Playing the Fool

"Whoa..." breathed Neville in a manner that made Draco remember exactly why he had made fun of the boy for seven years at school. He, however, did not hesitate in joining his companions as they slowly made their way over to Remus.

"I can't believe he did this..." murmured Hermione as she reached out to stroke the large ebony owl. The animal shrunk away from her touch, the large eyes blinking rapidly. Remus no doubt had the animal under a charm that kept it relatively still on his arm, Draco thought, if the fear on the bird's face was anything to go by.

"And without telling anybody. Honestly, am I the only registered Animagus here?" The old Professor let out a 'tutting' noise, adjusting the spectacles on her nose to survey the owl more carefully.

"Yeah, well at least you knew when we were attempting transformation. Harry never even told us." Ron couldn't hide the small amount of hurt to show in his voice, even as he inspected the owl that his best friend was currently transformed into.

Draco made an irritated noise in the back of his throat, slowly pushing through the others so that he was standing at the front of the crowd. "All of this is very nice. But can we please do the magic so that we know this actually is Harry?"

"Come on, Draco, you can tell it's Harry. Look at the scar!" Neville insisted. Hermione and Ron stayed silent, though Draco could feel both of their gazes piercing into the side of his head.

"I see no scar. I see a similar marking made of feathers. Let's just get on with it." He had no idea why he was acting so stiffly irritated. The presence of the bird in the room seemed to put him on edge, and he didn't like it. He had grown so used to the idea of impending doom and eventually dying at the hands of the Death Eaters, that a positive change sent him off his rocker. Draco supposed that was one of his worse flaws - the inability to deal with change.

Remus and Minerva had exchanged a glance at the tone Draco had used. For a moment Draco felt compelled to at least blush in response to their glance, but the feeling quickly passed. Instead, he fixed them with a cool stare. Giving him a swift glance back, the older woman drew out her wand, pointing it at the owl on Lupin's arm, preparing to change back Harry. Lupin saw her, and his eyes widened considerably. Clearing his throat, he gently set the animal down onto the ground, holding his own wand at the ready. He took a step back, allowing Minerva the room she required for the spell. Draco lifted his arms to cross over his chest, ignoring the knot that had settled itself in his stomach.

Minerva McGonagall raised the wand in her right hand towards the trembling owl on the floor, and prepared to restore the twenty-year-old boy to his true form.

Draco braced himself as she pointed the wand forcefully at Harry, and a brilliant flash of white-blue light appeared from her wand.

He heard Hermione gasp loudly, and out of the corner of his eye saw Neville jump. The owl let out a loud shriek, and they were all forced to take a few steps back as he unfolded his great feathered wings. Lupin quickly raised his wand again to stop him from flying from the room.

They all stood silent for a few moments, each drinking in the failure of what they had thought would be the final step in restoring the Boy Who Disappeared. Draco grunted, raising a hand to run through his white blond hair, as he stared down at the quivering mass of feathers before them. He thought he'd been foolish in thinking this would be easy, but the shock still hit him like a ton of bricks. Even though he had just snapped at Neville a few moments earlier, there was no way he could believe that this was a normal owl. But then...why hadn't the spell worked?

"But it would be too simple, wouldn't it?" It was Hermione's shaky voice that finally broke them out of their reverie. Draco locked eyes with Ron for a moment, and was not surprised to see the tall redhead looking as unsettled as his girlfriend sounded, and as Draco himself felt.

"I mean, if only one person could make him change back, the whole idea wouldn't be very smart, would it? Anyone could do it..." Hermione continued. She dropped off again for a moment, her stammering seeming staggeringly uncharacteristic. She raised her eyes to survey them all when she opened her mouth again. "I'm just saying that if Dumbledore when through all of this trouble to hide Harry, he wouldn't make it so any Death Eater could pluck him out of the sky and change him back. He'd make it a bit more complicated than that."

Draco met her eyes slowly. She made a fair point, one that they had addressed several times before. Bringing Harry back would not be easy. And yet when they had Minerva perform the spell, they had expected just that. Hermione was still shaking when her gaze moved back to Harry, who was hooting pathetically from the floor. Ron stepped closer to her, also looking up at Draco as he draped an arm around her shoulders. Draco himself took a deep breath before addressing the adults in front of them.

"So maybe it will take more of us to change him back? Or a certain one of us?" Neville shifted as Draco spoke, lifting his round face to peer up at the blond boy. They had all changed tremendously during the years of the second war, but none so much as Neville. Though Draco wouldn't freely admit it, he may have felt a slight tingle of admiration for the boy. Somewhere deep down, of course. But he could, at least, tolerate him. And that was saying something.

"I believe it will be something like that." Minerva's powerful voice had long grown a bit more tired sounding than it had ever been while they were at Hogwarts, but it still brought them to attention like not much else. They had unofficially named her their leader, a fact that was obvious since she was the oldest of the six, with far more experience in magic and the world. "Albus was highly interested in the Selectus charm. A very complex charm, of course, it can be used on almost anything. I believe Remus and the rest used a form of it on that map of theirs...so that those with only certain intentions could use it."

She looked at Remus from over her glasses, and for a moment the man looked like a sheepish Gryffindor narrowly escaping punishment. But Minerva continued, her gaze traveling over the others.

"Selectus charms can work in other ways too, of course. If Albus so chose, I am positive that he could have sealed Harry in the form of his Animagus, and charmed him so that only a few, or a certain one of us could bring him back. He would, of course, certainly add that we could only do it of our own free will, and not by force.” Minerva concluded, staring over her square-rimmed glasses at the dark feathered owl.

Draco did not bother voicing the thoughts running through his head. While he was intensely relieved to have Harry back with them, he could not help the small amount of incredulous indignation rising inside of him. What right did Dumbledore have to imprison a man? Even if it had been for the greater good (though Draco somehow doubted this, as the entire Wizarding community of Britain was now under Voldemort’s rule), he could not imagine that Harry himself would have been happy with the idea. Draco knew all too well about the boy’s severe hero complex, oh how it had annoyed him. And Draco felt sure that transforming into an owl and letting the world fall to Voldemort would not have been on Harry’s agenda.

But he stayed silent. Though Draco had never seen Albus Dumbledore in quite the same way Ron Weasley, Hermione Granger, and Neville Longbottom had, he still had a great deal of respect for the man. And out of equal respect for his friends, he refrained from telling them exactly what he was thinking.

It was Neville that broke the silence this time. Though he had grown into a much more powerful wizard, and his body no longer had quite as much leftover baby fat, the boy still held a naïve quality about him tonight. He trembled slightly as he addressed the others.

“H-How will we know? I mean, if it has to be a certain person. How will we know?”

“I have no doubt that if Albus chose only one person for Harry’s release, they are standing right with us.” Nobody missed Minerva’s eyes as they landed on Ron and Hermione. “However, I am fairly certain that it would be a better idea for all of us to try the spell.”

“Right.” Ron said rather grimly, moving to roll up his sleeves before pulling his wand from the back pocket of his pants. Hermione reached for hers, as well, though her face still looked rather pale.

Remus already had his wand out in front of him, and Neville’s was at his side. It only took Draco a moment to retrieve his wand from the inside of his robes. He was then ready to join his five companions in bringing back Harry Potter.

Bringing back Harry Potter, Draco repeated to himself. For a moment, the name produced a chill similar to one he had felt years ago, before he had even met the boy in Madam Malkin’s robe shop, before they had become archenemies, before he had ever had the urge to kill him.

But there was no time for nostalgia now. Draco stood waiting as the others drew closer, and they formed a small circle around the owl.

“On my mark.” Minerva whispered, as if speaking loudly would somehow break them all into small pieces.

“One…”

Below them, the owl trembled, obviously disturbed by the close presence of so many people.

“Two…”

Draco gripped his wand, hoping that he could muster the force to use the spell he had learned years ago on a Death Eater revel, of all places. Next to him he could sense Neville shivering, probably having the same worries as Draco about remembering the spell.

“Three!”

Six arms clenched tightly, six wands pointed at the center object. There was a gasp, a whimper, and a muffled curse. Draco stayed calm, ignoring the rising emotion in his chest as there was a brilliant flash of white and blue light, and oh all of a sudden there were arms and legs and – he was growing so fast, Draco was never that fast when he – and…and…

And lying shaken and scared on the ground was Harry Potter.

Ron let out a shout of loud laughter, while from next to him Hermione burst into tears. Neville gave a whimper of relief, and Draco couldn’t help tossing him a shaky smile.

But yet, the pale boy noticed as the smile slipped from his face, Harry was showing no visible change. He was not leaping up and pulling Ron into a brotherly embrace, nor was he rushing to Hermione’s side to comfort her, nor any other Gryffindor-like thing. Quite the contrary, in fact. The trembling mass on the ground could have still been an owl hooting fearfully, had it not been for the legs and absence of wings.

Minerva and Lupin seemed to notice this too, as Draco caught them giving each other quite an unreadable glance. The other three paid them no attention, of course. Harry’s school friends crowded around him, causing him to cringe in a way Draco found quite noticeable.

Ron, of course, was especially inept at picking up signals of this sort, and before anyone could stop him, he kneeled down next to Harry, speaking in a voice that seemed all together too loud.

“Harry, mate, it’s incredible to see you. You have no idea what we’ve been through, trying to find you. I…we…oh, bloody hell, come here.”

But Ron had only merely extended his arm towards Harry when the dark haired boy let out a yelp and backed quickly away from them.

Their expressions changed with such immensity, that Draco knew at any other time he would be laughing his backside off at them. Now, instead, he merely felt the familiar knot of hopeless resignation forming in his stomach. They had been so stupid to think it would be that easy…

Hermione gasped from her place on the ground near Harry. “Harry, dear, what’s wrong, we – ”

But he backed away from her, whimpering so much that even Minerva made a choked up noise in the back of her throat.

“He doesn’t…he can’t…but…” Hermione was crying again, and Ron had gone sheet white. Draco again felt and suppressed that inclination towards telling them what he really thought…that they were incredible idiots to think that there was any way Albus Dumbledore was going to seal him away without first giving him some sort of –

“Memory charm.” Neville took the words out of Draco’s mind, his voice sounding glum. “And a good one, at that.”

At once, it seemed, all eyes were on Neville. No one spoke, in worry that they would say something wrong. Neville, of course, had been subject to one of the strongest memory charms ever performed. It was a rather well known fact that Frank and Alice Longbottom, two of the greatest Aurors Britain had seen during the first war, had been tortured into insanity by Barty Crouch Junior, Bellatrix, Rodolphus, and Rabastan Lestrange in order to get possible information on their lord’s whereabouts. It was a lesser-known fact, of course, that their son Neville was home at the time. By a stroke of unexplained luck, the Ministry of Magic came to the home of the Longbottoms and the Death Eaters Disapparated before they could get to the two-year-old boy. Ministry wizards of the best kind performed memory charms on the young boy, so strong that though they wiped the incident from his mind, they set him up for a very rough childhood with his inability to remember most things. He was eighteen when he found out the truth.

Ron and Hermione had said that this explained everything. They remembered from their school days, the way Neville forgot everything. Passwords, homework, the days of Hogsmeade visits…all of it. Draco thought it explained a lot, as well, though as soon as he found all of this out his mind naturally floated to an incident with broomsticks, flying lessons, and a Remembrall that ended up being the reason why Draco never won a single Quidditch match against Gryffindor.

But Neville’s words echoed in each of their minds as they stared down at Harry. There was no doubt about it. Dumbledore had given him a very strong memory charm…though that, of course led to several more questions.

Hermione was already listing different types of Memory charms, and their characteristics. Draco was already half listening – he knew all of this already. There was a reason he had been her counterpart as Head Boy, and also a reason he had kept the post of Trainee in the Department of Magical Accidents and Catastrophes in the Ministry…Potions and Antidotes department, of course…but getting to the post had included a lot of research in the reversal of various magical catastrophes.

So Draco knew that there were many different types of memory charms that a person could use. There was an ‘obliviate’, used to wipe out memories almost completely. This was one of the strongest memory charms there was, and in many cases if used with too much power behind it, it could completely erase the victim’s memory. One of the best-known cases of this was Gilderoy Lockhart. Another type, the Confundus Charm, did not completely erase a person’s existing memory, and instead would merely cloak a particular incident. This was what the Obliviators had chosen to use on Neville Longbottom, as using an actual ‘obliviate’ would have probably set the boy back even further on his development of magical and natural abilities. A third, but not final, type of memory charm did much the same as the kind used on Neville. It was like the Confundus Charm in the way it tricked a person into forgetting an event, or even an entire series of events. But unlike the Confundus Charm, it could not be reversed easily. And it was much stronger, as well. If used by a powerful enough wizard, it could have the same effects as the other two, combined. A person could forget about an entire series of events, even up to a lifetime’s worth…but instead of erasing them completely, they would merely be locked, waiting to be accessed. But the Suppressing Charm, as it was commonly called, could sometimes never be lifted. Sometimes.

Voldemort had found ways to prove over and over again that memory charms could be broken. Draco had even seen him do it. And when he combined the Dark Lord’s less-than-pleasant tactics with his own knowledge of the memory charm he was sure had been used on Harry, he came up with the perfect way to do it.

Hermione was still droning on about the carrying out of a Suppressing Charm, and all eyes were on either her, or Harry. No one paid attention as Draco reached for his wand again, whispering under his breath, “Accio Silver Star.”

The international standard broom, which had been sitting in the corner of the second floor room they were currently in, trembled for a moment before coming soundlessly into Draco’s hand. When he had brought his broom up this afternoon in hopes of getting Minerva to agree to let him out and fly for a bit, he had never imagined that the fruitless attempt would have come in handy anyway. He took a moment to square his shoulders, and make sure that his hair was in place. And then he strode forward, taking great care in nearly knocking Neville over as he came to stop in front of Ha—Potter.

“Well, Potter.” He spit out the words, staring down at the dark haired mass on the floor and ignoring the tingle on the back of his neck as every head in the room turned to gape at him. “It took you bloody long enough. Don’t tell me you got lost again, you’ve lived in this castle for long enough.”

Harry stared up at him with the same horrorstruck expression he had been staring at Ron and Hermione with. But slowly…Draco watched the lines on his forehead increase in intensity, and the brilliant green eyes flicker towards the broomstick that Draco was holding jauntily in front of him. That was the acknowledgement that Draco had been waiting for, and he drove forward, barely pausing to catch his breath as he continued.

“You like my broom, do you? Yes…my father got one for me, as well as the rest of the Slytherin house team. Outstrips that old Firebolt at zero to one-fifty in seven seconds, instead of a Firebolt’s ten. It’s a shame, Potter, at least before I could say that it was real talent that kept me on my broom, instead of having equipment better than yours. Now I’ve got both…”

The expression on Harry’s face was still more bewildered than Draco had hoped. At least he could see that his abject terror had subsided, and he was now becoming more blank than anything. But Draco did not want him blank. He wanted him to react, he wanted to see a glimpse of Potter, just to know that they could do it.

“Now tell me, are you going to take all day getting to the Quidditch match, as well? I sure bloody hope not, I want to win quickly today. My father’s come to see me, you see. And I…well, I don’t suppose you’d know what I mean, since your parents have never, and will never, see you play Quidditch…or do anything, for that matter.”

And here came the reaction Draco had been waiting for. Harry’s eyes, seeming more brilliantly green than ever before, widened in outrage behind his glasses, and as quick as lightning he had launched himself from the floor and towards Draco. Draco, anticipating this, took a few quick steps back. Ron filled the space where he had been, easily holding the other boy back.

“Careful there, Potter. Don’t want to let Umbridge see you, you might get yourself on another Quidditch ban.” Draco swept his cloak back, the smug smirk feeling like an old, unpleasant friend on his face.

Harry made an outraged noise, his arms flailing uselessly. Ron was having the smallest bit of difficulty holding him back, and Minerva quickly stepped forward to help him. Harry’s eyes fell upon the older woman and widened again, though this time it seemed to be out of relief.

“Professor McGonagall! Professor, did you hear him?! I – Ron, let go of me – Professor, you won’t let Umbridge – ”

Everyone seemed rooted to the spot as Harry’s outburst continued. Draco, feeling vaguely satisfied, took this opportunity to leave the candle-lit room for the dark and chilly hallway. He leaned against the cool stone wall, finally realizing the death grip he had on his broomstick. He gently let it go, not caring a bit as it clattered to the ground.

He heard footsteps behind him, and raised his eyes from the floor as Ron stood in front of him, his face flushed and nearly as red as his hair.

“Malfoy…Draco.” He choked out, seeming caught in between taking a breath and laughing. “That…I never thought I would be able to say this about your ability to be a complete git, but…that was bloody brilliant. I mean, yes, he seems to think he’s in fifth year still, but he’s recognized us all now, he’s…he’s back.”

“Yes, back.” Draco repeated dully, his eyes fixed on a point somewhere above Ron’s head. Ron seemed not to notice the sudden lack of vigor in Draco’s temperament, and continued.

“This could be a little tricky, I’m sure…but we’ve got him back…and that’s all that really matters, I think.” Ron sighed, sounding delighted, and it took all of Draco’s remaining strength not to scream at him and send him away.

He hadn’t realized what it meant. He had been every bit as blinded and unknowing as he had always accused those accursed Gryffindors of being, and yet they somehow won out in this whole business. It was all so simple, why hadn’t he understood before?

With Harry back, it would go back to how it was before. 1996. Remus Lupin would be the sad old man who deserved the greatest of sympathies because of a curse that was never his fault. Neville would go back to being the blundering, sweet idiot he had always been. Hermione would be the brainiac, searching for approval from their strict leader, Minerva – Professor McGonagall, rather. And Ron would take his place as Harry’s best friend, his right hand man, no matter how much of a prat the redhead could be.

And instead of like it was in 2000, when Draco was able to utilize his knowledge…his passion, his thirst to do something…he would be shunted into being sixteen again. Sixteen, and the most evil thing that had ever graced Harry’s presence, save a certain Lord Voldemort and Malfoy Senior. Draco, along with the friendships that had come to mean so much to him, would once again be lost. He wondered if Neville would think about the nighttime walks they would take, exploring the dungeons and speculating on Severus Snape’s love life. Or if Hermione would even bother to remember all of the help he would give her in the library, perusing through books it seemed only the two of them enjoyed, because Ron was against studying now that they had graduated. He wondered if Ron would care about the times they snuck out on Invisibility cloaks (pinched from the Ministry of Magic, no less) and played Quidditch in the night air, enduring harsh rebukes from McGonagall the moment they got back.

Now that Harry was back, Draco was put back into his place, as well. No more wonderful ‘I-can’t-believe-I-used-to-hate-him’ Draco. Just Malfoy.

Draco had forgotten how easy it was to hate Harry Potter.