Black Sheep

Ginny and her father were alone in the small room in the hospital wing. Mrs Weasley had left with Hermione and Harry, obviously to talk out of Ginny's hearing. Ginny was still outwardly calm, thanks to Pomfrey's potions, but that didn't mean that her mind had paused in its dangerous calculations for even a moment. Now she leaned toward her father slightly, holding out a frail, white hand.

"Dad," she said in a small, lost voice. As she'd expected, he caught her hand in his own, patting it gently.

"You should just try to rest now, Ginny," he said hoarsely. "Everything will seem better once you've rested. I'm sure of it."

But he didn't look sure and he had provided Ginny with just the opening that she'd been hoping for. She fell back against the pillow tiredly and confessed, "But I can't, Dad. Not when I know that Harry could be somewhere - this very moment - alone with that Malfoy." Her deep brown eyes slid back to him, full of worry. "You know that he was a Death Eater."

"Well, yes." Arthur spoke reluctantly, lowering himself to sit on the edge of her bed. "But he was cleared by the Ministry. And they surely had their reasons."

Her eyes seemed to harden for a moment, but then they were soft and limpid again and Arthur told himself that it was just his imagination. Then his daughter squeezed his hand and said earnestly, "You must know something. You must have heard... at work... at the Ministry. About why they let him go." Arthur frowned and Ginny quickly continued, "If only I knew, then I wouldn't have to worry so much about Harry." She let her eyes fall shut tiredly. "Then I could finally rest."

Arthur Weasley looked down at his only daughter, looking so weak and ill. He told her softly, "I really don't know - it wasn't my department." He watched as first one and then another tear slowly leaked from under her thin crepe-like lids. He grimaced. "I've only ever heard rumours."

Her eyes opened slowly, framed by thick lashes that were glistening with tears. "Rumours?"

"Yes, there were rumours." He watched her, feeling uncomfortable. "Are you sure you want to talk about this now?"

She flinched and looked away. "Oh, Dad," she whispered, "I'm just so tired of worrying and feeling all alone. If there were anything that could put my mind at ease..."

Mr Weasley sighed. "Well, what people were saying at the Ministry was that Malfoy was let free because he was no longer a threat to public security. The rumour was that he had lost all of his magic - that he was no more than a squib."

Ginny immediately remembered that when she had pulled her wand on the Death Eater the night before, he had been the only one not to pull a wand on her in return. A knowing smile curved her pale lips into something beautiful and dangerous. "Thanks, Dad. I think I can rest now."

Harry stood next to Hermione, watching Mrs Weasley head back into the hospital wing to talk with Madame Pomfrey again. She looked so sad and small, he thought, with her frumpy robes and frazzled, greying hair. He thought for the first time in a long while of his own mother, wondering how she would have handled something like this. In the end, though, it was just empty speculation; he knew next to nothing about his mother, after all.

He could feel Hermione looking at him and he said aloud, "I think I'll head back down to the vault."

"Would you like me to come?" she asked mildly.

"Er," he paused, as he seriously considered it, "I think not." He gave her a tight smile. "But I'm sure we'll need your help later."

Her eyebrows rose speculatively, but she didn't say anything more than: "Well, just come find me if you need anything. I'll probably be here with the Weasleys for some time."

Harry winced slightly, feeling as if he should stick around, as well. But he couldn't keep his mind from wandering back to Malfoy, imagining the blond bent over a pile of texts alone in that gloomy cavern, discovering the greatest secret of his life. Harry had no idea what he would say to him, but he did know that he wanted to be there.

He hurried from the hospital wing, striding quickly through the halls. He loped past students on their way to Hogsmeade or out onto the grounds. By the time he arrived back at the entrance to the library, he was practically running. He yanked open the heavy oak door and then he slammed straight into the one person he'd wanted to see.

Malfoy stumbled backwards, his books scattering as he tried to break his fall. "Shit, Potter!" he exclaimed, hastily picking up the books before Madam Pince might notice just how they were treating the ancient manuscripts that she had entrusted to them so reluctantly. "Where's the bloody fire?"

Despite his initial shocked anger, though, he was already grinning again by the time Harry helped him to his feet. He purposefully leaned into Harry, under the pretext of getting his balance, and said softly, "Are you that eager for another go?"

He winked suggestively and Harry found that, despite all of his misgivings and despite all of his fears, he still wanted nothing more than to throw himself on the man in front of him. Was this lust? Had he fallen in lust with Draco Malfoy?

The thought made him smile and he propelled Draco out of the library and away from Pince's watchful eyes. He had chosen to ignore Draco's typically laden comment and asked innocently, "So where are we going?"

"Well, most people opt for someplace private; bedrooms are a first choice," Draco said, continuing with his innuendos, "but if you can handle the danger of possibly getting caught..." Without even appearing to check for witnesses, Draco snaked out his free arm and pulled Harry sharply against him, kissing the surprised man so deep and hard that Harry couldn't help sagging against him weakly. When Draco finally pulled back, he blinked dazedly. Draco could hardly blame him, since all of Harry's blood had quite obviously rushed from his brain to other parts of his anatomy. And Draco was finding himself equally aroused by the teasing he himself had started, especially when Harry said simply, "There's a hidden tunnel just down this hall."

Draco's grey eyes had gone dark. "That'll do."

When they emerged back into the main hall, a good half an hour later and straightening their clothes surreptitiously, Harry asked again, "So, really, where are we going?"

Draco raised his eyebrows, looking at Harry from beneath his wildly mussed hair. "You just came and you already want to go again?"

Harry looked at him: Draco, with his shirt hanging half open, exposing the sharp lines of his collarbones and the throbbing pulse in his pale neck, with his fine hair hanging into his dilated eyes, with his belt still undone around his narrow waist. Neither needed to say another word.

This time they didn't even make it out of the hidden corridor. In the musty dark behind a portrait of some magical theoretician or another, they lay limply and trying to catch their respective breaths. Draco was leaning against the rough wall, which dug into his bare back uncomfortably. But he didn't care enough yet to move and dislodge Harry, who was sprawled across his lap, collapsed bonelessly against his sweaty chest. He dropped a kiss into the black wilds of Harry's hair, then leaned down enough to nibble at the man's salty neck.

Harry moaned weakly, unable to make any other response just yet. Draco laughed softly and Harry savoured the sound of that hoarse laugh and the feel of it against him. He managed to part his lips and ask, "So wha' d'you fin' out?" Hmm. That hadn't worked quite as well as he'd expected.

Draco laughed again, wrapping his arms around Harry and squeezing him until he let out a little distressed noise. "I'm still not sure. But there are a number of mentions in this text of theories on magic transference. How we transfer magic to objects when we enchant them, or to people when we curse them. Theories on how magic moves from one being to another. I think this must have been what Voldemort was on to, if he was really the one to create the curse." He stared into the dark. "Even that spell that you said Granger used to wipe the Horcruxes... if we could just understand the theory, if we could create a charm to oppose it..."

Harry asked in a clear voice this time, "Do you really think it's possible?"

"I don't know that it's possible for me to become a 'normal' wizard again. But I think... I think it might just be possible that I could somehow gather magic in magical environments - like a sort of magnet for magic - enough to use that power as my own." He sighed, his breath ruffling Harry's damp hair. "It means I would also be limited by my environment and that I could only do magic in very magical places, but... it would be something."

"That's what you want, then," Harry mused almost inaudibly. Then he asked in a normal tone, "What would you do then? Go live in Hogsmeade or Diagon Alley or someplace, and be a wizard?" He could feel Draco go still. It took the man several moments to respond.

"I'm not entirely sure," Draco said slowly. "I don't know that I could live anywhere in Wizarding Britain, anyway, without having to dodge curses every day." He frowned. He'd simply been consumed with the puzzle, with finding the right pieces and making them fit. He hadn't given much thought to what he would do with himself as a (more or less) proper wizard again. He'd always unconsciously imagined his life before the war: living in the manor or at Hogwarts, playing Quidditch and experimenting with magic just because he could.

Was he really just getting his powers back so that he could tweak spells and play a bit of pick-up Quidditch? Though it would be brilliant to fly against Harry again.

He grinned a bit as he whispered into Harry's ear, "The first thing I'd do is challenge you to a Quidditch match. Seeker on Seeker. Though we're both nearly a decade out of practice."

Harry couldn't help smiling to himself at the thought of facing Draco Malfoy across a Quidditch pitch again. Flying against him. With him. His ill-feelings about Malfoy regaining his powers weren't gone but even he had to admit that the idea made his heart pound. As did imagining his grown-up Malfoy in those emerald Quidditch robes.

Draco felt a faint stirring where Harry was lying pressed against his stomach, and he whispered, interspersed with nipping kisses, into that ear, "Just what kind of Quidditch are you picturing, Potter?"

"Would you like me to describe it to you?" Harry asked, knowing exactly what it would do to the blond.

Draco groaned. "I would love for you to," he said, but then he continued ruefully, "but we have to get up from this rough stone or my arse is going to look as cratered as the moon."

Harry laughed and they dragged themselves up, gathering their clothes in the nearly complete dark of the tunnel. They dressed clumsily, and then Draco picked up his three books and Harry checked his pockets for his wand, and they sneaked out into the hall again.

They had just swung the portrait shut when a group of students came out of the library, clamouring for lunch. Overhearing the teenagers' conversation, they realised at nearly the exact same time that they were absolutely ravenous.

"Kitchens?" Harry suggested, but then he remembered Dobby and pulled a face.

Draco was frowning for very similar reasons. He called out sharply, "Merry!" Harry looked at him in surprise and he barked, "Merry, now!"

"Are you really-"

Harry didn't even have time to finish his question before the spiteful-looking old house elf appeared with a sharp crack. "Master?" he croaked resentfully.

As usual, Malfoy ignored that seething hatred easily and he was rubbing his hands together briskly. "Brilliant. Merry, I'd like a lunch to be delivered to our rooms immediately. That's all."

He waved his hand dismissively and the house elf disappeared with barely a bow.

"But," Harry fairly spluttered, "but - but there's a whole castle full of house elves right here!"

Draco shrugged and led the way back to the professors' wing, asking easily, "Shall we see what we can make of these books then?"

Harry had little choice but to ignore Draco's frivolity; arguing wouldn't change him a bit, after all. So they made it back to their rooms to find a spread of cold cuts, salads, finger foods, and tureens of steaming soups and stews. "Malfoy!" Harry couldn't help exclaiming, "you could feed half the school with this!"

"Don't be silly," Draco said calmly, as he plucked a cluster of grapes from a bowl of fruit. "This would barely feed a dozen people."

Harry watched him throwing grapes into his mouth. "Yes, but there's only two of us."

"Invite your friend Granger over then." Draco bit into another grape and licked the juice from his lips, before biting his lower lip suggestively. "You could even invite your girlfriend, Marianthi."

Harry pulled a disgusted face and as he sat down at the small desk, pulling a piece of parchment towards himself, he muttered, "I can't believe you're still bringing her up. How many times do you have to sleep with a bloke before you stop taking the piss out of him?"

Draco came and leaned over Harry at the desk. He took the man's surprised face in his hands and looked at him seriously, examining those green eyes. Then he said, softly and sincerely, "I promise you now, Harry I'm-a-wanker-Scarface Potter, that I will never stop taking the piss out of you." Then he was off, sniggering and tossing grapes up in the air and trying to catch them with his mouth.

Harry didn't react at all for a long moment, and then his cheeks filled with a rush of hot blood. Turning his flushed face back to the parchment in front of him, he mumbled in embarrassment, "And my name is not 'I'm-a-wanker-Scarface.' Who would give their child a name like that? Type of fools who name a kid Draco, that's who..."

Draco cut across his grumbles by clearly enunciating, "Harry. James. Potter." When Harry spun around to goggle at him in shock, Draco winked knowingly.

Silenced, Harry quickly scribbled out a note to Hermione, inviting her to their late lunch. He folded it as he walked to the door. Then he opened the door to the hallway, gave the note a quick tap with his wand, and it was off to find Hermione, fluttering down the halls of Hogwarts on its paper wings.

Students watched it go by them in surprised amusement, trying to grab at it or even spell it down. But Harry's charm was strong and the frail paper bird flitted past their grasping hands and danced out of the path of their spells. A number of students, with nothing better to do on a Saturday afternoon, started following it, wanting to know who the mysterious note was from and who it was for. When it found Hermione in the hall outside of the hospital wing and landed in the hands she held out in surprise, the small crowd of students came stumbling to a stop in front of her.

She frowned at them disapprovingly and waved them away. "This is the hospital wing, not a hang out for bored students."

"But what's that charm?" a persistent fifth year Ravenclaw asked.

"Miss Miggins," Hermione said in a final tone, "if you would really like to know, then I suggest you take it up with our guests, Messrs Potter and Malfoy."

With no small amount of disappointed grumbling, the students dispersed and Hermione had the chance to unfold her unexpected note. She didn't know when Harry had picked up the spell but she was sure it had come from Malfoy; it had always been his trademark at Hogwarts and one that no one else had ever figured out. As expected, the writing on the parchment was Harry's angular scrawl:

Hermione -

Malfoy did something stupid as usual and the house elves have delivered a bloody feast to our rooms. Care for a late lunch? Be warned, though: if you start talking about tremendously dull magical theory, you'll be left on your own to deal with Malfoy, because I'll have passed out from the boredom.

-H.

Hermione held the note in one hand, slapping it against the opposite palm absently. She'd just left the elder Weasleys for some private time, and she was hungry, after all. She set out in the direction of the staff quarters, wondering what a meal alone with Draco and Harry would be like. Not boring, she'd hazard to guess.

When the two of them were alone together, they were like completely different people. She still wondered just what was real and what was an act. Was Malfoy truly witty and wry, or was he really still cruel and manipulative? Had Harry ever really been open and trusting, or had he always been as guarded as he seemed now? Still, she knew that she got to see him more at ease than anyone else did. Even if it was only thanks to Malfoy's presence and influence.

No, they were never boring. Baffling, yes - but never boring.

She arrived at the history rooms and rapped on the door smartly. There were several moments of busy silence and just when she was about to knock again, she heard Draco's laughing voice: "The door's open."

Still pondering that amused tone, she opened the door to find Harry struggling back into his shirt, while Malfoy was half-reclining on the couch with a smug grin. His faced was slightly flushed, but otherwise he seemed to be in a much better state than poor Harry.

As the glimpse of Harry's pale, clear skin disappeared beneath his green jumper, Hermione noted mildly, "Oh, you got the ink remover."

Draco waggled his restored eyebrows, which she also noticed for the first time. He smirked and said, "Madame Pomfrey's cupboards are ever so well stocked." He was clearly implying that they had raided the mediwitch's cupboards, but Hermione didn't rise to the bait. If Malfoy expected her to be shocked by that when she herself had stolen from Snape's cupboards when she was only twelve, he still had a lot to learn about Gryffindors.

She sat down at the opposite end of the couch and picked up a slice of cold lamb delicately, asking, "So research is going well?" She nibbled at the lamb, then started looking around the laden table for condiments.

Harry made a pained noise, knowing he'd never be able to stop the two of them from discussions of the properties of magic, a topic which they somehow found endlessly fascinating, while he found it to be singularly impenetrable. "There you go again," he moaned disparagingly. Lunch hadn't even started yet - or, at least, he for one hadn't got anything to eat yet - and already theory had reared its ugly, soporific head.

"Fine," Hermione said perfunctorily, "we'll talk about something else." She was building herself a sandwich from the cold lamb and thickly-sliced dark bread. She said conversationally, "I see that your fears about Malfoy getting his magic back haven't stopped you from snogging every chance you get."

Draco's piercing grey eyes shot to Harry, who was glaring at Hermione furiously. He watched the vein pulsing frantically in the man's temple as he hissed at his old friend, "What are you talking about, Hermione?"

She was giving him an unimpressed look and Draco, watching this interplay, said to her admiringly, "You've got a bit of Slytherin in you, haven't you, Granger?"

She raised her eyebrows and retorted, "Not nearly as much as Harry's had in him, in the past twenty-four hours."

There was a choking noise, and Harry and Hermione turned in surprise to find it coming from Draco. He had just attempted to swallow a grape when that wholly unexpected and entirely filthy comment had come out of Hermione Granger's mouth.

"Just when," he asked appreciatively, and a bit hoarsely, "did you get so interesting, Granger?"

She demurred. "Must have been some time between when you stopped being a pointy-faced ferret and when you started bumming my best friend."

Harry swallowed hard. "Theory!" he exclaimed, grabbing an apple from the fruit bowl. "Let's talk about theory, shall we?"

Ginny stood at the wide window of the Owlery later that afternoon, shivering slightly in the cold air. It hadn't been hard to get out of the hospital wing; no one had imagined that she would go anywhere. Now she watched her note being carried across the darkening sky by one of the school's owls and disappearing into the dark. Her old friend Dean would find it on his desk on Monday morning, when he showed up to work in the Aurors' offices. She smiled and turned to carefully descend the narrow stairs that encircled the Owlery. Soon everything would be right again.