Chapter Text
“What we are experiencing,” said the Unspeakable, “is unlike anything the Department has come across in recorded magical history.”
Harry watched the man’s face, looking for some identifying feature, but every time he thought he noticed one, it would shift and fade into something else equally vague and unrecognisable.
“The New Ministry believes that transparency in our operations and with national threats is in the interest of all citizens. We also believe in the power of the people, therefore with approval from the Wizengamot, the Department has developed two new certification programs for all seventh year and—in this case, eighth year—students: Advanced Wizardry and Advanced Witchcraft. For this first year, our eighth year students will have a particularly exciting assignment: Save the wizarding world.”
It was apparent that this was meant to incite laughter, but there was none. The Unspeakable was unlike Fudge in every way. He exhibited a number of qualities, each unique in their oppositeness to everything the previous Ministry embodied. His eyes were shrewd and unafraid, and that, Harry thought, was the most definable difference. Though the official’s physical strength was apparent, and his back straight and confident, it was the lack of fear that flashed like a Lumos to Harry. Even the man’s voice was made of sterner stuff than Fudge’s.
This was the rumoured New Ministry of the Commonwealth, then. Whispers of it had been all over the streets in the summer after Voldemort’s fall, but the government itself had been particularly quiet—and there was a strength in that, as well. The New Ministry was not afraid of the people, nor of Harry. It was a confident Ministry, a determined one. Those of strong character would be put in high positions, and those without would be demoted, or otherwise removed. Harry was not sure if this was a good thing or a bad one. He’d often wished for a government with a backbone during his fight with Voldemort, but this infant Republic was worryingly toeing a line; dictatorship and tyranny were never far away, but it was difficult to know what to think when there was no Minister yet, and wouldn’t be until after the first elections in January.
“For three months, the Department of Mysteries has been working en force with the Aurory and the Department of Secrecy & Security to solve a problem that you have no doubt heard mention of in the papers and the streets. Our commonwealth wards are indeed deteriorating—rapidly. This is believed to be caused by the magical backlash from the defeat of the wizard called Lord Voldemort.”
How long, Harry wondered, would that particular act last? Not once had he heard or seen the epithet You-Know-Who in either paper or official use since the battle. It was a clever piece of political manoeuvring to be sure, to be so contradictory to Fudge and Scrimgeour’s Ministries. Even going so far as to demand help from schoolchildren—the very same ones who’d been condemned as liars in the years before—was genius. Even Harry would admit to that. The morning’s Daily Prophet indicated high national approval for the plan, though he very much doubted that the schoolchildren themselves were surveyed.
Would they even make it to the elections in January before corruption started seeping in again like old rot? It might not matter, though. If the eighth years failed in their task, there might not be a Ministry to corrupt. This Unspeakable was a refined politician, and he’d only been speaking for ten minutes.
Slytherin, Harry thought of the man. He was not upset about it like he would’ve once been. There were too many contradicting events for him to believe that now—he’d seen too much, especially in the three months since the war’s end.
“The Department has identified a number of potential leads for both the cause and the solution, but I won’t coddle you with sugar-floss-coated words: This is a serious threat to the security of Wizarding Britain, and we have a serious wizard-power shortage. There is simply no way that with the diminished forces available to the Ministry after the war with Voldemort that we will be able to fully explore each of them in time. Even given approval for escalated Time Turner use, we are behind. Our Arithmantists calculate that, at most, we have until May to diagnose and repair the wards. Already, the wards of wizarding London have flickered before muggles, briefly exposing the truth beyond. This cannot continue.
“Simply—we need help. While the seventh years will work on service projects to strengthen our community and bring us together again after a war that rendered us apart, the eighth year students’ NEWT task. Completing it will guarantee a NEWT in the topic assigned to your team. Finding a solution and participating in the fix will add another NEWT for each subject involved in the event. As you can see, the reward could potentially be great, and that does not even include the continued secrecy of our lives.
“I will be honest with you,” the man continued in his unrecognisable voice. “We are not hopeful for a solution. The New Ministry will be taking this time to solidify the few contingency plans we have in case the wards do indeed fall, and our world is exposed to muggles. We are in discussion with the governments of Norway and Spain, with whom we are establishing refugee agreements as a last case scenario. They would not be able to take in all of us, however. Many would be left to blend amongst the muggles as best we can. This is not a result that any of us wish for, and so I can say only this: Put everything you have into your efforts; it is our very lives that depend on it.”
When he stepped down, the Great Hall remained silent. All of the gathered seventh and eighth years sat staring at the Head Table, hearts probably beating just as fast as Harry’s. McGonagall came up after a moment, and cleared her throat. It echoed throughout the Hall.
She said, “You will be put into groups, each assigned with the task of finding or recreating a spell of lore that the Ministry thinks could help. The teams will include four members, one from each House, chosen by the Goblet of Fire based on your relative strengths and weaknesses. It is imperative that each of you look beyond house rivalries now and forever—we need the expertise of each house, and we cannot afford to waste time on petty squabbles or past political differences at all. Each of you will be required to take part in order to receive a NEWT certification. If any team finds a solution in time to implement it, each team member will additionally be awarded a twenty-thousand galleon prize.”
“It’s like the Dark Ages,” Hermione murmured, but she was no stranger to fear, and tentatively agreed to its necessity. “We ended the war just to live in fear that the wards will fall and we might turn a corner in town and be burned as a witch.”
“Why’s this happening now?” Ron said. It wasn’t really a question. The timing was too suspicious, the results too nefarious. And in the back of all their minds was the question—how could Voldemort have taken all the magical wards down with him? That he was that powerful was staggering. In Harry’s mind, he saw Voldemort as a hundred times more powerful than before, and he was so very grateful that Voldemort had never figured out how to disable the wards while alive.
“If he couldn’t have the world,” Hermione guessed. “He didn’t want anyone else to have it, either.”
A new breed of wizard was emerging, even in these eerie, cautious months after Voldemort’s fall—a stronger, smarter, harder, less frightened wizard. Or at least it felt that way to Harry as he looked around at the gathered seventh and eighth years. Though not on its own; not without obligation, it seemed. But Harry had seen this new thing in the streets over summer, and on the grounds as he helped to repair the damages to the castle. It was new, but it was very real.
“I do not condone the method,” McGonagall said, and hesitated briefly. “—But I cannot find fault in the necessity for something. Without some change, the wards will fail all over Britain, and we—we will have nowhere to hide.”
The Headmistress looked out at them; her throat bobbed as she swallowed down the bile of what she was about to ask from them. The Daily Prophet had not been compassionate in its reporting when the story was leaked that morning—
Boy-Who-Lived to be among first class of students required to save the world—again
“This will be our only chance,” said McGonagall. “Do not let Hogwarts down. Now, Professor Sinistra will call out the assignments.” McGonagall stepped down from the dais, and Aster Sinistra replaced her.
“Hannah Abbott, Hermione Granger, Pansy Parkinson, Padma Patil.”
Hermione let out a sigh of relief at Hannah and Padma’s names, though she did cast a worried glance at the Slytherin table. Over half, at least, were here under duress. No doubt they would have preferred to scarper off to Durmstrang or even one of the smaller schools in Austria or Belarus—but the New Ministry had put paid to that idea, and quickly.
No British school-aged citizen were exempt from Advanced Witchcraft or Wizardry. Even the coven-schooled students would be taking on more studies if they hoped to ever hold a job besides shopkeeper, since the New Ministry required all wizards and witches born 1975 or later to complete Advanced Witchcraft or Wizardry to receive or renew employment licenses.
It wasn’t just advanced charms or potions, though. It was a gruelling year-long test—a test of skill, magic, knowledge, character, and ingenuity…a test designed to create this new breed of wizard, come Hell or Aqueous Maximus.
“Terry Boot, Lavender Brown, Justin Finch-Fletchley, Gregory Goyle.
“Mandy Brocklehurst, Tracey Davis, Ernie Macmillan, Ronald Weasley.
“Draco Malfoy—”
Here it comes, thought Harry, already feeling his heart ache from it. It never happens any other way—not in real life nor in dreams.
“—Morag McDougal, Harry Potter, Zacharias Smith.”
And there it was. Across the Hall, Draco Malfoy’s eyes met his, and Harry knew that they’d both been thinking the very same thing. Malfoy looked away first, and Harry was grateful, if only briefly, for it. How in the world were they going to work together after everything?
When all of the teams were put together, the Great Hall was heavy with silence. Harry looked from table to table and saw that there were as many determined faces as there were horrified ones. “We’ll either get stronger,” Harry murmured, “or we will wipe ourselves out.”
Ginny’s eyes cut to him, though her face remained still. He saw her mouth part, and then close again as she chose not to reply.
“For the best, either way,” Harry added. No one said a word.
ɤɣɤ
“What wrong do you have in mind?” Theo asked, but no one needed to be told. Snape’s absence weighed on House Slytherin like little boulders on each of their chests; a new one added by the day until they were crushed under the weight of being alone, with no one to fight for them.
“He was a Slytherin,” said Pansy, “and he was never the master of the wand.”
“I was,” Draco said. He’d said it many times before—barely believing the words even as they left his tongue. The Elder Wand had been his, and he’d not died for it. Snape could have said he never mastered the wand, that Draco had been the one to defeat Dumbledore—but he did not. “It was me.”
“Enough, Draco,” Blaise growled. Then more softly, “Enough. It was a cunning death.” He said it as a Hufflepuff might have said, ‘It was an honourable death,’ or a Gryffindor might have said, ‘It was a brave death’. It was a good death, in any case.
“But what if it didn’t need to be a death at all?”
“There’s no way to bring anyone back from the dead, Tracey,” said Theo.
“But what if...” said Tracey, and because Snape had been so good to them, none of them could help thinking, ‘What if...?’
ɤɣɤ
Morag was the last to arrive, and she shut the door too hard behind her; the sound reverberated in the deserted, dungeon room. Chairs were conjured—Slughorn made Harry’s gold-tinted, basilisk skin; the others plain green. They sat.
“I had hoped,” he said, his voice filling the cavernous room like a lethal green potion once filled a bowl in an inferi-infested cave: harsh, unusual, and unceasing, “that these dark times would have ended with You-Know-Who. But, it seems, they have not.”
No one said anything. Slughorn waved his wand and distributed a rolled parchment to each of them. “You are one of two teams who will be working on a potion. This is everything we know of the ancient potion Manticoria. It is believed to be only legend, but—we are desperate enough to rely on legend now. I am sorry for giving you so little to work with...,” he shrugged, trailing off.
“Please schedule a time to meet with one another before the end of this week, and report your plan of action to me. You may go.”
Outside, they huddled in the dying green light of a wall torch well overdue for a refreshed igniting spell. The term in session for only a few hours, and Hogwarts was already like a completely different place. The parts of the castle that weren’t too damaged to inhabit were frightening in the way they didn’t change—and yet there were crawling, skittering sounds in dark corners, and rushing sounds that made the hair on the back of his neck stand up. That he was not convinced these sounds were real made it all the more terrifying, because Harry was falling apart, had been for a week now, and he was sure his mind was going first.
Zacharias was the first to speak. “The library tomorrow night?” he asked.
“Fine,” said Morag. Harry and Malfoy echoed her.
“Good,” said Zacharias. He left without another word, and Morag followed, rushing off to the stairs leading up to Ravenclaw. Malfoy made to go back to the Slytherin common room, but Harry, on impulse, stopped him with a hand around his wrist.
“Draco. Wait,” he said.
Malfoy paused, but did not look back at him. “What is it?”
“Did you—feel it?”
Malfoy hesitated a moment too long. “Feel what?” he asked coolly.
Harry swallowed around the words, I know you did. I know you felt it, I know you remember it. He said instead, “I have your wand. I can—I can bring it tomorrow night, if you want it back.”
“If I want it back, Potter?” Malfoy snarled, only now turning back to look at him. The green flame of the torch reflected oddly in his grey eyes, and Harry was overcome with deja vu—he’d seen this before, he was sure of it. “If I want it back? It’s my wand, you Philistine, of course I want it back!”
“Right, yeah,” Harry said, dropping his wrist. “Sorry, I—I thought you’d got a new one.”
Malfoy sneered at him. “It’s a wand, not a quill. Getting a new one out of necessity doesn’t mean the other one is suddenly redundant. It’s an heirloom.”
Harry nodded. “I’ll bring it tomorrow.”
“See that you do,” Malfoy snarled. He left without looking back. He’d done that before, too. Harry was well acquainted with the sight of Malfoy leaving. It was a scene he had replayed in his head everyday for the last seven—then he played many more back and tried to figure out where he’d messed up. He never did find anything.
He swallowed heavily, feeling a lump in his throat. Left standing alone in the empty un-ruined dungeon corridor, he vividly remembered what being alone had come to feel like.
ɤɣɤ
He hadn’t thought it would be, not really, but—it was so very different. His bed was still the one next to Ron’s, and Seamus and Dean still had theirs bunked one atop the other, and Neville’s was still surrounded by plants and vines crawling up the trestles of his canopy. But now, next to Ron’s bed there was a wardrobe with two new robes in it, courtesy the reward money from the New Ministry for defeating a domestic terrorist. Seamus bunked on the bottom now because, after taking a blast over a banister in the final battle, he was afraid of falling. The plants surrounding Neville’s bed were far more likely to be carnivorous now than the fancy species he’d favoured before—they stood guard around his bed with chomping, gaping maws full of fibrous, cellulose-teeth. And Harry—
Harry slept with his invisibility cloak beneath his pillow, and couldn’t say why.
But tonight—tonight he wasn’t sleeping. Tonight, Harry lay back with his head on top of his hands. This night, his second back at Hogwarts, he lay on his back, watching Malfoy’s wand twirl lazily in the air above him. He’d had this wand for six months, but it felt more like six years. It was closer to him now than his own holly wand had ever been. Why?
He asked himself daily, and still, months later, there was no answer forthcoming.
The sun rose before he thought of falling asleep, but there wouldn’t be any structured classes for the eighth year students, so he had nowhere to be anyway. Dean was the first to rise, as usual, and that same sense of unreality overcame Harry once again as he tried to feign sleep and stillness behind his bed curtains. Harry listened to Dean crawl down the wooden ladder to whisper at Seamus, telling him to get up, get dressed, it was breakfast soon.
“Du’wanna,” Seamus muttered, the words hazy from his sleep-addled brain and the bed curtains around their respective beds.
“Gotta,” Dean murmured back.
Harry knew that word well. His whole life had been defined by things he had to do. Gotta survive the Dursleys, gotta save the stone, gotta rescue Ginny, gotta defeat Voldemort, gotta die doing it…gotta fight with Malfoy, at least on the outside. He would do all the others over and over again if only the last one weren’t there…once, he hadn’t minded.
Once, he’d been perfectly content to row and brawl with Malfoy all the time. But that had been before the wand, and the dreams—but they weren’t dreams if they were real. He had wondered how mad he was going for months, and then he began wondering how he was okay with it, because he wasn’t going mad, and it wasn’t just dreams.
In that strange place between wake and sleep, he shifted on the bed, and felt Malfoy’s phantom weight shift on his chest, felt his ghost fingers clench briefly in Harry’s pyjama shirt. For the briefest, most precious of seconds, he felt Malfoy’s breath against his collarbone.
It jolted him fully awake again. This needed to stop. Maybe it would when he gave the wand back.
Frustrated and a bit disgusted with himself, Harry snatched the spinning wand from the air and hurled it away. It smacked against the heavy curtains depressingly softly. Dean heard anyway; he said, “Mate, you okay?”
“Fine,” Harry said. After a moment, Dean’s paused breathing resumed, as Seamus began rustling around like he might, possibly, in the near future, get out of bed—soon.
He felt Malfoy’s fingers clench phantom-like against his shoulder.
Then again, maybe it wouldn’t.
Maybe he’d be stuck like this forever, with some false memory of a relationship he never had, invading every waking moment of his life. It had long ago moved past dreams. He hated this wand—
—And he did not want to give it back.
ɤɣɤ
Ron left straight from lunch to meet his team, and Hermione hadn’t been around since breakfast. There were no younger students in the common room until just before dinner, since they all had classes. A fourth year glanced at him nervously throughout the evening, and Harry desperately wished he hadn’t been so self-absorbed in prior years that he didn’t bother to learn any of their names. He would have liked to tell the kid to bugger off, but it didn’t feel right when he didn’t know his name.
After dinner, he walked with Hermione up to the library. Ron’s group wasn’t one full of obstinate people like Harry’s, nor people with something to prove, like Hermione’s, and so they’d finished up for the day already.
“Are you doing a potion, too?” he asked her.
“A runeflow,” she said. “The Department of Mysteries believes that the Wizards’ Council used Arithmancy to determine the flow of runes from ward linchpin to linchpin. They think that if we can figure out where all the pins are and the order they were warded, we may find the fault in the major wards. The only problem is that no one has any idea what pattern might have been used, or if there even is one.”
“Sounds complicated,” he said.
“It is…But I’ve grown to like complicated over the last year.”
Harry was silent for a long moment. By the time he spoke, they were at the library door. “Me, too,” he said. Hermione’s mouth edged upwards on the sides, but she didn’t reply. She left him there to find her team in the runeology section; he made his way to the back of the library, where the potions books were, with a feeling reminiscent of dread.
As he cleared the aisle and found the table, his stomach gave a weird twist—Malfoy was the only one there. Harry put his satchel down hesitantly across from him. “Hi,” he said. Then, “Draco.”
“Still assuming we’re familiar enough to be on given names?”
Harry bit his lip as he slid into the chair. “We were—once.”
Malfoy looked away, mouth pressed firmly together. “We were not. Not ever.”
“Why did you leave?” asked Harry. “You were wrong. It didn’t need to end.”
Malfoy slammed his hand against the table, hard. His eyes narrowed spitefully when he hissed, “It was a bloody fucking dream! It wasn’t real.”
Morag came then, thumping her books down on the table next to Malfoy with Ravenclaw austerity. She tossed her dark hair out of her eyes as she sat, eyeing them curiously. Harry was stuck on the words he’d been about to say—that it had been real and they both knew it, but Morag was already flipping pages, and Zacharias bloody Smith rounded the corner just after. He couldn’t not say anything—he couldn’t just leave it at that.
In the end, he settled for, “It was as real as anything,” said under his breath. Malfoy heard him. The stiffening of his shoulders said as much as needed saying.
“So,” said Zacharias. “Where do we start?”
Harry summoned his copy of the parchment Slughorn gave to each of them and read, “Manticoria: The only known written references to this potion are in the story of Merlin at Cymry, where it was allegedly used to guard the Holy Grail. Because legend claims that the grail later became the family relic of the House of Galahud of Powys, magihistorians have proposed that the grail is in fact the magical Cup of Hufflepuff, citing etymological evolution and related periods as the reasoning: Galahud of Powys, or Hud o’Poffs – and later House Hufflepuff. However, this is unsubstantiated, and there is no evidence that Helga Hufflepuff was a descendent of Sir Galahad, nor that the magical Cup of Hufflepuff is the Holy Grail. However, as all of the main legends regarding the raising of the wards reference beasts, and often specifically manticores, the Department must tentatively conclude that the potion Manticoria is likely to have been involved in the guarding of itself, if not necessarily also Hogwarts relics. The Department prioritises Manticoria as a 1.”
“If even the Department of Mysteries can’t figure it out,” Zacharias said, “then why are we even bothering?”
“No time for it when they’re so busy focusing on everything else, I guess,” said Harry, but inside, he agreed. This was a fool’s errand. They should be spending this time trying to develop new wards, not refreshing old ones.
“The wards are failing all over Britain, and the New Ministry would rather concern itself with whatever subterfuge they’re currently planning,” said Malfoy. He sighed. “At least we have a place to start, with the Grail.”
“Well, I’ve never even heard this version of King Arthur,” Harry said. “Raised by muggles, remember? Does it say anything else?”
“No,” said Zacharias. “I don’t even remember the potion being named in it. Only that there was a potion used.”
“I found another mention of it in Armes Pocyon by Baron Sivis Mortagne.”
This caught Malfoy’s attention. “I didn’t know the Bloody Baron published.”
Morag gave him a cool look. “I expect you didn’t. The only copy is in the Ravenclaw library.”
“What?” Zacharias said. “It should be in the main library where everyone can use it.”
“Just like a Hufflepuff to want everything shared with everyone,” said Morag. “Here’s a hint, Smith: important, one-of-a-kind books are only safe in Ravenclaw hands. I had to barter research assistance with Professor Flitwick to even take it out for a few hours. I wouldn’t trust a Slytherin like Pince to take care of it, not when she’s more concerned about the status of her library property. Besides, half the pages are filled with melodramatic asides about the great beauty of Helena Ravenclaw. It’s not like it’s high art.”
This was going to go even more poorly than Harry had expected. Malfoy, Zacharias, and he—he could admit it about himself—were volatile, even more volatile together. Morag had been an unknown factor, but she didn’t appear to be intimidated by the three of them.
“We’re all about to die painful, experimental deaths at the hands of muggles, and you’re worried about books,” said Zacharias.
‘Go poorly’ was apparently going to be an understatement. Harry no longer had patience for this sort of thing, but really, when had he ever? “Bloody stop it,” he growled. “The wards aren’t going to fall, you melodramatic ponce.”
Zacharias rolled his eyes. “Yeah, I’m the ponce. Okay.”
“They probably will fall,” Morag muttered.
Harry cut her a cool look. “Are all Ravenclaws this pessimistic?”
Morag seemed to think. Her finger tapped thoughtfully against her bottom lip; she hummed. “No,” she finally said. “No, thinking back on it, it’s only the ones who have to be around you. Cho Chang comes to mind...and poor Michael Corner never had a chance with little swooning Weasley. Then there’s Marietta’s spots because she was fool enough to join your illegal club instead of practising with us in Ravenclaw—,”
“Oh, fuck you, McDougal,” Malfoy said snidely. “I don’t recall any of you happy geniuses saving the world from the Dark Lord.”
“Mmm,” Morag said, smirking at Malfoy. “Still calling him the Dark Lord, eh? My—it is getting hot in this old library, isn’t it. Why don’t we all get a little more comfortable?” She began pulling off her robes, leaving her only in her shirtsleeves. “How about you, Malfoy? You look a bit hot. Take off that robe and roll up your sleeves so we can get to work.”
“Leave off him,” Harry said lowly. All three pairs of eyes cut to him, displaying varying degrees of surprise. Harry knew what they would find if Malfoy’s sleeves were rolled up. The Dark Mark was just as black against his skin as the day he got it. Harry’d never seen it in waking hours, but he’d seen it somehow—and he’d already forgiven Malfoy for it. Neither of these two had anything he needed forgiving for. But that was not what made him speak up; it was that Malfoy had spoken up for him first.
“Just—leave off,” Harry said again. “We need to work.”
They all looked down at their own books, uncomfortable. Morag sighed, and spelled Armes Pocyon to duplicate on the tabletop, where they could each read it.
“‘Of the goode wyzard Merlyn,’” she read. “’who frede ws from Muggles, ande puryfyde the elyment of Magicke in Albion ande Lloegyr, precyouse was the pocyon Manticoria.’”
“Merlin spare me,” Zacharias sighed. “Precious was the potion ‘Manticoria’? Really?”
“It can’t be that easy,” Harry said.
“It isn’t,” Morag agreed. “It only says that Manticoria was used in freeing us from muggles—which might mean the wards or might not. It doesn’t say how it was used.”
“Does it say anything else on it at all?” asked Malfoy.
Morag shrugged a bit. She read, “‘By owr own creacyon, the very fownders of the school of Magicke did combyne wyth the Wyzard Cownsyl ande the Magicke of the wyzard Merlyn, who was wyth deth, ande stopt the Muggles.’—That’s it, really,” she said.
“It’s a place to start, at least,” said Harry. “Did Merlin make the potion?”
“It doesn’t say anything at all about how the original wards were set?” Malfoy asked doubtfully. “I find it hard to imagine the Baron would leave out such a vital piece of information.”
Zacharias rolled his eyes. “Why don’t you just go ask him? He’s your house ghost.”
Malfoy sneered. “I can’t,” he said. “He hasn’t spoken since the battle.”
This gave them all pause. “Neither has Helena,” Morag said thoughtfully. “I thought she was just grieving.”
“For what?” Harry asked.
Morag gave him a withering look. “For the last earthly relic of her mother, you troglodyte. Did you not set it on fire during the battle?”
“I haven’t even seen the Friar,” said Zacharias, for once ignoring the possibility of a conflict.
No one asked about Nearly-Headless Nick, and for that, Harry was grateful—and ashamed. If they had asked him, he would have been forced to say he didn’t know. He hadn’t bothered to even say hello to Nick since coming back in July for the restoration.
“Well, regardless,” said Morag, “that’s all the book says. No instructions, hints, or anything. It just goes on about the sanctity of power runes for several pages, and then moves on to a section of prophecies about Britain, then another few pages on Helena’s delicate fingers.”
“I hate prophecies,” Harry muttered. The other three rolled their eyes. He firmed his lips together; it would seem that to get on with this group of cold, sarcastic, arrogant people, he would need a very stiff upper lip indeed. Instead of starting a row, like he wanted, he said, “Well, we do know one new thing, and that’s that the Manticoria potion was definitely involved. We only thought it might be before.”
“Gryffindors, always a fresh ray of shining sun,” said Zacharias, but it was without rancour.
“As bright as a thousand Lumoses against a midnight sky,” Morag added.
Malfoy did not pick up the joke. He was looking at Harry thoughtfully—in a way that Harry had not yet seen in waking hours. He looked away to summon his copy of the scroll from Slughorn. “I think I have heard of Manticoria before,” he said as he scanned it.
He paused to summon another book—this one Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them—from his satchel and flicked his fingers, sending the pages shuffling open until they stopped on the one he wanted. “’...The body of a lion, the wisdom of a sphinx, the bite of a wolf, and the strike of a scorpion—quick and deadly.’ – I remember my father saying that once, but I can’t remember what for...I wonder if he knew about the potion.”
Morag carefully closed Armes Pocyon and slid it back into her bag. “Okay, fine. We have somewhere to start. I’ll report this to Slughorn, and we’ll meet again Saturday night, same time. In the meantime, let’s split up the research. Potter—you find out everything you can on Manticores and their use in potions; Smith, see if you can find any truth to that fable about Hufflepuff’s Cup—it may be useful after all. Malfoy, can you get in touch with your father at all? See if he knows anything else about the Malfoy wards? Those are pretty old, aren’t they?”
“Yes,” Malfoy said tightly. Lucius Malfoy was in Azkaban, and would be for another five years, at least. The likelihood of Malfoy being allowed to visit was lower than that of Trelawney predicting something optimistic. Still, Malfoy said, “I will see what I can do.”
Morag nodded, already standing. “Good. Then I’ll check the Ravenclaw library and the Restricted Section for everything I can find on ancient warding techniques and traditions. Hopefully, among the four of us, we’ll come up with some sort of direction.” She was gone before any of them could respond, and Smith left right after.
Again, Harry found himself alone with Malfoy, facing off against him from the gaping divide of the library table. If he held his hand out, Malfoy would be close enough to take it—but this was real life, and Malfoy would not take it. There was something totally disarming in that realisation, something that nothing quite righted. He swallowed heavily. “I’ve your wand, like I said.”
“Good,” said Malfoy. He held his hand out, and the thought of taking it flashed across Harry’s mind like a lightning storm, and just as crushing. “May I have it?”
Harry pulled it from his sleeve, and held it out. “But—just one thing,” he said quietly. “Just—tell me you remember. Please.”
Malfoy sneered at him and reached for the wand. His fingers closed around the handle and nothing had ever felt like this before—not exhilaration of catching the Snitch, nor even the hot heat of kissing Malfoy in all of those memories that were both real and not-real. Magic flooded him; he saw Malfoy’s eyelids fall closed and his mouth part in exactly the same breathless way it had done a hundred-thousand times in Harry’s dreams.
He watched them all play before his eyes at Snitch-speed, and then slow on the very first one Harry had ever had, the night that he took the wand—the night that he knew that Malfoy was Marked, but was too tired to care. Then it rushed forward to the moment Malfoy said, ‘This will never work—we have to stop,’ and Harry’s dream had cut to Malfoy walking away. He’d woken up gasping, covered in a cold sweat, and burning with shame and something deeper at how utterly undone he was by a dream. Nightmares from Voldemort had never come close. All of the sudden, it ended. The retreating tendrils of warm magic left him feeling empty all over again.
“Tell me you felt it,” Harry whispered.
“It isn’t real,” Malfoy said softly.
“But it could be.”
Malfoy looked away, pocketing his old wand. He left the library, and did not look back.