Finding Elvis

Chapter 3 - Accounting

Harry swallowed hard as he and Malfoy stared at each other, the moment suspended in space.

"What are you doing here?" Malfoy finally asked very quietly, colour slowly beginning to return to his face.

"Wondering the same thing about you."

"What do you want?"

"To talk to you."

"About what?"

Harry had no idea where to go with that. Malfoy's brown eyes, behind the glasses that Harry had become accustomed to, were curiously blank and expressionless, reminding Harry with a wrench in his gut of Malfoy's cold, calculating grey gaze at Hogwarts. So very, very different from Dave, the Book Cellar sales clerk.

"You disappeared," Harry said. "Everybody thought you'd died."

"They were meant to."

"But you didn't."

"Obviously."

"Why?"

"Why didn't I die?"

"Why did you want everybody to believe you were dead?"

"That's none of your business."

"Really?"

Malfoy narrowed his eyes at Harry. "Are you an Auror now?"

"No."

"Do you work for the Ministry?"

"Yes."

"Ah." Malfoy looked down, thinking for a moment. He checked his watch. "Ann?" he called out, his voice remarkably casual. "Cover for me, will you? I'm taking my break early."

"No problem," she called over her shoulder, busy rearranging one of the shelves in the Hobbies section. "Don't forget you're closing tonight."

8888888888

Malfoy had led Harry to the coffee shop next door to the book store, and they now sat at a rickety corner table.

"Harry Bloody Potter," he said impassively. "How did you find me?"

"Coincidence. I happened to be at Velleywold Village for a conference."

"Velleywold? That's nowhere near here."

"It didn't used to be. It moved about ten years ago. How long have you been working here?"

"What does the Ministry want with me?" Malfoy asked bluntly, ignoring Harry's question.

He decided to not tell Malfoy that the Ministry had no interest in him. "You disappeared. Nobody knew where you went; most people assumed you were dead, but nobody knew for sure. You'd be spotted every so often, but nothing was ever confirmed." Malfoy nodded, his face still blank. "Has nobody ever found you since you disappeared?"

"Not for years, no. The last time I ran into anybody was about seven years ago. They weren't working for the Ministry, though."

"Who was it?"

"Old friend. Nobody important."

"What did they do?"

"Asked how I was, we caught up a bit, then she left."

"She?"

"Yes."

Harry paused. This was not anything he had planned on, so it wasn't as though the conversation wasn't going according to expectations, but he had no idea where to go next. "Did she ever come back?"

"No. I asked her not to."

"Malfoy... why?"

"Why what?"

"Why hide? Why be nervous that somebody's found you?"

"If I'd wanted to be found, I'd've stayed in touch, wouldn't I?" Malfoy's voice was as cool and unwelcoming as Dave's had been warm and animated.

"Why didn't you?"

"Why do you care?"

Harry frowned. "Personally, I'm not sure I do. When I spotted you a few weeks ago, I thought it was just a coincidence, thought you just looked like - well, like who you were. Are. But I talked to somebody who used to know you, and they thought it might really be you. Said a lot of stuff that... that got me thinking, and I came to figure it out. See if you were who I thought you were."

"Who did you talk to?"

"Paracelsus Green."

An unguarded smile suddenly lit Malfoy's expressionless face, startling Harry. "Celsus? He's still around?"

"Yes."

"I didn't know he'd survived. What's he doing these days?"

"Working for the Ministry; he's a Healer researcher."

"Oh, good for him. I always said he was wasted as a mediwizard; he had almost no bedside manner whatsoever," Malfoy's eyes were still bright with amusement at some private joke, and the thaw in the atmosphere was almost palpable.

"Malfoy, why did you leave? And why don't you want anybody to know where you are?"

"I'm a Muggle now," he shrugged. "I don't have anything to do with the wizarding world."

"But why?"

"Why do you care?" Malfoy asked again, his tone less challenging than curious this time.

"Look, it's just - it just seems like you left with a lot of unanswered questions. I'd like them answered."

"Why?"

"Because I don't like unanswered questions. Your fate is a complete mystery to most of the wizarding world."

"I'm a puzzle you want to solve?"

"Maybe." Harry hesitated for a moment. "Are you hiding from something?"

"No, not really, just-"

"Is there a reason why you don't want to talk about it?"

Malfoy shook his head slowly and stared blankly at the scratched, cheap table top, thinking. "So was that you all those times, asking about books for a school reading club? Or were you just disguised as the last customer I dealt with?"

Harry shrugged, a little uncomfortable over his duplicity. "That was me all along."

Malfoy looked up, a slight smile tugging at his mouth. "No offence, Potter, but just how long have you been stalking me?"

"A few weeks," Harry admitted, trying to sound nonchalant. "Although at first I honestly didn't know you were you. You look very different." Malfoy's eyebrows went up. "No, you do."

Malfoy frowned pensively. "Yeah, I suppose so. It's just been so long that I forget I ever looked any different."

Harry couldn't imagine how long it had taken Malfoy to get used to not standing out in a crowd, as he used to with his white-blond hair. "I'd also read that some people had used an Obliviate spell to wipe out all memory of their life in the wizarding world after being hit with the Enmagio curse. I wanted to know if you had."

Malfoy grimaced in disgust. "Obliviate everything? Yeah, I heard some people had done that. Why not just kill yourself and be done with it, I thought." He paused. "That still doesn't explain why you were curious enough to-"

"Wouldn't you have done the same thing? If you found somebody you'd known who disappeared?"

"But why should I care about your curiosity?"

"We weren't still enemies by the end, were we?" Harry asked quietly.

"No, I don't suppose we were."

"Then what would be the harm in answering my questions? Save me the bother of investigating this without your input."

Malfoy hesitated, then nodded reluctantly. "All right. But I don't have a lot of time right now, I'm on shift."

"How about tomorrow?"

"I'm working."

"Until?"

"Five."

"Works for me. Or if that's no good for you, I'm still at the conference for another two weeks at least."

Malfoy blew out his breath in frustration, realizing that Harry was not going to let this go.

"Tomorrow's fine, my girlfriend's working till late. I'll meet you back here?"

"All right."

They got up and Harry felt unsure and awkward. What do you say to somebody you haven't spoken to in fifteen years, someone you thought was dead?

Malfoy was looking at him with the same kind of expression, but then he gave a small smile. "Good to see you, Potter. I'll see you tomorrow."

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Where was that stupid report he was supposed to review before tomorrow, Harry asked himself for the tenth time, cursing himself for the tenth time that he hadn't thought to put a simple spell on all of his Velleywold conference scrolls so that they would come to him whenever he misplaced them.

He should have just decided to either stay in Velleywold for the duration, or commute every day from his home in London, instead of this back and forth. This wasn't the first time he'd misplaced documents and had to search through both his hotel room and his flat to find them.

Although actually, it was a good thing he was back in the flat. The few houseplants he kept were looking a little peaked despite the automatic watering spell he'd set on them. The gossip weed looking moribund was no surprise; it fed on conversation and social interaction, and had started to die the moment Harry had brought it home. But the rest of them should be all right. Unless all those green thumbed people were right when they said that all plants needed some kind of social input.

He really should give the gossip weed away, Harry thought as he went through the stacks of documents on his desk. He hadn't wanted the thing in the first place, but it had been a present from Emma Sprout and he hadn't felt he could refuse it at the time.

There! "Werewolf Rights: An Idea Whose Time Has Come, Or Lycanthropic Lunacy?"

Harry sat down to skim over the paper, his mind taking in the information without really engaging his interest, which immediately flitted back to the chat with Malfoy a few hours ago.

So. Malfoy recognized him. Remembered him. Whatever else had happened, Malfoy obviously hadn't completely wiped out his memory. And he'd agreed to meet tomorrow. Maybe some of Harry's questions would be answered then.

And then what would he do with the information? It seemed obvious that Malfoy didn't want anybody to know anything about him; should Harry respect his wishes, or go ahead and fill in the blanks in Malfoy's official files?

Unsettling thought: what if Malfoy disappeared between today and tomorrow? He acted like a man who had settled into his life, but what if that was only because he felt safely hidden from the wizarding world? Would he leave this life behind and start over, now that he knew his hiding place wasn't a secret? And why was hiding important to him in the first place?

And if he did disappear, would Harry report it? Report that for two weeks he'd known the whereabouts of a man who may have been on the run from the Ministry for fifteen years, not told anybody about him, then warned him that his cover was blown and given him time to disappear?

Why had he done that?

Damn. That had been rather remarkably stupid, Harry realized. That would not look good for him. If Malfoy took off, would he really go to the Ministry and admit his idiocy?

He should have set some sort of tracking spell on Malfoy before leaving. Maybe he should go do that now-

Except, no, Malfoy had said he was working till closing, and the store closed at nine, and it was eleven, and Harry had no idea where he lived. Besides, he'd left Malfoy at five. If he'd really wanted to run, he'd had six hours to do it, and Harry wouldn't find him.

Well. The only thing to do was to review the bloody werewolf paper and hope Malfoy met him tomorrow.

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"Espresso, Dave?" asked the man behind the counter at the coffee shop, and Malfoy nodded. "And for yourself, sir?" the man asked Harry.

"Same, thanks," Harry said.

"So, does anybody but you know I'm here?" Malfoy began brusquely as they sat down.

"No. I told a few people I'd seen someone who looked like you, but only Celsus took it seriously." Harry suddenly got a bit of a creepy feeling. If Malfoy was still on the run or dangerous, it really wasn't terribly bright of Harry to admit to him that nobody would have a clue where to look if Malfoy made him disappear.

But Malfoy was only looking somewhat relieved, though still cautious. And he'd had time to run, if that's what he wanted to do. Unless he wanted to drill Harry for information before running?

This was too complex for him, Harry realized. This wasn't war time; he wasn't used to thinking strategically any more. It had, after all, been fifteen years since he'd had to do so.

Fifteen years for Harry. Who knew how Malfoy had been operating during that time. He'd obviously learned a bit about stealth - here he was, right next to Velleywold, and nobody from their world had run into him in seven years.

He stirred his espresso. "So... how did you end up here? What are you doing with your life?"

Malfoy peered at him suspiciously, and Harry was disturbed by how much like himself he looked. His old self, that is. His colouring and age and environment might have changed, but with that mistrustful squint, nobody could have mistaken him for anybody other than Draco Malfoy.

"Look, I'm not trying to interrogate you or anything-"

"Right. I'm having coffee with a Ministry employee who wants me to account for the last fifteen years of my life, but I'm not being interrogated."

"Er..." Harry felt uncomfortably at a loss over how to set the tone for this conversation. Make it too official and Malfoy would be so defensive he'd clam up; make it too casual and Malfoy would probably just say Up yours and walk out.

Fifteen years ago, Harry would've known what to say or do. He'd had the training and experience back then.

No, actually, he hadn't. He was just as lousy at doing this back then, but back then he'd had to do it anyway, on a regular basis. Now, though, he was out of practice.

"Look, you can ask whatever you want right back. I'm not interrogating you," Harry said, opting for less formal.

"What do you want to know?"

"What happened? Why are you here?"

"Pretty easy to tell, isn't it?"

"No, it's not. The last anyone heard, you were hit by an Enmagio curse, you seemed fine, then you disappeared. End of story. Except for glimpses of you in the Prophet, which few people believed, and the Quibbler, which nobody did."

"What sort of glimpses?" Malfoy asked, then paused. "And do I want to know?"

Harry smiled. "Probably not. They covered just about everything - seeing you in a supermarket. Seeing you at a bar. As a Seeker-" Malfoy's look of disbelieving disdain had kept its eloquence, even fifteen years later. "At a prison in Cornwall," Malfoy's eyebrows went up, and on impulse, Harry decided not to tell Malfoy any of the uglier rumours; the Muggle murders, the suspected double-crossing. "At a pub in Wales... there were a lot of sightings. Not one confirmed. One of my co-workers called you the wizarding world's Elvis Presley."

Malfoy's eyebrows drew together, "Elvis Presley - wasn't he a Muggle singer who died, but then people kept spotting him for years afterwards?"

"Yeah."

"And a wizard knows about him, fifty years later?" he said, bemused.

"Yeah, bizarre Muggle leakage into the wizarding world, isn't it?" Harry said cautiously. Malfoy's face relaxed a little in amusement.

"I'd hardly care about that kind of thing any more, would I, Potter? Being a Muggle myself," he chuckled and shook his head. "I'd no idea. Sorry I asked." He sipped his coffee thoughtfully, then said, "All right, what happened to you, then? Why are you in Velleywold?"

"Why do you want to know?"

"You said I could ask questions too. Indulge me."

"Er... well, I work for the Ministry, mostly in the Magical Creatures department, but I do other things," damn it, he had no idea what else to say, how could he have come back here with no solid plan? Sloppy, sloppy, sloppy. "I'm currently at Velleywold for a conference on legislation controlling magical creatures."

"How did you get started with that?"

"Remus Lupin. After the war, I wanted to do something about - you know there were werewolves and Veela and such, who were treated very badly during the war."

"Yeah, I remember that."

"I wanted to help them."

"Ever the noble saviour of the downtrodden."

Harry looked away, annoyed by the cynical tone with which Malfoy said that. Even more annoyed that he fully agreed with it.

"So are you married? Any children?" Malfoy asked.

"No to both. I live in London, mostly."

"Keep in touch with anybody I knew?"

"I still occasionally work with Neville Longbottom. He became Potions Master at Hogwarts, were you still around when - oh, yeah, that happened before the end. Oh and I saw Pansy Parkinson not long ago."

Malfoy's eyes widened a little before he shut down again, but Harry had caught the jolt. "How is Pansy these days?" he asked casually.

"She seems all right. I hadn't actually seen her in... well, a long time. Last I'd heard she was working for Delacroix, the French importer, remember them?"

"Oh good for her. That's good."

"Then a few weeks ago I went to see her to ask her about you."

"Did you."

"As far as anybody knew, she was the last person in our world to have seen you."

"Mm, yes."

"According to our records, anyway," Harry said, probing a little, but couldn't detect anything in Malfoy's manner to indicate he was wrong.

"Yeah, I was at her place for a while. What did she say?"

"Said she didn't know what happened to you. Said you just left, with no word as to where or why."

Malfoy looked away, tapping his coffee cup with his spoon, a shuttered expression on his face.

"She gave me a stack of letters from her to her sister. Juniper died last year-"

"Juniper? Good god, she couldn't have been more than forty. What did she die of?"

"I-I don't know, I didn't ask. Pansy didn't seem to want to talk about it."

Malfoy sat back. "Mm. That's too bad. She and Pansy were very close."

"Pansy was worried about you, for a long time."

"Damn. I left her a letter, told her - well, I didn't tell her where I was going, as I didn't know myself, but... damn, I'd hoped she wouldn't worry much."

"Malfoy... you were engaged. Why wouldn't she worry?"

If Harry had thought revealing that he knew that particular piece of information would unsettle Malfoy, he'd been wrong; Malfoy just nodded absently, still thinking. Harry supposed it hadn't been a secret, though. Just something Harry hadn't known because, well, he didn't know everything.

"Damn. What does she think now?"

"Thinks you're dead. That you either drank yourself to death or committed suicide."

"Good," Malfoy said softly, not reacting to Harry's bluntness.

"Why did you leave? Our world, that is?"

Malfoy looked hesitant.

"Would you rather I investigated all of this through other people?"

Malfoy crossed his arms, sat back and stared at Harry belligerently. Harry tried to reassure him. "Look, if you talk to me, I can set a spell on my report so that if anybody from the Ministry ever does want to know what happened to you, they can read it, but nobody will see it otherwise. Probably nobody will even think to look; you've been gone a long time." Harry reflected as he spoke that once upon a time, the idea that nobody was interested in him would have infuriated Malfoy.

The Malfoy of today merely looked relieved.

Good, thought Harry, trying to push down any guilt over leading Malfoy to believe he was here in an official capacity. This was hardly the biggest lie he'd ever told, after all. "This is just a spare bit of parchment, Professor Snape, not a magical map of Hogwarts at all," and "No, Minister, I don't know where the Order of the Phoenix headquarters are located" came to mind.

Except that those lies had been for good causes. This was lying to scratch an itch of curiosity about a man who probably deserved better from him. A man who was living as a bloody Muggle with a job that was beneath him, while Harry still had full use of his magic, a prestigious appointment at the Ministry, and more money than he could spend.

He squashed his misgivings down firmly. "So why did you leave?"

Malfoy toyed with his coffee spoon. "Do you have any idea what the Enmagio curse did to people?" he asked slowly.

Harry swallowed. "I read up on it. It was nasty."

"So why do you need to ask why I left?"

"I... I gather you didn't want to live as a Squib?"

"Bloody hell, no. Why would anybody?"

"I know people were cruel to Squibs born that way, but you hadn't been. If anything, it was a war injury-"

"Whether you were a Squib by birth or by accident or by design, it was no way to live," Malfoy said flatly.

"I would've thought you'd at least get set up as a Muggle comfortably." He paused. "Did you?"

"No. Left with nothing. Started with nothing."

"Why did you come here?"

"To Cardiff? I didn't."

"Where did you go?"

"London."

"What did you do there?"

Malfoy shrugged. "Got used to life as a Muggle."

Harry stirred his coffee. It was absolutely amazing how friendly and communicative Malfoy had been as Dave Bergsen, and how utterly... Malfoy-like he was being now. "All right, so what's it like? Your life as a Muggle, that is?"

"Er... nothing all that exciting, actually. I work here, live in a flat a couple of blocks away with my girlfriend Jilly. Play football on Wednesdays."

"Any children?"

He shook his head. "Just a niece and nephews, through Jilly."

"Why does it surprise you that people want to know what happened to you?" Harry suddenly realized that without making a conscious decision to do so, he was using an old interviewing technique: skipping from topic to topic, to make the subject less likely to be able to successfully fudge their answers.

"I don't know." Malfoy sipped his coffee pensively. "I suppose I thought everybody would just assume I died and go on with their lives. Actually, I didn't think of it much, really. Just got away."

"What was it like?"

"Losing magic?"

"Yeah."

"Bloody hell," he muttered.

"Sorry, I - I don't mean to pry-" Harry said, then mentally kicked himself. Malfoy was really only talking to him because he thought Harry was there as a Ministry investigator. Prying was supposed to be part of that, and apologizing was going to make Malfoy realize that he didn't have to sit here and answer anything.

But Malfoy was looking at him, still wary but somewhat more at ease. "Actually, what I meant was that 'bloody hell' was what it was like. Like I'd gone blind or deaf, except I could still see and hear, but... just cut off. Don't really know how to describe it. Like the world was sort of half-hidden or something. Incredibly disorienting..." he trailed off, brooding.

"I read about it. Is it - is it still difficult to talk about?"

"Not really, not after fifteen years. The first few were bad, but I don't miss it any more."

"Really?"

"Yeah, for the first few years not being able to spell things clean or Apparate was an unbelievable nuisance. Too much to deal with, actually."

"What did you do?"

Malfoy gave Harry a long, appraising look, then seemed to come to a decision and Harry could almost feel him dropping the last of his defensive attitude.

"What did I do," he half-smiled bitterly. "Oh, I would've done the Death Eaters proud. My father would've been horrified, but as he was no longer a going concern I didn't worry about him too much."

"Why, what did you do?"

"What didn't I do is a better question," he said ruefully. "Not a lot. Bit of a mess, really." He took a deep breath. "For starters, I got myself arrested a few times. That Quibbler story about the prison in Cornwall was probably true, imagine that."

"You - you went to prison?"

"Five convictions in six years, served two years in total." He took a sip of his coffee. "Not a part of my life I'd ever want to go back to."

"I'm sorry." Harry hesitated, then asked, "What for?"

"Nothing glamorous. Brawling, public drunkenness, drug dealing, breaking and entering - really, if you ever lose your magic, don't go into any criminal activity that requires stealth, I'm telling you, because you have no idea how to actually be stealthy. Especially if you're very, very drunk most of the time."

"My god," Harry said quietly. During those years, Harry had been making a name for himself at the Ministry and occasionally playing professional Quidditch. And bemoaning the mess that the war had made of his personal life.

"Yeah. Very dark time."

"I'm sorry."

"Stop saying that. It was years ago; it doesn't matter any more."

"How did you end up here?"

"I decided prison food was not up to Malfoy Manor or even Hogwarts standards, and did what my parole officer said, kept my nose clean so's not to have to eat it again."

"That easy? Attitude adjustment?"

"Well not quite. I had a few... pharmaceutical issues to get through as well."

"What?"

"I was a drug addict, Potter."

Harry gaped at him.

"You'll want to close your mouth," Malfoy suggested, grimly amused. "Yeah, drugs. Mostly alcohol, heroin, cocaine. It's the closest Muggles get to magic. Unfortunately, their hangover and sober-up spells and potions are pure shite."

Harry chuckled despite the fact that his mind was reeling from the image of Draco Malfoy, heir to a fortune, spoiled brat with the world at his feet, in prison and addicted to drugs.

"Anyhow I decided rehabilitation clinic cuisine also left a great deal to be desired, and finally got my act together over that too. I've been clean and sober... nine years, now? Well, brief relapse seven years ago, but I'd met Jilly by then, so it didn't last."

Harry looked at him questioningly.

"Said she'd toss me out if I got near any of that again. I didn't really want to find out if she meant it."

Harry blinked. "How long have you been with her?"

"Ten years next month," Malfoy smiled, and Harry couldn't really believe that the boy this man had been had managed to date a Muggle at all, let alone stay with her for ten years.

"All right, I'm sorry, you'll have to back up. Are you sure you used to be Draco Malfoy?" Harry finally said. Malfoy grinned at him, amused, so very different from the mocking smirk he used to wear like a second skin.

Harry shook his head and sipped his coffee, wondering what other surprises Malfoy's past held, and wondering whether he really wanted to know.

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"Mr. Potter, did you get that werewolf position paper done?"

"What? And it's Harry, please, Rowena."

"The werewolf paper - it's due today, the Subcommittee on Lycanthropic Legal Issues needs it for their next meeting-"

"Right. Yes, it's here..." Harry burrowed into his papers, finally finding the scroll and handing it to Rowena, a new hire in the department.

"What's that?" Rowena pointed to a small stack of Muggle-looking papers on Harry's desk.

"Muggle police forms."

"Really? What for?"

"One of the subcommittees - administrative things with Muggle law enforcement."

"Oh." Rowena went back to her perusal of Harry's werewolf paper. "My goodness, Mr. Potter. It would take me forever to write anything like this."

"I've had a bit of practice," Harry said dryly, and Rowena, too fresh out of Hogwarts to sense his weary cynicism, nodded enthusiastically.

"It shows, it really does. It's like you can almost write this kind of thing in your sleep."

"Almost."

"Would - would you mind if I show you my leprechaun reports? I keep thinking they don't look professional enough."

"Would you like me to turn them into Ministry-ese for you?"

"Oh that would be wonderful - thanks!!" and Rowena flitted down the hall.

Harry looked at the forms in front of him. He'd gone to the closest Muggle police station last night, used a combination of low-level Confundus and Obliviate spells, and asked the officer on duty how he could go about finding out the criminal record of a potential new employee.

Not that Malfoy had made a big deal out of that part of his past - in fact, he'd talked about it with little or no emotion, whether bitterness, regret or shame - but something in Harry just refused to take his word for it. Perhaps Malfoy had been up to other nefarious behaviour, with Death Eater splinter groups, and just made up the Muggle criminal past as a pity cover so that Harry wouldn't look too closely at those years. Perhaps he had been in the Muggle prison system, but only hiding there. Harry realized that if that were the case, there wasn't much that Malfoy's Muggle record could show that would help Harry determine that, but still wanted to at least make sure official records agreed with what Malfoy had said.

So he'd gone to the police station, picked up some forms, was going to fill them out, and would make sure he had a spell ready to convince the officer he talked to tomorrow that he had the "necessary credentials and authority" to get information about David Bergsen from their files.

And what would he do if he found that Malfoy hadn't been lying? That he'd really spent the first six years after the war battling drug addiction and the Muggle justice system?

What would that mean?

Harry looked at the pile of work on his large, elegant desk, in his large, elegant office, denoting prestige, authority and respect. All things that he had now and Malfoy didn't. How fair was it that Malfoy had to settle for the salary of a bookstore clerk and a small flat, while Harry had all of this, and a lovely, spacious home? Yes, Harry had risked and lost a lot in the war - friends and colleagues, peace of mind, and sleep not plagued by nightmares. But Malfoy had lost so much more - family, friends, money, social position, magic... his entire life.

Why was Harry here, and Malfoy there?

I'm assuming he's telling me the truth, Harry reminded himself. Which is not a safe assumption to make with any Malfoy, including Draco. They were very good at lying.

Of course, Harry was pretty good at it himself. Takes one to know one, he supposed idly, filling in the "Reason For Requesting Information" box on the police form with "Position applied for requires trustworthy employee, large amounts of money involved."

Their conversation last night had spanned various topics and had even become rather pleasant, Harry thought. Malfoy seemed interested in what was going on in the wizarding world - who was still alive, who was doing what, what Muggle things had leaked into their world, what Hogwarts was like these days, all sorts of things. Harry had tried to downplay some of the good parts; after all, there was no point in making Malfoy feel bad about what he couldn't have any more - but Malfoy didn't seem bothered by what he was missing. The only thing he hadn't seemed terribly eager to hear about was Quidditch, which Harry glossed over fairly quickly.

So they'd talked. They'd talked for a long time, not exactly like old friends, but like friendly acquaintances. Malfoy had finally looked at his watch and commented that he needed to get home and get dinner started, and hadn't seemed put out when Harry mentioned that he might drop by again.

"Sure, sounds good. Nice talking to you, Potter," he'd said, and then he'd headed out.

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"Malfoy, why did you leave the Death Eaters?" Harry asked three days later, sipping his coffee casually.

Malfoy pressed his lips together. "I wondered when that would come up."

"It's come up."

"Yeah."

Harry waited.

"Are you going to answer?"

"You know... it's not really - there wasn't really any one reason," Malfoy said evasively.

"There were people who never believed you really switched sides, you know."

"I know."

"You didn't give a reason, at the time, did you?"

"I did. Said Voldemort struck me as a crackpot who would be better suited to training cats to fly in diamond formation than leading wizarding society."

"True enough," Harry chuckled. "So, what brought you to that realization?"

"Potter, you know what the man was like. He was a complete lunatic."

"But surely you must have known that before-"

"Before I took the Mark myself?" Malfoy finished for him, and Harry observed once more how Malfoy's eyes never strayed down to his forearm, even once. "I was sixteen. My father had made every decision for me since the day I was born, and I looked up to him and believed everything he said," he shook his head, his eyes darkened. "He told me our world was in danger of dying because of people like Hermione Granger, polluting our blood and our culture, bringing their dangerous ideas, exposing us to Muggles. And Voldemort was the one leader who was willing to protect us from our own foolishness. That's powerful stuff for any child to grow up with."

"If it was so powerful, how did you end up rejecting it?"

"He was insane. The things he did and said - the, the way people acted under him, the way he brought people like my father to their knees... it was terrifying."

"You didn't turn, though, for a long time. You were an active Death Eater, by your own admission, for four years."

"Yeah."

"It took four years to realize that Voldemort was crazy?"

"No. It took four years to act on the realization."

"Pansy Parkinson seemed to think there was more to it. It sounded like something specific changed your mind."

Malfoy suddenly seemed very interested in the gouge patterns on the table before them. "Yeah."

"She also said that you both rejected Voldemort without necessarily embracing the other side."

"Yeah."

"Care to explain that?"

Malfoy idly followed a small scratch mark with his finger, up and down a couple of times. "No."

Harry stared at Malfoy, still disinterestedly tracing the small gouge, and had the distinct impression that Malfoy was trying to call his bluff. If Harry really was here representing the Ministry, would he allow Malfoy to just decline to answer something as vital as his reason for defecting?

He looked down and stirred his coffee. If he backed off, would Malfoy answer anything else, or just walk out? And if he pushed, would Malfoy answer anything else, or just walk out?

He finished stirring his coffee and cleared his throat. "All right, then, answer me this one, because nobody else seems to know: what made you step out that night, and face down Zabini?"

Malfoy frowned curiously. "Why's that important?"

"Celsus and Pansy both seemed to think you knew what would happen if you did. Why would you risk yourself like that?"

Malfoy scowled. "Do you know how old Celsus' children were, Potter? Five, three, and one. Ginevra Grisenwold was pregnant with her second. And Gimbol Smith had a wife in St. Mungo's, for god's sake. And not one of them could so much as cast a Patronus - I was practically the only semi-competent combat-trained wizard in that team. Most of them were only there because we needed the bodies so badly by that point in time and besides, we were only supposed to be medical back-up. We weren't even supposed to be in combat. Nobody expected Zabini's group to appear where we were." Malfoy shook his head. "If I hadn't stopped him, he would've swept right through and torn the first team to pieces. And a lot more people would've died."

Harry realized his own fingers were white on the edge of his cup. He knew all of this. He knew it. But it was different hearing it straight from Malfoy, and he felt ashamed of his doubts. Even more ashamed to realize that he still had doubts, despite everything. That he was still looking at Malfoy's indignation for signs that it was all bluff.

Bluff for what? Obviously the curse had been permanent. Obviously he hadn't been working with Zabini. Right?

"Besides, I knew Zabini," Malfoy said grimly. "Grew up with him. I knew what he could and couldn't do, better than anybody else there. There wasn't anybody else who could've delayed him long enough for the first team to show up."

"You don't know that," Harry pointed out. "You could've waited to see whether anybody else in your team could take him down."

"Yeah. And then explain my waiting to Celsus' children, or Gimbol's widow." He shook his head. "I had the abilities we needed, and I didn't have any real reason not to step forward. I didn't have a family or children or a home - or anything else left to lose. I'd already lost all of that in the bloody war."

"You still had Pansy."

Malfoy smiled humourlessly. "We were mostly just friends. I knew if Zabini killed me, I wouldn't be sorely missed by anybody. A big part of me even figured it might not be a bad thing."

Harry frowned.

Malfoy's gaze dropped to his coffee cup. "It was war, Potter, remember? It didn't just take lives. It took away the will to live. I didn't have much left by the end," he said curtly. "Surely you'd seen that kind of thing in others at the time. From what I heard, you were pretty close to that point yourself."

Harry swallowed hard. Yes, he had been. He hadn't known it was that obvious. But the pain and the losses and the dead and near-dead had brought him to the edge of despair near the end. His own behaviour during the final battle with Voldemort had had far less to do with heroism and more to do with hopeless recklessness than he liked to admit, even now.

"Did Zabini know you'd turned?" Harry asked, backing away from a topic that had no right to still feel so raw so many years later.

"I think so. He had no idea I'd be there, but I think he knew I'd gone over. That was another slight advantage I had over the others in my team: just my identity was enough to rattle Zabini." He took a sip of his coffee. "Although not as much as you'd think. The pureblood and Slytherin and Durmstrang lot used to joke amongst ourselves, 'If you don't like your cousin's political allegiance, just wait another five minutes.'" He shook his head ruefully. "Blaise's own brother had switched allegiance twice. And did it again, before the war ended. So I doubt I shocked Blaise too badly."

"Blaise's brother? I didn't know he had one."

"Andrew Zabini, two years younger than Blaise. Went to Durmstrang. Their parents wanted as many political connections as they could make." Malfoy smiled grimly. "There was a man who blew wherever the wind told him. Not a principled bone in his body. He would've changed his allegiance for thirty Galleons by the end."

"You knew him, I take it."

"Yeah. One of the stupidest and cruellest people I ever met. And I was a Death Eater; that's saying quite a bit."

"Didn't he end up in Azkaban?"

"No. Should've. He was acquitted of all charges in the end. And if the Wizengamot had any clue of what else he got up to that he was never charged for, they would've tracked down a Dementor just to hand Andrew over to him. You should've seen him after he won his case. Bloody arrogant git. You'd think he'd just been declared Supreme Mugwump instead of acquitted because the witnesses to his crimes had wound up mysteriously dead."

Harry nodded, vaguely remembering an Andrew Zabini being acquitted of something. He'd had no idea he and Blaise were that closely related; he'd figured him for a third cousin or something. There were so many trials at the end of the war, though, that nobody could've kept track of all of them.

"Did Pansy or her sister keep in touch with people on the other side?"

"Oh yeah, she and Juniper had a cousin, Francis, who was a Death Eater, though a very minor one in the power scheme."

"Francis Carstairs?" Harry dredged up the name from the depths of his memory.

"Yeah, that was him."

"I think he died in Azkaban, eventually."

"Doesn't surprise me. Bloody miserable place."

"Did you ever go there?"

"Yeah, visited my father a few times. I swear every time I was in a Muggle prison I'd listen to the other blokes complain about it and think they were lucky they didn't know how good we had it."

Harry had no idea what to say to that. He'd received the information from the police; 'David Bergsen' had indeed spent six years in and out of prison, following his father's footsteps with a little less flair, arrested for theft and drug dealing and a host of other minor offences. All while Harry himself had been steadily climbing at the Ministry.

"Well, now that we've bloody well depressed the hell out of this conversation," Malfoy said with forced cheer, "Go back to what you were telling me about computers. They're really using them?"

Harry grabbed the topic change gratefully. "Yeah, not as much as Muggles, but they're getting fairly popular among the younger set."

"And the older ones are convinced it's the end of wizarding as they know it."

"Of course."

"And the young ones keep pointing out how they're changing the things so they're unrecognizable to Muggles."

"Of course."

"How?"

"You'd have to grab one of the youngsters and ask them. One of my assistants, Rowena, practically has hers trained to sit up and beg. I'm still scared of the bloody things."

"The books I gave you not helping?"

"Yeah, they do, but it's still really foreign. Learning to transform rats into water goblets wasn't this hard."

Malfoy laughed. "I know, I was always convinced they were evil. Literally. Jilly nearly had fits trying to get me to learn how to use them."

Harry laughed too, but his laughter sounded hollow to him, as did the rest of the conversation as he and Malfoy traded tales of computing incompetence. Like it was all happening to a person sitting in a room far away. Because unbidden, Harry's memory had provided him with another part of the Andrew Zabini story: Hermione had told him about Zabini's acquittal at Harry's twenty-third birthday party. July 31. Which was about three months after Malfoy claimed to have left Pansy Parkinson's house and gone Muggle for good.