Malfoy, P.I.

After the war, with such Cheshire cats grinning in our trees, will the ancient tales still tell us new truths? Will the myriad world still surrender new metaphor?

John Balaban, "After Our War"

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."

Green Eyes grinned at me. "I did." He held it up. I looked at it.

"Raymond Hammett? You don't look like a Raymond to me."

"What do I look like, then?"

I decided not to answer that one. "Come in." He did, and set his bag on the bed. He was wearing khaki pants and light green button-down shirt. I walked up behind him and, when he turned, kissed him. He kissed me back with feeling.

"Somebody missed me," I said, smiling.

He nodded. "I just couldn't stay in L.A. knowing you were here and I wasn't. I hate feeling helpless, you know?"

"So you decide to skip bail. Not a smart move, Potter."

"I guess not. I just... I wanted to see you." Those last five words spilled out of his mouth like cool clear water in a desert oasis. He looked up at me, and I could see the boy he'd been before life shredded his illusions. I sighed.

"Hungry?"

He nodded and grinned at me then, that smile that few ever saw, or ever would see, and pulled me down on the bed so that I was on top of him. He kissed me.

The sun shone through the windows and Harry's eyes caught the light, bright green, and he moaned softly in my ear, arms around me, as I lost myself in him.

*****

"So where are you going today?" Harry asked as we had tea on the balcony outside our room.

"I'm not sure where to start, really. I think Wales. I have this, and it happened near Cardiff, so I might ask a few questions." I handed him the newspaper article I'd been looking at on the plane. He scanned it, then looked up at me.

"This is talking about the night that my parents died, right?"

I nodded, sipping my tea and eating a crumpet. I felt oh so British. "I figure maybe someone remembers something. It was a long time ago, but it's worth a shot."

"You need a car."

I nodded. I needed a lot of things. "It'd help. I have a feeling I'm going to be doing a lot of traveling around."

He nodded then. "Get whatever you need. Do whatever you have to. I just have to know."

"Whatever you say, Raymond." I grinned at him and called the concierge, who arranged for train tickets to Cardiff the next day and a hotel for Harry and I to spend the night in. I hadn't been able to find Godric's Hollow on any maps, but the newspaper article had been filed from Caerphilly, close to Cardiff, so it was a start, anyway.

He sat on the bed and turned on the television. His shoulders sagged and he seemed defeated, like a washed-out singer who knows she's washed out but goes out on stage every night just because it's expected of her. I sat beside him. "It's going to be okay."

"I just hate feeling helpless."

"You are not helpless. You are many things, but you are not helpless. I work alone, but on this case, I think I'll need your help. Okay?" I heard thunder in the distance.

He looked up at me then, green eyes guarded. His hair was brushed away from his forehead and that strange scar stood out vividly. "I feel like... like part of me is slipping away or something. I can't explain it. I hate it."

There was nothing I could say to that.

*****

That night, we went out and saw London. I stopped at Harrod's to buy silver-and-lapis necklaces for Molly and Jennifer. I picked out a silver locket for Jessica.

"For all your girlfriends?" Harry asked, trying on hats. He was currently wearing a bowler, and didn't look too bad in it. He swapped it for a pink one with ostrich feathers.

"One for Jennifer, one for Molly, and one for Jessica. You look like the Queen Mother."

He laughed. "Kind of fits, I think. Jessica's your daughter, right?"

"Yes."

"What does she look like?"

I pulled out my wallet and showed him Jessica's latest school picture. He looked up at me.

"She's beautiful. What's it like?"

"What's what like?" I tried on a pair of sunglasses and rejected them. I looked like one of the Village People.

"Being a father."

I paid for the necklaces and we left the store, walking idly down the street. "It's... strange. When she was born, all I could do was look at this... this person that I created. She was mine. Mine and Molly's. And I knew then that I'd do anything to protect her. I want her to be happy." I wanted a lot of things, but I was having trouble putting them into words.

Harry looked over at me. "Do you see her often?"

"Not very." I glanced across the street. "I thought California had the monopoly on mental cases. I guess not."

"What?"

I pointed to a small pub, called the Leaky Cauldron. Several people in robes and tall pointed hats were going inside. I wondered if it was some sort of Elks lodge or something. Harry was silent beside me. He glanced at the traffic and started across the street, but stopped short as he came within inches of being run down. The driver shouted something and I instinctively reached out and pulled him back onto the sidewalk.

"You okay?" I put a hand on Harry's shoulder. He was pale and shaken.

"Oh. Yeah. Nearly wet my pants there."

"They drive on the wrong side of the road here. You looked in the wrong direction. Come on. I'll buy you a drink." Thankfully, the subject of my daughter had been abandoned as we walked down the streets to a bar the concierge had recommended and away from the strange little pub.

We walked along the Thames river later that night. The sound of the river against its banks reminded me of the first time I'd fallen in love, walking along the Charles with Molly when we were young and the world was full of promise.

*****

The hotel in Cardiff was cozy. Unlike most chain hotels, I didn't get the impression that the staff were forcing themselves to be friendly. They arranged for a car to be delivered that afternoon and Harry and I entertained ourselves until it arrived. I couldn't get enough of him.

Despite my trepidation, the trip went rather smoothly. It didn't take too long to get used to the British way of driving, although I did get caught on a roundabout and wondered if I'd be forever consigned to whatever level of hell these were assigned to. I found Caerphilly easily and fell in love with Wales along the way. Once there, I pulled up to a flower shop. I figured maybe the town had a visitor's center or historical society.

The shop was small, and a riot of color greeted me as I walked up to the counter. A fat orange cat meowed at me from the counter and I stroked him absently as a tiny woman walked up to me, bent from years of what looked to be a hard life. She wiped her hands on an apron and began arranging gladiolas in a tall vase.

"Yes, love?" I smiled at her accent.

"I'm wondering if there's a visitor's center or a local historical society here in town."

She smiled back at me. "American?"

I nodded and pulled the article out of my pocket, playing a hunch. After a while, you get a sense of who will talk to a private investigator and who won't. You do what you have to in order to get the job done. "I'm writing a book and I've got a few questions about the events of October 31, 1981. Were you living here then?"

She took the article from me as the cat stood up and butted my hand. Animals and babies always like me. I don't know why. Maybe they see through the façade. "That was a long time ago. I can't even remember what I had for lunch today, much less something that happened so long ago."

"I understand. Do you, by any chance, know where Godric's Hollow is?"

She blinked at me, blue eyes suddenly wary. Every town has its secrets and I wondered if I'd stumbled on one. "I don't think I've ever heard of such a place."

"Oh. Well, thank you for your help, anyway. I'm sorry to take up your time." I turned to leave but she stopped me.

"The vicar might be able to help you. He's lived here a long time."

I showed off my dimples and she flushed slightly. "And where could I find him?"

"Just around the corner and down the street, love. Look for the church spire."

I held out my hand and she took it. Her palm was slightly damp. "Thank you again." She flushed again and I left, smiling to myself. All in the cause of international diplomacy.

I stood in the street for a moment, and saw the church spire. It wasn't far at all--just a couple of blocks--so I decided to walk. My nerves needed a break from British drivers. The town was busy, and I enjoyed the walk.

The church itself was non-descript, built of red brick. I walked into the sanctuary and the door shut behind me, sealing off the noise of the street. It was dim inside, and I stood for a moment until my eyes adjusted to the light. I walked down the aisle, and I was reminded of my wedding to Molly, so many years ago. I shook my head. I was here to investigate Potter's past, not mine.

Up near the altar, a man was watering the plants. He turned as I approached. His face was open and friendly. He was short and fat, but he exuded good will and friendship. The light from the windows high in the walls shone on his bald head.

"Reverend Barnard. How can I help you?"

I thought about fudging my reason for being here, as I had in the flower shop, but I can't lie to members of the clergy. I held out a business card. "Draco Malfoy. I was wondering if I could ask you a few questions about something that happened in 1981. Were you living here then?"

He took it and studied it for a moment. "I was. Come on, let's go in my office. Much less stuffy." I followed him, glad to be out of the sanctuary. Something about churches bother me, but I don't know what it is. I never went to church much, although mum was Catholic and dragged me to mass every Easter and Christmas. I was thankful she hadn't put me in a parochial school. I just couldn't imagine myself in a school uniform, although I spent a moment or two picturing Harry as a Catholic school boy. I smacked myself mentally and decided I was, indeed, going to hell. If such a place existed.

We went into a small office. Three of the walls were bookcases, and every surface was covered with books and papers. There was a sort of order to it all, and I had a feeling that he could locate anything he needed at a moment's notice. He cleared off a chair for me and sat behind his desk.

"I'm looking into the events of October 31, 1981. I understand there was a fireworks explosion near here."

He sat back, thinking. "Long time ago. But yes, I remember."

"What do you recall about that night?"

"Ah. It was late, and I was here working on some paperwork. I know it was a long time ago because I had hair then." He ran a hand over his head, then continued. "Anyway, one of the women that worked here ran inside and said something about the Northern Lights. I've been to Alaska and I've seen them. But they aren't seen around here, so I was curious. We looked up in the sky to the south and it was green."

Green. I wondered if green fire reflected off the clouds. He went on. "It was green light, sort of flickering off the clouds. Reflecting. No one could hear anything, and we never heard an explosion. Rumbling, sort of, but nothing you'd call an explosion. The light was there for a bit, and then there was this.... I don't know what it was, really..." He trailed off.

"What did you see, Reverend?"

"You've seen fireworks, right?"

I nodded.

"Well, you know how after they've exploded, they leave a sort of shadow? I suppose it's the ash. Well, I guess that's what I saw but... the shape of it..." He shivered like a man who'd walked through the valley of the shadow of death.

"Sir?"

"It looked like a skull. A skull with a snake coming out of its mouth. I've seen a lot of strange things in my life. That was... what I saw was pure evil."

My left forearm throbbed and I felt cold.

*****

I got back in my car, still chilled inside. The vicar hadn't heard of Godric's Hollow, either, but he had estimated that the lights came from the south, a few miles away. I glanced at the sky, and headed south.

There were a few small homes along the road, but other than that, it seemed to be pretty much countryside. After about three miles, I saw a church and pulled to the side of the road. The church seemed to be empty, and no one answered when I knocked. I tried the door but it was locked. So much for sanctuary. You have to find it for yourself. Sometimes you never do.

I jumped as I heard a 'woof' from behind me. Turning, I saw a big black dog, fairly shaggy. It wagged its tail.

"Hey, dog." I held out a hand, which he licked. I looked for a collar but didn't see one. "You a stray? You seem fairly well fed." The dog barked again and rolled on its back. A male. I scratched his stomach for a moment. The dog got up, barked at me again, and walked to the side of the church. He stopped and looked back at me.

"You want me to follow you? What, are you taking me to your secret stash of bones? Oh, I know. Timmy's trapped in the well."

He barked again, and I sighed and followed. I was following a dog. All bow down to my superior detective skills. I could see the headlines now: 'American detective found savaged by wild dogs.' Still, I followed the dog, suddenly wishing for a drink.

I followed him behind the church, and into a wooded area. It was green and lush, but there was a definite trail. Every now and then he'd stop and make sure I was following him. I decided to call him Pete. I made a mental note not to itemize this on Harry's bill.

We went through the wood, which was dappled in sunlight. It really was pretty, and I thought I heard a nightingale up in the trees. Odd to hear one in the daytime. We walked for perhaps a mile and a half, until Pete stopped in the trail and looked at me.

"Let me guess. This is the part where your buddies come and rip me apart?" He barked at me and walked off to the right. I sighed. "I can't believe I'm reduced to following a dog." We walked into a sort of hollow and I could see rubble.

"Is this what you wanted to show me, Pete?" He growled in the back of his throat.

"What's wrong? Don't like your name? Pete?" He growled again. "All right, I won't call you Pete, okay?"

He barked and I walked into the rubble. I could see tile, and bricks, and I realized that I was looking at the ruins of a house. Grass and flowers had grown back amidst the ruins. I shivered, suddenly cold. Something bad had happened here. Pete walked with me. The air was utterly still, and the birds were silent. I felt like I was in a cemetery. Pete walked off and came back with something in his mouth, which he dropped at my feet. I bent to pick it up.

It was metal, bent in a few places, and tarnished, but I could see that it was a silver baby's rattle, like the ones found at Tiffany's. There was a small puddle a few feet away and I washed the rattle off. I could see engraving and I tilted it toward the light.

Harry James Potter

31^st July, 1980

I sat there in the rubble for a long time, with Pete sitting beside me as the woods sang vespers around us and the late afternoon sunlight slanted through the trees.

*****

Harry was at the hotel when I got back. I parked and went into the lobby, the rattle in my pocket feeling far heavier than it should have. I went into the room and Harry's face lit up.

It was nice to come home to someone. The bottle can be a lonely place.

"Hey," he said, kissing me. I melted into him.

"Hi. How was your afternoon?"

He grinned. "Wonderful. I went to Cardiff Castle. What'd you do?"

"I think I found Godric's Hollow," I said, pouring a drink.

I heard Harry sit on the bed. "Godric's Hollow?"

I sighed and pulled the rattle out of my pocket, handing it to him. He took it with an air of dread, like a man being handed a summons. "What's this?"

"Read the inscription." I pulled off my tie.

Harry walked over to the light and did so. "Th-this... this was mine..."

I sat him down on the bed. "Yes. I saw the ruins of a house. This was in the rubble."

"What else did you find?"

"Not much. Shattered dishes, wood, some cutlery."

His eyes were almost black in the room's light. "I want to see it."

"Harry, it's going to be dark soon."

He lifted his chin. "I want to see it."

"You'd see more in the daytime." He gave me a look and I held up a hand. "Okay, okay. Can I just get something to eat first?"

He nodded. "It's just that... you know... that's where they... that's where they died."

"It's very peaceful there."

Harry sat, turning the rattle over in his hands. "I can't remember them."

"Of course not. You were just a baby." Looking at him now, I couldn't ever imagine him as he once must have been, innocent and hopeful. I certainly couldn't imagine him as a baby. The Catholic school boy was another matter altogether.

"How did you find it?"

"Godric's Hollow?"

He nodded.

"I'm a detective. I find things for a living." I hoped that would suffice because I really didn't want to tell him the actual story. Mine is a glamorous and secretive profession. However, he seemed to accept it and we ate dinner in silence.

Harry didn't say a word as we got in the car and headed back towards Caerphilly. I was feeling more comfortable with driving on the left side of the road and decided that only about eighty percent of British drivers were asswipes. I, of course, was a perfect driver. I finally turned on the radio and we listened to music as night fell around us. I found the church again and parked. It was close to full dark now, and the air was a bit chilly. I handed him a flashlight.

"You okay?"

He nodded. "Yeah. I just want..." He didn't continue. I didn't see any sign of Pete, whom I'd left at the church earlier that day. I almost hoped I'd see him again, but it was just the two of us following the trail in the woods. Above, I heard owls hooting softly and the nightingale. A soft breeze sighed through the branches and the woods seemed alive. Despite that, everything around me was flat, as though painted over another layer of reality. Jet lag, perhaps. I briefly thought of the story of young Goodman Brown and his encounter in the woods, and then we walked into the clearing of Godric's Hollow. Harry stood, silent. I took his hand and led him to the ruins of his parents' life.

"This is... it?" He looked at me, and in that moment, I would have given my life to take that look off his face.

"Yes." I stood back, letting him walk through the rubble. He took his time, peering under every rock and picking up pieces of debris.

I told him the reverend's account of Halloween, 1981 as he searched. I left out the bit about the skull in the air, for some reason. He nodded mechanically and sat down about halfway through my tale, but if my words reached him, it didn't show.

Off to my right, something moved in the trees. I tensed, then relaxed as I saw Pete. His eyes were riveted on Harry. I patted my leg, but he didn't come to me. Nothing seemed to exist for him but Harry. He moved closer, finally walking over to where Harry sat, and putting his head in Harry's lap. Harry smiled and looked down at Pete.

"Hey, Snuffles."

"Snuffles?" I'd heard a lot of dog names, but not that one.

"It just seems to fit him." Pete whined and Harry stroked his fur.

I was very still, watching the two of them. Something was going on, and I couldn't figure out what, but I knew that this was a moment between them. For both, I had ceased to exist temporarily.

The three of us sat in the ruins of James and Lily Potter's lives until late. The moon rose and painted everything with silver, rendering the world in black and white, like an old detective movie. I'm pretty sure, however, that Sam Spade never sat in the ruins of a home in the moonlight until the early hours of the morning, watching a boy and his dog in the dark, sacred night.

*****

Two days later found me driving southwest to Surrey. Harry and I had gone back to London the day before, where I'd had dinner with Edward, who'd helped me out with Harry's real birth certificate early in the case. This time, I'd gotten Harry's school records from his days at the Little Whinging County Primary School. Helps to have a college chum in the House of Lords. Edward had tried to explain the educational system to me, but it was more complicated than a drag queen's beauty regimen. He had also procured a copy of Tom Riddle's birth certificate, but it must have been Tom's grandfather, for it claimed that Tom had been born in 1926. If Tom was that old, I wanted to find out who his plastic surgeon was.

I passed Big Ben as I left the city, and seeing it brought back an old memory. I couldn't have been more than four or so, and I was holding my mother's hand and laughing. She looked down at me, also laughing. My father walked up then, eyes cold, and my mother and I both stopped. Somehow his presence cast a pall over my memory. Another memory came to me then. I'd spilled something at the table and his eyes were gray and threatening as he advanced on me...

I turned on the radio. Classical music filled the car. The Sorcerer's Apprentice by Dukas. The sun was struggling to make itself seen through the clouds as another song came on, and this one had always sent a shiver up my spine. Rachmaninov. Isle of the Dead.

I wondered suddenly where Tom was and if he knew I'd left Los Angeles. In the back of my mind, a pair of blue eyes taunted me.

*****

Number Four Privet Drive was a prim little house, identical to every other house on the street. The hedges were all trimmed perfectly evenly, not a weed on the lawn or a stone out of place. It had no character and only the car out front distinguished it from the other houses. Whoever lived here cared a lot about appearances. I got out of the rental and walked up the drive. The car in the drive was still warm, so whoever was home hadn't been home very long. Around me, the street dozed in the late afternoon haze.

My knock was answered by a portly man, with no neck whatsoever and a very impressive set of jowls. For a moment, I thought of Richard Nixon, but pushed that aside and held out my hand.

"Draco Malfoy. Are you Vernon Dursley?"

He squinted at me with little piggy eyes. He was dressed casually, in pants and a sport shirt, which clashed horribly. The material was cheap and the clothes badly cut. His face was the florid color of the habitual drunk, and I could smell liquor on him. He looked like a heart attack on the hoof. "I am. What do you want?"

"I'd like to ask you a few questions about Harry Potter, if I may."

"Harry's dead." He said it flatly with no hint of sadness or longing. I didn't correct him.

"You are the Vernon Dursley who was listed as Mr. Potter's guardian when he was in school?"

Mr. High Blood Pressure backed up a step. "Which school?"

"Little Whinging County Primary School."

"Oh. Right. Are you from the insurance company? Did Harry leave some money to me?"

Nice. Family is a gift, isn't it? I knew just how to play this one. "I'm afraid I can't say, sir. I was sent on behalf of a lawyer in the States to ascertain that you are indeed Mr. Potter's next of kin."

That did the trick. His eyes flashed and he became markedly friendlier. It's nice to know greedy relatives are an international phenomenon. "Come in, come in." He held the door open and I followed him into a narrow hallway, with a staircase leading upwards. He motioned me to a living room on the left. "Would you like a drink?"

Did Karen Carpenter drink diet soda? I nodded. "Just whatever you're having is fine. I do appreciate this, Mr. Dursley. I'm sure you're a very busy man."

"I am, quite busy actually." He handed me a gin and only a mass spectrometer could have detected the tonic in it. I took it and we sat.

"What do you do for a living, Mr. Dursley?"

"Oh, I'm retired now. From Grunnings. I ran the company for years." I didn't think it was possible, but he puffed up even more than he already was, starting to resemble a blowfish. "The States, you say?"

"Yes. Los Angeles."

"You were sent here to find Harry's next of kin?"

"So far, you're the only one I've found."

"Well, of course I'm the only one! My wife--God rest her soul--and I took him into our home when he was just a baby. We raised him as our own, gave him the food off our table and he wanted for nothing. It's about time that little whelp showed some gratitude." He took a long sip of his drink. I stood up.

"I'm just going to freshen my drink. Can I fix you another while I'm up?" He squinted at me and nodded. I fixed him another gin and handed it to him. "Harry was quite wealthy."

"How wealthy?" Dursley took a sip of his drink.

I told him. His eyes widened and he nearly inhaled the lemon wedge in his drink. His eyes flicked over to a door underneath the staircase. It must have been a cabinet of sorts and I wondered what was hidden in there. People's actions often give far more away than their words. Dursley here was edgy and I only hoped he didn't have a stroke before I was through talking to him.

"So you took Harry in after his parents died?"

"We did. He was left on our doorstep with a note. He had no one else. Well, there was a godfather, we later found out, but he was in prison. Harry only had us."

I scribbled on a pad as we talked and noted the godfather bit. "Do you know his name?"

He shook his head. "I don't remember." He was lying and he wasn't good at it. Had he been any more overt about it, he'd have been thrashing about like a gaffed tuna. "But he was a criminal, so why does it matter?"

"What is your relationship to Harry?"

"Lily Potter was my wife's sister. She married that James and we never saw them after that. I'm sorry they're dead but when you live a life like theirs, you have to be prepared to face the consequences. We tried our best to raise Harry to be a fine upstanding citizen. None of that... unnatural stuff in our house."

I did not like this man. No wonder his son never came to see him. "What kind of life did they live, sir?"

He didn't answer, staring at his glass instead. I tried another question. "What sort of unnatural stuff are you referring to?"

He muttered something that sounded like "magic". I remembered a conversation I'd had years ago with my mother. I'd said something to the effect of "There's no such thing as magic" and she had fixed me with her blue eyes and said simply, "Are you quite sure of that, Draco?"

I took a breath and dragged myself back to the present. "How did James and Lily Potter die?"

He answered by rote, as if he'd practiced so long that the answer was drilled into him. "Car crash."

Car crash indeed. I scribbled something on my notepad. "How long did Harry live with you? His school records show that he attended the school here in Little Whinging but after that they stop."

"That's because he went off to that school. Up north."

"North? How far north? Scotland?"

Dursley shook his head. "I don't know where it was. Just up north somewhere. He took a train."

"What was the name of the school?"

For some reason, that upset him. He stood up, swaying slightly. "Now see here. I don't see what this has to do with anything. Harry's dead, has been for years. We raised him here in our home, gave him love and care and everything a boy needs despite the fact that we had a boy of our own to raise and he repays us by running off to Hog--that school and then he comes home during the summers with that bloody owl and all his freaky little friends and Petunia and I told him that we wouldn't have that sort of thing in our house. We were a normal family but Harry took after his mother. Shame, really." His eyes flicked to the door under the stairs again.

Harry must have been their dirty little secret then, akin to a crazy wife in the attic. I couldn't imagine what Harry's life must have been like in this stifling little house.

"I'm just gathering information, sir. We want to wrap this up as quickly as possible so that we can execute Harry's estate. It sounds like you deserve what you're getting, sir, for taking an orphan into your home when you didn't need to. Your kindness will be repaid, I can assure you." I wanted to be there when it was.

He sat down, mollified, and very drunk. I suppressed a smile. "You have a son, I see." There were pictures scattered everywhere of a porky boy with a goofy smile and several little porklets at his feet. A woman who must have been his wife simpered beside him in several of the pictures and I thought again of dancing hippos.

"That's Dudders. Doesn't get round to see his old dad much, but he's working for Grunnings. Following in my footsteps."

"Did he go to the same school as Harry?"

"Up until they were eleven. Then Harry went off to Hogwarts and Dudders went off to Smeltings. I was a Smeltings man myself."

I managed to look suitably awed. "Smeltings? You went to Smeltings? My college roommate was a Smeltings man. No finer man alive."

He beamed with porcine joy and I put on a mental set of hip waders. It was getting deep. He left the room unsteadily and came back with a large photo album, which he set in my lap breathlessly. I mentally reviewed my CPR skills. He leaned over me, leafing through pages until he found one of "Dudders" in a school uniform.

"See? That's his Smeltings stick. Oh, he used to get after Harry." His eyes sparkled with amusement and I saw him for the bully he was. I really, really didn't like this man and started to say something but I recited the periodic table of the elements in my head to keep myself quiet. Antimony, arsenic, aluminum, selenium...

I turned back to the beginning of the album. Page after page of "Dudders": the obligatory naked baby pictures, throwing cereal at the camera, with a tall woman who must have been his mother, throwing a toy at the camera, flourishing his "Smeltings stick", making a universally obscene gesture at the camera, the three together on a beach.

"This is your family album?"

"Oh yes. That's the history of the Dursley family you're holding."

I leafed through the album, curious to see what Harry looked like as a boy, but there was not a single picture of him.

*****

The next day I was up early to catch the 8:30 train to Newcastle. Harry came to see me off at King's Cross station. Unlike the train stations I'd seen, King's Cross did not smell of piss and you had about a fifty-fifty chance of walking through the terminals without getting hustled or panhandled. I decided Britain wasn't such a bad place to live, if I could just get used to the driving situation. The traffic was worse than Los Angeles, and that's saying a lot. Edward had warned me not to try to drive to Newcastle.

Harry was quiet as we walked through the station. He seemed far away. Distant. He'd been that way ever since we'd gone to Godric's Hollow. I could only imagine what must be going through his head. He wouldn't talk about it. He'd been dreaming and tossing about restlessly, mumbling about flying cars. I hated not being able to do anything for him, but I just signed on to find his demons. I never said I'd help fight them. I never said I could.

"What platform does your train leave from?" It was the first sentence he'd spoken in nearly an hour.

I glanced at my ticket. "Eight. Looks like my train leaves from the end of the platform."

"I think it's down this way." He smiled at me but his heart wasn't in it. It was more a quick, reflexive action. He was jumpier than a hooker with her first customer.

I smiled back and followed him. We went down a flight of stairs and Harry paused, mid-step, just looking down over the platforms.

"Harry?"

He didn't answer, but he did start walking again, murmuring to himself. Curious, and a bit concerned, I followed him. He walked down platform number eight, looked to his left, and kept walking. Platforms nine through eleven were in an annex, which he seemed to be heading for.

"Harry."

No answer. He walked past platform nine and stood there. He looked through me, then walked to the brick wall separating the platforms.

My stomach clenched but I said nothing. He ran a dreamy hand over the brick and smiled.

"Muggles," he said.

I put a cautious hand on his shoulder. "Harry?"

He repeated it. "Muggles."

"Harry. What is it?" I swallowed and put on my detective face. He must have sensed my growing alarm because he shook his head and looked at me, and it was the Harry I knew looking at me, not the waking dreamer he'd been only moments before.

"What?"

I took a deep breath and wished for bourbon. "Are you all right?"

"I'm fine. Why?"

He didn't remember, then. I briefly thought of Jennifer, and her puppet-like responses that one morning.

"Just wondering. You haven't been sleeping well."

He grinned boyishly at me. "You'll just have to make sure I'm good and tired when we go to sleep, then, won't you?"

I smiled back but my heart wasn't in it. I felt like I'd pushed through some invisible membrane and gone through the looking glass.

******

St. Jude's Home for Orphans in Newcastle-upon-Tyne looked like it was once a manor house on a landed estate. The building was imposing stone, weathered gray with age. There was a forbidding air about it, like a convent. It was a building that held many secrets. I walked in, my footsteps echoing on the tile. It was utterly silent inside, and very dim, despite all the windows. I shivered. Any kid who grew up in this joint would be happy to get out. I walked down a long hallway until I found the door I was looking for. I opened it and walked into a bright, spacious office, with hanging plants and colorful pictures. The woman sitting at the desk stood up.

"Mr. Malfoy?" I nodded. "I'm Josephine Burroughs. I'm the one you spoke to on the phone."

I held out my hand and she shook it. Her grip was firm, and up close, I could see lines of tiredness around her eyes. Her hair was going gray, and she must have been fifty, easy. She smiled again, and the lines disappeared, making her age seem like an illusion.

"Can I offer you a cup of tea? Or do you Americans prefer coffee?"

"I'm fine, thanks. I appreciate you seeing me on such short notice."

"Not at all. You said that you had a question about one of our former residents? We aren't an orphanage any more, but we do still have records. However, it is all confidential information."

"I understand." I handed her Tom's birth certificate. "Tom Marvolo Riddle was a resident here many years ago."

She looked at the paper, then up at me. "That was a very long time ago. Long before I was ever born."

"Do you have records dating back that far?"

She sighed. "He's dead now, isn't he?"

"Tom?"

Josephine nodded. "I remember our old caretaker used to talk about him. Told me everything. I guess because I was the only one who'd listen to him."

"What did he say?"

"Well, he must be dead now, so I suppose it wouldn't hurt... Right after Tom was born his mother died. He had no father that anyone knew of, so he came to St. Jude's." I nodded. I'd always felt a sort of kinship with the patron saint of lost causes. I wondered if he'd help me now. "Tom was very smart. Unusually smart. Quiet, dark, and devious."

"He was an orphan. Sometimes children left to their own devices become that way out of necessity."

"It wasn't exactly Lord of the Flies here, Mr. Malfoy. Most of the residents were quite happy. But Tom... there was just something different about him. A slightly... well, the best description I ever heard was 'charmingly sinister'."

The back of my neck prickled. That described Tom, all right. I rubbed my arm. "How long did he live here?"

"Oh, he left when he was eleven. He went off to some school up north, I heard. He came home for the summers and for holidays, but everyone left him strictly alone. He'd changed somehow. There was... well, Alex--our caretaker--used to call it a 'dark aura' around him. Everyone was slightly afraid of him. As a boy, he'd been bullied a bit, but once he went off to school that stopped."

"What happened to him?"

"He went off to school, like I said, and then just disappeared. It's funny, though. I don't think he was an orphan."

"Why's that?"

"There's a house in Little Hangleton, not too far away from here. The Riddle House. It's supposedly haunted."

"Riddle?"

"Yes. It was the home of Tom Riddle. Senior."

I looked again at Tom's birth certificate. Tom Marvolo Riddle, Jr. Josephine watched me.

"No one asked him if he was Tom's father?"

"He was very wealthy. No questions were asked."

"Why do they say the house is haunted?"

"In the summer of 1944, in July, a maid found Tom Riddle, Sr. and both of his parents dead in the house. They were cold as ice, in July, and they looked terrified, but there was no sign of any physical injury. They were buried in the Little Hangleton churchyard."

"That is a creepy story, yes."

"Their caretaker, whose name escapes me, later told police that on the day of the Riddles' deaths, he saw a teenage boy hanging about near the manor. Tall, dark-haired, pale and--"

"Blue eyes," I finished.

Josephine nodded grimly.

"Have you ever heard of a school called Hogwarts?"

She shook her head. "No. Where is it located?"

"It's up north. Do you have a photo of Tom anywhere?"

She stood up. "Do you mind getting dusty?" I shook my head. I'd been shot at, nearly drowned, forced to pose as a gigolo, and hung around with cat-smuggling lesbians in previous cases. Dusty was nothing to me.

I followed her down an ancient staircase and into the bowels of the manor. Old furniture was piled up against the walls of an old basement, lit by a single bulb. So help me, if I saw an old lady with gray hair I was out of there, case or no case. It was filled with empty bunk beds, old wardrobes, and trunks that must have been RAF surplus. I shivered. There had to be, easy, ten million spiders in that basement. All of them watching me. Josephine walked over to a corner and started going through old pictures. I followed her.

"We take a picture, each year, of all the residents. There should be ones for the 1940's. Let's see... here. 1942." I helped her move a stack of frames out of the way and she pulled one out. We walked over to a table beneath the bare bulb. The photograph was fading, but the faces still very visible. I scanned the picture and there he was.

Tom Riddle smiled out at me, and the face I saw from 1942 was only slightly younger than the one I'd last seen in Los Angeles, a week or so ago, down to the faintly amused eyes and the slight smirk. Tom grinned at me like a man about to pull an ace out of the hole. He seemed proud, as if he'd gotten away with murder. Maybe he thought he had, but if I could change that, I would. For Harry and for Debbie. Poor, dead Debbie. I felt her shade beside me.

The basement suddenly seemed airless and I thought I heard faint, mocking laughter as I stared back at those murderer's eyes.

*****

I left Josephine, my mind whirling. Tom had said he and Harry had gone to the same school--that one up north that no one knew anything about--and that they were a few years apart. More than a few. I needed a drink, but I settled for renting a car. It wasn't easy. Yes, I was in Britain and I spoke English (plus dirty words in eight other languages), and theoretically they spoke English, but apparently the good folk of Newcastle hadn't gotten that memo. According to the map, Little Hangleton wasn't too far away, and I wanted to see the Riddle House for myself. It was a clear day, with a slight breeze that felt good on my face.

In my mind, Tom's eyes taunted me again while Harry's pleaded with me. I pushed them away and concentrated on the job at hand. The traffic was light and the sun hid behind gray clouds, taunting and teasing like an aging stripper who didn't want anyone to see just how much she'd aged.

Little Hangleton was small, and it was gray. Gray stone houses with dark gray slate roofs. Josephine had told me the Riddle House was up on a hill, looking over the town, and it was easy to spot. The house, a big Victorian mansion, loomed over all it surveyed and seemed to cast a shadow on everything nearby. There was an air of timelessness about it, like Stonehenge. I drove up to the house as the wind picked up.

The Riddle house was surrounded by a tall iron fence. Wide lawns sloped down to the house in the distance. The house was well-maintained, but there was an air of incipient decay about it. A memory came to me then, of picking up a peach only to find it was rotten on the underside. I wondered who owned the house. Might be worth investigating. I scribbled that down on my note pad. There were no cars in the garage that I could see, and no signs of life. All the curtains were drawn to exactly the same distance and it seemed to me that even the birds were quiet. No street sounds made it up here to the top of the hill, and I shivered as a sharp wind blew from the north, carrying with it a faint scent of lilies. I turned my collar up and watched the house, wondering about the horrors it had seen.

*****

It was late when I got back to London. No one in Little Hangleton would discuss the Riddle house with me, except to reiterate what a scary place it was. I was glad to be out of its sight.

Harry met me at the station, smiling, but his smile didn't warm me as it usually did. I was tired, and I hadn't been able to find out a thing about the ownership of the Riddle house. I added that task to my list. Harry and I took a taxi back to the hotel and ate a quiet meal. He chatted about his day of sightseeing and I made the appropriate noises.

"You look really wiped out. You okay?" he asked.

"I'm fine. But yeah, I am pretty wiped out."

"What do you have planned for tomorrow?"

I told him about the Riddle house. His eyes narrowed.

"Tom has family here in Britain?"

"He did. They're dead now, and I don't know if he has any living relatives or not."

"He was an orphan."

"He was, but it seems his father was alive after all. For some reason, though, Tom was put in an orphanage and no one really pursued the matter. His father didn't want him."

Harry gave a bitter laugh. "I can't imagine why." He stood up and poured us both another drink.

"It's strange, though. I saw a picture of Tom today."

"From... where? The orphanage?"

"Yes. And it was him. Down to the little smirk."

"So he grew up in that orphanage."

"He did. He looked to be about fourteen or fifteen." I hesitated and Harry looked up.

"What?"

I gave it to him straight. "The picture was taken in 1942."

Harry's brow furrowed and his eyes grew wide as he processed that bit of information.

"Tom is... he's our age. Not... old."

"I didn't say it made sense. But it was Tom."

Harry looked at me. "I'm going to bed."

"Harry..."

He lifted his chin. "I'm going to bed. And tomorrow morning we're going to go to the zoo and enjoy ourselves."

What the hell. He was paying the bills. And I wasn't doing anything he hadn't wanted me to do. I wondered if he'd be able to handle whatever I found out. It was a mess, and the more I dug, the more complicated it got, but I couldn't walk away now. Like Harry, I had to know.

Harry got into bed and reached out for me. I went to him, and comforted him the only way I knew how.

That night, I dreamed of my father.

****

The next morning Harry pounced on me as I slept.

I opened an unfriendly eye. I am not a morning person. "You'd better have coffee with you."

He smiled and handed me a mug.

"This will never work, you know. You're a morning person and it is my duty to make sure you are all rounded up and killed until you are removed from the planet like the pestilence that you are."

"Ooh. Pestilence. Big word."

I raised an eyebrow. "Someone's in a good mood."

He grinned. "Go brush your teeth."

"Why?"

"Go brush your teeth."

"Okay." I shuffled to the bathroom and did as requested. "Better?"

"Come here."

I walked over the bed. "You're horny in the mornings, too, aren't you?"

"You're in England. It's 'randy'".

"Okay. You're randy."

"No, I'm Harry."

I groaned. "That was just bad." He pulled me to him and kissed me. We were both gasping by the time he finished, and he slid my pajama bottoms off, then stroked me with a cool hand.

"Good morning, Draco." He sat down on the bed, pulling me to him and nothing mattered then except the feel of his mouth on me and his dark green eyes on mine. I couldn't make a sound, nor could I have found the words to tell him what I was feeling even if I'd wanted to. He seemed to understand and as I let go, he held me tighter still, possessively, running his hands over anything he could reach. He cleaned me off, and then, moving quicker then I realized he could, bent me over the bed and all I could do was moan as he grabbed my hips and murmured my name over and over.

*****

The zoo was fairly crowded, despite it being a weekday, but we made a morning of it, laughing and enjoying each other. The tension of last night was gone in the light of day, replaced by an easy familiarity. Much more preferable than a hasty, frantic tumble in the dark and a muttered goodbye. I wondered if I'd ever see him again once this case was over. I didn't know what I would find out, but so far it didn't seem like I'd find out anything good. I rarely do. It's the nature of the business. I wasn't sure he'd want me around as a reminder of the secrets I'd dredged up.

Harry pulled me toward a building.

"Where are you taking me?"

"The reptile house."

I raised an eyebrow.

"You're not scared of snakes, are you?"

"Of course not, Potter." I didn't tell him about the spider thing, however. Nor did I tell him that, at any given time, we are never more than a meter away from a spider, no matter where we are. I learned that in a biology class in college.

He looked like he didn't quite believe me as we entered. All around us, behind glass, snakes slithered and spat. I was looking at a gorgeous Burmese python when I heard a strange sound. It was a sort of hissing, but not like anything I'd ever heard. I turned to Harry, who had been looking at a big boa constrictor. Harry was the source of the sound. He was talking to the snake in a strange, sibilant language that made my skin crawl. The snake was still, eyes on Harry and its manner seemed almost deferential. Harry continued, unaware of my stare and the whispers of other people in the room.

I clutched the railing, unsure what to do. Several times the snake's tongue flickered out, and it once opened its mouth, as if answering Harry.

But snakes don't talk. They don't have language.

Harry seemed to think it did, however. He stopped and looked at me. His smile faded.

"What is it, Draco?"

"I..." I couldn't find any words.

"What? I was just talking to the snake. Haven't you ever heard anyone talking to an animal?"

"In English, yes."

"But I was speaking English."

"No, Harry. You weren't. I don't know what you were speaking but it's nothing I've ever heard and it most certainly was not English." A ghostly hand stroked my cheek and I closed my eyes. Tom.

"But how could I..."

"I don't know, Harry. I don't know." I took a deep breath. "I need some air." The walls seemed to be closing in on and I'd never wanted to get out of a place so badly in my life.

Harry reached out for me but I eluded him and stepped out into the sun, blinking at the glare. I put on a pair of sunglasses and Harry came out.

"Draco..."

I turned to him, my voice flat. "Let's go back to the hotel. I don't want to discuss this here." Harry nodded and we went to the hotel in silence. Harry closed the door of the hotel room and walked over to me, moving as if to embrace me.

I couldn't help myself. I stiffened and he backed away, eyes wide with hurt. I went to the bar and poured myself a drink to get away from those green eyes.

"Draco. Please." I wasn't sure what he wanted. And I was afraid to find out.

"Just drop it."

His tone was accusatory. "You think I'm crazy."

I slammed back my bourbon, the liquid filling my belly with courage. "I didn't say that."

"I'm not."

"Yeah, well, crazy people don't know they're crazy, do they?"

In an instant he was by my side. "I am not crazy!"

"Is that what your shrink says?" I regretted it the moment I said it, but I couldn't take those words back, any more than I could have taken back a bullet once fired.

He went pale. "How did you find out about that?"

"I told you I'd find out things."

He ran a hand through his hair. "It helps to have someone to talk to." Yes, it does. That's why call girls stay so busy. People will pay quite a bit just to have someone listen to them.

I turned to him. "What's a Muggle?"

"What?"

I repeated the question. He cocked his head. "I think it's an old term for a joint, isn't it?"

I poured another drink. "And what about King's Cross puts you in mind of marijuana?"

"What?"

"You said it in King's Cross. You looked at the station and said it."

"I don't know. I don't remember what I was thinking."

"All right. I'll let you have that one for free. What was the fascination with platform nine? Where exactly did you go?" I refrained from asking if he was waiting for the Mother Ship.

"I don't know."

"You don't know."

"No, no, no! I don't know. I don't know anything! Don't you get it? That's why you're here. That's what I'm paying you for. To find out why I dream of flying cars, and broomsticks, and a cupboard--" He stopped as he saw the look on my face. I felt myself go pale. Too late for the detective face now. I'd let my emotions show and the jig was up.

I sat slowly. "Under the stairs."

"Yes. A cupboard under the stairs."

I wanted nothing more than to get drunk then, just forget it all for one night, but I looked up at him and realized I had a promise to keep that I didn't ever remember making.

"I went to see your uncle. Vernon Dursley. You lived with him when you were in school in Surrey. There is a cabinet under the staircase and I noticed him glancing at it. You lived with your uncle, your aunt, and your cousin. You had a pet owl and you went off to a school named Hogwarts up north when you were eleven."

He sat down beside me. "Oh."

"For some reason, you've lost your childhood memories." I had very few myself of my life in England. But there was something strange about the servants in my home when I was a child. I reached for the memory but it danced away. I pulled my mind back to the present and all of the failures and heroisms of the inconsequential moments that made up Harry's history.

Harry looked at me carefully. "I see." But he didn't. Neither one of us did, not then.

"Do you remember the time I was in your office and that vase exploded?"

He nodded, eyes bright with what I belatedly realized was hope. He was my lover. He might as well become my confessor too.

"It's happened to me, too."

*****

Malfoy Manor looked as I'd always imagined Pemberley would look. It was absolutely huge, stone, with cornices and turrets and a small lake behind it. It had been in the Malfoy family for a long, long time. I suppose, as a child, I'd taken it for granted. The main house was surrounded by lush, thick grass, impossibly green, with a forest in the distance. I could see stables at the top of a hill, and several guest houses. I wondered what my mother's life had been like here and why she had left. She never would tell me and I learned not to ask. Once in a while I'd catch her looking at a photo album, but she always shut it quickly and I never saw what was in it. When I was going through her things after she died, I found very few reminders of her life in England, but I had found a map to Malfoy Manor and I'd kept it, for some reason. I never did find that photo album. She died with all her secrets intact.

My hands tightened on the steering wheel as I turned into the circular drive in front of the house. I didn't know if my father was alive. I didn't even know if he lived at the Manor anymore. I didn't know what I was doing here. Storm clouds threatened in the west.

I took a deep breath and several long slugs of bourbon. My hands were slightly damp and I wiped them on my pants. I was hyper-aware of everything around me as I reached for an immense brass knocker.

The door opened and I looked into a pair of gray eyes identical to mine.

My father smiled at me. "Draco. I'd been hoping you'd stop by while you were in the country."