Out of the Night that Covers Me

Out of the Night that Covers Me

by Mephistedes

.:.

XV. Out of the Night that Covers Me, Part II

.:.

Harry simply gaped.

“Speechless, Potter?”

“I...” Harry shook his head and blinked. Maybe he’d finally taken one too many hits to the head and was seeing things, but Cormac McLaggen?

McLaggen impatiently huffed, growling, “Well? Would you like to hear how I did this or not?”

“Please do,” Harry stressed, “because I have a hard time believing you could wash your own arse without telling somebody let alone be the brains behind a scheme this massive.”

Apparently, that had been the wrong thing to say. McLaggen’s face darkened into a sour frown. “Get up.”

Harry was keen on staying right where he was until McLaggen threateningly pointed his wand. Smirking, Cormac raised his other hand, and Harry immediately recognized his wand. “I said, get ... up. Now.”

Glaring daggers at the wiry-haired menace, Harry reluctantly rose to his feet, hissing as McLaggen jabbed a wand in his back.

“Open those curtains.”

“Why? You plan on getting a tan? It’s too late for that,” Harry taunted, but did as he was told. The sapphire drapes heaved to each side as he pulled the cord to reveal a huge window, with green fields meeting a pink-orange horizon as far as the eye could see.

“Look down there. I’ve Enchanted the window for one-way viewing.”

“Professor Flitwick would be proud, I’m sure.”

“Look.” Snapped McLaggen, nudging him sharply in the shoulder. He was really getting annoyed with all the instructions, but obeyed. He could very clearly see the garden where Hermione and Ron and the rest of the wedding party were lingering, shooting glances at the door to the house. The cloud of bats was still circling ominously in the distance. God, where was Draco?

“How precious,” sneered McLaggen. “They’re waiting for you. Such loyal friends, such cursed Gryffindor pride, eh?”

Harry scowled over his shoulder. “They’ll come for me.”

“I rather think not. I took care of that with a very complex Sealing Ward on all the entrances after you entered the house. Unless Granger’s hunted big game before or wishes to reveal to her Muggle family her magical little secret, no one is coming for you.

“So you’ll want to be careful what you say to me,” Cormac seethed, and Harry winced as a wand dug into his shoulder. “I’m the one in charge now. So if you don’t want to watch your best mates’ brains pour out of their ears before they say their vows...” Harry hissed as Cormac roughly fisted a hand in his hair, jerking his head towards Hagrid. “Or see that precocious little werebrat bleed to death — ”

“If you lay one finger on him, I swear I’ll — !”

He howled as McLaggen slammed his head against the glass before wrapping the other hand around his neck and squeezing. “You’ll SHUT UP and LISTEN for once, Potter, if you don’t want to see them to die! I said you were going to pay. I warned you.”

Through the pressure around his throat, Harry grunted, “Why are you doing this?”

He needed to ask. He had to know why. McLaggen was a Gryffindor; he was supposed to be one of them, not murdering them! “What did they ever do to you, huh? Katie, Alicia, Oliver ... why?”

The vise-like pressure around his neck reduced. He barely had a moment’s breath before he was spun around, Cormac glowering down at him. Without a word, the Auror stepped away from him, wand still held high. “What makes you think you deserve to know the truth?” McLaggen softly questioned. “What right do you have to know that?”

Harry paused, panting as he massaged his neck. Narrowing his eyes, he retorted, “What right did you have to kill them?”

“I had every right.”

“Why?” snapped Harry, gnashing his teeth. “Gryffindors, McLaggen. You were with me at the crime scenes. They were our housemates, our blood, we owe them loyalty. And you murdered them! Why?”

McLaggen let out an unstable sort of chuckle that chilled Harry’s insides. This was a stupid idea, separating from Draco, but then again, the longer he kept McLaggen talking, the longer everyone downstairs remained safe. He had to be telling the truth: Harry hadn’t heard the ringing since entering the room.

“Why?” repeated Cormac, an unsettling smile twitching at his lips. “Perkins, Bell, Wood, the lot of them.... They insulted me.”

Harry blinked.

Of all the excuses he anticipated, that was not the answer he was expecting. McLaggen couldn’t be serious. Cocking his head to the side, Harry questioned, “Come again?”

But Cormac only scowled, whispering, “You think I’m joking.”

“Not when you say it like that, no,” said Harry soberly, shoving his hands in his pockets. “So they...” he paused to swallow in distaste, “...insulted you?”

“And embarrassed me,” McLaggen added, stabbing at the air with his wand. “You talk about them being our blood? And house loyalty?” he chuckled incredulously. “You want to hear about house loyalty? Fine.

“Fourth year: Alicia, she laughed at me when I asked her to the Yule Ball; I didn’t even get through asking and she turned me away. Wood: I overheard him telling his friends about replacement tryouts in third year. Said I was the worst of the lot, and shouldn’t be anywhere near the pitch. I showed him, though.” A manic gleam sparked in Cormac’s eyes as he said this, and Harry knew he was deadly serious about this.

“Sixth year, when Katie Bell came back from hospital, your loudmouth girlfriend told her about that game — the one where I knocked you out. Since she wasn’t there when the mob attacked me, she Bewitched my bedclothes to give birth to the foulest bugs. To this day I can’t stand to sleep in a bed.

“That was the last straw, that Quidditch match. That’s when it all started for me,” McLaggen fumed, “when a mob of my loyal housemates — Peakes, the Weasleys, the whole lot — strung me up to be humiliated, all in the name of you, their infallible hero. There’s your house loyalty, Potter.”

Harry frowned. He knew from experience how fanatical Gryffindors became over the most insignificant news, but that was no reason to go on a killing spree. While McLaggen was right to be upset (if any of these things were true), he had been tremendously wrong to take things this far.

But right now, he needed to focus on keeping McLaggen’s attention. The more he got McLaggen talking, the longer everyone downstairs remained alive.

“And what about Rumford King?” he quietly asked. “He was before our time. How’d an old man wrong you?”

Cormac’s lip curled backwards, whether in a snarl or a vicious smirk, he hadn’t a clue. “My uncle took him instead of me on his annual summer hunt. King can barely hold a wand, old as he is, but Uncle Tibe had made his choice. King became the first successful test of the new microchips from Tiberius, Incorporated’s brand new Muggle sect.”

Harry narrowed his eyes. “Named for your dear Uncle Tiberius, that’s sweet,” he scorned. “I wonder how he’d feel if he knew you were killing innocent people in his name.”

“Ashamed, I hope: that he chose an old friend over family.” Cormac’s expression soured. “No one insults me and gets away with it.”

Harry nodded once. All right. So McLaggen pretty much established he was a psychopath. But as long as the psychopath zeroed in on him, everyone was safe. For how long, he couldn’t tell. He hated even being around McLaggen, but knew the man loved to be heard. And since Teddy learned to talk, Harry had become quite the good listener. He at least had that weapon in his arsenal.

An angry rrrrooowl! from Crookshanks sounded from behind a closed door on his right, and McLaggen’s gaze flicked there for all of a half-second. Harry knew he couldn’t do anything in that time without a wand ... but had he just seen movement in the doorway?

“Ah — but that’s not true, is it? The Malfoys,” he whispered, continuing his garrulous plan. “They got away.”

Cormac indifferently shrugged. “The very first chip I sent out. Uncle Tibe had gifted them with magical peafowl eggs upon hearing of their betrothal some years ago. He hadn’t known then they were Dark people. And their son of course, Draco Malfoy, now parading around as an agent of good repute for France — please! All of them were Death Eaters who got off easy, so no one would care if they were killed.”

It took every ounce of willpower he had not to lunge at McLaggen. While he knew the elder Malfoys weren’t completely innocent, getting to know Draco had more than made up for his parents’ beliefs. Harry balled his fists in his pockets, restraining himself. Just a little while longer.

“I was still experimenting then. The Malfoys were my trial run, my test subjects; too few bats, too little power. They may have escaped death, but theirs is a fate far worse.

“And you, somehow, got away. I assure you, I will not make that same mistake twice,” Cormac vowed with a dark look. He pointed his wand with obvious intent. “Not this time, Potter. I don’t know how you managed to escape, but you’ll be dead before long.”

“Hang on,” Harry stalled. He needed more time, and what in the name of Merlin was Draco doing that he couldn’t find him: chopping a tree down to make wands? “You can’t kill me yet. Not without telling me how you did it.”

He nodded out the window, briefly glancing down at the resumed ceremony. “The tracing, the frequencies, the magic of murder; I’m just bursting to know: why bats?”

McLaggen lightly laughed, lowering his wand a fraction. “Why not bats? Such a feared, reviled creature, but,” McLaggen held up a finger, “it had a fascinating gift. Echolocation. Sure, other creatures have it, but bats can fly under the cover of night; cover their tracks. And what’s more frightening than being attacked by the unknown in the dark?

“So when Uncle Tibe retired and relinquished parts of his fortune to the family, I used my share to set up bat rehabilitation clinics all over England.”

That explained the thousands of bats at his disposal, then. “Your own personal laboratories,” growled Harry, shaking his head in disgust. “What did you do to them? Last I checked echolocation is for navigation, not assassination.”

“Au contraire,” chuckled McLaggen. “Echolocation is a pinpointing tool. The bats use it to see in the dark better: to find enemies or prey. Given the right spell, one can oscillate the bats’ echolocating calls to a low frequency, high-pressure weapon. If differential pressure can rupture the human eardrum at five kilopascals — ”

Harry raised his eyebrows in bewilderment. “Whoa—kilopascals? You’ve lost me.”

“ — how much pressure would it take to rupture say, the human brain?”

“Hence, the thousands of bats in my drawing room this afternoon.”

Cormac wryly shrugged. “You’re welcome.”

“And my chinchilla that you nearly killed,” he pointed out. “You couldn’t have entered my house without me or my house-elf knowing. You didn’t know we tagged her back at the shelter, either.”

“No,” Cormac admitted. “No, that was purely by accident. At Perkins’ flat, your rat attacked me — rather, attacked this.”

Harry watched with caution as McLaggen loosened his tie and pulled a heavy gold chain into view. From the center hung an antique, round pendant, its face resembling a clock, but the spindly numbers ascended from zero to nine. There was a bad feeling roiling in the pit of his stomach. Very bad.

“What’s that?”

“Well, I don’t have a fancy name for it — ”

“You don’t?” he scoffed. “Why, every mastermind names their gadgets.”

McLaggen bristled. “I hold this silver button and it scans the microchips’ codes, saving them in one of these nine spots. They turn red when occupied, see? Nine’s still empty; I’ve reserving that for Demelza Robins’ owl.” He tapped his wand along the last number with a smirk. “So when the time comes, I select a number, and — ”

“Push the button again to summon your winged minions,” Harry finished with a nod. “A double-function button? You must be a genius.”

“When I got the call for Perkins’ homicide, I was about to scan a puffskein I’d microchipped for Miss Weasley and left in a bit of a hurry. I subsequently forgot to take it off scanning mode. Then your beast attacked me at the flat, and imagine my surprise when I’d got home to find the seventh spot had been registered,” Cormac’s winning smile reminded Harry of a shark that had spotted its prey. “This was my opportunity to finish off Malfoy, I’d thought. But that night at your home — you remember? When I got you demoted?”

Harry narrowed his eyes and turned to look out the window. “Vaguely.” The wedding was still going. Good. But as it was getting darker, he could barely see the flapping dark cloud, still in the same spot. Something was stalling them. Maybe Draco had found a way around the magic deterrent after all, because he sure was taking all bloody day to find him....

“I saw the cage.” Cormac continued. “It certainly wasn’t an owl cage.”

Harry rolled his eyes. “My, you’re an astute one. And the bats? How do you call them? I’ve tried magic: they won’t budge.”

“Repellant Magic. Couldn’t let anyone try to stop them, could I? Great thing is, once implanted, the chips can never be removed. Again: magic.”

“Is that right?” Harry muttered. “So if you swallowed one?”

“It won’t leave your system.”

“Ugh,” he gagged. “At least you’d still be regular.”

McLaggen frowned, clearly not amused. “As I was saying, all the chips in the bats run on a homing signal — ”

“Oho, the Bat Signal!” Harry snorted in amusement. McLaggen must have been pure-blood, though; his face was the picture of befuddlement. Frowning, Harry cleared his throat, saying, “Never mind; carry on. Come on, I want it all out before I die.”

“The signal is like a radio frequency version of the Imperius Curse,” McLaggen continued with a withering glare. “I hold the button to zero, the only spot that can’t be scanned.”

“And they return to Papa McLaggen to await their next assignment.” Harry nodded once. “Impressive.”

“I know,” Cormac smugly agreed, before turning serious. “But I’ve let you live long enough, Potter. Too long have you gone unpunished for your misdeeds. You were even commended for it!” His face looked especially harsh in the shadows of the setting sun. “The S.T.A.G. was my slot, but instead they chose you: Harry Potter, the biggest celebrity in our world for a stealth position!”

“Hey, hey, hang on, now: I had nothing to do with my promotion to S.T.A.G.”

“But you still applied!”

“Coincidence.”

“You applied when you knew I already did!” McLaggen yelled over Crookshanks’ angry spitting. “You don’t even have a proper Animagus form and still got the position over me!”

Harry scowled, snarling, “Did it ever occur to you that I might’ve had better qualifications?”

“What, that cursed scar on your forehead?” McLaggen seethed, brandishing his wand. “No more, Potter. I’m not going to let you insult and humiliate me any longer. So here’s what I’m going to do.

“I’ve got Kingsley in the other room, did you know that?” Harry glanced up sharply. McLaggen nodded, smug. “Told him I thought I saw something suspicious inside and Stunned him on the way upstairs. I’m going to kill him using your wand here, and say it was you. And you’ll know all of this and die, knowing that when people think of you after death, they’ll be positively embarrassed by the thought of you, hero. They’ll say you abused your power and destroyed every life you touched. I wouldn’t be surprised if people spat on your grave.”

Breathing sharply through his nose, Harry hissed, “They’ll never believe I did all this.”

“Oh, yes they will.” McLaggen countered. “You knew the victims well. You’ve had access to the Weasleys for years, Peakes was a reporter — attention and Quidditch, your first loves — and Perkins shadowed you that night. You showed up at your best friends’ wedding looking wild and covered with blood. Cottenham saw you threaten me and Kingsley weeks ago, and your demotion — your motive, will be on file. Your mind was so warped with rage and Darkness, I had no choice but to use lethal force on you. It’ll be a wonderfully macabre tale I’ll wend, and in the end, no one will ever try to humiliate me again.”

Despite McLaggen’s deadly discourse, Harry snorted in contempt. “Mate, you really need to learn how to let go.”

Cormac glared, aiming a wand straight at his chest. “And you really need to learn when to stop.”

“Just wait, I’m not finished with you yet,” Harry raised a hand in delay. “There’s one last thing I don’t understand. Maybe you can clear it up for me.”

McLaggen huffed impatiently. “Potter — ”

“I promise you can kill me afterwards,” he grumbled. As long as McLaggen’s mouth moved, everyone downstairs was out of harm's way. Whether Draco came or not — and he hoped he did — someone would walk in here: Ginny, Luna, even Hermione, as this was the bridal suite. There were trained and qualified wizards here today: even if he had to die, McLaggen would not get away with this....

With narrowed eyes, McLaggen sharply nodded. “Hurry up.”

Easing his hands back in his trouser pockets, Harry thoughtfully inhaled. “I-I don’t understand. I was there, I was attacked in my own home, but they stopped. Your bats stopped.” He saw the mild interest stirring on McLaggen’s face. “They went away, they’re outside now waiting for your signal, but I’m still here. Why?”

Cormac shook his head slightly. “I can’t imagine why.”

“Malfunction, perhaps?”

“No,” McLaggen haughtily objected. “My microchips are foolproof. They don’t fail.”

Harry arched an eyebrow. “You sure about that? They failed with the Malfoys,” he reminded.

“What is your infatuation with the Malfoys?”

“They failed with me.”

Cormac gave a crafty chuckle and jabbed his wand forward. “Not this time.”

“But if the chip’s in Pash and still is, and she’s alive,” Harry mused, more to himself than McLaggen, “why didn’t they continue until she was dead?”

Cormac rolled his eyes and grumbled under his breath before leveling him with a glare. “They’re trained to kill both pet and human, Potter. Maybe you’re not human?” he sneeringly posed. “You were awful close to that werewolf Lupin and his spawn after all.”

But something triggered in Harry’s mind at those words. “Wait ... pet and human?” He cast McLaggen a furtive glance. “Not two animals?”

“Well, it wouldn’t’ve made sense to kidnap two when I only use one chip,” he harshly justified.

The bats, they couldn’t have known that, Harry surmised. They’d only swarmed around and screeched and screeched and caused him excruciating pain, which only stopped when Draco arrived and then he’d transformed....

Like a flash of lightning, the answer struck him.

“Ohhh,” Harry knowingly moaned, beaming at his captor. “I should’ve seen that.”

McLaggen dithered, his wand hand dropping an inch. “Should’ve seen what?” he warily asked.

Harry grunted in disbelief and gave a hoot of laughter. It was so simple, he could have kicked himself! “Don’t you see?” he chuckled giddily. “You kidnapped one animal, your bats are instructed to find the chip — a single chip, and destroy it.”

“I’m not following you, Potter.”

“One chip, to one animal,” Harry gestured wildly. “One animal, to one human. Your bats can only kill up to two at a time — one animal, one human. That’s why it didn’t work with the Malfoys! Two humans: too much of a power dispersal, so the frequency changes and instead of dying physically, their minds were warped! It’s so simple!”

“I think your mind’s been warped — ”

“One animal, one human,” he said again with a chuckle. “That’s why they didn’t kill me. Ha! I’m alive!”

“Uh—” McLaggen looked like he was about to explode. He finally shouted, “What are you talking about?”

As if seeing him for the first time, Harry stared at the enraged wizard. “Oh, didn’t I tell you?” he mildly began. With a cheeky smirk, he leaned forward, whispering, “I transformed.”

What followed his admission was the tensest silence he’d ever endured. Then....

“No way.”

“Yep.”

“Not possible.”

“I did.”

“Show me.”

“And leave you open to kill me? Not bloody likely,” he scoffed, looking behind him out the window. It was dusk, and someone had lit candles around the grounds, but he couldn’t see the sky for Draco, or the bats....

“Then you’re bluffing.”

He spun around and shook his head. “Nope.”

“You must be.”

“Are we seriously gonna keep doing this?” he griped, throwing an annoyed look at McLaggen. The wand in his hand was shaking; Harry had just enough light to see that. “I’m not lying.”

“If all this time you were an Animagus,” McLaggen bristled, “then why do I have your job?”

Snorting, Harry said, “Keep it. It’s no good to me if I’m dead.”

McLaggen’s breathing was quite ragged by now, and his wand arm was as unsteady as Hagrid’s gait after a few drinks. Angrily pursing his lips, Cormac deliberately demanded, “Potter, transform, now. I’m not joking.”

“No.”

“I’ll kill you.”

“No you won’t,” he hoped he wasn’t being too presumptuous, but he still needed time. “You want to see it for yourself, so you can rage at me some more and have yet another reason to hate me. I know you.”

McLaggen’s wand stabilized and followed him as he stepped around the destroyed table and sat on the bed’s edge. “I can wait around all night. I’m not too fussed about dying. I’ve pretty much got it down to a science, really.”

“Fine.” Cormac curtly replied. When he pulled the medallion from beneath his shirt, Harry clenched his fists in his pockets. “Then I kill them.”

But wryly grinning, Harry was quick to point out, “Crookshanks is in here. You’ll twist our minds in a knot like the Malfoys’. I dunno about you, but I’m perfectly fine with that, Viv. Besides,” he shrugged, crookedly grinning, “they might need some company.”

His mocking grin wavered slightly upon seeing the sinister smile darkening Cormac’s face. “Did we forget so soon? I was assigned to watch Weasley and Granger, when in fact I’ve been watching them for more than a few years, bored to tears by her wedding plans. But one idea in particular intrigued me: Granger wanted doves released at her wedding.”

Harry’s grin faded. He felt as if he’d swallowed a Quaffle.

“Who do you think supplied the flock of doves for the grand finale?”

His stomach dropped. If McLaggen had been spying on Hermione that long, then he had to have anticipated the number of guests. One animal, one human....

“How many?” he asked quietly.

“Well, she was quite fussy, only wanted two, nagged me to death with owls — ”

“How ... many?” Harry demanded, his hammering heart ready to burst from his chest.

“One for each guest,” Cormac divulged. “And then some. Took a while, but I finally got all of those implants tuned to one frequency. I am a mastermind, after all.

“Now, you’re going to watch them die,” Harry twitched when he dangled the pendant cheerfully, “unless you TRANSFORM!”

He had little choice. Indulge the madman or watch his friends and family die. There was nothing he could do; Kingsley was Stunned in the next room, he’d told his friends to stay away, Hedwig was in the hallway, and the S.P.O.O.K.s wouldn’t get there in time. He might as well—

Harry froze.

Hedwig was where? But she was—

No, not Hedwig — Draco!

So as not to alert McLaggen, Harry lowered his head (which McLaggen would probably see as a sign of submission), surreptitiously looking toward the door from the corner of his eye.

It was a blurry view, but sure enough, he recognized the fuzzy outline of a white head peeking around the doorframe that bore a striking resemblance to his old owl. He had never been so relieved to see Draco in his entire life. How did he get past McLaggen’s ward? Unless he had been in the house all this time? Harry’s relief was fleeting, however; how was he going to communicate with Draco without giving them both away?

“What’ll it be, Potter?” Harry scowled as McLaggen moved closer, the burning tip of his wand digging into his forehead.

Glaring at the deceitful bastard he growled, “I’ll transform ... if you put down the medallion.”

The wand eased from his forehead then as Cormac took a step back.

“No deal.” McLaggen coldly replied. “How do I know you’re not going to transform into something large with sharp teeth?”

“You’ve got a wand,” said Harry. “If I do, you can stop me; but I won’t let you use the medallion to hurt anyone while I have the chance. As you probably already knew mastermind, I don’t trust you.”

On the outside, he was cool and impassive; inside, he was as restless as Teddy after sweets. Hopefully Draco was listening very closely to all of this. If he kept referring to the medallion directly, Cormac was sure to notice.

To his relief, McLaggen nodded. “Fair enough. Stand.”

He obeyed, moving in front of the window again as directed. Night had fallen, the red sky chased away by a tide of violet, but the wedding grounds were lit by candles. He could see them, Ron, Hermione, and a few others huddled at the door, trying to open it. The cage of doves sat right beside Mrs. Weasley.

“It’s a bit dark,” Harry said as he turned round. “So you may want to turn on a light for this. And keep that thing in sight, I mean it.”

“Fine. Lumos.” He squinted as the wandlight shone directly in his eyes. With the room lit, he could see McLaggen’s arm extended from his side and the pendant and chain swinging from his fist. “What are you waiting for? Discovered you can’t keep up the lie? I knew you were bluffing.”

When Draco’s feathery head peeked around the corner, a sharp, golden eye focused on McLaggen’s fist, Harry couldn’t help but smirk.

“Oh, yeah?” he boldly challenged. “How’s this for a bluff?” With that, he concentrated as hard as he could, recalling the panic with which he had called forth his form earlier. Oh, he was still panicked, make no mistake, but this was a different kind of panic. If they failed, lives other than theirs were at stake. That was all it took before Harry felt the bones in his left arm start to shift and the flesh flatten and melt as thin as paper.

He had gotten as far as transfiguring an arm into a small leathery wing when Draco made his move. His wings beating soundlessly on air, Draco swooped down and made a grab for the medallion. And Merlin, he had to be some sort of closet sadist to revel in McLaggen’s startled cry.

McLaggen yelled out as Draco clawed away, and Harry knew he only had a mere second to work. He lunged, his human fist smashing into McLaggen’s wide mouth in an open palm punch. But McLaggen gave as good as he got, and soon Harry felt the sharp pain of a fist to his stomach. He doubled over with a wince, vaguely hearing Cormac howl as Draco’s fist slammed into something valuable, Harry hoped.

Harry crumpled to the ground, but hearing McLaggen cough and gag urged him on and he staggered to his feet; he had to act fast. Luckily he darted to Draco’s side just in the nick of time. Cormac had lobbed a kick right where his head had been.

“All right?” Draco asked as he caught him and pressed his wand and another object into his normal hand.

After transfiguring his arm back, Harry sniffed, panting, “Ask me again in ten minutes. Lumos.”

“Blech!” They both braced themselves and watched as McLaggen straightened and spat, swiping a sleeve across his twisted face. “What the hell was that?”

Raising his wand with a smirk, Harry replied, “A taste of your own medicine.”

And when he held up the medallion, he resisted the urge to smirk when Cormac blanched. “Dial’s set to zero,” he warned. “You so much as sneeze funny and I’ll summon the kids for a little family reunion.”

At least McLaggen was smart enough not to test his patience. If he didn’t know any better, he’d say the so-called Mastermind was quaking in fear. Good.

“Draco?” he quietly called, eyes never leaving Cormac’s fearfully wide ones.

Draco answered with a raspy, “Yes?” while keeping his wand in the former S.P.A.R.C.’s direction.

“Do me a favor.”

There was a brief stint of silence before Draco’s curious voice answered, “What do you need?”

“Kingsley’s in the next room, Stunned.”

“I heard,” Draco coldly replied. McLaggen’s eyes anxiously left his, flitting over to look at Draco. “Death Eaters? Test subjects, right? No one would care if we were killed?”

Harry swore McLaggen must’ve shat himself, because he turned even whiter. “I heard everything.”

Harry narrowed his eyes at Cormac’s freely-trembling form and started, “Take care of him, get—”

“I Reenervated him.” Draco informed. “He’s downstairs, working on undoing the ward.”

Harry nodded stiffly. “Good. Then I want you to go in there,” he inclined his head to the door nearby, “get Crookshanks, help Kingsley, and get all of the guests as far away from here and as quickly as possible. I’ll handle this.”

He anticipated Draco would protest. The sharp, angry breaths from his left were more than telling enough. “Harry, you can’t expect me to — ”

“I know what he did, Draco,” he smoothly cut in. “And I understand what you’re feeling, but I’ll take care of it.”

McLaggen squirmed. Despite the tension, Harry was very much enjoying this.

“But — ”

“Trust me,” he said softly. “I trust you.”

When Draco didn’t move, Harry thought the blond had chosen to ignore him. While it wouldn’t hurt to have Draco backing him, he knew no matter how calm Draco appeared on the surface, he would still be blinded by rage and pain. He was no better off himself, but this was more his fight than Draco’s. After all, according to Cormac, it was he himself that needed to pay.

But Draco did move, lowering his wand a tad before moving to obey orders. McLaggen’s wide eyes followed him, and Draco paused once, giving the disgraced Gryffindor the darkest look Harry had ever seen. Never had he been so glad to be on the Slytherin’s good side.

Wordlessly, Draco retrieved a hissing Crookshanks and bent down to collect McLaggen’s wand before leaving the room. If he paused in the doorway, Harry wouldn’t have noticed, as focused as he was on Cormac.

Taut silence filled the dark void between them, where Harry’s eyes never left McLaggen’s, and Cormac’s eyes never left his hand holding the medallion.

“Do you know what it is you swallowed, Cormac?” he idly questioned when the silence dragged on long enough. He cast a cursory glance at the pendant’s face when Cormac failed to muster a response. “You, dear Vivien, swallowed a microchip from one of your bats. Had it in my pocket the whole time.”

McLaggen froze, and his audible gulp reached Harry’s ears.

“And Draco, he heard everything,” he continued in a soft murmur. “From your experiment on his parents to how the pendant works. I’ll bet he even heard the part about number nine being empty. But ... oh. What’s this?” Harry feigned ignorance as he danced the pendant back and forth. “The number nine on this is red, which means....”

The faintest of pinks graced Cormac’s cheeks this time around as he swallowed, and swallowed, and swallowed again. Harry thought he might just bring out the whole color spectrum on McLaggen’s skin by the time he finished.

“One animal, one human.” He whispered with a tiny thrill. “Now, you contemptible little cod, you’re both.”

“You would kill me?” Cormac’s voice was rough and desperate, the sound of a condemned man pleading for his life. Had he not threatened his godson, McLaggen would have garnered a smidgen of sympathy from him. “And that would make you better than me?”

“No.” Harry calmly replied. “It wouldn’t.”

McLaggen balked as he started towards him with slow, deliberate strides, his sharp, wide eyes glued to the medallion. Harry still kept his thumb gently resting on the silver button. Just in case.

Still keeping his wand on McLaggen, Harry moved round the wiry-haired wizard, brandishing the pendant as a warning. Cormac seemed duly frightened, more terrified of the medallion than his wand. Harry made it to the doorway without incident and paused, giving McLaggen one long, hard look.

Then, he moved the hand with the pendant across his chest, and tucked it safely in his breast pocket. With McLaggen wide-eyed and speechless, Harry spoke.

“Because of you, my friends probably aren’t married. Six people are dead. Two are lost to their minds, and countless lives are ruined because you were miserable. Because of you, I heard The Voices today, and I want so much for you to suffer that,” he said composedly, but with sincere bitterness. “But I’m not going to kill you.”

He paused, narrowing his eyes at Cormac’s relieved gasp. “Not today, perhaps.”

The reassured expression on McLaggen’s face faltered, before it withered completely. His eyes were once again wide with panic for which Harry had no pity.

“Maybe tomorrow, or next Thursday, or ten years from now, whenever I look back and think about this night,” Harry unemotionally resumed, “you’ll live with that fear for your entire sentence in Azkaban ... if I decide not to press that button.”

Breathing heavily, McLaggen let out a startled whine. “You’ve not learnt. You’ve not learnt a thing. You’re still the same, insulting. Haven’t you humiliated me enough?”

Calmly shaking his head, Harry replied, “No. Because the irony of your sick agenda is, you did all that to yourself. I’ll feel sorry for you one day,” he confessed, as much as it upset him to do so, “but not today.” He shook his head. “Not today.”

He closed the door slowly, lingering against the frame for only a moment before incanting the strongest Locking Charm he knew. But Harry knew he didn’t have to worry about McLaggen any more. It was over.

Sliding his hands in his pockets, Harry pushed off of the doorframe and started down the corridor.

The hard part was over with. Now, to tell his friends. He wasn’t looking forward to that, but they deserved the truth.

Then, he needed to see Draco.

But when he’d got to the scene of chaos on the ground floor, witnessed the shock on the Muggles’ faces as S.P.A.R.C.s and S.T.A.G.s and general Aurors poured in, he spotted neither hide nor fine blond hair of Draco Malfoy.

As he spent the night both apologizing to and reassuring his still unmarried friends he’d tell them the truth in due time, his mind kept wandering. Wandering back to Draco.

What if he’d.... Harry didn’t want to think about it. Instead, he focused on settling the guests and helping Kingsley and Cottenham where they needed him. He couldn’t bear to think about the gut-wrenching possibility of ‘what if.’

Even as McLaggen was hauled away long after the Muggles had their memories modified and were sent back to their homes....

What if he’d wiped him from his memory?

Even as he promised the Weasleys he’d return after dropping off his godson, fighting the insistent pull of sleep....

What if he was sleeping him off?

Even as he’d handed Charlie the medallion with the strictest instructions to destroy it with pure dragon fire....

Was he purging him from his life ... for good?

By the end of the night, the possibility of what if had become the reality. Harry found he could lie to himself no longer. It was over.

Once again, Draco had left him.

.:.

A/N: Last part will be up tomorrow. It's been quite fun, hasn't it? :)

.:.