Knives Out

After a fortnight of sleepless nights of fretting over Draco and how he was doing, Harry found himself speaking to a disinterested non-magical mirror. \"I want to see that cocksure smile again. I want to feel him again. I want to save him,\" Save him how? There was no cure. His carelessness had won him this disease. Or maybe it was just ignorance. Who knew what Malfoy misunderstood when he went out into the Muggle world? Or why he\'d done it. Being a spy amongst the Death Eaters couldn\'t have been easy, but that didn\'t automatically turn you into a slut. Maybe it was because he didn\'t want saving that Harry felt so compelled. Or perhaps Harry was just bored with retired life.

Shortly after breakfast, Harry Apparated in front of the fenced off Wiltshire manor that belonged to the Malfoy family. He wasn\'t sure what he\'d expected to see. Malfoy had withdrawn from the Wizarding world, or so the rumors went. Harry assumed that meant that Draco would have abandoned the manor, but instead it showed signs of life. He heard a high-pitched squeal; Harry grabbed the bars and scanned the garden until he saw a dazzling white head of hair and a small, chubby face filled with glee.

Behind the child giving chase was a larger, dark-haired woman whose form appeared familiar and yet Harry couldn\'t quite place it. She gathered up the shrieking toddler to melodious coos of, \"I\'ve got you! I\'ve got you now!\"

\"Mummy... a man!\" The child caught sight of Harry and pointed to the gates. Harry gave a small wave and a smile. The woman peered to the gates and tilted her head. Shifting the child onto her hip, she started for him.

Harry backed up and ruffled his hair, kicking at the stone beneath his feet as he tried to sort out what he was going to say. The child was clearly Malfoy\'s, which summoned a new set of questions. But such questions would not be answered until the woman finished her long trek to the front. He looked up and squinted. The light of the sun lit her from behind, making it difficult to resolve her face until she was almost upon him. \"Bullstrode?\"

\"Potter.\" Her greeting was stern but questioning. \"And it\'s Malfoy, now.\"

The child stared at him unblinking. He cupped his hand to his mother\'s ear as if telling a secret, but his voice was loud enough to hear. \"Harry Potter, Mum?\" She nodded to him and kissed his temple and eyed Harry.

\"You... that\'s Malfoy\'s?\" Harry stepped closer to the gate again to squint at the grey-eyed boy who was shyly watching him, going over his features with unflinching curiosity.

She looked at the child and smiled. \"His name is Ursius. Yes, he\'s Draco\'s. I\'m wondering if he charmed him to make him look so much like him. Almost looks like I had nothing to do with it.\" Millicent patted Ursius\'s head affectionately as he reached out a chubby hand to Harry.

Harry was speechless. Malfoy had a family? He was carrying on in clubs with men, he was positive, and he... was married? He reached out to touch the child\'s hand and the small, sticky fingers wrapped around his and he grinned. \"I\'m touching him, Mum! I\'m touching the heeeero!\"

Millicent said nothing to her child\'s reaction, but continued to keep a keen eye on Harry. \"What brings you here, Potter?\"

He closed his eyes and slowly withdrew his hand from the child\'s grasp. He couldn\'t tell her. He couldn\'t tell Malfoy\'s wife what they\'d done in the club. How could he break that kind of news to her, to anyone? He should have stayed away. \"I was just... around. I don\'t think I\'ve ever properly seen the Malfoy Manor. I was just curious.\"

\"You were looking for him.\" Her tone was neutral and her face bore that same aggravating stoicism it often did at Hogwarts. Just another hard-faced Slytherin girl, he supposed. She was almost mannish, in Harry\'s estimation. Then he felt guilty for his harsh judgment and looked down.

\"No. No... Nothing like that.\" Did she even know how sick he was? Did she care?

\"He doesn\'t live here.\" Her tone was flat, he could feel her gaze boring into him. He couldn\'t face it.

\"Father?\" the child asked, perking up at the mention, clearly curious.

\"Yes, your father.\"

\"Is he going to visit?\" Ursius sounded hopeful. Too hopeful. It tugged at Harry\'s heart.

\"No, Ursius. Not that I know of.\" Millicent kissed his head again and cuddled him closer.

Harry looked up at Millicent and Ursius and asked, \"Is that because he\'s sick?\"

Ursius nodded. \"Father\'s very sick. He doesn\'t look sick, but Mummy says...\"

Millicent was staring at Potter in surprise. \"He only tells people that when he\'s...\" Her eyes traced up and down Harry as realization dawned on her face. ?\"He has a flat in Muggle London, that\'s all I really know. He won\'t be found unless he wants to be. He does visit sometimes, but I get little warning besides an owl. I didn\'t know you were...\"

There was no way to conceal or control his blush. It was maddening, almost as maddening as how calm Millicent seemed to be about all of this. \"But you\'re... married... and... Ursius...\"

\"He wanted an heir. My partner and I, at the time, wanted a child. She\'s... since departed. He\'s since... well. I suppose you know.\" She squeezed Ursius and he whined quietly.

\"This is father\'s friend? Father\'s friends with the heeero?\"

She didn\'t know how to answer that, obviously, given her odd expression. \"Yes, he went to school with him.\"

\"Oooh! You too, mum?\" Ursius seemed highly pleased with this and bounced on her hip, Millicent looked more uncomfortable.

\"Yes, Ursius.\" She kissed his temple again.

\"You were best friends!\" he squeaked, wiggling in her arms.

Harry reached between the bars and stroked the blushing, chubby cheek and nodded with a wry grin. \"Yes. We were all the best of friends.\" He winked to Millicent, who appeared nonplussed. \"I should go. I\'ve taken up enough of your afternoon.\" He stepped back and dropped his hand, preparing to Apparate away.

\"Tell father I miss him,\" Ursius called.

\"I will.\" Harry nodded and then looked down as he pictured his own flat to focus his Apparition. He would keep that promise. He was going to find Malfoy and tell him that his son missed him, and that the Wizarding world missed him, and maybe even that Harry missed him.

--

Harry sat in an easy chair amongst his boxes in his perpetually unpacked flat. It was one of a series of unremarkable flats that he never quite unpacked in. Nowhere ever felt like home. Not really. Or maybe it was just knowing what was inside of those boxes is what kept him from staying more than six months, when the hire was over.

Eyes closed and mouth open with his head resting on the back of the chair; he continued to stroke himself. He ignored the porn on the screen, but left the sound up, listening to the wild groaning and grunts of whatever tawdry scene was taking place. Instead of watching, Harry pictured his brief time with Draco. The way he felt, the way he pushed back insistently against him. How he clung to the metal wall, muffling his grunts against the grime of the red door.

With a stunted grunt followed by a long exhale of relief; Harry\'s prick shot dollops of white come onto his worn, graying t-shirt. Eyes opening to the blurred ceiling, he sighed again. He\'d tried, in the past few weeks, to forget about his encounter with Draco and the weird discovery of his neglected family life. But his thoughts always circled \'round back to Draco and how scared and alone he must be. Not that Harry had any rational reason to believe that Draco was either of those things, other than that Harry would be.

Harry wadded his shirt around the wet spot and then pulled it off over his head and tossed it at a stack of unread copies of The Daily Prophet. Then he grabbed his glasses off of the side table and pushed them onto his face. Using his wand to change the channel, he settled in on a Wizarding news show and turned the sound down as he watched the images buzz past.

Severus Snape, one-time teacher at Hogwarts, promoted to Headmaster, flashed over the screen along with an image of the past Potions master-cum-Death Eater-cum double agent-cum... Harry didn\'t even know. Even the sight of the man irritated him, let alone the idea of him running Dumbledore\'s school. Even though Dumbledore hadn\'t been alive for years, and McGonagall had passed on earlier that year. But it wasn\'t just that it was Snape that was resonating, something else buzzed at the back of Harry\'s mind. Snape. That\'s right. Draco said that Snape was working on a potion to cure him. A lead, that is, if he chose to pursue it.

--

On the grounds of Hogwarts Harry spied at Hagrid\'s rebuilt hut. Evidence pointed to Hagrid still living there; some things never change. Some things should. Harry avoided him. He wasn\'t ready to deal with the jolly half-giant. The huge wooden doors to the castle loomed as ominous as ever, the same doors he, Ron and Hermione had tumbled in and out of so many times on the way in or out of one great adventure or another. He closed his eyes and opened them again, trying to block out the nightmares he was plagued with: Ron and Hermione screaming at him for failing, their spectral fingers in his face, blaming, and shouting. But it was not true. He knew in his heart of hearts that were they alive, they\'d forgive him for not being fast enough or the sort of friend that he should have been. The problem was, his guilty conscience had no proof, and so he carried the blame like a boulder in his belly.

It should\'ve been me, me instead of them. I was made to fight the war, to win it. Not to deal with what happens after it\'s over and I have no point, nor purpose Harry inner dialogue was cruel and perturbed him, but there was little he could think of to refute it.

Snape parted the huge doors and slipped outside, closing it behind him as if concealing something. The school was empty. Still Harry fancied he saw Ron making faces behind Snape and Hermione trying to shush him for it. It made Harry smile.

\"Wipe that smile off of your face, Potter, even as an adult you\'re an insolent fool,\" Severus snapped. He folded his arms and glared at Harry, who was now fully his size. His equal. His better as far as Harry and most of the world was concerned.

\"I thought we could meet in your office...\" Harry started to move past Snape into the castle. His fingers clutched his wand as he barely restrained himself from rattling off a number of hexes he\'d vowed he would cast on Snape. It pained him that there had been enough uncertainty about whether Dumbledore\'s death being a conspiracy to keep the Ministry for putting Snape in Azkaban where he belonged. Even though the information sent through Draco had been invaluable, Harry along with a fair bit of the Ministry, felt it wasn\'t enough to make up for murder.

Whipping his arm out, Snape caught Harry by the crook of his arm and swung him back. \"This won\'t take long. There is no need to upset the rest of the faculty with your presence. As I wrote in response to your inquiry, I do not know where he is. He comes to test potions when I have them, that is all.\"

\"But I need to find him, professor. It\'s really, very important.\" Seeing Snape\'s unimpressed expression, he added, \"and personal.\"

Snape took a step back and gave him a guarded look. \"Are you infected?\"

\"No, no, not that, nothing like that.\" Harry blushed and pushed his glasses back up his nose.

His dark eyes bored into Harry\'s before he spoke. \"It would be safer if you did not pursue this.\"

\"Safer? Safer how?\" Harry took a step forward, getting into Snape\'s personal space.

Snape seemed temporarily at a loss, as if he\'d said something he shouldn\'t have. \"He is very ill. What you engaged in with him is dangerous,\" he said, his calm demeanor returned.

Harry felt his face turning red, but his wasn\'t the moment to play coy. \"What are you not telling me?\" He got closer to Snape, sliding his hand over the wand in his pocket in a threat that Harry would take this information by any means possible. He hated that Snape kept things from him, and it was obvious that Snape enjoyed keeping things from him for that very reason.

\"You\'ve no authority here, Potter,\" barked Snape as he eyed Harry\'s hand in his pocket. \"You quit playing Auror years ago. Stop trying to save Malfoy. He doesn\'t need you.\" With that, Snape wheeled around to step back inside.

Harry was left with more questions than before. There had to be more afoot here than Draco\'s disease. \"Don\'t you care about what he\'s doing?\" he shouted, betting now that random sex wasn\'t the worst of it.

Pausing with his hand on the door, Snape didn\'t even turn to speak with Harry. \"I care more deeply about that man than you will ever know.\"

\"Why won\'t you let me help? Just tell me where he is, especially if he\'s in danger!\" Harry stayed where he was, feeling that Snape was going to break and give him a clue.

Snape remained unmoving, probably deciding whether it was to his advantage to tell Harry anything or not. Turning his head to glare at Harry, his hooked nose and livid eyes, made him appear like an angered bird ready to strike. \"You certainly wouldn\'t find him at those clubs you went to.\" Snape pushed through the door.

Nodding to Snape\'s backwards clue, he called after him, hoping to squeeze out one last bit of information, \"What if he hides?\"

Giving one final glare at Harry, he slammed the tall door. The muttering and glow could only be Snape hexing it against his attempt to follow.

Harry turned around and looked over the grounds. Acromantulas. Fang. Quidditch on the pitch. Studying by the lake. The spot where Dumbledore\'s crumpled body had lain. Horcruxes. The forest. Hermione. Unicorns. Ron. It all flooded back and it all made him melancholy. Walking outside of the wards, he Apparated to his flat.

--

Wearing tight trousers and an even tighter thin shirt all in white, Harry made quite the blacklight spectacle of himself in no less than three notoriously gay hot spots. One dance club, the others... not quite so reputable as to call themselves dance clubs. Gentlemen\'s clubs, perhaps. If there were any gentlemen there, Harry didn\'t meet them. He spent the night a glowing beacon in the hopes of attracting Malfoy\'s attention.

Like moths to a flame, Harry managed to gather interest from everyone else. He was pawed at, nearly tossed off when he attempted to go to the bathroom, and pushed against the wall and kissed. From what Harry knew from his first encounter with Malfoy, these were exactly the sorts of places that he would inhabit. But after several hours of not finding him, he gave up and trudged away, figuring he\'d find some empty alleyway to Apparate from.

Along the way, he found a dingy eatery whose lights shone almost green over the yellow tile and fake pine Formica tables. It was empty but for a pair of the working class off from nightshift and a rather blank-looking waitress with stereotypical purple-red hair. She leaned against the counter in her powder blue uniform, pretending to care what the men were relating to her. The rumble in his stomach reminded him that he\'d skipped dinner in order to get to the clubs early in case Draco pulled early. How much he had drunk while looking added to his queasy starvation.

Thick, hollow bells clunked rather than chimed and the inhabitants blandly eyed him, but didn\'t appear distressed that he was dressed like a gay Elvis. Harry ordered the soup at the counter, paid, and took his order to a table and sat with his back to the windows so that he could glare into his tepid soup without being observed.

\"I think the cook tosses off in the cream soup. So, I cannot endorse eating that, unless you just love the taste of come. And, if you do, I could help you with your need in a more intimate setting.\"

Draco had managed to slide himself into the booth behind Harry and whispered into his ear. Harry turned around, but he was gone. Harry half stood at the table, peering outside, only to receive a light kick under the table.

\"Merlin, Potty, you\'re slow. What happened to Seeker reflexes or Auror training? Fucking drunk.\" His eyes glittered with an amused malice as his long hands wrapped around the discordant, bright white mug that appeared to hold a weak tea. Harry glanced his own avocado green bowl and the stack of matching dishes.

\"I was drinking,\" Harry responded, his eyes still wide in disbelief that Draco was there. He was actually there and seemingly out of nowhere. He wondered just how intoxicated he was to have missed Draco\'s arrival. Maybe Draco snuck in while he was paying for his food? Harry shook his head to try and clear it.

\"And taking in a bit of the scenery as you went. I saw,\" said Draco, before he sipped at his tea. His slower eye listed again to the side slightly, as if eyeing the cooking staff. \"I was going to call you the boy who stalked, but I\'m starting to think Saint Slutty is more accurate. Or Sharkhead, since the scar is gone and all.\"

\"Coming from you, that\'s rich,\" Harry answered, pushing the soup aside.

Draco pulled the soup towards him and away from Harry. He stared at it apprehensively. \"I was kidding, Potty. I don\'t think these Muggles actually toss off in the soup. I\'d be shocked if that one could get it up.\" He nodded towards the elderly man in the kitchen who looked almost too decrepit to live. The lights played over his wrinkled face, making his skin look waxy; his eyes were like black holes.

Staring at the man, and then to the woman, whose skin tone fared no better under the fluorescents, he finally looked at Draco. His eyes were a bit sunken; there were dark circles and he appeared pointier than he remembered in school. Gaunt. And so very tired. But his eyes, even the lazy one, were alive in ways that the workers of this late-night restaurant weren\'t. \"I\'m still not eating it.\"

\"That\'s probably wise,\" Draco agreed. He was smiling a bit too broadly at Harry; it set him on edge, made him feel like he was on the outside of a very important joke. In a blink, the contents were gone.

\"I paid for that!\" Harry insisted, glancing at the empty bowl and then up at Draco, who appeared irritated. He leaned in closer to Draco, \"And you shouldn\'t be doing magic in front of Muggles!\"

\"I\'ll buy you another bowl somewhere else, another time,\" he answered, giving little other than a dismissive wave to Harry\'s concern about his excessive use of magic. He stood up, slid his finger along Harry\'s jaw line and leaned in to kiss him softly.

Harry lost himself into the warm wetness of the kiss, forgetting his hunger, the greasy eatery, the lost soup and even why Draco showed up and how he\'d snuck past. Draco broke the kiss and Harry gazed at him curiously. \"Why can\'t I eat the soup here?\"

Draco looked around; the patrons were eyeing them inquisitively. When Draco faced Harry again, he had paled quite a bit and his face took on a panicked aggression. \"We don\'t have time for your foolishness, Potter. If you\'re going to stalk me, I can\'t stop you. But you need to be on the ball.\" His hand slid down the front of Harry\'s shirt.

\"What do you mean we don\'t have time? What\'s going on?\" The employees were staring at Draco with agitated interest. Harry tried to divine meaning from Draco\'s pained expression. Before he could ascertain any coherent meaning from him, Draco yanked him to his feet so hard that it nearly knocked the table over. He dragged him with him to the door and hustled him out, following as Harry tripped over his feet and landed on the pavement.

Briefly, Draco appeared apologetic, but then his expression changed to a frazzled hardness as he spat, \"I don\'t have time to fucking baby-sit. You\'re down the rabbit hole when you follow me. Don\'t take what\'s offered, question everything, and for fuck\'s sake, eat before you come. Don\'t come looking for me again, Potter. I\'ll find you.\"

Harry reached out for Draco, but he had already Disapparated. Grabbing his wand in the hopes of casting a tracer spell, it got caught in his pants and after a few tugs, it didn\'t matter anyway. The residue was gone.

Though he was a bit unsettled with how harshly he\'d been shuffled out, and aggravated at Draco\'s irresponsible and illegal Apparition in front of the restaurant, he couldn\'t forget that strange look on his face before he\'d disappeared. The notion that Draco was trying to protect him crossed his mind as noted the address and then walked around it to find a secluded spot. Deciding that the alleyway was empty enough, Harry Apparated back to the door of his flat. He wasn\'t sure how Draco would contact him, but considering the odd warning he got and the panicked look on Draco\'s face, Harry settled on doing what he was asked and wait.