," she snapped. She automatically regretted it. Not being blunt for once wouldn't kill her - it might hurt but it wouldn't kill. "We were really busy," she said, trying to soften her words. Dennis pointed his wand towards the stairs.

"Haven't got all day."

"Right, then."

Behind them, Alastor Moody shouted, "Expecto Patronum!" and another wizard shouted something rude at the poster. Dennis cheerfully gave him a two-fingered salute.

* * *

Nothing could touch him.

He could control everything. The wand in his hand was an extension of himself, a sixth finger and a third eye. He could feel the purest Malfoy blood that ran through him, exhilarating and insidious as heroin exploding at the base of his neck.

He knew. Could feel it. Nothing could go wrong.

Harry stopped the car, the synchronized slam, slam of the doors, breath in his lungs, Harry's feet snapping on the pavement like crisp leaves. His wand against his hip - if he touched it, the magic would leave the tips of his fingers with a whisper. He was hyper-aware of Harry's presence, sharp and defined as lines of black charcoal. Harry's fingers found the zippers of his pockets and his fringe brushed against that scar, (the mark of a hero) his breath vaporizing in the air.

"Got everything?" A car rushed by. The door locks snapped shut with a press. Harry didn't pause and continued walking towards the door. "Get ready."

The doorman sitting in the kiosk was watching a television screen with chesty women in bikinis running on the sand. One arm propped up his head; the buttons on the front of his shirt strained for release. His fingers tapped a random pattern on the counter and he seemed to be half-asleep. A Styrofoam cup and the last crusts of a ham sandwich lay on a napkin.

They walked past without so much as a change in position from the doorman; Harry started to move faster and Draco had to adjust his own pace to a walk, walk, skip to keep up. His vision jerked from one object to the next like a badly shot videotape. He blew on his fingers, which were starting to feel icy.

The hallway was covered in a worn-down green carpet, gray dust and cobwebs collecting in the areas where someone had forgotten to vacuum. There was a faint buzzing in Draco's ears. He was sure there was another law of planetary motion encoded in the paintings. Harry. Walking ahead of him, looking for something. He said, "This shouldn't be too hard," assuring himself of success. "Anybody could do this."

Words came easily. "So why don't you?"

Harry stopped. The buzzing in his ears grew almost unbearable.

"So why don't you?"

He looked at Draco, as if trying to formulate an answer for a grave occasion. There was something like a sigh, only it might have been a door opening. "Because you can," he finally said, turning away again and placing his hands in his pockets, his words as meaningless as always.

To Draco's displeasure, they took the stairs instead of the left, first casting what glamour charms he had remembered from watching Narcissa. Straightening out a nose to aristocratic straightness, remolding the chin, quick taps on the cheekbones... he stood facing a man that looked eerily like his mother - his subconscious had even lightened Harry's hair to a blonde-brown. Shuddering and turning away, he tried to cast the same charms on himself, Brevis, and found his hand shaking as he did.

Draco was afraid for a moment that Harry would recognize whom he looked like. Looking at his dimly black reflection in the glass of the stairway door, "Make me any prettier?" was all he said, and Draco wasn't sure if he was relieved, just pushed the thought away and held the railing. It was the first time his confidence had wavered and just as quickly, the cold hit of doubt was gone like the briefest flicker of conscience. Harry touched the new shape of his nose, which only looked different before starting up the stairs.

They passed by only one other person, a young mother holding a baby who was too wrapped up in the price of nappies and scraping together this month's rent to notice them. Draco placed a hand in his pocket to remind himself his wand was still there, flipping through his mental index of spells.

Harry kept looking back at him, making sure of his presence. And Draco looked straight back, trying to figure out what he was thinking until he had to look away first.

"Are we there yet?" Low as possible.

"Almost." Passing by a fire alarm and an abandoned umbrella, Draco was only aware things directly ahead of him like tunnel vision, the peeling paint of the wall, and Harry walking, aware of the sound of his breath and the light bulbs running down the ceiling casting a vaguely green glow. Because you can. Harry's back was toward him, hand by the numbers on a door. The "9" was crooked. Harry nodded, and Draco knew what was next.

"Alohomora." The sound of cheering, footballers' names being chanted like rock stars or religious figures.

"I tell you, I'm not going to lose this time... no, you listen to me... bollocks, don't give me that again. I don't care if you are. I don't care if you go on national television about it... Sarah doesn't give a damn what I do anymore." It was an impatient male voice, used to getting its own way. "Ring me at four, then. That's the microwave. Yes, I'm watching TV. Bye," he said firmly. The volume rose.

Like a robbery. Use magic to throw something at his head, knock him out, then trash the flat like you're looking for valuables. That memory charm... Oblivious? Obliviate?

Obliviate.

That. Won't be hard.

The man cursed, setting something down on the table. The rise in volume as a goal was scored was almost exponential.

Harry motioned with a jerk of his chin towards the inside of the flat. Draco walked ahead, wand out now, the corrupted Latin sounding meaningless as a looped song. Harry was behind him, and an undercurrent of the strangeness of their new positions struck him, only he didn't have time to think about it because he getting closer to the man... Should he Obliviate him first and then knock him out or the other way around? Or what if he jumped at him and he didn't have time to do anything? His elbow bumped into the coat rack and it scraped the wall, metal against plaster.

They froze.

"Someone there?"

He could almost hear Harry mentally saying fuck.

"Hello?" The volume lowered and the commentator's voice was reduced to a dull monotone. Springs on a couch creaked, a few steps, and then, like a used car giving up, they stopped.

"... and it looks like a good season for Aaron Kelly... if they win this one..." For a moment, he thought the man was walking towards them but the microwave door stopped beeping and there was a low, plastic click, a plate clinking against the glass turntable.

Harry said, "Now," like a well-cast Imperio.

And then he was stumbling out there. The man, wide gray eyes and hard mouth, going who the fuck are you? Draco looking for something to throw. The only thing he could see was the man and the bloody TV set, still on... He still didn't know if he should knock him out and then Obliviate or the other way around, wasn't it the same anyway?

Harry: "Malfoy!"

"But which...?"

"What the fuck are you doing in my-"

"Obliviate!"

The man's expression changed to a simple curiosity, looking in bewilderment around him.

Harry was saying something; his heart was having a fit of arrhythmia and Draco licked his lips, wand hand shaking.

"... Kepler takes the ball again. He passes to Hudson..."

Draco focused on the vase gathering dust in the corner. He raised his wand as the man's mouth opened to ask a question. It hovered above the man's head. He looked up at it, like a child wondering why the sky was blue. It fell, hard.

Only when he was looking at the unconscious body sprawled on the sofa, a cooling plate of leftovers set in front of it like a sacrificial offering, did Draco ask, "Who is he?"

Harry, watching the television, said, "Bloke who agreed to testify against him. Wright said he used to be a friend."

His voice was closer, digging into the crevices of his brain and poisoning his blood supply. Looking back at Harry, he wondered how many times he could be a savior. Or why he was even bothering to let himself be saved, considering how much he was paying for it.

He aimed his wand at a chest. The drawers popped open, dumping neatly folded and pressed trousers and collared shirts. The closet door in the hallway flew open with a creak, the coat hangers clicking metallically as they fell, shoes spitting out onto the floor.

Harry took a crisp from the bowl and sat down on the couch, inches away from the still form as Draco finished wreaking havoc. He found a tennis bracelet and a cash box that opened with a quick Alohomora, filled with fives, twenties, hundreds, and some pound coins (no such thing as a pound note, any more). He wondered for a second if he had to get rid of it all later. Glancing over at Harry who was impassively looking past the television set, he peeled a few extra off the top and jammed them deep into his pockets. The man on the couch stirred.

"Are you done yet?"

He cast another Memory Charm for good measure before they left.

* * *

A not-quite attractive dancer in a pair of heels and not much else was wrapping herself around the pole, businessmen in their off-time watching as she tossed her hair and gave the audience a not-quite successful come on. Her chest didn't match the rest of her, either. Ginny watched, fascinated by how bad the performance was.

Ginny wondered why Cho had thought up using one of the Ministry's few links to the Muggle world, a private investigator, of all people. "Why him?"

"Just be happy he isn't another Squib rights activist," Cho said. "He doesn't know much about the magical world at all but he helped the Ministry find Farrington in November, I think it was. He has a pretty good grip on the Muggle underworld, though he won't admit it sometimes. Whoever said modesty is a virtue." She rummaged through her knapsack for her map of Muggle London and sat with her back to the dancer. "He's also been giving the Muggle police information on their search..."

"His office is conveniently located," Ginny observed as they took the back door and went up the rickety staircase. She added and so well kept as well to that when he opened the door.

She had to clear a frozen dinner package and yesterday's paper from a seat before she sat down. A coffeemaker on the floor was plugged into an overloaded socket with wires trailing out of it like a mockery of Medusa.

He introduced himself as Edwin but barely looked at both of them before collapsing into his seat. Creases cut across his forehead every time he looked upwards, and he seemed to be oblivious to the mess around him.

"How's Blake Farrington?" he asked, his eyes shut like it would take too much effort to open them.

Cho had chosen to stand. "Soulless. He got the Dementor's Kiss after you found him."

The coffeemaker gurgled and Edwin turned his head sideways on his folded arms. "Dementors? What are those? I'm not too familiar with... your kind of thing." His voice sounded black and bitter, but too tired to push any further. His hand reached out onto his desk and blindly searched for something, picked up a half-empty mug and he took a sip. The phone on his desk rang but he ignored it. Humming under his breath, Edwin closed his eyes again as if he was about to take a nap.

"Are you all right?" Ginny asked. "Working overtime a lot?"

"You could say that." With effort, he drew himself up and sat straight in his seat. "Who is it this time? We Moogles always get in your hair, don't we?"

"That's Muggles."

"And what am I again? A Squick?"

Cho rubbed her eyes and said, "That's a Squib. And it's Brian Wright."

Edwin blinked and knocked over his mug with his elbow, the brown stain spreading over a bright green flyer on his desk. "What do you want - why -"

"Oh, drop the surprised act," she said icily. "You know about him. You know enough, in fact, to be an informant for the Mu- the police."

"Very well," he said congenially, though a wary look was still in his eyes. "What do you need me for?"

* * *

"Thanks," Harry said abruptly. Draco's fingers tightened on the door handle.

"Hmm," he answered, taking a long drag, cancer filling his lungs and the air. The car slowed down and Draco thought at first it was for a red light, only Harry never stopped for red lights. Realized Harry was looking at him. Had he done something again?

"Thanks. Really," Harry said; suddenly, he was pushed back into his seat as the BMW sped up again.

Not sure how to reply. "You're welcome," was the best he could come up with, trying not to be too sarcastic. "Anybody could've done it," he echoed. Harry's words in his mouth tasted strange, like trying an Indian dish for the first time.

"Anybody," Harry said caustically, "can save the world if they want to."

"That was always your job. Playing hero... I thought you liked it."

Harry said, "I was too young to know better." Adding, "Most people are just too worried about their own arses to bother."

Draco took another drag. It was like smoking his own shit. "Always looked like great fun for you, though... looked like you were living in some bloody comic book. No wonder I couldn't stand you."

"Still jealous, Malfoy?"

He said quietly, "There's nothing to be jealous of."

Purposefully ignoring another red light, Harry drummed his fingers on the steering wheel, the keys hanging from the ignition swaying slightly as he took a left turn. "Where's that arrogance? Gone like all your money?"

He turned away, looking out the window at a Marks and Spencer's, admiring a silver Jaguar pressing past. "I was arrogant?" he said, only half-hearing himself. The radio was back on, static and blips separating the words like badly placed commas. Why didn't Harry change the godawful station?

He might have smiled but it could have been a smirk. "The worst. You've forgotten already?"

"Not surprised, I suppose," Draco said, resigned. "You're..." searching for the right word, "different."

This time, Harry did smile, like Jack the Ripper surveying his handiwork. "I can't deny that one, can I?"

"Why?" he tried. He ran his thumb along the grain of the seatbelt. "I mean, how?"

"What do you mean?" knowing perfectly well, but Draco played along anyway.

"You're not - what happened? At Hogwarts, you were... Harry Potter. Now, you're - "

He shrugged. "People change," as if that explained everything. "Look at yourself."

"But that's different," Draco protested.

"How?"

"I couldn't help it."

"You were the poor fucking little lamb, weren't you? All innocent and pure. Didn't have anything to do with you, of course."

"Is it my fault my parents were Death Eaters?"

Harry's face turned stormy and he stared even more intently at the license plate in front of them that read EDDY5. "No," he said shortly. "I suppose not. But you should have seen it coming."

"So you just decided after Hogwarts to become a Muggle again?" Draco asked, willing Harry not to dodge this question.

"Something like that."

Draco waited for more.

"It wasn't even my fault," he continued.

"What wasn't?"

"Ron," Harry spat, like he had tasted spoiled caviar. He looked so angry and raw for the briefest flicker of a moment, the split second between a pull and release of an anonymous trigger.

"If you didn't kill him -"

"Then who did?" Harry laughed, his teeth bared. "Wouldn't everybody love to know." He was silent, then, "You know. You should have." A light rain speckled the windshield and he cracked open the window for some air. Draco picked at the skin at the base of his thumb, until suddenly a bright slice of pain cut across his vision, blood beading red at the base. He blotted it on his sleeve.

"It was like this," Harry started speaking quickly, so quickly Draco had trouble following his train of thought. "I have this here," he placed his fingers up to the scar on his forehead, "from Voldemort. I was the Boy Who Lived. Remember that?" Draco nodded. "Do you remember the time when we dueled in front of everybody in what was it? Second year? Third year? And suddenly, there's a snake on the table. I started talking to it of course..."

The windshield wipers turned on. Harry violently yanked the steering wheel right.

"Voldemort was a Parseltongue, too," he continued, a little quieter. "I wondered, why me? Why did I have to have everything thrown on me? Turns out, he's in me... parts of him. Turns out, he left a lot more than just being able to talk to big snakes. His little parting gift wrapped up in a big, bloody, red bow."

"What do you mean?" He was still trying to decode Harry's words, aware it was just as important as what he didn't say. Draco had always hated puzzles.

"When he tried to kill me, it backfired and some of his powers were given to me. Parts of his personality, too. Nice, isn't it? You know how the Ministry was about obliterating every fucking atom of Voldemort off the face of the Earth. You would have thought they were trying to clean up a uranium leak."

"They obliterated my parents."

"You got away, though."

Draco said, "Is that some sort of achievement?"

Harry shrugged, looking tired and drawn as if all the good parts had been sucked out of him. "At least you got to know them."

He added, "I can feel him sometimes," the blue-hot intensity of words like a burst before he finally collapsed in on himself, a black hole. "He's still there, it's not so bad anymore but there was that one night where it flared up. Ka-bloody-boom. I'd been doing too much. I got stupid. Coke fucks you up that way, has that way of making it like you're in control and you're not..."

Draco nearly burned himself trying to light another cigarette. "The Dark Lord lives on, then," he said, the thought of it as far away and surreal as the landscape of a fantasy painting. "Did the Ministry find out?"

Laughing, "After I told them, trying to explain why I killed my best friend, they nearly had epileptic fits. They were all still patting themselves on the back for winning the war, couldn't have seen it coming if it shat on their doorsteps. They couldn't have Voldemort still poisoning their precious wizarding society, any trace of it around... might lead to another war, you see. I could see what they were thinking, and if I didn't do it, they'd eventually make me leave or maybe I'd be in a very convenient accident. Might as well leave on my own terms." Harry looked over at him, and for a moment, Draco caught a glimpse of the old Harry, like looking into a mirror, cobwebbed in cracks. "Are you sorry you asked?"

He said, "No," a half-truth. The effort it had taken Harry to recount most of his life story seemed to have drained him. Asking the first thing that came to his mind, "When are you getting the Mercedes back?"

"In a day or two. I should call them about it, they might have been backed up again."

As if on cue, his mobile rang. Maneuvering through traffic with one hand while he used the other to locate it, he finally snapped it open and held it against his shoulder. "Hello? Oh, great. Glad to hear it," Harry said crisply. "No problems?" After a clipped, rapid-fire exchange, he clipped it back to his belt. "Timothy."

"Him." Almost smiling, "How is he?"

"All right. He hasn't been jailed or castrated yet."

"Why him?" Draco asked, remembering the nervous eyes, the nervous walk, everything. "He's -"

"He's reliable. Doesn't look like it, I know."

"Brian Wright doesn't look like it."

"Reliable?" Harry said casually, adjusting the rearview mirror.

He seemed to actually want an answer, and Draco remembered who the fuck are you and because you can. Everybody could. "He's just not what I imagined him to be."

"Is anything?"

"Sometimes... I read about him about in the paper before. He was just so ordinary. Like anybody. He might as well have been the postman."

"That's what's so great about him, isn't it?" There was something of admiration in Harry's tone, struggling to keep it light. " You could never guess by looking. Like Fred West, only he doesn't kill little girls."

Draco didn't answer for a few seconds, and then said, "Have you ever been caught?"

The BMW slowed to a crawl as it hit a solid wall of automobiles inching along in traffic. The car in front of them honked angrily as a Renault tried to maneuver its way into a marginally better position.

"I've come close," was all he offered.

* * *

Hermione was usually on time - on time was relative of course, depending on how accurate Niall's watch was running. She had the habit of entering, breathless, at precisely right moment or not arriving at all. To Niall's surprise, she was late today, looking impossibly pleased. It was an expression he hadn't seen since she was fired.

"How'd it go?"

She sat down, brushing the crumbs off the vinyl booth seat first. "Wonderful. They said they'd be owling me soon about another interview. They were even nice about... that." Her eyebrows furrowed briefly, biting the inside of her cheek. "Anyway, I think I'm going to get the position. It's not that high up, but after a few promotions, I'll be making near what I used to." She beamed.

"That wonderful, darling." He took her hand under the table, noting her palms were damp. "Nervous?"

"No. Well, a little bit. I have to owl Susan a thank you when we get back."

The smallest piece of worry touched him, feeling the spark when a hand was placed on a metal doorknob, almost inconsequential. "Isn't it a bit early for that?"

"What do you mean?" Her mouth straightened. "Are you saying that I can't get this job? Is that what you're thinking?"

"No, just that it might be a little early..." Niall faltered, then took a sip of his fresh-pressed orange juice that was too pulpy.

She was smiling again, though it looked more forced. "Let's not fight. Is Dennis here yet?"

"Dennis?" He looked at her blankly, his right hand about to use the side of a fork to cut his pie.

"Yes. Is he here yet?"

"What?"

"I didn't tell you?"

"No," Niall confirmed. "Apparently not."

She laughed a little, her teeth flashing briefly. "Oh, I'm so sorry about that. I thought I told you yesterday. I meant to, honestly."

"Why?" He knew he sounded a bit put out. She wasn't taking it seriously at all, her mind still faraway and concentrated on something else, humming beneath her breath. After being accidentally Transfigured into several unpleasant things today at work, his nerves were positively burnt. Being irrational was just a side effect.

"I just forgot. I forget sometimes," she said defensively, leaning back in her seat, hands folded in her lap. "Don't you?"

"Yes, but -" was all he managed. Niall took a vicious gulp of orange juice. It was a stupid thing to go on about, but he had been looking forward to seeing her all day and had been planning to take her to Ambrosia later tonight; he had gotten discounted theater tickets to see Knockturne from work. "Which Dennis?" he finally asked in defeat.

"Dennis Creevey. He was in your year when you went to Hogwarts, I think."

He vaguely recalled a lanky boy missing a finger, armed with a camera. "The one with a camera?"

"That's his brother Colin. Although Dennis does take pictures for FWM in his spare time now."

"Is that the magazine where Anthony got his poster of Celestina Warbeck?" Wearing nothing but a Maelstrom Mark Two in a misguided publicity attempt to jump-start her sinking singing career.

"He told me he took that picture. Amazing what some glamour charms can do to aging stars, isn't it?" she added acidly. "She needed a team of wizards to make her presentable before the shoot."

"You can't say she didn't try, though," he said mildly. "Is that him?" He spotted a man with bleached tips in a brown leather jacket, looking around the room like he was searching for somebody.

Hermione waved a hand in the air; he spotted them and trotted over. "Hullo," he said, looking curiously at Niall. "How're you, Hermione?"

"Great, fine. This is Niall. Niall, this is Dennis Creevey."

Dennis's eyes lit up with recognition. "Hey, aren't you the bloke who works in Experimental Magic? Worked with Smithson a few months back?"

"That's me," Niall said warily, wondering what else Dennis had remembered that might not have been as flattering. "Are you a photographer for FWM?" He almost clapped a hand over his mouth and Hermione looked furious. Honestly, she mouthed.

Dennis just laughed and sat down. "That's me." A waiter zoomed over at an alarming speed and he ordered the lunch special, "Whatever it is," he said recklessly. "You saw the Celestina Warbeck spread?"

Hermione spun a bracelet around her wrist, looking at the tablecloth like she wanted to burn it. Niall quickly changed the subject. "What else do you do?"

"Top secret things at the Department of Magical Law Enforcement." His words were light, but something warned him not to press it any further.

"Oh."

Hermione reached over the table and took a drink from Niall's orange juice. "Excuse me," she said. "I have to go to the bathroom. I'll be right back."

Dennis smiled, almost at no one in particular, and took Niall's hand. He seemed to be looking at his fingers. "Haven't tied the knot yet?"