Malfoy's Mercy and Other Oxymorons

Part One

There was wind, and a moon.

Some time after that, there was screaming.

Before that, long before that, there was the Dark Forest. In the Dark Forest, the tree trunks climbed high and black and blotted out the sky. In the Dark Forest, even on a clear day you could only see four feet in front of your face before the world dissolved into mist, and cold, and possibility.

Of course, Harry thought with a wary glance at his foggy surroundings, he didn't really want to see much further than that. Because, while it was technically possible that anything could be out there in the mist, Harry had so far determined for certain that the Dark Forest currently held at least twenty eight creatures with more teeth than brain cells, and significantly fewer take-away curry stands with an add-on magazine shelf and book rack.

The odds were against him.

"Is that one?" Crabbe said.

"No," Harry said to Crabbe, not looking at the towering figure by his side. "That would be a stump. We're looking for mushrooms."

"Oh."

"They're smaller," Harry added helpfully. And waited.

"Is that one?"

"No. That's a stump again. In fact, I believe that's the same stump," Harry said. He searched Crabbe's lumpy face for some sign of understanding, an experience very like trying to find the face of the Madonna in a bowl of oatmeal, and with only slightly less chance of succeeding.

"Crabbe," Malfoy's Voice said from somewhere off in the mist

Crabbe made a sound that Harry could only think of as a bark. If he'd had a tail, he would have wagged it.

Harry looked around suspiciously. Yes, there was the mist, and the cold, and the trees, and that same horrible stump, and it really wasn't healthy for Harry to think about Malfoy's Voice in capital letters, he knew that, but he couldn't help it, and now Malfoy wasn't there but his Voice was, and that was making it all that much creepier.

But, Harry thought, Malfoy hadn't had detention. And Crabbe hadn't argued about being partnered with him.

"Finding anything, Crabbe?" Malfoy's Voice said from behind them now, and Harry felt something like a visceral chill run down his spine.

But Crabbe wasn't smart enough to argue his own execution, Harry told himself, and Malfoy was just the type who'd go on nature walks through the Dark Forest for the ambience.

"I'm finding things, Draco," Crabbe said obediently, and Harry thought bitterly that that was a lie, that all they'd been finding was that same stump, over and over again, with Crabbe apparently feeling that same thrill of discovery each and every time.

But, Harry though, that meant that Crabbe had had them circling that stump for the past twenty minutes. And Malfoy wasn't really that stupid.

"Good," Malfoy said, him and his Voice moving closer together, in front of Harry now, appearing out of the mist like one of those maddening fool the eye puzzles, blue fog and black trees suddenly resolved into hair and face and smile cast gray by shadow and gold by lantern light, and Harry was definitely not staring.

"What's going on, Malfoy?" Harry said, hoping that his suspicious tone and narrowed eyes drove home the point that he hadn't been staring even a little bit, no, this was the patented Potter Glare of Death right here, so don't get any ideas, Malfoy. And stop smiling like that.

"Goyle?" Malfoy said, still smiling at Harry.

"Yes," a voice said from beside Harry, not a question, and Harry looked up to his right and into a face like a suet pudding left out in the sun.

No, Harry was about to say, this is Crabbe, but Crabbe had been on his left side. Harry looked over and yes, there was Crabbe, and the particular suet pudding face on his right had small dark eyes like week-old grapes and that meant Goyle. Crabbe on one side, Goyle on the other, Malfoy in front.

Harry went for his wand. His hand closed on cloth and on something that was either a very furry coin or a very old peppermint, but definitely wasn't a wand.

And Malfoy was still smiling at him.

Harry withdrew his hand from the pocket slowly, the deliberateness of the movement only slightly ruined by having to shake his hand vigorously to get the peppermint to drop off. He kept his eyes on Malfoy. Not that Harry could do anything to protect himself, not without his wand, but it was the principle of the thing.

"Where's my wand, Malfoy?" Harry said with resignation.

Malfoy shrugged. "Don't ask me, Potter. It's not my job to keep tabs on your personal possessions."

"Oh come on," Harry said with feeling. "As long as you're going to watch me all the time, Malfoy, couldn't you go the extra mile and watch my belongings as well? Be useful for once. You know, I lost a pocket watch last term that I was really quite fond of. You could have prevented that."

Malfoy raised an eyebrow and said nothing.

Crabbe said, "The gold one?"

"Shut up," Malfoy said viciously.

Smiling, Harry thought, was not a good idea, and possibly not even a survivable one.

On the other hand, he was trapped in the Dark Forest with dark wizardry's answer to the Bobbsy twins, Malfoy was smiling at him all the time, the Voice was waiting in the wings, and Malfoy had been stealing his things.

When was this opportunity going to come up again?

"You know," Harry said with a grin, "if you're running short of money, I could lend you some. Just to tide you over."

Yes, that had definitely been worth it. It was somewhat hard to tell in the gray half-light, but Harry would have bet any amount that Malfoy was trying not to growl. This was beginning to be a theme, Harry thought hopefully. Between Malfoy growling and Crabbe wagging, maybe Harry's best chance for escape was to throw a stick as far as he could and yell, "Fetch!"

Oh god, I'm going to die, Harry thought then. They're going to kill me. One of these times I'm actually going to say one of these things out loud, and they're going to kill me. Right, I really need to get out of here.

"Well," Harry said cheerfully to Malfoy, "since you haven't seen my wand, I'd better go look for it."

Harry nodded pleasantly to Crabbe, or maybe it was Goyle, smiled faintly at Goyle, or maybe it was Crabbe, and avoided looking at Malfoy as he began to casually back away.

He made it farther than he'd thought he'd get.

That is to say, about five feet.

And then Crabbe was in front of him, and Harry stopped walking before he bumped into that barrel of a chest. Harry's shoulders slumped. He turned around and looked at where Malfoy had been, and had to blink twice rapidly because Malfoy was much closer now and not smiling anymore.

Harry sighed and ran a hand through his hair, directing a patient sort of smile in Malfoy's general direction. "Look," Harry said, "You're not going to kill me, not when everyone knows I was with Goyle - "

"Crabbe," Malfoy said.

"Right," Harry said. "And you can't do anything really serious to me, because using magic in here is like running the world's largest can opener in a house full of cats."

"Well, you have me there, Potter," Malfoy said. "How clever of you."

Harry narrowed his eyes. He had felt clever, 'had' being the operative word, and Malfoy was smiling again and looking far too pleased with himself for Harry's own good.

"Right," Harry said slowly. "So why don't you give me back my wand - "

-maybe he's got some sort of charm to hide the magic, maybe he's going to Crucio me until I beg to die-

"-and tell your friends here to get out of my way-"

-or something to break the 'no apparating' rule and any second now Voldemort and his body du jour are going to appear with Death Eaters in tow, probably they'll cut my head off on that same damned stump-

"-and I can go find my mushrooms and you can all go off and bother somebody else." Harry finished in a voice that was only slightly higher than the one he's started with.

"That sounds like an excellent idea," Malfoy said, "but unfortunately we have other plans for the evening. So do you."

"You're my enemy, Malfoy, not my social planner," Harry managed to say with something approaching confidence, despite the uncomfortable feeling that Malfoy wasn't talking about a game of Wizard's Chess and a warm cup of cocoa before bed, "I'll make my own plans, if you don't mind."

"Ah, but I do," Malfoy said in the Voice, dark and curling around the edges, and Harry took an involuntary step back. Malfoy smiled wider, and there were traces of the Voice in the smile now, and Harry began to be seriously worried.

Oh no, Harry thought. Here comes another painful lesson in the Dark Arts That Wizards Ought Not To Meddle In but which, it sometimes seemed, everyone but Harry meddled in at least twice daily, and sometimes more on holidays.

"Gentlemen?" Malfoy continued, looking at Crabbe and Goyle. "Now."

"Now?" Harry said. This was it.

"Now," Crabbe and Goyle echoed.

And then Crabbe had Harry's left arm and Goyle had Harry's right arm and they lifted together and Harry was suddenly two feet off the ground and blinking.

A second after that, Malfoy had torn a strip off Harry's robe and stuffed it in Harry mouth, something he seemed to enjoy far too much, and then Harry was two feet off the ground, blinking, gagged, and wishing he did laundry spells more often.

And finally, five seconds later, when Crabbe and Goyle started to run, Harry went with them by necessity and was suddenly two feet off the ground, blinking, gagged, and moving rapidly sideways.

This is the kind of thing, Harry reflected dizzily, that you really can't plan for.

____
End Part One

The question is not: 'why?'

The question is: 'why not?'

The answer is: 'for many good reasons that I choose to ignore'