Malfoy, P.I.

I was feeling vaguely guilty about the previous night’s events and I didn’t like the feeling. I slugged back a shot or two of bourbon and left the apartment. I stopped at the store on my way to work and got some white tulips for Jennifer, to make up for my snapping at her the day before. She was in my office, watching the television in the corner. I rarely watched the news—if I want murder and mayhem I can take a walk down the street or wait until it walks into my office—but Jennifer was a news junkie. She turned as I walked in. “Oh, Draco, I’m so sorry.” I handed her the tulips. “No, I’m sorry. I was an asshole yesterday. We still friends?”

“Thank you… they’re gorgeous.” She smiled at me but then her dark eyes grew serious. “You haven’t heard?”

“Heard?”

She waved a hand at the TV. “Debbie Harrison… didn’t you say you knew her?”

I’d known her quite intimately the night before. “Yes. Why?”

“She… she was found dead in her home this morning. Strangled.”

My vision swam and I swayed on my feet. Jennifer’s voice was far and wee.

Debbie. Dead. The songbird had been silenced.

“Draco!” I felt Jennifer leading me to the couch and sitting me on it. I was dimly aware that her hands were warm, and that she was shaking, but I was riveted to the picture on the television. A black body bag was being wheeled out of her apartment. I wondered who her pallbearers would be. Cold, black tendrils unfurled inside me.

Debbie. I closed my eyes and laid my head back on the couch, remembering her touch in the cool blue neon of her room. Jennifer was talking to me but none of it made any sense. I was too tired to answer her.

Time passed, and I felt someone sitting on the couch beside me.

“Draco?” I opened my eyes. Potter was there, his hand on my arm, green eyes worried. Jennifer stood behind him.

I started to answer him, but he frowned and stood up, pulling me with him. “Come on.”

I went obediently, still too stunned to react. He said something to Jennifer, who nodded, and held the door open as he led me downstairs and out to his car. I heard Potter fumbling with his keys while I stood blinking in the harsh sunlight. It must have been around noon, for the sun cast no shadows. He got the door open and helped me in, then shut it and got in on his side. I looked at him and my face must have begged the question.

“I’m taking you home. You’re in no condition to work today.”

I nodded and closed my eyes. I leaned back on the seat. The sunlight reminded me of the day I buried my mother. It had been a sunny day as well, one of those clear, bright California days, with no shadows and no rain to blur the sharp edges of my grief as I watched her casket being lowered into the ground.

Faces came and went out of my memory, until Potter’s voice stopped me. I opened my eyes.

We were parked in his garage. He said something else to me and got out of the car, then came around to my side. I got out as well.

“This is your house.” Despite my fog, my powers of observation were as keen as ever.

He nodded. “You shouldn’t be alone right now. Let’s get you something to eat.”

I made a noise of assent and followed him up to his kitchen. Ginger came over to me, tail wagging. Potter sat me down in the den, Ginger following. She put her head in my lap, looking up at me. I wondered if Debbie had ever had a dog, and I started to ask Potter what he thought, but he was gone. I looked down at Ginger.

“Pretty girl,” I whispered, petting her. Somewhere deep inside me, a wave of emotion rose as she looked at me trustingly, reminding of someone long ago, but I ruthlessly crushed it with the ease of long practice. I had a case to solve and sitting around feeling sorry for myself wasn’t going to do the job. I stood up but Potter came in the room, carrying a tray, and pushed me gently back down. I tried to resist but it was all too much effort. Nothing made any sense any more and I was too tired to try to figure it out.

*****

I woke up in a strange room. For a moment I panicked, remembering Tom’s bed, but as I looked around, I realized I was on Potter’s bed. Someone had thrown a quilt over me, and Ginger was curled up beside me. Potter himself was nowhere to be seen and the room was dark. I blinked and looked at the clock. 8:32. I sat up.

“Did you have a nice nap?” I jumped. Potter’s voice came from the same chair I’d sat in as I watched him sleep, ages ago.

“I… yeah. What… what am I doing here?”

“I gave you something to help you sleep. You were in shock. Do you feel better?”

I stretched and took a mental inventory, and yes, things at least made sense. “I do, actually. How long have I been asleep?”

Potter’s voice was amused. “About seven hours.”

“Did you… how long have you been sitting there?”

“About seven hours.” Slowly my eyes grew accustomed to the dark and I could see him sitting there. I could just make out his facial features. He must have been able to see mine, too, because he laughed. “I just came in here a few minutes ago to check on you. I haven’t been watching you sleep.”

“Good.” I meant it to sound relieved, but it came out sounding churlish.

“Want a drink?”

Did blondes dye their roots dark? Of course I wanted a drink. Strike that. I needed a drink. I pushed the quilt aside and got up. Some little part of my brain thought how nice it would be if Potter joined me on the bed, but I shut that little voice up real quick and followed him down to the living room. He went to the wet bar, fixing two drinks and handing me one. I hastily gulped half of it down, Potter watching silently.

“I’ll go start dinner, if you’re hungry.”

“Dinner? Oh. I… yeah. I am, actually.” I tried to hide my surprise and regain command of the English language. He nodded and went up the stairs to the kitchen, dressed in shorts and a blue t-shirt. Ginger came and snuffled against my hand. I looked out at the pool, and pretty soon the smell of dinner filled the house.

It felt like home.

I thought of Debbie, and wondered when her funeral would be. I realized that I really didn’t know anything about her, or her life, or what her dreams had been, or if she’d ever realized any of them. I finished my drink.

Potter came up behind me. “Dinner’s almost ready. Are you all right?” I nodded, but I could see his reflection in the glass, like a spectre of those I’d loved and lost, and I could see that he wasn’t convinced. I turned.

“What do you think happens when you die?”

He wasn’t prepared for that one, but he tried. “I… I think we go someplace better. I don’t know if it’s heaven or not, but I think it’s a good place. Better than what we’re given here on earth.” He paused. “I hope so, anyway.”

Oh God. He was facing the very real prospect of death himself and I hadn’t been thinking. Yeah. I’m a smart detective. I’m just clueless in matters of the heart. “Oh… I’m sorry. I didn’t mean… to…”

He smiled. “It’s okay, Draco. Really.”

My stomach gave a funny little lurch as he said my name, and then, just to prove that this was all real, I turned around and reached out for him. He came to me, quite willingly. We kissed and something flowed through me and there was more green fire. His lips were sliding down my neck and I was home.

He pulled away, but I moaned and reached for him again. He hesitated, looking in my eyes, and whatever he saw there must have answered his question. We kissed again, both of us exploring the other, and his hands were nimble as they slid under my shirt. I gasped and pulled his shirt off, and he murmured something, pulling me towards the stairs. We stumbled up the steps, stopping in the hallway to pull my tie off, and we kissed again as we went up the stairs and we both fell on his bed, still kissing, and then he moved down, and his mouth was on me and I must have called out his name. He looked up at me, smiling, and oh, yes, his mouth was talented. I arched my hips and my whole universe contracted down to him as I shuddered and gasped and cried out his name, again and again. He moved over me then, kissing me, and we moved into one another, moving together in the stillness of the summer night.

*****

“Harry.”

He shifted against me. “Mm?”

“I think you burned dinner.”

He laughed, and the sound comforted me. The shadows around me receded. “It should be fine. I put everything on low.”

I looked at him, resting beside me. “Low? As in, you knew it was going to be unattended for some length of time?”

“Always the detective, aren’t you?”

“That is what you’re paying me for. The sex is a bonus.”

He sat up and kissed me quickly. In the light from the terrace outside his window, I could see his smile. “Yes. But you should know that I lured you here, drugged you, and had my wicked way with you.”

“You used me in my moment of weakness.”

He looked down. “I’m a bad, bad boy.”

“I might have to punish you.”

“After dinner, okay? Let me get my strength back. Oh. And here.” He put an envelope in my hand. I turned on the light, both of us wincing. My eyes finally adjusted and I pulled the contents out. It was an airline ticket, and what looked like a hotel confirmation sheet. I glanced at the ticket. Los Angeles to London…

“First class?”

He shrugged. “It’s a long flight. Might as well be comfortable. You can get massages, I hear.”

I glanced at the other sheet of paper. “The Beaufort Hotel?”

“It’s a small hotel, near Westminster, but I think you’ll like it. Very elegant.”

I started to protest but he stopped me with a kiss. “I can afford it. Just let me do this for you, okay?”

Well, the man had a point. Who was I to argue? My last memory of England was of sitting in a taxi, watching the city recede into the distance as my mother gripped my arm, her face determined and resolute. I had no idea what she was running from. But we all run from something. I learned that long ago.

“Gonna have to go find something to read on the flight. Got any porn?”

He laughed, but then his face grew serious. With a light finger, he traced the marks on my neck. “Will you tell me who did this?” Persistent. Knowing his past now, I see that it was his persistence that kept him alive through events that by all rights should have killed him. I thought I’d seen darkness but Harry, too, had seen his share. He’d earned every one of his gray hairs.

I stroked his hair idly. “I… I’d really rather not say. It’s not something I’m very proud of. Call it a huge mistake.” Another one to add to a very long list.

“All right,” he said softly. “Hungry?”

I was, actually. He smiled and got out of bed, pulling on a pair of green boxers. He kissed me quickly, but his thoughts were elsewhere. I got out of bed reluctantly and pulled on my trousers, wandering out on his terrace. Beyond the terrace, smog covered the valley. The mean streets and the life I’d come to know were shrouded in the blackness of a hired assassin’s heart. I stood there, edgy, not liking the feeling, and finally went back into the house. Harry was in the kitchen.

“What’s for dinner?”

He turned. “I heated up some lasagna. Bread and salad’s on the table. What do you want to drink?”

I figured he’d frown on my usual three-bourbon dinner. “Water’s good.”

“Right.” He pointed at a cabinet. “Glasses are in there.”

I shuddered. Something had changed between us. I was marked by Tom himself, and now his presence permeated the room. The easy familiarity was gone and the house felt strange to me once again. I clung to the memory of Harry’s arms, but it was fading, replaced by Tom’s amused blue eyes. I was alone again with the shadows.

We ate in relative silence. Dinner was very good, and we made desultory efforts at small talk. I stared at my plate mostly, angry with myself for some reason I couldn’t quite put my finger on. I ached for a glass of bourbon. The silence between us grew, and finally I fell prey to my own tactics. I jumped in, desperate to bridge the growing distance between us.

I gave it to him straight. No chaser. “It was Tom.”

He looked up. “Tom?” His face was blank. He knew exactly what I was talking about. Tom had done the same to him. I went into detective mode.

“I woke up in his bed, with twelve hours gone from my memory. Last thing I remember is going to Callahan’s and mulling over the case. I woke up beside him the next morning. I don’t know what we did, although I have a pretty good idea, and try as I can, I can’t recall a thing. It wasn’t a blackout, either. I wasn’t hung over.”

Green Eyes looked at me, anger and sadness battling in his eyes, but for some reason I understood that it wasn’t directed at me. “He isn’t what he seems. I… recognize his work. I’m sorry that it happened to you.” He glanced at the bruise on my left forearm and his eyes flickered.

I remembered something Debbie had told me the night before, and thinking of Debbie sent a hot, sharp spike of pain through me. “What do you know about his background?”

“Well, seems to me…” Harry paused then and his gaze unfocused as he sifted through memories. “I believe he’s an orphan.”

That was something. If he’d been raised in an orphanage, surely there would be a record of him.

“Anything else?” I asked. Harry thought more, then slammed his hand on the table violently. The sound was sharp, like a gunshot, and Ginger and I jumped.

“It isn’t… this isn’t… when I try to remember…” He stood up, pacing and running a hand through his hair.

“Hey, take it easy, Harry.” I got up and put a hand on his shoulder but he wrenched away and went down into the living room. I watched, uncertain what to do. Out of habit, I scanned the room for something to use as a weapon. Just in case. He came back with a blue vase.
”I got this vase in Southeast Asia. The color is called celadon. Do you know how they make the vase this color?”

I shook my head, wary. Art lessons didn’t really seem called for here but I wasn’t about to point that out.

“They use thin layers of many, many colors. Over and over. Colors on top of colors and if you look at the vase, see, you can see hints of all the colors used. That method gives it a richness and a depth that wouldn’t be there if they simply painted it one color.”

“Okay,” I said neutrally. He was going somewhere with this but I couldn’t for the life of me figure out where.

“That’s… that’s the way my memories are. I have a memory, and on the surface it seems simple, but underneath, see, I get the impression that there’s much more there. I just can’t… I don’t know, access them. I can’t get to them!” His voice rose, until he was almost shouting.

I decided not to ask him if he’d discussed this with his shrink. I made a mental note to peek in his medicine cabinet. Psychotropic drugs aren’t always everyone’s friend.

“My memories… they seem… I don’t know. Not right. Not real. Not mine, not real, not part of me.” He laughed bitterly and quoted. “’I dream things that never were, and say ‘why not’?’”. He ran a shaking hand through his hair again and sat, rubbing the scar on his forehead.

I was silent, watching him. I didn’t know what would set him off completely, and I didn’t really want to find out. I’d done the crazy client routine and had a strict hands-off policy with the nutsos. But Harry was different somehow. I didn’t know how to help him, but I wanted to. Somehow I wanted to erase the desolation on his face. In that moment, he looked lonelier than anyone I’d ever seen. I wondered who had broken his heart.

“Draco. Remember something. Anything. From long ago.” He looked at me expectantly, and I thought of the day Molly and I brought Jessica home from the hospital, both of us handling her with as much care as a Ming vase. “It feels real, doesn’t it? It’s yours. No one can take that memory away from you, right?”

I nodded. I wanted to make things better for Harry, and I didn’t know how. I never had.

“See, with me… my memories don’t feel real. I don’t know why, and I dream of people I’ve never met. Names I don’t know.”

I remembered his litany of names the night I brought him home from Callahan’s. “Ron.”

His eyes were very, very wary as he looked at me and something in them broke my heart. He was, just for that moment, a scared little boy. I remembered a picture I’d seen once, taken of a boy right after he’d been told of his mother’s murder. Harry’s eyes were like that boy’s: young yet suddenly old with the knowledge that life just got much harder, opaque with something that wasn’t quite grief.

“You said it that night you were drunk and I brought you home. You kept listing names, over and over, and his was one of them.”

He repeated the name. “Ron…” I watched him, but he finally looked up at me, defeated, like a railbird who just lost it all at Santa Anita. I don’t know what he saw in my face but he grew defensive. “I’m not crazy.”

“I didn’t say you were. Nor am I the one to make that determination anyway.”

“It’s all just… jumbled… and I know Tom has something to do with all of this.” He paused, taking a sip of water. “What do you dream about?”

I looked at him and lied.

He nodded. “You don’t think I’m crazy? You saw that vase explode in my office. I didn’t imagine that.”

“No, you didn’t.” Nor did I imagine the same thing happening to myself, though I didn’t tell him that. He looked up at me, and the bitter recrimination I saw in his eyes staggered me for a moment. I’d never seen more expressive eyes, and it didn’t occur to me until later that I was seeing myself in them. He was fighting his own shadows, and I couldn’t bear to see him go under. I couldn’t save myself, but maybe I could save him. And maybe that would be good enough.

I pulled him to me and kissed him. He sighed, and kissed me back, and I deepened it. He purred and then suddenly we were in his bed again and this time we used our hands and mouths, finding the spots that made the other moan. It was slow, all soft sighs and murmured assents there in the sanctuary of his home. And as he moved over me, kissing me, arching into me again, this time I kept my eyes open.

*****

I was in a thoughtful mood as I went into the office the next day. Harry had taken me home so that I could change. I showed him around my palatial flat, and introduced him to Marlowe, who took one look at him and jumped in his lap, purring wildly and talking. You’d have thought Harry was a very rich relative with six months left to live. I’d never seen him act like that and I told Harry so. He’s usually very standoffish with strangers, like a call girl who knows full well you can’t afford her. I took a quick shower, shaved, and dressed, thinking about the night before and waking in Harry’s bed. Most of the time I can’t wait to see the tail end of a case and its associated miseries but this was one case I didn’t want to end. I reminded myself that it was unlikely that I’d ever see Harry again, and something inside me ached a little as I thought of his house and how it felt to be a part of a home, if only for a little while.

I fed Marlowe before I left, stroking him as he ate. “I’ve got to go to London, buddy. You get to stay with Jennifer. You’ll like it there. You can get strung out on all the catnip you want.” I don’t know where she got it, but Jennifer kept Marlowe well supplied with the good stuff. He was a catnip junkie.

He looked up at me, as if he understood and twined around my legs. I picked him up, resting my face in his soft fur. He purred as Harry watched silently. “Gotta go to work. Be a good boy,” I said, locking the door behind me.

Harry and I were silent as he drove me to the office, but it wasn’t an uncomfortable one. The air inside the car seemed hazy with the combined weight of our thoughts. He kept the radio off at my request. I didn’t need to hear the news. Debbie’s death had become the flame I returned to, over and over, flirting with its heat just as a moth drives himself to the light, knowing it may be his downfall.

I wondered if Harry would be my downfall.

The office was quiet as I walked in. Jennifer wasn’t there yet, it seemed, so I sat down at my desk.

A white envelope sat in the middle of my desk. With a feeling of dread, I turned it over. Again, just a blob of red wax to seal it, and no insignia. I drew out the card inside.

Godric’s Hollow

Somehow I knew it was a place in the United Kingdom. I turned on my computer and Jennifer came in. She rested her hands on my shoulders.

“How are you?”

I leaned back into her. “Much better. Harry slipped me something and I slept most of the day.” Harry had indeed slipped me something, more than once, but I figured that fell under the category of Too Much Information.

Her voice was soft, some emotion coloring her words. “I called him. I thought he might be able to help.”

“I… thank you for looking out for me.”

She hesitated, the way she does before she tells me something that she knows I’m not going to like. I braced myself. “The police came by yesterday afternoon. They want to talk to you about Debbie.”

I looked up at her and it hit me.

I was the last one, save her assailant, to see Debbie alive.

My DNA was inside her.

I was covered with bites and bruises, which could have been inflicted by someone trying to defend themselves as they fought to the death.

Tom. Somehow I had a feeling that he was behind it all. If I didn’t get out of town soon, I never would. He couldn’t have known that I’d go see Debbie, but he certainly was capable of taking the opportunity to frame me for murder.

As he had done to Harry.

Jennifer looked down at me. “You’re going to England?”

I nodded dumbly. “Tomorrow.”

“Why don’t you stay with me tonight?” Unspoken was the knowledge that if the cops weren’t casing my joint yet, they would be soon. I was a suspect. I wasn’t wearing a scarlet letter, but I was marked just the same.

It didn’t feel good. A vague unease settled itself inside me and I reached for the bottle. “I… yes. Um. Thank you.”

“I’ll go get Marlowe and pick up some clothes and things for you. Why don’t you take the day off?”

“Jennifer… I didn’t… you know that I…”

She smiled and stroked my cheek but her eyes were sad. “I know.”

“I…” I knew how Harry felt now. Boxed in and helpless, watching the jury shuffle in and knowing all appeals would be denied.

I got up, pulling her to me, and she put her arms around me. I rested my chin on her head and we stood there in silent understanding for a long time.

*****

I looked out the window of the airplane. Despite a few drinks, I couldn’t relax. The flight attendants were friendly and anything I needed I had only to ask, but all the luxury was lost on me. I did take them up on the offer of a massage, trying to look down the flight attendant’s shirt as he leaned over me. The rock star across the aisle from me was dozing, mouth open. I had given up on the book I was reading, and my reflection in the window looked as weary as I felt. I thought of Tom, of Jennifer, of Gary, and of Harry’s sleepy green eyes smiling at me as he woke me up with deft hands. I’d seen him the night before, kissing him goodbye softly, both of us acutely aware of the sword hanging over us. I sensed I was on the edge of a precipice, and the blackness outside my window added to the feeling of a gathering force over which I had no control. I didn’t like being out of control. I liked knowing the answers. That’s why I became a detective, and part of the reason why I kept at it.

I shifted, and a piece of paper in my jacket rustled. Jennifer had pushed it into my hand as she bid me goodbye and I’d put it in there along with the card left on my desk. Godric’s Hollow. I pulled the paper out and read it.

It was a newspaper article, dated November 2, 1981, from the Times of London. It seemed that on the night of October 31, people living in a small village reported an explosions, rumbling, and unearthly green fire. It was explained that a warehouse used to store fireworks had caught fire and exploded that Halloween night. I read the article again.

I wondered if the village was close to Godric’s Hollow.

I wondered what Green Eyes was doing.

I wondered if he missed me.

*****

The hotel was small but luxurious. Everything gleamed and an attentive staff hovered over me, anxious to meet my every need. I was introduced to the concierge, and decided I could get used to this sort of life. I got to my room, where my luggage had been unpacked, and ate a snack which had been left out for me. Musing, I looked out the window, taking in the city. London felt like home, and I realized how much I’d missed it, though I didn’t remember the United Kingdom at all. The house I had grown up in was really more of an estate, with huge grounds, a stable, servants—

I cocked my head. Something about our servants. They were different somehow. The thought slipped out of my grasp, quicksilver memory. It wasn’t a revisionist memory; that much I knew.

I shook my head and sank into the bed. I hadn’t slept the night before I left, and I hadn’t slept on the plane.

A knock on the door woke me up. Glancing at the clock, I could tell I’d been asleep for about six hours. I got up, fuzzily, as the dawn broke outside. Much too early for breakfast. The knock came again.

“Coming, coming.” I stretched and stumbled to the door. Looking out the peephole, I froze for an instant. It wasn’t. It couldn’t be. It shouldn’t be. Something surged inside me.

It was.

My hands shook as I opened the door, trying to hide a smile. I put my detective face on and raised an eyebrow.

“Please tell me you used a fake passport.”