One Honest Heart

18. Lappertapper

There are creatures known to witches and wizards, written about in works on magical beasts, sold in the quaint shops of Diagon Alley and its darker sibling, that can be thought of as magical only by association with this hidden world that Muggles know so little about. While they are used in intricate magic or occult rituals, the creatures themselves are merely unusual, lacking any innate magic. They are listed in magical texts but have thus far eluded the thorough cataloguing of Muggle biologists. It has been said that any sufficiently advanced form of technology is indistinguishable from magic. The same could be said for these queer creatures, known only to such a very small subsection of humanity.

One such creature is the Lappertapper. Miniscule enough to remain invisible to any eye that does not seek its presence, the Lappertapper exists only in colonies of thousands, each of them working as a synaptic node so that the colony can function as one creature.

Parasitic by nature, these weird creatures invade the oral cavity of their host. They prefer placement on the tongue, but once it is claimed, they will spread beyond its borders, sticking to any soft surface available.

Once established inside a host, the Lappertappers tap energy from the host’s food, sucking vitamins, minerals, fat, and even magic from any organic material coming into contact with them. There are variants that tap till the food loses all its nourishing power but these are aberrations. Such mutations never survive to increase their numbers since their hosts die much too quickly. The common Lappertapper, however, weakens its host over a long period of time, thus having ample chances to migrate to a new host – during a failed act of mouth-to-mouth resuscitation if not sooner.

Lappertappers are only – illegally – sold in Knockturn Alley.

—from Essays on the Dark Side by Charles Wist, 1987

19. Pick-up

Lappertappers are only – illegally – sold in Knockturn Alley.

This, of course, posed no problem to Lucius Malfoy, striding into Queer, Questionable, and Quality Creatures one evening in late April, 2002, to pick up a special delivery, their very strongest breed. For even though overly aggressive Lappertappers fail to meet Darwin’s evolutionary requirements, they keep appearing – a common enough mutation – and they bring an exceptionally high price when bought en masse.

Of course, like the shadiness of Knockturn Alley, money posed no problem to Lucius Malfoy. Especially not as the owner of Creatures was dead twenty seconds after his greedy fingers had closed around the poisoned Galleons.

20. The Diary

At first, I felt as though I had come full circle, as though I was back where I started, back at square one. But I quickly realised, between two cups of ageing caffeine, that this was not the case. It was worse. My life had reached an all-time low, plunging deeper than I'd ever thought possible. I had missed square one, veered inwards and downwards. My life, instead of completing some demented circle of life, was still spiralling as much out of control as it had been when I was unemployed and shuffling through Henry's house in my nightgown.

I was back at the Quibbler, but my boss was my oldest friend's daughter. My deadest, oldest friend. (You really can't get deader than being blown to a million or so pieces by your own stupid experiment.)

I had no friends left and was employed by my dead best friend's daughter (as ditzy as her mother once was). To this day, I don't know whether she hired me out of pity or because the Prophet had fired me for writing (and I quote my editor) 'Quibbler-worthy, crazy fantasies.'

So, I sat like a dried-up old plant in a dark corner of the Quibbler office, feasting on coffee and dubious facts. I had a never ending stream of questionable news washing over me from the smoky mouth of one of our semi-resident freelancers, Miss Inga Northshore. Her speciality was gossip, any kind, anywhere, and her range was astounding; she related elaborate conspiracy theories and who the waitress on the corner was dating with the very same high-pitched tremor, the same glowing eyes, and the same bluntly pointed coughs and splutters. She favoured my desk not because I was particularly receptive but because I was almost always there and almost never doing anything much. I suspect at those few times the office was empty when Inga came to visit, she engaged the potted plants in conversation. Usually she got about as much of a response from me as from the equally withered old plants.

But, purely by chance, I found a golden piece of truth in Inga's stream of fiction. It was from her that I learnt about the rumours that Harry Potter had been dating none other than Draco Malfoy, his old school rival. Had I been a reader of the less reputable witch magazines, I would have learnt about it many months before. As it was, the notion at first startled me and made me laugh in the midst of my misery. And my interest in the affair would have ended there if Inga hadn't continued her observation by saying it was a damn shame young Malfoy had gone missing. Apparently, the lanky young blond had been much to Inga's liking, so much so that she had often camped out with various paparazzi as they lay in wait outside his London home, hoping to catch sight of Harry Potter.

But now, he was gone. No one had seen him since a week before Harry Potter had been reported missing. Gossips were quick to make a connection but no reputable media would even deign to speculate. It was unthinkable that the Boy Who Lived could have had an affair with Lucius Malfoy's son, or that he could have somehow eloped with him.

My own prejudice against the very media subculture that had once given birth to my journalistic career had blinded me to these facts as I tied my Dementor story to the Potter case. But now, fallen from Prophet grace, I was back in the seedy undergrowth of journalism. And I had found the missing clue lying there, discarded. Or at least the trail that would lead me to it.

I sought out Malfoy's landlady. He had paid his flat well in advance. If it stood disused, that was none of her concern. She would by no means let me in. Young master Malfoy had been most specific.

Had I still been working for the Prophet, it would have seemed an insurmountable problem. But now, having stolen a Demented Bellatrix Lestrange (for which I was not thrown into prison for the sole reason that the Prophet wanted to hush it all down and hired an excellent lawyer) and having but scraps of a career left, it merely delayed me a single day. That same night, I went to Malfoy's flat with an old lock-picking acquaintance of mine. Inside, I found the first diary.

22. Ruins

My idea was sufficiently odd to get Henry excited and consequently put all other projects on hold in favour of producing an adequate supply of Polyjuice. I ventured into the seedier parts of London to get Muggle samples.

It was Malfoy's cryptic diary entries in combination with my previous visit to Hogwarts that had put me on the right track. The Muggles at the gate had seemed to look right through me. Why? They had left looking mildly disappointed. Why? Wouldn't Hogwarts, its beautifully preserved medieval architecture and pleasant gardens, be a tourist's dream come true? Were they trekking through Scotland in search of Hollywood mansions?

And, most importantly, how come they were there at all? Shouldn't they have been somehow redirected by the wards protecting the school, one of the wizarding world's biggest and best kept secrets? Wasn't it, after all, unplottable?

My mind having filed this topic under Not News-Worthy, I would never have investigated it further if not for Malfoy's description of the hideout he had found for his celebrity boyfriend. Mentions of a Great Hall, curiously unmoving staircases, dungeons, and the biting Scottish winds all pointed in one direction: Hogwarts. But not as I knew it. Malfoy described a derelict castle, dust-filled and gloomy; not a school teeming with teachers and pupils.

It was surprisingly easy to find the answer. Only in revised editions of Hogwarts: A History was there no mention of the peculiar properties of Hogwarts castle. Only when a conflict with the Muggles had seemed imminent had it been decided that the duality of the castle was better kept as secret as possible. After all, should anyone decide to blow up the derelict old castle in the Muggle realm, its magical counterpart might crumble as well. No one quite knew, and it was better to be safe than sorry.

And it was reasonably easy to keep this particular secret covered up. Only Muggles with no magical abilities could see or enter the Muggle version of the Hogwarts grounds. And the castle, dark and foreboding, was not likely to attract any great floods of tourists, especially not given all the warning signs and the fact that this was very much private, partially fenced-in, property.

But should Muggles pass through the crumbling walls, they would enter only the Muggle grounds, never coming in contact with the magical realm. However, Muggleborns occasionally experienced a faint vision of the Muggle castle superimposed on the school, which explained why some of them found it rather more dreary and daunting than others did.

And I must admit, I found more than the howling winds chilling as we pushed through the squealing gates and approached the castle one afternoon in late September. Even as a first year student I had never felt the castle loom as much as it did that day, dark and foreboding. Ivy crawled across everything, as if to devour it whole. Inside, everything was dusty. The front doors and part of the hallway was cleaner than what could be seen in the grimily lit Great Hall.

Except for the dried, blackened pool of blood at the foot of the stairs.

23. Deception

The memory was as vivid as a flash of neon lightning. Sight, smell, touch, trembles; it all came back to him in a rush of sensation.

In the shadows of the bedchamber, Potter's hair had been a ruffled raven, a ragged black tuft in a marsh of sweaty sheets, the wild mane of a mischievous sprite, the unruly locks of a boy who lived, voraciously. And his moans had been nothing like the shrill, irritating lament for his lost mother, all those many years ago.

Even in the darkness, shining emeralds lurked inside those eyes. Potter's now chiselled features tasted of secreted, sticky salt and he was, as they said, hard as the proverbial rock. But oh so pliable, so very lithe and agile, wrapping his legs around Lucius's waist, arching like a fleeing larva at every fervent touch.

Though younger in years, if not in flesh, Harry Potter had proved surprisingly dominant in bed. Still, he stayed a true and noble Gryffindor at the core, matched his conduct with his fair looks, and submitted to Lucius as much as he mastered him. In their corporal communion there was a truce of sorts, a merging of dark and light, the sweat of both sides mingling in joint labour towards a common climax; peace, passion, power, all intertwined. Yet it was no less a battle than before. It was a more beautiful battle, a sizzling skirmish, but a struggle, a conquest nonetheless.

Time had passed, the biological clock had sprung back to its rightful place, but Lucius could still feel it, his body responded to the recollections of penetration and acceptance, of tingling and thrusting, sucking and clawing, yielding and trusting. And licking. Licking, lapping, laptapping. All over, but mostly Potter's forehead, savouring that scar, the mark his of master. Thick, wild hair teased his nostrils and Potter's - or his master's - magic tasted of cold metal coated in salty sweat. Sweet, addictive, intoxicating.

Then there was a sliver of light, the scar flashed before Lucius's young eyes. He drew back, frightful of some strange reaction in the infamous scar, seeing through half-shut eyelids the door, ever-so-slightly opened, and there, outlined against the light, a fairer, softer mirror of himself, marred by a look unmistakable even in deep shadow.

The door closed. Potter moaned underneath. He had not seen.

Lucius shuddered and drew a deep breath. His older eyes refocused on Malfoy manor. The chill returned. The fire had died at last. His throbbing heart lay locked in a firm, frozen grip.

There was a whisper at the back of his neck. It accused him. It had seen all. This time, it knew the truth, the truth it had had to slip into the darkness of Lucius's lost soul to realise - to reveal a mistake made by lamplight.

The family had always insisted on the remarkable resemblance. How was Harry to have known.

Such deception it was. Lies, lies, lies.

Lucius Malfoy had oft been accused of having no heart. However, like all humans, he did, but it was not an honest one, the whisper hissed.

'One honest heart,' it rasped, at the very edge of hearing.

'Two honest hearts,' it sighed.

'No honest heart,' it growled and an artic cold gripped Lucius's heart. He gasped.

'This,' the whisper intoned, 'is where you depart.'

Scared half out of his wits and knowing but one thing to do with what little he had left, Lucius Malfoy grabbed his wand, spun around, and emitted a howl of pain that seared through the silence.

In the air, his heart hovered. As his chest solidified again and collapsed, imploded, to compensate for the cavity left behind by his absent organ, Lucius Malfoy stared wide-eyed before him, gurgling something that had as its origin a wish for words but came out a dead man's last, meaningless lament.

Trailing a plume of blood, the corpse of Lucius Malfoy thumped onto the floor, followed by a patter as of light rain, a demon's clotting tears. Moments later, his heart sloshed down beside him and the creature that had once been Draco Malfoy drifted away, still seeking prey.

24. Nostalgia Potion

Nostalgia Potion. Popular name for the banned Regressive Youth Potion. This complex brew gives its user approximately ten hours of youth while bringing death one year closer. It was banned in 1781 after Esmeralda Torpent had fed it to bought Muggle lovers for years without informing them of the serum's drawbacks. Thirteen men, bodily aged about fifteen to twenty, were found buried all over her extensive gardens. How old they had been originally - or who they were - remains a mystery.

- Peculiar Potions II, 1978

Regressive Youth Potion. Aggressive cell poison designed to sequence the subject's DNA through an evolutionary network of self-replicating spells powered by ambient magic. Depending on the exact mixture, the network simulates the development of the subject from infancy to a predetermined stage and then employs a derivative of Polyjuice Potion to physically transform the subject into a younger version of itself. Due to the detrimental effects of rewriting DNA rather than temporarily twisting it into another form, it is estimated that the process shortens the subject's lifespan considerably. That it would shorten it by exactly a year is a modern myth. Since it is impossible to know when any subject would have died otherwise, it could be anything between a few days to several years. Undesired cell reproduction is a common cause of death in subjects.

The potion was banned in 1781 following the Torpent Affair. However, this has not stopped its use in less law-abiding circles. Many are the wealthy witches and wizards who have died young, at least in appearance. The Ministry of Magic has yet to settle on a way to enforce the prohibition.

- John Pygram, Dark Potions Dissected, 1991

Wayne Pellegrin had been in Azkaban for three years before it was discovered that it had been his father, under the effects of the Nostalgia Potion, who had committed the murder. In retrospect, all the mentions of the striking father/son resemblance in the media during the trial seem eerily prophetic.

- Infamous Murders, 3rd ed., 1962